I slowly nodded. The threat was very clear.
Mitchell stared at me, trying to decide if he believed me. Satisfied, he seemed to smile. “All right then,” he said. “The first thing we need to do is get some beer.”
He led us to a small grocery store. Walking in, he seemed to know exactly where to go. He walked up and down the aisles, pausing to shove food into his bags. Crackers. Blocks of cheese. Cans of tuna. Cookies and beef jerky. Then he went to the beer cooler and shoved in a couple six-packs of Heineken. His sacks were almost full. I was amazed at how brazen he was about it. My heart was racing—I had never shoplifted before—but clearly Mitchell was not afraid. Grabbing a head of lettuce and a bottle of pickles, he walked up to the checkout counter. Barzee and I followed, never saying anything.
The young man behind the counter seemed to recognize Mitchell. He was a sketchy-looking character. Dyed black-and-purple hair. White skin. Thin as a skeleton. He glanced at the stuffed bags. If he knew that Mitchell had just shoved a bunch of food into his sacks—and he had to have known—he didn’t say anything. In fact, he didn’t even run the bottle of pickles across the scanner. The head of lettuce was the only thing he rang up. So this is how it works, I thought. Later, he would be Mitchell’s source of marijuana—another step in my journey to descend below all things—but for now he was just a “generous” cashier who was willing to let Mitchell shove a lot of food into his bags. He and Mitchell exchanged some talk about a party that was going on that night and then we left.
Mitchell quickly led us toward a public restroom a block or so down the street. When we got there, he went in to make sure it was deserted, then pulled me inside. The restroom was dark and depressing, with black walls and a dark-green ceiling. It smelled of urine and rotting garbage—the perfect place to get me drunk. He forced me to drink a couple of beers. How can anyone drink this stuff for pleasure? I remember thinking as I forced the beer down. I almost gagged, coming very close to throwing up.
With a couple of beers inside us, it was time to get the real party going. Mitchell led us to the nearest liquor store. He went in while Barzee and I waited on the sidewalk. We must have looked ridiculous. Nothing going on here, you know. Just the prophet’s women hanging outside the liquor store while he goes in to get some rum.
I screamed inside my mind at everyone who passed. Look at me! Look at my eyes. Don’t any of you recognize me? But everyone was more than happy to ignore us and walk by.
Still, part of me was elated at being in the city. I was away from the camp. I was out in public. Anything was better than being cabled to trees!
Mitchell came out with his purchases stuffed in a bag. “We’re heading down to Liberty Park,” he said. “Going to drink a little rum and Coke.”
We walked down to the park, where Mitchell began to survey his surroundings, looking for anyone he might know. While he checked things out, I sat on a nearby swing and started swaying gently back and forth. Mitchell moved closer to me. Barzee followed, moving to my other side. So there I swung, Barzee on one side and Mitchell on the other. I looked around at the children who were playing all around me. You are so lucky! I thought. A few of them seemed to glance at me. All of them were afraid.
Mitchell didn’t like being around the other people. “Follow me,” he said.
Walking toward the picnic tables, we crossed a small water park with spouting geysers of water coming out of the ground. I took off my shoes and started walking barefoot through the spouts of water, the cool spray upon my feet.
I am alive, but I’m not living, I remember thinking as I walked. I am the living dead. I am nothing but a shell.
I closed my eyes and imagined the water pulling me away, helping me to run away from Mitchell and Barzee forever. I felt the water running over my toes as it moved toward the drains. For a moment, I imagined it sucking the last of my spirit with it, washing my soul away. I wanted desperately to escape, to melt away with the rushing water, never to be seen again. I was a shell already. Why not let my spirit go? Why not let my soul escape into the nothingness that lay wherever the water went? Why not let my soul depart and leave my empty body to go through the motions of living in this world?
Mitchell and Barzee stood at the edge of the water park and watched me. I lifted my face toward the sky, wishing I could feel the sun upon my cheeks. I drifted back in time. I was with my family. I felt their love around me. I felt the peace of being in my home. I felt the comfort of an earlier day and time. Before Mitchell. Before the pain. Before everything that had left my empty body standing in the middle of the water park.
Thinking of my family, I resolved again: Whatever it takes to survive this. Whatever it takes to live.
Mitchell pulled me back to this world. “Esther!” he called impatiently. “Come on over here!”