Bruce Wagner - I'll Let You Go

Amaryllis felt superhuman as she ran, like the day she fled the St. George; maybe the earth would give way and she’d fly off into space. Her shadow overtook her body, and she wished she were back with her mother, who after all this would now surely mend her ways! Topsy would take them to the special part of the rescue mission reserved for single women with children, and they’d have turkey and gravy and pomegranate pastries. She was sure that if the postulator of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints could see her run, he would favorably assess her worthiness; she would slowly ascend, walking on starry black air just as Jesus walked on water— that would be the miracle to beatify her. Secretum meum mihi …

Then a shape bulleted toward her from across the street, grunting freakishly. Its trajectory was certain, but the thing itself uncoordinated, like a sack filled with tomcats falling from a bridge. Numb with terror, Amaryllis ran off the highway and up a hill, but the thing pursued and she was no match. It tackled her, and she screamed as it gurgled, lurched and spat into the air, holding her to its big, dirty bosom so she couldn’t breathe.

It was Jane Scull who held her down.

†In this regard, Mrs. Woolery’s expertise was such that she had no use for that of others. It’s a fair certainty her present boarders began their extirpation long ago; and can even be said without overdramatizing that the boy Dennis, sometimes disparagingly called “D-Rate” by Mrs. Woolery, after the code for special-needs children — and who would live ten years beyond this writing — was already dead.

The orphan stopped struggling.

After a few smelly, apocalyptic moments, Jane Scull gripped Amaryllis’s shoulders and held her away, the better to scrutinize; having discerned no damage done, she kissed the girl’s crown and fussed over her, snowcapped whiteheads glistening with tears and perspiration.

But Amaryllis did not find her rank — no: Jane Scull was merely one of the tribe, the underground railway of lumbering misfits to whom the girl felt entrusted. She was certain the saints had similar helpmates, making sure this was noted with proper humility so as not to get puffed-up. Topsy and Jane were her people , rough and elemental as the earth itself, with hearts the size of moons: circus types, raucous, itinerant acrobats of superabundant poise and poignance and avoirdupois, grand grotesques shot through with cathedral light — thrones and seraphim, eccentric angels of virtue, stamina and spirit.

Jane Scull took the girl’s hand and power-walked into the night, singing an indecipherable song. They arrived at a bus shelter and she dispatched Amaryllis to its recesses. Then Jane stood alone, waiting. Whenever a car would pass, her protectress deftly pivoted, blocking the child from view. Amaryllis shivered and stared at the movie ad encased in the shelter’s foggy frame: scratched by graffiti, the pigtailed girl wore a mustache, and swastikas were carved onto her sheepdog companion’s coat. It made her think of Boulder Langon — in fact, it was Boulder Langon. But Amaryllis didn’t have the energy to fully conjure those faces, or that famous afternoon.

The bus was empty when it arrived. Jane Scull led them to the middle. She ticked off significant streets as they drove, guttural and slurred, enraptured: Pennsylvania became Ensilanee ! Montrose On Nose ! Verdugo Errugo ! La Cañada Ahkahnahduh ! San Fernando Anurnanoh ! — then Avenue 26 and Figueroa and suddenly WHOOSH on the archaic Pasadena and Amaryllis too knew the exhilaration of her own magical mystery tour. It was even a revelation that buses traveled on freeways.

Close to midnight, they alit on Chinatown. Jane Scull moved quickly now and without regard to the girl she had rescued. Her gait was fluid and her strides so huge Amaryllis imagined her on Rollerblades; before long, as in her dream of Topsy, she ran after but failed to catch up. The quiet drizzle became a downpour and the child involuntarily squealed with the sensation she was again going to be left behind (but this time, no baker). Like a movie rewound, they strode — or rather Jane Scull strode while Amaryllis scrambled and faltered — past the very landmarks by which Topsy had carried her scant days ago, though by now time was a jumble. Her chest heaved like a failing engine as they passed the Central Heating and Refrigeration Plant, but this time the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels brought no saints to bear.

In the middle of Temple Street, Jane Scull turned and waited for the girl. Then she clasped her once more. “Anku!” she cried, heaving with sobs. “Anku Amuhwiss!”

She kissed Amaryllis’s cheek, then ran off.

The orphan watched this uncaged creature berserk with freedom, head bent to sky, gummy sea lion maw wide open, pelted by the filthy, exorbitant rain, dizzy, gamy and exalted. There are other circuses , she thought, whispering good-bye — for that is where she imagined her friend to be headed. Circuses and caravans, with elephants marching tail-to-trunk … Jane Scull was rapidly receding so the girl raised her voice: Good-bye! Good-bye! Good-bye good-bye good-bye— whole body trembling with emotion. Her organs felt sludgy and her mouth tasted like blood and metal, liverish from Mrs. Woolery’s Rx.

The fleeting thought of that horrible woman was enough to send her running back to the shadows. “I’m watching you, child!” she heard Topsy bellow. “Courage! Courage, or you’ll never see the babies again!”

Sheets of water — like in a movie — as she neared the St. George, a weak wet bird flitting past stands of boxes shrouded in plastic tarp, end-of-the-road tenants sleeping within. A hand reached out and encircled her ankle: she clawed it and ran — toward the place where she’d find the Korean — but why? What was she doing back there? … wild with grief, revisiting the raided nest to smell her vanished babies! The St. George was dark and locked for the night; rain had washed the infants’ scent away. She stole toward the cupola of St. Vibiana’s deserted diocese, soon to be demolished. Still no entry, else she would have liked to have stayed. She drifted across the street instead, again to that fated place.

The alley entrance used for their escape was glued shut. Fresh plywood had been nailed over chinks in the Higgins armor, but the girl was small enough to slip through an already damaged plank. She made her way to the lobby and stood dead still — no sound of pigeons or trespassers. In the half-light of a pleuritic moon, it looked like someone had made nominal efforts at clearing out debris. As the exhausted child climbed the stairs of the cold copper tower, her heart sank; she knew Topsy would not be in residence.

When she reached the place of their reunion, Amaryllis was not wrong. It was dank and freezing; she was dank and freezing, and determined never again to move or stir. She slumped against the wall, uncaring of her fate or anyone else’s.

As fatigue and Mrs. Woolery’s soldier-stragglers drew her to dreamless fields — to Minotaur’s maze — Jane Scull danced across the screen of her eyes and Jane Scull only: dear Jane with her big white hearing aids, spinning into Forever like an ensorcelled top.

Morning — noon. The world outside shiny and new, hung to dry in the sun. She stirs, then sleeps two more effortless hours. Awakens, feverish. Chest aches. Thirsts and shivers, clothing damp. Slowly, she walks downstairs. There are pigeons and they gladden her.

“There, look!”

She seizes, choking.

Someone-Help-Me points with a cane.