Rudy, she told me to find Rudy.
The trail is dotted with puddles that are too deep to step into. They look like tiny oceans, coated with a thin viel of oil. The day is now, whatever day it happens to be. It has rained the past few nights and none of our make-shift homes were excluded from the carnage that the dabbling, dribbling sky leaves in its wake. The trail smells of all the things humans do and then hide that they’ve done. The trail is filled to the brim with heartache and piss.
Rudy.
Here I am, again, on the precipice of something, but what exactly I can’t say. My life has branched out in so many different directions, I need to find the one that it is meant to be on, the correct branch, I reassure myself that this is an attainable task.
But for later.
Right now all I can focus on — all I can think about — is finding that feeling which I feel like feeling right now. Every tiny sensation is pushed inside of itself and I am a single bundle of nerve endings, flowing through the undergrowth of the branches and in and out of vines and the trash and the tarps and the blood and shit.
My vision narrows, and I can see tears pooling at the end of Lucia’s ears, her hair clinging together in clumps. Has she been next to me this whole time?
Lucia has no eyebrows, so she draws them on. I don’t know how I met her, but she knows me and I know her. She tells me that her boyfriend burnt down her tent. In a hushed, Mexican accent, she tells me how he gets when he doesn’t have meth or cigarettes. She shows me the bruises, the scratches, and the burn marks, brushing away her tears, like she’s mirroring my own. I am crying, too. The sadness is unimagineable.
I try to imagine Kody’s pale blue eyes, to remember home —
What day is it?
I am outside of the big shelter where so many of the broken men rest their feet. This is the shelter up the street from the lumber yard, the one where stoic Mexican men wait outside for today’s work. I am waiting with Lucia, beautiful Lucia, her face is bruised and her lips are twisted with pain. Along the trail again, I smell burning trash before I see the fire — and blood. Blood running down my wrists, is it mine?
Lucia is crying. Her tears mix with mud.
I shake my head, these are mere distractions: I’m on my way to meet Rudy.
Everything is outside, even when you are inside. Outside, there is grime. Inside there is grime. Grime and trash. My finger nails are never clean but neither is my conscience. This is a space entirely occupied by the maladjusted and the anxiety of it all hangs densely in humid overgrowth. I’m surrounded by so much pain —pain and trauma all squished into the tiny space between the needle’s point and your vein, running red, just under your dirt-stained skin.
Do you smoke? Here are some rigs, it’s all for Rudy, is he home?
If you take a peek, just under the footbridge, there lies the world beyond the Good Suburban Upbringing. Where are the children? There is no sign but all the same I swear I can make out the words No Children Dwell Here scratched on a tree trunck.
My eyes dart across the empty plane of the ground. I spot a patch of tin foil, stained with the trails from the man who chased away his demons in a hale of smoke. I feel a sense of familiarity. Our name is Caleb and we have not slept in over a week. His dreams dance on the cement, evoking patterns I never knew existed. I see the sores gathering on my arm, blood blisters from missing the vein, from popping the skin. The blood it drips pretty red lines along my clear, clean skin. But Caleb’s skin is scarred and blemished. Caleb and I, we’ve chased those demons again and again and yet they seem to find us dancing closely under the big, bright moon.
What’s his name?
I am Caleb?
No,
I’m looking for Rudy.
Now the crazy mexican man with the long beard dances with ghosts in the parking lot. He always finds himself here, tells me his name is Ralfo. Screaming in joy and in agony he runs with things no one can see but himself.
“Lucia?” he says, “Lucia, qué estás haciendo aquí?”
I am Maddie,
but its no matter
his spectral foxtrot is leading him into the next dimention and now Ralfo is so far away. I wave, hurriedly, goodbye to him, as the ambulance blares off into the blocks ahead. I get the sense that his wild eyes have closed forever.
Rudy, I need to find the man called Rudy. I ask the bald white man with the soars on his face, Have you seen him?
He turns, solemnly, and I see now that what I thought was the bald white man was only a chalk drawing on the sidewalk. No — on the trail. I never left the dusty, muddy, dirty trail.
There is the handsome one, the boy I want to marry, his name is Miguel and his smile is so beautiful. Why are you so dirty, Miguel? I go to wipe his face, of the dirt, You can make me whole, I tell him. His lovely smile fades from my vision. I am still standing knee-deep in this puddle.
I am so sad. Just then I remember, I am going to Rudy’s! There are no troubles that cannot be left behind, we will simply forget them all.
Shorty is peering from between her tarps, she looks out with sad eyes hardened with the loss of her baby. Story goes that she was still walking the streets with her head held high even when she was nine months pregnant, homeless and helpless, turning tricks.
Shorty goes by Shorty because she is short and stout with brazenly dyed orange hair. She doesn’t smile, but her eyes do, occasionally. She tells me that she will call me her cousin, and she does.
I bend down to meet her eyes, I am looking for a sack, please, where is Rudy?
Shorty points, silently. Shory’s old man is named Zack, and he is right next to her. Zack stays still, his own naturally red hair dancing with electricity bolted from the thin little needle directly into his arm.
Meth-am-phet-a-mine, I pantomime gleefully, and Zack’s loving nod leads a bolt from his arm to mine. I am moon-walking above the puddles, everyone is here for the party, and it is mine!
White lines all lined up, I gladly inhale them from the dirty cooler, it says “igloo” and it has been in the mud for a long time. Just like the people living along the trail.
I keep walking, because what else ought I do? I stroll past the tiny kingdom of dirt and trash, one which I recognize. Spraypainted on the tarp is a warning, I think, but its splayed in some language I can’t read, in letters I can’t discern. I stare blankly at it for a moment before I see another familiar face, enveloped in darkness, shrouded in the shadow. The Norteño named Martine stares up from his palace, but upon second glance it is only a box and its not larger than a coffin. Another day, once before, he sold me some pink powder and now we look knowingly at each other. I saw him outside of the wooden box the other day and i did not recognize him without a dark shadow casted over his face. I know this, somehow, all the same. I yell at Martine, Come out, I’m headed to Rudy’s!
He comes out into the Sunlight, as the puddles sparkle beautiful shades of colors we had never known before today. Hello, Martine! I am surrounded by people. They all gather, pointing down the road — they’re all ushering me to Rudy’s tent.
I look down to fasten my shoelaces, but my shoes have dissipated into the mud and I’m barefoot. My toes ache and the wet ground sloshes between my toes. I can see the burning, a fire, past the bend, Where is Lucia? Is she okay? It’s too late, I’m overwhelmed with direction. I’m heading to Rudy’s — Yes, Rudy’s! We’re all skipping along a trail of swamp water, We’re running with glass shards in our feet, smiling and laughing because we are all so pleased at the loss of feeling in the back of our brains.
I hear music, and it’s coming from a tent down the way. It’s Rudy’s, I know it’s his music, and we are all coming.
Hello, Rudy? I am here.
Is it Monday?
I walk into Rudy’s hazy tent as the old man’s eyes rolled back in his head. Next to him is a young, tan, blonde man and he’s pushing the plunger directly into Rudy’s arm, an act so intimate that I instinctively blush. The young man with the needle in his hand is named Nick and he is missing many teeth yet he smiles all the same. The vinegar-scented smoke from the black soup spoon hangs suspended in the humid tent. It is a tent propped up by poles and liquor bottles.
We’re all trapped in this alternate universe from you, from Kody’s blue eyes, we are speaking of sales, sails, pimps and prices to the only means we’ve ever found to ease the pain, to be whole.
Rudy’s head has been recently shaved, and there is a single down feather stuck to the stubble which rings around his skull to calculate the distance from his bold spot. His wife-beater is worn and ragged, and his skin is grey with age. I can see absesses on his arm, and I watch how slowly he moves. I wait with baited breath as Rudy’s eyes roll toward me.
“What are you looking for?”
I take a deep breath, and
Suddenly, I am awake.
