“There’s other ways to pay the bills, kiddo. Empty your pockets. You know the drill.”
Sean shuffled to the cruiser and pulled out a baggie packed with prescription bottles and laid it on the hood. He hadn’t changed his modus operandi.
“How many times this year you been picked up, Sean?”
“Twice.”
Mike rolled the bag over in his hands. “The judge isn’t going to like that. Did you go down to the job bank like I told you, or talk to that youth counsellor?”
The kid shrugged and looked down at his frugal red high-tops. The same canvas shoes that were too dorky to wear when Mike was a kid were shit-hot now.
“Sean, I don’t want to be doing this until we’re both old men. You’ve gotta make a change. You hear me?”
“Yeah.”
“Get the hell out of here.” He sounded generous and forgiving with an appropriate undertone of warning.
The kid glanced at the baggie, as if calculating his losses. He shuffled back up the hill without looking back.
Mike breathed in the stink of the harbour and fermenting sewage. It made him sick to his stomach. He eased back into the car and opened the bag. Yellow pills, white pills, blue pills. Ups and downs, and no in-betweens. There was one bottle of pain killer with maximum codeine.
He popped the lid. It was more than he would need.
29
“911. What is your emergency?”
Tamara leaned in close to the monitors and made note of the time. She was twenty-six minutes into the Waiting Hours. Adrenaline spiked her veins, flooding her brain into high alert. The phones hadn’t rung for over an hour. The bars were closed. It was past assault, DUI, and domestics time. They had moved onto fire, mass casualty vehicular accidents, and suicides. Her colleagues’ heads rose like gophers alert to the possibility of danger. They turned to their monitors, put down their cold pizza slices and adjusted their headphones in preparation.
It was a payphone call. The fumble of the phone clattered in her ear.
“911. What is your emergency?”
“The goddamned doors are locked and I can’t get in.”
She analyzed the deep growling voice held tight in the vocal cords, the slurring consonants. “Robert?” she said.
“Who else’d be calling this time of night?”
She mouthed the word Robert to the others, who groaned and celebrated their luck. She leaned back in her chair. “Where are you, Robert?”
“I’m where I’m supposed to be and they’ve locked the goddamn door.”
He was piss and vinegar. She couldn’t help but smile. He had made it through the winter.
“It’s three thirty in the morning, Robert. They’ve probably gone to bed.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do! Now they’re gonna write me up and say I wasn’t here, and I’m here!”
“What do you want us to do, Robert?”
“I want you to call ’em and tell ’em to let me in!”
That wasn’t an option. “Have you tried knocking on the door?”
“If I wake ’em they’ll be pissed. They won’t be pissed at you.”
It was difficult to counter that argument. She visualized the phone booth and a small man overcompensating for his build. Missing teeth, judging by the lisp. Poorly educated. Something was broken in his body, arthritis or fractures, something that made him speak with a tightness that squeezed the words out of him.
“It’s a nice night, Robert. Is there somewhere you can nap until morning?”
“You want me to sleep in the street? I used a quarter for this?”
“I think you’ll have to knock on the door, Robert.”
“Fer shit’s sake. Hold on.” The receiver clunked against metal and glass.
She wanted him to come back. She wanted him to stay on the line. She looked to the other call stations. Colleen was reading a book. Karl was doing stretches at his desk. Wendy was drinking a bottle of water and staring out the window overlooking the parking lot. A cruiser was pulling in.
The phone clattered in her earpiece. “I did it!”
“Good,” she said. She wanted to tell him she was happy he had made it through the winter and ask him how old he was, where he came from, and where he had been. And who had hurt him.
“What’s good about it? I’m still standing outside talking to you and I have to piss. Hold on.”
The phone dropped again. She should hang up and wish him luck, but she wanted this pause of a non-emergency. She heard running water. The old bastard was relieving himself in the phone booth. The stream thinned in spurts and stops.
He picked up the phone again. “So what’re you gonna do? I ain’t got all night.”
“Are you asking me to send somebody by? Maybe take you to a shelter for the night?”
“I ain’t goin’ to no goddamn shelter!” The receiver hammered against metal, ricocheting through her earpiece. She pulled the headphone away from her ear.
“Robert, you have to calm down.”
“You don’t know what it’s like! I can’t get a break. I’m here where I’m supposed to be. What else am I supposed to do?”
For the first time, in all the years she had listened to his voice, he sounded like he truly wanted an answer.
“I want you to get your break, Robert.” And she meant it. She could hear his broken breath close to the mouthpiece. “It’s beautiful out there tonight, isn’t it? Maybe you could sit on the doorstep and listen to the night. Listen to the world waking up and that smell of morning making itself new again. The sun’s only a couple of hours away. That wouldn’t be so bad, would it?” She would like to sit on that doorstep with him.
“The bastard’s turned on the light. Gotta go.” The line went dead.
She disconnected. 3:43 a.m. The security door clicked and Constable Mike walked in with a tray of teas and coffees. The room cheered as he made the rounds to each station, stopping to chat and share a joke. He never got an order wrong. He moved with ease and confidence and his smile was wide open. End of shift would fly by now.
Like everyone in the room, she had discreetly read the transcript. His name was whispered in the locker room. One of their own. They shook their heads and said it could have been any one of them. She would never call 911. She’d drag herself to hospital first, or if desperate call a private lifeline. Mike was one of her backdoor contacts.
“How are you?” He perched on the edge of her console and set down an herbal tea, two sugars, no milk, no caffeine.
“I’m good.” She wanted to ask the same of him. His face was soft and relaxed and his eyes were bright and unconcerned. “Better now.” She took a sip of the sweet, hot tea and it was true.
“I have your tickets.” She handed over the bulging bag of bills he’d left behind the night things went bad, a fundraiser for at-risk kids. He turned the bag over in his large hands that could leave a mark.
“You sold them all?”
“It was for a good cause.” They always were. At her feet, her purse bulged with raffle tickets. His smile was small. She waited for him to tell her more, so she could tell him more. Furtive eyes watched them over half-walled cubbies.
“Do you think we’re gonna get that storm?” he said.
“What storm?”
30
Kate was on top. Her hands bore down on Riley’s wrists and her thighs clenched his hips in feral need. They were free of awkwardness, knocking limbs, and apology of bodies. Grinding against his torso, she drove him deeper, wanting more. His spine arched. Not yet. She pressed him down. Her hair was wet and her skin slick. His hands on her waist steadied her thrusting hips, insisting on more. She didn’t care about his wife. She didn’t care about tomorrow. She wanted Now.
She woke to tears on her cheeks and the scent of freshly laundered sheets. She slowed her breath and wiped away the tears. It was night. She was home. She had kicked off the covers. The humming fan oscillated cool air over her hot skin. Her nipples were hard and swollen and
her chest clammy. Flush with shame, she covered her nakedness with the sheet. Zeus watched from the edge of the bed and offered his head for her to pat.
* * *
—
Dawn bloomed inky blue, thorny with the silhouettes of trees over the sleeping suburban street. A mosquito droned in Kate’s ear. She swiped it away and rolled up her window. She was parked across from a modest white vinyl-clad bungalow. It had a large fenced yard with several spindly maples. The grass was green. Riley had been watering it.
He didn’t turn on the house lights and kept his head down as he crossed the street. He looked nice, even in bed pants and a T-shirt. He had pulled on boots, but the laces weren’t tied. He wasn’t as tall as she thought of him. Her hand went to her bruised chest. Just this once, she would tell him everything. She’d lean into him and he’d put his arms around her, tell her it was going to be okay, and help her find the path out. He walked up to the passenger side but didn’t get in. She unrolled the window.
“What are you doing here?” His words were clipped and accusatory. The corners of his eyes were crusted with sleep and his hair unbrushed. It was the first time she had seen him unsettled. “What’s wrong?”
“Is she sleeping?”
He looked nervously to the house. The windows reflected nothing. It was a nice starter home. The straight and narrow garden beds held compact plants, nothing too unruly. A sign at the end of the driveway proclaimed their names and at its base was a cast stone dog that looked like his beloved Annabelle.
“Do you sleep on the right side of the bed here, too?”
Riley was breathing hard. “What are you doing, Kate?”
Her eyes welled. “I don’t know.” They could drive to the ocean, watch the sunrise, rent a cabin where no one knew them, gorge on bad movies and popcorn, read the paper with coffees and croissants, and talk, just talk. Kiss each other’s scars and bruises and make it better. She didn’t even know his middle name.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Do you?” She really hoped he had an answer.
“You can’t be here.” He stepped away. “Go home. I’ll come by later.” An orange cat sauntered across the road. Down the street, a light came on in an upstairs window. It was a nice neighbourhood. He and his wife would be happy here.
“That’s okay.” She put the truck in gear. “Don’t.”
31
The words were humming electric inside him. He couldn’t hear her downstairs. He couldn’t hear her outside the door. In the moon night, her truck was gone. He had waited and she, light radiating from her head and eyes, and her dog on fire, were gone. He had waited and they had gone.
She could come back.
He broiled with the words collecting on his skin. He stripped off his shirt and the words fell to the floor and swarmed his feet like fire ants.
She had stolen his story. Ripped away the ending he had almost found. She had walked through the valley of his mother’s angels of death and said his name like she knew him. She said her name was Kate.
Lies. She tried to poison him. Tried to lock him up. Unleashed the dog on fire. Only the strength of Words kept the door from shattering. She hurled flames with her fists and the paper burned. She wanted him dead. Katie.
He ran his fingers over the brittle shreds of papery words, ragged tape, and poisoned pills he had buried inside their power. In the dark, he couldn’t read the savaged words, but he knew what they said in his heart.
You must go on Yes, I said. the shame of it / —loud and long—/ the judge. He is dancing, dancing | But in the world That may be/ One bird said / I have had my vision / there are more and more endings
Words crawled up his legs. He brushed away the ones that didn’t belong to him. Words bored into his skin. He scratched his arms to let them out. Words hatched from his feet. He kicked his sneakers off.
She said her name was Katie.
Lies.
But when he drove his fist into her heart, the light shattered and he saw her. And she looked afraid. He remembered he remembered he remembered. Another beginning. Of him and her before he was erased. He needed to find another ending.
It’s not safe here.
Words climbed up his legs, over his chest, and scuttled around his neck. They brushed against his lips and circled his ears.
Run.
The space between the letters whispered answers he couldn’t hear.
Run.
The words stung his tongue, swarmed his throat, and wormed into his eyes.
Matthew opened the door and ran.
32
As of 9:40 a.m., maximum sustained winds have increased to 105 miles per hour, a Category 2 hurricane. The eye is located 645 miles offshore. A turn to the north with an increase in forward speed is expected tonight. Rain and wind warnings are in effect. The public is urged to closely monitor alerts—
Hassan switched off the car radio. Every ten minutes, on every station, meteorologists were prognosticating the hurricane’s track. Some mapped it passing three hundred miles offshore. Others were forecasting landfall anywhere from the south shore to a direct hit up the city’s harbour. Everything depended on the wobble of a turn. Half a degree northeast or west would smite or spare. All agreed it was gaining strength. Satellite images showed it measuring seventeen hundred miles across and widening.
Scientists were sounding the alarm about above-average ocean temperatures. Ecologists, oceanographers, and climate experts were presenting tipping-point scenarios. Researchers compared the trajectory of the last hurricane against current conditions and warned the public to prepare for the worst. Special news features replayed archival interviews and devastation highlights. Junior reporters were sent to the hardest-hit sites of six years ago to assess the recovery.
The city was on high alert. Sales of Kraft Dinner had soared, generators were sold out, and battery supplies were low. Emergency preparedness broadcasts warned people it was never too early to prepare. Dog behaviourists offered advice on how to mitigate pet trauma. Psychological counselling was in high demand. A weeping woman interviewed in the street said she couldn’t live through another storm.
Hassan thought it was a lot of fuss for maybe. It would blow or it wouldn’t blow. Now, it just resulted in too much traffic on a Monday morning. He glanced at Tamara in the front seat. She hadn’t commented on the white carnation bobbing in the dashboard vase. She looked regal in her blue dress. Her braids were pulled back and clipped loosely by a barrette at the nape of her neck. Her look was befitting a sombre occasion.
He felt less certain about his light tan suit. The shoulders were tight and the waistband was cutting into his belly. He had borrowed dress shoes and his toes were pinched. They were black shoes and he was self-conscious of the weight and exclamation of his feet. When she had asked him to go, he hadn’t hesitated. But there was an awkward moment clarifying whether he was driving or accompanying her.
He knew a funeral wasn’t a first date, but he had prepared as though it were. He trimmed his nose hairs, shaved his cheeks smooth. Applied cologne and washed it off. Bought new underwear and socks. Clipped his finger- and toenails. He even tidied his one-bedroom apartment and changed the sheets. When he pulled out the fridge to sweep behind it, he realized how ridiculous and humiliating hope could be. Still, he had a bath instead of a shower, and soaped between his legs.
He dug out his only suit from the back of his closet and dropped it off for same-day dry cleaning. It was the suit he’d worn when he arrived in this country. His only suit. It had been too large then, a gift from the benefactor who had helped him cross the Turkish border. He had worn it from Ankara to Istanbul, across the Aegean into Greece, and onto the plane. The trouser cuffs were still chalked with dust and the suit’s collar was ringed yellow. It smelled sour with despair, which the dry cleaner with a wave of his hand assured him would be gone.
Inside the lapels and trouser seams were the hidden pockets where he’d stitched in pages of poems with white thread. The inner weave of t
he inside breast pocket still held the imprint of his passport and fake travel visas. It had never held names, numbers, photos—nothing that could have led back to what had been left behind. Rendezvous points, times, allies, and contacts were kept in his head. Everything else was written in the scars on his skin. What couldn’t be written was sealed in his fused, crooked bones.
He took a deep breath as the traffic leading to the church stalled at the intersection. The dry cleaner was correct. He smelled brand new. He turned left and Tamara didn’t notice. Cars were parked on either side of the already too narrow street. The sidewalk teemed with young people unified by black T-shirts. They congregated in small groups hugging each other.
There was nowhere to park. Around the corner, the Presbyterian church had three massive lots. Half a block north, the abandoned Catholic lot was chained to trespassers. But the small Baptist church, hemmed in by buildings and its facade flush to the sidewalk, didn’t even have a drop-off zone. He stopped close to the entrance, waving traffic past. Removing the Bluebird Taxi light had been a good decision. He opened the passenger door.
Shrinking from the crush of mourners, Tamara hesitated with one hand on the dash and the other gripping the seat.
“I’ll find you.” He offered his hand, noting how close and perfectly aligned he was to the curb. It was an effortless step. Her hand was hot and she held on tight. He walked her to the door and ran back to the cab under a honk of complaints.
33
Night shift had ended hours ago and Mike should be home sleeping, but he had volunteered to clean up the mess. The shrine of flowers and stuffed toys had become a distraction. There had already been two fender benders, three complaints of jaywalkers, and one near miss because of rubbernecking. And now there was the threat of high winds. City workers wouldn’t touch it for fear of sparking a riot. With the funeral happening today, everyone would be at the service. It was the best time to clean it up. Besides, he wasn’t tired yet.
The Waiting Hours Page 21
