Wednesday, 27 August 2014

Thirteen Crucifixions 38, and a word to my Turkish readers

Hello, my friends from Turkey.  I am glad to know that so many of you have taken an interest in reading my blog sometimes.  I am very curious about all of you and would be honoured if some of you would introduce yourselves in the comments section.  Please keep reading and I wish you all the very best.
warmest regards
Aaron

                                                           2001


            “Spare change?”  The red fuck-me heals walked by.

            “Spare change?”  As did the green Doc Martens.

            “Spare change?” And the sensible walking shoes, probably Rockports.

            “Spare change?”  And there went the Birkenstocks.

            “Spare change?”  The black Adidas paused and into Stefan’s upturned cap dropped one tarnished brass-yellow dollar coin.

            “Thanks man”.

            “No prob’”, said the young guy with the red doo-rag on his head.  “I been there myself.”  He stared at the single looney that shone out from the dark recesses of his hat.  Generous for a male.  And not likely gay.  Or if he was he didn’t show it.  He scooped out the coin and stuffed it in his pocket.  Twelve bucks he’d made in less than three hours.  Not a bad take, considering.  Now he could get a pack of smokes, something to eat—ninety-nine cent pizza or a somosa.  Also a mug of beer and bus fare home.  He’d stop panning once he had enough for three mugs and bus fare.  He wasn’t walking tonight.      “Spare change”.  Away went the Oxfords.

            “Spare change.”  And the John Fluevogs.

            “Hey you know what time it is?” He kept walking.

            “Spare change?”  Beat up combat boots with a cute goth chick in them.  Smiling, she tossed him another looney.  “Cool.  Thanks. Got the time?”

            “I think it’s almost nine.  Hey, you’re Melissa’s boyfriend.”

            “Sometimes.”

            “What’s your name?”

            “Stefan.  What’s yours?”

            “Jen.”

            “Hey.”

            “Hey.  I’m just on my way to see her.”

            “Yeah, at the Steel Toe.”

            “I’m just going there now.  Wanna join me?”

            “I gotta pan a bit more.  Tell her I’ll be there around ten.”

            “Okay, nice meeting you, Stefan.”

            “Nice meeting YOU!  Thanks for the buck.”  Thirteen dollars.  Why couldn’t they all be this nice?  He pocketed the looney. The sixth pair of Nikes since he sat down. Don’t even think of asking.  Only one person in his three years of begging had ever given him money while wearing Nikes.  A well-fed young jock with his young jock friends from suburb hell had thrown at him a fist-full of pennies laughing.  And Stefan wanted to throw them back.  Not that he minded pennies—people often gave whatever they could or wanted—but that was an insult.  A short, plump old woman in short stiletto heels walked by with her Lhasa Apso on a retractile lead.

            “Mmm… Looks tasty.”

            She paused, cautious, looked at him and her little dog, then she tittered nervously.

            “Why you must be hungry.”

            “I am, as a matter of fact.”

            She reached into her bag.  “I’m sorry”, she said as she handed him, graciously, a gleaming two dollar coin.

            “Thank you”, he said, smiling with authentic gratitude.

            “You’re most welcome.”  She walked away just before he could pat the Lhasa Apso.  “And yer little dog, too.”

            Nikes and more Nikes.  A few sandals, not many. Still too cold.  Whenever he saw a guy wearing sandals Stefan wanted to stomp on his bare little toes.  He dug looking scary—combat boots, black T shirt, shaven head, tattoos and piercings.  But not while sitting in doorways begging.  Even if he tried to he still couldn’t look frightening sitting down there.  Pathetic.  Just pathetic, and maybe appealing in a whimpering spaniel sort of way.

            “Spare change?  Spare change?  Spare change?  Spare change?  Spare change?”

            “Why dontcha get a fuckin’ job, man?”

            “What don’t you GIVE me a fuckin’ job?”

            “What do I look like—a fuckin’ job board?”  He was wearing Nikes and a backwards baseball cap, his bloated face suffused with that soured look of a guy whose girlfriend has just cut him off.

            “Whatsa matter dude. Yer girlfriend ain’t puttin’ out for you, or what?”

            “How did you know?”  His eyes had widened somewhat.   Stephan felt towards the young lout a stirring of compassion.  “Here bud.”  He slipped in his cap a handful of nondescript change and walked away.

            “Thanks.”  Stefan counted, carefully.  Six dollars and ninety-eight cents. “All-fuckin-RIGHT!”

            It wasn’t the shoes that gave him away, nor the expensive cut of his jeans, but the way he walked.  A contained arrogance.  A domesticated swagger.  The walk of someone who knows he was born to rule.  And Stefan knew him immediately.  Before he knew it, he was standing up, in this guy’s face, his hand out, palm outward.  “Okay man!  Pay up.  Silence money.”

            “Who are you?”  He had a handsome, slightly gaunt face, high cheek bones, perfect chin and flawless blue eyes.  His short blond hair was slightly combed back.

            “You know who the fuck I am.  Just thank the gods that I wasn’t aiming those rocks at your head.  Now pay up, fucker.  Silence is golden.”

            “I don’t carry cash with me”, he said, composed but clearly cowed.

            “There’s an ATM on the corner—let’s go.  C’mon.”

            “And what if I don’t co-operate?”  He was speaking in a clipped, well-educated whine.

            “I know every fuckin’ pig on this beat and I happen to know they’re lookin’ for you.  ATM.  Let’s go.”

            The floor surrounding the bank machine bore a light litter of receipts, which gleamed like discarded tiles in the poor light.  “How much do you want?” he asked calmly.

            “Everything in your account.”

            “I have a mortgage to pay.  How about five hundred?”

            “Deal.”  As he handed him the money, Stefan said, “Okay, man, we’re square.  You’ve paid for my silence.  You got my silence.  Now fuck off.  I don’t want to see you again.  But listen here, buddy, and listen to me good.  If I ever catch you, or hear about you diddling another kid ever again, then I’m gonna fuckin’ hunt you down.  And you know what I’ll do when I catch you?  I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you.”  He said this standing less than an inch from this man, their faces so close that they could almost have kissed each other.  Not that Stefan couldn’t have, or wouldn’t have kissed him full on his perfectly formed lips, for he was suddenly and powerfully aroused.  He left.  Stefan counted the money again.  He kissed it, then very deftly stuck it into his left boot.

            The rest of the evening was a blur for him.  All he could do was walk, everywhere, over the Granville Bridge then back over the Cambie Bridge, then over the Georgia Viaduct.  He couldn’t settle anywhere.  Twice he came near the Steel Toe, then thought better and retraced his steps.   It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see Melissa, or Jen to whom he was majorly attracted—he couldn’t see anybody, or settle down.  Anywhere.  All he could do was walk.  And walk.  And walk. With five hundred extorted dollars concealed in his left combat boot.  He felt nothing that resembled guilt, nor shame, nor even remorse for taking the money. Stefan, so far as he was concerned, was thoroughly entitled to it.  Just three or four weeks ago he’d caught that same handsome impeccably groomed man on a trail in the woods of Stanley Park, just in the act of coaxing a ten year old boy into unzipping the fly of his costly designer jeans for him.  Stefan shouted “Hey! What’s going on over there”.  Quickly the man zipped up his jeans—“I’m taking a leak—do you mind.”  “Yeah, like you need a little boy to pull down your zipper for you—get the fuck outa here and leave him alone.”  He at first appeared as if he was going to stand his ground.  That’s when Stefan began hurling stones.  He turned and fled, just as his shoulder was grazed.  The boy, who appeared part native, stood there, staring at Stefan with wide, frightened brown eyes.  He was scrawny, his long hair tangled, his blue jacket and black pants rumpled, as though he’d just been in a struggle. “You better go”, Stefan said.  The boy stared at him. “Did that man try to hurt you?”   The boy continued to stare, slack-jawed.  “Is your mom nearby?”  Slowly, stupidly the boy nodded.  Then he heard a weary angry woman’s voice call “Tony—Tony!  Where the hell are you.  Tony!”  “Is that your mom?”  The boy nodded.  “Then go find her.  What that man was doing to you was something very bad.  Don’t let anyone do that to you again.  Not ever.  Do you know him?”  The boy shook his head.  The woman’s voice was coming nearer.  Stefan was making as if to leave.  “Go to you mom, Tony.  Don’t tell her what happened. Don’t tell her you saw me.  Don’t tell anyone ever.  Just forget what happened and live your life.  Live it the best way you can.”  The boy turned and ran toward the voice of his mother and Stefan quickly and silently walked away.

            He was sitting in a doorway.  It was late, very late.  He didn’t know how late it was.  And now he couldn’t turn off this harsh memory that kept flooding his mind, not of that boy he had rescued from the paedophile, nor the paedophile himself from whom Stefan had just won his five hundred in silence money.  But himself, a twelve-year old boy being driven from school by his guidance counsellor, who wasn’t driving Stefan home, but to his own house.  His wife was vacationing somewhere with her mother.  And there on his guidance counsellor’s love seat was where it all began and where it continued to go on for the next year or so, and Stefan suddenly wanted to be violently ill.  He didn’t want this god-awful memory, he didn’t even want the money, he just wanted to be sick and forget everything that had happened, everything that had been done to him.  He wanted to smash something, a window—anything.  He wanted to hunt down Mr. Stark, Mr. Gordon Stark, the guidance counsellor and do him serious bodily harm, if it wasn’t too late, for Gordon Stark had been caught en flagrante, tried, convicted and imprisoned long ago.  He was dead now, subjected to the mob justice of the jailhouse.  Stefan still didn’t feel vindicated.  He wanted now to forget, only to forget.  He thought of Tony again, and wondered if and hoped he was indeed all right.  He was shaking all over, trembling with extreme violence from head to foot.  He wondered about checking himself into hospital emergency, then recalled that he had a home to go to but he did not, did not wish to see Melissa, nor anyone.  Not now, not in this state of having this awful memory thrusting itself on him like this. Better to stay here in the doorway.  There was no one around.  He would be safe.  He could get over it here.  He suddenly wanted to die, he wondered how he would do it—the Shopper’s Drug Mart on Davie Street was open all night.  He could get enough extra strength pain killers to put out an elephant.  Or maybe one of the bridges.  But he was drained of energy, emptied of resolve.  He could only crouch here in this dank smelly doorway, a trembling mound of bone, skin, lean flesh and musty dark clothes, and wait…

            He supposed that he’d been sleeping.  He felt cold, and sore from sitting in a hunched position.  But rested.  He felt even a little better.  Maybe more than a little.  The sky was lighter, though the street lights still glared like a garish reminder that the city must never sleep. A robin nearby was singing, heralding the new day.  Stefan lifted himself up and began to walk.  He did feel rested. And he was better.  Of all the doorways he had slept in, he had never found one so refreshing.  He remembered the natty young paedophile, he remembered Tony with his stupid victim’s stare, he remembered Gordon Stark and his own stupid victim’s stare.  Somehow none of this any longer was bothering him as he walked back over the Georgia Viaduct to lay down next to his sleeping Melissa.  Maybe even he could make love to her again, for she had never stopped being desirable.

            He supposed that he’d gotten lost.  This wasn’t quite the neighbourhood they lived in.  The sun was almost fully risen.  He was feeling tired again as he turned up a lane that was ebullient with new growth between large and elegant old houses.  He paused to sniff a newly bloomed lilac right next to an impregnable cedar hedge.  He wanted to get past the hedge, behind it.  He must see what was there, he must see, he must, he must see.…

            Getting through was easier than he expected.  A big green back yard with an apple tree in full flower in the centre and a big, towering blue house.  He strode over to the white wooden bench where he curled up and fell asleep.

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