“So you’re Dan the man,” I say. The guy who buys Christmas lights and tidies coats and couches—the guy who replaces me.
“Guess so.” He disappears into the kitchen.
My mother grabs my arm. “You said you wanted some information. What?”
“I want to know where my grandparents live.”
“I don’t know,” she says.
“Yes, you do,” I reply. “They wouldn’t leave that farm. We’re the ones that did all the moving.”
“If I tell you, will you go?”
“Maybe.”
She bites her lip and leaves the room.
“Hey, why aren’t you guys watching cartoons?” I ask. “It’s Saturday. Where’s the cereal?” The carpet is clean. “Who vacuumed this?”
“Mom did,” Micha says. “Dan doesn’t like dirt all over the floor. Look at this, Dylan. I made it at school.” He points proudly to a red and green paper chain on the tree.
“It’s cool, Micha.” I touch it and a link breaks in my hand. “Sorry. Maybe we can glue it back together.”
“That’s okay, Dan’ll fix it,” Micha says.
I want to rip apart the whole fucking chain.
My mother comes back holding a letter. “Your grandmother died a while back,” she says.
I’m stunned. “How long ago?”
“I’m not sure. Five—six years?” She hands me the letter. “It’s just from the old man. There’s a return address in the corner.”
Turning it over, I see a rural address and a town, Murdock. The postmark is three years old. The letter has never been opened. Then I see the name on the letter.
“This letter was for me,” I say.
“I didn’t see any point in giving it to you.”
“Just like you didn’t see any point in telling me my grandma had died?” I want to hit her, I’m so mad. I take a step back so I won’t.
“It wasn’t like you were close to them,” she says. “You hadn’t seen them in years.”
“And whose fault was that?” I yell.
Dan sticks his head around the door. “Pancakes are ready.”
Micha runs into the kitchen. Jordan plops down on the sofa, face avid, longing for trouble.
“You said you’d go if I gave you the letter,” my mother reminds me.
I stare at her a long moment. Her hair is clean, cut neatly. She’s wearing jeans and a blouse instead of the usual food-stained sweatsuit.
“You said you’d go,” she repeats. She licks her lips nervously.
“Those pancakes sound good.” I shove the letter into my pocket. All deals are off! My mind is bouncing inside my head.
I sweep into the kitchen.
“Let me get some plates out for you, Dan.” Crossing to the cupboard, I pull out dishes and glasses. I open the cutlery drawer and throw handfuls of forks and knives onto the table. “I know this place so well, Dan, you’d almost think I live here.”
I open the refrigerator and grab the syrup, noticing the shelves crammed with food. This has to be Dan’s doing. Mom never shops.
We sit down at the table, one big happy family. Dan places a large platter of pancakes in the centre and—holy shit—there are even sausages. I spear one with my fork and take a huge bite.
“You’re quite the cook, Dan,” I say. “Or maybe I should say, Uncle Dan. I hear you and Mo—, I mean, Aunt Joan here are getting hitched soon.”
Dan puts a sausage onto Micha’s plate. It shuts me up momentarily to see him feed Micha first, but I quickly regain my tongue. “That’s quite a responsibility, taking on a whole family. Well, most of the family.”
Dan slides a look at my mother, but she’s flipping her fork over and over and doesn’t meet his eyes.
“Yep, your aunt and I are getting married in the new year. How exactly are you related to Joan?” he asks.
“He’s my sister’s boy,” my mother says quickly.
“That would be her sister Edith,” I add. “She’s the eldest. Aunt Joan here is the baby. Lots of family back in Murdock.” I pick the name from the envelope. “Aunt Joan has four sisters and three brothers. But then, you’ll meet them all at the wedding.” I’m enjoying this. Making up an entire family.
“You’ve never told me anything about your family,” Dan says to my mother. “I had no idea it was so large.”
I watch gleefully, wondering how she’ll get out of this one.
“We’re planning a small wedding,” my mother says, “with only immediate family coming, so Edith and the others won’t be getting an invitation.” Nor will you, her scowl says to me. She turns back to Dan. “I didn’t see much point in telling you about them if they’re not coming.” Her fingers pleat the placemat—hell—placemats! I can tell she’s dying for a cigarette. I bet she smokes on the sly.
I drown a pancake in syrup and stuff it in my mouth. It’s good. Fluffy. “These are great, Uncle Dan. Good thing you can cook. Aunt Joan here can’t boil water.”
“Jordan, could you please get some milk,” Dan orders quietly.
I’ve never met anyone so unflappable. But what’s more shocking is Jordan opening the fridge to get milk. If I’d asked, he’d have told me where to go.
Dan cuts Micha’s pancake into bite-sized pieces. It nearly tears me apart to watch.
“So, Micha. Do you know why the sky is blue?” I ask.
Micha shakes his head, mouth full of pancake and sausage.
“Well, light comes in waves, and when the sun shines on the earth, shorter wavelengths are scattered by the atmosphere. Blue light scatters more than other colours, so the sky looks blue.”
Jordan snorts. “What are you now, a brainiac?”
I kick him, hard, under the table, just to remind him I’m bigger. “Einstein had a mathematical formula to explain why the sky is blue.” I don’t know why I’m going on about colours. I feel like I’m in a race, but I don’t know how far or where the finish line is.
“That’s interesting, Dylan. What grade are you in?” Dan asks.
“Well, Dan, I’m not at school right now. Aunt Joan can tell you all about that.”
“Dan got us the Christmas tree,” Micha says suddenly.
I put my fork down, appetite gone. I want to tell Dan who I am. I want my mother to tell Dan who I am. I want him out of my house and me back. But there’s food on Micha’s plate, more in the fridge, a new snowsuit, Jordan following orders, coats hung on hooks. Micha watches me anxiously. He wants to like Dan, but he’s waiting to see if I like Dan before he’ll allow himself to.
“It’s a great tree, Micha. Awesome,” I say. “You got a great tree, Dan.” My voice cracks. I jump to my feet. “I just remembered, I have to be somewhere.”
I rush into the living room, pull on my coat, and grab my backpack.
“You coming back for Christmas, Dylan?” Micha asks. He stands in the kitchen doorway, Dan’s hands on his shoulders.
“You’re welcome to come,” Dan adds.
“I don’t think so. I got that big family in Murdock waiting for me. You know how it is. Families.” I’m babbling. How the hell do I know what it’s like with families? I don’t have one any more. My mother saw to that.
I open the door, but instead of going out, I cross the room in three long strides and pick up Micha and hug him.
“Bye, kid. You be good so Santa comes.”
I set him down, wrap an arm around Jordan’s neck, and crush his hair beneath my knuckles. I let him go, then barge out of the house, leaving the door open behind me.
Chapter 14
I walk and walk, seeing nothing around me, not knowing where I am or how much time has passed. And I don’t care. Eventually, my legs refuse to go any farther. I sit on a bench at a bus stop, bury my head in my arms, and cry, huge sobs that shake my body. People and buses come and go, and still I sit, until I’m empty of tears. Then I remember my grandfather’s letter.
Dear Dylan, I read. I am not sure if this letter will find its way to you. You will be twelve ye
ars old now, nearly thirteen, and we have not seen each other for six years. I imagine you are a good size, as you always had large hands and feet to grow into. I study my hands, bend and look at my feet. They seem normal. I picture myself, a small kid with monster appendages. Your Grandma passed away a year ago and I miss her very much. It would give me a great deal of pleasure to see you again. I think of you often, and hope you are well, but as your mother has moved a few times, it’s been difficult to keep track of you. I’m still here at the farm. I would like you to come and visit, and perhaps, if you want or need to, make your home with me. With love, your Grandfather.
I can see him, sitting at the kitchen table, a pen held awkwardly in his shovel-sized hand, Grandma’s chair across from him, empty. I can’t believe my mother didn’t give me this letter. I could have lived on the farm all this time. No dads, no uncles to hassle me. But would I have left Micha and Jordan? Who would have taken care of them? Maybe that’s why Mom never gave me the letter. She needed me to be around. But if she needed me, why did she throw me out?
The sun paints the undersides of the clouds with a pink that fades as grey twilight gathers and softens the city’s concrete edges. I don’t want to be in this unfamiliar place in the dark. I climb on the next bus that comes and miraculously it heads toward downtown. Night falls rapidly now. The buses coming toward us are packed with people returning to warm homes. Gnawing at my thumbnail, I wonder where to go tonight. I could be at my granddad’s.
I’ve barely stepped off the bus when Twitch materializes in front of me.
“Hey, Dylan, I found us a squat,” he cries excitedly. Fingers, arms, legs, eyes move frenetically. Excited and high.
“Where?” I ask warily. Remembering Brad.
“It’s an old factory,” Twitch replies. “It has toilets.”
“Are any surprises waiting there for me? Like Lurch?”
He hangs his head. “Sorry about that, man. No surprises. I promise.” He solemnly crosses his heart, like Micha. Shit, he’s so pathetic.
I follow him through dark streets and alleys to the edge of downtown. Here, it’s empty stretches of asphalt, rusting car skeletons, broken streetlights, and long rows of warehousing. Figures hug the shadows, filling me with unease. An opening has been cut in a wire fence beneath a NO TRESPASSING sign. We crawl through and a factory rises before us, four storeys high with pale lettering barely visible against the dark brown brick: STOVEWORKS. A few windows on the first floor are boarded up, but the rest are jagged glass. We pass through a steel door hanging drunkenly from its hinges. It took a lot of strength, desperation, or anger to tear that door down. What is Twitch getting me into?
The first thing I notice is the stench. Damp, oil, burning wood, cigarette smoke, urine, and other odours I try not to think about. Twitch leads me up a set of iron stairs with no railing. It’s as if they’re suspended in space. I hug the wall, leery of the yawning black hole beside me.
The stink upstairs is worse. The first person my eyes fall on is the Swear Lady, with her shopping cart. How she got it up those stairs is beyond me. A small fire burns in the middle of the room. Dumb idea. This place is so old, it would go up in flames in a heartbeat. Twitch strides across the floor to where five people sit around the fire. Amber is one of them.
“Dylan,” she cries.
Right about now, I really want to leave. But where would I go?
Torn blankets and stained pillows are laid out around the fire. A three-legged chair rests against a broken table. Someone has even pitched a tent. I hear rustles in the dark beyond the fire’s light, sense movement, and realize there are more people. It’s an eerie feeling.
As I walk slowly toward the fire, Amber suddenly screeches, “Watch the fucking hole!”
I look down to see broken floor planks framing a black space. Shit!
“You have to watch where you’re going in here,” Amber says as I come up to the fire. “There’s a couple more.” She waves a hand around vaguely, and I’m left none the wiser.
The floor is littered with empty food cans, beer bottles, hamburger wrappers, cockroach carcasses, and used needles. Those are a huge concern. A needle can pierce even the strongest shoe sole.
Twitch hunkers down beside Amber. “What do you think?” he asks me. “Not bad, eh?”
He breaks off to cough and spits into the fire. It hisses.
“Did you go to your doctor’s appointment?” I ask him. I’m still standing, not sure if I’m staying or leaving.
“What?”
“The note I gave you. You had an appointment with the doctor today,” I say. “Didn’t you read it?”
“Oh. Yeah. I forgot to go,” he says.
Amber reaches into Twitch’s pocket and helps herself to one of his cigarettes. Most people would break her arm for that. She’s lucky that Twitch is fairly agreeable. Amber lights up the cigarette and takes a deep pull.
“I thought you were cutting down,” I say nastily.
“It’s only my third one today,” she replies, unruffled. “You fucking counting them?”
“I’m surprised to see you here. I thought you had a room.” She brings out the best in me.
Amber takes a second drag from her cigarette and blows out a stream of white smoke. “I had to give up my room. I couldn’t pay the rent. Brendan cut me loose. I’m too pregnant to turn tricks.”
No use to him any more. But Jenna is.
I feel sick.
“Where are the toilets?” I ask.
Twitch gestures into the blackness past the hole in the floor. “Over there.”
I’m afraid to move into the dark.
“Here.” He tosses me a flashlight. “I picked this up at the hardware store.” Meaning, I walked in, picked it up, and left—without paying.
I press the button on the side and a pool of weak yellow light shines on the floor in front of me. Then I just follow my nose. I’m gagging before I even reach the bathroom. I play the light over the room. Then wish I hadn’t. There are toilets, like Twitch promised, but he forgot to mention they didn’t flush. I don’t want to go in there, but my kidneys are about to burst. I take a huge breath, run in, turn off the flashlight, quickly do my business, and run out, retching.
I unroll my sleeping bag and lay it next to the fire. I won’t sleep, I tell myself, just rest until morning, then I’ll leave. I’m scared of the people lurking in the shadows, scared of the fire, scared of the dark, just—scared!
My eyes close. Don’t sleep! I force them open to see Twitch with a needle up his arm. They close again, but raised voices and the sound of flesh meeting flesh jerk me awake. It’s over quickly. No one has spare energy to fight. In the dark, small pinpricks of light—eyes, rats’ eyes—stare back into mine.
Amber pushes a guy off her. “Asshole,” she mutters.
The moans, grunts, murmurs, and yellow firelight shape my dreams, and I’m restless all night.
Next time my eyes open, watery light filters through broken windowpanes to show a man peeing in the corner. So much for the toilets! The fire’s dead and Twitch lies next to it, unconscious and shivering. The humane thing to do would be to cover him with my sleeping bag, but I roll it up and tie it to my pack.
Picking my way over bodies and garbage, I skirt the holes in the floor and hug the wall as I go down the stairs. Through the broken door and the hole in the fence. The stink of the place clings to my clothes and I recognize it now. Desolation.
Chapter 15
I sit in Mandy’s with a cup of coffee, and the wedding photograph of Grandma and Granddad on the table in front of me. I’m hoping one or both of them will make me feel normal again after my night in the factory. It settles me to see the grey blossoms, the woman fanning herself, and Grandma and Granddad in their wedding clothes. I touch the figure of Grandma with a trembling finger. Her face is fuzzy in my mind, but I remember clearly the clicking of her knitting needles, and her voice telling me not to go near the well and to eat my beans.
I drain my cu
p and use the washroom in the restaurant—I am a patron, after all—to rinse my face before I leave. The wedding photograph has planted an idea in my brain, and by the time I arrive at the library, it has taken shape. I pull on the large glass doors, but they don’t budge. I try again, disbelieving. The library is always open. Except on . . . Shit! It’s Sunday. My idea is all shot to hell. Or is it?
Searching through my pack, I find the flyer about the school for street kids. The school’s computer lab can be used for e-mail, school or job searches, I read, and, most important, it is open on Sundays. As I’m reading the flyer, a new theory comes to me. About Twitch. But I will need to prove it.
The school is in an old store, like the youth centre, but it has bars on the windows and a surveillance camera over the door. I smile widely for the camera and step inside. Ten computers are set along one wall. Tables and chairs stretch down the middle of the room. The opposite wall has floor-to-ceiling shelves full of books and magazines. The first person I see is Mr. Crowe, bouncing on the balls of his feet. It’s surreal seeing him here.
“Why, Dylan. I thought you’d moved,” he says.
“Change of plans,” I reply.
“You’re looking dreadful.”
There’s no disputing that. “What are you doing here?” I ask.
“I help out with the school on weekends.”
From a room in the back, Glen walks out. I want to leave, but my feet won’t go. My idea has made them take root.
“Hello, Dylan. I haven’t seen you for a while,” Glen says.
“What exactly is this place for?” I ask.
“It’s an alternative for kids who need a different kind of schooling,” Glen tells me. “Regular schools aren’t for everyone. Lots of kids slip through the cracks. Here we offer those kids literacy skills, a chance to get a high school diploma, correspondence courses, and access to computers to do job searches, do up resumés. We’re trying to give street kids tools to build their lives.”
He sounds like an advertisement.
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