his grandfather made.
I picture him walking through the house now and going straight up to that bedroom of his. I can see him looking out the window at his fresh view of the water and the mountains. Everything around him is sweet and rich and homey. In the midst of all that, if Drew thinks of me, the things I told him about my family, touching me and being touched by my skeevy little world—I bet he’ll want to shower and wash me off.
Sam used to say, “Not much about a rounder squares with a square john.” What he meant was that, most of the time, straight people just don’t get it. Marlene, Sam and me—and Freddy too—we don’t think like regular people. After that sofa hustle, the cops picked up Sam and Freddy and threw them in the can. The two of them did almost two years.
Marlene packed the two of us up and moved back to Vancouver. The fall I started grade 5, though, I heard my mother on the phone in her bedroom, honey-voiced, a little giggly when she said, “Boy oh boy, some friend you are.” The tone of her voice made a little part of me pop like a firecracker, hoping to hell it was Sam at the other end of the line.
I loitered around her bedroom door, trying to hear. The second my mother hung up, I plagued her with questions.
Turned out it was Fat Freddy on the phone. He was out of the joint early: a free man.
“What about dad? Where’s dad?”
“Supposedly they’re not in touch—Freddy’s moved out here now.” She rolled her eyes a little, her mouth flirtatious. “Come on, Leni,” she imitated a whiny, needy Freddy. “Let’s have dinner.”
Two days later, Freddy called again. He had done a little investigating and discovered that Sam was out and shacked up with Peggy in Toronto. My mother’s friend, Peggy. Peggy, the booster. Freddy then proceeded to invite himself over to our place for a drink. Marlene hung up in his ear. She was spitting fire for weeks. You can bet she lit into Sam when he finally got around to calling her.
Regular people wouldn’t even be speaking to each other after all that’s happened with us. But a rounder has got to make a living. It sounds ruthless. And sometimes it is. Actually, most of the time, the life of a hustler is pretty much the same as the one that regular people live. Straight people don’t like to admit it but they work with jerks they don’t like and they sell situations they don’t believe in every day to make a buck. If you step back and squint you realize that most legit businesses are working a hustle too. Go into a supermarket and they’ll sell you a bottle of water for a whole dollar when all you have to do is go home and turn on the tap for free. Stick the word France on the label and the suckers’ll line up and pay double! And what about the banks? They take all your cash and charge you for it every time you ask for a little back. They get you to use their credit cards and then make you pay them twenty percent interest. You pay if it’s your money and you pay if it’s their money. If that’s not crooked, I don’t know what is. That’s as good as loan sharking. Sam doesn’t even have a bank account. Marlene says he’s a dope on that count and that sending cash through the mail is moronic. But I think he’s got a point. Pay cash and keep the rest.
The bus is muggy with the day’s stale heat. The month of August always sounds so warm and dreamy when you’re stuck in February but once you’re actually here, right in the midst of worn, old August heat, all you can think about is the fact that September is coming. In the past, I’ve always dreaded the new school year: classes I didn’t want to sit through, schedules I didn’t want to keep. Sitting here on this overripe bus, September sounds like a foreign word. What does September mean for Marlene? Or me? Or Sam for that matter?
He’s here, though. Sam could be in any of these buildings, on any one of these streets.
I wish I could meet Sam in person. I’d like to punch him in the face.
As we turn up Willingdon Avenue, I feel queasy. Maybe just carsick from riding