Orphan Love

by Nadia Bozak

  Then that one, the young one, said something to Dave in Mexican. Dave stayed frozen, locked, stiff. A hit of acid, and he could have taken those guys down, guns and all, with a couple of quick kicks. Still, I kept my eyes on Dave, ready to move whenever he did. Dave, though, he had his eyes on the clerk.

  Pulled up by the hair. Bag was grabbed away. Headlights flashed, a car pulled up outside. The Mexicans panicked, turned, saw figures moving beyond the glare of the store windows. Distracted like this, the clerk pulled out a gun of his own. He vaulted the counter so he was standing there before us all, a little man, no taller than I was, weighed down by a hefty shotgun that he obviously knew how to use. He cocked it. Pointed at the grey-hair.

  The car outside pulled away with a squeal. The clerk’s eyes shifted. All looks were at the window, seeing what was going on outside. Who was in the car? Where was it going? How much had the people inside it seen? All look but Dave. He lurched at the clerk, going for the gun, but the clerk fired before Dave got a full hold of him.

  That sound, I saw it. Like the fleshy nub of a girl’s tight, ripe cherry, my ears got popped. Was a virgin to that kind of gunplay, and that sound of shot ripped through me as such. Knew then why Dave hated guns, but knew too why I didn’t still, and maybe never would. Shattered the world with sound, made you see for just a second that what seemed so unfair and unhappy and endless was made of nothing stronger than window glass.

  Blood spray on my face. Acid in my mouth. The grey-hair, he went down on his knees, and I went down with him. Tight in his arms, we rolled around on the floor, me embraced by this hulking Mexican, bleeding all over. It all went too fast to know whose blood was whose, or what pain felt like anymore. He worked his pistol up under my chin, cursing and spitting. Was on top of me, so I could not see. Waiting for another sound of gunshot to come. Bit the tongue hard to stop the rise of panic.

  “Fucking Mex. You’re taking the goddamn wrong side.”

  Heard that, the spit of the clerk.

  When old grey-hair rolled off of me, he pulled me up on my feet. Eyes stung with feverish blood, wiped it away, and saw in the fluorescent glare that Dave now had the clerk’s shotgun. The Mexican kid was tying up the clerk with duct tape that must have come from one of our bags of provisions still there on the counter. They had him down on his side, hands bound, a piece of tape across his mouth. Another across his eyes, blanking out his face like it was pornography. His anger and his hatred shut up and censored. He wriggled. His face purpled, got wrinkled and horrible. The grey-hair had a hold of me still. Was holding up his heavy frame, doubled over with the pain of the shot the clerk had blasted through his left shoulder. On the floor there was not just blood but what looked like strips of skin, laid out like bacon, and clinging to them were chunks of cloth. He took his gun away from my head and he cocked it, pointed it at the clerk. Spat at him.

  “Stop,” said Dave. “Just take the money and run the fuck away.”

  The grey-hair looked at Dave, then at his buddy, brother, partner in botched-up and blighted crime, who was just finishing up with taping the clerk’s feet together. They exchanged words, the kid pointing at Dave. Guessed he was explaining whatever it was Dave had done, how he’d sided with them and not the clerk, and saved their asses from death, arrest, or both. Their speech was rapid, spitting, and I got lost inside it.

  “The bags, kid,” Dave said.

  The Mexicans were side by side now, the grey-hair, bleeding and wincing, held up by his brother. Stepping over the hostaged clerk, I got the bags. Got the booze and tobacco too. Looked around the store, mouth watering with big ideas of going on a spree. But then my eyes fell on Dave.

  “Let’s go, kid. We got all we need.”

  The clerk we left wriggling on the floor, face bursting against its duct-tape bandages. Turned to go. The Mexicans with us, for Dave was calling the shots now, and he gestured toward the door. But before we went out, the wounded grey-hair spoke some words to his brother, who then grabbed a fistful of cash from their gym bag and shoved it into the pocket of Dave’s jacket. Dave and me made sure they went out first, then we left the store too, the buzzer sounding behind us.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Dave threw the shotgun into the Hudson River. It splashed, it plunked, it sunk. Was gone. Crouched in the grass, we ate and drank, but only after Dave made sure I’d washed that blood from my face. Listened to sirens going past, up there on the high of the bank, and we were sure they were meant for those Mexicans, and on account of the food we took and what Dave had done, for us as well. A fine drizzle set in. Skin got cold and wet like winter clay, but our bellies were full now and hot with the whisky we were drinking, so our throats and hearts glowed red. Felt good to be getting drunk again, drowning out the night, its confusion, numbing a bit the sound of shot that still racketed in my head. Dave took a drag from the joint he’d rolled with some little scrap of hash he had mixed in with some tobacco, and then he passed it over. Had a toke, and then I coughed this thick hack that came from the bruised lung. Turned and spat out the chunk I’d brought up. Then took in a healthy swig of whisky to calm the throat and the chest too.

  Dave was counting the money the Mexicans had shoved in his pocket. “We scored,” he said. “Enough here to get to LA, that’s for certain.”

  “Can’t believe the good that came out of that bad luck,” I said. “I mean, that was truly fucked.”

  “We’re magnetized for that kind of shit.”

  “So it seems. I just can’t decide if things are getting better for us or worse.”

  “I’d say they’re staying the same. This is just the American version of our shitty luck.”

  Dave got out a fresh roll of duct tape and rebandaged his hand.

  The moon came out from behind some cloud and its colour was milky blue. When one of the whisky bottles was mostly gone, Dave and me stumbled down to the water.

  It started to rain after we had gone some five or six kilometres into the black night. It was a thin rain at first, light to the touch, quenching to the tongue, so we kept going, for this rain, compared to other rains we’d seen, was nothing at all. Frigid wind from the northwest began to bluster our path and churn up the Hudson water. We sobered up. Had to. Kept pace with the river, though we could not see even two feet ahead, and we knew the wind was such that we must be shipping water. If it had been day, the sky would have been hanging low enough to touch it and it would have been painted shallow white and the trees would have been flat black shadows against it. We went on for hours in that rain, skin going sour and slippery and hair hanging in ropes all stuck to our faces. Pulled over just as it was thinning. Had a smoke, shielding cigarettes in cupped hands. The moon, it broke out from the cloud cover just before the sky opened up into morning. A white mist was rolling along on top of the water. Dave and me crouched on the bank and watched the sun break through, and then when it was up and full, it didn’t take long to burn away the mist there on the water. Dave said this would probably be our last stop before New York City—that he was so sure we’d get there if we pushed. The sun hit the face of the cliffs and dripped down into the water. We shoved the boat back into the bushes.

  “Tonight’s run will be the best yet. And also the worst,” Dave said.

  “The best thing for us is to sleep.”

  “And Slayer. A Slayer song’ll do the trick too.” He had the tape case open, and was sorting through his precious cargo. Inside that souped-up suitcase was nothing less than his soul, so he’d have to carry it all the way down to Manhattan and then across the States to LA. The sound of your whole self and your spirit. Knew what that was like when you have such a thin feel of who you are. Instead of making it worse by looking in an ugly old mirror, you just throw on a Goddamns record, and then the world goes away and you can be yourself again.

  Under the canoe, we were stretched out side by side, smelling our odour of smoke and fresh air. Was the way h
uman beings ought to smell—fresh somehow, and living. Soon enough it was hot and stuffy, and the air became overheated with our combined breaths.

  “Dave?” I said.

  “Yeah, kid?”

  “You ever like having a dad the time that you did?”

  “No,” said Dave. “It sucked.”

  “So you’d rather have been left alone?”

  “Who knows what would have happened to me if that lady hadn’t kidnapped me. Maybe it doesn’t matter. I got very little faith in fatherhood, whether it’s your real dad or not. You ask me, you’re the luckiest goddamn girl on earth not to have a dad.”

  “You know, Dave, after Bellyache, if I ever died, there’d be no more Bozaks. If I ever died, well, we’d all just be extinct.”

  Dave nodded, saying nothing back.

  “Bellyache knows.”

  “Knows what?”

  “Who my parents were. Always did, but he was always saying, ‘Oh, when you’re older, when you’re older.’ And me, I said, ‘Well, fuck, I don’t even know when’s my birthday, so how I can tell when I’ll be finally old enough?’ And Bellyache, he said that he’d know when the time’s right and then I could know where I came from.”

  “Well, if he’s your uncle, I guess he’d have to know one of your parents, right?”

  “My mother. She was his little sister.”

  “Know her?”

  “Left Black Dew Seat right after I was born. Bellyache got a letter when she died. Wouldn’t tell me or Pickles what happened, though, so I guess it must have been somehow shameful.”

  “But he knew who knocked her up.”

  Nodded. “And Pickles did too. And someone else.”

  “Who?”

  “Slava. He knew. But he doesn’t know that I do too.”

  Bellyache’s whisper. The violence of it—how could I ever spit it out, say those words to someone else? Waited for Dave to ask me who it was and how I found out, but he never did.

  Started getting sick on those thoughts of myself. Rolled out from under the stuffy boat and left Dave there, and I stood out in the light of the sun and then I went into the bushes and threw up. Again and more and more, the poison of it came out my nose and it was all pale from the white bread and booze. Swore, wiped my mouth on my sleeve. Felt better then, as good as having a cry.

  Went back to the canoe, but I stayed out in the light of day. Rolled a cigarette and had a drink of whisky to wash the acid from my mouth.

  “Feeling okay?” Dave asked when I lifted up the boat and crawled underneath. He had his Walkman out.

  Nodded yes.

  Maybe he could guess it, the secret I kept. But I’d know when he did because likely then the screwing around and making out would end.

  “Real low on batteries. I got to ration to just one song.”

  Me, I said I wanted to listen too.

  “OK, but it’s going to be ‘Angel of Death’ because it’s stuck in my head.”

  So he gave me an earphone, and I listened to it propped up on my elbow and Dave listened laid flat out on his back. Heads close, eyes closed, listened close, and all I saw in the speed of it and in its violence and heat was Dave. When the song was over, Dave, he rewound the tape to the beginning, and I gave back my earphone so Dave could have both and hear the song for real. Stretched out and waited for Dave to finish with the Walkman, and when he did, I lifted up my shirt to show off the ugly bruise he gave me. Touched it with his fingers, smoothed it out, traced it. Dave and me started kissing, and then because it was pretty cramped there, we rolled out from under the boat. In the full light of early morning, the air was warm and we were alone. Kneeling there, face to face, Dave and me took off our jackets, rock tees, and undershirts, and me, I even took my blood-crusted mitts off. Naked of chest, we were together muscled and gristled, and we took time to kiss and lick it all clean and better. Lips stung with Muskol, tongues thickened with the taste of our stench. Husked with scabs, patched with bandages, we had to go slow, so as to barely touch that flesh of ours, covered all in hurting. But then the bugs came out to join in on that feeding, so we had to put everything back on again. Doused in Muskol, we slid back under the canoe.

  “Better not to screw in the woods anyway,” I said. “Too much like a horror movie.”

  “And too much like Canada.”

  “But Al’s girl was OK to do in the bush?”

  “Like I said, she was just some dumb chick.”

  “But in a car wasn’t OK either. Remember, Dave?”

  Dave nodded.

  “Maybe in New York?” I said.

  “Rather wait until LA.”

  “’Till after I have a shower too?”

  “That doesn’t matter much. It’s all about the time and the place.”

  “OK,” I said. Paused. “You screw a lot of girls? Up in Trident?”

  “A few.”

  Then Dave asked about me. “You been only with O’Right?”

  “Sure. And only in a truck or the woods.”

  “Yeah, I can tell.”

  “How?”

  “Just can.”

  Dave rolled me on my side, worked his arms around my middle and he came up behind me so his knees were under my ass. He unzipped my pants, and I lifted my right leg like a male dog might do to piss lying down. Through jeans and dirt and underpants, with the tip of his finger and the nub of his thumb, he found the brightest and most festering piece of my flesh and he smoothed it out until it was more than warm and pure silver with wet. Didn’t stop until it leaked out this thick and creamy happiness, and I squeezed his good hand, the left, unbandaged one, until the bones inside felt bent. Glad he was behind me, so he didn’t see the eyes roll back in my head.

  Doing that made up for the nasty elbow he’d delivered to my chest, and after it was over and I was zipping up my pants, I told him just that.

  And then we slept, inside the coffin of that canoe, the light leaking in through all its scars and wounds.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  High noon, low moon.

  Amarillo, Texas.

  HOW IS IT I’M SUPPOSED TO FIND YOU? AND HOW DID I EVER FIND YOU BEFORE? NOT EASY to keep awake so the stranger talks. As the road before them further unwinds, the kid hears about the way and the lay of the North, the sway of the people, how there are still these poor old families living so far up in the bush.

  “Nowhere to go but down, and that means south. Like the pull of gravity, it’s only natural that way. But most will stay there, and they’ll never know sunshine or blacktop, desert or dust.”

  The stranger lights a cigarette. Leans back, one hand out the window.

  Outside beyond the highway, the sky’s gone golden, what trees they see are crisp and dried up and brown. And in the truck, for kilometres, twenty or thirty, then eighty more at least, it’s quiet, shut up, and while the stranger thinks, the kid’s asleep.

  “You and me now, we’re going south and west, and we got a future there, a fresh start too. Not a Hollywood ending, but a Hollywood beginning.”

  Go into Amarillo because the kid’s low on milk. Sky’s light, must wait for night, for when the whores surface from the depths, sticking to the street like abandoned bandages grown right into the wound.

  “Never looking back and never going north, not ever. We can kiss that goddamn direction goodbye.” The stranger goes on, driving through city and suburbs just to kill time until sunset. Smokes and drinks a Coke. Puts the road mix back on, fast-forwarding to Hostage Crisis playing “5 Miles Per Hour.”

  Truck crosses the tracks into the far side of town. Pulls over and parks in front of a tavern called Phil’s. Coins in the meter. No bodies in sight, the stranger locks the kid in the cab and goes inside for a piss, a burger, a bottle of beer. All this is done in a hurry on account of the locked-up kid. Wolfs down the food, catches weather and t
he news on the TV behind the bar.

  Outside, in the fall of dusk, there’s a girl leaning up against the supply truck. One foot on the running board, elbows thrust back. A gym bag hangs from her shoulder. She sees the stranger come out of the tavern and doesn’t have to guess that this is the driver of the truck. She smiles wide, greeting a found friend. There is recognition in her eyes. Cautious, back up, the stranger approaches, lighting a cigarette with a match.

  “Saw the plates,” she says. “Ontario. That’s where I’m from too.”

  Stranger steps up next to the girl. Peers inside the truck, checks the kid’s OK. Strapped in place, bottle in the lap, fussing with its seat belt.

  “Cute kid,” she says.

  The stranger nods.

  “You going far in this here hunk of junk?”

  “Am, yeah.”

  “Thought I could get a ride with you.”

  “Not going north.”

  “Neither am I, but I need to get away from here all the same.”

  The stranger shifts. Looks down at the sidewalk, then up at the streetlights, which have just come on. The girl, though, she keeps looking at the stranger, trying to find something soft in the eyes, round in the hips. Those arched pink lips.

  “Like to help you, kid, but I’m going solo. Sympathy’s a luxury I just can’t spare you right now.” Careful not to say too much, already feeling naked under the searchlights of her eyes. Though here in this shit-kicking southern state, it’s probably a better thing to be a toughened girl than a softened boy.