The family downstairs was evicted today from their apartment. I saw them standing with their things on the side of the street. A mother and her two kids – a girl and boy, eight and nine years old. I heard her yelling almost every night through the wall. But this isn’t the reason the landlord kicked them out. She couldn’t pay the rent. She couldn’t couldn’t work enough hours at the car wash and the bodega down the street to come up with $1050 every month. She slept on the couch. The kids shared the bedroom.
My mother told them they could come inside where it was warm and safe and wait until they found someplace else to go. She said no.
It’s hard to be a single mother, mom says, looking to pop asleep on the couch as he always is.
I think of the candy shop downtown, the sweets on display from the window. I imagine everyone in the world outside is made of chocolate fudge and butterscotch and vanilla. I’m in a glass box in the middle where they can’t get in, they press against the glass, pushing and trying to break through.
It’s not a cage but a fortress. A glass pyramid. I can see the world outside but I’m not a part of it. I’m safe here, separated from all the landlords and businessmen and abusers of the world.
I tell Gogo, “I want to bring you in here with me. But those vanilla hands keep pulling you back out. They come in through the door when I try to bring you inside. I want to bring you in so you can be safe inside.”
Gogo laughs and pushes the hair out of her eyes. “But who says I want to go?”
We’re sitting on the steps of Mr. Ryan’s house. Mr. Ryan is a teacher from school who tells us we can come over if we need to. But it’s dark now and the streetlights are on and he’s sleeping like old people do except for the ones downtown who are drunk or holding their hands out for change on the side of the street.
“That’s so manly of you,” Gogo says. “Who says I need to be protected? Who says I need to be safe inside your fortress?”
“And,” she says, “who says I don’t have one of my own?”
“Do you?”
“Of course I do.” She nods her head. “Except everyone around me is a wolf with long teeth. Not candy. They lick the glass with their tongues and claw at the walls. They scratch sometimes and leave long marks in the glass. Sometimes I can hear them howling at night. This is where I stay inside. This is where I’m safe.”
“The things outside my fortress could never be made of candy,” she says. She shakes her head. Her long and dark hair dancing in in the wind. “Only for a boy like you could that ever be true in this world.”
She has dark eyes that shine in the light. Something I notice no matter the time of day. The lights are always changing in the city. Streetlights, stoplights, bedroom lights, store lights, neon signs over restaurants and bars. The lights at school that are white and bright and hurt if you stare at them too long. And, someday, in the hospital, the white lights above us will shine brighter still.
“I’d still like to bring you in,” I say and shrug my shoulders. “I’d be happy if you were here with me.”
“You’d like to take care of me?”
“If you let me.”
Gogo looks at me. “But we’re only supposed to become a part of each other’s lives,” she says. “Not take them over.” She sticks her tongue out and says, “You wouldn’t like it in my fortress anyway. Surrounded by wolves and their long tongues.”
“I would,” I say. I rub my toe into the dirt. My shoes are scuffed and no longer white. “I like animals. I don’t like vanilla or fudge or butterscotch. I like things that are alive.”
“Well,” Gogo says. She puts her hands on her hips. She closes her eyes. A car passes on the street, headlights shine bright pushing across her face and her hair. But with her eyes closed the lights can’t find anywhere to rest and they move on and disappear into the black tar of the pavement. “That’s what being in love is all about.”
“Me and you?”
“Yes,” Gogo smiles at me then. “Me and you. Maybe we can bring our fortresses together. No one else but us. A place where we would both be safe. And we would never have to leave.”
We walk back to my house. Cars on the street, engines cough, tires screech and then gone again. We walk back to my house holding hands. Pop is sleeping on the couch and mom is gone at work. The stairs don’t creak because I know where to step. My room smells like eggs and toast because I make breakfast for myself and eat it every morning on the bed. Gogo smiles at me and breathes in my ear. The mirror has a crack in it from when I slipped and fell and hit my head. We stand together and look at each other side-by-side. Even with a crack running through us we still look beautiful and strong.
Gogo smiles. The lights flicker from the light on my ceiling. The fan is spinning in slow circles. We can hear pop snoring on the couch. It’s quiet now that the neighbors from downstairs are gone and they aren’t coming back. Mom gave them five dollars before they left because it’s almost Christmas and they don’t have anywhere to go. But five dollars isn’t going to do much for a family standing outside in the cold.