Slay Bells Ringing

by Emily James

  “Do you know where he would be?” As much as I wanted to help, I wasn’t going to spend my whole day driving every back street in the city. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. It would burn too much gas.

  Dwayne pursed his lips. “Jimmy hunts in the dumpsters for stuff he can fix up and sell.”

  “He should know better,” Carla interjected, not quite under her breath.

  Dwayne didn’t even glance her way, as if he wanted to pretend he hadn’t heard her. I decided to follow his lead.

  “We’re worried he fell climbing in and out and might be lying hurt somewhere,” he said. “He’s not as young as he used to be.”

  Dwayne’s skin was so weathered that I couldn’t guess at his exact age, but I would have probably put Jimmy in his fifties. Definitely not old, but perhaps that was considered elderly when you were living on the streets.

  Carla looked to be somewhere in between Dwayne and Jimmy in age, though her behavior at least was much less mature than either. It grated on me. I couldn’t peg exactly why, but I had a suspicion it was because she was a woman and I was a woman, and I didn’t like anyone giving my gender a bad reputation.

  “Do you know his regular spots?” I asked.

  “Every single one,” Dwayne said. “I helped him find the ones where people were most likely to throw the good stuff.”

  That anything in a dumpster could be considered good stuff baffled me. Dumpsters had always given me the creeps. I imagined them full of rotting meat and maggots.

  Then again, I’d read an article in The Positivity Project column from a town not far from here that talked about people who lived off of discarded food. They didn’t do it because they couldn’t afford it. Most of them had regular jobs. They did it from the moral standpoint of wanting to reduce the unnecessary waste North Americans were famous for.

  Though, if business didn’t pick up, I might be eating from dumpsters for an entirely different reason.

  Or I’d be joining Jimmy, Dwayne, and Carla at whatever shelter or mission in the city provided hot meals.

  I motioned for Dwayne and Carla to climb into the cab of my truck. I’d barely pulled out onto the road before Carla was complaining about how the seatbelt was uncomfortable and how I needed to turn up the heat because not everyone had nice socks like I did.

  I wasn’t sure how she knew from a glance that my socks were any better than hers—one of mine actually had a hole in the toe—but it seemed like homeless people had a bit of an obsession with socks.

  I drove them from alleyway to alleyway, with Dwayne hopping out at every stop. Carla used her less convenient seat as an excuse to stay inside the cab with me. All the stops blurred together except for the one where Dwayne found a homeless man sleeping under a cardboard blanket and another dumpster that Dwayne said smelled so rancid he’d been afraid he might find Jimmy—or someone else—dead inside.

  After almost two hours, it’d started to snow, and the snowflakes melted as soon as Dwayne entered the overly-warm cab, leaving him looking like he’d been dunked in a bucket of water.

  “That’s the last one,” he said.

  His tone made my heart feel like someone had stepped on it. No matter who you were, losing a friend or family member was hard. I could only imagine not knowing what happened to them was even worse. I’d only known Jimmy a few days, and worry for him was going to make it hard for me to sleep tonight.

  Carla snuffled again. The warm truck seemed to have only made her runny nose worse. “There’s one more spot. At the train tracks.”

  “He never went there with me.” Dwayne snapped his seatbelt back in, as if he expected me to follow her directions. “There’s nothing good there.”

  “He don’t tell you everything. Some things we kept between him and me.” There was a proprietary feel to Carla’s words, like she had a different connection with Jimmy than Dwayne did.

  I asked for directions and put my truck into drive. We passed a mission on the way, and Dwayne pointed it out to me as the one where they usually slept. Even though it wasn’t yet four o’clock, people already lined up down the streets.

  “We probably won’t get a bed tonight thanks to Jimmy,” Carla said.

  And for not the first time, I wondered if it was even possible to get into her good graces. At least I’d have hopefully earned a bit of loyalty from Dwayne—and Jimmy, if we ever found him.

  The train station was back a few streets from the mission, but still an easy walk.

  I parked along the side of the chain-link fence that Carla pointed toward.

  This time, instead of staying in the truck, she got out. It was a good thing she did. Since Dwayne didn’t know Jimmy’s spots on the railroad property, it’d have taken him until well past dark to search all the possible locations Jimmy might be.

  Her feet hit the ground, and she turned back toward me. “Ain’t you coming?”

  I hadn’t planned to. They’d seemed happy with my role of chauffer before now.

  Dwayne leaned around Carla. “We could use the extra hands. It’s a lot further to carry him out from here.”

  Of course. That made sense. They had no intention of calling for help even if he was hurt. Ambulances and hospitals cost money—money none of us had.

  I turned the truck off, locked it, and followed Carla to a break in the fence.

  The irony that the hole was right next to a No Trespassing sign wasn’t lost on me. I opened my mouth to point it out to Carla and Dwayne, but they’d already ducked through the hole. Undoubtedly it wasn’t the first No Trespassing sign they’d ignored.

  We picked our way over tracks that were clearly inactive based on the amount of accumulated rust. Closer to the front of the yard, a passenger train pulled to a stop in front of the station, and off in the distance, another train whistle sounded.

  “What did he pick here?” Dwayne asked over his shoulder to Carla. “Ain’t nobody whose gonna buy steel from one of us. They’d know it was stolen.”

  Carla’s gaze shifted to the side. “I didn’t say he picked stuff here. I said it was one of our spots. The empty cars are a good place for drinking and other stuff we can’t do at the mission.”

  The gap before she answered made me think she was lying, but I had no proof and no reason for why she would.

  Except all the abandoned cars we passed seemed to have padlocks on the doors.

  A shiver went down my spine and left me feeling colder than the snow down my collar had.

  This had been a stupid idea. Helping out a few homeless people wasn’t going to stop all the others from aiding Jarrod if he figured out where I was. And it seemed less likely all the time that we’d find Jimmy.

  Assuming he was missing in the first place. For all I knew, this was all a ploy to lure me out here and rob me.

  We moved on to a section of the railyard with tracks that seemed well-kept and used.

  Carla passed the edge of the next train car and disappeared from sight. Two steps later, Dwayne turned the corner as well.

  I hung back. Maybe I should turn around now and leave them here. They weren’t that far from the mission. They could walk back.

  No one could blame me for cutting my losses. The sun was already dipping in the sky, and I still needed to find a safe place to park my truck for the night.

  Carla and Dwayne weren’t the only ones who were homeless.

  I backed up a step.

  A female screech and a string of loud curse words from a male voice burst from behind the train car.

  I froze. That couldn’t be good.

  Instead of continuing on my path back to my truck, I jogged forward. I couldn’t leave them now. I didn’t know if either of them had a cell phone to call for help if they needed it.

  I peeked around the corner just to be sure there wasn’t a fight going on. If there was, I’d call the police to come break it up and then make my retreat before they got here.

  There wasn’t a fight.

  Instead, Carla and Dwayne stood on either si
de of a mangled body draped across the train tracks.

  Chapter 2

  The first thing I noticed about the dead man was his bare feet.

  At least, I assumed it was a man, based on his feet. They seemed to be too large, with too much hair on the toes, for a woman.

  A pair of scuffed boots lay next to the tracks, their laces untied, like the man had taken them off before lying down along the tracks. A nearly empty case of beer rested nearby, and the air reeked of hops.

  I didn’t move any closer. I didn’t need a better look at the rest of the man to know he was dead.

  Bile burned the back of my throat. The sound of Dwayne losing whatever he’d eaten for lunch came from my right, and I clamped a hand over my mouth.

  Shows like CSI flashed images of butchered bodies and autopsies all the time. I just had to pretend this was a TV show, too. That body was all painted plastic and CGI effects. It wasn’t real.

  Tricking my brain worked enough that I could lower my hand. My stomach still felt a bit like I was riding a rollercoaster, though. I’d only ridden a rollercoaster once, and I’d never been a fan of it. It didn’t make sense to me any more than watching horror movies did. I was scared enough of things in life that were real. I didn’t need to manufacture fear for the “fun” of it.

  Carla had moved away from the body. She now sat on the steps leading up into an empty car, staring off into nothing.

  Dwayne straightened.

  Presumably, they saw a lot of sickening things on the streets. His reaction seemed strong.

  I had a bad feeling I knew why. “Is it Jimmy?”

  Dwayne nudged the beer case with his toe. “I don’t get it.”

  I didn’t get it, either. I was no psychiatrist, but Jimmy hadn’t seemed suicidal to me. He’d seemed accepting of his past failures in a way that made me think he was focused on improvement, not on punishing himself.

  And yet, he’d taken off his shoes. Why would someone do that in the middle of winter, when it was cold enough out to get frostbite if you weren’t careful?

  Maybe he was so drunk he didn’t know what he was doing.

  My mind had the grinding feeling it got when it wanted to make sense of something senseless. I’d be up all night turning this over in my brain, trying to figure it out and asking why it’d happened.

  But I’d have time for that later. Right now, I had to deal with what was in front of me.

  I backed in the direction of the train car I’d come around when I heard them find Jimmy. “You need to call the police.”

  Carla shook her head. It was the first movement I’d seen her make. “We can’t call the police. They’ll think we killed him.”

  I doubted that. There weren’t any trains traveling this set of tracks at the moment, but they did run as far as I could see in either direction, and they seemed to arc to meet up with the main line. Clearly Jimmy had somehow laid down on the tracks, and the conductor didn’t see him.

  It was strange, though, that they hadn’t felt it when they hit him. Maybe they’d simply thought it was non-living debris on the tracks?

  Regardless, I couldn’t call the police. The police would want my name. I couldn’t give them my name.

  I held up my hands. Hopefully they’d think I’d forgotten my phone in my truck even though it was safely stashed in my pocket. “Does one of you have a phone? It’ll be nearly impossible for you to explain why I’m here, and you can be each other’s alibi.”

  Carla gave me a look that said I clearly didn’t know what I was talking about.

  “We could leave him here,” Dwayne said. The pallor to his skin suggested he was struggling to keep from throwing up again. “There’s nothing the police or anyone can do for him now.”

  Carla hopped down from the steps. “We can’t leave him here like he’s trash. He deserves a burial.”

  Her voice reminded me of a child who’d been repeatedly bullied when they were talking about something they were good at.

  And for a second, I understood Carla better than almost anyone else probably could.

  She couldn’t stand leaving Jimmy there to rot until someone else found him. Doing so treated him like he was worthless simply because he’d been homeless rather than as a human being who deserved respect. If she allowed that, she’d be saying she wasn’t worth anything more than being left for rats and other scavengers to eat once she died.

  She probably wouldn’t have been able to articulate all that even if I asked her, but I heard it in her voice nonetheless. I heard it because I knew what it was like to be told you were worthless enough times that you started to believe it.

  Homeless people weren’t often told it, but they felt it in the way people treated them and looked at them.

  I understood, but I wasn’t a knight in shining armor. I could barely take care of myself.

  “Do either of you have a cell phone?” I asked again.

  Dwayne patted his pocket. “I do.” His skin turned even more pasty. “It’s one Jimmy found and fixed up for me.”

  I felt sick for an entirely different reason. There was no such thing as fair in this world. It seemed like the good people suffered while people like Jarrod could do whatever they wanted.

  I wasn’t sure what camp I fell in. I knew what it was to suffer, but I wouldn’t have called myself a good person. Especially given what I had to do next.

  I nodded at Dwayne. “Then you two will have to decide what to do. I can’t stay.”

  I backed up until I rounded the corner of the train car, and then took off at a jog.

  Carla’s curses chased after me.

  Even though I’d helped them find Jimmy, I certainly hadn’t earned any favors in return. In fact, if Jarrod ever came looking for me, I had an uncomfortable feeling that Carla would offer to help him find me without asking for anything in return.

  Chapter 3

  I’d thought I was as hypervigilant as a person could get. I’d been wrong.

  For the next week, I closed up my truck and moved every time I saw someone who might be homeless. The names Carla called me as I left, and the threats that went along with those names, left me feeling like she might one day sneak up behind me and hit me in the head with an iron pipe.

  I couldn’t have explained why I thought it would be an iron pipe. Logically, those were probably in as short supply as wrenches and hammers on the street. She more likely would have stabbed me with a homemade shiv. But in my nightmares, it was always a pipe.

  And sometimes she looked like Jarrod.

  So when I opened my front flap and Dwayne and Carla stood not five feet from my truck, my first thought was that I was dreaming.

  My second was that at least she’d probably kill me quicker than Jarrod would.

  I must have caught them by surprise by opening the door because we stared at each other for almost thirty seconds without saying anything.

  Dwayne reached out a hand toward me as if he realized I was considering closing the door in their faces. “We need your help again.”

  Carla didn’t make eye contact with me. “And those cupcakes you offered last time.”

  Yeah, inviting them inside sounded like a great idea. They could beat me up without risking witnesses then.

  Fear stayed quiet in my head, probably because he didn’t need to say anything. I was frightened enough already without his input.

  Dwayne gave Carla a look that said keep going.

  She huffed out a breath. “I’m sorry for yelling last time. I have a temper, and I was upset about Jimmy.”

  As grudging as her apology sounded, it also sounded sincere. And there was a tremor to her hands that suggested she was either detoxing or really hungry.

  I couldn’t turn them away if it was the latter. Besides, if I fed her, I wouldn’t need to keep watch for her as well as Jarrod from this point forward.

  I stepped back to give them room to enter. “It’s a tight fit. You’ll need to sit on the floor.”

  “We’re used to sitting
on the ground,” Dwayne said. “We don’t mind the floor.”

  Point taken.

  I got them both a hot cup of coffee and a gingerbread cupcake. With Christmas less than a week away, the gingerbread cupcakes were selling, and a couple of people who’d tried them had spread the word enough that I even got asked to provide desserts for a couple of last-minute office Christmas parties. It was going to be enough to keep me going for a little longer.

  Dwayne polished off his cupcake before saying anything, as if he were afraid it might disappear if he didn’t take advantage of it. He reminded me a bit of a stray puppy being offered a meal of scraps.

  “Here’s the thing.” He paused and licked his fingers—which made me shudder. “We called the police like you told us to, but they’re saying Jimmy’s death was an accident. They say he got drunk, passed out, and the train hit him. The driver probably thought he hit a chunk of ice or something.”

  I poured myself a mug of coffee even though I didn’t want to drink another cup. It was something warm to wrap my hands around.

  An accidental death sounded possible to me. I’d wondered about it, too, except for the shoes. No one removes their shoes in winter before accidentally passing out.

  But I wanted to hear what made Dwayne and Carla think it wasn’t an accident. “Go on.”

  “The police are wrong,” Carla said.

  Stating that something was the truth didn’t make it so. If they wanted me or the police or anyone to believe them, they needed more than that. They needed evidence. “Why do you think the police are wrong? Did Jimmy never drink or something?”

  I knew he had. He’d told me so himself. What I wanted to see was whether Carla would admit it or lie to me. That would help me figure out if the rest of what they were going to say was the truth or not.

  Carla scooched over and, without asking, took another cupcake from the plate I’d brought out of the fridge. “Oh, he drank alright.”