Tom Finder (11 page)

“I'm dreamin' of chicken soup,” he said without looking at Tom.

Tom got himself all the way onto the platform. He liked it up here, but wondered how Jeans didn't roll off the platform in the night while he slept. He lay back in the coats. “Jeans, I am a poet.”

“You say what?”

Tom sat up. “A poet. What I write changes things.”

“Oh,” Jeans said. Then, after a moment, “You know how to make chicken soup?”

“Yes. You go to the store and buy a can of—”

“No, I mean real chicken soup. You know how, Tom?”

“No.”

“I do.”

“How then?” Tom asked, laying back into the coats.

“First you get a chicken. Then you chop off his head and break off his feet and pull out his guts and pluck out the feathers, and then you boil it. My mama used to make the best chicken soup. You like chicken soup, Tom?”

“Used to.” Tom was pretty sure his mom made homemade chicken soup. It wasn't a memory, just an assumption based on what he knew she'd be like.
Assumption.
You had to have great parents to know a word like that.

They were silent for a time, listening to the wind in the leaves. Wolflegs was right about sitting on grass and under trees. It made his stomach relax.

Finally, he couldn't keep the news to himself anymore. “I found us a job out of doors,” he said.

Jeans sat up.

Tom yawned before he continued. “Washing windows on the skyscrapers.”

“For real?”

“Well, they're going to give us a trial day. They said come tomorrow. You've gotta have guts to do the job.”

Jeans laughed. “Man, you a poet. Everythin' you say is jus' poetry to my ears. How come you not smilin'? How come you never smile? Man, you making my backside smile. Come on. Show me the place. I wanna see it tonight.”

They climbed down the tree and splashed in the waterfall.

Tom wished he could smile. He wanted to. Bad. He was so happy that he wasn't even tempted to steal the coins. After, they ran the streets until they were dry.

They were almost at the Agcor when they saw a group of seven boys coming toward them, walking together like they owned the street.

“The Perfs,” Jeans said. “My gang.”

One of them was big, way over six feet tall and wide in the shoulders and chest.

“Hey, Jeans!” he called.

“That's Sasky,” Jeans said. “Jus' be polite and do what he say and everything be okay.”

“Sasky?” Tom whispered.

“Don't know if he is called that because he from Saskatchewan, or 'cause he the Sasquatch.”

The boys stopped and stood around them in a circle.

“Where you Been, Jeans? You got a new Gang?” His mouth was grinning amiably, but his body was frowning. His muscles were fisted up. Tom decided he'd be polite.

“No, man. I been hangin' with Tom. He is a poet.” Tom modestly dropped his head and shoved his hands in his pockets.

“A Poet.” Sasky said, as if trying to remember what that was.

Tom thought he could smell male hormones in the air, and they weren't his.

“Yeah. That mean he got a hole in his head,” Jeans said, laughing. “He qualify to be a Perf.”

Tom shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Gravitational attraction depended on mass. Sasky only weighed more because of stupid gravity. Tom could see the pavement was still soft and tarry from the hot day. He played with the change in his pocket.

“Do I hear Jingles in your pockets?” Sasky asked. He held out a huge hand. “Guess you better hand 'em over before you go.”

It was a friendly gesture: just hand me your change as a small token of submission and we'll be okay with you. Tom didn't mind submission. It was the money he couldn't part with.

Sasky stood still with his hand out. Tom couldn't hear anyone breathing.

“Can't,” he said without looking up from the pavement.

Sasky's hand made a fist.

“Can't?” someone said. Tom realized it was Jeans speaking, but in a choked kind of voice.

There was a restless movement among the boys, as if up to that moment they'd been sleeping on their feet.

“Can't,” said Tom. “I'm saving.”

“Saving?” Sasky growled.

“For my billboard.”

There was a deep silence for a moment before Sasky laughed. Then they all laughed.

“You're right, Jeans. This boy has got a Hole in his head.”

Jeans laughed. Sasky laughed. The boys laughed.

The laughter stopped. “Okay, kid. Hand over the Toonies and get Outta Here.” There was real danger in his voice, more capitalized letters.

Tom shrugged.
Tom can fight.

“I'm gonna have to Beat you up for a Few Toonies?” Sasky asked with real disgust in his voice.

Tom looked up, looked Sasky right in his eyes. He found that he could—if he held his nose up just like that—he could smell his own hormones too. Poet hormones. “You'll have to catch me first,” he said.

In that moment Tom's face remembered how to smile.

Sasky and Tom stood grinning at one another with eyes like animals.

And then they were running: Tom silent, smooth-moving, brains in his feet; Sasky hooting, leaping, swearing, laughing.

“Hoo, man, hear those Toonies calling to Me!” he shouted after Tom.

Tom, smelling the way, laughed a great, loud, breathless laugh. The soft, tarry streets bounced his feet, but made it sticky for Sasky, slowing him down. The streets love me, Tom thought.

“Gonna buy me some Export A's with your Toonies,” Sasky called. “Gonna stuff your Underwear in your Mouth. Gonna get me some Doughnuts and gum and sit on your head while I chew. Gonna make you an official member . . .”

Tom laughed again. He knew he was getting away when he couldn't hear the capitals on Sasky's words anymore.

Tom ran all the way to his island. Samuel wasn't there. He walked along the river until his heart slowed, then wrapped himself in his blanket.

Tom has guts, he wrote in his book, and then laughed himself to sleep.

The next morning Tom was wakened by rain on his face. The sun was shining too. It was like the cloud was only over his head. He washed at Fas Gas, and found buns and oatmeal cookies in the bakery dumpster. He took some of the cookies to Jeans, who was already waiting for him at the bench in the park.

Tom saw that he had a fat lip. Jeans pointed to his mouth. “This is Sasky bein' irate with me because of you.”

“Sorry,” Tom said. “But look, I can smile.”

“Why, 'cause you cheated death? Nobody talk to Sasky like that, even if he a poet. You run if you see him again. He catch you, he perforate you for real.” Then Jeans smiled. “However, I do thank you for the memory.”

As they walked to the job, Jeans told Tom he'd sworn off his gang anyway.

“They say, oh, you so safe with us, we gonna protect you from the bad guys, we gonna give you respect, we gonna be your family. 'Cept I find out they just salesmen, you know. Never had enemies till I got a gang. Never got respect from them, only bein' scared. Like las' night. Had enough. If they my family, I am leavin' home.”

“You don't have to do that for me,” Tom said.

“Don't you go thinkin' like that. Don't like you that much.”

The window washers had already completed their first drop for the day by the time Tom and Jeans arrived. They waved them over.

“I wasn't sure you'd be working in the rain,” Tom said.

Dreadlocks's hair hung like dripping rags down his back. “We work in the rain, in the dark, in the cold. The only time we don't work is when it's windy. Wind shears come down between the buildings like they do in a canyon. So, you think you're up for this?”

“We up,” Jeans said.

“We'll give you a taste. Come on.”

In the stage were squeegees, buckets, horsehair brushes, a cell phone, and a ghetto blaster, all attached to the stage by strings.

“Idiot strings,” Dreadlocks said. “Falling from this height, even a brush could kill somebody.”

“Gravity does that,” Tom said.

“I'm flyin'!” Jeans said, lifting his arms.

Tom eyed the four pencil-thin cables that held the stage, then looked over the edge. The speed of gravity's pull does not depend on what you weigh, Tom remembered. If there were no air, a feather would fall as fast as a brick. He gripped the stage. It was far enough down that you'd have time to curse yourself before you hit the ground. Tom held his head up so he could smell his own hormones.

“It takes six hours to complete a single drop,” Dreadlocks said as he worked the windows. “We get paid by the window, so the quicker you work, the better. Try it.”

He handed the squeegee to Tom, who took twice as long to do one window and did only half as good a job, even though he was trying twice as hard.

“You'll get the hang of it,” Dreadlocks said. “As you go, inspect the skin of the building. Note any stone chips, air leaks, lost caulking. Your turn, kid.”

He handed the squeegee to Jeans, but Jeans was staring at Tom's chest as if he had just seen a big, ugly spider. Tom looked down. There
was
a spider—a loonie-sized spider, and that didn't include the legs. Tom didn't have the nerve to brush it off.

“Hey, that Spiderman's little brother?” Jeans asked nervously.

Then one landed on Jeans. Jeans was turning green under his brown skin, which made him look khaki-colored.

“That's what these air vacs are for,” Dreadlocks said. He took the handheld vacuum cleaner and sucked up the spiders, then grabbed one that landed on the stage floor. “They spin their webs on the high walls and feed off flies in the air currents,” he said. “Okay, kid, your turn. Can't let the creepy-crawlies slow you down.”

Jeans was better at it than Tom. They took half-hour turns. By the time they touched ground, Tom's shoulder and arm were sore. It hurt just to dangle his arm.

“‘It's a good hurt,” Jeans said. “Idle jackass follows a cane stalk into the pound, my mama always say.”

“Didn't scare you off, boys?” Dreadlocks asked.

Jeans said no.

Dreadlocks laughed. “Come back tomorrow and I might pay you.”

The next day Jeans paired off with Tattoo and Tom with Dreadlocks. They got paid fifty cents a window, and Tom counted all the way down. He and Jeans did two drops that day. At the end of the day, Tom's arm and shoulders and back and neck were in so much pain that it made him nauseous. Jeans got tears in his eyes when he tried to wave at Tom, but he kept smiling. Dreadlocks said they did okay and come back tomorrow.

Before he went back to his island, Tom looked for Daniel. That night Wolflegs was there on his bench. He wasn't doing well against gravity. His eyes drooped at the corners, and his jaw was slack. His coat sagged on him.

“Anderson Station today,” Tom said, sitting on the bench. “Samuel, I'm sorry about the other day. You know, about you not eating. You can eat now. I think I really am a Finder. I found a real job, and one for my friend. It's amazing. But it had something to do with writing things down in this book. I'm not sure how it works, or why—”

“Tom, go home,” Wolflegs said.

Tom could smell the alcohol from the other side of the bench.

“I haven't found home yet,” Tom said.

“You aren't looking hard enough. You should be looking for home, not for my boy.”

“Well, I am saving up for a billboard. Besides, you said I wouldn't find home until I found Daniel—”

“Think you're so tough, just like my Daniel. Nothing on the streets can hurt me, you think. You're mostly right. It's not what's on the street that destroys you. It's what you're running from. Running away instead of fighting. Or fighting everything and everyone except what you should be fighting. What are you running from, Tom? Mother? Father? No mother? No father? School? Chicken skins, every one of you.” Wolflegs pushed Tom off the bench. “Not one warrior among you. Go home, fight for yourself, make yourself face your battles. Scared. Running scared and thinking you're so tough.”

Wolflegs threw up. All liquid. No chunks. He still wasn't eating. Tom didn't know a human stomach could hold that much fluid. He thought for sure he was going to be sick himself just from the stench.

Wolflegs stumbled into his own puke and lay there moaning, praying, praying to the river.

Tom didn't remember what you were supposed to do with drunks, but he remembered he was nice. He wasn't sure, right then, what nice was. It wasn't bad, but maybe it wasn't great. Would nice help the guy up?

Tom helped Wolflegs up. He helped him to the river to clean him up, then helped him back to the bench. Wolflegs was silent the whole time. Tom sat him on the bench, braids dripping. The book was true. He was nice. This was total proof.