Notes from Ghost Town by Kate Ellison Page A

three-thirty—huge, pregnant clouds—and then the mother lode of thunder erupts from the sky. Everyone rushes away to the shelter of their cars before the rain starts, except for a boy, Carlos, whom I recognize vaguely from the neighborhood, andhis crew of dipshit friends. They start to hoot, slide in the grass with their shoes off. A homeless person is rooting through a trash can near the water fountains, oblivious to the storm.
    I decide to cut out of work an hour early, so I can go to Carol Kohl’s office before it closes. I do a scan for boss man and, seeing that he’s not around, quickly complete my end-of-day duties, powering down the creaky carousel before locking up the ticket booth and fence outside of the carousel grounds.
    Carlos and his friends are still roughhousing in the dirt, and I’ll have to pass them on my way out of the park. Weirdly self-conscious—
why do I even care?
—I pull the sweaty Parks District shirt over my head, revealing the even sweatier paint-smattered tank top I wore underneath it, zip my sketchbook into my bag before it gets too drenched, and re-ponytail my hair, prepared now to cross their path en route to my car.
    As I approach, the boys have started on a new game: crumpling up their wet, empty, greasy potato-chip bags and cans of orange Slice and Coke and throwing them at the homeless woman, hunched, still digging through a trash can several feet ahead of them. The woman turns briefly to face the source of her bombardment, a wad of sodden tissues clenched proudly in her fist. I recognize her as I come closer: Medusa. Her three remaining teeth nub over her bottom lip as she frowns, turning back to her task, wild wet hair plastered to the sides of her face.
    “Get outta here, you crazy bitch,” Carlos shouts, nailing her right ear with a soda can. She swats at her ear and keeps digging, undeterred, like she’s lost something precious that she’ll stop at nothing to find. She drops her treasures into the plastic bag at her feet: empty cigarette boxes, a broken flip-flop, dirt-encrusted latex gloves. Carlos’s friends crack up and ping her with more shit, nailing her in the small of the back, the bony right shoulder, the edge of her other ear. She hunches more, but keeps digging.
    Carlos approaches her, a sharp stick in his hand, which he uses to start poking at the center of her back. Like she’s a piece of trash on the side of a highway. His crew cackles from the sidelines.
    With a hot rush of horror, I march over to him, knock the stick out of his hand. “Get the hell out of here.” My voice is a contained growl. “Right now. I’ll call my boss. I’ll call the
cops
.”
    “Jesus. Okay, okay. We were just messing around.” Carlos raises both hands, still laughing.
    “I’ll have you kicked out, or you can
get
out. Up to you.” I squeeze my fists into balls.
    “Come on. She doesn’t know the difference. See?” He motions to her. Medusa has her back to us again. Carlos’s crew echoes their approval, and look up at me like I’m some unreasonable teacher who’s just given them three weeks of detention for chewing gum in class.
    Something snaps in me then, some twig-dam in thecenter of my heart. “You think because someone’s different you can throw your
trash
at them?” I say,
    “Oh, shit, I forgot.” Carlos smirks. “You got a crazy mom. You know,” he smiles sideways as he licks his lips, real slow; “you look a lot sexier when you’re not yelling at people.”
    I see him wink at me again and then:
whoosh
—everything inside of me, once contained, surges forward. “Out.
Now
,” I shout, louder than I mean to. “What the fuck are you waiting for?”
    The boys look to Carlos for the verdict. He shrugs before signaling the others to move out. As they start walking away through the rain, he shouts to me over his shoulder: “Guess crazy runs in the family.”
    “Guess asshole runs in yours,” I shout back. Rage bubbles up inside of me. I free my right