by Cathi Bond
“Then we’ll go,” Lily replied, ramming the sandwiches back into the bread bag and standing up.
“No!” I cried, seizing her hand. They were the only family I had left. “I’m really sorry. Please don’t go. Please.”
“I’m just doing the best I can for me and Gabe,” she said, and then she sat down, handing back the sandwich bag. “Want another one?”
“Thank you.” I replied, so relieved they didn’t leave. We didn’t talk, just silently chewed. My breath came out in icy puffs. Winter was nearly here. Lily shivered.
“We’re going to need warm coats soon,” I said.
“I can buy them.”
I gave Lily a gentle shove. “I never said you couldn’t.”
For a girl who begged, Lily had a lot of pride. We watched our breath some more and then she sighed.
“You’re right. Begging’s horrible. I just don’t know what else to do.”
A man in an expensive wool overcoat was approaching. Lily applied some orangey lipstick and fixed her white hair. Lately she’d started applying makeup, trying to look older.
“What did you do before?” I asked.
“We had a place but then we lost it.”
“Me too.”
A couple of times I almost called Dad at the office to tell him that I’d moved out of the rooming house, but I couldn’t make myself pick up the payphone. It was easier to get high and pretend he never existed.
The man in the overcoat had nearly reached us. Lily rose as one of my regular customers, a high school student, arrived. He wanted five hits of acid for a dance the coming weekend.
Coloured pills rested on my palms like planets strung across the universe.
“So I’ve got blotter, sunshine and microdot. They’re all two bucks a hit.”
A tiny clear square sat in the centre. “This is windowpane. It’s four dollars.”
“Is it worth it?” the guy asked, practically salivating.
“It’s the strongest I’ve ever sold.”
He started handing me the money.
“Madeline!”
Dad was in the entrance to the alley. My customer took off, but Dad didn’t. He just stood there staring at my hands, my hands stuffed with drugs and money. I shoved them into my pockets, but it was too late, he’d seen everything.
I’d never seen my Dad that mad. Not even on the roof at the school. This was different and way worse. He walked towards me. “Did you take my money to buy drugs?”
I shook my head.
“Don’t lie.” His voice shook with fury. “You’re not making clear decisions. I’m taking you to the General for an assessment. Aunt Anne knows a doctor.”
A psychiatrist, that’s what he meant. A psychiatrist for the “lez be friends.” He was going to lock me up. He tried to take my arm, but I backed up.
“Get away from me.”
“Just somebody to help you sort this through…”
“Through what?” I was going to make him say it. “Through what?”
His voice dropped. “The homosexuality.” Then he dove for my arm.
I shoved him and ran past Gabe, who’d just arrived in the alleyway and started to scream. Dad was screaming too, his yells mixing with Gabe’s as he called for me to stop. I didn’t. He was close behind, keeping up. I ran against the red light at Yonge and Dundas. Right into the traffic, thrown up onto the hood of a blue car that screeched to a stop so short that I got tossed right back down onto the asphalt. Something hurt but I just leapt up and kept going, running like the devil was chasing me. But when I turned around it wasn’t the devil. It was my Dad, standing in the centre of the street, his hands high in the air. And then, like giant wings collapsing, his arms fell. He stopped, and I knew right then that he would never run after me again. He was finished. I turned and kept on running. Running from the fact that he hated me and running from the fact that I hated him too.
CHAPTER SIX
“Whoa!” the huge man yelled as I ran into him, nearly knocking us both to the ground. “Where’s the fire?”
The man was older than me, at least ten years, and wore a white shirt, wide striped tie, dress pants and carried a maroon briefcase with brass hasps.
“Sorry,” I said, panting. I couldn’t catch my breath.
“Sit down.”
He guided me to a stoop. I was shaking. He sat down beside me and put his arm around my shoulder. “Put your head between your legs.”
“I’m okay.”
I wasn’t. I felt sick and dizzy. Dad could be after me with the police or men with straitjackets from the mental hospital.
“You’re hyperventilating. Put your head between your legs.”
He grabbed me by the back of the hair, gently pushing my head down.
“Now just breathe. Breathe,” the man repeated. “Concentrate on your breath. One…”
I tried to follow his advice. The big guy’s voice was so low it was more like a purr. He softly rubbed my back, and by the time he counted to sixty I’d stopped panting.
“Thank you.”
“What’s your name?
“Maddy.”
He put out his hand and I shook it. It was strong. “I’m Vic. Want a drink?”
I glanced around, scared. “I’m underage.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Vic said as we stood up. “I know every bartender in town.”
Nearly naked, yellow neon girls flashed as we passed through tinted doors into the Zanzibar –a cavern of thick smoke, stale beer and brassy mirrors. An announcer’s voice trumpeted over the loudspeaker, “Gentlemen, give it up for the lovely lady!” as “You Shook Me” began to play.
The black stage curtain parted and a girl dressed in a white cowboy hat, sparkly bra and glittery panties strutted into the circling spotlight, shaking her tits. Clapping was sparse because there weren’t a lot of customers at that time of day. Only regulars perched on stools in front of the main stage, nursing warm beer. A waiter in black trousers and a crisp white shirt rushed over the moment he saw Vic.
“What can I get you?”
“Two Zombies, George,” Vic replied. “Is that okay with you?”
“Sure.” I didn’t know what a Zombie was.
Vic waved at a guy sitting at a booth near the back. I couldn’t see very well, but I thought I also saw a girl through the smoke.
“You crazy fucker, get your ass over here!” the guy called.
Vic tossed the maroon briefcase down on the vinyl seat. The other guy, only a few years older than me, was leaning back in the banquette with his feet up on the table. My aunts would have pitched fits at that kind of behaviour. The guy had the most beautiful hair I’d ever seen on a man. Thick, black and glossy, it tumbled onto the shoulders of his black leather coat. He reminded me of a raven. A sulky girl in a yellow halter top, short jean skirt and platform sandals sat beside him. She had curly brown hair and lips the colour of raspberries. The guy asked Vic if he had any news.
“Not yet,” Vic said, telling me to take a seat.
“This here’s Cope and his old lady Charlene. Meet Maddy.”
Cope’s eyes twinkled like pixies’ as Charlene wrinkled her nose. Vic said he had to make a call and left.
Empty glasses and ashtrays overflowing with brown cigarette butts covered the table. Charlene started peeling the label off her beer bottle. Vic’s waiter friend George arrived with two tall glasses topped with plastic pink parasols harpooning bright red cherries. I took a sip. It tasted yummy like the tropics. I slurped it all down.
Cope shoved the other Zombie at me. “Vic won’t drink it anyway.”
The Zombie made me feel relaxed, and it wasn’t gaggy like Gabe’s cheap liquor.
“You the new old lady?” he asked.
“We just met.”
Charlene lifted the edge of the green label, and I thought if she was careful, she might be able to tear the whole thing off in just one pull.
“I only ask because you’ll be disappointed in the cock depar
tment,” Cope said, rubbing his crotch. That magic pixie smile again. Charlene looked down at the bulge and slapped Cope’s hand.
“You’re a pig. Can’t you ever leave it alone?”
“Speed makes me horny,” Cope replied, adding, “I’m not like Vic. He can’t get it up.”
Kenneth’s was always up. I glanced at the briefcase. Was speed in there? I’d always wanted to try it. Dad’s TIME magazine said you didn’t get physically hooked on it. There was no physical withdrawal.
“So what do you do?” Cope asked.
“Acid dealer.”
“Never seen you around,” Charlene said.
“Street.”
“Oh,” she said it like it was low life or worse.
“What about you?” I asked.
“Methamphetamine,” Cope replied proudly, taking two long puffs and then stubbing the smoke out on the top of butt mountain. “Me and Vic are runners. You want another drink?” he asked, picking up my empty glass.
“I do,” Charlene interrupted, dropping the label in the ashtray.
“Does it make you hallucinate?” I asked, as Cope signaled George for another round.”
“What?” Cope asked.
“Speed. Does it make you see things?”
“Only if you don’t get your sleep. It’s a clean drug.”
A new dancer came out on the stage.
“Coppers know you?” Cope asked.
I shook my head. “I’m careful.”
“You don’t look like a dealer,” he said. Then the stripper caught his eye. “Look at that!” Cope yelled, jumping to his feet, thrusting his hips at the stage. “How about me baby? You think you could take it all?”
Charlene yanked on his arm, telling him to sit down.
“What’s wrong with showing a little appreciation for a wonder of the world? What do you think, Maddy?”
The girl’s boobs were bigger than her head. Her eyes swept across the faces in the crowd and then they lighted on me. She smiled and before I could stop myself, I smiled back. Cope caught the exchange and jabbed me in the ribs.
“Look at the way they stand up like jelly moulds. I’d mount those babies if they were mine. I’d build them a shrine,” Cope said. Then he turned, tweaking Charlene’s nipples. “Yours are getting saggy. You better start wearing a bra.”
“Fuck off.”
“So what do you think, Maddy?” Cope asked.
“What?”
“The girl.”
I glanced the other way.
“Oh, come on, I saw you smiling at her.”
I looked back at the stage and then down at the table. “She’s okay I guess.”
“She’s more than okay.” He pulled my chin up. “Look at her. You don’t see them that fresh too often.”
When I went beet red Cope jumped.
“I think Vic’s new girlfriend is wet for the dancer!”
“I am not!”
Cope threw his hands up in the air like I had a gun on him. “What’s wrong with pussy bumping? That’s my favourite kind of action. Right honey?” He kissed Charlene’s ear. “It’s a whole new scene and I think it’s hotter than fuck. What could be better than watching two girls go at it? Or better yet, you ever have a ménage Maddy?”
I didn’t understand and was too scared to ask. He stuck his tongue out and then rubbed his crotch. “Ménage à trois. Two girls. One guy. Very liquid.”
I didn’t want to have sex with a guy and didn’t want to see any liquid.
“Or it could be two guys, one girl. For the more adventurous man.”
“You’re a pig,” Charlene said.
“I’m a sexual adventurer.”
“I’m a free spirit,” Charlene replied.
“I don’t care about that stuff,” I said, as George arrived with two Zombies. “I’m only interested in business.”
“Really?” Charlene asked.
I nodded, sucking on the straw while Cope stuck his face down Charlene’s top, telling her breasts that they were the finest specimens in the whole wild world.
Charlene corrected him. “It’s wide world.”
“Not with me, baby. With me, everything’s wild.”
Then he started talking to her breasts again. Charlene pretended she was mad, but I think she liked it. I liked Cope too. Sure he was a pig, but he was the first person who talked about girls being with girls like it wasn’t something perverted that belonged in a mental hospital.
Vic walked back into the club, straightening his tie while his eyes scanned the place. Satisfied no one was watching, he squeezed into the seat beside me, and with a grin that could split the moon said that Hermann had scored. Cope and Charlene yelped in unison, thrusting their fists into the smoke like triumphant gladiators.
“You want to come along?” Vic asked.
Dad might still be looking for me and I could always come back later when it was safe. “Sure.”
Vic tossed down a twenty and didn’t even wait for the change.
A maroon Ford Mercury waited on a side street. Cope strutted towards the car, flicking the long tails of his black leather coat like a peacock showing off its plumes. He and Charlene climbed into the back seat and Vic told me to get in the front. There was a yellow parking ticket under the windshield wiper. Vic snatched it up and tossed it into the back seat. There must have been a hundred of them back there acting as mats. Old coffee cups were wedged between the dash and the windshield. Vic rammed an eight track into the holder, shoving the silver gear shift into drive as T. Rex’s “Bang a Gong” boomed out of the Mercury’s windows. He put the pedal down and we burned rubber up Yonge.
Taking a hard right on Gerrard, the car blew over the tall viaduct that spanned the Don River. Shallow and murky, it snaked down to the lake through a snarled valley of high grasses and the twisted remains of abandoned grocery carts. Charlene tossed her cigarette butt out the window and asked Vic why I was there.
He looked at me, then stretched his arm across the back of the seat like he was reaching, but it was up to me if I wanted to get caught or not. It reminded me of the sex game with Kenneth in the trunk of the car –a bit of me for a bit of whatever Vic wanted. Cope said Vic couldn’t get his penis up, so that meant I could control things. Sliding across the seat, I snuggled up beside Vic. He kissed the top of my head, wrapping his big arm around me, squeezing me tight.
“She’s mine,” he replied.
And from then on it was like we’d always been together.
“Hermann runs speed with the Paradise Riders,” Cope said, as we hit the Danforth.
“We’re the bag men. We run dope to street dealers,” Vic added.
Charlene filed her nails. “Hermann’s just tracked down a new chemist in Quebec.”
“He cooks the meth and most importantly,” Vic said, handing me a lit cigarette, “the RCMP don’t have a lead on him yet.”
Cope leaned over the front seat and honked the horn. “As soon as a lab is up, the narcs usually know within a month or two.”
“Hermann’s smart. He’s always ahead of the law,” Charlene said, a dreamy look on her face.
“But he’s mean,” Cope added. “You don’t want to get on his bad side.”
Vic said that you had to have brains and muscle if you were going to be successful in the dope racket and Hermann had everything covered. Charlene talked about Hermann like he was a superhero –the Batman of speed. But there was something in Cope’s tone that made me wonder if Hermann wasn’t more like The Joker.
We cruised around lower Riverdale in the Mercury for a good half-hour, making sure we didn’t have a tail. Next we got out and walked down the streets, checking out cars containing strange men who looked as if they didn’t belong there.
“How come we’ve got to do this?” I asked.
“Undercover narcs,” Vic replied.
Uniformed cops had occasionally come by and threatened to arrest me, Lily and Gabe for vagrancy, but Vic and Cope were being followed by an entire branch of
the police force. It was thrilling.
Once Vic decided it was safe, we walked into an alley that led to a long line of garages. Cope banged on a scuffed metal door about a third of the way down. A muffled male voice asked who it was.
“Cope.”
The voice said to come in by the side.
It was the strangest garage I’d ever seen. There was no lawn mower, hedge clippers or toboggans. A checkered sofa was shoved under a narrow window and a fridge buzzed loudly in the corner. A well- muscled guy with cropped blond hair, jeans, a tight white tee and polished cowboy boots sat in the centre of the sofa, closely examining a bag of sparkling white rocks.
“That’s Hermann,” Charlene whispered, getting a slight catch in her voice.
Hermann reminded me of a snake coiled on a log –tense and ready to spring. Another man, burly with a bald head, kept throwing a knife at a dart board. Then he’d walk over, pull the knife out and do it over and over again. He never missed the bullseye, and I never got his name.
Hermann opened a cigar box on the coffee table, removing a syringe and spoon, and filled the syringe from a glass of water. The needle reminded me of Dad’s Demerol. Like a scientist, Hermann dropped several white rocks into the spoon, carefully dousing them with water and mashed the speed into a paste. Other than the steady thump of the knife, it was quiet like church.
Once the rocks dissolved, Hermann tore a tiny bit of white filter from a cigarette, dropped it into the speed, placed the needle on the filter and drew up the liquid. He wrapped a thick belt around his bicep, holding it there until the middle vein in the crook of his arm popped up. Once the needle had slid into the skin, Hermann pulled back on the plunger and a ribbon of red backed into the syringe. I’d never seen Dad do that and I’d seen him administer lots of shots.
“Why is he doing that?” I asked Vic in a whisper.
“It’s called flagging and you do it to make sure you’re in the main line. Otherwise you can get an abscess and rot your arm off.”
I’d read about mainlining in Dad’s magazines. It was the big vein that junkies used. Hermann drew back a bit more blood, let go of the belt and pushed the plunger down. After a moment his face flushed and the odor of chemicals shot out of his nose –that and the smell of green apples.