Orphan Love

by Nadia Bozak

  Dawn and the truck wakes up surrounded by pink prairie grass, growing on forever and in every direction. A gentle morning wind comes through, turning the stretches of field into soft seas of flowing, powered rose. And rolling down the window, the wind is clean now, the burn has been washed away.

  The kid is crying a bit. Diapers need a change, the stranger smells. In the highway ditch is a deep puddle, and it is here that the stranger carries the dirtied little baby. Kneeling down, its naked bottom is cleaned with splashes of soft rainwater. Diaper is replaced, the kid is propped up and strapped in its seat. Milk needs refilling, but the kid gets warm apple juice instead. Accepts it happily.

  And they go on, south down that Oklahoma back road, toward the main highway, then to Elk City. And after that is Texas.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  On the Hudson now, though we knew not where the canal of the Champlain had flowed into this final length of river. Dave thought it had something to do with a powerful-sounding cataract we’d heard gushing through the night, turning the water into this froth so whipping we were forced to exchange the creeping Indian stroke for the good old Canadian one just to keep the canoe from being swept under the crazy outtake of falls. When the water evened out, Dave and me, we cooled our paddles and took up a silent path again.

  Needed provisions, and though Dave and me paddled past the ghosts of night-lit towns, we stopped not, thinking instead we’d hold out for Albany. That or we’d just fuck it all and drink boiled water as we gunned it all the way to New York City. Christ. We had no money left anyway, or at least very little, just a few dollars stuffed in the toe of my boot and whatever Dave had that I didn’t know about.

  The Hudson flowed south like it was nothing and 37 rode a high groove that seemed to keep us floating above water. So quickly did we fly, Dave and me and the boat working together like an engine, feeding off each other, evening out all our sundry scars and patchwork. A spring drizzle fell out of the night like inky spit, but Dave and me wouldn’t stop for the momentum we had achieved would soon leave that rain in our dust. And soon enough we did just that, paddled out of the rain, and it left our faces fresh and clean, tongues all slaked, and Dave and me supposed ourselves rejuvenated enough to go on and on into the night.

  The sky broke up into grey in the east, and we saw the banks dipping low, stretched out before ridges came rolling back and bush kept them hidden away from the hands of man and day. Dave and me pulled over beneath a low rocky ridge studded with conifers, backing out into thick forest. Hid the canoe in a patch of willow bush on the bank and then climbed the ridge with packs and sleeping bags on our backs, and Dave with his cassette case gripped in his fist. Stood so high above the river and watched the sun come up across the mountains on the opposite side. Sun we saw was covered in thick bruised cloud that had moved in from the north. It fought to shine through, and its shafts of blood-coloured orange was smeared across the sky like guilty fingerprints. Dave built a big old fire and we sat on either side of the flames with boots dangling over the ridge’s edge.

  A plane flew overhead, going as low as it was slow.

  Dave was peeling away the duct-tape bandage where I had stapled the web of his right hand. Looked there like some big old bite was taken out. He balled up the tape and tossed it over the ledge. Me, I unzipped my jacket and then pulled up the dirty old Goddamns T-shirt to show off the deep black bruise Dave had given me. It was spread out about three inches, right between the button nipples that were all I had left for tits. Cringed when I poked at it with the nub of my finger, and then that made me let loose with a deep hack. Spat a chunk over the ledge, something tough and salty. Was sure my lungs were bruised. Said as much to Dave.

  “Lungs don’t get bruised,” Dave said.

  He stoked the fire. It was not cold that morning, but the heat of the flames made up for what we lacked in our bellies, so we kept the fire good and high. Sat in silence until the sun above our heads had burned away the cloud, and the day was growing to be the hottest we’d so far felt it. Fire went low, and so we set up beds back in the bushes out of sight of the river below, deciding to rest until the sun cooled down and the evening would hide our path down the water to Albany.

  * * *

  The ride got still brighter, things were changing now. We were getting someplace. The banks were getting thick with highways, byways, mines, dams, train tracks, rail yards, towns, warehouses, and all the while the night above us grew to be not quite black.

  Paddled past factories and industries, power plants and substations, spilling gas and guts into the river water. On the breath of the Hudson we smelled slick sludge and wet waste, and the water turned thick against the razor of our paddles. Thick with sick. Wet burps of disgust and indigestion rose up from the mouth of the river and made the water bubble and brew into a viral broth. The bad breath of the Hudson guided us, got us going and also gagging, made our eyes run, and our noses dripped snot that stank.

  But the sick of the river was a good thing for a bit because it made us forget just how empty our bellies were. We’d been going on tanks filled up with nothing but being desperado, and even this was running low now that the border was behind us. We were starting to slow. Dave wouldn’t fish from that industrial water, so we were hungry. Forgot the feel of rolling something warm around in the mouth, having a hunk or a chunk to chew on, something not our own tongues. More than to eat, longed for a sip of something that was not boiled river water flavoured only with the dust of instant coffee sprinkled in, that being the only food we had left. Booze bottles were empty too, rolling around on the bottom of the boat. Instead of cigarettes, me and Dave were smoking straight paper.

  Hadn’t shat for days. And rarely did I piss, and when I did it was the colour of Tang and stung me like fire. Just getting ready to get out the rod and make Dave pull over so I could fish up something for us to get down our gullets, thinking fuck you, Dave, fuck whatever righteous thing he’d said about that polluted Hudson water. But then there came a bridge of highway sunk into the white glow of a city. Paddling further down, Albany came rising up on the western side of the river.

  Rows of light indicated the city’s neighbourhoods and also there were the fanning lights of turning cars, speeding cars, the still shine of cars parked and idling. Human shadows drifted along the banks, above us, beyond us, going by us, heads shrunk up into shoulders, coats flapping in the breeze like black sheets drying on a line. Paddled on a distance and then pulled over. Eyes darted around the dark of a grassy park. Shoved the boat into bushes, out of sight.

  Climbed up and where we came out was the ghost part of town. Walked the streets, wide and empty, we took the sidewalk going south. Spurred bootsteps sounded like I’d never heard them before, there being no sidewalk in Black Dew Seat. It was just not that kind of town. Instead of pavement, asphalt, or concrete, there was mostly just dirt, except in the winter, that is, and then everywhere was snow.

  Felt small, cutting through that low sprawl of Albany’s suburban outskirts. Cars went past, going north, getting south. Headlights washed our faces, watched our backs, poked out our pupils with stabs of white. The road was six-lanes wide, a highway of sorts, except for the sidewalk and the wide stores and wider restaurants, set back where otherwise would be ditch and bush, fronted too by empty lots where cars could park if the places were open and the night was not already so late.

  Further on and the air was hung with the flavour of hot meat. It tickled our brains, teased our tongues. Up ahead there must have been a McDonald’s, or something like it. No people anyplace, just an openness and an emptiness almost as good as the northern bush. Distant sirens were loons, passing of cars, wind in trees, the lap of lake, empty sounds, all of them, once you got used to it. The first place we saw open was a convenience store. Sign said “Gimme” in fancy old-fashioned script and “Convenience” in block letters underneath. Lit bright against the starless sky, the sign, perched high, was coloured
red on yellow. Hungry colours. Colours of salt and buns and fries and crisp meat all covered in ketchup. Crossed the empty parking lot, went inside. The doors slid open, then shut behind us. A buzzer rang out and a man, a Black man, the first I’d ever seen, rose up from behind the counter as if he’d been back there hiding out. He nodded, eyed us close, looked us up and down.

  Lightweight keyboard music tinkled down from above. Meant to calm shoppers, maybe. But with us, we were cast as horrible monsters without right or reason to be there.

  Thought Dave’s face especially might give us trouble, but that Black man, he let us look around. We went fast and stuck close, gathering up groceries like regular old ma and pa shoppers. The air was salty and piss-smelling from the chili kept in a warmer at the back by the magazines, next to the coolers with milk and pop inside. Dave and me had never seen this stuff before, this kind of food. In bright boxes and coloured bags that begged us to buy it, the food was laughing at us so loud we could almost hear it above the hissing silence in that Gimme Convenience store in Albany, New York. We grabbed what was not fluorescent, what looked less like a cartoon or a joke. Heads low, arms full, we were the only people in there, and we had the clerk’s eyes with us the whole time—the eyes in his head, the eyes of the mirrors rigged up in all four corners of the store. And the music, it kept coming, dripping like torture, as we filled our arms with provisions. Jerky, peanut butter, bread, licorice, jugs of water, bottles of whisky, lighter fluid for cremating the boat in Manhattan, and a roll of duct tape. We loaded up the counter with our supplies.

  “What happened to you?” he asked us both, straight out.

  Dave shrugged. “Just what it looks like—got into a fight.”

  The clerk nodded slowly, crossing his arms over his chest. “Sure it was just one? ’Cause you look pretty terrible.”

  Instead of answering, Dave asked for four pouches of tobacco, sleeves of rolling papers, and a box of staples.

  “You want what?”

  “Staples—like that’ll fit a gun.”

  “No way,” the clerk said. “We sell nothing has to do with guns. You want that junk, you go to the hardware store.”

  “Where’s one at then?”

  “Well, they’re closed now. It’s late. And looking like you folks, they might refuse sale anyway.” The clerk lit a really long cigarette pulled from a soft gold pack. He was old, or at least had some grey hair mixed up in the curly, curly black.

  “Just give us the tobacco then,” I said.

  “You want some chew, is that right?”

  “No. Rolling tobacco.”

  “We got American Spirit back here. You want that?”

  “Don’t know,” I said. “How’s it taste?”

  “How do I know? I look like a farmer to you?”

  “No.”

  “Well you look like a farmer to me,” the clerk blew smoke from his nose, nodded at Dave. Then to me, “You and the Mex both.”

  Rummaged around beneath the counter, and then next to the groceries he put four navy blue pouches sealed in plastic and a pack of papers for each.

  We were just getting our money out. Me, I had my reeking boot mostly off when behind us the door opened and the buzzer went off. Dave and me and the clerk watched two men come striding into the store. Dark hair, one’s strung with salty grey, was worn just long enough to hide their faces. Big bodies, thick, well fed. Heads down, long coats wrapped tight, hands jammed deep inside their pockets. They eyed me and Dave up and down in a flick of lash, and headed straight to the back.

  The clerk’s eyes stayed with the men, who were by then leaning up against the chili machine, looking through the magazines. He took the cigarette end from between his lips, tossed it down and stamped it out, then entered the price of each of our items into his cash register. He packed the groceries into white plastic bags, saving the whisky for last.

  “You gotta be twenty-one to buy this.”

  “That’s great,” said Dave. “’Cause that’s how old I happen to be.”

  “You have a driver’s licence to corroborate that?”

  “No.”

  “Any id at all?”

  Dave shook his head.

  “How about your girlfriend?”

  It was my turn to shake my head no.

  “Then I can’t sell it to you.” He set the bottles aside, glancing up at the surveillance mirror in the corner by the door. He watched the two men, dark, cloaked, lurking, as he rang in the rest of our provisions, not caring if we were old enough to buy the pouches of tobacco. Me and Dave looked at each other, the first time since we’d come into Gimme Convenience. In our eyes was regret over the whisky and also nerves, saying without words how those guys, those Mexicans, were getting ready to do something badder than either of us had ever done in our lives.

  It was time for us to get back down to the water.

  Dave’s fist went in his pocket, going for the money he had left. Passed him what I had taken from my boot.

  The clerk said, “Ten dollars and fifty-eight cents.” He wasn’t looking at us at all anymore. He called out, “Hey, you gotta pay for what you’re reading.” Stuck another cigarette in his mouth and said something about Mexes not understanding the American language.

  Dave put the cash on the counter and went to gather up the bags. Me, I lurched up with him, my eye on a loaf of soft white bread that I was going to rip into and devour before we even left the store. Could taste it in my mouth, melting there, its sweet snowy dough. Eyes went wet thinking about it, making up for the dried out hole where my mouth should have been.

  The clerk looked down at what Dave had put before him. Suddenly we had his attention again. “What’s this? I don’t know what this is.”

  “Money,” I said.

  “Only money I ever seen is green, and this ain’t green, lady.” He was poking at the bills, using his cigarette lighter for a stick. “Where is it you from? Not the U.S.A., that’s for sure.”

  Dave said we came from the North.

  “The North? This here’s Albany—we’re in the goddamn North!” He looked back up at the mirror by the door. “Hey!” He was really shouting now. “You speak English back there? I said you gotta buy those magazines.”

  The wide backs of the men gave no reaction any of us could see. They just stood there, not even bothering to turn pages anymore. The clerk’s eyes were shot with blood. A lacquer of sweat showed up on his dark brown face.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “You come back here with real cash and you can have this stuff.” With his lighter he pushed the money off the counter.

  Dave and me watched it fall slowly, all crumpled up, and land on the floor. And then when we looked back up at the clerk, he had both his hands stuck high in the air. He was pale, though his skin was pretty dark, and getting still paler with each step the men at the back were taking as they came striding down the aisle toward us.

  Behind us, then beside us. Each had a gun, a pistol, short-barrelled, small, and sleek, and way more threatening than the hunting rifles I was used to seeing. Weapons were held chest high, straight out, pointed not at the heart, but at the head. They didn’t have to say it. Dave and me got our hands up too. A canvas bag was tossed onto the counter.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” the clerk said. For him it was the only word left in the whole of the world just then. He was frozen. Stiff and still. His eyes bubbled madness and fear like his skin bubbled sweat.

  Standing there between me and Dave, their heads bent forward just enough for the hair to fall over their faces, we made out wide noses and pale eyes glowering up from under black smears of brow. Skin that was not quite dark. These two were brothers, doubles, told apart only by a one- or two-inch difference in height, and also the one by me having grey threads in his hair. There was no car waiting out there for them. They were on foot, sneaking around, living on dark and feeding o
n night, just like we were, these men. The clerk was still just standing there, whispering fucks under his breath. The one beside me, the grey hair, whistled high using teeth and tongue. So high and sharp, and all of a sudden it scared me bad and made my bladder start to run. Squeezed hard to keep the sting from leaking out. Looking over, the grey-hair’s eyes were as sharp as his whistle, as harsh and shattering too.

  “Move it, Gato,” his accent said.

  The clerk, shook up by the whistle, the words, came back to life. He took down one of his shaky hands and with it pulled the till right out of the register, emptied it into the bag sitting on the counter. The fucks he was saying were getting louder. Then he got mad, the fear was draining out of him. He was puffing up with anger. The fucks now were broken up here and there with bad words about Mexicans, spoken as he waited there with the full bag on the counter. Just waited. His back straight. Head high. One pale palm was in the air, the other one dangled down at his side, out of sight. When the young Mexican next to Dave made a gesture with his gun, that Gimme Convenience clerk pushed the bag away from him with a violent sweep. The contents went spilling all over the floor where our Canadian bills were crumpled up, lifeless, useless, dead. He was smiling. It gave him a whole lot of joy, pushing money onto the floor like that.

  “Now you gotta bend over, wetbacks, and pick that shit up. Pretend like you’re picking peppers in the California sun.”

  A biting spider. Poisonous. Hateful. Both hands were down now, making me and Dave nervous and the Mexicans mad.

  The grey-hair cursed him in Mexican, calling him Gato negro, then called him a cunt and an asshole in a language we could all understand. He grabbed me by the rough of my hair, then the scruff of my neck, and shoved me down on my knees. Gun at the head. Picked up the bills like he wanted me to. Shoved them into the gym bag, careful to make sure the Canadian money went in there too. Just for a joke or a surprise when they were later back at their mom’s house or wherever, laughing and drinking, having a smoke and counting up the night’s haul. They had canvas sneakers on. Tennis shoes, I guessed they might be called. Once white but now just plain dirty. The one near Dave kicked some loose bills over my way. Fuck all of them, I thought, clerk and robbers both. An asshole’s an asshole no matter what colour of skin it’s puckered up in.