Wizard of the Pigeons (19 page)

He ate bread sticks and packages of crackers from his food supply. He thought of a cup of hot sweet coffee to wash them down. His hangover vetoed it. Why had
he gone drinking with her? How could he have ever forgotten what the mornings after were inevitably like? He straightened the books on his shelves, moving always with a sleepy caution. He shook and refolded his clothes. He set the wizard bag carefully atop the folded garments, not daring to look inside the bag. He had betrayed them. He wouldn't look at them and wonder what he had lost.

When he had done and redone his small chores, he lay down on his mattress by the cat and stared around his tiny room. The pigeons had all left for the day. This time of year no young ones shrilled from the nests. No babies to handle, no setting parents to feed. The well worn paperbacks on the shelves were stale. He flipped through a Zane Grey, remembering every line of dialogue. It wouldn't do. He rolled over, staring out the sun-stricken window. That was one thing he hadn't done yet. He didn't think it prudent to take up his cardboard and blanket again. Not yet. Wait until night when movement in a darkened upper storey would not be noticed. He wondered vaguely why Lynda had taken them down. Or if she had. It must have happened after he passed out.

His body stank. Sitting still, trying not to think, he became aware of his own smell. Cleaning up was something to do, a chore to keep his mind busy. There was fresh rainwater in the coffee can on the fire escape. He scanned the alley before reaching out the window for it. He made a ritual out of his sponge bath, occupying himself with it for as long as he could. He heated the water over his Sterno can and slowly sponged his body as he shivered standing on a threadbare towel. He was thinner than he remembered being. He rubbed at a spot on his chest for
some moments before recognizing the hickey she had left. He re-dressed slowly.

The events of the night before came back to him slowly, as elusive as last week's fragmentary dreams. He moved back through them slowly, flinching at every stop. But when he came to the image of Booth crumpling down the wall, it was more than he could stand. He rose to pace his room with cat-soft steps. Twice he went to the window. On the third trip, he took his boots with him. He surveyed the alley, then slid up the window and stepped out onto the fire escape. Black Thomas raised a sleepy head from where he sunbathed on the mattress. He gave a warning growl and lay back to sleep.

Wizard had given up all pretence at blending. Shaving in the mirrors of the stainless steel restroom near the fire station was something he did for his own comfort. He still didn't recognize the man in the mirror. He wondered what to do with himself today. He refused to try buying coffee again. He could no longer feed the pigeons. If he went to Occidental Park, Lynda would find him. At the market he would have to face Euripides, at the Seattle Center he would have to deal with Rasputin. For long moments it seemed as if his future was made up solely of the things he could not do. Then he thought of the Waterfall Gardens.

It was just across the street. It was a walled and private place, an oasis of shade trees and flowing water in the middle of the city. This time of year, it was usually empty. The gardens were a tiny, walled-off area, no larger than a vacant building site. In summer, people enjoyed its cool shade and the rising mist off the splashing water. In Seattle's winter, shade and rising mist were in the
public domain. No one went seeking them. Wizard sat at a little round table, watching the running water and trying to comfort himself with facts. The park was a memorial to the original headquarters of the United Parcel Service, which had been built on this site in 1907, convenient to Occidental Avenue and the whorehouses. That was how it had begun, with a handful of messengers whose chief customers were the brothels. He tried to picture it, and smiled vaguely at the running water.

‘Does every little thing have to be spelled out for you?'

Wizard jumped at the woman's voice and spun, expecting to find Lynda rampant. Instead, it was a stout little black woman, her hair lacquered into an unnatural set of waves. Her dress was too long, but her very old shoes were well cared for. She had on a blue cloth coat, not long enough to cover her dress. She sniffed disgustedly as she stared at Wizard. As she sat down at his table, he immediately rose.

‘Where are you going? Don't walk out on me, you dummy! We've got things to say. Hey! Don't try to run away from it, because it won't work. It's right on your heels now!'

He moved off rapidly, routed from the Waterfall Gardens. He had no magic to comfort them; why wouldn't they leave him alone? Away from the protective walls, the wind blew cold and stiff. It crept up his sleeve to chill his wrists, it stiffened his spine with achings. He coughed and it made his head pound. He had to find shelter, warm shelter, away from strange people talking to him. The bus.

The driver glared at him, but had to let him board. It was the Ride Free area. Wizard shivered his way to a seat
in the rear, away from the doors that opened and closed to admit a gust of wind at every stop. He would ride it clear to Battery Street, then jump off and get back on a southbound one. He sat rubbing his hands and staring at his raw knuckles. For a moment he couldn't remember how he had skinned them. Booth. Oh, God! His mind teetered dizzily between Wizard and Mitchell.

The bus jerked and swayed from stop to stop. It had begun to rain, at first gently, then determinedly. The passengers on the bus increased, most of them damp, a few shaking drops from umbrellas as they boarded. Yet the bus was not full when a young man came down the aisle and took a seat beside him. Wizard slid over and leaned into the side of the bus, staring at the water drops on the window but heedless of the scenery beyond. He was so engrossed in his own misery that the soft voice of the man surprised him. He spoke in less than a whisper, his eyes fixed on the front window of the bus, his hands toying with a key chain.

‘I think she's going to say we're through.'

Wizard's body clenched. Mitchell receded. A tremble passed through him from head to foot. The magic was hovering, asking him to listen and balance with it, demanding that he give of himself what he could to those whose instincts sought him out. He began to sweat. It was here, and he had nothing to give, no Knowing, nothing to trade for these confidences. He had to force his shivering mind to focus on the words.

‘She said we had to separate, just until she knew her own mind. She said she knew she still loved me, but that she needed space to figure out how our lives fit together. So I told her okay. What else could I say? I respect her. I
didn't marry her to keep her at home in a box and take her out and look at now and then. Her independence was one of the things that made me love her. I didn't want our marriage to change that. So I said okay, and I moved in with a buddy for a while, and I tried to give her some space. I'd call her in the morning, and at night, and then she said that it made her feel like I was checking up on her all the time. I wasn't. I just wanted to hear her talk, hear her say she loved me and that I could come home soon. So I only called her twice a week after that. She talks to me, but I can tell she doesn't miss me. She likes being on her own again. She even comes out and says it, that she likes getting up alone and grabbing a quick breakfast and heading to work. And after work she can shop and eat out, or come home and watch TV, and she never has to worry if it fits in with anyone else's plans. She never has to hurry to be on time to meet me for lunch, or find a movie we both want to see, or wait to use the bathroom. She doesn't miss me. And she doesn't need me. So what I ask myself is, can you love someone if you don't need them? And is she happy and fine all on her own, or is there someone else? Can it be she doesn't need anyone, least of all me?'

The bus lurched into the next stop. Wizard waited nervously, but nothing came to him. Whatever comfort he was supposed to give this man was not appearing. The magic hovered just out of his reach. He steeled himself and leaped for it blindly.

‘Love and need are two separate things,' he murmured softly. ‘A mother does not need her children, yet she loves them. Need may even destroy love. What have you been doing with your own life while she has been finding hers
again? Are you still the man she loved, the man with his own interests and life, or are you standing in the wings, waiting for her to take responsibility for your happiness? Perhaps you should find your own life and resume it, so she can approach you without fear of being consumed by you. Your terrible need for her…'

The man was rising, getting off at this stop, without waiting to hear what Wizard was saying to him. Such a thing had never happened before, and Wizard gaped after him, feeling defiled and useless. The bus lunged and roared on through its route. He sat in silent misery. It began to get steamy inside from the cargo of warm, damp humans. The seat beside Wizard sagged with weight, and he turned to find that a slender Polynesian woman had settled in beside him. He turned away from her and stared out the window.

A manicured finger jabbed him in the ribs. ‘Pay attention!' she hissed. He knew that accent, but couldn't place it. It was from the bad times. ‘I've got you cornered now, and you are going to listen. So quit playing stupid with me. It's right in front of your nose, and you won't see it. There is no time left for me to be subtle and let you learn at your own pace. When you are irrational, you are vulnerable. And another thing: you substitute tears for action. You want to know what is wrong with you? You found out, a long time ago, that it is much easier not to care. You pretended a distance between yourself and others until it became real. You stopped hurting when people you loved got hurt. You threw your pain away. There is a part of you that fears pain and wants to go back to that numbness. But that is where your enemy is waiting for you. He will attack you with yourself.'

She was rambling, he didn't know about what, but he did know he had nothing to give her. He didn't want to hear her secrets and her hurts. He had no balm for them. ‘Beg pardon?' In a flash of self-preservation, Wizard turned an icy stare upon the little woman. ‘Were you addressing me?'

She did not waver. ‘Yes!' she hissed. Another jab of the finger. ‘Pay attention. You are throwing away your weapons because you think defeat would be easier. You do not wish to take responsibility for yourself. You like to fumble and limp and be helped along. Winning would change all that. So you choose to forget that you are involved in a battle. You have turned your exposed back to your enemy. When you are defeated, you will say, “There was never a war.”'

Politics were the last things on his mind today. He did not want to think back to that time. He spoke very softly. ‘You must understand. I have nothing useful to tell you. Beg pardon. This is my stop.' Wizard dragged at the cord over the window, standing at the same moment. He clambered over her multitude of parcels to reach the aisle. He stood swaying by the doors until the driver could find a place to pull over.

There was no sanctuary for him today, he decided as he slogged down the pavement. The rain spattered him for two blocks, then he crossed the street and caught a southbound bus. The early dusk of winter was already claiming the sky. He felt relieved. He could go home. One advantage to sleeping in, he told himself, was that it made the whole day shorter. Less to deal with. The bus was crowded with early commuters. He stood for several blocks and then slipped into a seat beside a young student
with her lap full of textbooks. She gave him a shy look and turned to her window. Wizard breathed a sigh of relief and sagged back in the seat.

The student fidgeted next to him. She flipped open one of her books on her lap and began to study. Her lips moved as she read softly to herself. Wizard closed his eyes and let his mind blank out. It was as close as he had come to peace today. The girl's sub-auditory murmurings were as pleasant a sound as water running over stones. He let it be a mantra for him, floating on the brushing sound. He began to make out words here and there. He listened carelessly.

‘Only a fool is presumptuous enough to attempt to judge the relative merits of the different realities. Better to let them blend in a pot-pourri of life. Who can suavely deny that there are poets in our asylums and killers on our streets? We may never hear the sweetest songs because we were unwilling to accept a new scale. This reality that we treasure and call sanity may be the purest form of torment to those we try to impose it upon.'

A philosophy course, Wizard decided. The thought irritated him. He shifted slightly to put his ears out of range of her soft mutter.

Her nails dug suddenly into his wrist. ‘All right!' she hissed angrily. ‘All right. I give up on you. Go throw yourself right back into it. But I'll give you one last gift, not a story or clue, but a question. If it was such a good deal, why did you leave it in the first place? What overbalanced your scales?'

It scared the hell out of him. He dragged free of her, leaving shreds of his skin under her fingernails. He stood up, staggering as the bus leaned into its stop. He pushed hurriedly past a fat man struggling to rise
from his seat and was the first person down the steps. He fled.

The storm rallied as he emerged from the bus. From a monotonous grey pattering it became a downpour of leaden streamers. In less than a block, he was drenched. His coat dragged on his shoulders; his wet pant cuffs slapped his ankles. Hunger was asserting itself too, harmonizing with the residue of his hangover. His pace slowed to a trudge.

Streetlamps began to blossom in the dark. They dispelled the night, but not the rain that assailed him. His hair was plastered to his skull, and the scars on his scalp ached abominably. He passed brightly lit store windows where pilgrims and turkeys vied with Christmas trees for seasonal charm. The rest of the sidewalk traffic wore raincoats or carried umbrellas. They rushed past Wizard like lemmings, almost unaware of his passage. He watched their smooth plastic faces and tried to find some kinship with them. There was none. They were immune to misery such as his. They had homes, jobs, families, all arranged neatly in hourly slots of life. Not one of them, he told himself, was going home to a three-legged cat or a damp roof haunted by a footlocker. No waitresses climbed through their windows. They would push open doors to warm apartments, to loving embraces and children playing cars on the carpet. He would climb through a dirty window into darkness and pigeons shitting down the walls. When had he made that choice?