Skin Folk (7 page)

“Yes, Miz Grady.”

“That’s good. Just put the box over here.”

Mostly they didn’t much notice him. People didn’t. Except sometimes. Mrs. Herbert in Children’s had let him have a poster
to tape above his desk, a glossy picture of a little freckled girl flying against a backdrop of stars that formed words. He
liked her mischievous grin and the knowing look in her eyes. “Books let your imagination soar,” read the poster.

Some mornings he reached the park very early, before any of the parents had brought their children to school. It was quiet
then, except for the birds. The park was always full of them, even in winter. Raucous starlings disputed the best spots on
the power lines. Tiny house sparrows squabbled in the branches. There was even the occasional lurking crow.

In the mornings, as the wind whispered in the leaves of the old oaks, maples, and weather-twisted crabapple trees, people
would walk their dogs in the park, picking up their pets’ steaming excrement in plastic grocery bags. He approved of the cleanliness
bylaw, but didn’t see how the dog owners could bring themselves to touch the steaming, foul waste, even through a layer of
protective plastic.

The park was a favourite spot for people practising Ta’i Chi, retirees trying to keep their joints limber. He’d become accustomed
to the slow, crane-like gestures that they performed in unison, arms sketching strange patterns in the air while they bent
their legs in a series of odd, consecutive movements. He was sure it didn’t do them any good. The movements were too slow
for any real exertion, and most of the exercisers were so old that they seemed near death anyway. But there they were, every
morning, a gaggle of undignified eccentrics wearing old cardigans, loose pants, and soft slippers.

Some of them were loners, he’d noticed. One man always stayed off to one side of the main group, flapping his outstretched
arms through a mysterious warmup. A bowed old Asian lady with one blind eye went through the movements with a plastic sword
in one hand, a ridiculous instrument with a feathery yellow tassel hanging from its pommel. If that wasn’t peculiar enough,
she brought her pet with her, some kind of hunting bird with a wicked beak. It clutched her right shoulder as she swung about,
bating its wings for balance. The bird
stared
all the time, as though if it looked at everything hard enough, it could make up for her unseeing right eye.

This afternoon, Stryker left work promptly at 3:45. He wormed his way through the rows of book trucks in the mail room, packed
high with books to be returned to other branches, and slid out through the basement door. He’d been feeling restless and irritable
all day—for weeks, in fact, but today was particularly bad. People had been bumping into him all day, as though they didn’t
see him. Even Mrs. Herbert in Children’s hadn’t greeted him as she normally would. It always happened. Sooner or later, everybody
would walk all over him, like soil on the ground. Dirty. The tension was building up in him, it was starting to seep from
his skin like ichor, thick and green, a sullen poison that would need to be leached soon.

Today, he took the quickest route home. Needed to be home. His apartment building was an old, low-rise brownstone, four floors
of small, stuffy one-bedroom apartments with sealed windows and no balconies. He climbed the stairs to his fourth-floor unit.
It was the easiest way to avoid striking up conversations in the elevator. He locked and barred his door behind him, removed
his shoes in the entranceway, carried them immediately to the bathroom sink, where he washed them, inside and out, with soap.
He dried them and applied a new coat of polish to the leather. Then he placed them just inside the front door, ready to wear
the next day. He washed his hands three times, fronts and backs, and cleaned under his fingernails, too. There. That was a
little better.

By now, the restless, irritable feeling had built to an almost delicious tension. He was leaking it.

Now. He took a plastic grocery bag from a drawer in the kitchen. Went into the small, orderly bedroom. Neatly made bed. Tiny
dresser in the corner, no mirrors, no decorations. Reaching under the bed, he pulled out the shoebox. Now. Cross-legged on
the bed, he opened the box. Took out the photographs. Fanned them out on the bed in front of him. His little pretties, his
little birds. Plump Angelica, eight and a half, Toronto, September 1990; flighty Pauline, ten years old, Edmonton, December
1992; pouty Barb, nine years old, Vancouver, July 1994. Now. The images flashed in his mind; smooth, hairless chests, soft
as down. The sweet bite of rope into flesh. The soft cries. Now. Now. Yes. He unzipped the fly of the cheap jeans. Reached
in. Freed the Snake. He wrapped the grocery bag around his stiff penis, took it in both hands. Closed his eyes and let the
pictures in his mind flow as he drained the sticky poison. Now. Now. Yes.

He was going to have to move on soon, as soon as he’d made a new addition to his collection. He always moved immediately after
doing that. He hated the inconvenience of it, but he was on edge all the time now. He had to do something about it, as he
always did. After that, find another town, another cheap apartment, live on his savings for a few months until he’d found
a job. By now, he had the sequence down pat. Two months’ notice to the building superintendent. One month and a week after
that, give two weeks’ notice at the library. Be gone a week before the superintendent expects him to. Soon. As soon as he
found a way to get what he needed. In the meantime, he rented a van under the name of Charles Coral, presenting Coral’s driver’s
license and smiling pleasantly for the clerk around the cotton wadding in his cheeks. The fake moustache tickled his lip.
He’d get rid of the false I.D. along with the van, afterwards.

But it was long weeks before the opportunity came. He had just made his last delivery to the Children’s department one afternoon
and was pushing his truck back towards the elevator when he heard a girl’s excited voice. She was talking to a librarian at
the information desk.

“… you mean, Gabrielle Singer is actually going to be here? At the library?”

“Yes,” replied the librarian.

“No way! She’s my favourite writer of all time!”

“It’s a March Break program. She’s going to be reading from her last book, you know the one?”

“
Madeleine Feldman, Girl Astronaut?
Oh, that’s the best story! Especially the part where the girl, you know, Madeleine? The part where she saves the moon colony
from blowing up? Gabrielle Singer is going to read from that?”

“Next Wednesday, seven o’clock, in the auditorium. It’s free.”

“Oh, I have to be there!”

Stryker casually stopped the truck behind one of the shelves of books, picked something at random off the shelves.
The Tale of Henny Penny.
He opened it, pretended to be reading it. Then he turned his head to look towards the information desk through the open rows
of books.

It was his Samantha, his little chicken. His hands started to shake. He flicked his tongue out over and over to lick his dry
lips.
Stay calm.
He replaced the book and kept on about his rounds, but his mind was working hard, planning the details. This was perfect.
He’d have to cut his notice short at the library, but that was easy. He’d make up some excuse like a sick mother he had to
nurse. Same excuse for his building superintendent, maybe even get his deposit back if she took pity on him.

Next Wednesday he’d finally be able to talk to Samantha, stand close to her, have her to himself for a little while. It couldn’t
have been better. He imagined that she had come here today especially for him. Sweet, flirtatious dove. A week to wait. The
time would just crawl by.

At first he thought he would miss his chance. He’d come back to the library at 8:30, when the reading was supposed to be over.
He waited behind the stone griffin, where none of the library employees would see him. The summer sun was just beginning to
set. His heart fluttered when he saw Samantha skipping out the door, but she was laughing and chatting with two other girls.
He couldn’t speak to her with them watching. Mad with frustration, he had already turned away when he heard Samantha say,
“Look, it’s Old Helga! Mr. Peck fixed your wing up real good, didn’t he, girl? I still have a cookie left from the reading;
would you like some?”

He turned back to see his girl crouched on the library steps, hand held out to a pigeon in front of her.

“Come on!” urged Samantha’s friends. “We can still catch the ice cream shop before we have to go home.”

The bird cocked an interested eye at her and waddled closer. She took a cookie from her pocket and began crumbling one edge
of it to feed the bird. “You go on ahead,” she told the other girls. “I’ll be right there.”

“You and your old birds,” one of them said. “Well, we’re going.” Arms held out like planes, the two girls swooped down the
library steps, startling a flock of house finches in front of them.

“They can be such poopy-heads,” Samantha whispered to the pigeon. “Laura always does what Katy says. Come on, Helga.” She
let the crumbs fall to the ground. The bird came closer, started pecking them up with one wary eye on her.

Stryker looked around. No one was watching. He walked up to the girl, touched her bare shoulder. “Samantha?”

She frowned up at him. “Huh? My name is Patty.”

Mistake. Make something up. “I’m sorry. They told me inside… well, don’t you want to get Gabrielle Singer’s autograph?”

Patty shot to her feet, making the pigeon step back with a surprised burble. “No kidding? She’s giving autographs?”

“Yes. It’s a… special signing. Downstairs. I’ll show you where.”

“That’s so cool. Those guys will be so jealous!” The girl brushed the rest of the cookie crumbs off her hands, waved at the
ruffled old bird. “Bye, Helga. See you again soon.” She followed Stryker around the back of the library, chattering happily
about how good the reading had been. He opened the basement door with his key, escorted her inside. The lock clicked behind
them. She turned to him with bright eyes. “Where’s the signing going to be?”