couldn't tell if it was human, or even real.
I looked up and down the fence, searching for an entrance to the lot, had to walk a ways until I found it: a square hatch cut into the link, held in place with rusty baling wire.
Prying the wires loose took a while and hurt my fingers. Finally, I bent the flap back, squatted, and passed through, retying one wire from the other side. Making my way across the soft dirt, my nostrils full of shit smell, I dodged chunks of concrete, Styrofoam food containers, lumps of things that didn't bear further inspection. No bottles or cans- probably because they were recyclable and redeemable. Let's hear it for green power.
But nothing green here. Just blacks, grays, browns. Perfect camouflage for a covert world.
A vile smell overcame even the excremental stench. Hearing the buzz of flies, I looked down at a cat's carcass that was so fresh the maggots hadn't yet homesteaded, and gave it a wide berth. Onward, past an old blanket, clumps of newspaper so sodden they looked like printed bread dough… no people that I could see, no movement. Where had the movement come from?
I arrived at the spot where I thought the thing had rolled, toward the back of the covered lot, just a few feet from the inner angle of a canted concrete wall.
Standing again, I focused. Waited. Felt my back itch.
Saw it again.
Movement. Hair. Hands. Someone lying rolled up in a sheet- several sheets, a mummy wrap of frayed bed linens. Twitchy movements below.
Lovemaking? No. No room for two people in the swaddle.
I walked toward it slowly, making sure I approached head-on, not wanting to startle.
My shoes kicked something hard. The impact was inaudible over the roar, but the figure in the sheeting sat up.
A young, dark Latina, bare shouldered. Soft shoulders, a large vaccine crater on one arm.
She stared at me, pressing the sheets up to her chest, long hair wild and sticky looking.
Her mouth was open, her face round and plain, scared and baffled.
And humiliated.
The sheet dropped a bit and I saw that she was naked. Something dark and urgent snuffled at her breast- a small head.
A baby. The rest of it concealed by the filthy cotton.
I backed away, smiled, held up my hand in greeting.
The young mother's face was electric with fear.
The baby kept suckling and she placed one hand over its tiny skull.
Near her feet was a small cardboard box. I got down and looked inside. Disposable diapers, new and used. More flies. A can of condensed milk and a rusty opener. A nearly empty bag of potato chips, a pair of rubber sandals, and a pacifier.
The woman tried to nourish her baby while rolling away from me, unraveling more of the sheets and exposing a mottled thigh.
As I started to turn away, the look in her eyes changed from fear to recognition and then to another type of fear.
I whipped around and found myself face-to-face with a man.
A boy, actually, seventeen or eighteen. Also Latin, small and flimsily built, with a fuzz mustache and a sloping chin so weak it seemed part of his skinny neck. His eyes were downslanted and frantic. His mouth hung open; a lot of his teeth were gone. He had on a torn, checked flannel shirt, stretched-out doubleknit pants, and unlaced sneakers. His ankles were black with dirt.
His hands trembled around an iron bar.
I stepped away. He hesitated, then came toward me.
A high sound pierced the freeway din.
The woman screaming.
Startled, the boy looked at her and I moved in, grabbed the bar, and twisted it out of his grip. The inertia threw him backwards onto the ground so easily that I felt like a bully.
He stayed there, looking up at me, shielding his face with one hand, ready to be beaten.
The woman was up, tripping out of the sheets, naked, the baby left squalling on the dirt. Her belly was pendulous and stretchmarked, her breasts limp as a crone's, though she couldn't have been much older than twenty.
I threw the bar as far as I could and held out both hands in what I hoped was a gesture of peace.
The two of them looked at me. Now I felt like a bad parent.
The baby was openmouthed with rage, clawing the air and kicking. I pointed to it.
The woman rushed over and picked it up. Realizing she was naked, she crouched and hung her head.
The chinless boy's hands were still shaking. I tried another smile and his eyes drooped, tugged down by despair.
I took out my wallet, removed a ten, walked over to the woman and held it out to her.
She didn't move.
I put the bill in the cardboard box. Went back to the boy, took out another ten and showed it to him.
More of that same hesitation he'd shown before coming at me with the bar. Then he took a step, biting his lip and teetering like a high-wire artist, and snatched the money.
Holding out yet another bill, I headed for the place where I'd broken through the fence. Checking my back as I trotted through the muck.
After a few steps the boy started following me. I picked up the pace and he tried to catch up, but couldn't. Walking was an effort for him. His mouth was open and his limbs looked rubbery. I wondered when he'd last eaten.
I made it to the flap, untied the wire and walked out to the sidewalk. He came through several moments later, rubbing his eyes.
The light hurt my pupils. He appeared to be in agony.
He finally stopped rubbing. I said,
'I'm from Tucson, man,' he said, in unaccented English.
His hands were fisted, but the tremor and his small bones mocked his fighter's stance. He started to cough, dry and wheezing. Tried to bring up phlegm and couldn't.
'Didn't mean to scare you,' I said.
He was looking at the money. I extended my arm and he snatched the bill and crammed it under his waistband. The pants were much too big for him and held together with a red plastic belt. One of his sneakers was patched with cellophane tape. As his hand balled up around the bill, I saw that the pinkie of his left hand was missing.
'Gimme more,' he said.
I didn't say anything.
'Gimme more. But she won' fuck you, anyway.'
'I don't want her to.'
He flinched. Thought a moment. 'I won', neither.'
'I'm not interested in that, either.'
He frowned, put a finger inside his mouth and rubbed his gums.
I gave a quick look around, saw no one, and took out a fourth ten.
'Whu'?' he said, yanking his hand free and making a grab for it.
Holding it out of reach, I said, 'Is that Little Calcutta?'
'Huh?'
'The place we just were. Is that Little Calcutta?'
'Maybe.'
'Maybe?'
'Yeah.' He coughed some more, hit his chest with the four-fingered hand.
'How many people live there?'
'I dunno.'
'Are there others in there right now? People I didn't see?'
