Stayin' Alive

My popsicle’s melted. Melting. Wailed the little one of about three. Bibbed shorts, light blue, sun hat with blue and yellow ducks, something hanging from a cord around the neck. Couldn’t be a pacifier. Not if child was three. Just a guess. Could be two or four. Not part of my expertise. Probably never will be.

Mush for sure, I thought. The hands that must have held the twin sticks were hard to make out with the glare from above. Chubby little kid, still had baby fat. Grubby hands, that is all.

Whining, yes. Sweet thing has dribbled away. Totally to be expected. After all, this is a beach. It’s hot on the beach. On most beaches in the summer. 

Who eats a popsicle in the blazing sun?

A three-year-old. With a baby brain. Not stupid, just really little still. Not able yet to make many good choices, or any choices for that matter. Especially ones that require taking weather into account. How long does it take a child to learn to dress properly for the day’s weather? We all know we’re not born with that knowledge. Some adults aren’t very good at dressing properly, either. I am good about it, however. I have to be.

I could see at last that what had stained hands and cheeks had been an orange popsicle. Fingers and face told me it couldn’t be all that comfortable. Orange stuck all over. Very stuck. Still drippy, though. Some fingers looked like they were glued to a neighbor. Wailing still, but winding down to more of a whimper. Poor baby.

Who could want a thing like that back? It makes more sense to cry over spilt milk.

A three-year-old, one too hot for comfort. A solitary figure on the hot sand. That three-year-old could be crying for her lost popsicle but maybe the crying is for another reason? I wanted to think well of the child, who looked so forlorn, so I chose to believe for a moment that there was another reason. All alone.

The reason I implied that having lost one’s icy cold junk food is not a reason for tears, is that, personally, I despise popsicles. A partial list of my reasons includes the following:

1. They have very little flavor. 
2. They have lots of artificial, ghastly things in them. Bad for you.
3. They are friggin’ cold and make my teeth ache and want to fall out. 

Note: All the above reasons are multiplied by three if the flavor is orange. Only thing even remotely as bad is Fanta soda. You drink that and your esophagus turns into a column of sugar that is bleached with a carcinogenic substance, you know.

Maybe I am allergic to orange things? I hate the color. The only decent orange food is pumpkin, and it’s more chestnutty in color if you make pie or soup with it. Pumpkin works for me.

What do I like, then? My friends know me; they know I like things painted black. Black beans. Cars. Shirts and jackets. Cats, especially. (Somebody has to love black cats, so I do.) Bindings on quilts. Shoes. You get the picture. Just don’t get the wrong idea. I am neither morbid nor depressed. It just seems that black is a color scorned by many. They think it’s sad. I think it’s a very practical color for clothing and cars. 

However, this story is about the popsicle child, aka sticky kid. Lots of feelings in me the moment I saw her. You must have figured that out. There must be a reason. There is a reason. Obviously I don’t mean any harm, but I know fear and I worry about the world. People who are all alone on a beach or somewhere. Maybe I know how she feels. I will try something.

Honey, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?

Nothing.

The child didn’t seem to be hurt in any visible part of any limb, wasn’t even sunburned. Just those orangey, sticky phalanges. Trying not to let little body get too close while we figured things out, but not letting it wander off. That would not be a good decision on my part.

The child, not all that long past toddler stage, was only three, after all. Logically hungry mouth was only crying for the lost junk food. For the moment. That might change.

I had to do something. The first idea I had was to calm the child down, stop the disgusting, snuffly gurgle, by going to get another ‘sicle. I hated the idea, not just for the reasons already listed, but also because I had only managed to escape from my house with a handful of hoarded quarters and some small bills snatched from a wallet on the table. Dad had started to come out of his alcohol coma and I knew I would be seriously hurt if I were anywhere within reach. 

Because he’s still drunk when he gets his second wind. Because his hands are unstoppable windmills when that happens. Fortunately, there is a beach, this one. Nobody comes to kick me out. They know. Dad’s always lived in this area. He’s a familiar face, and voice. His body is familiar.

I hadn’t had supper and had just about enough for a hot dog (also really bad for you) and any drink but Fanta. Still, a ‘sicle in time saves... a screeching child. The small visage I found myself smiling at agreed to strawberry, which is only half a step up from orange, but the point is that my hopes rose, along with my hunger. I could find out the child’s name and probably the person who had brought the child to the beach. That could happen once the tyke had slurped in enough of that awful ice.

Wishful thinking. Quiet Child didn’t know how transportation to the beach had happened. By now I had determined that the little one dressed in blue was female. 

She did know her mother was on the beach and she was certain her mother’s name was Mommy. She also said her own name was something like Choddy. I listened carefully, until,”Choddy” clammed up. I wondered why it was so frightening for her to say her name. I reined in the imagination. Focus. Not an adult.

I repeated the name I had thought I’d heard. Finally, after saying it three times, it was obvious: I had finally realized she had meant to say Charlie. Because she was a girl, I surmised it was a nickname for Charlotte or Charlene. Charlotte has been back in style lately, so I went with that. Didn’t matter if some snobby rich girls had been named that. Choddy couldn’t help her name.

Charlotte?

Waaahhhhh....

OK, Charlie, then. I refused to say ‘Choddy’, though. Just because children don’t yet pronounce words correctly, it doesn’t mean they don’t hear the correct sounds. They do.

Slight smile. Progress, I’m thinking.

Where is Mommy? Momma? Ma? Had to cover all the bases. Kids do have their own names for their parents. Some even call their parents by their first names. Appalling. Lack of respect.

Please don’t expect me to tell you what I call my father, though. I’m afraid you either won’t understand or won’t care.

Anyway, here we are. Beach. You like it?

No response.

Yes, well, kinda big beach we got here. Who knows how big it is? You know the old saying about trying to find a needle in a haystack?

Blank look.

Well, it’s the same thing trying to find a person on the beach. Not easy, Little One.

I thought a little humor wouldn’t do any harm. Problem was, it didn’t do any good, either. And time was running out. Things might get dicey soon. I hate dicey at least as much as I hate orange popsicles. Neither one turns out good in the end.

We needed to find Mommy whose name was Mommy, and fast. First off, I didn’t want anybody to get the wrong idea about me. Remember, I hadn’t even wanted to buy that orange thing. 

I wasn’t trying to get her to follow me. I wasn’t. I’m not.

Besides: There went the drink I had planned to get to go with my lousy hot dog. Now what would happen if one of us got really thirsty? It was the beach, after all. Sun. Heat.

Mommy didn’t come, though. Neither did Momma or Ma. 

Ironic: I know the child must want her mother to come, but I have always been petrified that my father would discover my shelter on this beach and show up, ten degrees angrier than before. No wonder my mother left him. I would have, too. For now, I guess I’m practicing until I know enough to finally do it.

I feel really nervous. The sun is getting lower. Few people still here. Supper. A nice idea. I am afraid to try to leave. They might think I am trying to abduct Charlie. If I do get out, I need to get over to the police station and hand her over. Then I am afraid I won’t be allowed to go back to the beach, that they’ll make me go home. I can’t do that. I can’t go home. Not tonight. Not lots of nights.

I go to get my hot dog because there is a hole in my gut that has to be filled. I understand I’ll have to share a couple bites with Charlie. Hurry. When does the food truck close?

Beach food carts charge such high prices. In the future I need to find more money before I come here to hide. Maybe I should run by the bodega for food first? Why did it take me so long to think of that?

We’ll have to spend the night here. Things, the situation, will be clearer in the morning. I hope. There’s also the chance that Mommy will come by here and spot us. I am hopeful about that possibility, too. No choice.

At night? Too dark.

Maybe Mommy has a flashlight so she can locate Charlie. Maybe she’s called the police and they’ll have flashlights. But I am afraid of the police. The ones from the main station don’t know me. I bet they’ll look at me in my clothes with wrinkles and sand, then they’ll label me a vagrant, a loiterer, or something like that. I am not any of those things. Not a delinquent. 

I am a survivor. Nothing else. Not The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo type of survivor. Just stayin’ alive, as the song goes. Not everybody knows that song, though. They made me learn it.

I am too tired to think now. Hungry and thirsty, too. All of them together. One good thing is I grabbed my long parka and wide scarf off the hook by the door. That’s something I learned to do all on my own and it has saved my life on more than one night. I need the coat and scarf here with me, close, even in the heat of summer, at the beach. At night I need them: soft, downy parka as sleeping bag, folded scarf for a pillow. Tonight I will share, just as I shared my hot dog. Not like I shared the orange popsicle, because I didn’t. Share it. You already know that, I’m pretty sure.

What is it? Who’s there?

Charlie puts index finger to mouth. Shhhhhhh! Sounds wise. Only three.

Woman pounds by. Is it Charlie’s mother? I try to call out to her. My voice is weak. I feel weak. I have eaten so little. Maybe little one has eaten very little as well. She doesn’t cry now, though.

Was that your mother?

Yah... Tears, sniffling.

You don’t want her to come to get you? I have a special sense for certain things. I watch eyes. That’s where it sits, usually. I don’t say that.

Nooo... can’t.

Can’t what? Who can’t? Asking was probably a useless effort. Mommy can’t. Charlie can’t. Be together?

Not what I expected.

Then pounding happened again. Harder, messier, more kicking. Air filled with bellowing. We cover ourselves with my lucky parka.

Thinking: Charlie had not wandered away by accident. Gotten lost by accident. Charlie did not know about how she got to the beach because she had been drugged. Her mother had been part of the plan. Man, not father, on beach. Trafficker. Mother (Mommy) and Man had fight when contact for pick-up or maybe payment fell through.

You are probably thinking this is not within my range of expertise. Detective stuff. I am not a detective, true, but this is within my range of expertise. That is something you should have picked up on. At the beginning. My father. Maybe. Maybe he isn’t. He hasn’t acted like a father or Dad or Daddy. It is hard.

Charlie seems to guess what I’m thinking and murmurs. I barely hear. No Daddy. Not Charlie.

What she said has just confirmed what I knew: Mommy and Man sold children. (I told you I have expertise in this area.) Man isn’t Daddy. Mommy might be or might not be. Charlie’s mother. (I don’t know if my father’s wife was my mother. I should have clarified that earlier, maybe.) 

You just heard me say how non-father my father is.

I have street smarts. I can put two and two together, even if Charlie is too young yet to do it. Basic math. Clearly the name does not make the person, because Charlie had turned out to be a sweet little girl, not a boy, and her family was out in left field, mind-wise and morals-wise. No family had brought her here.

She was between a rock and a hard place.

Like me.

But we always have the lucky parka. It fits both of us.

***

Charlie and I are doing very well, thank you. It’s been three years since the no-longer-lamented popsicle bit the dust, so to speak. I have never been able to find out Charlie’s exact age or names, first or last. I realize I haven’t really presented myself, so here’s who I am:

My name is Kali. I am not sure where I was born, but I would like to know when. Who knows? Maybe Charlie and I have the same birthday. Maybe we are related. Sisters or cousins. I guess I am about fourteen or fifteen now. Subtract three years and you get my age when I rescued Charlie. 

She kind of did the same thing for me, don’t you think?

I am not going to tell you or anybody my last name. I can’t. It’s my father’s, and just no. I have a plan, however. I am going to find or make an appropriate last name. Then I plan to share it with my sister. 

Charlie. I want her to be my sister. I want us to be safe together. I want us to have a name and say it. I want us each to have an age to claim. Six (her) and fourteen (me)? March 15, April 19, October 3? Everything is just a number. By themselves, or in a list, they are meaningless.

It’s better to have a family. One you can trust.