Tom Finder by Martine Leavitt

Author:Martine Leavitt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC000000, book
Publisher: Fitzhenry & Whiteside
Published: 2011-03-10T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Once again, do not forget the word “silence.”

– Act 2, scene 13

The next morning Jeans met him, thin and shoe-polish black. He was singing a Jamaican song.

“You’re happy,” Tom said.

“I am thinkin’ about how pretty I will look for Gina.”

Later, while working, Tom looked for Daniel from the stage until Dreadlocks swore at him.

That evening Jeans went with him when he deposited the money Dreadlocks had given him in the Greyhound locker. They showered in the station washrooms and went in search of food in the dumpsters.

“Dreadlocks talkin’ like they going to get the owner to put us on paychecks like regular taxpayers,” Jeans said to Tom. “All you gotta do is fill out a few forms, SIN number and stuff, and go to the cops for a piece of paper sayin’ you got no record, he says.”

Jeans and Tom looked at each other. “I like it the way it’s been,” Tom said.

“Me too,” Jeans said. “Come on. I’m gonna introduce you to some of my friends,” Jeans said. “Nice people, the kindliest on the street. Girl fish. Come on.”

“Girl fish?”

“Yeah. They on the hook, dyin’ for air.”

Jeans led him to the part of town where the girls hung out. Tom had seen a few of them before. He thought they were beautiful in a sad kind of way, like a fancy streetlight with a few bulbs burnt out.

“Jeans, I don’t think—”

“Yes. That is so.”

“There’s nobody here I want to get to know.”

Jeans stopped and put his hand on Tom’s shoulder. “You go, then. But before you do, Mr. Poet, there’s a thing or two you got to learn yet. That liddle girl,” he said, pointing to one who was anything but little, “she jus’ like any other liddle girl, ’cept she got on the streets. Does not matter how. Some, it is more dangerous at home. Some, they jus’ don’t see how all the pieces of their life fit together, like a big puzzle spilled out on the table. So they try Forget to help them figure it out. They don’t know every time they do that, a piece gets lost. Pretty soon, they don’t think they much to give away. Now don’t you go worryin’. We just talkin’, okay? And lookin’. That’s all I do. That’s why they my friends, see.”

Jeans approached three women standing on the corner. He introduced them to Tom as Martha and Gladys and Beatrice. Jeans and the women started joking and laughing. Tom held back a little, his hands in his pockets.

“Tell your fortune,” a young voice said from a recessed doorway.

Tom looked around and saw a girl. Pam.

“What . . . what are you doing here?”

“Starting my own business,” she said. “Telling fortunes that are sheer poetry.” She smiled. Tom thought maybe he was supposed to say: Great Wonderful That’s Just Great.

He couldn’t speak. She was dressed in red spandex shorts and a white halter top with a maple leaf on it. Just looking at her made Tom want to sing “O Canada.

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