My Name Is Venus Black(16)

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LEO IS RIDING in the wrong car again. His neck hurts. He uncurls himself and climbs up onto the seat. His stomach is making a funny noise. He looks at his watch. It is almost time for his lunch. But his mother isn’t here.

His eyes are drawn to the shiny mirror in the front of the car. The man’s eyes are there. Leo doesn’t like for other people’s eyes to look at his eyes. But it’s not like that now, because the man is staring ahead.



The eyes are squinting. Three lines come out of each eye on the outside corners. The eyebrows are furry and not the right orange. The eyes glance at Leo and he quickly looks away. But he saw that the man’s eyes are the wrong blue. His dad’s eyes are the right blue, like the toy car.

Leo won’t look at the man again. He looks at the doorknob, which is shiny metal, which is not a color. Leo knows that if he pulls on the handle, the door could open. That has happened before. The loud noise scared him. His mother yelled at him for a long time.

Leo gently presses his thumb on the door handle and then pulls it away. The thumbprint slowly fades. He does this again and again. He discovers a metal pocket, too. It opens and shuts. It smells just like his father.

When the car stops, Leo looks up. He sees the M that is the right color yellow on the right color red. He is excited. He goes here with his mother and Venus.

He is surprised when the man gets out and says, “Stay.” His mother always said, “Come.” He stares at the big yellow M. He feels excited because he smells the right smells.

He startles when the door next to him suddenly opens. The man hands him a bag. The bag is familiar. But what’s inside is wrong.

He yells, “No! No!” But the man has gotten back in the front seat.

“Don’t tell me you don’t like McDonald’s,” he says. He doesn’t start the car. He is eating something. “I thought all kids like McDonald’s.”

Then Leo smells something that makes him stop. He looks up and sees that the man has the red box with the yellow M!



“Fries!” Leo yells. “Fries!”

“What the hell!” The man turns around in his seat. Leo’s eyes are on the box in the man’s hand.

“You want my damn fries?” says the man. He reaches over the seat with the box. “Here you go, kid. Knock yourself out.”

Leo takes the fries. He begins to count each one aloud before it goes into his mouth. “One,” he says, and then eats a fry. “Two…” He keeps on counting, pausing in between to chew.

“So you can count!” says the man. “What else can you say besides crying for your mommy and Venus? Hello? Goodbye? How about, Thank you for the fries, Tinker. That would be nice.”

When Leo says twenty-four, the box is empty. He licks his fingers one at a time, starting from his left pinky. The man has been laughing. Leo knows the sound, but he’s never made it. He doesn’t know how.





Tinker had just about been ready to ditch the boy. Who knew that French fries were the key?

Tinker thinks that next he’ll try Pop-Tarts, because he himself loves chocolate Pop-Tarts, but he always feels kind of embarrassed in the checkout line when he’s buying them. Like people can tell he doesn’t have a kid at home.

Tinker takes Leo to the bathroom whenever he can. Thank God the kid is at least potty-trained. No accidents so far.

The next time he stops for gas, there’s a little market where Tinker gets Leo a carton of milk. He’s been giving him cups of water, but he’s gratified when Leo steadily gulps the milk until it’s gone.

When Tinker sees a cop car on the freeway and gets paranoid, he reminds himself that even if he did get caught with Leo, surely he wouldn’t go back to prison. For Christ’s sake, the boy is his very own flesh-and-blood nephew. They can’t call it kidnapping if you’re related, right?

He realizes then that if he can’t get the kid to stop crying for his mother and Venus every two hours, it’s going to be a problem. Finally he yells back at Leo, “What about your dad? Why don’t you cry for your dad?”

Leo doesn’t answer, of course. Finally, Tinker pulls off at an exit and finds an isolated place to park. He gets the duct tape out of the glove box. He gets in the backseat next to Leo. When Leo sees the tape, he screams, “No! No!” and hunkers down on the floor of the car as far from Tinker as he can get.



Tinker thunders at him, “Don’t say Mommy. Don’t say Venus. Don’t say Mommy. Don’t say Venus! Do you understand, Leo? If you say the word Mommy or the word Venus, I will put this tape on your mouth again.”

He shoves the tape down by Leo’s head and yells again. “No more crying for Mommy. No crying for Venus. Do you understand, Leo?”

The boy seems to be nodding his head, though it’s hard to tell. Tinker can only hope this will work. Back on the freeway, he feels kind of bad. He’s never been mean to a kid before.

They arrive in Oakland in late afternoon. By now Leo has settled down and is sitting up on the seat again. Inside a Safeway, Tinker purchases an Oakland Tribune. When he comes back out, he is gratified all over again that Leo is still just waiting in the car. He can be such a good kid; it’s too bad about the crying and the other weird shit.

Tinker locates the cheapest furnished rental in the listings.