The Bewildered Read online

  Kayla reached the rooftop, stepping out of the stairwell, the cool gray sky overhead, the parking spots marked out in yellow lines beneath her feet. She clapped the notebook shut. Pathetic was right. Zipping the book into her backpack, she looked around herself, at the darkness easing from the sky. The parking attendants showed up at five-thirty, which was soon. Kneeling, she tightened her laces and felt the cool air on her elbows as they pushed out the holes in her sweatshirt. She tore loose threads from the fraying cuffs of her Dickies, then pulled on her worn leather gloves.

  She pushed off, slow at first, over the yellow line, the word STOP, rolling along, following the curved concrete wall that was striped with the black lines of bumpers, tires, all aiming, pointing downward, around and around—she leaned in, hard, trying to stay in the tight curve, her balance pulling her out toward the edge, back into the middle as she funneled through—

  —faster and faster, she wobbled and straightened in the funnel, shooting loose out into the fourth level, the long slants of concrete, the slalom through the pillars, the rail slide along the curb at the elevators, the slap of her palm on the red metal doors as she rolled by—she kicked twice for more speed as she passed single cars parked alone and lonely with black shadows beneath them, dark spaces behind the windows where someone could be sleeping—

  —She listened for the jingle of key rings, the hinge of car doors opening, the bells of the elevators. Nothing, only the low echo of her own wheels as she dropped again into the tight spiral, down, down, down. Bending low to make the corners, her front hand out flat, less than an inch above the concrete—

  —and then the long square of light, the street, the Stop signs. She leaned back, planted one gloved hand, and slid her board sideways, wheels screeching, her feet still on the board. She slid twenty feet, stretched out, her back parallel to the ground, her pack softly whispering against concrete. And then she was still, motionless, stopped next to the line of long metal teeth set into the ground, that kept cars from entering the wrong way.

  Standing, she shivered and clapped her gloved hands together, keeping an eye on the glass booths—still empty, but she didn’t have time to risk another run. The skating had been enough, though; it had focused her, helped her to filter Chesterton’s sloppy thinking. As she’d expected, he could only take it so far—she could see where he was going more clearly than he could, to the obvious conclusions, the ones he didn’t dare. He was an adult, after all. She could see where she herself was going, a place she couldn’t afford, couldn’t stand to be alone. She would find Chris, and together they would get straight with Leon.

  Certainty coiled up inside Kayla, the clarity radiating outward. She smiled to herself, and stepped up on the metal teeth, balancing, bouncing, trying to get them to fold down. The teeth could tear tires to shreds, stop cars cold, and yet they couldn’t harm her.

  THREE

  25.

  HE HEARS THE MAN’S VOICE, then the sound of the gas cap unscrewed and slapped down, the metal of the nozzle fitting inside, the roar of the gasoline that speaks low to him, close to his ear. Who is he? Doesn’t he like the way he’s going? Is it today, again? He can smell the gasoline, too; he likes it. Now he hears Natalie’s voice. This is her truck, where he lies hidden, flat in the covered bed. He is hidden under clothing, and his skateboard, all the old magazines and the wigs, their hair that smells like someone’s head mixed with old perfume. He is under the scarves and stockings, all the sheer material, the shoes with sharp heels and thin straps. Under the new clothes she’s bought him, the pleated pants and the plaid shirts—every time he wears a new one, he has to pull out the straight, sharp pins, take out the tissue paper folded inside. She says they are attractive clothes, the kind anyone would wear.

  The truck is moving; he hears the highway and he shifts his body a little, magazine pages slip over each other, showing all their words and skin. He waits. After a while or a long time, the truck stops, the engine still going, and he hears the door open, sees Natalie’s head in the side window, walking around. She jerks the back open and the bright sun shines around her so he can’t see her face, can’t see her mouth when she speaks.

  “Great work,” she says. “You can ride up front, now.”

  She takes off her long, black hair; her head is bristly and round, like his. He feels her head, then his. She feels his, then her own. They are the same. At least twenty strands of copper wire rest tangled along the floor and seat between them, sharp ends pointing loose. At the other end, all the wires have been twisted and braided together, into a plug that fits tight in the round circle where the cigarette lighter had been. He picks up a loose wire and attaches it to his necklace, the copper wire around his neck. He twists another around each wrist—Natalie is doing the same, her eyes on the road—and his ankles, just above his new black boots that have no laces, just elastic at the ankles. A gentle, reassuring current flows. More might be better; this is barely enough.

  “Holy crow!” Natalie says.

  “Holy crow,” he says.

  “It’s good to be moving,” she says. “We have our own way of doing things.”

  “We’ll see about that,” he says.

  “It won’t be that tricky to change the way you look, if we have to. You look like someone’s son—that’s good.”

  “Right,” he says.

  “Did I say that?” she says. “I don’t know. It’ll be home school, anyway.”

  Sometimes a building looks like a house, or a barn, or a store. He used to know words in German. You have to keep it up, to be reminded so you know the same thing every day even if it’s wrong, Natalie says. And then you can forget and then remember different things, until you forget those, so you never get stuck—Natalie says she’s feeling better and better, that she knows how people think. The copper wires are like a web stretching to her from the dashboard. The wires go straight through her earlobes, where they are pierced, pulling slightly so her ears stick out; other wires disappear inside her shirt, between the buttons, attached to something inside. She is smiling, talking, driving.

  “It’s a nice gesture,” she says, “but I have plenty of money for us.”

  Outside, it’s flat desert, sagebrush, low trees he doesn’t know the names of. Metal transformer towers run along each side of the road like friendly giants against the pale blue sky.

  “I’ve had these boots a long time?” he says.

  “Those clothes are attractive,” she says, “the kind anyone would wear.”

  All the water had been on the right side, the ocean, and the tall pine trees. Spruce, juniper, pine. Natalie knows all the names. That was yesterday, or the day before, or today. The sun is jumping all over the sky, and sometimes it’s the moon. He can still remember the names of his friends, but that’s about all. He hopes they are doing all right, whatever they are doing. He remembers his family, a little. There were some of them, that he lived with. He does know Natalie, who is humming a song that is the static on the radio. She turns it up and he feels it in the wires, passing through him, up his legs and arms, around and around his neck as he turns it to look at her. They are driving straight down the middle of California. She shows him the map. He knows Natalie, though her name is now Susan. He feels himself forgetting and then remembering the name and losing it again.

  “Friends?” she says. “I’ll be your friend. I’ll find you friends, if I’m not enough—I can do that.”

  “In our house,” he says. “We’re almost there.”

  They eat sour candy shaped like worms. Red and yellow and green. Bag after bag of them. The wires tremble as they chew. She is talking, and he knows she is speaking straight from her thoughts, without planning or hesitations, and that what she says is true, that she’ll make it so, that he’ll help her.

  “For someone to follow, they’d need to be like us, to think that way, and if they were like us then they wouldn’t want to follow.”

  “Is that a riddle?”

  “Exactly,” she says. “What
were we talking about, again?”

  “Trees?”

  “Right. Well, there aren’t any trees, here.”

  “What’s my name, again?” he says.

  “Paul,” she says. “Isn’t that what I said, before? Anyway—Paul.”

  “Paul,” he says. Turning, he looks into the bed of the truck and sees the empty wigs trembling like small dogs. He sees all the clothes and magazines that someone could hide beneath.

  “This is our truck.” He looks at her and remembers the holes in his own ears; picking up a loose wire, he forces its sharp tip through, twists it on itself.

  “Friends, friends,” she says. “And what’s my name?”

  “Susan,” he says.

  “Good,” she says. “Susan. And if I need you to call me something else, I’ll tell you. We can practice.”

  The sun is bright on her face, shining along the wires. Her arms fit between the wires, her hands on the steering wheel, aiming the truck. The vehicles on every side are all colors and sizes. Some pass the truck, too fast; some, too slow, the truck passes. Vehicles drive on and off the highway.

  “But I’ve hardly got any hair under my arms,” he says. “Or between my legs.”

  “It’s not so great as people say,” she says.

  Outside, some cows are standing in a corral. Some horses are standing in a corral. It’s morning. It’s afternoon.

  “Is it high school I’m going to?”

  “It’ll be home school, anyway. I’ll teach you.”

  “I’m not wearing wigs,” he says.

  “No one said you have to.”

  “I brought all the money. Where did I get it, again?”

  “It’s a nice gesture,” she says, “but I have plenty of money for us. Yours won’t be necessary. Save it.”

  Green fields surround them. Water shoots clear, then white, from irrigation lines. Distant hills are lined with rows of white windmills—tall and slender, their three-spoked heads spin in different directions, at different speeds. She sees them and points, and smiles.

  “The windmills generate electricity,” he says. “They store it up.”

  “We’ll string wires straight from it,” she says, “out in the yard, all through the rooms of our house. Always within arm’s reach.”

  “In our house,” he says. “We’re almost there.”

  “We’ll be friends; we’ll have friends. We’ll be good neighbors.”

  “We have our own ways of doing things,” he says.

  “We’ll buy a house with a windmill,” she says.

  “Or we’ll buy a house and build a windmill.” He knows this part, recognizes it, believes it. “Or buy a windmill and build a house.”

  “We will,” she says.

  26.

  A DINNER CRUISE drifted up the dark river, only the strings of lights along its decks revealing the size of the huge boat as it slipped past Oaks Park, past the dark Ferris wheel and the black bones of the rollercoaster. All the rides were silent; tonight was Wednesday, and the park was only open on weekends, this late in the season.

  Chris and Kayla walked along the train tracks that ran past the back of the parking lot.

  “I’m so glad,” she said. “I can’t hardly stand waiting anymore.”

  Chris was watching the amusement park, the bright point of the watchman’s cigarette, near the bumper cars; then he looked away, to the left, across the shallow black water of the bird refuge, the broken-off trees, the jagged, drowned stumps. Up on the hill, the crematorium loomed, pale and square. The moon was a sliver, the sky dark; Chris wondered if they were burning the bodies now, when the smoke would blend into the sky. How long did it take to burn up a dead person? Did they burn faster, like dry wood?

  “What?” Kayla said.

  “I feel like we got older this summer,” he said. “Like how we forgot how we started it, what we wanted to do. And now it’s almost school again. At least then we’ll see Leon—he’ll have to come to school.”

  “You haven’t heard from him, either?”

  “His parents called, a couple nights ago, wondering where he was. They said to call if I saw him. I should have told them to call me, too. I should call—I will, later.”

  Electrical lines ran next to the tracks, the narrow towers running six wires—three on each side, hanging off insulators—that stretched straight from where they had been to where they were going.

  “Don’t worry so much,” Kayla said. She kicked an empty glass bottle and it bounced along the rail, hollowly, not shattering. To the right, headlights shifted along the Sellwood Bridge. Houseboats, dark and quiet, rested in their harbors below.

  “Is there ever a train on these tracks?” Chris said.

  “Hardly ever,” Kayla said.

  They walked. Blackberry bushes clustered tight on each side of the tracks, their leafy surfaces shifting slightly, as if breathing, as if someone slept beneath their cover. Chris flinched as a cat slipped out, then hunched past, heading the other direction, ten feet away and not even paying attention.

  “We have to think like Leon to really find him,” Kayla was saying.

  Chris looked over his shoulder; now that the cat was out of sight, he realized it had been a raccoon.

  “Everything we need is in the notebooks,” she said, “in my backpack—”

  The tracks curved to the left, up a slight hill, away from the river, closer to the neighborhood, the dark silhouettes of houses.

  “I knew a kid who lived up that street,” Chris said, pointing. “They had a strobe light in their basement, and a ping-pong table.”

  Almost every window was dark, everyone inside asleep. As Chris and Kayla kept moving along the track, they left a sporadic trail of barking dogs behind them. Somewhere, down a side street, the tinny music of an ice cream truck sounded, out of place and time. They paused, then kept walking, around the back of a big, abandoned building. Chris had to hurry to keep up with her pace. And then the air tightened around them, a low hum when he listened close.

  SELLWOOD SUBSTATIONS, the sign read, attached to a tall chain-link gate. DANGER, read another, showing a lightning bolt striking a stick man in the chest, knocking him backward.

  “Here we are,” Kayla said.

  Vines climbed thick through the tall fence; squinting, Chris saw inside, the cluster of tall transformers, the switching towers, all the lines coming and going. He flinched at a crackle overhead. The structures inside were bigger than houses, towers of girders connected like erector sets, shadowy, like the metal skeletons of buildings without walls, floors or ceilings. And all this vibrated in the half-light, the hum. Lanterns—attached down low, old fashioned, some not working—cast pale, overlapping circles along white gravel. The substation stretched; it took up the whole block. Wires snaked everywhere, in and out of transformer drums shaped like huge batteries, like rockets.

  “I know,” Kayla said, watching him take it all in.

  “You’ve been here before?”

  “A lot. Figuring it out, studying the voltage and everything.”

  A car drove past, headlights sweeping around them before bouncing high, the whole thing clattering over a speed bump, its red taillights fading.

  “We have to go around here,” Kayla said. “We’re out in the open, right under this light where anyone can see us.”

  Chris followed her around the corner, onto Linn Street, and into the bushes. Here, an eight-foot concrete wall alternated with short stretches of chain-link. Kayla stopped at one of these stretches, crouching in the bushes’ shadows. She set her pack on the ground, knelt, and unzipped it. Slowly, she pulled out a tangle of metal and wire, wrapped it in on itself, and heaved it over the fence. It unsnarled through the air, into the lights, and kicked up gravel where it landed.

  “What was that?”

  “You afraid?” Kayla said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  She stood, a wire-cutter in her hands. She climbed up the fence, cut the three strands of barbed wire at the top, then
jumped back down. Another dog started barking; Chris wondered if it was barking at them or someone else.

  Kayla went over, and he followed, landing next to her, inside. The dog had stopped barking. Was the air even tighter, heavier, more charged inside the fence? It felt that way. Chris shivered, the gravel sharp beneath his feet. Was anyone watching? Were there alarms? He wanted to believe; he still trusted Kayla. She picked up the wires she’d thrown over and kept walking, untangling them; her hair was soft looking again, the bristles grown long enough to mostly lie flat. The lights shone eerily, making the white gravel glow, exposing them as if they were on a stage, surrounded by the whole dark neighborhood. They hurried under the switching towers, the transformers, their pale shadows cast by the lamplight in every direction, dark spokes shifting gently around them.

  Chris listened to the fans, the crackle in the air, just beneath the surface, and to Kayla as she explained it all—pointing out the transformers, the incoming transmission lines, high-voltage, and the smaller lines going out.

  “Seventy-two hundred volts,” she said. “Household voltage.”

  “What are we doing?”

  “We’re climbing. No, not that side. You want to kill us? This one here is us. I’ve figured it all out. How much do you weigh, anyway?”

  “One-twenty,” Chris said.

  “Good,” she said. “Here, climb up here. Stand on that platform. Don’t touch anything, yet. And listen to me, that’s the main thing. We have to keep talking to each other.”

  “What?”

  “It’ll get bad,” she said, standing beneath him. “It has to, if we do it right, so just hold on and try to talk as long as you can.”

  The metal of the girders was like a ladder, easy to climb. He could feel Kayla, now, climbing beneath him, and he moved squinting past the lantern, to a narrow platform about fifteen feet above the ground. A row of some kind of transformers stood there, white like four-foot-tall sparkplugs, wires stretching from their tops. Below, the whiteness spread in every direction; above, the dark, the shadowy wires.