A tall, skinny black man wearing two pairs of pants moved in aimless despair from a shaded bench to one that soaked up the thin sunlight. Wizard shook his head. Now, any fool should have known that if you must wear two pants against the cold, you should wear the shorter ones on the inside where they didn’t show. No animal would have flaunted such vulnerability.
If only the man had attended to that detail, he could have passed for a starving grad student from the university. Didn’t he know about the gas fireplace that burned by the wooden tables just beyond those tail doors? With an old text book salvaged from the dumpster behind me used book store, and the price of a cup of coffee, that man could have passed a warm morning. But if he had to be taught that, he’d never learn it.
Cassie had told him that, the first time they’d met. Wizard had been sitting on one of the sunnier benches here, but it hadn’t taken the chill off him. The cold had soaked him, saturated his flesh. He remembered little of himself on that day, other than how cold he was, and the terrible sadness that welled from him like water from an inexhaustible spring. He could almost see the sadness puddling out around him, filling the cobblestoned park with his melancholy. The pigeons had come to him, and he had reached into his pocket and pulled out the crumpled bag of stale popcorn and fed them. They clustered at his feet, looking like small gray pilgrims seeking out his wisdom. They perched on the bench beside him and walked on his body, but soiled him not. One fat gray fellow with irridescent neck feathers had stood before him and puffed himself out, to bob and coo his ritual dance to his thate, which promised that life went on, always. He had fed them, never speaking, but feeling a tiny warmth come from the feathered bodies clustered so closely about him. A strange little hope was nourished by the sight of such successful scavengers surviving.
Suddenly, Cassie had stood before him. The pigeons had billowed up, fanning him with the cold air of their passage.
“They know I’d eat ‘em,” she laughed, and had sat down beside him. She had been a stout lady, her feet laced up in white nurse’s shoes. Her nylon uniform was too long for current styles; her nubbly black coat didn’t reach to the hem of it. A sensible black kerchief imprisoned her steel wool hair. She had heaved the sigh of a heavy woman glad to be off her feet.
“That’s a strange gift you have,” she’d said. It was her way, to start a conversation in the middle. “Can’t say as I’ve ever seen it before- Must be based on the old loaves and fishes routine.” She had laughed softly, showing yellowed teeth. Wizard had not answered her. He remembered that about himself.
He had known that small survival trait. Talk makes openings, and openings admit weapons. Given enough silence, anyone will go away. Unless she’s Cassie.
“Been watching you,” she’d said, when her laugh was done.
“These last nine days- Every day you’re here. Every day is the same bag of popcorn. Every day it holds enough to fill up these feathered pigs. But even when they’re stuffed, they don’t leave you. They know that you won’t harm them. Can’t harm them, without harming yourself. And if you know that much, you’d better know me. Because there aren’t that many of us around.
You either have it, or you don’t. And if you have to be taught it, you can’t learn it.“
Ironically, that had been what she had taught him- That he had a gift, and that gift meant survival. That was what he could not teach to others, unless they already knew it. He was of the pigeons, and they were his flock. But it was a non-transferable bond. He couldn’t teach anyone else to feed his pigeons, for he had never learned it himself. Nor would he ever know why that particular gift was the one bestowed on him. Cassie would only shrug and say, “Bound to be a reason for it, sooner or later.”
Today there was a carelessly dressed woman standing beside a trash bin. Three winos were grouped respectfully around her.
Wizard kept his distance as they each produced their small coins. Only then did the woman stoop, to drag out the hidden bottle from beneath the trash bin. She poured them each a measure into a much crumpled paper cup. Whoa the last wino was drinking, and the two others were licking their lips, he approached them. They regarded him with hostile alarm. He was too well dressed to voluntarily speak to them. What did he want?
“Seen Cassie?” he asked gently. They stared at him uncomprehendingly. “If you see Cassie, tell her I’m looking for her.”
“If yer lookin fer a woman, whasathatter with me?” the woman demanded boldly- She gave a waggle of her body that reminded Wizard of a labrador retriever shaking off water.
“Mononucleosis.” He wished she had not asked him. Now Truth was on him and must be told. “You got it from a wino you served last week. But if you go to a clinic now, they can help you before you spread it to all Seattle. Tell Cassie I’m looking for her.”
Wizard walked briskly away just as one wino got up the courage to hold out his hand, palm up. He wished the woman had not asked him, but once he was asked, he had to answer.
All powers had balancing points, and all sticks were dirty on at least one end.
Down to First Avenue and the bus- A derelict accosted him at the bus stop. He was a heavy, jowly man dressed in a black overcoat, black slacks, and brown shoes. “I’m just trying to get something to eat. Can you help me?” The man held out a pink hand hopefully.
“No,” Wizard answered truthfully. He could smell the Bread of Life Mission meal on the man’s breath. The man stumped off down the sidewalk, blowing like a walrus on an ice floe.
Wizard’s bus came.
It took him north up First and farted him out at the intersection of Pine. The wind off the water waited the sound and smell of the Pike Place Public Market to him. He strolled toward it, savoring anticipation. He never saw it with jaded eyes. The market bore her eighty-odd years as well as any eccentric grande dame. It never showed him the same face twice. Depending on bow he approached, it was a bower of flowers, or a bouquet of fresh fish, or a tower of shining oranges. From Alaskan Way at the bottom of the Hillclimb, it was the magic castle rising up at the top of an impossible flight of stairs. He knew there were twelve buildings and seven levels, all interwoven with misleading ramps and stairs.
He had taken care to never memorize the layout of the market; to him it was always an enchanted labyrinth of shops and vendors, a maze of produce, fish, and finery. In this part of Seattle, he chose to be forever a tourist, sampling and charmed and overwhelmed. He strode gracefully through the maze like a dancer on the kaleidoscope’s rim.
Fish from every U.S. coast sprawled in tubs and buckets of ice, inside glass counters, and in boxes lining the walkway.
Their round eyes stared at him unblinking as he hurried past.
The vendors in the low stalls begged him to taste a slice of orange, a piece of kiwi fruit, a bit of crisp apple. He did, and-. smiled and thanked them, but did not buy today. At a bakery, he helped himself to a sample of flaky croissant. Every little bit helped him, and the market lined up to feed and entertain him. He admired vintage comic books, magicians’ accessories, a hat from the ‘forties, stationery block printed this morning, and fresh ground spices in fat apothecary jars. in their own sweet wandering, the halls and tunnels of the market surprised him by spilling him out on a landing on the Hillclimb-
Euripides was already at work. Wizard approached respectfully. The small dark man had opened his Fiddle case on the sidewalk before him and was playing merrily. Several landings below, a clarinet was completing with but not thatching him.