“It's okay,” Tom said gently. “You can start eating. I am going to find him.” He walked away. Before he was out of earshot, Tom heard Samuel start to snore.
That night he wrote an article on high-rise window washing for the newspaper man, and fell asleep dreaming about how the world would reward him.
Once again, do not forget the word “silence.”
â Act 2, scene 13
The next morning Jeans met him, thin and shoe-polish black. He was singing a Jamaican song.
“You're happy,” Tom said.
“I am thinkin' about how pretty I will look for Gina.”
Later, while working, Tom looked for Daniel from the stage until Dreadlocks swore at him.
That evening Jeans went with him when he deposited the money Dreadlocks had given him in the Greyhound locker. They showered in the station washrooms and went in search of food in the dumpsters.
“Dreadlocks talkin' like they going to get the owner to put us on paychecks like regular taxpayers,” Jeans said to Tom. “All you gotta do is fill out a few forms, SIN number and stuff, and go to the cops for a piece of paper sayin' you got no record, he says.”
Jeans and Tom looked at each other. “I like it the way it's been,” Tom said.
“Me too,” Jeans said. “Come on. I'm gonna introduce you to some of my friends,” Jeans said. “Nice people, the kindliest on the street. Girl fish. Come on.”
“Girl fish?”
“Yeah. They on the hook, dyin' for air.”
Jeans led him to the part of town where the girls hung out. Tom had seen a few of them before. He thought they were beautiful in a sad kind of way, like a fancy streetlight with a few bulbs burnt out.
“Jeans, I don't thinkâ”
“Yes. That is so.”
“There's nobody here I want to get to know.”
Jeans stopped and put his hand on Tom's shoulder. “You go, then. But before you do, Mr. Poet, there's a thing or two you got to learn yet. That liddle girl,” he said, pointing to one who was anything but little, “she jus' like any other liddle girl, 'cept she got on the streets. Does not matter how. Some, it is more dangerous at home. Some, they jus' don't see how all the pieces of their life fit together, like a big puzzle spilled out on the table. So they try Forget to help them figure it out. They don't know every time they do that, a piece gets lost. Pretty soon, they don't think they much to give away. Now don't you go worryin'. We just talkin', okay? And lookin'. That's all I do. That's why they my friends, see.”
Jeans approached three women standing on the corner. He introduced them to Tom as Martha and Gladys and Beatrice. Jeans and the women started joking and laughing. Tom held back a little, his hands in his pockets.
“Tell your fortune,” a young voice said from a recessed doorway.
Tom looked around and saw a girl. Pam.
“What . . . what are you doing here?”
“Starting my own business,” she said. “Telling fortunes that are sheer poetry.” She smiled. Tom thought maybe he was supposed to say: Great Wonderful That's Just Great.
He couldn't speak. She was dressed in red spandex shorts and a white halter top with a maple leaf on it. Just looking at her made Tom want to sing “O Canada.” It also made him want to throw a blanket over her head and carry her away to his parents' house. He made himself smile politely.
“I never saw you smile before,” she said.
“I just learned,” Tom said. “No job, I guess.”
“I had one at the doughnut place, but they fired me for letting Janice sleep at the table.”
“You still trying to go to school?”
She shrugged again. “Someone stole my alarm clock. I've been late a bunch of times, and they put me on probation.” She looked down at her fortune-teller and moved her fingers. It looked like it was talking to her, but no sound was coming out. “My boyfriend ripped up my English textbook.”
Tom shoved his fists into his pockets.
“He felt bad,” she said. “Drove me to school the next day. It's just that . . . you know . . . he dreams so big, but there's just not enough for all of his dreams.”
“Why don't you go back to the shelter?” He let just a little of his anger out, just for a moment, but then he couldn't stop it. “Why, Pam? Why don't you Do Something?” He was talking in capitals like Sasky.
She nodded. “The shelter.”
Tom shrugged. “It's better than nothing. Go home, then.”
“You don't know my mother.” Pam's voice had an edge to it. “I'm not doing anything wrong. I tell fortunes for five bucks.” She snapped the fortune-teller, the piece of paper folded into little hoods that moved when she moved her fingers. “Want to?”
“I don't have any money on me,” Tom said.
She rolled her eyes. “The cute ones never do. Come here then. I'll do it for free.”
Tom came closer. She smelled faintly of maple sugar. “How come you like Janice?”
“Because she's kind.” Pam looked at him. “What, you think it's strange to like her because she's zoidy? Well, I think if any of us had any sense, we'd all be like that.”
This was a hard concept for Tom, who had just learned how to smile.
“Anyway, I haven't seen her in a while. She said some bad things about my boyfriend. But he's changed. He's going to change. For me. She doesn't believe me. Besides, I don't have to stay at the shelter anymore. When Cupid's crazy, I've got friends with places. Sometimes I stay at the old Spaghetti Factory. You should come. We light fires in there. People are nice. We look out for each other.”
“No thanks,” Tom said. “Too many people. Too much roof.”
She studied him. “Maybe Janice is right about you, that you're not one of us. I don't know how . . . Maybe it's because of you being a poet and stuff.”
“I never said that.”
“You act it. But I say you are one of us, because none of us think it either. We all think we're going to quit it someday and be a plumber or a hairdresser, don't you know that?”
“Do you think it, Pam?”
Pam's eyes stayed on him, but she wasn't seeing him anymore. “I don't know. I don't know myself anymore. It's like I looked myself into one of those windows and I can't get out, and everyone's staring at me and I can't figure out why they don't help me.”
“I'll help,” Tom said.
She was seeing him again. She smiled. “Hey. It's okay. I'm tough. Besides, I'm in school, remember? Pick a color.”
“Pink. That's goodâabout school, I mean.”
“PâIâNâK. Pick another color. I only need three courses to graduate.”
“Red. You can do it. I'll help you with English. And science maybe.”
“RâEâD. Thanks. Pick a number.”
“Three.”
She took the hoods off her fingers and unfolded one corner. Tom could see that the paper was blank. She slowly ran her finger along the edge of the paper. A small drop of blood appeared. She smeared it on the paper, then stared at the paper a long time without saying a word.
She's zoid, too,
Tom thought.
“Paper cut,” she said. “I don't do that for everybody.”
Tom knew itâhe did have a way with girls. You either had it or you didn't. It wasn't something you could fake.
“Strange,” she said.
Tom peered over her fortune-teller, but he couldn't see anything but bloodstained paper. “What?”
“Without a past, the future is not written except by today,” she said in a spooky voice.
“Huh?”
“Wait,” she said. “Something to do with musicâan opera maybe.”
“An opera?”
Just then they heard Jeans calling loudly, “Hey, Cupid! How's it layin', man?”
From down the street, Cupid answered in a deep voice, “To the left.” He said something else that they couldn't hear.
Pam stood straight. “Go,” she said.
Tom could see Jeans doing some sort of dance in front of Cupid, and they were both laughing.
“Go!” Pam said, sinking back into the shadows.
Tom walked away. Jeans caught up with him after a while, panting.
“Thanks,” Tom said.
“Were for Pam.”
“You told her about me, didn't you,” Tom said when they had gone a block or two.
“Not much. You borin'.”
“You told her about the opera, didn't you.”
“No.”
“Did.”
“Didn't.”
“Then how'd she know?”
Jeans kicked a can on the sidewalk. “Pam. Everyone knows, she got the gift.”
“Why does she hang out on the streets, with those other girls?”
“They her friends.”
“No way.”
Jeans stopped and faced Tom. “They also my friends.”
Tom shifted his backpack a little. “Did I say anything?”
“I hear the disrespect in your voice.”
Tom didn't deny it.
“I seen a thing you have not seen, Tom Poet. When you sold your last possession, when you eatin' other people's garbage, when you cold and dirty and so tired you sleep in public, then tell me you won't have nothin' to do with a guy who smile and say you wonderful and gonna love you forever. Then one day, he down on his luck, and if you really love him, you gonna do him a favor. The girls, they all think their boyfriend gonna get back on his feet, gonna take them to Disneyland with that john money. Then the boyfriend, he beat them. She understand. He jealous, all those men gettin' a piece of her. But he need the money. Just a little longer, that's all.”
“Then one day, she know. She know, and nothin' matter much, least of all herself. She don't save. She don't wanna look at that john money any longer than she have to. She spend it on food and a place to sleep, and a Forget so's she can face the life again. She learn to survive, and she learn not to care too bad if she don't.”
Tom walked in silence beside Jeans. His feet hit the pavement as if he weighed three hundred pounds. “Does Pam . . . is she thinking . . . ?”
“Not turned out yet. But all her friends, they on the street. She couch-surfin' right now.”
They had arrived at the park.
“See you in the morning,” Tom said. Jeans didn't look back and wave like he usually did.
As he walked to his island, Tom wondered if there was any up or down in the universe. Was it only gravity that invented up and down? All he knew was that gravity ruled the world, kept everything down. You had to fight to get anywhere.
Tom stared at the billboard on the way home. T
HE
M
AGIC
F
LUTE
, S
EPTEMBER
12â15. Tom checked the electronic sign. S
EPTEMBER
8. He'd been here a long time. Maybe he just wasn't a good enough writer.
I know how to deal with nets and snares.
And how to make myself understood by piping.
â Act 1, scene 2
“So it's you. You look pretty rough.” The newspaper man had loosened his tie and taken off his jacket. He bent his face back to the sun.
“I do?”
“Just getting the last bits of summer.” He glanced at Tom.
“Gets pretty cool in the fall, you know. Where do you go when it's cold?”
“Oh, I'll have things worked out by then,” Tom said.
The man said nothing for a minute, then gestured. “So, what have you got there?”
Tom looked down at the paper in his hand. He held it out to the man. “I thought you might read this, tell me if it's any good.”
The man sat up and roughly snatched the papers, bending and wrinkling them. “Let's see.”
He read for a while. “Use a dictionary?” he asked.
“No.”
“Should use a dictionary. For spelling.”
“Did I misspell something?”
“No.”
“I didn't think so. Well?”
“Interesting.” He hit the paper with his knuckles. “Always wondered about those guys. I like the part about the spiders. I'll buy it.”
“For . . . for money?”
The man tightened his tie and put his jacket on. “Next time do it up on a computer, will ya? I'll have a check made up for you.”
“I'd like cash, please,” Tom said.
The man groomed his mustache a moment, then reached for his wallet. “I'm buying a career here,” he said gruffly.
Career,
Tom thought.
I have a career.
CâAâRâEâEâR.