The Stranger's Constellations
Adam King
There’s something about sleeping in a homeless shelter that makes me feel like I’m being emptied out. I’d been moving between the Hope
Shelter and the Williams House for months and I was starting to feel melodramatic—like if I stayed any longer there’d be nothing left inside of me. I escaped to park benches, doorways, and an abandoned warehouse on McKinley full
of squatters. With all of those eyes on me it felt like I was still in the shelter, except now I could get stabbed in my sleep.
For over a week I spent nights at McKinley and days rooting around the landfill and the dumpsters behind industrial buildings. It was starting to get cold when I wandered into Delaney Metals. I dug around in their
dumpsters and then went behind their loading bays and saw a stack of cardboard by the rear entrance. Most of the boxes had been dismantled for recycling, but near the bottom of the pile I found a box with walls nearly an inch thick,
folded into a neat square. I felt as scared and possessive as a first-time homeowner as I pulled it out and swatted some garbage off of it. I folded it under my arm and carried it to my shopping cart, and then I whistled my way into
the pits of downtown.
I set up in an alley behind the Felter Brothers warehouse, where no police came. I could tell everybody was jealous by the way they eyed the box with their lips pressed together, but nobody messed with me since I stabbed T
Bone a few months back. It had been an accident, but everybody treated me with respect so I never let on.
Over the year or so since I lost my house I’d accumulated
blankets and a few ratty pillows, so besides the smell of old cigarettes and body odor everything was good until I met the kid.
Late one night when I was asleep he peeked his head in my box when it was raining. The light from the street lamps poured in and I started, and we stared at each other until I reached under my blankets and took out my knife. ‘This is my box,’ I said. I flashed the blade at him and he stared at me a second longer, and then his head disappeared and my box tilted and righted itself. I flung my blankets off and
scrambled out, but he was gone.
I went around the side to check for damage, but it was a good, hard box. I went back in and took off my top layers and put them between my blankets, then I lay back down and tried to sleep.
My coat and pants were still wet in the morning, but I put them on, anyway, and I went out in the rain for breakfast. The Soup Kitchen was a few blocks away, a brick building with bars on the windows and a big, wooden door. I went before the breakfast rush so I could get my usual
table.
‘Francisco,’Lenny said when I got to the serving line. ‘You’re soaked, man.’
‘Raining,’I said. Lenny covered his mop of hair with a net, and he wore thick glasses, but his shirts and jeans were always clean, and talkingto him made me feel like I was clean, too.
He laughed. ‘I know it. Same thing today?’
I looked through the glass. Grapefruits, melons, small boxes of cereal. ‘Yeah,’ I said. I ate the same thing every day to keep me from getting anxious about other things.
He pushed a plate with a cheese Danish over and grabbed three slices of bread with a pair of tongs. I took them to the toaster and got milk and juice. I started to my usual table in the corner, where I could see everyone from, but there was a kid in my seat. I squinted. I remembered his face from the
dark and rain last night.
‘This is my table,’ I said.
He took a bite of toast. Poured Cheerios into a bowl and opened a small carton of milk. He looked up at me and his eyes flashed with recognition.
I sat down and glared at him. I couldn’t eat with him sitting
there.
He poured his milk, took a bite of cereal. ‘Everything yours?’he said. His face was thin.
‘What’s mine is mine,’ I said.
He coughed a deep, congested cough. I didn’t see anything in his face. Not fear or anything.
‘Is this table worth dying for?’ he said, and I squeezed my eyes to process what he said, then I jumped up, my chair tumbling back.
‘You don’t understand what I’m saying to you?’ I said.
I saw Lenny coming from the corner of my eye, but I couldn’t eat with the kid at my table. My hands shook. ‘You kicked my box.’
He coughed into his elbow, hacked something up and spit into a napkin. ‘It was cold,’ he said.
‘It was my box.’
‘You already said that,’ he said.
Lenny came up beside me. ‘Alright, guys, cut it
out.’
I wanted to apologize, but I couldn’t with the kid sitting there smug. ‘I tried to sleep under a tree,’ the kid said. ‘A car passed and someone threw a beer bottle at me.’ I saw a cut on his face. His eyes were bloodshot.
Lenny handed him a card. ‘Get there before nine. They usually have open beds. If not beds, at least a roof.’
The kid looked at the card. He pocketed it and got
up.
‘See you for lunch?’ Lenny said, but the kid left without
answering.
Lenny took the kid’s tray away. I sat down, but my toast had cooled so the butter wouldn’t melt. I took a bite of my Danish, chewed for a long time, and choked it down. I tried another bite, then took my tray and dumped it. I went down the hall to the laundry room and took off my top layers
and put them on the washer to reserve a spot, then I sat and waited in the warmth of the room, smelling the fabric softener beneath the odor of mildewed clothes. When my first cycle was finished, I waited until everybody left and
took off my pants and underwear. I smelled my underwear and wrinkled my nose, fingered the holes in the crotch. I put on my clean top layers so I wasn’t naked and went to the showers while my clothes cycled.
Outside I went to the side alley for my cart, but it was gone. I retraced my steps, anxiety blooming in my chest, and when I didn’t find anything I went back and stood in the alley for a long time. I fingered the handle of my knife and held back tears. I saw a cigarette butt, damp but still smoldering, so I bent and picked it up. Parliament. Everyone smoked Parliaments. I tried to remember if I’d seen the kid smoking. I wiped lipstick off the filter, then got out my Zippo and lit the cigarette and thought about the
kid.
The day was dark and everything smelled like sulfur. I walked a few blocks and stopped in front of the Eighth Street Pawnbrokers, twisting my wedding band around my finger. The band was scratched and dull, but it was the
last thing I had from my other life. Instead of going in, I went to the bridgebelow 395. The sound of cars above echoed against the supports. Melon sat by the water smoking. I made my way down and sat beside her.
‘Sometimes I think that all there is is this bridge,’ she
said.
I took her cigarette and dragged off it and gave it
back.
‘Like the water don’t go nowhere, and there ain’t no cars,
really. Just the sound.’
‘You seen a kid around here?’ I said.
She finished her cigarette and flicked it in the water. ‘You
only come when you want something. You think I’ll always be here?’
‘Under this bridge?’ I said. There was an oily smudge on her forehead. I wiped it off.
She smiled. ‘Lots of kids.’
‘You’d know him,’ I said. ‘Got a half-grown beard. He stole my cart and my home.’
‘You can’t carry a home around in no cart,’ she said.
‘How you supposed to get it around, then?’
She stood up and held a hand out. I looked across the water. Someone had gone halfway across the creek and sprayed graffiti on a support beam on the bridge. I wondered if they used a boat, or what. Someone had wanted that badly to violate something.
She took my hand. ‘Sometimes I think you’re
crazy.’
‘Maybe I am,’ I said.
‘Come on,’ she said, ‘crazy man.’ She led me behind the bridge, through the trees and down by the creek where no one could see.
***
For lunch I went with Melon to The Soup Kitchen. Lenny stood behind the counter in latex gloves and an apron. ‘Francisco,’ he said when I came up. ‘With the lovely Melon.’
‘Oh you,’ she said, smiling. She pressed against me.
‘What can I get for you today?’ Lenny said.
‘Tuna,’ I said.
‘I know what you’re having,’ Lenny said. He handed me a sandwich already wrapped in plastic. ‘He gets the same thing every day,’ he said.
‘Boring,’Melon said.
‘It’s not boring,’ I said.
She looked at Lenny. ‘Boring,’ she said. Lenny nodded and I felt like they were conspiring against me and for a second I wanted to throw my tray on the floor and tell them to go to hell, but instead I smiled and said, ‘Okay, it’s boring,’and walked off to my table. People were sitting there, but I expected that during lunch. Melon pulled out a chair beside me.
‘What?’she said. ‘Now you’re mad?’
I unwrapped my sandwich, crumpled the plastic into a little ball and tossed it on my tray.
‘You are such a little boy,’ she said.
I wiped my mouth with a napkin, washed the tuna down with juice. ‘I’m not a little boy.’
The cafeteria was noisy. It made it hard to concentrate. I
studied the linoleum pattern, green and beige checkers flecked with brown and white. I made pictures with the pattern. Two green squares for eyes, down five and diagonal, then across and diagonal the opposite way, then up five. The bottom half of a face, sort of.
‘Where you staying tonight?’ Melon said.
I thought about what she said, tried concentrating on the floor to make the top half of the face but couldn’t. I sighed and put a hand on the table. ‘Shelter,’I said.
‘Shelter?’She put her sandwich down.
‘That’s what I said.’
‘I thought you didn’t like it there.’
‘I hate it. Makes me feel hopeless.’
‘Hopeless?’she said.
‘I said homeless.’
We ate in silence, and when the lunch rush was finished Lenny came over. ‘How’s everything?’ he said.
‘Peachy,’ I said.
He’s not feeling good,’ Melon said.
‘I’m great,’ I said.
Lenny put a hand on the back of my chair. ‘What’s wrong,
man?’
‘He has to stay at the shelter tonight. Someone stole his
stuff.’
‘It was that kid,’ I said. ‘That one from breakfast.’
‘That’s too bad,’ Lenny said. He studied my tray a second. ‘We might have some spare blankets in the pantry.’
‘Yeah?’ Melon said. She raised her eyebrows at me.
‘I don’t want those blankets,’ I said. ‘I want my
blankets.’
‘He’s like a little boy sometimes,’ she said.
I looked away. ‘I’m not a little boy,’ I said. ‘I told you. You think shit’s funny, but it’s not.’
‘Hey man,’ Lenny said. ‘It’s okay. I bet we can get your stuff back.’
‘We ain’t never gonna get it back,’ I said. I wanted to tell
them that once something was gone it was gone for good, but a guy across the table with a wiry beard leaned forward. ‘Stop feelin sorry for yourself. We all had shit stolen.’He went back to talking with an ugly bald woman.
‘Man, whatever.’ I took my tray and got up.
‘Where you goin?’ Melon said.
I dumped my garbage and left the tray on the can, and I heard Melon say, ‘Honey, where you goin?’ I spun on her because I wanted to break something.
‘Honey?’ I said. ‘I’m not your damn honey, and it ain’t none of your business where I’m going.’ I saw the hurt on her face before I turned, and I hated myself, but it felt good,
too. I felt her watching as I left.
I went straight to the pawn shop and sold my ring for enough money to get a few liters of cheap vodka.
I opened the vodka right outside of the liquor store and took a long swig. I thought about how I could be a rat drinking poison, and that made me think of a mousetrap, which made me think of a basement, and then my old
house.
What I liked to do in my house after my wife left was sit on the porch and smoke a cigarette and just sit. I’d watch the cars and listen for the rush of air after they were gone. I had a dog named James. When it got dark I’d get off my wicker chair, the cushion worn to the shape of my butt, and go inside and sit at the kitchen table with a cup of soup and finish reading the paper.
I raised my bottle and drank to nobody and to nothing, and I wanted Melon but I wasn’t crawling back to her. I saw a Newport on the ground, almost whole, and I bent and fell head first right next to it. I reached for it and lay there and smoked it until it was nothing but filter. It hit the lungs
just right, and I felt almost like I could have gone right into a gas station and told the cashier to give me a whole pack—a carton. Then I’d go in my pocket and take out my wallet, and the money would smell like leather.
I rolled over and watched the stars. It made me think of the
stickers me and my wife put on our bedroom ceiling. Constellations that glowed in the dark. I didn’t know who lived in our house now, but I hoped they’d kept them. I rolled onto my hands and knees and when my head steadied a little I got up.
I stumbled down the street, through Blueberry Park and down Main until I got to Chancey Road, where I used to live. I stopped in front of my old house and it felt like something was rising in my throat. I got up the nerve to
walk to the porch and ring the doorbell. After a while, a woman answered.
I squinted at her, put my hand on the wall to steady myself. I had to know if my life was so unimportant that you could peel it off of a ceiling and throw it away. ‘You still got the constellations up?’ I said. I tried to stand up straight and look down on her to make myself look imposing, then I figured it would be better to look friendly, so I slumped back and tried to smile.
The lady looked at me. I thought she was wondering how I knew about the constellations, so I said, ‘Me and my wife put them—they glow on the ceiling—we put them up, they’re ours.’
‘I don’t know you,’ she said, and she closed the door and I
heard it lock. I knocked on the door and when no one answered, banged more loudly. ‘I just want to see the constellations!’ I said.
A man’s voice came from behind the door. ‘If you don’t leave,’ he said, ‘we’re calling the police.’
‘You don’t understand,’ I said. I kicked the door and told him to call the damn police, but when I saw through the window that he was holding a phone I limped off. I wanted to turn back to the house, but I felt like if I did I would have lost some kind of battle.
***
A sheet of clouds rolled across the sun as I approached the
shelter. It looked like an old brick schoolhouse. A line had already formed that was so long that I wasn’t sure if I’d get a bed. The man ahead of me wore a faded backpack, frayed at the top and packed tight. He chirped like a bird every
once in a while, and it sounded so real that I kept glancing at the bushes to be sure.
A short old man tapped me on the shoulder. He leaned in close and said, ‘You hear that?’ He had on a thick wool cap and dragged a rolling suitcase behind him. His fingers were dirty. He glanced to either side, then back at me.
‘The bird?’ I said.
He put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Thank God,’ he said. His breath was so thick that I could feel it on my flesh for seconds after he exhaled.
I leaned away from him. ‘It’s that guy,’ I said, pointing to the man ahead of me.
‘Just like a bird,’ the old man said, and the man chirped again and I looked in the bushes like an idiot.
The shelter was a large auditorium filled with bunk beds. A man in a wrinkled golf shirt with bags under his eyes issued me a blanket and pillow. The pillow was old and stained and feathers stuck out from it. The blanket looked like Army surplus. I took them to an empty bunk. The crazy old
man with the bad breath followed me. He stopped by my
bed.
‘My knees ain’t so good,’ he said. I laid my blanket over the bottom bunk and lay down.
‘You’re young,’ he said. ‘Legs must be strong.’
From somewhere, I heard chirping. Already the din of people talking was making it hard for me to concentrate. The old man took off his hat and kneaded it in his hands.
‘Hell do you want?’ I said.
‘I ain’t as spry as I used to be,’ he said, looking at the top
bunk.
‘Find your own bed,’ I said, and I turned over so I didn’t have to see him. I heard his suitcase scratch along the floor as he left. Shortly after, someone threw their stuff onto the top bunk. A fat man in hunting fatigues with a long, pointed nose. ‘Howdy,’ he said as he groaned up to the top
bunk. He smelled like he hadn’t showered in weeks. The mattress bowed under his weight, and he moved around and the springs creaked. He farted a few times before settling in.
I lay there and counted the springs on the bunk, then I counted the little diamonds that looked like chain-linked fence on the bottom of the frame support. I turned over and looked at the floor, but it was all one pattern so I couldn’t make pictures with it. I thought about my wife and about the day she left me. We’d been in the kitchen. She’d told me it hurt and I asked her what and she said, ‘Life,’ and I’d rolled my eyes at her.
When it was time for dinner I stood in line with a paper plate and plasticware. I was starting to think that my life was a series of lines. I watched the floor because I didn’t want to look at anybody and see their unshaven beards and tattered clothes and shoes with holes in them, and I didn’t
want to look down at myself and know that we were the
same.
I took my instant mashed potatoes, Salisbury steak, and canned green beans to my bunk, and I saw the boy. I stared at him a second before I left my plate and stalked over. He saw me coming and his eyes grew and he took a step back, but then he composed himself. He leaned against a wall and ate like I didn’t exist, but when I got to him, I slapped his plate to the floor and pushed him into a corner away from the view of the auditorium. Mashed potatoes and gravy splattered on the tiles and over his legs.
‘What the fuck?’ he said. ‘I waited ten minutes in
line.’
‘Where’s my shit?’ I said.
‘What am I?’ he said. ‘Your dealer?’
‘You think that’s funny?’ I said. I felt like I had to tell him
I hadn’t spiked in almost a year, but I didn’t want it to seem like I cared about what he said. It made me even angrier that I did care. I reached in my shirt and got out my knife and held it to his neck. ‘This funny?’ I said.
‘Get that fucking thing off me,’ he said. His voice cracked.
I leaned into him so I could feel his breath on my face and I
could see the pores on his forehead. I wondered if he’d run away recently, and if his mother was at home pacing the kitchen floor, but I pressed the knife into his neck, anyway. ‘Where’s my shit?’ I said. ‘You think I won’t kill you?’
‘Hey man,’ he said, voice froggy. ‘I don’t know what shit you’re talking about.’
‘My box,’ I said. ‘My cart and my blankets.’ And my half pint of whiskey, I didn’t say, that I’d wrapped up like a present in the blankets. I shook him. ‘Where are they?’
He looked at me and didn’t say anything, and I knew that it
wasn’t him who stole my things and I was humiliated. I withdrew the knife from his neck and let go of him and walked away, squishing green beans on the floor on the way to my bunk.
I sat down, the noise of everybody talking buzzing inside my head. The man chirped again and I wanted to get up and strangle him. Instead I lay down and put my arm over my eyes and wished Melon were here to rub my back and tell me I was crazy. The man above farted. I covered myself with the blanket and thought about my wife. After she left I refused to call her. I started drinking because I thought that if I destroyed myself she’d come back.
I awoke in the dark to go to the bathroom. I got up, padding
along the tiles to the hallway, where rows of the homeless slept on the floor, some sitting with their backs against the wall, some with their heads on suitcases or ratty sleeping bags.
I saw the old man lying with his suitcase. His face was wrenched into a grimace, his eyes squeezed tight like he was having a nightmare. I started off, then stopped for a while before I nudged his shoulder.
He mumbled something and said, ‘What is it?’ and he looked at me like I was someone he knew, and then he looked at me as I really was.
‘Why you wake me up?’ he said.
‘Come on,’ I said.
‘I’m sleeping,’ he said.
‘Get up,’ I said. ‘Come with me.’
‘Why?’he said, but he got up, packed his things, and came. I led him to my bunk.
‘Go on,’ I told him, gesturing to the bed. He looked at me like he didn’t understand, so I patted the bed. I slipped into my shoes and left him standing there. Before I got to the hallway I heard springs creaking.
It was raining outside. The sky was dark, mostly, but to the
north I could just make out a cluster of stars. As I made my way to McKinleyAvenue I connected them and made a hand. Did I dare tell myself that it reached for me, asking with its openness to sit amongst its fingertips?
Shelter and the Williams House for months and I was starting to feel melodramatic—like if I stayed any longer there’d be nothing left inside of me. I escaped to park benches, doorways, and an abandoned warehouse on McKinley full
of squatters. With all of those eyes on me it felt like I was still in the shelter, except now I could get stabbed in my sleep.
For over a week I spent nights at McKinley and days rooting around the landfill and the dumpsters behind industrial buildings. It was starting to get cold when I wandered into Delaney Metals. I dug around in their
dumpsters and then went behind their loading bays and saw a stack of cardboard by the rear entrance. Most of the boxes had been dismantled for recycling, but near the bottom of the pile I found a box with walls nearly an inch thick,
folded into a neat square. I felt as scared and possessive as a first-time homeowner as I pulled it out and swatted some garbage off of it. I folded it under my arm and carried it to my shopping cart, and then I whistled my way into
the pits of downtown.
I set up in an alley behind the Felter Brothers warehouse, where no police came. I could tell everybody was jealous by the way they eyed the box with their lips pressed together, but nobody messed with me since I stabbed T
Bone a few months back. It had been an accident, but everybody treated me with respect so I never let on.
Over the year or so since I lost my house I’d accumulated
blankets and a few ratty pillows, so besides the smell of old cigarettes and body odor everything was good until I met the kid.
Late one night when I was asleep he peeked his head in my box when it was raining. The light from the street lamps poured in and I started, and we stared at each other until I reached under my blankets and took out my knife. ‘This is my box,’ I said. I flashed the blade at him and he stared at me a second longer, and then his head disappeared and my box tilted and righted itself. I flung my blankets off and
scrambled out, but he was gone.
I went around the side to check for damage, but it was a good, hard box. I went back in and took off my top layers and put them between my blankets, then I lay back down and tried to sleep.
My coat and pants were still wet in the morning, but I put them on, anyway, and I went out in the rain for breakfast. The Soup Kitchen was a few blocks away, a brick building with bars on the windows and a big, wooden door. I went before the breakfast rush so I could get my usual
table.
‘Francisco,’Lenny said when I got to the serving line. ‘You’re soaked, man.’
‘Raining,’I said. Lenny covered his mop of hair with a net, and he wore thick glasses, but his shirts and jeans were always clean, and talkingto him made me feel like I was clean, too.
He laughed. ‘I know it. Same thing today?’
I looked through the glass. Grapefruits, melons, small boxes of cereal. ‘Yeah,’ I said. I ate the same thing every day to keep me from getting anxious about other things.
He pushed a plate with a cheese Danish over and grabbed three slices of bread with a pair of tongs. I took them to the toaster and got milk and juice. I started to my usual table in the corner, where I could see everyone from, but there was a kid in my seat. I squinted. I remembered his face from the
dark and rain last night.
‘This is my table,’ I said.
He took a bite of toast. Poured Cheerios into a bowl and opened a small carton of milk. He looked up at me and his eyes flashed with recognition.
I sat down and glared at him. I couldn’t eat with him sitting
there.
He poured his milk, took a bite of cereal. ‘Everything yours?’he said. His face was thin.
‘What’s mine is mine,’ I said.
He coughed a deep, congested cough. I didn’t see anything in his face. Not fear or anything.
‘Is this table worth dying for?’ he said, and I squeezed my eyes to process what he said, then I jumped up, my chair tumbling back.
‘You don’t understand what I’m saying to you?’ I said.
I saw Lenny coming from the corner of my eye, but I couldn’t eat with the kid at my table. My hands shook. ‘You kicked my box.’
He coughed into his elbow, hacked something up and spit into a napkin. ‘It was cold,’ he said.
‘It was my box.’
‘You already said that,’ he said.
Lenny came up beside me. ‘Alright, guys, cut it
out.’
I wanted to apologize, but I couldn’t with the kid sitting there smug. ‘I tried to sleep under a tree,’ the kid said. ‘A car passed and someone threw a beer bottle at me.’ I saw a cut on his face. His eyes were bloodshot.
Lenny handed him a card. ‘Get there before nine. They usually have open beds. If not beds, at least a roof.’
The kid looked at the card. He pocketed it and got
up.
‘See you for lunch?’ Lenny said, but the kid left without
answering.
Lenny took the kid’s tray away. I sat down, but my toast had cooled so the butter wouldn’t melt. I took a bite of my Danish, chewed for a long time, and choked it down. I tried another bite, then took my tray and dumped it. I went down the hall to the laundry room and took off my top layers
and put them on the washer to reserve a spot, then I sat and waited in the warmth of the room, smelling the fabric softener beneath the odor of mildewed clothes. When my first cycle was finished, I waited until everybody left and
took off my pants and underwear. I smelled my underwear and wrinkled my nose, fingered the holes in the crotch. I put on my clean top layers so I wasn’t naked and went to the showers while my clothes cycled.
Outside I went to the side alley for my cart, but it was gone. I retraced my steps, anxiety blooming in my chest, and when I didn’t find anything I went back and stood in the alley for a long time. I fingered the handle of my knife and held back tears. I saw a cigarette butt, damp but still smoldering, so I bent and picked it up. Parliament. Everyone smoked Parliaments. I tried to remember if I’d seen the kid smoking. I wiped lipstick off the filter, then got out my Zippo and lit the cigarette and thought about the
kid.
The day was dark and everything smelled like sulfur. I walked a few blocks and stopped in front of the Eighth Street Pawnbrokers, twisting my wedding band around my finger. The band was scratched and dull, but it was the
last thing I had from my other life. Instead of going in, I went to the bridgebelow 395. The sound of cars above echoed against the supports. Melon sat by the water smoking. I made my way down and sat beside her.
‘Sometimes I think that all there is is this bridge,’ she
said.
I took her cigarette and dragged off it and gave it
back.
‘Like the water don’t go nowhere, and there ain’t no cars,
really. Just the sound.’
‘You seen a kid around here?’ I said.
She finished her cigarette and flicked it in the water. ‘You
only come when you want something. You think I’ll always be here?’
‘Under this bridge?’ I said. There was an oily smudge on her forehead. I wiped it off.
She smiled. ‘Lots of kids.’
‘You’d know him,’ I said. ‘Got a half-grown beard. He stole my cart and my home.’
‘You can’t carry a home around in no cart,’ she said.
‘How you supposed to get it around, then?’
She stood up and held a hand out. I looked across the water. Someone had gone halfway across the creek and sprayed graffiti on a support beam on the bridge. I wondered if they used a boat, or what. Someone had wanted that badly to violate something.
She took my hand. ‘Sometimes I think you’re
crazy.’
‘Maybe I am,’ I said.
‘Come on,’ she said, ‘crazy man.’ She led me behind the bridge, through the trees and down by the creek where no one could see.
***
For lunch I went with Melon to The Soup Kitchen. Lenny stood behind the counter in latex gloves and an apron. ‘Francisco,’ he said when I came up. ‘With the lovely Melon.’
‘Oh you,’ she said, smiling. She pressed against me.
‘What can I get for you today?’ Lenny said.
‘Tuna,’ I said.
‘I know what you’re having,’ Lenny said. He handed me a sandwich already wrapped in plastic. ‘He gets the same thing every day,’ he said.
‘Boring,’Melon said.
‘It’s not boring,’ I said.
She looked at Lenny. ‘Boring,’ she said. Lenny nodded and I felt like they were conspiring against me and for a second I wanted to throw my tray on the floor and tell them to go to hell, but instead I smiled and said, ‘Okay, it’s boring,’and walked off to my table. People were sitting there, but I expected that during lunch. Melon pulled out a chair beside me.
‘What?’she said. ‘Now you’re mad?’
I unwrapped my sandwich, crumpled the plastic into a little ball and tossed it on my tray.
‘You are such a little boy,’ she said.
I wiped my mouth with a napkin, washed the tuna down with juice. ‘I’m not a little boy.’
The cafeteria was noisy. It made it hard to concentrate. I
studied the linoleum pattern, green and beige checkers flecked with brown and white. I made pictures with the pattern. Two green squares for eyes, down five and diagonal, then across and diagonal the opposite way, then up five. The bottom half of a face, sort of.
‘Where you staying tonight?’ Melon said.
I thought about what she said, tried concentrating on the floor to make the top half of the face but couldn’t. I sighed and put a hand on the table. ‘Shelter,’I said.
‘Shelter?’She put her sandwich down.
‘That’s what I said.’
‘I thought you didn’t like it there.’
‘I hate it. Makes me feel hopeless.’
‘Hopeless?’she said.
‘I said homeless.’
We ate in silence, and when the lunch rush was finished Lenny came over. ‘How’s everything?’ he said.
‘Peachy,’ I said.
He’s not feeling good,’ Melon said.
‘I’m great,’ I said.
Lenny put a hand on the back of my chair. ‘What’s wrong,
man?’
‘He has to stay at the shelter tonight. Someone stole his
stuff.’
‘It was that kid,’ I said. ‘That one from breakfast.’
‘That’s too bad,’ Lenny said. He studied my tray a second. ‘We might have some spare blankets in the pantry.’
‘Yeah?’ Melon said. She raised her eyebrows at me.
‘I don’t want those blankets,’ I said. ‘I want my
blankets.’
‘He’s like a little boy sometimes,’ she said.
I looked away. ‘I’m not a little boy,’ I said. ‘I told you. You think shit’s funny, but it’s not.’
‘Hey man,’ Lenny said. ‘It’s okay. I bet we can get your stuff back.’
‘We ain’t never gonna get it back,’ I said. I wanted to tell
them that once something was gone it was gone for good, but a guy across the table with a wiry beard leaned forward. ‘Stop feelin sorry for yourself. We all had shit stolen.’He went back to talking with an ugly bald woman.
‘Man, whatever.’ I took my tray and got up.
‘Where you goin?’ Melon said.
I dumped my garbage and left the tray on the can, and I heard Melon say, ‘Honey, where you goin?’ I spun on her because I wanted to break something.
‘Honey?’ I said. ‘I’m not your damn honey, and it ain’t none of your business where I’m going.’ I saw the hurt on her face before I turned, and I hated myself, but it felt good,
too. I felt her watching as I left.
I went straight to the pawn shop and sold my ring for enough money to get a few liters of cheap vodka.
I opened the vodka right outside of the liquor store and took a long swig. I thought about how I could be a rat drinking poison, and that made me think of a mousetrap, which made me think of a basement, and then my old
house.
What I liked to do in my house after my wife left was sit on the porch and smoke a cigarette and just sit. I’d watch the cars and listen for the rush of air after they were gone. I had a dog named James. When it got dark I’d get off my wicker chair, the cushion worn to the shape of my butt, and go inside and sit at the kitchen table with a cup of soup and finish reading the paper.
I raised my bottle and drank to nobody and to nothing, and I wanted Melon but I wasn’t crawling back to her. I saw a Newport on the ground, almost whole, and I bent and fell head first right next to it. I reached for it and lay there and smoked it until it was nothing but filter. It hit the lungs
just right, and I felt almost like I could have gone right into a gas station and told the cashier to give me a whole pack—a carton. Then I’d go in my pocket and take out my wallet, and the money would smell like leather.
I rolled over and watched the stars. It made me think of the
stickers me and my wife put on our bedroom ceiling. Constellations that glowed in the dark. I didn’t know who lived in our house now, but I hoped they’d kept them. I rolled onto my hands and knees and when my head steadied a little I got up.
I stumbled down the street, through Blueberry Park and down Main until I got to Chancey Road, where I used to live. I stopped in front of my old house and it felt like something was rising in my throat. I got up the nerve to
walk to the porch and ring the doorbell. After a while, a woman answered.
I squinted at her, put my hand on the wall to steady myself. I had to know if my life was so unimportant that you could peel it off of a ceiling and throw it away. ‘You still got the constellations up?’ I said. I tried to stand up straight and look down on her to make myself look imposing, then I figured it would be better to look friendly, so I slumped back and tried to smile.
The lady looked at me. I thought she was wondering how I knew about the constellations, so I said, ‘Me and my wife put them—they glow on the ceiling—we put them up, they’re ours.’
‘I don’t know you,’ she said, and she closed the door and I
heard it lock. I knocked on the door and when no one answered, banged more loudly. ‘I just want to see the constellations!’ I said.
A man’s voice came from behind the door. ‘If you don’t leave,’ he said, ‘we’re calling the police.’
‘You don’t understand,’ I said. I kicked the door and told him to call the damn police, but when I saw through the window that he was holding a phone I limped off. I wanted to turn back to the house, but I felt like if I did I would have lost some kind of battle.
***
A sheet of clouds rolled across the sun as I approached the
shelter. It looked like an old brick schoolhouse. A line had already formed that was so long that I wasn’t sure if I’d get a bed. The man ahead of me wore a faded backpack, frayed at the top and packed tight. He chirped like a bird every
once in a while, and it sounded so real that I kept glancing at the bushes to be sure.
A short old man tapped me on the shoulder. He leaned in close and said, ‘You hear that?’ He had on a thick wool cap and dragged a rolling suitcase behind him. His fingers were dirty. He glanced to either side, then back at me.
‘The bird?’ I said.
He put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Thank God,’ he said. His breath was so thick that I could feel it on my flesh for seconds after he exhaled.
I leaned away from him. ‘It’s that guy,’ I said, pointing to the man ahead of me.
‘Just like a bird,’ the old man said, and the man chirped again and I looked in the bushes like an idiot.
The shelter was a large auditorium filled with bunk beds. A man in a wrinkled golf shirt with bags under his eyes issued me a blanket and pillow. The pillow was old and stained and feathers stuck out from it. The blanket looked like Army surplus. I took them to an empty bunk. The crazy old
man with the bad breath followed me. He stopped by my
bed.
‘My knees ain’t so good,’ he said. I laid my blanket over the bottom bunk and lay down.
‘You’re young,’ he said. ‘Legs must be strong.’
From somewhere, I heard chirping. Already the din of people talking was making it hard for me to concentrate. The old man took off his hat and kneaded it in his hands.
‘Hell do you want?’ I said.
‘I ain’t as spry as I used to be,’ he said, looking at the top
bunk.
‘Find your own bed,’ I said, and I turned over so I didn’t have to see him. I heard his suitcase scratch along the floor as he left. Shortly after, someone threw their stuff onto the top bunk. A fat man in hunting fatigues with a long, pointed nose. ‘Howdy,’ he said as he groaned up to the top
bunk. He smelled like he hadn’t showered in weeks. The mattress bowed under his weight, and he moved around and the springs creaked. He farted a few times before settling in.
I lay there and counted the springs on the bunk, then I counted the little diamonds that looked like chain-linked fence on the bottom of the frame support. I turned over and looked at the floor, but it was all one pattern so I couldn’t make pictures with it. I thought about my wife and about the day she left me. We’d been in the kitchen. She’d told me it hurt and I asked her what and she said, ‘Life,’ and I’d rolled my eyes at her.
When it was time for dinner I stood in line with a paper plate and plasticware. I was starting to think that my life was a series of lines. I watched the floor because I didn’t want to look at anybody and see their unshaven beards and tattered clothes and shoes with holes in them, and I didn’t
want to look down at myself and know that we were the
same.
I took my instant mashed potatoes, Salisbury steak, and canned green beans to my bunk, and I saw the boy. I stared at him a second before I left my plate and stalked over. He saw me coming and his eyes grew and he took a step back, but then he composed himself. He leaned against a wall and ate like I didn’t exist, but when I got to him, I slapped his plate to the floor and pushed him into a corner away from the view of the auditorium. Mashed potatoes and gravy splattered on the tiles and over his legs.
‘What the fuck?’ he said. ‘I waited ten minutes in
line.’
‘Where’s my shit?’ I said.
‘What am I?’ he said. ‘Your dealer?’
‘You think that’s funny?’ I said. I felt like I had to tell him
I hadn’t spiked in almost a year, but I didn’t want it to seem like I cared about what he said. It made me even angrier that I did care. I reached in my shirt and got out my knife and held it to his neck. ‘This funny?’ I said.
‘Get that fucking thing off me,’ he said. His voice cracked.
I leaned into him so I could feel his breath on my face and I
could see the pores on his forehead. I wondered if he’d run away recently, and if his mother was at home pacing the kitchen floor, but I pressed the knife into his neck, anyway. ‘Where’s my shit?’ I said. ‘You think I won’t kill you?’
‘Hey man,’ he said, voice froggy. ‘I don’t know what shit you’re talking about.’
‘My box,’ I said. ‘My cart and my blankets.’ And my half pint of whiskey, I didn’t say, that I’d wrapped up like a present in the blankets. I shook him. ‘Where are they?’
He looked at me and didn’t say anything, and I knew that it
wasn’t him who stole my things and I was humiliated. I withdrew the knife from his neck and let go of him and walked away, squishing green beans on the floor on the way to my bunk.
I sat down, the noise of everybody talking buzzing inside my head. The man chirped again and I wanted to get up and strangle him. Instead I lay down and put my arm over my eyes and wished Melon were here to rub my back and tell me I was crazy. The man above farted. I covered myself with the blanket and thought about my wife. After she left I refused to call her. I started drinking because I thought that if I destroyed myself she’d come back.
I awoke in the dark to go to the bathroom. I got up, padding
along the tiles to the hallway, where rows of the homeless slept on the floor, some sitting with their backs against the wall, some with their heads on suitcases or ratty sleeping bags.
I saw the old man lying with his suitcase. His face was wrenched into a grimace, his eyes squeezed tight like he was having a nightmare. I started off, then stopped for a while before I nudged his shoulder.
He mumbled something and said, ‘What is it?’ and he looked at me like I was someone he knew, and then he looked at me as I really was.
‘Why you wake me up?’ he said.
‘Come on,’ I said.
‘I’m sleeping,’ he said.
‘Get up,’ I said. ‘Come with me.’
‘Why?’he said, but he got up, packed his things, and came. I led him to my bunk.
‘Go on,’ I told him, gesturing to the bed. He looked at me like he didn’t understand, so I patted the bed. I slipped into my shoes and left him standing there. Before I got to the hallway I heard springs creaking.
It was raining outside. The sky was dark, mostly, but to the
north I could just make out a cluster of stars. As I made my way to McKinleyAvenue I connected them and made a hand. Did I dare tell myself that it reached for me, asking with its openness to sit amongst its fingertips?
