Woman on the Edge of Time

“We take everything apart a board and a brick at a time for reuse. Fasure that work is tedious but somehow satisfying. We used to sing and tell stories all the time. We camped out in the old warehouses and apartment buildings. We would eat over fires or be invited to eat with nearby villages, and they would want to show us how well they cooked. But we had to improvise, we had to remain alert. Those old buildings, some of them were built well but many were built irrationally and even dangerously. We had to work with great caution, and still we got hurt. Old girders would be rusted through. Walls undermined by seepage. Structures that looked solid would prove hollow. Piling would go down only a couple of feet so that the structure had no support after a slope eroded. Sometimes we came across layers of structures under structures, bones and trinkets. Then we would summon the archaeologist who always works with scavengers and we’d work under per direction, sifting and scraping slowly. That would be a change. Sixmonth I worked on that scavenging project till I broke a leg. I was waiting to study with Rose of Ithaca, who had too many students.” Luciente was identifying various weeds as she crawled. “Chickweed. Good raw or cooked. Yes, purslane. No, that one. It’s a succulent; you can’t miss it. Don’t worry, I’ll go over everything you pick. Only very inner leaves of dandelions by now; the others will be tough and bitter. Same with chicory.”

She crawled after Luciente, barefoot through the brush. Twenty feet away trucks and cars swept past at fifty miles an hour. Occasionally a car would pass more slowly and both women froze. The brush hid them, but there was no point moving the leaves suspiciously. The day was hot and the leaves near the road were dusty and smelled of smoke.

“They doubtless have high lead content.” Luciente frowned. “Look, here’s sumac. We’ll take some bark for your feet.”

In spite of the pain, as she stumbled after Luciente she began to enjoy herself. Scrabbling around in the bushes made her feel like a child–a six‑year‑old playing in the fields near her home. Her legs and back ached, her arms and legs were cut in a dozen places, her wrists and ankles were ringed with mosquito bites. Yet she felt silly with happiness gathering up the weeds that Luciente pointed out. So much exercise made her cough repeatedly and spit.

“Being off the Thorazine makes me cough too much.”

“It would be better if you coughed more, not less, and brought up the bad stuff in your lungs,” Luciente said. “Now sit under your tree and rest. They’ve made you weak in that crazy hospital. I’ll scout for water. Chew on the chickweed while you wait.”

She took a cautious bite and winced. “Ugh. It tastes like grass.”

“It’s good for you and will relieve thirst. My sweet cherry, I didn’t promise you I’d find a roast goose in the bushes. Eat, get stronger, and you can go home and cook good food for yourself.”

Leaning against the white pine that had become home, she chewed the chickweed, which tasted exactly as she’d expect a mouthful of weeds to taste, and chewed and chewed and swallowed it. No worse than hospital food, really; just stranger. The sun had sunk to the height when it usually disappeared behind the administration building next to the hospital. About four. She did not even worry. She was too glad to be outside, even in this patch of woods with her feet raw, waiting to graze on the grasses of the field like a cow put out to pasture. She felt happy as a cow was supposed to feel chewing its cud. She knew some of the giddiness, some of the feeling that she could sleep and sleep, was from coming off the medication. She hoped Luciente would find water. The foul stuff in the drainage ditch would probably kill her. Well, chewing the weeds helped. Luciente had found some wild onions and they made her saliva flow and relieved the soreness in her throat. She noticed her hands had a tendency to shake. That tremor seemed to get worse as the day wore on. Thorazine and barbiturate withdrawal. It would help if she had water. But a strange tranquility filled her. She felt space around her body, the space of privacy and choice. Comparing herself with a cow, she felt more human than she had since … oh, since she’d been with Claud.

When she had talked about Claud to Luciente, Luciente had been shocked that Claud was a pickpocket. They had worked the well‑dressed crowds, the businessmen, the women who shopped on Fifth Avenue. If she searched herself, she found a pride that she had learned those skills, that she had been useful to Claud. They made a living, they could eat out in the neighborhood and buy clothes and keep Angelina looking pretty the way she ought to be. Money to go to the dentist. Money for a new couch bought on time; Naugahyde it was, just like leather, and Claud liked to stretch out on it.