Shattered (9 page)

“Should we be going there now?” I asked anxiously. “It isn't a place
you
should ever be going by yourself, but if you're with me you're safe … well, at least pretty safe.” He paused. “You want me to drop you off instead?”

“No, I'll come with you,” I said reluctantly. It wasn't that I didn't trust Mac but he was old, and not that big, and his baseball bat was back at the soup kitchen.

We came out of the back alleys and onto a street. The lights and traffic were reassuring. This wasn't my world, but at least it was familiar. As we walked we passed by more people—homeless people—moving along. It was like some sort of migration … No, that wasn't right. A migration meant moving somewhere. These people were moving, but they were going nowhere.

The park was just up ahead. I felt increasingly uneasy. My anxiety increased as we entered, and my shoes crunched on the gravel path. This was certainly better than walking along the path without shoes. Would those three thugs be here in the park tonight, or would there be somebody even worse? If everybody on the street had a weapon, did Mac have one with him now? His baseball bat was a long ways away but maybe he had something else on him—a metal bar or a knife … maybe a gun. I shook my head. Yeah, right, he had a gun … maybe he had a bazooka up his sleeve.

Mac left the path and headed in through the bush. If going through the park wasn't safe, how much more dangerous was it to go off the path and into the forest? As Mac picked his way through the undergrowth, I tried to stay as close as possible. The ground was uneven and there were roots and stones sticking up. I moved as carefully as I could but in the darkness I kept stumbling and bumping into Mac.

“Do you know where you're going?” I asked.

“Does anybody really know where they're going?” he asked.

Great, just what I needed—a philosophy lesson. “There's where we're going,” Mac said. “Look.”
Up ahead I caught glimmers of light flickering through the trees. It couldn't be … it looked like—

“It's a fire.”

We pushed through the last trees and found ourselves standing in a little clearing. In the opening were five tents and in the middle of the tents was a metal barrel, cut down low to the ground, holding a fire. Around the fire, sitting on lawn chairs, were eight or ten shadowy figures, their features lit up just a little by the flickering flames of the fire. This was unreal. We'd wandered out of the city, through a few trees, and into some sort of surreal campground. I half expected Yogi the bear to poke his head out of the trees and ask for a picnic basket!

“Mind if we join you gentlemen?” Mac asked.

A couple of men spun around to look in our direction.

The others didn't seem to hear him.

“Come on over, always room for one or two more!” one of the men yelled out.

As we walked into the light of the campfire, I realized why the others hadn't responded. They were asleep—or more likely passed out—in their chairs.

Mac sat down on an empty stump and motioned for me to sit on the rock beside him. The fire was big enough to throw out heat and light. The warmth felt good.

The ground was littered with empty bottles. I tried to look at the bottles without being too obvious. Some of them were wine bottles—nothing fancy, and all with what appeared to be screw-top caps. There was also a bottle of cooking sherry. The other bottles had fallen label down and I couldn't tell what they were.

“Anybody seen Sarge tonight?” Mac asked.

“In there,” one of the men said, gesturing to a green tent off to the side. “He turned in early.”

That was why Mac had brought me here—this was where Sarge lived. I couldn't help but wonder if he'd gone to sleep or if he'd passed out like his buddies. I tried to figure out if any of these guys were at dinner tonight. It was hard to tell. In the dim, flickering light, buried underneath their toques and beards and dirt and layers of clothes they all looked pretty much the same to me. Maybe a couple of them had been at The Club tonight.

As Mac continued to talk, I felt a drop of moisture on my cheek. And then another and another. Great, it was starting to rain. A few degrees colder and snow would have been better.

“Mac … maybe we better get going—it's raining.”

“We better. You guys might want to get inside too.”

Seven

MAC WALKED ME
to a fairly busy intersection. There were lots of cars and people … regular people—couples walking hand in hand, and groups walking along the sidewalk, going to or from restaurants or the theatre or maybe the movies or shopping. We had travelled only about five blocks but we'd left behind one world and entered another—one much more familiar to me.

Mac had offered to stay and wait with me for my ride, but I told him to go on his way. He still had to finish his rounds. I'd used my cellphone to call home and I'd spoken to Berta. My parents still weren't home and she was on her way down to get me.

I watched the cars driving by. Half of them had bluish lights. Those were the type that expensive luxury cars like Mercedes, BMWs, Audis, and a dozen other types of prestige cars all had. It was amazing how many expensive cars there were—how many people had so much money to spend. And as I stood there watching and waiting I wondered—how many of those people driving in those expensive cars passed by the parks and alleys where the homeless were sitting or shuffling or sleeping, and never knew that there was anybody outside of the climate-controlled, leather-seated, CD surround
sound that encircled them? How could some people have so much and others so little?

There was a gentle beep of a horn and a silver Mercedes rolled to a stop. It was Berta driving my mother's car. At night or on long trips she'd often drive my mother's car because her own car was so old that it wasn't particularly reliable. I grabbed the door and pulled it open, jumping inside without disturbing the flow of traffic too much. It was good to get into the car and out of the rain that had started falling more heavily. Wet and near freezing temperature was a bad combination.

“Hello, Eon.”

“Thanks for coming to get me,” I said as I snapped on my seatbelt.

Berta pulled away.

“I'm sorry to make you come out so late. I thought my parents would be home by now.”

“They got home just before I left. I offered to go because they looked … they looked … tired.”

Tired. That meant they'd both probably been drinking. I doubted that it involved anything with a screw top.

“Did you have a good evening?” Berta asked.

“I don't know if ‘good' is the right word.” We were passing Selby Park. “You see that park there,” I said, pointing to the scene rolling by outside the passenger window. “There are people who live in there.”

Berta nodded but didn't answer.

“Really. I'm serious. They have tents and chairs and there's a bunch of them sitting around a fire right now.”

“And how do
you
know that?” she asked.

That was stupid. I shouldn't have said anything. “Is this just between me and you?” I asked.

“If that is what you want, Eon.”

I knew I could trust Berta. “I was with Mac, the man who runs the soup kitchen. I went with him on one of the walks he does every night to look out for people who are living on the streets. Mac told me there are thousands and thousands living on the streets,” I explained.

Berta shook her head in disbelief. “Thousands … so hard to believe. I only see a few.”

“That's what
I
said! Tonight I saw them, where they live in alleys and dumpsters and parks.”

“These are not good places for you to go,” Berta said. “Maybe it is better that your mother doesn't know about these things.”

“I'm not telling her. She probably wouldn't believe it even if I did tell her.”

“She might believe. There are homeless everywhere. That is how it is in Guatemala.”

The park disappeared from view.

“I hadn't really thought about that. Are there many?” “Many thousands.”

“I didn't know that. I figured it was just like Mexico and there weren't many street people.”

Berta laughed. “They do not have beggars in the fancy resorts where you and your family stayed. They are hidden like here. The same way.”

“At least in Guatemala they don't have to worry about freezing to death like they do here.”

“Freezing to death is not what they fear.”

“What do they fear?”

Berta didn't answer. She stared straight ahead out the windshield, the wipers moving silently across the glass to clear away the rain that had gotten even harder.

“Berta … what do they have to fear?”

She still didn't answer right away and I thought she wasn't going to when she started. “In my country people on the street die all the time.”

“I guess even in a warm country you can still starve to death.”

“They do not starve. They are killed. Dozens and dozens. Maybe hundreds. Maybe more. They are gunned down.”

I could scarcely believe what she was saying. “Can't the police or the army protect them?”

“The police and army,” Berta sneered. “Who do you think does the killing?”

“That can't be right.”

“Right it is not. True it is. I … I should not be telling of these things. Not now. Not yet.”

“Why not?”

“It is too soon.”

“I'm almost sixteen, Berta. I can handle it.”

“It is not that it is too soon for you, Eon. It is too soon for
me
.”

Eight

“
IAN
!”

I turned around. It was Robert. He moved around the crush of kids streaming through the corridor toward classes.

“So why weren't you there Friday night?” Robert asked. “Why wasn't I where?” I asked.

“Jen's party.”

“I forgot all about it,” I said.

“You missed a good party. Lots of food, some beer, lots of ladies.”

“So where were you?” Justin asked.

“Community service hours for civics.”

“On a Friday night?” he asked in disbelief.

“Like I have a choice. I have to put in the hours. No choice.”

“Too bad. A couple of the girls were even asking about you.”

“Anyone in particular?” I asked.

“The usual suspects.”

The bell rang, loud, echoing through the hall and setting off a wave of activity as lockers slammed and kids hurried to class.

“See you at lunch,” Robert said. “Sure. See you.”

I had completely forgotten about that party and I had been looking forward to it.

We filed into class. I just hoped I could get my usual seat at the back of the room.

“Ian?” Mrs. Watkins asked.

I stopped. Instinctively I wondered just what it was that I'd done wrong, or failed to read, or hadn't handed in. But really there was nothing … at least nothing that I could remember.

“So, did you go back to your placement this weekend?” she asked.

I stopped by her desk. “I was there on Friday night. I put in six hours.”

“In one night?” She sounded surprised or like she was doubting me.

“It was a long night. There are lots of people to feed and lots of work to do. I'm going back tonight.”

“I'm impressed.”

“Impressed or surprised?” I asked.

She gave a little smirk. “Both. You think you could tell your classmates about your placement at the end of class today?”

“I could … I guess.”

“Excellent.”

I turned to walk away. By now all the seats in the back of the class were taken. I did a quick scan of the room. The only open seats were in the front row. I took the one farthest off to the side.

“Now as you recall,” Mrs. Watkins began, “from our last class, we learned that, contrary to what some people may have thought, Lester Pearson was not a left winger for the
Toronto Maple Leafs. We learned that he was a Canadian prime minister who received the Nobel Prize in 1957. Does anybody remember what Nobel Prize he received?”

There was no answer. It wasn't that I didn't know, or that lots of people didn't remember, it was just that we didn't necessarily volunteer what we knew.

“Surely somebody must remember?” she prodded. “Best supporting actor?” a voice chipped in from the back to accompanying laughter.

“How about if I give everybody an additional assignment if somebody doesn't give me the right answer,” Mrs. Watkins said.

“Peace, he got it for peace!” a voice yelled out. “Right. It's good to know that I'm not
completely
wasting my breath when I talk. This Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Lester Pearson because of his pivotal role in the conception and creation of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force. Since 1956 there have been peacekeeping missions throughout the world. These missions have been in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Central and South America. Does anybody know exactly what roles are played by peacekeepers?”

“Keeping the peace would be my guess, Mrs. Watkins,” Kelsey said.

She shook her head slowly as the chuckling died down. “The roles of the peacekeeper can vary tremendously. Peacekeepers can be used to disarm warring factions, to protect or repatriate refugees,” she said, tapping her pencil on the desk as she recited the list, “ensure human rights, supervise governments or elections of governments, train or supervise local police
forces, ensure the distribution of relief supplies, and most often, stand as a thin
blue
line between sides that are, or
were,
at war.” She paused. “Why did I say blue line? And before anybody can give a smartass answer it has nothing to do with hockey.”

“Because that's the colour of their helmets, berets, and vehicles,” said a girl sitting just behind me.