Inhabited. Charlie Quimby
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bought cars as soon as they could.
Isaac waited outside Sylvia’s office. Sylvia Tell was the Day Center director. Toward all her fallen guests she was skeptical and stern but ultimately forgiving, the way Isaac hoped God would turn out to be. When it was his turn, she gave him the look. Everybody knew it—one-third smile, one-third sour, one-third oh, come on now.
“I haven’t seen you here for a while,” she said. Her eyebrow stayed suspended and she folded her arms, turning the statement into a question. It was a trick of hers, like shining a bright light into your eyes. You were supposed to say something to make it go away.
“I lost my job and my camp over the Fourth,” he said.
“Check over at Outreach.”
“I’m looking for a place, not a case worker.”
“Well, forget anywhere on the river. It’s not like it was. The Point’s gone. Las Colonias is next and they’ll keep on going. You can’t drift along any more. You have to make a plan, and I don’t mean one of them Isaac Samson connect-the-dot-fate-of-the-universe plans. I mean for your own life. You’ve got to listen to others sometimes.”
“I hear others plenty.” That was a big part of the problem.
Sylvia did not care to hear from her guests about the system, bad chemistry, misfortune, poor upbringing or a lousy economy. She listened to a loving and all-knowing God. That made her world simple and the solution to other people’s problems plain. She didn’t have to deal with a flypaper brain, everything sticking where it landed. She heard a Bible verse and made it mean what she wanted. When Isaac walked down the street, he might hear a stop sign, Ronald Reagan and a stranger’s dog speaking at once. How was he supposed to make plans when he knew that radio station was still plugged into his head? The world already thought he was a loser. How many failed plans before he proved worthless to himself?
Sylvia was speaking to him about being grateful for each day he was given. He was grateful for a day he did not explode. “I’m stating the facts of my situation.”
“What you believe are the facts. Your belief in a fact does not make your belief factual.”
He could feel Sylvia about to Sylvia him, tie him in knots with his own rope. Sometimes he liked trying to escape but today he was not in the mood. Today he just wanted to find a safe place to sleep.
“So you still plan to go it alone?” she said. Sylvia had earned a doctorate in bullshit from years of bartending and she could read his mind about eighty percent of the time. “Then talk to Rudy Hefner. Him and his new girlfriend were in yesterday. They found a two-bedroom in Vegas, nine hundred square feet, only four hundred a month—and she’s paying half.”
Sylvia’s expression remained neutral, but it was not hard to imagine what she thought of that plan. Hefner was a big-bearded blowhard. His appearance at the Day Center meant his Gold’s Gym Groupon had expired and he needed a shower. He claimed to live off a trust account he’d set up with his earnings from an Alaskan fishing boat. It paid him enough never to work again, provided he found a woman with low self-esteem who would put him up when the weather turned cold. Spring through fall he retired to a box canyon hideout that everyone except Hefner called The Mansion. The Mansion was concealed amid rock fall on Park Service land and had somehow evaded detection by the rangers, which Hefner took as confirmation of his superiority and the general incompetence of the feds.
Isaac said he would think about it. He would rather find the place on his own.
He checked his mail on the way out. A Social Security form letter. A fundraising appeal from the hospital foundation. A cable company promotional mailing. A standard postcard stamped in red: Please Forward. If undeliverable or unclaimed after 60 days, return to sender. His mother had actually made a stamp so the forwarding looked official. Her handwritten message on the other side was invariably the same: Pray you are well. M
He signed for each piece and dropped them in the trash.
Despite so many homes on the market, buyers can’t find what they want.
—“Home” with Meg Mogrin, Grand Junction Style
A text buzzed in from Eve Winslow:
So sorry to stand you up. Coffee? Stop by shop at 10AM.
Meg arrived at ten knowing the shop might not yet be open. Mariposa, like everything in Eve’s life except the start of City Council meetings, operated on Winslow Standard Time. She would say, I’m a bird not a plane. In other words, clock time was an imposition upon natural forces like Eve Winslow.
Meg waited on an outdoor bench for the bird to land. The morning was pleasant, the street too quiet for shopkeeper comfort. A fountain splashed on the corner, and the trees along the promenade rippled with a promising breeze. A man with a covered cup of coffee came out of the bagel shop across Main and circled the patio, testing the metal chairs for stability, adjusting the umbrellas, sitting, rising, moving from table to table, finally selecting a seat. Slim and tan, with slicked-back hair tucked behind his ears, he might have passed as a beach bum if he were not so overdressed in a wool shirt, lined windbreaker and topcoat. He extracted a book from his daypack and dropped a fistful of sugar packets on the table.
Eve burst out with a bright blue Mariposa shopping bag in hand. Pressing fifty, Eve shared the high end of a decade with Meg but passed for a woman of the next generation. Too plump to dress from her own shop, she wore its finer accessories. Her short feathered and frosted hair made grey seem her lifelong color.
“God, I heard you were down there. You must be out of your mind! Amy Hostetter’s in a coma. The best I can say is, the police have two suspects. It doesn’t matter who they are. The headline’s Woman cop assaulted by bums in city park. My voicemail is already full of calls screaming bloody murder, demanding we drag every vagrant out of town or shoot them on the spot. How’s the house tour coming?”
They crossed the street to the bagel shop and passed the beachcomber, who was marking pages in a thick red notebook with empty sugar packets. A blue yoga mat jutted from the pack between his feet, which were clad in immaculate white leather sneakers that seemed sizes too large for his thin frame. His eyes, striking against his mahogany skin, were nearly the same Caribbean color as the mat. Catching Meg looking, Eve rolled her eyes.
“What have you got against Yoga Man?” Meg asked when they were inside.
“Yoga? Honey, please tell me you’re kidding. You’ve been on the Homeless Coalition for months.”
Yes, and she was in sales, after all, supposed to be able to read people, but she had been practicing trying not to judge.
The bagel shop had absorbed adjoining buildings as its success grew, while it retained features from previous incarnations. Furniture was mismatched, the walls decorated with a combination of local art, antique kitchen utensils and unplayable stringed instruments. It felt like a place where patrons could donate a beloved but runaway houseplant, and it hummed with the prospect of running into someone you knew.
Eve chose a table in the corner with a clear view of the entry. “Where do I even start? This attack came at a very bad time. The town is already up in arms about the parks being taken over. I’ve got council members who believe parks themselves are a drain on the city—property permanently off the tax rolls, ongoing maintenance costs, serving only a handful of citizens, most of them hippies and derelicts.”
“Hippies?”
“Not my word. Anyone who hangs out, throws a Frisbee. You know, people who like to walk. Anyway, it’s not as if our long-range plan for Las Colonias has gone anywhere. The city’ll spend dribs and drabs, but not enough. Funding to make it a true community asset has to come from outside—state gaming funds, tourism grants, environmental dollars—none of which goes to projects people are fighting over.”
Eve snapped a biscotti and dunked a half in her Americano. “Zack Nicolai was with you yesterday, wasn’t he?”
“Zack was