Night Town

by Cathi Bond

  We didn’t leave the apartment for two days, only getting out of bed to eat or use the washroom. Lily said we were offending Gabe.

  “You ain’t offending me,” Gabe replied, sitting down in the chair to watch as Helen quickly pulled the sheets up under her chin. “Reminds me of the time we got hookers on the ship.”

  “I’m taking you out for breakfast,” Lily said, pulling Gabe to his feet. “And Ivan wants you both back today,” she added, slamming the door behind them.

  I rolled over, resting my head on Helen’s belly as she stroked my hair. We did need to get back to work, but I didn’t want to leave.

  “Let’s go in tonight,” I said, kissing her belly.

  “What are you going to tell him?” Helen asked.

  “It was a bug and now it’s passed.”

  She leaned down, kissing my forehead. “You know, we don’t have to give notice. It’s not like Ivan would give us any.” She ran her hand over my breast. “Let’s just stay in bed.”

  I rolled away, confused. “What are you talking about?”

  “Quitting. My makeup kit is pretty much done. What do you think you’ll do?”

  Hold on. “I never said I was going to quit.”

  “You intimated.”

  Big vocabulary. “No I didn’t. I don’t have any money. What do you think I’m going to do?”

  She jumped up and started smoking. “You knew how important this was to me and you lied!”

  “I didn’t lie.” But I sort of did. I knew Helen’s guard was down after all the dancing, but I thought if we made love she’d give up on the silly asexual business. Boy, was I ever wrong. Helen took her gayness very seriously.

  “I should have known,” she said. “You lied to get me into bed.”

  “I thought you changed your mind.”

  “Because you’re so hot? You’re just like one of the johns.”

  Oh that was low. I punched the pillow. “What am I supposed to do?”

  Helen and I ran up some stairs of a government building, ducking beneath the awning. She’d decked me out in some of Gabe’s old clothes: a pair of ripped pants about three inches too short, a moth eaten coat and wrapped a tensor bandage around my wrist. Hard pellets of sleet began rocketing out of the sky.

  “Tell them your boyfriend beat you up and you’re afraid for your life and you can’t go home. Better yet, tell them that you’ve got a baby to think of.”

  “What if they want to see it?”

  “Tell them that you and the baby are starving and have nowhere to live. They’ve got to give you money. That’s their job. They’re the government. Then we can figure out what you want to do.”

  Two ladies ran up the stairs behind us, arm in arm, likely to keep from slipping. The shortest of the two glanced up, her hair was red. I pulled Helen around so the ladies couldn’t see us.

  “What are you doing?”

  I hid my face and ducked, facing the wall. “That’s my aunt.”

  Helen tried to turn but I held her fast. She didn’t like it, but she didn’t move. We huddled together, while Aunt Anne and the lady talked by the doors. I could only hear bits of what they were saying, but obviously they were friends. Aunt Anne said something about them having dinner later that night at The Plaza. The other lady, a nice looking woman with short blond hair and a dark trench coat, squeezed Aunt Anne’s hand, telling her to have a nice day, and then Aunt Anne hurried back down the stairs –presumably on her way to the hospital. Her friend disappeared into the building. The same building I was going into –the Welfare Office.

  Helen pulled away. “Why didn’t you introduce me?”

  I gestured at my clothing. “Like this?”

  “She’s an old dyke.”

  “No she’s not.” Yes she was. I thought back to our conversation in Granddad’s kitchen about how you don’t have to act on the impulses, and how women who do don’t always have the happiest of lives. Maybe Aunt Anne was acting on them, only she was acting on them in secret. Maybe she had no choice.

  “Are you ashamed of being gay?” Helen asked.

  “No.” But I still worried they might lock me up for being a pervert. I knew I was gay and it was good for me, but I wasn’t too sure about the rest of the world. The rest of the world thought we were sick. It was safer to keep it private.

  “Want some company?”

  “No.” Welfare was shameful enough already. I didn’t want Helen to see.

  “Tell them your boyfriend beats you up. That always gets extra money.”

  I was way more concerned about running into Aunt Anne’s friend than I was in getting the money. She might work in the Welfare Office. I thought about leaving but didn’t have another choice. Not if I wanted Helen. She walked down the street, disappearing around the corner as I reluctantly followed an older couple into the building.

  The sign over a desk read: INFORMATION. A woman sat behind it. Relief –she wasn’t Aunt Anne’s friend who might know my name, or at the very least might know Dad’s last name, and make the connection. She’d call Aunt Anne who’d come over there and see me dressed in rags, begging for money.

  The woman behind the desk handed me a form and pointed to a room on the left. “Take a ticket, fill this out, bring it back and wait. Someone will call you shortly.”

  The room was crowded. Young couples, broken men, disheveled women and confused immigrants sat in a room full of pale pink chairs. The walls were plastered with ad posters for Manpower and other ads encouraging young people to seek careers in the trades. Two little kids bounced a red and white striped rubber ball back and forth.

  The form asked for name, age, prior work experience and current place of residence. I couldn’t put down The Green Door and there was no way I was putting down my experience in Dad’s office, so I checked off “None.” “Married?” No way. “Willing to relocate?” Not really. Not with Helen and me being together. Doing the best I could, I returned the form to the lady, who brusquely told me to set it in the tray. I went back to the waiting room. The clock ticked. An hour passed. There were no magazines. The tensor bandage was making my wrist sweat, but I didn’t dare take it off.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about Aunt Anne and her friend standing together on the steps. All they got to share was a secret little squeeze, not even a kiss on the cheek. That didn’t seem right, but that’s the way it was. When I looked back up at the clock, another half-hour had passed. Aunt Anne’s friend had to be a social worker. Aunt Anne’s life had always been about helping people, so of course she’d pick a girlfriend who did the same thing. I wondered what it was like for them when they went out for dinner or to the theatre or out with friends and family and nobody knew what they shared. Some people might suspect, but they’d never say it out loud.

  “Madeline Barnes?”

  A thin woman in a tweed skirt, striped shirt and sturdy shoes stood in the doorway holding a pile of folders. She wasn’t Aunt Anne’s friend.

  “I’m your social worker, Mrs. Allen. What did you do to your hand?”

  I’d forgotten about the tensor bandage. “Just a sprain. Nothing to worry about.” I’d decided not to go with Helen’s advice about being beaten up.

  “Come this way,” Mrs. Allen said, ushering me into a large room filled with small brown cubicles. She sat at her desk and examined my file. I took a seat and stared at the carpet. It was industrial grey and had a few coffee stains.

  “You don’t have any skills.”

  “No,” I replied, wanting to scratch the bandaged hand. This was so humiliating.

  “What would you like to do?”

  A man in another cubicle looked up from his work. The fluorescent tubes made his skin look green.

  “I’m not sure. I don’t want to do just anything.”

  “It’s hard to get anything other than menial work when you don’t even have Grade Ten,” she said, looking at what I’d written down about my education. “Why didn’t you finish?”

  It felt hot, as if the sun wa
s burning down. “Stuff happened.”

  Mrs. Allen picked up a beige binder and began flipping through the pages.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Possible places for you to look for work. If we’re going to give you welfare, we need to know that you’re actively involved in a job search.”

  Welfare –my entire body felt dipped in shame. Mom would die all over again. Nobody in our family had ever been on the dole. Not even in the Great Depression.

  “Can’t you get me a job I’d like?”

  “Not without any education.” She set the binder down. “Would you have any interest in getting your high school diploma?”

  “I don’t have any money.”

  “We’d pay for school, books, room and board. But you’d have to maintain a certain grade.”

  “Really?” recalling what Helen said about dreams.

  “We’re here to help people get back on their feet. And you’re only seventeen. You’re still a very young woman.”

  “Would it be high school?” It would be awful sitting in a classroom with fifteen year olds staring at me, but I’d do it if I had to.

  “Adult education.”

  “When could I start?”

  “We’ll process your paperwork and give you some money to tide you over. But we’re going to need your old high school transcripts.”

  I didn’t have them. Dad did. Another door slammed shut.

  Helen was busy with a client, Cindy was polishing her toenails and Lily had gone home early to see Gabe. I threw a magazine on the floor. Ivan leaned out of the wicket shouting for me to pick it up.

  “Pick it up yourself. And while you’re at it, why don’t you buy something new. I’ve read these ten times.”

  “You’re not getting paid to read. You’re getting paid to rub. And since you’re slow, go clean the rooms.”

  “I’m not the cleaning lady.”

  “I’ll pay you!”

  My arms were stuffed with used bed sheets and towels. Ivan was right. The rooms were filthy. The doorbell jingled, followed by footsteps. Helen was so mad that I wouldn’t call Dad for my transcripts that she refused to speak to me. She didn’t understand. Our family was expected to contribute to society, not leech. If you were a leech you were a failure, and if you were a failure they didn’t want to see you. You were a stain on the family name and you should go away and be forgotten. I had no dream like Helen, no way to contribute. At least nothing that was possible.

  Ivan shouted up from down below. “You’ve got a customer!”

  I tossed the used linen behind the bed, fluffed my hair and lit the candles. It had to be one of my regulars. I wasn’t in the mood, but I needed the money. Maybe Helen had saved hers, but I hadn’t because I wasn’t perfect like little Miss Helen. Heavy boots pounded down the hall. Luckily, I still had one fresh sheet left.

  “I’m in the room at the end.”

  The sheet billowed, slowly floating down. Hermann was standing in the doorway, wearing the same thin smile, thumbs hooked into the top of a shiny PARADISE belt buckle. When I tried to run, he kicked the door shut with his boot and grabbed me by the belt, tossing me backwards across the room. My head basket-balled off the glass as I hit the window, landing on the floor. Hermann stood over me, undoing his pants. The buckle dropped to the side.

  “You scream and I’ll kill you right now.”

  I cowered, hands over my head. “I never told them anything.”

  The teeth of the zipper chattered down. Hermann lifted me up by the hair. I held onto his wrist to keep it from tearing out. Then he threw me again, over the bed and into the opposite wall. My face smashed into the red screen, knocking it over as I flew by. Blood filled my mouth.

  “I kept my word.”

  Then Hermann was on me and I was trapped. He started booting me in the stomach and seized the back of my head. I tried to pull away, but he was too strong. If I screamed he’d snap my neck. He pulled his dick out of his pants.

  “Suck it!” He slapped me in the head again and again. “Suck it, you fuckin’ dyke.”

  He drew his hand back, high in the air, fist clenched, about to drive it down, when flames shot up the wall.

  The candles had fallen, landing in the pile of soiled bedding. The flames jumped from the cheap cotton sheets and licked up the plywood legs as the bed exploded into a ball of hot fury. It happened so fast, like a barn full of straw. Hermann stepped back as I rolled to my side and up on my feet. Open armed, he lunged at me, but his loosened pants made him stagger. For a moment he lost his balance, just long enough for me to grab the chair and whack him across the head. Hermann roared but didn’t go down, and he ran, head down like an enraged bull. Another wild swing of the chair, but this time Hermann got it, tossing it into the fire that was coming up fast, consuming the room. The walls and ceiling were aflame, but Hermann didn’t care. He just stood with the inferno closing in all around him and laughed. We were going to die this time. There was no way out. The door was on fire and Hermann blocked the window. Sirens sounded and Hermann charged, throwing me onto my back. The ceiling gave way, revealing a splinter of sky. Snow blew in as plaster and joists came crashing down.

  I rolled out of their way, but the main beam landed on Hermann, knocking him to the floor, pinning him like a butterfly. I jumped up and instinctively began to tug on the beam, but it was too heavy. Then I heard Helen yell. She was still in one of the rooms. More sirens. The window, the only way out, was getting thick with falling snow.

  Hermann reached out and gripped my ankle, trying to pull me into the fire with him. I heard Helen scream again as Hermann’s fingers dug in so hard it felt as if the bones were going to break. With my free foot I kicked him over and over and over again until he finally let go, and I vaulted over the beam, pushing open the window. As I jumped out, a raging fireball blew, taking the whole room with it.

  Fire trucks and police cars were arriving, their swirling red cherries sending beams of light through the snow. Ivan, the other girls and their johns were out front, some of them naked, staring up. Helen wasn’t with them. I ran across the fire escape towards the light of the last room. The whole building was on fire.

  Helen and the john were trapped in a corner. I opened the window and leapt in, snatching a sheet from the bed and another from the floor, soaking them in heavy, slushy snow from the windowsill. Running through the flames, I tossed the man a wet sheet.

  “Run!” I screamed.

  Wrapping himself up, he took off towards the window as the wall behind us collapsed.

  “Come on!” I yelled, bundling Helen in the other sheet.

  “I can’t!” she cried, frozen with fear.

  Now the room was more fire than air. There was no time for fear. Grabbing Helen by the waist I half pulled and half carried her through the red hot, as the other walls disintegrated into flames.

  The whole gang sat on The Steps as plumes of water from fire hoses shot into the sky. It was too late to save the building, but they’d stopped the fire from spreading. As an ambulance attendant applied salve and gauze to my arms I heard a fireman talking to a policeman. They’d found a body inside. Hermann was dead.

  “You’ll be fine,” the attendant said, securing the gauze with a piece of tape. “It’s only a slight burn. Just keep it covered.”

  I already knew that.

  He looked at me. “You were really lucky.”

  Spectators, the so-called good people, stood in the background staring at us. Ever since the murder of that newspaper boy, the public had been agitating. Things they knew nothing about were suddenly front page news, and now they wanted the Yonge Street strip cleaned up. They were so naïve. They had no idea what went on in their city. People talked about Toronto the Good, but I can tell you that if you had the money, Toronto was a sin city where you could buy almost any kind of kink.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Helen had gone to the only late night drug store for more gauze, but I just wanted to sleep. My cab pulled up at
St. Jamestown. I paid the driver and got out. Cindy had just exited the building and was clipping down the sidewalk, lightning fast for a girl on stilettos, especially when the concrete was slick with ice. I stopped. She didn’t slow. In fact, she looked upset.

  “You okay?” I asked. Cindy lived close by. She must have taken a cab home to tell Lily what happened.

  “I’m late.”

  That was weird. Cindy usually chatted. The apartment door was locked. Lily had an open door policy because Gabe always lost his keys. I dug mine out and unlocked the door. The living room was trashed. Lily’s prized General Idea photograph lay shattered, face up on the floor. Somebody had taken a knife to it. The blue goo from Helen’s lava lamp spattered the white walls and ceiling. Chunks of glass crunched beneath my feet like broken stars.

  Lily sat in the centre of the sofa, heating a spoon full of liquid over a candle. A syringe rested on the table beside a bag of white powder. Heroin. She must have gotten it from Cindy. It made no sense. Lily hated drugs. I sat down beside her as she rolled up her sleeve, hands shaking, crying like a little white kitten tossed out in the snow.

  “What happened?” I asked, looking around, wondering who would do such a horrible thing.

  “Gabe’s dead,” she sobbed.

  My body went cold.

  “Big Man killed him.” Lily set the needle in the spoon. The junk backed up into the syringe, as milky as Gabe’s eyes.

  “Don’t, Lily. Don’t do that.”

  “You understand.”

  I did. I tried to snatch the fit, but she just twisted away, holding the syringe as tightly as if it were a dagger. And then she did it. Lily, who never even smoked a joint because she thought it was stupid. Lily shot up heroin. She’d learned how to do it from watching me.

  The syringe missed the table and landed on the carpet as Lily fell back. Holding her close, I rocked her back and forth, feeling her body slacken and her breath slow. Getting stoned kills the pain and takes you somewhere else. I thought it was a place better than life, but that was wrong. When you’re high, you’re cushioned inside a syringe or bouncing around in pill bottles, separated by glass and plastic. Colours are muted, smells seem faint and feelings don’t burn as hot and bright. Drugs don’t turn you on, they just turn you down until the lines that uniquely define you simply fade away.