A Couple of Stops (Light Transports Book 1)

by Winifred Holtby

  Just then a man walked out from behind a partition. He said, ‘What are you doing here?’ His hair was a military cut and it was like my father how he spoke. I said, ‘I’m waiting for my social worker.’ He said, ‘Well wait against the wall like the others. How else are we supposed to keep order around here?’

  Like the others.

  A QMB Medically Needy No Spend Down. To him I was just another guy with AIDS.

  Against the wall, there was one seat left, the end seat. The end seat next to a pregnant woman with long black hair who wore a dark blue cotton dress and cried into a lacy handkerchief. She spoke to the man next to her but I did not recognise the language.

  I did not sit. I could wait along the wall with the others, but I would not sit, I would stand.

  There was another place I could go to. Zupan’s Market on Belmont. Every day, twice a day, for lunch and for dinner, I walked the four hundred and eighty-nine steps from my back door to the open sliding doors of Zupan’s. Back and forth, back and forth, winter, summer, fall, spring.

  The April of 2000, those blocks and my walk to Zupan’s had a particular flavour. Dog shit. Piles of dog shit were appearing along the way, first in my median under the Linden trees, then slowly, day by day all up and down the street.

  Dog shit on the street where I lived.

  And thus I began another obsession. During my years in New York, I had worked as a super, and it was my job to keep the dog shit off the sidewalk. Sweeping, cleaning and picking up dog shit have become second nature to me. Still, to this day, I wake up when the garbage truck comes by early Monday mornings.

  So I decided to take it upon myself to find out who the Dog Shit Defiler of Southeast Morrison was.

  It wasn’t a difficult task. My second day on the case, at the big sycamore, as I was walking, I watched a big black lab take a big black shit right there. And the owner didn’t make a move to clean the mess up.

  The big black lab was connected by a harness to a heavyset man. I think the man’s name was Leroy. Leroy was a cheery fellow, always had a good word for you, and a nod.

  And something else. Leroy was blind.

  Still, though, the old New York super in me, the sweeper, the cleaner, the obsessive ritualistic doer doer thought that it really didn’t matter – blind or not, Leroy put on his pants one leg at a time like the rest of us, so he should be responsible for his black lab’s large piles of shit.

  I was planning on a way to approach the subject with Leroy, when one day, as I walked up the rise of Morrison to the intersection of Thirty-second, I could see Leroy standing with his black lab at the intersection. He was just standing, not moving, his eyes rolled looking up to heaven. It took me almost a minute to reach Leroy, and during that whole minute, he didn’t move a muscle.

  I crossed the street. Leroy’s eyes stayed rolled up. He still hadn’t moved. His black, black skin. The whites of his eyes.

  I stood for a moment breathing low. I thought I could tell that Leroy knew I was standing there, but I wasn’t sure. Finally:

  ‘How’s it going?’ I said.

  Leroy’s body did a dip and roll. The way he moved surprised me, because all in one gesture his body said how glad he was to hear my words.

  ‘Hey man,’ Leroy said, ‘could you help me out?’

  Help.

  ‘Sure,’ I said.

  ‘Man, the wind blew my hat off,’ Leroy said, ‘and I don’t know where it is.’

  There at Leroy’s left foot was his ball cap. Only an inch away from his shoe.

  I reached down, picked up the cap and gave Leroy back his cap.

  ‘Mighty thankful to you,’ Leroy said, putting on his cap, putting his hand on the cap to press it down, ‘Now one more thing. Could you tell me which direction Morrison Street is?’

  The deep sob deep within me, so sudden, surprising. I had to swallow a couple of times before I could speak.

  ‘Morrison’s straight ahead,’ I said. ‘Just walk straight ahead.’

  Another day in April 2000. A particular grey in the long unending beginning and ending of grey days.

  I made it out of bed, made my breakfast, ate my breakfast, the same breakfast, at the same time, in the same grey cloud light in the kitchen, grey oatmeal, boiled eggs without the yolk, a turkey sausage.

  Protein is good. I kept eating protein because protein was good. Every day I walked to Zupan’s to buy protein. I ate protein and I recycled. Cans in one container, newspapers in another, papers in another. Recycling is good too. Recycling gives you something to do.

  That morning, after I rinsed off the dishes, I made my chamomile tea. Even Sleepytime tea keeps me awake, so it’s only chamomile, even though I don’t like chamomile. Chamomile smells like the days on the farm when I was baling hay.

  Gregor Samsa, the octopus started crawling out of the back of my neck. On particularly bad days, an octopus crawled out of the back of my head, suction cups up over my head, down onto my forehead. The pain that always comes with the octopus.

  I held onto my head and started yelling. I threw my teacup against the door. Fuck! I yelled, And then fuck fuck fuck!

  Through my window, two houses away, in the back yard, my neighbour was raking leaves. He looked up. He’d heard me yelling. He flipped open his cellphone. I quickstepped outside the door.

  I said: ‘Don’t be freaked out. I’m not feeling so good today. I’m only venting.’

  He said: ‘I heard a gun shot.’

  I said: ‘No, it was my teacup. I threw my teacup and I broke it.’

  The trees, the wind in the Linden trees that morning, something was wrong, so I went back into my house. I sat in my front room on my red and yellow meditation pillow. I prayed, I meditated, I breathed deep in a circle of breath, bringing the breath down slowly to my root chakra, then up my back, up to my neck to where the octopus comes out of there, across my head, then back out my mouth.

  Then, at a certain moment, I had the thought that I should apologise to my neighbour. I had yelled and cursed and I had frightened him.

  So I unlocked the back door. I opened the door. I stepped outside. The wind in the Linden trees. I closed the door and locked the door.

  I heard: ‘Put your hands on your head and step away from the door!’

  When I looked around, behind the mulberry bush was a cop with a rifle pointed at my head.

  The part of me always afraid was suddenly calm. Maybe that’s what it takes to stop the octopus. Point a gun at him. I put my hands behind my head. I stepped away from the door.

  The cop yelled. ‘Walk slowly around and down and stand in the middle of the yard!’

  With my hands behind my head, I walked slowly around and down in the middle of the yard. The sound of gun metal, all around me, gun metal, triggers pulled, guns cocked. When I looked I was surrounded. I can’t tell you how many guns were pointed at me. A dozen? Fifteen? Twenty?

  An entire SWAT team, maybe two.

  I faced the cop who was talking to me from behind the mulberry bush.

  ‘Keep your hands behind your head and do not move!’

  That moment. That moment in all the moments. All the moments I always did what I was told, all the moments I was the good Catholic boy and did what I was told. In that moment, in my right hand there lived a part of me that wanted to move, quick, a quick movement from in my right hand to my pocket maybe. There would be a blast and perhaps a shattering, but in the blast shattering all the humiliation and the illness and the endless meaningless breakfasts and the hope of protein and recycling garbage, all the deep breathing and the mediation on the red and yellow pillow, all the grey Portland days would end.

  Yet, I did not move.

  A policeman came at me from behind, pulled my arms down hard. He told me he was handcuffing me as he handcuffed me. Then he pushed me ahead, hard. I almost fell.

  It started to rain. The policeman drew his weapon.

  This is my weapon, this is my gun. This is for fighting, this is for fun.

&nb
sp; He told me to stand under the eave of my yellow house. He told me not to speak, and not to move. In one hand his weapon was pointed at my head. In his other hand, a walkie talkie.

  Walkie talkie. In that moment with all that was happening, standing there under the eave of my yellow house, the Portland rain dripping down, a part of me had to laugh. Walkie fucking talkie. I can’t believe you said that Tom.

  Then all the many blue uniformed SWAT team police men and women swarmed. It was a swarm over my backyard, from the right, from the left, from over the fence in front of me. Sirens and red lights flashing. The SWAT team swarmed into my house, into my home. They saw the breakfast dishes. The bowl of oatmeal soaking in the sink. My new pajamas – I bought to help me sleep – hanging in the closet. My bed made up. I always made the bed as soon as I stepped out of bed. My pictures on my walls. My couch. My television set. My stereo. The red and yellow meditation pillow on the front room floor. Inside the refrigerator, my chicken breasts, my boiled eggs, my soy products. Even what was in my drawers they saw. Upstairs, downstairs, all through the house, I could hear them.

  Who knows how long I stood in my backyard under the eave against my yellow house, my hands cuffed behind me, a weapon pointed at my head. All the while I’m thinking this is cool. I was thinking who’s this happening to? I was thinking this must be happening to someone else. I was thinking don’t they know this is me? How can they treat me this way? I was thinking I’m not a criminal, I’m not one of those people.

  I cleared my throat first. Gently, quietly, I spoke.

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I have AIDS, I’m being treated for depression. I got angry this morning and I broke my teacup.’

  The policeman lowered his weapon.

  ‘Where is the teacup?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s in the garbage can under the sink,’ I said.

  The policeman spoke into his walkie talkie.

  ‘Check under the sink,’ he said into the walkie talkie, ‘in the garbage can. For a broken teacup.’

  Minutes later, a cop, a young woman, curly blonde hair, no older than twenty-five, walked out onto the back porch with the garbage can. She pulled out the broken cup.

  The sound of metal. Everything being disengaged, uncocked.

  As quickly as the SWAT team had arrived, they left.

  The cop took my handcuffs off.

  He didn’t apologise. What he said, he stated.

  ‘You never know what to expect these days,’ he said.

  The next day, my neighbour moved out. Bless his heart. I don’t know, was it something I’d done?

  Then a morning later, maybe two, a windy morning. It wasn’t raining and I could go outside. I was standing on the sidewalk, under the Linden trees, the trees whose blossoms make a tea to calm the nerves. The wind blowing the Linden boughs. I relaxed my shoulders, my feet square under me, I took a deep breath. I lowered my arms and then lifted them. I began the slow movements of Tai Chi.

  An elderly native couple with a grocery cart full of bottles rattled around the corner. I stepped back from the sidewalk and let them pass. They’d told me their names a couple of times but I never remember their names. I see them a lot.

  ‘Doing your Tai Chi this morning, Tom?’ the man said.

  ‘That’s good for old people,’ the woman said and after she said that both the man and the woman waved their arms like Tai Chi. They were laughing and I started laughing too.

  Out of the corner of my eye, at the intersection, just sitting there with the engine running, just beyond the Lindens, the way a lion sits, or a wolf, waiting, was a cop car.

  There I was observed: the obscenity screamer who in the report it said gun shot.

  Fear all around me, inside me. I wanted to go over to the cop car, say something like a normal person would say, hey hi hello how are you? I wanted to go over and explain that the yellow house was my house, that I owned the house, that I was a homeowner, that I was a writer, I had written three books, that I was a teacher, a good teacher, eleven of my students had published novels. I wasn’t replaceable. I was Tom, Tom Spanbauer and I was just going through a bad patch. I was raised Catholic and I had a mother and a father in Idaho, and friends, lots and lots of friends, and I had some money, money in my pocket, money in the bank, and that I was a fairly normal guy, just a bad patch, that’s all. I wasn’t a criminal. I wasn’t a crack addict, homeless, I wasn’t a threat to society. I got AIDS is all, and no health insurance.

  But I didn’t go to the police car. I didn’t move.

  I stood there and stood there and stood there.

  Where was there to go that was away?

  I couldn’t be anything but who I was.

  That’s when the wind blew my hat off. That was too much.

  And suddenly there I was, a hatless derelict man, frightened, cowering, unbathed, crying and crying on the sidewalk under a Linden tree.

  The dregs of humanity.

  One of them.

  Us.

  One of us.

  Thirst

  Mandy Sutter

  On the last day of their holiday in Turkey, taken to mark the last daughter leaving home, Fay and Jonathan went for a walk by the sea. They followed the shoreline, which turned back on itself. Across the water they saw the beach where they’d started, the cafés filling up for lunch. Three stray dogs were walking with them, despite Jonathan’s attempts to shoo them away. Loops of sweat darkened the underarms and back of Fay’s T-shirt. She was carrying a bag of hotel sandwiches, great dry things, because Jonathan had said they’d paid for full board so they might as well. But she couldn’t imagine eating them; the inside of her mouth felt like cardboard and her lips were salt. They’d forgotten to bring water, or fruit. Even a tomato would have been something, she thought.

  They passed some rusty oil drums, half-buried in sand, and came to a barbed-wire fence. The dogs stood at a distance, wagging their tails. Jonathan held the wires apart for her, making a gap wide enough, she thought, for a small elephant.

  ‘You don’t think the fence might be here for a purpose?’ she said, squinting up at him as she clambered through.

  ‘Doubt it.’

  ‘But what if some farmer…’

  He looked unimpressed. ‘Doesn’t matter. Legally you can walk anywhere, in Turkey.’

  He wouldn’t let her hold the wires apart for him. ‘Those spikes look rusty. Could give yourself a nasty jab.’

  The dogs watched him climb carefully through. Fay fished for a cheese sandwich, which she broke into three and threw to them. There was a scuffle, silent, fast and serious. The tallest dog, who had runny eyes and a yellowing coat, got two of the pieces and ate them on the spot, a convulsive swallow running from gullet to tail. The brown dog took a piece away, to eat at a distance. The smallest dog, a squat black animal matted with sand, got nothing. Fay dipped her hand into the sandwiches again. But Jonathan, safely through the fence, took the bag from her.

  ‘Best not to encourage them, Fay. Foreign dogs harbour all sorts of diseases.’

  He tied the handles of the bag in a reef knot and handed it back.

  Five minutes later, the path petered out. The sea was down to the left, and on the right, rocks.

  ‘Good,’ said Fay. ‘Let’s go back.’

  ‘But you were the one who wanted to go for a walk in the first place!’ His bantering tone grated on her.

  ‘I want to go back.’

  A stroll was what she had wanted. No, even that was an exaggeration. She had wanted to trade the oppressive whiteness of their hotel in Bodrum for ramshackle cafés on Gumusluk beach. To meander across the sand as if the experience were an end in itself, not just a corridor to some better part of their holiday. She had wanted to sit on a hard, wooden chair at a skew-whiff wooden table and study the motion of the waves; feel the sun on her back. To drink at least four cups of sweet, earthy Turkish coffee and smoke half a packet of cheap Turkish cigarettes without remembering that smoking could damage her health. But Jonathan had objected
. ‘We don’t want to spend our last day apart,’ he’d said. ‘Or waste it sitting about. Do we?’ Now he was looking up, at the rocky, inhospitable hill.

  ‘We can’t go up there!’ she said. ‘It’s madness, in this heat.’

  But he was already above her, climbing methodically, pressing aside the springy, virid plants which grew everywhere and looked like fennel but were, the hotel manager said, poisonous. Fay was beginning to find their fat, succulent stalks obscene. His white cotton shorts stood out from his sandy, tanned legs like pennants. His white socks seared her eyes.

  ‘C’mon!’ he called back. ‘There’s a breeze up here. It’ll keep you cool.’

  There was nothing for it but to go up after him, trying to follow where he trod. She hauled herself up the steep slope, feeling every ounce of the excess stone she had put on in the three months since Jemma had left to live with her boyfriend. Jonathan’s weight, of course, never varied: he was as trim as he’d been thirty years ago, when she first met him. They climbed for ten minutes. She didn’t find the breeze cooling; more like a hot blast from a hairdryer. The handles of the plastic bag stretched in the heat.

  Out of breath, she stopped, and glanced back down into the bay. The swimmers were already just flecks in the ocean; the boat casting off from the jetty, a toy, the faint snarl of its motor intermittent, like a badly tuned radio. On the sand, the rows of bright towels, beach umbrellas and sunbathers were tiny. She must have climbed a good hundred feet already.

  The sea out there looked flat and hard. How would that surface feel if you fell? Or jumped. She glanced down to the foot of the rocks, where the sea was white scribble, a child’s crayon outline. She shuddered. That suck and surge put her off going in.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ Jonathan had said earlier in the week, striding barefoot across pebbles that made her teeter and wince. ‘There’s no sharks in Turkey. Might be the odd jellyfish, but they’re not the rule.’

  She wanted to go in; promised herself every morning, when she woke up swimming in sweat on their hard white bed, the sheet a rope at the bottom. But the truth was she felt happier in the neat turquoise rectangle of the hotel swimming pool, where the water was unlikely to do anything unexpected.