P.K. Read
The seams of the last bag came apart at the summit of the loading ramp and an arterial gush of red lentils spilled down onto the pavement below in a whispered rush. Temo shut his eyes for a second, sack still on his shoulder and bleeding out, and hoped that when he opened them again, the bag would be intact. He opened them and the spill was spreading faster than a rumor of free food. He slid the bag to the side to stop the flow but it only made it worse. The sack disgorged its last few beans, covering the top of his criss-cross sandals, until it just was a limp rag.
An animal cry went up from Uncle Fester the supervisor. Temo knew the gist of it without paying attention to the words. He was already bobbing, nodding, sorrying with a bent back and raised hands to the yells. Then came the command to clean up every last lentil. When he raised his eyes, finally, to meet those of the burly Uncle Fester with the Old Spice, old sweat, old hate smell, what he saw was a round mouth filled with anger, tongue a bright cherry tomato in a loud hole. Temo lowered his head again.
The problem wasn’t the lentils or Fester’s sucker punch that landed somewhere between Temo’s shoulder blades and knocked him over. The problem was that he would miss allocation time at Al Jade’s.
The sleeping cots would all be gone and here he was, scooping lentils and boot dirt and dead bugs into the torn sack and wondering how he was going to keep it from busting open again before he was even done.
The daily serpent, the one he felt creeping up his back, the snake in search of his head, the one that would swallow his eyes, had already started its upward journey in his heavy feet and clumsy hands. Fester’s red hole was spouting noise above him, something about hurry up and want to go home and why was he taking so long and useless moron idiot retard and more words that meant the same thing.
Temo scooped the lentils into the sack, tilting it to keep them in, the remaining lentils on the ground bright against the black bitumen, why couldn’t it have been something black or grey instead of dark orange? Something invisible against the street, just like he longed to be when he slept rough. Something unseen and left alone.
It didn’t matter how long it had taken once he was done, because he knew it was too late. A last trumpet burst from Fester, louder because Temo dodged an awkward kick, and he would spend the next half hour walking to Al Jade’s and indulging in what was less than hope. Because it was hopeless. The other places were all further away, he didn’t know the masters as well, and anyway, it would be even later and they’d all be full. The sky was a slurry of impending rain; the spots under the bridges would have been claimed and anyway, anyway, Fester had withheld what he said was the cost of the ruined goods — he’d made Temo carry the sack straight to one of the stinking disposal slips only after checking the ground for every last damn lentil — and somehow the cost of that sack had equalled exactly half of Temo’s wage for the day. Who knew how expensive lentils were? He could have at least used the lentils for cooking but no, Fester made sure that the lentils were scattered all across the slip, covering everything from rotten fruit to bags of what looked and smelled like dog shit.
Cars drove by on the road, new, old, with one person, with more, with families, all driving toward places that had a place to lie down. If not now, because maybe they were driving to dinner or to the movies or to a ballgame or to make love or just to stroll along a waterfront and hold hands, in the end, they would go back to a place that had a bed. A bed in which they could lie down, spread their arms or curl into a ball or hold one another, and then fall into a slumber, head on a pillow or a shoulder, a slumber that was theirs and only theirs.
If Uncle Fester had even an inkling of the power he could have over all the shoulders and backs and lives of the men like Temo if, instead of a loading dock and a wad of crumpled cash, what he had was cots and blankets, well. Then he would be a despotic ruler, indeed.
Fortunately, Al Jade and the other sandman merchants were benign despots. Not because they were kind, because they never offered anything for a discount when they could ask for more, but they didn’t rule their nighttime realms with hate. Just greed, a simpler beast to placate. You could feed greed and it wouldn’t bite you like that gutter rat hate.
Al Jade said a master of slumber was friend to no one. Friends wanted favors and Al Jade traded only in zzz’s.
The dim lights of Al Jade’s flickered between riverside tree trunks. Temo’s legs were getting heavy at the sight, like a dog that starts drooling at the sound of running water. The bus shelters already had men shoving one another for the slanted plastic half-seats. Temo felt the first drop of rain hit his forehead. The street lights came on, spots of orange as bright as a burst bag of lentils. He could smell Al Jade’s bone and barley soup on the wet air, not much better than a bowl of dog hair but still. The elusive hand of nod waved to him on its scent, curled a tempting finger and he followed, damn it, he followed even though he knew it was a lie.
Al Jade was blocking the door, arms stretched, against three men. All of them larger than the proprietor, all of them cowed by his fierce restedness, his fed belly, his sated vigor. “Full, full, doesn’t matter if you have money, we are full as a sack of ticks, you have to come earlier if you want a bowl and a cot at Al Jade’s.” The men muttered and moved on and Al’s gaze found Temo. “Ah, boy, you are late. Late, late, late. King Sleep does not wait.”
“I’ve got money.” Which was partly true.
Al Jade shrugged, still filling the door.
“A corner, I’ll just sit, full fee for a wall.”
“That’s the start of all bad things, a little slip here, a wall for your back there.”
“Bowl of soup?”
“It’s a package deal, kid. See you tomorrow.”
“You said that yesterday.”
“And I was right.”
The snake writhed up Temo’s hips and was flexing, tightening its grip. The boy tried to meet Al Jade’s one working eye but the man knew how to look and not look at the same time. Temo had missed the cot the night before, the fault of an ill-advised back alley detour to a where a guy on the docks said a butcher dumped the day’s unsold steaks, a tip that turned out to be both patently wrong and sickening as well.
If he didn’t get a good doze soon, at least three hours in a row, he might lose his mind. He could feel his edges fraying like a burlap sack. He didn’t want to find out what parts of Temo might spill onto the pavement.
He watched his feet in the sandals slide forward at the bottom of his legs. Left foot, right foot. The last bed had been the back seat of an unlocked car, four nights ago, what a windfall. Like finding a week of free meals.
A glossy black car slyed up, a cat ready to pounce. Temo edged to the other side of the sidewalk, furthest from the curb.
A man leaned out. Old. Thirty, maybe. Smooth pale skin, hair in neatly tousled curls, a beard oiled and trimmed into a sculptural statement. The time it must take to do that every day, the lack of intrusion. The man was smiling, white teeth saying words that Temo barely heard above the hissing of the snake at his waist.
“Hey, kid, need a ride?” The guy waved his hand, beckoned like a nap, friendly-like.
Temo shook his head.
“Come on, we’ll go get something to eat, take you where you need to go. Maybe you need a place for the night?”
Temo glanced inside the car without turning his head. The driver, clean-shaven cheeks glowing with rest and food, had that hungry grin that only meant one thing: The kind of guys who tried to pick up fifteen-year-olds like Temo never delivered what they promised. Temo knew from experience that if there was one thing he wouldn’t get from these two, it would be a safe bed.
These men would never suspect their wealth lay in a single piece of furniture in a single room, and the undisturbed space around it.
“Hey, your mom know you’re out this late?”
A flicker of response would only spur them on. That part of life, a mom who worried about where he might be, was lost to time and memory, a dissipated dream that leaves a vague uneasiness but no real image upon which to build one’s own story.
They drove off in a spout of laughter.
It was truly raining now. Temo felt the first drip trickle down his spine but the snake was already there and the snake was stronger than cold or wet. Every park bench that was under any sort of cover, every doorway, every space under trucks in the parking lots, everything was either taken or too dangerous.
There was always the Heap, but that sewer would be stinky and dripping in the rain, heaving with boys, and the older ones weren’t any better than the two men in the car.
The snake was almost at the nape of Temo’s neck and he’d be done soon. The worst bedtime, the one that left him somewhere on the pavement like a lost penny, cut or bruised anywhere, at the hands of anyone.
He made his way to the train station, bought a two-day old stale roll, then spent the rest of his food money on a round-trip ticket to the city’s downtown sector, a good hour from here. If he could find a corner between party-goers heading in and late commuters heading out, he might even get in two round trips before a security guard found him. Then it would be a question of finding a spot to lean, any place out of the rain.
It wasn’t the shuteye that Temo craved. It wasn’t the rest, or the darkness, or the release of his muscles and bones and the nod of his head against his shoulder or someone else’s. That was just the snake’s hiss.
What Temo craved was a dream, just a single real dream, one that would show him the way out, a path to follow by day, one that would lead him somewhere softer at night.
He got on the train. There was a space near the front next to a couple in a deep kiss. They didn’t even notice as he snugged in between them and the wall. He swallowed the bread in three bites and then the snake swallowed his head.
He awoke with a start. The train, the kissing couple, his dry corner, all were gone. How long had he been out?
There was a sack on his back, heavy, and his feet were below him, walking up the loading ramp. He was sweating in the sun. Uncle Fester was bellowing at the boy ahead of him, and a rush of lentils skittered everywhere, down the ramp, on the pavement, bouncing impishly, impishly bouncing everywhere. Temo adjusted his own sack, and blinked against the blue sky above. He didn’t remember how he’d gotten here, he didn’t know what time of day it was, or why his stomach felt neither empty nor full. But the snake was already there, making its daily climb.
The lentils fell and covered the tops of the criss-cross sandals of the boy ahead, feet and sandals that looked just like his own. They were his own. Where did the snake end, and the dream begin?
He felt Uncle Fester’s punch land between his shoulders.
P.K. READ‘s non-fiction (mostly on feminism, environment and extinction) and short fiction have been published in Mother Jones, Undark, Litro, Necessary Fiction, Bartleby Snopes, the 2015 Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology, The Feminist Wire, Huffington Post, Panorama: The Journal of Intelligent Travel.
