WHATEVER GETS YOU THROUGH THE NIGHT

A Thesis

Presented to

The Faculty of Graduate Studies

of

The University of Guelph

by

NATALIA SEGAL

In partial fulfillment of requirements

For the degree of

Master of Arts

May, 2010

©Natalia Segal, 2010

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1+1 Canada DEDICATION

I dedicate this book to all the skids who shared the streets with me.

I Love you all. I fucking love you all:

Guitar Steve, Guitar Shawn, Cockroach (Big Sue, Punky, Leopard), Hooch (the dog), Shit Sue (Chop Suey, Little Sue), Janis and dog J.J. Bear (RIP), Jon, Big John,

Little John, Paul (RIP), Swan, Rainbow the dog (RIP), Styles the pop corn pimp, Psycho,

George, Gwen, Frankie, Jesus, Animal (Pussy-Eater), Little Animal, Psycho Dave, Mike and Mark (RIP), one-leg Mike (RIP), D.A., Maya, Harmony, Care-Bear, James, Pig-dog,

Shawna, Bible Thumper, Mike, Helen (the bag lady with the dolls—RIP), Darryl, Ken

(and your brother), Chelsea (mother of Ken's baby), Chelsea (Darryl's ex-girl friend),

Mike, Tami, Danny, Jenny (doesn't smoke), Shorty, Spider, Cookie, Andy, Bird, Keith

(Bobo), Sputnik, Jessey (RIP), Shaggy (RIP), Old Mo (the boxer~RIP), Rosie, Air borne,

Red, Rug Rat, Smurf, Rob and Trish and Brian of the Three Little Injuns (RIP and RIP and RIP), Queen Street Dan, Ganja, Twilight, Gordy on the bench with the red wine

(RIP), Garry (that never swears), Glue-bag Dave (RIP), Amerika, Weasel, Uma, Pablo,

Cesar (and daughter Victoria), Karen (and daughter Alicia), Franky (and daughter Rain),

Crystal (and sons Davey and Roger), Konan (and son Roger), Dice (RIP), Killer Laurie,

Shane (RIP), Ted (teddy bear), Vicky, Hacker John, Rose and the dogs, Tim and the dogs,

Guitar Mike, Fox (RIP), Squirrel, Happy (Vancouver), Donut shop mom (RIP), A.J.

(fucker), Star, Scrappy (Yvonne), Karl (King and Janitor of the universe—Vancouver and

Toronto), Larry, Daniel Ross (Yin Yang on both Palms), Steve and Crystal, Old Man

Scotty (RIP), Sky, Carol, Turtle, Mom (Turtles lady), Tad pole (Tad-Ottawa), Fat Sue,

Sid, Bill the biker, Mike the drummer, Banshee, Clusterfuck, Dusty, Dan and Carol and the wolfgang, Kid, Brenda, Mitch, Leonard, Kid-Panda, Roach, Lee, Duce, Kelly, Pinky,

Jeff, Smurfette, Churchill, Joker, Justice, Angel, Cameron, Ducky, Jerry, Sad,

Manglescum, Animal (Ottawa), Scabby, Little Wiz (RIP), M.J., Nelly, Rebel and Deb

(and son Dab), Bob (Vancouver), Whiz (Vancouver~ RIP), Muppet (Vancouver), Rory

(Vancouver), Holly and Cora-Lea (Vancouver), Wendy (Vancouver), High Tower

(Vancouver ~RIP~ suicide party), Slut-puppy, Scot (RIP ~alcohol induced diabetes coma), Siobhan (legs broken on the highway), Alphabet, Siobhan (and baby), Amazon

(and baby), Scott, Sorry, Brenda, Aryn (Vancouver), Celeste (Van couver), Bud (Van couver, Toronto), Ace (Vancouver RIP), Phoenix, Mike S.K., Wolfe, Christina, Junior

(Skippy, Jimmy), Damian, Crackhead Carl, Shelly, Lee (Van couver ~ RIP), John

(Vancouver RIP), Sarah, Biff, Beer-Wolf, Mad-Dog, Isis and dog Arrow, Limb less

Mark, Val and Deb at Isabella, Tiny, Night Crawler, Cat Man, Rat Man, Alley Cat

(Pegasus), Twinkie, Frenchy, Dragon, Highway, John (Jessey's other brother), Jesse

James, Thumper, Sunset, Darren (Vancouver), Alice (looks like Alice Cooper), Joe

Unicorn, Scooby (Sleepy), Gar field, Yvonne (singer), Alice, Big Dave, Mike H (brought

Karen to the street), Janis b. (Hippy Janis, Punk Janis), Bruce, Alexander (part cyborg

Russian F.B.I, agent), Casper, Ray, Bandit, Troy, Art, Tara (and daughter Druid), War lock, Mike (Vancouver ~ RIP), Bob (Ian, Damien), Moose, Punky French, Ronin, Rubby

(Montreal), Hobo (Montreal), Charles (Montreal), Lady Cat (and daughter Tabitha), Lyn,

Harley, Glen, Brain-dead, Subway, Red-dog, Bonk (RIP).

I know there are many names I've forgotten. Forgive me.

11 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to express my sincere gratefulness to my advisor, Karen, "Kaz",

Connelly for her wisdom, talent and endless dedication, Professor Guy Allen for teaching me how to see what I love and steal it, Simon Ortiz for reading and rereading and rereading, for teaching me writing is long, Zara Segal-Heldt for making me tea while I wrote, Alma Segal for making me forget about the writing and my beautiful partner,

Sandra Diana Dughman-Manzur for her devotion, support, tasty cooking, beautiful kisses, unsurpassable mind and limitless love.

in TABLE OF CONTENTS

DEDICATION i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii

PROLOGUE 1

IS 4

Birthday 5 Old School 12 Hooch 17 Race 18 Bill the Vietnam Vet 20 Smiley 24 First Job 27 Bill the Vietnam Vet 40 Walkman 41 A Window 46 Big Foot, the Movie 49 The Roach 51 Under the Evergreen Roof 53 Three Little Injins 57 Frogger 64 Daniel Ross 66 George 73 The Salisbury Steak House 74

16 75

Birthday 76 Pimps 78 Psycho 81 Black Boy 87 Native Men's Res 91 This Old Man 95 Dog Water 98 Ditches 104 I Heard You Have Lupus Dementia Now, Somewhere on the Streets of BC 107 Eighteen-Wheeler Ill Rodney King 116 Young Pussy 123 Fortunes 125 Sacrificial Wood 131 iv Black Mountain 133

The Spider Web Ceiling 139

17 142

Birthday 143 St. Helen's Hotel 146 The Road Home 153 No One Stops for Us 154 37-Cent Massacre 156 Bear and Campers 160 Into a Prairie Sun 162 The Big Smoke 164 The Big Smoke 166 The Motel Room Above Jilly's Strip Joint 168 Kangaroo Court 172 Under the St. Clair Bridge 176 Out of the Toilet 178 Postcard 183 At the Salvation Army 185 Love 187 The Carrier Bridge 192 Montreal 194 Deserve to Die 200 The Break-Up 202 18 205

A Sacrifice for Satan 208 Jessey Walsh 210 Gluebag Dave 216 Lessons 219 Are you sitting down? 221 Children 224 Over the Phone, from Don Jail 226 Pasteficio's 227

19 232

Birthday 233 Doing It 234 Against the Wall 235 Grange Park 237 Down To This 242

V PROLOGUE

Half-Pint

Under a maple tree in College Park, I peer into my palm and inspect the miniscule paper snippets.

"This is acid?" I say.

"Yup," Steve answers. "All you need is one hit - more will blow your tucking mind."

"There is no rucking way that one of these pieces of paper will get me stoned," I say.

Steve snorts, "It will - trust me."

I pop three hits under my tongue.

"What the fuck are you doing - you're crazy!"

"I'll be fine," I say.

"No, you won't."

Steve shakes his head as I head toward College Street.

Pedestrians turn into cars and I become one of those cars, a red racer. I veer through pedestrian traffic and marvel at how fast I drive. A few minutes later, in front of

Kentucky Fried Chicken, my arm turns a strange shade of red. I scratch the arm and it grows redder.

Am I bleeding?

I can't tell if I'm bleeding or not; I stare and stare at my arm. The sidewalk melts and small green skeletons float to the surface. Vision flicks on and off.

"Hey, chick, are you okay?"

1 His teeth look like daggers. I gasp. I'm bleeding. Why can't he see it!

"I don't rucking know!" I scream. "Why don't you tell me?"

"You tell me!"

Am I in a mental asylum?

"Am I bleeding?"

"What?" Psycho says, inches closer. "I'm Psycho."

"Don't fucking come near me - I'm bleeding!"

"Okay... you're not rucking bleeding."

He wants to fool me, fool me into thinking I'm fine. So I'll never know I'm in the psych ward. He 'sjust said he's psycho!

"I know I'm rucking bleeding."

"What are you on?"

"On?"

"What did you take -- what drugs?"

He's a cop. I'm going to jail now.

"Nothing. I'm fine... just a little bit tired..."

"Acid -1 bet it was acid."

"Am I bleeding or not?"

"Do you have a sitter?"

"What?"

"A babysitter; someone to watch you. Make sure you come out okay." Psycho shakes his head. "Don't worry. I'll watch you tonight." Pats my shoulders and sighs,

"You'll be fine."

I circle around myself and find faces, dirty faces, faces full of smoke. 2 Someone snaps, "Who is she?"

"Where did she come from?"

"What's your name?"

Am I bleeding or not?

I scream at them, "Holy fuck, I'm bleeding!"

They draw near, pull away. Ocean waves.

They 're all lying to me; I know it.

"You really aren't bleeding. You're fine."

"Hey, my name is Spider - and you?"

I grab Spider, pull him toward me, smash my body against his and back him into the Kentucky Fried Chicken wall. "Just fucking tell me I'm bleeding! Tell me I'm bleeding and I'll be okay -"

"But you're not --"

"Just fucking say it!"

"Okay, okay, you're bleeding! Look at you," Spider grabs my arms. "So much blood, I can barely stand it! Someone, get this chick to a hospital quick, she's only got half a pint of blood left in her!"

"Half-Pint!" Psycho laughs. "That's her name!" The crowd squeals and giggles.

"Half-Pint."

3 15

4 Birthday

Nov. 16, 1989.

2:30 in the afternoon.

Queen Street.

I celebrate my fifteenth birthday in Country Style Donuts over Sweet Dreams

herbal tea with three packets of brown sugar and two splashes of milk. Shit Sue and I sip

our tea and talk about Psycho, Shit Sue's boyfriend.

"I don't know Half-Pint," Shit Sue says, "when I first met him I thought he was so

ugly, all short with crooked yellow teeth and that big pot belly and the way he just came

up and bit me on the shoulder really hard!" Shit Sue cringes and scrunches her nose.

"Now I think he's so beautiful. He looks just like a lion to me, like a lion with ice blue

eyes. I just wish he wouldn't get so angry all the time."

Shit Sue and I carry our empty white cups to the wood and glass counter, thank

Mom, the waitress, for our tea, snuggle into our sweaters, scarves, hats, mitts, and leather jackets, hobble to the glass doors, pull them open and walk face first into the snow and

wind. We stroll down Queen Street, cross Bay Street and duck into the Eaton's Center.

We shuffle through Zellers.

Shit Sue slinks through the cosmetics isle. She grabs a red lipstick off a shelf and

smothers it with her lips. I spray my underarms with "!" perfume. We powder our faces,

peer into a round counter mirror, glance at each other, giggle and jet down the stairs to the

housewares section.

Shit Sue picks out flannel flower print bed sheets. I argue for solid coloured cottons.

We agree on a blue down duvet. Shit Sue and I peruse the House wares section, finger 5 electric appliances ~ "We definitely need a Cuisinart" — and caress the Corning Ware dish sets and Teflon pans.

In the windows and lighting section, we choose lamps for the study and curtains for the bedroom. The orange curtains match the fiowerprint bedsheets and midnight blue flannel duvet we agreed on.

"It's five o'clock," Shit Sue says. "Better get back before Psycho. He'll be pissed if he gets home and there's no smokes."

"Shit, we still need to pan up enough to get another pack," I say.

"Don't worry about it today, Half-Pint. It's your birthday." Shit Sue smiles, "I stashed some cash away last night and didn't tell Psycho about it. Smokes on me today, lady." She throws her arms around me and squeezes my neck. "Almost legal," she chuckles.

We reach the escalator, hop onto its handrails and glide to the lower floor. Shit Sue can't resist the cosmetics counters. Shejwlls a brush from her bag and rakes it through her black hair. I watch, fascinated, as she applies blue mascara above and below her hazel eyes. "I'm ready," she announces. We scoot out the door and meander up Yonge Street to

College.

"Look at those boots!" We 're shoe watchers: we look at pedestrians' footwear and ponder the significance shoes have on personality. We believe that worn-out boots mean wont out minds. Any pair of shoes over five years old indicates insanity. I look at my black old-lady boots from the Salvation Army. The heels make them awkward to run in.

My boots are size six. I'm size seven.

Shit Sue and I huddle together, smoke Players Light cigarettes, and blow the smoke into our mitten holes. We're waiting for the College street car. Our 501 streetcar arrives. 6 Shit Sue scuttles to the back doors and squeezes between the people getting off. I follow her; she holds the door open for me. We rush to the back seats and search the floor for transfers.

We get off at High Park Road and cut through the park. Then we stroll down

Algonquin Avenue, arm in arm, two ladies under the old poplar trees. We discuss our last

seance.

"I'm not going to be famous," Shit Sue tells me, "but I will become infamous

somehow."

I nod, cough and listen.

"That red-headed spirit whose name we are never to say or even think," Shit Sue

says, "her and I will have a fierce battle when I'm about forty. A battle to the death."

"I wonder what I'm going to be? I say.

Shit Sue unhooks her arm from mine, steps away from me, eyes me up and down

and nods her head once, "You're going to be famous," she says.

"I want to be infamous," I say.

Shit Sue shrugs her shoulders.

We reach the door. Shit Sue rummages inside her jacket pockets and pulls out one

small key. The key dangles, by a chain, from a stuffed bunny with pink fuzzy ears. She makes the bunny dance and sings "Happy Birthday" to the door.

7 "Holy Shit -1 got lice!"

8 October??

I rarely remember the dates. It's strange, when I still lived at home

(so long ago now), I always knew what date it was. Now I don't know if it's Tuesday or Sunday, the tenth or the twentieth. At least I still know the month . . .

I'm sitting in the Donut Shop on Queen, right next o City TV. Night

Crawler is dancing with a girl named Cat. Lying Eyes, by the Eagles, is playing on the Juke Box. Glen sits across from me. I'm about to teach

Vern how to dance (I don't' know how to dance!).

OK, Vern and me just made fools of ourselves: he doesn't know how to dance either. Now I can resume my writing.

Did I get tired, or did I just get lonely? Ain't it funny how life just doesn't change things, but I'm not the same old girl I used to be. I can hide my lying eyes, and my smile is a big disguise.

Last night Night Crawler and me were talking. I think I learned something new.

I want to leave Toronto so bad, but I can't. I dream about going to

Vancouver, but really I gotta get on welfare and in school, and Night

Crawler might have a job lined up, and I guess I'm stuck here for a long, long time. I hate this place more and more. It's beginning to feel like jail.

9 There are so many questions I'd like to ask so many people, but I can't.

Questions. I ask myself but have no answers. I'm doing all the right things the wrong way (or the wrong things the right way-).

I'm living on a grate—I really have no one, but that's my own fault.

All that I've done. All that's happened. I have no one but myself to blame.

In and out of the house since thirteen and that was two years ago. I can't remember the last time I went home - not for over a year now. And the things that I've learned--- I remember my surprise when I realized that you can only stay in a hotel room for as long as you pay for it. That if you stay with strangers there's a price to pay for that too.

At first I kept feeling like every place I stayed was going to be my new home. Now no place feels like home anymore and that's a good thing because it's the truth.

I miss knowing the difference between right and wrong. I've done so many things I never thought I'd do, so many things I never even considered. The violence I caused. The pain I turned away from. The things I backed away from because of fear. I thought I was stronger than that.

I need to get out of here, at least for a while.

10 "I hate these trees, I hate this sidewalk, I hate these people, I hate my friends, I hate you, I

hate me, I hate that garbage can, I hate this garbage bag, I hate my life!" Old School

January 1990.

Night Crawler and I lumber into the parking lot of Royal York Hotel and dump our bags on the blowers. A refrigerator box occupies one half of the hot air vents we idle on.

I sit on my green knapsack and Night Crawler squats on his haunches beside me.

We eye the refrigerator sized cardboard box next to us. A door, two and a half feet high,

hangs cut out of the side of the box. Night Crawler leans his palm on the floor, examines

the door, glances a suspicious glance towards me and knocks.

Because I've lived on the streets for two years, I've earned the title Old School. Old

School means I know how to get through the winter and where to sleep in the summer

and how to walk through a crowded room full of skinheads without getting my head

kicked in. Mostly, Old School means I've proven I have nowhere else to go.

A man with a thick orange beard and blistered brown lips sticks his head out of the

cardboard door.

"Eye yi," the man says and smiled a broken brown-tooth smile at Night Crawler.

At twenty-three, Night Crawler knows how to talk sweet to store owners for a free

meal, how to save enough change for morning coffees and how to spot trouble from three

blocks away.

"Hi," Night Crawler says, reaching his outstretched hand toward the man, "My

name's Night Crawler and this here's my friend Half-Pint." With his other hand, he

thumbs toward me when he says the word 'friend'. The old man grabs his hand.

"Aiyee has it? Nam's Gordgie," the old man slurs and reaches for my hand too.

Gordy smells like regurgitated cherry and cigarettes. We shake. 12 Night Crawler digs into his frayed Levi pocket and pulls out a half-full pack of rolling papers. "Half-Pint, hold onto these skins for a sec, eh," Night Crawler hands the papers to me. I hold onto them.

The grate I sit on exudes warm air, heats my bag, defrosts my feet.

Night Crawler pulls out a bail of Daily Mail tobacco, "Half-Pint, give me does skins." He places the bail of Daily Mail tobacco between his thin thighs and separates long brown strands of stale tobacco with agile, bony fingers. He pulls a thin paper from the package, nestles it between two fingers of his left upturned palm, tucks three pinches of tobacco into the paper, lifts the tobacco-filled paper off his palm, squeezes the paper between index and fuck-you fingers of both palms and rolls the paper onto itself, into a perfect white tube of tobacco. Then he licks the glue strip as he squeezes the cigarette into existence.

"Here you go, Gordy." He hands the smoke to Gordy. The old man's hand shakes as he pokes his left cheek with the cigarette.

"Here you go, buddy," Night Crawler guides the cigarette to Gordy's mouth.

"Half-Pint, giv im a light will ya."

I stand, take a step towards Gordy and flick my Bic lighter.

"Ayi yeah Migwitch ma'miss," Gordy says and smiles. Thank you, miss.

"Hey dar wot's happenin' here?" Another gray, unshaven face emerges from the box.

"My name is Night Crawler and this here's Half-Pint." Night Crawler says and smiles a friendly smile as he plucks the cigarette off Gordy's pants and hands it to the new guy.

"I'm Fred." Fred takes the cigarette. "Thanks for the smoke." 13 Fred disappears behind his cardboard door and crawls backs out with a triple XXX squeeze jug of cherry.

"You want some of this?" Fred pushes the soft plastic bottle into my hands.

"Thanks," I say, and set my bottom lip on the round plastic opening. After my gulp

I pass the bottle to Night Crawler.

"Hey, Fred," Night Crawler says as he wipes the mouth of the bottle, "Me and

Half-Pint only have the two sleeping bags between us and its as cold as a witch's tit out tonight - you know where we can get us a nice box or two like you an Gordy got there?"

"We found this box in that there dumpster," Fred points to a large metal dumpster against the wall across from us.

Night Crawler wipes cherry drops from his lips and rises.

"Half-Pint," Night Crawler says, "you hang here for a bit. I'm going to go check that dumpster for boxes."

I pluck a Players paper from the package, open the Daily Mail, roll a thin cigarette and light it. Fred sets the Cherry between us.

"Hey Half-Pint," Night Crawler calls and stomps toward me, "I got a nice one here for you." He tosses a cardboard box on the cement beside my grate. "Check it out, it's even sort of clean and in good shape."

The box measures five and half feet long and two feet wide.

"We can't both fit in this," I say.

"It was the only fuckin box there was. You sleep in it an I'll sleep on the blower beside you. You'll be real warm in there too cuz the cardboard will heat up all around you. You've been fucking hacking your lungs out lately."

"It looks like a coffin," I say. 14 "Yeah, that's the best part," he laughs.

"Why don't you take the box, you get cold too ya know."

"My legs are too fucking long. Now shut the fuck up and get in the box."

Night Crawler last the box down and grabs my arm to steady me as I wriggle into my cardboard coffin. The box is too tight for my arms so I fold them across my chest, deceased style.

"There you go, that's the spirit." Night Crawler says and lays my blue sleeping bag on top of me and tucks the sides around me.

15 "I got lice"

16 Hooch

"Take care of this dog," Night Crawler says. "He's a pit bull and not such a nice one; tried to bite my fucking face off for the sandwich I was eating." He hands me

Hooch's leash. "His name is Hooch, I found him in the park. Fucking cigarette burns all over him - look at his tail," Night Crawler points to Hooch's tail. Hooch snarls at me.

"Some fucker cut a piece off it. He's ours now."

17 Race

"There's a note for you on the board, Half-Pint," Ruth says. She's the nurse at the

Evergreen Drop-In for Street Youth..

I wander to a small bulletin board beside the door, glance over the cacophony of

folded yellow notes. Each one wears a hand-scrawled name: Psycho, Guitar Steve, Angel,

Phoenix. Half-pint. I pluck the red pushpin from its folded paper, pull my note off the bulletin board and unfold it.

HALF-PINT,

I LEAVE FOR

VANCOUVER AT THREE O'CLOCK TODAY

RACE YOU THERE!

XO, Tabi

I glance at the clock above Evergreen's food counter--3:50 p.m.~and refold the

note, stuff it in my pocket, walk to the food table, lay ten cents on the counter and ask for

a yogurt. Pastor Mike hands me a yogourt, takes my ten cents. I glance at the yogurt's

expiry date: June 7th. Today is June 15th. I pack the yogourt into my backpack and head

for the door.

"Hey, Half-Pint," Jessey calls from one of the round drop-in tables. "Where are you going?"

"Vancouver."

18 "Those bastard security guards threw a bucket of cold water on us while we slept"

19 Bill the Vietnam Vet

Wassaga Beach. Walking backwards. Thumbs out. A brown Buick stops.

Cockroach pulls the Buick's front door open, pushes the beer cases aside and climbs inside. I sit in the back with my dog Hooch.. Between empty, full, and half-empty beer cases of Molson, the backseat is a tight squeeze for Hooch and I.

"Hey, my name's Bill," Bill says and waves us in. "Grab a beer girls."

"Thanks," Cockroach says. Bill sets the Buick into motion.

"So where you ladies headed?" Bill asks.

"Vancouver," Cockroach says. "We're racing our friends there."

Cockroach pulls a beer from the open case by her feet, grips the top, unscrews the cap, flips it onto her lap and leans back. White smoke exits the ochre beer bottle.

"I was in Vietnam, you know," Bill says.

"Oh yeah?" Cockroach wipes her lips with her sleeve.

"Yeah," Bill says. "I went and I tried to kill all the bad guys—you know why?"

"Why?" I say.

"Because if you kill all the assholes, the world is a much better place," Bill replies loftily. "And that's what we were doing over there: killing all the assholes." Bill twists the cap off his beer.

Cockroach's eyes widen.

I spy Bill's cigarette pack on the floor. "Can I bum a smoke, Bill?" I ask. Bill takes a swig from his beer and flips his cigarette pack onto my lap.

"Yeah, sure girl, just don't take em all," Bill says.

"Thanks Bill," I say, pull a smoke from the pack and light it. 20 "I used to kill all them assholes out there," Bill says. "I fucking hate assholes."

The Buick bounces over potholes. Hooch drools on Bill's back seat.

"We used to kill all them boys over there and staple their ears to our platoon walls."

I roll down the window for Hooch. Hooch sits up, sticks his nose outside and slobbers across the glass. Bill's Buick bops and rolls along the road.

"Killing assholes is what I do best," Bill says and downs his beer.

Hooch turns his head into the car and pukes on Bill's back seat. I cough while he's doing it, so Bill doesn't hear. Sweat collects at my temples. My eyelids twitch, heart speeds, time slows down. I spot a large box of Kleenex beside Cockroach's foot.

"We used to staple all the asshole ears to our platoon walls and fucking count em,"

Bill laughs. "One less assshole on earth makes the earth a better place." Bill waves a new beer in the air.

"Ahhhchoo!" I sneeze a fake sneeze.

"I killed so many fucking assholes in that war."

"Cockroach," I say. "Can you please pass me a Kleenex?"

Cockroach plucks two thin tissues from the box and waves them, over her shoulder, to me.

"No, Cockroach, I need a lot more than this," I say. "I've really sneezed a lot here."

Cockroach snatches another tissue from the box and passes it to me.

"More," I quietly growl.

Cockroach Glances at me. I point at the puddle of puke.

"You okay back there?" Bill glances into his rear-view mirror.

"Oh, yeah, I'm fine, no worries," I say, sneeze a fake sneeze again, pray he believes me, and lean over the dog puke to hide it. "I just have some allergies." 21 "What are you allergic to back there?" Bill asks.

"My dog."

Bill returns his attention to the road. Cockroach grabs a fist full of Kleenex and whips it into my lap.

"The only problem is, one of them fucking assholes I killed follows me around at night now," Bill says. "He wears this big black fucking cloak with a hood and I can never see his fucking face."

I begin to take Bill more seriously.

"I know why he wears that hood," Bill says. "He wears that hood cuz he doesn't have a head!"

I gently click the back door open. A thin crack appears between the moving highway and me.

"I cut off his fucking head in Vietnam, man," Bill says, empties his bottle and twists another beer open.

I wipe up Hooch's orange puke with wads of Kleenex and shovel the mess out the door. Puke dots the road behind us.

"I cut off that asshole's head and now he won't fucking leave me alone."

"Ahchooo!" I fake-sneeze again.

"But I got the best of that fucker," Bill says and smiles, then sucks back more beer.

"Cockroach, can you hand me more please?" I say.

"Here, take it all and keep it back there with you," Cockroach says and hands me the box of Kleenex.

"I got the best of that jerk though," Bill says. "I figured out he only comes out at night because he's scared of the light." 22 I pull the last lump of tissues from Bill's Kleenex box, rip the Kleenex box open and use the box as a shovel. I shovel the rest of Hooch's puke out the door.

"So, now I always sleep with a nightlight on," Bill says, drops his empty beer bottle on the floor and pulls another Molson from the case beside Cockroach's feet. 'The headless ghost won't come when there is light, any light, in the room."

"Cockroach, can I have a sip of your beer?" I ask.

Big Sue hands me her bottle. I spill some beer on the puke stain, wipe the rest off the floor with my shirtsleeve and click the door shut.

"Bill, can I bum another smoke?" I ask.

"Yeah sure, girl, help yourself, don't bother asking."

I slide a smoke from Bill's pack.

Bill veers off the main road. Cockroach and I look at each other. Bill doesn't notice.

He drives through yellow fields. We're too anxious to ask where he's going. Five minutes of corn later, Bill stops the car.

"Well. Here we are girls." Bill opens his door, squeezes his muscular, thin, gray- from-too-many-cigarettes frame out the door and saunters to the trunk of his car.

Cockroach and I stare at each other.

"That's it Roach," I say. "I need sleep."

"You're fucking joking - tell me you're joking."

"I'm tired," I close my eyes, close my eyes and drift off.

"C'mon, you always do this, you always fucking fall asleep—How the hell do you do that!"

"Roach, holy fuck... let me sleep..." the words linger on my tongue...

23 Smiley

Smiley?" I wrinkle my nose. "What's a smiley?"

Scrap and I stand at the corner of Yonge and College. The chilled October evening wind blows through Scrap's black hair.

"Smiley's like when you're beatin the fuck outa someone an' shit," Scrap says,

"and you tell 'em to lean on the ground on their hands and knees an open their mouth and bite down on the curb there between the sidewalk and the road.

Then you kick 'em down on the back of their head - Stomp! - and smash their teeth and mouth in. And when you pull them up by the hair, their mouth is all open and full of blood an broken teeth an shit - it looks like they got this big ol' funny clown smile on."

"Why would anyone actually agree to bite the curb like that, even if their face is bein beat-in an shit?"

"Well, they don't always agree and when they don't, you just make 'em. You force

'em. You beat 'em so hard that they pass out - you make sure they pass out near the curb

- an then you open their mouth an put it on the curb for them and smash their heads in anyway. Twice as hard."

"Twice as hard?"

"Yeah. So next time the stupid motherfuckers will listen to you the first time."

Scrap smiles and brushes her hair off her shoulders.

24 "Yeah, my folks fucking beat me all the time too"

25 Dear Diary,

In BC I'll sleep in late and smoke pot every morning. Janis will write and I'll plant a garden. I'll live what I can and die when I have to. I won't try to prolong life — that's for people with homes. We die when we have to: we don't beg, plead and borrow for more time.

26 First Job

On Sundays the Sally Ann stands closed. No stale bologna sandwiches for the skids today. On Sunday evenings, Evergreen serves week-old muffins - two each and sometimes three if there's any left over.

Yonge Street stretches and winds like a forest before me. Yonge Street crawls like scabies up my itchy arms. Yonge Street curls and rolls and rubs between my feet and settles around me. The morning sun twists, smolders and crackles above me.

"Spare some change sir?" I ask.

His hands jingle inside bloated pockets. His loose change mocks me.

"Thanks anyways, have a great day," I yell at his grey back. Pedestrian # 3872653 whistles and watches the cars pass. Pedestrian # 3872654 whips three pennies at my face.

I catch one penny and deflect the others with fast elbows. "Wonder Woman!" I half sing, half scream.

I dig my nails into my scalp and tear the skin to rid myself of lice. One fat, determined bug falls from my head and lands onto my jeans. I gasp and flick the beast off me.

"Spare some change for a bite to eat, folks?"

"Not today."

"Thanks anyways," I force a cheerful smile. "Take care."

I scratch my aching skull until warm blood seeps underneath my fingernails.

Hunger gnaws, gashes at my insides.

A woman floats towards me from a block away. I twist to my feet, fly into the air, sweep my legs over my head in double cartwheel, handspring, walkover to splits, then 27 roll out of splits and bounce into a handspring up and land in front of her.

"It's fon, fantastic, fabulous! It's the spare-some-change-game! Come one, come all. If you don't play, you can't win! Earn valuable Karma points." I stretch my hand, palm up and smile.

"You can get the fuck out of my face now," she barks.

"How bout I give you some face cuz it looks like your dry cunt could use some," I say. "Better yet, how bout I rip you a new face?"

"Get a job you useless fucking trash!" she hisses, pushing past me.

"I have a job!" I scream. "I sit here every fucking day and put up with the shit that rich, well-fed, tight-assed, undersexed bitches like you throw my way, and the best part,"

I suck in a venomous breath, "the best part is that I don't fucking follow you home and slash your prissy throat!" I spit and struggle with the ocean that flows, boils, bubbles through my front teeth.

"The best part is that I don't rob you in the alley, the best part is that I don't push drugs on your kids, the best part is that I'm not fucking your husband for a fifty this evening, or holding up your business at gunpoint, or sacrificing your kitten to Satan!"

She disappears through the swerving pedestrian sewage. I inhale smog, tighten my fists and clench my teeth. Hungry. Hungry!

I bounce onto my hands, rest my feet above me, against the wall and watch cars pass by upside down.

"Spare some change so I can get back on my feet again?"

"Now are you actually gonna use it for food or are you just gonna spend it on drugs, young lady?"

"Food," I clench my teeth and smile up, sweetly, innocently, mechanically at him. 28 "I tell you what, how bout I go and buy you a new pair of shoes and you can give me those old ones."

"Again?" I crumple to the ground. I know he jacks off smelling my old shoes. He buys me a new pair every month. The shoes are cheap and white and desperately uncomfortable. I slip off my shoes and kick them towards him.

"So, are you gonna give me some money to eat today?" I grumble.

He holds out a fifty-dollar bill, "What would you do for it?"

"Fuck you!" I swing and barrel towards him, "Give me back my fucking shoes, you useless fucking pervert!"

He drops my tattered shoes and trots away. I sit down and stare at the sidewalk until the concrete melts into a daydream.

"Natashinka," Dyedushka says. "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

"I don't know."

"You should really think about it, you know."

I lie on the mattress beside Dyedushka. Dyedushka and Babushka live in a three- room apartment at the edge of Moscow. One of the rooms is a kitchen. The other two rooms serve as both bedrooms and living rooms. Dyedushka and I are in the bigger room.

I listen to the children running around outside.

"You know your Babushka is a doctor. A nerve specialist."

"I don't know if I want to be a doctor."

Dyedushka laughs. "Not everyone can be a doctor, you know," he chuckles. "You have to be very, very smart to be a doctor—your Babushka is very, very smart."

"I'm smart." 29 "Who, you?" He laughs and pats me on the head. "Yes, yes, sure you are smart, but maybe not smart enough to be a doctor."

"Maybe I don't want to be a doctor anyway."

"Oh well, you know, I could be wrong—perhaps you are smart enough to be a doctor."

"Natashinka!" Babushka whines as she veers into the room. "Come eat some chicken."

Babushka rarely cooks, but when she does cook, she boils chicken till it looks like laundry.

"I'm not hungry," I say.

"You're not hungry!" Babushka's worried voice warbles. "You have to eat or you won't grow—you'll get sick." Tears well in Babushka's blue eyes.

"Go eat your chicken," Dyedushka says and shuffles me out of the bed.

I mope to the kitchen, sit at the table, stare past the chicken.

"Eat," Babushka pleads.

"I can't."

The front door slams. "Is anybody home?"

Mama has come to visit. My breath stops.

Mama prances into the kitchen, decked out in a new black and white polka dot dress.

"I want to show you the new shoes I bought!" She pulls a pair of burgundy high- heeled shoes from a box and stuffs them under Babushka's nose.

"Those must have been terribly expensive," Babushka says.

"Oh, stop it with your constant penny pinching," Mama snaps. "No one has shoes 30 like these, they are from France - look at that color, like wine. They're real suede."

Babushka smiles. "Well, they are very pretty."

Mama glares down at me.

"How is our Natashinka?" Mama asks Babushka.

"Natashinka is very, very thin," Babushka answers, her mouth droops. "She doesn't want to eat. I don't know what to do."

"How many times have I told you what to do with her? A child won't just learn by herself."

I cringe.

"Eat your chicken," Mama says and points at me.

"I don't want it," I say. "I'm not hungry."

"Eat your chicken!"

"No."

Mama leaps towards me.

I jump from the chair and run to the next room. Mama follows.

"I'll teach you yet!" She growls and shakes her index finger at me. "I'm going to get the belt."

I cower beside the bed and scream.

"What the fuck is going on here?" Dyedushka stands in the hallway—he looks around as if he doesn't know where he is—he shakes and breathes fast and shallow.

"Why is she screaming like someone is going to kill her?" He points a finger at me. His finger shakes uncontrollably.

"She's going to kill me; she's going to kill me!" I screech and point at Mama.

"Oh I'm going to kill you all right," Mama says and runs to the hallway closet. 31 "Where's the belt, I'm going to find the belt right now."

I wait, watch and whimper. Dyedushka puckers his lips.

"You want the belt?" Dyedushka says. "I'll give you the G-d damned fucking belt you stupid dirty whore!" He fumbles with the buckle on his pants, unlatches it and pulls the leather strap from its loops. Dyedushka's belt unwinds in the air, like a whip.

"How about I beat you with this fucking belt," Dyedushka hollers.

He swings the belt above his head in a circle. The leather strap cuts through the air.

It sounds like old war movies.

"He's crazy!" Mama yelps.

"I'm crazy?" Dyedushka hollers. "You're crazy, you worthless fucking cunt— you're crazy!" The belt above his head gains speed.

Babushka pulls Mama into a corner. "You know what that war did to him, to his head. Just be quiet until he calms down."

"Remember this, remember this you stupid, fat fucked bitch," Dyedushka screams at Mama.

Psycho slips into my corner.

"Made anything yet?" Psycho asks.

"Fuck all," I say. "Sometimes I think I'm invisible. These rich, moneybag bastards and bitches think they're the shit cuz daddy buys them anything they want. I made a little cunt of an enemy today—does that count?"

"Did you kick her ass?" Psycho giggles like a toddler.

"Four squares in the joint," I mutter. Four healthy meals served in jail. "Anyway, I 32 gotta get back to work, where you gonna be?"

"There's a chick stemming over at the Big Slice you know?" Psycho points past my shoulder.

I swing onto the sidewalk and blaze down the street like a plague.

"You!" I whip one index finger at Donna, "You're cuttin my fucking grass, bitch."

"What are you talking about?" Donna whimpers and slips into a doorway.

"Fuck you," I advance. "You know full well I pan at the same fucking corner every useless fucking day!"

"I'm pregnant," Donna blurts.

"I don't give a shit what you are. Get the fuck up and find yourself a new fucking corner before I rip you a new hole!"

Donna peels herself off the sidewalk and gathers her tattered belongings. She watches me rock back and forth with clenched fists. I grind my teeth and rage towards her. "I'm going, I'm fucking going okay, you can leave me alone now," Donna whines and slithers away. I return to my piece of the sidewalk.

"Spare some change ma'am?"

"I bet you can give me some money," pedestrian # 3872655 snickers.

I reach into my hat, pull out a quarter and toss it at # 3872655's feet.

"Here you go then, you must need it real bad to be asking me for it," I shrug. She shuffles away as she flicks her forked tongue. I bend forward and scoop the warm quarter.

"Guess you didn't need it that bad, after all," I call after her scuttling, legs.

"Spare some change for a frontal lobotomy or a bottle in front of me?"

"Get a life!" some asshole screams.

"Yours looks pretty sweet, maybe I'll take that one!" I answer. 33 "Get a job!" he snarls.

"You gonna give me one?" I holler.

"I'll give you a job, baby!" Another guy honks his horn.

"Yeah, your horn blows, does your mother?! Guess she can't be that good if you're offering her job to me!"

"Fuck you, bitch!" He screeches away. I smile.

"Spare some change so I can get a new home for Christmas? Santa and his rein-deer trampled my cardboard box last Christmas Eve. You should have seen the mess, hoof prints all over the boudoir!"

"You don't really live in a cardboard box, do you?"

"No, someone set it on fire last week. Now I sleep on the blowers behind the Royal

York."

"You're not serious," he says in a low voice..

He is a handsome, well-dressed fag with a lover boy yearning beside him. I gaze at his splendid full-length coat; I admire his fluid mannerisms. A manicure! I long to be this gorgeous, graceful creature. I imagine his warm, carefully decorated home. His white

fridge sparkles in my mind. I pull the fridge door open: delectable pork roast leftovers recline, humbly, beside blushed green apples and chilled creamed corn soup. A lake forms underneath my tongue.

"How old are you?" He hovers above me, scented and sensual.

"Fifteen," I say.

His eyes blink back pity. His luscious bottom lip trembles once and settles, stuck to upper lip in pursed position.

"Where are your parents?" He quivers toward me. 34 Mama wakes up, strips off her nightgown, marches to the hallway and clutches a broom. She sweeps and yells at me. "What are you staring at?! I always have to clean and you do nothing. Nothing!" Mama drowns a small gray rag inside a large black bucket of water. Her big ass jiggles.

Mama always cleans naked.

I lean against the doorway and observe her. She shoots up from the floor like

fireworks, and sinks her fists into her meaty hips.

"Lazy brat," Mama says. "Laziness was born before you were."

I figure Laziness must be at least five years old. I am four. I place my fists on my hips too.

"Don't you put your hands on your hips and look at me like that!" Mama puffs her

cheeks; her face matches our red curtains. She reels and strikes me on the head. I fall,

scurry to the checkered tablecloth, slide beneath our kitchen table, clutch the furthest table leg from Mama and wrap my arms and legs around the column. Mama crawls along

the floor towards the table, like a hungry dog. She's after me again - she's going to smash my head in.

I run my nails through infested hair and glance away, up to the CN Tower and the

little elevator that travels up and down that tower all day. The beautiful fag lays a twenty- dollar bill inside my palm.

"Get yourself something to eat, child."

35 I don't know the date — not even sure about the month---

It's nighttime, late, late nighttime. Night Crawler sleeps beside me.

We're staying at his friend Cory Doctorow's place. It's a nice place, big house on Poplar Planes, rich neighborhood. We sleep in the basement.

They said we can stay for a while.

I'm sick as a dog. I can barely get out of bed. Trouble breathing.

Temperature's high. Every time I get off the street I get sick right away.

It's hard to be indoors after long stints outside.

Night Crawler always worries when I'm sick. He threatens me with ice baths when my temperature rises too high for too long. He cooked all day and made me homemade chicken soup. Best soup I ever tasted.

I watch Night Crawler sleep now. He sleeps so lightly I'm afraid to breathe. His long, curly red hair reaches down to his waist. We sleep under our sleeping bags, on the basement floor. I use his arm for a pillow.

I like sleeping beside him.

Night Crawler said we should get off the street and I said okay and he called his friends and asked them if we could stay with them. This isn't really "getting off the street" though. I know it. We're just bumming a piece of floor till they get sick of us. We'll be beneath the St. Clair Bridge by summer. At least he still tries to get off the street, and it makes me

36 want to still try too.

He has such a beautiful face. His broken nose, his one blind eye, the scar that twists his arm up; these make Night Crawler look older than his twenty-three years.

Yesterday, Night Crawler and I were in the grocery store and this song came on: "I'll never be your beast of burden". Night Crawler said he loved that song and he asked me to dance and we danced.

Sometimes I lay my head on his chest.

I wish he was in love with me. He never tries to kiss me or touch me.

He says that he is celibate, that he is "A-sexual, like a plant." I tell him that I love him all the time. He tells me that he loves me. We hug. He doesn't know that I'm in love with him. Maybe he knows.

He thinks I am a child. Sometimes he acts like I'm his child. I wish he saw me differently. I wish he saw me as a woman. He says I am too young to be a woman. He says it's not my fault that I'm "a kid" — I hate it when he calls me that! He says my mother is a shitbag and that I'm not to blame for ending up on the street but that being on the street doesn't make me an adult, that it just makes me a fucked-up kid and that anyone who wants to fuck me is a diddler who deserves to die.

I think that living on the street does make me an adult. I earned my adulthood. I deserve the same respect that anyone else who fends for

37 themselves gets. No one takes care of me but me. Not everyone can take care of themselves like I can at fifteen years of age. It's not my fault I'm younger than most people that live on their own. I still deserve to be called an adult, treated like an adult. Children are taken care of by adults.

Adults take care of themselves. I take care of myself = I'm an adult. I wish Night Crawler loved me like I love him.

38 "Uppit, puppet, or I'll cut your strings"

39 Bill the Vietnam Vet

"He's taking a fucking metal briefcase from the truck, Half! There's a G-Damned gun in there, I know it!"

"I fucking said let me sleep!"

"Oh my G-D, Half-Pint, it's a camera! The fucking crazy bastard's gonna film it all. Half please wake up... We're never gonna make it to Vancouver - we lost the fucking race, Half-Pint! We really lost the fucking race now... Fucking shitass crazy Vietnam vet — why'd we ever get into this car?"

My eyes blur open and peer over Cockroach's shoulder through the spotted back window: Bill slams his trunk closed, a video recorder in his left hand.

I lean the back of my head against the headrest and let my eyelids drape over my eyes. Deep breath. It feels so good to sleep now...

"Half-Pint! Were gonna fucking die now - don't you get it!"

"I want to die in my sleep, Roach," I whisper and yawn and tired yawn.

"Well, shit," Roach says and shuffles through a beer case. "I want to die pissed fucking drunk." A beer cap tings against the side window. "How fast you think I can drink all these here," Cockroach mumbles through mouthfuls of beer.

40 Walkman

"Spare some change?"

"Come on an I'll take you for a hotdog and Coke," he says.

"O.K." I uncurl my legs, clutch my hatfol of change in my fist, and get up off the pavement. Yonge Street to my left and right. College Street unwinds before me. "My name is Half-Pint," I say, gaze into his grey eyes and reach my hand towards him. "Hi

Half-Pint," he says, smiles, shakes my hand. He wears a beige fedora. He is taller than me, and thin. He does not tell me his name.

We stroll side-by-side up Yonge Street.

"So what are you doing out here, Half-Pint?"

"I live out here," I say.

"Right here on the street?"

"Yeah," I say with a smirk. "Right here."

"And you panhandle for money."

"Yup."

"I got lots of money. I make a ton of dough," he says.

I look at his pants: grey, wrinkled.

"Oh yeah," I say. "How do you make so much money?"

"You wanna see how I make so much money?"

"Yup."

"Hold on," he says and veers to the left. 'Let's get you a hotdog." He smiles and waves a blue five at of the hotdog vendor.

"Thanks," I say, and wrap my hands around the hotdog , squeeze a zigzag of mayo 41 along the length, sprinkle onions - white onions stick into yellow mayo - and pile sauerkraut over top.

Grey man steers us to College Park Mall. He opens the shopping mall door for me. I step in and follow grey man into an electronics shop, where we stand at the counter.

He leans against the glass top, hat loose on his head.

"Can I help you?" The salesman asks.

"Yes," he says. "I would like to look at that Walkman." He points at the glass display case beneath the salesman's arm.

"Which one?" The salesman asks.

"That grey one," he says. I peer into the display case. A grey-blue Walkman lays to my left.

"This one?" The salesman asks with his head behind the Walkman, pointing and squinting.

"Yes," Mr. Grey says

The salesman pulls the gray/blue Walkman from the glass case and lays the

Walkman on top of the counter. Mr. Grey takes the Walkman, turns it in his hand, lays it back on the counter.

"Can I see the red one too?" Mr. Grey says.

"This one?"

"The other one."

I squint into the display case. There is a maroon/red Walkman two Walkman's to my right.

"This one?" The salesman asks.

"Yes." 42 The salesman hands Mr. Grey the maroon/red Walkman. He turns the Walkman in his hand. He sets the maroon Walkman on the counter, lifts the gray Walkman off the counter. Turns it. Lays it down beside the red Walkman.

"Now can I see that black one and the blue one?"

"This one and that one?"

"Yes."

The salesman lays two more walkmans on the counter. Mr. Grey inspects the walkmans. Picks the one up. Puts the other one down.

"No thanks, I think we'll keep looking," he says and lays the gray walkman down and waves a pleasant wave, "Good-bye."

We walk out of the store, open the doors of the mall and step into the sunlight. Mr.

Grey pulls a blue walkman from his pant pocket.

"See that, Half-Pint?"

"That's from the store," I say.

"That's how I make my money."

"You shouldn't just tell anyone that sort of shit," I say.

He laughs a mocking laugh at me and shakes his head. "Why not?"

"How do you know I won't call the cops?" I say. "You don't know me from a hole in the ground."

"I know you won't," he says.

"How do you know," I say and lift my chin at him.

"Because you'll never see me again, Half-Pint," he says. "Look there." I look: grey buildings against beige sky. I turn: pedestrians stream by me in their lunch hour rush. I look over my shoulder: grey buildings against beige sky. I take the last bite off my 43 hotdog, toss the wrapper into a garbage can, walk back to my spot at the corner of Yonge

Street and College, wipe my hands on my pants and sit down.

"Spare some change?"

44 "Yo, what the fock -1 got scabies!"

45 A Window

The stairwell smells like deep fried potatoes, stale beer, and piss. Shit Sue and I slither and stumble up the stairs. We creep to our door. Shit Sue leans her ear on the keyhole. We hold our breath.

"It's quiet, Psycho's not home yet," Shit Sue whispers. "Tashi, he scares me sometimes..."

We rush in the door and stuff our jackets in a plastic, red milk crate. The milk crate and a ripped khaki green army duffel bag sit on the floor in the closet. The closet looms at the foot of a stained mattress stacked atop a decrepit box spring: Shit Sue and Psycho's bed. Beside the bed, an orange couch leans on three legs, struggles under the weight of its mismatched cushions. The orange couch is my bed.

Shit Sue and I hop on the couch, cross our legs, bounce on a squeaky spring and lean into the armrests. Shit Sue lights a smoke. We share it.

"I hope he's not out getting drunk and stoned," Shit Sue says.

"I hope he is. Maybe he won't come home tonight and I can get to sleep in peace without having to listen to you guys fuck half the night."

"Last night was great," Shit Sue says.

"I give it nine and a half," I answer. We giggle, lean our backs into the couch and rest our feet on Shit Sue's bed.

"I hate living in such a cramped space," Shit Sue says.

"I wish we had a window," I say.

"We can pretend we have a window."

"Let's get that fabric we found in the garbage yesterday and hang it on the wall 46 behind your bed like a curtain."

Shit Sue shuffles her short, thick body to her bed, tucks a strand of black hair behind her rosy left ear and scampers over the bed, leans off the edge and reaches into the closet. I jump on her bed, bounce and wait. Shit Sue tosses the brown and blue flowerprint fabric with yellow ochre stains and frayed, crusty edges at me. We push paperclips through fabric corners. I take off my boot and use the steel toe to nail two thumbtacks in the wall. We hang our curtain.

"Good job!" Shit Sue says. We slap each other's hands and fall into the couch, cross our legs. Shit Sue lights a smoke, takes a puff and passes it over.

"You think you'll marry Psycho?" I ask.

"I don't know. Sometimes I think it would be pretty cool. We're trying to have a baby but it's not working."

"If not Psycho, then who?"

Shit Sue gazes at the curtain.

"He'll be tall and muscular and blonde with jade green eyes. He'll be rich too. He'll have a car and a great job and a really slick name like Richard or Jordan or Milton."

"Milton?" I snicker.

"O.K., maybe not Milton," Shit Sue says and shrugs. "He'll buy me a gorgeous red wedding dress and he'll cook supper every night and set the table with our best china and light white candles and serve everything in silver serving dishes and we'll have dinner parties once a month and he'll always tell me how great I look and give me money every day to buy make-up and new clothes. What's yours gonna be like?"

I finger a hole in the cushion. "I need to put a sheet on this. The stuffing makes me itch at night," I say. Shit Sue pushes me over. 47 "Okay, okay." I grab her arm and pull myself up. "My guy will have lots of tattoos," I say.

"What kind of tattoos?" Shit Sue asks.

"I don't know, dragons and horses and secret symbols and stuff."

"Lots of color?"

"No, only black-work."

"What else will he look like?"

"He'll be Chinese or Native—dark skinned. He'll be a really amazing martial artist, and really, really smart, and clean and moral—and absolutely crazy about me. He'll just walk into town one day after sunset and no one will know where he came from."

"Oooh, a tall, dark, handsome and mysterious man for Tashi," Shit Sue pokes a finger in my ribs and hands me half a smoke.

The door swings open. Shit Sue jumps on the bed. I stretch my legs across the couch, lean my head on the armrest and reach between the cushions for my book. Psycho staggers through the door, swaggers toward Shit Sue and falls down.

"One of you stupid wenches better have a smoke for me." Psycho pulls himself onto the bed.

Shit Sue stuffs a cigarette in Psycho's mouth and lights it.

"What the fuck's that rag doin' on the wall?' Psycho screams and kicks off his six year old shoes.

"We needed something to cover the window."

48 Big Foot, the Movie

"Big Foot! Big Foot!" Bill the Vietnam vet screams as he focuses his camera and zooms the manual lens away from and towards my foot. My foot rests in Bill's ashtray.

"Where's Hooch," I mumble through sleep.

"I told Cockroach to play with the puppy and I'm gonna film her doing it," Bill giggles.

I squint out the window.

"Here puppy, puppy, puppy...." Cockroach, drunk and delirious, calls Hooch to her.

Hooch barrels at Cockroach and head butts her in the stomach. Cockroach falls backwards on the grass and Hooch lunges for her face.

"This is awesome," Bill laughs, "look how cute those two are -1 gotta run and get this on film, girl!"

49 We're off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz, because, because, because,

because, because—because of the wonderful drugs he has" The Roach

"When I was a boy," Psycho says and exhales thick, putrid pot smoke, "my old lady was so poor that she couldn't afford cockroach chalk. Fucking cockroaches everywhere.

"One time I went to school and one fell out of my jacket and this little girl from my

class screamed and everyone looked and she pointed at the roach that fell off me and everyone made fun of me for it forever."

Psycho passes his joint to me; I pinch the roach between two fingers, suck the end and burn my upper lip.

"My last day at school I showed them all though, I went nuts, beat the crap outta

every kid there," Psycho giggles. "I got a plan, little sister, you know? I'm gonna do it."

I cough grey smoke and take another toke. "What's the plan, bro?"

"I'm going to make lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots

and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and

lots and lots of money."

51 I don't know the date.

I'm sitting in Mom's donut shop, it's past midnight. Mom is a nice lady that works here. Everyone calls her Mom because she doesn't throw us out if we don't have any money and lets us sit in here all night and stay warm as long as we don't make trouble.

Night Crawler and I lost our sleeping bags. We panned all day and made no money. We walked to the Sally Ann Thrift Store. Night Crawler carried me on his back most of the way because my shoes are too small for me and my feet were sore from all the blisters.

At the Thrift Store there were no sleeping bags left. All we could find (within our price range of $2) was a baby blanket with Care Bears all over it. I love the Care Bears!

We huddled up on the grate behind the Royal York, but it's Fall and the nights are getting colder. We froze. There is no way to share a baby blanket between two full-grown people!

So, here we are in Mom's donut shop. Mom knows we have no money but, just this one time, she gave us each a coffee anyway.

52 Under the Evergreen Roof

Fox sings and plays guitar under the Evergreen overhang roof. It must be about three o'clock in the morning. Mid autumn. This overhang and three walls that hold it shield us from the wind. When Fox runs out of songs to sing he asks us for requests.

"Play American Pie," I say. Fox flips his long brown hair off his thin freckled face, strums his guitar and sings.

A long, long time ago...

Alley Cat, Rat Man, Shorty, Care Bear, Dice, Patty, Squirrel and I join in

/ can still remember...

Alley Cat sits on the ground—how that music used to make me smile—and leans against the wall. She pinches her large watery stomach with her thin pink hands and bounces her small blond head to the music.

"Last night I had a miscarriage." Alley Cat tells me. She looks up at Fox and yells,

"Sing 'I believe the children are our future'!"

Fox swirls his guitar behind his back, dances a strange little dance and opens his palms in front of him. He smiles a theatrical smile and sings. A capella. Dice, Patty, Rat

Man, and Squirrel also sing. They sing in high-pitched voices, hands clutched to their chests. They sound like a Mickey Mouse chorus.

/ believe the children are our future, keep them safe and let them lead the way.

Show them all the beauty they possess inside...

"I was partying with these guys and I told them not to pick me up and rough handle me the way they did. I told them I was pregnant...." Alley Cat wipes her blond hair from her blue eyes, smiles an awkward, bucktoothed smile, and traces a circle in the pavement 53 dust with her middle finger.

Give them a sense of pride, to make it easier — let the children's laughter...

"But they picked me up and threw me over their shoulders anyway—they were drunk—and when I woke up in the one guy's bed in the morning there was all this blood all over his white sheets. I'm glad I messed up his rucking white sheets," Alley Cat says and smiles a far away smile. "But the baby is gone."

Remind us how we used to be...

"It was Rat Man's baby." Alley Cat says, "He's really upset about it too." She glances across the pavement at Rat Man. Rat Man drops his hands to his sides, winks at

Alley Cat, wipes his forehead with the back of his hand and continues the song.

/ decided long ago never to live in anyone's shadow. If I fail, if I succeed, at least I lived as I believe...

"Half-Pint, will you tell me how old you are?" Alley Cat asks.

"Not unless you want me to lie," I answer.

"I'll tell you how old I am. But only if you tell me too."

"I'm seventeen," I lie.

"I'm fourteen," Alley Cat says. Alley Cat is one year younger than I am.

No matter what they take from me they can't take away my dignity—"This is my all-time favorite song." Alley Cat smiles at me and joins in - Because the greatest - I sing along with everyone too - love of all is happening to me. I lay an arm over Alley Cat.

Alley Cat lays an arm over me. Rat Man strolls into our corner and settles on the ground beside Alley Cat, nuzzles into her side and leans his long thin chin on her small round shoulder. Patty slow dances with Shorty. Care Bear hugs Dice. Fox's voice vibrates between Yonge Street skyscrapers, rises above the malnourished trees and cloaks the 54 empty cold brick streets in music.

55 "You punking me off?"

56 Three Little Inj ins

The Three Little Injins, Little Rob, Trish, and Brian, wrap their arms around each other's shoulders and knot themselves into a line. "We are the three little Injins and we love to drink," they sing, not in unison, and kick their legs in the air and fall and flail and roll over each other, laughing.

The three little Injins swallow handfuls of Gravol ~ Gravol is an over-the-counter anti-motion sickness drug; enough pills bring on hallucinations — and chug triple XXX squeeze jugs of sherry. Trish gets cold fast and the booze warms her up.

One night Trish crawls into a garbage dumpster in an alleyway behind Yonge

Street, at College. Someone finds Trish there the next morning. Dead Indian girl in a dumpster.

The Toronto Sun newspaper says Trish was drunk and looking for a warm place to sleep.

After Trish's death, Brian O.D.'s in a back alley behind Yonge and Bloor.

Without Trish and Brian, Rob wanders up and down Yonge Street. Without Trish and Brian, Rob stumbles in and out of consciousness, eyes glazed with Gravol and sherry and glue.

Skinheads cut Rob's left ear off. Cops pass by Rob like he is litter on pavement.

Last Little Injin.

Rob falls down in the middle of Yonge Street, at Dundas, and lands with his chest on my feet. Face smashed against the pavement.

"Rob, Rob," I say. "Get up. Six up, the cops are right fucking there man, get up. Get the fuck up." 57 Rob lays still.

"Fuck, Rob. You have to stop this shit. You're gonna die." I lean over, grab the back of Rob's ragged shirt and lift. Rob's body is as light as a helium balloon.

I prop Rob up and steady him against Sam The Record Man's wall. Sam the Record

Man's sign - two huge fluorescent records in the sky - gleam through the dark and swirl in nauseating patterns. Rob oozes down the wall and plops onto the ground. Blood coagulates on Robs busted bottom lip.

Is he even breathing?

I squat beside Rob and lower my ear to his mouth. A thin wisp of air touches my cheek and slips down my face. Rob's breath is damp and warm. I wipe my face and rise and walk away. The last little Injin still breathes.

58 Praise be to... Phuquem!

I'm still living, on and off, with Psycho and Shit Sue. But it's different now, because winter has arrived. So Guitar Steve, Guitar Shawn, Brenda, Cockroach, Spider,

Shawna, and Pig-dog have also moved into Psycho's place.

We've formed a religion: "Phuquem." If someone doesn't like what you look like:

Phuquem. If someone doesn't like what you act like: Phuquem. If you think someone's really cute and they think you're cute too --.

Psycho's room, beside the bathroom, is small and crammed with Shit Sue's clothes.

Books about Voodoo litter the floor.

Our kitchen stands beside Psycho's room, it's large enough for a two-seater table, sink, fridge, coffee maker and garbage can. Empty 2/4 cases of Molson are stacked four, five, or six cases high against barren cupboards.

A door from the kitchen leads to Pig-Dog's bedroom - large enough for a bed and a spot beside the bed to dress. On the other side of the kitchen is our living room, a pathetic hallway of a living room. One long flower print couch leans against our living room wall.

From the couch I can touch the opposite wall. Two people standing side-to-side fit wall- to-couch in the living room.

Psycho and Shit Sue sleep in Psycho's room. Pig-Dog and Shawna sleep in Pig-

Dog's room. Guitar Steve, Guitar Shawn, Cockroach Brenda, Spider, and I sleep in the living room. At the far end of the living room, a small doorway leads to the cold room.

We smoke crack in the cold room.

Two nights ago, after three 2/4s of Molson and a hit or two of California Sunshine

(acid), Cockroach went to punch some new guy in the head and split her own forehead 59 open on a low-hanging beam in the ceiling -- right beneath the hairline. She swooned and fell and landed on an armchair in the hallway. Blood streamed down her round face and dripped from her small upturned nose. The new guy scampered up the stairs and scuttled out our front door. Psycho, Guitar Steve, Guitar Shawn, Brenda, Pig-dog, Shawna, and I dashed to Cockroach and surrounded her.

"We need to stop the blood," someone said. "Saran-Wrap her forehead!"

I inched to the chair and stood beside Cockroach. Cockroach seized my sweater.

"Holy shit, Half-Pint," Cockroach moaned. "It hurts."

I leaned closer to Cockroach's forehead and peered into the bloody gash. Between raw folds of skin, Cockroach's skull glimmered up at me. Spider reached over my head and poked his finger into Cockroach's bloody wound, clutched both ends of the skin with his fingertips, puckered the ends against one another, let them slip apart, then squeezed them together.

"Hello, I am Cockroach's gash," Spider said. "My name is Fred."

"Fred Finnegan!" _Psycho laughed.

"Begin a-gin!"

A chuckle rolled through the group.

"Phuquem," Cockroach whispered. "Fuck you guys."

"Practice Zen," I said to Cockroach. "You feel no pain because there is no pain.

Accept that there is no pain. If there is no pain you cannot feel pain. Pain does not exist.

You feel nothing. Or, if you cannot accept that there is no pain, at least accept that you cannot accept there is no pain and, thus, know that there is no pain and you are suffering due to your lack of acceptance."

"I practice Zen, there is no pain. There is no pain!" Cockroach screamed. 60 Shawna ran into the hallway with Saran Wrap - where the hell did we get Saran

Wrap? - tucked it between Cockroach's head and the armchair, and unrolled the entire package. Shawna wrapped and wrapped and wrapped Saran Wrap around Cockroach's head. Guitar Steve, Spider, Pig-dog, Psycho, and I helped.

"I can't rucking breath!" Cockroach screamed. "Get it offof my nose!" Cockroach pushed at our hands and rolled the thin, clear plastic away from her nostrils.

Blood streaked the Saran Wrap, formed inkblots on Cockroach's forehead, and dripped from her ears to the floor.

Brenda bummed a quarter from Guitar Steve, stomped up the stairs, ran to a payphone, and dialed 911. The police came. Psycho kicked empty beer bottles down the stairs to our apartment; a policeman followed Psycho.

"Have you folks been drinking tonight?" The policeman asked Psycho as he descended the stairs.

"Nooo shiry noo," Psycho slurred and giggled. "We dooontssh drinks here, noo we

.. .goot honest peee -" Psycho fell down the stairs.

The policeman waltzed into our hallway and glanced at Cockroach as she lay on the chair.

The walls undulated towards me, away from me. The chair breathed. The beer I'd drunk fought for freedom. Cockroach's gash grew teeth. The acid kicked in.

Peaking.

"Excuse me, Roach," I said and smiled. "I have to go and puke now."

I uncurled Cockroach's fingers from my arm, staggered to the kitchen, leaned over the sink, pushed dirty dishes aside, and rolphed.

"You okay in there?" The policeman said as he veered his head into the kitchen. 61 "Oh yeah, I'm fine sir," I said. "I just have a little headache."

The ambulance arrived.

Two large men and a woman leaned over Cockroach.

"Why is there Saran Wrap all over her head?" The woman asked.

"We wanted to stop the bleeding," Pig-dog answered.

"Get this stuff off her head," the ambulance woman said, unwrapping Cockroach's bloody Saran Wrap. She deftly wound some white gauze around Roach's oozing forehead.

"We're going to take you to the hospital," the woman said. "You need stitches."

A trail of blood trickled down Cockroach's nose.

"I feel no pain," Cockroach said to the ambulance woman. "I practice Zen."

62 "Shit floats to the top"

63 Frogger

Have you ever played Frogger?"

"Frogger," I say, "that video game, right?"

"Video game! Holy fuck, you're green," Scrap laughs.

"So what's Frogger?"

"Two guys stand at the edge of the road, when the road's really busy, and another guy says 'Go!' and the two guys run into the road as soon as he says go," Scrap says.

"The one that gets hit by a car loses."

64 Monica: "I'm seventeen years old and all my friends are dead"

65 Daniel Ross

Inside a broken-down house on Sunnyside Avenue, in a small second floor

apartment, I pass out in Daniel's single bed.

Daniel has a Yin Yang Tattoo on the palm of each hand, suffers from chronic

arthritis, is a Martial Arts instructor—or was until his arthritis got too bad. He is half

Native and half Japanese; his mother was an alcoholic. Daniel can calculate faster than a

calculator, play a mean game of pool, and shoot a straight line with his .22 caliber handgun. He also likes to show off his pierced nipples.

Daniel's blue-striped, cotton sheets smell like lemon laundry detergent and Old

Spice cologne. Daniel uses a sleeping bag as his blanket. His home smells like boiled

water, peppermint, old wood, and dust.

Daniel tells his girlfriend, Michelle, to sleep in a cot next to his bed. Then he

crawls into his bed, beside me. He lays an arm around my waist and strokes my stomach,

slides his face down my leg and shivers up my chest.

"Not right beside your girlfriend," I say.

"She's asleep," Daniel whispers.

"Besides, how do I know you don't have AIDS?" I say.

"The amount of medication I take for my arthritis would kill anything."

"Not AIDS."

Daniel nuzzles his nose into my hair. His arm lies limp around my waist. I examine

the tattoos on Daniel's arm: a black panther, another yin yang, Japanese letters.

Sleep.

In the morning, a green kitchen table creaks beneath Michelle's, Daniel's, and my 66 elbows. The window to my left overlooks a grey brick wall across the alley. The sun pours over my eyes, settles on my face, warms me. The morning is soft and fragrant, delicious as breakfast.

Daniel fries eggs.

"I'm not hungry," Michelle says, casting an accusatory glance at me.

Daniel folds into his chair, across from me, and watches the kitchen door. Michelle glares out the window. I stare past Daniel, through his bedroom doorway.

"I'm your girlfriend, you know," Michelle squeaks at Daniel. "I should be the one sleeping in your bed with you." She points an index finger at me. "She should be sleeping on the cot!"

Daniel pulls himself up, saunters to the stove and sets water on the blue gas fire for tea.

I roll my eyes at Michelle, push my plate into the middle of the table, light a smoke.

Sunlight's heavy on my chin and cheeks. Daniel sets an ashtray beside me. I soil its green glass with grey and black ashes. Daniel walks over to a small, wooden trunk in his room.

I watch him open the trunk and pull out a gun. Michelle's jaw drops

"He has a gun?" Michelle says to me. "Did you know that he had a gun?"

I listen to the children play outside; I scrape a piece of dirt off the table. Water boils and bubbles on the stove.

"Can you hear me?" Michelle yells at me.

I clean dirt from behind my nails with a toothpick.

"It's just a .22," Daniel says to Michelle. Michelle quivers.

Daniel settles in his chair, cradles his gun against his chest and cleans it. Michelle watches Daniel. He smiles and caresses his weapon. 67 I exhale coiled blue smoke and yawn.

Michelle bites her nails.

I tap my fingers on the table, try to blow smoke rings. Then I remember another trick. I rip a small piece of cardboard from my Player's light pack, fold the paper into a thin square and stick the square between my front teeth. Now I can blow hearts!

I have this dream that I'll marry Daniel and we'll have two sons together. He's so brilliant and thoughtful. He hugs me and I feel all safe and warm - invincible. When he hugs me, I feel like I'm with my father. Daniel is everything I wanted in a husband.

Everything I dreamed of: tattooed, martial artist, intelligent, gorgeous and dark. Last time we smoked a joint together I got so stoned I passed out on his carpet. He picked me up and carried me to bed. He's so strong, I felt like I was floating.

"Why is she always here?" Michelle asks Daniel as she waves her hand in my direction. "I don't want her in your house - in your bed."

I glance at Daniel, who is gazing at me, his left eye shadowed by the small revolver.

"So can I throw her the fuck out of your house now, or am I supposed to sit here and be nice to the bitch?" I ask Daniel.

I talk to G-D about Daniel sometimes. I ask G-D if this is "the one"? I can't make out G-D's answer, but I hope he is the one. I'm tired of looking. I want to move on with my life.

"I'll throw her out myself if you want," Daniel says, raises a sharp black eyebrow.

"I'm only with her because you won't be with me." Daniel says, winks, points the gun at my forehead. 68 "If you were a real man, with a real gun," I reply, "you would have guts enough to shoot that thing when you point it."

Daniel's gun remains aimed at my face. Michelle fidgets.

I investigate the gun from this small distance. The gun is black, little and sleek. The barrel investigates me back. I study Daniel's pointed goatee, scrutinize his black-almond eyes.

He says I'm the one that he wants. He pays such tender attention to me, insists on calling me by my real name, Natalia. I like the way he whispers it and smiles and fixes my shirt over my shoulder. He's so loving and tender with me. Why do I test him? Why can't I run away with him like he asks me to?

"That's right, be a real man," I say.

Daniel tightens his long, thin lips.

"I dare you," I say. "Wimp."

Daniel rests his index finger on the trigger, clicks the safety off.

Sunlight flickers on the windowsill.

I watch Daniel's pupils pinhole.

"If you were a real ma - "

The bullet rushes towards me, whistles and squeezes past my left temple.

Gunpowder wafts up my nose. I look over my shoulder: a tiny black hole nestles in the wall. 69 "You just shot a gun at me," I say. "Congratulations."

Daniel pauses, turns the gun around inside his hands and smirks, squints up the barrel.

"I knew it wouldn't hit you," Daniel says.

"That bullet flew millimetres away from my temple."

"I wouldn't shoot you," Daniel smiles.

Michelle stands, legs shaking, steadies her feet on the floor, and stumbles to the stove.

I light a cigarette.

Michelle hobbles back to the table, stops in front of me and bends her knees against one another.

"I just stuck my hand in the boiling water," Michelle says. "I think I'm hurt. I just stuck my hand in the boiling water on the stove."

"What did you do that for?" Daniel says.

"Do something Daniel, help me," Michelle whimpers. Michelle's voice rolls and bounces off the tiles. Her legs shake. Her body twitches as she spills to the floor and cradles her lobster-red, already blistering -fingers. Daniel rushes to the adjoining room, wakes Jason and slips into his shoes. I flick my cigarette ashes into the ashtray and take a sip of my cold tea.

"We're all going to the hospital," Daniel tells me.

"Do I have to?" I ask.

"Come on, I'll double you," Daniel says, touches my shoulder. "Jason will double

Michelle to the hospital on his bike - I'll take you."

"O.K. let's go," I say and butt my cigarette out. 70 We walk out of the house and head towards the bikes. I climb onto Daniel's back seat.

/ wonder what it feels like — Michelle's hand. I wish I had the guts to do it. . .

"Hold on to my waist," Daniel says.

On Queen Street, the wind stabs my eyes. I rest my face against Daniel's back. His clean white shirt sports carefully ironed sleeves. Daniel smells of Ivory soap, gunpowder,

Colgate toothpaste, and Wrigglies spearmint gum.

"I don't want to go in," I tell Daniel in front of the Emergency hospital doors.

Daniel exhales a long exhale.

"What do you want to do then?" Daniel asks me.

"Let's go to the Humane Society and look at all the animals," I say.

"Okay." Daniel answers. We climb back on his bike.

"We need to get some water," Daniel says.

"Yeah, I need smokes too," I tell Daniel.

"You want me to get them for you?" Daniel asks.

"Yeah," say.

We climb back on the bike and ride towards the sunshine.

71 "Don't worry, you can trust her - she's solid"

72 George

Gwen brought her sister, Ursula, to the party in the Willard Hall squat, 20 Gerrard

Street East. Ursula was a cheerful young girl. She said she was sixteen but nobody believed her.

Ursula wore a pink fuzzy sweater and hip hugger Levi jeans. A thin gold necklace dangled from Ursula's neck. A delicate pendant in the shape of the letter "U" clung to the necklace. "Party," Ursula squealed with a smile and clapped her chubby hands together.

"I like parties."

At the party, Ursula ingested pot and ACID, shrooms and beer, wine and vodka.

Later, she disappeared with six guys.

The next morning, Ursula spoke a little slower. She opened and closed her eyes in a strange, child-like way—as if she didn't believe or understand what she was looking at.

She's still stoned from the night before, I thought.

Ursula spoke slowly, clenched and unclenched her hands, rubbed her eyes with her knuckles and stared at people too closely for the rest of the week.

Gwen hit and kicked Ursula's face and stomach, tore at her sister's hair.

"Stop this fucking bullshit! Stop it, it's not funny anymore!" Gwen screamed at

Ursula, trying to wake her up.

Ursula spoke slowly, clenched and unclenched her hands, rubbed her eyes with her knuckles and stared at people too closely for the rest of the month.

Gwen squeezed a tube of model glue into a paper bag and huffed, and huffed, and huffed. "I don't have a sister."

We got used to Ursula and called her George. 73 The Salisbury Steak House

I wake up in the Trucker's lounge of Winnipeg's Salisbury Steak House. Winnipeg has two Salisbury Steak Houses, one on the east side of Winnipeg and one on the west side. Cockroach watches Rocket Robin Hood on the 36" T.V.

Band of brothers marching together, heads held high in all kinds of weather....

I wipe tears from my eyes and sing along. "This song always makes me cry - this is true friendship, Cockroach."

Cockroach laughs and wipes her eyes too. "Half-Pint, I think we're starved and overtired—we've slept a full two hours in the past four days and haven't eaten anything but coffee for three days. What the fuck are we gonna do, no one wants to take us to

Vancouver...."

"What are you girls doing here?" A waitress pokes her head through the curtain that separates the trucker's lounge from the rest of Salisbury Steak House. "You're not supposed to be in here, this is for truckers only."

"We're truckers," I say. Cockroach nods enthusiastically. "But we . . . lost our truck. We think that our truck is in Vancouver and we're just waiting for another trucker going there to maybe give us a lift."

"I've called the police, I'm sorry, they'll take you somewhere safe for the night."

74 16

75 Birthday

Night Crawler and I huddle on a grate behind the Adult Learning Centre. I watch the sunset glow and sink behind a giant maple tree while Night Crawler opens a can of

Irish Stew with his Swiss Army knife.

"Here, Half-Pint," Night Crawler says and hands me a plastic fork. "Happy

Birthday."

I smile and dig my fork into the can. Night Crawler scoops some cold potatoes

from his side of the Irish Stew can and pops a grey potato in his mouth. "May next year bring us better stew and warmer places," Night Crawler says. "Happy sweet sixteen, little

girl-

Night Crawler leans down and turns to his side. "Going to sleep now."

I lay beside him and get my hands out of the cold by sliding them underneath me.

For a while I watch the black silhouettes of the trees and try and try not to cry. Then I,

too, fall asleep and the wind blows my sadness away.

76 "Fucking Jew"

77 Pimps

"You need a place to stay for the night?"

"Yeah."

"Well, why don't you come with us?"

"You two got a place now?"

"Oh yeah, we got a nice place. We share it with this gal. She pays the rent and we watch her kid while she works— it's a sweet deal."

I look Anisha up and down. I know she hates Jews and I know that her boyfriend does people's taxes—a math genius. Her hair is clean and washed. Her clothes smell good.

"Listen, are you hungry? We can go eat while Mary works," Anisha says.

"I don't have any money," I say.

"Don't worry about it, our treat."

"Okay."

We hop out Evergreen drop-in center doors and step into the frigid fall air.

"Here, let me take your bag," Anisha says, grabs my bag, and tosses it into the back of a brown Jetta. "We have a car now."

1 watch my bag land on the brown back seat. John, Anisha's boyfriend, smiles a warm smile at me. I remember John from last year; he had this I'11-do-your-taxes-for- twenty-bux scam last year..

"Hi Half-Pint," John says in his soft, quiet voice.

"Hi, John," I say. "Nice car."

We drive around the corner, to the Golden Griddle on Gerard at Yonge. John drops 78 Anisha and I at the doors then leaves to park the car.

"Mary will meet us here," Anisha says. I nod. We wait for a waiter to seat us.

Anisha slips into a booth beside me and John squeezes in beside her.

"Mary, we're here!" John raises his voice at a tall, chunky, brown-haired girl.

Mary's red lipstick looks gauche on her dark, pimpled face. Her round green eyes dart over John, Anisha and I. She holds a brown-haired toddler in her arm and carries an umbrella stroller under her other arm. She wears a jean miniskirt with no tights, loose white shoes, and a red t-shirt, ripped at the neckline. The boy can't be older than two.

Mary slumps into the seat across from us. She sits the boy on her lap. The boy's eyes, red and tired, scan the empty table and turn towards his mother's neck. He wraps his arms around her and whimpers quietly. Mary rocks him, waits till his eyes close. The waitress arrives.

"I'll have the piggies in a blanket," John says. "She'll have the waffles." He points at Anisha. "What do you want?" I order tea and french-fries.

The waitress turns towards Mary.

"She's not having anything," John says. "She just stopped in for a minute to say hello."

Mary licks her lips.

"We ain't got all night," John juts his chin towards Mary. "You better get out there."

Mary sighs into her gray sweatshirt, two sizes too small. I watch Mary's hands:

Chipped red nail polish on bitten nails. Mary's fingers shake as she pulls the sweatshirt around her frumpy middle, stuffs her son into the broken stroller. "C night, darling,

Mama loves you." Then she stumbles out the door into the night.. 79 "I gotta go," I say.

"Where?"

"Just remembered, I got someone to meet."

"Can't you meet them tomorrow?"

"No, it's gotta be now."

Anisha grabs my bag and takes it into her car. "We'll hold onto your bag till you come back and see us."

"Sure thing," I say and smile and turn away from everything I own. Keep it.

80 Psycho

Half-Pint, when was the last time you and I got drunk?"

"You and I never got drunk together, Psycho."

"Exactly. How much money have you made today?"

I lean my back against the red World's Biggest Book Store wall and unfold my legs. Psycho slumps on the pavement beside me, drops his chin on his palms and smiles a rotten-toothed smile.

I pull handfiils of change from my pockets. "How much do we need?"

"Let's splurge and get two bottles of port." Psycho gives a pig snort.

"Do you have any I.D.? No one sells me booze.".

"Don't worry, little sister, I'll get it for us," Psycho reaches over and pats my shoulder. "Come on, get off your lazy ass and let's go on a bender." Psycho tugs my arm, bounces to his feet and pulls me off the ground.

"What the fuck's that bitch lookin' at!"

"Chill out Half-Pint, you've had a little too much port. You've been drinking for the past three hours!"

"You can never have too much port," I slur. Psycho laughs.

"C'mon Half-Pint, let's get you out of the street where you won't cause unsuspecting pedestrians any serious damage."

In the squat--a boarded up three-bedroom house—at Dundas and Bay lies a dirty 81 blue mattress. Ochre stuffing sprouts from the slashed blue stomach.

Psycho and I sit on the mattress and drink Port '74. We peer out the dust-streaked, cracked windows.

"74 is the year I was born," I say and smile at Psycho.

Psycho grabs his potbelly stomach and giggles, "Shit, you're just a baby."

The broken-down room wobbles. A square hole in the wooden floor yawns.

Psycho takes my hand in his. "You're my littlest sister." Smiles. "Am I your big brother?" Psycho's face blurs.

"Yeah, you my brrrruth..." It's difficult to contort my lips into words.

"So, you need to trust your big brother," Psycho leans forward. Psycho's breath smells like stale stomach acid.

"I hear you've been a very bad girl," Psycho snorts

What the fuck is this. What's he fucking talkin' about? Did hefuckin' slip something into my booze ... I zone in and out of peach cloud space and swim in white noise . . .

"You've been a very bad girl. Bad girls need to be punished. The only way to be a good girl again is to be punished. You want to be a good girl, don't you?"

"Fuck, what the f- uck—" I force the words.

"Now, don't get upset, it's just me here, your brother," Psycho runs his hands over my hair. Soothing. "Everything's okay little sister, you've just had too much to drink."

I lean my head on Psycho's palm.

"There you go little sister." I hear Psycho smile. "You just need to lie down on my lap for a bit. You've had too much to drink, little sister."

Psycho pulls my body onto and across his legs.

"You've been a very, very bad girl. You need to be punished ..." 82 Old hairs on the mattress climb up my nose, irritate me.

"Don't worry. It won't hurt. Daddy will spank you and you will be a good girl again."

Slap. Psycho's hand connects with my ass. Slap. Psycho's hand stings. Slap, slap.

Psycho's hand slides down my legs, halts, rises and lands. Slap. The buzz of palm against denim reverberates between my ears. Slap, slap, slap. I can't feel Psycho's hand. Slap. / hear Psycho's hand land again. Slap. / can 'tfeel or hear Psycho's hand, I just know it's still there. Slap.

"Half-Pint," Psycho whispers. "If you try real hard, can you get up?"

I strain my neck to lift my head off the mattress. I lift. Shlump. My face falls into the mattress.

"I didn't think so," Psycho murmurs.

Psycho slowly slides his legs out from under my stomach. "You've been a naughty, naughty girl." Psycho reaches under me, unzips my pants and pulls them off my ass. Slap.

Slap. "Very naughty."

"Very bad girl," Psycho pulls my underwear down. Slap, slap, slap. Air whistles past his hand.

I hear Psycho unzip his trousers. He wraps his arms around my waist and drags and lifts me to my knees and holds me there.

"Bad girl. Bad little girl."

Slurp. Psycho sucks his hand.

Psycho pushes two wet fingers inside me. "Very bad, dirty girl." Psycho twists and bobs his hand in and out. "Bad -" In and out - "little girl."

Psycho pulls my legs apart with his and drags his fingers out of my cunt. I hear him 83 reach and fumble in his pants.

"Always trust your daddy," Psycho mumbles and sticks his dick inside me.

"Very"-- thrust - "very-""- thrust -"very bad" - Thrust - "girl."

Psycho lets go of my waist. I drop to the mattress. Warm cum seeps from between my legs.

84 "We're family now"

85 I don't care about the date anyway.

My Grandpa taught me once that every single snowflake is different. I couldn't believe it. Infinite numbers of snowflakes, how can it be that no two are alike. Grandpa said it was true. He said they did all sorts of scientific tests. I equated the snowflakes to people, no two alike, each one special somehow . . .

I watch the snow fall and fall from my sleeping bag in Grange Park.

Maybe they are all different, but that doesn't make them special. It's just a pile of yellow snow on dead grass. Dogs piss on it. Each snowflake flattens into the other. Nothing special about it.

86 Black Boy

A black boy, about fifteen years old, jaywalks across Yonge Street, at College. A blue Dodge stops. Three guys—heads shaved, tight Levis blue-jeans, red suspenders, bomber jackets, Doc Martin 20-hole boots laced with red laces—jump out of the car.

They clutch baseball bats.

"Fucking nigger!"

One swings his bat at the black boy's skull. Thump. Another runs by and drags his bat across the black boy's head. The black boy stands, stunned; mouth open, eyes wide, hands spread, palms out at his sides, then wobbles and spills to the ground. The skinheads skip back to their car and drive off. A crowd forms around the black boy. The black boy's head lies in a puddle of black blood. He doesn't move. Cars stop. A crowd coagulates, as black boy's blood congeals upon the ground.

A woman runs from her car.

"Step aside, step aside, I'm a nurse!" She screams. "Someone, give me something to hold his head together. You — give me your shirt." She point to a man beside her.

"What, this shirt?" The man rubs his purple shirt between his fingers. "This here's a silk shirt."

I roll my backpack off my back, pull my lucky black t-shirt off my bare shoulders- the autumn wind prickles my back—and toss it at the nurse. She wraps my shirt around the black boy's bloody head. I kneel, open my bag, pull a hooded sweatshirt from beneath my rolled-up sleeping bag, swing the knapsack back over my shoulder, and leave.

87 "Hey, did you hear Ray got a place? Moved out, fuck knows where.

Doesn't want anyone to know where he lives" October 6, 1990 (I think)

I'm sitting in front of the "City TV" building. Pan handling. I saw a car drive by us; a plastic spoon sailed out the window. I've been watching the spoon for a while now and no car has run over it yet.

My little plastic friend is motionless in a huge, uncaring metal and pavement world. The spoon hasn't chosen to be there. Yet, it quietly lives its short life. Any second it can be crushed by thundering beasts of metal, glass and rubber.

I look up again when I hear the faint crackle. No one but me notices the spoon, crushed into pieces on the filthy cement. Traffic continues as usual. Crowds tussle by. Nothing changes.

89 "Alice is in the insane ward at St. Mike's again"

90 Native Men's Res

Cockroach and I step out of the police cruiser.

"We called them and told them you were coming," the officer says and ushers us towards the doors.

Cockroach and I stumble into the large open room.

Cockroach grabs my arm and squeezes. "Half-Pint, it's a flicking men's shelter," she whispers. "That does it. Winnipeg is shit."

My eyes scan the room. Large Native men rise from their sleeping bags and the blue gym mats on the hard concrete floor. They form a crooked circle around Cockroach and I. The man to my right reaches for his dick through grey sweatpants and rubs it. He groans. Then another man groans.

I lead Cockroach to the edge of the room. We lay our backpacks down and unroll our sleeping bags.

"Half-Pint, we can't stay here."

"Have you seen my tarot cards, Cock?"

I rummage through my bag until my fingers glide across the velvet tarot card package. I pull the cards from my bag, laugh a hideous laugh and toss them above my head.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Cockroach says.

"Think batshit crazy," I whisper. "Let's fit in, shall we."

Cockroach grabs a handful of cards and flings them above our heads, trying to catch them with her mouth. Some Native men shake their heads. Others cringe and sit down.

One man scurries over to us. "Do you need a smoke?" 91 "Yes, I do," I say and smile.

He scoops a handful of used cigarette butts from his pocket and empties a few into a wet rolling paper, then slobbers spit onto the paper's pre-glued edge and hands the cigarette to me.

"You'll have to go outside to smoke it though," the man says.

Cockroach and I shuffle outside.

"Half, isn't that your coat the giant Indian in the corner is looking through?"

Cockroach nods toward the corner.

"Looks like mine."

I stride to the man with my coat and tap him on his back (I can't reach his shoulder).

"Excuse me," I say but he doesn't answer.

"Excuse me!" I tap him again.

The giant man turns around, hand still in my jacket pocket.

"Excuse me, but if you don't get your hands out of my pockets and put all my stuff back immediately," I look up, way up, at the tall Native man. "I will have no choice but to break all of your fingers."

He stuffs my shit back into my pockets, drops the jacket and stumbles away.

I carry my coat back to my mat, roll the coat up and stuff it beneath my head like a pillow.

"I can't sleep,' Cockroach says.

"Read something."

"You're joking, right? You're not going to sleep now!"

"Hush now," I mumble, close my eyes, sink into the small mat and float away. 92 93 Breakfast at the Native Men's Res.

Cockroach stayed up all night and watched out for me. She didn't have to, but she did. She's my best friend. I didn't realize it till I woke this morning and found her sitting there beside me and realized she stayed awake all night.

I think I can trust her, though I'll never trust anyone fully. To trust someone all the way is just stupid. I've met so many beautiful people out here. Some of them would give their lives for me - maybe - but only the ones who don't think their lives are worth anything anyway. Giving your life for someone makes your life worth something somehow.

Night Crawler used to say that the most dangerous people are the ones who believe they are already dead. They are dead so they don't fear death; they'll do anything to survive. I believe I am already dead - I think that's a good way to live. Night Crawler says he'll give his life for me. I don't know if I believe him. But, I try to believe him because believing him makes me feel good.

94 This Old Man

"This old man, he rolled one, he played knick-knack on his thumb. With a knick- knack, paddy whack, roll yourself a dube, this old man is getting tubed," Psycho sings and passes the joint to me. I reach over, clip the joint from his fingers, pull it to my lips and suck. Hold it in. Exhale.

I lean back on the grassy noel in McGill Parquette and watch the giant water fountain in the middle of the green, green field spray a tree-trunk-sized tube of water into the air. The water lands, like a waterfall, and trickles down the circular grate around it.

"This old man, he smoked two, now he's just a stoned as you," Psycho points an accusing index finger at me and dances a Snoopy dance, "with a knick-knack, paddy whack, roll yourself a dube, this old man is getting tubed." Psycho laughs gray smoke into my face. I smile, take the joint, suck and hand the joint back to Psycho.

That sky sure is a beautiful blue today.

"This old man, he smoked three, now he's just as stoned as me. With a knick-knack, paddy whack, roll yourself a dube, this old man is getting tubed," Psycho sings, kicks his feet in the air like a can-can dancer, wiggles his butt and hops in circles around me.

Boy, but that water smells good.

I take the joint from Psycho and inhale a deep inhale. Smoke rushes through my windpipe, slides into my lungs, clouds my mind and tickles my insides.

"This old man, he smoked four, got so high he rolled right out the fucking door.

With a knick-knack, paddy whack, roll yourself a dube, this old man is getting tubed,"

Psycho snatches the joint out of my fingers and skips between the sparse spruce trees.

I push my fingers into the grass and down through the cool, moist earth. 95 Oh how soft and green this emerald grass is.

"This old man, he smoked five then six, seven, eight, till he smoked himself straight. With a knick-knack, paddy whack, roll yourself a dube, this old man —" Psycho drops to the grass and rolls and laughs like a child. I laugh too. I laugh so hard my belly aches.

"You sure you want more of this?" I pass the roach to Psycho.

"This old man, he smoked ten, then he got all stoned again," Psycho rolls on his side, bumps against me, giggles, examines my eyes—Psycho's eyes are the bluest ice blue sky eyes ever— and presses his cracked grey lips against the tips of my fore finger and thumb. My forefinger and thumb still hold the edges of the tiny joint. Psycho sucks.

My fingers burn. We laugh.

"Hey, little sister," Psycho says and exhales smoke into my eyes. "Wanna get drunk?"

"No."

96 "There's no justice, there's just us"

97 Dog Water

Last night, Steve and Shawn bought three 12-pack cases of Molson beer. Steve carried the cases back to our one-room rooming house. After a few friendly duets together, Steve punched Shawn in the mouth, then grabbed him by the throat and heaved him off the creaky floorboards and dragged him through our unhinged door and shoved him down the rooming house stairs. Shawn rolled and bounced to the basement.

Steve ran down the stairs after Shawn, stopped on the floor beside Shawn and kicked Shawn in the ribs again and again and again.

"I'm still a better fucking musician than you are," Shawn whispered from the bloodied basement floor.

Today, Steve and Shawn—"Dog Water"—play guitar on Yonge Street. Strum.

Shawn plays lead. Steve plays back up. Their harmonies bounce between skyscrapers and roll along the spent-cigarette splattered sidewalks and tap against pedestrian feet.

Steve is 6"9 with curly, thick, mouse-blond hair. A Led Zeppelin tattoo adorns

Steve's strumming forearm. Steve's brother gave him that guitar the last time Steve stepped out of jail. Robbery. Assault with a deadly weapon. Uttering death threats.

Mischief over a thousand. Possession.

Shawn, 5"3, comes from Durham, Ontario, where one small road leads up one tiny hill. In Durham, you either live up the hill or you live down the hill.

Absence makes the heart grow fungus. Absence makes the heart grow old and die,

Shawn sings.

Shawn balances a green fedora on his scraggly, shoulder-length brown hair. A mangy blue and grey feather clutches to Shawn's olive-green fedora. Shawn's dirty 98 running shoes are always wet.

Pedestrians flick coins and float bills into Dog Water's tattered guitar case. Street kids - skids - flock around Dog Water. We sing along to Dog Water originals.

Jesus saves collecting taxes daily; sitting on his R.R.S.P.S there's a picture on his desk of the family and a statue of himself on the T. V.

I sit cross-legged by Shawn's feet and lean against the dirt gray wall behind us.

"Eighteen years for Johnny, " Steve wrote this one in a four foot by four foot cell, the fifth time he went to jail, uone way ticket to hell. Busting down all the things that he knows, doesn 't know what's right from wrong anymore. Don't be afraid, don't beee afraid it's only me. Johnny, oooohhhhh ooooh, it's only me eeee. "

I reach across the cool, gray September pavement and peek inside Steve's black guitar case squat, reach into the case. It's no good to have too much money in the case.

Folks look in and think you got more than they got and don't give you anything. Or, folks look in and see all that money lying there and grab some and run.

I scoop hand fills of silver and copper disks and jingle jangle them into my small green toque, step backwards, slide my back against the wall. Sit and count.

I count the bills first, than the toonies and loonies and quarters. Then I count nickels and dimes. We call nickels and dimes spluet. Nickels and dimes make a splueting sound when they drop in the case. We save the spluet for crumby, down in the dog water, almost-enough-for-a case-of-beer days. We use the pennies—why do pennies even exist?

—for target practice.

"Then I'd meet up with Captain Kirk, or maybe Sherlock Holmes, we 'd save the world from evil then back to bed I'd go — oh, I was all right when I was a child. "

I lay a blue five-dollar bill in Steve's guitar case, flick in two toonies, toss in three 99 loonies and drizzle a handful of spluet over and around the bill then step back and examine the case, which should never look too constructed. The best case has a few toonies and loonies and one small bill with some spluet for a realistic effect. Folks glance inside your case and see the bill first, assume someone really liked your music and figure you play well. They take that thought into their pockets, pull out a bill and think 'What the Hell, they sound good, others put in that much'.

" ...And when I die, I'll probably go to hell, stealing all the pennies from the well... "

Strum. Shawn rests his arm across his guitar's neck and smiles a crooked, handsome smile at me. "Hey," Shawn licks his little orange lips, "do we have enough for a few cases and a joint yet?"

I nod.

Steve leans his guitar against the wall and wipes his large round face with the back of his gloved left hand. Steve's fingertips protrude out of the ends of his grey wool gloves.

"How about one last song and we'll pack it in for the evening?" Steve smiles a broad smile at Shawn.

Shawn rubs his ribs in a pleading-dog way.

"Aw don't even start your fucking whining!" Steve laughs and slaps Shawn's crooked back.

Shawn winces, drags his guitar off the pavement. "Okay, one last song." He taps his foot against the ground three times and strums.

"When you 're living to die and I'm dying to live. Yeah... "

100 October 10 (I think)

I'm sitting in a new place. Three of Night Crawler's friends live here:

Big Mike, Fuck Phil, and John. Fuck Phil and Big Mike Sit on the corduroy brown couch in front of a giant T.V. It looks like my grandma's TV, one of those that stands on the floor and looks like a huge dresser. I sit on the floor by the green Lazy-boy and lean my back against Night Crawler's knees while he massages my shoulders and watches Dune with the others.

John sits at the kitchen table behind us and plays World Domination with his girlfriend, Laura. Laura is a hippy through and through, she wears

Birkenstocks with knitted socks and flower dresses---

For some reason, the second I walked in here, I suddenly felt comfortable and safe. I know the people here are solid. I know they won't steal from me or try and fuck me over. As soon as I saw Big Mike I knew he was trustworthy and nice. I don't know how I knew, I just did.

Me, Night Crawler, Mike, Fuck Phil and the others smoked some weed and got stoned. I haven't gotten stoned with anyone in so long - not since I figured out you can't trust anyone when you're stoned. Guys think getting girls stoned makes it easier to do what they want to you. They're right. So, I stopped getting stoned. But I knew I'd be safe stoned with them. I didn't really get as stoned as the rest. I was just nicely buzzed.

101 For no apparent reason, for the first time in a long time, I feel at

HOME. I wish I could stay here forever. Everyone is so nice to me here.

And, there's food in the fridge. And, it's warm here. And, the couches are soft and the T.V. works and everyone plays video games and watches movies and lives like people I used to know.

102 "I got lice again"

103 Ditches

I wake up in a ditch beside Trans Canada highway. Snow covers my sleeping bag.

Warlock squats beside me in the snow. I glance at him, peer over the ditch and gaze onto the highway.

"Where are Cockroach and Shit Sue?" I ask. Shit Sue and Warlock had joined the race but fell behind Cockroach and I because they got to busy rucking.

I hate Warlock, he smokes crack and steals everyone's shit. I can't believe Shit Sue fucked him, fucked him and dumped him on me. Fucking guy comes from Quebec - probably got run off for his bullshit. And that accent, that stupid fucking accent. I've never met anyone from Quebec with an accent as stupid as his!

"I do not know. They left, said they wanted to travel together for a while," Warlock says.

"They left me with you," I say and grit my teeth.

"Well, they also left me here with you too, you know,'" Warlock says and shrugs his shoulders, pulls a cigarette out of my cigarette pack, lights the twisted white paper and puffs.

One day he just showed up and started sleeping in our park and eating our food and suddenly everyone fucking loves him. Sometimes he gets beat up for trying to steal shit but he always comes back to hang out and he's always welcomed back. It's true there's something lovable about him... at a great distance. But, this is too close, much too close... I hate him! I hate everything about him! Why do skids have to be so fucking forgiving? Why can't they just throw him back to Quebec? 104 It's like this stupid fucking thing: we're all just stuck here together. So, we call each other 'sister" and "brother" and "ma" and ol' lady. We get all familial, like we chose to be with each other. Well I didn't fucking choose Warlock! Why the fuck did they stick me with him!

I snatch my cigarette pack from Warlock's lap, pounce out of my sleeping bag, fling my backpack over my shoulders, wipe my face clean with snow from the ditch and march to the highway. Warlock scampers behind me.

"Half-Pint, Half-Pint, where are you going?"

"Between here and Vancouver, those two are somewhere on this highway," I say.

"I'm going to find them and kill them."

"Why, why? I'm not so bad," Warlock slaps my shoulder.

"I hate you," I say.

"You're funny, Half-Pint," Warlock laughs. "I don't like you very much either."

I stick my thumb into traffic.

Bitches.

105 Still October (I think)-

Music:

John's playing the guitar again. He sounds so good. The whole room buzzes with his music and sometimes his friends come and play their guitars too. I wish I could live here forever. I wish I could play guitar too.

I just got settled in. Now it's time to go again. Every time I get somewhere I always think "this is it; I have a home now, I'll stay forever now." It never works out that way.

I've looked for work but can't find anything. Welfare won't take me without an address. I can't get an address without welfare. I went and stood in line and told the teller so and the fucker just said, "You need an address or we can't serve you." "Well, how do I get that without any money," I said. "Come see us when you have an address."

Back to the blowers.

106 I Heard You Have Lupus Dementia Now, Somewhere on the Streets of BC

I sit on the floor, between book isles, inside the World's Biggest Bookstore and read and read and read and read and read. I know the folks who work here. They know me. They see me every day as they come in to work, go for lunch, leave work. I don't ask them for change out of respect. We gotta put up with each other ...

I like it here. I read about fortune telling and the life of Edgar Case in the New Age section, about organic gardening and edible wild plants in the gardening section, about meditation and the power of Yoga in the self improvement section and about medicine and different diseases in the health section. The health section makes me paranoid because I think of all the things my friends have and how sick they are and how many of them have died, or will die. This makes me wonder what bugs I have, what I will die of, how sick I will get... But, the new age section gives me hope. Maybe there is something more than the gutter and lice and scabies and diddlers and crack and back alleys.

My favorite section is the poetry section. I love Charles Bukowski. One of the guys that works here introduced me to Charles Bukowski. I didn't think poetry could sound like that, speak to me like that. If I have a lucrative morning—make enough for a coffee and smokes — I sit and read and daydream until evening . ..

Daniel and I roll across the Queen Street Bridge. We glide over the Don Valley

River. A rusted can floats on the river. The hobo men roll up their sleeping bags under

Don Valley Parkway.

"I don't like Michelle," I tell Daniel as the wind whips through our hair.

"She's gone," Daniel answers.

107 Lupus is a chronic inflammatory autoimmune disorder; Daniel's immune system attacks his own internal organs, skin and joints. Daniel is misdiagnosed with arthritis. In years to come Daniel will learn he has lupus and, although rare in lupus (and even rarer for men), lupus-induced dementia will set into Daniel's brain.

Daniel stops the bike, hops off, settles on a tuft of green grass, reaches into his shirt pocket, and pulls out a calculator. He hands the calculator to me. I open the black leather cover and punch the keys as fast as I can.

"54+27-67x83 divided by 5X2+45-123x7."

Lupus-related abnormalities can include migraine headaches, epilepsy, or severe mental disorders (psychoses, dementia). Eventually, symptoms may affect any organ system.

"Negative one, two, nine, nine point four," Daniel answers.

"How do you do that?" I say. Daniel jerks his shoulders toward his ears. I punch his arm.

"Come to Banff with me," Daniel says. "We can work the motel circuit there. There are always jobs at motels during tourist season. We can travel out to the States with the gypsies after tourist season ends. It's beautiful out there. I want to show you the mountains, the ocean ..." 108 "I can't," I say. "I have probation to deal with."

"Then I'll stay here and wait for you."

"You have to go," I say.

"I have to go," Daniel whispers.

I gaze past Daniel's long black hair. "I'm afraid I'll never see you again."

Daniel shakes his head. "It's a small, small world, my dear, a small, small world.

We'll meet again," Daniel says. But we won't.

109 "The Satanists had a suicide party. Cronos slashed his own throat"

110 Eighteen-Wheeler

An eighteen-wheeler never stops in front of you. An eighteen-wheeler takes a while to stop. An eighteen-wheeler stops a block ahead of you. When an eighteen-wheeler stops you'd better run—truckers don't wait for long.

A wind follows the eighteen-wheeler. The wind doesn't hit you as the massive truck passes. The wind follows the eighteen-wheeler, but can't catch up. The wind hits your face, cools your shoulders and whips your hair around—-by then the eighteen-wheeler is a two-minute run ahead of you. As the behemoth passes, count: one.. .two.. .three... — the wind winds around you, tickles you, intercepts your breath, violates your vision, decapitates you, smothers you, leaves you for dead by the side of the road.

The wind brushes the back of my neck. The truck stops. It looks like a giant mechanical grizzly bear: ominous, dangerous.

The best way to avoid a grizzly bear attack is to avoid the bear. Many attacks are caused by close encounters where a human has unwittingly entered into the bear's territory.

I grab my bag and book it to the truck. Cockroach follows me.

As I run, I glimpse the passenger door flip open. I stop beside the truck. The truck's doorframe looms above my head. Two metal steps rise toward the passenger door. The lowest step stands in the air above my waist. I throw my bag into the cab and clamber up the truck's side.

I sit upon the giant orange passenger seat, catch my breath. Cockroach pops into the truck, shoves me with her butt, scoots in, behind me, pulls the cab curtain open and climbs onto the trucker's makeshift bed. Ill The cab is a room-like space behind the driver and passenger's seats in the truck, about the width of a double bed and the length of a doorframe.

"Mind if I sit here?" Cockroach says and smiles at the trucker.

The trucker is short and stocky. His orange hair sticks out in tufts around his ears.

He has a leprechaun smile, green eyes, red skin and brown freckles.

On the road, Cockroach and I take turns sleeping in cars. We never sleep at the same time. One pair of eyes always watches the road, the road and the hands on the wheel.

"Make yourself comfortable, girl," the trucker says to Cockroach. "My name's

John."

John starts the truck, shifts gears. The engine roars like a grizzly. The bear rotates his head away from the highway's shoulder, grunts and rolls into motion. Eighteen- wheelers create constant vibration.

"So what's it gonna be?" John says to me.

Each bear has his own zone of danger, zone of personal space. Grizzly attack victims are often unaware of why they were attacked.

"What's what gonna be?" I say.

"C'mon, you know what they say," John says.

"No, tell me," I roll my eyes out the window.

"You don't know what they say?" John smiles.

A person who runs from a bear may trigger a chase response.

"Gas, grass or ass," John says and winks at me. 'That's what they say."

Bears that stand their ground, when confronted by other bears, usually don't get attacked. 112 "That's what they say?" I smirk, lean my elbow against the window.

"Damn right," John says.

I clear my throat.

Cockroach shifts in her place on John's makeshift mattress. John's makeshift mattress is made of blankets, sheets, empty cigarette packages, sweaters, dirty jeans, wrinkled button-up shirts, T-shirts, and jackets.

"Hey Roach, you got a smoke?" I say.

Cockroach pulls my blue knapsack onto John's bed. Between my knapsack's long outer side pocket and the main knapsack body the fish-skinning knife rests snug. It's half as long as my arm and twice as sharp as the hatchet that sits beneath my backpack's lid.

On the road, the person in the back of the car holds the knife—wrong move, wrong word, wrong turn off slice the throat from the back seat. Side seat takes the wheel.

Cockroach leans forward, passes me a smoke, winks.

"If I had gas I'd drive myself to Ottawa. I don't have grass. Forget about the ass," I say and smile and shift my weight and light my cigarette and smoke it. Eyes on the wheel.

Bears who behave submissively have a lower incidence of being attacked as well...

"But I can tell a real good story, a long story. I can talk and keep you interested all night -keep you awake," I say. "You look tired."

"Well fuck, girl, I'm so fucking tired you wouldn't believe it," John says. "See those fucking pills by your foot?"

I look down -Maxithins, an asthma medication, works like speed on folks who don't have asthma. Maxithins — marketed for dieters. Truckers use them to stay awake.

"Yeah, I see 'em," I say.

"Pass em over," John says. I hand him the pills. He pops three into his mouth. 113 "I take these little pink fuckers every day. The more road I cover the more money I make, the better," John says. "I got a wife at home waiting. I send her all my money. We got a nice little house, but somebody's got to pay the bills."

"I read somewhere those pills you're taking scar your lungs, fuck up your whole system," I say.

"Well, shit, bullshit, I don't care, everyone takes them," John says. "Whatever gets me through the night."

Night plasters its black body against the truck's windshield. Below the windshield, red, white, and yellow lights dance like a video game. White lines roll along the road like ribbons. Cockroach yawns. John yawns louder.

"Get some sleep, Roach," I say. Cockroach tosses our pack of smokes on my lap, rests her right hand fingers on the spot where the knife lays, leans back on John's bed and closes her eyes.

I eye John, who yawns again. I flip the cigarette pack open, pull two smokes out, light them both, hand John one. He takes it with a nod.

"So how about one of them stories," John says, rubs an eye. I smile, inhale a deep tobacco inhale, lean back in the chair and begin.

"Our last ride was a guy named Bill, a Vietnam vet. On quiet, dark nights a headless ghost appears and reminds Bill of the bad things he's has done.

114 Sometimes I reread my diary entries, reread them and wonder what's changed.

115 Rodney King

1992

Toronto

"Holy shit!" Cockroach says. "Look at that."

Cockroach points over my shoulder. I turn. A wall of dark faces stretches across

Yonge Street and extends as far back as the lake. The wall approaches fast, bodies blur into brown faces, brown eyes. Loud chants and screams and voices fill my ears. The volume rises as the picture enlarges before me.

"Riot," Cockroach blurts and steps behind me. "Fuck, why are we stuck here?"

I pan around: before me: angry mob. Beside me: closed doors. Across the street: another cage of closed doors. Behind me: empty space already acquisitioned by the crowd.

I watch the riot approach.

It can't be that there are only black people inside this massive body-pile.

The front six rows gallop toward me, filled full with dark faces. I scan the front row, eight feet, now five feet, now three feet away.

A black boy who can't be older than seventeen marches two heads from the middle.

Our eyes lock. I smile. He smiles back. Proud.

Six steps away.

NOW.

I leap toward the boy. "Hi," I whisper, and lock my right arm in his left.

"Hi," he says. His open face. His smile. His soft brown eyes. I wonder what

Rodney Kind looked like. I think of King and imagine the crack, the crack of each rib, 116 each blow to the legs, to the chest, to the face.

"Where did you come from?" The black boy asks me. Such a beautiful, trusting face. Such a warm arm.

"Here," I say. "I live on the street."

"Where here?"

"Right here," I span my other arm across Yonge Street as we stamp our boot-prints past sign posts. "Everywhere. See there? I sleep there, right there, on the pavement."

"No shit."

"Shit friend, shit all the time."

His hand tightens around my arm. An army line of blue-clad cops approach.

Volume rises behind me, rises and takes on a tone of fanatic rage, and frantic fear.

"Stay safe," the boy whispers as the crowd behind us breaks through us, separates us and engulfs me. Store windows shatter. Hotdog carts roll over. Pedestrians - shoppers, sightseers - scream, flee, fall. Blood.

"Help me, somebody help me!"

I rush with the crowd. Into stores — take this belt —join the strongest force going, stay part of the motion, can't stumble, stay in it! Stay in it.

The crowd stops and shudders. I weave into the front line: Cops on horses. One cop raises a chain to the sky and hurtles at the crowd. The crowd shrieks. His horse rises on hind legs and kicks her front legs. I crane my neck up at the horse's hooves. A brown hand grabs my shoulder; someone shouts," Run! Run!" tosses me out of the horse's way, and drags me, drags me, drags me away as I stumble and falter and scramble. Knees bloody. Hands bloody. We rush to some government building.

The crowd stops and chants. A rock flies. 117 "Tear gas!"

The crowd disperses.

I wander through disheveled faces, broken TV sets that lay beneath busted store windows, blood splatters, stepped-on newspaper pages, veer into a back alley, slink behind the blue garbage dumpster, squat on a tossed-out telephone book. Light a smoke and smoke it.

118 Riots everywhere - it sucks when you got nowhere to run to, no door to close and lock behind you. I wish I could stay home today, and watch these fucking riots on TV. Evergreen stayed open for us, opened the back doors to kep us all safe form the riots, but those doors aren't open at night. The workers all go home and then it's just the riots and us. It's like some fucking old western movie out here. Lawless. Friend or foe is the luck of the draw now. Maybe they'll like me, maybe they won't. Mostly I hope they won't notice me. I wander the streets and work on being invisible (or invincible). So far so good, but it's only day two! How fucking long will this last? Will I make it? Will I keep my teeth and face?

119 Fuck the date - it's all the same fucking day!

I love this endless road, the Trans-Canada highway. I feel like it rolls on forever. Nothing in front of me. Nothing behind me.

I sit and watch the cars pass and pass. Red cars, blue cars, green cars, grey cars - it's like some twisted Dr. Seuss book. So many cars with just one face inside. When I stand and stick my thumb into traffic I look longingly at the windshield. I can't see the faces inside yet but I know that they can see me. I try to feign eye contact. I think it works sometimes---

I wonder where Daniel is now- I wonder if he's still in Vancouver. I wish I could see him again. I was so safe with him. When he hugs me, I feel like I'm hugging my father. My father. I miss being loved. I miss my bed. I miss my comforter. Cockroach has this great comforter! it's so stupid with giant pink clouds that she took with her when she left home. I want that comforter so bad.

I wonder if I'll see Daniel again. He wasn't a street person so who knows--- G-D knows.

I still talk to G-D. More and more now that I have all this time. I think G-D keeps me safe, keeps me alive. Keeps me special. I need to feel special sometimes. Special and loved and a part of this shit and — I keep telling myself that I'm writing my life story now, that I'll make all this

120 money with the stories I'm gathering here but . . . the more time I spend out here the less likely it seems that anyone will ever read my stories.

It's a strange catch-22: The more time I spend on the street the more interesting my story gets and, at the same time, more obscure, less likely to ever be known by anyone.

All these big cars on the road with only one person in them — why not stop and take me in? Why not give me that empty seat in the back of your empty Ford Mini Van? Why not shoot me a smoke from your carton of Marlboros? Why not give me the crust from your deli-meat sandwich, the last little sip of your orange juice?

Last time Shit Sue OD'd she started screaming and screaming "Food behind glass!" "Food behind glass!" All these stores and bakeries that toss their food out - perfectly yummy food too. And I sit here, like a wet cat in heat; no one wants to come near me. No one puts a saucer of milk out for me. Fuck them. Fuck these sons of bitches! These assholes who believe they know more than I know, feel more than I feel! I hate more than they hate! I rage more than they rage. I see more than they see. I know what I know.

121 "You can take the kid out of the street, but you can't take the street out of the kid"

122 Young Pussy

"I don't give a fuck which one of you it is -1 want to eat some young pussy tonight."

I crawl into bed beside Cockroach, wrap the covers around me and close my eyes.

John, the trucker, sits in the next bed and flips through pay-per-view channels on the outdated motel TV. He stops at the porn and mutes the TV: A bleached blonde woman on a pool table giving head to a fat businessman as another fat businessman fucks her up the ass.

I wake to Cockroach shifting from the bed.

"Where ya going?"

"I'm just going to go over there and hang out with James for a while."

"Why?"

"... I don't know... can't sleep..."

"Why?"

"Just gonna go for a bit, okay—go back to sleep, Half, we're almost in Vancouver."

123 I'm in Vancouver - how will I know who won? How the hell will I find Tabi? Is she even here? If she's here and landed after me, how will I know if she lies and says she landed yesterday? Or, even two days ago? Three wouldn't be possible so fuck that shit...

Did she make it? Will I know anyone here? Where the fuck do the street kids hang?

Downtown, somewhere downtown. I'll just find one panhandler and I'm in.

Here we go ~ time to "make friends".

124 Fortunes

I step onto Granville Street, Vancouver, and head towards the young man who sits

in front of MacDonald's. He leans on a yellow Macdonald's wall and shuffles Tarot

cards over an upside-down milk crate that's covered in a black satin cloth. In front of the milk crate a small sign reads:

TAROT READINGS FOR DONATIONS

"I'll read your palm for a card reading," I say.

He looks up and smiles. Curly blonde hair, crooked white teeth. Eyes the brown-

green shade of early fall. He wears gray jeans and a button-down shirt. A small backpack

sits beside him.

"Well, seeing as I don't have any real customers right now ... okay, I'll take you

up on that offer. I'm Karl, he says, sticking out his squarish hand. It's the first hand I've

seen in a long time that doesn't shake when held out in the air. I stare at it. It's as steady

as a well-rehearsed lie.

I drop my bag beside Karl's bag and plop onto the pavement.

"Ready?" I say.

"Yup." Karl answers. I take his hand in mine and turn his palm to face me. His hand

feels like leather and sand.

"You have a deep, strong life line. You will live late into your nineties. You are

healthy. Rarely, if ever, get sick. But you have a weak money line and it's difficult for you to make money. You make enough to live but never enough to save. This X right here, between your heart and head line, indicates that you have a sixth sense about people.

You know what someone is like when you first meet them. It is a deep X and that tells 125 me that you are the type of person who listens to your intuition about people. You often

find out you were right."

The warm Vancouver breeze flips a wisp of hair into my eyes. Karl brushes the

wisp away. I inhale and glance up and view those huge mountains, and recall Toronto

and the flat sky there.

"Your family line, right here, beneath your thumb, is loose and weak. You don't

keep in touch and the children all went in their separate directions. I say child abuse. I

say severe beatings. I say your mother and father gave beatings and, as a child, you

weren't safe anywhere."

Karl's smile strains as he tilts his head towards me.

"I say sexual abuse — you were diddled ~ uncle? Yeah, I say uncle.

"Good at math, good at building and breaking.

"Good in bed — looks like you're a hot lover"

I smile at Karl. "How was that?"

Karl smiles back. "You are good. Very good." He shuffles his Rider deck.

"I shuffle seven times to be sure," Karl says. "Please cut the deck into three piles." I

split the deck into three piles and lay them in a row in front of Karl. "Now choose one

pile," Karl says. "And think of the question or process you want explained.'

I choose a pile of cards and Karl places the pile of cards between the other two card

piles.

Will I find a home here?

"We'll do this two more times before I lay the cards out," Karl says and shuffles

again.'This is the Celtic Cross spread." Karl says and lays a card in the middle of the

milk crate. "And this is you." Karl lays a card across the first card. "And this is what's 126 crossing you."

Karl lays a card beneath the little cross and wrinkles his large forehead. "This is the root of the situation." He smiles a clever smile and places a card at the left of the cross."This is what's behind you." He places a card above the cross.

Karl takes deep breaths in and out, in and out, a nice rhythm, like a metronome timed for a waltz. He stretches his legs; he's bowlegged. On most men this is not sexy but on Karl, it is.

"This is the possible outcome," Karl says.

Karl places a card at the right of the cross—his hands remind me of a farmer's hands, strong and gentle —and completes the circle.

"This is what you will go through to get to the most likely outcome."

Karl places four cards in a vertical row beside the circled cross, "The Staff, and points at each card from the bottom of the Staff upwards

"How you see yourself, how others see you, your hopes and fears. If the card is upside down, it's fears, if the card is right side up, it's hopes. And your most likely outcome."

"Cool," I say and move closer to Karl, who inches closer to me.

"So here we have the Chariot," Karl says. "You are on a great journey and come from far, far away. You'll find what you're looking for here, but you won't recognise it.

Or, you'll realize that what you're looking for isn't actually what you want. You won't stay. But you have much to learn here and you'll meet yourself as you really are here, though you won't recognise that until later."

127 "Skids in Van hang out at the Macdonald's on Granville"

128 October 12, 1990 (I think)

It's five after six. I have four and a half cigarettes, two packs of matches and a cup, one third full, of coffee.

I'm wearing some cheap bracelets on my right wrist. I have the clothes on my back and a medium-sized black leather purse full of everything I hold dear. I'll never see my backpack again but at least I had my diary in my purse when I handed my bag to the pimps. The rest—who really needs more than that? I got another sleeping bag from Steve and one more from Shawn. Two will do me until I find more.

Lately, Night Crawler and I hang out at the Second Cup at Church and

Wellesley. Everyone is gay there. There is a man there who dresses like a woman. Her name is Rose. Rose rides a pink motorcycle! I sat on Rose's lap and she flirted with me. First time I had a nice time in ages.

When Night Crawler and I got back to our blowers, he said that maybe I'm gay "because he hasn't ever seen me so happy" and that being gay didn't matter as long I'm happy and that he knew this girl once and she was a real bitch and then she found a girlfriend and now she's happy and nice. I don't care for sex either way. I want some cigarettes and a fresh fucking muffin for once. Then I'll face the world. After I'm done my coffee.

129 "My name is Suicide. I've attempted 26 times . . . I'll get it right one day"

130 Sacrificial Wood

Karl leads me up Black Mountain. He holds a flashlight in one hand and his Tarot cards in the other.

"You can stay up here for as long as you want. I built a cabin here and there is another one down the way, but that one's been abandoned for years."

I stagger up the steep incline and falter underneath the weight of my full backpack.

Hooch pulls on his leash and trips over young ferns. Hooch's metal dog bowls clank against each other.

"Pretty dark without the city lights, eh!" Karl calls back to me.

"Can't see nothing."

"Just follow my voice," Karl says and strikes up a whistling tune.

We inch across a homemade bridge

"It's a fucking long way, eh?" I say.

"Welcome to the Rockies!"

Karl stops on a landing and I marvel at the difference between standing on an incline and standing on flat earth.

"We're halfway there," Karl says and sits on something. "We'll rest here and move on in fifteen minutes." He lights a smoke. I light a smoke.

Karl's lighter-flame passes over the giant wooden pentagram I stand beside. In the middle of the pentagram (10 feet by 10 feet easy!) a barbecue grate. Beside the pentagram 15-foot weights made of wood and a pile of broken wood rounds with a hand painted sign atop them: Sacrificial Wood.

"Karl," I say. "Is this the part where you sacrifice me to Satan?" 131 "No," Karl says, a sly hint of humour nested in his serious voice. "Not tonight.

132 Black Mountain

Black Mountain stands across the off ramp to horseshoe Bay, where the Trans-

Canada highway veers and stumbles into the town of Squamish.

Over the concrete slabs and down the ditch that separates onyx asphalt from emerald earth, between the ferns and long green grasses, a path winds up, around and in between large rocks, raspberry bushes and red-skinned arbutus trees.

Joe cut this trail in 1986 and built the "Citadel De Bastionards" hundreds of feet above the smoky highway. Karl says that Joe was the first man to move up here. He says

Joe found this secluded spot and built it up for seven years. I've never met Joe, but the cabin still stands here and reminds Karl of the man who brought him here and taught him how to build his own place.

Fall, 1991.

A dead tree, its old root system half-exposed, grows over the very edge of this drop.

A three thousand foot drop down Black Mountain. Karl's cabin slopes against this tree.

Karl bought, dragged up the mountain and installed a large glass window to enjoy the gaping view.

Tonight, torrents of rain thrash Black Mountain. Lightning strikes and thunder crashes again and again and again. Karl saunters to the old oil drum, opens the round door that he carved into the metal body and piles it full of yellow cedar kindling. The pipe at 133 the back of the rusted red drum sucks grey smoke through a hole in the wall and spits it into the sky. The cabin fills with sweet cedar scent. Karl boils foggy creek water inside a bulk tin tomato paste can and prepares two tin cups with Red Rose tea bags and brown

sugar.

Tea in hand, he strolls to the window and reclines on the homemade cedar couch

and sips Red Rose tea. He leans his elbows on a cedar plank and watches the half- exposed root system sway and shake in the wind; roots stretch out into the yawning drop over a chasm that plunges into a rocky creek. It's so far below us that it looks small and thin enough to be a shoelace on green velvet. Wind smashes against our window and rocks the dead tree back and forth, back and forth. Back and forth the cabin creaks with the tree. With the tree, we inch closer to peril. Karl smiles and says, "Some day that old tree's gonna give. Then you and I and your dog and all our rice will perish in the void, impaled and crushed by jagged rocks on our way down."

"Tell me what else you're thinking about," I say.

"Today I'm thinking about planets, whip,— whip—," Karl stutters with excitement,

"whipping around the sun, and me being one of those planets, imploding into my own universe."

"We're running low on rice," I say.

"Where are we?" Karl asks, though he already knows the answer.

I sit on an upturned white plastic bucket beside the window and look across the planks at Karl. "We are ten thousand galaxies away, in a different dimension that parallels that of the fast cars far below us. We live in a place where time does not exist, in the glorious State of ImperiKa," I say.

"See that roof doesn't leak anymore?" Karl points to a corner of the room where 134 wood meets stone.

I nod.

"I stuffed moss into every crevice," Karl says and lays a yellow sheet of paper on the planks between us and rolls a ballpoint, blue-ink pen towards my hand.

"What is this?" I ask.

"It's a marriage contract," Karl says. "Binding for life in the State of ImperiKa."

I curl my toes into the dry dirt beneath the table. I stare at Karl's rusted dovetail saw, hammer, rubber mallet and screwdriver assortment hanging on our north wall. A pot, a pan and a metal spatula swing from the roof above Karl's tools.

"Tomorrow morning I'm moving out to the abandoned cabin down the way," I say.

"The Citadel De Bastionards?" Karl asks. I nod. "I always knew you were the

Albatross," Karl says. "Always circling, never landing anywhere for long."

I brush my hair and climb, past Karl, up to the bed, then unfold my thin blue sleeping bag and yawn a sleepy yawn. The rain pounds overhead. Karl wipes the plank, lights fresh white candles in the rock and tosses sage onto the oil drum fire.

He settles at the planks beneath the bed and flip, flip, flips his Crowley Tarot cards and cuts and folds the cards into Celtic cross patterns and talks to himself about the weather.

135 "Fuck it"

136 October 13, 1990

2:15 a.m.

I'm sitting in a donut shop somewhere around Broadview and Queen, next to Glen. Night Crawler is a few tables over, laying a video game. On the table: Glen's sandwich and coffee, my hot chocolate, a pack of cigarettes, sugar, a white flower, Night Crawler's hat, an ashtray with two cigarette butts (one lies on top of the other), a dead baby owl.

Night Crawler found the little bird on the way to the donut shop here.

We think the neck is broken. The owl most likely smacked into the window not long ago. Its body is still warm and pliable.

Night Crawler carried the soft little creature all the way down here, talking about how much he hoped the bird wasn't dead.

When he realized the owl was dead, he sat down at the table, looking miserable. I wanted to say something nice and sweet to make him feel better. I wanted to at least touch his hand. The thought was there, but the actions wouldn't come. Shy, why must I be so damn shy!

Glen finished his sandwich and went to play the other video game. I am surrounded by empty chairs and the table has sprouted a crumpled piece of paper, and a pack of matches written on in Night Crawler's handwriting: "We woke and stumbled out through jagged sunrays and

137 blinked the morning from our bloodshot eyes . . ."

138 The Spider Web Ceiling

I lay beside Karl on his bed in the cabin.

"Why do you come up here even though you moved down the way?" Karl asks.

I stare up at Karl's handmade ceiling. The ceiling stems from the edge of a giant rock with beams that sprout from the rock, and bars between the beams. Karl's ceiling looks like a giant spider web. Above the wood I see gray moss packed in between the cracks. Above the moss, piles upon piles of yellow, white, blue, green and black plastic bags. I don't see the shingles that cover the bags, but I know that they're there and I sleep better for it.

Candles burn in the rock's crevices. The fire inside Karl's oil-drum stove weakens and shadows creep over our walls.

"You wanna a massage?" Karl asks.

"Yeah."

I turn over and Karl positions himself on my ass, slips his hands beneath my shirt —

"Easier if you take your shirt off." — and rubs my shoulders and neck.

I slide out of my shirt and Karl unclips my bra.

"You know, you complain too much about your family and how they beat you,"

Karl says. "They don't sound too bad to me."

"You don't know them."

"My ma and dad used to hit us with sticks and whips. I still don't hate them like you hate yours."

"Well, you should. You didn't deserve it."

"I think sometimes I did deserve it." 139 "I think you just think that to feel better about what happened to you."

"You know, well. .. No, you wouldn't know but... I am very good in bed.

Everyone says so," Karl says.

"I know you are. You're hot and in great shape - even your palm says so!"

Karl's hands relax and tense around my left scapula. Karl is short and thick-boned with muscles upon muscles. He chops wood every day. I chop wood every day beside him. He made me my own chopping block and bought me a brand new axe.

"Do you want a chest massage too?"

"A chest massage, eh?"

"My last girlfriend said it really relaxed her and it takes a lot of pressure off the lungs."

"Yeah, okay," I say and turn over.

Karl purses his lips and gazes into my eyes. Karl's eyes are green and brown with flecks of gold. His eyes are soft and round, a dark outline around the iris.

He sighs and cups my tits and lifts them off my chest.

"That does feel lighter on the lungs," I say.

"I told you," Karl smiles and rolls my tits around. "Except I'm way turned on now."

"I'm not," I say. "The massage made me sleepy."

"Yeah but I think that I need to jerk off"

"Can I watch?"

"You wanna watch?"

"Yeah, why not."

"Okay, I'll let you watch me jack off," Karl says and hops off the bed. "You really 140 want to?"

"Go for it, I wanna see if you'll actually do it."

"Oh, I'll do it."

"So do it."

Karl pulls his pants from his legs—his legs look like tree trunks—and wraps his hand around an eight-inch dick. He squints into my eyes and grits his teeth and pumps his fist towards me and away from me as his dick rises till his fist is against his stomach.

"Are you gonna cum now?"

"In a short while, yes, I think I will."

The fire flickers in and out and candles throw strange shadows across Karl's face and hands and legs.

"Here come the demons," I whisper.

"Here come the demons," Karl moans, sprays white cum on his stomach and falters a step backwards. He reaches for a shirt from the plastic upturned bucket that we use for our potato-peeling chair and wipes his dick with the dirty material.

"Did you like that?" Karl asks.

"It was cool," I say. "Was it good for you?"

"Yeah, that was pretty good. Never done that in front of anyone before."

141 17

142 Birthday

Cockroach, Shit Sue, Rory, Muppet, Wendy, Darren, Holly, Cora-Lee and I sit inside an abandoned storefront off Granville.

"I miss my mountain," I say.

"Tashi," Shit Sue says, "You were the last to come down. You couldn't stay on that mountain forever. Cockroach and I have rejoined the real world. You should too, Tash, it's time.

"I would have liked to die on that mountain . . ."

"So go back now," Shit Sue throws her arm toward the door with great drama. "I'm sure you can find your way back."

I light a cigarette and bend over my diary pages.

"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Half-Pint,

Happy Birthday to you," the chorus rises from Muppet, Wendy, Darren, Holly and Cora-

Lee.

Holly runs from the room, ducks behind a broken closet and pops out with a cake.

Two plastic bags swing from Holly's arms as she toddles towards me.

"Happy birthday, Half-Pint," Holly Says, smiles, and sets the cake in front of me.

"We have cake and pop and juice and milk and cookies."

143 November 16: one more birthday.

We had cake and pop and juice and milk and cookies. Felt so stupid and strange. I wish I was still on the mountain. I hate milk. I hate cookies.

It was cute, but I have no friends here. I can't make money panning here.

I'm lonely.

Cake, cookies, milk . . . These things make me sad. I used to wish for friends like these people, for cookies and pop and a party like this. Now it feels childish and - we're in a fucking squat! Playing house. Playing family because we have no family.I don't know any of these people (except Shit

Sue and Cockroach . . .) The others seem nice. It's nice of them to throw me a party. They are so much more excited than I am that I feel guilty for ruining their pleasure (and their party) because I'm just not into any of it.

I want to be back on my mountain. I want my little cabin back. I want my stove and the fire inside it. I want to sneak up into Karl's cabin tonight and ask him to read my cards for me. I want him to put the water on and us to wait the hour until it boils. I don't want to be an albatross; I want to be a crow. My grandpa used to call me a crow because I loved shiny things. I don't want to be a bird at all ... I want to be me, asleep on my cabin's dirt floor, the fire flickering and the radio humming and the water bubbling and bubbling.

144 Karl hates me now. He thinks I used him for a place to stay. I guess I did. But I had so much fun with him too. Now Karl is dating Simone and asked her to go to the 'middle of the earth' with him and she said yes so

I'm glad he found her. I guess I'm jealous of Simone now and that serves me right. But it's a good thing. I wasn't real to him, I wasn't meant to spend my life with him. I got tired of the universe and planets "whip, whip, whipping around the sun." I can't live in that world. But I do miss the mountain.

145 St. Helen's Hotel

161 Granville, 2nd floor.

"You know," Cockroach says as she sprawls across our bed and eyes the tobacco-

stained yellow motel room walls, "I've been dating Bob for a while now and we've been talking about how to make sex better..."

I reach over Cockroach to our lone nightstand table and pull a smoke from our

Player's Light pack. Cockroach's breath wafts over my left shoulder and settles on my neck.

"Anyway, Bob tells me that having sex with another woman will make me into a better lover ..."

"Has Bob had sex with another man?" I ask.

"Yes! He said that it made him into a much better lover and that it was an amazing experience and . . . you know ... I think maybe I'd like to try it but... I don't really know who to try it with and then I thought. . ." Cockroach lights a smoke and pulls a

bottle of Southern Comfort from her bag. "Look what I got us!" she announces, clearing

spent cigarette butts and crumpled napkins off our end table. She sets the bottle in the empty space. "Anyway, so when I started thinking about it, I thought about you and how you're my very best friend in the world and if I was going to try sex with another woman

I thought maybe I could try it with . . . you?"

I look at Cockroach. She glances away. I light a cigarette from the butt I just smoked and stare at our unopened Southern Comfort bottle.

"I tell you what," I say to Cockroach. "I'll do it with you if you get me pissed drunk. You and me and that bottle should do it." 146 "Really?"

"Yeah, sure, why not?"

"Let's get drunk!" Cockroach opens the bottle, wipes the opening and passes the bottle to me. "To us, then, the best of friends!" Cockroach says.

I take the bottle, gulp down a huge swig, set the bottle onto our end table and kiss her. Her tongue rolls around mine for a moment then slips away into the recess of her mouth as her hand veers under my shirt and glides up my bare back. "I'm not gay, you know," Cockroach says. "I mean, chicks are all right. I'm pretty sure I'm bi anyway."

"Oh yeah," I say and run my fingers up her thigh.

"Yeah," she smiles.

"Can I take your shirt off?"

I pull my T-Shirt over my head and fling it to the end of our bed. "Your turn."

Cockroach wiggles out of her hoody.

I glance at her tits and gaze into her eyes, trying to see if she'll peak at my tits. She does and I like that.

She leans in to kiss me again and I let her. I slip my tongue into her mouth and roll my arms over her chest. "They're really small, huh," Cockroach says. "Smaller than yours."

"Still checking them out," I answer.

"Can I take my pants off?"

"I'll take mine off too."

She passes the bottle to me and I laugh. "I definitely need more Dr. Captain

Comfort!"

"Dr. Captain Comfort!" She giggles, chugs the rust-coloured liquid and passes it to 147 me and pulls me toward her as I take a sip. The alcohol burns my throat and I squeeze her nipple - "Does this turn you on?"

"Yeah, a little. I'm bi, you know."

"I control you," I say.

"I'm not gay."

"Maybe you are gay."

"I'm not, but I think chicks are hot. Sometimes . . ."

"Sometimes like now?"

"You're my best friend."

"You're my best friend," I say and shrug my shoulders, roll my hand between her thighs and she opens her legs and I graze my fingers along her cunt. "I'm the boss."

"Oh yeah?" Cockroach says and squeezes my tit. "How about this, does this turn you on?" She caresses my ass and slips her fingers between the cheeks. My heart quickens. "No."

"Yes, it does—you're all wet."

'TOM're all wet."

"Just a little."

"A little?"

I slip my middle finger into her. She writhes around my hand and rubs my pussy.

"You like this, this turns you on."

"Of course it does," I say, keeping my voice steady.

Cockroach sucks a long gulp from the bottle, passes the bottle to me and pushes her

forefinger into me. She thrusts her finger in and out of me and that ticklish, warm feeling

arises deep beneath my bellybutton, the one that occurs when I masturbate. 148 I glance at Cockroach: she inspects her finger as it disappears inside me and appears and disappears again. She looks so concentrated. She breathes hard. Moans.

"Stop it, Roach."

"Why?"

"I don't want to."

"Why not? You're so wet..."

"Stop it or I'll scream."

"Scream."

"No, I mean it."

She pulls her wet fingers out, sighs and flops down beside me.

"Why did you make me stop?" Cockroach asks.

"Cuz I need a smoke. Cuz I'm tired. Cuz we ran out of booze."

"It's too late to get more booze."

"I know."

"Shit, I know what you mean. We need more booze..."

Cockroach rolls into a ball beside me and leans her head on my chest. "Are you going to put your shirt on?"

I search between the blankets for my shirt. "Yes."

"I think I want to sleep naked — is that okay with you?"

"Sleep however you want to."

She watches me shimmy into her hoody and wraps her arms around me as I lay my head on my pillow.

I try to calm my breath. Aching. It would have been the first time that I came for someone. I didn't want it to be with Cockroach. I guess I didn't want to cum for a 149 woman - it's weird. It's embarrassing. She's my friend.

150 Today.

I hold onto this quarter in my pocket. It's all the money I have. I can't spend it.

Hooch sits beside me and yawns his big pit-bull yawn. I love Hooch; he's my only forever-true friend. He keeps me safe. I wish I could keep him safe too.

When the Skinheads beat everyone at the park in our sleep, kicked the shit out of everyone while we were still in our sleeping bags, Hooch ran circles around me and tried to attack them. They couldn't get near me. I slept through it all! Shit Sue told me in the morning.

She said it was a fucking nightmare. She said they all woke up with steel-toe boots to the head. Pig Dog looked like shit, lost some teeth, almost lost an eye. He looked awful. It was the first time I saw a face beaten so bad that I gasped. I tried not to gasp but it freaked me.

Now Hooch sits beside me and glares at passers-by. Sometimes his red nose twitches. Sometimes his rust-coloured short fur stands on end.

Sometimes a pedestrian gets too close and Hooch raises his yellow eye and watches the stranger's hands with ferocious intensity as they move closer to my body.

151 "Rat"

152 The Road Home

"We'll never get back to Toronto," Cockroach says. "It's fucking winter. We're gonna fucking die on our way through the prairies. You should really think about that."

Cockroach sticks her thumb out into traffic as we walk backwards on the highway.

Headed East.

153 No One Stops for Us

Rain pelts the gray cement, ripples across puddles, bounces off Hooch and rumbles

against highway 401. My bangs stick to my forehead. Cockroach Stands beside me and

shivers. She clutches her hands with her armpits. Our teeth chatter. Cars pass.

I drag my bag to the side of the road. Hooch hops onto my bag, curls in a fetal position and closes his tired eyes. We have stood on this highway six hours, camouflaged

in the gray o f the rain.

"Cockroach, pass me your bag," I call over the clatter of cars. I have my own

sleeping bag pulled up around my waist. Cockroach kicks her bag towards me. Hooch opens one brown eye, glances at me and drifts back to sleep. Cockroach's bag rolls into a puddle. I collapse onto my knees in the puddle, lean to my side, and drop my head on

Cockroach's bag.

"Half-Pint, what are you doing?" Cockroach says. "You're in a puddle."

"I need to take a little nap," I say.

"What should I do?" Cockroach asks.

"Go back to the highway," I say. "Keep thumbing."

Cockroach strolls back to the visible side of the road, sticks her thumb into oncoming traffic. Trucks pass. The puddle warms like an electric blanket. I curl closer to

Hooch. Hooch snorts a satisfied snort. My eyelids drop like window blinds.

"Half-Pint, Half-Pint, there's a truck over there," Cockroach says. "A truck!"

I open my eyes: grey square in the distance.

"So what, I'm tired, let me sleep Roach," I say.

"Half-Pint, what if he's stopped for us?" 154 "Don't be stupid, Roach," I say. "No one stops for us. Go back to the road and keep thumbing." I pull my legs into my chest and shut my eyes. Cockroach stumbles to the highway, sticks her thumb over the pavement.

I yawn, shiver, float into sleep.

"Half-Pint!" Cockroach pushes my shoulder with her big black boot. "The trucker is waving at us."

"So maybe he's happy to see us," I say and shoo her foot away with my palm.

"Leave me alone and let me sleep, stop fucking bugging me already."

"Half-Pint, I think he wants to give us a ride," Cockroach says.

"We're never getting a ride Cockroach, go back to the road."

"No, Half-Pint, I really think this guy wants to pick us up!"

I open my eyes: two red round lights from the back of an eighteen wheeler blink, between strips of green rain; a man waves his hands above his head. It's true; he's waving

at us.

I jump to my feet, toss Cockroach's bag onto my shoulder, yank Hooch under my

armpit, grab my bag with my empty left hand and hoof it through the puddles, mud and rubble -

"Holy shit, Roach, run! We got a ride!"

155 37-Cent Massacre

Cockroach and I stumble into the Husky track stop.

"Do you think we need to wait to be seated here?" I say.

"Looks like it," Cockroach answers and points to the wait to be seated sign.

We stand in the entrance.

The waitress passes.

"Excuse me," I say. The waitress hustles past us.

"Do you think she didn't hear me?" I ask Cockroach.

"Perhaps," Cockroach says. "Here she comes again, say it louder."

"Excuse me, we need a seat!" I yell. The waitress shuffles past us.

"Perhaps she's deaf," Cockroach snickers.

Cockroach and I march past the Please Wait To Be Seated sign and settle in a booth beside the window. We watch the trucks park outside.

I stuff my backpack under the table. Cockroach turns her head to the clock, tips her

chin up. "Half-Pint, that waitress has managed to ignore us for an entire fifteen minutes,"

Cockroach says.

"Perhaps you and I will just sleep here," I answer.

"Yes, we can certainly do that," Cockroach says. "But I would really like

something to eat first."

"I'm starving," I say.

The waitress walks by our table.

"Can we get a menu?" I raise my voice. The waitress tucks her hands into her pockets as she passes. 156 "Half-Pint," Cockroach says. "I think she's ignoring us on purpose."

I jump out of my seat, stomp to the front counter, reach over the counter, grab two menus and stroll back to our table.

"Here you go," I say and smile and set the menu before Cockroach. Cockroach laughs. "Excellent service, Half-Pint."

"What should we get?" I say.

"What can we afford?"

"How much do you have?"

We pull coins out of our pockets, pouches, backpack bottoms. Cockroach and I dump the coins on the table, push our coin piles to the middle of the counter and combine them. Cockroach folds the coins into her hands, pulls the pile to her chest, spreads the coins across the tabletop and counts.

"We have seven dollars and fifteen cents," Cockroach says. I smile. We read the menu.

"We could each have an order of fries, but we can only afford one beverage."

Cockroach says. "And, we can't afford to add gravy."

"Will we have enough?" I ask.

"Just enough," Cockroach answers.

I spy the waitress approach.

"We want two orders of fries with no gravy!" I holler. The waitress stops, steps towards our table, pulls out a small notepad and pen.

"You girls want anything to drink with that?"

"One glass of Pepsi to share," I answer.

The waitress clears our table and slaps a bill between Cockroach and I. 157 Cockroach plucks the bill off our table, glances at it and raises her hand to her mouth.

"Ummm..." Cockroach says.

"Whatsa matter?" I ask.

"This bill, Half-Pint," Cockroach says. "There's a problem."

"What?"

"We owe seven dollars and fifty two cents," Cockroach says. "We only have seven dollars and fifteen cents."

"Shit."

"What do we do?"

"I don't know,"

"Do you have anything extra?"

"No, do you?"

"No."

"There's only one thing left to do," I say.

"Apologize and hope for the best?" Cockroach smiles a pained smile.

'She was a total cunt to us. There is no way we are going to apologize to her," I say. "We're going to have to kill her."

"I agree. That is the only option left for us at this point," Cockroach laughs.

"Yup," I say. "It will henceforth be known as the thirty-seven cent massacre. The papers will be all over it. We'll make it onto the national news."

"Do you think we should strangle her, or just smash her in the head with something blunt and heavy?"

"I definitely think strangulation is the obvious and sensible choice for this 158 situation."

"Should we just jump on her when she passes or wait until there are less people in the place?"

"Perhaps we should casually walk toward the door and only attack her if she comes after us for the extra thirty-seven cents?"

"No way, we're holding our heads high for this one, no pussy footin about!"

"Holding our heads high?" Cockroach laughs. "We are about to brutally murder a truck stop waitress over thirty-seven cents!"

"Hey, thirty seven cents is thirty-seven cents!" I cry, "Who says her life is even worth that much!"

Cockroach folds with laughter. Tears pour from her eyes. "So what is the blunt object that we plan to use?"

"Nothing, we decided on strangulation, remember?"

"Oh yeah. Fuck it, let's do it."

Three Loonies fall, clatter on our table and spin between us.

Cockroach and I look up. A man, in worn blue jeans and a brown baseball hat, stands beside our table.

"Here you go girls. No need to kill anyone tonight," he says and smiles, then waltzes out the door.

Cockroach looks at me. I look at Cockroach.

"We have enough to even leave her a tip now," Cockroach says.

"Screw the tip," I say. "Let's get dessert."

"Yeah, she doesn't deserve a fucking tip. She's lucky to be alive."

159 Bear and Campers

"Where are you girls going?"

"We're racing back to Toronto," Shit Sue says. "I was with another team but met up with Cockroach and Half Pint and joined their team for a while so I can quit the downers."

Three children peep at us from their back seat of Bear's van.

"My name is Bear and these here are my cousins." Bear is a large man with thick brown hair all over his body. "You gals are welcome to come along if you want to."

Cockroach scuttles towards the van, jumps in and reaches for Molson, the kitten we picked up in Wireton. Shit Sue and I follow Cockroach.

"Hey Baby," Bear slurs as he crawls through the tent he leant me to sleep in."I'm really attracted to you."

"For fuck's sakes."

"Oh man, you don't feel the same way — really?"

"Really."

"Can I just sleep here beside you?"

"Can't sleep now."

"Can I take you out in the canoe? We can talk. We can look at the stars?"

"That sounds good."

Next day, back on the road, Cockroach tells me that Bear made passes at her, too. 160 First he tried with Shit Sue. Then he tried with Cockroach.

And I thought I was special.

161 Into a Prairie Sun

Alberta.

Winter.

Trans-Canada highway.

I wake up in the snow. The morning sky is shades of lavender and aquamarine. I sit up in my olive-green sleeping bag, rub my red hands together, yawn and blow warm breath into cupped palms.

"Roach," I say and nudge Cockroach with my elbow. Cockroach lies sleeping beside me.

"What?" Cockroach mumbles, grinds her teeth.

"I need a smoke."

Cockroach rummages inside her sleeping bag, pulls out a pack of Players Lights

and tosses the pack onto my lap. I pick the pack off my legs, drum out a smoke and lean back. We wait for the sun to show.

"Holy shit Roach," I say and poke my elbow, hard, into Cockroach's ribs. "Check

out this fucking sunrise."

Red rivers of fire cut the flat blue horizon. A giant orange ball emerges from the

ground. It pushes the sky out of its way and stretches across the world. There is no sky

left anymore, only sun. Cockroach opens her eyes wide, wider. "Holy fuck, Half-Pint,"

she says. "Is that real?"

"It's so fucking big," I say. "I bet we can walk right into that fucking sunrise."

"Sure looks like it," Cockroach says.

"Let's do it, Roach," I say. "Let's get up now before it leaves." 162 We slither out of our sleeping bags. Roll them into tight cocoons, strap them onto our packs, and march into the sun.

163 The Big Smoke

Freezing rain drizzles down my guitar.

"What time is it?"

"How the fuck should I know?" Cockroach answers. "Sun's behind the clouds - fucking cold, fucking wet. What the fuck. Fuck!"

Highway 9. How the fuck did we get here?

"Wet out here ya gals!" The pick-up truck stops before us. "Let's get you somewhere warm and dry till she let's up, eh." He hops from his front seat and hobbles towards us. His hospital slippers splash in shallow puddles. "Name's Otter." Otter extends his hand as the plastic blue hospital bracelet twirls between dime-sized raindrops.

"Get in." Otter picks up my backpack and tosses it into his truck. I watch his green hospital gown expose his tattooed bare back. Otter's homemade pen-ink and needle tattoos read: Death before dishonor, We are the hollow men, Jesus saves, to thine own self be true. Otter's back is a book of quotations. Across his neck, a tattooed dotted line, the words cut here written above it.

I crumple squeeze between Otter's garbage and Cockroach, curl my chest around my stomach and legs, tighten my muscles, tuck in my chin and exhale luke-warm steam onto my frozen knees. "We're going to Toronto."

Otter nods, sparks a spliff, puffs, passes the dope to me and exhales through torturous coughing. "Don't worry gals, I'll getcha to the Big Smoke."

164 "They took the baby away..."

165 The Big Smoke

Back in "The Big Smoke". After Vancouver, I can smell the pollution all around me. I cough and cough and watch the cars roll by. People move so much faster here. Still,

it feels good to be near all the people and places I know.

Psycho still pans at the World's Biggest Bookstore and I know if I turn that corner

he'll be there, smiling and smiling at me. And Steve and Shawn and Jessey - all my

friends are here...

166 "Yes, I believe in G-D"

167 The Motel Room Above Jilly's Strip Joint

A bed takes up most of the room. Jill and Ronnie sleep on the bed. Hat Trick lays beside me on the floor.

"Half-Pint, have you met Hat Trick yet?"

"Not yet," I say.

"That's the guy beside you; Hat Trick, Half-Pint; Half-Pint, Hat Trick."

"Nice to meet you, Half-Pint," Hat Trick says. Hat Trick sleeps in his Top Hat.

Hat Trick's curly brown hair matches his gnarled brown teeth.

I roll onto my side and turn my back to Hat Trick and drift off.

"Shorty? Is that your name?" Hat trick whispers from the dark and wakes me.'

"Half-Pint," I say and drift off.

"I'm really hot for you, Half-Pint."

"The feelings aren't mutual, Hat Trick.'

"Please, please just let me fuck you, I promise it'll be quick." Hat trick wraps his leg around me and rubs himself against me as if he's riding a bike.

"No, get off me," I whisper. I don't want to wake the others.

"Just let me touch your tits.' He grabs my tit and squeezes.

I rip his hand away from my tit. He rolls on top of my side and spins me onto my back underneath him.

"What the fuck."

"Shhhh . . . Don't wake them."

Hat Trick pins my arms above my head, slithers his chest against mine, presses his mouth on my mouth, parts my lips with his teeth and circles his tongue around my 168 tongue. He humps my legs and spreads them with his legs, squeezes both of my wrists into one of his palms and reaches into my pants.

"I'm gonna take off your pants now."

I look out the window and watch the cars pass.

"Why are you crying?" Hat Trick says and twists one of my nipples. He licks his free palm and slides it across my wet cunt. "Yes," he murmurs and sticks his dick in me, pumps once, pumps again and then comes.

"See now, I promised that it wouldn't take long," Hat trick wipes the hair from my eyes and slips off me.

I close my eyes and turn over.

"Am I a bad person?" Hat Trick asks.

"No," I answer, and pull the blanket tighter around me.

169 Another day like all the other days.

This body. This body that loves it and hates it. This body that longs

for that deep, dark rough touch but not from the hands and the mouths and

the fingers and dicks and teeth and lips that give it. This body that almost

came while the mind hated the cunt for its wetness, for wanting more

while asking for less, for getting it all, even more than it wanted and

saying nothing, and doing nothing and hitting no one and biting no lip 'til it

bled and raging no rage and his dick inside me and he comes inside me

and I don't get to cum. 1 didn't even get that. I could have . . . Maybe, I

could have. But he disgusts me and I have no interest in him and I know

that I can't cum for him and - 'cock-rag'. He just wiped his cock with me

and cried until I said it was okay to do it.

It makes me sick and it turns me on. I masturbate to it. I still hate him

for it.

170 "Relationships that start on the street end on the street'

171 Kangaroo Court

"That bastard, Hat Trick, was raping chicks out here," Psycho says and wraps his arm around my shoulder. "We put 'im through Kangaroo court. Made 'im explain hisself. No please don't hurt me, I swear I didn 't do anything, he was whimpering like a rucking baby. Broke his ribs, broke his jaw, broke his leg, oh man you should have heard that snap!"

172 I lost the date again.

Why do I want to know the dates when I write? Dates are just a mirage from that other world, that other world where the day and time and month matter, where people wake up in the morning and want to know what they planned for the day: work? School? A get-together with the family? A date? A friend's birthday party?

These things are of no consequence to me. So, why do dates still matter?

Hat Trick got it bad from the boys: Kangaroo Court. I knew something would happen when I told Psycho about Hat Trick. I have so many friends out here. Gotta let the new ones know where I stand, what happens when you fuck with me. I wish I was there to see that bastard get ass-raped. And, I'm glad that I wasn't there. And, I feel bad about what happened to him. And I feel good that I caused it. And I feel guilty for causing it. And I wonder if he knew what he did? I wonder if he wasn't just trying to love me. I wonder if he thought I would be his girlfriend after that, like he asked me to be the next day.

He ran up to me in the Atrium On The Bay Food Court and said he had this great idea:

"We can stay with my grandmother at her place and I could get a job

173 and maybe you could go to school." I told him I would think about it. He took off his earring and gave it to me "This earring was my sister's," he said. I took it, even though I knew what was coming.

I still talk to G-D. I asked G-D if it was wrong of me - all of it - G-D told me that it was. It was wrong. It was wrong of me to add to another's pain. There's so much shit out here; I don't want to add to it. And, I long to add to it when I can, it makes me feel strong and powerful and worth something. Still, it was wrong, he got raped and beaten up cuz of me ... I can't take it back now.

Hat Trick is gone. I hope he went somewhere warm. I hope he's safe, wherever he is now . . .

174 "Here's a quarter. Call someone who cares"

175 Under the St. Clair Bridge

Night Crawler and I sit on a landing under the St. Clair Bridge. The night looms around us, the full moon shines above us. It's fall but not cold yet. Rain trickles down while we remain warm and dry beneath the bridge. It's Night crawler's birthday today.

He sits and spins his waist-length strawberry-red curly hair between his mangled fingers.

"I need to tell you something," I say.

"What?" Night Crawler asks.

'I'm in love with you."

Night Crawler sighs. "You're a child still. You think you love me but you don't."

"Yes, I do."

"One day," Night Crawler cups his palms around my cheeks, "you will find someone really special and really fall in love and you'll know, you'll know what you feel now is not love. I take care of you, so you love me, but you don't, you can't love me like that."

"Yes, I do, I love you like that."

"Half-Pint, I love you too. I do, I love you too. But. . . I'm sorry. I only love you.

Not how you want me to love you..."

176 "But I'm gonna keep this baby"

177 Out of the Toilet

"Half-Pint!" Cockroach calls me from the Coffee Time bathroom.

I meander to the bathroom and knock on the door, "What's up, Roach?"

"Can I talk to you for a minute?"

When I hear the lock unlock, I push the door open and slip into the wheelchair- accessible stall.

"Half-Pint, I think I need to tell you something," Cockroach says. "It's bad."

She has AIDS. She fucking has AIDS!

"What's going on, Liz," I step toward Cockroach. It feels strange but right to use her real name now.

"Half-Pint. . ."

She has AIDS. I know it!

"Just say it."

"Half-Pint, I think I'm gay."

"Gay?" I shake my head "That's the important news?"

"Yeah, I mean, is that okay? Are you okay with that?"

"So you're gay! I thought you had AIDS!" I smack Cockroach's shoulder. "Be gay then! It's the 1990's. Go out and be gay from now on!"

"Do you think so?"

"Get the fuck out of this bathroom."

"It's fine?"

"Yes, it's fine. Fuck, I thought you were dying. Go be gay."

"Okay," Cockroach smiles and strolls out of the bathroom. 178 "Last night the skinheads beat up this Jewish girl. They carved swastikas into her

forehead and shat on her and made her eat their shit. I shaved her head" Sometime in the fall.

In that squat, the old Willard Hall, all the windows were broken. The wind raced through our empty rooms and bounced off bare brown walls.

Steve and I sat on the wooden floor, on top of his green sleeping bag. We talked and, as we talked, Steve squeezed a tube of Airplane Glue into a plastic No Frills bag, wrapped the ends of the bag around his mouth and nose and huffed deep inhales from inside the bag. Then he leaned over and kissed me. His tongue tasted like glue. He sucked on my mouth when he kissed me and I thought of a vacuum cleaner hose. His dreaded hair brushed my forehead and cheeks.

Steve slid his hand between my layers of sweaters and the tips of his fingers touched my stomach. His fingers were cold, felt like snow. I thought: any second they'll melt down my body and drip to the floor.

"Oh," Steve said as his other hand climbed to my breast, "let me warm my hands on you." His fingertips sent ice lightning bolts up my shoulders and spine.

"You're so cold," I whispered. He said, "I love you." Then, "I'm going to kill myself."

I leaned my head on his lap and he crossed his legs and cradled my skull in his hands.

180 "I want to fuck you," Steve said.

"Before you kill yourself, right?" I laughed.

"Before I kill myself?" Steve snarled. "I'm going to fucking kill myself right now!" He jumped up my head hit the floor — and he sprinted up the stairs. I chased after him.

"What the fuck, Steve!" I screamed. "Where ya going?"

The door slammed in my face. I pulled it open; snow slapped me.

The roof. Steve stood at the edge of the roof and scanned the cars and people and streetlights bellow him.

"Steve, come inside, please come inside," I begged but Steve stood still. "No, you come here," Steve said as the wind blew through my throat.

"You know I can't," I said. "You know I'm scared of heights."

"Trust me," Steve said and reached his hand toward me. He stepped away from the roof's rim and closer to the door. My legs shook.

"I can't," I said, stepped onto the roof and staggered quickly back inside. "Yes, you can," Steve said. "Come here, be with me." And he pulled me toward him.

1 m scared.

"There's nothing to be scared of," Steve said and positioned me on the roof's lip. Fear froze me.

"Go on," Steve said. "Look down."

181 I willed my head into a slight incline.

Steve laughed, "It's beautiful - just look!"

And it is, it's so beautiful out here. The red and white lights, like

Christmas all year long. The way leaves change in the park 'til one day you wake up with the cool orange fire all around you while naked trees expose the clear morning sky and, you know, the sky is a whole different shade of blue in autumn.

There were people and the cars and lights beneath the roof that night, that night that Steve decided he would live, and I decided I would not fuck him, and he still helped me off the lip and down the stairs again and held me in his arms all night and kept me warm.

All those people down there, small and helpless. I watched them meander on their way home from bars, not knowing someone up there was gazing down at them; they had a bunch of walls to keep them safe and doors to lock. But I own everything around those doors and walls. My home surrounds their homes. I own these streets and parks, sidewalks and benches. I own the leaves that drift onto my grass in fall. I own the rain. I own the snow. I curse the snow, but I still own it. And they have nothing, all those little people. They think they own the world. I own the world.

182 Postcard

To: Half-Pint

C/O Evergreen

381 Yonge Street, Toronto, Ontario

I pluck a post card from Evergreen's message board. The return address: British

Columbia.

I am making money as a pool shark now.

I have a motorcycle and a German shepherd now.

Come visit me.

Love,

Daniel

I read the poem on the front:

. . . forever in a grain of sand . . . eternity in an hour . . . the universe in the palm of your hand . . .

I flip the postcard over. A boat floats on red, yellow, blue and black water, backlit by an orange sunset. I stuff it between the rags in my backpack. On Yonge Street I wander to the corner of Gould Street, and sit down, back against an arcade wall.

"Spare some change?" "Listen, you fuck, I got chlamydia and if I got chlamydia you got chlamydia and so does

your fucking old lady" At the Salvation Army

Cockroach and I face one another across the Sally Ann Table.

The Sally Ann Soup Kitchen works like this:

Lunch:

1. Come to the door and sign in by 10:30 a.m. (door locks at 11:00)

2. Pray and/or listen to the praying and singing to Jesus until noon.

3. After prayers, line up for soup and a sandwich.

4. Find a seat beside the guy who smells the least repulsive.

5. Eat

6. Line up for seconds

7. Entertain yourself 'till 2 p.m.

8. "Everybody out!"

"Half Pint," Cockroach says as we play Rummy. "I think we need to talk."

I set my cards facedown on our table.

"I've been thinking about you a lot."

"We spend all our time together."

"Well, that's sort of what's bothering me, maybe . . ."

"What's bothering you? What the fuck?"

"It's just that lately—well, for a long while now—I get all these feelings about you like I ... I want to give you flowers and hug you and hold you and go out on real dates together and I was just wondering if maybe you feel the same?" 185 "I don't know, Roach," I say. "I don't think so. I think maybe I'm straight after all."

186 Love

It's a basement, in Toronto - Back in Fucking Toronto! ~ and I don't know who rents it. I just know that everyone sleeps here right now. I don't know for how long we can stay here.

"D.A. wanted me to tell you that he really likes you," Patty says.

"Oh yeah?"

"Anyway, he wants to know if it's okay to stay the night here beside you. He says he's not gonna try anything. I think you can trust him."

"Tell him to come and talk to me himself, instead of sending his ex-girlfriend."

"I don't really want to say that to him."

"Tell him I said so."

D.A. inches into the room.

"Hi," D.A. says.

"Hi," I smile.

"Did Patty talk to you?"

"Why do you wanna know?"

"C'mon, this is hard enough."

"What's hard enough?"

"Don't play games."

"Don't play games."

"Stop it."

"Stop it."

"Listen, what the fuck! Do you know how many people out here are scared to 187 fucking death of me?"

I laugh.

"What's so fucking funny?"

"You."

"Me?"

"Yeah you," I say. "You're cute — all riled up like that. Tough guy. Not tough enough to tell me that you like me yourself are you?"

D.A. laughs.

"So, can I sleep beside you? — I promise I won't try anything. I know we just only met really. I mean I've seen you around for years but.... Fuck! Can I or what?"

"Yeah, okay."

D.A. lies on the mattress beside me. He smells like cigarettes and sweat. His curly hair is cut short, in classic skinhead fashion.

"You know I'm a Jew, right? — it's no fucking secret."

"I don't care," D.A. says. "I don't listen to no one. No one fucking tells me who to like and who not to— the skinheads, yeah, I'm one of them, yeah they're my buds an' shit, but they don't rule me. I'm no fucking follower of no one. You stick with me. I'll watch your back. You can watch my back. No one has a steel back you know; everyone needs someone they can trust."

D.A. wraps his arms around me. His arms feel like a steel cage.

"Why don't you wanna fuck me?" D.A. says. "Am I ugly?"

"Nah, you're not ugly," I whisper and kiss him. He kisses me back and sighs. "I spent most of my life in jail, I learned a lot from all those old guys."

"This is what you wanted to sleep beside me for?" 188 "Look, I said I wouldn't try nothing — I'm good for my word; I'll wait for ya."

"So what were you in jail for?"

"Don't do my time for me."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that when you go in for something and someone asks you what you're in for they're trying to punk you. It's no one's business what you do your time for. You pay enough for being in. You don't need to fucking tell everyone your story. Being in, each fucking stinking shitbag day erases a little more of what you got in there for and you don't need to think about the shit after you spent the animal time in the cage for it already."

I curl into D.A.'s stomach.

"I lost track of the shit I've been in for. Ever since I was a kid, first Juvie than the

Don and the Pen and — it all rolls together. Robberies, assaults, drugs - there was this chick.... We were all doing heroin and she was this junked-out bitch that spread her legs for anyone and.... She was my gal for a bit and then she just went off the fucking edge with that shit and you couldn't even talk to her anymore and she says to one of the guys ~ not fucking me, mind you! — she says, 'I'll give you a blow job for a hit. And he says yeah and she starts blowin' him an as she's blowin him he stabs the needle into her neck and she just starts convulsing and shitting and pissing herself all over the fucking place.

So, I grabbed her by the fucking hair and dragged her to the door and threw her the fuck out and she left a fucking trail of shit all the way out and I slipped in the shit and it covered my pants — I went in for that one too." D.A. wraps his arms around me and snuggles his face into my neck. "It's hell inside; at least I'm used to it."

189 Monday afternoon with no food in the cupboards and fridge...

D.A. has a full and jolly laugh, a laugh you'd expect from a big tall man, but D.A. is short and thick with biceps the size of my head and a six-

pack stomach. His face smiles through thick scars and wide auburn eyes.

He feels safe and dangerous at the same time, like a killer. And, like a

child. He's sexy and stupid, but very street smart. Grotesque.

He makes me laugh and I like to laugh. He's so funny. And, he's so

fucked up. All the violence he suffered at home. My past is nothing

compared to his past. Sometimes I want to protect him. Sometimes, I

want to save him. I doubt he could ever save me. But, he would love to keep me safe. Mostly just to keep himself feeling special and just to get to go through the rush of the fight and the thrill of the violence. He hates violence and he loves it. He's scared of violence and he longs for it, like I

do. But, he's better at overcoming his fears than I am. I want to be more like him. And, I want to be less like him.

Sex with him is exciting. He's strong and likes it how 1 like it: furious

and fanatic. He looks at me and I know he's thinking of taking me. It's the

first time I have fun with sex and I like sex. It's a shame that it's sex with him though. I don't much like him past the sex and laughter. He's dumb and angry but sometimes he has moments of wisdom.

190 I'm scared, sometimes, to be with him. I know it won't last but I don't know how I can leave him. He's dangerous and he fears no retribution. He has no fear of my friends - my friends fear him and his friends.

I wonder about my end today. I wonder if it will be a violent end - a sad and tragic end for some street-kid named me. It makes me laugh.

The thought of dying out here, an unknown. A fucked up youth statistic.

Dying out here rarely even makes the papers. If I died in some big house in Rosedale things would be different.

If I leave will he hurt me, or kill me?

191 The Cartier Bridge

I trample weeds on the side of the highway. Hooch jogs beside me, attached to my pants by a rope. A blue hiker's pack sits on my back, stuffed with clothes, dog food, pens and diary, large garbage bags, candles, waterproof matches, lighters, 2 cans of soup.

Sleeping bags and blankets cover my backpack, tied in place with bungee cords and rope.

"My legs are burning, they're on fire," D.A. whines.

"Can you just shut the fuck up now," I stomp toward D.A., grab his backpack from him. "Give me that, you fucking sissy." I march forward, his bag on my arm.

"We'll never get a ride once we step on that bridge," D.A. says.

"Guess we'll walk it."

"You know how fucking long this bridge is?" D.A. laughs

"Don't tell me."

"I can't even fucking see the end of it!"

"Can't stop now, there's nowhere to camp here."

"I'll keep my thumb out in case, just in case, maybe there is a G-d after all."

"We'll make it to the Maritimes yet. Montreal's our next stop, let's just try and stay quiet till we get there."

192 A Wednesday in Sping.

I told D.A. that I'm going to hitchhike out east. I thought it would be an easy way to get rid of him; just leave for a while, see some new places

. . . Everything would be different when - if - I came back. He said - assumed!! - he was coming. Says his whole family (he hasn't seen them in six years) live out in Nova Scotia. What fucking luck! No choice now but to go together. Together, what a stupid fucking word.

193 Montreal

In downtown Montreal, in the small, round parkette off Rue. St. Marie, I swing my backpack off my shoulder and drop onto the cool October grass. Purple leaves mutter and purr as I yawn, sink to my knees and melt into the cool, wet earth.

I lay my head on my lumpy backpack, close my eyes and shiver.

"Pardon, pardon?" The old man smells of model airplane glue and wine and dirt and urine.

"We speak English." D.A. says.

I open my eyes and squint at the bearded old man.

The old man stabs himself twice in the chest with a crooked index finger, "Come.

Come, me." He nods his head and continues, "I, Rubby."

"You're name's Rubby?" I say.

Rubby nods.

"I'm Half-Pint."

Rubby smiles. He shakes D.A.'s hand, winks at me, and stumbles up the thin path.

D.A. and I grab our bags and follow.

We turn corners and duck through alleys. Our pace quickens then slows. It's dark and I can't see the street names now.

Rubby stops in front of an old brick house, a B frame with a rectangular second floor window. The house is still and quiet among the sparse poplar trees.

Rubby , trips up the two-step front stairs and rummages inside his breast pocket. He pulls out a shiny copper key and fumbles until the key slides into the lock. He butts the door open, steps inside and motions for us to follow. 194 Inside, he flicks his lighter and waves it in the air before his nose. By light-flame, the hallway wobbles and convulses. Rubby leads us through the hall to the underside of a dilapidated staircase.

Piled against the back wall - stern to sidewall, bow beneath the steps - two bare, blue mattresses lie stacked atop each other. Rubby bends his knees and groans and sits, his back curved like a frightened cat's, on the concave top blue mattress. The top blue mattress squeaks and creaks beneath him.

Rubby's right hand, palm down, rests on the bed, his left hand dangles a half smoked 'Craven A' cigarette between his thin long brown pant legs. Yellow and brown tobacco stains coat Rubby's smoking fingers. He pats his gray palm against the mattress.

"Sleep." Rubby says with a Chretien sneer.

I plunk down on the bed face first. My backpack bounces off my shoulder blade.

Rubby rises off the bed, trips on his tatters, mutters, and totters into the grey house shadows.

In the morning, I sit up, bang my head off the stairs - "Fuck" - and fall back down on the mattress. I stare at the underside of the staircase while voices blossom and fizz into laughter behind me. DA is still snoring beside me.

Rubby, in ripped blue sweatpants, staggers past me. "You are awake." He smiles and tosses a pinched cigarette onto my chest. The cigarette rolls to my chin.

"Thanks," I say, but he's already gone.

After lighting up, I stand and explore the house. A foldout green card table, square and small, stands pressed against a tobacco-stained wall in the kitchen. Rubby sits with his bent back to me.

A young man also sits at the green card table. He has long, tangled blonde hair and 195 whistles 'Stars and Stripes Forever'.

Rubby stands, picks a rusty nail from the table and positions the nail over a yellow, red, and blue can of Lysol. He grabs a hammer with his other.

"Good morning," I say.

"Shhhhh!" The young man flaps his arms towards me and hisses "Don't disturb him. The fuckin can could blow." He points, with both hands, at the can of Lysol.

Rubby raises one eyebrow and glances at me.

I freeze in the kitchen doorway. Rubby lays his hammer down and cocks his head towards me.

"Come in, come in," the young man waves me in and pushes his worn wooden chair into the backs of my kneecaps.

"Thank you," I say and sit.

"My name is Charles," the young man says, in flawless English . He extends his hand across the rickety table and rocks my palm side to side.

Rubby leans over the Lysol can and angles the long, rusty nail to a 45-degree angle.

Charles holds the Lysol can upright with both hands.

"Steady?" Rubby asks.

"Steady," Charles answers.

Rubby lifts the hammer, holds it above the nail's head and slowly touches hammer to nail two times.

"Okay?" Rubby murmurs.

Charles whitens his knuckles and grits his teeth. "Okay."

Rubby lifts the hammer above the nail. He keeps his eyes pinned to the nail head.

Rubby brings the hammer down across the nail head and drives the metal into the can. 196 Charles grits his teeth against the metallic rumble.

A sound like air escaping from a boiling lobster emerges from the long, round Lysol can. Rubby leans back, pulls the nail from the can, smirks at the small black hole, and sets his hammer on the table. Charles steadies the Lysol can on the table, unwinds his fingers from the can's busted body, leans back in his chair and exhales.

Hobo pulls three long, transparent glasses from the unhinged wooden cabinet above the crowded sink. He sets the glasses on the table. Charles pushes his glass closer to the

Lysol.

"This is my house," Charles says.

Rubby Lifts the Lysol can and pours blue liquid into all three glasses - Charles'

first - than picks up his glass and clutches it to his chest. Rubby hobbles to the kitchen

corner, sits down on the wood plank floor and sniffs his drink. Charles lifts his glass into the air. Hobo and Rubby lift theirs.

"That stuff 11 kill you," I say. I glance at Charles' young blue eyes.

Charles snickers.

"I have AIDS. I'm dying anyway," Charles says, hands me his smoke, and gulps a mouthful of blue liquid. I haul three drags off Charles' wet cigarette and pass the butt back to him. "Cheers Charles."

197 Under the stairs in Montreal, late fall.

Charles is so gorgeous. Even with his hair all rag-like and his face hollow and tired, he is a blond version of Johnny Depp. His personality is open and friendly. Being near Charles calms me. I wish I was with Charles instead of D.A. At least I did until he said he has AIDS. AIDS. Fuck. And the Lysol. He's on a prolonged suicide trip. I shouldn't blame him - AIDS sucks shit (especially when you're too poor and fucked up to organize good medical care). It's hard to be poor, sick and alone . . . When you're poor you're alone . . At least that's what I've learned. But I don't know. I wish things were different for Charles. And for me.

I sit at the table with them and watch Charles look through empty kitchen drawers. He moves with such confidence. I wonder if he was somebody once . . . He doesn't act like us. He doesn't feel like us. He acts and feels like a man with a job, with a life, with a lover somewhere and a pay check on regular route to his healthy bank account. This is, after all,

Charles' house. It looks like it might have been nice once . .

Oh, Charles, where are you supposed to be? Where am I supposed to be? In some alternate dimension, in a better universe, were you and I supposed to meet in a philosophy class at U of T? Were we to fall madly in love, get married and have children and a car? A dog in the yard? Bi-

198 yearly vacations with the in-laws? Formal dates every Friday night? It sounds like a boring, lost life, Charles, but, with you I think I might like it.

I can see you with kids on your lap. It's Christmas afternoon, and you sit on our green La~Z Boy. You have a glass of Whiskey in your hand but you won't finish it. You're not a drinker — you just taste it sometimes.

Your eyes are clear and blue and full of laughter. The boys crawl all over you and you giggle like you're one of them.

I flip pancakes in our kitchen - can it be a large eat-in kitchen? - and coffee warms on the stove. I don't drink coffee (never liked it), but you like it so I make it for you. You take your coffee and plant the gentlest of kisses on my lips.

"Thank you, darling," you say. I just smile in return and you know what I'm saying.

Our sons follow us to the kitchen. They nag me for cocoa, you tell me to give in and I do.

Maybe you work as a teacher. Maybe I'm a social worker. We don't make bags of cash but your family helped us out and we bought a house down the street from your mom. Your sister helps out with the babysitting.

We sit down at the dining room table. You eat your pancakes while I light the candles, the kids wide-eyed at candles over breakfast, and it makes me happy to surprise them.

199 Deserve to Die

Have you ever killed anyone?"

"If I ever killed anyone, I certainly wouldn't tell you - or anyone else - about it."

"So, does that mean you have killed someone and you just can't tell me?"

"It means that you should never ask me something like that." D.A. grits his teeth and turns back to the Saturday C.B.C. report. C.B.C. is the only channel we get in Port

Hawksburry, Nova Scotia.

D.A. and I rent a small two-bedroom trailer home. Our trailer home clings onto the ground beside a narrow dirt road. Six blocks north, our closest convenience store sways and creaks in the wind.

We brew homemade beer in large white plastic buckets every Monday evening.

Large, white plastic buckets line our living room walls.

Our trailer came with a long, thin plaid brown couch, a 19" inch T.V., a folding square kitchen table, and twelve wooden chairs. D.A. and I sleep on the couch.

"Let's say, lets just say," D.A. flexes his jaw and grimaces and winks one round, sunken, auburn eye at me, "There was this Native guy, and when I was a little boy he diddled me maybe. Well, if we were to say that might have happened, though it might not have happened at all, you understand my meaning?"

I lean back into the brown flower print couch. D.A. steadies his thick bare feet on our thin gray living room carpet and wobbles to the closest plastic bucket. "You want more?" He glides his metal mug through the foamy yellow liquid. The mug sinks and rises.

"Thanks, no, I still got some." I lift my half full glass to my lips and sip. 200 Our homebrew tastes sweet, like sugared rye bread and raisins, and tart, like green apples.

"So if some Native bastard did diddle me - which did not happen..." D. A. teeters back to the couch, plunks down beside me, slurps his home brew, dribbles some on his chest, and continues. "... Who's to say that I shouldn't find him later, when I'm let's say.. .seventeen, and drown him in a river or beat him to death and bury him somewhere or both? Lets just say no one would miss him."

"Do you see anything wrong with killing a diddler?" D.A.'s eyes scan my face. His mouth is stern and still.

"No. I think diddlers deserve to die," I say.

"So do I," D.A says. "So do I."

201 The Break-Up

D.A.," I say. "It's over."

"Don't do this to me," D.A. says.

"I don't want to be with you anymore."

"I'll tucking kill you. I swear I'll fucking kill you!"

D.A. backs me against our kitchen wall. I smell home brew and puke on his breath.

Is this a bad time to tell him that I got so mad last night, I pissed in every single

homebrew bucket? D.A. grabs a kitchen knife with his meaty right hand. He points the

knife at me.

"Go on then, take the fucking knife away from me," D.A. says, opens his palm, and

inches towards my gut. I stand still, eye on the knife.

"Take the knife you fuck!" D.A. screams.

"Fuck you! You wanna stab me - stab me," I say.

D.A. leaps towards me,—crunch/ - he stabs the wall beside my left temple. I can

see the black knife handle in my left eye's peripheral vision. Crunch! - "Fucking bitch!"

Crunch! crunch! crunch!

Two days to Christmas. Merry Merry. I gaze past the knife, past D.A., past empty

and half empty white plastic buckets. Pink slippers, still in their clear plastic wrapping,

blank notebooks, a toy airplane, a Barbie doll for his little sister, Rachel, a bottle of

Scotch for his uncle Bernie, red wrapping paper with green evergreens and jolly Santa

Clauses pulled by reindeer, clear tape, blank holyday card packs, scissors, bows and

yellow string litter our living room floor. The dollar-store is a G-D-send when all you

have is a welfare check for Christmas. 202 D.A. retreats, "No one will ever love you like I love you." The knife slips from his hand, slices down, and spins in a circle on the linoleum floor. Clockwise.

"If you leave me, I'll go insane. I'll go out and I'll kill someone. I'll kill some stupit

fucking bastard and I'll go to jail forever. It'll all be on your fuckin head."

203 "I'm free out here"

204 18

205 November 16, 1993.

For my birthday today, 18, D.A. bought a bottle of Vodka and a bottle of rum and a 2/4 of beer. He got drunk and we fought and I hate him. I lay on the couch and smile and think about where I spent my last few birthdays: 16 in Toronto, 17 in Vancouver, now 18 in Nova Scotia. I've seen so much of this country.

Last week he backed me up against the kitchen wall. Drunk again, a knife in his hand. If I tried to take the knife from him he would have stabbed me for sure. He wants to go back to jail forever. He's told me so many times. He's told me he'll kill me if I ever leave him - "If you love someone, let them go," he always says and glares at me as he says it. "If they don't come back to you, hunt them down and kill them." Then he laughs, but he's not really laughing.

I hate him but I'm scared to die and I may die this time. I need to think this one out properly. I need to get him back on my own turf -

Toronto. I need to get back to Toronto.

206 Aug. 27th.

It feels good to be back in Toronto. I used our welfare check to get two bus tickets back here.

I tell him if he stops drinking and doing drugs I'll stay. It's not true. I just say so cuz I know he can't stop. All he can do is try to hide it. He fails and fails and fails. I just don't like him. We don't laugh anymore. He's not funny. Sometimes he still tries to be funny.

We fight about the crack he's gotten into lately. He can't stop. We fight about his stupid skinhead friends -1 hate them. We fight about the booze; he drinks vodka and thinks that I won't notice cuz it doesn't smell as strong as beer.

We fight because he doesn't lick my cunt. And I don't want to fuck him anymore anyway. We fight because we have nothing to do and nowhere to go. We fight cuz we have nothing in common. We fight cuz he's stupid and morally weak and I tell him so to his face.

We fight cuz he wants to kill me and the only way to keep him at bay is to keep him scared of me. He is. But I don't know how long he'll stay scared for . . .

207 A Sacrifice for Satan

In her subsidized apartment in Regent Park, Jessey moved her four-year-old son,

John, into her room. The Satanists—Pablo, Dash, Jesus and Cronos—moved into John's room. They partied.

On Wednesday, Satan called for a sacrifice. Dash and Pablo decided Jessey fit the description. So Dash and Pablo drugged Jessey

Dash punched his fist into Jessey's cunt and ripped out all the innards he could grab. He did the same with Jessey's asshole. Pablo watched. Blood splattered the walls and speckled the ceiling. Dash washed his hands - praise be to Satan - and left Jessey's

apartment.

Jesus found Jessey in the morning, in a swamp of blood and spilt insides. Jesus

dialed 911. The ambulance arrived. The police came.

The Satanists and Skinheads called Jesus a rat and promised a violent vengeance.

Children's Aid took four-year-old John away for the last time.

Jessey spent six months in the hospital. She survived.

Jessey's walls and ceiling remained covered with blood. Six months of 'back rent'

accumulated on her government-subsidized Regent Park apartment.

When Jessey left the hospital, she moved into John's room and kept the door to her old bedroom locked. She panhandled to pay off the back rent.

208 "Sure I do it sometimes . .. when I need the money"

209 Jessey Walsh

Inside Evergreen's rickety cube van, on Highway Seven, headed for Toronto,

Jessey Walsh curls a middle ringer through her yellow, corkscrew hair while her puppy

eyes question the passing trees and scan the highway.

A troop of us are on our way back to Yonge Street, to Evergreen, where we cram

week old muffins down our throats and praise Jesus every Sunday afternoon for one small bowl of soup. Every year Evergreen takes a few special street kids on a Christian retreat

outside of the city. This year Evergreen took us.

Jessey glances at me, smiles, and pinches and pulls her freckled left cheek between her thumb and forefinger.

"My skin has changed," Jessey says. "It feels all doughy now." She pulls my palm

onto her face.

Jessey's skin is soft and smooth. She smells of body shop's Dewberry perfume,

cheap dollar store soap, and salt.

"I just farted," she says. "Ooh, Jessey, you sure are stinky today!" Jessey says to herself with a smile and a shake of the head, crinkles her nose and lifts up her stained

sweatshirt, removes a soiled paper towel off her round belly, replaces it with a napkin

from her pocket, applies packing tape to the napkin, and tapes the napkin to her pregnant

stomach.

"Aren't you supposed to use colostomy bags so you can keep it clean and stuff?" I

say.

"I went to welfare and asked them for extra money for colostomy bags," Jessey

says. "They wouldn't give me any extra money for the bags so I need to use something 210 else." Jessie scrunches her freckle-splattered nose and shrugs her emaciated shoulders.

"Do they know you have A.I.D.S.?" I ask. "You can't afford to get any infections now."

"I read somewhere once," Jessey says, her voice trails, drifts and dissipates into the passing traffic, "that when a person gets a disease, you don't gain respect for that person, you gain respect for the disease." Jessey gargles her words and spits them out the window. "I've gained a great deal of respect for this disease," Jessey murmurs.

"What about the baby?" I ask.

"There is a twenty percent chance the baby will be born with H.I.V." Jessey answers. "I'm going to give her up for adoption to this Christian agency I found.

Diamonds for Jesus."

I light a cigarette, stare out the window. Jessey picks the cigarette from my mouth and lights her own.

"Children's Aid says I may get John back if I get my life together and I've already finished the parenting classes," Jessey says. "I'm taking home study classes right now about animals. I'm going to be a veterinarian, I've decided."

"Doesn't that take a long time?" I say.

"Only four years at Guelph University."

"Does Kris have A.I.D.S. too now?" I ask.

"No, he says he tested negative," Jessey answers. "Isn't that crazy? He asked me how I got all the money I get and I told him that I have AIDS and he said that he wanted it too, so he could also have money for the rest of his life. So I sexed him. It's not even that much money." Jessey exhales yellow smoke and runs a finger down the grease- streaked window. "Then, I got pregnant and he left me." 211 "I saw Dice last week at the Green," I say. Jessey smiles a warm smile.

"We were going to get married," Jessey giggles and shakes her curly blonde hair.

"He looks terrible," I say.

"He's dying too," Jessey answers.

"You two didn't use a condom?"

"He said that he loved me, that he wanted to die with me. He said he didn't want to use a condom."

"Are you sure you want to be a Christian now?" I ask.

"I've been everything else. I figure I'll give G-D a try now."

"Is this really what you want?"

"Heaven sounds like a really nice place."

"How's Shaggy?" I ask.

"He has thrush all over his body. He's developed sun spots. He's lost all of his teeth..." Jessey says. A chunk of blonde hair detaches from Jessey's skull and remains in her yellow fingers.

"Look at this," Jessey says. She runs her hands through her hair. Her hair separates from her head, lingers there in her hand. "It's started to fall out."

Jessey shakes her fingers out the window and the strands of corncob silk twist, turn, and sail in the wind.

"Shaggy and I can't seem to live without each other."

"So why divorce him now?" I ask.

"Because he just lazes around the house. He doesn't want to do anything, he isn't going anywhere. He's so ready to die," Jessey says, straightens her back, fixes her hair. "I just can't live like that." She shakes her head. 212 "What's happening with the court case?"

"Dash got three years," she answers.

"Only three years?"

"I pray that he won't find me when he gets out. He'll kill me for ratting on him.

Lots of people want me dead for that right now."

"Fuck them," I say. "Three years! He ripped out all your insides Jess! They--" I stop short.

"Some man called me young lady the other day," Jessey says. " I was so angry."

She shakes her fist at the window. "I said to him, ' Sir, I am a woman. I am 26 years old.

I'm not a child. I have three children of my own.'"

"Jonathan is a great kid," I say.

"I named him Jonathan Lee," Jessey says and smiles a wishful smile. "Because I thought that name would look really great on a business card."

"Do you really think Children's Aid will give him back?" I ask.

"They said they would, I have no reason not to believe them."

"Where is Jonathan now?"

"He's with John's brother and his wife. John was a good father."

"Is John still in jail?"

"I don't know, I think so," Jessey says glumly. "I was really lucky that I wasn't sleeping in the house when John shot it all up. I came home and there were police cars and yellow tape everywhere. Cops had to tear gas the whole place to get him out of there.

He was just shooting everything up. He's so crazy."

"Yeah Jess," I say. "That's pretty fucking crazy."

"Sometimes I get these delusions now," Jessey says. She looks in my eyes. "I think 213 that I have an umbilical cord attached to my belly button and I think it is also attached to everyone else's belly button too. I ask them for the cord back and everyone has to pretend to give the cord back to me or I get really angry."

214 "When you hit rock bottom, there's still six feet left to go"

215 Gluebag Dave

"Hey Dave."

I plunk down beside Gluebag Dave on the sun-warmed downtown Toronto

sidewalk. The sign of the World's Biggest Bookstore casts some shade over us. "Hi,"

Dave mumbles through sticky saliva and slumps against the red brick wall behind him

Dave's chin rests on his chest. A dirty Yankees baseball cap lies in front of Dave's feet

and curls around a scattered flock of pennies, nickels, quarters, loonies and dimes. His

feet smell like stale urine.

Dave's left leg rots inside a grubby cast - he fell off Pizza Pizza's roof three weeks

ago. Oily mouse-blonde hair stands off his head. Transparent airplane model glue hangs,

like dry snot, from Dave's undernourished moustache and clings to his nostrils.

"Dave," I pull my ripped blue jeans and worn-out high top clad legs to my chest, "I

hate the skinheads."

"Everybody hates the skinheads," Dave curls his lips and coughs a sticky cough and

leans his large, round shoulder into my left arm. His breath smells like regurgitated sherry

and freshly structured model airplanes.

"That's what I mean," I shake my head side to side, "Everybody hates the skinheads

and no one ever says or does anything about it."

Dave sparks a smoke. I reach across Dave's dirty body, slide my fingers up his hand

and pluck the cigarette from between his middle and index fingers. I lift the cigarette to my dry, cracked lips, slide my tongue across the filter and pull.

"Fucking skinheads." The smoke streams through my nose and dissipates into the

stale Bay Street air. 216 "Everyone's afraid of them," Dave mumbles, slides his head onto my lap, curls one knee into his stomach and tucks his hands under opposite armpits.

"I think what we should all do is get together - like everyone who really hates the skinheads -1 think we should all get together and beat the fuck out them. Just surround the whole lot of them and smash their heads in with baseball bats and shit and see where that gets the whole thing. I think they'll run home to their fucking mommies right quick after that. The streets will be okay again."

Dave jackknifes up and plops against the red brick wall. "There would need to be a lot of us," he says, then scratches his stubbly round chin.

"There are a lot of us. Everyone who's not a skinhead hates the skinheads."

Dave raises his eyebrows and nods and wipes fresh saliva from the corner of his gray mouth.

"Fuck, look at what the fuck they're doing all the time. Look at what they did to Pig

Dog in the underground parking lot squat. They beat his face in so bad I barely recognized him. His fucking front teeth are gone. They jumped up and down on his head with their cherry docs and for what?"

"Because he wore red running shoes," Dave interjects.

"They did it for a fucking laugh."

Dave hacks gooey yellow phlegm into his dirty fist and wipes the phlegm on his gray pants and cocks his greasy head and focuses his lime green eyes on my lips.

"It used to be folks got beatings like that for rattin' or rapin' or some shit. Now the fuckers almost kill a guy for wearing red shoes." I spit an indignant spit on the pavement beside Dave's big feet.

"Yeah, it's fucked." Dave nods. 217 "So, Dave, I thought, maybe, if I start talkin' others will start talkin'," I roll the cigarette on my lips and draw a sharp, quick bite of stale tobacco, "and soon we'll all be talking to each other. The skinheads will never suspect a thing and they always run together. We'll just go to their park and fuckin' do them in one night."

"I like it." Dave bobbles his head up and down, clutches at the redbrick wall behind him and teeters to his wide, unsteady feet. "I'm in."

218 Lessons

1. Trust no one

2. Spray deodorant on your feet so your feet don't sweat in boots.

3. Wrap plastic bags around your feet.

4. Lay a sheet of cardboard on top of a hot air vent. The cardboard will triple the

warmth beneath you when you sleep on top of the vent.

5. Temperatures rise and fall during the night; wear many layers of cloths; peel the

layers off and pile the layers on as temperature fluctuates. Do not overheat in the

winter. You get pneumonia if you sweat.

6. Sally Ann locks the doors as soon as prayers start - you gotta pray if you wanna eat.

7. Never tell anyone your real name — can't rat you out if they don't know your name.

8. Hitchhike in pairs.

9. Happy panhandlers make more money than pathetic panhandlers.

10. Make them laugh and they will give you money.

11. Never get into a van or a car with tinted windows.

12. Squats have four dead ends and only one way out.

13. If you want to huff glue, huff model airplane glue - NOT rubber cement.

219 14. Don't take an open drink from anyone.

15. If you're the last in line for the Sally Ann Food Van, they let you stay inside a little

longer, talk to you, give you second helpings.

16. The Don La Rou Food Van in Montreal gives out dog bones for your pets.

17. Family questions are none of your business.

18. Sleep beneath the St. Clair bridge (Toronto) in spring and fall: the rain won't touch

you and the view is awesome.

19. Make friends.

20. You gotta trust somebody sometime.

220 Are you sitting down?

"Half-Pint, phone for you."

I sit at the small, round, green wood and metal foldout tables inside Evergreen.

"Half-Pint, phone!" Pastor Mike's voice jingles through the air like church bell quires.

"Phone for you, Half-Pint!" Pastor Mike yells.

I stand, push my plastic red chair with the back of my knees, scratch the scabies infested crook of my arm and stagger towards Evergreen's small, black, 'home phone'.

"Thanks." I slide the phone off Pastor Mike's open palm.

"Speak." I say.

"Half-Pint?"

"It is I."

"Half-Pint, it's Cockroach."

"Hi Roach."

"Half-Pint, are you sitting down?"

"No, I'm standing."

"Please go get a chair and sit down."

"Fuck you, what the Fuck?"

"Please get a chair Half-Pint." Cockroach's voice is eerily patient 'drip' doesn't work

I drop the phone on the counter - bang - stomp to the closest red plastic chair, and drag it back to the counter. I lift the heavy black receiver.

"Ooooookay. I'm sitting down." I fall, shlumpppp, into the hard red molded plastic.

"Half-Pint," Cockroach sucks her teeth and clears her throat - 221 "What the fuck is going on, Roach?"

"Half-Pint, Glue Bag Dave is dead."

"Yeah, very funny, fuck-you very much - ha ha." I tap my index fingers against the receiver.

"No, Half-Pint, this is real. Dave is dead. They found him this morning. Someone killed him."

I stand, rest my elbows on the warm black countertop and press the edge of the muffin crumb scattered counter into my stomach, "It was that bastard Clint and his bullshit skinhead cronies."

"The police don't know who did it."

"I don't give a shit what pigs don't know." I slam the phone into its cradle. Bang.

Bang, bang.

222 "Hey, did you hear, the police just arrested D.A. for murder

Yeah, he killed some faggot

The Sun said D.A. strangled and beat the guy to death, then set fire to the guy's lobby"

223 Children

Jessey had four children. She gave up her first son, Allen, for adoption when he was two. Jessey's second son, John, lives in and out of Children's Aid care.

Jessey's third son, Daniel, was Shaggy's son too. Daniel went up for adoption when he was six months old. Shaggy died of AIDS.

Jessey's daughter, Margaret, was born HIV positive and given up for adoption to an agency called Diamonds for Jesus. A pediatric doctor adopted Margaret and treated her, immediately, with the HIV cocktail. Margaret is HIV negative now.

Punky French didn't speak any English. She was a tall, thin girl with a scraggly blue and purple Mohawk. Punky French slept in the park beside me. Her thin baby, Jean-

Baptiste, lay on her beer soaked chest and cried and cried and cried the most pityful of cries all night.

Crystal's son, Davy, was a fast and chubby boy. Crystal left Davy's father, Dave Sr. with Davy and hung out in Dominos, an underground bar on Yonge and College. Crystal left Dave Sr. for Conan when she saw how well Conan played pool. She took Davy with her.

Crystal and Conan had two more boys, Roger and Danny. Now there were three boys. Danny, four months old, spent his time in a small crib beside the T.V. with a bottle of sugar water between his weak lips and a veil of cigarette and pot smoke around him.

Danny and Roger lived in their room.

One afternoon, Roger broke his room's window and climbed outside. Crystal found

Roger outside, kicking and hitting and smashing a poplar tree by the door.

Dorothy had five children - each child had a different father- in a two-bedroom 224 apartment. All of Dorothy's kids were boys. Dorothy said she wasn't stopping 'till she got a girl.

Care Bear had a boy - she named him John. Care Bear left John with his father,

John Sr., for two years then took John Jr. back. Now John Jr. lives in a foster home in

Alberta.

Julia named her baby Alexis. Julia couldn't pass the heroin drug tests and

Children's Aid put Alexis up for adoption. I saw Julia lying in the street last year. She didn't look well.

Jenny had a baby girl with Mike. They named her Cherry. Jenny beat Mike with a baseball bat. Mike gave Jenny a black eye. I don't know what happened to Cherry.

Lisa had an abortion. Shit Sue had three abortions. Harley can't remember how many abortions she's had — "over ten."

Brain-Dead and Lyn had nine children between them, some children together some with different partners- all in the care of Children's Aid now.

St. Mary - 5"9, 2501b - had two girls. She named the first girl Sunshine. I saw St.

Mary panhandling in front of Evergreen last summer. She says sometimes she "loses it" with her kids and hits them "so hard."

Danielle had Sephira. Sephira went to live with Danielle's grandma in British

Columbia when Danielle went back to speed and coke and crack and whoring on the

streets of Ottawa. Danielle also had Kyle. Kyle went to live with Janis when Danielle hit him on the head too hard too many times.

Danielle says she doesn't do drugs anymore.

"I'm clean, I only do speed, acid and pot now," Danielle says. Danielle is pregnant again. "Gotta smoke?" 225 Over the Phone, from Don Jail

"Sure I get scared," D.A. says. "You gotta be a flicking idiot not to get scared when you're in a dangerous situation. The trick is to do what you gotta do no matter how scared you are. If you gotta fucking fight and you know you're gonna lose and big pains a comin' your way, you just fucking push yourself through that shit and grit your teeth and fucking fight like you're gonna die. That's courage."

226 Pasteficio's

Paseficio's Bar and Grill. Yonge Street. Toronto, Ontario. Midnight.

Skids line the entrance to the bar. Skids line the walls like empty Molson cases.

Skids lean against brown, rickety wood tables. Skids slump against four seater booths and scratch scabies off their arms and stomachs and lean their heads on dirty wooden tables.

We drink.

We drink like desert plants. Beer spills. "Dave" drops from everybody's lips.

Cockroach cries. I sit alone inside a dark booth by the door and sip my Molson Fifty. A small pile of green, peeled Fifty labels rests beside my arm.

"Hi, Half-Pint," Chelsea veers headfirst into my little booth.

Chelsea is a willowy girl with a "Chelsea" hair cut - bald all over with long bangs and curly tufts of hair veiling her ears. Chelsea is Darryl's girlfriend. Darryl is a skinhead.

"Hi," I say, grit my teeth and tap an index finger against my brown Molson Fifty beer bottle.

"Can I sit with you for a minute?" Chelsea smiles an uneasy smile and tries (and fails) to hide one of her Doc Marten's boots with the other.

"Sit." I lift my beer, press the brown bottle between my teeth, tilt, gulp. Then slam the bottle against the dark brown wood table before me. Chelsea slinks onto the bench across from me and looks around nervously.

"Half-Pint, I know who killed Dave," Chelsea whispers.

"This look like the fuckin' cop shop to you?" I stare into Chelsea's watery green eyes - she's only been on the streets for a month - and contemplate smashing my beer bottle against her smooth white forehead then jabbing it between her thin ribs. 227 How dare you come in here and expect a friend, you stupid skinhead wannabe, weekend warrior whore. We all know your fucking skinhead boyfriend killed Dave. You useless fucking slut, if I took you right now, the whole crew would join in. We 'd send our messages to Dave with you, you fucking bitch.

"Darryl and Clint killed Dave," Chelsea whispers.

I glare at Chelsea's small, round face. "I know." I grind my teeth. "We all fucking know who killed Dave."

"Darryl came home last night, he was covered in blood. He told me how it happened... what he did."

I nod, lean my chest against the wooden table between us, grab her eyes with mine and nod again.

"He said—" Chelsea flicks a pack of Export A Green cigarettes open, yanks the tinfoil cover off the second deck of smokes, crushes it between her long, white Nazi fingers and stuffs the tinfoil ball into the empty half of the green cigarette package - her hand shakes - "Darryl and Clint were drinking all night at Garry's place. Dave was asleep on the couch.

"Darryl said that he and Clint woke Dave up and said 'Wake up buddy boy, today's your dyin' day.' Darryl said that they took Dave to the bathtub and stabbed him in the chest and that no matter how many times they stabbed him he just refused to die and he screamed and begged for his life." Chelsea chokes and coughs and wipes her eyes and continues, "Darryl said that Dave screamed so much they took Dave's I.D. and stuffed it between his top and bottom front teeth and kicked his mouth shut. Darryl said they broke the knife inside Dave's chest and he still wouldn't die. Then Darryl told me that they didn't have another sharp knife so they tried to cut Dave's head off with one of those 228 serrated bread knives." Chelsea glances around the side of our table. I lean back against the warm worn wood and watch the willowy girl.

"I called the police." Chelsea says, "I called the police right after Darryl left today and told them everything." Chelsea wipes the table with a nervous hand.

"Did you call anonymously?" I ask.

"No, I told them my name and who I am and I went down to the station and wrote a statement and signed it."

My heart tip-taps against my throat. Poor, stupid fucking kid. "Does anyone else know you called the police?"

"No."

"Have you told anybody else at all that you called the cops?" I lean across the table.

"I had to call the cops," Chelsea wipes her green eyes and rests her forehead against her elbow propped palm. "They killed an innocent person."

"Listen, no one will care what happened - a rat is a rat." I push my beer aside, reach my right hand across the beer soaked table surface and squeeze the edge of Chelsea's side of the table.

"But they killed him." Chelsea whimpers into her palm and glares up into my eyes.

"If word gets out you called the cops, you're dead."

"They killed him-"

"We will kill you too."

Chelsea's eyes move across my lips and tremble.

"Do you think anybody heard what I said to you?" Chelsea sinks into the table.

"Pick up your bag and go and don't come back."

Chelsea swipes her bag off the floor, drops her head and scuttles out the door. 229 Dave's dead and the date doesn't matter.

He made it into the papers. . . a small article in Star's Toronto back pages--- Dave's dead. It's my fault. He asked me to stay with me the night that he was killed. He asked if he can sleep where I sleep and I said "only if you don't huff glue while you're with me." And Dave looked away, so forlorn--- Then he went and stayed with those bastards. Now he's dead. I hate them. I hate everybody here.

I want a home now! This isn't fun or interesting anymore. I don't have friends anymore. I had friends once - they died. I don't want to die here. I'm desperate not to die here.

I don't know what it's like to have a home anymore. The memories are so vague and so stupid now. I can't imagine grocery shopping. The few times that I've held a place down long enough to do it, it felt so strange; I felt so out of place. I'm scared. I'm scared of the woman behind the checkout counter. I look at her with my fist in my pocket, clutching my money, and feel like she's going to throw me out of the store.

I was young when I asked Guitar Steve, "Why have you been here so long - why don't you get off if you hate it?" He told me, "Getting off the street is like pushing as hard as you can, for as long as you can, on the outside wall of The World's Biggest Bookstore and trying to make it

230 move."

I got up from my panning spot in front of The World's Biggest

Bookstore today, turned and faced the wall. I put my hands on the dirty bricks and pushed and pushed, just to see how it feels to start getting off the street. Impossible. What do I have to gain: All the things "they" have.

What do I lose? My personality. My blankets. My backpack. My highway.

The blowers I sleep on. Everyone I know. Everyone I love. All my memories. All the things I'm proud of.

Dave was so beautiful. Dave was my age, but when I think of him I think of a child. He was so good and kind and nice. I never even found out why he left home. All those years I never even asked him.

I can't remember how many guys fucked me. How many 18-year- olds can say that?

How will I fit in with other folks my age? Who will be my friend on the other side of this, on the home side of this? How can I get to the other side?

231 19

232 Birthday

November 16

I'm nineteen years old today. Finally! Old enough to buy beer legally. . .

Psycho, Shawn, Guitar Steve, Reb and Deb, all offered to buy me a beer today. I went to Domino's, my favourite hangout bar, and ordered a pop for the first time. I've been drinking here so long. When I ordered the pop, I told Hans it was my birthday and

showed him my ID. He shook his head at me. He said he couldn't believe how young I

am. I laughed but I knew he was lying. He knew my age. He didn't care. Thank

goodness.

I drank my Orange Crush alone. When you drink pop you drink alone. I wanted to

see what it's like to be straight and sober again. Not bad. I don't even like beer. I just

drink it to fit in. I don't fit in. This is the only home I've ever known and these are the

only friends I've ever had. I love them. I love them but.... 19 means I can write the high

school equivalency test.... Maybe go to college....

I'm thinking to call my dad. I'm thinking to ask him for help. But he is so busy and

so far away with his wives and his money and all his Russian Mob shit.

233 Doing It

"I felt tired a lot so I went to the doctor and I got a pregnancy test and an AIDS test.

The pregnancy test came back negative. The AIDS test came back positive," Jessey said.

Shaggy knew Jessey had AIDS but he rucked her anyway. Shaggy did it for love.

Peter asked Jessey how she got all that money - 900 dollars a month - from ODSP.

Peter told Jessey he wanted to get AIDS too. He did it for money.

Dash knew Jessey had AIDS. Though Dash didn't fuck her, he did rip out her insides; his hands were covered with open wounds. Dash didn't get AIDS. Dash did it for

Satan.

Dice knew Jessey had AIDS but fucked her without a condom anyway. Dice didn't know why he did it. Dice died of AIDS.

234 Against the Wall

"Hey, you," I tap Cockroach's shoulder from behind. "Where you been?"

"Around."

Cockroach and I head up Yonge Street, towards Gerrard, and veer into the Alley behind Evergreen.

"Whatcha been up to, I've been looking for you..."

"I met this gal, Sherry --"

"Sherry?" I wrinkle my nose. "I know her, the chucky new blonde one, right - always drinks Sex on the Beach..."

"Anyway, we've been hanging out and diggin' on each other an all so .. ."

"So, is she your girlfriend now?"

"It's not official but yeah, you could say so."

"I could say so huh?"

"If you want to..."

I grab Cockroach's collar, drag her behind the dumpster, smash her back against the cold concrete wall and press my lips against hers. Cockroach tilts her face so the skin of her cheek touches my cheek. She rolls her tongue along my teeth and licks my tongue.

She pauses her hands on my hips. I let go, pull away. Cockroach lights a cigarette and presses it between my lips.

"So you like her?" I ask.

"Yeah, I like her, she likes me..."

"I'm glad."

"I'm glad too," Cockroach says. 235 "Are you really?"

"Sure am."

I spit my smoke onto the sidewalk and crush it with the heel of my black steel-toe boot.

"Wanna go for a beer?" Cockroach asks.

"Sure."

236 Grange Park

Grange Park sits nestled behind the Art Gallery of Ontario, between Beverley and

McCaul Street. Grange Park has public bathrooms. The bathrooms are inside a little building beside a playground when you enter the park.

On a cold November morning, I wake up in Grange Park beneath the overhang formed by the bathroom roof. I'm drenched in hot sweat. I groan and lift my face and listen to the frost on my sleeping bag crackle. Last night my left ear hurt so much I cried and cried and cried. This morning the pain is worse. This morning I can't hear through my left ear.

"You gettin up today Half-Pint?" Shawn leans over me.

"I'm dying," I answer.

"Well," Shawn says, as he spreads his orange sleeping bag on top of my green sleeping bag, on top of me. "Steve took your dogs panning with him already and I'm going over there now to take over for him - we'll feed the dogs too." Shawn layers

Steve's green sleeping bag on top of his sleeping bag and mine.

I moan a pitiful moan, roll to my side and watch a hundred Chinese people perform

Tai Chi on the frost-kissed green grass.

"You gotta go to the doctor," Shawn says, kneels on one knee and laces his brown running shoes.

"I went to the walk-in clinic beside Eaton's Center Yesterday. They said they won't take me without a health card."

"Bastards."

I hack green phlegm. Green phlegm oozes down my chin. I close my eyes. I'm 237 dying. I shiver, sob, and spasm inside my sleeping bag. I'm dying. I drift to sleep.

"Half-Pint, Half-Pint," Steve playfully kicks me awake.

"Where are my dogs?" I struggle with my eyes. My eyes remain glued shut with puss. My left ear aches. Steve's voice sounds like he's stuck inside a fishtank.

"Dogs are with Shawn. Dogs are fine." Steve says and hands me a warm round

Styrofoam container. "You hungry? I got you some soup."

I sit up - "Thanks Steve." - steady myself with one arm and take the soup from

Steve's outstretched hand. Pain jabs through my ear like a hypodermic needle. I sip my soup and choke back tears.

"Okay," I say, steady myself on the concrete and crawl from beneath my mound of sleeping bags and blankets.

"Atta girl," Steve smiles.

I stagger into the washrooms and crawl to the toilet and puke from the pain.

Steve is gone when I return from the toilet.

I roll up green, blue, and red sleeping bags, fold torn, white wool blankets and pile the heap against the bathroom wall and tie my hair back with a ripped black shoelace.

I wobble and weave to a walk-in clinic on Yonge Street, step into the office and hurl myself at the front desk. I grip the desk with both hands. My teeth clatter against one another. I feel hot and cold and hot and cold, and fucking hot and bloody fucking cold.

"I am in a great deal of pain. I have no health card. I must see the doctor."

"We need a health card," The receptionist says.

Tears roll down my face, cascade off my quivering lips and splash onto my feet.

"I'm in pain."

The receptionist strolls from the desk and disappears behind an office door. 238 I lean on the desk and cough wet coughs into my fist. My lips are red like ripe tomatoes and dry and chapped and cracked like sidewalks in the sun. It hurts to speak.

The receptionist returns.

"Take a seat," the receptionist says. "The doctor with be with you shortly."

Inside the doctor's office, a thin blond nurse stands beside me. The doctor, a middle aged man with thick dark hair and a white jacket, peers into my ear with a triangular flashlight. I grit my teeth against the agony.

"She has an ear infection," the doctor tells the nurse and presses a cold metal disk against my back. "Sounds like fluid in her lungs, probably pneumonia," the doctor says and scampers from the room. I turn and gaze at the nurse.

"Will I get my hearing back?" I ask her. "I can't hear in my left ear."

"I don't know," she answers.

The doctor ambles into the room, kneels in front of me and hands me a yellow bottle of pills.

"Take one pill, three times a day, on a full stomach, until the pills are gone," the doctor tells me.

A full stomach?

I take the pills and clench them in my fist. "Thank-you."

Back in my sleeping bag at Grange Park, I swallow my third pill with a bite of half a tuna sandwich from the Anishnaba Street Patrol food van. I watch the sun set over the treetops and flip open my dollar store diary...

239 Dear Diary,

Today marks the sixth year of my time on the streets. Everyone I

knew, when I first came here, is dead, or dying, or in jail.

Once I watched the old bag lady with the baby stroller that she

pushes and the little doll inside that she thinks is a real baby and I

believed I would be her someday. Today, I don't think I'll make it that far.

Today I watch the people walk their dogs inside this park and I wish I

could be them. How do they do it? How do they live and eat and hold down jobs and have a place of their own? Do they ever look at me and think they

may be in my spot one day? No home, no bed to sleep in, no fridge full of

food to wake up to. Lately, when I sleep, I dream of a warm home and a

fridge full of food.

I always thought that I was only here for a short while. I thought that

by the time I hit sixteen I would get welfare, and a place to live, then a job

and a life and food on the table. But here I am, nineteen years old, still on

the street.

One by one by one almost all of my friends are dead. Shaggy, Red

dog, Dice, The Three Little Injins, Gluebag Dave - I can't! I won't name

them all.

Sometimes I look around and wonder who'll die next. Today I know

240 who will die next. I will.

If I don't give it my best try, if I don't give it one more fucking try right fucking now - I've been here long enough to know - I will be dead before next summer hits. It's my turn. It is no longer a matter of 'Am I ready to try again?' Now it is a matter of 'Am I ready to die?' I am not.

I shut my diary and tuck it in my backpack - my backpack doubles as a pillow - and lay my head on top and close my eyes.

"I'm not," I whisper, and my breath drifts through the frosted air. "I'm not," I say, more loudly.

"Half Pint - shut up!' Steve growls. "I'm trying to sleep."

241 Down To This

For Jeanette Walsh (Jessey)

1968-1997

Two weeks ago I shared vanilla ice-cream with Jessey.

"When you're dying they let you eat anything you want." Jessey smiled. "I have ice-cream for breakfast every morning."

Jessey handed me her little silver teaspoon "Want some?"

St. Michael's Hospital, 1997.

I stand on the third floor. The elevator doors close behind me. I survey the pale green palliative care unit and stare at the large, round, brown table in front of me. Two nurses sit with heads down and mouths shut and read their newspapers and drink their coffee from Tim Horton's paper cups.

The blonde nurse taps her fingers on the table. The one with thick brown hair inside a sloppy bun twists her pen inside her pale pink hand. A large white sign hangs from the ceiling above the desk. Black block letters on the sign read:

"FRONT DESK"

I brush my left hand through my fire engine red Mohawk, inhale the bitter Mr.

Clean and Lysol air and coast three paces towards the desk. The women in white keep their heads down.

I turn at the desk - my black army boots squeak on the linoleum floor - walk three paces and touch the white door with my right hand. I lean my head against the pastel green wall and watch a trace of yellow light squeeze between door and wall.

I hear hushed voices. Lilac air freshener, lemon floor cleaner and Dewberry 242 perfume, Jessey's favorite perfume, waft through the air.

When I press the door with my index finger, it glides open. Phyllis, Jessey's

caregiver and friend and Jessey's mother Ramona huddle in a corner beside a hospital bed

with its high metal sides. Shiny silver sidebars stand around the bed. Starched white

sheets stretch along Jessey's emaciated body. One sky blue pillow lies below her head.

Ramona rests in a rocking chair; a paperback crossword booklet spread open upon

her lap. Ramona's brown hair hangs thin and tangled below her shoulders. Her narrow

face is huge, square eyeglasses and her slender form is hidden inside a bulky grey

sweatshirt imprinted with Canada Geese.

Phyllis leans against a corner beside Ramona's chair and stares out of the window

at the opposite wall.

If you can hear me, give me a sign. Talk to me when it's over, when you 're on the

other side. I stroke Jessey's slack hand. I press Jessey's palm into mine. You always said

we were connected. I stare at her languid face. Prove it to me; show me you can hear me.

I lay my hand on Jessey's cool white covers and let her soft palm rest on top of mine.

With my free hand I grasp the cold, shiny, steel hospital bed handrail and squeeze it.

Jessey's hand twitches inside mine. Ramona rocks in her chair. Phyllis picks a

spot of dust from her sweater. I brush my red Mohawk from my eyes, lay Jessey's hand

upon her crisp white sheets and walk away.

243