In the Garden of Eden

 Short Story Prompt 10: What I wish I said… | Wordcount: 1500 words exactly | Deadline: 7 October 2020

To enhance your reading experience, play this Link as you read the story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIVe-rZBcm4

 

It was the stench that first assaulted George’s senses as he locked the car and walked the short distance towards the homeless camp. This camp was far worse than the other two he’d been at recently, chasing rumors and leads that he desperately prayed would reunite him with his estranged daughter.

 

Dozens of makeshift tents and cardboard shelters formed the camp. It had a relaxed, party atmosphere about it, though it was dank and dark here under the highway overpass.

 

God! How could people live like this? Could Allie really be here? His heart ached at the thought of his daughter living in these conditions, rather than putting aside the hurt or the pride that kept her from coming home.

 

As always, when he thought of Allie, their last moments together replayed like a movie scene, etched forever in his mind.

 

She, barely fifteen, sitting on the couch with hands held protectively on her belly, mascara tears staining her cheeks. He, standing over her in a rage, responding badly to the news of her condition, uttering those words he’d do anything to take back.

 

“I thought we raised you to have more self-respect than to give yourself to the first boy who came along. What would your mother think? You’re just a goddamned baby yourself, and now you think you’re gonna raise one? I’m so disappointed with you. Get up to your bedroom. I can’t look at you right now.”

 

What would Mandy have thought of him, castigating their only daughter at a time when she was clearly frightened and most in need of his support? His wife would have been so disappointed in him, but she would have smoothed things over before Allie ran away.

 

In A Gadda Da Vida pulsated loudly from a silver boom box outside one of the larger tents. Thinking of Mandy, he remembered how she had loved dancing to this song, especially this full, seventeen minute rendition. The tune drowned out the rumble of cars and trucks that sped down the highway overhead.

  

Unkempt men and women loitered alone or in small clusters, some grooving to the beat of the music, others too stoned to care what went on around them. Diaper-less babies lay on dirty blankets, while scraggly children ran about in wild abandon, heedless of the poverty and the filth that surrounded them.

 

These people might live in squalor, he thought, but at least they were together. 

 

Cigarette and marijuana smoke hung thick in the air along with the smoke of smoldering cook fires. It masked the scent of unwashed bodies and dirty clothes, of soiled diapers thrown into a pile beside a makeshift toilet. An overflowing trash can had fallen on its side, rotten food and other debris strewn about, where scrawny dogs foraged and snapped at each other.

 

As Gunnery Sergeant in the US Marines, he took offense at such living conditions. He instinctively wanted to start barking commands at these people and attempt to bring order to their camp. Instead, he schooled his expression to keep the distaste from showing on his face, though from the way the crowd around him reacted to his presence, he guessed he wasn’t fooling anyone.

 

Or perhaps it was his powerful build, the desert camos he wore, his short cropped hair, or his rigid posture that put them on edge.

 

He watched them watching him as he approached, cautious curiosity in their expressions. Pulling a photo from his shirt pocket, he held it out to the group of people at the nearest tent.

 

“I’m looking for my daughter. I heard she might be here.” He spoke quietly, hoping it would ease the tension, though he was anything but calm, this close to the possibility of finding his Allie.

 

One of the women took the photograph from him, scrutinized it carefully. She shook her head and passed it on to the man beside her.

 

“Have you seen her?” His voice cracked with emotion. “She’ll be older now. This was taken on her fifteenth birthday, but she’ll be seventeen now. She might have a baby,” George said, uncertainly, “about eighteen months old?”

 

Others had joined the group as the photo was passed around. Some of the children came to see what was going on. 

 

One girl in particular caught his attention. She looked to be about ten, and she reminded him of Allie when she was that age. His throat constricted at the memory of his daughter, snuggled in his lap, solemnly promising to never grow up or forget who loved her best. She’d been so loving back then, so trusting. Not yet intimidated by his imposing demeanor, or his demand for proper behavior. 

 

He remembered the way she’d smelled that day, of green-apple hair detangler and Heaven Scent perfume. Stark contrast to this filthy, homeless girl who pushed her way through the crowd to peer at the photo. 

 

“That’s Allie!” she said, and it was as if a jolt of lightning ran through his body at the sound of her name. “She doesn’t feel very good today. Did you come to make her feel better?”

 

“Where?” George could barely speak. It felt as if his breath had bottled up inside his chest. He forced himself to be calm, clinging to the hope that he had found her at last. That she would be okay. “Where is she?”

 

That’s when he saw the clothesline strung between two tents, a pair of jeans and a cherry-red tee shirt left hanging to dry. The sight of the shirt set off a flurry of butterflies inside his stomach. His heart began beating erratically. He would recognize that shirt anywhere. It had the words ‘Hot Chick’ emblazoned in gold letters beneath the image of a yellow baby chick. Mandy had bought it for their daughter’s thirteenth birthday, just months before the cancer stole her life. It had been Allie’s favorite shirt. She’d worn it at least once a week. To see it here, now, four years later, was a blow he hadn’t expected. 

 

All the words he wanted to say to Allie swelled in his heart as he ran to the tent.

 

Not ‘where have you been’ and ‘why have you stayed away;’ but ‘God, how I’ve missed you,’ and ‘I’m sorry I drove you away.’

 

Recriminations were for later. For now he just wanted to hold her and tell her how much he loved her, and to beg her to please, please come home.

 

But the words died, unspoken, when he flung aside the tent flap and saw his daughter for the first time in almost two years. 

 

She was lying on her stomach, as if sleeping. Her right hand pillowed her cheek. Long, dark hair covered her pale face, left arm flung out in careless repose. Her forearms were covered with old scabs and weeping abscesses. A bright red puncture wound showed beneath a tourniquet still wrapped at her elbow, hypodermic needle fallen to the dirty mattress beside her emaciated, unmoving body. 

 

All sense and sensation receded as he fell to his knees beside her. Only an anguished, silent scream filled his mind, until a moment later sound returned, bringing the psychedelic guitar strings of In A Gadda Da Vida transitioning to mind numbing drum solo.

 

“Is there a phone nearby?” he shouted, pulling his daughter into his lap. “Somebody call 911.”

 

She coughed when he moved her, eyes blinking open, unfocused. She barely weighed anything. Her skin was cold and clammy. Her breathing shallow and labored. He swept her hair out of her face, and her eyes opened again. This time she looked at him directly. Her pupils were constricted to mere pinpricks.

 

“Daddy?” Her voice was a bare whisper, the word full of love and longing and fear.

 

“I’m here, Allie. I won’t leave you.”

 

“I’m sorry, Daddy. I’m so sorry.”

 

“Shhh, baby. Shhh. Don’t try to speak.”

 

“I gave my baby away, Daddy. I couldn’t keep her.”

 

Her breathing became more erratic and her eyes closed. Her body went limp in his arms.

 

He rocked her back and forth. “Stay with me, Allie. Don’t leave me again.”

 

Light filtered in through the tent flap as a woman stooped down to peer into the cramped space. “An ambulance is on the way,” she said. “It’ll be here soon.”

 

Allie’s fingertips had gone blue as George held her, weeping and willing help to come, though he knew it wouldn’t arrive in time. 

 

The drum solo ended and the last lines of In A Gadda Da Vida was crooning over the stereo.

 

The lyrics were simple. He knew them by heart, having sung them often to Mandy. “Oh won’t you come with me, and take my hand. Oh, won’t you come with me and walk this land. Please take my hand.”

 

Allie breathed her last as the song ended. She would never take his hand again. But maybe she would be with Mandy, in the Garden of Eden that Iron Butterfly had been too drunk to pronounce.