His Illegal Self

12

All her life Anna Xenos would think of that moment, on the phone in the Greyhound station, when she might have explained herself to whomever she was speaking to. Yet each of the thousands of times she walked that particular road she arrived at the same point where there was no road at all-she crashed and burned before Philly, at Vassar, in the chair’s office, when she had gotten high on knowing Susan Selkirk, when she took the phone number, when she looked down at the groundsmen and the fall leaves and thought she belonged there. That was her fatal flaw and it was deep as a septic crack in the heel of her foot, a dirty little crevice that went right down to her bone. When she telephoned Susan Selkirk she was her mother’s daughter, bringing home her employer’s silver, relishing her connection with the famous.

Hello, Bvains, said Susan Selkirk, the patronizing bitch.

How does it feel?

A complete unknown, walking barefoot up the middle of an empty highway toward Yandina, Queensland, Australia, with a rich boy in one hand and a cat in her damn pocket and all her worldly assets gathered around her person. The blacktop was empty, littered with leaves and twigs, a branch or two, but mostly smooth and weirdly slappy in the rain. If there was a way out of this, she did not see it and she once again regretted not leaving him in that hotel room. That might seem cruel to pet lovers and sentimentalists, but he would be with his grandma now, safe in bed on the other side of the world.

She was from Southie. This township was not like anything she understood. There was no convenience store or deli that she could recognize, just a cutesy post office, small regular cottages with hedges and peeling paint. There was a bar which was like the fishermen’s bars along the Delaware at Callicoon, staring redneck windows, dirty glass protecting the sexual bravado of morons.

Dial, look.

The boy had found a bottle full of milk and was already poking his dirty fingernail at its foil top.

Stop it.

She snatched it from him. Her heart was beating way too fast, this sudden terror of transgression.

Where’d you get that?

On the stoop.

Baby, she said, this is a very redneck place. Do you understand? We do not steal. We don’t want to get arrested.

He looked at her, all bruised and blaming.

We can get in so much trouble, she insisted.

For drinking milk? He dared to raise his eyebrows.

Yes, for drinking goddamned milk. She would not be a mother. All her life she watched the Irish girls, a new crop each season, their bellies pushing at their jeans.

You shouldn’t yell, he said.

Oh please! She replaced the single bottle on the weathered single step and, without holding out her hand for him, walked diagonally across the deserted street to the post office, a small clapboard building with a raised white painted veranda. He came rushing behind her and she felt a ridiculous and savage pleasure in her victory.

Should we get cat food, Dial?

Against all her inclinations, she laughed, and kissed him.

No, he said. Really. As if he could not accept such intimacy. Should we? he asked.

She raised an eyebrow.

There was no one around except a peculiar woman with a duck-leg walk who emerged from the street alongside the bar, but that was about one hundred yards farther down.

Buck is hungry, the boy said, but Dial did not have her contact lenses and was trying to resolve what she was seeing, not a woman at all. Maybe the hippie. The skirt was a sarong. His strange breasts soon revealed themselves as trousers, stuffed like sausages, hanging around his neck. She had never seen Trevor walk before, but this was how he did it-a sort of heterosexual sashay.

Dial removed her cardigan and gave it to the boy, the protesting kitten swinging loudly to and fro.

You can pet him until we find him food.

She watched Trevor getting closer. She thought, My armpits stink.

Where did you come from? she asked.

They had not parted on good terms, but this morning it seemed they had a history. He replied with a smile, hidden like chewing tobacco, tucked inside the corner of his mouth.

Hello boy, the hippie said, removing the lumpy trousers from around his neck. Hello cat.

Away from the dreadful car, he was different, his eyes wider, less stoned probably, and he gave off a surprising aura of good health. The raindrops stood on his bare brown skin as if it was a well-oiled coat or healthy vegetable. From his unknotted trouser legs he produced a large papaya, a hand of tiny bananas, the stems still oozing a pale white sap, a huge green zucchini, another papaya, this one with a bright green patch, and a purple eggplant, all of them wet and lustrous.

Plus, he said.

A bottle of milk.

The boy caught Dial’s eye and she rubbed his head roughly as if to acknowledge that she would let him win that round. It was with some distinct pleasure that she observed him watch Trevor remove the silver foil. He cocked his head attentively as the hippie dipped his square-tipped finger into the milk and offered it to the kitten’s open sharp-toothed mouth.

Give’s your hand, he said to the boy, in that musical accent they had. She watched with approval as he dipped the boy’s finger in the wildly creamy milk, guiding it to the kitten’s desperate tongue. She liked him then, more than she had imagined possible.

Trevor led the way up the veranda steps. He was not tall, indeed two inches shorter than Dial, but she was relieved that he had a real physical authority as he squatted, pouring milk directly into his cupped hand.

Our trailer tipped over, the boy said.

You bet, he said. Of course.

Trevor hopped about the floor, found a wooden-handled clasp knife in his trousers and drew its blade around the papaya which opened like a book-a color plate Carica papaya. Trevor scooped the black seeds in one swift movement and held them dripping in his fist.

I hurt my arm, the boy said. I fell out of my bed.

Eat food, the man instructed.

Trevor threw the seeds over the rail.

Just put your face in it, he told the boy, giving the other half to Dial. He did not look at her but as she took the dripping fruit she felt some double entendre which she did not like at all. It made her hesitate, but at the same time she found herself thinking about her appearance, that her hair was oily and flat on her head. My nose is huge, she thought, before she gave in to the papaya. But when this was finished there was nothing else, no plan, no strategy, and when the postmaster arrived to open shop she saw how he looked down on her, her face wet with papaya, her great Greek nose sticking in the air.