Search Party
I was walking my coffee in a terrifying neighborhood. Boredom is no match for adrenaline.
I stepped over a syringe into an overgrown park.
“You need some monkey?” asked a pale man on a bicycle, peddling by.
As delightful as having a monkey for a pet would be, I declined. And spent the next several minutes imagining a capuchin brewing my morning coffee, chasing me through my apartment, curling up on my lap…
“Hey.”
It was the cyclist again. On his second lap.
“You need some blue dolphin?”
Again, I shook my head. My bathtub wasn’t big enough.
Before he could inquire about horse ownership, I decided to leave. I stepped back over the syringe, onto the sidewalk — and stopped.
Someone was yelling “Jenny!”
A lot of people were yelling “Jenny!”
An even dozen women appeared. As they crossed the street:
“Can you help me find my Jenny?” asked a distraught forty-something, grabbing hold of my shoulders.
I watched the mascara drip off her jaw, onto my coffee cup.
“Please.”
I tossed my cup into a bin. And said, “Sure.”
The woman gripped my arm, now, as we walked through the park en masse, calling for Jenny.
The only other person we saw, though, was the zoologist on the bicycle.
“Again?” he yelled.
“Again!” one of the women yelled back.
The man shook his head. And took off.
“Jenny has a knack for vanishing,” Oona (the girl’s mother) told me.
We’d been scouring the area for an hour. I’d spotted a girl in a cigarette-littered sandbox and another high up a tree, but neither of them looked especially like a Jenny. Appearances can be deceiving, so I finally asked, “Can you describe Jenny?”
The women exchanged glances.
Oona wiped her eyes and said:
“Jenny was wearing her fuzzy pink jacket. And galoshes.”
I stuffed a pink jacket and galoshes into the thought bubble above my head, for reference.
“The police are looking, too?”
I’d accidentally pressed the mute button. No one spoke for a minute.
Then Oona said, “The police don’t love Jenny.”
My only experience with the authorities was the time a city cop escorted me out of the water fountain in front of city hall on a criminally hot August day. He’d pointed angrily to the sign that read NO STANDING IN FOUNTAIN and even though I was technically squatting, he wouldn’t listen to reason. I’m guessing the police don’t love me either.
A final question:
“How old is Jenny?”
More glances. The missing girl’s mother sighed.
“There’s no one in the world like Jenny,” she said.
The undulating question mark above my head wore a pink jacket and galoshes. I was intrigued — and determined to find Jenny. Writers are as curious as monkeys. As dolphins, even.
“Jenny!” I yelled with extra relish. “Jenny! Jenny!”
The schoolground … the scrapyard … the cemetery … There was no sign of Jenny at any of her standard hangouts.
From a hilltop with a scenic view of the city dump, Oona scattered exclamation points until she broke down, sobbing. I sympathized. When I can’t find my phone, I’m inconsolable.
“We’ll find her,” said someone. “We always do.”
Another woman joined us around dusk, sporting a backpack full of sandwiches and flashlights. As we sat around gnawing on the former, Oona told me about her psychic abilities/epilepsy.
“I wasn’t supposed to get pregnant because of the meds I take. But I knew that if I did — I had a vision — my child would be beautiful. She was beautiful. She is. My Jenny.”
She rubbed her eyes — and swallowed her medication.
After polishing off our sandwiches, we strolled along the drainage ditch. Oona picked up an abandoned dandelion bouquet.
“Jenny’s been here,” she said. “I feel it.”
She closed her eyes. Breathed deeply. And wiped her nose on her sleeve.
“It’ll be dark soon,” she predicted.
And then it was.
A gust of screams blew down the street.
The moon was full. Naturally.
The screamer — an apple-cheeked man in his mid-sixties — was dragging a vacuum cleaner behind him via the hose, like a pet dachshund. He paused to show us his impressive collection of expletives. Then went peaceably on his way.
It was just after midnight. We were scouring Ghost Town — a region of abandoned, hobo-haunted homes adjacent to the railroad tracks. Oona had a feeling about the place.
“Have you seen Jenny?” she asked a weathered man sipping coffee beside a blazing barrel.
He hadn’t. Not today.
I glanced at the man. It had been twelve hours since my last coffee, so it took every drop of my self-restraint not to snatch the cup from his hand. He glanced back. Dramatically savoring the flavor.
We split up, tackling shack after shack. My flashlight spotlit graffiti, amorous racoons, and a mountain of feces, only.
The front steps of a graffitotagged Baptist church looked like paradise to an undercaffeinated man with blistered feet. So I took a seat not far from a woman with waist-length hair and a vacant expression.
“Do you mind if I smoke?” I asked her.
She didn’t answer.
I went on: “Cigarettes are harmless. Unless, of course, you put them in your mouth.” I put the cigarette in my mouth. And lit it.
She didn’t appreciate my humor. That put her in the majority.
I smoked in silence for a time, listing to the faint name-calls, until the woman turned her head and said:
“The spaceman took me away. I told him to. To the Planet of Flowers. I wanted to stay there forever and pick the flowers forever. I wanted to. But I missed my moms. My cats and my moms. I’ve got nice moms.”
She handed me a dandelion. As I stared at it, someone shot the word Jenny at me like an arrow.
It was Oona. She ran up the church steps and threw her arms around the interplanetary traveler.
My heart moved around confusedly as I examined the unusual young woman. She was wearing a stained pink jacket. And galoshes.
Jenny. She wasn’t a child, not exactly. I’d say she was twenty-four or five.
The search party surrounded Jenny, gently admonishing her, hugging her, smoothing her hair.
Before I knew it, Oona was squeezing me. As her mascara ran off her chin, onto my collar.
“I knew I could trust you. I had a feeling. I had a feeling. Thank-you. Thank-you.”
“It was nothing,” I said.
She released me. The blood rushed back into my legs.
Then she took Jenny’s hand and said, “It’s time to go home.”
The search party scattered. I lingered on the church steps, spinning the dandelion between my fingers. A space-traveling adult child is a lot to process.
Somewhere, an old man howled profanities as his pet vacuum rattled down moonlit avenues…
The thought of coffee alone hoisted me to my aching feet, at last. I made my way through Ghost Town, back to civilization.
A police car drifted by. The pilot eyed me skeptically. I could’ve used a ride. The quality of cop shop coffee has to be abysmal, though. I decided to hold out for something better.
The first café I passed was closed.
So was the next one.
And the next…
I looked up at the full moon. And sighed.
“Spaceman, take me away,” I said.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Rolli is a Canadian author and cartoonist. His words and drawings are staples of The New York Times, The Saturday Evening Post, Playboy, The Wall Street Journal, and other top outlets. Rolli is the author of the new book of poems and drawings, Plumstuff. Buy him a coffee.
