19 The Shrink

"Hello, Betty." She comes around from behind a weird little desk and shakes my hand. I stare at her nails. They are the color of the inside of a watermelon, which might be the best tasting thing in the world, that cold, perfect watermelon...

"My name is Dr. Abbott." She shuts the door behind me and sits down in a chair. Looks like I'm supposed to sit in the other chair, so I do.

"How are you today?" she says. Everyone says that, but I don't think it's a real question. I never know what to answer.

"Okay," I finally say. She shuffles through some papers.

"I see you're staying at First Christian Church ." Yeah, so what? I'm thinking. "Do, you like it there?" What am I going to say? That I don't like it? She looks at me for a while.

"It's okay."

"Would you like some water or tea?" Great, twenty questions.

"Uh, no. Thanks." I notice that this is a real comfy chair. There's a picture of a dog on her desk. A very ugly dog, with a torn ear. And some kids. There are way too many books in this place. Reminds me of the library.

"How are you feeling about things, Betty?" I finally look at her, the shrink. I thought they had glasses and wore suits. What does she want from me? I don't answer, but then time goes by and I can't stand it.

"Okay," I say. "Everything's okay." Except I suddenly realize I don't know where my cart is. I look around and start to get up.

"Are you worried about your cart?" I glare at her. How do they know this? I head for the door and she follows me. I'm getting that tense feeling.

"Shall we lock your cart up so you don't have to worry about it?" she says. I am stunned. What a great idea. I cannot believe it when she pulls a lock and chain out of her pocket. I take the lock and stand there, frozen that way I do.

"Let me help you," she says. We loop the chain around a pole and through my cart, then click the lock shut.

"Here's the key." She hands it to me. To me.

"Now, how about that tea?" she says. We go back into her office and she gets me some tea. I put the key on the table by our chairs so I can see it. Nobody says anything. After forever I take a deep breath. I'm either going to cry or talk. I start talking.

So what do I talk about? My cart. I tell her about my cart. Not that she hasn't already seen it, but she doesn't know what's inside. And it turns out I don't know either, not completely. I start by telling about the dolls. This gets me talking about Tanya because Tanya reminds me of a doll. And I talk about my sister because we had dolls. Then our time is up. We go out and unlock my cart, then I give her the key and chain and lock.

"Betty, you can keep it," she says. But I don't want to. I will probably lose the key, or someone will steal the chain. No, definitely not. She gives me a new appointment paper. Dr. Abbott on Thursday at 3PM. I put the paper in my pocket and steer on down the street with my cart. Good thing Welfare is already on my map.

18 Why Me?

I don't get it. Why do I have to go to the shrink? I been doing fine, causing no trouble, making my rounds. I saw that social worker girl talking to the Latte Heaven people. I thought she was just having a coffee like any old customer, but maybe Tony was right.

"Isn't that your boss?" he asked. We were sitting with our carts on the bench outside the coffee shop.

"Huh?"

"That girl." He tilted his head just barely, like it was hush hush. Finally I saw her, Eva.

"My boss?" I never thought of her that way.

"You better watch out," he said. I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. She paid, then sat down at a table with her coffee and spread out some papers.

"See?" Tony nudged me.

"See what?" I whispered, still didn't get it. Redhair brought her a pastry. All normal. Then Redhair sat down. Not normal.

"See? See!?" Tony stared at me. I stared at them. They were talking and looking at the papers, smiling at each other. Maybe they were friends? My stomach wasn't feeling too good.

"Yer in for it," Tony said unhelpfully. They were still talking as Tony and I stood up. I saw the skinny guy come over to them just before we were gone. Tony was shaking his head and muttering.

But nothing bad happened. Except that the next time I went to Welfare, she said I get to see the shrink and handed me an appointment paper like it was nothing unusual. Dr Abbott on Thursday at 3PM. I wish I said No, but I didn't.

Later everybody looked at me funny, like they knew. So what, bozos? I'm thinking. Big deal. I'm not afraid of a doctor, especially not a shrink. What can they do to you anyway?

Tanya used to love her shrink. Love, love, love. That's a bad sign. Whatever Tanya loves is not for me. Do the guys go to shrinks? If they do, they don't mention it. They talk about their probation officers though. Maybe a probation officer is a shrink for guys.

I know there are shrinks in lockdown. Oh, no! What if I'm going to lockdown?! I've never been out there. I stare hard at the appointment paper. No, this appointment is at the Welfare office on Townsend. The lockdown ward is at the hospital somewhere else. Calm down, Betty. Calm, calm, calm. I am being so calm that I crash into Marianne's cart.

"Whoa there, podna," she says. Wow. I haven't seen Marianne in a long time.

"Oh, sorry." I back off and stuff the appointment paper in my pocket.

"What ya got there, hon?" She sits on the bench like she owns it.

'Oh, nothing," I say as I sit down beside her. Marianne is huge, not fat but tall and strong looking. She has confidence. Not that wild confidence that Cal has. Marianne is more substantial. When she goes off, it's more like she curls into a ball and hides inside herself. Haven't seen that in a long time. I'll bet she knows about shrinks.

"Oh, that's a good thing," she says when I show her the appointment paper.

"It is?" Marianne starts tidying up her cart, something she does a lot. Her cart is small and always looks suitable. The wheels never squeal or get jammed, and nothing falls off.

"You bet," she says. "It means you're worth looking into." This does not sound good to me. She pats me on the hand. "Every time I've done the shrink, I get a job or into a house. I even got my hair done once." She pats her hair and looks around in a glamorous way which makes both of us chuckle. Mary Ann has been out of here a few times, so I believe her, even the hair part. But what has this got to do with me?

"Hmmm," she squints at the paper. "Dr. Abbott...I never can remember the names." She gives me back the paper. We notice some of the guys approaching. I copy Marianne as she goes into her pose: head up, hands on knees, foot touching the cart, eyes shut (almost).

"Booduh! Booduh!" they start chanting when they see us. I would never get away with this on my own, but I'm with Marianne. They pass on by and the chanting gets fainter until it's gone. "Boodah, boodahhhhhh ..."

17 My Map

I have a map, a very important item. I don't know why it's important, but it is. Oh, yeah, because I forget things. I just do. Last week I forgot where that church is and it took so long to find it that I didn't get any dinner. That was when I decided to make a map. Because of my cart, I don't travel great distances. You wouldn't think I'd need a map, but there you go.

First thing I had to figure out was what places to include on this map. I made a list.

Betty's Important Places

• That church
• The news stand
• Latte Heaven
  
• The train station
• The culture garden
• Jewel Market
• The library
• Downtown Park
• The welfare office
• McDonald's
• Tony's secret place
• St. Mark's
• City Park
• The fire station

That's about it. My world.

Next I had to figure out the streets. There are two big streets here: Main and Townsend. They cross each other. Main is where most of the businesses are. On Main, there are trees and benches and trash cans and streetlights and pigeons. Main is good for hanging out. Townsend crosses Main about halfway down. At one end of Townsend is the train. The other end goes out past City Park and who knows where else because I've never been that far. Cal says it goes to the freeway and then the Grand Canyon. I guess he knows.

All my landmarks are somewhere connected to Main or Townsend, so how do I get so lost? I decide to draw my map on the sidewalk with the colored chalk I found at the playground. Pink, green, blue. Making a map sounds easy, but it's not. I would hate to do this for a job. But I need this map, so I don't quit. I'm busy drawing when I hear footsteps stop behind me. Uh oh.

"My, my, what have we here?" Mike. I stay very still and hope he has something better to do.

"Hey, look!" Oh, shit. Gary. He points at my drawing. "That's Jewel Market!"

"Cool!" Jack too. Of course. I'm doomed anyway. Jack hunkers down, picks up the pink chalk, starts drawing.

"Me too!" says Gary, giving Jack a shove. Pretty soon there is a naked woman in my map.

"Check this out!" Gary draws a giant stop sign with the blue chalk, writes GO in the middle of it, then laughs like a hyena. Jack adds a few clouds and stars. Then some kids come along with their mom and a dog.

"Look, Mommy!" They point excitedly at us. "We wanna draw!" They leap on the green chalk that I have abandoned.

"No, no, kids," the mom tries to stop them. But I tell her it's okay. The mom and I stand there watching while the kids add trees and a moose, maybe. They are good drawers, better than Gary.

"Here, kid," Jack says, handing over some pink chalk. "Put some spots on that cow."

"It's a horse!" the little boy shouts. Everyone laughs. Then he draws pink spots on it anyway.

"And these are the fishies," the little girl explains proudly.

"Yeah, dead fishies!" Jack gleefully gives them exes for eyes. The little girl whacks Jack on the arm and everybody laughs again. Soon there are ocean waves around Main and Townsend and a big pink sun at the train station. This is looking way better than my real life.

"And here comes the tidal wave!" Out of nowhere Mike tosses a canteen full of water all over the sidewalk, the drawing, our feet. We stare at him. This is the kind of stuff that makes me float away. The kids look like they are about to cry.

Suddenly Jack jumps up and starts dancing around in the water. "Mayday! Mayday!" he yells. Then Gary makes police siren sounds and sings yo ho ho extremely loud. The kids can't stand it and they start giggling and splashing. The dog runs around barking. Me and the mom just stand there, being happy I guess. I can't figure out why Mike also looks happy, after wrecking everything, but he does.

In a while, the mom takes her family home and the guys leave. What a mess. I decide I better put my map on a piece of paper, which I do, and now I have a map. No pink sun, but I like it anyway.