Glass Boys

by Nicole Lundrigan

  “Nothing wrong with cutting out, Wilda maid,” he said as he stopped near the stage and waited for her to jump off. He grimaced when the wind lifted her hair, and he saw the bruises on her cheeks, split bottom lip. He waved to his son, and Baby Mackie bounded up from the broad flake. “Ouch, maid. Who took der boots to ye?” Then, glancing up at Old Mackie, he nodded, said, “Lucky day, darlin’. ’Bout to aul ’er up for the winter.” Baby let her sit on the damp floor of his skiff, flattened kit bag beneath her backside, and she gripped the sides as they skipped and bumped over waves, skiff taking flight, striking water, salt spray coating her cheeks, stiffening her hair. Old and Baby understood she was leaving everything behind, and never coming back. And they didn’t blame her, wished her the best. No child would be untouched after having a mother like she had, and witnessing her father stumble so brutally into the afterlife. Most agreed Wilda was as good as she could be.

  She’d planned to keep traveling until she hit Florida or California or someplace warm. But she had little say in the direction of her journey. On the main roads, drivers slowed, eager smiles, and without any money she would oblige them with her small hands before accepting another fifty clicks of transportation or a night at Aunt Whoever’s, or a motel just off the highway. Sometimes food from a cardboard dish or brown paper. Once a silver dollar hamburger from the lunch counter at a gas station.

  Several days of travel, she headed south with a truck driver, and south some more with another, and then a bit east with a man and briefcase and a vacuum, and then south, and further east with someone named Dicky who had a wineskin that was always plump. “Wrong way,” she said or thought as she dozed, a hardened towel balled between her head and the vibrating window. Teeth clinking. But she never got out of the warm car that smelled of leather and cigarette butts and spilled whiskey.

  When she reached the city, she tripped onto a sidewalk and soon realized the folly of her plan. November was not a time to take flight. In those couple of days, temperatures had dropped, skeleton trees now lined the neat streets, and powdery snow was drifting into damp corners. She blinked with the glare of sunlight on the harbor, kicked Dicky’s car door closed with the thick heel of her shoe, and wandered. She had never been to the city, and she liked the bigness of the place. Each store window offering her something that might make her happy, from knee-high boots with zippers to oily fish and chips. But she didn’t have any money, only a handful of change in a drawstring purse, now coated with eye shadow that had opened when jostled about.

  She unzipped the bag, and the smell from the old coat, contained for days, assaulted her nose. Still, she slid it on, buttoned up against the cold, and walked quickly along the roads, thankful that the gusty winds tugged the odor away from her. Though she dared not admit it, she felt hopeful in this new place where nothing was known. Hopeful for the first time in her life.

  Bells tinkled when she entered the jewelry store, but the man with the gray flannel suit and his daughter in the sweater set never acknowledged her. She tried fine clothing, musical instruments, timepieces, lady’s shoes, yarn and fabric. But her inquiries were answered with clicking tongues, giggles, and once just a glare, shot out over the rims of lowered tortoiseshell glasses. Even in the shop where they sold milk, bottles of home made jam with cutesy labels, and lobsters carved from pine, the owner behind the counter shook his head, averted his eyes, covered his nose with the back of his hand. Said, “Maybe you should wash yourself first.”

  She roamed, taking a street here, a flight of stairs there, another street, moving further away from the water, her direction unknown. Pausing in the shadow of an alleyway between two buildings, she crouched and touched the tips of her shoes with cold fingers, stuck her nose into the prickly lapel of the coat. Closed her eyes, and inhaled that musty odor, the scent of dead animal, hint of rot. Well, maybe more than a hint. The air was a mugging, as though someone had clapped a dead hand over her mouth. But still, she accepted it into her lungs. The coat had belonged to her father. Along with the rest of his belongings, she found it stuffed in a box, abandoned in the barn. Water had seeped in around the clothes, handkerchiefs, his khaki housewife, and nourished an orange mold that streaked all the fabric. She noticed evidence that mice had resided in amongst the folds, and when her fingers slipped through a tear in the lining, the back of the seal pelt felt soapy. Wilda still wanted it though. Wanted to keep something that belonged to him and treasure it.

  When she was little, she would hide inside the coat. Opening the wooden closet with ill-fitting doors, she would step on old shoes and boots, worm her arms up and in, dangle, completely obscured by fur. Her mother might open the closet, jam her own coat or hat inside, never notice that Wilda had transformed. That there was a seal in the closet that was fatter and sillier. But her father would notice. Haul open the door, and she would hold her breath when he’d exclaim, in his melted way of talking, “Lor, Jays. Nev woulda fathomed.” Uncontrollable snicker when he squeezed the coat with his two big hands. “We got us-selves real live wilda-beast. Jessie, come see.” With that, her mother would strut over, yank open the front panels of the coat, surprise, child revealed. Smacks about the head. “Wilda Burry. Get your bloody arse out of there right this instant fore I tans your hide. Always at where you got no business.”

  When she stole it from the box in the barn, she didn’t allow an ounce of guilt to settle. It should belong to her now; it was an important feature for so many of her memories. Her father was always wearing it when she thought about him. Sliding down the back of Old Mackie’s land, the two of them on a long wooden sled. Making perfect holes with the auger, lying flat on their bellies, foreheads touching, watching fish nibble pale worms. When she arrived at the woodpile on any given blustery afternoon, he would always wink at her, then abandon his crosscut saw for the two-man. Memories like this made her glad, and she ignored the fact that she could not recall ever seeing the coat on his back. Or that he never did any of those things, and was long dead when she thought them up. But they would have been real, she was certain, if he had of stayed around. If, as her mother always told her, Wilda had gone to find help, instead of running off to play on the beach.

  Wilda dug into the pockets, found the bent cigarette she had pinched from whatever-his-name-was. Lit it, took several deep drags, let the smoke curl out from her nostrils, waft upwards. Her eyes watered, dripped. They were allowed to do that, as long as they weren’t crying. Picturing the store owners, she snarled into her knees, “I wouldn’t fuckin’ work for you if you paid me.” But what did she expect, with her sour breath and disheveled hair. Bare legs, mess of blue veins. Stench like a puffy carcass rejected by the water. She could hear her mother’s voice, and knew it was true. “You looks like something a mutt tossed up. And don’t even get me started on the smell.”

  Her mother was a seamstress, making skirts and aprons for the women in Teeter Beach. Wilda made no attempt to learn how to sew, not that there was much opportunity. She didn’t linger at home. Most days, after her few chores were completed, she was out strolling, along the beach, up and down the laneways, wasting her hours. She liked to play a game with her eyes, pretending to look at any disturbing scene in Teeter Beach, and see it a thousand times at once. Men hacking heads from fish, golden balls mistakenly severed with a scythe, a young boy screeching, his free spirit tethered to a stationary clothesline via an inhumane length of rope. She tried to turn a single image into a mass of them, all butting up against one another, each identical and now meaningless. Over the years, Wilda had learned that if she could only see through fly eyes, she would feel nothing.

  Visits to Eddie Quick’s shack helped with this illusion. Eddie told Wilda he was in the distillery business, but she noticed the majority of his product went to serve his own needs. Smiling, teeth like burnt twigs, he’d offer her Whiskey Daisies without the daisy, or in wintertime he’d give her a mug jammed with snow, liquor poured over the top. “Dat’s me famous Whiskey Shiver.” And he’d shake for effect. Whe
n she wanted more, Eddie waved his half a hand, three fingers lost to frostbite, cautioned, “Too much, and trouble’ll find ye.” Pincer grasp towards her chest. “They’s still there, mind you. Me fingers. Ye just can’t see ’em.” “Yeah, yeah,” she’d always reply. “Just like everything else.” He never expected much in return, just a few minutes’ work. “Let’s make it quick, Mr. Quick,” she’d slur as she pushed her hand past the band of his trousers, tugged and tugged.

  The day before Wilda left, her mother received a package of luxury fabric she had ordered to sew a fine dress for the rever end’s wife. Wilda untied the string, tore the brown paper off the box. Inside was a silky heap of material, aqua paisley print on a cinnamon background. She ran her hands over it, in among the cool ripples, and was certain it was a sin to clothe the over stuffed carcass of Mrs. Hatcher in something so divine. After smoothing the fabric on the kitchen floor, she lay on top of it, blue chunk of chalk in her hand, and traced an outline of her body. While her mother was at the neighbor’s house letting out an old gown for a “boom-boom” wedding, Wilda used those sharp thin scissors, worked the machine with her feet, and made herself a dress.

  She was trying to squeeze her arm into a too-tight sleeve when her mother arrived in the kitchen, dropped her basket at her feet. Crying out, she knelt on the floor, scooped the slivers of material in her hands, looked at Wilda, who had the fabric pinned to her clothes, draped over her shoulder. “Jeeesus, good Jeeesus. ’Tis ruined. Do you know what that costed? Why oh why oh why?” Wilda replied coolly, “I wanted to make something. Have something new.” “Something new?” Shrill crow in the room, flapping up now from the floor, beating the air with her arms. “Something new? You don’t deserve nothing. Let alone something bloody new.” Her mother reached across the table, clutched a pair of pinking shears in a clenched fist, and raised them in the air. Wilda curled her arms around her head, loose seam on the sleeve splitting. “Go easy, they says. Go easy.” Her mother struck Wilda’s head and back with the handles of those shears. “After what you seen happen to your father. They says. No one goes easy on me. No one helps me make bloody ends meet.” Over and over again. Pain coming to Wilda in the most magnificent colors behind her closed eyes. “You stupid, stupid girl. You was born stupid. Born stupid. Do you think no one knows what you does? Going ’round like a drunken whore? Bringing shame down on me?” Through a clenched white beak. Wilda cried through her forearms, but her mother only saw fit to strike her harder. “You coulda helped him. Coulda found me. Stead of jus runnin’ away.” Her mother collapsed then, shears lost in a fold of her skirt.

  Down the alleyway, Wilda heard silly laughter, and she turned to see two women slipping out of a house, the doorway invisible from her current angle. She stood, crushed her cigarette against a slab of stone, and moved towards it. Found a black door, no bell, no neat sign to the left or right. Somebody lives here, she thought, but pushed open the door, descended a steep staircase, and arrived in a dark open space, low ceilings, walls coated in red paint, a stretch of wooden bar, a few cheap tables, linoleum floor, chairs and stools. The smell of smoke and something else made Wilda’s heart beat a little faster.

  She walked over, stood beside a woman at a nearby table, hunched over a paper tray of limp fries. “What’s this?”

  The woman leaned her head backwards, rolling chins. “What’s what?”

  “This place.”

  “Nothing for you to be concerned about.” Three fries poked into that black hole all at once.

  Wilda’s mouth watered. “Who do I talk to?”

  “Honey, any man that slogs through that door, if you asks me.”

  So as not to reach out, and once again snatch what was not hers, Wilda made fists, shuffled her feet, waited.

  “Ahh. Right over there. Vincent. From Montreal, he is.” Chewing, licking her fingertips. “Thinks his shit don’t stink.”

  Wilda twisted, saw the owner leaning back against the bar, body stumpy with slicked black hair, pink cheeks, skewed nose, tight trousers cutting into his crotch. One of his ears was ragged and discolored, like an oyster shell. She went and stood before him, never wavered as his gaze moved over her every swelling and crevice, his tongue wetting his bottom lip. But instead of speaking, he turned his back.

  She tapped the flesh over his ribs. “I wants to be here,” Wilda announced, feet spaced. “Do something.”

  “Bah, do what? What can you do?” he scoffed over his shoulder, cigarette waving in the air. “Liddle girl. Go find your maman.”

  “I needs money.”

  “Don we all?”

  “But, Mister.”

  “But, non.” He turned, poked a dull button on her coat, frowned. “Mes monsieurs don want for le phoque from the village. Go, bébé. Your mommy wait.”

  She looked at his hands, saw the dimples, nails like neat squares of waxed paper, and fingers so fat they were forced apart. “I idn’t no fuck, sir.” Steadied her voice, tried to keep the desperation out of her tone. Though she knew that outside, darkness was beginning to take down the light. “And besides,” she lied, “my mother’s dead.”

  “Ah,” he nodded slowly, rubbed his shiny chin. Smiling, now, too. Few moments of staring, mulling, then, “Okay. Okay. I think thing for you to do.”

  “Oh, thank-you,” she squealed. “Thank-you, thank-you.” Well, then. Gainfully employed. “I can do it. Bring drinks. Sell cigarettes. Whatever you wants, Mister. What ever you wants.”

  He snickered. “You have nice face, but what I want first is put coat in garbage. Where belong. C’est dégueulasse.”

  She went through another door, rolled the coat and stuffed it back in the kit bag. Then, she found a toilet and sink, washed her face, scraped the corner of a towel across her teeth, pinched her cheeks. Rubbed her bloodshot eyes. Finally, someone was giving her a chance. Someone who had no idea about her life. She could be anyone she wanted now. She could be someone completely new.

  Wilda returned to the bar, and Vincent smiled at her, flicked his head to another man, and three fingers of whiskey soon arrived in a glass in front of her. Buzz from the ride with Dicky having dissolved, she clutched the gift, and gulped it. Liquid coating her shaky insides, pressing out the ice crystals that inhabited the skin over her scant flesh. “Thank-you, Mister,” she whispered. Wilda Burry was now a woman with good manners. Elbows off the table. When she clanked the glass down, it was full again. She stared at it, scraped her tongue against her teeth to make sure she had really drank something.

  “Vas-y,” Vincent said, wide welcoming smile. “Is good for you. Meat on bone. Hair on chess.”

  She picked it up, thought of Eddie Quick and his half a hand, and raised her glass to his distant memory. To you, Mr. Quick. Who was always quick. Never one to waste good time. Gulped it down again.

  Vincent leaned in towards her, sleeve of his shirt touching her bare arm. Voice soft. “Why you come here?”

  Insecurity caged, she stared at his wet black eyes, considered her response. Lost soul or adventurer? She choose neither, responded with a question. “What happened to your ear, Mister?” Reached up, stroked the rippled skin over damaged cartilage. She had the urge to lick her finger, touch it again.

  “Come,” he said, taking a bottle and the two glasses. “Sit. Speak.”

  At a table, they sat side by side in a corner, and he poured her a full glass, eyes never moving from her giddy face. “I fight. When I were young boy. Strong. Boof-boof.” Pretended to assault his ear with his own fist, once, twice. “Like that. Big fight.” Then he laughed, patted his stomach, hollow sound. “Not now. Not today. Too fat. Old, now.”

  Wilda laughed along with him, touched his arm with one hand, locked her other hand around her never-empty glass. Drank. A cheers to Vincent, this time. Cheers to herself the next. Cheers to adventure, arriving this new place. Cheers to possibility. Cheers to leaving her ghosts behind. Wee, wee, mon-stur. Giggles. Wee, wee. “Non, non,” he replied, “C’est ‘mih-sieur.’”

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nbsp; People emerged from the shadows, shook hands with Vincent, and she nestled in, wide awake and sleepy at the same time, felt the heat radiating out from his armpit. In a blink, the place was crowded, loud, women and men standing beside her, pressing against her, coats and jackets abandoned. Fine wool skirts and loosened ties. Ladies perched on laps, head thrown back in fits of uncontrolled laughter. She tried it herself, leaning her head back. Wide mouthed smile. Haze of smoke in the air, sweet music, and as she gazed about, eyes struggling to focus on any one thing, she began to see the movement as fluid. Slow motion. Buttons on a tight blouse, a lipstick-coated mouth, soft fawn curls, greased ducktails, a silver watch. “If ever a devil was born without horn,” Vincent sang along with the blaring record. “Ever angel fell. Was you.” His breath spiraling through her ear into her brain, made her breathe a little faster, her backside throb against the seat. She laid her head on his shoulder, closed her eyes, pressed her mouth into the warmth of his jelly neck.

  “Come,” he said, and he gripped her wrist, and she floated up from the seat, struck her hip on the table, followed as he led her through the gaggle of happy socializers. Tripping over feet, smiling at backs of heads, trying to skip up a staircase like she was capable of being graceful. Like she was still a mystery, when she was drunker than she’d ever been in her entire life. He opened a door out into a pitch-dark alleyway, and she couldn’t sense the cold as it wrapped around her thighs, pushed up her skirt. One knee hoisted, hooked over his elbow, and Vincent whispered, “Ah. Ma liddle Jezebel,” and she hung onto his neck, slumped, as he fumbled with his pants, found his way, pressed against her, ground her bony wings, curve of her backbone, into the stone wall. Slipping sideways, and he wrapped a strong arm around her ribs, righted her, pressed her harder in place, grunting, grunting. Bump, bump, bump. A dirty rag doll with its legs pulled apart, stitches broken. “You love me?” she slurred, bump, bump, and inside her head she tried to crawl away from the wave of blackness that weighted her edges, shaking her down. “I keep you for this night,” he moaned, full weight shuddering against her starfish frame, and she disappeared, spiraling eddy of darkness.