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 grayness 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 me 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 me 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 me square, easing the softness 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 comers.
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 tinned 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 gray of dawn to gray 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 fit his brown paper sack inside it. A day of coping, of imperfect camouflage, of minimal surviving.
As soon as his bag was protected, he fell 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 moldy 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 be 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.