River (Pt. VIII)

"Hello and good day, everyone! Welcome to the Rose City!" Jonah's voice boomed out across the concrete. Some two dozen people sat at the tables near the food cart and another dozen or so were nearby on the esplanade and the sound drew their attention. Eddie and Flo, seated on the bench, turned away from the river to look.

Costumed like a pirate, with a frilly white blouse, a tricorner hat, breeches, knee socks and buckled, black leather shoes, Jonah stood tall. He had removed the trunk from the rickshaw and stood atop it, towering over the loosely assembled crowd. His face was done up to appear grizzled and unshaven.

"And what a lovely day it is!" he bellowed. "Who says that Portland is all rain and drizzle? A day like today, when the sun is so proud, is a day to see things clearly. It's a day to take note of where the currents of life have carried you." He surveyed his audience, taking in the bemused, interested expressions.

("What is he up to?" Flo asked. Eddie shrugged.)

"Where is everyone from?" he continued. He pointed to a man seated at one of the tables --a paunchy middle-aged man with thin hair and sagging shoulders, a handsome middle-aged woman seated at his side. "You, sir! Where do you call home?"

"Seattle!" came the reply.

"Seattle!" Jonah said. "One of the few places in the lower forty-eight that gets less sunshine than Portland." He winked. "My sympathies." He pointed to another spectator; a pretty young woman in polka-dot sun dress and sandals. "How about you?"

"Eugene, Oregon."

"From Eugene! Upriver!" Jonah said. "Carried downstream by the mighty Willamette! Hang on, sister! The ride has only begun." He cast his gaze at Flo. "How about you? Where are you from?"

Flo looked down and said nothing.

"Come now. Don't be shy," Jonah said. "Where are you from, sister?"

"She's from nowhere," Eddie said. 

Jonah's face was a mask of disappointment and surprise. "Nowhere?" he asked. "Imagine that." He pulled at his chin. "Nowhere." Then he shook his head, as if to clear it of puzzling thoughts.

"In any case, I can see we've got some adventurous spirits among us." He cast a quick glance at Eddie. "All to the good. Who doesn't love adventure? In my experience, adventurers come in two types. Those who go out to seek their fortunes and those who seek to escape from the fortunes thrust upon them."

Jonah struck a pose. He stood on one foot and crossed his knee with the other foot in a figure-four. He held one arm across his middle and one hand to his chin. He squatted as if he were seated on an invisible stool. For all appearances, he was sitting on empty space.

("How does he do that?" Flo whispered. "It's just practice is all," Eddie said doubtfully.)

"When I look out on this crowd," Jonah continued, "I'm reminded of Eligius and how he discovered his fortune in the days when the Caribbean Sea was a wild and adventuresome place. You all know the story, yes?" Jonah straightened and cast about, looking for acknowledgment. Blank faces.

"No! Really?" Jonah asked, astonished. "No one in this crowd of adventurers knows the story of Eligius, the pirate's son? I simply can't believe it." He cast about in disbelief, then seemed to accept the truth of it. "Well, if you'll indulge me, I'll remedy that." He glanced at Eddie and chanced a conspiratorial wink.

"Listen closely, if you will," Jonah said. "There is a lesson here for everyone." He stood with his feet apart and his chest pushed out, one arm across his breast.

Eligius, the Pirate's Son

Long ago, in the days when oceans were bigger than they are today, when men still sailed in masted wooden ships and measured their positions by gazing at the stars, a childless woman found a baby in a basket on the banks of a muddy stream in Puerto Rico. 

The woman's name was Guadalupe and she was a kindly woman and good, from a noble family of pure Spanish blood. Such was her nature that, even as a child, those who knew her agreed that Guadalupe was born to be a mother. 

Guadalupe was the wife of Máximo Fuentes, the most important merchant in all of San Juan, who made his fortune through hard work and discipline.

In those days, Puerto Rico was the key to Spain's American empire. Spanish fleets, laden with gold and spices, would make San Juan their final port of call before the long voyage eastward across the Atlantic. 

Máximo came to San Juan from Spain early in his life. He received an inheritance from his blue-blooded father and set out for the New World, determined to carve his own fortune. He purchased land not far from the settlement and with no more than a dozen slaves, cleared and tilled a full labor of land, just off the road to Bayamón. From the newly-won land, Máximo grew yams and squash and raised cattle to sell to the fleets and the Spanish garrison at the harbor. Over the years, his business and his reputation grew; and when finally, after he was a well-established and respected citizen in San Juan, he sent word back to his family in Grenada, arrangements were made and the political match-making of Spanish nobility dictated that Guadalupe, the daughter of an allied family, sail westward for a life in the New World.  

When Guadalupe debarked, he was waiting at the dock, dressed in a threadbare and hopelessly passé suit for which he would have been mocked in the courts of Spain. But Guadalupe was not a woman to dwell on such matters. Rather, it was the look of grim determination on her groom's face, a look tinged with resignation and despair that gave her pause. Is this what the frontier has in store for me then? she wondered. Very well. I am strong, in faith, if nothing else.

Their marriage and their life together was arduous. It was not easy, in those days, to live on the outskirts of the empire. And if the thing that grew between them was not exactly love, they respected and appreciated each other enough to make life tolerable. In the early years of their marriage, although they tried, and although their wealth and influence in San Juan grew, God did not see fit to bless them with a child.

After several years of barrenness, the Fuentes' hopes for a child slowly faded. Máximo spent more of his time away on business, selling his salted beef to other Caribbean settlements, everywhere from Haiti to Cuba. Guadalupe kept herself busy running the household, overseeing the work of a full staff of servant women and arranging for the care and upkeep of the slaves who tended the land. 

Guadalupe had been in the new world for ten years on the day that she spied the basket resting on the muddy stream bank. Máximo was away on an extended trip, having sailed to Veracruz to negotiate a contract for a new cash crop. (Back in Spain, the aristocrats had taken to wearing purple and demand for indigo was such that even the cautious Máximo was attracted by the thought of mountainous profit.)

Guadalupe was making her routine circuit of the farm, when she saw it. A woven basket like those that she saw the local women carry to market in San Juan. Curiosity, nourished by the ennui of a gentlewoman's life, caused her to approach and peer inside. 

Within, dark, solemn eyes set in a cherubic face calmly beheld her. Guadalupe was astonished to discover a baby, wrapped in swaddling folds.

When she saw the child she was nearly overcome. Why would a baby be alone in a basket on the steam bank that bordered her husband's estate? Surely the mother must be nearby.

Guadalupe took the basket and laid it higher up the bank, away from the water. Then she looked around. But she could not see far. On the stream's far bank, the forest was thick in shadow; silk-cotton and candle-wood defeated the sunlight. She feared to leave the child, but she stood on the bank and called out into the darkness. "¿Hola? Is anyone there?"

For a moment she thought she could hear rustling and her heart stopped. She sensed movement in the shadows and might have heard human voices, but no one or nothing revealed itself. 

She called out again, but the darkness swallowed her lonesome cry.

Guadalupe returned to the basket, unwrapped the child and took it in her arms. It was a boy with long arms and legs and brown skin. There was nothing particularly remarkable about the child save an ink-stain birthmark on its breast, directly over its heart, in the shape of a sirena, one of the fabled fish-women that lured men to watery death on the high seas.

No matter how the child had come nor whom it belonged to, Guadalupe could not leave it to fend for itself. No Christian would. So she lay the child in the basket and took it with her back to the manor. 

She did not yet dare to hope that the child was a gift from God.

To be continued...

Read Part I here.Read Part II here. 
Read Part III here. 
Read Part IV here.
Read Part V here. 
Read Part VI here. 
Read Part VII here. 
Read Part VIII here. 
Read Part IX here.  
Read Part X here. 
Read Part XI here. 
Read Part XII here.  
Read Part XIII here. 
Read Part XIV here. 
Read Part XV here.  
Read Part XVI here. 
Read Part XVII here. 
Read Part XVIII here.

River (Pt. VII)

The sun approaches its apogee. The heat, unseen but growing in presence, seems to take form above the white concrete. Traffic sounds from the ramps of the Marquam Bridge overhead.

In the shade of the trailer, la abuelita worries her beads. Her lips respond to the sensations in her fingers, silently forming each word of the five decades. Eyes closed; face bent skyward. The path of her devotions --Padre Nuestro, Ave Maria, Gloria --is so familiar that there is no stone upon it which she does not know. Her mind wanders through gray dusty labyrinths. Her thoughts hold a candle to the void. "Gloria al Padre, al Hijo y al Espíritu Santo. Como era en el principio, ahora y siempre, por los siglos de los siglos."

Flo pauses at the edge of the shaded space. The ghosts have returned --the man and the child. Away under the Hawthorne Bridge, they stand and watch. The man holds the child to his side with an arm around the shoulders. She is afraid, but she believes they will not approach in the heat of the day. She remembers the sack of food in her hand. She considers, then walks to the car and takes one burrito from the sack. She opens the driver side door and drops the sack on the seat behind the wheel. She turns and walks back toward the bench where Eddie is sitting.

Driftwood is farther up, standing in shadow behind a filthy green dumpster. He has returned to retrieve the gas can and siphon hose from the trunk of the car. He watches Flo wander away from the car toward the riverbank. People are gathered at the picnic tables and milling about on the esplanade. Driftwood waits.

Eddie is on the bench in the blazing sun. He thinks about finding a phone. Perhaps he can borrow one from a stranger. So that he might call his father. To announce his presence. I am your son. Eddie. From California. Would it be alright if I stopped by?

Flo approaches and sits beside him and he is distracted by her presence and the smell of food. She sits, takes a bite from the burrito, then offers it to him. Wordlessly, they share. Although famished, they eat slowly and calmly, thinking their thoughts. The river flows beneath the line of their visions.

Jonah prepares for the show. He dabs makeup on his face. He pencils a moustache on his upper lip. He rummages in the trunk of the rickshaw for a pirate's eye-patch and a blousy white shirt. He will begin his performance shortly.

Jonah is confident of success because he knows he is the kind of person who can enter a room and have everyone eating out of his hand. Jonah is a practiced and confident performer and he has never failed at a performance.

Except for the one time.

That day the crowd was big. Fifty or more people sat at the tables and stood on the pavement watching as he went through his verbal and physical contortions. He worked his audience with skill and confidence. He developed his story carefully, emphasizing what was important. As he spoke, the story unfolded like a map. And then, just as he was arriving at the moral of his story, the audience in the palm of his hand, he had looked out and seen the tall, stoop-shouldered figure standing at the back of the crowd. The figure who, despite the sunglasses and the floppy shade hat and the deliberately inconspicuous posture, Jonah knew to be Elihu Rosenkwit. Jonah's father. Scornful, iron-willed Elihu standing at the back; silent, but undeniably present.

His father's stance, the set of his jaw --these told Jonah all he needed to know. His father had come down from Seattle, unannounced, to see the show. To indulge Jonah. To let Jonah know that he viewed Jonah's chosen path as foolishness. An indulgence to be granted. A bothersome petulance that a father must endure in order that his son might see the error of his ways.

The discovery of his father caused Jonah to become flustered and lose his concentration. At the crucial point in his story, his delivery faltered. His power-packed ending was robbed of its effect. When he finished, he saw the confused looks and uncertain smiles and knew that he had lost his audience. And although he did not look at Elihu, he sensed that his father was smirking. Smirking behind his sunglasses and the hard set of the jaw. As the crowd dispersed, Jonah did not pass his hat, but turned away in shame. He did not engage them. He did not solicit them to put money in the basket that he had placed on the concrete before him. He turned away and busied himself at the rickshaw. But no one approached him. When he sensed that everyone had gone he went to retrieve the basket knowing it would be empty. But it was not empty. In the bottom was a white, business-sized envelope. Jonah picked it up and glanced inside to see the thick stack of bills within. He did not count the money, but he knew it was more than he could expect to make for the entire summer. His father was gone, dispersed with the rest of the disappointed crowd.

Since then, Jonah has never failed at a performance. He is confident that today's show will be well received. The people eating at the food cart, the people strolling along the esplanade are mostly tourists and tourists appreciate entertainers.

The kid, Eddie, and the young woman and the square-shouldered man who arrived that morning in the car have inspired Jonah. Desperation, lunacy, fear --these are the elements of a good story. Jonah is driven to match the story that is unfolding beside him with a story of his own.

These thoughts riff in his head as he finishes applying makeup and dons his costume. When he is done, he draws a deep breath, sets his mind to right, and steps up onto the plastic pedestal he has placed on the walkway.

Driftwood, from his hiding place behind the dumpster, sees Jonah step forward, sees how he draws all the attention to himself. Driftwood slips out from his hiding place, makes his way to the car, takes the food from the front seat, springs the trunk, and quietly takes the gas can and the siphon hose and steals away, back into the shade.

It's showtime.

To be continued...

Read Part I here.Read Part II here. 
Read Part III here. 
Read Part IV here.
Read Part V here. 
Read Part VI here. 
Read Part VII here. 
Read Part VIII here. 
Read Part IX here.  
Read Part X here. 
Read Part XI here. 
Read Part XII here.  
Read Part XIII here. 
Read Part XIV here. 
Read Part XV here.  
Read Part XVI here. 
Read Part XVII here. 
Read Part XVIII here.

River (Pt. VI)

La abuelita on her stool, rested her back against the trailer. She was seated next to the screen door that gave access to the inside where the young man was busy at the grill. She watched Flo's sideways approach.

Flo slid alongside the old woman, then sagged down, back against the trailer, so their eyes were level. La abuelita's eyes reminded Flo of cold stars on a clear autumn night.

"I don't know why you care," Flo said, "but I'm hungry, so I'll tell you about it."

The old woman did not seem to hear. She turned her face away, out at the blue northern sky. Her knobby fingers found the rosary.

***

"We couldn't really afford the gas to drive out there, but we decided to do it anyway, 'cause everyone had the day off and that never happened. Jimmy knew a place along the old highway where the river ran slow and we could make a picnic. Willow and I made sandwiches and we set Tristan in the backseat and we sat on both sides of him while the two men rode in front.

"We had the windows down and we sang songs on the drive out. Cash was acting sweet 'cause he wanted some and Willow knew it and so they were all giggles and nonsense. Little Tristan wasn't used to seeing his mom and dad smiling and laughing and the strangeness of it kept him from being a brat. Jimmy was always happy anyway, but that day the goofy smile was just pasted on his face.

"The bruise under Tristan's eye from when he fell down the stairs was faded and yellow and I was happy because Willow was starting to forgive me for it. Ever since it happened, all I'd heard from her was  'Ten minutes, Flo. That's all I wanted. Couldn't you keep him out of trouble for that long?' But she knew how bad I felt and she agreed that since it didn't look like I would be going back to school in the fall, I could mind Tristan while she was doing her shift at the nursing home. Sisters do these things for each other.

"We were living on a shoestring, all five of us crammed into a little one-bedroom. And we still didn't have two nickels. But Jimmy's new boss liked him so he was likely to get more hours and Cash had steady work at the gas station and nobody said anything, but we all felt it. Even Tristan. Things were starting to look up.

"Jimmy drove us south out of town to a place where yucca and willows made shade and the river did a slow bend around a sandbar.  We set down our blankets and got the food laid out and then Willow and I took Tristan wading. He sat down in the shallow water and made mud patties and we stood next to him and let the water run over our feet.

"Jimmy and Cash had fishing poles and they waded in up to their hips to cast. When he saw them, Tristan just sat and stared. He'd never seen anything like it. Two men hip-deep in rushing water, standing firm against the current while everything around them got swept downstream. Cash caught a sunfish and he brought it to Tristan and you could see he thought it was the best thing in the world. Cash threw it on the bank and Tristan sat and watched its gills work until it died.

"When Cash went back out to try again, Tristan started to fuss. He wanted to go out, too, but Willow wouldn't have it. The current was too strong. We took him back and laid him down for a nap in the shade.

Willow asked me if I loved Jimmy and I said yes. Jimmy was honest and he had a good heart and he was good to me for the most part. But he sure wasn't what I imagined when Willow and I were girls. I always thought I'd marry someone who was big and strong and stood out in a room like Daddy. Not someone scrawny like a ferret and kept quiet all the time.

"Willow smiled when I said that. 'Cash is a good father and I love him,' she said, 'but he's sure not Johnny Depp.' We had a little laugh.

"Then I asked her if she thought we could make a home for Tristan. A better home than the one that we grew up in. A better home than the one Daddy gave us. She looked at me out of the corner of her eye and said 'I'm not gonna talk about Daddy,' and we left it at that.

"The men came back and we ate our sandwiches and drank beers while Tristan slept. Cash rolled a joint and the mellow afternoon came down.

"Jimmy and I went out for a walk and he told me he loved me and that things were gonna get better. And he said when we had a son he would have gold hair, just like Jimmy's mom. To tell you the truth, I never thought Jimmy would make a good father, but he was so sweet that afternoon and everything in front of us looked so smooth and easy that I let myself believe it.

"We went back to the picnic site and Cash and Willow wanted to go swimming, so she told Jimmy and me to stay with Tristan while they went down to the water. Jimmy and I laid out on the blanket.

"Jimmy leaned over and kissed me and I kissed him back and mostly we heard the river, but now and then we heard their voices and we knew they were still down there. And Jimmy put his hand up my skirt and I gave him a look, but I didn't tell him no. And we kissed some more and I really did think I could see that place he talked about. The little house and the little boy and the easy future.

"We were hot and heavy and I felt happy and hopeful like my heart was floating in a stream. And then Jimmy sets up all of a sudden. And the look on his face I never will forget. 'Where's Tristan?' he said. And I spun around and saw the rumpled blanket under the yucca and saw that Tristan wasn't there and my heart went under.

"From there it all unfolded like clockwork. Jimmy sprang up and started thrashing through the bushes. And when he didn't find Tristan he called out which brought Cash and Willow running back. And when they saw that he was gone, they they took off running every which way. Willow kept calling out 'Where's my baby? Where's my baby?'

"But I kept my eyes on the place where Tristan had been sleeping, hoping somehow that he was still there and we just hadn't seen him.  

"Then, I heard them, Willow, Cash, and Jimmy, calling out from down by the water. And I knew they were looking in the wrong place. The water pushed everything downstream.

"And I knew what I would see when I turned and followed the current along the riverbank. And I dreaded it, but I couldn't stop. Something was pushing me to it.

"There was a place where the water was choked with snags and the noise of the river was loud. I looked out where the water was rushing over a choke of roots and branches and I saw a little arm sticking out of the swirl. Just a little arm sticking up, leaning into the current.

"Upriver, Willow was wailing like a ghost and Cash was bellowing, and the river kept on. And I couldn't go back up there to face them, to face my sister and her husband and the man who wanted to love me. I didn't want to see them with their confused faces standing at the place where the river had stranded them. So I just listened for a while.

"And then I turned and walked downriver.

***

La abuelita worried the beads between her fingers.

"When I got to the highway, I thumbed a ride and now I'm here. And I don't like to think about it and I don't like to talk about it and all I want is to keep moving."

La abuelita's face did not change. Her lips moved soundlessly. Rosary beads clicked a cadence.


The young man at the grill poked his head out the trailer door. "Is your lucky day," he said. "I made mistake order." He held out a white paper sack. "No puedo usar esto."

Flo kept her eyes on the old woman as she took the sack. The young man turned back to the grill.

In the sack, there were two big burritos.

To be continued...

Read Part I here.Read Part II here. 
Read Part III here. 
Read Part IV here.
Read Part V here. 
Read Part VI here. 
Read Part VII here. 
Read Part VIII here. 
Read Part IX here.  
Read Part X here. 
Read Part XI here. 
Read Part XII here.  
Read Part XIII here. 
Read Part XIV here. 
Read Part XV here.  
Read Part XVI here. 
Read Part XVII here. 
Read Part XVIII here.

River (Pt. V)

Alone in a car that would not move, captive of her anxiety, Flo studied her reflection in the windshield.

She was thin. Bony like a flamingo, but not pretty like a flamingo. She was not the woman she once had been, but at least there were no ghosts in the reflection.

As Driftwood disappeared into the cool blue shadows among the warehouses, Flo struggled. She felt she must keep moving, keep changing the scenery around her. Whenever she stopped, the ghosts caught her up.

The first time was in the gas station restroom in Fresno. It was two days earlier; just before she found Eddie. She stood at the dirty sink and splashed water on her face and when she looked up, there were two ghosts. One behind each of her shoulders.

The first was a young man with solid shoulders and an honest, mournful face. He was almost familiar. He stood beside and behind her and peered at her reflection as if he were waiting for an answer. Flo didn't want to think what the question might be.

The other ghost was a toddler. A little boy of about three years who hid his face in his hands. One eye peeked between his splayed fingers, but it was impossible to know if he was angry or afraid or playful. His hair gleamed gold. Flo did not see the boy's face. She blinked the water out of her eyes and looked again, but they were gone.

The next night, she saw them again. It was when she and Eddie were stranded at the rest area in the wasteland north of Sacramento. They were out of gas and it was late at night and she was standing before the mounted highway map tracing the red lines of highways across the topological depiction. Then she'd noticed the ghosts in the dull reflection of the plexiglass. They'd stood behind her as before. The features were indistinct in the scratched plastic surface, but there was no mistaking the two figures. The one was tall and broad-shouldered, the other smaller and shrinking, as if in fear. She did not turn around, but she hurried away. That was when she saw Driftwood cleaning his knife in the watery bloom of a lawn sprinkler.

Flo was less afraid of Driftwood than she was of the ghosts.

But the ghosts were not in the windshield's reflection and she was thankful for that.

Outside, the food cart was doing a brisk business selling burritos to people walking along the esplanade. A young man in a stained white apron worked the grill. La abuelita, her feet hidden by long, dark skirts, puttered with buckets behind the trailer. The two children made drawings with colored chalk on the sidewalk nearby. Half a dozen people sat at the picnic tables, eating. There was no queue at the moment.

Beyond, Eddie was still seated on the bench. Flo saw the bald-headed busker nearby, bending to peer into a mirror mounted on the handlebars of the rickshaw. He was applying makeup to his face.

It was the cool late morning. The expectation of the day's heat hung over everything.

Flo opened the car door and stepped onto the pavement. She had been barefoot for a week and her feet were black with grime. She approached the trailer.

The young man was scraping the grill with a pad. His hair was jet black and pomaded on top, cropped close on the sides. He paused and looked at her as she approached. "'elp you?" he asked. He spoke with an accent.

Flo smiled at him, but did not answer.

"You wan something?" he asked.

She nodded, smiling.

He indicated a chalkboard mounted above the counter. A menu was written there in blue chalk.

"I'm hungry," Flo said.

He shrugged and pointed at the menu.

"But I don't have any money," she said.

He frowned. "You hungry, but you got no money."

She nodded again, still smiling.

He looked her over, puzzled. Flo waited. There were several ways this might go and she was fine with any of them. She just wanted to get moving again.

His expression softened as he took a good look at her. Pity won out. "Let me see if I got something," he said.

La abuelita poked her head through the door behind him. "Pregúntele dónde va," the old woman said.

The young man pursed his lips. "¿Por qué?"

"¡Pregúntele!"

The man shrugged. "She want to know where you going," he said.

Flo looked at the old woman. The plain face was creased and stern. It was a face beyond judgement. Flo could feel the command of the old woman's gaze like a physical force, pushing Flo to speak. But it was not a question Flo could answer. So she shrugged and shook her head.

The gaze did not relent. La abuelita spoke again. "¿Dónde vino?"

"She wan to know where you come," the young man said.

Flo let her smile fall away. She spoke directly to la abuelita. "I don't wanna talk about that," she said.

La abuelita flicked her hand at Flo, shooing her away as if she were a bothersome cat. "Vaya, entonces," she said.

The young man looked at Flo, helpless and unhappy. "Sorry," he said. "No puedo ayudarle. I can't help you."

Flo hadn't expected it to go that way, but it did. She was famished and the smells from the food cart --onions, chorizo --were maddening.  But when the old woman asked the question Flo had felt something pull at her heart. She could not see them, but she knew the ghosts were close. She could feel their eyes upon her. 

Hunger and uncertainty dispelled. Flo had one thought. I've got to get moving.

People from the esplanade were approaching to make orders. The young man had already turned his attention toward them. Flo turned away from the trailer.

Eddie sat on the bench, looking out across the river. Flo followed his gaze to where the full weight of the sun fell on the western bank. Tiny human figures sauntered up and down the distant waterfront against the backdrop of the Portland skyscape.

She went to him. Eddie sensed her approach and turned and saw her. "What do you want?" he said, his voice full of hurt.

She sat down beside him. Close enough that their legs touched. Together they watched the river.

"Let him have the car," she said.

He chortled. "I knew you was crazy," he said.

The busker stood at the rickshaw painting his face. Flo noticed that he was listening to them, but it didn't matter. "It's not really your car anyway," she said to Eddie. "You stole it from your ma."

Eddie shook his head. "It's mine. She give it to me when she kicked me out."

"So, when he comes to take it, you gonna call the cops?" 

Eddie glared. 

She continued. "Something is pushing him. He'll roll right over you to keep in front of it."

"I ain't scared of him," Eddie said. The statement hung between them, absurd on its face. But Eddie pushed on. "I'm gonna find a phone and I'm gonna call my dad and I'm gonna drive out to Gresham to pay my respects.

"How you gonna do that? You're outta gas."

Eddie looked perplexed and for a moment, Flo thought he might cry. It struck her that he was just a boy. 

Behind Eddie, in the shadows where the walkway ran under the bridge, two figures were silhouetted by the light from beyond. A parent and child holding hands, their backs to Flo.

She put a soft hand on Eddie's shoulder. "Listen to me, kid," she said. "I don't know a lot of things, but I know this: You can't hold on to nothin' in this world. If you try, it just hurts more when you get pulled away from it."

Eddie hung his head. After a moment, he reached into his pocket and produced the mermaid key chain with the single key attached. He held it in his hand, contemplating. "Why did you do that?" he asked. "With him? When you and me did it, I thought--"

She cut him off. "Kid, don't do that. Don't make me into something I'm not. I'm just one of those things you gotta let go."

His eyes welled. He put the key chain back in his pocket. "It's my car," he said.

Flo glanced at the busker, who seemed to concentrate harder on the rickshaw mirror. Then she looked back at Eddie. His lip trembled. 

"You're hungry," she said. Her voice was gentler than she had thought it would be. 

To be continued... 

Read Part I here.Read Part II here. 
Read Part III here. 
Read Part IV here.
Read Part V here. 
Read Part VI here. 
Read Part VII here. 
Read Part VIII here. 
Read Part IX here.  
Read Part X here. 
Read Part XI here. 
Read Part XII here.  
Read Part XIII here. 
Read Part XIV here. 
Read Part XV here.  
Read Part XVI here. 
Read Part XVII here. 
Read Part XVIII here.