Pain & Wastings

by Carrie Mac

  All of this started with Holly. She’s like some dark angel making me relive all this stuff. Maybe I’ll bail on the last two shifts. Juvie would be better than this hell.

  But then Chandra’s outside, honking her horn. I pull the clothes from the dryer, put them on damp and run out to her car. I’ll do tonight and then I’ll decide.

  Before I even get there, I am angry at Holly. I do want to know how she knew my mother. Was she one of the paramedics who came in the end? Or did she pick her up one of the other times, when she overdosed, or when she was flopping on the floor, seizuring from some bad heroin? I knew how to call 911, but we rarely had a phone. So if I got scared, I’d go into the hallway and just start screaming at the top of my lungs until I got someone’s attention.

  The art therapist asked me why I didn’t do that in the end. I remember staring at my painting on the easel in front of me. It was of the inside of the front door, with its three locks and peephole and the pictures of jazz greats Mom taped up there, although you couldn’t tell who they were in my rendition. They were just blobs.

  “Can you tell me why that time was different, Ethan?” Marigold asks.

  Ages ago, at our first session, she told me her name. Marigold, like the flower. She must’ve guessed by my expression that I didn’t know what a marigold looked like, so she led me to a pot of them in a square of sunlight and let me stand there quietly staring at them until I was ready to begin.

  “It’s okay to tell me what was different about that time.” Now it was almost a year and two foster homes since I had started seeing her. “Take your time.”

  “It was different,” I told her, “because the door was locked way up high.” I pointed to the highest lock in the picture. “And that one needed a key.”

  “I wonder then,” she said gently, “how you got out. Remember when they found you wandering around in your pajamas?”

  I didn’t tell her the whole story that time. I clammed up, like I usually did. I fixed my sights on the marigolds at the windowsill and didn’t pick up another pencil or crayon or paintbrush for the rest of the hour.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The memories are coming back more than I would ever wish them to. The smells, the flies. The hunger. I stumble through the nightshift making stupid mistakes. Holly yells at me when I admit that I left the oxygen tank up in some old folks’ home hallway after we were all the way to the hospital. We had to tell dispatch that we had to go back. There were calls waiting. They were pissed off.

  “I told you to get some sleep!” she snaps at five in the morning when I drop the burns kit, sending the sterile gauze and saline tumbling under the ambulance. “You’re lucky it’s packaged so well or I’d really be mad.” She collects what she needs and tells me to pick up the rest. She goes inside to where John is trying to calm the little kid who pulled the pot of hot water onto himself off the stove. I trail inside, exhausted. My limbs are heavy, and the short slices of sleep I got on the station couch in the downtime make me feel worse than if I hadn’t slept at all. The mother is bawling.

  “It’s not as bad as it could’ve been,” Holly is saying. The mother is holding the child still while John dumps another liter of saline over the pink blotch on the kid’s belly. He’s about three, dark skinned, which makes the pink look kind of odd.

  “I was getting my husband his breakfast,” the mother says. Her accent is thick, Middle Eastern maybe. The husband is standing near the door in oily coveralls, gripping a lunchbox. He looks crestfallen, as if it were all his fault. You can tell he’s not sure if he should risk being late for work, or if he should leave now and break his little boy’s heart.

  “Daddy!” the boy wails. He reaches out. “Daddy!”

  The father drops his lunchbox and gets down on his knee beside the boy. “It’s okay, Amir. You no worry,” he says in faltering English. “I stay for you, son.” Then he switches to his mother tongue, murmuring into the boy’s ear as he strokes his hair. There are several other people lurking in the dim light of dawn. A set of grandparents sitting quietly at the table, eyes full of concern. Two older sisters in matching pink nighties. Another much older man, maybe a great-uncle or another grandfather. This boy is so loved it makes me hate him. I am jealous.

  As we pull away with the son sitting in his father’s lap on the cot, the whole family comes out to see him off. The mother is crying, a daughter clinging to each arm. The others are consoling her. The boy has stopped bawling. He sniffs back more tears, his nose dripping with snot. His father wipes at it with a handkerchief he takes from his coveralls. Holly offers him one of the bears they keep to give to kids. Amir clutches it to his chest and whispers a shy thank-you in English when his father prompts him to.

  I am full of envy. And so mad I cannot utter one word for fear that I will let loose all of the wicked thoughts in my head. Where was everyone when I was his age? Why didn’t anyone look after me? How could they have not come for me? Why didn’t anyone know what had happened?

  I don’t say a word as we make our way back to the station after dropping little Amir and his father off at the children’s hospital. I slam out of the back of the ambulance and stalk into the station to splash my face with cold water in the bathroom. When I’ve taken as much time in there as I can without drawing attention, I head back out to the bay to help Holly and John clean up the car.

  “You better be more on your game tonight,” Holly says as we heave a new main oxygen tank into its cabinet. “I don’t know what your problem is, but you were about as useful as a tit on a bull all night.”

  “I think you know exactly what my problem is,” I growl as we wedge the heavy tank into place.

  “You want to talk about it, I’m right here,” she says. Her words are sharp, like she’s frustrated, or pissed off, I’m not sure. “We’ve been dancing around the issue for three shifts now, and I’ve been really good about it, leaving it up to you if you want to talk about it. I’m not going to press. You’re not six years old anymore.”

  I slam the cabinet shut. I ball up my fists and eye the fiberglass door of the supply shelves. I want to punch something so bad I can feel my muscles tightening in anticipation. Instead I back out of the ambulance and trip on the last step. I land on my back, my head cracking on the cement floor.

  “What the hell do you want?” I put a hand to my head and then the other one too. I grip my head and yell the words at her again. “What the hell do you want from me?”

  John pops his head out of the stockroom and catches Holly’s eye. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” Holly says. She climbs out of the ambulance and offers me a hand up. “Want some ice for that?”

  “Leave me alone!” I twist away and turn onto my knees. I stand, my head pounding.

  “Are you going to be okay?”

  “What the hell do you care?” I grab my backpack and take off out into the morning. It’s only 6:00 AM, but already it’s bright and getting warm, as if spring is putting extra effort into this day. I head up to Hastings and turn east. About five minutes later, I hear Holly’s car clunk down into first gear beside me. There’s no way I’ll replace her clutch now. She’s a bitch. She’s toying with me. Like this is some warped version of A Christmas Carol and she is the ghost of dead mothers past.

  “Want a ride?”

  She was going to drive me home, which is why I don’t have any money for a cab or bus. I shake my head, refusing to look at her. Why? Not because I’m afraid I might reach through the open window and throttle her or hit her or something. The urge to swing at something has vanished. If I look at her now, I might cry. I clench my jaw and keep walking. “No thanks,” I say.

  “Suit yourself,” she says and wrenches the clutch into second. The car lurches off just in time. I start crying. I’m at the overpass above the train tracks. I turn away from the slow-moving slug of commuter traffic oozing into the city and grip the railing. I could be over it in one hop. What would go through my mind in the seconds between jumping and spl
atting open on the tracks far below? Would thoughts of my mother finally go away? Or is that all I would think about? I push my weight onto the balls of my feet, testing the effort it would take to throw myself over.

  There are a couple of tarps set up under the overpass. An old man crawls out from one. He’s wearing one-piece underwear, like in the olden days. He puts his hands to the small of his back and stretches, letting loose a great bellow of a yawn. He sees me at the railing and waves.

  “Top of the morning to you,” he yells. “Beautiful day!”

  I lift my hand in an empty greeting and then take off at a run. If I do go ahead and kill myself, I’ll do it on Holly’s shift so maybe she’d be the one to have to scrape my brains off the train tracks. It’d serve her right.

  I’m not a pussy. The crying is just because I’m tired. It can get to you. I am not a pussy. I’ll do the last nightshift because I can. I’m strong enough, and it’s true: I’m not six anymore. I’ll do it and then I will walk away and never set foot in the Downtown Eastside again. A last good-bye to Holly, and she’s gone from my life. I know how that goes. It’s not hard to say good-bye. I’ve had fourteen foster moms and lived as a citizen in a nation of ever-rotating foster “brothers” and “sisters.” The easy part is saying good-bye.

  Chapter Sixteen

  An unmistakable, high-pitched scream from Kelly wakes me up that afternoon. I poke my head out into the hallway and see her knee-deep in her crap in her room at the end. She’s hurling things out at Marshall, who is leaning—weary with red-rimmed eyes and a look like he’s about to break into a yawn at any moment—against the banister.

  “Hissy fit,” he reports when he sees me. “Sorry to wake you.”

  Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I shuffle toward her room. “What’s going on, Kelly?” I stay in the hallway as she launches a high-heeled missile at me.

  “Detox, that’s what!” She scoops the contents of her makeup drawer into a ratty travel case.

  “Where you will not need your makeup,” Marshall says. “Nor will it be allowed.”

  She drops everything to lock a furious glare on him. “What?”

  He repeats himself. She does not break her stare. He says it again, this time in pig Latin, which just infuriates her more.

  “You’re making fun of me!”

  “They’re coming for you in fifteen minutes, princess,” Marshall says as she throws a tampon at him. “Thank you.” He picks it up and pockets it. “How ever did you know it was my time of the month?”

  “Because you’re being such a bitch,” she says to him as she marches to the door and pulls me into her room. “God!” She slams it in his face. “What an asshole.”

  Boys are not allowed in her and Nikki’s room. I wait for the knock on the door, the order to get out, but either Marshall can’t be bothered to enforce the rule right this second, or he’s not too worried about what we can get up to in fifteen minutes.

  Kelly plops herself down on the mess that is her bed. With a sigh, she upends the makeup case and runs her hands over the compacts and tubes and sticks. She picks up a plum-colored gloss and calmly dabs it on.

  “What’d you get up to yesterday?” she asks with a smack of her lips.

  “After you went off with those four creepy men, you mean?” I back up to the wall and snug myself against it. I’ve never set foot in here before, so I’m not sure what to do with myself. Nikki’s side of the room is, not surprisingly, flying the Goth national colors of black and more black, but Kelly’s side is overwhelmingly girly. Peach curtains, a white trundle bed, a flowery scarf draped over her bedside lamp. And it smells like her, of perfume and lingering cigarettes. Sweet and smoky.

  “We hung out. I went to their hotel room.” She drops the gloss and picks up a tube of mascara. “Jacuzzi tub. Room service. Very swank.”

  “How much did they pay you?”

  She looks up from the little mirror she’s using, the mascara wand poised at her lashes. “None of your business.”

  Except for her teeth, she is so achingly beautiful, I just want to lock her in this room forever, or at least until she realizes how uncool it is to be a sixteen-year-old meth addict who turns tricks to fund her habit.

  “Detox will be really good for you,” I say.

  “What the hell do you know about it?”

  “Enough.” I went with my mom to a First Nations detox center on an island off the north coast when I was five. We took a floatplane, and then a boat took us the rest of the way. We were there for a month. My mom slept in the bottom bunk, and I got the top. Every morning I joined the other children for lessons in the little schoolroom, and in the afternoon we played games. I doubted the concrete block Kelly was heading to was anything like that.

  “Come here,” Kelly says.

  “Why?”

  She caps the mascara and tosses it aside. “Just get over here.”

  I take a step forward.

  She’s staring at me, waiting for me to come closer. “Oh, never mind.”

  I’m thinking I’m off the hook, but then she launches herself off the bed and grabs me. She spins us around and shoves me onto the bed and straddles me. With her arms above my head, she leans in and kisses me. Grape lip-gloss and peppermint gum and the hint of her last cigarette. That’s all I taste, not the rot of her teeth, which I was afraid of, to be honest. Her lips are soft, slightly sticky from the gloss, and her tongue is determined. She parts my lips with hers and wiggles her hips.

  “Kelly—” I groan as she moves one hand to my waist. “I don’t think we—”

  “Come on,” she murmurs in my ear. “You’re dying to.”

  A honk sounds from out in front of the house. Footsteps on the stairs. Marshall’s voice in the hall. A knock on the door. “Your chariot awaits, princess.”

  Kelly kisses me again, hard. “Thanks, Marsh,” she says to the door.

  I am lying on the bed, unable to move, while she throws the last few things into her pack. All of a sudden she’s in a much better mood. I, however, have been paralyzed. I can’t see myself leaving this spot until she is able to resume her position and continue where we left off.

  “Tell him to wait five minutes,” I plead when it’s clear she’s about to leave. “Come on, Kelly. Tell them you’re not dressed.”

  Backpack over one shoulder, she climbs on me again, but only long enough to squeeze me through my jeans and give me a French kiss for the road.

  “I’ll be back,” she whispers in my ear. “They’re going to fix my teeth while I’m in there. That’s reason enough to go.” She climbs off and straightens her skirt. “I was going to run away, but I figure I might as well get them fixed.”

  And then she is gone.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chandra picks me up at five thirty to drive me to the station one last time.

  “Enjoying it so far?” she asks.

  I don’t want to get into it, so I nod.

  But she persists. “What do you like the best?”

  “Hmm.” I hold my hands out, comparing invisible weights. “Either the stench of piss and vomit or the constant reminder of my dead mother. Not sure. It’s a toss-up.”

  Chandra doesn’t rise to the bait. She lets out a prim little sigh and signals to turn onto Cordova.

  “Do I have to go to school tomorrow?” I ask her as I get out of the car, my paper-bag lunch in one hand, backpack in the other, like she’s my mother dropping me off at a sleepover.

  “Of course not,” she says. “You’ll have to get some sleep.”

  “That’s right.” My mood brightens. “Yes, I’ll be far too tired to go to school tomorrow. Must recover from grueling nightshift.”

  “Captain will expect you on Friday. He’ll want your essay.”

  “Essay?”

  “Yes, essay.” Another stuck-up little sigh. She is not in a good mood today. “The one you were clearly told that Captain wanted to see at the end of your block of shifts. Five hundred words.”

  “
On what?”

  “What do you think?” A bigger sigh now. “Ethan, I’d hoped this experience might help you deal with certain aspects of your life story.”

  “Here we go.” I back away from the car.

  “Was I wrong?” She stretches across the front seat to talk out the open door at me. “I meant well. I thought you might benefit from a chance to revisit the area, but safely this time, grown up enough to put things into perspective instead of always having them as the larger-than-life demons they’ve been for you.”

  “It was all better left forgotten.” I suddenly feel like I’m the adult and Chandra is the one in trouble. If I was a different kid I might think to write her up about this stupid stunt. This is the kind of thing social workers actually get in trouble for. A poor decision, which forced me to relive deeply traumatizing aspects of my difficult childhood...That sort of thing.

  “We’ll talk.” She says this more softly. “Tomorrow, after you’ve slept. Okay?”

  I shrug.

  “Just get through tonight, okay?” She flutters something at me. “Here.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You might want it. You might not.”

  It’s a sticky note with an address written on it. Reading the numbers sends a chill down my spine. I feel the grilled cheese sandwich Marshall made me eat before I left threaten to resurface. I look up from the paper. Chandra has gotten out of her car and is standing beside me, reaching to take it back. “It’s a mistake. Sorry. Bad idea. I honestly thought maybe enough time had passed. I was wrong. I apologize.”

  “You go to school for this?” I shove the paper in my pocket. “So I could go to university for four years and get a degree like you and be some kid’s social worker forever and then turn around and dig a big knife into his back? That’s in your job description?”

  “I said I was sorry. Look, if you want to cancel today, I’d understand. We’ll call it even.”

  “Go home, Chandra.” I back away, daring her to follow. She doesn’t, and for that I am proud of her. “Go home to your husband and daughter and have supper and give her a bath and put her to bed. Maybe you could tell her a bedtime story. Maybe the one about the little boy stuck in an apartment with his dead mother for a week. It has a happy ending, or so they claim.”