Raw Bone (5 page)

But on this morning in March, with a frost blanket on the grass, James “Salty” Conner, a one-time worker with Streets and Sanitation, lay under a pine tree on the east side of the grand promenade. Beneath him were three layers of corrugated cardboard, and he was tucked inside a dark green sleeping bag donated by the Catholic hostel. It had been given to him once the staff had accepted that Salty felt safer living rough than bunking in God’s dormitory, surrounded by drug addicts and alcoholics.

It would be at least another hour before the sun came up, but Salty had learned to be a light sleeper, and the sound of a squeaky wheel was all it took to wake him. He fumbled in his pants pocket to find the jackknife with the worn picture of a Mountie on its handle. He opened the blade and waited. The squeaking grew louder and Salty worried that the cough he’d been fighting all week would give him away. He fought the cough down, rolled over and peeked out from his refuge at the level of a mouse.

On a path four feet away, he saw the legs of a man appear. Salty held his breath, fearful his exhalations could be seen. The intruder stepped off the path and walked across the frosted lawn, towing a red wagon with wooden side panels, a large bag strapped to the wagon. Salty eased up on an elbow for a better view. He found it odd that someone from the street would use a kid’s wagon when a shopping cart could hold so much more stuff. He squinted, trying to make out the man pulling the wagon, but it was too dark and what he could see unnerved him. The man seemed to be looking about, making sure that he was alone. He stopped the wagon, dropped the long black handle, adjusted the bundle and walked off through the trees toward Gage Avenue.

Like most men living rough, Salty protected what little real estate and valuables he could claim. Why would this guy dump the wagon here? If the man’s bundle was garbage, why bring it into the park—you could just abandon it on Main Street and nobody would care. Salty closed the knife but kept it in his hand. He’d wait awhile to make sure the man wasn’t coming back, and then he’d go see what was in the bundle.

Though he hadn’t intended to fall asleep, he did. Waking up in the daylight to the chatter of sparrows perched in the tree above him, Salty took the taped-together wire-rimmed glasses from his coat pocket and peered again at the wagon. In the dawn light, the cargo looked silver.

Maybe aluminum coils, like the ones they used for exhaust ducts, Salty thought. They’re light enough that you can jump on them till they’re flat, then sell them for scrap. He studied the opposite treeline and up and down the wide lawn for any movement. The frost was already melting, but Salty could still see his breath. He stood up and took a long theatrical stretch, just in case someone was watching. He pulled off his toque, rubbed his scalp and scratched the thin white hair at the back of his head. Then he leaned down to fold up his sleeping bag to keep it dry
inside.

He approached the wagon slowly. When he was within twenty feet, he ruled out the idea of aluminum coils, but he still couldn’t make out what was in the wagon. He veered to get a look from the side. Sunlight was breaking through the trees to the east and from that angle, the wagon’s load made no more sense than it had from behind. Maintaining his distance, Salty shielded his eyes from the sun. As the bundle emerged from the glare, it moved.

Salty jumped back, letting out a deep gravelly yell. The bundle was still. He stepped forward slowly until he was eight feet from the wagon. Putting on his glasses, he bent over from the hip to get lower than the breaking sun and studied the huge silver lump.

The silver was duct tape, encasing a person. What little flesh he could see appeared in narrow slivers. The eyes and nostrils had been left clear. The eyes blinked and opened wide; the body jerked slightly but couldn’t move enough to scare off a fly.

Salty stepped closer. There were tears falling from the eyes and cascading down the duct tape, pooling on the edges of the tape. Salty knew fear when he saw it, but this was something worse. He coughed to clear his early morning rasp and raised a hand. “Okay, mister, okay; I’m gonna get somebody—just wait.” He nodded several times before turning and setting off at a half-trot toward Main Street. Salty stopped, hesitated and ran over to his sleeping bag. Picking it up, he unzipped it and hurried back to the wagon, where he draped it over the body. He leaned over in front of the eyes. “That’ll get ya warm. Okay, I’ll go get help.”

When he reached Main Street, Salty waved down a passing cab and told the driver to call for an ambulance and the police. The driver looked at him suspiciously but made the call to his dispatcher before driving off. Salty paced back and forth on the sidewalk as he waited.

Within five minutes a Dundurn rescue truck came speeding down Main Street. Salty waved it down and before long was confronted by four firefighters, one carrying a large blue bag.

William Doolittle, the crew captain, said, “Good work,” to Salty. “You did the right thing. Is that your sleeping bag on top?”

“Yeah, I thought it would keep him warm. I don’t think he has any clothes on.”

“Okay, we’ll get it for you. For now, just stand off to the side. Understood?”

“Sure, I understand. I’m broke but I ain’t stupid.”

Joe Calleja, one of the firefighters, squatted in front of the wagon so he could look into the eyes of the person inside. “This is not cool, man. As practical jokes go, this one’s freaky-fubar.” He turned to the men standing behind him, their helmets pushed back on their foreheads. “Hand me the scissors, the surgical ones in the second pocket.”

Doolittle unzipped the med bag and retrieved the scissors. He handed them to Calleja and leaned down to make eye contact with the lump. “The only way to do this is pull it off fast. It’s gonna hurt like hell wherever you’ve got hair, so just think happy thoughts.”

The eyes started blinking and the man began to whimper. Doolittle was surprised the man could still breathe, let alone emit any sound.

Doolittle glanced back at the others. “Petravich, get your phone—I want a video of this.”

The younger man took out the phone and framed the shot, giving a thumbs up. Doolittle wasn’t sure what he would do with the video, but if this turned out to be a prank, it would provide a record for the courts if the guy wanted to press charges.

Calleja looked up at his captain. “Why’s he blinking so hard?”

“He’s probably telling us to cut the chatter,” Doolittle said. “Nice wagon—Roadmaster woody wagon—cool ride. Calleja, get him out of there.”

There was vertical banding on his face, but it was obscured behind the dozens of horizontal bands that wrapped around the body. Slices of exposed flesh—purple and swelling—appeared along several narrow slits in the tape. “Man, you are done up tighter than a … Let’s just say it’s tight.” On his knees, Calleja sat back, resting his butt on his boots.

“What do you need?” Doolittle asked.

“A knife. I have to get an opening in this thing before I can use these scissors.”

Doolittle handed him a folding knife.

Calleja tapped the space between the face and the top of the knees; he heard a hollow sound and pushed the tip of the knife in and cut an opening roughly an inch long. He handed the knife back to Doolittle and picked up his scissors. They could hear sirens approaching from the west.

“Okay, I’m gonna start cutting around your neck first, so you can breathe easier. Then I’ll go between your knees. Got it?”

The eyes blinked rapidly and now they all could hear the urgent whimper. “Mmmn, mmmn, mmmn.”

“I’ll take that as a ‘hurry up.’ ”

“Mmmn, mmmn, mmmn.”

From Main Street, two cops came running across the grass, followed by two paramedics shoving a gurney.

Calleja cracked his knuckles, stuck a finger inside the small opening and widened it before inserting the scissors. With some difficulty, he cut a three-inch horizontal flap. “Christ,
there must be four layers of this shit here. There’s no way scissors will cut it.” Through the slice he could smell ammonia. “Pissed yourself?”

Blink blink.

“No problem, I’d a done that and worse.”

He cut a vertical line three inches long, then with both hands on the flaps of the opening, he said, “Okay, this is when you go to your happy place—this is gonna hurt, but I’ll be quick.”

Rapid fire blinking.

Calleja pulled the flaps outward, hard and fast.

They all heard it. The guy inside the duct tape heard it too. A metallic
clink
.

Doolittle and the guy taped to the wagon were the only ones who knew what the
clink
meant. Doolittle screamed, “Grenade. Get down! Down!”

He grabbed Calleja’s shoulders and dragged him several yards away before throwing him face down and flat on the ground. Doolittle pancaked on top of him and covered their heads with his helmet. The others had scattered. The grenade went off with a terrifying blast that sent shrapnel, bone, gut and flesh as far away as the trees on either side.

As the roar faded, Doolittle rolled off Calleja. “Report. Report. Report—who’s hit?”

No one answered for several seconds. Then, from several directions he heard: “I’m hit.” “My legs, I’m down.” “Me too.”

Doolittle slapped Calleja hard on the back. “You okay, brother?”

“Yeah, but my leg …”

“Lemme see.”

A shard of the wagon’s wood panelling protruded from the back of Calleja’s left thigh, just above the knee.

“I need to check on everyone else before I come back to you,” Doolittle said. “Don’t move.”

Two of the wagon’s wheels were melted on the axles, the other two were nowhere in sight. The tape now held a stew of guts and what appeared to be lower leg bones. Smouldering shreds of tape and fragments of panelling were everywhere. A black cloud was drifting lazily off to the west.

Standing up, Doolittle saw that a long splinter of panelling had penetrated his left hand. Instinctively, he cupped the hand to reduce the tension. He looked over at the two firefighters who were farthest away from the blast. Both were on their butts. One had a slash on his right cheek that exposed the cheekbone. The other appeared dazed, but there was no sign of blood. “Petravich,” he called, “take care of Davis. Bandage that cheek—tight now. Get to it.”

One of the cops was face down; the hair on the back of his head was torn away and, with it, part of the skull bone above the right ear. Blood was spilling from that ear. His partner was kneeling, dazed. There were lacerations on the back of his jacket, but he was wearing a Kevlar vest and he seemed to be unhurt.

“You. What’s your name?” Doolittle shouted.

“Uh, my name?”

“Your name!”

“Penny … Constable David Penny.”

“Okay, get a pressure pack for his head wound from the blue med-bag. When you’re done, check with me—got it?”

“Yessir … I mean, yes.”

“Tell me your partner’s name?”

“Constable Len Szabo.”

“Szabo. Good, okay Penny, quickly now.” Doolittle wrote
Szabo
on his sleeve with a ballpoint pen.

The paramedics were face down in the grass. The taller one was bleeding badly from the upper back and left shoulder. He was trying to roll over but was too stunned to figure out how. Doolittle knelt by him and told him to stay still, before stepping over to look at the second man. He was unconscious but breathing. Doolittle smacked his cheeks until he came around.

“Name? Gimme your name?”

“I’m okay … I’m okay.”

“Didn’t ask that. What’s your name?”

“Oh yeah … Latimer—Jason Latimer.”

“Well done. Latimer, you may have a concussion, but right now I need you vertical and working—can you do it?”

“I think so, yeah. What happened anyway?”

“Later. Right now, your buddy needs you. He took some shrapnel. Get your kit open and do what you can—I’ll take care of the rest. Can I count on you?”

“Yeah, okay, yeah, I’m up.” Latimer wobbled over to the overturned gurney to retrieve the medical bag.

“What’s your partner’s name?”

“Jimmy, uh, James Tobias, sir.”

Doolittle wrote their names next to Szabo’s on his sleeve and looked over at Salty, who was sitting on his corrugated cardboard, staring at what was left of the wagon. “You okay, old man?”

He’d already lit a butt. “You owe me a sleeping bag.”

Doolittle looked back at the blast site where, along with everything else, the sleeping bag had disintegrated. It was scattered everywhere, pieces smoking on the charred grass or impaled twenty feet up on branches or reduced to dust floating away on the breeze.

“Okay, pal, you got it.”

Doolittle listened for sirens. He couldn’t hear any yet, but his ears were ringing so much he wasn’t sure.

Carefully feeling the palm of his hand, he could detect the point of the splinter just under the skin. On the other side, however, it protruded out between his index and middle fingers for five inches or so. His hand was numb and there was very little bleeding. He took hold of the shaft, took several deep breaths and pulled it so it wasn’t pressing on his palm. That opened the entry wound enough that the blood began flowing. Quickly, he moved it back to where it had been. “Now, that hurts,” he said out loud.

Doolittle was lightheaded as he made his way back to Calleja. He could hear sirens approaching from several directions; the cavalry was on its way.

Calleja asked, “How’s the old guy?”

“He’s fine—just pissed off that his sleeping bag’s gone.” Doolittle was focused again on his hand, where blood was still oozing. “Got this wagon splinter through my hand. I’ll need a tet shot, same as you.”

Calleja managed a laugh before shifting his hips to get a better look at Doolittle’s hand. “That’s not wood, Dooey,” Calleja said. “That’s bone. Definitely a tet job.”

Doolittle studied the shard. It looked convincingly like pine or maple, until you studied its porous core.

Calleja eased himself down. “Man, you saved our asses—all our asses.”

“Not all our asses, Joe.” He was looking at the burnt-out wagon.

“In what, five seconds?” Calleja closed his eyes.

“That’s all you get.” Studying the bone sticking out of his hand, Doolittle said, “It’s weird though. Three tours in Afghanistan, where I could have been blown away every day and wasn’t. Then I come to Gage Park and this happens.”