The Beggar's Garden

by Michael Christie

  Rick could have any job he wanted because he’s sharp. He does our laundry and he made a copy of the key to the gas-station bathroom and he gives himself homemade tattoos with a guitar string and gets really mad whenever he thinks somebody is ripping us off. Rick is from Halifax but he never was a fisherman. He never set foot on a boat, he says, and besides there’s more fish at your average pet store than in the whole goddamn ocean these days because of those big Japanese fish-vacuums he told me about. But he’s not lazy. He’s been a roofer, a car parker, a painter, a tree planter, and he once worked at night mopping at a big twenty-four-hour hardware store. But now he just goes to WorkPower with me, which I’ll tell you about later. He even used to be married but his wife left him because she was a rotten witch. She got everything, he says. Everything was his house and his kids and all his stuff that he bought with hard-earned money. He even had one of those trucks with four tires on the back. He talks about it sometimes when he’s falling asleep after he’s had some cans of the beer with lots of X’s all over it. Rick says I’m lucky I can’t taste the beer. He named it swill, even though I can tell he likes it because it makes him a mix of confused and happy and tired.

  Near the end of the month, when the disabled money and the money we get back from Baldev runs out, we get up at six in the morning. Then we put on our steeled-toe boots and bike to a place called WorkPower to stand in line to get jobs. Sometimes it’s unloading boxes from trucks, or tearing copper wires out of buildings nobody wants. One time we had to carry blocks of ice from a truck to a freezer in a fish market and the gloves they gave us were thin as the butt of an old pair of underwear. Rick wanted to tell them where to stick it so bad but if one of the bosses complains to WorkPower they won’t let us back. I like WorkPower because every time it’s different but Rick doesn’t like it because he thinks it’s shit work. I ask him what shit work means and he says anything that makes you feel or look like shit.

  One day after me and Rick got back from a whole day of picking up cigarette butts on a construction site, Baldev came down the stairs from his part of the house, where at the top there is a door that doesn’t lock on our side but does on Baldev’s side. It’s always locked, I’ve checked.

  Rick asked Baldev who the hell he thought he was. He said, You can’t just come down here without properly notifying us, it ain’t legal.

  Baldev nodded like he thought so too and said he had a thing to tell us.

  Rick stuck his hands in his armpits and told him to go on and say it.

  I am changing, Baldev said. My friends I cannot be able to give you this money-back deal in the future.

  Rick got the vein in his forehead that he gets when he thinks he’s getting ripped off. It’s shaped like one of those sticks that finds water.

  So sorry, Baldev said. This is because the property taxes that we have, they are going up.

  Well what if the city finds out this here ain’t exactly a legal suite? Rick said. But I didn’t want Baldev to get in trouble for the basement, he has three or maybe four kids who I hear stomping around upstairs and he has a wife who cooks food that smells good in a way like no food I’ve ever ate. I told Baldev we wouldn’t tell on him.

  You must vacate if you are wishing, my friends, Baldev said, ignoring me and what I said. Then he went up the stairs and I heard the door lock.

  Rick kicked some of our stuff around for a while but he wasn’t that mad because when I told him everything was going to be okay, we’d just work a little harder, he started laughing. Then he said we’d have to go back to WorkPower every day this week if we wanted to eat. I told him I didn’t mind shit work as long as my disability worker didn’t find out I wasn’t as disabled as I was supposed to be, that I could carry boxes and pick up cigarette butts, and then stopped giving me my cheques. Rick said they wouldn’t find out as long as I kept my mouth shut for the rest of the night. Then he rode his bike to go buy some beer with lots of X’s on it because he can’t go to sleep early without at least a few.

  The next day, we were in our steeled-toe boots on our way back from cutting weeds as high as our heads at a place that sells motorhomes beside a highway. We had money in our pockets and we went to get some burgers because Rick said he was too damn tired to cook anything on the hot plate.

  You eat your hamburgers too fast, Rick said, you can’t even taste them. I told him I taste them good enough, but we both know I can’t really taste anything too good because on account of my brain being disabled. But sometimes Rick acts like he’s too much of the boss so I have to set him straight. If you’re wondering why my brain is disabled it’s because when I was born it didn’t get enough air because there was some problem with my mom or the way I came out. My mom said they knew right after I came out because the doctor poked me on the feet with something sharp but I didn’t care. Then he put lights in my eyes but my eyes didn’t really care either. The doctor just frowned, she said. Most of the time I forget it’s damaged. Maybe it’s too damaged to know it’s damaged. Or maybe it’s not damaged enough for me to notice. Either way it’s not very bad.

  Rick always leaves his burger wrappers and his tray on the table. He says he doesn’t want to take away the people’s jobs who clean up, but I throw his out for him because I think they’d still have jobs but just do less if everybody pitched in more. While I was at the garbage, a guy was talking to Rick. He had nice clothes like a disability worker and had one of those pocket telephones in his hand. He talked the same as Rick. Because Rick’s from Halifax, he says burr or guiturr when he tries to say bar or guitar, but he can turn it off when he wants. He’s really good at being me too, which is funny for a while then makes me mad if he acts too much like a retard because I’m not. Rick told the guy we were working in construction but I could see the guy looking at the long pieces of yellow grass still stuck in my hair. I got bored of their talking so I went to the bathroom and drank out of the tap.

  When we rode our bikes home Rick said him and the guy had gone to high school together back in Halifax and the guy had gave Rick a card with his name on it and said he should call him if our construction jobs slow down because now he was working for the movies and they needed some extra people for a movie that they were making. It’d be a lot easier than WorkPower believe me, Rick said, but I didn’t believe him because bad things always happened whenever Rick got happy about something.

  In our basement he said he always thought he might be in the movies then he asked me to grab him another of the beers that we keep in a bucket of water outside so they’re more cold. The rest of the night I had to listen to him practise talking normal, like not saying burr or guiturr. Then he put on the classic rock station, which is music that is older and everybody agrees is pretty good, while he did the kind of push-ups where you do the clap in the middle or just go on your knuckles.

  After waiting three days Rick called the guy from the pay phone at the gas station where we take dumps. Rick came back and hugged me and said we were going to have a party because he had just got us both jobs as extras.

  I asked him what extras were.

  He said they were the people in movies who stood around in the background and made everything seem more real just by being there.

  It seemed like something we’d be good at, but I was still worried. I’ll do it, I told Rick, as long as I don’t have to say anything because I can’t talk or remember very good because of my brain being disabled and Rick said no problemo.

  That night, during our party, Rick drank lots of beers and threw our steeled-toe boots out on the lawn. Then he went up the stairs and pounded on Baldev’s door yelling about room service. I told him to stop because it was three in the morning and he’d wake the kids and they probably had to get up early and go to school. He did what I said and came back downstairs. He looked at his pictures of the rotten witch for a few minutes, then started sleeping.

  The next day Rick said we needed some nice clothes because they wouldn’t want to film us if we looked like shit.

&nbs
p; I don’t think we look like shit, I said, and I stuffed my hands into the pockets of my favourite orange hoodie that I was wearing because there was white parts on the sleeves from me wiping my nose on them.

  We just have to make sure they don’t think we’re bums who don’t deserve the job, he said, but luckily we saved some money for just this kind of occasion. Close your eyes.

  Why, I said.

  I’m making a withdrawal from our emergency fund, he said.

  I faked shutting my eyes and saw him reach for the pineapple can he’d hid behind an old dartboard, which I already knew was there. He pulled out some money and put some back.

  Okay, he said.

  We biked to five different second-hand stores to get some clothes for our new job as extra people. Rick got a white shirt that was only a little yellow around the collar, some black pants, some shoes he called loafers, and some shades. I just wanted another hoodie, but he made me get some nice jeans and a T-shirt with a collar on it that had a little picture of a guy on a horse holding a sword in the air like he was going to kill somebody. In the change room, Rick switched the tags on them so they were only two bucks each. But the old lady was nice and didn’t make us pay for them anyway.

  The day came, which was good because Rick said we were out of money and we had to eat some doughnuts out of a dumpster on our way downtown to the movie place. When we got there, a woman made us wait in a room with a whole lot of other extra people, who were either reading magazines about movie stars or had their ears to their pocket telephones. Some were making appointments to be extra people for other movies and some were talking more quiet to their families and friends.

  After a while, they took us into a big room with lots of clothes on racks where we waited some more. Then they brought our costumes. I took mine out of the plastic bag and didn’t understand it. One of the clothes ladies had to help me put it on and I was embarrassed because she saw my underwear. I put my golfing shirt on a hanger and she hung it up. The costume was just bits of fur glued to this dirty net made out of canvas that hung off me like a bathrobe made out of a chewed-up dog. I also got these leather boots that were like moccasins, except they had these little blinking lights on them.

  What the hell is this? I heard Rick ask the clothes lady when he got his, which was like mine but he had a helmet and these big black plastic horns coming out of the shoulders.

  She talked with pins in her mouth and said it was his costume.

  What kind of person wears rags and furs and horns and shredded-up leather? Rick said.

  She said this is a movie that takes place in the future.

  Rick wanted to know how in the hell that explained anything.

  I hadn’t been working in movies very long but I had already learned that when a movie person doesn’t like what someone else is saying they just walk away from them and that is exactly what the costume lady did, which made all shapes of veins bulge under Rick’s helmet.

  After everybody was dressed up they took us back to the waiting room.

  How do you think they know what people are going to look like in the future? I asked Rick who was reading one of the movie-star magazines.

  Maybe they’re just taking a guess, Rick said.

  I always thought the future would look like the Jetsons, I said.

  He turned a page and went humph.

  Then we waited more in the waiting room.

  Do you think we’re getting filmed right now? I asked Rick.

  No, they’ll tell us when that happens.

  Okay, good, I said, because I didn’t feel like I was from the future yet. Actually I was too bored to feel anything. Plus I guess I was mad we had rode our bikes all day and spent our emergency fund on our party.

  I think this is shit work, I told Rick an hour later. I’d rather carry ice blocks.

  Then Rick told me to shut up so I kept talking about nothing really just to prove he wasn’t the boss.

  I felt better when it was time for lunch and we went outside to these big trucks that opened up and had kitchens inside. Us and the other extra people had to line up and wait which was okay because sometimes me and Rick waited for sandwiches at the Gospel Mission so I’m used to it. Rick said all the real actors had food brought to them in their trailers. I told him it was sad they had to live in trailers.

  I asked the guy in the truck who had a beard and that knotted rope kind of hair to give me as much food as he could because I was starving. He laughed and piled my plate with all different colours of food. Can you believe this? I said to Rick when we sat down, but he was watching the star actor who was sitting with a pretty lady wearing sunglasses and an important-looking fat guy who had an old-fashioned hat on his head. Even with my disabled brain and my dead taste buds, I could tell this food had never even seen a can. There was lots of fish and different salads, which I don’t like much but ate anyway because I didn’t want to get fired. I went back up twice and ate so much my rag-and-fur future costume got tight and started to rip a little which was okay because you couldn’t tell because it was already ripped.

  After lunch, we went back and waited in the room for a long time. Then they said they were wrapping something up and I thought maybe we’d get a present but they just told us to come back tomorrow.

  On the way home I asked Rick if he wanted to get some beers to celebrate.

  Rick said this wasn’t the kind of job where you get paid at the end of the day, we had to wait for our cheques.

  How long will that take? I said. I was worried more about having money to eat than I was about drinking any beers.

  Dunno, Rick said, could be a while.

  Then I realized my disability worker would find out I wasn’t disabled when I cashed my cheque.

  Don’t worry, Rick said, I gave them a fake name instead of your real one and we just sign it over to me and I’ll cash it for you. Until then, we’re gonna have to live off the lunch truck.

  That’s all right with me, I said.

  We went back every day for a week. Then another week. Rick said we shouldn’t ask about our cheques because they’d think we were desperate. I said, aren’t we? and he said, not yet we aren’t.

  Our job was to wait in the room for them to call us. We got more used to our future costumes and didn’t even bother wearing our nice clothes anymore because nobody really cared, we were all the same anyway once we got dressed up. And some of the other extra people had worse costumes than us like heavy fur robes, fake beards, hats made out of scratchy sticks. It made us feel grateful for ours. I was eating so much at lunch mine barely fit me anymore and I was scared to ask for a bigger one even though they had hundreds more in the other room.

  Those nights in our basement Rick didn’t talk, which was weird because before he was always putting different complicated plans together like a football coach. He didn’t even want to play cards, and usually he hated it when he didn’t have any beers to drink but now he didn’t seem to care. He did lots of push-ups and went to bed early.

  Then one day right after lunch the important fat guy with the hat who I found out was the Assisting Director came into our waiting room and told us finally that they needed us. This was how the movie people talked, they always said they needed something when from as far as I could tell they more just wanted it. He said they were going to need to have this big explosion in the middle of a street that they had closed down. Then he said he was going to need some people to lead our charge and he started looking around the room. Rick made himself taller and put on his helmet. You, the Assisting Director said to Rick, and you and you, to some other people. Come with me, he said, and they went to the other side of the room. I was happy he didn’t pick me because I was worried about tripping over my rags and ruining the movie, but then I was scared I would do something even more stupid without Rick there to tell me it was stupid.

  Then the Halifax guy came to the rest of us and told us our motivator which is like our reason for living. He said we were these hungry, starving people
who were trying to get into where some space stuff was so we could take over the spaceships and get back to our planet where there was lots of food and it was also the place where our families lived. It made no sense to me but I looked over at Rick and now that he was one of the leaders he was taking it really serious. I need you to think starving, Halifax guy said to my group and I saw a lady suck in her cheeks. I’d been hungry lots of times in the past, like the time when Rick lost all our money on the way home from the bar or when we had to send money to Rick’s dying sister in Halifax or when we had to buy extra things like our bikes, which Rick got off this guy he knew and were really expensive because they are some of the best racing bikes you can buy. So I just tried to focus on those times but it was hard to believe in my motivator and think starving right after three plates from the lunch truck.

  After somebody came to make sure our costumes looked good enough, they took us through some hallways then outside to a street that they’d made to look all burned and wrecked like something really, really bad had happened. There were trucks and movie stuff everywhere. I could see five different cameras and there were tons of people standing around like on the edges of a football field.

  They had us wait around more. Then the Director started talking into one of those loud-talking horns. Okay everybody we are only going to do this one time, he said. He was sitting up high on a crane. Someone came and told me to stand in a place. There were lots of us and everybody got their own place. I tried to see Rick but I couldn’t see him.

  Then all of a sudden I heard Action! and we were all running in a big pack and someone was yelling GoGoGoGo. I was trying not to fall down and my heart was beating like one of those loud things that breaks up the pavement and I started to get a cramp from all of the food that was bouncing around in my belly. A woman ahead of me screamed and tripped over her big stick that had a bird skull at the top and I had to jump over her because if I helped her up I thought I would ruin the movie. Then there was this loud boom behind us and I felt heat go on my ears. I turned and saw the whole front of a building go on fire and there was little bits of stuff flying everywhere and all I could think was that I hoped Rick was okay.