13

Friday was bright and shiny and hot as hell. Iris and Ian rode my bus with me downtown. Ian and I got into one of our usual fights; he’d started pontificating about absurdist lit, but I nailed him about never having read anything by Camus, bitch, whine, piss, moan, rinse and repeat. We convinced the driver to let us off before the official stop, and we started our march up to Mt. Vernon.

Mt. Vernon was one of those cultural hubs a lot of big cities have. Peabody, a big music school, was there, along with the Walters Art Gallery. The Baltimore Book Festival was held there every fall, and Iris told me there was the best indie bookshop in the world a few streets down from the Walters.

The store was in a half-exposed basement level of a massive corner townhome. The first floor had elegant, tasteful signs next to the door, advertising offices related to Johns Hopkins University. But the basement had a big, garish sign at street level that said in black, white, and midnight blue:

13: For All Your Alternative Book and Beverage Needs

There was a short but wide window with book displays, oversized coffee cups, and manikin torsos with tutu’s and biker jackets. There were a couple of candles and a witch’s hat on top of a stack of books. A Cesar Chavez sticker was plastered against the glass. I had no clue what sort of bookstore I was entering, if it was indie, Wiccan, anarchist or what. I don’t think the store knew what it was either.

I followed Iris down a short flight of stairs to a narrow door, covered with flyers. People were advertising bands, concerts, roommates, used textbooks, study groups, anarchist study groups, tarot card lessons, fortune telling sessions, lost pets, pets for sale, gallery shows, you name it and it was there.

“Um, Iris?” I tapped her shoulder as she opened the door. I’d just seen a sign, hidden amongst all the flyers and posters, saying: All persons under the age of 18 must be accompanied by an adult. No book bags or school bags are allowed with the premises.

She just winked at me. “Don’t worry about it. I got someone on the inside.” She pushed open the door. There was a little jingle and a rush of cool air. “Hey Renata!”

“Sup hon?” came from the far wall. “I’ll be with ya in a sec. Just taking care of some customers.”

The lighting was low. It took a minute for my eyes to adjust from the bright sun outside to this…cave. The ceiling was low, the furniture and shelves were dark wood, and lighting was minimal. The door opened into an open area with tables and more poster boards for flyers. The rest of the store stretched to the right, with mismatched shelves and even less lighting. What I guessed was a counter stretched across the far wall. I could only assume it was a counter since there was a cash register, but the whole thing was covered with books, posters, and an espresso machine that’d seen better days.

By the cash register were three people, two of them standing. Those two caught my attention first. They were very tall and very beautiful. The woman had impossibly red hair, almost blood red, and it waved down to her butt. She was dressed in a flowing skirt and a peasant blouse, with a bright orange scarf wrapped around her shoulders. Her hair was falling across her face, but I caught a glimpse of high, arched eyebrows and what romantic authors called alabaster skin. The man was 6’3” easy and looked like he’d just walked off the set of a GQ photo shoot. But I really couldn’t say for sure what he looked like. They were both leaning over the counter, talking to the girl Iris had yelled to. When they saw the three of us - Iris, Ian, and myself - they both moved away and headed to the door. The man called back to Renata, ‘farewell, my sweet,’ or something stupid like that, and left.

Iris had licked her lips when he walked past, and behind me, I could tell Ian had gone stiff as a board when the woman looked at us. When the door jingled shut behind those two, my friends relaxed. Iris grabbed my hand and dragged me over to the counter space the pretty people had just left. I finally got a look at the third person seated behind the register.

She was wearing an oversized Otakon 2005 t-shirt that draped on her. Rubber bands, hair ties, and Dollar Store charity bracelets covered both wrists. Long brown hair was braided tightly and hung over her shoulder, while straight even bangs nearly covered her freakishly dark eyes. She had a beautiful but cartoonish face, round and wide but symmetrical. Overall, she was pretty and slender and graceful, and looked like a girl from an 18^th century cameo. But something about the set of her shoulders and the tilt of her chin gave me the distinct impression that she could snap me like a twig. And there was a look in her eyes that made me uncomfortable, even though she was smiling.

“Renata, this is Fin. She goes to Copy Cat with me.” Iris shoved me front and center. I felt like a dead bird the family cat was dropping at the foot of its owner.

“Um, hi?” I waved a little.

“Fin?” she shook my hand. She had an eyebrow quirked in a quizzical expression, but she held out a hand to shake. I took it and tried to look appropriately embarrassed over my unusual nickname.

“Short for Seraphim, Seraphim Constantine.”

“Cool name.” It really was kind of boss. Occasionally I wished I just went by Seraphim. But people were always shortening it, and they were always shortening it to Sarah, and I hated being called Sarah.

“Yeah, well, I’m pretty fond of it.”

“Renata Dunn. Nothing interesting about being named after an opera singer no one’s heard of anymore,” she laughed. “Well, welcome to 13. Chuck your bags on the counter so Hal doesn’t have a conniption fit and feel free to browse. We have coffee and soup and whatnot over at that counter if you can stand the heat. Honestly, if it’s too hot for me to drink coffee, it’s too hot for anyone.” She took a pull on slurpee that’d been stashed under the counter.

I dumped my backpack on the counter. My shoulders nearly screamed in relief. “Thanks,” I rolled my shoulders, trying to work the kinks out. “So, who’s Hal and why’d he be having a fit?”

“Hal is the manager of this fine establishment…for the moment.” Renata moved my bags behind the counter, then did the same for Iris and Ian.

“That sounds ominous.”

“13’s got a pretty high turnover rate for managers,” Iris laughed, “it’s like the Venus fly trap of jobs. Looks really cool, real easy, very pretty on the resume, but once you’re here, it mangles you.”

I raised a brow and looked to Renata. She shrugged and smiled good-naturedly. “Pretty much. I’ve been here part-time for a little over a year, and I’ve seen four managers come in and get wheeled out in a straight jacket. Hal’s pretty close to the edge, and I don’t want him snapping when he gets back in.”

“Hal’s not in yet?” Ian asked, wandering over to a section labeled Poetry.

“Nah, he’s still at his anger management session.”

“They put someone with anger issues in charge of a store? Are the owners on crack? I mean, geez, why don’t they give you the job? You seem pretty chill.” I was slightly flabbergasted.

“Thank you! And to answer your questions in reverse order,” she stopped, took a pull on her slurpee, met ice, and started stabbing it with her straw, “I don’t think they’re interested in giving a 16 year old keys to the stock room. And rightly so. I would walk out of here with soooo much stolen merc, you have no idea. I mean, way more than I already do.” Sluuuurrp. “Second, the correct drug is heroin. Mr. McGee’s drug of choice this year is heroin. He’s got a dealer in Arbutus who mules it in state with computer parts. Way crazy. And Hal didn’t have any anger issues till he started working as manager. Before that, I learned much of my chill ways from him.”

Okay, I was more than slightly flabbergasted. “This is a fucked up store.”

“But we have some absolutely fab merchandise.” Renata chewed on some ice chunks and motioned to the shelves. “Go check it out.”

Their selection of books was pretty amazing. There were lots of books on psychology and gender identity. There were two walls dedicated to anarchist and atheist literature, with tons of Nietzsche. I picked up a copy of the Anarchists Hand Guide. That would piss off dad if he ever saw it. I spent at least half an hour reading titles and flipping through pages, while Iris and Renata talked in low voices at the counter and Ian stood unmoving in the poetry aisle.

The lighting was abysmally low. I had to lean close to the shelves to see book titles. Consequently, I didn’t see the man dozing in the corner until I tripped over his outstretched feet.

I gasped loudly as I fell to my knees. A quick assessment told me that I was fine. I turned to guy I’d just tripped over.

“Hey mister, are you okay?”

He was a short black man, wirey-thin with his hair cut close. His white button-down was loose and worn, while his tan slacks were held up with suspenders. It was hard to tell if his skin was really that dark or if it were just the poor lighting. The look of him kind of freaked me out. Something about his clothes made him look like he’d just stepped out of a 30’s movie. And what was he doing sleeping in a corner of a book store?

He hadn’t answered my question, I asked him if he were okay again. He just looked at me, eyes wide, as though he couldn’t believe I was talking to him, that I could see him. Everything about this guy was freaking me out, so I quickly ducked into the nearest aisle that took me out of his line of sight. Tragically, unfairly, it was the poetry aisle. Ian looked down at me with his usual contempt, and I sneered back at him, trying to cover up my suddenly pounding heart. I was still crouched low to the floor. Trying to make it look like this was on purpose, I reached out to the books on the lowest shelf. Ella Wheeler Wilcox. I opened it to somewhere in the middle and started reading Ad Finem over and over again.

I felt I was being watched. Looking up, I saw Ian leering at me. When I met his gaze, he licked his lips and then looked back at the book he was holding. Pig. There was an iron poker next to a bricked up fireplace behind us. I wondered how long it would take me to grab it and swing it at Ian’s knees, which were right at my eye level. I could probably reach it faster than he could effectively dodge. Most likely. It was worth the risk. My left hand inched towards the poker.

“Hey Fin! Wanna go to a party?” Iris yelled out over the stacks.

“Um…sure?” I agreed hesitantly. I abandoned my knee-cap shattering plans and went to join her and Renata over at the counter. Ella Wheeler Wilcox got dropped on top of some other books and I skirted past Ian, making sure to kick him in the ankle –hard- as I passed. He grunted in pain and I smiled. It wasn’t a trip to the hospital but it was something.

Iris was bouncing with happiness and Renata was still smiling. “Okay, so there’s this park over by Ellicott city and it’s awesome and abandoned and they’ve been clearing some of the rides and buildings out but there’s still a ton of stuff left over and it’s in the woods and Renata and some other people know how to get in and they wanna hold a Halloween party there and it’ll be awesome do you wanna go?” It was amazing that her skin hadn’t started to match the purple of her hair. She took a gasping breath as soon as she finished, but then held it while awaiting my response.

“Sounds like fun,” I agreed again. “We’re going to do this on Halloween?” I posed the question to Renata while Iris squealed in pleasure. It seemed to be her shindig so she’d probably know the time better than Iris.

“Weekend before. I’ve already got plans for Halloween and so do a couple of other peeps who’re coming. But we all want to do this, so it’s happening. That weekend free for you?” There was something about her eyes that made me so uncomfortable. But if Iris was there, and other people were there, maybe I wouldn’t have to deal with her much.

“As far as I know, I’m free.” Dad wasn’t a ‘making-plans’ sort of parent so I highly doubted anything would interfere from that area of my life. And the Mom’s were both so busy. So unless the Twins came,… nah, they’d want to come with me if they knew. “Yeah, I’ll be free.”

“YES! Time for a victory smoke.” Iris started rifling through her many pockets, looking for her cigarettes and lighter.

“Outside!” Renata declared, pointing a finger imperiously towards the door.

“Aw, but-“

“ASTHMA!” she yelled louder, pointing to her chest.

“Oh. Right,” Iris looked a little awkward, then perked up, saying “be right back,” before she dashed out the door into the sunshine. We heard a quick scream of “the sunlight! It burns,” before the door tinkled closed behind her.

“You’re asthmatic?” I asked Renata.

“Not since I was twelve, but there’s no need for her to know that.” She noticed the anarchy book I was holding. “You wanna buy that?”

Renata rang me up quickly and shoved the book in my backpack for me. Then she was distracted. There was a loud beep, and I realized she had a laptop stored under the counter. An IM conversation left over from last night was starting up again, she said. She was talking to a guy who called himself rain maker Tobai in Savannah.

The door tinkled again and Iris stepped back inside, picking the conversation back up where she’d left it. “Renata, you gotta tell us about some other stuff going on in tow. We have to indoctrinate Fin into Baltimore culture.” Iris wrapped an arm around me.

“That was a quick smoke,” I said. Normally she took twice that long.

She snorted. “I want the cigarette to burn, not me.” Then she turned back to Renata, whining “Renaaaaaaaa.”

“Take her down to Market Street and leave her there for a few hours. That should do it,” she said, never looking up from the laptop screen. The ferocity of her typing and the frequency of the beeps notifying replies made it seem like a very heated discussion.

Iris pouted.

“Baltimore Book fest is going to be here in the next week or two,” Ian called from a few shelves away. “And after that, we head into October and Free Fall. There should be something going on there to entertain you two.” Free Fall was this touristy thing Baltimore did where tons of otherwise expensive cultural events were suddenly open to the public and free of charge. I’d gone to one of those events once, a jazz concert at Eubie Blake, before Nonna and Poppy had died. It had been kind of fun.

“The Peabody’s doing a show. It’s scheduled to be up and running by the end of the month,” Renata chimed in from behind her laptop.

“What show?”

“Don Giovanni. There’s a poster for it on the wall near the door,” she nodded her head in that direction. “It’s a student production. It’s the first time they’ve done this show in nearly twenty years. If you’ve got nothing else to do today, you could run back to Mt. Vernon proper and pick up some tickets at the school.”

I rushed over to the board with poster and sought it out. “That definitely sounds like something I’d be interested in.”

“Fin, you like opera?” Iris sounded stunned.

“I like this opera,” I clarified. “A statue comes to life at the end of it and drags the title character off to hell. Homicidal sculpture. What’s not to like?”

Iris and I decided to go to the Peabody soon after that. We’d been in 13 for nearly two hours and the air conditioning was getting to me. We left Ian hidden among the stacks. He hadn’t shifted his position at all. Iris told him where we were going; I didn’t hear what he said in response. All I heard was Renata call after, very softly, “see you soon, Seraphim.”

I was standing on the corner outside 13, still talking to Iris, when my dad drove past us. He hadn’t said anything about where I could or couldn’t hang out. But from the look on his face, I could tell I’d done something wrong by being here. His car circled the block, then came back to pull up to the curb where we were standing. The passenger window rolled down, and dad leaned over the seat and stuck his head out.

“Hey Fin, who’s you friend?” He was smiling a little, but his eyes were cold and distrustful, the way they always were around new people.

“This is Iris. She’s in my class. Iris, this is my dad, Mike,” I tried to make the conversation as quick as I could - Dad wasn’t the parent you introduced to people you liked – that distrust of Iris, and his obvious anger at me got my back up. What the fuck was his problem? I said bye to Iris and got in the car, ready for a fight.

We drove for a few blocks without saying a word. I wasn’t going to speak first and set myself up for more trouble. Finally,

“I don’t want you walking around here. It’s not safe for you. Not for anyone, but you even more. You don’t know what to expect.”

“I told you I was hanging out with a friend today. And what’s with this ‘not safe’ business? I’m not a noob, dad. New Orleans ain’t winning any prizes for safety and I used to stomp around the city all the time there.” It was hard to talk to my dad without being defensive or antagonistic.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re a tough girl. Now don’t gimme that look!” He’d caught my sneer, and probably knew it meant I’d be bitching to mom about him later that night. “I know New Orleans is bad. A lot of places are. But none of them are Baltimore. Baltimore, now she’s a beast unto herself. She’s a mean old bitch of a place.”

We were driving through one of the dingier parts of the city. He was back roading through residential streets instead of the main ones that were jammed this time of day. We passed a street corner where there was a Charm City bench falling apart. Most of them had been removed a couple of years ago

“Charm City my ass,” he muttered. “Sure, she’ll charm you alright. And once you’re charmed stupid, she’ll fuck you up, leave you broke, broken, and dying behind one of those big churches on Saint Paul Street, reeking of piss – half of which ain’t even your own!”

“Thanks dad. I needed that mental image.”

“Shut that smart mouth before I shut it for you.” Dad had never beaten me or my sisters, but that didn’t mean his threat was idle. I shut my ‘smart mouth.’ He went on, “see all these houses? See them all boarded up and empty?”

I nodded.

“It’s bull. There’re people in all of them. Some live there, squatters. Some people run businesses out of them. We found a whole row not far from Market Street where they were running beauty parlors.”

“Do you have a point, or are you just trying to talk me to death?” I snapped.

Dad paused, took a breath and said, “nothing that looks empty here ever is. Not really. And it’s hardly ever that it’s something as harmless as a beauty shop.”

I heaved an exaggerated sigh, “sure dad. Right. Don’t go near the boarded up houses. Well, that marks about half the city ‘off-limits.’ I’ll keep this all in mind, dad. Thanks.”

“And on the flip side of that” he raised his voice to speak over me, “places that look occupied, places that appearance and common sense tell you should be full of people who’ll give a shit if something happens to a pretty young thing like you – those’ll be the places where no one will hear you call for help.”

I thought about this for a minute, looking at the dark, derelict houses that passed by our window. “So what you’re telling me is that I was fucked the minute you and mom agreed to move me up here.”

He actually laughed at that. My dad, expressing concern for my welfare and then laughing at something I said, all in the same night. Would wonders never cease.

“I’m giving you a warning. Some people spend live their whole lives in this city, never going to DC or even stepping over county lines, and don’t figure out the obvious. Then they bitch about how hard their lives are, not making any connection. This city is a vindictive bitch who’s out for blood. She’s not too picky about whose. I’m giving you a heads up to watch you’re your back. Be grateful and don’t go walking here on your own.”