73

I woke up on a couch, a red couch, and there was a rumbling beneath me.  I’ve been in earthquakes before, big ones, but this wasn’t like an earthquake; it came in smaller waves, passing from my feet to my head.  The sun came in unimpeded and strong and even though the AC was on it was hot on my face and my arms and from the walls themselves.

A fleece blanket was thrown off and I sat up, putting the son on my back, dust dancing up in the light.  The room was silent besides the rumbling and something told me I was alone.  I checked all of the rooms, took six dollars off of a dresser and went down to Corbo’s.  They had the bowl of reject cookies out, broken or over-glazed, and I took three on the way in and seven on the way out.  At Presti’s I had coffee, and sat in the big windows and watched the tourists walk by, girls in skirts trying to look attractive, older men in baseball hats and sunglasses, a small white dog dancing on the sidewalk, picking its feet up  quickly from heat or from breeding.

48

Tom clearly didn’t care about making noise, but Laci and the other girl must have – after a few clicks of their platform shoes there were two thuds and then only Tom’s footsteps echoed up.  I could tell that the room we were in didn’t have windows, and I reached for the light switch so that we could get an idea of what was in the room.  Terry must have heard the rustle of my shirt because she grabbed my hand as it was rising.

“Don’t burn your eyes,” she said.

She was right, so I let my hand fall.  They were coming up the stairs now, and I could tell that Terry’s ear was against the door.

The footsteps became muffled as they reached the carpet of the hallway.  I briefly wondered why hallways were carpeted; they should all be durable.  80/20.  I made a mental note: if I ever had a hallway, it would be durable.

Tom’s footsteps passed us and I heard the girls pass by, too.  I imagined that if the door wasn’t there we’d smell Laci’s stripper perfume, or maybe sweat.  They were close together and taking small steps.  I wondered how many dancers went to church regularly. I wasn’t focusing.

Tom opened the door at the end of the hallway, near the window, and said something quietly.

“What did he say?” I breathed.

Terry ignored me for a moment, then said, “he told them to hold the door open but wait outside.”

I strained to hear now.  A door closed softly – strange, I thought, if they thought that they were alone – and the girls weren’t talking now.  Terry stayed next to the door and I tried not to move at all.

Minutes later I heard the soft click of a door opening and Tom coming out.  My ears had gotten used to the silence and I heard their clothes rustling and carpet fibers and pads being compressed.  Tom led the way again and Laci and the other girl followed, none of them talking.  The steps echoed on the hall, then through the church, and the front door opened, hovered and closed again.

I went to turn the light on and Terry grabbed my hand again.

42

I hit the door with my shoulder, hard, turning the knob at the same time, and it felt like I was exploding into the night.  Suddenly the air was fresh, and the lights were clean and white, and the sky was dark blue with stars.  Bridget hurried out after me and I started to run at the bridge, but she hissed “wait” and I turned around.  She was leaning, her ear against the door, her hand on the knob, holding it open just enough that it wouldn’t catch closed.  I could hear cursing inside, and then some heavy footfalls on the stairs, the sound of which changed when they reached the concrete floor.  I was about to try to get her to run when

she flung the door open.  He had obviously expected to hit it with his shoulder as I’d done, and run after us, but he flew like a cartoon character defying gravity, his right hand still reaching for the knob, his left shoulder still anticipating the impact.  When his feet had left the building, reaching for something solid, Bridget began to move in the same direction, letting go of the door.  His hip hit the edge of the platform and he tumbled onto the tracks head-first, falling against the rail and the gravel hard.

Bridget jumped down right as he was getting up and kicked his ribs twice.  His arms buckled and she straddled his back like she was on a horse.  Her right hand grabbed his hair and pulled his head up, and her left hand reached around under his neck and grabbed his collar.  She pushed his head down again and pulled the collar and I realized she was using his shirt to cut off his windpipe.  He first tried to push up against her weight, then flailed to try to grab one of her legs, but she’d wedged her knees into his armpits and he couldn’t reach around.  He ended up just thrashing.

I realized I’d been holding my breath, too, and I gasped in at the same time as Bridget let his collar go.

“Where did you learn how to do that?” I asked.  She shrugged and got up.  I helped her onto the platform and we ran back across the bridge, limping the staccato against the ties, then down the stairs and back to our cars.

28

I hurried to catch up with her, and she turned and we walked together again.

“So the nearest I can figure is that this was road access to the railway for some reason, or it went to a door or something so that workers could come out and load things on cars and then link them to railcars.”

I looked at the tracks above me; it sounded absurd, and I said so.

“Oh sweetie, the intermodal shipping we are used to only started in the 1960s, so before that everything was loaded and unloaded by hand.  This railroad goes back to the 1890s, at least, so for sixty years they had people to load things on and off of cars.  That’s why the access was built.”  We were almost to the top of the stairs, and every time she took a step little clouds of rust dust puffed out.  As soon as I got to the top I saw weeds, and black gravel, and rails.  At the other end of the tracks was a jumble of switches, and old lights that had been shattered long ago; I saw that the rails on our side were set up to allow a single car to stop and then join the main rail again.  She must have been right.

“See over there?”  She pointed across the bridge to where we were going.  There was the same jumble of switches, but the warehouse was older, and I saw giant doors.

“So we’re going…”  I pointed.

“Yep,” she said.  “So stay close to the center, because it’s less likely someone will see your head from the street.”

I crouched down and followed her.  There were holes between the railroad ties, but it was surprisingly easy to walk from rail to tie to rail to tie at a pace that felt like a limp – quickslow, quickslow.  The cars passed below us in bursts, and I thought of trying to spit in one, maybe through a sunroof, but didn’t.

27

I met Bridget at the coffee shop/dry cleaner where Carnegie and Prospect split.  She was carrying a backpack slung over her right shoulder – something I never would have expected to see her with, a backpack, and something which, in retrospect, which I wished I’d had.  She saw me looking at it and recognized complicated thoughts.  “I know, right?” she said, and then, “You’ll be fine.”

“Sweety,” as we walked, “I know you’ll be fine, but you can’t be a tourist for at least the next two hours.”

I knew what she meant, but I still got defensive.

“So are there any rules I should know about?”

“Oh, lots,” she said, as if she’d anticipated the question, as if it was part of the regular script.  “Like, for one, you have to expect danger, but don’t be stupid about it.  If you think something is dangerous, stop and decide whether what you’d get out of it is worth the danger, and how bad the danger really is.  If it’s just falling on the ground, then it might not be a big deal.  If it’s falling off of a rooftop, then unless you’re, like, getting bricks of gold or the key to the city then don’t do it.”

When she was describing this it sounded straightforward, but she paused for a second and looked at me, and I realized that it was almost a metaphor for how she lived her life and how most people do exactly the opposite.  Then we stopped and looked across East 55th, down toward the weird gas station and then the ambulance lot.

“That’s a good rule,” I said.

“So rule number two: if you do get hurt, if it isn’t life-threatening or crippling then we can go on.

“Rule number three: if you see something that might be dangerous, tell me immediately because I might not see it.

“Oh oh oh,” I said, pointing at the building.  She almost smiled.

“Rule four: take pictures of everything.

“Rule five: don’t break anything you don’t have to break.

“Six: if there’s a lot of dust and dirt, don’t disturb it until it’s been photographed.

“Seven: if you run into anyone, assume that they are either dangerous or can put you in jail.
“Eight: if we do see someone, either hide or run unless you can tell they’re also just exploring, in which case see if you can join forces with them.

“Nine: turn your phone to silent unless we get separated, and then turn it to vibrate.

“Ten: Once we get inside, make a lot of noise if it looks like a place people might live. Don’t fuck with homeless guy’s shit either. If there’s a corner that’s obviously full of his junk and mattress, leave it alone.

“Eleven: Stay within shouting range of your partner. Always have a partner.

“Twelve: Do not climb on fire escapes.  Ever.

“Thirteen: Do not take really cool stuff, leave it for the next person to see too.”

The thirteen rules of exploring abandoned buildings, as delivered by Bridget Callahan.

We were walking past the place that looked like a natural entrance now and she didn’t give any indication that we were turning into it at any point.  From behind she had a jolly swagger, and I knew she enjoyed being in control of something like this.  I looked up at the massive overhang, the imposing walls, and thought that when it was operating it must have been full of constant humming, with immigrant laborers lifting, dropping, pushing, pulling, destroying and making things for the world.

We kept walking, though, and when we got to the bridge she looked to each side and started crossing the street, getting to each support post and then to the sidewalk on the south side.  Then she turned back and started looking to each side again to cross.  I took a step toward the street again but she put her hands back; anyone may have thought she was reaching out for my hand but I recognized it as a sign to stop.  When the road was claer, she turned around again and made a nimble leap up to the top of the concrete support and behind the steel pillar.  I realized that she’d been checking to see if the coast was clear and, trusting that I wouldn’t fall, I scrambled up behind her, then swung behind the pillar before anyone could see me.

Invisible from the sidewalk was a rusted lattice walkway behind the pillar, flush with the wall, and she’d already walked ten fet down it.  Twenty feet away I saw a stairway going up and followed it with my eyes through two turns to the level of the railway above.  Bridget couldn’t conceal her excitement anymore and turned around, beaming.

“Pretty sweet, huh?”

47

We slipped out of the passenger side and crouched down.  They had pulled into the lot on the west side of West Third and were idling, their lights pointing north.  A cigarette glowed somewhere in the front seat – it was probably Laci’s – and was distorted when the window rolled up.  The lights went off and we scurried across the sidewalk into the church as soon as the cabin light went on and their doors opened.

The front door was open, and we pushed it gently, just far enough to pass inside.  I went first and held it open for the other two.  As soon as Terry was in I let it close slowly, almost onto my fingers, pulling them through and keeping pressure on the door as long as I could so it wouldn’t close suddenly or with a sound.

A few candles were still burning; I briefly thought that it was marvelous that state legislators had not spoken up against the dangers of Jesus candles and issued some law or regulation against churches letting them burn out.  Something about the warm silence comforted me; if anyone else had been there, I felt sure we would have felt His or her presence.

Terry slipped off her flats and Ty and I did the same.  She was across the vestibule by the time I was done, walking toe-heel like an Indian, her bare feet making tiny, muted scratches on the floor.  My socks made tiny thumps, and I stayed on the balls of my feet; Ty did the same, seeing my odd gait, and we followed her to the back.

Opening doors in a church, especially a silent one, makes me feel like I’m being offensive; every click or creak echoes and makes my heart skip a beat.  We slipped through one in the back, pushing down the bar and letting it back up again as slowly as possible, and then started up the stairs, lit only by the exit light at the bottom.  When we’d gotten through the door to the offices on the second story, we heard the front door close, heavy and confidently, as if they, too, didn’t expect to meet anyone inside but weren’t fearful of anyone else knowing they were there.  Terry looked back at us and then started to walk down the hallway a little more quickly, then turned the knob of the third door on the right.

The Shadows of Cleveland II

I wasn’t meant to live here.

I mean, I was born in Cleveland, but when I was two my parents decided to move to Huntington Beach, where I spent a halcyon youth that nowadays could only be imagined.  My parents were part of the last great generation to embrace California – the products of the 1960s and 1970s fed on ideals, on dreams, on the way things ought to be, and, when faced with realities that they didn’t like, they fought those realities tooth and nail until those realities didn’t seem like reality but like a perverted fantasy.  Then they raised us, protecting us just enough that we could grow up, then letting us go out into the world, hoping that we could make our way.  The generation that moved out to California after the, even ten years later, was palpably different; they were raised not on the thoughts of California but on the things.  My parents watched, and watch, this new generation grasping at the appearance of what it means to be Californian and, at the same time, they are watching their ideas and ideals slip away in favor of image.

And then I moved back.  I drove east in August, starting in Sierra Madre and crossing the Nevada desert in an overloaded Mazda Protege without air conditioning in the afternoon, praying the entire time the same way I pray on airplanes when they take off and land.  I stopped in Utah, Colorado, Iowa and, finally, stopped in Cleveland.

Everything kept getting more green as I drove, which seemed like a good sign.  When I saw I was in Lorain I started getting nervous.  I was passing woods and rivers, and the old Spanish-style bridge on the side of I-90, and then I passed Jacob’s Field, rounded some curves and was in Little Italy.  I parked in front of my building and moved my stuff up to the top floor.  I still don’t know why it seemed like such a brilliant idea, but then there was a girl, who also happened to be Californian, and I called my parents and told them that I wasn’t moving back, that I was going to stay and buy a house and make my life in the Midwestside.

Once, my mother wanted to know why I didn’t want to live where they were, and I quoted a line from her generation: “The cat’s in the cradle,” I’d said.