Chicken Girl

by Heather T. Smith

  * * *

  Buck steadied the lens. “Give us a smile, Tommy.”

  The man with the syringe in his arm glanced up. He pushed the plunger with his eyes on the camera, a euphoric look on his face.

  He threw the needle on the ground. Buck took a picture of that too.

  We walked down an alley. Buck took close-ups of brick.

  More shots: rugged faces, strewn garbage, a dandelion growing from a sidewalk crack.

  We ended up on an old railway bridge, deserted and covered in grass. We sat on the wall, our legs dangling over the edge. Buck zoomed in on the syringe in the man’s arm. “I see a lot of nasty things, out here on the streets. I’m drawn to document them. I don’t know why. Mad, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe you do it,” I said, “because it makes you feel more alive.”

  He smiled. “See? I knew you’d understand me if you saw the streets through my eyes.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I said. “You’re still a mystery.”

  “Me? Nah. I’m an open book. Ask me anything.”

  “Why do you live under the bridge?”

  “My mom turfed me out.”

  “Why?”

  “She caught me with weed and now she thinks I’m a crazy drug addict.”

  He took my hand. “Anything else?”

  “How come sometimes you’re incredibly nice and other times you’re a complete asshole?”

  “Because drinking turns me into a nasty plonker.”

  “What about when you’re sober?”

  He shrugged. “I guess I have a natural inclination for assholeness.”

  I laughed. “I guess you do.”

  I linked my arm through his and laid my head on his shoulder. “Buck? Do you think Miracle will get taken away?”

  His brow furrowed. “Not if I can help it.”

  “You really care about them, don’t you?”

  “Her mom and me, we have this weird connection.”

  I was surprised. “Really?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “We’re both screwups.”

  They were an unlikely pair, the fresh-faced Brit and the ex-druggie prostitute.

  “She told me she was an addict when she met Mateo,” he said. “He changed her life, took her away from it all. But when he died, she threw it all away. She blew their savings on drugs, then prostituted herself to support her habit. Now she does it to support Miracle.”

  “That’s sad,” I said.

  And it was.

  But Miracle.

  Sweet, mischievous Miracle.

  How was she not enough to turn things around?

  Buck stood up, took a key out of his pocket. “Come with me?”

  “Where?”

  “I’m watching a friend’s flat while he’s away.”

  We walked hand in hand, far from the James Street area to the trendier side of the downtown core. Above a bistro was a loft-style apartment filled with sleek furniture and stunning artwork.

  “This place is amazing.”

  “Isaac’s an art collector. He’s shown interest in my photos. You never know, I might make it big someday.”

  One of the kitchen walls was brick, and the other was filled with a floor-to-ceiling painting of a naked woman. A center island was surrounded by chrome barstools. Shiny pots and pans hung above it from a wooden rack.

  He took a bottle of wine out of the fridge. “Care to join me?”

  “I thought alcohol turned you into a nasty plonker?”

  “I’ll only have one,” he said. He held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

  He grabbed two glasses from a cupboard. We went up a swirly iron staircase. At the top was a bedroom loft. Buck poured two glasses of wine and patted the bed.

  “What if your friend comes back?”

  “He’s in New York.”

  “You should ask him if you could stay here with him,” I said. “So you won’t have to sleep under the bridge.”

  Buck fluffed the pillows against the headboard. “Nah. It’s a gorgeous place but Isaac’s a bit of a wanker. He’s one of these blokes who’s totally full of himself, you know?”

  I sat on top of the covers. The wine tasted bad but I drank it anyway, half the bottle. The ceiling was bordered with fancy trim and the light that hung from it was wrought iron with six arms and candle-like bulbs.

  I pointed to it. “Is that a candelabra or a chandelier?”

  Buck took a joint out of the bedside table. “How would I know? I’m as common as muck.”

  “Maybe it’s a candelier,” I said. “Or a chandelabra.”

  He lit up. “Or maybe it’s just a light hanging from a ceiling.”

  He passed me the joint.

  “Did you know you can inhale and exhale at the same time?” I said. “It’s called circular breathing.”

  “You mean it’s not called inexhaling? Or exinhaling?”

  I copied his accent. “Are you taking the mick?”

  He laughed and pulled me in close.

  “I like creating new words,” I said. “It gives them the potential to be more than they are, to be something new. You know what I mean?”

  “What else do you do for fun?” he said. “Watch paint dry?”

  I gave him a playful slap. He caught my hand and held it against his chest. It was awkward in the most awesome way. It was awksome. He smiled and held the joint to my lips. I took a draw and let it out slow.

  I slipped a finger inside his button-down shirt. He put out the joint and slid down the bed. I climbed on top of him. He put his hands on my hips and we kissed. I peeled off my shirt. He said my full-coverage forties bra was the height of sexiness. I peeled that off too. Soon we were naked. Every part of me pressed into every part of him.

  I was no longer a puddle. I was vapor. I was lighter than air.

  * * *

  We dozed until the bistro below filled with live music. It was ten p.m. I had a headache.

  “We can stay the night,” said Buck. “Isaac won’t mind.”

  “I’d better get home.”

  I was just as naked as I had been hours before but suddenly felt more so. I pulled my clothes under the covers and tried to wriggle into them.

  Buck laughed. “You’re funny, Poppy.”

  He leaned over and kissed my back.

  I said, “You used a condom, right?”

  He said, “You don’t remember?”

  He’d been fiddling with something, but it felt rude to look and besides that I was too busy thinking, Oh my God, I’m about to have sex.

  “It was a bit of a blur.”

  He reached out. “Of course I did. You can always trust me.”

  I sat up. I wished he wasn’t watching me put my bra on. Normally I’d snap it up in front and spin it around but that felt unsophisticated now. I put it on frontwards and reached my hands behind, hoping to hook it together in one seamless movement. On the third attempt Buck did it for me.

  “Thanks.”

  He held me by the shoulders and turned me toward him.

  “Come here, darlin’.”

  I laid my head on his shoulder.

  “Was it tender enough?” he whispered.

  My heart melted. “Yes.”

  “You sure?”

  I tilted my head and kissed his chin. “I’m sure.”

  * * *

  I woke up early the next morning. It was weird how badly I wanted Cam to know. I imagined saying, Hey, Cam, guess what I lost? and he’d say, Your keys? and I’d say, No, my virginity.

  I poured him a bowl of Cheerios and practiced as I walked up the stairs.

  Hey, Cam. Guess what I lost?

  Good morning, Cameron. Guess what I lost?

  Yo. Dude. Guess what I lost?

  He opened his door.

  “Guess what I found?”

  He shrugged. “I dunno. God?”

  “That’s a weird guess,” I said. “How could I lose God?”

  “You didn’t say lose. You said found.”<
br />
  “I did?”

  “Yep.”

  “Shit.”

  “Well,” he said, taking the cereal bowl. “Goodbye.”

  I stuck my foot in the door.

  “Wait. Do I look different?”

  He looked me up and down. “Maybe slightly more deranged than usual.”

  I straightened up in an attempt to look sophisticated. “Deranged as in more mature?”

  He rolled his eyes. “No. Deranged as in psycho. Can I go back to bed now?”

  “Speaking of bed…”

  “Poppy, did you want something?”

  “I shagged the Englishman.”

  His eyes widened. “You what?”

  I grinned. “Shagged. You know, as in had sex?”

  He pulled me into his room. “But he called you the Pillsbury Doughboy.”

  “He apologized.”

  “And you had sex with him?”

  I nodded. “Yep.”

  His jaw dropped. “Oh my God.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I know.”

  He cast his Cheerios aside and sat me down beside him. “He used a condom, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You didn’t do it under that disgusting bridge, did you?”

  “No.”

  He looked me up and down again. “It was okay, though, right? I mean, you liked it and everything?”

  I smiled. “Afterwards he asked if it was tender enough.”

  Cam’s heart melted too. I could tell.

  “I wanted to tell you,” I said. “I don’t know why.”

  He looked me up and down for the third time that morning.

  “You know how you asked if you looked different?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You do. You look happier.”

  He reached up, wiped his eyes.

  “Are you crying?”

  “It’s just—I’ve been waiting so long.”

  “Waiting?” I said. “For what?”

  He wrapped his pinkie around mine. “For you to come back.”

  * * *

  That afternoon I went to the bridge. I didn’t realize until I was standing there how much I’d missed being below. Now that things were good again with Buck, it was where I wanted to be.

  But then there was Thumper.

  There was good and bad in everyone but in some people there was just plain evil.

  I crept down the embankment. I wanted to know how I’d feel seeing him at a distance.

  He wasn’t there.

  I sat on his folded blankets.

  Miracle’s sleeping bag was nearby, tied up in bright-purple string.

  I wondered what he’d have thought of her once—of her less-than-pure-white complexion.

  And what about Lewis? What would Thumper have made of him?

  The river trickled as it always did, easily and free.

  Before I left, I opened the snub tub. I read them all, every last one.

  I took out a piece of paper and the tiny pencil they kept in the tub. I thought of Cam and wrote, Hedgehogs, eh? Why can’t they just share the hedge?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Later that night Buck came to my house. He laid on the charm, telling my parents he was taking me to see a documentary film at the cinema.

  “You’re British,” said Mom.

  Buck grinned. “Guilty as charged.”

  Dad noticed the strap of Buck’s camera hanging out of his messenger bag.

  “A Nikon, huh?” he said. “Bit of a photographer, are you?”

  He started going on about Ansel Adams and Henri Cartier-Bresson and I wondered what had happened to him zipping his lips. I cut the conversation short by saying, “Well, we’d better get going. Pip pip, cheerio.”

  I tugged Buck down the driveway. “So what movie are we going to?”

  He took a joint out of his pocket. “It’s called Happiness under the Bridge.”

  I laughed. “Sounds amazing.”

  Turns out it was more like Sadness under the Bridge.

  Miracle ran to greet us. “Lewis’s dad died.”

  Buck picked her up, all three feet of her. She wept on his shoulder with Gilbert tight in her grip.

  I felt wobbly at the sight in front of me. There was Lewis, his head in Thumper’s lap, Thumper’s arthritic fingers running through his hair. Shh-shh-shh.

  I wasn’t sure what to do. I knelt beside them. I looked to Thumper for comfort. The look he gave back was a hug.

  Miracle joined us. I put my hand on Lewis’s back. He looked up. “Oh, Poppy.”

  He sat up and I held him tight.

  “I’m all alone now,” he said.

  Thumper said, “As long as I live, that will never be true.”

  Lewis smiled and wiped his eyes. “I have to get back. They’re coming to take him soon.”

  I pictured his dad, dead in Plan 47-11.

  “Miracle and I will walk with you,” said Buck.

  I wondered if Lewis would want Buck around.

  “That’d be nice,” said Lewis.

  Buck nodded to me as they left. Then he nodded at Thumper.

  It was an uncomfortable silence at first. But then I linked my arm around his.

  He cleared his throat. “I guess you haven’t goggled me yet.”

  “It’s google,” I said. “And yes, I did.”

  He stared straight ahead. “And here you sit with your arm around mine.”

  I pictured his knobby fingers running through Lewis’s hair.

  “You know that battle you were talking about?” I said. “The one that runs through the heart of every man?”

  His eyes searched mine. “Yes?”

  “The war is over now, Thumper. You’ve won.”

  His voice cracked. “You think so?”

  I nodded at his bible. “I know so.”

  He picked it up, held it close to his chest.

  “I wrote it while I was in prison.”

  The wobble I had felt earlier was back. “You were in prison?”

  “Ten years.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It changed my life.”

  “How?”

  “I found the meaning of it.”

  “Life?” I said.

  He nodded.

  “Care to share it?”

  “That,” he said, with a sparkle in his eyes, “you have to find out for yourself.”

  * * *

  I went home early.

  Cam was on the couch. I sat beside him.

  “You okay, Popsicle? You seem jittery.”

  I wrapped my arms around his waist. “My friend’s dad died.”

  I buried my head in his chest. I would have burrowed into him if I could.

  He held me tight.

  Shh-shh-shh.

  * * *

  I woke up in the morning drained and thinking of Lewis. I wondered how he’d slept, if he’d spent the night alone.

  I went online and watched a video of a dying man. It made me feel better, as if I’d somehow shared Lewis’s pain.

  Cam poked his head in my door. “You’re watching happy things, right?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  I made my answer truthful by putting on one of my favorite movies—White Christmas. Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye were entertaining the troops somewhere in Europe. The soldiers looked sad during Bing’s melancholic rendition of “White Christmas,” but I figured missing Christmas makes future ones even more special and besides, the war would be over by 1945.

  I could almost feel Lewis’s shoulder bumping gently into mine. He’d say something like, Miracle’s dad died in Afghanistan, you know. War is nothing to be nostalgic about. That’s what I figured he’d say anyway. It was because we had a connection now. That’s what it was all about.

  I closed my eyes and imagined that the tree was up, the turkey was in the oven, and there was snow falling outside.

  Then I imagined Cam in a battlefield far away from home.

  I opened my eyes and re-w
atched the opening scene.

  This time, I cried.

  * * *

  Lewis came for a walk just as the movie ended.

  We didn’t talk. We didn’t have to. We’d talk when we were ready.

  I followed Lewis off the tracks. I didn’t know where we were going. It didn’t matter.

  We ended up at Regent Park and sat side by side on the swings.

  I spoke first. “How are you?”

  He reached into his pocket.

  “He wrote it himself.”

  He passed me a piece of lined paper. “Read the highlighted bit.”

  I cleared my throat. “‘Lewis Liu leaves to mourn his son, Lewis Jr., of whom he was incredibly proud.’”

  I smiled.

  “He switched from her to him the day I told him,” he said. “I was lucky to have him.”

  I folded the paper and passed it back. “And he was lucky to have you.”

  “My future is up in the air now,” he said. “How will I get through it without my dad?”

  He tilted his head back, his eyes focused on the sky.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “You can cry.”

  He let his head fall. His tears too.

  I put my hand on the back of his head, ran my fingers across his shaved bits. It felt nice.

  There was no awkwardness with Lewis, no wondering what he’d say or do next. It was like I’d known him forever. Soon he’d stop crying and I’d say, You okay now? and he’d say, Yeah, thanks, and then we’d sit in silence and it would be comfortable. Being with Lewis was wonderfully predictable—it was Honeycombs for breakfast and the way Cam signed off his texts with six x’s and six o’s.

  Lewis wiped his eyes. “My grandmother has come to stay. She doesn’t like me very much. She’s selling the house. She says I’ll have to move in with her on the other side of town.”

  My heart sunk. “Is there no one else?”

  “There’s an aunt. But she’s in Vancouver.”

  I took his hand. “Oh, Lewis.”

  He ran his thumb across my knuckles. “I read everything in the snub tub today. The hedgehog joke made me laugh.”

  “My brother told me that one,” I said. “He’s my antidote to sadness.”