Wild Awake - By Hilary T. Smith Page 0,20

in her claws parrot-style and won’t let go, surveying the world with a look of such extreme cat-paranoia I start to wonder if she knows something I don’t. Doug reaches up and strokes her affectionately.

“Snoogie’s a good cat.”

Actually, Snoogie seems like a very bad cat. But I don’t say this to Doug, whose perception has clearly been warped by love and/or cheap beer. As I watch him pet her, I start to get anxious. What if I’ve come all this way for nothing? What if all he has to give me is a busted old lamp or some moldy bath towel he’s been hanging on to for five years? Maybe there’s a good reason my parents hung up on him the other times he called. My thoughts flit guiltily to my piano, sitting neglected in a dust-spangled shaft of light. Later, I promise myself.

“Hey, Doug?”

“Whassat?”

Doug isn’t listening. He’s too busy gazing at Snoogie, who is currently attempting to climb from one of my shoulders to the other by way of my head.

“Are her paintings here?”

“Say ’gain?”

Snoogie hops down to the floor and darts into Doug’s room. He finally looks at me.

“Do you have Sukey’s paintings?”

“There weren’t no paintings left at the end, nah. She got into one of her moods and started giving ’em away until there weren’t none left. She gave one to me, big yellow painting, but those crackheads came in here and stole it. You can’t have nothing nice here without someone coming around and stealing it. Hang on, I’ll grab you what I got.”

Doug closes the door halfway and disappears into the murk. I hear him banging into something, swearing, and pulling open a stuck door. I glance into the room and see him rummaging through a closet packed with garbage—actual garbage, soda cups and napkins and cigarette boxes. It’s all tumbling out around his skinny ankles in a mini avalanche of crap.

Great, I think, stepping back from the door. He’s one of those crazy hoarder people.

“Hey, Doug?” I call. “I kinda need to go.”

“Hold on, honey,” he hollers back. “I had to bury the bag real good so those crackheads couldn’t find it.”

I hear cans rattling to the floor, and a grunt of effort from Doug. “Sukey and me were like family,” he wheezes. “People got to take care of each other down here. I woulda called you’s sooner, but I’ve been sick.”

I roll my eyes. Sure. If by sick, you mean hammered.

I poke my head through the door and see Doug hauling a big black trash bag out of the closet.

“D’you want some help?”

Doug doesn’t seem to hear me. He rests on his crutches to catch his breath. I step into his room and pick my way across the cluttered floor. “What’s in there?”

The cat runs out from under a wooden coffee table and jumps onto the mattress. Doug gazes after it.

“Sukey-girl’s things. The manager sent someone in there to dump all her stuff in the trash after the cops left and I said, that ain’t right.”

Doug aims his foot at the middle of the bag and gives it a push.

“Think you can lift that?”

I eye the bag doubtfully.

“Yeah.”

I grab the garbage bag around the neck and hoist it onto my back. Doug watches me struggle upright.

“You got it, honey.”

“What did you say about cops?” I say, trying to balance the bag so it doesn’t knock over any of Doug’s stuff.

I know Sukey got in trouble with the police a couple times after she moved out, because Dad used to get phone calls late at night and have to drive down to the station. Doug ignores the question.

“Big yellow painting. Size of that window. She did it just for me. Reminded me of wheat fields. I bet your daddy’s got a dozen of ’em, eh?”

“No. She didn’t give him any. I only have one, in my bedroom. I was hoping you’d—”

“We always joked I was gonna be rich someday when she got famous and the paintings were worth money, eh. I said, Sukey-girl, you’re gonna make me and Snoogie into millionaires.”

The heavy bag is pressing into my back. I can feel myself starting to sweat. I know I should head for the stairs, but my feet refuse to move.

“Doug? Why did you say there were cops?”

He’s produced another beer from some hiding spot, and now he cracks it open. His bloodshot blue eyes are wandering.

“Goddamn management didn’t hardly wait twenty-four hours before they stuck the next person in there. They got this rat-faced little