The City Still Breathing

by Matthew Heiti

  ‘Hey!’ Lucy holding up the small, shiny thing she took from Martha. ‘This’s just like those boots at the restaurant.’

  ‘Lucy!’

  ‘What?’

  Gordon grabs it from her and turns.

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘Gordon – stop!’

  But he’s halfway down Durham before he finally opens his clenched fist – the glossy shine of a snake scale, like a beacon. Martha’s voice coming after, ‘Don’t hurt him, Gordon, don’t hurt him!’

  Oswald’s Pawnshop is in the Flour Mill. Walking past lines buckling with laundry, old Italian women beating their linen with brooms, the abandoned silos hanging over it all. Gordon remembers he always hated the Flour Mill.

  It was just a little farther up, at that place behind the go-kart track, where he bought that diamondback rattler seven years back. He remembers it cold and motionless behind the glass, and him recognizing something there. Bringing it back to his apartment – the space almost empty except for her terrarium. Seven years of coming home to something. Giving her dinner, making his own. And then one day, nothing.

  He stops, slippers deep in slush, at the door to Oz’s shithole. Peering in through the glass to see the counter empty, he cracks the door – remembering to reach up to stop the bell before pushing the rest of the way through.

  Shelves lined with dust and junk, yellowed price tags dangling in the fluorescent buzz. He pads across linoleum and vaults over the counter, following a short hallway to the swinging light bulb of a stockroom. With his broad back to the doorway, Oz is bent over a box, humming to himself in the half-light.

  Gordon grabs Oz by the wrist, torquing his elbow and pinning the big man against the cold cement of the wall.

  ‘Hey!’ A short jab to the kidney takes the fight out of him, and Gordon spins Oz around, now jamming his left forearm under the other man’s big, drooping chin.

  ‘Gordo.’ He’s gasping, wheezing, walrus moustache quivering. ‘What the fuck? Lemme go, I didn’t do anything – I swear.’

  Gordon presses in a little tighter to watch the fat man’s eyes bulge. Pin him up against the boards. It’s in your end – pressure’s on. Scuffle for the puck, kick it out, get it back on your stick. It’s all on you. Dump it. The crowd – fuck, the crowd.

  ‘Gordo!’ Oz sputters, going purple, and he finally eases off, stepping back as the big man slides down the wall. ‘The hell’s your problem? You want me to get the cops down here on you? Chrissakes.’ Rubbing at his throat, Oz dips his eyes to take in Gordon’s slippers. ‘The boots – why didn’t you just say so?’

  Back in the front room, Oz passes him a yellow square of paper over the counter – chicken scratches. ‘Didn’t buy those boots, something off about that kid, but I got the addy for the other stuff he brought in. Fake, likely.’ Oz eyes him, turning something over in his big skull, and sighs. ‘Listen – I seen that kid before. Think he squats up in one of those tailing shacks behind the Gatch.’

  Gordon nods and walks to the door. Gatchell – one step farther down the ladder. He gets a hand on the doorknob and turns.

  ‘Damn shame about Katie,’ Oz says. ‘Maybe you should get yourself another one.’ Door swinging open, bell jingling, and Oz’s voice chases him out onto the street. ‘It’s just a pair of boots, Gordo.

  ’ It’s a long walk to Gatchell, and with each step Gordon’s mind slips a little further back on itself. Just a pair of boots. Step step. Just boots. Step step. Just. Step. Boots. Step.Boots.Step.Bootsstep.

  Katie.

  He stumbles, and somebody yells at him, and he turns, ready to fight. You get a skate caught in bad ice and they’ll come after you when they see you weak. But it’s just some chubby kid waving his slipper at him. Some kid like a whole bunch of other kids. Hey! Can you sign this? Please. You’re gonna be something. You’re gonna be something big. The next one.

  He takes the slipper and leaves the kid behind, with all that hope in his eyes. He just can’t bear it. He keeps on down Elgin, the slippers soaked. But he ignores it. Keep your eyes on the puck. You dump it, but it’s picked off centre ice. You square up, watch him bring it over the line. He’s got his head down, charging, as you sneak up on his side. Score tied, thirty seconds left. You lower the shoulder, one two three strides.

  Each step brings him closer to Gatchell. Closer to just putting this whole thing behind him.

  He remembers the day he brought the rattler in to that old Serb down in the Donovan. Gordon had been careful with her, careful not to bring his hand near for the first few hours, knowing the heat of his touch would trigger the hidden electricity in her jaw – venom and fang. He brought her wrapped in newspaper, finally stiff, to that baba – white drifts of hair coiled in a bun. He watched the woman temper the leather, work the cork and finally peel the rattlesnake’s skin back, leaving only the black marbles of the eyes behind. She had been kind enough to ignore him each time he cleared his throat, swallowing back the image of his own skin stripped away – laying open the black core of loneliness inside.

  Gordon stands before the slag banks, the lights of Gatchell at his back. He stands, one foot in slipper and on asphalt, the other bare and on the grit of slag.

  He leaves the city behind and walks into the narrow path. On either side, the banks, heaps of black pebbles, tower over him. The banks seem to run straight to the horizon, and he scans for some break, some hint of the cluster of abandoned shacks the foreman grafted into the hillside. They still run the slag dumps at night. People used to come watch the rail cars pour the melted waste down the sides of the hills, a spreading wasteland. Some would sneak a trunk-load home for the driveway. But the novelty of it is gone. The only people who come up here now are crazies, junkies or people with something to hide.

  There. A movement – shuffling – somebody walking toward him. Gordon veers to the right, sticking to the shadow of the bank of slag, and waits.

  A tuneless whistling slices through the cold air, and the figure comes clear as it draws closer. A man. A young man. Peach fuzz. Can’t be much older than nineteen. T-shirt, even in this cold. Some tough case. And as the kid passes him, Gordon catches the shine of gold at the wrist. A watch.

  The kid’s crossing into their zone and he angles up along the boards, sneaking up on the right side. The kid’s skating fast, but his head’s still down. He cuts in on him, coming up hard, and lays in with the shoulder. Wham! – and they both get tangled and hit the ice.

  They’re on the slag and the kid thrashes, catching Gordon with the familiar sensation of a right hook, and he loses his hold, the kid leaping to his feet and rushing for the opposite bank. Gordon drags his ass off the ground, kicks off the remaining slipper and gives chase.

  The kid scampers cat-like up the bank – loosing an avalanche of slag down on him. The kid clambers to the top and stands on the crest of the ridge, turning to look down at him. A kick from above, a cloud of dust and rock, and Gordon sees it. The network of the diamondback pattern on the kid’s feet. A glimpse and he’s out of sight over the ridge.

  The furnace in his gut propels Gordon to the top of the bank. Behind him, he can see the steady snowfall peppering the lake of slag and beyond, all the lights in the mining town winking on. Turning back, he can see the dark shapes of the shacks huddling on the side of the bank below. Only one light, the flicker of a lantern, in a window. Door slam – the light goes out.

  Gordon, with his eyes focused on this shack – eyes on the puck – descends. His feet leaving a trail of blood on the snow and slag in his wake.

  Gordon moves between the cindered and rotting wood of the buildings. The smell of decay reaching past the paper still lodged in his nostrils. He finds the shack, camouflaged by the rest, but through the window he can see the shape of a mattress and a lantern, ember still fading, hanging on a nail. No one in sight.

  Gordon circles the structure, settling in front of the only door. He raises a foot to kick, but spotting the mess attached to his ankle, he lays in with his shoulder in
stead. The lock splinters and Gordon pours into the dark interior.

  Another fist connects with his jaw. And the kid is up and skating away, carrying the puck deep into their zone. He sees the number on the back of the kid’s sweater – #18. Draft pick with the North Stars. Hotshot. Twenty seconds left. If he scores now, it’s done. He pulls himself to his feet and gives chase. The kid’s fast, but Gordon wants it more. Fifteen seconds. No one else around. All on him. Send it to overtime. Give them one last chance. The kid shifts the puck to his left side. He’s gonna go backhand. A flash move. He can see it happening, down low under the pads. The playoffs over just like that. Everything over. Ten seconds. The white noise of the crowd. Scouts watching. Crash – people pounding the glass shouting. Crash – you’re gonna be big – the next one! Crash – hit em, hit em, Python! Crash – Hit em, Killer! The puck is cocked, he’s not gonna reach him. Five seconds. He drops his stick, reaches out with his left, grabbing the back of the kid’s jersey, pulls him in. Crash – kill em! Kill em, Gordo! Crash – his fist hits the back of the kid’s skull. Crash. The kid hits the ice, head bouncing. Crash. The arena is silent. He doesn’t see the puck. He doesn’t see anything. Everything crashes down.

  Gordon feels nothing again. No fire, no cold, just nothing.

  He tosses the kid on the mattress and stands over him. The kid doesn’t move.

  A slow glow fills the cabin, orange fire, revealing everything in stark detail. Corncob-yellow paint has disguised the rotting wood, fading photographs smiling from behind tacks, a small collection of tinned food, and at the heart of it all – snake scales and a gold watch. He glances out the window. The carts have pulled up on the embankment across from the shack, puking up a stream of molten slag, glowing in the night.

  He looks down at this kid, maybe not even nineteen. Still not moving. The body on the television. The body on the ice. This body here. His body on his bed in his empty apartment. His snake laid out in her terrarium. They all look the same.

  The kid groans. ‘Please. Don’t kill me.’

  Gordon feels all his breath go out and he sinks to his knees, weak – so weak. He leans over the kid and reaches out to brush his hair, wipe off some of the blood, but the kid rolls away. Looking at the small body on this mattress, he can see some kind of vice already closing in, and he thinks about his own place, his one-room bachelor above the newsstand. And he wants to tell him, I won’t hurt you. There’s more in this world than all this shit, this slag. He wants to save him. Just kick the puck away.

  But instead he reaches out again and drags the boots off the kid’s feet. He pulls them on, his own feet sticky with blood, catching the vapour of warmth inside. He stands again, leather creaking, the sensation flooding back – his first day wearing them, two weeks ago. Walking back from the Donovan, feeling the warmth, the comfort of having something he cared for so close. Taking the edge off everything so cold creeping in at all corners. And he imagines he can feel, at the left ankle, the place where he scratched the name. Five letters and a number.

  ‘Hey.’ The kid, now sitting up, holds something out to him – the gold watch. ‘Take it. My old man gave it to me. It’s all I got.’

  Gordon feels something stick in his throat. Just boots. Just a snake. Just a name. Nothing’s just anything. Dead inside and out, they all look the same. They’re all the same. And they all have the same name. Katie #18.

  He pushes the kid’s hand back and tries to smile, but it hurts. He turns and heads back out, trying not to look at the kid – the blood from his nose matching Gordon’s own. He shuts the door as softly as he can and walks off, the cooling slag closing the night in around him. You can’t save anyone. Not even yourself.

  It’s only when he climbs the stairs to his room, key in lock, that he remembers the wallet he forgot, the five maybe ten dollars inside.

  Hell, let him have something. Pushing through to the roar of the empty space beyond.

  10

  Normando is sinking into the flowered chesterfield, sucking on a bowl of stewed prunes, the television strobe lighting up the room. Randolph Scott is coming through a canyon, white cowboy hat pushed back as he speeches at Joel McCrea about poor men. McCrea’s cradling a rifle like a baby and he looks off into the great blue yonder and Normando pulls himself out of the swamp of the chesterfield, dialling the volume up until the speakers rattle so he can hear this. Hear him say it. Almost chokes on a prune straining to hear it.

  ‘All I want is to enter my house justified.’

  Pat steps in front of the set.

  ‘Norm – Norm, can you turn that down? Turn it down, Norm.’ She doesn’t wait, yanking the plug out. ‘Need you to come look at my pee, Norm – it’s got a funny colour. Can you come look at my pee, Norm?’

  Normando struggles out of the chesterfield, making the move to plug the set back in.

  ‘You’ve already seen that one, Norm. Can you just take a blue minute here and look at my pee?’

  ‘Pat, I don’t need to see yer goddamned pee.’

  ‘Well, you just go ahead and write that on my gravestone, Norm.’ Pat turning away, turning back. ‘What’re you doing moping about in here with the lights out?’

  ‘Lights weren’t out – watching the TV.’

  ‘Always moping about, you. You just haven’t been the same, Norm. No sir.’ She lets the words hang, incomplete, her face all pinched up as she walks out of the room. Not since you retired – but she doesn’t say it, and her not saying it lets the words become something else. Something that reaches back farther. Not since the mine. Not since the boy. Not since ever.

  She chirps up again from the other room. ‘You hear bout that boy they found out on the highway?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘What d’you think about that then?’

  And he doesn’t answer, because you don’t talk about the damned dead. They’re gone and that’s that. Let em have their peace.

  ‘This came for you today – first one.’ Scurrying back in, she shoves an envelope into his hand – plastic crinkle of a government window and his name typed in. ‘You’re an old man now.’

  She leaves him alone to fumble with the plug, to curse, to sit back and be silent in the dark of the living room.

  11

  Emilia first mentions something about a body after they crawl under the wooden fort. The thump thump of the other kids running around above them, laughing like a bunch of dorks. Emilia Zanetti and Elwy Zott side by side down here in the dark with their plastic ninjas and the last of the earwigs.

  ‘And my dad said they don’t even know his name, isn’t that nuts?’ Emilia always asking her questions twice. ‘Isn’t it?’ But she never really needs an answer, so Elwy doesn’t say anything. Instead he tries to whistle. Because he’s nervous. And he can make great whistling faces but he can’t make great whistling sounds. Or any whistling sounds. It’s what Emilia calls his ghost whistle. Under the fort, Elwy purses his lips and makes strange breathing noises.

  ‘Quit ghost whistling, El, this is serious.’

  Elwy stops making strange breathing noises and concentrates on not being nervous. It’s hard because thinking about dead bodies is the number one thing that makes him nervous. That and having to write on the board in class.

  ‘And my dad said it was definitely murder.’

  Elwy shuts his eyes tight so that murder can’t get into them. Emilia’s dad is an expert of everything. Because he reads the paper every morning and watches TV every night and you aren’t allowed to talk to him when he does these things because they are more important.

  Emilia and Elwy side by side in class, both raising their hands in succession, Zanetti and then Zott, the same way it’s been since Grade 3 when Elwy’s dad had his heart exploded and he and his mom moved into that brownstone across the street from the school. There was that bit in Grade 5 when Andrew Zimmerman split them up, but nobody talked to him because he wore jogging pants and anyway he got held back a year. Not for wearing jogging pants but for being dumb.r />
  Mr. Bedard and his big shiny head are up at the board, trying to teach them something boring about music theory. Elwy’s book is open on his desk, him doodling in the margins.

  ‘And my dad said there was blood everywhere, all over the back of the van, the walls, the floor, the ceiling. Everywhere.’

  Doug Degault with his big eavesdropping ears one seat up and to the left. ‘Emilia, your dad cleans the fuckin urinals.’

  ‘Kiss my grapefruit, celery lips.’ Emilia leans in closer to Elwy, whispering so Doug can’t hear. ‘And you know what else my dad said this morning? Know what else?’

  But then Allie at the front is pointing outside and saying something to Mr. Bedard and then chairs are sliding back and everyone’s moving to the windows. Everyone except Emilia, still chirping behind him as Elwy goes to press his face to the glass. ‘When they opened the doors there was all that blood and that was it.’ Snowflakes coming down, hitting the brown grass. These first ones’ll melt, sure, but it won’t be long before they’ll pile up and Elwy’s already thinking about his black GT Racer in the basement, the hill down at the park, all the snowball fights, the skating rink down at Queen’s, the icicles on the side of his house, the sound of the plough going by while you’re lying in bed thinking about all that stuff.

  Then Emilia’s beside him, tugging at his sleeve. ‘You hear me? There was all that blood but no body. That dead guy just disappeared.’ Elwy’s breath on the glass, everything crusting over.

  After the bell and everyone is gone, except Elwy sharpening all his pencils, three of them, like he does every day. The warm smell of pencil shavings in his hands as he walks to the front and drops them in the brown trash can. Mr. Bedard peering down at sheet music spread out on his desktop. ‘See you tomorrow, Elwy.’

  Elwy nods and goes for the door and then comes back to stand at the edge of the desk, picking at the corner where the wood has splintered. Mr. Bedard looks up with droopy eyes over his droopy moustache. ‘Working on your whistle?’