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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