“No, I won’t. I promise. Thanks.”
A few customers wandered in, browsed the rickety shelves, glanced over the tables, asked for titles or authors, wandered out. Ryan’s coat was still on the heater, but he hadn’t come back.
I opened the door to the office, yelled his name. No answer. I went in, turned right between shelves stacked high with overstock, special items, books reserved for regulars, random stuff placed aside to be dealt with later. Around the corner, the bathroom door was open. Ryan was on the throne, pants around his ankles, head back like his neck was broken. Snoring.
I kicked his foot. “Ryan. Wake up, for fuck sake.” I had to kick harder.
Eventually his head came forward, his eyes opened, and he saw me standing there. Confusion. Recognition. He cleared his phlegmy throat. “Sorry.” He stood and pulled up his pants. I walked away.
Back at the counter, Ryan asked, “You got any paper I could use?” He was an artist, had been a famous animator. He really did have an Oscar. Or had.
I reached under the counter, pulled open the printer tray, and peeled out a few sheets.
“Any pencils?”
I shoved a dirty glass jar full of battered pens and pencils across the counter.
“Thanks.” He sunk onto the couch and put pencil to paper. I finished pricing the books, set some of them out on the display table, shelved the rest in the new arrivals case. The phone rang, a regular came in and asked after the boss, a couple of arts students came and went, and Cane Man was still there, leaning hard on his cane, making a show of it, drumming up business. Snow fell, big flakes, slow and quiet, sucking up the noise of traffic.
Ryan looked over. “Ah, shit. What time is it?”
I glanced at the clock. “Ten.”
“Shit. Ah, shit.” He shoved his drawings aside, stood up, and paced back and forth. “Fuck.”
“What is it?”
He hurried around the couch. “I’m late. I’m too late. Fuckin’ hell.”
“Late for what?”
“The mission. Closes at ten. Fuck. You gotta be there early to get a bed. Fuckity fuck.”
Which meant Ryan had no place to sleep.
I took some twenties from the till, added up the day’s receipts, shoved a wad of cash where the boss would find it, washed the floor, donned my coat, and locked the door. Ryan was sitting on the stoop, staring at Cane Man, who was still at his post across the street.
“I’ll buy you a beer,” I said.
He jerked his head up. “Really? Thanks, man. That’s great.” He stood up, stamped his feet, and got out of my way. We walked south a block under the orange streetlights. Snow came down heavy and silent. The street was a mess of shiny rivulets and tracks in the gray slush. It was almost midnight. Taxis drove north past us.
We went into Bar Saint-Laurent, really an empty retail space, no decor, shabby tables and wooden chairs. The kind of place you don’t want to see in the light. I ordered a cheap pitcher of Boréale Rousse and poured glasses for the both of us.
Ryan grabbed his and drained it. His eyes shone, a deep satisfied breath gushed from him. He leaned forward and filled his glass again. There weren’t many customers. Les Cowboys Fringants were thrashing from the speakers, a song about UQUAM girls on Rue Saint-Denis.
“Can I crash with you?” he asked.
“No.” I was only willing to go so far. Ryan knew a lot of people, but he’d burned them all. His parents still lived out on the West Island, but they hadn’t spoken to him for years, ever since the infamous mural incident.
In his youth Ryan wasn’t so bad; as long as his alcohol and drug intake didn’t get out of hand, and as long as someone made him take his meds, he was fine. But when he got a little money, when his short films began to be taught in film schools, he moved out on his own and unraveled. He got a huge commission on the strength of his Oscar and an offer to paint a giant mural of whatever he wanted on the lobby wall of the new the National Film Board building in Montreal. He had carte blanche and worked on the mural in secret until the unveiling. The mural’s debut ceremony was posh, of course, with socialites, bankers, government ministers, and state-approved artists in attendance. They drew the curtain, and that was it. His career was over.
The scene depicted Ryan himself, masturbating to pictures of his mother.
His parents wouldn’t take his calls after that. No one would. Over the years people tried to give him some help, work, a place to stay, money, but it always ended badly. For years he’d been in and out of hospitals, jails, flophouses, missions. Now he begged for spare change. For a few months in the summer, a carpenter on Duluth had been letting him sleep in his enclosed yard with the lumber. It wasn’t indoors, but it gave him some safety and shelter from the wind and rain. But now it was too cold to sleep outside.
“I had a place to stay last week,” he said.
“Yeah? What happened?”
He drank half the glass. “A guy offered me a place to crash if I knew where to score a rock.”
“I thought you were off crack?”
“Yeah, yeah, I was,” he said earnestly. “But shit, I needed a place to sleep. So I took him to my friend and he bought a few boulders and I went with him.” He finished the glass. I poured.
“When we were high, he tried to give me a blow job.” He shook his head, as if in disbelief, but it wobbled like he’d lost power over it.
“You take it?”
“Fuck no. I’m not a homo. But when I tried to leave, he beat me. I’m a little guy, I can’t fight. He punched me every time I got off the couch. Then he tied me up.”
“You serious?”
“Yeah. He got out ropes and fuckin’ leather straps. Bondage, you know? He kept me there for days, he beat me and sexually abused me.” Ryan went quiet, his head still trembling, his eyes on the table. He carefully brought the glass to his lips and sipped slowly. “Then he threw me out.”
I was going to leave him with the pitcher when I finished my glass, but then Billy One-Eye came in. He saw us and came right over.
“Ryan, there you are. What’re you doing here? Why didn’t you come to the mission?”
“I got fucked up. It wasn’t my fault.”
Billy looked at the nearly empty pitcher on the table, and swallowed. His good eye made contact with mine. It was a question. I kicked out a free chair for him, raised my arm for the waitress. He sat and said, “I waited for you, saved you a cot beside me for as long as I could. When you didn’t show up, I got worried. Came up here to see if you were still at Schwartz’s or something. Thought you must be making a lot of money.”
“Some fucker pushed me out.”
“Big guy with a cane?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s still there. I asked if he’d seen you. He said no.”
“Fuckin’ liar,” said Ryan. “He beat me up and took my spot.”
I ordered another glass and another pitcher.
“Want to go talk to him?” Billy wasn’t much taller than Ryan, but he was built solid. Big trunk, big arms and legs, round face. He still had both eyes, but one didn’t work — it was enlarged, the iris milked over, bloodshot, leaky, like it was sore; the lid wouldn’t close over it anymore. Billy was from up north, not soft-spoken exactly, but a kindhearted guy. Something in his voice was like a fairy godmother, no matter what he was saying. His thing was heroin.
The waitress came back with Billy’s glass and the beer.
“Not now,” said Ryan.
I had one more glass but it wasn’t long before the second pitcher was near empty. Billy and Ryan were talking, but having two different conversations, both laughing, slurring words, asking me for cigarettes every minute or so. I didn’t smoke.