by Darlene Ryan
There were rules stuck up everywhere in the hygiene bay. Rules over the lockers about not taking the key with you when you left. Rules on the wall behind the washers and dryers about how much soap to use and how to clean the lint filter.
On the door to each of the clean stations was a list of rules about their use. No food inside. No drugs. No alcohol. No sex inside the stations. And at the bottom, a reminder to remember the environment and conserve water. That one always made me laugh. Who uses fewer of the world’s resources than homeless people?
I opened the doors to all the clean stations and picked the one that smelled the strongest of bleach cleaner. I locked the door, stashed my things and had a fast shower and washed my hair.
The hardest thing for me was keeping clean. I hated wearing my clothes for days at a time. I always secretly smelled myself to make sure I didn’t stink.
I jammed my dirty clothes into a plastic bag I kept for that in my backpack. I didn’t like doing my laundry at Pax. I’d rather scrounge for money and do it at the Laundromat. It was warm there, nobody bothered me, and I liked to read all those crazy confession magazines that always seemed to be lying around, with stories like “God Needed an Angel” and “Confessions of a Credit Card Junkie.” My life didn’t seem so bad in comparison.
I spent the rest of the day at the library. I read the newspaper, and after that I went back in the stacks and found the math book I was using to teach myself calculus. I felt a bit guilty about hiding the book. I would have borrowed it if I’d been able to have a library card, but you couldn’t have one of those without an address and a phone number.
Q was standing under the big A when I came across the mall parking lot just before six. I’d argued with myself all the way up the hill about whether it was a good idea, but in the end, where the heck else did I have to go, other than back to Hannah at Pax House?
Q smiled when he caught sight of me, and I found myself smiling back. Then I gave myself a mental kick. This was only for a while. It would be bad to depend on Q too much or get used to having someone else around.
His hair was damp and combed back from his face. And something had put him in a good mood, because he was almost bouncing.
“Hey, Maddie, how was your day?” he asked as he led me across the pavement past people pushing carts toward the store.
“Okay,” I said. “How was yours? You look like you ate jumping beans for lunch.”
He laughed and ruffled his wet hair with one hand. “Actually I did have beans for lunch—with ham and brown bread.”
I’d had the leftover biscuits and an apple. I felt a pinch of jealousy.
We zigzagged through two rows of parked cars, and then I saw the white Civic parked next to a huge suv. Q let me in on the passenger side and went around and got in the driver’s door. “I have somewhere we can put the car for the next three or four nights, maybe as long as a week. Plus there’s a bathroom and a stove that works.”
I opened my mouth to ask him how much sneaking around and hiding from cops it was going to involve, but he did that mind-reading thing again and held up his hand. “And no breaking in anywhere.”
“How did you manage that?” I asked. I held my backpack tight on my lap. If anything seemed off about Q’s explanation, I was gone.
He pulled a water bottle from his pocket and held it out to me. I shook my head, so he unscrewed the top and took a long drink. “Remember I told you this morning I might have some work?”
“Yeah.”
“Guy bought an old car dealership. He needs the inside pretty much gutted, and he doesn’t want to hire union guys. So everyone’s working off the books for cash.” He screwed the cap back on the bottle and stuck it back in his pocket. “He was asking around after lunch if anyone was interested in being night watchman. I can pull the car in at the back of the building. There’s a sink and toilet, and for now the stove works.”
He twisted in his seat and pointed behind the mall. “It’s just down at the end of Laird Road. And the best part? Guy has someone bring in lunch because it’s a lot faster. There’s still food left in the fridge, and we can have it.”
“So why’s this guy helping you out?” I hated how mean my voice sounded.
“He’s not helping me out,” Q said. “I’m helping him. Where else is he going to find someone who’ll stay all night in a half-torn-to-hell building for fifty bucks and some beans?”
“So really, he’s taking advantage of you?” I said.
Q pulled a hand over his chin, which was dark with stubble. “Yeah. And I’m taking advantage of him, so I think the universe will stay in balance.” His eyes went from my face to my arms wrapped tightly around my pack. “What do you say, Maddie?” he asked. “Wanna loosen up that death grip on your bag and go get some beans?”
I could feel my cheeks getting red. I set the backpack on the floor at my feet. “Let’s go,” I said.
I was picturing something a lot messier and dirtier than what it was like when we got to the building. Q had a key to the double bay doors at the back. He got out to lift the door and told me to slide over.
“You know how to drive, right?” he said.
I knew how to drive. I just didn’t have a license. Of course, I was just moving the car a few feet into the garage. I wasn’t about to go barreling down the highway past that speed trap they always set up where the old tourism information center used to be.
“I can drive,” I said.
“Okay, so when I get the door up, just pull in and park it close to the back wall.”
I could do that. Couldn’t I? I didn’t say that out loud. I just nodded, and when the door rolled up, I drove smoothly in and stopped about three feet from the end wall, like I knew what I was doing.
Q made sure both bays were locked and then walked around the building to check that all the other doors were locked as well. I just followed behind him, being nosy. There was newspaper covering all the windows at the front of the building. There was nothing in the space other than dust. Even the floor was gone, nothing under my feet but what looked like dirty concrete.
The back of the building was better. The bathroom was just a sink and a toilet, but it was reasonably clean. There were no top cupboards in the small kitchen, which I guessed had been some kind of staff room, but both the fridge and stove worked.
The best part was the office. It wasn’t very big, but that was mostly because there was a desk, a dented black filing cabinet and two…two sofas.
Q came up behind me. “I think we can move the desk and the filing cabinet and we could each take a couch,” he said. He stretched his arms over his head. “I know it wouldn’t be a bed, but it’s a heck of a lot closer to one than the car.”
He was really tall—he had to be over six feet—and it struck me that the back of the Civic probably wasn’t very comfortable. Of course, comfortable was a relative thing on the street.
The filing cabinet was the hardest to shift. “Are you sure no one’s going to care that we moved this stuff around?” I asked.
Q wiped sweat off his forehead. “No one gives a shit about this stuff, Maddie. It’s all going to the dump in a few days.”
“But that’s a waste,” I said, running my hand over the seat of the couch. There were no rips in the black vinyl, no dents in the metal frame. The filing cabinet was kind of banged up, like maybe someone had kicked it a bunch of times, but the desk was nice—real wood.
“I know,” Q said, leaning against the windowsill. “Hey, maybe we should take it.”
“Sure,” I said, wiping my sweaty hands on my jeans. “Put the two sofas in the back of the car and the filing cabinet on the seat. But what do we do with the desk?”
“Tie it to the roof.”
I sat on the corner of the desk, laughing.
“I’m serious,” Q said. “If I could borrow a truck, we could haul all this stuff to the resale shop and make a little money.”
“Can you borrow a truck?”
He did a little dr
umbeat with both hands on the window ledge. “Maybe. There’s a guy—Sam—who’s working here. He’s got this old truck. I’d have to at least get him a case of beer.” He stood up. “Let me work on it. Are you hungry?”
I nodded.
We went back to the kitchen. There was ham, beans, crispy potato bites and even about a quarter of a bottle of root beer on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. “Are you sure it’s okay to eat this?” I asked Q. He gave me a look, kind of a half smile that I couldn’t make sense of. “What?” I said.
“Nothing. I was just thinking if everyone was like you, the world would be a pretty great place.”
“Like me?” I said, setting the foil takeout containers on the counter. “You think everyone should live on the street?”
He made a face. “That might not be such a bad idea. But no, what I meant was you always think about what effect your actions have on other people.”
“You’ve only known me for a day,” I said. “I’m not really that nice.”
I thought he was going to say something flippant back, but he just smiled and said, “I think you are.”
I heated the food in the oven. Two nights of good hot food. I was getting spoiled. After we’d eaten, Q gathered the garbage and took it out to the Dumpster at the back of the building. He came back with the blankets and the crank radio. We each took a sofa, and Q cranked the radio, setting it between us.
“What time do we have to be out of here in the morning?” I asked.
“Before seven,” Q said. “Sorry.”
“That’s okay,” I said. I studied the dusty ceiling tiles over my head, wondering if I was the first person to stretch out on this couch in this office.
“If you were serious about the laundry, I could take you there,” Q said.
The Laundromat was good for a couple of hours, maybe more, if I stretched it. “I was serious,” I said. “But what am I going to do with all the clean stuff when I’m done?” There was no way I could take a garbage bag full of clothes into the library, even if it was clean stuff.
“I didn’t think about that,” he muttered.
I let the silence hang there, and suddenly Q sat up and leaned around the filing cabinet. “I’ll leave the car at the laundry place, and then I can walk or hitch back up here. It should be okay there. I’ll come down at the end of the day and get it.”
I rolled over onto my side. “No,” I said. “You don’t need to do that. I’ll go get a locker over at Pax for the day.” And if I timed it right, I might be able to avoid Hannah.
Q pulled a hand through his hair. “It’s three blocks from the Laundromat to Pax.”
“I’ve carried stuff a lot farther than that,” I said.
“All right,” he said. “But I’ll pick you up there. You can’t carry everything all the way up here. And we have to go over to the hotel anyway, because Kevin—you know, my buddy—he’s working tomorrow night.”
“Could you pick me up at the library?” I said. I didn’t want Hannah to see me with Q. That would bring a whole new set of questions I didn’t want to answer.
He shrugged. “Sure.”
We lay there stretched out in silence for a while as the room got darker. Then Q said softly into the darkness, “You really are that nice, Maddie.”
After another silence, Q started talking about the place he wanted in the country someday, a little house with solar panels and a wind generator so he could be independent.
“You want to grow your own vegetables and all that?” I asked. Somehow it was easier to talk with the darkness all around us.
“Yeah,” he said. I could hear him shift around on the sofa. “Last summer I worked on an organic farm. I didn’t know what carrots were supposed to taste like. Or tomatoes. Everything really. And they didn’t waste anything. Everything, everybody had a purpose. I wanna live like that.”
“It sounds nice,” I said. It did, although it wasn’t something I’d do.
“I even know where I’d go,” he said. “All I need is the money.” He reached over to crank the radio again. “Have you noticed people who say money can’t buy happiness always have money?”
Q’s words made me think of my mother. She always said people who said money can’t buy happiness didn’t know where to shop.
I didn’t want to think about her. I closed my eyes and let the radio and the sound of Q’s voice wrap themselves around me.
four
It was cold in the morning. Q laughed when he caught me tidying up the kitchen. “Maddie, by lunchtime this is all going to be ripped out. Leave it.”
I felt kind of stupid, but I just hated leaving a mess behind.
We stopped at Tim’s on the way down the hill for a small coffee and a muffin each. I needed to figure out how to make some money. I couldn’t live off of Q just for doing some laundry.
I managed to stretch my time in the Laundromat to more than two hours. I folded everything and stuffed it all in a black garbage bag. It wasn’t heavy, but it was still slow going along the sidewalk to Pax House. I was a block away before I remembered that the hygiene bays didn’t open for almost an hour, which meant I couldn’t get a locker for an hour. I didn’t want to stand around outside for that long. Hannah would see me and want to talk about school.
So I turned left at the corner and walked to the park. I found a bench in the sun and sat for a while, watching a crazy squirrel swipe sunflower seeds from a bird feeder in the front yard across the street and then hide them in the grass along the edge of the gravel path.
He’d make his way carefully along the thin branch where the feeder was and then hang upside down, holding on with his feet, and stuff his face with seeds. A couple of times he almost fell, but that didn’t stop him.
There was a line forming outside the hygiene bay when I got back to Pax. I joined the end of it, holding the garbage bag with both arms so it blocked my face. In front of me was a mother with two little kids and a baby. The kids looked like they’d been eating okay, but the mother was thin. Only the baby seemed not to know where she was. She grinned at me, and I made faces back at her. When the line finally started moving, the mother glanced back at me and gave me a tired smile.
“Your baby’s beautiful,” I said.
“Thank you,” she said. She herded the other children forward with one hand.
Like me, she was headed for the lockers. I put my four quarters in the slot, turned the key and pulled the door open. I had to jam the bag inside, pushing with my hip and elbows.
A couple of lockers away, I saw the mother press her hand to her mouth and close her eyes for a second. She bent down to the oldest child, a little boy who was carrying a plastic shopping bag. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “You have to put money in, and I don’t have any.”
The boy was holding the bag with two hands, and even so, it was almost dragging on the floor.
I moved over to them, bent down and swept my hand over the floor. “I think you dropped this.” I held out my hand with four quarters.
She looked at me, confused. “I didn’t drop anything,” she said in her quiet voice.
I shrugged. “Well, whoever did isn’t here, so you might as well use it for your locker.” I dropped the money in the slot, turned the key and then handed it to her.
Her eyes went from the locker to the children to me. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“You’re welcome,” I said. I smiled at the baby and wiggled my nose at her, which gave her a fit of giggles. It was a great sound.
There were a couple of clean stations free so I used the washroom, washed my face, quickly braided my hair, and brushed my teeth. When I stepped back outside, the mother and her kids were heading up the sidewalk. Watching them, I suddenly felt like there was a big rock sitting in the middle of my stomach. If I saw them again, maybe I’d point them out to Hannah. It would be worth another “talk” about going home.
I spent a bit more than an hour at the library working on math. I’d been going to skip lunch, but
my stomach had other ideas. The two dollars I’d used for lockers was the last of my money other than my emergency fund. That meant if I wanted to eat, I’d have to go to the Community Kitchen. Most of the time I’d rather be hungry than go there, but today my head hurt and that made it hard to read the equations on the page. I didn’t want it to turn into one of those pounding headaches that made me feel like someone was using my head for a drum with a baseball bat for a stick.
There were a lot of crazy people at the Community Kitchen. I wasn’t being mean. It was a fact. Most of the mentally ill street people depended on that place to stay alive. I felt bad that they scared the crap out of me—it wasn’t their fault that they were crazy and all.
The closer I got to the kitchen, the slower I walked. I kept thinking I should go back to the library or use a bit of my emergency money. I could see the line—there were only maybe a dozen people in it—when I got close to the building, and I knew I couldn’t go stand in it. I’d rather be hungry. I’d rather have this headache for the rest of the day.
I was just turning around when I saw her—the mother with the kids and the baby. She was at the edge of the parking lot staring at the line. Crap. I knew from experience that anyone young in line was a magnet for crazies.
I took a deep breath and then another. All that did was make me feel like I was going to pass out. I felt for the cord holding the whistle around my neck. It was there. So was the piece of glass in my pocket. “Just go,” I said softly. Then I had to laugh. I was talking to myself out loud. Who was the crazy now?
I walked over to them and touched the mother on the arm. She almost came out of her skin. “Hi,” I said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Oh, hello,” she said. Her eyes slid off me, back to the line. The baby twisted in her mother’s arms and grinned. She clearly remembered me.
“Are you going for lunch?” I asked. “Would you mind if I sit next to you? I just don’t want to sit by myself.”
She gave a slight nod. “I don’t mind.”
We walked across the parking lot and joined the end of the line. She kept the two older kids close to her side, one arm around them. I moved to the other side, at least partly shielding them from sight of the rest of the line.