by Cathi Bond
“What are you talking about?”
But I knew what she meant. Our deal. The deal I’d smashed into a million pieces.
“It’s you or me,” she said.
I had to take one last stand. “Then let him decide.”
Isabel softly set the bottle on the bureau. “Would you ask him to do that?” Then she left, shutting the door behind her.
Of course not. Dad could never make that decision and I couldn’t ask him to. He was as happy as he was going to be with Isabel. So were Frank and Tedder. It was up to me. I was the one who had to go.
CHAPTER FIVE
The sunlight stung my good eye. The black one was nearly swollen shut. I stood at the corner of Yonge and Dundas holding Mom’s white suitcase, stuffed with whatever I could grab before I ran away. A stubby man wearing an old fashioned derby hat and a sandwich board advertised for a place called Starvin’ Marvin’s. Huge posters of topless girls with big boobs were plastered on the walls and windows behind him. Some of the girls proudly cupped their breasts in their hands, while another one licked her own nipple. She must have had a long tongue to do that. The man held a megaphone.
“Come on in,” the man barked, bowing deeply as I passed by. “Don’t be shy. We’ve got more girls than you’ve got dreams!”
Two burly guys carted cases of beer out of an idling truck and into Le Coq d’Or. As the doors opened music slipped out, soul music that sounded the way the street felt: smooth and exciting –the way my future was going to be. Granddad started with nothing and made his own fortune. He didn’t cry, all alone out on the prairies wrangling wild cattle. He slept under the stars with yipping coyotes in the hills, built up his herd and then took the cattle to market. That’s what I’d do too.
I’d spent all my money at Steve’s and my pockets were stuffed with little purple pills. Now I needed to find a new customer base and that wouldn’t be hard. The sidewalks were full of hippies and heads. I didn’t need anybody taking care of me. I was all grown up.
The scent of patchouli oil drew me up a wide set of red brick steps into a warren of tiny market stalls selling brightly coloured beads, tie-dye skirts and boxes of incense that smelled of travel. Young people panhandled, while others smoked cigarettes and watched the world go by. Strains of sitars mixed with incense and calls of “Girls! Girls! Girls!”
A pretty girl with an oval face and a halo of short white hair stood beside an old man who had a silver brush cut and squatted on his heels. The girl panhandled while the man rolled a homemade cigarette.
“Looky looky, here comes Cookie!”
Was he talking to me? I didn’t know what to do so I kept walking.
“Wine’s fine but liquor’s quicker.”
I turned. The man’s fingers trembled as tobacco flakes fell.
“And you know what gin does?” he asked. He was missing a few front teeth.
“What?”
“Gin makes you sin.”
I smiled as the old man sucked through the hole where his teeth used to be. “I ain’t seen you around here before,” he said, looking at my suitcase and then at my eye.
“I’m new,” I replied, looking at the girl with the white hair, quickly brushing my bangs over the bruise.
“I’m Gabe and that’s Lily,” he said, jabbing a yellowed thumb at the girl. “Isn’t she as pretty as a flower?”
She was. Tall and thin, the white hair ringed her face like a blossom.
“We’re together.”
Was Gabe her father? He couldn’t be her boyfriend because Lily didn’t look much older than me. Not wanting to be rude, I didn’t ask. Lily stopped a mother and a little girl for some change. The lady rooted in her purse, dropping a coin in Lily’s hand. Lily turned to me and said hi. I’d never seen white eyelashes before.
“I’m Maddy.”
“Where you from?” Gabe asked.
“Out of town.” I didn’t want to talk about the past.
“Us too,” Lily said, sitting down.
I hung out with them, enjoying the warm sun on my face and the sweet smell of incense mixing with gas, when two older boys arrived, asking Lily if she wanted to smoke a joint. Lily said no, but the boys didn’t leave. One had a big nose. His friend wore a smiley face tee- shirt and had a squeaky high-pitched laugh. Smiley Face told Lily that a joint might loosen her up.
Gabe spat on the sidewalk. “The lady doesn’t want any.”
“Why don’t you get lost?” asked Smiley Face.
Lily’s ears went pink as she shot to her feet. “Why don’t you fuck off?”
It was the first time I’d ever heard a girl say fuck off. Not even Mary said that and Mary said everything. The boys still didn’t move so Lily and Gabe left. Smiley Face pulled a lumpy looking joint out of his coat pocket and waved it at me.
“Smoke?” he asked.
“Sure,” I replied. I’d only smoked pot a couple of times with Mary and Tim and it always made me cough.
Using Mom’s suitcase like a coffee table, the three of us passed the joint around. The weed was so strong I couldn’t feel my toes. Eventually the talk shifted to getting higher. The guy with the big nose wanted to go buy acid.
“How many do you want?” I asked.
“You carrying?”
I nodded, ready to dicker the way Granddad did. “What’ll you pay?”
“Two bucks a hit,” Smiley Face said.
“Make it three and I can help you out.”
“Sure.”
My hand was already in my pocket when Smiley Face said we should take it into the alley. He was right. It was stupid to deal right out in the open. I was high and not thinking straight. The three of us slipped into the alley behind Sam the Record Man, stepping around flattened cardboard boxes and piles of stinking garbage bags. While I set the suitcase down I noticed black scuffs on the white leather and wondered if they’d ever come off. A rainbow danced on top of an oil puddle.
“How many you want?” I asked.
“We’ll take them all.”
“Cool,” I replied, pulling the bag of microdots out of my pocket. “That’ll be $120.”
“I don’t think so,” the big nosed one said, snatching the acid while I grabbed his arm and started to yell.
Smiley Face had the suitcase and was laughing his high-pitched giggle.
“Give me my acid!” I screamed, kicking Big Nose in the shinbone so hard he yelped. “Give it back!”
He punched me in the stomach, fist blowing out all the air, but I wouldn’t let go of his arm. Wouldn’t let go until a white box whacked me across the head and I fell down, losing my grip. It was Mom’s suitcase.
I was back at Steve’s door, covered in alley grease.
“What happened?” Steve asked as I walked in and sat down.
“I got ripped off.”
“All of it?”
I nodded, rubbing the rising goose egg on my head. It was sore.
“Geez, Maddy. You never keep your whole stash in one place. If you have to travel with it, you hide it on different spots on your body.”
I didn’t know that, but it was a mistake I’d never make again. “I need you to give me ten hits. I’ll pay you later.”
Steve frowned. “I don’t front.”
“Just once?”
“No.”
This was bad. I couldn’t pay rent if I didn’t have money for dope. My stomach growled.
“Can I crash here?”
Steve would help me out. We were friends.
“The old lady doesn’t allow it.”
Since when did Steve have an old lady?
“I’ll sleep on the floor. I don’t even need a blanket.”
There was a knock at the door.
“What if I clean the place?”
“Sorry,” Steve said, getting up.
It was dark in Allen Gardens and the park didn’t feel safe, but I was too tired to walk any further. Early winter wind blew leaves across the grass. Shivering, I did up the top button of my shirt
, stamping my feet. Smiley Face got my coat when he stole Mom’s suitcase. Around midnight I’d walked into a phone booth, nearly calling home, but I stopped myself because Dad would be forced to come and get me, and then Isabel would leave and he would kill himself and it would all be my fault. A golden light glowed in the centre of the park. Maybe it was safe and warm in there.
Pools of light fell from old lampposts that ran along a ropey pathway. I hurried down the path towards the glow, past wrought iron benches, rushing from lamppost to lamppost, terrified of the rattles and scary hisses that came out of the dark. There was a rustle from a bush to the left and then a girl about my age appeared beneath a tree. Leaves and grass were stuck to the back of her hair and her skirt was hitched up around her hips.
“What are you staring at?” she asked, yanking the skirt down.
“Nothing.”
The girl pulled a twenty dollar bill out of her brassiere and shoved it into her purse. “I never saw you here before.”
“I’m new.” It was so good to see another person. Maybe she’d like to sit and visit.
But the girl simply said, “Watch out for the cops,” and disappeared into the night.
The beginnings of a dome began to appear in the glow. I ran down the path like Dorothy travelling through the witch’s forest in The Wizard of Oz.
The glow came from an enormous glass observatory that rested in the centre of the park. Fingers of moonlight broke through a roof of palm fronds, stroking a thick grove of exotic plants before they landed on the ground, transforming the dark green moss into a shimmering carpet. The garden felt warm, alive and breathing, a safe place to spend the night.
But the door was locked. Ducking between a hedge and the glass, I snuck around the side, looking for another way in. Then a sudden rustle and the snapping of a twig, followed by a series of crackles, coming up, racing up fast behind me. I tried to run, but a hand came down, a strong hand clamping onto my shoulder, spinning me around into a beam of blinding light.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Squinting, I dodged the glare to see a uniformed policeman. “I asked you a question. What are you doing out here?”
“Nothing.”
“Show me some ID.”
It was in Mom’s suitcase.
“I don’t have any.”
The policeman grabbed my arm and marched me through the park, over to a cruiser. He opened the front door and shoved me inside. A truncheon rested on the vinyl seat. He got in the driver’s seat and picked up his radio.
“What’s your name?”
I wanted to lie, but what would I say?
“Madeline Anne Barnes.”
He looked me over. “What happened to your face?”
“I walked into a door.”
“Did somebody do that to you?”
Tim.
“No, sir.”
“Address.”
“I don’t have one.”
“Date of birth?”
I gave it to him.
“Just sixteen, eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you figure you’re big enough now to be out on your own?”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’ll see about that.”
While we waited for the background check the policeman lectured me all about the dangers waiting for young girls out on the streets at three in the morning. Did I have any idea of what went on in the park after dark? I thought of that girl with the grass in her hair. So that’s what she was doing. I’d never do that. The radio crackled to life. A missing person’s report had been lodged for me that morning. That meant Dad cared.
“Your mother reported you as a runaway.”
Dad didn’t even call.
“Let me take you home.”
“No.”
If I went back home my stepmother would leave and my father would kill himself.
“Don’t you think you should at least call them?”
He could take me to prison for vagrancy if he wanted, but I wouldn’t put my Dad in that spot, the place where he’d have to pick. And besides, it hurt less not knowing than to find out for sure that he’d choose her over me.
We sat in silence until the frustrated policeman said, “Okay, get going, and don’t let me find you in here again.”
There was nothing else to do, so I sat on The Steps watching the city wake up. Before dawn everything was quiet except the distant hum of street sweepers and the odd lonely cab searching for a fare. Then the delivery trucks rumbled by, loaded with fresh produce, and office workers began to stream out of the subway, heading for Bay Street’s financial towers, and then around ten, the retail shops opened for business. Nobody noticed me, a sixteen-year-old girl in rumpled clothing and a black eye, tucked into the corner of a doorway.
Finally my friends arrived.
Gabe whistled as Lily loped along beside him. She was nearly a foot taller, but still looked like an innocent little kid. When they saw me, they came over and plopped down on either side. Lily asked me where my suitcase was. Gabe patted me on the thigh and then gently pulled my face towards his.
“Did you get rolled?”
He sounded so kind that I started to cry.
“Everything.”
“Oh, kiddo,” Gabe said.
“Those guys with the weed.”
“Fuck me,” Lily said.
“No, fuck them,” I replied and then started to laugh through the tears. Laughing because I’d said fuck out loud for the first time in my life and because I wasn’t alone anymore.
“Are you hungry?” Lily asked.
I nodded.
“We’ll get you some breakfast and then you’re going to learn how to panhandle.”
Breakfast consisted of a loaf of bread and a package of bologna. It cost under a dollar and it fed the three of us. I would have liked some mustard, but there was no money for condiments. Lily wiped her hands on her jeans and stood up, announcing that it was time for class.
“I’m a rich lady,” Lily said, pretend sashaying down the sidewalk.
Gabe and I laughed.
“Don’t laugh. One day I’m gonna be rich. You just wait and see.” Lily kept walking towards me. “So what do you do?”
I approached her with my hand out, eyes cast down. “Excuse me, ma’am, can you spare any change?”
“You’re acting too desperate.”
“I’m begging for money, of course I’m desperate.” I didn’t like begging and was worried that I’d see someone I knew.
“When are we getting a bottle?” Gabe asked.
“We’re not getting a bottle. Maddy, try it again.”
“Do you have any spare change?” I asked.
“Get a job,” she said.
“Even a penny would help.”
Lily approved. “That’s smart.”
“That way they don’t think I’m greedy.”
“Okay, try it on somebody real.”
I decided to go for guilt. Lily said nobody wanted to help desperate people, but I’d learned from my Dad that most people wanted to do the right thing. All you had to do was give them the proper incentive, and what was more guilt inducing than the importance of saving a teenaged girl in trouble? An older woman with several shopping bags approached.
“Excuse me,” I said.
She walked on by.
“Please,” I said, with a little cry. “I got mugged and I don’t have any money for the subway.”
She paused. “Why don’t you call your parents?”
“They’re not home.”
“Where do you live?”
“Leaside.”
She stopped and looked at me.
“Maybe you can give me a ride?” I asked.
“I’m not going that way.”
She opened her purse and handed me a quarter.
“Here you go. Now make sure you get right on the train and don’t you spend this on anything else. This is hard-earned money.”
“Oh no, ma’am.” I oozed.
“You’re so kind. I’ll be sure to tell my parents that there are still decent people in the world.”
The woman left all puffed up and proud while Lily and Gabe split a gut.
“You’re good,” Lily said.
Guilt worked, but there was something low about using people and lying. Granddad always said there was nothing more despicable than a liar or a thief, and Mom claimed that misrepresenting yourself was the biggest sin of all. Dealing dope had dignity –begging had none. I needed to get enough money together to start a new stash. After a couple of days panhandling I planned to be back at Steve’s.
We finished at about eight, combined our money and headed for the hotel. I couldn’t believe it. There’d be nothing left after we paid for a room.
“How are we ever going to get ahead?”
“Some days are better than others,” Lily replied.
Hungry and exhausted, I trailed along behind them. My clothes were dirty and I needed a bath.
“Have we got enough for a bottle?” Gabe asked. “I’m getting the shakes.”
Lily scratched her ear. “The doctor said you need a break.”
“Please, Lily,” Gabe begged.
“Lily, please,” I added. I could use something myself.
She gave Gabe a kiss on the cheek. “Maybe tomorrow.”
I followed Lily and Gabe past abandoned storefronts, pawnshops and shoe shines. Lingerie dangled from the windowsills of crumbling buildings. Alkies were either propped up against brick walls, happily chattering away to one another, or flopped over on the sidewalk passed out cold. Gabe said hello to a couple of guys he knew and asked them if they had any liquor, but they were all empty.
We arrived in front of the hotel. The Warwick, a five-star jewel when big bands used to play, had turned into a skid row flophouse. A poster outside boasted aging burlesque dancers with saggy boobs that reminded me of inflatable dinghies with the air let out. Lily told us to go around back while she got a single room for one. Apparently it was cheaper than paying for three. We hid out in an alley until Lily’s white head poked through a third-storey window, waving us up.
Gabe and I snuck up the metal fire escape and climbed in through the window. The ripped drapes had once been expensive brocade and the chenille bedspread had luxurious tassels, but the green was fading away and most of the tassels were gone. Wind blew through a transom where the glass was smashed, and the bed had a deep sway. Gabe flicked on the TV. There was an old western playing. The cavalry sounded the charge. Gabe was still negotiating for a bottle when I fell fast asleep on the floor.