Everything Is So Political (9 page)

She stared back at me with eyes big as fists.

It was in that moment that Sarah got the hiccups. For such a little girl, she made a hell of a racket. I bargained with God to take my soul or my balls or anything else, just don't let Ronnie get spooked by the noisy little gasps rising up from under her.

“You're my girl, Ronnie,” I had almost reached her. “Stay still now.”

“Bad daddy,” Sarah sobbed, clinging even tighter to Ronnie's ankle. She was crying pretty good by then.

Somehow, without moving a leg muscle, without taking her eyes off me, Ronnie stretched down her trunk, and when she found the top of Sarah's head, she rested it there. She held onto my daughter with her rippling finger-like tip until I could reach under and scoop her away.

* * *

Dickwad got his five minutes of fame. Seemed for a day or two, he turned into a number-one elephant activist. He said he was planning a civil suit; his bullhooked back still hurt apparently. But then he wound up in jail for cracking his common-law's ribs and the suit kinda fizzled.

The ringmaster made a fuss as I was packing my stuff. I was the best elephant trainer he'd ever worked with, it had been a privilege, my legacy would carry on. But I could tell—hell, even a camel could tell—he couldn't wait to wash his hands of me. I've known him over twenty years. It's all I've ever known.

Now I got an apartment in Nebraska with a parking lot view that never changes. I got a cell-phone too, with tiny arrow buttons for God knows what. I don't expect it to ring, but I need it for when I'm ready to make the call. That day might come.

I work at the Sunnybrook Zoo, a disgrace as far as zoos go. I'm in the mammal house, shovelling shit mostly. Kaylee is the lone elephant, ex-circus, so crippled she can barely stay on her feet while she bangs her head against the concrete wall. I'm supposed to keep on my side of the bars. “Protected contact” they call it, but I wonder who and what they're trying to protect. Sometimes, after the zoo shuts down for the night, I wait until Kaylee and me are alone, and then I slip through her gate and wrap my arms around her wrinkled, scarred chest and steal great greedy gulps of her elephant air.

The Water Bottle Thief

Chris Benjamin

S
he was strapped to the bed with the empty water-cooler jug. Strapped down by Mr. Lamkey's leather belt. He'd be back soon, right?

She didn't get why the water bottle was there—that five-gallon jug. She remembered stealing it from the youth shelter but that was for her, not Lamkey. Fucking Lamkey. If anything, the bottle—the ten dollars she'd get for it at the depot—was to ward off Lamkey, de-necessitate him, as her brother, Private Jollimore, would put it.

Anyway, apparently it hadn't gone down that way. Apparently there'd been drugs and booze because the last thing she remembered was her worker coming in the building while she was walking out lugging the water bottle—and bolting.

She didn't remember seeing Lamkey at all. Yet here she was, strapped to his bed—again—with her goddamn ten-dollar water jug. She was on her left side with her right arm draped over it. She had on a men's t-shirt. It smelled like dumpster cologne. Like Lamkey. The jug didn't have a cap, so she blew into it to hear that deep soul trailer-park sound—
twuu twuu
—and instantly regretted it thanks to an obscene pounding in her head, and the fact that the room picked up and spun itself around. And back again, and the other way, refusing to find equilibrium, like it had an elastic running arse to mouth. And then she puked into the jug and passed out.

When she woke it was totally dark except for the streetlight squeezing through the blinds. Lamkey was snoring beside her, but with his head by her crotch and his dick at her face. The strap was gone but the jug was still there, still stinking of her puke.

She took a deep breath to see if it would stay down. It did. No nausea, just that pounding head. And the room was kind of tilting like it was balanced on a ball.

She sat up, slowly slowly, straining her abs. She was naked now. Abs. What abs? She looked down at her flabby belly. Two years ago she'd been Graham Creighton Junior High's 200-metre champ.

She felt a little nauseous but she could hold it. She needed to leave. She wondered if Lamkey even paid her. Not likely, that scum-choda. Probably scored her drugs though. That was his main use. That and shelter.

The clock said 2:36. She pivoted her legs off the bed, slowly slowly, so it hurt her groin. She looked down again. What a mess. She needed to get back on the pill. Or stop running into Lamkey.

She looked at him, his greasy combover, moustache that would embarrass most high school boys, skinny limbs, and six-pack belly—like a six pack every night. This wasn't supposed to happen—he had a court order to stay away from the shelter.

Where were her clothes?

She rummaged through his drawers, through t-shirts with 1980s ad slogans and velour track pants—old enough to be vintage in the right combination by north-end hipsters. She couldn't be seen in this stuff. People would know.

She opened the closet next to the bed. She couldn't completely open the door because the bed was in the way. It was darker in the closet so she had to pull out the hangers to see. She stole a glance at Mr. Pervy. Snoring away.

On the hangers were dresses—mostly slutty. His or his victims', she didn't know. She found one her size, navy blue with little roses, low cut but not enough to make her look like a hooker. She slipped it on, grabbed her jug and left barefoot.

She couldn't get into the shelter so late and they probably wouldn't let her anyway because of the damn water jug. But it was her ticket. She'd cash it in and if she could bum a few more dollars after that she could buy enough cellphone minutes to call her mom in Yarmouth and hash things out. Jesus what a trail of fire she left there after the bitch kicked her out. No, not the bitch. Her mother. She had to suck it up buttercup and apologize, for whatever she'd done wrong. No more bouncing shelter to Grandma's to Daddy's to Lamkey's. She couldn't live like this forever.

She stashed the water bottle in the dumpster outside the computer science building, hoping no one would steal it. That fucking water bottle. She needed the money. How else was she supposed to get it? Well, there were ways. But when she was leaving the shelter, headed anywhere really, she saw that fucking water cooler, where the workers stood around drinking from cone-shaped paper cups talking about mortgage rates and property taxes and how their kids were in the ninety-ninth percentile or some shit like that and broke all the records and read at a tenth-grade level in preschool and on and on and on and on. Must be nice. Twots.

Fuck 'em. There'd been no one around and no one saw her with the water bottle until she was on her way out. The worker, Kelly, saw her and shouted something. “Hey, is that our water jug?” Something like that. And she bolted. It was done and at least she'd be able to get the cellphone minutes.

She walked to the garage attached to the shelter. It was unlocked. The staff always complained about youth hanging out in there but they also left the thing open. Softies. She went inside, closed the door behind her, and found some cardboard to lie on.

The same damn worker woke her in the morning.

“Don't you go home, Kelly?”

Kelly looked surprised, put her hands out, palms up. “I just came from home,” she said. “What are you doing in the garage, Tegan?”

“I'm not Tegan anymore.”

“What are you?”

“I'm me. My new name is Dandelion.”

“What are you doing in the garage, Dandelion?”

“It's this beautiful flower nobody wants.”

Kelly frowned. “I'd actually love to have you stay in the shelter, Dandelion. But you owe us a water jug.”

“Really? That's all I got to do and we're cool?”

“That's it. And stay out of the garage.”

“OK. Sure, Kelly. Thanks.”

The jug was strapped across his back with a belt. He was about two hundred metres away from the computer science building.

“Fuck.”

He was ambling along, bum left leg just like…Lamkey. He turned around and smiled, his tobacco-black smile, bottom two front teeth missing.

She ran to him. “Hey Lamkey, my jug. Thanks, man.”

“Where'd you disappear to in such a hurry, Baby?” He wheezed when he talked. She needed a TB test. He was looking kind of yellow.

“Can I have my water bottle back?”

He horked on the sidewalk and squinted in the rising sun. “That was some beautiful night, huh Darling?” He reached his arms out toward her.

She slapped his hands away. “I need my goddamn bottle!”

“I was surprised to find it,” he said. “After you talked so much about how it was yours and you had every right to it and no bitch could take it away, you know?” He wheezed.

“Yeah well I needed to store it. Give it back.”

“Ain't that my dress, Sweetie?”

She looked down at the roses on the dress, grease-stained from the garage floor. She looked back at his still-squinting face.

“You can have your bottle if I can have my dress, Sweetie,” he said.

“What the fuck am I supposed to wear? Where's my clothes anyhow?”

“My place. Between the bed and the wall, right where you stuffed them last night. Remember? We were making love, you know, with me behind you. You were so beautiful, like with the moonlight?”

She felt sick again, head pounding, stomach pounding, vagina pounding.

“Come and get 'em.” He turned and limped toward his house.

“Fuck,” she said.

The clothes were right where he said, and of course as soon as she bent over to retrieve them she felt the dress being hoisted up over her ass. “Get out!” she shouted with a hand wave behind her butt.

“I just want my dress back, Dear,” he said, tugging at the hem. “That's all I ask. Is that so much to ask?”

She turned to him, jeans and hoodie in her hand, and pushed him back. “Ease off. I'm going to the bathroom to change.”

“Aw, c'mon. You weren't so shy last night, Dandelion.”

“Who told you that name?” She'd just come up with it in the garage.

“Who told me? I gave you that name last night. The beautiful flower no one wants. Except me. Remember? I care about you so much, Dandelion, when no one else will, you know? You're so special and nobody even knows it but me. I like to help you out; you know that. Remember those nice sneakers?”

She nodded. The Air Max 95s, Rastafarian colours—black red yellow green stripes down the sides, the Nike swoosh over the yellow. Gorgeous. She didn't know where he stole them or how he got them, but she knew they eased the regret of having shared too much information with him one night when they smoked a lot of pot and he couldn't get it up. He was strangely tender about it and seemed to want nothing but to cuddle and kiss and talk. But only about her. She didn't want to know about him anyway, so she told him about her glory years at the track, when she lived with Grandma in Cole Harbour, and going to regionals.

She was twenty metres from victory, the balls of her feet peppering the track, when her right big toe went through the fabric of her Value Village cross trainers. She was so pissed at her father. If he'd get off his ass and work she could have lived with him and had decent shoes and be…whatever. A winner? Of what? Still be in school maybe. Not Lamkey's pathetic stolen-goods ho anyways.

“I remember the kicks,” she said. “They got ripped off at the shelter.”

“I'm telling you, you should come live here with me, Baby. Think of all the fun we'd have. And you'd always be safe. No more stealing water jugs and shit.” He smiled and she felt sick again. “By the way I got some good happy pills my friend swiped off a pharmacist.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out two green pills held between his thumb and forefinger.

Her head was going like a jackhammer. “Not now, Lamkey.”

“
Mr
. Lamkey,” he said. “I told you before. I may be your lover but I'm also your elder. That's why I take good care of you. But you have to show me some respect. Your daddy wasn't good enough to show you that I guess. Not your fault.”

She swallowed her fury. It was her own fault for telling him anything about her past. She'd told him very little, but too much. About the man's drinking, how her mom turfed her ass and she couldn't exactly remember why but for some reason leaving that fisherman's town seemed like a good idea at the time anyway. She'd been so bored. But it was better than this.

She wanted to kick Lamkey in the balls. But she needed the water bottle. She sat on the bed and put her head in her hands.

He sat next to her. “Oh. I'm sorry, Girlie. Don't cry. Mr. Lamkey loves you. You know? Here, take this happy pill.”

She took it in her hand and eyed it in the overhead light. “I really need my water jug, Mr. Lamkey.”

“OK, Sweetie. What will you give me for it?”

“I said you could have the dress.”

“But the dress is already mine.”

“Well the water bottle's already mine.”

“That's the thing, Darling. I don't think it really is yours.”

“What—.” She was going to ask what he wanted but she already knew.

She plunked it down on Kelly's desk and Kelly gave a satisfying little jump. “Here's your fucking water jug, cunt.”

Kelly looked at her. “Um, OK. Thanks.”

“I can stay at the shelter tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Good. You owe me ten bucks for the jug.”

Kelly smirked and ran her fingers over her wooden bracelet. “Uh, no. That's not how it works.”

“Call it a finder's fee,” she said, quoting Lamkey.

Kelly laughed. “It's our water jug. You stole it.”

“I didn't steal shit, Bitch. I found it.”

“I saw you walk out of here with it.”

“Fine. Five bucks.”

Kelly sighed. “Fine.” She stood and pulled her wallet from her back pocket, handed her a five.

“Don't you have a purse, Kelly?”

Kelly shook her head. “We have an appointment tomorrow afternoon, Dandelion, right?”

“I'm just Tegan.”

Kelly nodded and Tegan hated that nod, like as if Kelly knew shit. “See you then, Tegan.”

She left Kelly's office and walked through the kitchen to go up to her room. But there it was, that goddamn water cooler. Two workers, a male and female, were standing right by it. “Yeah Evan started his own band—he's such a little leader,” the man said. “They're playing the junior high prom on Friday.”

“Oh hell no!” Tegan shouted. This time there were no empties, so she ripped the frigging half-full jug off the cooler and flipped it, soaking the floor and her hoodie and sneakers. She ran. She didn't look back but she imagined the shocked faces on the social workers.

She ran out the kitchen to the stairs and slipped on more spilled water, dropping the jug as she fell on her ass. The jug bounced and skittered down seventeen stairs—she'd counted many times—and slammed into the door, splashing water all the way down.