River Girl, a Kaija and heroine story
by Mali Schroeder
“Just climb up,” Kaija hissed at me. “You want to do this thing, don’t you?”
Trick question. Sure I wanted to spray paint the hell out of the billboard, but did I want to climb up the side of a three story building to do it?
Kaija was a rock climber. Meaning she’d go off on weekends and climb rocks. Not mountains, or anything; Minneapolis is a thousand miles from the nearest mountains. Just rocks. Or sometimes, not even rocks, just something called a “climbing wall” at the YWCA.
Anyway, she was my best friend. And maybe still is.
So when she said she was sure I’d have no trouble climbing up the side of a brick building, I believed her. “See,” she said, “when you get higher up there’s all that decorative brick work. The only hard part is the first story.”
She told me to keep the weight on the outside of my feet, which seemed dumb, but also seemed to work. She also let me use her bike to boost myself up onto this sort of covered entry way down past the loading dock even though it was closer to the street and we were more likely to be seen.
My bike wasn’t any good for that because it’s just a regular Schwinn. Kaija rides one of those tall bikes you always see out front at Critical Mass rides, where they weld together frames from two or three bikes, and ride around about ten feet up in the air. I always laugh at her when she climbs up and wobbles around, trying to get it moving, but it sure does come in handy when you want to get on top of a building.
The back half of the building was only two stories, and the front half was three. There was a ladder up to a third story window left from when there were apartments here, and then more of that sort of lattice brickwork that ran all the way up to the roof. When Kaija was on the ladder, I was looking up at her, and I could see the white of her thighs flashing above me. She was wearing knee high black combat boots, and a fringey skirt that she said would give her more mobility than pants, but she should have at least worn tights.
“I can see your thighs clear up to your butt,” I hissed to her.
“Well, quit looking,” she said.
“No, I mean you’re real visible. I think people can see you from the ground.”
She looked down. “There’s no one down there.”
No way was I looking down to double check. “Next time just wear all black, okay?”
“Just get up here,” she hissed.
So I climbed up. Getting from the ladder onto the window sill, and then onto the brickwork was harder than the actual climbing. When I got up where she could reach me, I let Kaija haul me up. Three stories up, I don’t care about looking cool.
We had three colors of spray paint with us. The billboard we were after was advertising a so-called gentleman’s club. We hadn’t done a billboard in a while—we’d been kind of laying low, since I was on probation for trespassing on federal property last time so-called President Bush was in town. But this billboard, with some giant leg in fishnet sticking out over the top, really got me. Me and Kaija both. We hate it when dismembered bodies are supposed to be sexy.
So we agreed we’d tag this one. Kaija was painting some political thing about women as objects, but I must have been high from my climb, because I just took the red, and painted a giant penis right over the name of the business. I was giggling, and singing too, I think. Kaija told me to shut up. She was too serious. I reminded her that she’s the one who started singing “Born Free” from a pedestrian bridge after we let out all the rats from the lab at the private school. She said that’s why she got caught that time, and she sure wasn’t interested in getting caught this time.
Neither of us wanted to get caught.
So I shut up, and she finished painting, and after she scanned the ground to see if anyone was watching us, or if there were any cop cars in the area, we went back over to the edge of the building for the climb down.
I made Kaija go first. She said she could help me better from above, but I said I wanted her to go first so I’d know it was really possible.
I was watching when she got over near the ladder. I should have noticed before then the dull glow coming out of the window. It was supposed to be deserted. We’d checked, and even though a hip-hop shop that went out of business still had some of their merchandise down in the first floor, the rest of the building was vacant. And there sure hadn’t been any light in that window when we’d climbed up.
I saw Kaija freeze in the same moment that I noticed the light. Then her face got this worried look, and she moved like a cat, dropping most of the way down instead of climbing. I panicked. I started pacing around on the roof. I don’t know what I was thinking—like maybe whoever was in there would leave, and I’d be able to get down unseen. Kaija was right up against the building in the shadow, gesturing to me. Neither of us said anything. I didn’t know how the hell I was supposed to get down without her talking me through it, but she gestured that I was supposed to breathe real slow, and then I figured, what the hell, even if I fell, it wasn’t that far.
I didn’t fall though. I managed to get over to where I could see the light spilling through the window right next to me. I know if it’s light inside, they can’t see out, but I still didn’t want to just step in front of the window. I kind of eased my head back so I could peek in.
I could see an blanket or towel or something was hanging part way over the window, like they’d tacked it up and it fell. And I could see a lamp with a bare bulb, but it didn’t look very bright, and there were pickle jars all over with funnels or something. No furniture, but a pile of blankets. A bunch of other junk too—an old canister like for the pop dispenser at a fast food place, and something that looked like a car battery, and other junk just strewn around. My friend Mona always says crystal meth’s is better than other drugs because it’s locally produced, so you’re not supporting terrorism by buying, but I think it’s a really tacky drug, and wouldn’t be caught dead using it. Still, I knew enough that when I saw all that junk in an abandoned building, I figured it had to be a meth lab.
There were a couple of people in there, both real skinny with stringy blond hair down to their shoulders. They looked pretty much alike, and both wore dingy flannel plaid jackets, but the one facing me was a woman and I was pretty sure the one facing away was a guy. They didn’t look happy—just from their posture, you could tell they were arguing. I figured that was good. It meant they’d be too focused on each other to look at the window. I figured I’d just sidle past the window, get down the ladder, and be out of there.
But then I glanced at the pile of blankets again, and there was a kid sleeping there. A little kid. Big enough to walk around probably, but still little enough to fall asleep where ever you plunk it down. Maybe four or five. A kid in a meth lab? That’s just wrong.
I was so mad I kind of flinched, like I was about to storm in through the window and rescue the kid, but I was standing on a ledge three stories up, so that didn’t work. I started to slip, yelled, and managed to grab the ladder. I sort of fell on it, jammed my knee, and stopped myself from yelling again. But it was too late—the guy must have heard me. While I was practically sliding down the ladder, he came and looked out the window.
He was shading around his eyes with his hands, and the woman came over and pulled the towel up over the window behind his head. We tried to stay in the shadows so they wouldn’t be able to see us, but there was a dull glow of light from the industrial park. I guess Kaija in her skirt and me with my pink hair didn’t look enough like cops—not even undercover cops—to scare them. They opened the window and the guy started yelling at us, something about ripping him off, and how he’d kill us if we came near him again. I was so scared I thought I’d crap. I looked up at him, and the rage on his face burned right into my eyes. We fled.
I got back down onto to that little entry way, and when I turned around to lower myself down onto the seat of Kaija’s bike, I couldn’t help one last glance up at the window. I saw the two figures silhouetted against the light, and then one of them moved, and now the light was shining right at my face, and I couldn’t see them at all any more. I let go and slid. My shirt rode up and the brick left bloody scrapes across my belly and chest, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to get out of there.
Kaija dropped down right after me, but more gracefully, like a giant spider in a mini skirt. Down on the ground, I had time to unlock my bike and get my helmet on, while she climbed back up onto her bike and wobbled off into the darkness. I followed behind, shouting out a reminder that she’d need to duck on the way out of the gate. She’d hit her head on the way in.
A couple days later I was at the pharmacy buying a sympathy card to console Bush on the demise of his popularity. I had just picked out a good one when the door opened, and another customer came in. I recognized him right away. It was the guy from the abandoned warehouse still wearing that tattered old flannel coat with his stringy blond hair hanging down over the collar. The kid was with him, dressed in a dirty Packers jersey that hung loosely from his shoulders displaying a grimy neck. I didn’t see the woman anywhere. I ducked out of sight. I wasn’t sure he’d recognize me, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. Not with what I had on the line.
A minute later I heard his voice sounding all tense, and carrying all the way across the store. I made my way back toward the counter, and heard the clerk telling the guy he could only buy one bottle of Sudafed at a time.
“We’re going on a trip, and we may not be able to buy anymore for a little while. We really need two bottles. You can see the kid’s sick.” As if on cue, the kid wiped his hand across his nose and then started playing with the Chapstick display.
“I don’t think kids that age are supposed to use much pseudoephedrine anyway,” the clerk said. He was probably 15, and he stumbled over the word pseudoephedrine. “A bottle this big will last you a couple of weeks.”
“Not if I get sick too,” the guy said. He was starting to get ticked, and I could tell the clerk was feeling threatened. “Just give me the two bottles, and we better have some cough drops too. My kid’s throat is sore.” The kid coughed on cue, too.
The clerk looked around one more time, as though hoping someone would come to his rescue, but the pharmacist was puffing on a Nicotrol and blabbing on the phone. He rang up the order, with a petulant scowl. I should have ducked back behind the nutritional supplements at that point, but my guard was down, and before I knew it, the stringy blond turned in my direction, and looked me right in the eye.
For a second he froze, and then he gestured at my yellow hair, and said, “I liked the pink better.”
I tried to think of a snappy comeback for about two seconds, by which time it would have been too late to be snappy anyway, but frankly, I liked the pink better too. Anyway, by then the guy had taken his kid and his Sudafed and walked out of the store.
Well after that, never was as soon as I wanted to see him again. Still, I worried about the kid. The war on drugs is filling our jails with destitute addicts, taking away any last shred of dignity or hope they might have, so normally I oppose any new “tougher penalties” legislation. If drugs were legal, methamphetamine would be produced in carefully controlled factories, and kids wouldn’t have to be breathing in all those toxic fumes at home. In the meantime, I’m not going to turn the guy in for child endangerment, or whatever the fancy name is for taking drug addicts’ kids away and giving them even less reason to recover. But still, I worried about the kid.
I don’t have a TV, and I don’t read corporate controlled newspapers, so I never would have seen the picture if I hadn’t gotten a job. I’m a Personal Care Attendant, and on that day I was working for this woman named Caroline. She’s blind, and I’m supposed to take her grocery shopping and stuff like that, but all she ever wants to do is watch TV and eat takeout from the Korean place on the corner. She wants me to describe the guests on talk shows, and tell her if she misses any action.
About a week or two after we painted the billboard, Caroline was flipping through channels and she stopped for a couple of seconds on the midday news. They were showing a sketch of a woman, and I had this delayed reaction, where a minute after she went on to the next channel, all of a sudden I said, “Hey, I know her.”
“Who? Which one?” She was on “Cops” by this time, and it didn’t seem to faze her that I might know one of the criminals. She was all excited.
“No, go back. What channel is the news on?”
She flipped back, but of course by that time, they were on to another story.
“There was a sketch, a police sketch or something, it must be a most wanted thing. Anyway, I don’t really know the woman, but I saw her once….” I stopped. Caroline didn’t seem bothered that I might know criminals, but even so, I couldn’t tell her I’d encountered a meth cook three stories up while fleeing the scene of my own crime.
“Was it that woman they found in the river?” she asked. I didn’t know what she was talking about, but it turns out she’d heard all about it on the morning news. “Somebody walking their dog down below the Lake Street bridge saw a body hung up on some rocks. They pulled her out a couple of days ago, but she didn’t have any ID with her. Who is she?”
“I don’t know. It’s probably not the same woman anyway, and even if it was, I don’t really know who she is. She’s just someone I saw one time.”
I tried to drop the subject, but Caroline wouldn’t let me. At least it distracted her from “Cops,” and I got her to go to the grocery store while we talked about it.
I called Kaija as soon as I got home, and told her all about it. She didn’t believe me that it was the same woman. I rode over to her house with the newspaper to show her the picture. Caroline had made me buy the paper at the grocery store and read the article to her, and describe the picture. As I was describing it, I got even more convinced it was the woman we’d. Blonde and twenty-ish they said, with “numerous small skin lesions.” That’s just their way of letting the public know she was a meth-head before the results of the autopsy come out.
“Well even if it’s her, what are you going to do about it?” Kaija asked. “It’s not like you know who she is. they’re looking for someone who can identify her, not just someone who caught a glimpse of her. And at the scene of your own crime, I might add, Probation Girl. Just drop it.”
I’m sure Kaija’s right that “maternal instinct” is a myth perpetrated by capitalists to prevent women from rising to power in our society. It’s also the name of her band. Nonetheless, when I suggested that poor kid might have to grow up never knowing what happened to its mom, she agreed we should at least try to find out if it was the same person. She’s such a softy.
We went back over to the building with the billboard on top. The billboard itself had been replaced with one picturing a couple of American Indians drinking cheap brandy. “I wish I had my spray paint,” I said.
Kaija always says now that our government can’t openly engage in genocide on our own soil, it’s up to the corporations to keep it up, so she agreed with me about tagging the billboard. “I could really go for some brandy,” she added.
We did the same thing we’d done before, climbing up using her bike, and then when we got onto the roof of the second floor, Kaija went up the ladder alone. She started out real surreptitious, peering in the window from an angle, then peering straight in, then finally she pulled out a flashlight that she’d stashed in her thigh-high black stockings, and shone it around. She looked down at me and shook her head, then gestured around at the other windows. She sidled over, and repeated the same maneuvers at each window but she never found them. The meth lab was gone.
Friday I was back at Caroline’s, where I was supposed to help her with her laundry. She had a mound of dirty clothes in her bathroom, spilling in front of the doorway. You’d think she’d trip over it, but she didn’t. I was planning to just watch her sort it, but she said she had some purple and blue t-shirts she’d gotten new and they would run all over her whites if I didn’t help her. Not that the whites were that white. Maybe her last PCA had mixed her colors.
While we were sorting, the TV was on in the other room. Caroline lets it blare all the time, so she can hear it all over the apartment. We heard a teaser for the evening news, something about a common household item that kills thousands of children a year. That’s usually a sign a of a slow news day. As though reminded by the ad, Caroline said, “They still haven’t figured out who that girl was. The girl from the river.”
“That’s too bad,” I said. I didn’t want to get into it.
“Yeah, I guess no one who knows her has come forward. She’s only about twenty, they said. Isn’t it sad that no one cares enough about her to notice she’s missing? She must have been a runaway, and her family’s just used to her being gone.”
“Yeah, that’s sad,” I agreed.
“They said today Hennepin County, with about a million people, has only had three unidentified bodies in the past decade, so statistics say they’ll find out who she was eventually. Still, you think about those other three people, makes you want to tattoo your social security number across your butt. I’ve never been popular, but I just want people to show up at my funeral, you know what I mean?”
I looked at Caroline, and it occurred to me I didn’t really know anything about her. I wondered what had happened to her family that she had to hire strangers to sort her laundry and even then end up with gray bras and t-shirts. For her sake, I decided I’d try a little harder to figure out who the girl in the river might be.
“Listen Caroline, I gotta run,” I told her, and I left her there sitting on the bathroom floor. When she figured out I was really going, she came out after me.
“Where are you going? Why are you taking off?” she called out to me. “What’s going on? Just tell me! If you tell me where you’re going, I’ll put a full day on your time sheet.”
Well, when it comes time to find a meth dealer, I have to admit, I don’t really know where to look. I thought about biking around over on University Ave. for a while, between the warehouse where I’d first seen them, and the pharmacy where the guy bought the Sudafed, but I didn’t really know what I was doing. I figured I’d better talk to Kaija.
I went over to the Collective Cafe, where she was working. It serves vegan food, and has a community garden in the back. They roast their own organic coffee beans, so it always smells smoky, even when no one is there, but this was lunch time, and the air was thick with cigarette smoke. My friend Mona, who always rolls her own, was there at the counter. She blew smoke at me as I approached. That’s pretty much how she says hello.
I leaned past Mona and told Kaija I needed to talk to her outside. “Okay, hang on. I’ll check with the kitchen,” she said. They decide everything by consensus, so that can sometimes take a while, but she came back surprisingly quick. Rafe, who was working as cook that day, is the guy who helped Kaija build her bike. She’s says there’s nothing going on between them, but you can tell he’s sweet on her, and even anarchists have to admit the cook rules the kitchen. So when Rafe said she could go, no one argued.
We went outside, and she was holding a clove cigarette. She doesn’t really smoke, but Rafe gives them to her, and then she carries them around for a while until they burn down.
“Listen, I really think we should try to find that guy,” I said.
She just looked at me, kind of irritated like, and for a second I thought she was honestly going to take a puff on the cigarette.
“Okay, if you’re not interested in him, then let’s look for the woman. If it turns out she’s alive, then no big deal.”
“What’s the big deal if she’s dead?” Kaija asked. “I mean, sure it’s a big deal to her, but what do you care? That’s one less person who can put you at the scene of a crime.”
“Well what about the kid?” I said, but Kaija wasn’t going to be swayed that way again.
“We tried, we failed. And maybe the kid’s better off. I mean what kind of mother takes a kid to a meth lab?”
“Okay, how about this,” I said. “How do we know the guy didn’t kill her? Remember, they were fighting when we saw them, and he was pissed as hell. Maybe he killed her, dumped her by the river, and the kid saw the whole thing, but is afraid to tell anyone.”
“You’re just making that up.”
She was right. In fact, Caroline said the medical examiner thought the woman “drowned while under the influence of an illegal substance.” But I knew once I said it, Kaija would have to help me. “You should have seen the kid at the pharmacy,” I told her. “He really is under his dad’s thumb.”
She threw her cigarette down and ground it into the soil with her heel, but it was just for show; she doesn’t litter any more than I do. After she picked it up, we went back inside to talk to Mona. Mona knows all sorts of people, so we thought she might be able to help.
She blew smoke at us again, and then listened while Kaija explained who we were looking for. She didn’t say anything for a minute, but then after she blew some more smoke, she said, “I tell you what. I know a guy, sells out of a hotel right over by your warehouse, and he keeps pretty good tabs on the neighborhood. Tell him you’re a friend of mine, and he might be able to help you out. But don’t,” and here she paused for another puff, letting the smoke trickle out really slow before she finished, “tell him how you happen to run across this guy. He doesn’t take kindly to vandals messing up property in his neighborhood.”
The hotel was a tall skinny building, with a tiny sign out front. I’d been by it a hundred times without ever noticing it. Mona had said we should wait outside, and her friend, who’s name was supposed to be Walter, was going to come out and find us. I went down to the corner and rode my bike around in figure eights in the parking lot. Kaija’s bike doesn’t corner so well, so she just propped herself up next to building with her foot on the mailbox for balance.
Finally I saw a guy out behind the building, kind of lurking, so I went over and asked if he was Walter. He said he was, but the way he leaned in and breathed Mad Dog 20/20 in my face, I didn’t think he could be quite the successful businessman Mona had told me about. He wouldn’t give me a straight answer on whether he had anything to sell, but that made sense, given we were talking about illegal drugs. I kept quizzing him, trying to pin him down on anything at all, when finally Kaija shouted to me to quit wasting time. I looked over and she was talking to this clean cut guy in Chinos.
I biked over and he shook my hand. “Hi, I’m Walter. Your friend thinks I might be able to help you out.”
I kind of stammered a bit, and looked to Kaija for help, but she just shook her head, and gazed off into the distance. It’s easy to look aloof when you’re ten feet off the ground. So finally, I said to him, “I heard you might be able to help me find a meth dealer.”
He shook his head, real politely and said no. “You must be mistaken. We run a very clean business here at the hotel. No drugs, no illegal activity of any kind.”
“No, I’m not looking for drugs, or illegal activity. I’m just looking for a dealer. A specific dealer. A blond guy. You see,” I was stammering away, but meanwhile he started walking down towards the parking lot. Kaija and I followed along. As he walked, he kept pointing off in the distance, like he was giving me directions. Once we got out of sight of the hotel, he started talking about his business. Turns out he sells just about anything you might need, from acid, to coke, to heroin. Even marijuana when he can get it. He said he doesn’t mess around with meth cooks in the city, preferring to deal with people outstate for some reason that wasn’t clear to me. “I’m getting a lot of my inventory straight from Fergus,” he told me proudly.
He said he knew of a guy who’d come to the Twin Cities recently from Wisconsin, and might have been working around the neighborhood. He thought there might have been a woman working with the guy, but he didn’t know anything about a little kid. He also didn’t know how to find the guy. “I bought some product from him a while back, when he first came to town, but he told me about some fire he set back in Wisconsin. Thought it was funny. I don’t need to be dealing with nobody like that.”
He said the guy’s name was Simmons, or maybe Stevens, and said if we went over south and looked for a guy named Jag on Chicago Ave., maybe Jag could help us out. Then he very politely reminded us of the clean business he was running, and suggested that the likes of us hanging around wasn’t good for property values. I tightened the chin strap for my helmet and we took off.
We didn’t feel like going over there that night, because there was an early concert over at the Seventh Stree Entry. Kaija sure got me up early the next morning, though. She was hoping we’d be done by noon so she could go climb something.
We rode over to the neighborhood where Jag was supposed to hangout. There were a lot of people hanging out, but I didn’t have any idea how we were supposed to know which one was Jag, and Kaija didn’t have any ideas either.
I biked up to a bunch of guys who were hanging out at a bus stop. There was a sign saying the bus didn’t stop there anymore, but they didn’t seem to mind. One guy reached out and knocked on my bike helmet. That’s another benefit to a tall bike like Kaija’s. I scowled at him, but I guess I didn’t look very menacing; he just laughed. So did all his friends. I told them who I was looking for, and they laughed some more. I gave up.
I started to pedal away, and one woman called out to me to ask if I had any money. “I just need a couple of bucks to ride the bus down town for a job,” she said. I stopped and told her if she really wanted to catch a bus, she should probably know they changed the routes.
“Did they really,” she asked, scratching her chin and staring off into space. At least she was staring into space with one eye. The other one was fixed firmly on my forehead. I got the feeling she already knew about the change in routes, but I handed her a couple of bucks anyway.
“You won’t be finding Jag riding around at nine in the a.m. asking for him,” she told me then. “You want to find him, try being subtle.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I told her.
“Well then go have some breakfast. Come back later.”
It seemed like a good idea. I told Kaija what the woman said, and she agreed. She didn’t want to go back to the Collective, because after she took off mid-shift yesterday, they’d probably rope her into doing dish duty. So we headed for Betty’s Cafe. We were too late for the early bird special; but full price for two eggs with potatoes, toast and juice is only 3.29, and that’s a deal that can’t be beat. We had about two pots of coffee a piece, tipped the waitress 80%, and left.
When we got back, the woman with the lazy eye was still sitting on the bench. She had a paper bag between her knees and she was giggling while two guys lurched around like they were demonstrating something, over and over again. Kaija and I biked past, nice and slow, but I didn’t stop; the guys kind of scared me, and truth be told, so did the woman. We got down to the end of the block, then circled, and started heading back. I pulled alongside of Kaija, and looked up at her. “What next?” I asked.
She gestured toward the old bus stop, and I saw that the guys were gone, and the woman was out in the middle of the street, teetering in our direction. An SUV with red LED lights around the bottom swerved to avoid her, the driver honking and swearing at her. Or maybe at me and Kaija. We were blocking traffic too.
Anyway, I stopped. The woman looked in my direction and said, “You still wanna talk to Jag?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Where is he?”
She turned and pointed down to the end of the block. The SUV had pulled over and the driver had gotten out. He was wearing baggy red pants, and had a matching bandana around his head. She spat on the ground at my feet, and lurched back over to her bench.
Jag strolled over. “That’s a nice bike your friend has,” he said. “Where she get a bike like that?”
I looked at Kaija, and saw that she was up on the sidewalk, executing her dismount. “She built it,” I told him. Kaija leaned her bike up against the building, and then the woman with the lazy eye started talking to her. Probably asking about the bike too.
“Built it, did she? I wonder why she did that. Is it that she likes the view? Or likes to be viewed?”
I didn’t want to get into a lengthy discussion about why people like tall bikes. “Are you Jag?” I asked him.
“I’m anybody you want.”
He reached out one hand and rubbed my handlebars. “This is a nice bike, too.” he said. “Where do you think I could get a bike like this?”
I ignored him. “I’m looking for someone, I heard you might know him. Skinny blond guy. Might be named Stevens. Used to cook meth over at a warehouse near University and 280. He was there a couple weeks ago; now I can’t find him.”
“You got some special reason you’re looking for him?” Jag asked, cradling one arm and looking down like he was cooing at a baby.
“Something like that,” I said. It was better than the truth.
“Is that right? And here I thought the two of you….” He looked from me to Kaija and back again, with a hungry leer. She was still standing there like she didn’t know me. I was ready to kill her.
I jerked the handle bars of my bike, but he didn’t let go. “So do you know him?”
“Skinny white guy. Is that what you told me? You think I don’t know a hundred skinny white guys? I’m supposed to throw one to the wolves without you telling me any more than that? You think I’m going to testify in court, narc?” He leaned toward me, getting his face right up next to mine.
“I’m not a narc, I’m just looking for someone for my own reasons. Stevens, maybe Simmons. Now can you help me out, or can’t you?”
“What if I could,” he asked. “What would you do for me?”
I jerked the bike out of his hands and walked away.
“2150,” he called out to me.
That got my attention. I turned back and looked at him, to see if he was going to follow that up.
“That’s the address, isn’t it? Only he’s not there anymore. And I’ll swear I never said that. 2280, 2420, 2830. Who around here could swear what number they heard me say? Hey?” he gestured around, but no one responded to him. “As a matter of fact, I think you dreamed the whole thing. So unless you’re going to take me in, you’d better get out of here.” He held out his arms to me, inviting me to cuff him.
“Look, I’m not a narc,” I said again. “I’m not a cop. How can I prove it to you? I’ll give you twenty bucks for some crank. There, now if I arrest you, it’s entrapment.”
“You got drug dealing mixed up with whoring.” he said. “But if you want to make me an offer down that road, I’ll listen.”
“No chance,” I said.
“Well what if I just gave you a little something in exchange for letting me watch the two of you?” He leered at Kaija again. “How about this? It’s a fifty dollar value.” He held up a little tiny vial that didn’t look like it would keep anyone high longer than five minutes.
“I don’t need to know that bad,” I said, and then I turned to Kaija. “Let’s go, this guy’s useless.”
I straddled my bike, while Kaija rolled her eyes, and climbed up onto hers. Jag let out a hoot that I guess was a laugh.
“Thank you, thank you ma’am,” he said once Kaija was on the bike, balancing with one boot propping her up against the bus shelter. “You have made my day. You truly have, and in exchange for that, I’m going to tell your friend what she wants to know. Your buddy Stevens. You’ll find him down at Loring Park. But not for long. I hear he’s going to be heading out of town. And now, if you will, give me the pleasure of seeing you ride away.”
Kaija and I pedaled over to the park. She whined a little about missing her climb, but she agreed we were on a worthy mission. I could see it was almost one, and I was supposed to be at Caroline’s. But she’d just be watching Judge Joe Brown, so she wouldn’t miss me.
The park was L-shaped, comprising three city blocks. We came in from the west, where a paved path led down past the park building to a polluted pond. Trees were growing right over the path, with branches hanging down over it. Kaija rode off onto the grass to avoid them, but I could see how hard she was pedaling. I got off and pushed my bike over to the bike rack by the park building. “I’m going to lock up,” I called out to Kaija. She jumped off her bike onto the soft grass, and then pushed it up against a tree.
There was a woman sitting on a bench by the bike rack with bright metallic braids. I’d just dyed my hair green and I was thinking some copper extensions would look cool, so I wanted to ask her where she got hers, but she flipped me off for looking at her, then whipped out a bright gold cell phone and turned her back on me.
I looked around the park, somehow imagining that Stevens would just be there, and we’d walk up to him…and then what? I was starting to realize that my plans were lacking detail. “Where should we start?” I asked.
Kaija looked around. “Do you want to split up or stick together?”
“Stick together,” I said.
We headed toward another little rise with a playground on top of it. There were about half a dozen little kids playing, and a couple of teenagers who I guess were keeping on eye on the kids, or at least some of them. I didn’t really pay attention at first, since we were looking for an adult, but after we got past, it hit me that if the kid’s mom was dead, his dad would be stuck dragging him around.
I grabbed Kaija’s arm and pulled her back toward the playground. Sure enough, there was the kid, still wearing a dirty shirt, and with a big streak of grime under his nose. I pointed him out to Kaija. “So are you going to go ask him where his Mom is?” she demanded of me.
“Sssh,” I whispered. “I’m not going to say a word to the kid. I just figured, where he is, his dad can’t be far away. Even if he’s making deals, he’ll have to come back and check on the kid.”
“Not likely,” Kaija said. She’s always been way more cynical than me.
We circled around the edge of the playground, staying far enough away that we wouldn’t look like child molesters. We didn’t see Stevens anywhere, but it’s a pretty big park, so that didn’t surprise me. While we were focused on scanning for him, some kind of fight broke out on the playground behind us.
When I first turned around it just looked like the usual chaos of a bunch of toddlers crying and hitting and trying to take each others toys. Even by that age they’ve all seen a million murders on tv, not to mention what some of them — like that Stevens kid — have no doubt seen at home. So they’re all pretty much inured to it. The teenagers who were supposed to be supervising walked over there, one of them screaming, “Kristeen, if I find out you started this, I’m going to whup you good.”
But I don’t think Kristeen was the one who started it–in fact, so far as I could tell, she wasn’t even a part of it. Most of the kids on the playground weren’t really involved. They were just having hysterics in sympathy with the real fight.
The Stevens kid was behind the slide with another little kid, a girl, I think. He had grabbed her by the back of the neck, and shoved her face down in the sand. She was the one kid out there who wasn’t screaming–she was trying to, but the face full of sand stopped her.
I ran over there and planted myself in front of them, and shouted, “Stop it!” in my best commando voice. The kid was startled–he didn’t exactly obey me, or let go of the girl, but he loosened his grip and she took off, running like mad toward the park building. He started after her, but Kaija ran up and we worked as a team to block his way until he started punching my legs. Man that kid had some mean fists. But there was something else I’d noticed while he was trying to get away. The dirty neck I’d noticed back at the pharmacy had turned kind of green and yellow, with a new purple mark in the middle. It wasn’t a dirty neck at all; it was a bruise.
Kaija got down closer to kid-fist level, and was repeating the phrase, “No more hitting,” over and over again. We’d learned at a Mob Control seminar that quiet repetition is the best way to get someone’s attention. Meanwhile the kid started babbling like mad–mostly incoherent stuff that I couldn’t really hear because of Kaija’s quiet repetition and the teenagers swearing at us and telling us to keep better control of our kid.
But something he said registered. Something he said to me about how he was going to put a stop to my bull shit once and for all, kind of linked up with how he’d told that girl he’d let her up when she was ready to shut up, and that linked up with the bruise on his neck, and I started thinking about where would he learn that kind of stuff, and how did his mother die. Because by now I was beyond certain that she was his mother, and beyond certain Stevens had killed her. Drowned her right in front of their kid.
“Kaija.” I had to repeat her name a couple of times to get her attention. She was starting to explain to the kid why violence is wrong. “Kaija, leave the kid alone. Just let him go back to his slide.” I gestured at the kid to continue what he was doing. He stuck his tongue out at me, called me a name I didn’t understand, and then went over and started kicking the playground equipment.
I started to tell Kaija what I thought happened. At first she dismissed what I was saying, but when I said, “I think the guy really did kill her. I think he drowned her at home, and then dumped her body in the river,” she was ready to listen.
“You really think he killed her? I thought you were just making that up before.”
“I was,” I told her. “But now–well you saw the way that kid acted.”
Kaija’s face had taken on that look she gets when she’s about to confront injustice. “Where the hell is that bastard?” She stormed off, down the hill towards the pond, which was mostly hidden from view behind a bunch of shrubbery. I believe her attitude was what they call “half cocked.”
“Kaija, you idiot, get back here,” I shouted. We needed a plan.
She stopped and waited for me to catch up.
“Listen, let’s think this thing through. I don’t think we should chase this guy down, and go accusing him of murder. We got nothing on him, and he could easily kill us.”
“Bullshit, there’s two of us,” Kaija said. “We’ll take him out easy.”
“Yeah, unless he whips out a gun,” I said.
“If he has a gun, why’d he drown her?” she asked rhetorically.
I know the justice system in this country is fucked up; I know prison dehumanizes, and ultimately breeds more violence. But maybe, just maybe, this was a guy who needed to see the inside of a jail cell. “Kaija, do you think this one might be a job for the police?” I suggested, but she ignored me. And rightly so; I couldn’t believe how close I was to selling out my convictions.
Just then, she spotted Stevens. “That’s him, right?” she asked. I hesitated, and she scowled at me, shaking her head dismissively, before she started running down the hill. “Hey, Skinny Boy. Get over here! I got some things to say to you.”
I watched her go, but it was too much for me. Political beliefs, probation, fear of cops aside, this was the first time I’d ever been face to face with a man who would kill with his bare hands. And I thought he should go to jail. While Kaija went at him, I turned back and ran to the park bench where the gold-haired woman was still sitting. I told her it was an emergency and she swored at me some more, but gave me the phone. I dialed 911.
The dispatcher wasn’t going to assign a high-priority to a call saying there was a drug dealer in Loring Park. Explaining that this was a drug dealer who also abused his child didn’t help; the woman asked if the kid was being beaten right at that moment, and since I had to say no, she started to give me the number for Child Protection Services. I interrupted to tell her I thought the guy had killed his girlfriend too. “Or maybe his wife, I don’t know. But that woman they pulled out of the river last week. He killed her.” She clearly thought I was making it up. I started jogging back across the park, trying to explain as I ran, but the dispatcher just told me she needed to keep the line open for real calls. I hung up. Kaija was right that justice isn’t free for the asking.
I called back a few minutes later though.
When I got closer I could see that Kaija’s confrontation had escalated to a physical fight. She and Stevens were on the grass now, rolling around like high school wrestlers. She outweighed him by a good twenty pounds, and she was strong, but he had better moves. She had him pinned when I first came into view, but I think he was just catching his breath. Then he moved like a snake, and she went down. She slipped away from him, and was crouching, backing toward the path, as though she was going to make a get away, but I could see her lips moving and I knew she was still taunting him.
I shouted and ran over; we’d be two against one even if I was smaller and a less experienced fighter. Kaija heard me and looked up; Stevens took the opportunity to dive at her. He dragged her to the water’s edge and pushed her face down under the water. I heard him, when I got closer saying, “Is this what you think I did?” Then I ran at him and tried to knock him away from her. He teetered, and almost lost his balance, but I knew I was no good as a fighter. Besides, I think I might be a pacifist.
I ran back to where I’d dropped the phone, and called 911 again, while Kaija shouted, “You idiot! Help me!”
I told the 911 operator, “I bet if you talked to the medical examiner, you’d find out the body had bruises on the back of her neck. Well my friend has those same bruises, and so does this guy’s kid. You better get a squad car over here pronto.”
“Get off damn phone, he’s going to kill me,” Kaija was shouting.
I held the phone up so the dispatcher could hear as I went over there and kicked Stevens in the back of his knee. Okay, maybe I’m not exactly a pacifist. It turns out to be a complicated issue.
The cops came quicker than I would have expected. Kaija and Stevens both took off, but they both got caught, and Kaija was arrested for fleeing a police officer. I tried to make it up to her by confessing like mad to everything I could think of, from trespassing and vandalism over at the warehouse to soliciting drugs from Jag. But of course I didn’t have any drugs on me, and the cops said they couldn’t really see any point in arresting me. Later, after they checked the phone records on the gold cell, they came back and questioned me about what I imagine to be the golden haired woman’s illustrious career–but I clearly didn’t know anything at all, so they left.
Caroline was pretty pissed at me for taking off mid-shift and then skipping work all together the next day. She told me she should have known she’d never be able to trust a PCA, and she called the agency to recommend I be fired. But after I told her the whole story, maybe embellishing my role in the final fight a little, she relented, and when she heard that Stevens was arrested for murder partly on my say-so, she put an extra four hour shift on my time card. In the end he pleaded to manslaughter.
The Stevens kid was sent home to Wisconsin. His mother’s parents wouldn’t take him, so he’s being raised by his paternal grandparents–the same ones who raised his abusive, murdering drug dealer of a father. And so the cycle continues.
And Kaija? She called Rafe from the jail house; he dropped out of law school a couple of years ago, but he knew a guy who agreed to represent Kaija for free. She was released the next day, and all charges dropped. You’d think she’d be glad about how it all worked out. All her rantings about the corrupt corrections system have extra validity now that she’s been on the inside for a night. Plus her bike was stolen from the park, which gave her a chance to spend time with Rafe building a new one.
But she’s still mad at me.
We might work things out though. When I called her yesterday to tell her about the new O’Reilly Factor billboard that went up on Universtiy Ave. over the weekend, all she said was, “So should we hit it at 3?”