Boy in the blue hammock, p.6
Boy in the Blue Hammock, page 6
Escape. No sneaking out of the garage door. The side exit? He and Boy would be less exposed in the shop, but the move could sink them. A sudden shout, a distracted wander, a rhythm tapped out on the thigh. Any one of the myriad ways Boy attracts attention and the strays will come running. Best to stay put, wait until they leave. Tao leans against the bumper. The smell of the burnt body burrows deeper into his skin.
He watches Boy standing in the corner. Body still. Mouth closed. Feet flat on the ground. Squinted eyes roaming the walls. Book held to the chest.
No inkling of peril.
* * *
On the wall above the garage’s workbench are a few items neglected by looters. Kasper leans in close, head turned, examining each item from the periphery of his left eye. He squeezes the handles of a red jumper cable, opening and closing its jaws on his wrists. He pokes the small pile of greasy rags. He briefly tries on a pair of cracked safety glasses.
Then he settles back onto his heels. Looks up at the ceiling, down at the floor. From his mouth come tiny chet-chet sounds, as if a cricket has found a home beneath his tongue. He exhales, frowns. He eases The Gingerbread Man away from his chest and opens to a dog-eared page.
* * *
Trainer whispering in Tao’s ear:
Book open
Finger down
Eyes following the words
You believe those words will be spoken soon
Announced
Tao summons a low growl then glances at the strays outside. They’re arguing. Loud voices, pacing feet. No sign they heard.
* * *
Kasper looks up from the hardcover. He lifts his index finger from the page. For a few seconds, it arrests him: the chewed nail, the scraped knuckle, the whorls of the fingerprint.
* * *
He trusts you
But you do not trust him
In your eyes, he is not worthy
Too confusing
Too unpredictable
Tao growls again, crouching beneath the bus fender. The stark warning delivered: Close the book and keep quiet, Boy.
* * *
Kasper stops staring at his finger and brings it to his lips. He nods, taps the side of his headphones and resumes reading.
* * *
Without trust
The best you can achieve is
Obedience
Deep in Tao’s gut sits a desire for Boy to be silent. Not just in the present, but for all time; from this moment until the last, whether the last be inside this garage or out on the street or near the marshlands or among the green bean farms or at the refuge of the training facility.
Why does Boy speak at all? What purpose does it serve? From day one, the utterances were clouds, aimless, insubstantial, always changing form. Over the years, they grew a little and acquired a modicum of shape. Tao came to recognize some: yes, no, wait, stop, good, bad. The vast majority, though, continued to puzzle. And not just him—Family, too. Countless times in the echoes of the noise, Tao saw their lost faces and sniffed their cowed scents. Even Girl—Boy’s self-appointed translator—shrugged far more often than she nodded.
Boy, silent for good—it is an agreeable thought, but nothing more. Pointless words will still be said. Strange sounds will continue to be aired. And at some critical juncture, they must surely bring about their downfall.
Not this moment, though. The alarm is already tripped.
The strays have ceased arguing. The female is shuffling toward the open garage door.
* * *
Kasper closes The Gingerbread Man and holds it once more against his chest. He pulls his headphones down onto his neck. He watches Tao stare ahead, baring his teeth.
* * *
No training for this
Just instinct
Powerful, pure
Defend, protect
Fight
Tao waits for the first thread to descend, for the first touch on his back. What will the jacket bring this time? Whatever the new miracle, it must happen now.
The stray pauses a few strides shy of the garage threshold. She pivots and starts shouting at her partner, waving her arms.
Come, jacket.
Come.
* * *
“Come.”
Startled, Tao wheels toward the source of the whispered command. A small door, no wider than a turnstile, has opened in the back wall of the garage. Filling out the bottom half of the space is a crouching man. His aging boots are tied with fishing line. The holes in the knees of his pants resemble the work of burrowing mice. A ragged raincoat—its red colour sun-bleached to a dull pink—is zipped up to his neck. Partially obscured by a mask, his face is creased and deeply tanned.
Clamped to each of the man’s ears is a four-inch cone made from fruit-box cardboard, thin end inserted into the canal. A strand of rusty wire circles the midsection of each cone and wraps over the ear, keeping the cone securely in place.
“This way.”
Tao looks over his shoulder—the female stray is sitting on the pavement now, arms folded. He turns back to face the rear wall. The masked stranger is still there, down low in the small doorway, cupping one of the strange cones on his ears, smelling of sweat and mud and blackberries. Not a trick. Not a dream. Not the work of a jacket miracle.
Tao glances at Boy. No change. Book pinned to the chest, headphones hanging from the neck.
Mouth shut.
The stranger’s hand extends. Palm down, fingers curled under. The nail on the thumb is missing, skin on the third and fourth knuckles cracked.
Tao moves forward, each limp-step tamping down the sensory noise of turpentine and burnt flesh and shit. He sniffs. The stranger’s hand straightens, rises, settles on Tao’s head. A small squeeze is followed by a scratch behind his ear.
“Go get your pal.”
Without trust
The best you can achieve is
Obedience
Tao inches out from the cover of the bus. The sight in the driveway doubles the staccato beat of his heart. The male stray is now in the frame. He stands over the female, hands in pockets, voice quiet and low, the first thunder of an imminent storm. He is at ninety degrees to the open garage door. A look to the left—even a momentary glance—would reveal an injured dog witnessing his actions.
Tao lurches forward, eyes fixed on the strays. The clicks of his nails on the hard floor are like cymbal crashes in his ears. As he nears Boy’s nook, the driveway scene slides by, then disappears. Tao lowers his head. His muscles ease their frenzied grip on his bones. He exhales, a seam of tension unpicked with the expelled breath. For the moment, the strays cannot see him. First goal accomplished. The simplest goal.
He stares at Boy.
* * *
Kasper gets to his feet. He places The Gingerbread Man on the workbench, then stretches, arms above his head, hands interlocked. He lifts his headphones back up over his ears then retrieves the book and tucks it into the back of his jeans.
On tiptoe, Tao by his side, he takes three steps forward into the open before a scream stops him in his tracks.
* * *
A look once more to the driveway. The strays face out toward the Trunk Road. The female shrieks and claws, a handful of her red hair in the right fist of the male. Twice he attempts to drag her toward the open garage.
She starts to cry.
Tao turns to Boy, knowing what he’ll find: the descent begun. Knitted brow, quivering bottom lip. Knees bending slowly like a tree branch laden with December snow. Body yearning for the ground. Tao scrambles into position, poised for Boy’s total surrender. Is there any alternative to stealing the book? Perhaps the stranger intervening? Lifting Boy up, a hoist over the shoulder, a steal away from the danger? Boy wouldn’t go quietly—the stranger isn’t Woman or Man. He isn’t Family. Without true comprehension of the imminent danger, Boy would view him as nothing more than a puzzling threat.
Mouth open, hackles erect, Tao hangs upon the inevitable.
* * *
Kasper, down on one knee, takes a deep breath. Another. A third. He lifts The Gingerbread Man from his jeans and presses it against his cheek. Then he thrusts the book toward Tao.
“Take,” he murmurs. “Take.”
* * *
Tao blinks, unsure of his response. He glances at the strays. The male is bent over, left hand in his pocket, right hand patting the gun at his hip. The female is flat on the ground, legs and arms spread. He returns to the sidelong stare of Boy. Inches from his muzzle, the offer remains.
He takes the book in his jaws.
As he limp-dashes for the back of the garage, skirting the puddle of shit and the shrouded corpse, he can tell Boy is following by the low hum that trails him like a comet’s tail.
* * *
Dog, boy and stranger emerge into the tepid sunlight. The stranger collects a double stroller parked by the exit. It is bloated with a variety of goods—canned food, bottled water, garbage bags, blankets, a radio. As the trio hustles toward the sidewalk that rings the closed Lighthouse Shopping Centre, Tao recognizes the sounds that stalked him and Boy on the Trunk Road: padding feet, metallic rattle. He seeks confirmation, knowing there will be none. Boy has eyes only for the book wedged in Tao’s mouth.
Nearing the looted dollar store, a single gunshot echoes above the gas station. The trio breaks stride, waiting for the next sound. A clatter, a wail, an engine starting. Only silence. They trudge on, compass pointing northeast.
7
I sat on the bench, digesting the information. It didn’t sit well. My stomach churned. I felt sure that any effort to stand up or shift in my seat or breathe deep would cause me to puke. So I sat still, back straight, while the words of the assessors poisoned my system.
“You need to know from the beginning: this is not good…He can’t do these tasks…It’s pretty obvious he is intellectually impaired…For the rest of his life, he will be dependent on others.”
I watched Jay walk over from the playground and sit beside me on the bench. He smiled—lips as thin as rice paper—and laid a hand on my thigh.
“Look at our boy there,” he said, pointing with the arm of his sunglasses. “You see that? See how he doesn’t just barge through others to go first? He waits. He watches and he waits. If there’s a smaller kid wanting a turn—he lets them go first. You see it, don’t you? He notices. He understands.”
His voice cracked on the final syllable. I felt the tension in his fingers.
“Fuck them,” he continued. “They saw him for five minutes. Five goddamned minutes. And they’ve got Kasper all worked out, got his ceiling all sorted. Fuck them.” He pivoted, lifting his right knee onto the bench. He took hold of my limp hand and kissed it. “They haven’t got a clue, Bess. Nobody does. Not even us. I mean, we get that he’s different in the way he feels and thinks. But maybe he knows differently too. You know what I’m saying?”
I shrugged.
“Clueless,” he added. “They don’t get to tell our boy’s story. None of us do. Only him.”
On the playground, our boy adjusted the tic-tac-toe blocks. A centre O surrounded on all sides by Xs.
“I didn’t like the look of those two back there. Not one bit. Don’t want to think what might’ve happened if they found you. The proper Homers—they have orders, targets; the ones pretendin’ are just wild. They got the green light from on high. Yeah, lucky I was followin’ you two. Did you know I was followin’ a while? I think, pooch, you knew, yeah? On the Trunk, up by the funeral home. I think you caught me. Like a chaplain in a whorehouse, you caught me. Ah, well. Not as quiet as I used to be. Not since my hearin’ went bad. I was quiet in Squad. The gunfire’d break out an’ I’d be a mouse. Wouldn’t shout, wouldn’t scream. Just keep my mouth shut. Tread light. An’ ’cause of that, I’d sort of blend in. Disappear. That’s how I survived, yeah? That’s how I made it home. See, people think you get killed ’cause they seen you. Nuh-uh. You get killed ’cause they heard you.”
* * *
The stranger talks a lot. He started soon after they were out of sight of the gas station and hasn’t stopped since. His voice is quiet though, muffled by the mask. And assured. The route—it’s in the direction they’re headed. Not so far off course that escape is required.
Tao couldn’t if he wanted to.
He considers his position in the stroller: on his side, curled tight, strapped into the spare of the two seats. His busted leg hangs down toward the ground. Although every major shift and bump of the wheels fires a small arrow into the hide of the injured limb, he is grateful to be relieved of the dead weight.
“How you doin’, pooch? Nice bein’ carted along, yeah? You’re a regular king of France on his throne. We got to that footbridge over Magee Creek an’ I looked at your sad face an’ your low tail an’ I thought to myself, you need a hug. An’ I gave you one ’cause I like hugs an’ ’cause, yeah, I didn’t think our young friend here was inclined. I think he likes readin’ more than hugs. An’ then I took a closer look at that messed-up leg, an’ even though it wasn’t as bad as a lot of the shit I seen in Squad, I thought to myself, pooch could do with gettin’ off that messed-up leg. An’ you look a lot happier now so I think I was right.”
Tao turns, takes in Boy walking alongside the stroller. Hint of a smile. The odd skip in his step.
Happy to have his book back.
“A hunree crow in the sky want to take a bite.”
“Ah, my young friend—you can talk! Wasn’t sure up to now. Thought you might’ve been one of those silent types. No words, no voice. Only way to be in these here times, yeah. Or maybe I just wasn’t hearin’ you on account of the damage to my lugholes. So, was that a line from your book you said? I got a book, too. Got it here. Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Márquez. Been with me from day one. Know where I found it? A book burnin’! I kid you not. Came across a pile of ash far side of the village an’ somehow this little beaut escaped the flames. Figured that was a good enough reason to keep it.”
“I will get you…I will munch you up, yum yum…”
“I read it an’ I thought it was the best story ever writ down on the page. I mean, I couldn’t take my eyes off it once I started, yeah. It picked me up an’ carried me away. It was…magical. Guess that’s why it didn’t burn in the fire.”
“Old man, old woman…Little boy and the dog…”
“Every time I read it—an it’s got to be at least twenty times now—I always think the main guy’s gonna make it, he’s not gonna die. An’ every time, I’m surprised an’ sad when he dies, yeah. Which is ridiculous ’cause it’s right there in the title—no escapin’ it. I think it probably has somethin’ to do with the writin’. An’ the magic. Or maybe they’re one an’ the same.”
* * *
They wander savaged back streets. At the junction of Tebbut and Washburn, the boy ends the exchange with unflinching silence. The man shrugs and flips the novel back into the tray beneath the stroller’s seats. He asks the dog to ask the boy if he cares to do likewise with The Gingerbread Man. Tao pants in reply.
They lumber past hacked cedar hedges and marked front doors. Yard upon yard torched black, burnt offerings to the God of War. Crosswalks soiled with patches of dried blood awaiting the downpour that will return their stripes to white. Approaching the empty library—site of public protests before an anthrax scare shut the doors—they hear sirens. Not close, toward the eastern edge of town where the rail line streams toward the border. The dog whines. The boy stops and pulls the headphones away from his ears. The man lifts his face to the sky. A bald eagle overhead performs languid figure eights on the slow breeze.
“Sign of good luck, yeah,” he says, pointing. “About the only thing they don’t shoot.”
Wounded dog, disabled boy, outcast man: to onlookers tracking their passage—survivors in the ruins praying for rescue, rebels needing allies to rise again—they are dashed hope. This trio can do nothing for them. And, in turn, nothing can be done for this trio. The briefest glimpse reveals they are not long for this terrible world.
* * *
“In the first weeks,” the stranger says, speaking more to the trashed asphalt than the dog or the boy, “people saw me an’ said, ‘Why are you still alive? You’re easy meat. You should’ve been the first to go.’ They didn’t understand: I was prepared. I’d seen this comin’, yeah. From a mile away. Started with little things. Graffiti. Bad words. White paint. Then it was people losin’ it in public. Neighbours turnin’ on each other. Marches endin’ up as riots. Folks getting outta town or just disappearin’. An’ all the while, that fucker in charge is just fannin’ the flames. By the time the Homers came along, the job was half done.
“I stocked up. Food, water. A few tools. I got this here radio an’ a good battery. Then I kept my head down. Didn’t give ’em a reason. They got plenty of those already.” He lifts the mask and scratches the chin beneath his matted beard. “I did what I had to do to survive. Always done that. No different now.”
* * *
On Westphail Avenue, outside a house peeled down to its studs, he stops. He notes the stares of both dog and boy.
“We’re okay,” he says. “Checked the airwaves last night. Homers went through here again a few days ago, yeah. Cleaned up the hold-outs. Still gotta watch for the pretenders, though.”
