by Mike Barnes
I go in to see what reaction I’ll get from the blonde, Sandor’s friend, after I left her consoling him Sunday in the Queen’s Arms. Rubbing his back in slow, practiced circles.
Minutes after opening, the place is already packed. The neighbourhood’s favourite store, no question. And since Tuesday is Seniors’ Day, anyone under sixty-five makes up for it on Wednesday. Management recently enlarged the food section, which takes up four aisles, with a deli corner of pre-packaged trays where photo-processing used to be. One lady in the parking lot recently bubbling to another about how she buys all her food there, “I don’t need to go anywhere else.” Standing by a high-end Lexus, jazzed about drugstore groceries.
Money almost touching in its idiocy sometimes. It literally doesn’t know what to do with itself.
Standing midway inside, where the line-ups snake and snark—outside of Walmart, no cashiers toil more miserably—wondering which aisle to try, when she comes straight up the one I’m facing. Gives me the Infinite Tunnel all the way. No change when I start towards her, none when we pass. She stares at a vanishing point on an imaginary horizon, betraying no awareness that Ichabod Crane after a razor brawl is bearing down on her. The same spooky freak she’s seen haunting these premises before. The same one who hassled her friend three days ago.
The Infinite Tunnel is a learned human skill. More common—more needed—in urban environments, but especially prevalent in Toronto. In neighbourhoods like mine it’s one of two default ways people meet, the other being cries and cheek brushes if they know each other. Still, it’s quite a feat of avoidance when done perfectly, and the blonde is an artist. As we pass she peers down a canyon that goes on to forever, rock walls rearing up on either side, so she can’t see someone right beside her even if she wanted to.
I’m not bound by the same rules, of course, so I check her out as we pass. Pale pink lipstick. Autumn’s halfway tan between cottage and the Caribbean. Forty-five? Fifty, even. The work is that good. Some dulling and thickening of the skin that nothing can hide—the dew that burns away and is gone—but none of the lines, even faint, that should come with it. An effect a bit jarring. Double vision. Like the teenage teeth that gleam from old celebrity mouths, and would from hers if she smiled.
Gray skirt and blouse, darker gray pumps. Tasteful, but not hiding the curves. And able to hold her full shopping basket a steady six inches out from her side. Gym work, plus the skiing and swimming. Tennis. No concessions to gravity yet as she walks away unhurriedly.
I watch her until she turns the corner. I don’t know why she catches my eye so often. God knows, there’s no shortage of cryogenic cheerleaders in the neighbourhood. Yes, she rubbed Sandor’s back after I upset him in the bar. But she’s been trapping my gaze from the first time I spotted her. Two, three years ago? Something about her… It’s not lust, certainly. Sex is a toy I stowed in the cellar ages ago. I remember clearly the joy it brought when I played with it, without ever feeling the impulse to retrieve it. Still, I stare down the aisle at the space where she was, trying to locate the faint itch I can’t scratch.
Since I’m there, I pick up a pack of plain white envelopes on sale. Also more Advil for the hand Sandor rearranged. The fourth and fifth finger knuckles still red and swollen, throbbing slightly, though already headed back to normal. The trouble with multiple dislocations: things pop back into place almost as easily as they pop out, since the place they pop back into wasn’t the right place to begin with. A twinge in my jaw reminds me to pick up a box of salt. Warm saltwater gargles to try to stave off the infection that’s setting up camp at the base of Saturday’s kicked-loose tooth. Giving me a real dental problem where I invented one.
The trouble with lies. There’s no such thing really. Just dress rehearsals in parallel universes, waiting for their break in this one.
§
The funds are at the bank. The cashier apologizes for the delay, then makes a face when I ask for the first four hundred in ten-dollar bills. Says he has to get a key for “so many bills of one denomination.” A trip of four steps to a cabinet behind him.
Banks. The less they do for you, the more they resent doing anything at all.
Though the cashiers are low rungs in the Great Chain of Less. Mixing surly cookies and Rice Krispie squares on their off hours, digging out musty paperbacks from closets for another laughable charity drive—there’s one going today in the waiting area. For Hodgkin’s Disease, this time. A loonie from my roll buys me bad coffee from the urn and a cupcake with sparkle frosting. Sign behind the donation bowl: Scotiabank is pleased to match donations dollar for dollar. Which should set them back about fifty bucks if the baked goods sell out. It’s too bad the Hodgkin’s people can’t afford to throw it back in their face.
Books no one in their right mind wants. Personal finance guides—relax after work studying Ready, Set, Retire! Dog-eared airport thrillers. Astrology and personal healing. Various Dummie’s Guides. Even a couple of high-school textbooks, for chrissakes—does no one even screen the stuff?
Around Toogood Pond. A thin, small-press paperback by Wun Wing. The author’s name makes me think of Chinese poetry, but Toogood Pond was where Danika said she took Maude for walks. Where the photo of her was taken, though not by Danika.
For Grace, with fond memories inside the cover, above Wun Wing’s scrawl.
I add two more loonies to the bowl—five of them there now—and button the book in a lower jacket pocket.
Apparently, Grace recalled things differently.
§
Snag’s not far from where I left him Saturday, at a broken picnic table someone dragged into Trinity Bellwoods. The bench on one side is smashed. Wild swings with a crowbar, it looks like. Snag’s straddling the other side. Sammy curled on the canted top, shivering in the warm sun.
“Who’s he?” Nearby, a guy is lying face up on flattened cardboard, as still and straight as a body on an embalming table.
“Oh, that’s Flatbread. He’s no good to you. Total night owl. Prowls to here and gone all night, then does his coma thing all day. People step on him and he doesn’t move. Coupla’ kids were making a game of it until I set them straight.”
“Well, you’re the boss. Hire the crew you need.”
Snag jerks his head at Sammy. “Even a scared-shitless pup?”
“Absolutely. Especially if you’ve fed him lots of fiber.”
That gets a wet, rattly chuckle. I hand Snag his envelope first: sixty dollars—fifteen times four hours—as my foreman. Then three forty-dollar envelopes. Then, on second thought, two more. All have Max’s name and office address on the front. “Three should get you started for today. But just in case.”
“Any special instructions this time round?”
I think about it. Does it just feel different because I want it more?
“No. Be creative. Pour it on. Bring him the world.”
“You got it.”
At the sight of the white envelopes, denizens of the park have appeared and started towards us. One from behind a tree, one rolled out from under some bushes, another just walking across an open space. I can’t help but think of zombie flicks, scenes of the undead shuffling and jerking toward the camera, faces raised on unnaturally stiff necks to catch scents of the living.
I point to the bush-man, linebacker-sized in a lumber jacket, swinging dirty yellow dreadlocks on a short thick neck. Like a bull working himself up to charge. “How about him? Can we put him in the picture? Any skills there we can use?”
“Christof? Skills, I don’t know. Initiative for sure.”
“Good. He’s hired.”
As I’m walking away, feeling good about things, a thought stops me and I go back. The undead are closing, tightening their ring. I’ve barely begun describing the pigeons and their prophet when Snag cuts me off.
“Birdy. Sure, I know Birdy.”
“Birdy?”
“Perfect. He’s hired.” I start away, turn back yet again. The first arrival’s reached the broken bench, a girl with raccoon eyes, wearing a stained pink halter top, a rose tattoo blooming up out of one large breast. She puts a hand on Sammy’s shaking side. “Hey, he’s actually warm, your dog. Seriously. Like toast.”
“Sorry,” I say to Snag. “I start off telling you it’s your crew, then make your first two hires for you.”
His grin is half wince. “No worries, bro. You forget, I worked in the real world too.”
After a little walkabout, I get the car and go back home. I hadn’t expected to return till dark, but forgot that putting something in motion isn’t the same as letting it take effect. I strike a couple of tenant-requested repairs off the list in my notebook, change a hallway light bulb. Clean up a garbage can that someone tipped in the garage. That takes me to almost 4:00, two hours before my debrief with Snag.
§
Watching the sign carrier from the Duke was fun, but it’s even better browsing in BMV and never looking out the window. Not having a clue what’s happening nearby, but feeling sure that something is and whatever it is can’t be wrong. Though the browsing stokes book-lust, testing a management monk’s vows. Like a celibate strolling around a harem. Asking for trouble.
Upstairs, along with comics and sci-fi and textbooks and Shakespeare, are old magazines in plastic. Vintage says red marker on cardboard. Some are—others just old. The Kennedy assassination in Life. I try to remember where I might have been, with which family, in November 1963. Not a foggy. Then Nixon, that weird boneless wave before they coptered him out. That one I know. I was nineteen. On a psych ward for another evaluation before they processed me as an adult offender. My legal aid lawyer, young and keen, thought she had an angle after reviewing my file. But she didn’t. Not a good enough one anyway. I move to Comics. Batman. Superman. The Thing. Always my favourite, hands down. The others just had too much going for them. Their various “dark shadows” just stains of plausibility to brand them as mass-market wet dreams. Which, even as a kid, never got me off.
It’s clobberin’ time!
Ten to six, coming out of BMV, I see Snag on the opposite corner of Yonge and Eglinton. Looking in all four directions, like he’s lost. I cross over to him.
“Where’s Sammy?”
“He ran off chasing a bitch down an alley a while ago. I bin lookin’ for him.”
I try to imagine Sammy surmounting his fear to chase anything. “Does that happen often?”
“Yeah, too often. Sometimes I lose that fucker for days at a time. He always turns up eventually. Sammy’s not tellin’, but I don’t think it’s usually a lady dog. Sammy’s pretty old.”
“What else would it be?”
“He’s a dog, man. Ask him.”
Snag gives me most of the report as we walk up the hill to Timmie’s, pausing at every street and alley to look for Sammy. Birdy didn’t make it past the security guard. “He tried to take too many of his flock. I told him to just tuck a couple under his jacket, but he wouldn’t leave the rest behind. Like I said, he’s independent-minded.” Still, they brought plenty of world to the smooth-running office. Snag got Sammy past security—distracted by Birdy’s flock, a bonus—and panhandled his way down the twelfth floor, settling in the Wyvern waiting room. Gwen rousted them, of course, but panicked when Sammy, right on cue, started circling on the rug, chasing his tail in search of a place to shit. She got him out in time—“scared his ass shut”—but while she was chasing them to the elevator, a couple came in from the staircase and took the washroom keys, “the ones on toothbrushes, pink and blue. Used the facilities thoroughly, if you know what I mean, and brought the keys back super-polite, thank you ma’am, leaning in over her counter, like that. Taking their time, letting the patients see they belonged. Leaving behind lots for her air fresheners to work on.”
“His and hers. That was a nice touch.”
“I thought so.” They gave them a break after that, but kept it coming later. Bringing it on in waves that seemed random. Waiting for the blood pressure to come down, the guard to drop, before the next encounter. Making it seem not so much a special targeting as a case of the city’s homeless having multiplied tenfold, so that they turned up everywhere. No escaping them. The dentist and his secretary having a quiet lunch at Starbucks when in comes another beggar, gripping their table, getting loud, until the manager comes over to evict him.
“His hygienist, you mean. Pretty, brown-skinned.”
“No, the short old lady. With the toothbrush keys, on the front desk.”
§
At Timmie’s, I settle for a large Earl Grey, but order the Combo for Snag: spring vegetable soup, ham and Swiss on a croissant, donut, coffee. Bits and pieces, Ken. It adds up. I sip with the cup in my right hand, trying to bring the damaged fingers back into play. But it’s still too soon, and I end up holding the handle with my thumb and first two fingers, the other two pointing outward in different directions. “Are we having high tea?” Snag says, starting in on his tray.
He scarfs down the soup and sandwich and is taking the donut more leisurely, when he remembers something and fishes it out of a pocket. “Oh hey, man. Don’t know what this means, but Darlene grabbed it when she took the washroom key. From beside the computer.”
Gwen’s Post-It pad. Friday 6 PM and a phone number. A restaurant reservation is my first guess. An idea starts to form. Or it’s waiting for me, and I start to see it.
I describe to Snag the couple on the construction site on Lisgar. A her that looks like him, a him that—
“Nicholas and Simone.”
“Nicholas and Simone?”
“Why you repeating everyone’s names, man? You did it earlier, with Birdy. Like you can’t believe we have names. Or at least not the ones you’re hearing.”
“Come off it, Snag. How long’ve you known me?” Why else, then?
“Yeah. Nich-o-las and Si-mone. They give you that face?”
“The newer parts.”
“I thought so. They like to roughhouse.”
“I may have a job for them. Sort of a special assignment.”
“I don’t know. They’re wack jobs when they’re high.”
“Sounds perfect. Could you find them, though?”
“Yeah, probably. Someone said they’re working the 401 exit at Bayview. Downtown sorta chased them out. Good luck to them on getting roll-downs.”
“Looking like he does, I kept Christof outside most of the day. Hitting people up for change as they came down from upstairs. Especially anyone working their jaws, or holding dental floss and a new toothbrush. He got into it at the end, though. Like I said, initiative. Went down into the parking garage and waited until the dentist and some babe got into his car, then squashed his face against the window asking for money.”
“How’s he talk with his face squashed against the glass?”
“It comes out pretty funny. But I guess the real point is the inside of his mouth and nose from up close. He does it all over the place. Cars, restaurant windows. Gets some coin too. Probably just to make him stop.”
“What’d he get this time?”
“Said the dude just gripped his steering wheel. Super pissed, but too pussy to do anything about it. The lady, though. She got out her side right away and came around like she meant business. Christof ran off. He said she was pretty hot. Young, too. His girlfriend, you think?”
“Yup. One of them anyway.”
That wet rattle, like he’s gargling his coffee. “Money. Who says it can’t buy you love?”
“The Beatles. But only after it was buying them plenty.”
“Um.” A server—a team member, they probably call her. A plump, pretty girl. White points in her blush where she removed her p
iercings for her shift. “I’m sorry, but. Someone complained to the manager about a sme—… about an unpleasant odour.”
“I showered yesterday,” I say.
“It wasn’t, um… it’s not…” Her eyes avoiding Snag. It isn’t the kid’s fault. Across the store, the manager is taking an exaggerated interest in a pyramid of coffee tins.
“Forget it, man. You too, hon. I got the meal into me, and it was good.” Snag stands. “So here’s a good juicy tip.” He puts out his hands for balance and does a Chinese-y squat, his ass very low—for all his rough living he’s strong, I realize; big too, even bigger with all his layers—and waits, his face tense, until it comes: a long, rumbling, very wet and involved fart that sounds a lot like his laugh, only with the voice box removed. Rises with a look of satisfaction and signs to me that he’ll be outside.
I take what’s left of my tea over to the counter, behind which the manager is standing with his arms folded, scowling. He’s fortyish, husky, balding. A huge silver buckle with a Libra symbol centering his brown belt.
“If I dump this on your floor, you’ll just make one of these minimum-wagers mop it up, won’t you?”
“Yes, I will. So don’t do it.”
His high voice and the trace of a childhood lisp almost stop me.
I grab the buckle—it’s solid as a doorknob—and in the split second before his body follows it, pour the tea down the inside of his pants.
“OWW!” he yowls. Clutches his drenched crotch with both hands. From shock, it must’ve been. The tea was just lukewarm.
