MAKING PERFECT

Naomi sat on a bench that had been forgotten by the world. This part of the park had once been an off-leash zone, but it had since been abandoned for the larger enclosure that the dog owners had petitioned for. Now the bushes and weeds had reclaimed the area into the semi-urban wilderness.

Naomi propped her legs up on one of the bench’s armrests. The elevation helped relieve some of the pain caused by the fluid that made her ankles swell. In the distance, the purple tinges of dusk backlit the downtown towers and somewhere a goldfinch was singing—they were always looking for an excuse to display their musical prowess. Naomi lit a cigarette and took a deep breath through it. As she exhaled the plume of smoke, it took the tension of the day with it. For forty-three years she had tried to kick the habit, but she had finally decided that it was too late to stop anyways. The damage was probably already done.

She sucked in another breath and peeked into her packet of Ashfords. There was one remaining cigarette tucked inside. She’d been rationing them, having just one per evening, but somehow, they’d still disappeared quickly. Ah, well. She’d spent enough years out here to know that she had to take things just one day at a time.

After a few minutes, her cigarette had burned down to the filter and she took one last drag before grinding it out with her sneaker and then pocketing the remains. She wouldn’t be one of those people who carelessly started fires in the LA bush. Her ankles protested as she stood. She had to hold onto her sagging pants with one hand since the bit of plastic cord she’d been using as a belt had snapped so many times that it was beyond repair. As she set off walking, a breeze tossed the white tufts of her hair, making them stick up like the fluff of a dandelion.

It was only a few minutes before she reached her chalet. That was how she liked to think of it—a little house tucked away in a hilly hamlet. It was nestled in a patch of bushes that supported the walls she had carefully woven from brush and strips of garbage bags. As she approached it, she felt a wave of relief. No evidence of the crows. She pushed open the door. It was made from a large piece of cardboard twined to a broomstick, with the bottom of the broomstick in a can she had partially buried. The top of the stick was secured to the nearest wall with a loop of cord. It was a hinge of her own invention, and she was quite proud of it.

Naomi’s chalet had three rooms: the cookery, the dining hall, and her bedchamber. She knelt in the cookery and began rummaging through a line of labelled bags along the back wall: hygiene products, sticks, cans, cooking utensils. Bringing out her stash of sticks, a lighter, a can opener, and a can of ravioli she had picked up from the dollar store, she proceeded to kindle a small fire.

The smoke always made her nervous. The cookery was open to the sky, of course, so the smoke could get out, but if one of those LAPD people saw it, they’d be there with their formal notices, telling her it wasn’t allowed and she had to move along. She thought of them as “the crows,” darkly clad and always poking their long noses about. They were always a sign of trouble to come. Fortunately, this bit of park was off the beaten track and not many crows bothered venturing here. She’d only been tossed once in the past four months. Usually they were civil and let her keep most of her stuff, though sometimes they’d come when she wasn’t there and, instead of leaving a notice like they were supposed to, they’d cut down her tarps and smash things up. This hadn’t happened in years, but she still dreaded it every day. In her chalet, everything was right. The thought of losing her haven overwhelmed her so much that she never let herself think about it for long.

She got the ravioli up to the perfect temperature, holding the can over the fire with a contraption she had made from two coat hangers. Retiring to the dining hall, she took time to stir the sauce so that it evenly coated each ravioli. The sound of a ukulele cut through the evening air. It was Martin, the man who lived just a few tents over. A minstrel come to entertain her.

She smiled and nibbled one of the raviolis, savouring it. When she had finished them all off, she rinsed the spoon with the last of the lukewarm water from a large soda bottle before putting the few things she had used for the meal back in their proper places. She then took a bundle of dried grass down from a wire hook labelled “broom” with a piece of tape. Methodically, she swept the cardboard floor of the two rooms, making sure to go right up to the edges where bits of loose dirt hid, before rehanging the broom. When everything was as it should be, she filled her backpack with a few things she would need, including her empty soda bottles, and headed out for her evening activities.

Martin was still playing when Naomi approached. She stood back a ways, listening until he looked up. His rusty beard tickled the strings of his ukulele as he played.

“Evenin’, Naomi.” He smiled, not pausing from his strumming. “Headin’ into town?”

She nodded.

“Winter weather’s coming soon,” he said. “Sounds like it’s going to come in like a lion—probably’ll hit tomorrow. It’s been all over the news and everyone was talking about it when I went to charge my phone. You’ll wanna batten everything down extra tight. Maybe its time to set things right with my brother.” Naomi smiled and nodded. He’d said that at least three times since she’d met him, whenever things got rough.

“Do you have any extra rope?” she asked, fidgeting with the waistband of her pants which she held clasped tightly in one hand.

“I’ll see what I can scrounge up. Check in again tomorrow.”

“Much appreciated.” She gave a quick nod before continuing along on her walk.

On a good day, she would walk the two miles to the nearest spot to fill her bottles, but her ankles were bad today and she had panhandled there too often recently. Instead, she made her way to the bus station and fished out the 75 cents for the seniors’ fare.

#

Naomi didn’t take her eyes off the glowing sign that announced the stops the whole ride. When the bus turned onto Sunset Boulevard, she counted three stops and then quickly pushed the button to get off. She didn’t want to get too close to Echo Park. There were too many competitors for the public’s sympathy around there.

Panhandling was a delicate business. If Naomi just sat there, most people would ignore her, but being too forceful usually led to people getting irritated. She settled into her regular, place, leaning against the painted brick wall outside Terra Mia, and held out an old cottage cheese container, shaking it and calling out to passersby. Most were suddenly deaf and blind and went on their way quickly. But after twenty minutes, one young man made the mistake of looking right at her when she called to him and was suddenly caught unsure of how to pretend he hadn’t heard her. After a slight pause, he dug in his wallet and dropped a crumpled dollar bill into her container. He gave her a quick, tight smile, as if he had always been intending to stop, then hurried on before she could even say thank you.

This was how most people were, giving only when trapped into it by a sense of politeness, seeing it as the quickest escape. Sometimes people gave when they were with a group, making a great show of smiling at her and spouting some nice platitude. “I hope this helps.” “Buy yourself some good food.” “It’s the least I could do.” It really was. There were the occasional newcomers to the city, people who showed genuine pity when they saw her sitting on the curb. These usually gave more, but their excessive pity embarrassed her. She knew she looked worthy of pity, as thin and old as she was, but every time someone gave her a look of condescending sympathy, it reminded her of the distance between them and her.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw another street dweller shuffling down the sidewalk toward where she was sitting. His eyes shifted towards where her cottage cheese container sat beside her foot. A shot of electricity went up Naomi’s spine. A scavenger. She’d been the victim of these kinds before. They’d take money from their own sick sister. She smoothly grabbed the cottage cheese container, tucked it between her folded legs, and gave the man a tight-lipped smile. He stared at the ground and kept walking.

A few hours later, she decided to call it a night. She had $7.25 in her container, not a bad haul, though she would need to spend most of it on food as her provisions were running low.

After filling her soda bottles at the public fountain, she made her way along the street until she finally came to 7-Eleven. It was one of the few convenience stores that had a TV behind the cash register, and she had to check in on what Martin had said for herself. The little bell jingled as she entered, and the skinny youth behind the counter looked at her. His eyes flicked over her and stayed on her as she ambled down the first aisle. She wasn’t really looking for anything, but she felt embarrassed to just go up and look at the TV. As she turned to make her way up the next aisle, she could see the screen, one corner of which showed the forecast.

72 mph winds and torrential downpours were expected tomorrow night.

For a second it felt as though everything in the room had shifted to the wrong place. She stared more intently at the screen, trembling slightly, hoping she had read it wrong.

Just then, a man came out from a back room and looked at her, radiating annoyance. He gestured for the boy behind the counter to come over and said something to him. The boy looked uneasy but made his way towards her.

“Excuse me.” He picked at a scab on the back of his hand. “But my manager, ah, he says he’d appreciate if you head out if you’re not going to buy anything.”

Naomi’s face went red and she ducked her head to try and hide it, shuffling quickly out of the store. On the street corner, she blinked away tears of embarrassment. It was stupid Evelyn’s fault. No, Evelyn wasn’t stupid, she chided herself. She was kind and good. But she was stupid for selling Grover Beach Groceries to Pat.

Naomi’s brow furrowed as she shuffled back to the bus stop. Everything had been good before Pat. Evelyn had told Naomi often that she was her most dedicated employee, and Naomi had striven to be. She had made sure that everything on the shelves was perfect for Evelyn. She made sure all the cereal boxes were properly aligned and that all the labels on the cans faced the same way. The store had always looked tip-top.

And then Evelyn had retired, and Pat came. Naomi had continued trying to keep everything the way Evelyn had liked it, but Pat had no sense of elegance. One day when Naomi was stocking the olive oil, Pat came up behind her.

“We’re not running a museum here,” she snapped. “Just put the damn bottles on the shelf.” Naomi tried to work faster, while still making all the labels face outwards.

“For the love of— Just let me— Here.” Pat began shoving the olive oil onto the shelf, ruining Naomi’s careful lines of bottles. “Just— go unpack the lettuce. Something simple.”

Naomi left reluctantly, but the image of the disorganized olive oil made her stomach squirm as she piled the lettuce. She looked around and saw that Pat was talking to a customer at the other end of the store. Quickly, she hurried back to the oil section and started fixing the bottles, carefully restoring the neat lines one by one.

“Are you serious?”

Naomi jumped violently. Pat had come around the corner and stared at her in disbelief.

“Are you dim? Can you seriously not just stack lettuce?”

Tears welled up in Naomi’s eyes.

“I just wanted it to look right,” she muttered.

Pat let out a huff of air. “Look, I kept you on because Evelyn said you were a good employee. I don’t know what she was thinking, but if you can’t even follow basic instructions, your going to have to find another job.”

Naomi had tried to follow what she was told, but when Pat had caught her turning all the carrots to face the same way when she was supposed to be unpacking the milk, it had been the end of her time at Grover Beach Groceries. Naomi had looked for another job after Pat gave her the boot, but the resume of an arthritic sixty-five-year-old who’d spent most of her life stacking groceries had failed to interest any potential employers. Once she had run out of money for her rent, she had migrated towards LA with the slim hope of finding a job. Instead, she’d learned how to panhandle. It wasn’t such a bad life, she told herself. No bills to pay, at least. And she’d made friends with some of her neighbors who tented in the same areas or filled their water at the same spot. But her eyes pricked with tears again when she thought about the look the manager at the 7-Eleven had given her, and she couldn’t quite make herself believe that Evelyn was good.

#

By the time she made it back home, it was black-curtain dark. She crawled into her bedchamber and pushed the buttons on three flashlights she had tied together and hung from the ceiling. They made a kind of chandelier that lit up every corner of her room. She pulled out a newspaper that someone had left on the bus. Most of it was boring rubbish about celebrities and sports that she couldn’t care less about, but there was one article about a girl with autism who had been adopted by a couple two years back and who had learned to speak even though their attempts to teach her had been deemed hopeless. Naomi cut it out with the tiny scissors from her pocketknife and placed it in a package beside her bed labeled “encouragement” before flicking off the chandelier.

#

Naomi woke before the sun and was all bustling efficiency. She ate a breakfast of oatmeal, boiled in the ravioli can, and gave everything a proper sweep. She traded Martin her last cigarette for a length of rope, a generous trade on his part, and soon had a new belt, reinforcements holding down her tarps, plus some extra rope to spare. She spent most of the rest of the day digging a series of trenches with a can that had once contained peaches. These trenches would channel the water away from the vital parts of her dwelling. It was backbreaking work, and her swollen ankles ached from the long hours of scrabbling about, but she would be dry tonight and that was what mattered. She double-bagged all her packages to protect them from the rain and found large rocks to hold them down against the wind. Then, she prepared to set out on a quest for a new tarp.

She usually only went out in the evenings or asked Martin to look in on things to minimize the risk of the crows wrecking up her home when she wasn’t there. Martin wasn’t around, but her bedding would get soaked if she didn’t find another tarp to reinforce her roof, so she tucked her more valuable possessions into her backpack and shut the door securely, tying it with a bit of rope.

Tarps were hard to come by. Fortunately, it was a good day for her ankles. First, she scouted out an area at the other end of the park that had been tossed by the crows a week ago. She hoped someone’s house scraps would be left, but the crows had thrown most of it out, and the rest had been picked clean by other park dwellers. Next, she made the two-mile trek to the boulevard where she usually filled her bottles and walked along behind the line of restaurants. She peeked into their garbage and recycling containers, but the best she could find there was cardboard. It would be useful most of the year, but with the rain, it’d be nothing but mush before a single night was through.

Her last resort then. She counted the coins she had in her pocket, sealed securely in a Ziploc bag. $16.35. It wasn’t as sizable an amount as she would have liked. She’d been forced to spend a significant portion of her rainy-day fund on a new sleeping bag a few months back after hers had gotten nabbed. But it would have to do.

#

As she reached Bottles, a big drop of rain smacked her scalp. Jumping in surprise, she hurried into the shop. Bottles would buy decent-quality items off homeless folk, no questions asked. The store also kept a stash of used or low-quality supplies that street people would pay for in a pinch: cigarettes, lighters, rope, beer, socks, phone cords. They charged less than most stores, but more than their second-hand goods were worth.

Naomi scanned the shelves for a tarp. Finally spying one, she hurriedly checked the price. $15. She let out a breath of relief and carried it to the man behind the counter. He always smelled like beer and Paco Rabanne. It made her nervous.

She began counting out her coins, but the man stopped her.

“This is my last tarp. The price just went up to $30.”

Naomi’s hands started to shake, and she shook her head, pointing. “It says $15.”

“Are you deaf? I said the price is $30. It doesn’t matter what the tag says.”

Naomi clutched her fists around the tarp, trying to fight back tears. “It says $15.”

The man yanked the tarp away from her. “On a night like this, someone else will be willing to pay for it. Unless you have something else to trade, move along.”

Naomi knelt on the floor and rummaged through her bag pulling out two pairs of socks, her lighter, and the rest of Martin’s rope. The man looked at her meager offering and barked a laugh.

“I don’t think so.”

#

When Naomi left the shop, rain was falling in earnest. It wasn’t long before her baggy clothes were sagging off her with the weight of the water. She would just have to use the dining hall roof and move all the packages into her bed chamber. It wasn’t the right way of things, but not everything could be perfect when dealing with a storm.

But as Naomi neared her chalet, her heart leapt into her throat. Her door wasn’t on its hinge. It lay leaning against a bush six feet away in a soggy mush. She hurried through the doorway and found everything wrong. Her bags were open and flapping in the wind. Many of them were gone. One of her carefully clipped news stories flew past her and out into the night. Others were plastered to the soggy cardboard floor. One of her tarps was gone and so was her sleeping bag. This wasn’t the work of the LAPD. This was others from the park, desperate others who were willing to do anything to get through the night.

“No… no, no, no…” Naomi muttered. Her whole body started to shake.

Frantically, she tried to grab the bags that were tumbling around in the wind. She began to roll them up and tried to put them back in their right places, but there were too many and the wind was too quick. It strewed their contents about as she scrabbled after them. Suddenly, her remaining tarp snapped taut, and one of the corners ripped free. Dropping the few bags she had gathered, she seized the tarp before the wind could steal it away. Cutting the other corners free with her pocketknife, she pulled the tarp over her head so that it completely enveloped her body. Blocking out the wind and the rain as best she could, she sank to the ground, rocking back and forth, clutching her hair in a weak fist. A small clump came out in her hand. She held onto it and continued to rock.

#

Naomi woke to find her ankles swollen like balloons. They prickled with pain as the bloodshot back into them when she moved. But she had to get up. It might be an hour later, or it might be morning. The sky was so dark with rainclouds, it was hard to tell. The rain had stopped raging and was instead coming down in a gentle patter.

It was a long time before she could find the will to push herself to her feet. When she finally did, her muscles rejected the motion. She tried again and made it to her knees and then to her feet as her ankles let her know that they did not approve. With the tarp over herself and her backpack like a hooded robe, she stumbled towards Martin’s encampment. It had disappeared. His bags and tarps and ukulele were all gone. Maybe this storm had been enough to really convince him to set things right with his brother.

She shuffled closer to the spot. His tent had been strung up at a place where three trees grew close together. Pieces of plywood were nailed between the trees making two walls and a floor. Heaven knows where Martin had managed to scrounge those up from. Apparently, he hadn’t needed them where he was going. With dull, cold hands, Naomi took out her pocketknife and the last of her rope and cut it into three even pieces. She began tying three of the corners of the tarp securely to the trees. The instant she took it away from her body, a chill pierced through her damp clothes, but once she was crouched under her new canopy, some of her tension left her. It was a good canopy, sealing out the rain and drooping down to form a third wall for the triangular pavilion.

She made her painful way back to the ruins of her chalet and picked through the bags that hadn’t been blown away. There wasn’t much. She recovered a spool of twine, a wet bar of soap, some tape, some nails, a few empty cans, two tee shirts that had been soaked by the rain, her broom, and, gloriously, her stash of sticks and paper, still dry and in their proper bag. The raiders hadn’t known their value.

Feeling a spark of hope, she returned to The Pavilion. Everything was still all wet. Wringing out one of the tee-shirts, she set to work mopping up the water on the floor and walls until they were only mildly damp, then hung the tee-shirts outside to dry for when the rain stopped. Things were slowly looking more like they should.

She crawled back into the Pavilion, took off her wet sneakers and socks, and, one by one, rung out her other clothes in the doorway as best she could. She then rummaged in her backpack and pulled out her two pairs of socks. They had been tucked into a garbage bag and were still delightfully dry. She spread the dry garbage bag over the floor and sat on it while she pulled one pair of socks on her feet, saving the other for later for her hands. Finally, taking out her precious sticks, she started a little fire in one of the cans, carefully feeding it one stick at a time. A small warmth rose and slowly feeling began to come back into her hands, but she still felt uneasy. She looked around and realized what she had forgotten. She pulled out her broom and carefully gave the place a proper sweep. Then she settled back and smiled. Not everything could be perfect when dealing with a storm, but she had done pretty well.

Sierra Simopoulos is a Canadian Christian writer. She studied English literature at the University of Toronto which helped to develop her love of classics and good earl grey tea. Sierra seeks to use her writing to make people think more deeply about tragedies that are often overlooked by our society. Read some of her recent publications at sierrasimopoulos.com/writing. She lives in Toronto with her wonderful husband George and her sweet and spunky twin daughters.