Thirteen Crucifixions, 50

“I actually have tremendous empathy for people who are receiving social assistance.  My concern and my job is to help ensure that the money goes to those who really need it.”

            “What if someone, while they are waiting for you to clear their file, has to borrow rent money in order to keep from getting evicted with every intention of paying back the money once assistance comes through for them?”

            “They would still have to declare it as income.”

            “And then what?”

            “The difference would be deducted from their cheque.”

            “Making it impossible to pay off the loan.”

            “It’s policy.”

            “And you don’t make the rules.  I understand.  But what if, by not being able to pay off the loan, they have put themselves in a compromised position—that by putting friends or family out of pocket they’ve somehow hurt the relationship with possible, even violent repercussions to follow.”

            “That isn’t the ministry’s responsibility.”

            “Not even if this results in eviction and homelessness?”

            “Not even.”    

“But you will acknowledge that there is an increased, even unprecedented problem in this province with poverty and homelessness?  I mean, look at all the beggars and panhandlers on the street these days.”

“There are programs and services available to them.”

“But the homeless shelters are often full to overflowing—they can only accommodate so many people; and the food banks and soup kitchens are running a deficit.  Let’s be realistic—“

--“We do what we can.”

“But it obviously isn’t enough.”

“There’s plenty of room for volunteers, for average citizens to help out.”

“But they don’t.  They’re usually too stressed and exhausted from holding down two jobs in order to pay off inflated mortgages.  Housing costs have particularly sky-rocketed since1980.  Let’s be realistic!”

“I agree that there are no perfect solutions.  But there is only so much money to go around, and this government has opted to use a portion of it for funding job training programs—”

“—And starving the poor”, Stefan said. “By cutting back their welfare to five hundred lousy bucks a month and in order to pay your fucking salary so you can go on making criminals out of us.”

The two women, Persimmon Carlyle and Leticia Van Smit, the welfare verification officer she was interviewing at a restaurant table both turned around in surprise.

“I’m early”, Stefan said, grinning widely at them.

Beseechingly, Persimmon said, “Ten minutes.  Please, just give us ten minutes.”

“I think not!” Leticia coldly pronounced, getting up to leave.

“So, you’re the bitch who’s been making my life miserable.  So you’re the fucking verification officer.  Leticia Van Smit.  Yes, I remember your voice from that little chat we had on the phone when I told you to stick it up your twat.”

“I don’t have to put up with this!” she shouted, “I’m leaving.”

“By all means, Leticia, by all means.  But just remember, bitch, I know what you look like.  And just let me put it this way—I’d better not find you alone anywhere.”

            “Are you threatening me?  Yes, you are, and I think I shall call the police.”

            “Go right ahead, Leticia, go right ahead.”  She threw on her coat, grabbed her handbag and stormed outside.  Stefan tried to follow her.

            “Stefan”, Persimmon said.  “I wouldn’t if I were you.”  He was almost at the door.

            “Stefan, I'll call the police if you go anywhere near her.”

            He returned to the table. “Too late, I lost her.”

            “Well, I got the interview, anyway.”

            “Am I going to be in it?”

            “Might as well.  Are you hungry?  Lunch is on me.”

            It would be rather a late lunch for it was almost four in the afternoon.  He had managed to get some sleep, having climbed into bed next to Melissa, who was nowhere to be seen when he woke just an hour ago.

            “Why did you show up so early?”

            “Had nothing else to do.  How was I to know you’d be interviewing HER?”

            “Please, Stefan—please, please, please, promise me that you’ll leave her alone.  Please.”

            “Don’t worry.  She’s gorgeous for such a bitch.”

            “She is beautiful.  She suggests a youngish Sophia Loren.”

            “Whoever the hell she is.”

            “Famous Italian actress who was big in the sixties.”

            “How did you land her for an interview?”

            “I have my connections.  Now what about you?  How are you?”

            “Shitty.”

            “Why?  What happened?”

            “I saw someone kill herself.”

            “No!”

            “She jumped off the Lion’s Gate Bridge last night.  I tried to stop her.”

            “She’s okay.”

            “Whaddaya mean?”

            “Well, she’s alive anyway.  They found her this morning.  She’s in hospital, in a coma.”

            “She’ll probably die.”

            “Maybe not.  Let’s be positive.  What happened?”

            “Like, I was really depressed and everything last night—like, you know about

Melissa—she’s my girlfriend, or she was my girlfriend, maybe she still is—but you know I was depressed and super-paranoid and stuff ‘cuz this jerk tried to run me over in his Jaguar—”

            “Someone tried to run you over!

            “Yeah, and I know who he is, he’s got it in for me—”

            “—Wait a minute, wait a minute, Stefan, can you just back up a little, please.  Please. There, now, you were upset about Melissa?”

            “Yeah, and—”

            “—And then someone tried to run you over.  Do you know who it is?”

            He shouted, “Yeah, this fuckin’ child molester I caught in the act last fucking month in Stanley Park—”

            “—Stefan, could you please calm down. Now just take a few breaths—slowly, slowly, okay.  Now, who was this guy?”

            “He was diddling a little boy in Stanley Park.”

            “And you saw him?”

            “Yes.”

            “How old was the child?”

            “Nine, no more than ten.  Part native, I think.”

            “Was he alone?’

            “His mother was nearby.”

            “Did she know what was going on?”

            “No.  I think he managed to lure the kid away.”

            “And what was happening—what exactly was going on between the man and the child?"

            “He’d just talked the kid into undoing his pants for him”

            “How so?”

            “He was pulling down his zipper.”

            “And nothing else?”

            “No.  I intervened in time.”

            “What did you do to intervene?”

            “I told him I could see what he was doing and he’d better get the fuck away from the kid.  I had to throw rocks at him before he got the message.”

            “But he left?”

            “Yeah.”

            “What about the kid?”

            “His mother was calling him.  I told him to go to her.”

            “What did the mother say?”

            “I don’t know.  I didn’t stick around.”

            “And now this guy’s out to get you?”

            “Yeah.”

            “So how did you meet that woman on the bridge?”

            “I took a cab to Stanley Park.  I was feeling really hyper and restless and I just wanted to walk.  So I walked in the trails and just kept walking.  Then I was on the bridge.  So there she was with one leg over the rail.  I pulled her off, tried to talk her out of it.  So she gets up and leaves, walking toward North Van.  Then she jumps.  I couldn’t get her in time.  Her name was Michelle.”

            “Is Michelle.”

            “You say she’s in a coma?”

            “She’s in St. Paul’s.  I wouldn’t recommend that you visit her.”

            “Why not?”

            “You were there when she jumped.  She won’t be telling them anything for a while, if ever.  They would think foul play was involved.  Better stay away altogether.”

            “Whatever.”

            “Did you know that she was pregnant?”

            “Yeah.  She told me”

            “Six months.  Now, let’s begin this interview, shall we?”

            “Where do you want to start?”

            “A little truth-telling wouldn’t hurt this time.”

            “What—you think I lied to you last time?”

            “I know that you lied to me.  I happen to know that your parents are still married to each other.  I believe thy live in British Properties?”

            “Your daughter must have ratted.”

            “Whatever.  But, please Stefan, if we are going to pursue this series of interviews then I have to have the truth from you, and only the truth.  What really happened?”

            “Didn’t Juniper tell you?”

            “I want to hear it from you.”

            “My dad runs a multinational corporation and my mother’s a stock-broker.  I grew up in the mall and I was raised by television.  What else do you want to know?”

            “How did you end up on the street?”

            “I lost my job.”

            “You were working at a café?”

            “Starbucks.”

            “Why were you fired?”

            “For punching out my boss.”

            “What happened?”

            “We were in a bar downtown.”

            “And?”

            “He starts hitting on my girlfriend. I told him to stop.  He said I’d better not forget who I’m working for.  So then I said “Outside”, went into the alley and I beat the shit out of him.  Next day I come into work.  He’s off for a few days for his face to heal up, but the assistant manager says I’m fired and if I leave now no charges will be laid.”

            “But what about your parents?”

            “What about my parents?”

            “What estranged you from them?”

            “When I was seventeen I caught my old man shaggin’ my mother’s kid sister.  I ratted on him to Mom.  Shit hit the fan.  They stayed together, blamed everything on me.”

            “What else happened?”

            “Whaddaya mean what else happened?”

            “Is there more to the story?”

            “I beat up my dad and stole a bunch of money from him.  Haven’t talked to them since.”

            “How long ago did this happen?”

            “Four years.  What else do you want to know?”

            “How are you coping now?”

            “Fuck, I dunno?”

            “You have a place to live.”

            “Yeah.”

            “And a girlfriend.”

            “Yeah—sort of.”

            “But no job.”

            “Who’d wanna hire me?”

            “I’m afraid that I’m not in any position to answer that question. Stefan, tell me, please, what are your future prospects?”     

            “Whaddaya mean?”

            “Can you see yourself ten years from now?  What do you think you’ll be doing in ten years?”

            “I’m not going to be alive in ten years.”

            “How can you say that?”

            Stefan got up suddenly.

            “We’re not finished yet.  You haven’t had anything to eat.”

            “I’m not hungry”, he said as he left the restaurant.

            Persimmon stared at the door long after he was gone, then remembered that she hadn’t turned off her recorder.  This could only be presented as a single article, though there had been two separately scheduled interviews.  She really wished that he’d stayed.  What if he found Leticia Van Smit?  Then what?  She didn’t want to think about it.  She was sure that Leticia’s kharma, or whatever you call it, had just caught up with her.  Persimmon didn’t care for the woman, finding her haughty, arrogant, officious and offensively patrician.  A beautiful woman with the moral conscience of an Adolf Eichmann.  Banality of Evil personified, but so beautifully packaged.  Obviously she shouldn’t have told Stefan to meet her here.  But this was too convenient.  She had only so much time for getting things done.  She still hadn’t thought up for Leticia a suitable pseudonym.  And Leticia itself was such a wonderful name in print, suggesting every bit the sinister, patrician yet slightly campy beauty of this woman.  She was too tired to think.  Persimmon only wanted to get home, slip into a warm bath and go to sleep and not have to wake up again.  She was suicidal?  Perhaps, but no, that was something that she would never do to Juniper, who would be at her father’s until Monday.

            Juniper had cleaned up after her mother the previous night, while Persimmon sat sleeping in the loveseat.  She awoke to see damp carpet, where the spilled cabernet had previously stained the new broadloom, her shoes arranged side-by-side like bookends beneath her feet.  The kitchen was clean, the dishwasher had been emptied, and there was no broken glass anywhere.  Juniper had already gone to bed, and Persimmon thanked her over breakfast the following morning.  She seemed in every way a young woman now.  Her hair was finally presentable, light brown and very short, just touching her ears.  She had her mother’s face, her mother’s nose, but none of Persimmon’s adolescent plumpness from when she was still Miriam Silverman.  Already she was blessed with the kind of beauty and poise that Persimmon had had to grow and struggle into, post-Miriam.  She wondered if she would ever tell her daughter about the name change, that they were both Jewish.  Not that it mattered.  Only that Persimmon had failed to disclose this information to anybody had done anything to invest any importance into this secret of hers.  She had known for a long time that she would never again be Miriam, who was fat, shrill, clumsy and vindictive.  But Persimmon had at least been shrill and vindictive, gaining infamy and inciting terror as local television’s most frightening interviewer.  “Joan Rivers without the humour”, one columnist had named her, she had been known to reduce some of her subjects to public tears and open disgrace.  Nobody would think of crossing Persimmon Carlyle without expecting consequences.  Until it all came back on her.  Leticia Van Smit was in many ways her own former self.

            And now?  She was certainly no longer vindictive.  Shrill at times.  It was as if she was perpetually aware of her shadow, and constantly stepping and dancing about in order to make sure that it didn’t touch anyone.  A neurotic form of mindfulness she called it.  She supposed that it was better than nothing—she looked forward to the day when she could exercise mindfulness without being even remotely aware that she was making any effort at it.  Her daughter, at seventeen, seemed already years ahead of her.

            Against her better judgement, Persimmon ordered another coffee.  She knew that she should get home and work on those interviews.  She had a midnight deadline.  And she was feeling tired.  If she had a laptop, but she still couldn’t afford one, not since shelling out for that damn loveseat that now haunted her living room.  She was tired, but felt that she couldn’t leave yet.  Following breakfast, with Juniper gone to school, she went back to bed where she slept for another two hours—she’d had a fitful night.  She finished an article, then read for a while before going to meet Leticia, who did not realize that it had been a group of anti-poverty activists who were sponsoring this interview.  Entrapment.  They had met at a party two months ago—Leticia was the sister-in-law of one of the editors Persimmon was contracted to.  They seemed to hit it off rather well at first, though Persimmon had reservations about her, finding her just too beautiful, snotty and overwhelmingly patrician.  Leticia had told her that she was a verification officer for welfare.  When Persimmon joked, off-handedly, that she would make a great interview, she replied “Why not?” and gave her her card.  Juniper introduced her, a few weeks later, to Megan, an anti-poverty worker.  One thing led to another….

            She recognized him not for his dark and dramatic good looks but for the burgundy shirt he was wearing.  As he sat down at the next table he noticed her noticing him and smiled, revealing the most perfect white teeth that Persimmon had ever seen.  Dentures?  She remembered him from somewhere, and he was looking at her as though he would be only too glad to remember her from anywhere.  Perhaps from when she was on TV.  A lot of people still did.  She felt a little, but not too terribly, uncomfortable with the attention.  Flattered, actually, since she hadn’t really been noticed much lately by anyone.  Much to her surprise she had been missing it.  When had she been with a man last?  Quite a few years.  The medication she had been on had robbed Persimmon of her libido, and just the struggle to live normally and work had kept it away from her.  This man wasn’t exactly leering at her, but he seemed to be admiring her with schoolboy shyness.  Almost involuntarily Persimmon returned the smile.