Bruce Wagner - I'll Let You Go

She didn’t feel like taking a bath and was glad Mrs. Woolery led her straight to bed without a fuss, tucking her in with tender words. It’d been weeks since she slept on a mattress. The lights went off; suddenly Amaryllis was alone and afraid. She shut her eyes and felt heavier than a stone. After falling like that awhile — it was not unpleasant — she suddenly felt the presence of another. A small hot hand touched her wrist, but her eyes wouldn’t open. A voice told her not to worry … Crystel’s voice. She would stay by her side, she said, until sleep came. The girl didn’t have long to wait.

The orphan dreamed of the St. George. Her mother smelled so bad it was time to move, but when she went to the kitchen to collect the babies, they were gone. Then she was running through the dark, with Topsy and the froggy Korean chasing her sister and brother up ahead; Amaryllis lagged behind. “Courage!” he shouted, his big tousled head turning back. “Courage, or you’ll never see them again!” As she ran, her chest ached from its wounds and she’d had enough. When she gave up pursuit, the policewoman escorted her to a movie set and the boy who first called himself Toulouse took her hand. They raced through a crowd of adoring faces; she felt warm and giddy as he pulled her along. “You’re late!” he said, sternly.

Amaryllis was starring in a movie and she was late.

Pitch-dark night. A night and a place that did not belong to her.

Mrs. Woolery’s night …

Breathing sounds. She blinks, accustoming her eyes. Low ceiling above. No: another bed — she’s on a bottom bunk. Breathing’s louder now, warren-like, communal. Rasp, cough, suspiration. Germy close-quarters smell. Bright mote of moonlight reflected on helmet of sleeping boy. Her chest throbbing, infected nipple. Stomach spasms and at first she does not know why; roiling onslaught of tears, which she stanches. She cannot afford that. Where is my mother? she wonders, drawing air through mouth so as not to make a sound. What happened to my —someone stands in door now, not Mrs. Woolery, staring. Floats closer. Amaryllis trembles, gathering courage to bolt, shrinks back instead, spine to wall, pillow to chest. A pretty, reed-thin black girl engulfed in a XXXL jersey stands at the bunk and ducks down for a better look with hollow eyes.

“What do you want!” Amaryllis exclaims.

The wraith smiles, then retreats. As she exits, the boy with the helmet shifts and snorts from his futon. A jack-in-the-box head hangs before her upside down, causing Amaryllis to gasp — Crystel, from the upper bunk.

“That’s Shanggerla. She always walks around at night. Sometimes she sleeps in the kitchen.”

Amaryllis coughs. Crystel hops off the bed and brings her a Big Gulp. Amaryllis sucks the tepid soda from a fat straw.

“You don’t look like an Edith.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Ten months.”

“Do you have a social worker?”

“A man, but you won’t get him. He never comes. Everyone gets different ones. Do you have meds?”

Amaryllis didn’t know what she meant.

“Where were you before?”

“With my mom.”

She pulls Amaryllis from the bed by the wrist. “Come on!”

“Where are we going?”

“You’re hungry, aren’t you?”

“What if they wake up?”

“Earlymae don’t stay here — and Jilbo comes in the morning. At night, we party !”

The fluorescent kitchen shocks her eyes. An unplugged refrigerator, girdled by thick chain, is studded with Polaroids pinned by animal magnets — feisty former residents. Stucco walls wear a caved-in band just below eye level, courtesy, says Crystel, of the prolific, helmeted skull of Dennis the Phantom Menace; some parts colored by spongy swatches of dried blood. All the cutlery drawers are missing and the cabinets have no doors, excepting one made of metal bolted to the top of the padlocked fridge.

The girl in the XXXL lists into shiny, stale air, her long, smooth olive arm hovering over the hairline-fractured counter like a dowser. Esurient eyes, emeralds veiled in mucus, periodically widen, twitched by electrical current; when they close, she smiles as if listening to voices. Crystel moistens Shanggerla’s lips with a paper towel.

“She’s on so many meds! Aren’t you, Shangg?”

The eyes widen, twitch, vanish. She smiles inwardly. The spidery arm dowses.

“Shanggerla means paradise — that’s what Earlymae says. Shangg’s a sniffer. Tell her what gang you’re from.”

She bends at the waist so that she’s nearly parallel to the ground. “The Rollin’ Tens!”

“And what is ‘Ten’ short for?”

“It mean ten thousand.”

“Ten thousand blocks ,” said Crystel, translating for Amaryllis. She turns back to Shanggerla. “Tell Edith where the Rollin’ Tens are from.”

“Rollin’ Tens from Venus. They Crips.”

“Venice isn’t big enough for ten thousand blocks, nigger!”

“Venus! They taggers from Venus .”

“The planet,” adds Crystel, winking at Amaryllis.

“Venus spin backward,” she giggles. “The Rollin’ Tens is from Mar Vista!”

“You mean Mars Vista!”

“Vista del Mars!”

“And who are the Tens at war with, Shangg?”

“Crystel, it so sad ,” says Shanggerla, face unexpectedly contorting in tears.

“Shangg loves Venus Williams.”

“Yes I do. And her sister too.”

“She likes anything called Venus. Tell Edith your placements, Shangg.”

That word again …

Her long body hovers as she prepares to respond.

“Well, uh, Vista del Mar … and Mac. And Penny Lane. Pride House and Passageways. CLI — and Sanctuary. Orangewood. Irvine! An’ Hudson-Lyndsey!”

“Family Solution?”

“Family Solution!”

“Were you at VisionQuest?”

“ Summit Quest.”

“Olive View?”

“I was, you know, Olive Crest .”

“They should have put you in Venus View and Venus Crest!”

“Penis View.” She laughs out loud.

“ Dennis was Olive Crest — I think.”

“Dennie was at Family Solutions and COPES. And New Alternatives. Dennie the Mennie was maybe at Five Acres — that’s where he start bangin’ his haid.”

“He almost burned that place down. Now they bring him to Charters whenever he cracks his skull. Dennis calls hospitals ‘vacation.’ You gonna get him into the Tens, Shangg?”

“Dennis can’t be in the Tens!”

“Why not.”

“His penis too white.” She covers her mouth in silent hilarity.

“He likes Charters,” says Crystel, “ ’cause they give him candy and the nurses give him hugs . Isn’t that sick?”

“He suck their titties.”

“What’s wrong with him?” asks Amaryllis.

“ ’Tension deficit. Obsess compulse. I was at COPES,” she muses. “I think when I was, two . I think I was at Mac. You couldn’t wear your own clothes — the girls wore shirts with little bear stamps. I was at an Olive … I don’t know if it was Crest or View. Were you with a family, Shangg?”

“They did try that.”

“Where were you ?” Crystel asks, turning to Amaryllis.

“Just with my mom.”

“What happened to her?”

“She died.”

“Did he kill her?”

“Who?”

“Your dad.”

Amaryllis shakes her head. “She was lying in the bed.”

“Well, who did kill her?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you have a dad?”

“I don’t know.”