Wizard of the Pigeons (10 page)

Wizard tucked the bag securely under his arm and
followed. She parted the hanging drapes and waved him through. The next room was in darkness. Wizard smelled dust and mildew and heard the chitter and scuttling of mice alarmed by his approach. Cassie came behind him, bearing a candelabra. The flames of the candles didn't waver with her movement; they didn't light much more than her path, either. He trailed along behind her through a maze of rooms and corridors. Most of the chambers they passed through were dusty and abandoned, but some were strangely and sumptuously furnished, twined and draped with Cassie's ever-present plants, and lit by a pale yellow light that blinded Wizard until he passed into the darkened chambers beyond.

When they entered a carpeted room with many giltframed portraits on the wall, Cassie set her candle down on a low table. Wizard put his bag and coat on a loveseat beside it. Cassie was silent, so he watched her quietly as she went to a scarred roll-top desk. She wound her hair into a black scarf. A black cloak from a peg by the desk quenched her white robe. She began to take objects from the drawers. Stepping a little closer, he watched her arrange them on a little lacquered tray. There was a round mirror in a red frame with no handle; a thin ring of shining silver; four cats-eye marbles; a little pile of popcorn; five pennies polished copper bright; and white tail feathers from a pigeon.

‘One never knows what they'll fancy,' she murmured without looking at him. Taking the tray, she crossed the room to slide open a heavy wooden door on tracks. Beyond was a dizzying view. The lights of Seattle were impossibly small and spread out below them. But tree limbs reached up past the tiny rickety balcony which Cassie stepped onto.
Wizard crept to the door and peered out. He longed to go to the edge and catch some glimpse of what supported them up here, but dared not. The grey wood of the railing was splintering and twisting away from its supports. The deck creaked under Cassie's weight. He followed her gaze up to the full moon and felt his heart squeeze. The moon had been only a quarter full last night; Wizard was sure of it. He swallowed drily.

Cassie's hair and body had vanished, dark cloth into dark night. Her pale face was full and shining as the moon herself. She set the tray down at her feet and straightened with the mirror cupped in her hand. Slowly she twisted and angled the mirror until the white moonlight filled it. She stared into it and began:

‘Light of the sun, reflected in the moon's face;
Light of the moon, reflected in my hand;
Hear me now, and bring to me at this place
Those I would consult, those I would command.'

As simple as a jump rope song, but Wizard's knees shook. The whole front of his body tingled as if painted with a sudden frost. He backed stealthily away from the open door and fled back to the candelabra. He put on his coat and held his bag on his lap before him like a shield. The brush of woman's power left his skin, but he seated himself firmly on the small couch to wait.

He sat watching the candle flames. He longed suddenly for coffee with an unsurpassed desire, but knew that Cassie never kept any. He shifted restlessly. Any company, even The Pimp's, would have been welcome, but he was alone. Cassie was singing softly on the balcony; he resisted
hearing her. He passed the time by making the candle flames flare up tall and thin, until the tips of the flames broke off and winked out in the dark room. When he noticed the tapers melting low, he calmed the flames, reducing them to tiny tongues on the tips of the wicks.

‘Mental masturbation,' she scoffed.

He turned to find Cassie unwinding the cloth from her hair. Her hair fell in damp tendrils past her shoulders. As she swung the cloak free of herself and onto the hook, he caught the musk of her efforts. There was a hint of a tremble in her iron control as she sank onto the loveseat beside him.

‘There are more candles in the lefthand cubbyhole of the desk,' she told him.

As he fetched them, he glanced at her tray. The mirror was blackened as if by fire. The pigeon feathers were gone. He took the candles to her, and she kindled them to replace the softening stumps in the holder. Her lips looked chapped, her face windburned. ‘Give me space,' she requested gently. Hastily he cleared his bag from the seat and moved to sit on the floor near her feet. She looked down at him almost fondly.

‘Why did you have to come to Seattle?' she wondered in soft rebuke.

‘Was I someplace else before I was here?' he asked in reply.

‘Never mind. You are in Seattle, and it is here you will face it. Your battles with this greyness go back past your memories. In some, you have done well. From others, you bear the scars. We won't prod them now. I have only paltry things that I might tell you outright. There will be a final confrontation. Very soon. You must guard the weapons
you have forged. If you guard them well, they may be just enough to defeat this Mir. Your edge will be a small one; if you do win, it will be by a tiny margin. This greyness is too clever to let you hone your weapons long. It will come for you soon. If it wins, it keeps you. If it loses, it leaves you alone.'

‘Can I not vanquish it completely, destroy it all?'

‘Listen to him!' Cassie hooted. ‘Vanquish it! Have you any idea what you ask to do? No man may do that for any other. You can win yourself free, and no more than that.'

‘Then, if I lose, I will be the only loser.'

‘You know better.' Cassie's voice went deadly soft. ‘Through you, the greyness could rout us all, as easily as shoving a hose down a molehill. There'd be no escaping for any of us. But if it comes to that, it would no longer be you, nor any of your doing. You'd only be the tool. Let's see.' She sighed heavily. ‘What else was there?'

‘Cassie, you're not telling me anything new.'

‘I know that. I'm telling you what you knew and were afraid to admit to yourself. Listen. I can give you a story. Would you like a story?'

‘Go ahead,' Wizard said grumpily. Cassie's stories usually obscured more than they illuminated.

‘Good. Because I have a good one for you. No, two. This is the first. Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, in France during World War Two, not that it matters, there were some people being shelled. Among them were a young French woman and her two small children. The two children were very, very frightened. So the mother, to distract them from their terror, began to make silly faces for them, and funny noises. It worked. The children paid
attention to her and were no longer afraid. But suddenly a shell exploded very near them, and a tiny fragment of shrapnel struck the woman in the throat. She choked and gurgled in her own blood, making terrible grimaces of pain, but unable to call aloud for help. How the children laughed to see the funny faces Mama made, and hear the silly noises! She died to the sound of the children's laughter.'

Cassie paused expectantly. Wizard just stared, his face gone white. ‘I didn't say the stories wouldn't hurt,' she said softly. ‘But they may help, too. Once upon a time, in England, during World War Two, a bomb fell on an old folks' home. After the raid was over, rescuers came to dig them out and see if there were any survivors. They found one old man sitting on a toilet, still holding the pull chain in his hand, and laughing uproariously. “I pulled the chain,” he said, “And the 'ole bloody building came down on me 'ead.”

‘There's one more I'll throw in for free,' Cassie added quickly before Wizard could speak. ‘It was the first bombing raid over Norwich in World War Two. We were all running for the shelters, when I saw one man come dashing up with an armload of white lilies. “Well,” I said to him, “if they get you, at least you'll have your lilies ready.” He threw down the flowers with a look of horror and dashed down the shelter steps.'

Cassie stopped and looked at Wizard expectantly.

‘Were you really there? In Norwich, the first time it was bombed?'

She looked disgusted. ‘That story is always told in the first person. Well. Do you understand now?'

‘Understand what?'

‘Everything. Why the greyness came to you to test
you last night, and what weapons you must keep safe and keen.'

‘I'm afraid I'll have to ponder your stories a bit more before it all comes clear,' he extemporized. Never call Cassie obscure to her face. ‘But there is one more thing that I have to ask. Something that has troubled me. Cassie, do you know what Mir showed me? About the boys and the chickens, I mean?'

Cassie nodded, turning her head away. ‘I couldn't help but overhear, my friend. I'm sorry to intrude.'

‘I don't mind. Perhaps I would mind more if I understood more. It seemed so monstrous a task for young boys to do.'

‘Some say it's the root of all domestic violence.'

Wizard looked befuddled, so she continued.

‘Don't you see? Teach a child that it's fine, even necessary, to gently raise an animal, seeing to its every need, protecting its well-being. Of course, along the way, you cut off the end of the chicken's beak, so it can't peck other chickens. The same for the rooster's spurs. Then you make a couple of incisions, and reach in and cut his balls out so he'll get nice and fat. Then, after he's nice and fat, you whack off his head and devour him. Now, how far is it from that logic to loving your wife, but beating her into submission if she goes against your wishes? Or feed, clothe, and shelter your kids, but kick the crap out of them for their own good when it suits you? Answer me that.'

Wizard considered the connection a bit far-fetched. ‘I've never heard that theory before. Who did you say advanced it?'

‘Well.' Cassie shifted. ‘Me. But I'm someone, and it makes sense to me.'

‘I'd have to think it through, thoroughly. But there is still something I'd like to ask you. Mir said I was one of them, that I was there. Was it true?'

Cassie had to nod.

‘Which one, then? I remembered being all those boys, as soon as the greyness showed them to me. But surely I could have been only one of them. Yet having seen them from the inside, I would not choose to have been any of them.'

‘Poor Wizard.' Cassie put a hand to her face to scratch the bridge of her nose and then rub at her eyes. ‘Don't you see? You were there, yes. But you were the Black Rooster.'

Wizard shifted irritably in his sleep. The room was cooling off. He had been comfortable enough when he had dozed off, even though he had scrunched himself to fit onto the loveseat. He had stared at the tracing of tree branches against the moon's face until she had blinded him and he closed his eyes. How long had he slept? He opened his eyes a slit. The branches still twined before the moon's round face, but even as he stared at her, she winked out.

He struggled to rise but felt the world tilt; he fell. Cold cobblestones slammed up against his hands and knees. After a shocked moment, he clambered back up to a seat on the park bench and sat rubbing his scraped palms against his trouser legs. He glanced once more at the globe light fixture at the top of the pole. Tree limbs did twine between it and him, and he would have sworn they were in the same pattern as the ones seen from Cassie's chamber. But he was here, in the cold predawn of Occidental Square. He found that he had been using his bag for a pillow. He picked it up and stood yawning in the chill air. Such were the awakenings after an evening with Cassie. They always left him wondering where reality and sanity touched.

He walked slowly through the square, easing the stiffness of cold muscles, and groaned softly to himself as he realized just how awful this day was to be. He could not return to his den to get clean clothes and stash his bag. Daylight was too close. So here he was; no change, his overcoat wrinkled from a night on the bench (or wherever), his suit beneath it showing a day and a night of wear, and a crumpled paper sack for a companion. He tried to weigh his alternatives. Most places with public restrooms were not open yet. There was the train station, but he had been there only yesterday, and his present attire would not make him welcome. He considered trying it anyway, but sternly rejected his impulse. He had to live strictly by his rules now; Cassie had said as much. He could not cut any more corners.

In an alley between buildings, he stopped to run his comb through his hair. He took off his overcoat and shook it zealously to remove as many wrinkles as possible. He brushed at his jacket and slacks as best he could. He didn't need a mirror to know how inadequate it was. He took a deep breath and firmed himself against the day. He was a scavenger and a survivor, he told himself firmly. He must either seize the day and accept what it offered him, or go join the other bench squatters.

He spent the first hour walking the alleys, inspecting the dumpsters the trucks had not emptied yet. They didn't have what he was looking for. He needed a raincoat or an overcoat of some sort, in reasonably decent condition, to replace the crumpled one he wore. He found assorted small items of marginal usefulness, but took few of them, only what could fit in a pocket. He didn't want to crowd anything else into his wizard bag. As the sky shifted from
grey of dawn to grey of overcast, he found a plastic Pay N Save shopping bag. He dumped out its load of tissue paper and cellophane shirt wrapping. This was how it was to be today, he mused as he fitted his brown paper sack inside it. A day of coping, of imperfect camouflage, of minimal surviving.

As soon as his bag was protected, he felt better. In the next dumpster, he found an unstained, unrumpled newspaper. He rolled it casually, and stuck it out the top of the bag. He strolled on, eating half an orange and throwing the mouldy part into the next dumpster. He would make it, he cheered himself on. He just had to keep moving today, had to flow with the day as it presented itself to him. With a little faith, a little work and a touch of imagination, Seattle would take care of him.

He was at Pike Place Market at nine when it opened, having scavenged all the alleys between it and Occidental Square. He had precious little to show for his efforts, other than a bit of food in his belly and a plastic sack. His head was starting to ache; he needed a shot of coffee. But he wouldn't get it looking as he did right now.

He had never liked the bathrooms at the market. For one thing, too many people passed through them; they were never truly clean or in the best repair. Although they were not dim, they were scarcely lit for shaving, even if they had boasted mirrors. He had to do a quick job by touch. He shook out his jacket, tucked his shirt in tightly, straightened his tie, and wiped his shoes over with a damp paper towel. Frantically, he tried to decide who he could be today. He looked, he decided, like a salesperson whose wife kicked him out of the house last night. No. The Pay N Save bag didn't fit. Perhaps he worked in a
slightly sleazy pawn shop, or adult book store. So what would he be doing in Pike Place Market in the middle of the day?

It didn't work. He couldn't get into it. The day had begun badly and would run badly. He ran over his mental list of sanctuaries and decided on the Klondike Gold Rush Memorial Park. That strange designation meant a storefront building on South Main where a bored man in a ranger suit presided over memorabilia of the Gold Rush. But Wizard could spend time there, sitting in a darkened room while the park ranger ran educational films about the Gold Rush era, or perhaps about the Great Seattle Fire of 1889. It didn't matter which today, for he wouldn't be watching. He'd only be marking time until evening when he could make a run for his den.

He boarded the bus and sat staring out the window. Depression stuck to him like old gum on a shoe. Hiding would not make him less vulnerable. One had to blend, to be unnoticed. The bus paused to let two more people board. Both of them walked past the empty seat beside Wizard to stand in the aisle at the back of the bus. When he realized it, he tried to keep the anger and panic out of his eyes. So he wasn't passing today. So I'm a derelict, he thought savagely. Well, then I'll damn well be one today. There's camouflage, and there's camouflage. So today he'd be a bum on a park bench, looking just as defeated and incompetent as the rest of them. He could tough it out until nightfall. He discarded the shopping bag and paper on the bus, wedging them down between the seats. When he stepped off at his stop with his wadded paper bag and wrinkled suit, he scowled at the people boarding. No beggar asked him for money today.

Resentment seethed through him as he stumped back to Occidental Square, and he didn't try to resist it. A sense of being wronged by everyone fitted well with this new character. He'd enjoy it. So why hadn't Cassie put him out last night so he could have headed for his own den? Why hadn't he thought of it himself? She warned him to conserve his strength and guard his weapons, then kept him at her place with small talk until he dozed off, and had to awaken and face this day. If only he had dressed a little more casually yesterday, in jeans and a sweater, it wouldn't have mattered today. But no, he had followed Cassie's idea for him. ‘Always dress up, never down. A little bit of class implies authority and intimidates. Besides, dressy clothes are discarded before they are worn out, and a truly classic style varies little from year to year. Take the blazer, for example, or a man's black raincoat. How much have they changed in the last ten years? Now, if you went to the secondhand store and looked for jeans, you'd only find worn ones with the knees and crotch gone, and new ones in improbable sizes. But dress slacks are given away because hubby got a bit too chubby, or they don't go with the new jacket. It's the same for dress shoes. You'll never find decent sneakers in a dumpster, but one out of every ten dumpsters will yield a perfectly good pair of loafers or oxfords. Keep looking and you'll find a size close to yours.'

He could almost hear her. She was right, usually, he grudgingly admitted. He had once spent an entire day in the Elliott Bay Bookstore, looking at the shelves, and no one had asked him to leave. He'd had a tie on.

His pigeons dipped and wheeled to meet him; his black mood lifted slightly. Then he noticed the heaviness of the
clouds that made up their backdrop. It was going to rain today, rain as only Seattle knew how. ‘Like a cow pissing on a flat rock,' someone had bitched to him once. He tried to catch the fleeting memory and got a confusing image of a triple-canopy jungle and a sweating black man with rain dripping off his chin. He blinked away the non sequitur and sat on his bench to begin his methodical scattering of popcorn.

Lost in thought, he watched the feathered backs before him as the birds pecked and scrabbled for the feed. Their tidy industriousness sank him further into bleakness. He was failing today, defeated by himself before he had even confronted the greyness of Mir. If only he had a cup of coffee.

He was unaware of the woman until the pigeons swirled up in alarm. He shot her a quick scowl as she seated herself on the end of his bench with her own sack of popcorn. It wasn't so unusual for this to happen, but usually it was a kid who didn't have the patience to dole out feed a bit at a time and acquire his own following of birds to feed. He didn't mind it when kids horned in on his flock; kids weren't supposed to have patience. But this woman was a grown adult and should have had more courtesy, if not patience. She was almost as rude as those who walked right through the middle of a flock of feeding birds.

He glared at her again and felt the bottom of his stomach tilt. He knew her. He scrabbled frantically through memories, his alarm building. He had no business knowing her; she wasn't even a street person. It was as dangerous for him to know a regular person like her as it was for him to be known to one. He turned slightly away from her and tried to calm himself. He was being
foolish. Maybe he had sat next to her on the bus last week, or stood behind her in line at some coffee shop. Maybe. But he didn't think so. She was danger.

‘Bet you thought you were cute yesterday,' she said.

Wizard stiffened. Carefully he took another handful of popcorn from his bag and scattered it for his pigeons. He had not heard her.

‘You coulda cost me my job, you know that? I don't know why I didn't give the whole thing away. Yes, I do. It was because I was so pissed at Booth for right away assuming it was me. And because I knew he woulda knocked you right outa your chair. He loves to show his muscles when he gets mad. Showed them to me once too often. So I showed him mine.' The quaver in her voice belied the toughness of her words.

‘He came home from the night shift, and found his junk piled up on the staircase. So he comes down to where I'm working and tries to raise a fuss. So I tell him to leave my key, 'cause the lease is in my name, and if he doesn't, I'm calling the cops. Booth knows he can't afford to talk to the cops about nothing. He's got a bunch of speeding tickets in the glove compartment of his car. Oh, he still thinks he's tough. He phoned me last night and threatened to come by and “see” me. But I told him I had told Mrs McWhirter to call the cops if she even seen him come in the lobby. And I did, too, and she will, too. So he can blow it out his ass for all I care.'

Worse and worse. Wizard's hands shook slightly as he scattered popcorn. Should he stand up, gather his bag, and leave? That was admitting too much. Silence and the back of his shoulder for her. He wasn't even listening to her monologue. The pigeons pecked at his feet.

‘I'm sposed to be working afternoon shift today. But I forgot and got here early, so I thought, what the hell, I'll go feed the pigeons and kill a little time. Then I seen you out here already feeding them, and figured I'd let you know that I knew what went down. Waitresses aren't as dumb as most people think. You gotta really know people to be a waitress. And you gotta have a good memory, especially for matching up faces and orders. That black one sure has a funny tail, don't he?'

The black pigeon's mother had been a full fan-tail, but Wizard wasn't going to chat about it. She was a talker. So let her talk as much as she liked, and when she ran down, she'd leave. She'd have to go to her job soon, anyway. He'd never set foot in Duffy's again, and that would be the end of this whole sorry mess.

She had already fallen silent. He saw, from the corner of one eye, a handful of popcorn pelt the ground with more than necessary force. A short moment later he heard a light gasp, as if someone had poked her with a pin. She took a husky breath and was silent again. Now she would go away. But she didn't. He wished he could stop thinking about the waffle and the strawberries and whipped cream. It wasn't as if he had asked for it. She had given it to him, of her own free will, and there was no reason for him to feel guilty or obliged to her. He intended to take only a quick peek at her, to see if she showed signs of leaving. But when he turned his head for a glimpse of her, she was already staring at him. Her eyes were too shiny; he saw her stuff a tissue back into her pocket.

‘So go ahead and stare,' she said bitterly. ‘Stare at a stupid woman who sits on a bench and talks to some
bum like he's listening and then starts to fall apart. Go ahead and stare. See if I give a damn.'

He had snatched his eyes away as soon as their gazes met, but that was already too late. She had seen him look at her and knew she had his attention. Now she would talk until the clock made her go to work. It was through his own fault, his most grievous fault, and his penance would be to listen to it. He threw more popcorn.

‘I don't know why I keep going. Why the hell should I keep going? I get up, I go to work, I get my pay, I eat, and I sleep. What the hell kind of a life is that? You know how bad it is? It's so bad that when some shit like Booth treats me so lousy that I throw him out, after he's gone, I cry. You know what my sister says when I'm like this? She tells people, “Don't mind Lynda, she's just between men now.” She says it in this bitchy, whiney voice, like someone else would say, “She's on the rag.” And she's my own sister. She thinks it's just terrible that I'm not married. So is that my fault? I like men. It's not my fault I haven't found the right one just yet. Does that mean I've got to live like a nun to keep her happy? Women have needs. We're not supposed to, but we do, you know. When Booth welted on me and I called her up, do you know what she said? You know what she said to me? She said, “You sure can pick 'em, Lynda, can't you? You got yourself into it with that creep, so you get yourself out of it.” And she hung up on me. Well, I did get myself out of it. I wasn't asking for her goddamn help anyway. I just wanted someone to talk to. C'mere, birdie.'