by Pat Capponi
Everyone’s settled in, and the lights are dimmed but not turned off.
“Are you all right?” Cassie mumbles sleepily. “Better try and get some sleep, they throw us out at seven.”
“I’m fine, thanks, Cassie.”
I struggle out of my jacket, roll it up and stick it under my head. There is a discordant symphony at play all around me, deep farting sounds, coughing, snoring, whispering, and from the kitchen I can hear dishes being washed and pots clanging. I miss my bed, my room, my privacy. I check my watch; it’s only eight o’clock, there’s no way I’ll be able to sleep…
I hadn’t expected anything other than a meal and a mattress, so when I hear the screech of tables being pushed across the floor, and the softer call for players, I gratefully leave my “bed,” careful not to disturb those on either side of me. I walk slowly past the huddled figures on the floor, hoping to see Gerry, but it’s impossible to make out individuals in this meagre light. I join a handful of men and women in a side room off the entranceway. There are chairs and tables laid out and large, colourful travel posters on the walls: Venice, Paris, Hong Kong, London. A well-padded woman, hair swaddled up in a great pile atop her head, pats the chair beside her, then turns to rummage in an apparently bottomless carryall. I take a small pile of red chits, and a card from a bunch in the middle of the table, and sit down.
“I find one card really boring, don’t you? At the hall, on the weekends, I have five or six going at the same time, it’s more of a challenge.” The woman makes me think of the time I was dragged to a large bingo hall by Maryanne when she was still alive. It was big business. I was struck by the smoke, the huge crowd, the deep concentration broken occasionally by tired laughter when 69 was called. The bitching when someone yelled “Bingo.”
“And the prizes are better at the hall, cash money, but still, it’s nice of them to do this for us. Other places, it’s lights out and that’s it, right after dinner. Can’t sleep? Too damn bad for you. I find this much better, a comfort, really. Though some of the people…I’m glad you’re sitting beside me, not one of the wackos.”
As she’s winding down, one of the wackos takes the seat on the other side of me. Someone passes him a card and some plastic chits, but he just stares at them. He’s a tall fellow, and at first I think he’s humming away to himself. I try to identify the tune, without luck. He doesn’t seem in the humming mood, anyway.
“Mmm mmmm mmmmmmmmm
Mmmmm. MMMmm.
MMM MMM!!!
MMMMMMM MMMMMMM.”
It’s an argument, I realize with a bit of a shock. With inflection and emphasis and pauses, the whole ball of conversational wax. Far be it from me to interrupt, so I just reach over and cover B-16 for him.
“Thank you.”
Startled, I say, “You’re welcome.”
He’s with it now, leaning over, looking at my card, smelling my hair.
“Nice.”
“Thank you.”
A young man wanders over. He has the telltale greying of the skin and the strain around the eyes that marks the homeless. I noticed him earlier, helping Cassie untie her boot while Rick was off in the washroom. They didn’t speak, but seemed very comfortable with each other. Cassie was much more patient with him as he struggled with the knots in her laces than she would have been with Rick.
He pulls out a chair and stands frozen for a few minutes, preparing, I suppose, for the trauma of sitting, or taking part in the game. I don’t know his name, or that of the “throat speaker,” who in the privacy of my mind I’m calling Dolphin, though I think dolphins tend to chitter. The new arrival’s pant legs have been carefully scissored into long strips, almost to the crotch. That’s in the front; in the back, a complicated kind of knotting, suitable for framing.
“Sit if you’re going to sit, will ya? Trying to play a game here.” My neighbour bangs the table hard enough to move the chits off her card. She turns to me. “See what I mean? Don’t know why they’re ever let out of hospital, those people. At least we’re lucky here, with Jesse watching over things. He keeps things in line. Some people like to talk, say things against him, but to me, he’s perfect. Keeps things quiet, no fights, no drunks. Makes it safe for the rest of us.”
“Why would anyone have a problem with that?” I ask, anxious to hear more, even though I find her distasteful.
“Well, you hear rumours. But you get what you deserve. Start trouble, get trouble, that’s what I always say.”
For a moment, I see her knitting by the guillotine in France, needles clicking, head shaking slowly at the perfidy of people.
“People, a lot of them, are just too lazy to work. I have a bad back, I can’t work anymore, my doctor says. I don’t drink my disability check, and I don’t beg and bother people on the street. And I keep myself clean. Look at some of these dirty bastards, you’d think a little hot water would kill them or something.”
The dolphin interrupts himself long enough to yell “Bingo.” I realize I’ve totally neglected my own card and resolve to pay attention next time, keep my camouflage up. An envelope is passed down through the players to Dolphin; it’s a McDonald’s gift certificate, and it lights up his face. “I’ve never won anything before.” He says it with such reverence. If he had a house, he’d probably frame that gift certificate and put it on a wall in his living room, like a restaurant’s first dollar. He points out the amount, caressing the paper as he starts calculating what he can buy with it. “A cheeseburger, a coffee, an order of fries. Or a Big Mac and a coffee. Or a hot apple pie and a Coke and a coffee.” The possible combinations dazzle him, and we’re three numbers in before he remembers he should be playing the next round.
The bingo caller, a rotund matronly woman with pink cheeks and bifocals, is besieged on either side by talkers competing for her attention. She looks a bit shell-shocked, keeping a fixed smile on her stunned face. Wondering what’s wrong, I tune in to some conversations going on around the room.
“…So he said, she’s selling crack, and I said, Judge, I don’t know why he’s lying like that, I never was, and the cop goes, this is the third time she’s been spotted on that corner, and I said, it’s just a corner, where else am I supposed to stand, I don’t have a room to go to, and the judge says, you can’t be seen there no more, and I said, Judge, you keep telling me I can’t stand here, can’t stand there, and I didn’t even do anything, and he says that’s how it is, you have to obey or you go to jail, and does that seem fair to you? Of course not, but I don’t have no lawyer, he never showed, so I’m screwed again just like that and back on probation, which means having to walk halfway across the city so this bitch can give me a hard time…”
“B-3.”
“…the apartment was too expensive for me, so I let my friend move in, he was supposed to pay half the rent? That way I could’ve kept it, but what he did was make all these long-distance calls without telling me? Eat everything I had in my cupboards and my fridge? And I said to him, Barry you got to pay your way here or I’m going to lose it, and he said, I’ll be back in a couple of hours with the money? And I waited and I waited but he never did come back…”
“I-12.”
“…now I’m in the east end and there’s crack everywhere and it don’t need me to sell it, I’ll tell ya. Cops weren’t so busy hassling me, maybe there wouldn’t be so much of it, but nobody’s going to listen to me.”
“O-72.”
“…I went to my doctor’s appointment and he told me I had breast cancer and I was really upset and there wasn’t anyone to talk to and when I came back there was this eviction notice. On my door. All legal and scary and the door was locked. All my stuff inside. I couldn’t find anyone to open it, not the janitor, no one. And the agencies were all closed ’cause it was the weekend and I had nowhere to go and I was so scared. I spent the night behind the building, the next night too, and all the noises kept me awake, I’d never been without a place before, I just cried and cried all the time, and then it was Monday and
I went to the super and begged for my clothes, but he threw me out. Just picked me up and threw me out and I ended up at a shelter, but that was even scarier, with all these angry women. Now I’m on a waiting list but it’s a really long list, but I’m hoping they find me something because it’s getting really hard, what with winter and all, and I never feel clean or safe or anything and it’s hard to remember my appointments and sometimes I think the lump has gotten much larger…”
I wonder about the shell-shocked woman calling out the numbers. When she goes back to her home and has some time to think and reflect, what does she make of all this, this pleasant woman trying to do her Christian best? Or maybe I’m underestimating her, maybe she’s led a life filled with adventure and oddities, but from the increasingly distressed look on her face, the rapid blinking back of tears and pronounced sniffling, I suspect this is all new and overwhelming. It’s strange for me as well, not to be “staff” but simply an observer of all this, not to be called upon to intervene or comfort or make calls. I stare at my card, let the voices wash over me, suddenly deeply tired.
“Good morning, everyone! Time to rise and shine.”
I can’t move; every muscle in my body, every bone and ligament, artery and vein, is protesting loudly. Beside me, Cassie groans, tries to retreat back to sleep, but the lights are on and the volunteers are walking up and down the rows of sleepers, encouraging them to get their mats back to the proper place and to pick up their bagged sandwiches before leaving.
I limp off to the washroom, which is crowded and unpleasant. There’s no place at the sinks to even splash water on my face. When I come back out, almost everyone’s gone. Cassie, with Rick standing impatiently beside her, waves from near the doorway. “See you tonight, okay?” Oh Lord, I don’t think I can handle another night. There’s no sign of the remaining lost boys, no sign of Gerry either. I thank the cheery lady for the sandwiches she hands me, and, with one last look around, head out.
People avoided me on the ride home. As crowded as it was with the beginning of morning rush hour, no one took the empty seat beside me. I tried not to care. Now, dragging myself up the sidewalk toward home, I see Jeremy standing there at the bottom of the stairs to Delta Court, alarm all over his face. For a moment I think something terrible has happened, then I realize he’s just reacting to my appearance.
“Dana, my poor dear, what on earth have you been up to?”
He usually gives me a hug, but not this morning. He actually moves a few paces away.
“Just work. Are you here to see me?” I’m a bit curt. If the situation were reversed, I would have hugged him.
“Yes, I just came to tell you about that chap Walters. Easier than I thought, tracing him. We both have the same barber, an excellent man, very artful. It took no time at all to get his address. Shall I set up a meeting? Perhaps after you’ve had an opportunity to, to…” He’s clearly searching for the least offensive phrase. “To prepare yourself.”
“Thank you, yes. Good work, Jeremy.” He looks so elegant, so showered and clean, so rested and fed. I’m on the verge of tears, which is silly, but I haven’t really come to terms with last night. Then he comes through for me, wrapping me in his arms, all tweed and aftershave and loving concern. Now I’m really crying, not for myself anymore, but for Cassie and Rick and all the walkers who have no one to hold them.
CHAPTER SIX
The first thing I do when I go into the house is check Gerry’s room. I am relieved to see him, or at least the shape of him, under his blankets, snoring up a storm. There’s no immediate reason to wake him, so I go upstairs to my own place and make the coffee I’ve been desperate for. Then I stand under the shower, with my mind shut down, as the water goes from steaming hot to lukewarm to a final icy cold, driving me out of the stall.
My room has never struck me, or anyone else, as luxurious or spacious. Right now, as I sit rocking in my chair, it seems extravagantly, even selfishly, large for one person. Sipping my second cup of coffee, I try to calculate how many sleeping mats could be laid out on the floor, if all the furniture were removed. How many bodies could take shelter here.
I have to force myself out of this fugue state I’m in. It takes a real effort to go over what happened, what I picked up in the church basement. For a start, it’s not unusual for young men to hang together, to develop an attitude toward those who are worse off. I’ve seen it at the drop-in centre. The Rosedale church volunteers don’t spend as much time as Pete does in the midst of things, so of course they’ve missed this development, but it looks like they may be starting to feel the consequences. And there have always been men around, not the best of the breed, who take advantage of women in distress. Men even hang around bus stations, looking for runaway girls, offering help, which generally translates to a life of drugs and prostitution.
Cassie said “he” had pushed Mrs. Preston. That was significant, that “he.” And I don’t think “he” was there last night, or Cassie wouldn’t have said anything. I’ll have to go again tonight, and keep going till I find out who “he” is.
Then there’s Michael. He’s not back yet. I checked his room after I looked in on Gerry. I don’t like to think of him off on his own, surrounded by old and negative influences. He’s come a long way in a very short time, but I keep replaying that moment he turned on Gerry, and it sends shivers up my spine.
After a short run down the street, I come back to the house, letting the front door slam behind me, hoping to jolt Gerry out of his sleep, if he’s still in bed. A muffled string of curses tells me I’ve woken him, so, holding the large cup of McDonald’s coffee before me like a shield, I enter his room with a cheery, “Good morning, Gerry!”
“There’d better be coffee,” he warns, still swaddled in blankets. “And smokes. Or I’m going back to bed.”
“You’re already there. C’mon, let’s see your head.”
“Goddamn wimmen, always nagging.” He’s moving, slowly but perceptibly; first an arm appears, then a toe, followed by a leg, about the size of a slab of beef. Finally his face, all red on one side where it’s been pressed against the pillow, peers up at me. “What a night from hell. I’m crippled forever.” He reaches for the coffee, spilling only a little of it as I open the pack of Export Plain I bought at the corner and light one up for him. I notice that he’s been holding the cross Miss Semple gave him so tightly in his sleep that it’s left an impression on his palm. I don’t say a word about this, I just hope it brought him some comfort.
“Room service,” I tell him.
“Yeah, well, your hotel is lousy. Is Michael back?”
“No. I don’t know where he is. Did he say anything to you?”
“No, I didn’t talk to him after he pushed me down. Did you see that?”
I sit beside him on the bed. “I saw.”
“At first I thought he was really going to hurt me.” He pulls hard on the cigarette. “Then he says to me, get this, he says, getting real close, whispering like, right in my ear, ‘You know I love you, Gerry, go along, look scared, it’ll be all right.’ As if I had to fake it. He grabs my smokes and lighter, bastard doesn’t even leave me one, takes some money out of his own jacket pocket and makes like he stole it from me. ‘Stay with Dana, keep her safe, it’s up to you’ he tells me, and shoves me again, for them to see. So I make like he’d knocked me down, I take a dive right into the snow. Pretty cool, eh? And the dinner wasn’t bad, but that bloody piece of crap they gave us to sleep on, no pillow, no blanket, nothing! As soon as they turned the lights on, I walked out and grabbed the first cab that went by, well, the first one that would stop for me. Good thing he didn’t really take that money you gave me. I’d of been screwed good.”
“You’re a brave man, Gerry.” He really is. He hates going outside for any reason.
“Yeah, yeah. The brave retard, that’s me. What about you, I seen you talking with that lady on crutches, did you get anything?”
I tell him what I learned.
“So you’re
going again tonight?”
“I have to, but you don’t.”
“Aw, crap. I can’t let you go alone.”
“I’ll be fine. And I want to see if I can find out who this guy is.”
There are two other beds in Gerry’s room, both occupied by old men who rarely leave them. There’s never a sound from either of them, someday they’ll pass away, and we won’t even know. Not for a while, anyway.
“Dana, I don’t like these friends of Michael’s.”
“Me neither. I don’t like to think what they may be getting up to, but we have to trust that he knows what he’s doing. I’m hoping he’ll show tonight.”
We sit for a while, until Gerry finishes his coffee. His night table—actually, it’s the base of a wooden chair that has lost its back—is crowded with pill bottles: antipsychotics, ulcer medications, sleeping pills, and antibiotics. I’m not sure he actually takes any of them, but it makes for an impressive array.
“You’ll fill in Miss Semple and Diamond when they get back, if I’m not here?”
“Yeah, now bugger off, will ya, I need my beauty sleep.”
I kiss his cheek, wait while he gets settled, then head upstairs. I’m glad Gerry’s okay, but I can’t shake this worry I feel about Michael.
By the time Jeremy picks me up, I look more like myself and less like someone the cat dragged in. Jeremy, of course, never looks less than perfectly attired, and the car, well, I told myself I was due a little luxury. Leather seats, classical music from the speakers, warm air to cut the chill. I was sorry when we reached the restaurant and had to park.
“Have you heard anything? Anything at all?” Jon Walters stands as we approach. He’s a tall, lanky fellow, almost as well dressed as Jeremy. He’d be fairly good-looking if he wasn’t so clearly beset with worry.
“We haven’t any news as yet. Let’s get some more wine here,” Jeremy tells the very attentive waiter, “and a menu, please.” Turning back to Jon, he introduces me, and I shake the hand he offers.