Was today the day I was going to die?
I looked outside of my car window at the snow swirling by. It wasn’t the blizzard of 1978, but it was looking like it was darn close.
Twisting the key in the ignition, I started the car again. Turned the heater on full blast and waited for warm air to push out the cold in the cabin. I’d have kept it on, but the gas gauge was getting pretty close to the E.
I crawled through the seats and to the bench in the back. Scooted into my sleeping bag and hoped I’d make it until morning because I was out of alternatives. None of the Cooleys were speaking to me. My friends from high school were getting married and having kids and no longer seemed to appreciate me showing up to crash on their couches.
Despite the cold, I must have dozed off because someone knocking on the window startled the hell out of me. I couldn’t see through the fogged-up glass on the inside or the snow on the outside, but I knew my time was up. I was in the little parking lot by Madison Park in Lakewood. No one would have bothered me if I’d tucked my Ford Fairlane into a spot in Lakewood Park, the bigger one by the water. But the arctic breeze off Lake Erie made it feel at least ten degrees colder over there.
I rolled down one of the back windows a crack. “I’m leaving, okay,” I said to whatever police/security guard was tasked with keeping the park free from people like me.
Before I could roll the window back up, the knock came again. That woke me all the way up. Being a woman out here alone was the worst. Either some messed up guy would want to hole up with me in here—I wasn’t desperate or cold enough for that—or they’d somehow try to trick me to get me outside to steal the car or whatever I had. I’d hoped the weather would keep all those sketchy people inside. Maybe I’d been wrong.
I rolled down about an inch farther.
“Gimme a second, please. I’ll move for sure.”
The person, a man about my age, brushed some snow from my window. “Do you have anywhere to go?”
His brown eyes were filled with nothing but compassion. Chilled, I was both curious and wary. I shivered now, half out of my sleeping bag and with cold air replacing the warm.
“I was just going to go to Edgewater Park, probably,” I answered truthfully, figuring because he was black that he was the kind of guy who would understand my plight. “The rangers usually forget to close the gate by Whiskey Island.”
After the truth came out, I tried to size him up. Lots of curly hair poked out from under a ski cap. The why of him being here was the missing element.
“You want to stay at my place?” He jerked a thumb somewhere behind him. “It’s a blizzard, yo. No one needs to be out here.”
“Umm…” I debated hard in my head. If I weren’t half frozen to death, I wouldn’t have ever considered his offer. I may not have made it to Bryn Mawr, but I wasn’t stupid.
“Look, I know it’s not exactly kosher on most days, for me to ask this, okay? But it’s getting bad out here. It doesn’t seem like it happens in America, but every year someone freezes to death in Cleveland. It’s always in the back of the paper in tiny print.” When I didn’t say anything, he sighed, breath a ball of mist in the air. “I’m not some rapist or murderer, I promise.”
If I’d learned anything in the last seven years since Dad had kicked me out, it was how to judge other people’s character. A wrong move out here on the streets of Cleveland could get me hurt or killed. There were a lot of things I hated about my life. Missing my high school graduation. Not going away to college in Pennsylvania. The fact that neither Tyisha nor Wayne were speaking to me right now. That I didn’t have any real friends anymore. But I didn’t have a death wish, either.
“C’mon,” he said. “I know you want to.” Of course, right then, a gust blew snow everywhere, including into the car the moment the words left his mouth.
“Where do you stay?” I asked.
“Across the street, actually. That big brick building. Used to be a screw factory or something. Now it’s apartments, upstairs at least.”
“Let me see,” I said. I waved him away from my car, then pushed open the Ford’s big door. I pulled my Salvation Army wool coat from the wheel well and buttoned it up against the wind. I got my backpack, twisted the keys in the car’s lock, then looked at the guy.
“What’s your name?”
“Ja Roach.”
“Ja?”
“African. Means magnetic. My mom was an activist back in the sixties. You?”
“Sarah.”
“No last name?”
“Pope. Nothing fancy.”
Without saying anything, he took off. I followed him to the parking lot exit. Roach looked both ways, even though there was no traffic to speak of. No one with a head on their shoulders ever came out in this weather. I lifted my boots high as I walked behind him. I didn’t want to trip and fall in case some daredevil did come careening around the corner.
The building was legit. I followed him through one of two side-by-side doors that looked wide enough for a horse carriage or a car. Carefully, I picked my way across polished concrete floors, trying not to skid in my boots, caked as they were with fast melting snow.
There wasn’t anyone on the bottom floor, but I could see that the doors were decorated like visual artists spent time here on days when the weather was better. For a brief moment, I felt a sharp stab of envy. Were there writers in here, too? Tucked away in small rooms with nothing but a typewriter and their imaginations? I’d wanted that for myself, but I had to tear my eyes way before they pricked with tears.
That dream was long dead.
Roach opened a gate to a huge industrial elevator.
“What floor are you on?” I asked, looking up at the huge ceiling above us, crisscrossed with industrial pipes.
“The top. They have some kind of meeting rooms or something on the second.”
“Okay,” I said, following him in. If this situation was going to go sideways, now was the time for that to happen. I braced myself while Roach pulled the gate closed, fiddled with a big door, then finally pushed a button. The elevator car heaved itself up, creaking in slow motion. In a minute, Roach repeated the whole thing backwards, and we were on another floor with bigger doors farther apart.
He walked to one, twisted a key in a lock, and walked inside. I waited a beat, then followed him in. Left the door open. It was what he said it would be—a loft. Not much in the way of furniture beyond a bed in one corner and a futon in another. He had a TV, of course, because guys never seemed to go without.
“You could have the futon. I have an extra blanket here somewhere. The bathroom is over there in the corner. With the door.”
I didn’t point out that the door seemed kind of pointless where the new walls didn’t meet the tall ceilings. Privacy was an illusion, I guessed. Didn’t say that. I was starting to think this guy was a legit sent from heaven guardian angel. That I should be grateful instead of suspicious.
“Why’d you come outside?”
“I saw you pull up. Wondered what someone in such a nice car was doing in the park during a blizzard. For a minute, I thought you had a dog or maybe you were some kind of photographer. Those are two kinds of people who come out in all weather. You never got out, though. The car went on and off. Took pity on you after the weather report went on.”
“So.”
“Let me get that blanket for you.”
Only when Roach moved to the far side of the loft did I relax the tiniest bit.
“Staying?” he asked when he came back with a blue wool blanket, its edges covered in satin. My heart squeezed in recognition. It was an exact duplicate of the one I’d had on my bed for my entire childhood. When I took it and held it up to my nose, it even smelled like my room. Sense memory, I think I’d once heard someone call it. This weird déjà vu feeling after encountering something similar to one’s past. Of course this couldn’t be my blanket. Probably used the same soap powder as my mother or fabric softener or something.
I’d nodded in agreement before my brain had caught up. His shoulders hitched down a little and I realized this situation must be weird for him, too. Maybe he was honestly just trying to do the right thing.
“You hungry?” he asked next. I put the blanket down next to me. Thought long and hard about when I’d had my last meal. Probably yesterday afternoon at The Coffee Pot which had big portions and low prices. Over the years, I’d learned how to ignore an empty stomach. Worrying about food was the death of a life on the road. As if my belly had ears, it growled loudly on cue.
“Actually, I am,” I had to admit. “But I don’t want to be any trouble.”
“I was going to eat anyway. No trouble.”
He walked over to the area of the loft with kitchen counters and started pulling stuff out. I wanted to offer to help, but I wasn’t much good in a kitchen. I’d seen Mary Cooley work wonders. I’d seen my own mom open cans and packages and mix stuff together for casseroles. The hows of food prep were still a big mystery for me. I hadn’t ever had my own kitchen long enough to figure it all out.
In a couple of minutes, the little space smelled wonderful. I’d never really seen a man cook before. Probably had a girlfriend who made all of this for him. I shifted in my seat, then stood and walked over to the area where Ja Roach was moving around.
“Is it going to be okay that I’m here? You don’t have a girl who’s going to be mad that I’m here, do you?” Men were the first to put you in the middle of drama, then throw up their hands to avoid responsibility for the conflict they caused.
“Got no girl. You a picky eater?”
I wanted to point out that if I wasn’t picky about where I was sleeping, I certainly wasn’t going to be picky about a hot meal anyone put in front of me. Instead, I just shook my head and took a seat at the small two-person table.
Potholders along the sides of the dish, he brought a big plate to the table. I recognized collard greens, black-eyed peas, and pork chops.
“Thanks for this. Looks good.”
He eyed me for a second, then went to get plates, forks, and knives. I lifted the salt shaker to pull out two paper napkins. I let him fill up his paper plate first. Then took what was left for me, grateful to have anything to eat. The food was good. Not Mary Cooley good, but not bad, either.
“You make this?” I asked before putting another forkful in my mouth.
“Nah, my sister dropped it off. I just reheat in the oven.”
“What do you do?”
He cocked his head like a dog hearing a far-off noise.
“Trying to get on at one of the factories. I got in trouble a while back, and putting that on an application gets it thrown in the basket right quick. So next time I’ll leave it off. It’s not like they’re going looking.”
“Good idea. I don’t put that stuff on applications.”
“You have a record?” Roach asked. “For what?”
“Just drug possession. Not anything like prostitution,” I blurted. When you were out on the streets past a certain hour, I’d found out that men had certain ideas about you.
“Don’t we all,” he said.
I fully relaxed then. He wasn’t going to be a secret proselytizer, trying to beat drugs out of me with a bible in exchange for a hot meal and a warm bed.
“What was your vice?” I asked. From the looks of this place, he was clean. One of those guys who did their time, then turned it around. The ones everyone points to as examples of setting your life straight and doing it right.
“Nothing but dope,” he said.
I didn’t want to talk about myself, so I changed the subject to how old he was. He had a year and change on me. And where he’d grown up, which was all over. I didn’t ask how he could afford such a nice place. It was small, but anything with the word “loft” in it went at a premium. Industrial to residential building conversion had started in New York City and was creeping slowly west as all trends eventually did. Even if the rent wasn’t high, he’d have to have enough money for first and last or a generous relative. Having neither, I tried not to envy his fortune.
When our plates were clean, I asked him where to dispose of mine. I took myself into the bathroom and tried to do the best job I could cleaning myself up without using too much soap or having to ask for his shower. Once I’d brushed my teeth and changed from jeans to sweats, I was comfortable. I fished in my backpack for the book the Rocky River librarian had recommended for me, then left the bathroom. I made my way to the couch and opened my book, ready to lose myself in a life different from mine.
In what felt like a few minutes later, there was a tap on my shoulder. My heart sped up because I knew that tap, it meant I had to go. I must have been sitting longer than I thought because at some point I’d stretched out my legs and had pulled the blanket up over them. I closed the latest Arthur C. Clarke offering and turned toward my impromptu roommate.
“Sorry, do I need to go?” I asked, ready to haul myself back out into the cold.
“Nah. I’m not fickle like that.”
“What’s up?” I realized maybe he wasn’t looking for sex, but did expect me to entertain him somehow.
“I don’t usually share, but it’s snowing.”
He opened his hand. Where I’d expected an Oreo, there was a baggie with a sticky brown substance. I’d only seen it a few times when partying with friends.
It was heroin.
My desire to get high warred with my fear of the drug.
“I’ve…uh…never done anything like that. Usually me and my friends party. You know. Beer. Coke. Maybe a little weed. I can’t afford anything like this.”
“It’s my treat,” he said. I’d heard him the first time. What Ja Roach hadn’t understood was my true meaning, that I was afraid to be like one of those dope fiends I’d seen wandering up and down streets like zombies from the late night movies that came before the test pattern.
“I don’t want to be addicted to anything,” I said. Being an occasional partier was one thing. An addict was something else entirely.
“Do I look like an addict?” Ja Roach asked. I took him in. He was tall, skinny but muscular. He had a full fridge and a full belly. There weren’t any fiends nodding off in the corner. He was a lot like me.
“No.”
“So?”
“What the hell? It’s a snow day.” My whole body filled with the pleasure of anticipation. He went to a cabinet and came back with a brown-and-orange metal disco-themed lunchbox that looked like he’d picked it up at a flea market. He flipped the latch open and it was like a small first aid kit inside.
“You’ll have to go first,” he said as he started mixing the gooey tar-like substance on a piece of foil.
“This isn’t a trade. I don’t owe you anything. I don’t like guys,” I spit out. Once I got high, I wouldn’t be this articulate. I needed him to know this wasn’t a tit for tat.
“Then we’re even, because I do.”
“Like guys? As in gay? Oh.” I don’t know why that shocked me, but it did. Any last hesitancy I had fell away. I leaned forward toward his beckoning hand. Then extended my right arm, sleeve pushed all the way up.
“How will it make me feel?” He was snapping rubber around my arm and tapping at the pale underside.
“Like you never want to come down,” he said. There was a tiny pinch when the needle poked my arm, then after that nothing but euphoria.