Romeo is Homeless (8 page)

“Where the hell is Tanya?” Amber sipped her coffee. “She blew me off again last night, probably to tweak as usual. She’s missing out on all this great grub. That girl needs more meat on her bones.”

Reese sucked on his cigarette, sent smoke into the fresh morning air with a heavy exhale, and butted it out in the grass. “Me and August found her in an alley this morning.” He pulled another cigarette from the pack in his jacket pocket and lit it. “She OD’d. She’s dead, Amber.”

With his words the vision of Tanya’s body rushed back into August’s mind. She hung her head and started to cry.

“Ah fuck,” Amber said. She stared at her cinnamon bun. “God damn it.”

“What’re you bawling for?” Guy asked “That’s life in the big city, baby. Better get used to it.”

“Leave her alone, dude. She only got here a couple of days ago.”

Amber wiped a tear from her cheek. “You think Tanya did it on purpose?”

Reese shook his head. “Nah. Didn’t matter what happened to her, she never wanted to die.” He took August’s hand and caressed the top of it with his thumb. “How’d you get the food?”

“Man, I turned enough dates last night to buy pizza and donuts all fucking week long,” Ricki mumbled through a mouthful of pastry. Crumbs flew from her mouth, carried out by her sudden loud laugh. “One loser gave me an extra twenty just to cuddle with him! Can you believe that shit?”

August stared at Ricki. She clenched her teeth and squinted at all of them. Death was a big deal, not a passing comment. Something to reflect on, brood about, cry over. Grieve.

In seventh grade, a boy in her class was helping his dad unload grain and fell onto the spinning shaft behind the tractor. Both his arms were ripped off and he bled to death before they could get him to the hospital. School was closed for a week, the whole county showed up for the funeral. Counselors were brought in to talk to the students and teachers. Two weeks later his dad died. They found him hanging by a rope in the hayloft.

These city kids didn’t even skip a beat when faced with death. It’s like they didn’t give a damn about Tanya, like it never happened at all.

“Don’t you care that your friend died? You just keep eating. And laughing!” She ripped whole tufts of grass from the ground. “What is wrong with you? Don’t you want to remember her? Talk about her?”

“Okay, Miss Priss,” Amber said. “I’ll talk about her. She was my best friend. I helped her run so she could get away from her freaking father.” Amber started to cry, red patches blotched her cheeks. “He fucked her every chance he got.” She stared at August. “Since she was ten. Ten fucking years old! And he hit her and her mother all the time. Drunk bastard.” Amber reached over and took the cigarette from Reese’s hand, sucked on it hard, and blew the smoke right at August. “She hated it when she got boobs because he came after her more. She didn’t want to grow up, wanted to be a little kid forever so he’d leave her alone. But he didn’t. Not ever.”

Amber took another deep drag of the cigarette and butted it out in the grass, motioning for Reese to give her another.

Guy untied the ribbon, his hair falling around his shoulders in thin, matted mop strings. Without a word he deftly tied it with one hand around his left biceps. Like the black arm bands the veterans wore at the Legion in town, only pink. And dirty.

“Yeah,” he said. “She was always talking baby talk, skipping rope, sucking lollipops. But man, she partied harder than anyone I knew. She’s like fucking Peter Pan, but with sex, drugs, and rock and roll. And a pussy.”

“Shut up, Guy.” Amber lit the cigarette then took a swig of her coffee. “She even tried to kill him once, with his own shot gun. But before she could even load it, he took it and broke her ribs with it. And after years out here, she ends up with AIDs. She was dying anyway. Maybe this way was better. Less pain.”

“There, Miss Goody Two-shoes,” Ricki said. “You happy now?”

Reese squeezed August’s hand.

“I’m sorry,” she said in a near-whisper. “Just that we always talk about this stuff at home, get our feelings out.”

“Well that’s just fucking ducky.” Ricki reached across and poked August once below her collar bone. “We don’t.”

They sat in silence, Reese and Amber smoking, Guy eating his pastry, Ricki staring at August, and August staring at the grass.

Reese broke the spell. “So, you gonna share some of that wealth or what?” He reached over and tried to grab the last pastry from in front of Ricki.

She snatched it and stuffed most of it into her mouth, flashing a crooked grin at him, cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk with a snoot full of nuts. “Get your own,” she said through the half-chewed pastry. “I’m not sharing nothin’ with your Pollyanna girlfriend over there.”

“Fine.” Reese flipped Ricki off. “We’ll just fend for ourselves.”

She laughed, spewing crumbs again.

“I’m out of money,” August muttered. “Reese got me some tuna from a Dumpster, but I couldn’t eat it.”

“Ah! Special of the day. Tuna and salmonella on rye. My personal favorite, September.” Guy grinned and took an exaggerated bite of his breakfast.

“Dude. Stop calling her that.” Reese smacked his friend on the arm. “Her name is August.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I really don’t mind.”

Ricki swallowed hard and washed the mouthful of pastry down with the last of her coffee. She stretched out one foot and poked August in the leg. “Hey, September, you still a virgin?”

August blushed. “Well, yeah.” She glanced sideways at Reese then looked at the grass. “So what?”

“Problem solved, that’s what. Some guys get off on virgins. I know a guy who’ll pay big bucks to pop your sorry cherry. I can set it up. You’ll make enough to buy all of us dinner and breakfast.”

“August.” Reese put his hand on her shoulder and shook his head. “Don’t.”

Ricki stood, grabbed August’s hand and yanked her to her feet. “C’mon. I know you’re green, but you’ll pick it up easy. Not much to it but lying on your back.”

August looked from Reese to Ricki. Was Ricki saying she should have sex with a stranger? Sell her virginity? All she could manage to say was, “Green?”

“It means you’re new, honey. An amateur,” Amber said. “We all were. Once.” She poked Ricki on the foot with the toe of her sneaker. “Leave her alone, Rick.”

Reese scrambled to his feet and took August’s other hand. “She’s not going to do that.” He glared down at Ricki and then looked at August, his face softening, and smiled. “Come on. Let’s go.” He pulled her away from the girl’s grip and left his friends, heading away from them down the park path.

Guy and Ricki taunted them with an impromptu one-act play.

“Oh, Reese! Save me, save me!” Ricki’s voice pitched an entire octave higher than normal, a full-on damsel in distress.

“Never fear, Reese-man is here!”

“You’re my knight in shining armor. Now kiss me, you fool!”

Their voices carried on the breeze, waning as Reese and August put more distance between them.

She stared at the pavement as it passed under her sneakers, Reese’s words from that morning ran through her head. ‘It’s no big deal. All of us do it.’ But it was obvious he didn’t want her to do what they all did. She looked up at him. “Thanks.”

“For what?”

She squeezed his hand. “Just thanks.”

At the edge of the park he stopped in the path and turned to face her. “Sit there and wait for me.” He motioned behind her.

“Where are you going?” She gripped the collar of his jacket and pulled him toward her. “Don’t leave me!”

“Just wait here, you’ll be fine.” He pried her hand from his coat and stepped away. “I’ll be back in about an hour.”

He jogged across the street and stopped just inside the entrance to the alley. Within two minutes, a car pulled up and crawled to a stop next to him. He leaned down into the passenger window, his forearms resting on the car roof. He opened the door and got in, glancing back at August and flashing a brief smile before closing the door. Then the car drove away and disappeared down the laneway.

Was it that easy? It was like the man in that car knew Reese would be there. Like he gave off a scent or something.

She turned to where he had pointed to find a wooden bench with ornate wrought iron sides sitting under the shade of a group of weeping cherry trees. A glimpse of home. Her father had planted a row of them lining the drive up to their house before she was born. Every spring was a spectacle of pink blossoms, their sweet scent a blessing last year when torrential rains soaked the silage until it went rancid. The blooms had long since fallen from the trees in the park, leaving just boring green leaves.

An old woman sat on the bench tossing seeds at a rapt audience of pigeons. The birds’ neck feathers shimmered with iridescent teal and purple, their heads bobbing back and forth like chickens pecking thin air.

August sat on the other end of the bench and smiled at the old lady.

“Where did your young man go?” The woman’s big smile made the deep wrinkles around her eyes pinch in like paper fans.

August looked back across the street. She was curious to know exactly where he went, exactly what he did. She wasn’t about to share that with this stranger, no matter how sweet she appeared. “He had to make a phone call.”

“Would you like to feed my friends with me?” The lady held out a fistful of seeds.

August cupped her hands together and accepted the offer. “Sure. Thanks.”

After a while the old lady ran out of seeds, stood without another word and hobbled down the park path.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d sat on that bench. Her butt ached from the rigid seat and her stomach cramped with hunger. She shifted, alternating ass cheeks to keep her feet awake, and kept vigilant watch across the street for any sign of Reese. An hour must have passed by now.

“What the hell?”

She looked to her left. He walked toward her from the other side of the park, two cans of Coke in one hand and a plastic bag in the other.

“I was feeding them. I think they like me.” She was surrounded by fussing birds; a dozen or so on the ground by her feet, several under the bench and three perched on the backrest cooing in her direction.

He smiled wide and then let out a loud laugh.

“You are so adorable.” He shooed the birds off the bench, sat next to her and handed her one of the cans. He put the other between his legs and popped the top then opened the bag and pulled out two submarine sandwiches.

They ate their subs in silence, taking turns tossing bits of bun to the birds.

August peeked at him out of the corner of her eye. Except for his clothes, he was clean and smelled of soap. His hair looked so soft – the blond blonder, the waves more like full blown curls. She resisted the urge to run her fingers through it. He seemed so relaxed, so at ease. But how could he be after what he must have just done? She rocked back and forth on the bench, one foot bounced against the asphalt. She heaved a deep sigh. She just needed to know.

“So. Did you have sex with that man?”

“Something like that.”

“Like what, exactly?”

He leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees and hung his head. He looked backwards at her through that constant curtain of hair. “Why do you need to know? Exactly.” He stood and shuffled through the crowd of pigeons like he didn’t want to harm them, sending them scattering in all directions and cooing in protest.

She grabbed all the garbage from the bench and ran to catch up with him. “It’s just not fair, that’s all. That you have to do that just to eat.” She knuckle-poked his retreating back. One empty can came loose from her grip and clattered to the pavement. “And now you have to feed me, too.”

He turned to meet her gaze and cocked his head to one side. “Here, give me that.” He took the garbage from her, tossed the sandwich wrappers and bag into a nearby trash bin and laid the cans on the ground next to it.

“Why didn’t you throw out the soda cans?”

“There’s some crazy homeless guys who pick them up, turn them in for cash.”

“Uh, hello?” She raised her eyebrows at him and shrugged. “Aren’t you homeless?”

He stepped toward her and stood close, smiling down at her. “Yup, but not crazy.” He brushed her hair away from her face and tucked it behind one ear. “Besides, I have other means and they don’t. And like hell am I dragging a shopping cart around with me everywhere I go. Now c’mon.” He bent and kissed her cheek. “I want to take you on a date,” he whispered right beside her ear.

She closed her eyes when his lips landed on her face, trying to will that small gesture to last a lifetime.

A date. An exciting new start. A new life filled with adventure. She looked up at him and smiled. Maybe next time he’d kiss her on the lips.

He took her by one hand and led her farther down the path.

*****

“Yippee ki-yay, motherfucker!”

August grinned as John McClane threw a lit cigarette lighter at a line of jet fuel. The boom of the explosion that followed shook her whole body. The dimmed wall sconces in the small theatre rattled their disapproval. She grabbed Reese’s hand, her heart thumping. Her mother would kill her for watching this movie. Her smile broadened.