by Peter Kocan
When he was a couple of blocks away from the Miami he came to a park with a duck pond and some benches. He sat down to rest his shaking legs, glancing over his shoulder every few moments to reassure himself that he was in the clear. He looked at the water of the duck pond reflecting the clouds, at the grass, the trees, the paths, the rubbish bins, the bits of litter on the ground. Traffic passed.
It was all strangely distant and horribly close and real at the same time. The youth would have gone into the Diestl mood to make himself impervious to everything, but the Diestl mood was all used up for the moment. It was like an inner battery that needed time to recharge. He wished he could just go to sleep and not wake up until the battery was full again.
He counted his money. He had enough for a couple of meals. He thought he should maybe eat something now to keep himself going. He went across to a shop and bought a sausage roll with tomato sauce. As he came out of the shop a bus went past and he suddenly thought that he’d need bus fares, so had better be even more careful about what he spent. Then he wondered where he would need to go by bus and realised there was nowhere. He went back to the bench and ate the sausage roll and spilled sauce down the front of his shirt. Then he began to walk in the direction of the city centre.
The shop windows interested him as always and he mused to himself about a dozen and one things—an ornate lamp in an antique shop, a big photo display of a Bavarian beer festival at a travel agency, rockmelons piled up in a pyramid, ladies’ fashions, kittens for sale. You could have a lovely time, walking for miles past shop windows, thinking your own thoughts. It was people who spoiled it, all the people walking in the opposite direction and giving you the Oncoming Look. The youth wished there were one-way footpaths, like one-way streets, with everyone going the same way and nobody having to look anyone else in the face.
He got to the downtown area and stood on a street corner for a long time unable to decide which direction to take. He thought he should probably go back to the main railway terminal. There was no reason to go there, except that the atmosphere was always tinged with human distress and your own distress didn’t seem quite so pressing. He decided to walk in the opposite direction.
He wandered into the business area. There were big old-fashioned sandstone buildings with heavy timber doors and brass plates, and there were ultra-modern ones with glass fronts that let you see right into the lobbies. There were banks and insurance companies and government departments. They had an air of weight and importance. The youth wondered what went on inside them. The people in the street were the kind of people who worked in those places, confident-looking men in nice suits and well-groomed young women who left a whiff of perfume behind in the air when they walked past. There were posh cafes where those kinds of people sat having lunch. The youth stood outside one of the cafes—it was called a bistro—and watched some of them through the glass. At a corner table just inside the window sat an elegant blonde woman and a middle-aged man. The woman had a tiny bowl of lettuce in front of her and was picking at it with a fork, using the fork to make graceful motions in the air as she spoke. The youth had noticed her because she had a slight look of Grace Kelly. He watched them talking and wondered what it would be like to be one of those people. He tried to imagine himself going in and sitting down and ordering something. If he was invisible he would go in and stand next to the blonde woman and the man and listen to their conversation. He often thought about what he’d do if he was invisible. Sometimes he imagined the sex things he could do, like perving at girls in the shower, but mostly he thought how being invisible would mean you could learn about the world and the way things were. You could go unseen into these big important buildings, for instance, and learn how the world operates and the secrets of everything.
The youth realised the couple was staring at him through the glass. They looked annoyed. The man made a sharp gesture with his hand and said something. He said it with very clear lip movements, the way you would if speaking to a deaf person. It was “Get away!” The youth hurried off, feeling shaken. He thought he was watching them from the corner of his eye in a manner they wouldn’t notice. It was shocking to find out that people were aware of you when you didn’t think they were. It made you feel completely unsafe.
After a while he came to an intersection. On one corner was an imposing building with a row of columns along its front and the words STATE LIBRARY carved on it. The youth suddenly thought of King Harold and the Anglo-Saxons. The library would have lots of books about that. Here was the chance to get the whole story! He crossed the intersection and went up a grand flight of steps to the columns and then to a set of huge bronze doors that stood open.
There was a lobby with marble floors and a high elaborate ceiling and a wide staircase. The youth normally would have been intimidated by the grandness of it, but thinking of King Harold had given him courage. He went through the lobby into a reading room and stood amazed at the size of it. There were four levels of bookcases running right around the walls and the top three levels had balconies with quaint narrow stairs leading to them. There were about twenty long, heavy, polished tables where people sat reading or writing or just leaning back with their hands behind their heads. Big skylights in the roof made the light almost like daylight, except beautifully softened and quietened. And there was a strong aroma of the paper and ink and binding of so many books, and of so much old polished wood. He went to a chair at one of the emptiest of the big tables and sat down and looked around for a few minutes taking note of how people were behaving. Everyone was quiet and minding their own business. The only talking was an occasional low murmur from the people at the central counter. The youth began to relax. He left his bag on the chair and went to the nearest shelf and scanned the spines of the books. It was the Botany section. He went along the shelves, looking for History. He climbed one of the quaint sets of stairs and wandered along the balcony and looked out over the wide expanse of the room and breathed in the calm air and the good aroma.
He turned to the shelf behind him and saw a set of identical blue-covered books. They were the complete works of Charles Dickens. The youth had never read any Dickens, but like most people he knew about a few of the famous characters. There was Oliver Twist, for example, who asked for more. And there was Mr. Scrooge who hated Christmas and got visited by ghosts. He took one of the books out and opened it at random and read a bit:
I was so young and childish, and so little qualified—how could it be otherwise?—to undertake the whole charge of my own existence, that often, in going to Murdstone and Grinby’s of a morning, I could not resist the stale pastries put out for sale at half price at the pastry cook’s doors, and spent in that the money I should have kept for my dinner. Then I went without my dinner . . .
The youth leant more comfortably on the balcony rail and adjusted the pages to the light and read more.
. . . two pudding shops, between which I was divided, according to my finances. One was in a court close to St Martin’s church—at the back of the church—which is now removed altogether. The pudding at that shop was made of currants, and was a rather special pudding; but it was dear, twopennyworth not being larger than a pennyworth of more ordinary pudding. A good shop for the latter was in the Strand, somewhere in that part which has been re-built since. It was a stout pale pudding, heavy and flabby, and with great flat raisins in it, stuck in whole at wide distances apart . . .
He stayed on the balcony reading random passages from David Copperfield until his legs became tired from standing, and then he took the book back to his seat and read for another long while. He’d never been so held by any book before. It was so real, so true, so fully understandable. It was understandable even when you didn’t quite know the meaning of some things, like what the “Strand” was exactly. There was so much that was funny and cosy and quaint, and yet there was this awful bleakness all through it too. You could feel the cold of that world and the pinch of misery in its guts.
It began to get late in the afternoon and he felt very hungry. He left the book on the table and his bag on the chair and went out and bought a dry bread roll and a small carton of milk. He took these back to the front steps of the library. It was quite high there and you could see out over the city. There was a large park next to the library and another imposing building away on the far side of it. The air was turning cold and the youth shivered and finished off the last of the roll and milk and went back inside into Dickens’s world, which was a strange far-off place and yet at the same time the actual world you were shivering in right now.
The daylight faded from the skylights high above. The electric light came on. The youth read some of the time and then to rest his eyes sat observing the people. There were enough of them to make the place seem occupied without being crowded. At eight forty-five a gentle voice came over a speaker announcing that it was fifteen minutes to closing time. The youth was one of the last to leave. A young woman librarian stood at the bronze doors to see people out. She wished the youth a good evening.
He stood on the library steps for a longish time, then began walking aimlessly. There was a long uphill street with many lights and flashing neon signs at the top of it. The youth went that way. As he got closer to the bright lights and neon he noticed women standing in doorways and at corners where dim side streets ran off. The youth kept his eyes averted and quickened his pace. He heard one or two of them murmur to him but he did not quite catch what they said. He felt horribly self-conscious. Just ahead of him a girl emerged from a doorway and drifted across the footpath. She was young and slim and wore a short skirt, black stockings and high-heeled shoes. The youth didn’t dare look directly at her, but he saw she had blonde hair cut short like a boy’s. She touched him on the arm as he drew level with her.
“Want a girl, love?” she said. For an instant they were looking straight at each other. The youth felt both stirred and stricken. The girl realised how young he was and stepped back. He strode on faster, then began to run, dodging around people. The momentary touch on his arm was still sending electric currents through him. He ran till he came to an intersection all garish with neon. He had to stop to wait for a break in the traffic and as he waited he tried to gather his thoughts. The women in the doorways must be prostitutes, and the girl who’d touched him had been offering to have sex. The youth didn’t understand the exact details of having sex, but the thought of hugging and fondling that girl filled him with desperate feelings. Then he felt enraged that she’d interfered with him like that. He’d always minded his own business! Couldn’t he walk along a public street in peace? It wasn’t fair! He should have given her a look of such utter disdain that she’d have reeled back as from a blow from the butt of a Schmeisser. Diestl would have. The youth let himself go limp in the shoulders and his gaze grew blank and distant. He felt the rage fading away into cold contempt. He felt the familiar weight of the Schmeisser. It was all very simple, the youth reminded himself. If someone was a real threat you killed them. And you did it quickly and without it being personal. If it wasn’t a serious threat you ignored it. The youth saw it clearly now. Like Diestl with that French girl from the farmhouse, the one who’d come to him wanting to be held because she was so lonely and scared. You just give them a blank look, then you limp on past them down your long road alone.
He walked on through the glow of the neon signs, past other women in other doorways. He came to darker, quieter streets and then the neon was far behind. He was in such a mechanical rhythm of walking that he didn’t want to stop, even though he felt tired. Tiredness was good. It tranquillised you. He realised he was back in the business area of town and that it was practically deserted. He began to make mental notes of spots where it might be possible to sleep. There were dark laneways that might do. He had a worn old piece of blanket in his bag, and the bag itself could be used as a pillow. In Diestl’s terms that was almost luxury. He let the Diestl mood slip off. It had served him well again, had got him through.
Passing a lane, he saw a building site a little way along it. There was a digging machine parked, and piles of debris, and what looked like a big wooden crate. He went along the lane. It was dark there, away from the street-lights, and he had to let his eyes adjust so he could examine the crate. It was empty, and big enough for a person to lie down in. He wondered if he was tired enough to settle in the crate for the night. A torch suddenly shone on him and a gruff voice asked him what he was playing at. The youth shielded his eyes and tried to see past the glare of the torch. Two uniformed men came forward. They were security guards.
“What’s your game?” one of them demanded.
“Nothing.”
“What’s in the bag?” the other asked.
“Nothing.”
“Out doin’ a bit of thievin’, are you?” said the first.
“No.”
There was a pause while they looked him up and down with the torch. He hadn’t tried to run away and he didn’t look like the sort of kid who wanted to be a tough guy.
“Piss off then,” said one of the men. “And don’t let us catch you skulkin’ round here again. Understood?”
The youth said he understood. He walked back down the lane to the street and passed the security company car at the kerb. He remembered that he’d vaguely noticed a car like that pass him in the street before. They must’ve had their eye on him, and had seen him turn down the lane. That was really scary. It made you feel you weren’t safe, not even alone in a deserted street at night.
Ahead, the youth saw the clock-tower of the main railway terminal. He went into the big hall of the country and interstate trains. There were a few people sitting about on benches with their luggage beside them. One small kiosk was still open and an occasional announcement came over the loudspeaker. He went to a bench and sat down. It was just after eleven by the big clock.
The youth felt hungry. He counted his money and found he could afford a sausage roll from the kiosk. He decided to wait. He noticed that there were two or three people lying on benches with bags or coats under their heads. He eased himself down full-length with his bag for a pillow. It was good to be lying down, but his mind was not at ease and he didn’t feel like dozing.
He came alert to the sound of shouting. The police were removing a drunk up at the far end and the drunk was yelling and trying to resist. They got him out and the noise died away. The youth saw that the kiosk had closed. It was cold and he would have liked to use his piece of blanket but thought it might make him look too much like someone using the station as a place to sleep rather than just waiting for a connection. He then saw that the policemen had come back into the hall and were speaking to people on the benches and asking to see their tickets. The youth got up and hoisted his bag and walked away as casually as possible.
He found a phone box in the park across from the railway terminal. The park was dirty and stale, but it was dark amongst the gnarled old trees and he couldn’t see anyone lurking about. The phone box’s light was broken and so there was nothing to draw attention to it there in the shadows. The youth went in and swept the floor with his foot to make sure there was no broken glass, then sat down. He couldn’t straighten his legs, and the shelf above his head made him keep his neck slightly bent, but he was by himself and out of sight and that was the main thing. He took his piece of blanket from his bag and draped it over himself. He became aware of a bad smell in the box. Like dogshit. He hoped he wasn’t sitting in any of it, and that it wasn’t getting on his piece of blanket. But he felt too tired and cold and cramped and depressed to care all that much.
He wasn’t aware of sleeping but he must have dozed for long periods in between his twisting attempts to find a bearable way to sit. The dawn light was seeping into the park. He had a splitting headache and his whole body ached, especially his knees, neck and backside. He felt conspicuous with the light brightening, and there were increasing sounds of traffic. His
mind was sluggish and he could not think where to go. He needed some food, and a drink of water. He decided to go back to the station. The daily bustle would be starting now and he could mingle with it. And there was a toilet there to use.
On the park benches nearby sat several derelicts. They were old-looking and had dirty overcoats on, and broken shoes with no socks. The youth glanced at them from the corner of his eye, then looked away in case he was giving offence. One of them got up and lurched towards him and began to speak in a harsh, gravelly voice. The youth was scared but forced himself to glance up as though he wasn’t too bothered.
“Go on!” said the man. “Go on!” He was staring at the youth with raddled eyes.
“Sorry?” the youth said.
“Go on! Get out of it!” the man almost yelled. He loomed closer. “Go on, get out of it! Yer only young! Yer don’t want this!” He waved his arm, taking in the whole park, or maybe the whole city. “Get the fuck out of it! Go and have a decent fuckin’ life!”
The man swayed for a moment, then walked on unsteadily, his broken shoes scuffing the ground.
It took a couple of minutes before the youth could get his legs to work properly. He hobbled to the station toilet and splashed water on his face and drank a little out of his cupped hand. A man with his face all lathered was having a shave at the next basin. He boomed a cheery good morning and the youth muttered good morning back. The man wanted to have a conversation about how good it felt to be alive, but the loudness of his voice echoing in the tiled lavatory made the youth’s head hurt. He felt so hungry he could hardly bear it. He went across to a kiosk and asked for a sausage roll. A young woman behind the counter snapped that he’d have to wait until they were ready to serve. He sat down on a bench and waited. A bit after six o’clock he went back to the kiosk and got a lukewarm sausage roll and ate it too quickly. He’d have liked to get a small carton of milk too, but he didn’t dare spend the money.