Where No Gods Came

Faina McCoy Where Is the World?

Faina McCoy Where Is the World? M I go back to San Diego for my beginning, because I can’t shake from my mind the old life: hot sand and salt water outside my window, my father’s coffee left on the stove, the early morning silence of our house, my father always gone before I’m awake. And, in the last days, the stench of Wiley, fully clothed, asleep on our living room ›oor. No, I won’t go back to Wiley. Instead, I carry what I have to keep to tell my story: the clutter of my aqua bulletin board, the archery ribbon I won at the summer park program, my poster of Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy. A shoe box full of poems, words to songs I want to remember. Spiral notebooks I’ve been writing since fourth grade, full of margin doodles and daydreams I jotted down in class. A note with the initials of all the boys I liked in sixth grade, taped to the back of my underwear drawer. Next to my bed, my father’s old black phonograph, my green case of 45s, my ‹rst and only album. I go back to Mission Boulevard, the sidewalks sizzling and edgy, as though the whole city is close to exploding. Girls with tangled hair panhandle ; their bare bellies ›ash over the tops of their ‹lthy hip-hugger jeans. Navy men bristle and spit at the hippies who hand out ›owers. Most of the shops along the boulevard have changed their names. The Place, Magic Carpet, Electric Avenue. They sell black lights, psychedelic posters, pipes for smoking grass. On the street corners, with their guitar cases propped open for donations, boys strum guitars and sing James Taylor, Cat Stevens or Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. They sing offkey in high voices that sound nothing like the originals. What else have I saved? My daily visits to Keith’s Coffee Shop where I’ve eaten breakfast since ‹rst grade. The powdered sugar doughnut and carton of chocolate milk quickly slipped my way, the cracked vinyl of my usual stool sometimes cutting into my leg. My schoolbooks spilled out over the counter so Keith can quiz me to see if I’ve learned anything. Keith, 1 tugging at his red goatee, “Let’s see what you know today, young lady.” The folded dollar bill I pass him at the last second. I go back there, am there, sitting next to my father at the horse track. School is just out for the summer; it is June 17, 1973. We’ve driven to Hollywood Park for my twelfth birthday. He hunches over the Form and says he needs to win big so we can buy groceries. “What about your paycheck?” I ask. “Spent.” I’m anxious to go prowling, to hang out at the windows and wait for the rush of bets. “Stay still for once,” he tells me. In his mouth, the tip of his cigar is gnawed and wet. He shifts nervously in his chair, arches his back, stretches his arms behind his neck to crack his knuckles. “Stop it,” I say. “You know that bugs me.” Tense, his breath comes in shallow snorts. He falls into his old, distracted habit of tugging at the rim of his ‹shing cap. He’s worn this cap since I can remember, because it hides his high, bald forehead and the smooth patch at the top of his head. His belly bulges against the pearl snaps of his cowboy shirt. “Goddamnit. Goddamnit,” he says as his horse fades. “God damn it.” His bets never win. “Son of a bitch.” He slaps his palm against his forehead. “We gotta quit.” Out in the hot sun of the parking lot, he pauses with his hand on the car door. It’s my birthday; he has something important to tell me. He hasn’t had a handful of luck in six months. There are people breathing down his neck for bad debts. He ›ops his heavy arm over my shoulder. “My back’s against the wall. You have no way of knowing.” This has happened before, and we got past it. “You’ve still got your job at the marina. You can pay it off bit by bit.” “It’s not that easy.” “We can rent a cheaper place. You’re always complaining about the rent anyway.” “This is different. It’s the real thing.” Now he clears his throat, leans against the...