The police station on Bone Harbor Hill is always busy. I walk into the lobby and a dirty-faced toddler crashes into my legs. A baby cries, a woman curses, a man who barely speaks English is arguing with a clerk. “A meeestake! A meestake!” he cries. I look around, trying to decide if this is worth it, when I see one of the cops who came to the Rag O Rama to arrest the woman. He has a gym bag slung over one shoulder, and the look of a man who just ended his shift.
“S’cuse me,” I say. He is reluctant to stop. “Excuse me,” I say louder. He is wearing sunglasses despite the lateness of the day. I stare at my own reflection and say, “The woman you picked up earlier from the Rag O Rama. Is she still here?”
He sticks his thumbs in his belt loops like he’s some kind of boss, and looks at me like he’s trying to place my face. He won’t be able to.
“Yeah, why?”
I shove the shoes at him. “She left these there,” I say. And then I turn and leave without looking back. My own shoes, the ones on my feet, are the only shoes I own. Torn up sneakers from the Wal-Mart clearance rack. You can do without a lot of things in this life, but shoes are a necessity. If you’re stealing shoes, it’s a desperate necessity. And I will not stand in the way of people trying hard to survive.
I’M WALKING TO THE CORNER STORE for healthy cigarettes, watching the way the fat of my knees bulge with each step, when I see him. He’s reading a book, his head leaning on his upturned palm. There is a glass of water beside him, untouched and filled to the brim, sweating. The fact that he looks so at ease with himself is what abruptly redirects my feet from the cracked sidewalk to the pathway that leads to his gate. I smile. I don’t smile. I wring my hands. I fold them behind my back. No one really knows if it was a car accident, or a tumor, or something like Multiple Sclerosis that made Judah Grant a cripple. We knew him when he walked on his legs, then one day he couldn’t. As I watch him, I have a thought that startles me in its clarity. He wears his wheelchair. His wheelchair never wears him. I’ve never had this thought before. As a general rule, I try not to look at Judah. Staring at someone in a wheelchair doesn’t seem polite—even if he is beautiful.
There is a fence surrounding his yard. It was once pretty; you can still see the remnants of eggshell blue paint in some places where the rust hasn’t eaten through it. I remember being little and thinking the fence looked like Easter. The gate groans loudly as I push it open with my fingertips. Judah’s head comes up, but not at once. He’s so casual as he sets his book aside and watches me walk up the ramp that Delaney had built for his chair.
“What are you doing?” I ask him. I glance down at the book he is reading. It’s a biography.
He holds up the thin joint between his fingers. It smells hella strong. Like weed smoking weed.
“Can I have some?” I ask.
His eyes lightly graze me. “I’ve never seen you smoke,” he says, and makes no move to pass me the joint. His voice is clear and deep.
“You never see me,” I say.
“Sure I do.” He puts the joint between his lips, sucks in a little. He exhales before he says, “You walk past here every day to go to work.”
I tuck my chin in, surprised. “How do you know I’m going to work?”
“Dunno,” he replies. “Maybe because you look miserable.”
He’s right, of course.
“Okay,” I say. “So you see me walking to work once a day and you suddenly know me?”
He smiles a little and shrugs, extending the joint toward me like he doesn’t care whether I hit it or not.
“No thanks,” I say. “I don’t smoke.”
His laugh is a slow build up. It pools in his chest and bursts forward. He laughs like he’s been laughing his whole life, and he knows how.
“I like your bag,” he says, extending a pinky finger and pointing to it. The remnants of his smile are still lingering around the corners of his mouth. “Groceries and shit. Is that literally what you put in there?”
“Literally?” I ask. “You want to know if I literally put my groceries, and my shit, in this bag?”
His teeth slide over his lower lip as he studies me. I can tell it’s a habit by the narrowing of his eyes, the side-to-side bobbing of his head.
Finally, he says, “I was testing you. I don’t like people who misuse the word ‘literally.’ Now we can be friends.”
“Literally?”
He sets his joint in a little ashtray at his feet and holds out his hand.
“I’m Judah,” he says. “And you’re Margo.”
“How do you know my name?” His hand holds on to mine a beat longer than what is considered normal. If I weren’t so ugly, I’d think he was into me.
“This is Wessex Street; we’re all parasites on the same vein in Washington.” He reaches his arms back and cradles his head in his hands while he waits for my reaction. Look at him, sitting in his wheelchair all cool.
“I’m not a parasite,” I say calmly. “I’m not on welfare. I have a job.” I feel bad right away. That might not even be what he meant. You don’t always have to be so defensive, I tell myself.
“Don’t look so guilty,” he says. “I wasn’t accusing you of mooching off the government. I have a job.”
“I’m not guilty. You don’t know what I’m thinking,” I say defensively. Oops.
Judah picks up his joint. “Yeah, I do. You’ve got the kind of face that speaks.” He makes jazz hands when he says the last part. I don’t smile. I want to though.
I scrunch my whole, entire face together because I don’t know what he means. Then I know.
“Oh,” I say.
I look down at him. What kind of job could he have? Maybe something at his school.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he says. “What kind of job could I possibly have?”
“Ew! Stop reading my mind … and my face!”
We both laugh.
“So what do you do?”
He takes a hit of his joint. “Are you kidding?” he says. “I’m in a wheelchair. I don’t have a job.”
“Oh my God.” I shake my head at him and look up at the sky. It’s about to rain. “You can’t just steal my shit like that.” I need to get her cigarettes before it pours. “Gotta go,” I say. I head back down the path, my Groceries & Shit bag swinging on my arm.