But like I said, there was no fairy tale ending. A black SWAT helicopter banked over Pioneer Park, then circled back for another look. That was enough for me. I tossed the empty Vons bag on the ground. I wired a command to my legs: it’s time to go. With the tambourine and donations bucket firmly in hand, I peeled through the park’s crackheads to E Street.
I’m weeping from exhaustion when I get there. Mother of Christ. In my worst dreams I couldn’t have asked for a messier day. Sick of everything—defrocked—I strip off the tattered cleric’s collar, cummerbund, and robe. I jettison the rags into a garbage bin.
Still crying, I chuck the donations bucket onto the pigeon-shit-caked pavement. I’m trying to figure out what to do next when two muscular blond men in blue Brooks Brothers suits and yellow suede Hush Puppy loafers flank me. Unfortunately, I know who they are. It’s not stellar news. The taller one asks: “You the donations solicitor?”
I’m coy. “Who are you? You guys evangelists or what? If you’re evangelists, I got no time for you. I’m busy.”
“We’re investigators from Blessed World.”
“What’s that? A theme park?”
“You don’t know? We’re a charity. And a church.”
“Is that a fact? I’ve never heard of it.”
“We’ve come for the uniform. It’s our property.”
“Come on.” I laugh hysterically through my tears. “You see me wearing anything like that?”
As the robe came apart, I shed the husk of the person I once was. The man they seek no longer exists. The fool that wore the uniform is gone. I laugh harder, snot leaking from my nose. “I don’t know who the fuck you’re talking about.”
“But what’s that bucket you’ve got?”
“What about it?”
“And you have a tambourine.”
“I’m the best damn tambourine player you’ll ever meet.”
“You don’t have our uniform in your possession?”
“What’s the matter with you, man? Are you blind?”
“Have it your way. We’re calling SWAT.”
“Oh, yeah? That’s fantastic. I can’t wait.”
I shut my eyes. I see Sugar Child shimmying in front of the halfway house. I see the Isaac Babel paperback in the Valencia Avenue free box. I see little Sally and Crazy Diane in their room at the Pioneer Motel warming a can of soup on a two-burner hot plate. One thing is certain. I stick around here, it’s a ticket back to Muscupiabe.
I deep-breathe. Five breaths in, eight breaths out.
On the ninth breath, I reopen my eyes.
I take off like Superman.
I jet past ancient Mexican women hawking canned goods on the sidewalk. Picking up speed I hightail it past El Pueblo, the footfall of the Blessed World investigators lagging behind me. In mid-stride I pry the last of the bank robber’s money—taped inside my tambourine—and pitch the bills into the wind.
Five thousand dollars spiral in the wintry sky, mingling with blackbirds and pigeons sidewinding over the rooftops. Caught in a downdraft, the banknotes plunge to the ground.
I cross Sixth Street against a red light. A cloudburst of sparrows blows up over the power lines as a bus pulls away from the curb. Sprinting alongside the coach, I motion at the driver to stop. He slows down and opens the door. “What the heck is wrong with you? You trying to get yourself killed? Get in here and sit your ass somewhere in the back where I don’t have to look at you, okay?”
I clamber aboard and flutter to the rear. A black woman in an orange babushka counsels me from her seat. “Young man, you’re buck naked. If I were you, I’d pray for deliverance.”
I take her advice. While the bus rattles north on E Street, I kneel in the aisle on a bed of apple cores, used syringes, plastic bags, and toilet paper. I pound the tambourine and sing:
“For every injured soul. To whatever can be conjured from the ordinary, to renew this tired earth.”