Tales of the City 05 - Significant Others

ladies.”
    “Wimminwood,” said Philo, obviously eager to redeem himself.
    “Aren’t there any men here?”
    Philo said: “You’re lookin at ‘em.”
    Philo’s tormentor snorted derisively. “Big homo.”
    “Zack, shut up,” said Edgar, slowing their pace a little. “I think I heard something.”
    “Now he hears it,” muttered Philo.
    “What the hell?” came a voice from the darkness. It was growly and female.
    The boys shot panicked glances at one another and began to trot. Booter winced as the sleeping bag banged against a protruding stump.
    “Stop right there,” bellowed the voice.
    “We’d better stop,” whispered Zack.
    “No way,” said Edgar, picking up speed.
    From Booter’s viewpoint, the moon was caroming crazily off the treetops. Vertigo overwhelmed him, so he shut his eyes and set his jaw and waited for the worst. Their nemesis was so close he could hear her lumbering Sasquatch gait, the sound of her labored breathing.
    One of the middle boys deserted his post, hightailing it into the woods.
    “Hey,” called Edgar, his reedy voice full of anger and despair.
    The boy next to Edgar stumbled, dropping Booter’s legs. The whole flimsy mechanism jerked rudely to a halt and Booter was deposited on the ground, his fall somewhat softened by the sleeping bag.
    Another boy fled. Then another. Only Edgar was left, staring down into his step-grandfather’s stunned face. “Get outa here,” said Booter, giving the boy the absolution he sought. “You did your best.”
    Edgar regarded him gravely for a moment, then darted off into the forest. The same faint scampering sounds that had marked the arrival of this band now betrayed its departure. Booter swallowed hard and tried to right himself.
    The growly voice said: “What the hell?”
    Turning his head, he saw a short, heavyset woman emerge from the underbrush. She approached him warily, raking her fingers through the short gray hair over her ears. Even from here, he could tell she was drunk.
    “Please,” Booter began, “can you help me?”
    She inched forward and regarded him in a pitcher’s squat, legs spread, hands clamped on her knees. Her mouth hung slack for a moment before she said: “Well … if that don’t beat all!”
    “I won’t hurt you,” he said.
    “Hurt me?” She threw back her head and hooted. Her voice was raspy with nicotine and whiskey. “Oh, yeah … please don’t do that.” Laughing again, she was seized by a sudden coughing jag, which threw her off balance and sent her tumbling ingloriously to the ground.
    She rose slowly, but only to a sitting position. “Damn,” she said.
    He licked his lips and swallowed. “If you help me, I’ll pay you anything….”
    “Who the hell are you?”
    He remembered what had happened the last time he used his name. “I came down the river,” he told her. “By canoe. I fell asleep, and I—”
    “Who did this?”
    He hesitated. “I don’t know. She hit me on the head first. Look, I haven’t done anything….”
    “She just tied you up and left your ass?”
    “Yes.”
    “You see her? What’d she look like?” He decided to risk the truth. “Her head was shaved. In patterns.”
    “Oh, hell.” Catching her breath, she rose falteringly to her feet. “O.K. Ol’ Mabel better get her ass in gear….”
    “No,” he said, “please don’t go.”
    “Sit tight,” she answered, hulking away into the night.

Passions
    I N THE KITCHEN AT WREN’S LODGE, BRIAN WAS POURING juice into Flintstones glasses. He bounced around jauntily, with self-conscious aplomb, like a television chef confronting his first national audience. Why, Wren wondered, do men always retreat a little after sex or confession?
    “You think the guys got lost in there?” he asked. She had told him about Booter’s disappearance, about their shack-up arrangement, even about the check Booter had left for her. One confession had seemed to merit another.
    “Maybe it’s a black hole,” she said, leaning against the doorway.
    “Yeah. Sort of a Bohemian Triangle.” He handed her a glass of juice.
    “You and Michael are pretty close, aren’t you?”
    “Yeah.”
    “I thought so.”
    “Why?”
    “Well … he told me to call you, for one thing.”
    “When? Tonight?”
    “When else?” Seeing his expression, she added: “I would’ve done it anyway.”
    “Did he tell you about …?”
    “No. Nothing.” She looked him squarely in the eye to assure him that his revelation had, in fact, been