Smith Henderson - Fourth of July Creek

“Can I come in?”

“Nah, man, you can’t come in,” he said with a trace of amusement.

“You know her. Come on.”

The kid looked down and black dyed hair fell over his eye.

“I know she stays here.”

The girl from inside asked who it was. Pete half-hollered into the place that he was Rachel’s — Rose’s — father. Was she Yolanda. Was she the one to whom Rose was released when she got out of juvie.

The girl came to the door and glanced at Pete, and then she and the guy had a wordless exchange that verged into wordless argument. The guy threw up his hands and retreated inside. Yolanda invited Pete in.

“This is Pomeroy,” Yolanda said. Pete sat on the edge of the bed because there was no place else to sit except at the table in the kitchen, and Pomeroy occupied the sole chair, smoking and turning his cigarette in the ashtray to a throbbing red point.

“Your daughter isn’t here.”

“Do you know where she’s staying?”

“Nope.”

Yolanda tugged off her pajama pants and pulled on a pair of jeans. She took off her shirt, slung herself into a bra, and buttoned herself into a blouse. Pete looked at the floor.

“You might find her at the Monastery or down around Pike’s Place.”

Pete procured a small pad and pencil from inside his coat and wrote this down.

Pomeroy lit another cigarette and avoided looking at Pete directly. A panoply of bottles, compacts, brushes and combs, and jewelry on Yolanda’s bureau tinkled as she walked to him.

“How long was she with you two?”

Yolanda glanced toward Pomeroy who sat and studied the ashtray.

“Since August, I guess,” she said.

Pete stood and thanked them both. Told them what hotel he’d be staying in and asked that if they saw Rachel would they tell her that he was looking for her. Tell her where he was staying. Pomeroy mashed out his cigarette.

“Sure, man,” he said. “We’ll tell her.”

He went to Pike Street and Pine and trod all over Capitol Hill. Nights he stood outside the Monastery and watched the kids and homosexuals and dancers mince about and smoke and trot off in small groups to do drugs or get some drugs or drinks. Kids who in Tenmile would have been at the Dairy Queen plotting quaint kinds of trouble, snapping bra straps, necking with second cousins. So young, these kids. Some of them looking no more than twelve, some riding skates. Occasionally a girl would cry or there would be a fight, a bloody upper lip, once a seizure, an ambulance, paramedics soaked in rainwater and amber light, the scene melting like a sand castle, rose-colored snow.

She was here.

He sat on a concrete berm just up the street from where very young girls got into cars with strange men and returned a half hour later. He doubted what he was seeing when Pomeroy and Yolanda arrived. Yolanda sat on a bike rack by the boom box, smoking and chewing gum, the girls shuttling between positions on the rack like ravens on a power line. Pomeroy off talking with other girls, young girls who seemed to be feeling out the scene, practically shouting to be heard over the traffic. Pete could hear snatches of the things Pomeroy said.

A whore turns eighteen, she can give blood instead of head.

I don’t play no games. You do what you want.

Sure, maybe we can use you later, come back around ten.

Yolanda slipped into the open door of a sedan. He wondered where were the police. What city would permit this outrage. Then a squad car pulled up and Pomeroy talked with the cops inside it pleasantly, leaning over the passenger door, pushing his jet hair behind his ear. Like he’d called them to report suspicious activity.

Pete harbored two contradictory thoughts: he wanted Rachel to appear, he thanked God she didn’t.

All day it threatened to drizzle but never much did. Pomeroy appeared on the concrete berm next to Pete, startling him.

“Are we gonna have a problem?” Pomeroy asked.

“Took me a while to realize what you were.”

Pomeroy shook his head.

“Monna need to know if we have a problem, man.”

“Yeah, we have problem,” Pete said. “I’m a disaster can’t wait to happen.”

Pomeroy squinted at him.

“You might oughta second-guess that. You lift a finger in my direction and that big Afro-American dude and that other one’ll be over here so fast you’ll shit running.”

The two directly across the street observed them with elevated attention.

“Not to mention what I’ll do to you,” Pomeroy added. “Assuming you wanna go in that direction.”

“You know where Rachel is.”

“I don’t know no fuckin Rachel.”

“ Rose . You know who I mean!”

“And I don’t give a fuck. And if I did give a fuck, does it look like she’s around to be given a fuck over? I told you she’s gone.”

Pete looked about for something he could use, a rock, a stick. He thought, just use your bare hands. Put your fingers to soft parts of his face, his skull. What damage he could do before anyone could stop him. What a ruin he could make of this one face.

Then Pomeroy said he had a story to tell Pete.

Pete asked what story.

Pomeroy said a true story.

“What story?”

“You gotta calm down first.”

“What cocksucking story.”

Pomeroy grinned. Cocksucking . Interesting word choice.

“It’s not that kind of story.”

“Speak.”

HE AND ROSE GO to breakfast, a little cafe not far from here. Great pancakes et cetera. They’re eating, and the whole time this lady at the counter is staring at them. At Pomeroy or at Rose, he can’t tell.

But when Rose hits the head, the woman tracks her going through the restaurant. So Pomeroy wonders is this woman a relative, is there gonna be trouble. Just like he’s wondering now with Pete.

Rose comes back from the bathroom. He asks her does she know the lady at the counter. Does she look familiar. Rose looks over her shoulder. She has no idea. The whole deal is starting to piss Pomeroy off. He doesn’t have time for a fuckin mystery.

He’s gonna go ask her what the fuck, when the woman, she slides her plate away, finishes her coffee, and comes over to their table. Right over, even though Pomeroy is staring knives at her. The balls on this bitch.

Thing is, she’s almost crying. Her eyes are watering and her face is all fucked up, and she covers it.

Rose says what’s wrong, can I help you.

The woman holds up a finger for them to give her a minute.

When she finally gets her shit together, she says she’s sorry, but that Rose is just the spitting image of the woman’s daughter at that age. The girl had died. Run over by a car or some accident or some shit. Rose is a sweetheart as usual. She says, My gosh, I’m so sorry. Et cetera. Not that there’s much she can say. Then Rose thinks to ask what was the girl’s name.

The woman says it was Becky or something like that.

Becky , Rose says. That’s nice.

Then the woman says can you do me a favor. Rose says what. My daughter, I never got to say good-bye. Would you do me just a little favor. Would you wave good-bye to me. When I get to the door, I’ll just turn around and would you wave good-bye?

Rose says of course. She even gets up and gives the woman a hug. A big long hug. Woman’s got a tattoo on her finger. Like a ring. Pomeroy notices this.

So the lady goes up to the counter and gets her check and does her business at the register and looks over at them. Rose smiles over her shoulder at the woman and waves. The bitch waves back, out the door she goes, covering her face, making that clipped, strangled noise of someone about to wail.

Pomeroy says to Rose you’re too nice. Rose smiles, Rose shrugs. He says, no I mean it, you’re gonna get messed up being nice like that.