The eye of the chicken, p.20
The Eye of the Chicken, page 20
The little man who owned it came along. He’d had a throat operation, so when he spoke, out of a little funnel thing under his chin came a gurgly voice: “Did you do these drawings, Pavements?”
“Those drawings are from the caveman days. Do I look like a Cave Man?”
“They aren’t from caveman days. Did you do them or didn’t you?”
His words when they came out sounded like when the laundry water was draining. Celia would say, rinse and spin, Nelson. Rinse and spin. To wash your clothes is not a sin.
“See the footprints left there in the mud? If you follow them you’ll find the Cave Man who did the drawings.”
“What footprints?”
“The ones left in the mud from last night’s rain.”
“It didn’t rain last night.”
Pavements took a long pull from his bottle. He felt the gurgle in his throat.
“I think you did these drawings.”
Pavements studied the drawings.
“Did you do these drawings, Pavements?”
Pavements slanted his City Works hat and squinted one eye. “I’ve researched drawings like these. These are prehistoric drawings depicting ancient legends.”
“Did you do these drawings?”
“The blue comes from blueberries from a nearby ancient bog. The red comes from cranberry patches. The fossilized footprints, left in mud and hardened into granite, date these drawings back to Neanderthal times.”
“Did you do these drawings?”
“Blueberry juice and cranberry juice. See? Red and blue. Back then, the only job that paid decent money was cave art, which couldn’t be washed off, just like this cave art can’t be washed off. And crushed minerals. And besides that, it’s prehistoric. So I got to seal off the area until I can do more research.”
“I think you did these drawings.”
Pavements tidied his dinner jacket neatly around him. “Cave art drawings passed on from generation to generation all the way back to the Paleolithic might have been done by a prehistoric Neanderthal, but most likely was done by that species of psychotic Cave Man called the Outreachers, who recently relocated themselves here from Silver City. They’re all cousins. They live in groups of cousins. Once they get settled in their territory, that is where they stay and they’ll fight to stay there.”
“I’m phoning the police.”
“You can keep the fence I’m going to put up but you can’t remove the drawings.”
“I’m phoning the police.”
Pavements hustled down the alley until, out of sight behind a garbage can, he settled in the dirt and leaned his back against the wall and took a drink from his bottle. He listened to the liquid gurgling against the glass. He felt the glunk, glunk of liquor in his throat. He wondered how could you drink with that thing in your throat. You’d need a screw-on cap so the homebrew wouldn’t leak out.
After capping his bottle and returning it to the bag, Pavements searched through the nearby trash, finally finding a pile of cardboard, no doubt placed there by City Hall to attract the cave artist who did those drawings, originally identified for resettlement counseling and habitat relocation in East Jesus but ending up back here where they came from.
He laid the cardboard on the ground. Leaning against the side of the building, he slid down, settled his back against the wall, and drank some more. There was a good butt in the dirt, dropped by one of the Outreachers. He picked it up, careful to close the bottle before he lit up. After his cigarette, he continued along the alley, crossed the sidewalk, and teetered his way through the Sheldon Street traffic to the park. He settled down with the daisies, fresh-picked it looked like.
Pavements drank the same homebrew as the Outreachers. But he didn’t live in a tin-and-cardboard shack and he didn’t live at the Outreach. He lived at The Daystar, he managed his money and his liquor, always saving a little of both for the next day. Not like Mr. Bones. He found a lottery ticket with enough money on the number to buy a house in the Rose and an SUV and start an investment. Oh boy. But he spent it all on Curveball and Majestic Diner.
Pavements took a gentle pull. He had to be careful with this stuff. He liked Majestic Diner better, brewed from early-spring dandelion leaves, stewed up nice and smooth by Dixie’s sister in her restaurant-grade Majestic Diner pressure cooker on the Coca-Cola Reserve. Kawasaki was cooked in car radiators by her cousins in Cape Croker. It was called Kawasaki because of how it worked. First gear gets you started, second gear a bit jerky, but you’re in motion and starting to settle into the trip. Third gear you’re smoothed out, running not too bad. Fourth gear you’re burning on all cylinders and then whoosh, the shift to 747 airborne, riding the wind.
Not too far off, Celia and the three men and some other Jehovah’s Witnesses had gathered, giving out their pamphlets to whoever passed by. Afraid she would see him, Pavements snuck out under the shadow of the bridge and climbed the bank to the street. He teetered his way across the bridge to the centre and stood where Caps had stood, one arm on the rail, looking down at Celia and her two friends. Out in the open, the wind was strong; not gusty, but steady, like the wind on your face riding your Kawasaki.
He took another long swallow. He climbed over the rail to stand on the ledge. If he jumped, he would land right on top of Celia, flat on her back, her legs open, like how they used to be in the nice bed they had bought that summer at Bad Bob’s.
Looking over the park, Pavements saw the wind in the bushes and in the trees and he knew that the wind in the bushes and the trees was like the Kawasaki in his veins. He couldn’t see the wind in the bushes and the trees, but he could see the results of the wind in the bushes and the trees. He couldn’t see the Kawasaki but he could feel the results of the Kawasaki in his veins. The Kawasaki had brought Pavements to life and made him move, like how the wind brought the bushes and the trees to life and made them move, soft and gentle and flowing. He took the bottle from his pocket and lifted his right arm and emptied the bottle, and then he lifted his left arm and emptied the bottle again. Teetering on the edge of the rail, arms outstretched, he drifted with the wind through the trees and the bushes. The outstretched left arm of the dinner jacket seemed grey, but it had a pattern of brown and green like the leaves and branches of the bushes beneath the bridge. In his outstretched right arm, he saw that the brown and green of the trees was like the brown and green of the front of his jacket. The inside of the jacket, open to the wind, was grey, and the inside jacket pocket was like little bumps of woven silver.
The wind ceased. The bushes became still and the trees returned rooted to the ground where they belonged. Pavements returned rooted to his brain where he belonged. He climbed down from the rail and away from the ledge where he had not belonged. There was no movement anywhere except for the fingers of Pavements’s left hand, nails no longer broken and cracked from laying pavement, reaching into the inside jacket pocket. Then the fingers tips of his left hand, no longer calloused from shoveling asphalt, felt the smooth surface of the paper inside. He opened the envelope. He held the one-hundred-dollar bills up to the sunlight.
“Praise be to Jehovah,” said Pavements.
Chapter 35
Salty
Six Outreachers had come into The Daystar for lunch. Salty was thinking, they should be staying over in East Jesus instead of sitting with their paper bags in the front yard, two of them falling almost asleep, the other four drinking what even Pavements would say no thank you to. But here they were and Father Sutcliffe had let them in. He wouldn’t let them stay the night, but he wouldn’t turn anyone away for a meal as long as they didn’t cause trouble.
Mr. Bones, who’d been over to East Jesus, explained to Salty, “The ones we get here are the docile ones. There’s a lot of fighting over there. All it takes is for one guy to get the swaggers and pretty soon they’re all into it.”
Donkey Man wandered in and took his seat. “Lunchtime at Hopeless Hotel. Who’s going to say grace?”
The four Outreachers were already busy with their ham sandwiches.
“Don’t none of you nose-pickers know to say grace before you start to eat? Never mind, I’ll say it myself. Thank you for the soup and ham sandwiches.”
Donkey Man reached for the water jug and dipped in his comb and combed his hair. Salty watched the snakes slithering along that arm, turning with the twisting of those muscles like water snakes sliding past his boat on a cloudy day. On a sunny day, they’d be on a rock, enjoying the heat. Salty had found one lying in the bottom of a rowboat they found tied to a tree. He’d said to wee Frank, it won’t hurt you. We can take it for a ride.
But Frank wouldn’t get into the boat with a snake in it. Salty caught it by the tail and threw it into the bushes near the path. Too late, he realized, now Frank will be afraid to walk along that path. I should have thrown it into the water. But then Frank would be afraid to go fishing. No matter what Salty did, it seemed to end up wrong.
Donkey Man said, “I found your dog outside wandering loose, dragging his leash. So I tied him to a dumpster.”
The snakes reached out for another sandwich. “I hear they serve nice food over there in East Jesus, so why are these Outreach nose-pickers eating our sandwiches?”
The Outreachers were bent over their plates, eyes down. They knew enough to stay clear of the Donkey Man.
“I went over there one day. I know the guy who runs the kitchen. I said, ‘Look at all the food here. They’re going to have to put these nose-pickers on a diet. They got nothing to do all day but eat and drink like rich people. The government is giving them free cell phones and tablets so they can apply for work, but why work if everything is free? Next thing they’ll build a swimming pool and serve them their sandwiches poolside. Maybe serve them those sick-a-boobs on the barbecue. Maybe they’ll bring in some nice girls and start having Outreach Rocker Parties.’”
The snakes reached for another sandwich. “I got a bottle of red wine. You want some, Salty? Come and have a drink and I’ll tell you the number of the dumpster.”
Donkey Man finished his soup.
“Someone said Father Sutcliffe bailed the dog out of the pound. Someone said he told you to keep him on a leash and walk along like Scarlette Johansson with her poodle. Someone said you let the dog wander around dragging his leash instead of you holding it and walking along like in Hollywood. Someone said they seen your poodle in that alley behind the Chinese restaurant. So I went over and first I tied him to a dumpster but he didn’t like that so I put him in the dumpster. Come out and have a drink and I’ll tell you exactly the number of the dumpster I put your dog in.”
Salty and Donkey Man pushed back their chairs. Salty followed him down the hallway to the back door. From behind the garbage can, Donkey Man took a bottle. He sat on the step of the back stoop of The Daystar and offered the bottle to Salty. Salty shook his head. Even if he did want a drink, he would not drink with the Donkey Man.
Donkey Man tipped the bottle, took a long drink, swished it around between his teeth, swallowed, exhaled loudly, and burped. “Try it. It’s better than that homebrew Coca-Cola Reserve goat piss you usually drink.”
Salty held the bottle to the light to see through the murky glass. He gave it back.
“I was standing there looking down into the dumpster at the dog wondering if I should tell you. I was thinking, what’s the use of having a sheepdog if there are no sheep? Might as well leave it in the dumpster.”
He tipped the bottle to take a mouthful but took too much and choked, coughing with his mouth closed at first and then doubling over. After a while, coughing done, he wiped his eyes and his face with his shirttail. Drops of red wine hung from the underside of his chin. He lit a cigarette. “The girl I stole the watch from, I told her I was a friend of a porn producer. I’d get her into porn. So I said, ‘Get naked for me so I can tell my porn buddy what you look like.’ I said, ‘He’s starting a new magazine called Outreachers Cock Rocker. He’ll put you in for the Cock Rocker Centrefold.’”
Donkey Man dragged on his cigarette.
“I tried the same story on this other chick a couple of months ago and she believed me. So we played a little spank the monkey and it turns out this match made in heaven was only fifteen.”
Donkey Man stared into the dirt, smoking, nodding his head between long pauses. He was stoned on something besides wine, Salty realized.
“I asked her if she wanted to and she said okay. What’s the matter with that? That’s not rape.”
He seemed to drift and then came back. “First of all this chick says I raped her and now she says the kid is mine and now she’s talking about playing house with me supporting her so I’m staying out of sight so her brothers can’t find me. She got about nine brothers and they’re all looking for me.”
He dragged on his cigarette. “We better watch Father Sutcliffe doesn’t catch us out here drinking. He’s worse than that fruitcake Roger. He used to sit at the desk at the front of the Sally reading books that explain the Bible. Bible stories back in the pyramid days. Roger used to sneak along the street and up and down the alley trying to catch guys drinking, but the cops made him stop doing that. Then he’d go out into the alley to try to catch hookers hooking. That’s how he caught guys drinking. I knew him before he got religious and joined the Sally. He should have joined the Mormons. They’ve got three, four wives and get laid ten times a day.”
He swallowed another short slurp from the bottle. “I know a guy who jumped off the bridge the other day. He’d done a run of Kawasaki. It makes you do crazy things. He thought he could fly. We were up on Silver Bridge. The guy’s name was... I can’t remember. He said, ‘You know how I’ve been telling you I can fly?’ and I says yeah, and he says, ‘Well I can,’ and I says yeah so he starts flapping his arms and jumps. When the ambulance came he was lying on the ground, still flapping his arms like he was flying. Now he wants his cowboy boots back from Mr. Bones.”
Salty got to his feet and left.
The dog was not in the park and not at the closed-down Outreach. Maybe, thought Salty, he’s at home, on the step, waiting for me.
Salty turned up the laneway behind the Chinese restaurant and headed for the alley leading to his workshop shed. The dog must have recognized his footsteps for, as Salty passed the dumpster, the dog barked.
Salty circled the dumpster twice and called again. The dog answered. Salty circled again, looking for something to climb on. He found a two-by-four and leaned it against the metal side when he noticed the number on the side of the dumpster: 2020.
Salty backed away to the far side of the alley. He sat in the dirt. He watched the flies circling above the open lid, coming out of his mind and circling his head and then flying backward, big as hummingbirds, into the dumpster to crawl in and out of the carpet and fly back towards him to circle and land on the scars on his wrist, their bodies little green bottles in the sunshine. The carpet was green. Him and Lee Ann had gone to the carpet store but Lee Ann couldn’t decide between blue or grey. He had wanted blue but he’d wanted her to decide so if she didn’t like it, it would be her fault. She chose green. He hated green.
She had trouble making decisions: should she buy this watch or that watch; should she buy this dress or that dress. Just buy a dress, he’d say. Do these pants make me look fat? Do these jeans make me look fat? It’s your butt makes you look fat, he’d say.
It used to be he had no trouble making a decision. He did not spend time thinking, should I do this or should I do that? He just did it.
The sunshine in the alley and the traffic along the street and the whimpers of Amos and Sylvia faded away as he directed his path along the alley. Salty was big as a grizzly bear and afraid of no one, but he could not climb into that dumpster.
Chapter 36
Sylvia
Sylvia was having her morning coffee in the Rose Starbucks before making her usual trip to the Thorn library. She was reading in the complimentary paper about the homeless hysteria that had taken over Silver Park. Not “homeless;” the politically correct name was “Fringe Dwellers.” As an added wrinkle, now there was a First Nations land claim on that portion of the Silver Ravine that ran from the 401 to Lake Ontario. It had been a fur trade route with treaty rights belonging to the Mississaugas. Many of the Fringe Dwellers were First Nations. They were living on land that was theirs, so they couldn’t be evicted.
She finished her coffee. She returned the newspaper to the counter. Rather than crossing through the park, she crossed at the bridge. She continued along Bridge Street. She turned in the book and headed home, this time cutting through an alley behind the Soapy Suds Laundry. Passing behind Colonel Wong’s, she noticed the dumpster. Then she noticed at the end of the alley Salty seated in the dirt, his back to the fence. He is drunk, she thought, coming closer and looking down at him. Now that she had finally decided to have nothing to do with him, she was seeing him not as the father she remembered but as a sad, broken man in a frayed shirt collar and dirty pants. She leaned closer for one last look at the forehead scar hidden in the leather lines of his years of running or hiding or whatever he was doing, which right now was pretending to be asleep.
She said, “I’m sorry I can’t help you. But I owe you nothing.”
That was the end of it. She was turning away, going home when she noticed that in one hand, he clutched the dog’s red ball. She took a few steps back, looking for the dog.
She said, “Where’s your dog?”
When she nudged Salty’s leg with her foot, the ball dropped from his hand and rolled away. She nudged him again and his eyes blinked open. But he did not look up at her standing over him. He looked away, refusing to acknowledge her presence.
She would have paid no attention to the scratching she thought she heard, except at that moment she noticed that the red ball had rolled across the dirt to come to rest against the dumpster. She hoisted herself up the side and then vaulted over, picked up the dog, and climbed out.
She kicked Salty’s leg. “How long has he been in there? What’s the matter with you?”
“Those drawings are from the caveman days. Do I look like a Cave Man?”
“They aren’t from caveman days. Did you do them or didn’t you?”
His words when they came out sounded like when the laundry water was draining. Celia would say, rinse and spin, Nelson. Rinse and spin. To wash your clothes is not a sin.
“See the footprints left there in the mud? If you follow them you’ll find the Cave Man who did the drawings.”
“What footprints?”
“The ones left in the mud from last night’s rain.”
“It didn’t rain last night.”
Pavements took a long pull from his bottle. He felt the gurgle in his throat.
“I think you did these drawings.”
Pavements studied the drawings.
“Did you do these drawings, Pavements?”
Pavements slanted his City Works hat and squinted one eye. “I’ve researched drawings like these. These are prehistoric drawings depicting ancient legends.”
“Did you do these drawings?”
“The blue comes from blueberries from a nearby ancient bog. The red comes from cranberry patches. The fossilized footprints, left in mud and hardened into granite, date these drawings back to Neanderthal times.”
“Did you do these drawings?”
“Blueberry juice and cranberry juice. See? Red and blue. Back then, the only job that paid decent money was cave art, which couldn’t be washed off, just like this cave art can’t be washed off. And crushed minerals. And besides that, it’s prehistoric. So I got to seal off the area until I can do more research.”
“I think you did these drawings.”
Pavements tidied his dinner jacket neatly around him. “Cave art drawings passed on from generation to generation all the way back to the Paleolithic might have been done by a prehistoric Neanderthal, but most likely was done by that species of psychotic Cave Man called the Outreachers, who recently relocated themselves here from Silver City. They’re all cousins. They live in groups of cousins. Once they get settled in their territory, that is where they stay and they’ll fight to stay there.”
“I’m phoning the police.”
“You can keep the fence I’m going to put up but you can’t remove the drawings.”
“I’m phoning the police.”
Pavements hustled down the alley until, out of sight behind a garbage can, he settled in the dirt and leaned his back against the wall and took a drink from his bottle. He listened to the liquid gurgling against the glass. He felt the glunk, glunk of liquor in his throat. He wondered how could you drink with that thing in your throat. You’d need a screw-on cap so the homebrew wouldn’t leak out.
After capping his bottle and returning it to the bag, Pavements searched through the nearby trash, finally finding a pile of cardboard, no doubt placed there by City Hall to attract the cave artist who did those drawings, originally identified for resettlement counseling and habitat relocation in East Jesus but ending up back here where they came from.
He laid the cardboard on the ground. Leaning against the side of the building, he slid down, settled his back against the wall, and drank some more. There was a good butt in the dirt, dropped by one of the Outreachers. He picked it up, careful to close the bottle before he lit up. After his cigarette, he continued along the alley, crossed the sidewalk, and teetered his way through the Sheldon Street traffic to the park. He settled down with the daisies, fresh-picked it looked like.
Pavements drank the same homebrew as the Outreachers. But he didn’t live in a tin-and-cardboard shack and he didn’t live at the Outreach. He lived at The Daystar, he managed his money and his liquor, always saving a little of both for the next day. Not like Mr. Bones. He found a lottery ticket with enough money on the number to buy a house in the Rose and an SUV and start an investment. Oh boy. But he spent it all on Curveball and Majestic Diner.
Pavements took a gentle pull. He had to be careful with this stuff. He liked Majestic Diner better, brewed from early-spring dandelion leaves, stewed up nice and smooth by Dixie’s sister in her restaurant-grade Majestic Diner pressure cooker on the Coca-Cola Reserve. Kawasaki was cooked in car radiators by her cousins in Cape Croker. It was called Kawasaki because of how it worked. First gear gets you started, second gear a bit jerky, but you’re in motion and starting to settle into the trip. Third gear you’re smoothed out, running not too bad. Fourth gear you’re burning on all cylinders and then whoosh, the shift to 747 airborne, riding the wind.
Not too far off, Celia and the three men and some other Jehovah’s Witnesses had gathered, giving out their pamphlets to whoever passed by. Afraid she would see him, Pavements snuck out under the shadow of the bridge and climbed the bank to the street. He teetered his way across the bridge to the centre and stood where Caps had stood, one arm on the rail, looking down at Celia and her two friends. Out in the open, the wind was strong; not gusty, but steady, like the wind on your face riding your Kawasaki.
He took another long swallow. He climbed over the rail to stand on the ledge. If he jumped, he would land right on top of Celia, flat on her back, her legs open, like how they used to be in the nice bed they had bought that summer at Bad Bob’s.
Looking over the park, Pavements saw the wind in the bushes and in the trees and he knew that the wind in the bushes and the trees was like the Kawasaki in his veins. He couldn’t see the wind in the bushes and the trees, but he could see the results of the wind in the bushes and the trees. He couldn’t see the Kawasaki but he could feel the results of the Kawasaki in his veins. The Kawasaki had brought Pavements to life and made him move, like how the wind brought the bushes and the trees to life and made them move, soft and gentle and flowing. He took the bottle from his pocket and lifted his right arm and emptied the bottle, and then he lifted his left arm and emptied the bottle again. Teetering on the edge of the rail, arms outstretched, he drifted with the wind through the trees and the bushes. The outstretched left arm of the dinner jacket seemed grey, but it had a pattern of brown and green like the leaves and branches of the bushes beneath the bridge. In his outstretched right arm, he saw that the brown and green of the trees was like the brown and green of the front of his jacket. The inside of the jacket, open to the wind, was grey, and the inside jacket pocket was like little bumps of woven silver.
The wind ceased. The bushes became still and the trees returned rooted to the ground where they belonged. Pavements returned rooted to his brain where he belonged. He climbed down from the rail and away from the ledge where he had not belonged. There was no movement anywhere except for the fingers of Pavements’s left hand, nails no longer broken and cracked from laying pavement, reaching into the inside jacket pocket. Then the fingers tips of his left hand, no longer calloused from shoveling asphalt, felt the smooth surface of the paper inside. He opened the envelope. He held the one-hundred-dollar bills up to the sunlight.
“Praise be to Jehovah,” said Pavements.
Chapter 35
Salty
Six Outreachers had come into The Daystar for lunch. Salty was thinking, they should be staying over in East Jesus instead of sitting with their paper bags in the front yard, two of them falling almost asleep, the other four drinking what even Pavements would say no thank you to. But here they were and Father Sutcliffe had let them in. He wouldn’t let them stay the night, but he wouldn’t turn anyone away for a meal as long as they didn’t cause trouble.
Mr. Bones, who’d been over to East Jesus, explained to Salty, “The ones we get here are the docile ones. There’s a lot of fighting over there. All it takes is for one guy to get the swaggers and pretty soon they’re all into it.”
Donkey Man wandered in and took his seat. “Lunchtime at Hopeless Hotel. Who’s going to say grace?”
The four Outreachers were already busy with their ham sandwiches.
“Don’t none of you nose-pickers know to say grace before you start to eat? Never mind, I’ll say it myself. Thank you for the soup and ham sandwiches.”
Donkey Man reached for the water jug and dipped in his comb and combed his hair. Salty watched the snakes slithering along that arm, turning with the twisting of those muscles like water snakes sliding past his boat on a cloudy day. On a sunny day, they’d be on a rock, enjoying the heat. Salty had found one lying in the bottom of a rowboat they found tied to a tree. He’d said to wee Frank, it won’t hurt you. We can take it for a ride.
But Frank wouldn’t get into the boat with a snake in it. Salty caught it by the tail and threw it into the bushes near the path. Too late, he realized, now Frank will be afraid to walk along that path. I should have thrown it into the water. But then Frank would be afraid to go fishing. No matter what Salty did, it seemed to end up wrong.
Donkey Man said, “I found your dog outside wandering loose, dragging his leash. So I tied him to a dumpster.”
The snakes reached out for another sandwich. “I hear they serve nice food over there in East Jesus, so why are these Outreach nose-pickers eating our sandwiches?”
The Outreachers were bent over their plates, eyes down. They knew enough to stay clear of the Donkey Man.
“I went over there one day. I know the guy who runs the kitchen. I said, ‘Look at all the food here. They’re going to have to put these nose-pickers on a diet. They got nothing to do all day but eat and drink like rich people. The government is giving them free cell phones and tablets so they can apply for work, but why work if everything is free? Next thing they’ll build a swimming pool and serve them their sandwiches poolside. Maybe serve them those sick-a-boobs on the barbecue. Maybe they’ll bring in some nice girls and start having Outreach Rocker Parties.’”
The snakes reached for another sandwich. “I got a bottle of red wine. You want some, Salty? Come and have a drink and I’ll tell you the number of the dumpster.”
Donkey Man finished his soup.
“Someone said Father Sutcliffe bailed the dog out of the pound. Someone said he told you to keep him on a leash and walk along like Scarlette Johansson with her poodle. Someone said you let the dog wander around dragging his leash instead of you holding it and walking along like in Hollywood. Someone said they seen your poodle in that alley behind the Chinese restaurant. So I went over and first I tied him to a dumpster but he didn’t like that so I put him in the dumpster. Come out and have a drink and I’ll tell you exactly the number of the dumpster I put your dog in.”
Salty and Donkey Man pushed back their chairs. Salty followed him down the hallway to the back door. From behind the garbage can, Donkey Man took a bottle. He sat on the step of the back stoop of The Daystar and offered the bottle to Salty. Salty shook his head. Even if he did want a drink, he would not drink with the Donkey Man.
Donkey Man tipped the bottle, took a long drink, swished it around between his teeth, swallowed, exhaled loudly, and burped. “Try it. It’s better than that homebrew Coca-Cola Reserve goat piss you usually drink.”
Salty held the bottle to the light to see through the murky glass. He gave it back.
“I was standing there looking down into the dumpster at the dog wondering if I should tell you. I was thinking, what’s the use of having a sheepdog if there are no sheep? Might as well leave it in the dumpster.”
He tipped the bottle to take a mouthful but took too much and choked, coughing with his mouth closed at first and then doubling over. After a while, coughing done, he wiped his eyes and his face with his shirttail. Drops of red wine hung from the underside of his chin. He lit a cigarette. “The girl I stole the watch from, I told her I was a friend of a porn producer. I’d get her into porn. So I said, ‘Get naked for me so I can tell my porn buddy what you look like.’ I said, ‘He’s starting a new magazine called Outreachers Cock Rocker. He’ll put you in for the Cock Rocker Centrefold.’”
Donkey Man dragged on his cigarette.
“I tried the same story on this other chick a couple of months ago and she believed me. So we played a little spank the monkey and it turns out this match made in heaven was only fifteen.”
Donkey Man stared into the dirt, smoking, nodding his head between long pauses. He was stoned on something besides wine, Salty realized.
“I asked her if she wanted to and she said okay. What’s the matter with that? That’s not rape.”
He seemed to drift and then came back. “First of all this chick says I raped her and now she says the kid is mine and now she’s talking about playing house with me supporting her so I’m staying out of sight so her brothers can’t find me. She got about nine brothers and they’re all looking for me.”
He dragged on his cigarette. “We better watch Father Sutcliffe doesn’t catch us out here drinking. He’s worse than that fruitcake Roger. He used to sit at the desk at the front of the Sally reading books that explain the Bible. Bible stories back in the pyramid days. Roger used to sneak along the street and up and down the alley trying to catch guys drinking, but the cops made him stop doing that. Then he’d go out into the alley to try to catch hookers hooking. That’s how he caught guys drinking. I knew him before he got religious and joined the Sally. He should have joined the Mormons. They’ve got three, four wives and get laid ten times a day.”
He swallowed another short slurp from the bottle. “I know a guy who jumped off the bridge the other day. He’d done a run of Kawasaki. It makes you do crazy things. He thought he could fly. We were up on Silver Bridge. The guy’s name was... I can’t remember. He said, ‘You know how I’ve been telling you I can fly?’ and I says yeah, and he says, ‘Well I can,’ and I says yeah so he starts flapping his arms and jumps. When the ambulance came he was lying on the ground, still flapping his arms like he was flying. Now he wants his cowboy boots back from Mr. Bones.”
Salty got to his feet and left.
The dog was not in the park and not at the closed-down Outreach. Maybe, thought Salty, he’s at home, on the step, waiting for me.
Salty turned up the laneway behind the Chinese restaurant and headed for the alley leading to his workshop shed. The dog must have recognized his footsteps for, as Salty passed the dumpster, the dog barked.
Salty circled the dumpster twice and called again. The dog answered. Salty circled again, looking for something to climb on. He found a two-by-four and leaned it against the metal side when he noticed the number on the side of the dumpster: 2020.
Salty backed away to the far side of the alley. He sat in the dirt. He watched the flies circling above the open lid, coming out of his mind and circling his head and then flying backward, big as hummingbirds, into the dumpster to crawl in and out of the carpet and fly back towards him to circle and land on the scars on his wrist, their bodies little green bottles in the sunshine. The carpet was green. Him and Lee Ann had gone to the carpet store but Lee Ann couldn’t decide between blue or grey. He had wanted blue but he’d wanted her to decide so if she didn’t like it, it would be her fault. She chose green. He hated green.
She had trouble making decisions: should she buy this watch or that watch; should she buy this dress or that dress. Just buy a dress, he’d say. Do these pants make me look fat? Do these jeans make me look fat? It’s your butt makes you look fat, he’d say.
It used to be he had no trouble making a decision. He did not spend time thinking, should I do this or should I do that? He just did it.
The sunshine in the alley and the traffic along the street and the whimpers of Amos and Sylvia faded away as he directed his path along the alley. Salty was big as a grizzly bear and afraid of no one, but he could not climb into that dumpster.
Chapter 36
Sylvia
Sylvia was having her morning coffee in the Rose Starbucks before making her usual trip to the Thorn library. She was reading in the complimentary paper about the homeless hysteria that had taken over Silver Park. Not “homeless;” the politically correct name was “Fringe Dwellers.” As an added wrinkle, now there was a First Nations land claim on that portion of the Silver Ravine that ran from the 401 to Lake Ontario. It had been a fur trade route with treaty rights belonging to the Mississaugas. Many of the Fringe Dwellers were First Nations. They were living on land that was theirs, so they couldn’t be evicted.
She finished her coffee. She returned the newspaper to the counter. Rather than crossing through the park, she crossed at the bridge. She continued along Bridge Street. She turned in the book and headed home, this time cutting through an alley behind the Soapy Suds Laundry. Passing behind Colonel Wong’s, she noticed the dumpster. Then she noticed at the end of the alley Salty seated in the dirt, his back to the fence. He is drunk, she thought, coming closer and looking down at him. Now that she had finally decided to have nothing to do with him, she was seeing him not as the father she remembered but as a sad, broken man in a frayed shirt collar and dirty pants. She leaned closer for one last look at the forehead scar hidden in the leather lines of his years of running or hiding or whatever he was doing, which right now was pretending to be asleep.
She said, “I’m sorry I can’t help you. But I owe you nothing.”
That was the end of it. She was turning away, going home when she noticed that in one hand, he clutched the dog’s red ball. She took a few steps back, looking for the dog.
She said, “Where’s your dog?”
When she nudged Salty’s leg with her foot, the ball dropped from his hand and rolled away. She nudged him again and his eyes blinked open. But he did not look up at her standing over him. He looked away, refusing to acknowledge her presence.
She would have paid no attention to the scratching she thought she heard, except at that moment she noticed that the red ball had rolled across the dirt to come to rest against the dumpster. She hoisted herself up the side and then vaulted over, picked up the dog, and climbed out.
She kicked Salty’s leg. “How long has he been in there? What’s the matter with you?”
