by Nadia Bozak
And mine were sore and itchy. When I rubbed them, my mitts came away with a yellow slime.
“What’s wrong with your eyes?” Dave asked me.
Shrugged. “They’re sick or something.”
Stopped on a corner, waiting for a light to change.
“I’ll be OK,” I said. “The sun will help to clean them.”
“Sure, and all this dirty goddamn air.”
Walked on, going up and over, north and east, looking out for a place to stop. Hotels and towers and apartments and goddamn stores and restaurants all around us, and still there was not even a little bit of shelter.
Dave was looking up at the street signs, trying to locate us within the map of New York that movies and magazines and music had formed in his mind.
“Everything’s of goddamn brick,” I said. Red brick. Brown. Hung with skeletons of fire escape. Had never seen that before. Everything in Black Dew Seat, if it wasn’t wood, was pre-fab, made of tin, aluminum, rarely going above a single storey. Down streets of cold concrete, up wide open avenues carpeted with shrunken asphalt, strung together with sagging wire, hanging cable, walls spray-painted and windows shit-faced, we went on, reminding ourselves that this was real and so we had better keep on breathing. Every blink of eye birthed the snapshot of something before unseen, unheard of. Except for the very basic flesh and blood of the place’s citizens, there was nothing there wasn’t new to me.
Went on. It was full morning now. We were in an area with official, faceless buildings, the air rang high with impatience, and with our big packs and wide girth, we were getting jostled by all these goddamn workers. They were all over—the place was bleeding with them. Faces stretched with all colours of skin and bodies hung with clean clothes, and none of them had mouths, just sideways slits, and their eyes were cold glass marbles. We ducked into a side street.
Sitting there in a doorway of a store that was closed up, we smoked rolled cigarettes. Crouched down we had a dog’s-eye view of the city going past. Saw sneakers and smears of shit, ticket transfers and butts, spit and spills. Taxis and supply trucks rolled by and there was poison mist rising up from their exhaust and the ground grew hot and the air heavy with smell and sound.
Dave looked bad. He was pale.
“Let’s get some smokes,” he said.
But we had to save our fistful of Gimme Convenience money until we thought up some kind of plan, plus we were scared to go inside anyplace.
Smelled cooking come wafting out, and me and Dave remembered how we’d really forgotten what it felt like to have the feel of hot food in the mouth, never mind in the brain, the belly.
“There’s a hot-dog vendor on the corner,” Dave said.
Trash, traffic, and hot-dog meat—that’s what Dave and me could smell. That and our own selves, the scent of bush and river on us, in our pores, and we knew it would take more than soap and hot water to get it out. Dave had his Slayer shirt on, dirty as it was, and all faded. Me, I had on the same one for Bob Crater and the Goddamns, the one I’d had on since the shit-kicking back there on the Ottawa River.
So there we were after all that, Dave and me, looking more like a couple of regular old street kids than what we were, a pair of deer slayers, wolf tamers just crawled out of the bush. Watched and looked at people going past and then we started asking for spare change like we saw some bums were doing. Lots of those in New York City. We got out a tin plate from my pack, and we got out Pickles’s old boots just to let them have a look around and have a breath. Me, I got off my mitts so as to show off the old fingernails, or what was left off them, there being mostly just this thick old scabby shit there. Thought that would make us look even more desperado, and like maybe we really did need some help and weren’t just glue-sniffing kids. So some folks stopped and gave us some quarters and dimes, and after some hours, we had maybe four bucks. Dave was so quiet and he needed to eat. He slumped over and fell asleep, drooling. After a while I pocketed the money and put away the plate and boots, curled up beside him, and dozed off too.
Got kicked in the boot. The light had fallen. It was late afternoon. Me and Dave had been sleeping there on the street for hours. Dead, we had been. Fallen deep into a world too black to see dreams in.
“Move along.”
Had trouble opening my eyes, being sealed shut with the poison glue that had oozed out and dried. Through the crust of my lashes, I saw the cop above us was big and fat and dark, shiny black.
“Can’t sleep here. Get on.” His back was to us. Kept turning around and glancing down. He kicked my boot again, using his heel to strike.
People walking by looked at us behind the cop. Struggled to my feet. Tried waking Dave by pulling him up. His hand was sweaty and he was coughing.
“Your boyfriend’s pretty drunk.”
“No,” I said. Dave was on his feet now, looking around like he couldn’t remember where he was or how the fuck he got there. “He’s tired.”
“I see you again, I take you in as vagrants.”
Got my pack on and then I helped Dave with his. The cop moved to let us pass and we went on, my arm around Dave’s waist.
Walked on. Wading through traffic jams, ducking around accidents, negotiating islands of stalled buses.
“For once it’s better to be on foot,” Dave said. He winced when he saw the pus in my eyes. Stopped at a corner market. Braved it, going in for cans of Coke and bought a loaf of bread, but instead of peanut butter we got ourselves a pack of Luckies. No one seemed to notice or care about us, just as long as we had money to pay. Went on further north, and after a while we saw a dark figure, some statue, propped up just below the sky and beyond that the thick green of what we knew had to be Pickles’s Central Park. Crossed over at some lights and cut through a crazy roundabout with a column in the middle, the statue balanced on top and surrounded by fountains, some greenery, an angel gripping a globe.
Dave said the fella perched up there was the one who discovered America.
Crossed over toward the park, stopping at the base of the monument there, a muscled woman and her rabid horses, all of them dipped in yellow gold. People were sitting, sprawled on the steps, just eating, waiting, reading newspapers in the sunshine. We wanted to do that too.
Threw down our packs and those who were close to us moved over.
“Stop touching them,” Dave said. He swatted my mitt to keep me from rubbing what were now a pair of pus-holes. “You’ll make it worse.”
“Looks like mustard.” Showed him what my mitt had wiped up.
“Save it for one of those goddamn hot dogs then,” he said.
We moved on, into the park. Once inside we were glad for all the trees around, the spring sunshine, ponds, meadows, all those goddamn willows, thinking how cities surely should have a park like this, for everything must have a heart. Stopped at the first lonely-looking bench we saw and we tore into our loaf of bread. Whole pieces folded in half, we shoved them into our terrible mouths. Swallowed that white dough without chewing. We opened a Coke and shared it.
“That’s better,” said Dave.
His face, besides being bruised and scratched, bug-bitten and sweat-streaked, was pale. His eyes were red, lids hung heavy.
We wandered down a paved path until we almost couldn’t hear noise from the streets outside, then turned down what looked to be a portage trail and followed it until we were good and lost. Could have fit half of goddamn Ontario into that sprawling park. Winding through willow, maple, some kinds of chestnut, we went on, finding our way and then losing it again, and we saw a main path emerge and we followed it toward a miniature kind of lake rimmed with willow and on it floated small skiffs and rowboats. Claimed a wooden bench nearby, and we decided to stay there in the park because we knew that it was safe for us, a place we could just sit and smoke, look out at the water, take in the buildings rising up just beyond. The day was bright and the lig
ht was rich and warm and almost healing. We ate the rest of the bread and drank the other Coke. A girl on roller skates went past and threw this big pretzel in a trash can nearby, so I just went over and got it and brought it back. Dave wouldn’t eat any.
“But it’s warm and salty and has mustard on it too.”
“Yeah, and some rich bitch’s spit.”
Shrugged. Shoved it in my pie-hole. Said I felt better eating that. Was sick to death of plain old bread.
“What do you think a pretzel’s made of?”
Shrugged. “It’s not the same.”
Told Dave to wait there and I went off and looked for more cans of trash and I picked out food when I saw it, but only if it looked pretty fresh. Brought back a bagel with just one bite out of it, also a cheese Danish and a box of fries, and both of those still warm. Had a waxy cup of Pepsi and a coffee, mostly full. The prize was a big, fat hot-dog wiener. No bites gone, but no bun or mustard either. Spread the stuff out on the bench and said Dave ought to eat.
“Who cares? It’s good for now for where we are and what we got.”
So Dave picked up the bagel and scarfed it back, and it was gone in less than a second. Then the Danish and the coffee, wolfed down like it was nothing. We split the wiener.
“Never thought I’d ever have to eat out of a garbage can.”
“And I never thought I’d get down to New York in a boat picked out of one either,” I said. “We take what we can get sometimes.”
“Sure, kid. But at least we have our own tobacco. Don’t gotta pick butts off the sidewalk.”
He got out a smoke and lit it. Coughed up something and spat it away. On that bench in Central Park we had a long think about what we were going to do with Pickles’s boots. Went into the bushes to piss, and I found other kinds of stuff and was thinking we’d have a free ride there for a long time as long as we weren’t picky. There in the bushes was a hairbrush and a tube of lipstick almost full that was bright red, and I liked the colour of it, so I put it in my pocket. Left the brush, though, not thinking I’d ever get it through the knotted wig I had growing out of my head, and I saw some distance off something that looked like underwear, but those I left to rot in the ground. Stopped at a bike chained up but with a mirror on the front, and I used that to see with and I put red lipstick on my mouth really thick. Tried to find myself in that red mouth, black-and-white hair, eyes bruised yellow, but I just couldn’t. Maybe on account of how bad I looked, maybe it was just how the stinking pus in my eyes was clouding my vision.
Went back and showed Dave the loot. “You can have the brush if you want. I’ll go back for it.”
“Fuck, no. Probably that stuff was dropped there because a girl got raped or something.”
Sat on and on and we looked up at the buildings above. Strange to see a horizon like that one, man-made, machine-raised, growing up beyond that bush. It was like being at the same time both lost and at home, city and forest forced somehow to get on and get along. Then Dave got one of Pickles’s boots out of his pack and he set it out on the bench between us and I did the same. The postcard got tucked in my pocket.
“Pickles would have been fucked here,” I said.
“No less than we are,” Dave said.
“Likely he wouldn’t have gotten this far, though. Not even to the border.”
“Guess that was the point. Not getting someplace.”
“Then your dreams don’t get fucked up and broken.”
“See, he knew the score.”
“What about LA, though? Maybe it’ll suck.”
“It won’t,” Dave said. “Can’t. I won’t let it.”
It was getting evening now, people were becoming scarce. The sky was thick with whitish light, a moonglow almost, and across the flat surface of the water the city’s lights were starting to sparkle.
We were waiting for the other one to say it first, the words that were our only reason to be there. My mission first, and then Dave’s.
Finally Dave did it, got the words out. “Let’s go and bury these things,” he said.
Back in the chilly, dirty bush we found a spot under a low-growing willow, and I used the hunting knife and my own fingers and dug up a nice deep hole, and we put those dirty boots to bed. Dropped them in, and we stared down. Dave tossed a Lucky Strike in there like some might do a flower, and he also drained out the last inch from a booze bottle he’d found in his pack.
“What about the postcard?” Dave asked.
“I’ll keep it. I think I ought to. Maybe one day I’ll have someplace to mail it to.”
Then I covered up those boots with fresh earth and patted it all down, and to mark the spot I just took his hunting knife and like it was a pencil I wrote 1989 in the soil.
“I still say he would have died here,” I said. “This place would have just eaten him alive.”
“Now it can chew on his smelly boots,” Dave said.
We closed our eyes and to Pickles we said goodbye.
“Was good of you to come, Dave.” Voice quiet, eyes still closed. “All the way down here, out of your way like that.”
“Just one of those things, I guess. Going with the flow.”
Dave paused. Took a breath. Heard the whisper of a siren come leaking in from the city out there.
“And no more with your fingernails, kid. Just like burning that boat was the last of that pyro shit for me.”
Me, I stood there. Looking down, not wanting to make a promise I knew I could not keep.
“No more, you’ve got to let it go. It’s in that hole now, buried.”
“Sure,” I said. “As good as dead.”
Then Dave and me walked off and left Pickles there, alone.
It felt bad to do that and both of us knew it, but didn’t say anything, not after how far we’d come and the shit we’d put up with to get there.
Evening was giving way to night. The lamps lining the main pathways came on. Dave said it was against the law to be there after dark.
“There’ll be cops around,” he said.
“And homos. Killer rich kids, remember?”
But there was nowhere else for us to go, so we walked further on, deeper into the bushes and laid out our sleeping bags among some tight-growing maples. Seemed almost like the northern bush except there was too much dirty white light coming in. And there was no moon and no stars either, drowned out as they were by the glow from the sky.
“Thought we’d be rid of goddamn bush,” Dave said. On his back. Lucky Strike between his fingers. He passed it over for me to share.
“Inside a house would be good. Away from trees.”
“No,” said Dave. “I want outside, but one that’s all just concrete.”
“Roads instead of river.”
“Los Angeles, kid. You got to come out there with me.”
Me, I said nothing to that. Just put out the smoke and rolled over, curled up into Dave. He had Los Angeles on the brain, and me, I couldn’t even imagine moving right then. Eyes hurt. Back was one big ache, and I was sweating more than I should for the night had turned cool. Too tired and so sore and my insides were drained, cleaned out because now, without those goddamn boots, it was like a part of my brain had been amputated. So that burden was replaced with a heavier ache and a worse weight, and it was coming from the battered-up heart just barely beating inside my chest. Drew nearer to Dave. He was asleep already, but I worked my arms around him and I squeezed tight. To shed the shell of being Bozak, I wished to crawl inside him. A baby unborn it would be like. Back before that life I knew had happened.
Though I wanted to, yearned for it even, that first night in New York’s Central Park, I left my fingernails alone. Didn’t move from my place next to Dave because I couldn’t, my body had grown too heavy. And also I was scared. The park whispered, and once or twice I thought I heard it say my name. No, I stayed
just as near to Dave as I could get. Would have a go at the nails in the morning, I promised, though that part was supposed to have been over then, or at least have gotten a bit better.
New York City and no one in the world knew where we were just then, and that went for me especially.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Couldn’t open my eyes in the morning. Sealed shut with poisoned glue. Dave said he thought there was likely a fountain nearby and that’s where he went to fill our flasks with water.
“We’re close to that same mini lake,” he said. “People out in boats already.”
Laid back with my head in his lap so he could douse those horrible eyes of mine, and he gave me his least dirty bandanna so I could wipe the muck away.
Said to me it was likely the pollution. “If you cried, that would clean them,” he said.
“Well, I won’t do that, so forget it.”
Dave told me to stay put, and he’d go for food. While he was gone, I got up and pissed in the bushes. Pulling down my underpants, they fell apart in my hands. Stains and dirt and damp had been eating them away, and the ratty cloth got so thin it had just dissolved. Same pair since I’d left Bellyache’s. Put them in my jacket pocket for a goddamn souvenir.
Dragged myself back to our bit of clearing, and I crawled into my sleeping bag and buried my head. It hurt me to have vision. Curled up, my body a ball, a worm, a big bastard of a baby. Fell back to sleep.
Dave shook me awake. He had sugared doughnuts, a can of Coke, and also hot, soft pretzels—always plenty of those in the New York City trash.
Sat up. Bit a doughnut. Sipped the Coke. My belly was tight as a fist. All that sweet tasted sick, so I let Dave devour the rest. Lit a smoke instead.