Skin Folk

by Nalo Hopkinson

  There was a spry old couple who usually took an early-morning walk in the park, a brisk stride along the paths that wound through the trees. They brought stale cake in greasy brown paper bags from a pastry shop, and scattered crumbs for the birds as they walked. Sometimes they sat on a bench near to his, enticing the birds to peck from their open hands. “Look, Thomas,” he heard the old woman say once, “that pigeon there; that’s old Helga, I’m sure, the one whose broken wing you set? She’s come along well, hasn’t she?”

  He took care never to make eye contact with the couple.

  City Central Library was a huge, squat structure, nine floors high. Two stone creatures guarded the steps to the entrance, a griffin and a sphinx, weathered wings outstretched in what had once been majesty. Now, their stern faces were obscured by the bird fæces that had been drizzled down their heads by the gulls that roosted there. He didn’t understand why the city went to such great lengths to protect the filthy creatures.

  The mail room of the library was a musty, sprawling storage room in the basement. The heavy white enamelling of the stucco walls gathered dust; he spent a lot of time scrubbing at the years of dirt that had gone unnoticed by previous employees. Delivery trucks offloaded directly from the back door, large boxes of books, new library materials, magazine subscriptions. When he was done sorting the mail he would load it onto wheeled book trucks for each department. He would deliver them upstairs twice a day to the supervisor of each department: Media/Technology at 9:30 A.M. and 2:30 P.M.; Arts/Humanities at 9:45 and 2:45; Languages at 10:00 and 3:00; Children’s at 10:15 and 3:15. He was never late. The supervisors were friendly, in an offhand way: “Hi, Stryker. Keeping well?”

  “Yes, Miz Grady.”

  “That’s good. Just put the box over here.”

  Mostly they didn’t much notice him. People didn’t. Except sometimes. Mrs. Herbert in Children’s had let him have a poster to tape above his desk, a glossy picture of a little freckled girl flying against a backdrop of stars that formed words. He liked her mischievous grin and the knowing look in her eyes. “Books let your imagination soar,” read the poster.

  Some mornings he reached the park very early, before any of the parents had brought their children to school. It was quiet then, except for the birds. The park was always full of them, even in winter. Raucous starlings disputed the best spots on the power lines. Tiny house sparrows squabbled in the branches. There was even the occasional lurking crow.

  In the mornings, as the wind whispered in the leaves of the old oaks, maples, and weather-twisted crabapple trees, people would walk their dogs in the park, picking up their pets’ steaming excrement in plastic grocery bags. He approved of the cleanliness bylaw, but didn’t see how the dog owners could bring themselves to touch the steaming, foul waste, even through a layer of protective plastic.

  The park was a favourite spot for people practising Ta’i Chi, retirees trying to keep their joints limber. He’d become accustomed to the slow, crane-like gestures that they performed in unison, arms sketching strange patterns in the air while they bent their legs in a series of odd, consecutive movements. He was sure it didn’t do them any good. The movements were too slow for any real exertion, and most of the exercisers were so old that they seemed near death anyway. But there they were, every morning, a gaggle of undignified eccentrics wearing old cardigans, loose pants, and soft slippers.

  Some of them were loners, he’d noticed. One man always stayed off to one side of the main group, flapping his outstretched arms through a mysterious warmup. A bowed old Asian lady with one blind eye went through the movements with a plastic sword in one hand, a ridiculous instrument with a feathery yellow tassel hanging from its pommel. If that wasn’t peculiar enough, she brought her pet with her, some kind of hunting bird with a wicked beak. It clutched her right shoulder as she swung about, bating its wings for balance. The bird stared all the time, as though if it looked at everything hard enough, it could make up for her unseeing right eye.

  This afternoon, Stryker left work promptly at 3:45. He wormed his way through the rows of book trucks in the mail room, packed high with books to be returned to other branches, and slid out through the basement door. He’d been feeling restless and irritable all day—for weeks, in fact, but today was particularly bad. People had been bumping into him all day, as though they didn’t see him. Even Mrs. Herbert in Children’s hadn’t greeted him as she normally would. It always happened. Sooner or later, everybody would walk all over him, like soil on the ground. Dirty. The tension was building up in him, it was starting to seep from his skin like ichor, thick and green, a sullen poison that would need to be leached soon.

  Today, he took the quickest route home. Needed to be home. His apartment building was an old, low-rise brownstone, four floors of small, stuffy one-bedroom apartments with sealed windows and no balconies. He climbed the stairs to his fourth-floor unit. It was the easiest way to avoid striking up conversations in the elevator. He locked and barred his door behind him, removed his shoes in the entranceway, carried them immediately to the bathroom sink, where he washed them, inside and out, with soap. He dried them and applied a new coat of polish to the leather. Then he placed them just inside the front door, ready to wear the next day. He washed his hands three times, fronts and backs, and cleaned under his fingernails, too. There. That was a little better.

  By now, the restless, irritable feeling had built to an almost delicious tension. He was leaking it.

  Now. He took a plastic grocery bag from a drawer in the kitchen. Went into the small, orderly bedroom. Neatly made bed. Tiny dresser in the corner, no mirrors, no decorations. Reaching under the bed, he pulled out the shoebox. Now. Cross-legged on the bed, he opened the box. Took out the photographs. Fanned them out on the bed in front of him. His little pretties, his little birds. Plump Angelica, eight and a half, Toronto, September 1990; flighty Pauline, ten years old, Edmonton, December 1992; pouty Barb, nine years old, Vancouver, July 1994. Now. The images flashed in his mind; smooth, hairless chests, soft as down. The sweet bite of rope into flesh. The soft cries. Now. Now. Yes. He unzipped the fly of the cheap jeans. Reached in. Freed the Snake. He wrapped the grocery bag around his stiff penis, took it in both hands. Closed his eyes and let the pictures in his mind flow as he drained the sticky poison. Now. Now. Yes.

  He was going to have to move on soon, as soon as he’d made a new addition to his collection. He always moved immediately after doing that. He hated the inconvenience of it, but he was on edge all the time now. He had to do something about it, as he always did. After that, find another town, another cheap apartment, live on his savings for a few months until he’d found a job. By now, he had the sequence down pat. Two months’ notice to the building superintendent. One month and a week after that, give two weeks’ notice at the library. Be gone a week before the superintendent expects him to. Soon. As soon as he found a way to get what he needed. In the meantime, he rented a van under the name of Charles Coral, presenting Coral’s driver’s license and smiling pleasantly for the clerk around the cotton wadding in his cheeks. The fake moustache tickled his lip. He’d get rid of the false I.D. along with the van, afterwards.

  But it was long weeks before the opportunity came. He had just made his last delivery to the Children’s department one afternoon and was pushing his truck back towards the elevator when he heard a girl’s excited voice. She was talking to a librarian at the information desk.

  “… you mean, Gabrielle Singer is actually going to be here? At the library?”

  “Yes,” replied the librarian.

  “No way! She’s my favourite writer of all time!”

  “It’s a March Break program. She’s going to be reading from her last book, you know the one?”

  “Madeleine Feldman, Girl Astronaut? Oh, that’s the best story! Especially the part where the girl, you know, Madeleine? The part where she saves the moon colony from blowing up? Gabrielle Singer is going to read from that?”

  “Next Wednesday, s
even o’clock, in the auditorium. It’s free.”

  “Oh, I have to be there!”

  Stryker casually stopped the truck behind one of the shelves of books, picked something at random off the shelves. The Tale of Henny Penny. He opened it, pretended to be reading it. Then he turned his head to look towards the information desk through the open rows of books.

  It was his Samantha, his little chicken. His hands started to shake. He flicked his tongue out over and over to lick his dry lips. Stay calm. He replaced the book and kept on about his rounds, but his mind was working hard, planning the details. This was perfect. He’d have to cut his notice short at the library, but that was easy. He’d make up some excuse like a sick mother he had to nurse. Same excuse for his building superintendent, maybe even get his deposit back if she took pity on him.

  Next Wednesday he’d finally be able to talk to Samantha, stand close to her, have her to himself for a little while. It couldn’t have been better. He imagined that she had come here today especially for him. Sweet, flirtatious dove. A week to wait. The time would just crawl by.

  At first he thought he would miss his chance. He’d come back to the library at 8:30, when the reading was supposed to be over. He waited behind the stone griffin, where none of the library employees would see him. The summer sun was just beginning to set. His heart fluttered when he saw Samantha skipping out the door, but she was laughing and chatting with two other girls. He couldn’t speak to her with them watching. Mad with frustration, he had already turned away when he heard Samantha say, “Look, it’s Old Helga! Mr. Peck fixed your wing up real good, didn’t he, girl? I still have a cookie left from the reading; would you like some?”

  He turned back to see his girl crouched on the library steps, hand held out to a pigeon in front of her.

  “Come on!” urged Samantha’s friends. “We can still catch the ice cream shop before we have to go home.”

  The bird cocked an interested eye at her and waddled closer. She took a cookie from her pocket and began crumbling one edge of it to feed the bird. “You go on ahead,” she told the other girls. “I’ll be right there.”

  “You and your old birds,” one of them said. “Well, we’re going.” Arms held out like planes, the two girls swooped down the library steps, startling a flock of house finches in front of them.

  “They can be such poopy-heads,” Samantha whispered to the pigeon. “Laura always does what Katy says. Come on, Helga.” She let the crumbs fall to the ground. The bird came closer, started pecking them up with one wary eye on her.

  Stryker looked around. No one was watching. He walked up to the girl, touched her bare shoulder. “Samantha?”

  She frowned up at him. “Huh? My name is Patty.”

  Mistake. Make something up. “I’m sorry. They told me inside… well, don’t you want to get Gabrielle Singer’s autograph?”

  Patty shot to her feet, making the pigeon step back with a surprised burble. “No kidding? She’s giving autographs?”

  “Yes. It’s a… special signing. Downstairs. I’ll show you where.”

  “That’s so cool. Those guys will be so jealous!” The girl brushed the rest of the cookie crumbs off her hands, waved at the ruffled old bird. “Bye, Helga. See you again soon.” She followed Stryker around the back of the library, chattering happily about how good the reading had been. He opened the basement door with his key, escorted her inside. The lock clicked behind them. She turned to him with bright eyes. “Where’s the signing going to be?”

  He pointed behind her. “There.” Now! She turned, he muffled her mouth with one hand, wrapped his other arm around her torso. The skin of her arm was velvety as down. He picked her up, but she struggled, kicked, nipped viciously at his hand. It hurt. He hissed, pulled the hand away.

  “Hel—!” Patty shouted. He quickly clapped his hand to her mouth again.

  “Sshh, little one, little bird. Stop fussing now. I’m not going to hurt you, I just want to spend some time with you.”

  She fought, kicked some more, tried to scream against his palm. He held her firmly, loving her squirming warmth against him.

  “They won’t hear you down here anyway. The walls are too thick. Don’t make me mad now. You wouldn’t like me mad.”

  Her eyes went wide.

  “Will you be good?” he asked her.

  She nodded. Slowly, he let her go, but she bolted for the locked door, screaming. Bad, bad girl. It was easy to knock her to the floor, secure her hands behind her with the duct tape in his pocket. He took his time with the gag. He’d told the truth about the walls being soundproof. He’d experimented himself, turning up his radio to full volume as he worked. No one had ever complained. No one to hear her, no one to see him drag her into the van, waiting at the loading dock.

  He wished that she could sit beside him as he drove. It would be nice to go for a drive with his girl, but he couldn’t chance a passerby seeing the gag. He apologized for putting her in the back of the van, but he’d made it nice and comfortable, lined it with blankets, a soft nest. He took a minute to look at her before he closed the door. So sweet she looked. He told her that she wouldn’t be in there for long.

  He could hardly wait. His whole body was humming with triumph. He felt drunk on power, on anticipation, barely able to focus on the road ahead of him. He’d made her notice him. These were the moments he lived for. He took the road that would lead to the outskirts of the town, was zipping along, happy as a lark, when he saw the turnoff for the park with the adjacent school playground. He went warm with nostalgia for the hours he’d spent in that park. And it extended for acres, was practically a woods as you went farther out. The park would be the perfect place, their secret bower. He drove into the park, the empty, quiet, dark park. Once there, he doused the headlights. The van coasted almost silently; the clerk at the rental place had boasted that it would. He drove until the road became crunching gravel, then a narrow, hard-packed dirt path; kept going as the path gave way to scrub and shrubs that whipped the underside of the van as it clambered over them. It was getting more difficult to manœuvre the van now. Small birds, spooked, flew up out of the underbrush as he passed. He imagined those that hadn’t gotten out of the way in time; their small bodies would be popping like grapes under his wheels.

  There. Over there. The van would just fit inside that stand of trees. He drove it in amongst them, parked. Shut the engine off. He could almost hear his heart drumming. Soon. He sat for a bit, breathed slowly, felt his body go calm, cool.

  He took the camera out of the glove compartment, slid out of the van, opened the back doors. She was so pretty, lying there with tears streaming down her soft cheeks, her bosom heaving, tiny cheeping noises escaping from the duct tape gag. Her nose was running too. How disgusting. But this had happened before, with other darlings of his. He used some tissue from the box he’d stored in the back of the van just for mishaps like this one. He wadded it thick so none of her snot would touch him, and lovingly cleaned her up, though she tried to yank her head out of his hands.

  What was that clicking sound? A soft tap-tap-tap, like birds pecking at crumbs. He put the tissue down and peered through the stand of trees, looking back the way he’d come. In the dark he could just make out two people coming down the path, arm in arm, walking carefully, as the elderly do. It was the old couple that walked the park in the mornings. They moved purposefully, scrawny limbs pumping in jerky, almost avian motions as they made their way closer. Shit! What were they doing out in the woods this late at night? Bloody busybodies probably spent their time beating other lovers out of the bushes who just wanted some peace and quiet. Stryker went utterly still, trusting in the dark camouflage colours of his clothing and the van. Aging eyes wouldn’t make him out, aging ears wouldn’t hear Samantha’s soft noises.

  But they kept coming. He had to distract them. He quietly shut the doors on Samantha. She would stay put, she had no choice. He unzipped his fly, turned, and made his way to the dirt path. He stepped onto the path a
head of the couple, zipping himself up as nonchalantly as possible, just a guy out for a walk who’d stepped into the bushes to take a piss. He feigned startlement, embarrassment when he saw them, nodded in their direction.

  The old man glared beadily at him. Stryker attempted a smile, a nod, just a neighbourly greeting. He felt his lips pull back into something more like a snarl. “Evening.” He’d never been good at the niceties. They nodded back, silently. “Nice night for a stroll,” he ventured. “Peaceful.”

  “Yes,” they said, in unison.

  Damn, they just stood there! He hoped they wouldn’t spot the tire tracks. He couldn’t do anything that would draw their attention over to where the van was. He moistened his lips with his tongue tip. “I’ll just be on my way back, then.” He tried to say the words cheerfully.

  “Yes, we must too,” they chorused.

  Stryker brushed past the two. He swore he could feel the warmth of their bodies. He strolled back down the path, back the way he had driven a few minutes earlier. Were they turning to follow? Yes! Oh, soon, little chick, I’ll be back for you soon!

  The park was restless tonight. A capricious breeze made the branches of the trees flap fitfully, as though they would take flight. Stryker kept walking, forcing his feet into a slow, aimless glide. It seemed as though he’d been walking, carefully calm, for hours, but he was still only a few hundred yards from where he’d nested his van. Suddenly, a shadow swooped across the path, stopped directly in his way. He squinted into the dark, trying to see what it was. He didn’t believe his eyes: the old, half-blind bag with the fake sword! She was holding it en garde, motioning with the other hand for him to stop. She must have weighed all of ninety pounds. He hissed his amusement at her, made to slide past her—and cried out as the blade struck with a horrible thud, biting deeply into the warding arm he was holding up. Pain burst like lightning through his body. Tonight, the sword was real. And she handled it with a master’s ease. Incredulous, he clutched at the gash with his uninjured hand, curled the damaged arm against his body. It was already erupting blood in dizzying amounts. He couldn’t move his fingers. He was in agony, he felt sick. He started backing away from the woman. She cocked her head at him, focused with her one good eye, and prepared to swing the sword again. Swallowing bile, he turned to run, and stumbled straight into the arms of the couple.