Night Town by Cathi Bond

Author:Cathi Bond [ Bond, Cathi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-927403-64-8
Publisher: Iguana Books
Published: 2013-04-09T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

The sunlight stung my good eye. The black one was nearly swollen shut. I stood at the corner of Yonge and Dundas holding Mom’s white suitcase, stuffed with whatever I could grab before I ran away. A stubby man wearing an old fashioned derby hat and a sandwich board advertised for a place called Starvin’ Marvin’s. Huge posters of topless girls with big boobs were plastered on the walls and windows behind him. Some of the girls proudly cupped their breasts in their hands, while another one licked her own nipple. She must have had a long tongue to do that. The man held a megaphone.

“Come on in,” the man barked, bowing deeply as I passed by. “Don’t be shy. We’ve got more girls than you’ve got dreams!”

Two burly guys carted cases of beer out of an idling truck and into Le Coq d’Or. As the doors opened music slipped out, soul music that sounded the way the street felt: smooth and exciting –the way my future was going to be. Granddad started with nothing and made his own fortune. He didn’t cry, all alone out on the prairies wrangling wild cattle. He slept under the stars with yipping coyotes in the hills, built up his herd and then took the cattle to market. That’s what I’d do too.

I’d spent all my money at Steve’s and my pockets were stuffed with little purple pills. Now I needed to find a new customer base and that wouldn’t be hard. The sidewalks were full of hippies and heads. I didn’t need anybody taking care of me. I was all grown up.

The scent of patchouli oil drew me up a wide set of red brick steps into a warren of tiny market stalls selling brightly coloured beads, tie-dye skirts and boxes of incense that smelled of travel. Young people panhandled, while others smoked cigarettes and watched the world go by. Strains of sitars mixed with incense and calls of “Girls! Girls! Girls!”

A pretty girl with an oval face and a halo of short white hair stood beside an old man who had a silver brush cut and squatted on his heels. The girl panhandled while the man rolled a homemade cigarette.

“Looky looky, here comes Cookie!”

Was he talking to me? I didn’t know what to do so I kept walking.

“Wine’s fine but liquor’s quicker.”

I turned. The man’s fingers trembled as tobacco flakes fell.

“And you know what gin does?” he asked. He was missing a few front teeth.

“What?”

“Gin makes you sin.”

I smiled as the old man sucked through the hole where his teeth used to be. “I ain’t seen you around here before,” he said, looking at my suitcase and then at my eye.

“I’m new,” I replied, looking at the girl with the white hair, quickly brushing my bangs over the bruise.

“I’m Gabe and that’s Lily,” he said, jabbing a yellowed thumb at the girl. “Isn’t she as pretty as a flower?”

She was. Tall and thin, the white hair ringed her face like a blossom.

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