Allison

 

My life could have taken many different roads, I reflect as I walk through the city, a spring in my step. In one hand I clutch coffee in a travel mug, and the occasional sip keeps me smiling. In the other, I have pamphlets advertising my social work services at the community library. My services cater for those in dire need; in my experience, there’s no other feeling quite like knowing that you’re making a difference. I’m sure I’m making a difference—or, at least, I hope to. Given time. I dream, as I walk, that one day the library will become a real community center. I see myself wrapping my arms around a small boy and telling him everything is going to be okay, see myself laughing with an old man and promising him we’ll get his second chance, see a group of kids offering me a thank-you card. Maybe that last one’s a little self-centered, but a girl’s allowed to be just a little self-centered now and then, isn’t she?

 

I stop by the Department of Labor first, a tall, white, smooth building with a uniform look about it: a mundane building, though the work they do is anything but. I go into the main reception area, where the receptionist, a young man with a tuft of brown hair and a freckled face, offers me a smile. I return the smile. I’m slowly beginning to make contacts, slowly becoming a regular face. People are already starting to redirect cases my way, and that feels great. I drop off a few leaflets, ask the receptionist to hand them out, which he promises to do, and then I’m back on my way, toward my car.

 

As I drive toward the homeless shelter, I think about Iowa, where I came from, and where I’d still be living if I hadn’t done something about it. I didn’t get into social work because of any past trauma. It was not that I was beaten, or neglected, or hurt. It was not that I remember feeling threatened or afraid or wanting for food or clothing or shelter. By any reasonable measure, my childhood was excellent—on paper. My father was an accountant and my mother worked in a bakery. We lived in a small town in Iowa; from about the age of seven my father would talk to me about the benefits of accounting as a career, how stable it was, how safe and secure, and from the age of about fifteen my mother would hint to me about Joseph Norwood, the boy who lived next door and seemed to be doing very well, whose mother my mother would have tea parties with. I could see it, clearly, as though they’d already recorded my life on video and were just getting ready to press play: a house on the street on which I’d grown up; a husband chosen and packaged by my mother; a few kids and a safe, regular, humdrum life. There’s nothing wrong with a safe, regular, humdrum life, but I always wondered: what else? Surely there must be something…

 

I laugh to myself, glancing around my car as I slide into the parking space: the open makeup bag on the passenger seat, the contents spilling over, the cardboard boxes in the back, full of books and pens and pencils for my creative writing program at the library; a soccer ball and a basketball rolling around loose. Most girls would have tried for California, Hollywood, or else New York: somewhere women went for lives of glamor and stardom, somewhere you could feel like a rocket ship, constantly going up. But no, I’d chosen Detroit, Michigan, and the wrong side of the tracks, too, the sort of places my father used to warn me never to walk alone.

 

I go into the homeless shelter, where a tall man with night-black skin and missing front teeth grins at me. “Is that Allie, or do my eyes deceive me?”

 

“Hey, Aaron.” I grin back, leaning on the desk.

 

Aaron sits on a seat which is way too small for him, hunched over a small notepad. He’s thin, reedy, but with a big man’s smile: it fills his face. Behind him, the homeless shelter spreads out, a tall-ceilinged warehouse with beds laid out side by side, a door leading to a kitchen far in the back, a few men and women sitting around an overturned box playing checkers and cards. Aaron is looking better than the last time I saw him. He wears a new sport tracksuit, the T-shirt tucked into the pants, and bright white sneakers.

 

“You handing around those leaflets of yours?” He holds his hand out.

 

I place a few in his hand. “Got to let people know I’m out there, right?”

 

“Oh yeah.” Aaron nods seriously. “They call that self-promotion.”

 

“Well, hopefully I can self-promote myself enough so that the library doesn’t cancel my services.”

 

Aaron waves a hand at himself, and then gives his head a theatrical flourish, flashing his gap teeth. “You helped me, didn’t you, Allie? If it wasn’t for you, I’d still be walking like a zombie through the streets, trembling and looking for some trouble, cheap beer and cheap cigarettes moving through me.”

 

I roll my eyes. “That’s not true,” I say, and mean it. “You did all the work in getting your life in order. I just helped you along.”

 

He shakes his head vehemently, still smiling. “I won’t hear that.”

 

I make to leave, and Aaron holds his hand up. “You won’t stay for a coffee?”

 

Lifting at my mug, I reply: “I’ve got more pamphlets to drop off, big man.”

 

But the truth is that it’s almost one o’clock, and my stomach is grumbling about wanting lunch. I return to my car, reach into the back and get my small cooler, take out my ham and cheese sandwiches and my soda, and then collect my current book from the glove compartment. Twenty-five years old, and I still get a thrill every time I pull out whatever romance novel I’m currently reading. The romance, the over-the-top delight of being swept off one’s feet, there’s just something about it that pulls me in. This one’s about a tough-as-nails alpha hitman who kidnaps a woman to get a bounty on her, but then decides he likes the look of her too much for that. She isn’t too fond of his roughness at first, but she soon comes to appreciate it. I read them quickly, and trade them out at the used bookstore half a dozen at a time. There’s another on my nightstand, likely to be started tonight. That one’s about a billionaire, with a taut smile and an even tauter whip; perhaps that one will be better for bedtime reading.

 

I read for around half an hour, finishing my lunch, and then start the engine and drive through the city toward the abused women’s shelter.

 

I remember choosing Michigan as my college, and then driving through Detroit one afternoon, just to drive and explore the city. That drive changed my life. I found myself cruising through the poorer areas of the city, just to watch. At first I felt like an invader into these peoples’ lives: the hard-faced men on their way to another shift at the factory; the skittish-looking women on their way to supermarkets and daycare centers, or rehab centers; the half-feral children running around in second-hand clothes looking for some trouble. Then the feeling of invasion was replaced with a feeling of profound humility. I had lived my entire life sequestered in suburbia, with fields and trees and barbeques and American flags and picket fences and large back gardens. If any of these people had walked down my childhood street, they would’ve felt like they were on a movie set, I bet.

 

Up until that point in my life, I had always wanted to be a librarian. While romance novels are always my favorite, I love to read in general. Since I was a kid, I’ve been a literary adventurer: literary, historical, fantasy, science fiction; anything I could get my hands on. I spent a great deal of my childhood in the library, breathing in the scent of the books. I suppose I was trying to escape, even then, in my own way. But now, as I drove through Motor City and took in the fumes and the fatalism, I knew that I wanted to make a change here. As a freshman, I was a long way from declaring my major, but I knew that I wanted to forget accounting and pursue social work (without informing my father), and immediately enrolled in several volunteer programs to help the poor and disillusioned of the city. I was too scared to tell them for months; the explosion that happened when I finally did was terrible. I will never forget my father’s absolute disbelief, how he kept repeating: “But …I thought you were going to be an accountant?”

 

I shake my head, shaking away the memories, as I pull the car to a stop and walk through the streets to the women’s shelter. The July sun slants down through tall buildings, blinding me, so that when I walk into the shelter, it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the indoor light. Kasey offers me a warm smile as I place the pamphlets on the counter, but she’s on the phone, talking incredibly slowly, so I just smile and leave, making my way back toward my car.

 

I’ll head back to the library now, to my little office in the rear of the building behind the stacks, spend the rest of the day getting on with some paperwork, and then later I’ll go to my apartment and collapse on the couch, maybe turn on some Scandal or Game of Thrones as I summon the strength to go into the kitchen and bake a pizza. It’s odd, because though my work isn’t physically demanding, it always leaves me tired. It might have something to with expending emotional energy rather than physical, or perhaps it—

 

I stop when I round the corner and see them: several men, all wearing leather biker jackets, but without any club insignia on them. A few of them are smoking cigarettes and laughing, and one of them leans over and peers into my car.

 

I’m parked on a side street, tall buildings either side blocking out most of the sun, and the men and I are the only ones on the street.

 

“Hey, Trent.” One of the smoking men gestures with his cigarette.

 

The man peering into the car stands up, turns, and then nods at me and then at a long metal pipe which dangles at his side like a resting viper, ready to strike. “Make one move or one sound and I’ll shove this so far up you you won’t be able to speak for a week, y’hear?”