The Dirt Chronicles

by Kristyn Dunnion

  Special Friend has the basics: dust-covered groceries, porn, tampons, and junk food. Most Special Friend customers buy cartons of illegal cigarettes straight from the reserve, cash only, and only if no one else is in the store. And only if the cashier recognizes you. And not if they think you might be a narco, out to bust their ass.

  “Out of everything we’ve ever dumpstered, how come there’s never been any Sour Cherry Blasters? Don’t you think that’s weird?”

  Oreo thinks about it for a minute as we continue down the steep hill, crushing overgrown weeds with each step.

  “We always have more food at the Factory than we need, right?”

  “Yeah,” she says. The path widens and she grabs my hand so we can walk side by side.

  “All the ripe fruits and veggies we can eat, tons of it organic. Day-old bread, doughnuts, noodles, you name it. But no Sour Cherry Blasters, not ever.”

  Oreo says, “Maybe stores never throw them out. Maybe people like us are so busy eating them, they never get wasted. If you stop buying them, you could maybe score them for free.”

  “Maybe. I can’t wait, though. I want some now.”

  We cross the railway tracks and pop out of some greenery onto the sidewalk of a small street that leads to the Junction, past all these old homes. Most are dilapidated, renovated into cheap rooming houses or bizarre churches with long names. Some are yuppie investments, with new roofs and pretty front gardens. One or two are boarded-up wrecks. Special Friend is only a couple blocks farther.

  “Surreal,” says Oreo, looking back at the now-hidden path that leads to the squat.

  “We’re invisible in there.” Oreo rubs her neck where my mouth marked her. “It’s like we don’t even exist.”

  “In a good way, though.” I laugh and swing her hand in mine. It’s still sunny, hot. I’m with my girl. I have a safe place to live and good food, even some friends. I’m happy, for once in my life, invisible or not. That feeling—the sudden realization that things could maybe get better for me—tingles in my spine.

  Oreo giggles. “Ferret, you got burrs all over.” She pulls one off my sleeve. “There’s more.” She crouches down and works at the ones on my combat pants.

  “You, too.” We pick them off each other for a minute or two. I can’t reach the ones on the back of my shirt. The street is deserted except for us. The houses on either side have blinds or curtains in the windows. Nobody’s spying, so I take my shirt right off and keep picking at the burrs. Oreo inspects my pant seams, all the way up to the crotch.

  “Whoa,” I say, smiling at her.

  Oreo laughs and lifts me up. I wrap my legs around her. We kiss for a long time. My shirt flutters to the ground. I forget what we’re doing, where we’re supposed to be going.

  There’s the sound of an engine. There are brakes.

  “Well, well. Looky here.” The low voice cuts through our lips, severs our bodies. We’d recognize it anywhere. I scramble down, and Oreo steps in front of me.

  It’s the King. He likes to be called the King because he sounds like Elvis. He does his black hair the same way, too, greased up with sideburns. He is also the King because he rules this city, at least as far as junkies and hookers and street kids go. The cop car is parked beside the curb facing the wrong way. The King leans out his open window. The door opens, and he stands up, and up. When he walks toward us he grows even taller; his blue uniform gets bigger with each step.

  My leg shakes. My mouth goes dry. My shirt is only a pace or two away on the other side of Oreo, but my feet are heavy cement blocks that won’t budge.

  “Some reason you’re not wearing a shirt?” He stands close to us, too close, and he rests one large hand on his hip, right near the black holster that holds his shiny gun.

  Oreo says, “It’s not against the law. Not in Ontario.” Her chin juts out. Anger pinks her cheeks.

  Oh, shit.

  “You think people want to look at your flat tits?” He looks disgusted, like I’m a bug he’ll squash. “Think everyone wants to watch your disgusting lezzie show?”

  “Put your shirt on, Ferret.” There’s a tic in Oreo’s cheek. She might blow.

  I bend down for the shirt, but the King steps on it with his huge polished shoe. “You’ll put that on when I say so.” He’s not even looking at me, just staring right back at Oreo.

  I keep my hold on the fabric, in case he lifts his foot. I’m crouched low, trying to cover myself. I have a close-up of his shiny cop shoes and his hemmed pants.

  “Get up.” His voice is mean. It feels like a stomach kick; it hurts all the way through. He snaps his meaty fingers in my face. He’s standing so close to Oreo that he’s pressed against her.

  “Don’t talk to her like that,” says Oreo.

  The King puts one large hand around Oreo’s neck and grabs my bare shoulder with the other. His squeeze sends spasms through my dangling arm. His fingers could break me. “I’ll talk to her any goddamn way I please, dyke. I will say and do whatever I like. I’m the law.”

  Oreo struggles to get away, but he presses harder. Her face darkens. She makes awful sounds, choking, gasping for air.

  “You unfuckable little sluts make me sick, you know that?” He covers us both with his coffee breath. His nose is red and veiny at the end. Spit flies from the corner of his mouth when he talks. “Now. Put your filthy shirt back on.”

  I would. I want to have as many layers as possible between my insides and him, but he’s still holding me, threatening to snap my very bones.

  He shoves me. I stumble. I land half on the sidewalk, half on the grass. He’s got Oreo by the throat with both hands now. He lowers his face and he’s saying something, I don’t know what. He’s squeezing the life out of her, right in front of me, and there’s nothing I can do. I grab my top and try to put it on. My fingers tremble. My left arm, the one he hurt, hangs numb. I might be crying. Every inch of me screams to run, run, but I can’t leave Oreo with this monster.

  “Please.” My voice falters. “We’ll go, okay?”

  He squeezes harder. Oreo’s eyes bulge. One of her boots kicks out like a puppet dancing. I panic. My breath shortens into small gasps. I feel dizzy watching, but can’t look away.

  “You’ll go when I say so.”

  Oreo’s face is a terrible colour. Veins stand out on her temples. Finally the King releases his hold. That’s when I exhale.

  Oreo collapses. She retches. Her hands flutter to her throat. She stays curled on the ground. This is terrible, to see her humiliated like this.

  “Public indecency, mischief, loitering … I could nail you with any of those. But you’re not worth the paperwork. So get the fuck outta here before I change my mind!”

  I’m beside her, hands petting, trying to calm her down. I tug on her arm. I try to lift her. Her eyes snap open. Now she’s up. We run down the street, past the shuttered old houses with the sagging porches, toward Special Friend. The King follows us to the corner in his car. Then the car turns and slowly chugs away in the other direction. Oreo coughs. She spits on the sidewalk. There are marks coming up around her neck that cover my love bite completely.

  What happens next is terrible, too heartbreaking to watch. Oreo kicks the newspaper machine on the corner over and over, denting the side of it. She howls. That probably really hurt. Oreo paces the sidewalk punching the air, swearing, screaming, pulling her long black hair out of its braid.

  I sit on the cement stairs of the convenience store and wait for it to pass. She’s in a rage, that’s for sure. She can’t help it. You just got to know that about her and when it comes, you step away. Let her do her thing. You definitely do not want to be up in her face. The first time I even saw Oreo she was in the pit at an all-ages hardcore show downtown. She noticed how some guy wouldn’t leave me alone. She gave him what for and, of course, he snotted back to her. So she slugged him. To be punched by a girl, even a butch one, was embarrassing for a punk. But when he hit Oreo back, he invited the beat down of his puny existence. Or
eo knew how to fight, and that day she did it for me.

  Today, though, there’s no one else to hit. No physical release to extinguish this hate inferno the King sparked up.

  The store owner comes outside and waves a cell phone around. Oreo stops yelling.

  “No trouble,” he says. He turns and says something in Korean to his wife, who is huddled inside, peering out from behind the long-distance phone-card posters on the front door.

  “Please,” I say to him. “No phone.”

  “No trouble, no phone,” he says, looking warily at Oreo. She’s standing in the street, her back to us. Her torso heaves with each breath. Her hands hang at her sides in loose fists, defeated.

  “Please.” I feel my eyes well up and have to look away from him.

  Eventually he goes back inside with his wife and they both stare out the front door until I walk towards Oreo.

  “Hey.”

  She sniffs loudly.

  “I don’t feel like candy anymore,” I say.

  She nods.

  “Let’s go home.” I touch her back lightly. She flinches. I wait. She wipes her face with her sleeve. She spits into the street. Then she takes my hand and we walk back the way we came. We don’t say a word when we pass the spot where it all went down, we just keep walking.

  Oreo hits the path first. She moves fast in long robotic strides. One of her steps flattens a patch of long grass. In its wake I notice a small piece of paper. I stop to pick it up. It’s a typed message from a fortune cookie. It says, “Happy celebration happy, Wong’s House of Love.”

  “Yeah, right,” I mutter. But still, I fold it and put it in my pocket for safekeeping.

  Toddlers and Tiaras

  (For Doris)

  Me and Darcy sit on the rusty fire escape outside the old lady’s apartment window. We’re waiting for our show to start. It’s sweaty hot; the night air is heavy, with no breeze at all, not even five floors up. I shift. My bony ass hurts and angry red stripes mark the backs of my bare legs. Darcy pulls his T-shirt up over his face but keeps the collar around his forehead, tucked behind his ears. Then he twists the cotton material into a thing that he ties up like a turban on his head, covering his greasy red hair.

  “Freak.”

  “It’s my tiara, Sly,” he says. He tries to grab a cigarette from my pack but I slap him. He sighs. We both know the smoke would snake right in there, through the open window, and the old lady would smell it, and she’d know we were perched out here again. Last week she threw a pot of dirty dishwater at us, and that was not great.

  “Wish we had some chips.” He farts.

  “Shut up, Darcy. She’ll hear us.”

  “As if. She’s fucking deaf.” He does it again, louder and longer.

  “Yeah? I bet her nose works just fine.”

  He laughs. “Listen, if your Professor friend had an effing TV we wouldn’t have to be here. I’ll probably get a disease sitting on this contraption.”

  I don’t say anything, but we both know Darcy already has the hep, and he didn’t get it climbing fire escapes. Plus, we’re lucky we can stay at the Professor’s. We’re lucky we’re not out on the street getting our asses beat by people we owe or by the cops, who hate us. We’re lucky the frigging King didn’t scoop us up in his latest raid and that he hasn’t tracked us down since.

  “It better not be a highlights show,” says Darcy.

  “Shh. It’s starting,” I say, as canned laughter bursts out. We sneak right up to the window, lean our elbows on the sill. We’re a foot away from the back of her couch with the crocheted blanket on it, maybe two from the back of her head. Her white hair is combed neatly, and she’s got a long braid wrapped around, tucked into a bun, and pinned in place. If we lean to one side, we can see her big old TV directly in front. It’s like we’re at the drive-in, sitting in the back seat.

  The theme song swells, the trailer rolls, and we hunch closer. We shimmy our shoulders in time to the music. Darcy claps his hands lightly to the beat. Inside, the old lady hums off key. After the song, the show host announces this is the second-last show of the season—they’re kicking three more girls off tonight. Then there’s a commercial break, time for the old lady to make her sandwich. She grunts when she leans forward and slowly stands. She shuffles into the kitchen. We hear plates banging around and the fridge door slam.

  Now we lean right through the window, everything from the waist up. We reach over the back of the couch to pet the stuffed dogs all piled up on it. One of them, a worn-out Dalmatian, stares its googly eyes at me. I make it growl softly, then bite Darcy’s scabby arm.

  “Quit it,” he whispers.

  “Arrrugh,” I bark back.

  The glow of the television lights up the shelves around the stand. There are dozens of ceramic dogs flickering in the blue light, all sitting on old lady doilies. Some of them beg paws-up, some have tongues flapping out the side of their china mouths, some leap with painted frisbees in their teeth. She has a Dogs of the Year calendar up on the wall—from 1987.

  “Think she has any weed stashed?” he asks hopefully.

  “Yeah, right.” Last week, when we first came here, it was to score pills from the bathroom cabinet. But as it turned out, the old lady was watching Darcy’s favourite show. So instead of robbing her, we just chilled and watched from outside until she caught us, like.

  The fridge door bangs again. We crouch down. The lady has it timed pretty good. She shuffles back into the living room just as the commercials end. The couch springs creak when she plops down, and we peek our heads up. She’s got her sandwich on a small plate. It’s cut in half diagonally. She picks one triangle up and stuffs it in her mouth.

  “Onions?” whispers Darcy. He wrinkles his nose.

  I elbow him.

  The old lady sets her plate with half a sandwich down on the side table. She flicks crumbs off her lap. She claps as they open the curtain and the little girls stand ready, toes pointed, hands clasped, those concrete smiles holding up their faces. Beady-eyed mothers hover on the sidelines. The host waves from centre stage and trills out names: Ashleigh, Morghan, Rhianna, Tressa. Lyndsey, Tarabelle, Crystal Dawn.

  The old lady heaves herself up and raises a fist toward the television.

  “Aw, why she got to stand right there?” Darcy sucks his teeth.

  We lean to the right, to the left, to opposite sides at the same time, trying to see past her. She’s short and wide. She’s got her hands on her hips and she’s yelling at the judges. Not in English, in some other language.

  “She sure sounds mad,” says Darcy.

  “Seriously.”

  Darcy crosses his arms over his bare chest. “I mean, why have a couch if you’re not going to sit on it?”

  “Beats me.”

  She waves her hand one last time in disgust, then slowly bends to sit back down. She lands heavily and some of the stuffed dogs avalanche into a pile around her. “Bah,” she says. She picks up the Dalmatian and sniffs it.

  On television, the girls move stiffly around the tiny stage and wave. We get close-ups of each one, cut to prerecorded snippets when the girls forget they are on camera. Rhianna rolls her shoulder: Rhianna, collapsed in her hotel room as the adults argue about which dress she should wear. Morghan and Tressa, the prudey sisters, twirling: Morghan and Tressa eating too much cake and getting yelled at by their mother. Tarabelle shuffle-steps: Tarabelle falls asleep while her arch-nemesis practices walking in the hallway, her mother shaking her head: “No, do it again. No. Do you want to keep your pretty dress? So do it right.”

  Then there’s Crystal Dawn. Darcy and the old woman start clapping. Crystal Dawn is definitely their favourite. She’s the creepiest, only three and a half, but she has the plastic made-up face of a forty-year-old. Her smile is frosty, and her eyes shine like a store-bought doll, like all the little girls who compete in these pageants. She waves triumphantly. Crystal Dawn is so outrageous, she gets an entire shame video all to herself. They edit seconds from each of her
temper tantrums to recreate the whole gorgeous mess. It’s like flip books you make in school when you’re bored. It starts with the first bottom lip twitch. Then the shaking, silent, stretching open mouth as her face gets red and wrinkly. She sucks in air—we all hold our breaths. Finally, it’s the money shot: the unapologetic howl! Her drooling, snotting, rage assault! We’re addicted to it, all three of us. The whole continent, really.

  “Wow,” I say. “That never gets dull.”

  Darcy nods. “I wish I could cry like that.”

  I don’t say it, but he pretty much did cry like that, just last week when we first landed at the Professor’s.

  “Oh, not again,” groans Darcy.

  As if the tantrum video is not enough, the show producers cut back to Crystal Dawn’s notorious piss scene. Inside, the old lady sighs loudly. She reaches for the other half of her sandwich. She doesn’t want to watch this either.

  “There she goes,” I say happily.

  Flashback: Crystal Dawn crouches backstage, sticks out her bum, and pees through her lace-trimmed Christian Lacroix panties. She looks like an angry animal, red-faced, fists clenched, yellow curls bobbing. Crystal Dawn’s mother, a hefty lump of a woman, screams and shakes her. “Those cost 425 bucks, you brat! That’s coming out of your prize money!”

  The old lady hollers.

  Darcy almost gives up on Crystal Dawn every time he sees this clip. “She has no respect for French design!”

  “She’s not even in kindergarten. How’s she supposed to respect anything?”

  Inside, the lady drops her plate; it clatters to the floor and she bellows. We duck. We stay crouched down ’til she’s quiet, just the show blasting. The host says the panty pee scene has had more YouTube hits than the inaugural address. Crystal Dawn’s baby voice booms: “I did a bad mistake, but tonight I’m gonna be perfect.”

  The old lady murmurs. We peek over the sill. Darcy gurgles with excitement. Crystal Dawn is in top form. Her helmeted up-do sparkles with rhinestones, golden ringlets pasted into place. Her eyes shine from the lubricating drops her mother puts in right before she hits the stage. She’s got her tan sprayed on, and her flippers tucked in her mouth to cover those crooked teeth. She’s wearing a pink and white cupcake, the short tutu all the littlest girls wear. When she walks across the stage, she swivels her hips. Her hands flit like birds with rigor mortis. Her shoulders roll aggressively. She winks at the judges. She’s killing the competition, and she knows it!