Black Feathers

by Robert J. Wiersema

She looked distracted and kept glancing around. She would look over the shoulder of whoever she was embracing, and between groups she deliberately turned around, scanning the breezeway.

  Was she looking for Cassie?

  She dismissed the thought—Skylark knew everyone. She was probably looking for Brother Paul, or for a friend.

  Cassie drifted slowly toward the camp. She didn’t want to seem like she was rushing or trying to make an entrance. She didn’t want to look stupid or—

  “Dorothy!”

  Skylark turned away from the group she was talking to and almost ran across the breezeway toward her, swooping her into a tight hug without another word.

  “How did it go?” she bubbled, stepping back slightly. “Was that a good spot? Did you stay warm enough? What about that snow? Oh, I’ve had a day you wouldn’t believe,” she said without a breath. “Come on,” she said. “We can catch up.”

  As they turned, the entire camp seemed to stir. Cassie could dimly pick out the sound of a rough engine as everyone started to move toward the loading zone in front of City Hall.

  “Dinner first,” Skylark said, guiding them into the crowd.

  Cassie almost walked into the shadow that stopped in front of her, blocking her path.

  “Well, look who it is.”

  The words stopped her in place.

  It was the dreadlocked boy from the McDonald’s, with two of his friends.

  “I was hoping I would see you again.”

  Even in the half-light she could see the smirk on the boy’s face, the smiles of his friends. “Who’s your friend?” he asked, drawing out the word as he turned to Skylark.

  “What the fuck is it to you?” Skylark snarled through a wide smile.

  One of the boys snorted.

  “Skylark,” Cassie whispered.

  Skylark stayed perfectly still, her smile etched on her face, drawn back over her teeth.

  The boy with the dreadlocks grinned.

  “So, just ‘bitch,’ then?”

  The other boys laughed; Skylark didn’t move.

  She didn’t flinch when he jerked toward her, snapping his head forward so it was almost touching hers, lingering for a moment before he pulled back and turned away.

  “Whatever,” he muttered. “Fucking dyke bitches.”

  The boys were laughing as they drifted toward the food line.

  “So, are you hungry?” Skylark asked, turning to Cassie as if nothing had happened.

  “Skylark—”

  “Because I don’t want to get in line with those guys, and if we wait—”

  Without thinking, Cassie threw her arms around Skylark, squeezing her tightly. “Oh, God.”

  “What?” Skylark asked, puzzled.

  “Those guys—” Cassie started, but Skylark cut her off.

  “Those guys? Those guys are bad news. You can tell just looking at them.”

  Cassie exhaled heavily.

  “The thing with guys like that? They’re just bullies. And bullies are usually weak and they use all this bluster and violence to pump themselves up so nobody notices that. Pick on someone else so you don’t get picked on, right?”

  “I guess.”

  “So you have to outbluster them. Make them know that you’re more confident than they think you are. Stronger. That way they won’t pick on you. A predator won’t attack something stronger, right?”

  She thought of what Mrs. Hepnar had said and how she had tried to stand up to the boys at the McDonald’s. “Yeah.”

  “It’s nature. That’s how it usually works. Predators prey on the weak. It’s all instinct.”

  Watching the three boys push each other in the line, Cassie wasn’t sure she found that comforting at all.

  The Darkness watched the girls from the far side of the line that had formed behind the van, another face in a white blur of faces, of grey breath, of scarves and hats.

  They were almost close enough to touch.

  He had done it on purpose, positioned himself deliberately. Just close enough, just far away enough, teetering on the cusp of possibility. He hungered, and he savoured the hunger, the desire. Wanting to reach out, to sweep them in, to take them—he could feel his heart race at the thought, at the tension in his muscles. It would be so easy.

  It was always so easy.

  But there was so much pleasure in the yearning. Holding off, letting the hunger build … That first bite would be ever so sweet.

  The Darkness stopped, looked into the crowd. He could feel a pull, a gentle tug, the inviting breath of a door being opened, a door into another world of warmth, another hunger.

  Closing his eyes, the Darkness jumped.

  When his eyes opened again, he was in a different place, inside a different vessel, deeper in the crowd, closer to the van, but farther from the girls.

  His first reaction was to scan the crowd, to look for the old host. There, closer to the square, eyes taking in the crowd, but returning, always returning, to the girls. The Darkness could see the hunger, the longing.

  The Darkness breathed and grew in the new vessel, expanding to fill the space. He flexed his finger, tapped his toes, turned his head, gradually spun the body in an almost complete circle.

  The Darkness smiled.

  This was a splendid new development. Not a surprise: doors were always opening for the Darkness, it was human nature. But this, this felt familiar. He had felt these hands, tasted this anger.

  Oh, yes, the Darkness had been here before.

  And he would return.

  But right now …

  With one last lingering look at the girls, the Darkness jumped again.

  He was surprised when he felt the stirring in the pit of his stomach. Usually it took longer. Usually a night like last night was enough to keep the feelings at bay for a good long time. Weeks, sometimes months even.

  But maybe it was like a good meal. You stuff yourself at Christmas dinner to the point where you feel like you might explode, and you swear you’ll never eat again, only to wake up on Boxing Day morning hungrier than you’ve ever been in your entire life.

  Yes, it was just like that.

  Because last night had been a hell of a feast, satisfying him in ways that he had never even imagined.

  And yet, here he was.

  It was the television’s fault.

  The kids had it on while they were playing, some screeching show that set his teeth on edge. And they weren’t even watching—they had it on in the background as they built Lego castles and knocked them down. Build, destroy, build, destroy, and all the time that hellish screeching.

  And every time he tried to turn it off or change the channel, the kids had pleaded with him like their lives depended on staying tuned in.

  So it wasn’t his fault.

  It was that little slut on the TV, that always-smiling, hair-flipping, head-cocking little slut, her tight little body, her knowing eyes.

  That’s when the stirring had come back, in one flash of imagination: the way her eyes would widen as he slid the knife into her.

  Nothing more than that, and the stirring was back.

  He had sat there on the couch as the kids played, as that ridiculous, terrible show screeched on, thinking about the night before, the way that whore had started to scream, the cry bubbling out of her throat in a rush and gout of blood. And that pissy little bitch on the TV—God, he’d leave her throat for the very end, just to hear that screech one last time.

  At first, he had hoped for the feeling to go away. No: he actively tried to push it down, to distract himself. He crouched on the floor and started building a castle of his own, laughing as the kids ganged up on him to reduce it to rubble, again and again. He offered to get the kids ready for bed, to take care of storytime and give Alice a chance to get off her feet. He had lingered over the books, laughing with the kids before snugging the covers up to their necks and kissing them good night.

  No matter what he did, his stomach roiled. It was impossible to ignore, imp
ossible to push down.

  But there was something about it …

  The realization came to him as he sat on the couch next to Alice, her legs draped over his lap as they watched some crappy rerun: he liked it.

  He liked the stirring in his stomach. He liked the way it made him feel.

  It was like resisting a snack while waiting for a big dinner: the hunger was satisfying in and of itself.

  Though not, he thought to himself, as Alice yawned and started to get ready for bed, as good as the meal would be.

  She lingered in the living room doorway on her way upstairs.

  “Are you coming?” she asked. There was a flirtatious tone to her voice, and she leaned forward a little, a small smile on her lips.

  He shook his head, putting on a frown. “Not right now,” he said, and her face fell. “I’m sorry,” he hurried. “I should put in a couple of hours …”

  She nodded, her smile replaced with a frown of familiar resignation. “Of course.”

  “I’m sorry,” he repeated, but she shook her head.

  “I know,” she said wearily. “Work.”

  “Yeah.”

  She tilted her head to the left, toward the stairs. “I’m going to read for a little bit.”

  “I’ll be quiet when I come to bed,” he said, knowing from years of experience that once she was asleep only the sound of a bomb going off, or one of the kids crying, would wake her.

  After that, it was just a matter of waiting. He went down to his office in the basement, spread some papers across his desk, then powered up his computer. The locked file of photos didn’t satisfy the hunger, but he had known they wouldn’t. It was more a matter of whetting his appetite.

  An hour later, he went upstairs. Both the kids were asleep, and Alice had drifted off in her book, the way she did most nights. He marked her place with her bookmark and set the novel on the night table before turning off the light.

  In the kitchen, he loaded the dishwasher, but he didn’t start it. Instead, he took a knife out of the utensil drawer and set it carefully on the counter, lining it up parallel to the stainless steel edge of the sink.

  He took some grocery bags from the basket under the sink and set them next to the knife.

  He opened the fridge and took a slow look at the shelves, finally picking up the small container of cream and shaking it. Less than half-full—that would do.

  He poured the remaining cream down the drain and ran the cold water over it for several seconds, tossing the container under the sink.

  He had his line all worked out: “I went to have a cup of tea, but there was no cream left, so I popped out to the store …”

  No cream left? Was “but the cream had gone off” better? It didn’t matter: he could go either way.

  And it wasn’t like Alice was going to wake up and wonder where he had driven off to.

  Still, he thought, picking up the knife and the plastic bags and heading out to the garage, it was always good to be prepared.

  Like a Boy Scout.

  Cassie wasn’t watching the boys, but she was always aware of where they were.

  As she and Skylark ate, she knew that the dreadlocked kid and his two friends were sitting at the far side of the breezeway in a tightly closed knot of crossed legs and raised voices. As people drifted around after dinner, she tracked their movement through the space, out to the square and back.

  When the circle formed, they sat down almost directly across from her, laughing and guffawing. She glanced at them as she and Skylark sat down, and the dreadlocked kid met her eye and gave her a tiny, mocking wave, wiggling his fingertips at her across the concrete.

  The boys shouldered one another as Brother Paul started the evening, and shifted scornfully as people began to introduce themselves.

  When it got to their turn, Cassie leaned forward slightly.

  “I’m Bob,” the dreadlocked kid said in a tone of mock solemnity. His friends laughed quietly. “I’m here because my dad liked to diddle me.”

  A quiet murmur rolled through the circle. Cassie and Skylark remained silent.

  “But that’s all right,” Bob said, affecting a slow drawl. “As soon as I got big enough, I put a stop to that. Put him in the hospital right good, and when he got out”—his two friends were laughing openly now, and Brother Paul studied them in silence—“I told him, ‘Old man, you keep your hands to yourself or I’ll put you right back in there.’” He punched his fist into his palm for effect. “I got outta there as quickly as I could. And that’s how I got here.”

  He leaned back, smirking, and looked across the circle at Cassie with a challenging stare.

  She didn’t believe any of it.

  Neither, clearly, did Brother Paul, who began to pace slowly within the circle, never taking his eyes off the three boys.

  Cassie didn’t really pay attention to the other two boys and their stories, except to hear that their names were Frank and Joe.

  “Don’t they look like the Hardy Boys to you?” Skylark whispered.

  Cassie was waiting to hear from Sarah from Edmonton, wondering what the woman would say, thinking back to their earlier conversation by the courthouse.

  But she didn’t say much of anything. Huddled deep in her grey overcoat, scarf wrapped around most of her face, she only mumbled her name and where she was from, staring unflinchingly at the concrete in front of her, worrying the end of her scarf between her fingers.

  After the introductions, Brother Paul gave a shortened version of the welcoming speech that Cassie had heard the night before. His voice was tight and clipped, and he kept his side to Bob and his friends all the while, never turning his back on them, never letting them entirely out of his sight.

  He saw every eye-roll, every nudge, every barely suppressed laugh.

  “Friends, I don’t know if you saw the newspaper this morning.” Another murmur passed through the circle; clearly almost everyone had.

  He nodded. “Good. I’m glad.” Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a piece of the newspaper, folded into a long rectangle. “This is what happens,” he said, as he unfolded it and held it up for display. “This is what happens when we confront people’s most deeply held beliefs. There are more than twenty of us here. Every shelter bed is full. And the business owners are worried that their Christmas sales are going to suffer! The mayor says that there’s a homelessness problem, but that this isn’t the answer. Then what is? What solution is the mayor offering to this ‘problem’? More shelter beds, but only when the temperature drops?”

  He took a deep breath.

  “I have seen this before. If you read the article, you know that my name used to be Paul Corbett. That I was a hippie”—a few people in the circle laughed quietly—“and a protester. All of this is true. They try to paint me as some sort of rebel—let them. Even before I joined the church, I lived a life of values and principles. I believed in people. I believed in this earth. Everything I have done has been guided by these beliefs.

  “But people do not like being confronted with principles and beliefs. They don’t want to see us here because homelessness is something they can’t bear to be confronted with. ‘Oh,’” he said, putting on a distressed voice, “‘those poor people. Oh, heavens, turn the channel!’ Well, I’m sorry. There are hundreds of people living on the street in this city. I’m sorry if our community upsets you. I’m sorry if your having to see us disturbs your vision of the world.”

  All around the circle, people were nodding enthusiastically. A few of them cried out, “Yes!” as Brother Paul made each of his points.

  Even Cassie felt herself getting caught up in it, nodding along, unable to take her eyes off him.

  “I have said, all along, that if we treated this place and these people with respect, we could expect respect in return.” He slumped. “I was wrong.”

  A ripple of disbelief ran through the circle.

  “Look at this picture.” He held up the newspaper, turning in a slow, full circle so that eve
ryone would see the photograph of the garbage-strewn breezeway. “Look at this.” He shook the paper. “This is a lie. This is a lie they tell to tear us apart.” He dropped the hand holding the newspaper to his side. “Every morning, I am the last to leave this place. I know what it looks like when we go. We leave only footprints; we don’t leave this.” He shook the newspaper again. “So where did the garbage come from?” He paused, turned slowly around the circle again. “Where did this ‘mess’ come from that they’re blaming on us?”

  Another dramatic pause.

  “Why don’t we ask the mayor?” A few people in the circle cheered. “Why don’t we ask those business owners who are so worried about their Christmas sales?” Bob, the dreadlocked boy, whooped. “Why don’t we ask those people who are fine with hundreds of people sleeping on their streets, so long as they can ignore us?”

  More cheering now, and Brother Paul let it build for a moment before starting again, his voice quieter, stronger. “We have played by their rules. We have behaved. We have slunk out of here at dawn every morning, gathered by night, all so we wouldn’t … so they wouldn’t be forced to confront their own failings, their own hypocrisies. My father used to have a saying. He used to say, ‘Son, you don’t rock the boat, especially when you’re sitting in it.’” He took a long moment, seeming to think about the words.

  “My father was wrong. Sometimes you have to rock the boat.”

  He drove slowly out of the cul-de-sac, came to a full stop at the corner, signalled his turn. The deliberate care was a combination of not wanting to draw attention to himself and wanting to build the anticipation.

  The rumbling in his belly had turned into a burning now, a surging breathlessness that he could feel in his jaw, in his fingers, in his toes. It felt like he was growing too big for his skin, like he was going to burst out of his body, explode in a ball of hot, white light.

  Soon. So soon.

  He pushed the ZZ Top cassette into the tape player, and sang along.

  He drove carefully, attentively, out of Gordon Head, toward downtown. He never broke the speed limit, obeyed every traffic signal, even slowed to let jaywalkers scurry across Shelbourne in the yellow cone of his headlights.