The Street

A Chapter by Sharrumkin

Janet meets Susan Foley.

Chapter Three

The Street

There were times when, standing on the corner late at night waiting for a customer, even after all these years that Susan would think of Paul. She always considered that odd almost as odd as Paul had been. Why should it be he that lingered in her mind? All the others, Howard, her husband of a year. and after that a stream of boyfriends and johns, none of whom she would think of here on this cold street. Why Paul?

She had slept with him three times. She had johns more regular then that. The sex had been nothing exceptional. God knows she had known far better more experienced lovers. Why him?

At seventeen despite or because her brother's objections, she had left school, dumping her books in the garbage bin on the way out. Three days later she had married her boyfriend Howard, a part time carpenter and full time drug dealer. To her marriage had meant drugs, sex, freedom from teachers and her brother, and money from welfare. Four months later she had found herself pregnant. Howard had told her to get rid of it or he would leave her. She did. Five months later Howard drove off to look for work out west leaving her with forty dollars in the bank and two months unpaid rent. The police picked her up three days later on suspicion of drug dealing. Mathew had paid her bail. Howard, she had never heard from again.

She had met Paul at the basement of Saint Andrews Presbyterian during the free Christmas dinner a year after Howard had left. Between welfare and turning an occasional trick she felt that she was getting by. Occasionally she would write attempts at verse in a notebook .A poetess she called herself.

I lock my brother's door behind me

And vomit on the steps.

I stand beside my mother's grave

And spit upon her name.

Paul had been serving as a volunteer helping to serve free Christmas dinner to the street people that inhabited Yonge Street. Apart from doing volunteer work at the church he had al so worked as a supply teacher for the school board. It did not he admitted to Susan allow him to live in luxury least of all in Toronto but he earned enough for his needs.

Susan was twenty-m two. A year before she had inherited half of her parent's estate, four hundred thousand dollars. It had taken her nine months to go through it. Drugs, alcohol, parties, a constant stream of bed partners most of whom had soon disappeared with thousands. First class tickets to Europe and Asia. Then it was gone and she was back on the street in Toronto begging for change, selling her body to whoever was interested. Her securing of social assistance at least allowed her a momentary respite from prostitution.

The last thing she was expecting was Paul's asking her to join him for a cup of tea. Sex, yes she would have understood that, but tea? She had not been asked out for a date since High School

Two weeks later as they sat in the local Starbucks she had suggested that they make love. Paul told her that at twenty-nine he had never slept with a woman before. Liar she had thought. She had heard that line so many times before. Yet the clumsiness of his lovemaking and his profuse apologies more than half-convinced that he had been speaking the truth. When it was over she had asked him why he had remained alone for so long. He had shrugged and had said that there had been his studies, lack of money and reluctance to force himself upon anyone.

Why had he not just applied for welfare she asked him. He shook his head. "They give you money. You give them your soul. No thanks."

The fourth week after they had become lovers, as they lay together in bed in Paul's one-room apartment, Susan had told Paul about Howard and about how he had left her.

"He sounds like a piece of human garbage" Paul had muttered. Then he fell asleep

As the night crept by Susan had brooded on that remark. An hour after Paul had fallen asleep she rose, dressed, took twenty dollars out of his wallet and left. On the subway ride back to her cubbyhole Susan continued to consider the meaning of Paul's statement. On the surface it seemed a simple expression of sympathy but as she considered it became much more. If he thought that about Howard what did he think about her? All relationships were based upon control. If there was to be a long term relationship between herself and Paul it would be upon her terms. Once he had realized that and settled into his rightful place then she would allow him to be part of her life. But fist she would have to show him that she, not he, was in control. She would have to hurt him, not too much, just enough to teach him. Then she would consider restoring him to her bed.

At their next meeting she had told him that if he wanted to, he could be a friend, nothing more. Something had flickered through his eyes, disappointment, confusion. That she had expected What she had not expected was for him to smile, nod his said and say in a soft voice, "sure, of course."

She told him that things were moving too fast. Better for them both to think things over, to have a little more room between themselves..

His easy agreement strengthened suspicion that Susan had, that he had been planted by the cops or by her brother to spy on her. Why else would he stick around once the sex had been removed? In some way she reminded her of Mathew the way he would keep prattling on about the importance of education, when he could barely afford to make ends meet. He even managed to persuade her to sign up for a creative writing course at Ryerson. She paid for the tuition with the money that he had given her. She went to one class got bored and decided not to go back. The tuition she got refunded and spent on a new winter coat.

One thing she did know. Whoever put the least into a relationship while extracting the most was the one who remained in control. It had always worked that way with her boyfriends. It should work with Paul.

In some ways it did. He kept giving. She kept taking. Dinner invitations, gifts, assistance around the apartment and someone to talk to on the phone in the depth of night; these were hers. All of these were satisfactory in their way but he never seemed to grasp the essential point of her displeasure. He never recanted his statement about Howard, not that she ever asked him too. Why should she? He should have guessed that something was wrong. He should have told her that he knew that he had offended her and that he begged for her forgiveness. She would have granted it and have taken him back into her bed. He never asked.

As the months passed it became clearer to her that something was very wrong with the man. Any sensible person would have left her and found a girlfriend. Maybe he was incapable of it. Too weak. When they went out, she would often spend time talking to other men leaving him sitting alone at the table. Instead of rousing him into some kind of jealous rage, he would just pick at his food and say nothing.

Almost two years had passed. He would not recant. He would not go away. The sexual passion he once had for her seemed to have ebbed away. When he told her that he been offered a teaching position in some African country she had greeted the news almost with relief. He would be gone for two years. Every week her would try to send a letter. She had nodded. As she did so she thought of calling a guy who had given her his number the last time she and Paul had been out together.

He called her the night before he left and said that he would miss her. Would she see him off at the airport? She said that she would but the flight was early and she woke late. Two weeks later she got a postcard from Amsterdam. After that, nothing., No letter from Africa ever came The two years went by. Paul never called. She thought of trying to contact the agency that he was working for but she had misplaced the number and name.

The men she called drifted away after a few weeks. Drugs and prostitution interrupted by short prison terms became the staples of her life. Ten years after Paul left she came across his name in a telephone directory she wrote to him asking him where he was and telling him about how she was thinking of hiring a private detective to find him. The words were crammed together on both sides of a single piece of paper to save postage. Two weeks later the letter came back. Someone had scribbled "wrong address" on the envelope.

***

Janet guessed at what had happened. Somehow this strange woman had infected her with a drug causing these hallucinations. PCBs? LSD? She had heard of these noxious drugs and their hallucinatory side effects. She would be sent to the states or even overseas as part of a white slavering ring. Jenny had talked about that on television last night.

Louise touched her left arm " A long time ago I learned that even if one cannot understand the impossible one can still learn to accept it."

Janet struck her face then screamed and ran down the street, forgetting that on her feet were her bedroom slippers not the best thing to bear wearing on an icy Toronto street.

Janet had always disliked Toronto. She had thought it to be too big, too crowded and too expensive. Her father had once told her that any city over a hundred thousand in population became too uncomfortable to live in. Unlike many of her friends she had never had any great desire to leave the hills and rivers she had always known. When she had last gone there with her father she could not wait to go back home. Now everything in her being told her to get away from her as quickly as possible..

The strange woman standing at the corner turned to look at her. Susan was not in a good mood. She had almost concluded a deal with a John when a police cruiser had passed by. The cops had looked in their direction. The John had sped away ignoring Susan's frantic reduction in price. Only when she resumed her search for other customers did she see the two women.

As she watched Janet try to flee Louise knew that it was time to end this. She wished that she could.

Susan had seen the scene before. Some junkie off her head. She assumed her to be a new one from the freshness of her looks. Those she would lose fast enough. An older woman stood at the other end. The younger woman's lover? Who cares. With any luck the junkie might pass out close to where Susan stood. A couple of minutes would give her a chance to check the junkie's pockets. With any luck she could find enough to get out of this damn cold.

For the first time in a very long time luck seemed to drop into Susan's life. The young woman in her panic failed to see a streak of ice. She slipped and sprawled upon the sidewalk. Susan curled her cold fingers around a small knife that she kept in her coat pocket and with an eye open for a police cruiser walked towards the fallen woman.. It was only then that she saw the fuzzy blue bedroom slippers.

Louise knew that Janet could not recognize Susan but could Susan recognize Janet? She might ridicule her brother’s theories but she knew of them.

Ignoring the knife Louise bent over the sobbing Janet. “Look at her, Susan. Don’t you recognize her?”

“Who the f**k are you?”

“A friend of your brother.”

“A friend?” The b***h was sniffing after his money. She laughed. “That idiot wouldn’t know what to do with a woman if he fell over one.” Matthew and his stupid theories. The money that he had wasted on them he should have given to her. She would not be standing here on this s****y corner. She’d have a nice place. She could receive her clients there. Charge top prices.

Louise lowered her head. All those years, Matthew believing in what his sister had never been. Louise knew that beneath Susan’s clothes was a body worn to a skeleton by too much heroin and too little food. Whatever life her eyes once had, the years long since had burned away.

“He was right you know.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She is what you could have been.”

Susan’s reply was as venomous as it was as it was automatic. She aimed it at both of them. “F*****g c***s.”

Susan had first been called that by a schoolmate when she was twelve. She had hated the words and reserved them for women she disliked, which included every woman in her life. She looked down at the two. The older woman ignored hert. But something about the younger one, innocence…weakness attracted her, peeping out through the fog. The woman reminded her of someone that she had known once. The face …. The way that she moved.

“It’s cold” Janet whimpered.

“It’s always cold” said Louise. She helped Janet up to her feet. Janet winced from a twisted ankle.

Susan lowered her knife. “You better get Looney-tunes there home before she freezes.”

“Looney-tunes” asked Louise. “Oh yes. The animated cartoons you used to watch with Matthew. He told

me that after the age of five you never laughed at the cartoons.”

Susan frowned. That sounded like Matthew. He could never keep his mouth shut about anything. “So what’s that to you? You his shrink?”

The woman ignored the question. “And you Susan? Where do you go?”

“F**k off.” Susan thrust her hands deeper into her pockets their lining riddled with holes and turned away. A moment later she looked back. The two women were gone. She stood alone on the empty sidewalk shrouded by the falling snow.

Islanders Amazon Press

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