Breeds 2 (21 page)

Haley waited.

“But my God did he ever stink the place out,” Mario blurted. “There were three others in the men’s room and…” He caught himself, realizing that Haley had food before her and that John was already eating—grabbing at bread rolls and slurping loudly from his bowl of chicken soup and ignoring the plastic spoons and knives placed on the table.

“No, John, wait. Here, here,” Haley said, reaching for him.

Mario backed away, leaving her to it.

Haley placed the man’s hands on the table and demonstrated how to grip a spoon. Revealed how to dip and eat the soup and how to butter his bread rolls. John watched and quickly learned, which informed Haley that, despite having his face grilled and marbles rattled, at least he wasn’t brain damaged. There was a brain in John’s skull, a fully developed one, struggling to catch up with the lay of the land.

John recovered from his clumsiness and ate his allotted portions of two bowls and four bread rolls.

“Not bad, was it?” Haley asked over her empty bowl. “They have decent food here. Twice a day. There’s a soup truck that heads to another part of town, but they load up from here. They’re good folks. Publicly funded mostly, from what I understand, but with a few private contributions. This place saved my bacon. Saved it. You bet they did. I don’t mind saying so.”

She lifted a paper napkin to her mouth and dabbed at the corners.

John finished his meal and, after watching Haley, cleaned himself.

The gesture wasn’t lost on Haley. “You remember doing that, don’t you? Cleaning yourself? You remembered that from some time before.”

John stared across the table at her, eyes bright, concentrating on the gibberish spewing from her mouth. She could see it. He was trying to remember, to understand, while glimmers of actions unconsciously rose to the surface.

The activity around John mesmerized him, so he studied the assorted characters eating at the surrounding tables. An older man, perhaps in his fifties, sat down with three others one table over and returned John’s stare. A half smirk skewed his face and he glanced from John to Haley to John again while chewing on a forgotten bread roll.

John didn’t look away.

The gray-haired man glared a question.

John glowered in turn.

“Something on your mind, son?”

Haley looked at her supper friend and then the guy at the table, whose own companions were drawn to the developing situation. All of them were older, clean but with thick beards, and probably could have just arrived from a far-north encampment somewhere.

“He can’t talk,” Haley said. “He’s had an injury to the head.”

“Not polite to stare,” the older man warned.

“This bastard starin’ at you, Gregory?” asked a man in a baseball cap sitting across from Gregory.

“Simpleton was. Still is.”

“He doesn’t understand—” Haley tried to explain but Gregory flashed a cautioning scowl.

“He understands. Ain’t nothing wrong with him. I know the type. Overseen enough of the young fuckers to know a player when I see one. It’s smart to play stupid, ain’t it, son? Ain’t it? You know what I’m sayin’. Trouble is, I
know
you know what I’m sayin’.”

John didn’t respond, but his jawline twitched.

“Yeah, I know,” Gregory seethed with a snake’s grace. “Just like I know you can talk, too. You might have them around you fooled but by Christ you don’t have me.”

Haley stood. John did the same.

“Where you goin’?” Gregory asked. “I might not like him but I like you. Sit down and let’s talk. See what comes up.”

The three others sitting with him snickered and shook their heads.

Haley ignored them and turned on her heel. “Follow me, John.”

But John didn’t.

“You best follow your mom there, youngster,” Gregory said, leaning back with a chuckle. “Go on. Before you cause a scene.”

“John,” Haley insisted.

But the mute man didn’t turn away. He kept his now menacing attention pinned on Gregory. John flexed his fingers. An upper lip curled in distaste.

The guy with the ball cap took offense. He stood and stepped directly between the two, breaking the connection. Bearded and shaggy, the guy was five inches taller than John. Mouth puckered, he grunted in John’s face.

Haley grabbed John’s arm and pulled him away.

“Don’t you mind those guys. I’ll report them to Andy. He’ll take care of them. Sometimes you have to pick your fights.”

She led John around the maze of tables and stopped at the corner of the kitchen. There Mario stood with his clipboard, surveying the supper hour like a penitentiary warden. Behind him, volunteers tended to two stoves and old countertops, preparing little sandwiches on paper plates.

“Mario, where’s Andy?”

“Gone home.”

“Where’s Heather?”

“She’s gone, too. And I’m only here until Len gets here, then I’m outta here.”

Haley yanked on John’s arm, arresting his slow but sure turn back in the direction of Gregory and his boys.

“We just had a problem,” Haley said, making sure John was focused on her before going on. “The four way over there, by the wall.”

“What about them?” Mario said, looking in that direction. “Ah, Gregory.”

“You know them?”

“Know of them. Same story as a lot of these folks. He was a shipbuilder around the docks once. Got laid off, but if you ask around, he got fired because he assaulted a foreman for cutting his hours back. The guy with the ball cap is Adam Skoll. Not sure what his story is. The one on Greg’s left is Bernard.”

“Well, they almost got into a fight with John here.”

“Yeah? About what?”

Haley hesitated. “John was staring at them.”

“Was he?”

“Maybe a little, but you know what’s going on with him.”

“Actually, we don’t, but Andy and I plan to get him to someone tomorrow who could examine him.”

“Just saying they almost got into a fight.”

“Noted. I’ll talk to them,” Mario said. “Give them a second warning.”

“A second warning?”

Mario frowned, as if realizing he’d said too much. “Folks around here are fairly private. Loners. You know that. But a couple have come forth with reports that those guys have been stirring up trouble. Doesn’t happen often, but every now and again, we do get a couple of troublemakers here. I’ll get on the phone to the other shelters, too. See if they have a history or not.”

“Thank you,” Haley said. “I wasn’t comfortable with them.”

“Hearing that a lot, too,” Mario said, tight-lipped. “Every so often.”

“Where’s he going to sleep tonight?”

“John?”

“Yeah.”

“On the floor.”

“Where are they going to sleep?”

“Same floor.”

That horrified Haley. “You better make sure Len keeps them away from each other. Those guys might try something.”

“They better not,” Mario said. “Or they know what’ll happen.”

Counseling
, Haley knew. Lots of it. And if they didn’t get the message then, they’d get banned from the shelter. The place was a home for over two hundred regulars, according to Andy, with various sponsored programs in place to get people up, restoring their sense of worth, and integrating them back into society. The volunteers didn’t want to expel anyone back onto the streets, but it was a last resort for the unruly ones.

“Where’s his bunk?” Haley asked.

Mario nodded and left the activity in the kitchen. He led Haley and John past the dining area, past the long partition dividing the main floor into an eating area and a sleeping area, and followed a wall to a far corner. Army cots stacked two high lined the floor in an orderly fashion, covered in white blankets, pillows, and assorted clothing. About a quarter of the beds were full of people relaxing after their meal. Some read paperbacks, others read newspapers or old issues of
National Geographic
. Waiting in the corner, however, was a bare futon with a stack of gray blankets and a single, flat pillow.

“Here you go,” Mario gestured with a hand. “Clean and warm. That thing’s on a pair of pallets, so you’re not completely on the floor. Space is a little tight but you’re inside. And with a roof over your head.”

John studied the sleeping space without a word.

“Well, that’s it, then,” Mario said and walked away, clearly miffed at the lack of a thank-you.

“You stay here now,” Haley said to John, taking his parka and draping it over a nearby chair. “Relax and… well… tomorrow’s another day. Maybe you’ll start remembering things. These people will help you. They helped me.”

She rubbed his arm, smiled gently and left him there. She walked along the wall until she came to a fire escape and pushed her way outside.

John watched her leave, saw the door open and felt the sudden invading draft. Then she was gone, the door closing. He stood there for a moment, the futon at his ankles, and waited for her to return. When she didn’t, John glanced around the sleeping area, taking in the people settling in for the evening. Half of the fluorescent light tubes on this side of the partition wall were off, and some of the people who were reading had a clip-on lamp positioned right above their heads. Someone coughed, while another snorted, stifling what sounded like a cold.

The sounds were familiar, the smells sharp. John didn’t think in words, but he was aware that he didn’t like the various aromas wafting about, merging into a foul gas only he apparently detected. A young teenager with a magazine sat down on a bed and flipped his feet up. The guy took a second to reposition himself before unfolding a blanket, with which he then covered himself. John watched for a few seconds more before considering his own futon. He sat, studied his surroundings again, and arranged himself upon the padded softness. He liked the futon. The blankets were just at his feet. Learning from the youngster, John took the covers and awkwardly spread them over himself.

He liked the blankets, too.

The female, whom he associated with the name “Haley,” was gone. He didn’t know where she was gone, but the image of her living room materialized within his head. He wondered if she would be returning. As he thought about the female, his eyes grew heavy. The warm air was fragrant with those awful smells, momentarily repelling his drowsiness.

Things happened in his mind. The white screen took form at times and struggled to make things known to him, but a soundless snowstorm cloaked and buried them. John concentrated without knowing he was doing so, mentally tugging at wispy strands of memory, and failing to free anything from before that terrible, terrible time of waking up in a cold, immovable darkness. He didn’t like to remember that place.

But thoughts of what he did to those people there replayed in his head. Pieces coming apart. The slippery ground. The noise.

Those violent scenes quieted his mind, shutting out the awful smells emanating from the surrounding males and females.

Long enough for sleep to take him.

A boot nudged John’s shoulder. Hard.

Three males stood over him. The one that spoke to him earlier was present, along with the guy with the ball cap, and another one, grim-faced and brooding.

The older man hunkered down and when John tried to raise himself to his elbows, the man pushed him back.

“Stay,” he commanded in a whisper, smelling strongly of piss. “Stay right there, you unsavory bastard. You listen now. You listen. In the morning, that Andy feller is going to be asking you questions about me and the boys. You just tell him nothing happened. You tell him you figure nothing would have ever happened. You got that? You tell him or something
will
happen. Something that you sure as hell won’t like. Understand?”

At that point, the older man nodded. John nodded with him.

“Good,” he whispered. “That’s good. Because it’d be a real shame if you had to slip on the washroom tiles while taking a shit. Split your head open. Those tiles can get slippery.”

The man in the ball cap broke into a grin.

John didn’t like any of them. They all smelled like piss. Warm piss that coated their hands and their lips. He didn’t like them or their stink and he made it known.

“Goddamn,” the third man said, “did this cocksucker just growl at us?”

“I think he did, Bernard.”

“Don’t like to be growled at, Gregory,” said the man with the ball cap.

“Neither do I,” answered Gregory. “Look at him. He’s ready for a fight.”

“He does look ready.”

“Well, then quit it,” Gregory glared at John. The old man stood and when he did, the other two backed away. “Quit it. And remember what I said, now. You remember.”

The three men walked away, casting dark looks over their shoulders. They clumped past filled beds while soft snores cut the air.

John sat up and watched them. An anger rose as far as his gullet, wanting him to scream, wanting him to do
more.

For some reason, he did not.

Instead, he cast off the blankets and rose, watching the shady outlines of the three men on the opposite side of the hall. They’d clustered around one bed. John didn’t like them, and the urge to do things to them surged within his breast. The door distracted him, however. The one Haley had gone through earlier in the evening. He sniffed the air and couldn’t find her scent.

She hadn’t come back.

John looked one last time at the three males.

Then he picked up his parka, instinctively knowing its purpose, and went to the door with the glowing letters right above it.

EXIT.

The same door Haley had used.

Without looking back, John pushed his way through the door and cold air smacked his face.

A few minutes after midnight and Dax thought about calling it quits. The pickings had been downright shitty. Not one potential payoff strayed into his line of sight. Not one single individual looking as if they had something of value upon their person. Perhaps it was the park—people had been warned over the last few months about wandering through Regency Park after dark, and most of them had taken heed. Most folks stayed in groups if they were out and about at night, and not even Dax wanted to be out too late when it could start snowing any moment. He wiped his nose and rubbed his fingers on his jeans, knowing that snot stains showed on his parka under a strong light source. Dax lingered behind a thick elm, not five paces away from one of the smaller paved walkways that went off the main lane. Maybe it was his spot. Even animals had the good sense to stay away from an area after a few of the herd disappeared.