Crystel sees Amaryllis.
“He likes it,” she says, heading off judgment. Amaryllis comes closer, mesmerized. Dennis the Phantom Menace looks at her and laughs. Fuck me! he says. Crystel laughs. Fuck me! says Crystel, laughing and grinding anew. Shangg is laughing too. They all watched Jilbo’s porn tapes. Fuck me! Fuck me! say Crystel and Dennis. Fuck my juicy pussy with that fat white cock! My pussy is so wet! Make me come! Can you make it come? Make my pussy come! As Amaryllis backs out, Crystel grabs the dildo from Shanggerla, rusty with blood, and shoves it in herself. Like a tagged wrestler she scampers to the boy, pinning and laughing and sucking—
Out! — through the driveway, under cover of shivering trees, hugging the shore of lawns and bushes as she goes, choking and crying. The main road looms. Winds up beside the trash bin of Kanyon Korner Mart. She thinks of Topsy standing beside her that morning at the bakery — Topsy! The very name makes her yelp in the chill air. A car parks and a teenager gets out.
Amaryllis hears her own voice: “Excuse me, miss, but do you know the time?” The girl looks at her as if she’s mad. “Nine-thirty.” Amaryllis thanks her. Chest is burning and she has to pee; a low wave of pharmacological inertia washes over … She thinks of asking the girl for money when she comes out; maybe she’ll go in after her. Jolts awake: what if Jilbo’s shopping inside? Or Mrs. Woolery! She begins to run — yelping and crying, toxins excreting through hot tears, straight down the middle of the brightly lit boulevard. Anyone could see her: any cop or concerned citizen … even Earlymae. She was convinced that woman didn’t sleep and spent the night trolling the streets for children, ricocheting between residential homes.
Amaryllis felt superhuman as she ran, like the day she fled the St. George; maybe the earth would give way and she’d fly off into space. Her shadow overtook her body, and she wished she were back with her mother, who after all this would now surely mend her ways! Topsy would take them to the special part of the rescue mission reserved for single women with children, and they’d have turkey and gravy and pomegranate pastries. She was sure that if the postulator of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints could see her run, he would favorably assess her worthiness; she would slowly ascend, walking on starry black air just as Jesus walked on water—that would be the miracle to beatify her. Secretum meum mihi …
Then a shape bulleted toward her from across the street, grunting freakishly. Its trajectory was certain, but the thing itself uncoordinated, like a sack filled with tomcats falling from a bridge. Numb with terror, Amaryllis ran off the highway and up a hill, but the thing pursued and she was no match. It tackled her, and she screamed as it gurgled, lurched and spat into the air, holding her to its big, dirty bosom so she couldn’t breathe.
It was Jane Scull who held her down.
†In this regard, Mrs. Woolery’s expertise was such that she had no use for that of others. It’s a fair certainty her present boarders began their extirpation long ago; and can even be said without overdramatizing that the boy Dennis, sometimes disparagingly called “D-Rate” by Mrs. Woolery, after the code for special-needs children — and who would live ten years beyond this writing — was already dead.
CHAPTER 18. Little Girl Lost
The orphan stopped struggling.
After a few smelly, apocalyptic moments, Jane Scull gripped Amaryllis’s shoulders and held her away, the better to scrutinize; having discerned no damage done, she kissed the girl’s crown and fussed over her, snowcapped whiteheads glistening with tears and perspiration.
But Amaryllis did not find her rank — no: Jane Scull was merely one of the tribe, the underground railway of lumbering misfits to whom the girl felt entrusted. She was certain the saints had similar helpmates, making sure this was noted with proper humility so as not to get puffed-up. Topsy and Jane were her people, rough and elemental as the earth itself, with hearts the size of moons: circus types, raucous, itinerant acrobats of superabundant poise and poignance and avoirdupois, grand grotesques shot through with cathedral light — thrones and seraphim, eccentric angels of virtue, stamina and spirit.
Jane Scull took the girl’s hand and power-walked into the night, singing an indecipherable song. They arrived at a bus shelter and she dispatched Amaryllis to its recesses. Then Jane stood alone, waiting. Whenever a car would pass, her protectress deftly pivoted, blocking the child from view. Amaryllis shivered and stared at the movie ad encased in the shelter’s foggy frame: scratched by graffiti, the pigtailed girl wore a mustache, and swastikas were carved onto her sheepdog companion’s coat. It made her think of Boulder Langon — in fact, it was Boulder Langon. But Amaryllis didn’t have the energy to fully conjure those faces, or that famous afternoon.
The bus was empty when it arrived. Jane Scull led them to the middle. She ticked off significant streets as they drove, guttural and slurred, enraptured: Pennsylvania became Ensilanee! Montrose On Nose! Verdugo Errugo! La Cañada Ahkahnahduh! San Fernando Anurnanoh! — then Avenue 26 and Figueroa and suddenly WHOOSH on the archaic Pasadena and Amaryllis too knew the exhilaration of her own magical mystery tour. It was even a revelation that buses traveled on freeways.
Close to midnight, they alit on Chinatown. Jane Scull moved quickly now and without regard to the girl she had rescued. Her gait was fluid and her strides so huge Amaryllis imagined her on Rollerblades; before long, as in her dream of Topsy, she ran after but failed to catch up. The quiet drizzle became a downpour and the child involuntarily squealed with the sensation she was again going to be left behind (but this time, no baker). Like a movie rewound, they strode — or rather Jane Scull strode while Amaryllis scrambled and faltered — past the very landmarks by which Topsy had carried her scant days ago, though by now time was a jumble. Her chest heaved like a failing engine as they passed the Central Heating and Refrigeration Plant, but this time the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels brought no saints to bear.
In the middle of Temple Street, Jane Scull turned and waited for the girl. Then she clasped her once more. “Anku!” she cried, heaving with sobs. “Anku Amuhwiss!”
She kissed Amaryllis’s cheek, then ran off.
The orphan watched this uncaged creature berserk with freedom, head bent to sky, gummy sea lion maw wide open, pelted by the filthy, exorbitant rain, dizzy, gamy and exalted. There are other circuses, she thought, whispering good-bye — for that is where she imagined her friend to be headed. Circuses and caravans, with elephants marching tail-to-trunk … Jane Scull was rapidly receding so the girl raised her voice: Good-bye! Good-bye! Good-bye good-bye good-bye—whole body trembling with emotion. Her organs felt sludgy and her mouth tasted like blood and metal, liverish from Mrs. Woolery’s Rx.