X-Ray Vision Ch. 03: Explored

Yards turned to parking strips or painted gravel to eliminate yard maintenance.

It was a blessing to find the Pham's - this place was maintained, the trim all in place, the siding original. Trim could use a new paint job, but not too shabby yet. And the yard! All lush grass. Rose bushes trained to trellis, hydrangeas bracketing the porch. A flower bed that ran along the sidewalk, shorter plants in front and taller behind, really sharp looking.

An older gentleman was sitting by a bed, trowel in hand, digging out some damaged plants. A tray of transplants next to him on the grass. I greeted him.

"Ông ơi!" I had been learning from my sister, knew this was how to greet Grandpa Phuong, hoped it was appropriate in this situation.

He looked up, smiled to see me. "Em ơi" which I assume is for an elder greeting the young. I smiled back.

"I am here to ask about a room."

He nodded, gestured to the porch with the trowel. I smiled my thanks, stepped respectfully around his flower bed and made my way up.

A woman of indeterminate old age sat at a picnic table, pulling petals from flowers, putting them in a basket.

I used my only other Vietnamese.

"Bà ơi!"

She smiled, patted the table, so I climbed onto the bench opposite her.

"Jillian" I introduced myself, speaking loudly. She nodded, kept smiling.

"Kelly sent me."

She continued smiling. "Kelly!"

"I'm looking for a room for a young um, woman? Do you have rooms available?"

She nodded. "Three rooms! Top floor! Stair only! No elevator." That last on a sad note, apologetically.

"May I see a room?" I wanted to be sure; Kelly had vouched for them but who knew if the top floor was as nice as whatever Kelly was in?

She didn't seem to get that. I pointed at my eyes with forked fingers, then up at the third floor. She lit up, understanding. Fooling with a key loop on her dress she searched, found one she liked, unhooked it, gave it to me.

"Look! Come back! Bring key!"

I smiled and nodded, struggled out of the picnic table. The front door was ajar, so I went in.

The entry was a busy room. Mailboxes on one wall - nine of them. I assumed there were maybe four rooms on each of the top two floors, making 8. The last one was likely for the Pham's themselves.

A side table was a family shrine, incense sticks burning in a vessel of sand, a fruit bowl stacked with oranges. Four pictures on the wall, ancient black-and-white of elaborately dressed adults in decorated wooden chairs, plus one of a middle-aged woman, highly airbrushed.

A stuffed chair in a pink chintz pattern sat in the corner. To the left was a door to a dining room, a long table with 10 sturdy wooden chairs.

Straight ahead - the stairs. I began climbing. Sixteen steps to the second floor! These old places had high ceilings, 8 or 9 feet.

I found myself in a hallway that ran to the back of the house. Two doors were visible at the far end, one on each side. A bathroom was opposite, the door ajar, an enormous roll top bathtub on claw feet visible.

Behind me, more hallway. I went that way. At the far end, two more doors, one on each side. No numbers, just blank doors. I guess if you lived here, you knew which was yours.

And the staircase to the top floor. It ran over the lower staircase, one above the other. Narrower, steeper, it looked daunting.

I jogged up, my shoes just beginning to hurt. I'd taken a cab this morning, trying to save my blistered foot. All that was undone by my hike up here and now these stairs.

At the top, the same layout except the hallway was narrower. A bathroom door in the middle; a door on each side at each end.

Which did my key fit? Hard to tell; it was unlabeled. So were the doors. Only one way to find out. Starting at the far end I knocked, heard no reply. Of course not; everybody was at work. Tried the key - no luck.

Same on the other side.

Hike down the length of the house, try the next door. No luck. It's always in the last place you look.

This time the key worked. The door swung open on oiled hinges, revealing a pretty room with a large double-sash window. Wallpaper with more chintz pattern. Some kind of carpet on the floor, worn in places but not bad, no obvious stains.

And a bed! Brass rails, four poster with a shiny knob on each corner. I sat and bounced; pretty fair mattress. Bedside table, tiny but serviceable. Over by the window - a hard stuffed chair.

And a wardrobe! Opening it I found two pillows, a folded blanket, sheets in lurid colors - yellow, orange. Some towels, washcloths, thin but spotless.

I could find no fault with the room. Some pictures, some personal items in the wardrobe, on the bedside table, you could call it home. Well, a port in a storm for the girls I was looking to recruit.

The door on the inside had a bolt. So when you were home, you could feel safe. That was important; I approved.

Lock up and down the stairs, feet complaining again, out the front and sit at the table again, hand over the key.

"Very nice! Pretty rooms!"

She was all smiles, nodded, kept plucking petals.

"You stay? How long? Job?"

This was the interview. I was going to have my work cut out for me, explaining my plan.

I kept at it, repeating that it was not for me, but for a girl without family. No I didn't know her name; I wanted to have a place for her when I found her. Yes I could pay, no problem with the money, I had money.

At one point she got a severe expression, kept asking me "đĩ? đĩ?" I didn't understand. She made a rude gesture for sex, which translated without any words.

I turned pink, shook my head No! No! Did she think I was a madam, looking to keep my string of girls here? No!

I tried to explain. "Lost girl. No family. I want to help lost girls." That connected; she softened, nodded, looked thoughtful.

"I will have a job. I have a job for the girl. She will have money. Every week. Good work. Safe work."

Finally she relented. "Bring girl! I talk; girl talk; I decide. Ok?" She wasn't so much speaking in dialect as using her limited vocabulary to try to get ideas across to this thick American, using as few words as possible so I would understand.

That was as good a deal as I was going to get. I put out my hand; she shook it. I guess the deal was done?

I offered to pay, got out my wallet, but she put up a hand palm out No! After one month. Ok, that's the way she wanted it, I would have to do it her way.

I disentangled myself from the picnic table again, waved, got a smile and a wave. She'd never quit stripping flowers, had quite a bowl full by now, the naked stripped stalks piled high. One day I would ask what that was for.

Crossing the lawn I said goodbye in the only way I knew to Mr. Pham. "Tạm biệt". He nodded but didn't stop digging, didn't look up. I guess I did ok.

Back down the hill to the strip, my feet really starting to complain.

Arriving, it was midafternoon, the clubs quiet. They really got going after dark. But lost girls would be here all day, not just during club hours.

I remembered how I had spent three terrible days haunting the strip, not sure what to do next, wishing I could find food. Getting chased out of bars and restaurants when they found I had no money. Ignoring my plea for a job interview.

I didn't really fault them. They saw this sort of thing all summer, got hardened to it. But did anyone ever really get used to that? Sending a young person away hungry?

Nobody was walking the pier; the place was dead. If somebody was down and out, they were hiding out somewhere.

I had an idea. Approaching the first bar, a flashy joint with lots of chrome and red vinyl, I slid onto a bar stool, ordered a coke.

The bartender didn't remember me. I'd been dressed in my club costume back then (how long ago?) with a desperate hungry look. Now I was a prosperous business woman with nice clothes and a bulging wallet.

"Hey, you ever get any young people here, asking for work? High and dry, out of luck?"

He got a guilty expression, looked over my shoulder at the waves rolling in, nodded. "Sometimes. I have to send them away. We can't have them bothering the customers. Policy."

I had heard all that; it stung to hear it again.

"I'm hiring for a job, manning a phone desk. I need folks pretty regularly to fill in. Next time that happens, could you tell them to try me?" I jotted Greg's condo number on a napkin, handed it to him.

He didn't look at it, just stuffed it under the register. "Sure." He looked like he wanted to say more, but didn't.

I took a pull from the coke, pushed it away, got up to leave.

He called to me. "I don't like it, telling them to leave. Are you for real? This isn't some scam, prostitution or something?"

I turned, faced him. "No scam. A real job, a room in a boarding house. Just doing my part to help out where I can."

He nodded, not quite convinced. What could I say? He didn't trust me, why should he.

When I got outside I looked back, saw him pull my number out, look at it, start to wad it up. Then he stopped, spread it out on the bar, flattened it, put it back under the register.

This might work! I didn't know how often it happened, but giving even one girl a break was better than doing nothing.

...

He was sitting at the bar, stuffing some papers into a mailing envelope. Some photos strewn about.

"Wacha upto?" I slipped off my shoes, picked up a photo. Some dusty elevator room.

"Returning something!" He looked chipper. "I went up to that hotel penthouse today. It was safe! I looked at every bolt, made sure nothing was going to cave in."

My alarm lessened. "Why the pictures?" Another one, of a chandelier the size of a VW bug.

"So you could see too!" He seemed proud of that, so I leaned across the bar, gave him a nice smooch.

"You went all the way up there, just to show me? That was sweet." The next picture was a dusty kitchen, really old appliances, like on old TV shows.

"Also to get this." He pulled the papers out of the envelope, held them up.

"Last Will and Testament. But he died, what decades ago! Is this still good?"

"Well, the building is still there, the city took it for taxes because, no Will. But now there is one!"

I raised an eyebrow. "This has to be your biggest return ever? A whole building?" He nodded. "But how can anybody still be alive, after all this time."

He grinned, smugly, turned the pages to one labelled Bequests, pointed to a line. I squinted.

"Sierra Club! Cool!" I frowned, looking at a picture of an open safe. "Unless the City lawyers kick up a fuss."

"I imagine Sierra Club has lawyers too. Maybe they'll want it. If it's worth anything; the City couldn't sell the building. I'm just the messenger; the rest is up to them."

I was staring at a photo of a ballroom, with tables crowded in the middle, surrounded by chairs. Weird art-deco chairs.

"I...I think they'll want it." I sifted through the other shots. The office, the bedroom, the paintings on the walls.

"Put all these pictures in the envelope!"

"Why? They're for you!"

"I've seen them. Sad, dusty old place. I see what you mean, sometimes it's melancholy, seeing all this lost history. I understand you a little better now. Thank you for doing this for me! You are a love!

But yes put the pictures in with the Will. Trust me. Anything else you learned about the fixtures, the paintings?"

He considered. "Somebody Sonia D? Ha! And the names of the chandelier workmen, they put their names on the brass mounts. Some immigrant names - lallik, saroski, something like that. We're probably the first to see that since the day they got installed!"

I rolled my eyes, asked for a pen. He glanced at the countertop, said "Second drawer, left of the silverware."

I fished it out, wrote carefully on the back of the chandelier pictures "Lalique" and "Swarovski". Added "Wright" to the other ballroom picture. "Sonia D" to the office picture.

He looked at me curiously. I didn't tell him; let him find out later. I just gathered up the photos, stuffed the pile in with the Will.

He occupied himself with writing out a sticky label, pasting a wad of stamps on the envelope, setting it by the door for later. I occupied myself with stripping, changing into sweats, a t-shirt, my beach shoes. Ahhh! Relief.

...

We spent the evening cuddling on the porch loveseat, watching the shadows get long, sipping some wine, unwinding.

This was restful for him. The sea was uncomplicated. That's why he bought the Condo I think - it's on an isolated point of land, giving him open vistas in three directions.

"Could you always do it?" I didn't have to say what; he knew.

He sipped, arranging his thoughts. I don't think he'd told this story before.

"No. It came on about four. Mom worked shifts at the brake pad plant. Soon as I was old enough - potty trained, talking - off to preschool!"

"That must have been cool! Super powers like Spiderman?"

"It scared the shit out of me. I'd have these disturbing dreams, like I was inside something and couldn't get out. Or something was in me, inside me!

Normal safe stuff turning weird, inside-out. I could see bones, skeletons! And other squishy stuff, disgusting stuff.

Cars were terrifying monsters with fierce violent parts, spinning, exploding, thrashing around like something trapped, trying to get me!"

I snuggled in closer, put my head on his shoulder.

"Mom called it night terrors. I'd wake ups, she'd be holding me, crying, my sheets wet with sweat. I'd have been screaming stuff. That's my most vivid memory of my Mom, holding me."

"She sounds like a great Mom."

He nodded. "It was hard on her. Work ten hours a day, then have to be up with a scaredy-cat kit. I was humiliated."

"How did you manage? You were a little kid. No idea what was going on; nobody to help you understand."

"I was in swimming lessons, Dad took me. He had a bad back, worked for a flower shop delivering. A lot of free time.

I was terrible at swimming. Organizing my arms and legs and breathing, all together at once, was a struggle.

I thought the stuff in my head was like that. If I could get the parts working together, maybe it would go away or be something I could stop. Or at least learn to 'swim'."

"Did you?"

"Learn to swim? Sort of. No."

Straighten up, punch him in the shoulder, put my head back down.

"Yeah, I remember when it first came together, when I was awake. Snack time, trying to lift my juice box with the Jedi mind trick."

"Nerd."

"All the kids were doing it! Staring at my juice box and rocking in my seat was pretty normal stuff back then. Nobody said anything anyway.

I was fishing around in my head, looking for the part that would let me lift my juice box in the air. And I found the part that let me 'see'."

"What was it like?"

"First the room kind of blossomed, like those fake 3D displays in CSI - the TV show? The stuff in the classroom sprouted into slinky shapes, all the layers spilled out every which way.

I didn't like that. I made them go back, line up, nest properly. It worked! The first time I had any kind of conscious control.

I was shaking, excited. Still my 'attention' wandered around the room as soon as I relaxed, seeing over my head or behind me. Inside me! Startling.

I tried to focus it, grab it, make it stay in one place. It squirmed and flitted around. I was pushing instead of pulling or something, the harder I tried the wilder it got.

I'd relax, stop doing it, breath."

"You could stop doing it?!"

"Back then. I'm telling this story?"

"Sorry, continue!"

"Anyway I got my 'hands' on it, made it stay steady right in front of me, right where I was looking."

"And that was it? Now you had a super power?"

"No! It took weeks, all the rest of the school year. By the time summer came I had it focused like a searchlight, just a narrow beam where I was staring, only when I wanted it. Teacher thought I was goofing off, always staring into space."

Giggle. Get an elbow in the ribs. Kiss him on the cheek, settle back in.

"What did you use it for? A little kid, not looking at girl's underwear?"

"I started finding money then. Walk to the pool, walk home a different route, find different things. Lots of coins at the pool, dropped by kids. I'd come home with my pockets jangling.

And I could sleep now! I would lay on my back, focus my attention up, into the air. Because the air is 'safe', no scary monster-cars or walking skeletons or animated guts. I could get to sleep and sleep all night.

Mom thought I'd grown out of the night terrors. Maybe I had? Maybe lots of kids start doing this, struggle to make it stop. Maybe I just came out on the other side from most, one in a million, controlling it instead of stopping it. I don't know."

"I never had night terrors. So you're still special!"

"Not sure I ever felt special."

Kissed him again, dithered his hair with one finger. "You're special to me. That's not how it works now?"

He sighed, drank some more wine.

"I was 18, a Senior and never been kissed, skinny and awkward. Already the target of bullies and teasing. It got all different, started to misbehave again. I'd be flashing on things in the next room or outside.

It'd turn on by accident, once I'm doing an essay, creative writing. Ms. Brunell writing at the board, a nice student teacher, I had a crush on her. And suddenly I saw her, all of her! Even thought I had my head down, my attention on my work.

Bones and blood and muscles, guts. And skin. Tits and bare legs and Oh! her lady parts! I broke out in a sweat, and came in my pants."

I'm afraid I laughed. "My poor baby! All hormone-soaked and perving on his teacher! Messing his undies in class!"

Petulantly, "It's not funny!"

"Sweetie, it was funny for everybody, we all did it. But most of us had to use our imagination. Poor Greg!" I put down my wineglass, hugged him, snuggled in.

I think he found it comforting that I found his story relatable, a thing a 'normal' person might do. Just a funny story about discovering sex, something for me to look at him fondly about, tease about.

"I do love you. My teacher-perv boyfriend!"

He sighed that patient sigh, that means he knows I love him.

"Anyway I spent the next few weeks with my head down trying not to look at girls. Didn't work. It was misery.

Mom was gone by then, Dad too, I was living with my uncle. An older guy, nice as heck but too old to remember being a boy. Tried to talk about girls with me but getting it all wrong. Trying! I guess I loved him."

That was sad, going through that with no parents. Well, I could identify with that; I'd have only my peers in the home, and they were pretty messed up and ignorant. I believed you couldn't get pregnant the first time, and anal didn't count, and condoms could give you herpes. When I was 18.

He had more to tell!

"I practiced in the garage, looking at tools on the wall one at a time, trying to get my focus back. Uncle thought I was sneaking out to look at girly magazines. Finally after a month I was able to focus. Get it in sync with where I was looking. A defense mechanism, so I could look away.

But now, it's on all the time. The off switch is gone, or hiding, or burned out. Maybe I outgrew it? Exhausting at first. Then I got stronger, like a muscle that's sore when you start exercising but then you get bulked up, can do easily what was hard at first."

"Could you do it that way again? All around you, aware of the whole world at once?"

"Not sure I want to go there. I'd look like a zombie, or like a blind person, moving around without looking where I was going. I'd be a standout. It's hard enough to look normal now! Already I can see in the dark, with my eyes closed."

I thought on that. "Normal is over-rated. How about, lets be ourselves instead?"

He kissed me, smiled. "Ok. I can be that. For you."