records that I could steal or rumors, memories, stories that I could hear about. And if several of our children had been sent there, then perhaps I could find one or two of them still there.
That last thought scared me a little. If I did find a couple of our kids, I couldn't leave them in CA hands. One way or another, I would have to free them and try to reunite them with their families. That would draw such attention to me that I would have to leave the area, and, I suspect, leave my Larkin. This is assuming that I would be able to leave, that I didn't wind up wearing another collar.
The food at the CA Center was edible—a couple of slices of bread and a rich stew of potatoes and vegetables flavored with beef, although I never found meat of any kind in it People around me complained about the lack of meat, but I didn't mind. Over the past several months, I've learned to eat whatever was put in front of me, and be glad of it If I could keep it down, and there was enough of it to fill my stomach, I considered myself lucky. But it amazed me that I could keep anything down while sitting so close to my enemies at the CA Center.
My first visit was the worst. My memory of it isn't as clear as it ought to be. I know I went there. I sat and I ate with several dozen other homeless men. I managed not to go crazy when someone began to preach at us. I know I did all that, and I know that afterward, I needed the long, long walk to the park to get my head back into working order. Walking, like writing, helps.
I did it all in blind terror. How I looked to others I don't know. I think I must have seemed too mentally sick even to talk to. No one tried to make conversation with me, although some of the men talked to one another. I got in line and after that I moved automatically, did what others did. Once I sat down with my food, I found myself crouching over it, protecting it, gulping it like a hawk who's caught a pigeon. I used to see people doing that at Camp Christian. You got so damned hungry there sometimes, it made you a little crazy. This time, though, it wasn't the food mat I cared about. I wasn't mat hungry. And if I'd wanted to, I could have changed my clothing, gone in to a decent restaurant, and bought a real meal. It's just that somehow, if I focused on the food and filled my mind with it as well as my body, I could keep myself still and not get up and run, screaming, out of that place.
I have never, in freedom, been so afraid. People edged away from me. I mean crazies, junkies, whores, and thieves edged away from me. I didn't think about it at the time. I didn't think about anything. I'm surprised that I manage to remember any of it now. I moved through it in a cloud of blank terror and an absolute readiness to kill.
I had wrapped my gun in my spare clothes and put it at the bottom of my pack. I did this on purpose so that there would be no quick way for me to get at it. I didn't want to be tempted to get at it. If I needed it inside the CA Center, I was already dead. I couldn't leave it anywhere, but I could unload it. I took a lot of time earlier that evening, unloading it and wrapping it up, watching myself wrap it up so that even in the deepest panic I would know I couldn't get at it.
It worked. It was necessary, and it worked.
Years ago, when my neighborhood in Robledo burned, when so much of my family burned, I had to go back. I got away in the night, and the next day, I had to go back. I had to retrieve what I could of that part of my life that was over, and I had to say goodbye. I had to. Up to that moment, and long afterward, going back to my Robledo neighborhood was the hardest thing I had ever done. This was worse.
When I went to the CA Center for the second time several days later, it wasn't as bad. I could look and think and listen. I have no memory of any word said during the first visit. I tried to listen, but I couldn't take anything in. But during the second, I heard people talking about the food, about employers who didn't pay, about women—I was in the men's section—about places up north, out east, or down south where there was work, about joints that hurt, about the war.... I listened and I looked. After a while, I saw myself. I saw a man crouching over his food, spooning it into his mouth with intense and terrible concentration. His eyes, when he looked up, looked around, were vacant and scary. In line, he shambled more than he walked. If anyone got close to him, he looked insanity and death at them. He was barely human. People kept away from him. Maybe he was on something. He was big. He might be dangerous. I kept away from him myself. But he was me a few days before. I never found out what his particular problems were, but I know they were as terrible to him as mine are to me.
I heard almost nothing about orphaned children or Jarret's Crusaders. A couple of the men mentioned that they had kids. Most don't talk much, but some can't stop talking: their long-lost homes, women, money, brave deeds and suffering during the war.... Nothing useful.
Still I went back for the third time last night. Same food. They throw in different vegetables—whatever they happen to have, I suppose. The only inevitable ingredient in the stew is potatoes, but dinner is always vegetable stew and bread. And after the meal, there's always at least an hour of sermon to bear. The doors are shut. You eat, then you listen. Then you can leave or try to get a bed.
My first sermon I couldn't remember if my life depended on it. The second was about Christ curing the sick and being willing to cure us too if we only asked. The third was about Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.
The lay minister who delivered this third sermon was Marc.
