“Do we follow her?” asks Starla beside me, “Do we go after it?”
I knock some loose nuggets of glass from the side window, clear a porthole through the soot on the windscreen, then pump the break a few times to check for irony. Satisfied, I light a cigarette.
“Let her keep it,” I say. I reach beneath the dashboard and set the engine humming as the story races away from us. “We don’t need it anymo
Hope Is Here
Karen Runge
THE SUNSHINE GROUP:
WE ARE HERE TO MAKE THE WORLD A CLEAN AND HAPPY PLACE!
The proclamation screams in bright blue, the background cream-yellow. The bottom of the sign is printed with a child’s drawing, or maybe a drawing done by an adult pretending to be a child, depicting round green hills and nose-less, orb-faced boys and girls, all standing in a line and holding hands.
Beneath the edict, above the drawing, it reads:
HOT FOOD
HOT SHOWERS
HOPE IS HERE!
The script is fresh, natural. It’s hard to tell if it was stencilled on or drawn by hand. I stare at the words, and then look again at the drawing of the children. In their stiff, finger-linked line, they look as though they are marching forward. Maybe this was the idea. When children sing or play games, they’re always standing or sitting in a circle. I remember that from the days when I used to go to the playground in the park, and watch them in their brightly-coloured groups, pushing each other down slides, sometimes screaming and laughing; sometimes crying, or being made to cry. I’d spend whole afternoons there, often mornings, too. Seated on that bench by the gate, comfortable beneath the shade of the tree, my sturdy old backpack leaned against my legs.
This was before one of those parents noticed me, and looked at me as though I were a shark in a swimming pool. I remember her. The dyed hair and the too-tight jeans, her face full of makeup papered over the creases that spread across her face. I remember the loose folds of her neck flushing red, the lipstick caught on her teeth, that forefinger raised with its painted fingernail, stabbing at the air, at me, until I mumbled my apologies and left, never to return. She looked at me as though I were a wolf. That witch. I was just a man with an empty day and nothing else to make me smile.
I wanted to scrape the makeup off her face with the rough edges of my bitten fingernails. Take some of the skin off, too.
But that would make the kids scream and cry.
There are no adults in this picture, either. This picture on the sign, with its children wearing scribble-smiles, caught in the colours of eternal sunshine. There are no adults, though the place this sign was made for is an adult place. A place for adults like me, who have lost children, forgotten children. Who are not allowed near children anymore.
Are they trying to tell us children are our salvation? That children are the ones reaching out to us, and not people with bank accounts and fundraising plans, and lists of volunteers?
If I were to go in, would it be little boys and girls laced up with aprons, standing in a row behind the service table, dishing out watery potatoes and plates of over-cooked pasta?
‘Budget food’, I think, is the term. Staples bought from wholesalers in bulk.
If I were to say this out loud to anyone who listened, they might look at me as though I shouldn’t know the difference. As though it’s ungrateful of me to even bring it up. This is how, even when people think they’re being kind, they’re being cruel. They forget that those like me have had our time among people with grocery lists and well-stocked kitchens all of their own. I used to be one of them, didn’t I? The only difference is that I’ve had to accustom my tastes to the contents of trashcans and discarded sandwich crusts. The only difference is that I know what real hunger is now, and how joyful the idea of having my own plate is. My own plate, filled, the contents of which would slide into my belly and ease the slow burn that nests there like a hungry demon, scrabbling at my insides with needle claws and teeth.
Staring at that sign from across the street, with its cheerful promise and its shiny glass doors, I avoid my reflection and try to move my feet. Beyond those doors stands a row of clean-cut faces, smiles spread to wide, white-toothed grins. Voices come in smooth, welcoming tones of condescension. Their eyes melt with pity, a thin film layered over the look of disgust they’re so desperate to hide. They sniff a lot, as though they have colds. They’ll try anything to cover their noses, for whatever brief moment, and make it look innocent.
This is the razorblade hidden in the apple. This is the paradox of help and harm.
* * *
It’s going to rain later. I smell it in the air, a faint electric damp. I see it too, the way the sky is slightly darkened at the edge of the horizon. A storm blue, bleeding into pale pastel shades. On the high street, women in sleeveless summer dresses click down the pavement in strappy high heels, swinging their arms as they step. Businessmen carry their jackets slung over their arms, their long sleeves rolled up, top buttons undone.
They are absolutely oblivious to the changes in the sky, the threat rolling in on them.
I sit on the bench outside the coffee shop, waiting for Mandy. When it’s busy in there she sometimes takes a little longer, but for now the weather is still warm and people don’t want to drink hot coffee. They want to go down to the beach and eat ice-cream; maybe candy apples, sweet and red. They want to knock off work early and head to one of the bars on the quay. Later, when it starts to rain, they’ll come crowding back along here.
Mandy comes out after she spots me through the window, her dark hair tied up off her neck, her apron smeared with chocolate sauce.
“Having a messy day, today!” she smiles, and hands me the small latte and jam pastry she probably pays for herself. I don’t know, I never asked. “This is the second apron I’m gonna have to change.”
“You’re still beautiful,” I tell her, cramming the pastry into my mouth and softening it with a swig of hot coffee. I do this to keep my eyes watering. I do this to keep from staring at her breasts, those soft mounds sheathed in fabric, her waist laced in tight.
She giggles, moves to hit my shoulder, then stops her hand mid-motion. She blushes, smirks, folds her arms. “I can’t stay,” she says.
“You’ll be busy later,” I tell her. “When the storm comes in.”
“Storm?” She squints her eyes and cranes her neck, looking up into the sky. “You sure?”
I nod, slurping coffee, already turning away. “See you around,” I say.
I do not thank her. I have never thanked her. I don’t go there for the coffee, you see.
* * *
Down under the bridge, Manxy is up on one of the rocks, mid-speech, mid crazy-eyed roll. “You gotta check it out, man!” he says. “They got piles of pasta—you know, spaghetti. Not dry noodles with a spoon of boiled tomatoes, I mean spaghetti. With pork and mushrooms. I asked them, ‘Where’s the garlic bread?’ and the guy there laughed, and he told me, he said, ‘Next time, friend!’ He said next time. He said ‘Tell your friends!’”
The dog that’s always at his feet sits gazing up at him in adoration. It’s a small thing, small enough to send flying if you were to give it a kick. It’s got patchy fur and a busted ear, but its eyes are always wet and soft, especially when it’s watching Manxy talk. It sees me coming, turns its head a little, and starts yapping.
I glare at it and saunter over to the water’s edge.
“Gee,” he calls me. Forgetting that my name used to be Gary. Forgetting that I hate any other name. “Hey, Gee! They got pretty girls there, too!”
What has Manxy been smoking? I wish he wouldn’t talk to me.
“Gee, you like the pretty girls! The girls there are all in short skirts and tit-busting shirts. And they lean over when they dish the food out. You wouldn’t believe it! You’d go wild!”
When I was new out here, I once made the mistake of telling Manxy how I got to be this way. There’s nothing wrong with swapping stories, we all need to do
it sometimes, but I was dumb and didn’t know how to choose which people are the right ones to tell. Manxy isn’t the right person to tell anything to. He’s like the town crier of the underbelly. Every time I see him, he’ll say something like this, something to remind me. Something to make me want to gut him and his dog both.
“Fuck off, Manxy.”
“No serious, Gee. You gotta go. It’s called Hope is Here, and it’s run by this new group, a charity or something. They call themselves The Sunshine Group. Their place is all brand new, up on Wyle Street. Big shiny windows. The showers are all new, too. Fresh built. The place smells like paint and plaster. And they’re not like those big communal ones either. Each one has its own stall. A stall!”
“I’ll shower in the rain,” I tell him. Then, remembering my manners, I add, “Thank you.”
“That’s why you smell so goddamn bad,” he says. “Like shit smeared on rotten eggs. You wanna be like this the rest of your life? You’ve gotta take what’s offered. Everyone else does!”
Shit smeared on rotten eggs. Fantastic. I remember Mandy and her hand getting stuck mid-air. The chocolate sauce drying over her left breast. The way she smiles at me and then steps back. No razorblades in that apple.
Still, it hurts. The rain’s coming.
“What’s the catch, Manxy?” I ask him. “Do they stick you with needles, give you lectures about drugs?”
“No,” Manxy shakes his head. “Just get you to answer a few questions. They’re doing data collecting, something like that. Standard practice, man. Standard. They’re devoted to getting us all off the streets.”
I wouldn’t know what’s standard or not. The closest I’ve ever been to a soup kitchen or shelter was the Christmas drive, when the Church van came to us, came right down here to the bridge with boxes of food and piles of clothes. Teenage girls with pimpled chins and elf hats tried not to sneer when they handed the stuff over. They just wanted to go home and watch their parents get trashed, then sneak out to smoke joints in the back garden. Their mothers were right behind them, though. Fat ladies flashing gold jewellery, dishing stuff out with plastic smiles, sniffing like they all had colds.
The sneers are more honest. I gave those girls the widest grins.
Everybody said “Merry Christmas!” at least a hundred times, until it was ringing in my head like a goddamn chant. Then they packed themselves up and hurtled back to their homes to carve turkeys and drink wine.
It wasn’t so bad. After all, it’s my door they were knocking on, and not the other way around.
* * *
I head back along the high street, and stand across the road from Mandy’s coffee shop. It’s hard to see her through the distance, through the crowd. The rain picks up and chills the warmth out of the air, and the people passing by start ducking into the coffee shop. Through the mess of moving heads, I sometimes glimpse her face. She’s moving fast behind the counter, working the till, grabbing pastries. Her eyebrows tight with concentration, her lips curled into a smile. Mandy, she’s always smiling. It doesn’t matter what it is she’s looking at.
* * *
I should’ve stayed at the bridge. Manxy and his fucking dog. The rain hits my shoulders like small icy bullets, bleeding in through broken seams. These shoes I’m wearing, they used to be classic black. I used to wear them to the office, Monday to Friday. Now I wear them pretty much twenty-four-seven, and they’re stuck to my feet like a sheath of living leather, lined with layers of peeling skin. When I do take them off, they slide away with a shower of black dirt and the smell of vermin rotting under wet leaves. Underneath, my toes are blue and black and the nails are curling in. I peel the ends off while they’re still soft with grime and sweat.
I used to have nail clippers, but they got stolen out of my bag.
I used to have a pair of rubber slippers, too.
I used to have a lot of things.
I forget where I’m going and take the slip road that cuts behind that restaurant, Salvatore, just as the chef comes out for a cigarette break. I round the corner on him, and the moment he spots me his eyes bulge red and his arms fly out. He sends his lighter soaring, skittering out through the rain and toward the piles of rubbish.
“Get the fuck out of here!” he yells. “You fucking disgusting scum! You fucking low-life! Get the fuck away!”
I bend to pick up the lighter, close it in my hand.
He moves like he wants to fight me, but steps back at the last minute. His arms flail.
“I know what you are!” he screams. “I know what you fucking are!”
I keep walking until his tirade is lost beneath the sounds of the rain.
* * *
WE ARE HERE TO MAKE THE WORLD A CLEAN AND HAPPY PLACE!
Big words, those. Big Promises.
I push open the doors, and step into a reception area with a welcome desk and rows of plastic chairs bolted into the floor. The walls are papered with pictures of smiling children and matching slogans.
A BRIGHT FUTURE!
A FRESH TOMORROW!
Rain leaks off of me in a steady, sliding trickle. The girl behind the desk stands up, grabs a towel out from somewhere I can’t see, and walks over to me, all smiles. She’s wearing a miniskirt and I imagine the place behind the hem, beneath the fabric, that slide of warmth and wetness nestled between her legs.
“Welcome to Hope is Here!” she says. “Isn’t it a beautiful day?”
“Not really,” I say, taking the towel.
“Why don’t you dry off?”
She’s already fetched a mop, a washcloth. She steps outside to clean off the smudge I left on the door when I pushed it open. She mops off all evidence of my footsteps, hands me a pair of rubber slippers. My classic blacks disappear into a plastic bag.
“We’ll get you some clean clothes after you’ve had your shower,” she says, then briefly wrinkles her nose. “You smell really bad, you know? Worse than any of the others.”
“That’s not very polite,” I tell her.
“We believe in honesty, not condescension.”
“I can get behind that,” I nod.
At least, I think I can. No hidden razorblades here, so far. Still, it hurts.
She takes me into a small corner office, picks up a clipboard and a pen, and smiles at me. “Comfy?”
“I’m out of the rain.”
“We need to do a quick assessment for our records,” she says. “Top scorers get a chance at rehabilitation, so let’s hope you’ll join our club.”
I’m still wearing wet pants and my ass is starting to itch in this chair. “Will this take long?”
“That depends.”
She clicks her pen, and smiles at me with slightly yellowed teeth. Too much caffeine? Nicotine? I wish she’d offer me some. I’d kill for another of Mandy’s little lattes.
“How long have you been on the street?” she asks.
“Two years, somewhere around there.”
“Where were you before?”
“A city far, far away.”
“You don’t want to tell me?”
“No. You don’t want to know my name?”
She shakes her head. “Not yet. We need to get past the important stuff first.”
The important stuff.
“How would you rate your level of happiness on a scale of one to ten?”
“Ten below fucking zero,” I say. “It’s fucking cold in here.”
She smiles, flips her hair over her shoulder, letting her fingers snag carefully through the strands. “You swear a lot, too,” she says. “Is that something you always did?”
“I don’t remember. Not to pretty girls like you. Not before. Not usually, anyway.”
“You like pretty girls?”
I stare at her. “Who doesn’t?”
“Lots of people!” she says. “So you used to swear at pretty girls, sometimes?”
“If they were being bitches, yes.”
“Do you think I’m a bitch?”
“I do
n’t know yet.”
She makes marks with her pen. Not writing. Ticks and crosses. She wasn’t kidding. I’m being scored.
“How did you get to be on the street?”
“A pretty girl took everything away from me.”
“How?”
“It’s ancient history and I’d rather not say.”
“Two years ago isn’t ancient history. Are the police looking for you?”
“Why would they be looking for me?”
I rub my ass around in the seat.
After a while, she looks back down at the clipboard. “Okay,” she sighs. “How about animals? Do you like animals?”
“I hate yappy little dogs with busted ears.”
She sighs. “So that’s a no?”
“I don’t know.”
I take the lighter out of my pocket and start to flick it. It flashes tiny sparks that glow against the dark creases of my hand. When she sees it, her eyes widen.
“You smoke?” she asks.
“Can’t afford it.”
“Would you, if you could?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Do you ever light fires?”
“Every night.”
She laughs. “No, I mean to burn things. Like buildings or… something.”
“Do you mean am I a pyromaniac?”
“Oh!” she beams. “You’ve got a good vocabulary!”
“What? I’m not a fucking idiot.”
She shakes her head to herself. “Pity about that attitude.”
“Listen,” I say sharply, staring at the plump arcs of her breasts. “If you’d lived like…”
“And about that temper.” She stands up suddenly. “Follow me,” she says.
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