People Park

by Pasha Malla

  Reluctantly they joined him.

  Mr. Bailie! Mr. Starx! Tell me about this structure.

  This . . . bridge? said Starx. Sure. Well it’s called Guardian Bridge —

  Delightful! Why?

  Um. Bailie?

  I don’t know, said Olpert. That’s just its name.

  That’s just its name, enthused Raven. Fabulous, Mr. Bailie! What else?

  Well, said Starx, it’s the only way on or off the island. Except by boat, or I guess plane.

  Or helicopter, added Olpert.

  They’ve been talking about building a second one from Whitehall for ages, but . . . it’s not really happening. Whitehall’s sort of a disaster anyway.

  Raven shaded his eyes with both hands, looked west. A disaster?

  Yeah. It’s fugged up out there. People living underground, running amok. We do what we can to keep them in line. Isn’t that right, Bailie?

  But Olpert was watching the illustrationist. He lay on his belly, stroked the pavement, licked his fingertips, nodded.

  Yes, said Raven. Yes, yes, yes.

  III

  DINE WOKE TO the sound she’d fallen asleep to, or in spite of, or had kept her up all night, she wasn’t sure: Pop’s snoring. Despite Debbie having closed and Adine then locking the bedroom door, his snores drifted into their bedroom from the den in a phlegmy, spectral mist. It wasn’t yet seven a.m., her pillow was hot on both sides. Had she slept? Maybe she’d just dreamed of sleep, in some inchoate, semi-conscious state of dreaming. Though if she had slept, Pop’s snoring had found its way into her dreams too.

  Overnight, Adine had learned this snoring like a song: the in-breath a gravelly scrape, a pause, a gleek and rattle, and the exhale contained a groan, a sputter, a cough, or a jammy smacking of lips, sometimes even the pasty slop of his tongue — and had at some point he cried out, Please, yes, oh? Adine hoped with all her heart she’d been dreaming.

  She lay there in her shorts and T-shirt and blackout goggles, covers long flung off in a prickly fit. Beside her Debbie slept, she could sleep through anything, her breath swished in, out, in, steady as waves. Upon Adine’s feet she could feel Jeremiah, his little body rising and falling. It felt conspiratorial, the two of them slumbering so peacefully, while Adine had lain awake half the night, or all the night.

  She dug an elbow into Debbie’s back until it elicited moans.

  Ow, what are you doing, what time is it.

  He’s out there, said Adine.

  So?

  I can’t see, remember. What if I trip on him or something. When’s he leaving?

  Debbie pulled the covers over her face, said something muffled. Adine yanked them away. Do something with him, Deb. I had to listen to him snoring all night and —

  Hi, said Debbie. Good morning. Are you going to ask me how my night was?

  Oh. Do you want me to ask?

  Yes.

  Oh. How was it?

  Thanks for asking. It was fine. We drank too much. I feel sort of ugh.

  And . . . your old colleague?

  Teammate. Pearl.

  Pearl.

  Pearl is, I don’t know. The same but different. Or maybe it’s me who’s different. I mean, I know I’m different, but . . .

  What?

  Pearl seemed tired.

  Tired.

  Like tired from her life. Not of her life — from it.

  Her marriage. Her kids.

  Maybe.

  I don’t tire you, said Adine, do I?

  Debbie smiled. No, you wake me up. Sometimes with violence.

  Are you going to kick that guy out of here so I can go pee?

  No, wait. That’s a good point. That’s the difference, right? Don’t you always want someone who wakes you up? Like even when things are lousy you’d rather be up, awake, than too tired to even . . .

  Adine’s eyebrows did a provocative bounce — up, out of the goggles, then back down.

  No, not just that. A stimulant life, not a sedative life — isn’t that what you want?

  I guess. I mean, once you guys head out I’m probably going to take a nap . . .

  Debbie shook her head, laughed, flicked the lenses of Adine’s goggles. I miss your eyes, she said. When’s this project going to be done?

  Adine shrieked, Never! and with both feet pushed Debbie out of bed.

  What are you doing today, said Debbie, pulling on her housecoat. You want to come down to the memorial protest, or?

  Work.

  Right, said Debbie.

  Pop’s snoring intensified as the door opened — and faded as it closed. Adine scooped Jeremiah off her feet and hoisted him onto Debbie’s pillow, tried to find his face with her nose, felt a whisk of tail, and realized she was nuzzling the wrong end.

  AT HOME MORNINGS to Pearl were the enemy. She treated those first few daylit hours as an adversary to tackle and vanquish and with the fierce resolve of a mad sergeant drove Gip and Elsie-Anne with bum smacks and handclaps from bed to breakfast and out the door. She seemed to be in three rooms at once, threatening, In the van in ten minutes or you’re walking to school! and when the garage lifted and Harry tore out of the driveway Kellogg invariably was left to drink the mug of untouched coffee she’d forgotten cooling on the counter.

  So on Friday morning it was odd for Kellogg to be up with the kids, crouched over the camping stove with instant oatmeal dustily awaiting hydration in plastic bowls, while Pearl slept in the tent. Come on, Dad, let’s get a move on, said Gip, kicking his father’s feet, we have to get there early to get a frontrow spot. Remember yesterday? I don’t —

  Hush now, said Kellogg, Mummy’s still sleeping, and he smoothed a bedheaded tuft of his son’s hair, it sprung up again in defiance.

  Elsie-Anne sat at the picnic table in her pyjamas, her purse in her lap, a spoon in one hand and a blank expression on her face. From all over Lakeview Campground the sounds of other rousing families sifted through the trees: car engines growled, radios jangled, the patter of morning routines — dads, mums, kids, everyone starting their days, the big day, thought Kellogg, and the Pooles were part of it! Birds warbled and chirped, a gentle breeze came hissing up through the poplars from the lake, and if you listened close, beyond it, the shush of waves splashed the beach.

  Kellogg only faintly remembered Pearl zipping herself into the sleeping bag beside him at some point after midnight — had he imagined the sickly smell of booze filling the tent? What if it had, she’d been with old friends, why not have a few? And so what if she slept in, it didn’t mean anything was wrong. They were on vacation. Maybe it meant things were going right.

  Dad, whispered Gip, eyes urgent. We need to go.

  Champ, hey, we’re a five-minute walk from the park. It’s barely gone eight. We’ll have some breakfast and when Mummy gets up —

  Mummy? We can’t wait for Mummy.

  No?

  Do you want yesterday to happen again?

  Kellogg stirred the water. Bubbles were just starting to percolate to its surface. Beneath it, the butane roared and blue flames battered the pot. No, he said. I don’t.

  After breakfast and Kellogg had given Gip his meds and the dishes were washed up and everyone brushed their teeth at the communal tap (Not potable) and the kids put on clean clothes (No showers, Dad? asked Gip and Kellogg pulled a cap over his son’s jaunty hair and said, We’re on vacation!), it was almost nine and Pearl still hadn’t risen. Kellogg cocked an ear at the tent as a hiker might outside the cave of a hibernating bear. Gentle snores. He winked at his kids. Looks like Mummy tied one on last night.

  Tied one what on, Dad? said Elsie-Anne.

  Never you mind, Annie.

  Should we untie her?

  No.

  Elsie-Anne, looking worried, pulled her purse over her head.

  Alon
g with Raven’s Illustrations: A Grammar Kellogg packed Gip’s knapsack with a blanket, snacks, juice, meds, sunscreen, mosquito repellent, a first-aid kit, a book of crossword puzzles, and waterproofs (the sky was cloudless), the guidebook got tucked in his backpocket. Then he wrote Pearl a note, wedged it under a pot lid on the picnic table, and told his kids, Okay, guys, Mummy’ll just have to meet us when she’s up. Annie, take that bag off your head, we’ve got to walk now.

  His daughter emerged blinking. Familiar’s concerned about Mummy.

  Dorkus, will you please shut up, Gip said. Mummy just got tied up. It’s not a big deal.

  Shut up, Stuppa.

  Mummy’s fine, said Kellogg. Though let’s not call each other names, huh?

  Gip shouldered his knapsack, so stuffed the zipper puckered.

  Kellogg looked at the tent. We’re doing the right thing, right, guys?

  We’re doing the right thing, Dad, said Gip.

  Oh, you think so, champ? Good. I think so too. I mean, ideally we’d all be together, but — she’ll meet up with us soon. Mummy, I mean. Right?

  Right.

  Okay! To People Park! Annie, come here, take my hand. And stop looking in your bag, you’ll fall down, you’ve got to watch where you’re going.

  Here we come, Raven, said Gip, then deepened his voice: For tonight’s illustration will surely be a spectacle for the ages, one which nary a soul will soon if ever forget.

  POP WAS TOO big for the couch, he’d opted for the floor, and there he was, right in the middle of the living room, a blanket clung to him like giftwrap, from his face came that sinusitic scraping. His clothes were everywhere, jeans draped over the recliner, a sock on the kitchen counter, another inside a stray teacup, the pale dead moth of his underwear splayed on the endtable — this Debbie’s eyes raced away from, a brownish tinge to the white cotton — and, by the door where he’d flung it the night before, his poncho, while in the closet dangled empty hangers. A high whiny fart arpeggiated a minor-C triad, Pop rolled onto his side, from within the sleeping bag came the gritty scritch of fingernails raking pubic hair, and then he was snoring again.

  Even more than his sounds and things, it was above all Pop’s smell that had invaded: a musty, tangy odour reminiscent of stale cardboard boxes and humid cheese. Debbie pushed open a window. From outside came the growl of traffic, a train rumbled through Blackacres Station. Across the street, at the corner of E Street and Tangent 3, the owner of the laundrette was scrubbing her windows with a soapy mop: she’d been blackedup in the night.

  Pop spluttered, turned, flopped an arm over his head, buried himself in his own body, and kept sleeping: snore, whistle, snore. Debbie edged by him to the bathroom, locked the door, dropped her robe, stepped straight into the shower.

  When she emerged ten minutes later in a towel, Pop was at the stove, the element glowed orange beneath a pot of water. This is an alienated stove, he said, not turning to face her. I am habituated of one which flames.

  Hang on, I have to get dressed, Debbie said, and slipped past into the bedroom, where Adine was sitting up in bed in her goggles.

  Is he still out there.

  He’s boiling eggs.

  Amazing. We’ve taken in a refugee.

  Refugee. You say it like it’s a joke, but that’s what he is. He’s homeless! What are we supposed to do, let him sleep on the street?

  I mean, that’s his name, right? If he’d been born, say, Pop Apartment maybe —

  Stop that. I need to lend him your housekeys. I mean, if you’re not going out today . . .

  What.

  Come on, said Debbie. Just for the night. Maybe Sunday too. But on Monday we’re going to figure out what’s going on and get him home.

  Great, said Adine, flatly.

  You okay? said Debbie. She sat on the bed, put her hand on Adine’s leg.

  But behind those goggles, it was impossible to tell what was happening.

  CALUM JOLTED UPRIGHT, the garbage bags taped over the mattress crinkled. His sleep had been deep and leaden, coming out of it now felt akin to being chiselled from a concrete slab. At some point in the night the Hand must have released him, he hadn’t even stirred — anything could have happened and on he would have slumbered. On her empty side of the bed was only an apostrophe-shaped impression, where her body had curled against Calum’s. The supply closet’s only supply was a headless mop leaning in the corner. The dusty shelves were empty, the air stale, the stripe of light under the door suggested a world Calum wasn’t sure he had a place in.

  From somewhere out there came voices, a silent pause, an explosion (of glass?) followed by laughter, cheers, hoots.

  Calum unballed the hoodie he’d used as a pillow, pulled it on, then jeans, then sneakers. From beyond the closet came another crash and delighted whoops. He opened the door, light came searing in, he squinted, the swollen eyesocket ached. Everything was quiet. He felt himself being observed.

  His eyes adjusted. Sitting on stools in the middle of the silo were two small figures in sunglasses. Near them, on the floor, was a pile of fluorescent tubes, frosted glass pipettes the length and width of saplings. Through the loading dock’s open doors poured water-coloured light, a choir of hoodies lined the threshold. On a couch against the far wall lounged a shirtless guy in a welding mask, the visor reflected the room. Someone lying with their head in his lap sat up — the Hand. Calum waited for a greeting. She yawned and lay back down.

  The welding mask leaned in, seemed to whisper in the Hand’s ear.

  The Hand laughed, sat up again. With her eyes locked on Calum’s she snuggled close to this shirtless, faceless person. Her fingers splayed around his bellybutton. The thumb snuck into the waistband of his pants.

  Calum watched.

  From within the mask a voice said, You want to play?

  This prompted from the hoodies a squawk of sharp, mean laughter.

  The Hand looped her arms around the masked guy’s neck, swung her legs onto his lap. In front of the couch was a table littered with papers and bottles and cans and packs of Redapples, a tin of corn-in-a-can overflowed with butts, burn marks pocked the tabletop. From a paper bag the masked character produced a flat, which he fed to the Hand: her lips caressed his knuckles, her tongue flicked and curled, all wetly pink. She giggled.

  Calum looked away.

  The kids on the stools seemed about Rupe’s age, faces expressionless behind those sunglasses. They perched with perfect, crisp posture, hands on their knees — ducktaped to their knees. At their feet was broken glass, a few glossy red dots that had to be blood.

  The masked guy spread his arms, indicating a space into which Calum was now welcome — or implicated. Ready to take on my sister?

  A bout of laughter, brief and dreary, lifted from the figures at the door and dispersed among the rafters like smoke.

  The Hand came over, scooped up a fluorescent tube, smacked it into her palm, something inside rattled and tinked. She held another out to Calum, who took it but couldn’t meet her eyes.

  The figures by the door crowded in. Their shadows stretched into the room, the light went patchy and sinister. From the couch the guy said, You think you can beat my sister? You know what she did? Last year? You know what this kid did?

  Whooping from the hoodies.

  This kid right here? She gets up on the struts under the tracks at UOT Station and waits for the night’s last train, it comes through slow, right, because of the construction, and when it comes she, get this, grabs one of the bars underneath the train! And rides it like that all the way to the Barns, just hanging there, we’re all running along underneath, and when it lowers she jumps off and is just like, What. My sister, man.

  The Hand twirled the fluorescent, laughed a shrugging sort of laugh.

  Calum had heard this story, everyone had. It existed in his imagination as a movie. Walking underneath
the Yellowline he’d often look up and imagine the weightless thrill of being zipped along, how it might feel to pass through airspace that no other human body had ever troubled, parted, touched.

  Now the story had a hero, and here she was: Let’s go, said the Hand. You versus me.

  Terse, ironic applause.

  You want to go first?

  First?

  The rules are this, said the Hand. You call a twin and hit it, you get to sit down. You call one and hit the other, you got to take their spot. You miss three lights in a row, you take the spot of the kid you called last. You hit the kid and the light doesn’t break, you got to break the light over your own head. Got it?

  The shirtless guy called, Good luck! in a cheery, chilling way.

  Everyone laughed again, a rhythmic swell and ebb that felt rehearsed, artificial. It left behind a vaporous sort of silence that swelled and pulsed in the still air of the silo.

  I’ll go first, said the Hand. Watch me, I’m the best. She had barely prophesied, Left, before her tube was flying from her hand in spinning flashes of light — and exploded on the kid on the left’s forehead. He crumpled from the chair, sunglasses skittering across the floor. Everyone went crazy.

  The kid rose to his knees with a spidery wound opening on his temples. He shook his head, droplets of blood scattered in a little arc, and in a gargly voice choked, Hit.

  More cheers.

  The boy took his spot back on the stool, swaying slightly. One of the figures behind Calum came forward with the stray sunglasses, slid them back onto his face, and retreated. The kid hawked a thick, gory splat of blood onto the floor.

  Your turn, said the Hand.

  The tube felt heavier now.

  The Hand said, Which one.

  Beneath all that blood the left one’s face was pale. The other kid waited in silence.

  Right thinks she’s tough, said the Hand. Hit her. Now!

  Calum lobbed the tube weakly — it landed a foot short of the stools, skidded, stopped unbroken. Amid boos the girl kicked it back at Calum.

  I’m done, I won, said the Hand. Two more for you though or it’s you on the stool.