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NOTE: These stories are
intended for a mature audience.

Little Sparrow Girl
A Guest Quarters story
By
Jennifer Rachel Baumer

The first time I saw her, she's sitting against the wall, all that's left of the nursery on Glendale, used to have big roses you could come off the street and sniff and the staff'd never tell you to go away.  First time I saw her she's sitting cross-legged like an Indian against that last east wall they left standing along with the foundation and floor and bizarre steps leading up to it like an inside out florist's and she's got a roll of money she's giving away.

Truth to tell, I thought she was a street legend, type a thing men tell late at night when there's too many in the shelter to sleep and it's too cold out for the volunteers to turn anyone away and someone gets t' talking about 'Wouldn't it be nice if there was' only somehow it becomes 'Once upon a time there was' and before you know it there was this little brown girl like a sparrow and the birds all over the place near her and she used t' find places where men like us go and she'd sit with a roll of money and give it out till it's gone.

Only, someone always spoils it.  Someone always says no one would do that or no little sparrow girl wants anything t' do with the likes of us.  Someone always spoils things.

First time I saw her she's sitting against the wall with a roll of bills in her hand, giving them out one per guy and the guys are coming from everywhere, something like this, news travels.  She smiles at each guy, says something, and you can tell by the way they answer her it's not religious and it's not judging, it's not 'How'd you get here' or 'Do you need help finding a job' or even 'You're going to buy food with this aren't you, not a drink?' 

I'm hanging back with some of the others at first and maybe a couple guys are saying things but mostly everyone's quiet and respecting her, people talk but to each other.  It's? a magic, here.  There are sparrows, everywhere, like they're not afraid of her.  Or us.  Behind her, past that wall, there's just city, some of the industrial parts.  Cross the street the one high rise casino that doesn't belong here, slipped and slid off the strip and found its way to the junction of the freeways that roar overhead from us? building's sold a couple times in its 20 years.  My back's to the Sierra, big blue mountains past the freeway and home to San Francisco, but not anymore. 

One minute it's just her, facing those mountains, squinting into the sun, southwest sun hitting her straight in the face, next minute I feel it starting in me, that first rush of anger, red, like corpuscles are exploding behind my eyes and vision's not right and I just want to hurt somebody.  Men are drifting away, taking what's she's give 'em, going to get food or booze or clothes? it won't be summer forever and winter here can be brutal.  There are only a few guys still here when she looks up at me and smiles.  Little thing.  Wind ruffles that dull brown hair like it's feathers.  Her eyes are big and brown and she's not squinting when my shadow falls over her. 

Still smiling, too, ready to say something, but I beat her to it.  The red thing slides over into black.  I hate it when I feel this way, like I'm not talking, it's coming through me, and I hear myself say, "What if I want all of that?"

She doesn't stop smiling, really, but the smile changes somehow and the bone dry heat of desert July suddenly has an edge to it.  Not wind, really, just? something changed.  Shifted.  Heat's suddenly sharp, like maybe it's something? I don't know, you could touch.

"I'm not going to give it all to you," she says and she's not afraid, she's just looking at me and the colors rage inside me, muddy confusion and sharp red anger and blue because I haven't scared her, whatever the black hard thing inside me is, it hasn't scared her and I reach out, because I want to touch her, but something flutters, a flash of wings and something sharp strikes my face, just over my eyebrow.

"Jesus!"  My hand comes away bloody and blood is red and red is bad and the dark thing pours up into me again.

The birds are all around her now, a motion of color on the broken chipped concrete, dizzying shades of brown like the foothills at midday on a bad drunk.  That anger comes again, that anger that made Lisa take the girls and head back to her parents and I don't want it, not to feel like this, but this little dun bird girl, holding that money, that promise, and not afraid of me.

One of the birds stops just beside my foot and I raise my foot, tattered Doc Martins, and start to bring it down.

"You don't want to do that," she says.  Crystal edged voice and the day is suddenly supernova bright, hangover morning sun bright.  But the thing's still there behind my eyes and I slam my foot down.

Explosion of feathers.  A moment of hot brass in my mouth, nauseated terror, I couldn't have, feathers everywhere, I can't see for feathers.

And I'm lying on my back on the chipped concrete with the summer sun so hot in my eyes it's got to be sun tears.  Because I don't cry.  Lying on a bed of feathers, feather bed it feels like, sauna hot day and aching blue sky overhead.  When I can finally lift my head and look around, she's nowhere, of course.  Dream.  Hallucination.  Slip of reality.  But I still hear her voice in my ears; the last thing she said to me before the world slipped sideways: I'm sorry.

And there's something in my hand, something in both hands.  Bills.  Ten dollars in each hand.

They're sun tears.  Because I don't cry.

***

Old Mac, he feeds the birds.  Biggest idiot I know.  Here's a guy can't stay in a shelter most nights because like as not somebody's going t' get him angry and all hell breaks loose and he ends up getting himself thrown out and usually blackballed for good measure.  Lot of us street people look the same to citizens, even to volunteers.  But Mac, he stands out.  Big ole black boy, 'bout 60 if he's a day, with the nastiest scar you've ever seen running diagonal across what didn't start out as a very good mug to begin with.  And that temper, and never know what's going to set him off.  But Mac feeds the birds.  He gets a little bit of money, not much, not enough t' do anything with, but enough to scrape by, from what I can tell.  And he uses some of it e'ery day to buy seed or bread or something.  Sometimes you just can't tell with people.

Next time I see her I'm with Mac.  We're about five miles away from the tore down nursery and the inside-out building and the sparrows and all.  Summer's still hot and heavy and near as I can tell it's still July.  She's sittin' over by one of the home places, so busy on weekends you can usually go inside and get out of the heat for a little while before anyone realizes you're there.  Mac likes t' go there because he likes to dream up projects he'll do some day when he has his mansion.

"Yeah," I tell him today, "and all the bird shit in it."  He's fed the birds all the way here till I feel like the Pied Piper and you do not want to call attention when you're homeless, a street person, because sometimes the cops decide they're going to help you whether you like it or not, and sometimes that help includes three meals and a bed for a stretch, but not much space, and something it includes free transport to the nearest border (city for city, county for sheriffs, state for HP and damn glad we don't have a national police force) but all those birds fluttering and following us and they go inside too, roost up in the rafters or something.

Today we don't quite make the store because we see her, me first and then Mac, the little sparrow girl sitting beside a man-made lake someone decided to landscape in between the home place and the power company.  It's got trees and brush all around it on three sides and it's a great place to get blown if you're into that or make buys if you're into that or get raped, and nobody's into that.  But little sparrow girl's perched on a rock in the open space where everyone driving by can see her and this time she's got as many ducklings and fuzzy half geese around her as she does sparrows and from the looks of things she's just pulled out a roll of bills from her pocket and the first guys are already starting to show up.

I'd like t' apologize for last time, but I can't think how to do it, so I don't say anything.  Kind of how it used to be with Lisa.  I'd know what had happened ? she was wrong about that, I always remembered what had happened ? but I didn't know how to say sorry.

She smiles when she sees me.  Sort of makes me feel more like a heel.  She's sitting on one of the rocks by the water of that fake lake and all the guys around her should dwarf her, really, but she's still the biggest thing out here.  Most important, anyway, and not just because she's got that roll of money, either.

I'd like t' know about that, though.  How come?  Did she lose someone t' the streets?  Or is it she's just independently wealthy and independently loony?  No one does that kind of thing.

Soon as I think that it makes me remember thinking she was some kind of street legend and that there's always someone who spoils such things.  Soon as I think that I realize it was me spoiled things last time, and I sure the fuck don't want t' do it this time.

But soon as I think that the anger starts creepin' back.  Who's she to make me feel like this?  Handing out money like she's some kind of queen, ought to expect she's going to make some of the men angry?

"Feeling better today?" she asks.  She's right in front of me, got up and came over and half the guys are already gone, others still wandering around like they don't know what t' do with themselves (probably don't).  And I'm thinking she's crazy to come right up to me like that? but when she says that she puts one hand on my arm and looks right into my eyes like most people never do and all that mad (fear) starts slipping away.

"Yeah," I tell her.  And I want to say sorry, but it just won't come out.  Nothing does, and I just stand there with her touching my arm and all that money in her hand till finally I look over at Mac and he's on her rock now, ducks and geese and fuzzy things all over his feet and an expression of bliss on his face.  I think, this is okay.  He's crazy, but it's okay, and turn to see if she's smiling at him but she's not there anymore, she's nowhere in sight anymore.  It's just me and a bill in each hand, a fiver in the left, a ten in the right, and the feel of her hand where she touched me like a sunburn. 

***

What follows is a Bad Time.  Some guys out here get them.  Not everyone on the street's crazy.  Most just don't have anywhere else to go.  Some do, but choose anything but that.  Some just seem sent.  Like they couldn't exist anywhere else.  Mac is like that. But some are crazy.  Stone cold killers.  Some are leftover drug problems.  Some are Gulf War veterans.  And some of us, sometimes, have Bad Times.

Could be anything that sets it off.  Flash of sunlight off somebody's car.  Maybe the strobe effect itself, or maybe just that they have cars.  You don't.

A lot of that, actually.  Stuff you see and others have, and you don't, and it's not necessarily the Lexus or the $500 watch.  Know one guy used to go all to pieces every time he saw a beat-to-shit Honda go by.  Never said why and manners dictate no one ever asked if he didn't offer.

Families.  A lot of us can lose it when we see families.  Happy ones.  Lot of people snarling at their kids, yanking them by their wrists, kids whining, crying for things they don't need.

Can't say that sets up any longing in me.

But after I saw the little sparrow girl at the lake, I got hit hard by a Bad Time and only thing I could figure it was all about Lisa and the girls and not being able to say sorry.

You can choose to walk away.  You can choose the street.  Not a damn thing stops you from missin' the hell out of what you walked away from.

Bad Time: disconnect.  Days and nights go all-over confusion.  Everything runs together.  Talking t' myself.  Drinking.  I know I wasn't eating.  Mac brought me stuff, stayed when he figured out I was trading for a pull on someone else's bottle.  There's colors, too much noise, too many nightmares, and red.  Man, everything goes red.  Red as blood.

Come to and most of summer's gone, that's bad because you've got to lay in stores if you're on the street, high desert, and want to make it through the winter.

First step: razor.  Beard, hair.  Bad Times, I don't do my usual hygiene thing, six days a week when the kid at the gas station gives me the key to the Men's.  Felt like there was stuff living in my hair and beard but it was just dirty.

Next step: Try and figure out what made it happen this time.  Because a lot of my life last couple years has been "Getting my shit together" as Lisa put it last time I saw her, headed out the door and out of my life with the girls.  Believe it or not, there's a level of existence out here on the street that equates with having one's shit together.  May not happen in time to salvage anything from my old life, but if I'm lucky I might be able to start a new one.

"That's easy," Mac says when I bring up my big soul-searching question to him.  Then he stops talking and just looks at me with this smile he gets sometimes, no one knows if its really wise or if he's just trying t' make you figure things out for yourself, or if he's just totally gone those times, nobody home back there behind those dark eyes.  What with that scar and all it's pretty creepy.

I'm tired.  Bad times leave me tired.  We're at that lake again, by the power company and the home place, nobody around because it's too damn hot, but the parking lot's full of half ton trucks with bed liners and coats of wax and not a single scratch on them.  Just no people in sight, they're all inside or in the misted garden shop.  Mac and me are under some of the trees, Mac sittin' on a rock, me stretched out on the grass, still tired and in no mood for Mac's guessing games.

"Do tell," I say.

He gives me a look like I'm being lazy.  "You went red on her, didn't you."

I wince.  "Not last time."

"Precisely," Mac says and stands up like, That's that.

WTF.  "Damn it, Mac?"

But he looks down at me as if he meant to tell me all along.  Also as if it's dead simple and I'm a moron.  "You went red on her.  You lost it.  You see her again, you're afraid you're gonna lose it again.  You go away."  He stares at me for a minute, then puts out one hand to help me up.  "Case closed.  I'm going to buy you lunch."

Some day I'm going to take Mac to lunch.  Take a shower in a bathroom, not some Men's.  Some day I'll have a job, and a family.  I won't need?

"You comin'?"

*** 

Step Three: Find her and apologize.

Last time I see her, she's sittin' on a wall outside the VA building, smiling and talking, all those sparrows around her, handing out money and being harassed by this tight ass administrative sort.  Guy's standing there in hundred degree weather wearing a full suit because he wouldn't know how to exist without it and for a minute I feel better about myself, because whatever I am, I'm not him.  He's got a clipboard and pen, but they're just props.

"Ma'am, you can't do this, you need to come down from there right now."  He waives the clipboard at her like it's going to convince her somehow.

"Don't call me ma'am," she says in a voice that finishes, Or I'll have my sparrows peck you to death.  "Do I look old enough to be your mama?"  In a voice that says, Only an idiot would say yes.

Today she looks about 16.  Everything except her eyes, and I don't know how I missed it before.

Her eyes look? beyond old.  Not sad, though.  Not tired.  Just?

She turns and looks at me and smiles, hands a couple bills to a couple more guys.  Mr. Administration shakes his pen at her.  "You can't sit up there."

It's a low wall ringing the VA property.  It's street, really.  The usual argument, for anything old enough to have existed before you went street native, is "My taxes paid for it."  Sparrow Girl doesn't resort to that.  She just glances at the wall as if faintly surprised by its presence, and says, "But I am," and goes back to handing out money.  The sparrows agitate around her, fluttering like her feather brown hair in the hot afternoon wind.

"Look, lady, I'm telling you?" Mr. Administration's almost as agitated as the sparrows.  And he never gets the chance to say whatever he was going to say because the girl makes a sound like, "Pfbbt," and waves one hand at him without looking.  She's busy looking at the flock of guys she's feeding when her sparrows all rise at once and fly in a clump.  Nothing artful about it, just a mass of feathers and fluttering and suddenly the guy with the clipboard and the suit is lost in a wall of brown and tan wings and his voice is muffled, all protests and impotent fury.  If he was me I would be red by now but this guy's just confused.  The girl waves one hand again and the sparrows start toward the administration building.  "You're not helping," she says in that direction, but her eyes meet mine then and she smiles again.

Heartbeat starts triple time but my mouth is so dry I'll never manage to say it.  Can't take anything from her, though, if I can't.

Guy in front of me steps aside and suddenly it's just her and me, everyone else drawn back a step or two, or left already, and I want t' look around for Mac, but this isn't his job.  He's probably feeding the birds.  There's only one or two sparrows anywhere near her and I think What if the red comes again? But she's not afraid.  Whatever I've done, she's not afraid.

Now if only I could fucking speak.

"It's not me you need to say sorry to," she says with a little half smile as soon as I get close to her.  She holds a couple bills to me and soon as I take 'em I see they're 20's and try to give one back.  She shakes her head and doesn't reach for them.  "There's someone else you need to say sorry to and that might be too late."

I'm still trying to say something when Mac says, "You've been dismissed, buddy," and I realize she's not looking at me at all any more, she's smiling and talking to a few last guys and I've got that feeling in my stomach that it's time to go.

More than time.

***

San Francisco's damn cold in the summer.  Cold as the Sierra are at mid-winter the wind off that bay can sometimes beat it.

Lisa and me, we lived inland a little.  Little bay town, surrounded by a million hurrying people and more freeways than I could count, the town itself seemed to get stranded in the 50's or the 70's or something, in no big hurry, just little neighborhood's where lot of people knew each other and doesn't look like anything's changed that much in the last couple years except I don't recognize all that many people when I'm actually on our street.

All morning I've felt sick.  Don't know what's going to happen and I'm trying really hard not to have any happy reunion fantasies.  One of the girls was pretty young when I took off and I'm trying to understand that she might not recognize me.  That would be okay, I'd handle that.  And I know I'm making believe.

Everyone tells themselves stories.  This family is mine.

End of the street leading to ours, my footsteps going slower and slower and never mind how long it took me to walk here from the bus station, I'm still not ready.  Might never be ready.  Don't know if I can ever learn to say sorry.  Don't know if Lisa can ever learn to believe it.

Or if she'd care.

If she was there.  Been lost in my own head and the house just snuck up on me.  Like my feet knew where they were going, stopped me just beside the walkway to the yellow house only now it's blue with white trim and I'm not sure for a minute it's even the right house, maybe something got turned around inside me, but the numbers beside the front door are right.

There's a woman sweeping the front steps, dark as Lisa was ever fair, and a little boy playing in the grass with a toy truck, making "pfbbt" noises like the sparrow girl did when she got tired of dealing with Mr. Administration.  For a minute I'm so surprised I just stare at them, then the woman looks up unexpectedly.  I see the ? distrust?  Distaste? ? run across her face before she can stop it, then she covers with a polite, "Can I help you?"

Say something.  Don't scare her.  But there's no red there.  Just? dullness.  "No, ma'am, thank you.  Just looking for someone I thought lived here."

The woman glances at her son, who's closer to me than to her.  I take a step backward, trying to look inoffensive.  "Her name's Lisa.  She's my? sister."  I can't say wife.  It sounds? pathetic.  Yes, and sad.  But also like a lie.  You don't think she will have divorced you?

Can she?  In California?  Without me there?  Or was she on the other side of the Sierra, just long enough, maybe in the same city?

"There's no one named Lisa here.  I know my neighbors, too? there's no Lisa.  Maybe you have the wrong street?"  Her eyes and her hands keep reaching toward the boy and I feel a rush of anger.  I'm clean.  Clean as you can stay on the street.  With the exception of the Bad Times, I'm sober.  I keep myself neat and I haven't asked her for anything.

But the anger passes.  I nod.  "Maybe I have.  Sorry to have troubled you."  That sorry wasn't hard.

She nods and because I don't move away right away, she shifts her eyes to the boy and calls.  "Billy, time to come in.  We'll? have milk and cookies."  She's very much not looking at me now.  Our business is finished and she does not suspect me of anything.

Billy gives his mother a look like she's gone crazy, like there's no cookies in that house and maybe no milk, and he gives me a look I can't read, maybe just a boy's curiosity or maybe "Mothers!"  I want to say, "Never pass up free cookies, kid," but I just nod and start moving on, kind of slow, because I know this is it.  I can't even come back up the other side on my way out, she'll call the police if I do.  I've got her scared.  Disrupted her routine.  Brought something wild off the street into the suburban life she's living that used to be mine.

The screen door closes behind them, then the front door, and I'm already moving, taking my way back past the house, so I can look a little longer.  It's just a flat one-story, all garage on one side, then center of the house that front door, then front bedrooms.  That's it.  Wrong color, right house, right street.  I'm not stupid and I'm not crazy.  I lived here, with Lisa and the girls.

And up the street past the neighbors, hoping I won't see anyone I recognize or anyone who would recognize me even if they could tell me where Lisa is, and all the way I'm remembering that front door, that house, the living room and kitchen and that too-small master bedroom where at first we made grandiose plans and daydreamed big and then we changed to fightin over anything small.

And I remember that, too.  The fights.  The yelling.  The thing that seemed to come up in Lisa's face, a fury so complete she seemed like someone else.

It wasn't just me.

That's almost enough to make me stop walking.  I've heard about guys doing this, street guys having sudden insights? it was all my fault, just like she said, or, it wasn't all my fault, you know what? but I always figured that was urban legend, too.

But I remember the fights.  I remember the girls crying.  I remember Lisa leaving and I remember something else. I remember calling home.  From other places along the way.  Long before I ever crossed the Sierra.  I remember her hanging up.  I remember her screaming.  I remember her telling me not to call again.

I remember telling her I was sorry.

I remember the Divorce.  And worrying about the girls.  And that Lisa found me when she got remarried and I never knew if it was to be kind or to be mean.

She'd gotten her shit together by then.  She didn't offer to help me do the same.

How long have I been out here?  A couple of years.  My hands are older than that.  I hold them out and they tremble.  I was in my thirties when I left.  The girls were three and five.

But for all that to happen?

I'll find a mirror.

Maybe the girls are all grown up now.  Maybe I'm a grandfather.  I smile a little at that idea.  Maybe some day one of them will find me.  Until then, I'm going?

"Hey, buddy."

Cop in a cruiser.  Not out of it yet, that's a good sign.  He's cruising along beside me, on the wrong side of the street, just past the parked cars so he can talk to me out his window.

"Morning, officer."

He doesn't respond to that.  "Got a call from a housewife down the block."

137.  Blue house, white trim.  Used to be yellow.  Kid's name is Billy.  I just nod.

"She just wanted to know: you got some place to go?"
 
"Home," I tell him.  "Want to give me a lift to the Greyhound?"  I resist the urge to show him my round trip ticket.
 
"You'd have to ride in the back."
 
I laugh.  "I'll walk.  It's a fine day."
 
Cop gives me a long look and finally nods, like he's seen something I haven't seen in a long time and he's good with it.  "It is that," he says, and then he's gone and the street's empty again.  Just me.

***

Girl's gone when I get back.  I know it without ever looking for her.  But I find Mac easy enough, sitting along the edge of that lake again, feeding the half grown duck and geese.  He grins when he sees me, like I haven't been gone.
 
"You find what it was you were looking for?" he asks.  Doesn't look right at me, kind of past me, and throws another handful of bread to the ducks, breaks off a piece and hands it to me.  Greyhound took the last of the money the girl gave me, so I take the bread and settle beside Mac.
 
Did I find what I was looking for?  Not if I was looking for Lisa.  She's up and out of there and somewhere deep inside myself I must've known that.  After all the years, the divorce, her marriage.  So if I didn't go looking for her, I must've gone looking for something else.  And that I think I found.
 
I nod slowly, chewing day-old sourdough.  "Yeah.  I think I did."
 
Mac doesn't say anything and I start getting the idea when I turn to look at him he's going to be gone too, just like the Little Sparrow Girl, but he's right there, that scar bold as ever and a kind of grin on his face.  "Thought you might," he says, and hands me the rest of the bread.  "Here, you feed 'em," he says, and I always thought it was stupid, feeding the birds the way Mac does, most of us don't have enough money t' get through the week whether we drink or not and he's buying bread and seed.  But I take it from him and start crumbling it in my fingers, throwing bits and watching the ducks and the geese start gathering around me, demanding and needy but somehow? pleasing.  There's crows, too, and blackbirds.
 
And a lot of sparrows.

***

Couple mornings later I wake up by the river.  High blue Sierra sky past the willows where I've dragged a bunch of cardboard.  Mac's not around, gone to shelter for a couple days, all he can stand usually but says he needs some protein and a soft bed.
 
"So you're going somewhere for a hard cot and mac-n-cheese," somebody asked him when he went and Mac just laughed.
 
This morning I wake up and something's changed.  Know it before I even open my eyes, by the sound of the city, or the sound of the water, or the sound of my own breathing, shit, I don't know what it is, I just know I'm awake and something's different.  Maybe I'm different.
 
I know something's changed because there's something in each hand and even before I open my eyes I'm pretty sure it's going to be a roll of bills just like the one the girl used t' carry.
 
Just like I know the shadows across my closed lids are going to resolve themselves into fluttering little brown and black bodies, bright eyes, sharp beaks, group of them movin' restless about me like the willows do in the wind and when I open my eyes they all go still, like they've been waiting for me.
 
They don't fly away when I sit up.  I didn't think they would.  I think they're going t' be around a lot after this.  It'll make Mac happy when he comes back.  In the meantime I've woke with the feeling there's something I've got t' do.  A whole lot of something t' do and a handful of bills to do it with.
 
First time I saw here she was sittin' on the concrete floor of the shell of the nursery they knocked down a couple blocks from here.  I always thought stories like that ? wouldn't it be great if someone just started giving out money to whoever needed it, no questions asked, no strings attached ? were just urban legend.  And there's always someone got to go and screw things up: "Nobody would do that."
 
She got 'em used t' the idea.  I got a while before somebody says that again.  Got some time to do what I need t' do now that I've figured out who it is I have to say sorry to and it didn't turn out to be Lisa.
 
First time I saw her and she wasn't an urban legend, she was at the old nursery.  The money burns in my hands and I wonder if Mac feels this way when he buys the bread: like he's doing something.  Like he has a purpose.  I stand and the sparrows flutter up around me like they were tired of waiting and we start together toward the old nursery.

END

Jennifer Rachel Baumer lives in Reno, Nevada, where she stalks crows, squirrels, marmots and other animals that would prefer that she stop trying to pet them.  She also runs, writes and falls in love with semi-demolished structures local casinos have bought to tear down in order to build even more chain retail stores.  One of those unfortunate buildings was the inspiration for Little Sparrow Girl.  Jennifer shares her life with five felines, some formerly feral and some always domesticated, and with her husband and best friend, Rick.  Her work has previously appeared in On Spec, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, and in online publications, including an appearance soon at Drollerie Press.

Story by Jennifer Rachel Baumer, Copyright 2010
Image by Amber Clark, Stopped Motion Photography, Copyright 2010