The Jigsaw Man (2 page)

"What's your name again, sugar doll?" he asked.

"Arlene," she smiled, her eyes already glassing over

from whatever it was J had given her.

Oh sbit.

. . .rain pouring down as 1 run, tears just as heavy flood

ing from my eyesy stumbling blind past the dark buildings

and parked cars until I spot the flashing lights of the police

cars and ambulance. I run harder, panic and desperation the

only things keeping me on my feet. Then Vm there among

the twisted metal, policemen pushing me around until I can

stammer out who I am. Their attitude changes then, but

all I notice is the upside-down car, and the diluted puddles

of crimson staining the pavement below the driver-side

door . . .

That was it for me. My hard-on did a nosedive, and I

made a dash for the alleyway, throwing up my stomach-

full of water with my jeans around my ankles. Blue J

poked his head out of the tarp to see what was wrong

but I waved him away, pulled up my pants, and bolted

for the street.

Arlene was my daughter's name.
Is
her name, I should

say. She survived the crash that killed my wife and son

that awful, night, but not her old man's stupidity in the

months and years to come. Good thing my sister-in-law

Gloria was good enough to take care of her when I couldn't.

I haven't seen Arlene in nearly three years. I wanted to, of

course, but by the time my head had straightened enough

to know what was important in life, she refused to see

me. Can't say I blame her.

Arlene'll be seventeen now, a young woman all set to

head to college next fall. She's probably—

Probably a lot like the young girl you just left stoned on

her~back with Blue J. You're a real fuckin1 hero, Mike.

Fdther-of~the-year candidate, once again.

"Shut up!w I screamed out loud, causing several nearby

pedestrians to take a wide path around me.

One thing crazy people in the city never had was a

lack of elbow room. Was I crazy, though?

Truly
crazy?

I dropped to my knees on the sidewalk, sobbing un

controllably, on one hand ignoring the question, but

then again, perhaps answering it all in the same mo

tion. Who knows? Who cares?

I was so sick of living like this.

I just wanted to end the suffering. Mine, Arlene's . . .

everybody's. From my knees I eyed up the traffic roar

ing by on the street beside me. It would be so easy to

just get up and stumble out in front of—

Stop,
I scolded myself.
You know thafs not the way it

should go down.

True.

I had a better plan.

For months I've been thinking about it, setting

things up, ironing out the kinks. Now all it took was

having the balls to go through with it. I could do it,

though. No worries there. It had nothing to do with me

anyway. It was all for Arlene. I'd destroyed any chance

of a life we might have had together, but if I could pull

my shit together one last time, I could maybe give her a

start on the life she deserved. The life I'd selfishly sto

len away.

Do it then. No more bullshit. For once in your pitiful life

do the right thing.

Climbing to my feet, tears dried up and long gone, I

stood still, eyes closed, thinking about Arlene while

I swayed to the music of the city. I was in no hurry and

didn't give a shit if I was blocking people's way.

Tomorrow,
I decided.

I still had a letter to write and a package to drop in

the mail, but tomorrow afternoon would be perfect. I

could have pulled it off tonight but screw it; tonight I

was going out to get rip-roaring drunk.

Why the hell wouldn't I?

Trust me, I wasn't about to get all teary-eyed leaving

my home and worldly belongings behind. Good rid

dance, as far as I was concerned. Everything I owned

was crap anyway, someone else's tossed-out garbage. I

wouldn't need them again, that was for sure. It was one

of the few perks of planning to kill yourself—you didn't

need to pack luggage.

I should introduce myself better. Sorry, my head

wasn't screwed on quite right yesterday. My name's Mi

chael Fox, Mike to my friends, but unfortunately most

people just called me a bum. I was homeless, that much

was true, but for the record I certainly wasn't a bum. I

was a fairly regular-looking white boy, thirty-nine

years old, five foot ten, one hundred and seventy pounds,

with dark hair and a baby-stubbie beard that steadfastly

refused to grow more than a few downy curls. Sure, I

begged for money and food, but I also worked here and

there, whenever I could. Some of the money I earned I

used to buy clothes, and I washed them regularly at the

local Laundromat. Basically I tried to stay clean, to stay

human,
as best I could.

For the last year and a half, I'd lived in Buffalo, New

York, not that it mattered much. The name of the city

was sort of irrelevant. Where I actually
lived,
was in a

blue metal Dumpster beneath the rusted-out Carver

Street Railway Bridge. For whatever reason, the Dump

ster wasn't used by the city anymore, so me, Blue J, and

another street loser named Puckman had inherited it,

flipped it on its side, crammed it full with our individ

ual yet collectively useless junk, moved in, and called it

home sweet home. Lovely.

It was always cold, always crowded, and it reeked of

cheap booze, vomit, and layer after layer of filthy piss-

and shit-stained clothing. The roof leaked so badly

we were forced to huddle together at one end to avoid

getting soaked, and that was if it was only a light sprin

kle. If it was a downpour—forget it—we may as well

stand outside. The Carver Street Bridge, about thirty

feet above, helped shelter us a bit, but we had to put up

with the rickety old freight trains thundering across it

day and night, every twelve hours.

It was a terrible way to live. Degrading. We were like

sewer rats—worse—at least the rats were too ignorant

to realize how much life like this really sucked. The

best thing I could say about our crummy little corner

of the world was that being located beneath the bridge,

at least I wouldn't have to walk very far to kill myself.

Good thing, too, because I was exhausted, mentally

and physically. So goddamned weary, I wasn't sure if

I'd have enough energy to climb the muddy embank

ment in time to make the next train or not.

As quietly as I could, small brown package in hand, I

stepped over the passed-out prone body of Blue J,

sprawled in his usual late afternoon position blocking

our makeshift plastic tarp doorway. Dropping my last

forty cents—a quarter and three nickels—into his shirt

pocket, I silently wished him luck and eased out the

door without disturbing him.

Outside, Puckman was sitting on the ground, leaning

up against one of the rectangular concrete bridge abut

ments, about fifteen feet to my left. He was busy eating

what looked like a large rat but might just as easily have

been a small brown kitten. Normal society might frown

on such a feast, but around here a meal was a meal. It

had probably been hit by a car and left sticking to the

road somewhere. Roadkill wasn't exactly one of the sta

ples of any homeless person's well-balanced diet, but

when times were tough you ate whatever was available.

Nothing better than a half-burnt/half-raw hunk of un

recognizable meat with the tread marks from a truck

tire still visible on it. It might be disgusting and make

you want to puke—hell, sometimes it
did
make you

puke—but you did whatever you had to do to survive

on the street.

Anyway, Puckman was chewing away on
something,

when his beady little eyes turned and locked on mine.

His face contorted into an angry grimace and, believe

it or not, he actually started to growl. Obviously, he

had no intention of sharing his meal with me. Not that

he had to worry. I didn't want anything to do with the

crazy bastard today.

Puckman wasn't my friend. Never had been, never

would be. Blue J and I put up with him because he paid

us rent, if you could call it that, to share our Dumpster.

Sometimes he paid with money but more often he sup

plied us with food and clothing. He was good at begging

and was an even better pickpocket and thief. Other than

that, he was a no-good lousy bum. It was guys like him

that gave the rest of us homeless people a bad name.

Puckman was a short fet Mexican with greasy black

hair hanging halfway down his back. He didn't even

know where he was most of the time, far too whacked-out

on homemade Screech to realize he wasn't still pining

away in sunny Acapulco, or wherever the hell it was he

came from. He'd been brought up to Canada three

summers ago on a temporary work visa, to pick to

bacco. It was real hard work but they were treated well

and the pay was excellent. The manual labor was too

much for his fat lazy ass, though, and he'd made a dash

for the U.S. border, swimming across the Niagara River

near Fort Erie to illegally enter this home of the brave

and land of the freeloader.

The name Puckman came from his annoying obses

sion with collecting hockey pucks. He'd gathered hun

dreds of them from all over the city and they were

stashed away in dozens of white plastic bags in his cor

ner of the Dumpster. There were so many of the damned

things he was forced to sleep on top of them but he

didn't seem to mind. He told me I'd understand if I'd

ever lived in Canada where hockey was like a religion.

Yeah, right. He'd spent three weeks in Canada, on a

tobacco farm, in the hottest part of August, and some

how he'd become an authority on their favorite winter

sport. What a crock of shit. Puckman wasn't an author

ity on anything; he was just a lunatic and definitely not

someone I was sad to be leaving behind.

"Adios, asshole, see you in hell," I called over to him,

then started walking away.

He growled at me again, smiling triumphantly, like

he'd won some tough-guy macho battle because I hadn't

asked for a nibble of his yummy supper. He wouldn't be

smiling so much if he'd known I had one of his beloved

hockey pucks stuffed in the pocket of my ragged jacket.

When that freight train was screaming toward me,

ready to bust my body into hundreds of pieces, my hope

was that God would grant me one last wish. I wanted to

look down from the bridge, hurl that stupid hard rub

ber disc at Puckman's big fat head, and bean him one

right square in the kisser. Then I could die a happy

man. It probably wouldn't pan out that way but I could

always hope, right?

Without another glance, I began climbing the steep

muddy embankment leading up to Carver Street. From

there, I could walk straight out onto the bridge and wait

for my ticket out of this shitty life. I slipped and stum

bled on the way up but within a minute I was standing

on the first railway tie, at the foot of the bridge.

The Carver Street Railway Bridge was a fine ex

ample of human stupidity at its best. As far as I knew,

bridges were usually constructed to span the distance

over the top of something: things like rivers, canyons,

or other roads and train tracks. Not this bridge; it

stretched a track across an expanse of about eighty feet