Lunch is in the van, more peanut butter and jelly, and we roll into Rochester around three in the afternoon. Jesse finds a spot for the van in a little park down by the Genesee River. It seems like it would be a nice spot to hang out in the summer. Right now, its only inhabitants are a few homeless people wrapped in blankets or sleeping on the benches. I look at them curiously. There are no homeless people in Glens Falls, none that I’m aware of, anyway. And whenever I saw them in Boston, I just kind of thought of them as a feature of the city. But there’s this one guy curled up on a bench, a heavy vinyl-wrapped bike lock connecting a shopping cart to one ankle. I wonder what his path in life was, or if he ever had one.
No one knows the area too well, so we split up to scout places to perform and possible food sources, aka dumpsters. “Come on, Andrew,” G says as Emily walks off with Lyle and Jesse heads off with in the other direction with Tim. G and I wander around the downtown area, crossing streets and strolling the sidewalks with no particular agenda. Emily was right about one thing; there are a lot of people out shopping. We’re possibly the only ones not laden with bags and boxes. Behind a Finagle a Bagel store, G harvests a couple of bags of day-old bread and pastries while I stand guard. I’m glad I don’t have to go back there and root around quite yet. I know it’s hypocritical when I’m eating their food all the time, but I’m not quite ready for the reality of where it comes from.
While I’m waiting for G, I turn on my phone. Only one bar of battery left and three new messages. The first two are from Mom. Nothing new, she’s just checking in and hoping I’ll call. In the second one she asks specifically what bus I’ll be on so she can plan on picking me up. The last message is from Dad. He sounds annoyed and rushed. Hopefully he didn’t have to disrupt his vacation too much to make this phone call. He tells me he thinks I’m being irresponsible and immature. At the end of the message he doesn’t even leave a number; he just tells me to call my mother and get my ass back to Glens Falls. He doesn’t even say anything about Mima. My eyes burn and my stomach churns. I shut the phone off again and shove it in my pocket.
“Do you miss them ever?” I ask.
“Who?”
“Your family.”
“Oh,” G says and stops walking for a minute to think about it. I shift nervously from foot to foot. I didn’t think it was a big-deal kind of question, but I’m realizing a little too late that it might be. “Not really in a general way. But sometimes little things make me remember them—that they’re out there doing all sorts of things we used to do together. And then I feel a little weird. Is that missing them? I don’t know.”
After walking a while, G starts talking again and it takes me a minute to realize she’s still answering my question. “Like today. Seeing all these people Christmas shopping reminds me of how stressed my mom used to get around the holidays because my parents never had any money. I remember going over to this girl’s house when I was in third grade and her mom brought us juice boxes and real Oreos with the name stamped on them. And that was like the first time I realized that juice didn’t all come frozen in a can. When we had food in the house, it was always No Name juice and potato chips. Seriously, that was what the generic brand was called. For a long time I thought you really had it made if you could afford Tropicana and Tostitos.
“Anyway, so Mom would try and put some money aside so she could get us some kind of Christmas present, and inevitably my dad would get it from her one way or another. He’d tell her we were late on some bill or that he needed it for an investment.” G shakes her head. “So this one Saturday we were out shopping with my grandma and my sisters, and my grandma was pestering Mom about what she was going to get us for Christmas and Mom was trying to avoid telling her that Dad had once again made off with all her money. Grams thought Dad was a total deadbeat anyway. She loved conversations like these and trying to get my mom to admit that she married a total loser. So my sister Elise saw some jelly shoes in the store. They were like these rubbery slip-on shoes; totally useless in the winter. Anyway Elise started whining at Mom about how she really wanted them, and so of course my little sister started in on her too. And then Grams was saying how they were a really good deal, but I could tell that she just wanted to get Mom to admit that she didn’t have the money.
“So finally my mom caved and bought us each a pair. I remember she said, ‘I should be able to buy my girls a pair of shoes if I want to.’ I didn’t even want them, but she just told me to pick a color and I knew I didn’t have a choice. When we got home I hid them under my bed so Dad wouldn’t see and flip out on her. But it didn’t matter. Elise put them on as soon as we got home and …” G drifts off and then suddenly looks up at me embarrassed. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s okay,” I say almost a little too insistently.
G looks even more embarrassed. “I guess that’s why I don’t think about them too much. Most of the memories are like that one.”
I wonder what G sees when she looks at the homeless people sleeping on benches by the river. We don’t talk a whole lot more as we scope out the Midtown Plaza as a possible performance space. It’s busy now, but G is concerned that it will be too quiet after five o’clock. When we get back to the van, Jesse and Lyle announce that they’ve found a good spot. The Village Gate Square is a shopping area with artists’ studios, and they’re having an open house that evening. Jesse talked to a guy about performing in front of his gallery and the guy said it was okay.
“It’s a lot more relaxing when we don’t have to worry about getting busted by the cops,” G says.
“Right,” I say, like this is one of my everyday concerns too. By the time we get over to the Village Gate Square and park the van it’s time to set up the show. Tim has enlisted me to hold the microphone while he films, so my job is pretty much taken care of. I watch as the rest of the group gets ready to perform. G uses a public bathroom to change, and when she comes out she’s transformed. She’s wearing red-and-white-striped tights underneath a black velvet leotard. A green velvet skirt completes the look. She’s put something on her face to make it whiter, and her cheeks have bright red circles on them. A few black freckles dot her nose.
“You look like a giant doll,” I say before I can think about whether this is a compliment.
“Yeah, that’s kind of the idea.”
“A buff doll,” I say and poke at her arm muscles, which are clearly visible beneath the stretchy fabric. G smirks and leans forward into a bodybuilder pose. Lyle is wearing a similar outfit but has shorts that go over his tights. He’s busy rigging up some ropes to hang from a streetlight. “Do you need any help?” I ask.
“It’s kind of complicated,” he says without looking away from the knot he’s tying. “I could probably show you some knots when I have more time, but tonight it’s probably better if you just stay out of the way.”
I try not to take his brusque tone personally. “You can help me,” Emily volunteers from inside the van.
“Sure,” I say, and wander over, but not before I see Lyle scowl down at his knots. Inside the van, Emily is still getting dressed. I look away quickly when I see that her shirt is only partially pulled over her head.
“Drew, you’re so sweet,” she says. “But I’m not ashamed of my body. Can you tie this in the back?” The back of her shirt has laces that pull together and make it clear that she’s not wearing a bra. I try not to think about this too much. The sight of her naked back is enough to turn the twitch in my pants into a full on hard-on. Once she’s dressed, Emily has me throw juggling balls at her while she spins the giant Hula-Hoop around her waist.
I’m not an expert on street performers, but I have to say I’m surprised by how good the Freegans’ show is. Lyle and Emily warm up the crowd with a combination of tightrope walking, Hula-Hooping, and juggling. Lyle moves with agility along a thick rope strung between two parking signs. He has several clubs that he’s able to light on fire and juggle while walking back and forth. Meanwhile Emily keeps the hoop going; first around her waist, then her neck, and then out to each arm. A decent-sized crowd has gathered, at this point and they seem to be really into it, especially the kids. They all gasp when at one point Lyle teeters back and forth on his rope while keeping three torches going in the air.
Jesse comes out next, and he really works the audience. His smooth and gentle voice, which I’ve kind of gotten used to over the last twenty-four hours, takes on a new, commanding presence. He sounds like one of those late-night radio DJs who give people advice about their love lives. He gets all these kids out of the audience and gives them fish puppets to hold, and then he tells this story about a bigger fish who was ganging up on all the little fish. Emily wears the big fish costume and struts around in front of the audience, playfully pushing the little fish out of the way. Then Jesse gets all the kids to get in a group and chase the big fish away. It reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw once with a school of little fish chasing a bigger fish. It said “Organize,” or “Fight the Power,” or some other hippie slogan. What’s really amazing is how Jesse keeps all of this going—the story and the little kids with their puppets—and manages to hold the audience’s attention without letting everything fall into chaos. He gets a really big round of applause at the end, with the parents clapping loudest of all.
G and Lyle’s act is last. While they’re getting set up, a flushed Emily sits down next to me. “What do you think so far?” she asks, mopping at her sweaty face.
“It’s great! Honestly, it’s really great!” I don’t tell her that my expectations were pretty low. That I thought about slinking to the back so I wouldn’t get embarrassed by people giving them money.
She smiles. “Really? You liked it? You’re not just saying that?”
“Seriously, I thought it was really good.” I’m not bullshitting her, or thinking about kissing the corner of her jaw, just below her ear. Okay, I’m thinking about that too. But the show was good. It feels like the first good and real thing I’ve seen in a while.
“And you got it? Like, the message and all?”
“It was hard to miss,” I tell her. “But not too preachy,” I give her a little jab with my elbow. She smiles like we have a private joke, and my stomach gets all warm and mushy.
“Okay, pay attention now because the best part is about to start.” Jesse presses play on their battered-looking CD player, and some old-timey carnival music comes through the tinny speakers. The ropes hanging from the streetlight are supporting a trapeze bar that G grabs with one arm and pulls herself up on. Twisting the ropes between her legs, she shimmies higher up until she’s suspended ten feet above the bar and at least twenty feet above the ground. Tim tells me I can put down the microphone, so my full attention is focused on G. Her legs are twisted in the ropes so that she’s supported on them. She does a series of somersaults down to the bar and catches herself by the legs, her upper body rocking back and forth upside down. The audience bursts into applause.
Next she begins pumping her upper body so that she swings back and forth, still hanging upside down, her knees gripping the wooden bar. After she gets a good swing going, Lyle comes cartwheeling out. They grab each other by the forearms, and G swings Lyle up above her onto the bar. Their act is about fifteen minutes of twisting contortions performed ten to fifteen feet above the ground. Sometimes one of them dangles the other, and sometimes they’re both moving separately on the rope swing. Watching them, I’m aware of how similar in size they actually are. Lyle’s a little bit taller, but G is actually a bit more muscular. I’ll bet they’re close to the same weight. The whole act is carefully synchronized and completely mesmerizing. When I’m able to look away, I look around the circle at all the kids with their mouths hanging half-open.
In one of their last moves G repeats the opening sequence of twisting somersaults down the rope, but this time she catches herself on Lyle’s arms. Together they twist the ropes up and let go so they both end up spinning around for a good thirty seconds before they slow down. The audience roars with applause.
After a quick bow, Jesse comes back out to pass the hat. A lot of the little kids who participated in the fish play come forward with their parents’ one- and five-dollar bills. I wonder what the headmistress would think. Probably she would make a comment about how they were all neglecting their education. Mima would like it, though.
There are a lot of people around for the art opening, and the Freegans repeat the show twice more before the crowd thins out. By the end of the third show everyone is showing signs of exhaustion.
“That was amazing!” I tell G and Lyle as they peel off the layers of black and red spandex.
“Thanks,” G says. Her painted-on freckles are smeared with sweat.
“Where did you guys learn to do that?”
“I used to hang banners for the Ruckus Society,” Lyle says. “You know, animal rights stuff and Earth-first. We used to do actions where we would hang banners on big buildings and bridges. That’s how I learned to hang the ropes. The rest of it I just kind of picked up on my own.”
“I always liked the ropes in gym class,” G says. “But most of this stuff I picked up from another group I hung around with a couple years before I met these guys. They were part of this alternative circus that traveled around doing their act in little theaters and cafés and stuff.
“Someone told them I wasn’t eighteen yet, so I couldn’t stay with them. It wasn’t like they didn’t know. There was just someone who had to make a big deal about it,” G says cryptically. “You know how it is. In any group there’s always some people who need a lot of attention a lot of the time.” Whether she realizes it or not, G is staring at Emily as she finishes her thought.
“What did we make?” Lyle calls out to Jesse, who is counting the money in his battered top hat.
“Two hundred thirty-seven dollars and change,” Jesse calls back.
“Not bad,” Lyle says. “You think it’s worth sticking around for a few days?”
The idea of sticking around Rochester turns my stomach. All this is fine as long as we keep moving. When we’re moving I don’t think about Mima or Mom or school, or how screwed I’m going to be when I get home. So I’m really glad when Jesse shakes his head. “Nah, I say we keep moving, head south before it gets too much colder. We got lucky with the opening. There won’t be crowds like this every night. Strong objections to moving on?”
“It’s his van, but Jesse likes to decide things by consensus,” G says quietly in my ear. “If anyone had a strong objection we’d talk more about it before making a decision.” No one says anything, so we all pile in the van and head out to the suburbs to find a big-box store lot to camp in for the night.
“Ohhh, Butter Farms,” Tim groans as we pass the ice cream chain. I glance at my watch. It’s a little past ten.
“You think they’re still open?” I ask.
“Nope,” Tim says. “I think they’re just closing up. Perfect timing!” Jesse turns into the parking lot and pulls up in front of the store. We all hop out, and Tim raps lightly on the glass. A pimply-faced kid with dyed black hair and a lip ring interrupts his mopping and walks over to the door. He points to the right of the door where the store hours are posted.
“We know man, we know,” Jesse says. “Did you throw everything out already?” The kid points with the end of his mop to a sagging garbage bag waiting to be tossed into the dumpster. I look at the slogan on the Butter Farms sign, which reads, “Churned Fresh Daily,” and right then I realize what Tim has in mind. “We’ll take that off your hands,” Jesse says and grins through the glass. The kid looks uncomfortable. He glances once towards the back of the store and then shrugs. He unlocks the door and thrusts the bag out. Tim grabs it before the door is even all the way open.
“Thanks, man,” Jesse says. Can anyone say no to Jesse? He smiles at the kid with the mop likes he’s done the right thing. Meanwhile the leftover ice cream is melting quickly, so Jesse speeds off to find a place to park. He pulls the van up in the parking lot next to an empty baseball diamond.
Tim rummages through the bag, pulling out half-empty plastic containers of melting ice cream. “This one looks like sorbet,” he calls out. “Maybe raspberry.” He tosses it underhand to Emily, who squeals with delight and digs around in the cabinet behind the driver’s seat for six spoons. “Dibs on the chocolate fudge brownie,” Tim says and puts a container beside his leg. “This one looks like Oreo cookie.”
“I’ll take it,” I say. “I mean, if nobody else wants it.”
“You’re going to have to share,” G says. She grabs a couple of spoons, and I follow her out of the van to the bleachers next to the baseball field. For some reason the lights are still on, the air around them buzzing with dust. I shiver and sit down next to her on the cold metal bench. The ice cream is the perfect temperature for eating: soft and creamy, but still enough resistance that you can bite rather than slurp it off your spoon. We take big spoonfuls and don’t say anything for the next few minutes. I can feel the sugar rush coursing through my veins.
“So you and Lyle,” I say between bites. “How long have you guys been doing your act?”
“I don’t know. Ever since I met up with these guys, six months or something like that?”
“And were you guys ever, like, together? I mean like a couple?”
G snorts, and a piece of Oreo cookie rockets out of her mouth and lands on my knee. Still coughing, she reaches over and brushes it onto the ground. “He’s not really my type, Andrew,” she says.
“Oh, sorry,” I say. My face flushes red, and I wait a few minutes for it to cool down. “I never get what girls mean when they say that.”
“Well what I mean when I say that, is that Lyle’s not my type mostly because he doesn’t have a vagina.” I’m embarrassed but not confused. But I must look it, because G feels the need to clarify even further. “I don’t play for your team.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. You’re a lesbian.” I try and say it like it’s not the first time I’ve ever uttered the word in serious conversation. “I get it, I just didn’t know.”
“Huh,” G says thoughtfully. “And here I thought my whole look screamed big dyke.”
“Well, I don’t really have a lot of experience identifying,” I gulp here, “‘big dykes.’ You know, not in a lineup or anything.”
G smiles. I think she’s enjoying my discomfort and surprise. “Well, now you know.”
I remember the word that popped into my head back at the bus station. I thought she looked severe. Is that a stereotype? Was I stereotyping her before I even knew she was a lesbian? I wonder if she knew I wasn’t gay. I probably made it obvious the first time I stared down Emily’s shirt.
A loud war whoop comes from the van. Jesse is running towards us, shirtless, his chest decorated with elaborate painted designs. My first thought is that it’s ice cream, until I remember the paint set that someone pulled from the Walmart dumpster that morning. Tim, Jesse, and Lyle are all shirtless, their chests and faces decorated with intricate designs. Emily is trotting behind them, carrying the paint and wearing only a ratty-looking tank top tucked in at her ribcage like a bra. Her shoulders, stomach and face are also adorned. Jesse leads them in a victory lap around the bases, running and cartwheeling and yelling at the top of his lungs. Then they climb into the bleachers and surround us.
“Strip,” Lyle says and points at both of us. G looks at me, shrugs, and pulls off her sweatshirt and puffy vest. I do the same with my top layers. My chest immediately ripples with tiny goose bumps, but I don’t feel cold. Jesse takes a big glob of green paint on his finger and paints a zigzagging line down the side of each arm. Emily decorates my back with something yellow and orange, and after that I lose track of who’s doing what. I just close my eyes and try to ignore the weirdness of so many unidentified fingers touching my skin. The paint is cold but dries quickly to form a crackly second skin on my arms, chest, and back. After a few minutes I open them and look over at G. I can’t help but laugh. She looks like a little kid just in from a rainy Halloween.
“Come on,” Jesse says, beckoning us to follow. “Let’s go make a little noise.” He takes off running toward the back of the baseball diamond, where he hops the short metal fence and keeps running. We all follow. I take one backward glance at my clothes, my only warm clothes, left in the bleachers. It’s as though I’m leaving the bus station all over again. Every skin cell of my exposed flesh is tingling in the night air, every follicle of hair standing at attention.
We follow Jesse across the park and through some bushes into someone’s backyard. I pause for a second before stepping onto private property. But no one else seems to care, so I follow the leader through their garden and over the monkey bars of a children’s swing set. The only light from the house is the flickering blue glow of a television set. I swing from bar to bar, dancing on the outside of my old life like some colorfully painted, mocking monkey god. We run this way through more yards and driveways, down more sidewalks and across quiet suburban streets. The pavement of the streets is still warm and safe. We are what’s dangerous. But no one stops us; no one calls out to us. We are running and flying.
Jesse finds an enormous trampoline in back of a huge Victorian-style mansion, and we all take turns bouncing and doing tricks. When the lights finally come on in an upstairs window, we retreat through the bushes at the back of the property. In back of another enormous McMansion, we stop for a minute to let Tim catch his breath.
Lyle sniffs the air suspiciously. “Is that what I think it is?”
Jesse’s eyes go comic-book wide in the darkness. “Chlorine?” We creep through the trees to find the steam still rising from a large, kidney-shaped swimming pool. It looks like a giant aquamarine jewel shimmering in the night. “Oh, heated pool. I love this neighborhood,” Jesse whispers.
“I don’t know,” I start to say.
“You don’t have to go in,” Jesse says, and it’s not like a dare or a tough-guy act or anything. “We’ll be quick, you can wait right here with our clothes.” The rest of the Freegans are already pulling off their pants and stripping down to nothing. I shouldn’t be surprised. They’ve definitely proved themselves to be an all-or-nothing kind of group. And then suddenly I’m standing there surrounded by five piles of clothes, and I can hear the soft splashes and sighs as they enter the warm water.
Jesse loves this neighborhood. I wonder if he would love Glens Falls. Or if he ever knew anybody with an in-ground pool. Does he love it because he senses the truth behind the heavy oak doors and alarm-sensitive windows? Does he know the houses are empty inside? These are depressing thoughts, and I don’t want to be standing here in the dark all alone with them.
It’s dark, I tell myself as I pull down my pants and then my boxers. I try not to look at anyone or see anything as I slip out of the trees and walk naked towards the edge of the pool. The water is within sight, and nobody is looking my way. I take a deep breath and in that same instant stub my big toe on the concrete path surrounding the pool. “Shit!” I curse loudly, and five heads whip around in my direction. There’s nothing else to do in this situation. I take another big step and cannonball into the pool.
When I come up for air Jesse is laughing and shaking his head. “Come on, man, there’s no way that went unnoticed. We gotta bolt.” I take a minute to scrub at the paint on my skin before hopping out of the pool and back into my pants. Sure enough, we’re barely dressed when the outdoor lights flicker on. We scamper out the driveway, holding our shoes and shaking our dripping heads. A few blocks away from the house, we stop to put our shoes on. I briefly examine the gash on my big toe before stuffing it back into my sock. Hopefully the chlorine sterilized it a little. We walk back toward the park and the van quietly. Jesse seems to know where he’s going, and I just follow behind, floating really. These houses could be the houses of any of the towns I’ve lived in. The kids zoning out in front of the TV could be any of the kids I’ve sat beside in class for the last ten years. But they’re in there, and I’m out here. As we’re walking Emily skips up to me and pulls my arm around her shoulders. Her teeth are chattering wildly. “I’m fuh-fuh-fuh-freezing, Drew. Keep me warm.”
I pull her in towards my body. For whatever reason, adrenaline, excitement, blood loss, I’m not cold at all. I rub her shoulder with my hand, and she wraps an arm around my waist. By the time we get back to the van I’m getting cold, but I’m still sad that our moment together is ending. And I’m a little bummed out when Lyle and Emily sleep up and the rest of us are down below, but mostly I’m too tired to care. My Spidey sack is warm and dry, and as I’m drifting off, I think about the sweetness of the ice cream and the warmth of the pool and the sensation of being painted on by a hundred different fingers. It’s the oddest thing, but even though I’m miles from home and Mima’s gone and Dad’s a shit, the only absence I feel is the absence of loneliness.