In her dreams Patty Cakes often went to the Fire Zone.
That’s what the place was called. She knew that without knowing how she knew it.
It was a place she kept trying to find when she was awake but could only ever find in dreams. That never deterred her, though, because at her best and most lucid waking hours she was absolutely convinced the place existed. Not as a metaphor or some cryptic symbolism, but as stone and wood, as neon and asphalt, as flesh and beating hearts. The Fire Zone was out there somewhere. All that she needed to do was find the way when she was awake, but that path always eluded her,
In dreams she knew the way, though. It was a simpler journey.
Those dreams always started with her down in the shadows along Boundary Street. The version of it here in Pine Deep; the other Boundary Street in New York. And the one back in Tuyên Quang. Always a Boundary Street. Always shrouded in shadows, as if they defined the people who lived there. Like her. Like Monk.
As the dream began to unfold, Patty began climbing a long hill up to where the lights from the Fire Zone shone out. She sometimes ran up the hill, even though it was steep and hard. There was Music up there. Music with a capital M. Music that was alive, awake, aware. There were also stores and libraries and nightclubs. Lots of clubs. Café Vortex, where people danced on air. Torquemada’s, owned by the Bishop, where you could actually die right there on the dance floor. And Unlovely’s, where the beautiful Mr. Sin helped you find whatever it was that you lost, as long as you were willing to risk everything to get it back.
During that long night in the hospital Patty Cakes climbed the hill and stepped from shadows into the swirling, multicolored light. That first step always tore a gasp from her. Being pulled from the water at the very edge, the very last twitch, of drowning and clawing in a breath of air. It hurt in exactly that way. It was terrifying and beautiful in that way.
Going to the Zone was only partly for that breath of clean air.
Mostly it was to escape.
Her dreams in that hospital bed started out sick and sad and then turned vile. She couldn’t bear to look at the bandage on her left hand. She remembered the stupid cartoon face she’d drunk-inked onto it last night. But it was so fucking hard to remember why.
Fragments came back to her, and then dragged her down the hill and across oceans to a town in the jungle. To a memory of a little girl. Not of her daughter, which was maddening. But about her. About that morning the police knocked on her door to say they’d found her little girl. Found. That was what they’d said.
“Ms. Trang, I’m sorry to inform you that we found your daughter.”
Found.
As if they were talking about a missing dog. We found her and here she is, have a happy day.
They found her. They found Tuyet.
Someone named Tuyet.
This morning, at home, Monk had yelled at her, telling Patty that Tuyet was her daughter. That it was Tuyet’s face inked so carefully by Patty’s own hand, that had been marred by the cartoon image. He snatched up pictures and showed them to her. Pictures of Patty with a little girl.
Tuyet?
We found your daughter.
The police had found her that day. Monk could find pictures everywhere of her. But as for Patty … she was certain she’d lost her. When she opened her head and heart and looked in, shining her brightest flashlight of introspection, there was no little girl hiding, waiting to be found.
There were shadows. There was a smudge of blood. A discarded shoe. Stained underwear. A broken bracelet.
But there was no one named Tuyet anywhere to be found.
So, Patty climbed up the hill and stepped into the neon glow of the Fire Zone clubs, looking.
Hoping to find a little girl named Tuyet amid all the swirling color and movement and hope.