The Dirt Chronicles

by Kristyn Dunnion

  The next time I open my eyes, Cricket is eating naan bread. “That cute cook saw me in the dumpster and instead of getting mad he gave me all this free food. I think he likes me.” Cricket sounds as flamboyant as ever. He opens the containers: curried vegetables, channa, chutney, and spicy pickles. Good smells make their way to my corner. I sit up at last. I stick a dirty finger into one bowl.

  “Mmm.” I can’t remember my last meal. Spices make my nose run. Salty sweet tickles my mouth. My stomach twists.

  “Yum,” he says, scooping curry with a piece of naan.

  “Thanks, Cricket.”

  “It’s nothing,” he says. But he won’t look me in the eye, so I know he’s still hurt.

  Just like a girl.

  “I mean it. For everything.” I can’t talk about the hoodie yet, but he sees me wearing it, plain as day. “Sorry about before.” He must know I’m trying, at least.

  He shrugs. He eats.

  We plough through the containers. We lick each one clean, and the plastic spoons too. I wipe my face on Ferret’s sleeve. Cricket burps and finally smiles. Food gives us hope. Maybe things aren’t quite so bad.

  Cricket’s grey eyes are a bit watery. His face is still tight. I get it; deep down all he wants is approval. He—the braggy soapboxer, the one lecturing us with his politics and visions and boring rules—right now, he just wants me to like him.

  “Let’s go to the club. We’ll pick up some tools on the way. We can totally break in before all the security dudes show up for work.” I’m like a bloodhound with a fresh scent for the trail, rested and fed and single-minded. “I just need a screwdriver and a paperclip. Some pliers would be awesome.”

  He looks like a little kid. Like he knows I can turn on a dime and beat him, but is desperately hoping I won’t.

  “Honest, Cricket,” I say, swallowing that awful guilt. “We’ll be okay.”

  In morning light, the club looks pathetic. It sits on some expensive real estate, the busy corner of an east-end intersection. The sign, not lit up, not blinking in neon ecstasy, is benign. Alleys run on either side of the building. We each follow one; they meet at the back where there’s a dumpster and space for the manager to park. Staff use the back door; ash piles and cigarette butts mark their smoke breaks. Small square windows with crappy blinds line the top of the building. Cricket knocks the two security cameras out of commission with his slingshot and some rocks from the laneway. That gives him a swagger.

  “Oreo, check it out.” Cricket points to a door without a handle or lock. Around the edges there are smudges and imprints in the dust; people use it regularly. “Someone lets them in.” The weeds have been cleared by the entrance. When I stand in the main alley, the dumpster blocks Cricket and the door from my view.

  Clever.

  “Think anyone’s inside?” says Cricket.

  “Maybe a cleaner. Maybe not. We got to hurry. The day shift starts at noon.”

  The sound of an engine fills the back alley. Cricket and I dive behind the dumpster. The car drives slowly toward us; it stops. Exhaust billows up from the other side of the dumpster. There’s a crackle of static, a digital bleep. Cricket’s eyes widen. He mouths the word “pig.” I’m too scared to actually peek, but it sounds like a radio dispatcher. A taxi. Or a cop. The car crawls forward the rest of the way past us, down the gravel lane. It doesn’t stop again, and no one gets out.

  “Whew,” he says.

  My legs shake when I stand.

  “That’s the dressing room.” I point to a basement window. We creep closer. The curtain is pushed to one side so we can see the line of sinks and lockers. “The hall on the right leads to the kegs and the empties. I checked last night. The furnace is on the left. There could be other hidden rooms, though.”

  “She has to be down there,” says Cricket. “Or up there,” pointing to the row of small windows. There’s no movement or light coming from any of them.

  “Fuck it. I’m going in.” I’m a dog with a bone, and no one can take it from me. “Better now, before the staff show up.”

  “Wait, Oreo—”

  “Keep six.”

  I take the thin-tipped flathead screwdriver we just ripped off from the hardware store down the street and tap it hard on the window pane. It cracks; lines ripple outward. One more tap. Glass falls into the basement. I reach in carefully and turn the lock. Then I slip the screwdriver under the wooden frame at the bottom and lift it up a notch. I raise the window smoothly. Cricket holds it up for me while I ease myself into the basement. I land on my feet. Cricket lowers the window and stays outside. I give him thumbs up.

  I move through the shitty dressing room into the hallway. Stairs leading up to the club are in front of me. On the right is the beer and empties room. On the left is a padlocked door with a sign: “Keep Out. Furnace.”

  Fuck you, I think.

  The tiny screwdriver fits inside the lower part of the keyhole. Then I take the paperclip from my back pocket. I’d already straightened it out using needle-nose pliers at the hardware store, then bent the end ninety degrees, making a little hook. I slip the modified paperclip into the top of the keyhole. It’s hard to see, but you usually don’t get to look at much when you’re picking. It’s all in the feel, in the clicks you hear, the subtle difference in pressure as you pick with the paperclip and torque with the driver. My hands make the tools tango; I keep an even pressure on the bottom with the screwdriver and, at the same time, tap and push the individual pins up and out of the way with the pick, clearing the cylinder one pin set at a time. I work it lightly at first, testing the spring of the internal pins and pushing each set out of the way with a click. Padlocks usually have three or four sets. This one has three, by the feel of things. It takes a couple of minutes but finally, the thing pops.

  I open the door. The smell of dead mice fills my nose. I leave the lock hanging in the metal clasp and step forward. It’s darker in this room. Should’ve grabbed a flashlight. I walk with one hand out front, one to the side, using the clammy wall as a guide. My eyes gradually adjust. I see a furnace, big and squat. Large pipes run to and from it. The floor and walls are cold cement. There’s a dirty window on the far wall—that’s the main street out front. Feet and legs walk past every now and then, making sounds that stop me from inching forward, clipping steps getting louder, smaller feet pattering quickly. Voices boom and fade. There is a scrape, a creak, closer and louder than the outside noises. I freeze. I hold my breath, waiting to hear more. Nothing.

  In front of me, one panel of wall is darker than the rest. I move toward it. It’s a steel door, colder than the cement walls. I run my fingertips back and forth across it. There’s a heavy bolt, which I draw back and set in place. I find the knob, the raised circle of a deadbolt keyhole.

  Can I do this?

  There’s a soft thud behind me. Clink. I drop the screwdriver. Fuck. I grip the paperclip tightly between the fingers of my left hand. I bend down and feel the gritty floor with the other. Stuff sticks to my fingers. Something brushes them—a centipede? I feel the whoosh of many legs, like Ferret’s eyelashes on my cheek. The thing stretches along the flesh of my hand. I fling it away in the dark. I jump and my shoe hits the damn screwdriver.

  Got it.

  Sweat trickles down my back. My pits are wet. I exhale, nice and slow. I feel this new lock and imagine how it looks; the outer circle, the inner small circle with the keyhole and, hidden inside, the cylinder with the pin sets I need to tap into place. Slipping the screwdriver tip into the bottom of the keyhole is pretty easy. I gently twist the screwdriver until I feel that whole inner circle move to the right; I hold it there. Fitting the paperclip in neatly above it is harder. I feel it catch inside—this time, I rake across the pin sets, push the paperclip in and out to scramble them. Then I start with the pin set farthest back from the opening. There’s five pin sets in this deadbolt and it takes several minutes for me to tap each one out of the way. Finally, the lock springs. The heavy door swings open toward me. I’m
fucking Houdini Helen Keller. I rock! I can’t wait to brag off on this stunt.

  It smells worse in here, worse than the rest of the basement: like urine and sweat and stale air, like shit. Like other bad things. I cover my mouth and nose with my sleeve. I step inside. It’s a small room without windows. Three lit bulbs hang from the cobwebby ceiling. There’s an old wooden staircase on the far side. The cement floor slopes down in the middle toward one large drain. It’s a cell, like an animal’s pen. There’s an old sink with a drippy facet, a basin and sponge, a raggedy towel. I walk into the centre of the awful room and that’s when I see them.

  Ferret’s coloured dreads, cut off and piled by the floor drain.

  “What the—” I pick one up, touch it softly with my finger. Blue with a touch of purple, greenish on the ends where the colour washed out. They’re hers, alright.

  Behind me the door creaks. I look up in time to see him grin. It’s the King looking strange without his uniform. Hair greased as usual, but like someone’s dad might look, pants belted, a clean shirt buttoned right up.

  “Well, looky who’s here,” he says in his full voice. “My newest dancer. Carly told me all about you. How’s your face?”

  In a flash it comes back to me—my talk with Carly, my disappeared clothes, the cab driver who brought me right to my door, as she insisted.

  “I can always count on you kids to make my job easier. You’re stupid, predictable, you rat each other out. And you believe anything a junkie whore tells you.” The King’s mean laugh fills the cellar.

  I’m a cement pillar. There’s his voice and white noise, static all around me.

  The King is so tall he has to duck to avoid hitting his head on the rafters when he steps closer. He’s so wide he blocks the whole door, frame to frame. “Your skinny bitch is gone. But have I got a surprise for you.” He slams the heavy door shut.

  Ledge

  I didn’t set out to kill no one. Probably don’t look that way. But I can’t even squash a spider. Hardly swat a fly, myself. I never could. Ask Eddie, he’ll tell you.

  Standing in the slaughterhouse and watching that dirty cop, the man they call the King, come after her like that, it was hard. Made me think of all the people who had come after me, all the times they had their way and I went along with it, you know. I guess you’d say I snapped. Just seemed natural to do something, make it stop.

  Anyways, truth is I really had nothing left to lose.

  I went back to the slaughterhouse from habit, from when I’d visit Eddie on break and bring over his supper. We used to sit on the brick ledge that jutted out from the side of the building, me watching him eat, then we’d smoke a cigarette, and then we’d have a nice long goodbye kiss, and he’d go back to work. He’d go, “Ray-Ray, that was one kick-ass sandwich.” And I’d feel good about it. Fried tofu and mayonnaise or cheese slices and mustard or peanut butter with lots of drippy strawberry jam, just the way Eddie liked.

  With Eddie in jail now and Ferret disappeared, I was pretty much on my own. I’d still go over to sit on the ledge when I was fucked up or scared and had nowhere else to be. Ever since the squat next door got raided, ever since the shooting, the slaughterhouse had run on reduced hours due to all the traffic coming round: cops, politicians, the news. There’d been layoffs and talk of closing the place for good. Sometimes there’d be guys on short shift; some I recognized, some I didn’t. Other times it’d be empty. Either way, I’d sit in our old spot. If no one else was around, I’d talk to Eddie out loud, as if he was right there with me and not locked up in the Don waiting on remand. Funny, I hardly stuttered then, neither.

  I’d say, “Eddie, you’ll be out soon. You’ll be back with me, like you should. We’ll find a new place, you’ll get a new job. We’ll start over.”

  Of course he wasn’t there in person, so he didn’t answer.

  Then I’d think about Big Fat Rat Catcher, how he escaped out of that box and took off like a furry shot into the street, and that’d shut me right up for a while. I couldn’t do anything right without Eddie, not even look after his damn cat. If I could at least find Fat Ratty, running wild in some alley, then maybe our luck might change. That’s what I’d think.

  Sometimes it was hard to picture Eddie the way he used to look. Instead, I’d see him in that terrible orange jail jumpsuit they wear. Him on the other side of the visitors’ glass holding that phone, trying not to look me in the eye. I’d shake it right outta my head and remember further back, before things went really rotten, to our hometown and the trailer park, our shitty school. Eddie shooting spitballs off the end of his ruler, sticking gum in girls’ hair. Him goofing off and getting yelled at, getting kicked down to the office or suspended. He’d dribble imaginary basketballs down the hallway; shoot them at teachers’ heads, score! Drill the edge of his desk with two pencils like a black-metal drummer. Eddie always got on other people’s nerves, half on purpose, half accidental. Loud and rough, I knew he was meant for me, long before he ever did.

  Sitting on the slaughterhouse ledge, I’d smoke a joint and remember how weed chilled Eddie out. He’d sit still longer, talk slower, bullshit about what we might do—start a band, steal a car, run away. He’d talk about us having money and luck and people giving a shit.

  Sometimes I’d even believe him.

  Getting high with Eddie back in our school days also meant sometimes we’d make out. Which was magic, those first few times, but then he’d avoid me for days. He’d even join in when the jocks made fun of me. W-w-what’s w-wrong, R-Ray R-Ray? Once he punched me in the face, right after he came. Fucking faggot. His hate for this thing that flared up between us, making our dicks hard—it nearly killed us both. He’d go on rampages, smashing store windows, shitting in front of the mayor’s office, stealing stuff. Social workers would swoop in and give him a stint in some boys’ home or in juvie, depending.

  Those were awful times for me—lonely, dead-end days. I had no friends. I lived with my aunt. Her boyfriend drove a big rig and was on the road most of the time, thank Christ. Otherwise he’d sit in the trailer drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon, eating BBQ chips, and staring at my cousin Lena’s tits. Lena was white blonde, like me, but older. She wanted to be a tattoo artist and get the hell out of that stupid town. She practiced on squash from our pathetic roadside garden, which pissed off my aunt, since no one would pay for them covered in blue demons with bony wings and bare-breasted women, horns sprouting from their foreheads. Once Lena tattooed her own knuckles with a math compass and had to be taken to Emergency when they got so infected she couldn’t hold a pencil for all the green pus. My aunt drove us in a rainstorm, me riding shotgun, half hanging out the window, reaching to clean the windshield with a rag since her wipers were broke, and Lena stuck between us, cursing and straddling the gear shift.

  Lena was the first person who really gave Eddie the time of day, other than me. After the whole knuckle incident, no one else would let her practice. When he got sprung from Goderich one summer, he hung around our place pretty much every day, and she went to work on him. He didn’t care what she did or where she did it, just wanted his whole body covered eventually. “Be a giant jigsaw puzzle,” he’d said.

  He’d haul off his shirt, his jeans, and lay down. His dark skin was nice, scarred, but he was lean, not filled out yet. Just peeking at him would get me heated up. Lena would tie back her long pale hair and scratch away at his skin, leaving ink blobs and outlines, scabs to heal. I wondered if she was into him the way I was, and if they’d start messing around too. I wondered if I would die, or just wither. I couldn’t stand having him around all the time and not being with him. I’d lie in the tobacco fields and imagine myself disintegrating, all my dust blowing away, bit by bit. I didn’t know what would happen to me if I didn’t leave that town.

  “If I was a girl, this would be normal,” I’d said to him one night after doing it on his ma’s roof. “You wouldn’t hate on me the way you do.”

  “If you was a girl, I’d fuck you and be done wi
th it. I wouldn’t give a shit about you.” Then he looked me in the eye and asked if it was true. Was I really going to pack a bag and leave him?

  “Not you. I’m leaving everything.” I was crying and not bothering to hide it, for once.

  That’s when he kissed me for the first time. Not hard, not fighting or wanting something off me. Just him kissing me as I’d imagined he might all those years, minus my snotty nose.

  “Do what you gotta, man,” he said.

  I hiccupped loudly. My lips burned.

  “Think I’ll go with you, though.”

  And he kissed me again, just the same way. It was the start of something totally new between us, and nothing can ever take that away. Not the King, not the Don fucking Jail, not some shit-talking lawyer. And not the men who take turns with me now and throw down some coin.

  Lena read our cards before we left. She wanted to have the tarot as a back up in case tattooing didn’t work out, and she was getting pretty good. Eddie shuffled the deck. He picked cards and lay them on the back porch table. She flipped them over, one by one. Grinning demons, nude goddesses smirked at us. In the centre was the Hanged Man, a terrifying skeleton in a noose. My stomach lurched.

  “Something’s ending,” she said quickly. “Well, you’re moving, so that makes sense. Don’t fret, it ain’t all bad.”

  He said, “I guess not.”

  “You got a lot of water coming your way,” she said, pointing to some whirling blue-black cards. “Cups. That’s emotion, you know.” She frowned.

  Later my aunt said, “That boy was born under a bad sign. Don’t need to read tea leaves to see that plain as day.”

  Which is kind of true. Eddie never did have any luck at all, other than me. And what good was I?