Three Years, Three Months Before
Back Door
Edgar Gillespie.
A familiar name, if rarely used. Edgar, Eager, Edgar, Ed. Big Ed. Big Ed Gillespie, a name spoken in the same tone used to describe the little man who lived under the basement stairs and crept out at night to spirit away naughty children.
Eager inspected the driver’s license. Expired, but he didn’t know what to make of that. An address in a town called Westbank. The name seemed vaguely familiar to him, perhaps a place Charm had mentioned during one of her drunken lathers. Down south. But the license was worth only a moment’s attention. The badge, now that was the thing. Charm had never said anything about his old man being a cop.
What was a cop doing chasing after the girl? What was his old man doing being a cop? Eager moved out of the parking lot onto the sidewalk, edged toward the coffee house. A brief squall swept through, wet his head and back. He didn’t care. Too worried about what his old man, the cop, had in mind for the girl.
Hand on the throat, girl pinned against the fence. Cops could be assholes same as anyone. Rough bastards too, kick you twice when they didn’t need to kick you at all. But that scene didn’t look like a cop takedown, even a dirty cop takedown. No gear, no cuffs, no radio. No backup. Just muscles and threat.
Eager peered around the corner of Common Grounds through the front window. Big Ed stood at the counter, fists balled at his sides. A man faced him from across the counter, his long face grim. Eager knew him, the manager or something, old Asian guy. He sometimes let Eager hang out when it was raining, even if he had no money to buy a drink. A few customers shrinking into their chairs, mouths agape. Big Ed’s shoulders shook as he confronted the fellow. His voice buzzed against the window pane. Eager didn’t see the girl. Hiding in the back maybe. The manager looked like he was standing guard. What he’d do if Big Ed decided to go through him Eager couldn’t guess. Get mushed.
Maybe Eager couldn’t knock a side of beef the size of Big Ed windmilling into the street, but he knew every block between 39th and 60th, between Belmont and Division like he knew his own scarred knuckles. He’d skated every inch of pavement. Every buckled sidewalk, every cul-de-sac. He could help her get away.
In the girl’s place, Eager would have skipped the coffee house. Joint like that, too easy to get pinned down. But if he was gonna hide in a shop, and if he did find himself pinned, he’d head for the back door. Here it was a side exit off the kitchen, which opened onto a narrow passage between the coffee house and the parking lot, wide enough for the garbage and recycling bins. At the back end of the passage, a tall cedar fence blocked the way. Far as anyone knew, the only way out was back onto Hawthorne.
He knew different.
He grabbed his board and moved down the passage. The door was metal with frosted-glass panes. As he reached for the door knob it turned and the door popped open. The girl stumbled out, Big Ed’s voice chasing after her. She pulled up when she saw him.
He grinned, pleased to realize she thought like he did, and that fast too. “If you want, I’ll help you get away.”
She hesitated for only a second. “Please.”
“Follow me.”
He led her past the garbage bins to the end of the passage. The cedar fence was weathered and grey. Eager tugged at two of the overlapping vertical boards and they parted, creating a narrow opening. “It’s a squeeze.” She went first, and he followed, passing his skateboard through first. They found themselves in the back corner of a yard, a shaded pocket of quiet. The lawn was patched with moss, toys lay in careless heaps in the overgrown grass. Ivy wet with the morning rain draped over the fence.
“Is this okay?”
“Nobody’s around in the daytime, mostly.”
They followed a narrow concrete walkway alongside the house, picking their way past rusty gardening tools and an old fiberglass truck cap. At the corner of the front yard, the tall privacy fence gave way to rusty chain-link. The house looked east from the end of a short cul-de-sac. A couple of cars were parked in front of houses across the otherwise empty street.
“Come on.”
He led her up the cul-de-sac to 44th, then turned north, away from the bustle of Hawthorne. Small single-story houses hugged the sidewalks as they weaved, right turn, left. Most blocks, cars parked up both sides of the street, leaving only a single lane for traffic. It didn’t matter. There was no traffic. The girl followed close beside him, checking back over her shoulder again and again. Within a few blocks, he could tell she was lost, but that was okay. There was no sign of his old man. At last he stopped beneath a gnarled hawthorn tree growing out of the parking strip in front of a yard so overgrown they couldn’t see the house beyond.
“I think we’re okay now.”
She leaned against the tree, rubbed her side. Not used to running, he figured. It took her a moment to catch her breath. “Thank you.” She raised her head, put one hand to her face. He stared back at her, eye to eye. “What’s your name?”
“Eager.”
“That’s an interesting name.”
He shrugged. “Technically it’s Edgar, but no one calls me that.” Edgar, Eager, Edgar, Ed. Charm called him Eddie.
“It’s nice to meet you, Eager.”
Eager waited, but she didn’t add anything more. He wanted to ask her own name, but he had a feeling she wouldn’t tell him. If Big Ed had been chasing him, he wouldn’t have told his name either. “What’d that dude want anyway?”
She lowered her head, grasped her upper arms with her hands. “I just needed to get away.”
“Hey, I hear that. Sometimes you just gotta drop everything and go.”
She looked at him sharply. He ducked his head. For a moment, he thought she might run off. He tried a smile. “He was pretty scary, wasn’t he?” She blinked at him, then relaxed and offered a thin smile in return.
“Yes, he was.”
He wondered if she knew his old man was a cop. Was that why he was chasing her? Had she done something, stolen something? Hurt someone? He wasn’t sure how old she was; not too old though. Young and pretty. Her eyes were soft and brown, and a little sad. For a moment they pulled him in, but then he felt himself blush and he dropped his gaze. Fixed on the “FFA 2000” stitched over the breast on her dark blue jacket.
“It’s from high school. I don’t know why I still wear it.”
“What’s it mean?”
“Future Farmers of America.” She shook her head. “My father made me join.”
“Yes.” She looked away, and her eyes grew troubled. “I used to.”
“You live in Portland now?”
“I just got here.”
“You want me to show you around?”
She seemed to think for a long time. He watched her look up the street, her eyes darting back and forth. Finally she turned back to him. “Do you know about a statue at the top of Tabor park?”
“Mount Tabor?”
“Yes, that’s it. Do you know where it is?”
He pointed over his shoulder at the tree-clad hilltop visible between a pair of apartment buildings. “That’s Mount Tabor.”
She followed the line of his gesture. Her mouth dropped open. “I’ve been looking at it all morning.” Her tone was bemused.
“There’s like a grassy area at the top with trees, and a statue at one end.”
“The Harvey Scott statue?”
“I don’t know. I guess. I never looked at it much. Some old guy.”
“You’ve been up there?”
“Sure. I take my board up there all the time. There’s some killer turns coming down.”
She looked up at the park. It wasn’t far. He could take her up there, show her the way to the top. Maybe she’d want the company. He could be like a guide, and maybe she’d want to be friends. She couldn’t be that much older than him, after all. His mom fucked men twenty years older than she was, so Eager could be friends with a girl who got out of high school a few years earlier. Weirder things happened.
But she had another idea. She gazed at the green Tabor crest, pulled at her lip. “That’s where I’ll find her.” Voice a whisper, a breath shaped like words. “Right there in front of me all along.” She lowered her hand, drew herself up. Her face relaxed.
“Thank you, Eager. I know the way now.” She bent and kissed him lightly on the cheek, lips soft and warm. A scent hovered around her, a strange musk accented with tea. He felt the blood rush to his face, felt another stirring further down. But she didn’t seem to notice. She smiled, then turned and walked away.
She left him under the hawthorn tree, his shoulders wet with rain and eyes alight with a fire freshly ignited. He watched her dwindle until all he could see was her dark hair framed in sunlight breaking through the clouds. He gripped his skateboard, knuckles white. A damp breeze tickled his neck. He headed for the fir green hill.