Tom Finder Read online

  “No thanks,” Tom said. “Too many people. Too much roof.”

  She studied him. “Maybe Janice is right about you, that you’re not one of us. I don’t know how . . . Maybe it’s because of you being a poet and stuff.”

  “I never said that.”

  “You act it. But I say you are one of us, because none of us think it either. We all think we’re going to quit it someday and be a plumber or a hairdresser, don’t you know that?”

  “Do you think it, Pam?”

  Pam’s eyes stayed on him, but she wasn’t seeing him anymore. “I don’t know. I don’t know myself anymore. It’s like I looked myself into one of those windows and I can’t get out, and everyone’s staring at me and I can’t figure out why they don’t help me.”

  “I’ll help,” Tom said.

  She was seeing him again. She smiled. “Hey. It’s okay. I’m tough. Besides, I’m in school, remember? Pick a color.”

  “Pink. That’s good—about school, I mean.”

  “P–I–N–K. Pick another color. I only need three courses to graduate.”

  “Red. You can do it. I’ll help you with English. And science maybe.”

  “R–E–D. Thanks. Pick a number.”

  “Three.”

  She took the hoods off her fingers and unfolded one corner. Tom could see that the paper was blank. She slowly ran her finger along the edge of the paper. A small drop of blood appeared. She smeared it on the paper, then stared at the paper a long time without saying a word.

  She’s zoid, too, Tom thought.

  “Paper cut,” she said. “I don’t do that for everybody.”

  Tom knew it—he did have a way with girls. You either had it or you didn’t. It wasn’t something you could fake.

  “Strange,” she said.

  Tom peered over her fortune-teller, but he couldn’t see anything but bloodstained paper. “What?”

  “Without a past, the future is not written except by today,” she said in a spooky voice.

  “Huh?”

  “Wait,” she said. “Something to do with music—an opera maybe.”

  “An opera?”

  Just then they heard Jeans calling loudly, “Hey, Cupid! How’s it layin’, man?”

  From down the street, Cupid answered in a deep voice, “To the left.” He said something else that they couldn’t hear.

  Pam stood straight. “Go,” she said.

  Tom could see Jeans doing some sort of dance in front of Cupid, and they were both laughing.

  “Go!” Pam said, sinking back into the shadows.

  Tom walked away. Jeans caught up with him after a while, panting.

  “Thanks,” Tom said.

  “Were for Pam.”

  “You told her about me, didn’t you,” Tom said when they had gone a block or two.

  “Not much. You borin’.”

  “You told her about the opera, didn’t you.”

  “No.”

  “Did.”

  “Didn’t.”

  “Then how’d she know?”

  Jeans kicked a can on the sidewalk. “Pam. Everyone knows, she got the gift.”

  “Why does she hang out on the streets, with those other girls?”

  “They her friends.”

  “No way.”

  Jeans stopped and faced Tom. “They also my friends.”

  Tom shifted his backpack a little. “Did I say anything?”

  “I hear the disrespect in your voice.”

  Tom didn’t deny it.

  “I seen a thing you have not seen, Tom Poet. When you sold your last possession, when you eatin’ other people’s garbage, when you cold and dirty and so tired you sleep in public, then tell me you won’t have nothin’ to do with a guy who smile and say you wonderful and gonna love you forever. Then one day, he down on his luck, and if you really love him, you gonna do him a favor. The girls, they all think their boyfriend gonna get back on his feet, gonna take them to Disneyland with that john money. Then the boyfriend, he beat them. She understand. He jealous, all those men gettin’ a piece of her. But he need the money. Just a little longer, that’s all.”

  “Then one day, she know. She know, and nothin’ matter much, least of all herself. She don’t save. She don’t wanna look at that john money any longer than she have to. She spend it on food and a place to sleep, and a Forget so’s she can face the life again. She learn to survive, and she learn not to care too bad if she don’t.”

  Tom walked in silence beside Jeans. His feet hit the pavement as if he weighed three hundred pounds. “Does Pam . . . is she thinking . . . ?”

  “Not turned out yet. But all her friends, they on the street. She couch-surfin’ right now.”

  They had arrived at the park.

  “See you in the morning,” Tom said. Jeans didn’t look back and wave like he usually did.

  As he walked to his island, Tom wondered if there was any up or down in the universe. Was it only gravity that invented up and down? All he knew was that gravity ruled the world, kept everything down. You had to fight to get anywhere.

  Tom stared at the billboard on the way home. THE MAGIC FLUTE, SEPTEMBER 12–15. Tom checked the electronic sign. SEPTEMBER 8. He’d been here a long time. Maybe he just wasn’t a good enough writer.

  Chapter 8

  I know how to deal with nets and snares.

  And how to make myself understood by piping.

  – Act 1, scene 2

  “So it’s you. You look pretty rough.” The newspaper man had loosened his tie and taken off his jacket. He bent his face back to the sun.

  “I do?”

  “Just getting the last bits of summer.” He glanced at Tom.

  “Gets pretty cool in the fall, you know. Where do you go when it’s cold?”

  “Oh, I’ll have things worked out by then,” Tom said.

  The man said nothing for a minute, then gestured. “So, what have you got there?”

  Tom looked down at the paper in his hand. He held it out to the man. “I thought you might read this, tell me if it’s any good.”

  The man sat up and roughly snatched the papers, bending and wrinkling them. “Let’s see.”

  He read for a while. “Use a dictionary?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Should use a dictionary. For spelling.”

  “Did I misspell something?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so. Well?”

  “Interesting.” He hit the paper with his knuckles. “Always wondered about those guys. I like the part about the spiders. I’ll buy it.”

  “For . . . for money?”

  The man tightened his tie and put his jacket on. “Next time do it up on a computer, will ya? I’ll have a check made up for you.”

  “I’d like cash, please,” Tom said.

  The man groomed his mustache a moment, then reached for his wallet. “I’m buying a career here,” he said gruffly.

  Career, Tom thought. I have a career. C–A–R–E–E–R.

  Tom was walking away when the man called, “What’s your byline?”

  “Tom,” Tom called back. “Tom Finder.”

  “Where you go at night?” Jeans asked Tom the next day.

  “I’m looking for someone.”

  “Daniel still?”

  “Yeah. I’m going to a men’s shelter tonight, check it out.”

  “Them gray, roofy places, Tom.”

  “It’s okay. I can write, remember? Come with me.”

  Jeans nodded.

  The Drop-in Shelter for Homeless Men was full of men who rarely looked up. Gravity had got to them.

  It had gotten into their ear holes and filled their brains. It made their heads hang down and their hair hang down and their hands hang down and made their eyes always look at their feet. It made them slow-moving. Their words fell out of their mouths. You didn’t get to a drop-in center by floating or flying or climbing, or even by walking. You dropped in, gravity’s baby.

  Tom figure
d if you stayed on the streets long enough, eventually you just couldn’t fight it anymore. It probably felt good after a while not to fight anymore. You just let it press you down.

  Jeans said, “Pretty close walls in this place.”

  Tom nodded.

  “Yup,” Jeans said. “Pretty close.”

  Tom knew how you could be all right to be here. Sometimes, at night, alone in the dark, Tom felt gravity sitting on his chest, like an animal perched there. At first it felt okay because you had air in there, but after a while you had less air and soon you couldn’t breathe. Maybe one day that was all you could do anymore: sleep pinned to your cot, and it didn’t matter where.

  One of the volunteers was speaking to a man who looked like he’d been sat on by gravity one too many times.

  “You know the stains on the pavement better than you know your own face, Jenks,” the volunteer said.

  Jenks didn’t smile. He mumbled something incomprehensible. Tom remembered him. He was the old man under the bridge, the man who saw ghosts everywhere.

  “Takes more muscles to frown than to smile,” the volunteer said. Maybe it took fewer muscles to smile, Tom thought, but those smiling muscles had to work against gravity. Besides, Jenks wasn’t really frowning. Tom could tell he was just letting gravity pull his face down.

  “Can I help you?” the volunteer said to Tom and Jeans.

  “I’m looking for Daniel Wolflegs,” Tom said.

  “Haven’t seen him for a long time,” the man said. “Need a bed tonight?”

  Tom shook his head. Jeans shook his head.

  “I seen him,” Jenks said.

  “Where?” Tom asked.

  “With the dead,” Jenks said. “Floating.”

  Jeans made a sign with his left hand.

  “Never mind him,” Tom said. “He sees ghosts everywhere.”

  “You’ll never find him if you don’t look among the dead,” he said.

  “Yeah? Where do I go for that?” Tom asked.

  “You don’t wanna go there, where the dead are. Don’t wanna go there.”

  Tom felt all the little hairs on his back lift up like antennae.

  “Where?” Tom asked again.

  “You won’t find him,” Jenks said.

  “I have to,” Tom said. He had to for the book to be true. He had to if he was going to find his parents.

  “He’s been sick,” Jenks said. “Acorn took care of him.”

  “Acorn? Where do I find him?” Tom asked.

  “Her. No address. Over the bridge, but doesn’t have an address.”

  Then he shuffled away.

  “Come on,” Tom said. He left with Jeans close behind him.

  When they were out, Jeans leaned against the wall. Sweat was dripping from his hair.

  “I’m going to find this Acorn person,” Tom said. “Coming?”

  Jeans shook his head. “I meet you later,” he said weakly. “Gonna see my girl fish.” He walked away.

  Tom crossed the bridge and walked among the houses south of the river. He didn’t have any idea where he was going. But he was the Finder. He had the power. He concentrated on Daniel, on everything he knew about Daniel, on the things Samuel had told him about his son. He knew of a row of small, rotting houses just past the bridge. He’d start there.

  He walked past house after house, knowing each house wasn’t it. At the end of a long block that ended near the river, he stopped. There was something strange—the last house had a huge yard, and the walkway seemed to be too far to the right of the house. He couldn’t see in for all the trees. Tom stood for a time, then turned into the walkway. Instead of curving in toward the house, it curved in the other direction.

  The walkway was overhung by branches. The roots of the trees broke up the cement blocks of the walkway. Soon the walkway was almost completely covered in pine cones and old pine needles. The trees were so large that he couldn’t see the house until he was right on it. It was a log house, and the door was ajar. Bats flew around a large kerosene lamp that sat on the porch.

  Tom called into the door, “Hello! Anyone here?” He could hear a woman humming. “Hello?”

  A girl with green hair emerged from the shadows, carrying a candle. “Welcome,” she said.

  “I’m sorry. It must be late.”

  “Peace,” she said. “Something brings you here. Come, sit down.”

  She led him into a room full of ferns and tropical plants. There was a bamboo curtain, and cushions everywhere. A yellow and green bird chirped on a kind of swing. There was no cage.

  “Are you Acorn?” Tom asked.

  “I am,” she said. “How did you find me?”

  “I am a Finder,” Tom said. He figured anyone with a name like Acorn could handle it. A fountain burbled in the corner, and Tom could see there was a turtle in it. Two cats jumped up and ran away as Tom sat down. “I’m looking for Daniel Wolflegs,” he said. “I heard he comes here sometimes.”

  She sat cross-legged on a cushion and put the candle in front of her. She stared at the flame. “Yes. He comes here. He’s not here now. What do you need him for?”

  How could he explain what he needed Daniel for? Because finding him would make true what he thought about himself. Because finding Daniel meant he could do anything in the world, and gravity didn’t win. Because finding Daniel meant he was a poet.

  “His dad asked me to find him,” he said simply, and that was true, too. “He’s been looking for him for a long time.”

  She shifted on her cushion. “Daniel is my friend. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want to see his dad.”

  “His dad loves him. He’ll die looking for him. Samuel is . . . good.”

  “He passed on his genes, then,” Acorn said, smiling. “There’s no one like Daniel. Drugs sometimes make people mean. They just make Daniel softer. I think he’s dying. I think he’s dying because some people want him to. He’s obliging that way.” She tilted her head. “Why do you care? What do you get out of it?”

  Tom could see that he had to answer this question, and the answer had better be right. He took out his notebook, opened it, and began to read. The pages were a bit damp. Twice he looked up. Once Acorn was softly nodding her head, as if agreeing. The second time her eyes were closed and she was very still. While he read, both cats and a big dog came into the room and settled on cushions around him. It was quiet except for the whine of mosquitoes and the breeze in the trees outside.

  He closed the book.

  After a moment, she said, “There’s an old man named Jenks.

  Daniel was kind to him, protected him from some drunk teenagers who thought it would be fun to torment him. Jenks takes care of Daniel, when he’s sober. He’d probably know where he is.”

  “Jenks? But he’s the one who told me to come here.”

  She shook her head. “Just trying to get rid of you maybe. He’ll know where to find Daniel.”

  Tom found Pam, fortune-teller in hand, on the baby stroll. He’d run the whole way.

  “You don’t have the cops after you, do you?” She was wearing tight shortie shorts and a belly shirt that said SAVE THE BEAVERS. “I don’t have a business license.” She laughed.

  Jeans saw him and came over. “Find Daniel?”

  “No. The girl said Jenks knows, but that old drunk doesn’t know anything.”

  “Hey,” Pam said, smiling. “Be nice.”

  Tom didn’t feel like smiling right now. Right now, he was angry to find her here again, talking to the other women like they were friends, like she was one of them.

  “In business? What about school?”

  “I quit,” she said, hard, as if she was swearing. She looked at him as if she were a foot taller than him.

  “Why don’t you go home?” Tom asked. But he wasn’t asking, he was ordering. “Why don’t you ditch stupid Cupid and go home. You remember: H–O–M–E.”

  Pam stared at him. Jeans stared at him. Jeans broke out in loud, uncomfortable laughter. He punched Tom in the
arm, hard. “You know these poet-types, heh, heh. You never know what outbursts they gonna have. Not their fault,” he said confidingly to Pam and pointing meaningfully to his head. “ ’Sides, he goin’ nuts lookin’ for his friend Daniel Wolflegs. You seen him, Pam? No? Well, gotta go—”

  “Check the abandoned Spaghetti Factory,” she said. “Squats a lot of kids these days. Landfill. Janice is there now, too.” She clicked her paper fortune-teller over Tom’s head. “Hey, mister, tell your fortune.”

  “Just tell me I’m gonna get lucky,” a man said behind Tom.

  Tom didn’t look back. He and Jeans just moved out of the way.

  “Man, you got a way with words,” Jeans said to him after they had walked awhile. “But not always a good way.”

  Tom felt sick. What had happened to nice? To being good with girls? And where were his parents? Why hadn’t they flooded the media with pictures, pleas for public assistance? “Tom is a good boy, he’d never run away. Please help us find our son.” He had to think of something true right now, or he was going to think the whole world was a figment of gravity’s imagination.

  “Jeans, I’ve been thinking. What if words are in charge of the world? What if it’s words that makes things real to us, or at least—maybe they’re what make us imagine what is real. If that’s true, then the most powerful thing in the world you could be is a poet . . .”

  “Money is what’s in charge of the world,” Jeans said.

  “We’ve got money.”

  “Listen, friend, that liddle stash of yours won’t get you much more than a basement apartment for a couple of weeks.”

  “No, I don’t need money. I need to be a better writer.”

  Just then he saw something blown flat against the glass of a bus shelter. He knew he’d found something. It was a card of some kind. He picked it up.

  “It’s a library card,” he said to Jeans.

  Jeans looked at Tom strangely. “Were you lookin’ for this?”

  “No,” Tom said.

  “Yes, you was,” Jeans said. He smacked him with the back of his hand. “You always sayin’ you was just pullin’ my leg, but I been watchin’ you, and I be damned if you not a Finder like you say. God tryin’ to tell you somethin’.”