by Cathi Bond
“Maddy, please stay.”
Her fingers held on tight, not letting me go. For a moment I so wanted to. Then I thought of them playing on the lawn, a perfect family like we’d once been. There was a balance to our lives back then, a delicate natural balance that couldn’t be disturbed or else it would implode. Look what had happened when Mom died. It was hard to imagine how something so strong could ultimately be so weak. Dad was better now, the boys were happy, and if I went home – kaboom! Bits of a fine family scattered all over the manicured lawn. And how could it not? I was a dyke. That’s who I was. That’s who I’d always been, and I wasn’t going to bring pretend boyfriends home for roast beef dinner and then play race around the back seat of a car while they tried to make out. The thought of it made me sick. I wanted to meet a girl. No, I had to meet a girl –a girl who wanted me just the way I wanted her. I needed to get on that train and find out who I truly was.
“I’m sorry, Aunt Anne. I just can’t.”
Her fingers relaxed as she released me.
“Promise you’ll call if you need me.”
“I’ll be fine.”
The conductor whistled.
“Last call for Toronto. All aboard!”
“Promise!”
“I promise. Thanks for taking care of me.”
Then the whistle sounded and the train hissed as the engine gathered steam. I ran for the railway car, handed the purser my ticket and flopped into an empty seat, determined not to look back, but I couldn’t resist. Aunt Anne stood on the platform in her work pants and flannel shirt waving goodbye. I smiled and waved back, but the second she was out of eyeshot I began to cry.
CHAPTER NINE
“Follow me,” the manager said, expertly navigating through the customers to a booth at the back. The clatter of dishes and loud conversation was deafening. Murray’s was one of the busiest eateries in town, crammed with hungry university students lured in by cheap but tasty food. I’d seen a sign in the window advertising for a waitress and came in to apply for the job. The thought of cleaning up dirty dishes was a drag, but I had to start somewhere.
“I don’t have any experience, but I’m a quick learner.”
The manager took a sip of coffee, thoughtfully stroking his beard as I quietly nudged the bag of clean clothes under the table. Had he noticed? I had to find a place to stow my stuff.
The manager drummed his fingers on the table, taking another sip.
“And I’m a hard worker,” I added.
“Alright,” he said, setting down the mug. “We’ll start you bussing and take it from there.”
I thanked him and shook his hand. He told me to come back in the morning.
“Without the garbage bag,” he added.
The sidewalk on Bloor was busy with shoppers and students. Murray’s was located on the main floor of the Park Plaza hotel, across the street from the museum, the same museum where Dad had found me begging. I had a job, now I needed a place to stay. Rooming houses were close by, but I remembered how lonely they were –another place I didn’t fit. Rochdale was just up the way. Maybe someone was looking for a roommate. At least I’d be with people I sort of knew.
Everything had changed. The dorks were gone, replaced with intimidating bikers who, like trolls under a bridge, demanded a toll to travel up into the tower. The rest of the lobby was packed with people there to watch Deep Throat, a movie starring some girl called Linda Lovelace. Posters claimed she could perform erotic feats no one in the history of cinema had ever achieved before. The man’s name was Harry Reems, and I overheard somebody say that his dick was a fake.
“How can it be a fake if he gets a hard-on?”
Rochdale felt so different than that first day with Mary. Back then it was all about peace and love, but there was nothing peaceful about bikers and Deep Throat. A dog started humping another underneath the poster when someone threw hot coffee on them and laughed. The bitch howled. There was no way to see who burned the dogs because the crowd was so thick.
A short guy, who must have been one of the owners, pushed his way through. “Why’d you do that?”
“Because I wanted to.”
There was something familiar. The movie crowd, spooked by the howl, began to mill and shift. A biker in Paradise Rider’s colours stood by a coffee urn, holding a Styrofoam cup. At first I didn’t recognize him, but when he looked up, there he was and he’d seen me too. Hermann dropped the cup and started punching his way through the crowd. I dropped my garbage bag of clothes and ran.
Halfway across Bloor, dodging cars and trucks, I turned. Hermann was gaining. Pushing through people, I bolted into an alley, leaping over piles of trash, splashing through puddles and out onto University Avenue. A yellow cab idled in front of the museum. Hermann was still behind but I’d made up a bit of ground.
“Yonge and Dundas!” I yelled, jumping into the cab, locking the door behind me.
“You got any money?” the cabby asked, casually slinging his arm over the front seat.
I slammed down the lock on the front passenger door just as Hermann’s pulled on the handle. Furious, he smashed his fist onto the windshield.
“You don’t want that guy in here!” I yelled. “Go!”
The cabby squealed into traffic while Hermann thumped the trunk, waving for another cab, screaming and shaking his fist. I asked the driver to roll up his window. I didn’t need to hear what Hermann was saying. I already knew what he’d do if he caught me.
The meter read $1.55. I handed the driver a tip.
“Don’t tell anyone where you dropped me.”
I slipped into the doorway of a closed camera shop and tried to breathe. Once I caught my breath I peeked out. No Hermann. Head down, I walked down the street, running up the stairs of The Green Door. Ivan wasn’t there, only Helen and Lily sprawled out on sofas reading fashion magazines. Helen was wearing thigh-high rhinestone boots and a glittering silver lamé halter top, and this time her hair was blue.
Lily jumped up, searching my arms for needle marks. When she saw they were clean she actually kissed me. Lily doled out affection like my family. Rare and spare.
“Hermann’s after me.”
Lily wasn’t happy anymore.
“Who’s Hermann?” Helen asked.
“You don’t want to know,” Lily replied, snatching her purse. “I’m taking the rest of the night off.”
“Ivan’s not going to like it,” Helen said, rubbing her hands back and forth, copying Ivan. “This is a serious job ladies, with serious responsibilities.”
Even though I was scared, Helen made me laugh.
“What goes up, must come down,” she added.
I didn’t get the joke, but Lily roared. “Tell him I’ll see him tomorrow. Come on,” she pulled me out the door. “We’ve got to get Gabe.”
I hid behind a rusted dumpster near the parkette where the alkies hung out, trying not to think about rats. A Harley roared by. Gabe was surrounded by a cluster of his drinking buddies –rumpled, boisterous men with round, bright cheeks and noses red with exploded capillaries. A tall Indian named Big Man opened a bottle of Aqua Velva, the blue aftershave lotion the winos drank when they didn’t have money for real liquor. I tried it once, and it made my head knock when I walked.
Lily was trying to talk Gabe into coming home, but he kept yelling “No!” trying to snatch the Aqua Velva. Big Man swatted him out of the way. Lily grabbed Gabe’s arm and he slapped her. Not hard, but enough to attract unwanted attention.
I darted out. “Hey buddy! How’s it going?”
Gabe looked at me. At first he wasn’t sure who I was.
“Cookie?”
My eyes bounced around like ball bearings in a pinball machine. A sedan slowed, familiar speeder faces staring through the cracked windshield. Somebody pointed. I turned, hiding my face.
“Yeah, it’s Cookie. I’ve got a bottle.”
The other winos perked up. Gabe wrapped his arm around me. His breath smelled like rubbing alcohol.<
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“Just for me, right?”
“That’s right. But we gotta go.”
Gabe roared, “I got women, and I gotta bottle!”
“Get outta here,” Big Man said, spitting on the pavement. “I’m sick of your face.”
Gabe got feisty, waving his fists, but Lily and I each seized an arm, pulling him away.
“I got women!” he crowed back as the three of us hurried up the street. “And I gotta bottle!”
Lily closed the bedroom door and walked into the living room. She’d saved enough to rent a large one bedroom in a sprawling new apartment complex called St. Jamestown. St. Jamestown was built to attract young swinging singles, but the elevator had been full of immigrants and their children.
Lily and Gabe’s unit had a panoramic view of Lake Ontario. Lights from bobbing oil tankers flashed against choppy whitecaps. Lily had decorated the apartment with modern furniture. Everything was as white as her hair: the sofa, chairs, walls and broadloom. A large photograph of a sexy woman holding a vacuum cleaner hung over the sofa.
“General Idea,” Lily said. “One of my customers sells modern art and he said it would be a good investment.”
Lily was buying art?
“You should take Gabe to Emergency.”
He’d vomited blood nearly all the way home. Lily kicked off her shoes, massaging the balls of her feet.
“I think you’ve got enough of your own shit to deal with.”
Same old Lily. Nobody could take care of Gabe except her. I sat down beside her, patting my thigh. My legs felt thicker and stronger. I’d put some weight back on thanks to Aunt Anne’s cooking. Lily swung her feet into my lap while I rubbed between the toes.
“Have you ever seen Hermann around The Green Door?”
“Never.”
“Yonge and Dundas? Anywhere downtown?”
“Nope.”
That was good news. Still, it was stupid dangerous for Hermann the way he’d been out in plain sight at Rochdale. Sane, careful Hermann would never have done that.
“You can stay with us. But you have to pay food and rent.”
Aunt Anne’s money wouldn’t last long and I couldn’t go back to Murray’s.
“And you’ll have to share the pullout with Helen.”
Helen was definitely pretty and we’d be sharing a bed. She said she was asexual but nobody really gave up on sex. That would be impossible.
“Maybe she can show me around the scene.”
I didn’t even know what a gay bar looked like.
“Does that mean you’re admitting you’re a lezzie?” Lily asked.
I absolutely hated that word. Lesbian. It sounded like some kind of fungus. ‘You’ve got a nasty case of lesbian. You should get some cream for that.’
“I’m a dyke,” I replied. That word sounded strong.
Lily wriggled her toes and stretched her arms. “I don’t care about sex. I want to buy a house.”
I stopped massaging her toes. “That’s so weird.”
Lily stopped wriggling her toes. “Why?”
“You’re too young.”
She snatched her feet out of my hands and sat up. “I want a home.”
“Why?” I asked, looking around the apartment. “This is beautiful.” Mom would have approved.
“I want a real home. And a house is a home.” Then her face clouded over and she stopped talking. Lily did that sometimes. Just shut down and there was no turning her back on.
“I’m going to bed. Do you need a toothbrush?”
I nodded.
“There are extras in the linen cupboard and a couple of tee-shirts.”
“Okay, ’night.”
Lily had extra toothbrushes? I pulled out the sofa, put on a borrowed tee-shirt and turned off the lights.
The lock tumbler clicked. Helen slipped into the room and began to quietly undress, shiny rhinestone boots toppling over. There were no blinds –only Helen’s naked silhouette flickering against the lights of the city. I turned on the lamp.
“Did you make a lot of money rubbing old pervs?”
Helen pulled a tee-shirt over her head. “Were you staring at my tits?”
“No.” Yes I was. I sat up and lit a cigarette. Helen brushed her hair.
“I thought you might be Hermann.”
Helen set the brush on the glass coffee table. “Is he really that bad?”
“Worse.”
She walked towards the bathroom. “Then why don’t you turn him in?”
Water rushed as the bathroom taps turned on. Clearly Helen had never had a gun held to her head. She walked back in, drying her face. Without any makeup Helen looked young, vulnerable and sort of sweet.
“If you’re too scared to go to the cops, why don’t you just go home?”
She sat down beside me and lit a cigarette as I stubbed mine out. Helen had curvy legs. I lay down, hoping she’d take the hint.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why don’t you just go home?” she repeated.
“Because I can’t,” I snipped. “And will you please put out that cigarette? I need to get some sleep.”
Helen gave me a “you’re so strange” look, but put out the smoke and fell onto her back. I switched off the light and could smell her perfume.
“So what are you going to do?” she asked.
“Sleep.”
“You can’t just lie around all day.”
“I’ll get something.” I didn’t much like the hint that I was lazy.
“Do you have money?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t believe you. What kind of job are you going to get with Charles Manson after you?”
“Who asked you?”
“Don’t get all bitchy.” Helen rolled onto her side, looking at me. “If you could get a job, what would your dream job be?”
“Is your dream rubbing pervs?”
“Fuck off,” she replied, rolling away.
Now I rolled towards her, jabbing her in the ribs. “I mean it. Why are you doing it?”
“I’m saving for a professional makeup kit. I want to work in the movies.”
That made sense. Helen was obviously into transformation. Every time I saw her she looked different. I moved closer, thinking about the time I cupped Charlene’s boobs.
“I bet you’ll be good at it.”
The room stilled as Helen’s breath slowed.
“Were you really gay?” I asked, shifting my thigh near hers. “Before you went asexual.”
She moved her thigh away. “I thought you were tired.”
“How did you get rid of it?” My hand lightly brushed hers. “The gayness.”
She pulled her hand back. “I have better things to do with my life.”
Than love? Maybe somebody hurt her like Ginnie. Or maybe it was rubbing the men.
“Have you ever been to a gay bar?”
“Of course.”
“Will you take me?”
“No.”
I touched her arm. “You asked me what my dream was. It’s to go to a gay bar.”
“What a stupid dream.”
“Come on. I want to meet a girl.”
“Maybe,” she replied, sounding fuzzy, nearly asleep. “When it’s safe…”
I fell asleep smiling. I knew Helen liked me because she never moved her arm.
I sat on The Steps disguised in Helen’s blue and white polka dot dress and a bright red cardigan. Three weeks had passed and my money was gone, but at least there’d been no sign of Hermann. Helen had done my makeup that morning and laughed the whole time while Lily giggled. Only Gabe understood the indignity. He sat beside me rocking back and forth like an abandoned ship. He must have lost twenty pounds since I first met him and had taken to cocking his head the way dogs do when they’re trying to understand. The doctor at the emergency room warned Lily that Gabe had suffered a lot of brain damage and advised treatment, but Gabe wouldn’t go and Lily didn’t want to press the point.
> “You got any money for old Gabe?” he asked, giving me his sweetest smile.
I shook my head as Gabe picked up a smoldering cigarette someone had just thrown away.
“Don’t,” I said, knocking it out of his hand. “You don’t know where it’s been.”
Gabe just picked it back up. His spiky white beard had yellowed and milky clouds floated over his eyes.
“Can you see okay?”
“Better ’n ever.”
He probably had cataracts. Two girls dressed in McDonald’s uniforms walked up the street. A new franchise had opened and a HELP WANTED sign hung in the window. My job at Murray’s would be gone by now, and besides, I couldn’t work out in the open. Eventually somebody would see me and tell Hermann. Dad always told me to keep my options open, but most of mine were closed.
“Looky looky!” Gabe chirped when the girls came near.
The girls glanced at each other and hurried past. Who were they to look down on us? Mom would have thought working at some fast food joint was no better than being chained to a stove, cooking for hired hands. A sigh slipped out.
“Why so blue?” Gabe asked.
“Money.”
Gabe smiled and stuck his hand out, palm up. I shook my head.
“No more begging.”
“Pogey?”
I shook my head. No way I’d go on welfare.
“That’s what it’s there for.”
“Never!” I said, snatching the butt out of Gabe’s mouth and throwing it onto the street again.
“Jeez, you and Lily’s got more pride than Queen Elizabeth.” Gabe pointed at The Green Door. “The money’s good and it’s respectable.”
No it wasn’t, but there was no choice. At least I’d be tucked away at The Green Door –safe from sight. A truck rattled by. Lily said nobody from the street ever went up there. My gut knew it was shameful, but no one would ever find out. It would be my secret. And besides, all things being equal, wasn’t it better to rub men for money than end up dead?
The dingy rub room was painted blood red and dimly lit by a series of flickering red candles. Dad would have called the place a fire hazard but Ivan said it was all about ambience. Naked except for a towel wrapped around his waist, Ivan hopped up on the bed and lay face down on a single mattress that stood on a tall platform with wobbly wooden legs.