MaryAnn spat, “You jerk.”
Leo played dumb. Okay, he added fuel to the fire, and disingenuously mentioned he thought she knew so-and-so, or he thought he’d seen her hanging at such-and-such. Misery loves company.
Alley cats drew blood.
Kasey reeled back and swung.
MaryAnn sobbed, caterwauled.
While they screamed, Leo nonchalantly fingered the bottle; snagged it; stuck it in his backpack. He didn’t see any point in wasting it. He biked away. Telling himself he needed it, he really needed extra alcohol before he entered Pete’s Place.
Planning on paying Kasey and MaryAnn back or something? You’re a sorry excuse — his bad conscience began picking at him. He biked to a marginal grassy area; he ducked low beneath a fence, sulking, hiding.
The Smirnoff vodka was hot on his tongue. Rather than making him slow down, the firewater sting encouraged him to gulp. And gulp. He accidentally dropped his Santa Fe New Mexican. Wiping it, he stained the newspaper worse. Too bad, because he wanted to reread the Santa Fe killings story. A homeless killer, huh? Leo wondered: Is he still on the streets? The next vodka shots began stinging in an unpleasant way. He flashed back to how his sores stung, his skin pores ached for weeks following the house fire. The house fire. Still can’t stand remembering it. He climbed on his bike; within minutes, nearing Pete’s Place, Schroeder’s name popped back into his mind. The in-house manager there still blamed him because his stay at the shelter had been a big unapologetic disaster. Forget about it. Screw it. Never apologize. Never apologize to them. Big Deal, he thought.
Big deal, huh. Things could be a bit easier. If at least ya stayed at the shelter. What happened?
Pete Place’s in-house manager, Schroeder, was a fidgety, slightly bowlegged little guy. His slightly condescending smile consumed his body. He dissolved into his twin-peaked lips. The bums who knew the score liked to claim he received $200,000 a year for marginally feeding the homeless. His manner was vaguely priestly, so his nickname was Saint Peter. Nightly, he welcomed the shelter rats. Meeting them at the end of the corridor, right before they entered heaven, he reminded the filthy masses that getting into Pete’s Place had protocols, rules, regulations. First of alclass="underline" put your personal items, small change, keys (keys?) down here. Leo still heard his tiny, wheezing voice:
Please empty your pockets, please place your belongings in the tray.
Please turn around.
Do you have any drugs, or knives, or concealed weapons on you?
Is that everything? Your items will be returned to you after we see them.
Saint Peter explained the preliminary frisks, when challenged. Policy required it for “clients” and “residents” planning to stay overnight. Funny, when the late-night legions gathered, smelling worse than a bucket of worms, then the big iron entryway opened, and then the crowd filed inside one by one, the brightness inside the corridor making it feel like ascending into heavenly light. The bottom line remained that every night guest performed Schroeder’s instructions: Empty your pockets. Spread your arms. Hands up. Arms out. Pull up your shirt. Let’s see your waistline. Guys, let’s get this done. Saint Peter would stretch his purgatorial hands. It got done.
Leo began feeling crowded, flinching inside his clothes. He couldn’t stand Schroeder’s hands, nor the way his face appeared out of the nowhere wearing a smile so wan it self-imploded like Silly Putty. And he couldn’t sleep in the shelter bunk beds, other bums in the room. The communal bedding brought back memories of his weeks hospitalized, weeks he couldn’t stop coughing, and then nights recuperating in a motel that some medical program subsidized before he hit Pete’s Place where each evening Schroeder jangled a little metal tray. He survived. But his feelings hardened. He weathered it, bridging the gap between fear, fantasy, and the zero/void.
Don’t be a crybaby, he told himself; but he was the same Leo Malley who blanked. He was the same Leo Malley who zero/voided. The ledge creeping closer, closer. The zero/void wasn’t a place of complete unconsciousness. The zero/void was like a film watched in a stormy theater where the projector frequently jammed; sections were omitted; the final showing resembled a camera obscura viewing.
No, he told himself, less convincingly. No couldn’t stymie something from happening. The hands became snakes; tiny serpents; cinematic adversaries. He believed, maybe on a blind, tactile level, he believed on that evening that Schroeder’s fingers brushed him someplace questionable. He shoved back, shouting, “Can I get a special shower? Are you trying to pull a rabbit out of my pants or something?” He stuffed his shirttails back inside his jeans.
Personnel filed inside. “Get the cops,” somebody cried, like the way they spur dogs to sic ’em, sic ’em. In Leo’s state of mind, it looked like three-dimensional shadows and murky shapes wearing Santa Fe Interfaith Community Shelter name tags surrounded him.
He brayed, “I’m calling this bs. Where you touched me is out of line, motherfucker!” He hoped the sound waves dispersed the threatening shadows. And although he was a sad, sad, paranoid piece of work, while he zero/voided in his semiconsciousness he appreciated getting a chance to assume a chest-thumping fight stance, while he spewed “bullshit” and “faggot” right in the faces of the house cats. He spun until his energy tapped. He woke up sunken and limp, like a wrung towel; his arm hung in a blood-pressure cuff.
Schroeder insisted to the Pete’s Place personnel — “This man has to go.”
Other people argued. Vis-à-vis his medical records. A notation following the house fire. Post-traumatic stress. Stress which could lead to personal-space issues.
Schroeder shot back that he was fine with Leo applying for Social Security disability because the staff could help him with the applications; nevertheless, faggot and crude language wasn’t—
Leo lost the next few sentences. He heard a heavy, heavy sigh, a protracted pause, sensed a signature moment, and by hook, or crook, the staff let him stay. One more night. Didn’t matter anyway. His bad conscience caught up with him, Ya blew it. ’Cept if ya apologize, wrestling with his zero/void angels. He wasn’t arguing that he shouldn’t apologize. He couldn’t. He couldn’t apologize because the house fire, and the cops and the hands; the hands; the hands inside the zero/void contrived to steal his last vestiges, the vestiges of his memories. And scraps
Things got better.
Leo happened to find an abandoned trailer near the city dump. He didn’t have to worry about personal space out there, except when the cops showed up — rainbow-colored lights freaking him out because officialdom had to know who was squatting. He avoided strangers. He biked to Pete’s Place twice a week, and said, Hello, cruel, cruel world. And consumed hot snacks. And news. And newspapers. Today’s news. A premonition. Somebody was going to ask him about the headline. Lisa Marie Bennett, or Marie-Jose Jaramillo. Headline: “Killings in Santa Fe.”
Leo Malley snapped out of his reverie, back into the moment.
Pete’s Place. Big crowd. Outside: Bums shoeless, sockless. Belongings crammed in shopping carts. Inside: Alley cat heaven. Feed me. Feed us.
“No bread,” Leo sullenly told the server.