The eye of the chicken, p.13
The Eye of the Chicken, page 13
He said, “I think, Sylvia, that the games have already started.”
“No. It takes two to play. If you want to play catch, both players have to throw the ball.”
She got up to leave. “I never intended to have this conversation. But thank you for listening.”
He stood and offered a handshake. “You know where I live. Come back when you need me.”
Sylvia did not cross through the park. She took the bridge. She did not want to see Salty.
But crossing the bridge, looking down, Sylvia noticed him sitting in the middle of the flowers, the dog lying at his feet, its head resting on front paws. For ten minutes she stood at the rail. The day was warm, the grass was green, the sun was shining, and there, like in one of those crazy Dali paintings, in this bed of flowers sat this bearded vagrant dressed in shaggy clothing being watched over by his sheepdog. Or, she thought, put a staff in his hand and add some sheep in the background and you’ve got something out of the King James Illustrated Bible. At the far side of the park, a man with a shopping cart was pawing in the trash bin, like a raccoon, for bottles and cans. Dali would add a sign to this painting: Please don’t put your cans into your bottles.
She retraced her steps and crossed the grass and hid behind the park’s only tree. She waited. A middle-aged woman in a waitress uniform crossed from Colonel Wong’s Southern Fried Chinese Chicken. She stopped to pet the dog, then, without talking to Salty, continued. A middle-aged man coming from the same direction stopped and leaned over to pat the dog. He continued to the next bench. He opened a paper bag and began to throw popcorn to the squirrels.
Sylvia stepped away from the tree, intending to go back to the bridge and continue with her business. But when the dog noticed her, he took a few steps forward. His soft brown eyes searched her face and his tail wagged a friendly wag. He advanced a few feet, ears forward, waiting to be invited over. In the sun, slanting in a wide bar across the grass and settling on the dog, she could see the flecks of white in the black hair around the dog’s muzzle: the dog was old. As he got closer, she saw that his eyes were brown. Her gaze met the gaze of the dog and she saw his eyes deepen. Sylvia saw that his eyes had shades of brown expanding in circles from the black of the iris. And, as in the circle of each she saw her reflection, she felt a chill up her spine. The dog lowered his head and approached. Sylvia knelt in the grass. The dog sat down and held up the paw for a handshake. They shook hands. She patted the dog. The dog rested his head on Sylvia’s knee and, when the petting stopped, he looked up with eyes like two deep pools, filled with happiness for having found her at last.
No, she thought, getting up. This cannot be.
He nudged her hand. Then, he walked off a few deliberate steps closer to Salty and turned, waiting for her. She approached Salty, who was ignoring them. She took her time finding her money, glancing up from her purse to look closely at the weathered face. She had noticed that he had not lowered his eyes as the two previous visitors approached to pat the dog. They were lowered now.
The other two had not given him money. And she had never seen him standing with outstretched hand on any corner. But too late to turn around, she gave him a five. Not looking at her, he took the money. He was close enough for her to touch him, close enough to ask the question that was on the tip of her tongue. She knew when she asked it, he would look up, and she would be able to read hidden in the lines across his forehead the scar that would give her the answer. But afraid that the question would force him to lie, she did not ask it.
He sat staring down at the five-dollar bill that he held in his lap. So, too embarrassed to say anything, not even some judgmental “Hope this helps out,” she turned away and left, afraid to glance back until she reached the street.
She looked back, hoping to see that he was watching her go, wondering about her. But what she saw was him folding the bill, tucking it into his shirt pocket. What she saw was the dog standing by the bench, watching her leave, ears cocked, eyes wide and expectant, tail wagging gently, like the ghost of Amos standing in a field of daisies pleading her to please come back.
Chapter 21
Salty
Salty was sitting on Caps’s bench of daisies, waiting for Pavements to finish his cardio workout and open the bottle of Curveball. The dog was checking out the sunbeams along the sidewalk. When Father Sutcliffe arrived, the dog came over to give him a handshake before settling down on the grass and laying his chin on Salty’s boot.
Father Sutcliffe said to Pavements, “I think the last step before twisting off the cap should be to spit on your hands and rub them together.”
Pavements spit on his hands, rubbed them together, flexed his fingers, and twisted. He hoisted the bottle to glug-glug the first drink before handing it to Salty.
Pavements took out a cigarette and sailed the empty Smoke Cignals filter sidearm at the garbage bin. It bounced off the top and skipped across the grass. Father Sutcliffe got up and went over and picked it up and dropped it in. He came back. He said, “I am about to break my own rule. I am about to interfere with what is happening and give advice.”
Salty passed the bottle to Pavements.
Father Sutcliffe said, “Winter is coming, Salty. Ice and snow and freezing cold. You should think about getting into that new East End Housing Program instead of living in that back-alley garage. The city is discontinuing the ID rule. If Salty is your name, then Salty is your name.”
Pavements said, “By the way, I was wondering, what is your real name? All this time we’ve been hanging out and I don’t even know your real name. Like my real name is Nelson. Last name Hynes.”
Father Sutcliffe said, “You tell yourself that the back-alley garage suits you fine. It’s warm enough in the winter. The window lets in the sun. The door keeps out the ice and snow. You like living where you are. But where you are living is in the shadows of the past, lost in the psychic fog of your lostness. But here’s the thing, Salty: the stones in your heart that pull you down into your state of lostness are not heavier for you than for anyone else. Tim Silver, for example. He crossed the bridge. He didn’t blame anyone else for his condition. He blamed himself. He said blaming your condition on anything outside yourself is like blaming your hair for being too long.”
Salty said, “The East End don’t allow dogs.”
Father Sutcliffe said, “I’ll keep Whisper at The Daystar. I’ll feed him good food and keep him on a leash. Which reminds me: if you don’t, you’re going to lose him.”
Pavements said, “Maybe Officer Cobbs should find something better to do with his time.”
“Put him on a leash, Salty. What’s wrong with that? Everyone’s on a leash. I know what you’re thinking: ‘Here comes the Parable of the Leash. The Sermon from the Bench.’ But you’re on the shortest leash of all, Salty. The leash of your thoughts. What seems like a physical battle with your body, keeping warm in the winter, is a psychic battle with the babble in your mind, which is spending its days doing penance for what is long gone.”
“What’s he doing penance for?” Pavements glug-glugged the Curveball.
“Tim Silver wrote the book on it. There are two bridges. There is the bridge we’re looking at, and there is the bridge we’ve created in our mind. We’re looking at both as we sit here on this bench. Our mind creates our thoughts. Thoughts become beliefs. Beliefs become facts. Victims become victims because they start believing they are victims. A self-created leash, Salty, preventing you from crossing both bridges.”
“What’s he doing penance for?”
“Penance, yes. I quote Tim Silver: ‘From the shelters and the streets, we hear the muffled wails of hidden remorse in a penance we will never understand.’ You are not a victim, Salty. Victimism is a concept created by groupthink. Groupthink is when everyone is thinking alike, which means no one is thinking. But you are free to think different thoughts and make different choices. Hopelessness is a choice the same as which side of the bridge you live on is a choice.”
“What’s he doing penance for?”
“I quote from Tim Silver: ‘We are what we think. All that we are arises from our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make our world. We are making our reality, moment by moment. We, moment by moment, are creating our own heaven and hell.’”
“I treated Celia bad and when she left me I crossed the bridge. So now I’m trying to cross the bridge back to her. What about you, Salty? What made you cross the bridge?”
Father Sutcliffe said, “A warm place to stay for the coldest months, showers, meals, TV. That would be a start.”
“Just like back home with the wife in the kitchen baking the biscuits. By the way, where are you from, Salty? I mean before you crossed the bridge?”
“And real dog food for Whisper. Purina dog chow. This isn’t just about you, Salty. This is about Whisper.”
Pavements said, “By the way, Salty. I mean what did you do to make you cross the bridge? I’ve been wondering about that, like Caps. What made him cross the bridge, like the real bridge that he jumped off of? Like the first bridge, not the one in his mind, the real bridge, the one we’re looking at, sitting here near the bottom of it this tastes like goat piss when you get near the bottom.”
He handed Salty the bottle to finish off the goat piss.
“So, I asked Celia, ‘Instead of jumping off Silver Bridge, what do I have to do to cross it and come back to you?’ The way I said it was, ‘What do I have to do, Celia,’ as though I was on my knees. So, Salty, you could get on your knees and ask your wife the same question. ‘What do I have to do…’ what’s your wife’s name so I can say it the way you should say it.”
Father Sutcliffe said, “You can’t un-jump a jump. But you can un-choose a choice. First, this girl with the scar appears in the park, and then she comes over to The Daystar to see me, and now it’s time for you to make a choice.”
As he finished the bottle, Salty realized that the reason Dixie called it Curveball was the way the high-octane sediment at the bottom hit you without you seeing it coming. Sometimes it made your head spin. Sometimes it made you feel like an egg being boiled. Otherwise, Salty would not have said, out loud out of the blue, the words coming to him like a curveball and hitting him unexpected in a complete surprise splat that took him off down memory lane to Rhoda on that stump.
He said, “I killed a chicken once. Her name was Rhoda. There was blood all over the place. Halfway through the swing of the axe, I changed my mind. That was a choice. But I chose too late. Down came the head of the axe and off came the head of the chicken. The chicken got up off the ground and ran off, squawking and flapping.”
“Into the house?” asked Pavements.
“That’s right, Salty. Just like it was too late to stop the axe, it was too late to save the chicken. You can’t un-time time and you can’t un-chop a chop.”
“Blood all over the place,” said Salty.
“In the house?” asked Pavements.
“That’s why I never eat ketchup.”
“Tim Silver has a chapter on memories. Not past and long gone but here and present, that’s how we’re tied to our memories. Memories are like those black squirrels.” Father Sutcliffe pointed. “Memories hunt for what’s buried in your mind like squirrels hunt for what’s buried in the grass.”
Pavements said, “Celia says she got squirrels in her attic. She lives on the top floor of this house and she can hear them up there all night long. They’re giving her nightmares.”
Father Sutcliffe said, “Once they get into your attic, namely your mind, you can’t get rid of them. They gnaw holes into your heart, dig up old wounds, carry them from one bad branch to the next, busy and black, creating your Silver City nightmare.”
“I said to her, ‘That’s why we should get back together, so I can look after you. My wife’s name is Celia. What was your wife’s name, Salty?”
Father Sutcliffe stood. He said to Pavements, “Sometimes, Pavements, you don’t know when to shut the front door.”
“Yeah, Father. I know. Shut the fuck up.”
Pavements got up and headed at a tilt in the direction of Dixie’s Donut Shoppe.
The dog was watching the squirrels coming down from the tree to search busy and black in the grass. Salty liked to watch the dog chase them away from Caps’s daisies. The dog would sink down on his belly a few feet from the bench, chin resting on front paws, and wait. It was like he had put up an imaginary fence around the bench, and if a squirrel crossed the line, the dog’s head would come up. The squirrel would stop, one eye on the daisies, the other on the dog. They would eye one another. If the squirrel crossed the line, the dog would get up and the squirrel would go back to the tree.
Sometimes, lying awake in the dark of night, Salty could hear the dog whine, and Salty would look and he would see that the dog’s legs were twitching in his sleep. Salty figured that if your dog was a pointer its dreams would be about pointing, and if it was a retriever its dreams would be about retrieving. So, he knew the dog was dreaming about guarding the sheep, chasing those thin white legs, dodging between hammering hooves as he herded them home for the night.
Eli had told Salty how sheepdogs hypnotize the sheep. The dog senses when one is going to wander and the dog lowers its head and fixes its eyes on that one sheep and locks it in a stare so it will not wander into danger. So this dog, who must be Amos but can’t be Amos, when he arrived at Silver Park, had seen how Caps’s eyes were clouding over, and had locked Caps in his stare so he would not wander into danger. And after Caps, this dog who must be Amos but can’t be Amos, had seen that Salty’s eyes seemed to be clouding over and had locked Salty into his stare so, as he wandered through the park and up the streets and along the alleys, he would not fall into danger.
Salty had seventeen fish on his shelf, seventeen apologies to Sylvia. But the one chance he had got to make the apology, his eyes clouded over, but not so much that he couldn’t see her cross the park grass from the field grass so he could make the apology. When no apology came freely, he had watched her dig through her purse to pay for this apology. Like trying to buy admission into his life, she had paid her money and gotten her ticket and he should have let her come through his door and let her take a seat in his heart, if that was what she wanted.
But he knew he could not let that happen. He could not let her in, for there she would be, like one of those black squirrels having gnawed her way into his skull to dig up long-buried memories and lay them in front of him to look at while she stared at him through the upside-down eye of that chicken.
It’s a long way down, said Caps, rising from the daisies to take a seat next to Salty. It takes a long time. The three-second drop from the bridge to the dirt is like months if you’re a chicken, years if you’re a person. It’s been a long run, Salty, and it’s taken a long time for the number 2020 to come up, but now it’s here.
Chapter 22
Pavements
Pavements was sitting on Caps’s bench, enjoying the afternoon sunshine and the smell of the fresh-laid daisies, which were covering the smell, worse than goat piss, of his almost-empty bottle of Kawasaki hidden under his shirt.
Celia came by. She handed him a notepad. “This will fit into the same pocket you carry your cigarettes in.”
He slipped it into the same pocket as his cigarettes.
She said, “You’ve been dressing better and smelling better. But if you’re serious about getting back together, I have to see you’re making the effort. I want you to write down in your notebook the places you’ve applied for work. And not with any paving company.”
“Aren’t you going to ask me what I’ve been reading in the Bible?”
“Take out the pad and write on the top of the cover page: ‘Jobs.’”
He did it.
“You put the date at the top of the next page and print the heading: ‘Places.’ This is your application list. Write up every morning the places you’re going to cold call, and then stroke it off when you’ve done it. And then show me.”
“Aren’t you going to ask me what I’ve been reading in the Bible?”
“I can’t even imagine anyone stealing a Bible, never mind talking to one.” She hurried away. She turned and came back. “I will apologize to the library for you. No normal, intelligent person would steal a Bible.”
That was true. He’d never read in the paper or seen on the news about anyone stealing a Bible.
As soon as Celia was out of sight, Pavements finished off the Kawasaki and got up and crossed the street to Dixie’s Donut Shoppe. He came back and made space for himself among the daisies. He took a long pull from his new bottle.
Pavements had figured from what he read in the Bible that a guy who killed his wife would not be up there. He’d be down there. Sure enough, when he looked, Caps was staring up at him like he hadn’t died yet. Well, his eyes looked like he was brain-dead but that was like always.
“How you doing down there, Caps?”
Pavements figured these words would get carried through the roots of the grass to Caps like words got carried on the 1-800 telephone wires to Richard in Malaysia.
Feeling the tickle in his ear, Caps would answer, “Cosy.”
“I’m feeling a little bad, Caps. I didn’t mean for you to jump. All I did was, you know, tell them your name, but I figured they’d feel sorry for you because you’re blind. They don’t put blind people in jail. At least, I never heard of a blind person being put in jail.”
