The Hard Way (6 page)

Eunice's leg
was bothering her again, all that damp, all that cold, making her knees feel as if someone was poking around in them with a knife. She stopped when she got to the open gate of Jackson Square Park, the soldier there, the one she'd met at the fire, the one who used to sleep at the abandoned warehouse where people like Eunice had squatted, where they'd had a place out of the wet but not out of the cold, gone now, burned to the ground, just a wall and a half left standing after the fire. Trying to make it warm in there, Eunice figured, too stupid to know they'd send the place up in flames, too cold to care.

Eunice sat on a bench next to the one where the soldier was talking to two men, the white one with teeth on top but not on the bottom, the black man so wide he couldn't close his coat. How did he do that? How did he find enough food to be so big? Eunice wondered, when all she found were empty cans and some stale bread you wouldn't feed a goat if you had one.

Food. That was just one of the problems, she thought, trying to shut up the voice in her head so that she could hear what the soldier was asking, the men listening, like maybe they knew something, like maybe they were saying something about the tall man Eunice had to find.

“He might be in trouble,” the soldier said, his voice soft and low.

Eunice could hardly hear him, what with the noise from the traffic, some idiot honking his horn at a woman with a baby stroller crossing the street, starting too late to make it to the other side before the light changed.

“He might be laying low,” he said. Eddie Perkins. She remembered his name, but sometimes not her own. Eddie fucking Perkins, asking about the tall man. Eunice slid over so she could hear better, but then the black man called out to her, asked her if she knew some homeless guy, taller than average, taller than he was, and he stood up, the stupid mutt, so that she could see his height, five seven, maybe five eight, not an inch more, and then he sat again, hard, as if he'd lost his balance. Maybe he had a bottle. Maybe that's why he fell back to the bench more than sat back on it. Maybe that's why he was so large, all that sugar. Maybe that's why he was homeless. Couldn't keep a job. But Eunice didn't know why
she
was homeless. Shit happens, she thought, that's why. Like they say, there's a reason for everything. Unfortunately, that was usually it.

The soldier turned, too, now two out of three of them looking her way, checking out Lookout, too.

“Never seen him? Why you want to know?” she asked.

But instead of answering her, the black man took a bottle out of his pocket, took off the cap, took a swig, handed the bottle to the white guy and then after he had some, he gave the bottle to Eddie. And Eddie, he shook his head. “Got an appointment with the mayor later on today. Can't smell from booze.”

The white guy looked confused, but the black guy, he began to laugh.

“No, seriously,” he said. “They're forming this council on the homeless.”

“And they want real homeless people on it?” the white guy asked.

“How else will they know what our community needs?” Eddie said, astonished that the logic of it would escape anyone. “Listen,” he said, his back to Eunice again, “tall guy. Might be scared of something.”

The black one put the bottle back into his coat pocket. “Can't recall someone like that. Met a scared homeless guy last week, right here in this park, but he was Chinese. Maybe Korean, who knows, they all look the same to me.”

“How about you?” Eddie asked the other guy. “You seen him?”

“The Korean?”

“No. The tall guy. He's got a tattoo on his hand. He's running scared.”

The white one shook his head. “Can't recall,” he said.

Then they bumped fists and Eddie got up and walked over to where Eunice was sitting. “He bite?” he asked, poking his chin toward the dog, the red sweater hanging down on one side almost to the snow, all stretched out of shape from getting wet.

“Not usually,” Eunice told him. “Not unless he feels like it.”

The soldier ignored her comment. “The mayor's budget calls for me to have a secretary,” he said. “Can you type?”

“I ain't your type,” Eunice told him, her chin held high, turning the other way, toward the sound of the traffic.

“Suit yourself,” he told her. “But it's a good job. Base pay, overtime, benefits like disability, retirement, medical, even dental. Eyeglasses, if you need them. The whole enchilada.”

“I could use an enchilada,” Eunice told him. She got up and followed Eddie out of the park, and together, but not exactly together, they headed east on Greenwich Avenue, past Elephant & Castle and Be Seated, past the schoolyard, the garden where the women's house of detention once stood, sliding on the snow sometimes when a shopkeeper hadn't shoveled, the snow coming down softly, the flakes tiny, like salt.

She followed behind him all the way to Washington Square Park and then crossed over to the south side of the park, the side
near the bathrooms, the side where the homeless had commandeered the benches, made them their home.

“You're going to be my secretary, then practice,” the soldier said after he stopped and Eunice caught up to him.

“Like how. Take notes?”

“Like be quiet for a change. Don't say boo unless I ask you something, or they do. Got it?”

“Got it,” she told him, dropping back again, wondering what bug he had up his ass, he was so nice the other time, at the fire, willing to share home and hearth with her, not that he had either. Hah, Eunice thought, another scam, like the guy who told her there were good eats in the Dumpster and tried to steal her dog when she went looking. Well, he got a surprise, and this uppity soldier might, too.

The soldier stopped at the first bench, a woman smoking, two men sitting next to her, all three looking like hell froze over right here in Greenwich Village, caught them by surprise. Flash frozen, Eunice thought, reaching into her pocket for a tissue, then changing her mind and wiping her running nose with one gloved hand.

“I gotta find this homeless man,” Eddie said. “He owes me money.”

“That's why you ain't finding him,” one of the men said, one of those caps with earflaps on his head, but one of the flaps half gone, as if a dog had chewed it off.

“Right. But he promised. He swore.”

“What's his name?” the second man asked. His head was bare, his hair wet and white with snow. Even a dog would have shaken some of it off, but he didn't. As if he didn't notice it was there.

“Don't know his name,” Eddie told him. “Big fellow.”

“Taller than average?” the man with one and a half earflaps asked.

Eddie nodded. “Even taller than that. He'd stand out in a crowd. That tall.”

“White hair?”

Eunice felt her heart speed up.

“Yeah. That's him.”

“Don't know him,” he said, pulling off his hat, hitting himself on the legs with it, carefully putting it back on.

“You wouldn't think it was so funny it was your money,” Eddie told him, “it was you collected bottles for three days, turned them in to the grocery store for deposit money, then fell for some sob story, boo hoo, I'm in trouble, I need bus fare, train fare, plane fare, I got to get away. You know what got away?” His voice loud now.

“My money. That's what got away. So, you seen him or not?”

“Not.”

“I don't want to go to the shelter again, get the shit kicked out of me for just being alive, eat out of the Dumpster. I want my money back.”

“Soup kitchen's open till two.” He got up and pointed to the church across the street.

“Thanks, man,” Eddie told him. And then he whispered, “They'll let the dog in? She don't go no place without the dog.”

“Who? Your old lady?”

Eddie made a face. “Not my type,” he told them, loud enough for Eunice to hear him, then softly, but she could still hear what he was saying, no problem, “Been following me around all day.”

“Hey,” the one without a hat said, pointing at Eunice, talking too loud, as if
she
was the one with the hearing problem, not the soldier. “You can stay here with us. He'll bring you a plate.” Eunice saw him wink at Eddie. Everyone's a comedian, she thought, no matter how cold it is, no matter what.

Eunice shook her head. The man without the hat shrugged; she didn't want to stay, that was fine with him. Who needed her anyway?

Eddie headed for the nearest exit, Eunice following him, the dog in his wet sweater, only one this time, following Eunice.

“Soup kitchen,” he mumbled.

“Don't like soup,” Eunice told his back.

“You're in no position not to like soup,” Eddie told her. “It's soup or the Dumpster.”

“Maybe I was mistaken.”

“You mean now you like soup?”

“Tomato. Tomato rice isn't bad either. Don't like minestrone. Too many things in it. You never know what the hell you're eating. Don't like cold soup either. It gives me gas.”

“No one's going to offer you cold soup in the winter,” he said.

“Cold soup's for hot weather.” Shaking his head, amazed by how little some people knew.

There were some homeless people milling about outside the church. Eddie headed up the stairs, turning when he was halfway to the door. “Hey,” he said to a crazy-looking man leaning on the railing, “they let dogs in here?”

The man was talking, but not to Eddie. He seemed to be having a conversation with the snow, or maybe with a very small friend who was standing right in front of his unmatched shoes, someone too small for anyone else to see. Or maybe it was his shoes he was talking to, the left one on the right foot, the right on the left. Must be something in the water, Eunice thought, that stuff that prevents cavities, so many people crazed out of their minds. But Eddie just shrugged and headed in. Eunice stood on the sidewalk, Lookout at her side.

“Spare some change?” Eunice asked two women sitting on the bottom step.

“What are you, stupid?” the one with a blanket draped over her head asked. “I'd be sitting here in the snow if I had some change to spare?”

Eunice shrugged. “Just asking,” she said. “The dog's hungry.”

“The dog's hungry,” the second woman said. “The
dog's
hungry.” She had on a men's tweed blazer, a sweatshirt underneath, the hood over her head. Eunice could see she was shivering and
wondered why she wasn't sitting inside. She looked up at the door. No soldier.

Eunice sat on the steps, too, a foot or so away from the two women. “I'm looking for my old man,” she said, acting more like Eddie than herself, not interrogating the women, just having a little conversation. “He's a little…” twirling her finger in a circle at the side of her head. “Wandered off. Tall guy. Exceptionally tall. Got a tattoo on his hand. A bird. Least, I think it's a bird.” Eunice shrugged, wiped her nose with her glove again. She laughed. “Was a bird the last time I looked,” she said, “whenever the hell that was.”

“You talking about Florida?”

Eunice turned to look at the one in the blanket, the one who'd said that.

“Yeah,” she said. “You know where he's at?”

“Hangs out on the subway a lot. Doesn't like the cold.”

“Right,” she said, the dog looking up at her face, what's up, what's up, what's up?

“You try Penn Station yet?”

Eunice shook her head.

“Try Penn Station. If you wanna find him. My old man? Don't know where he is. Don't wanna know, the son of a bitch.” She pulled the blanket off her head and showed Eunice the scar on her cheek. “Florida ever punish you?”

Eunice shivered, then shook her head no, not Florida. “He never,” she said, something stinging her eyes.

“Try Penn Station. He don't like the cold. Why'm I telling you that? You his old lady, right?”

“Thanks,” Eunice said, the dog standing in front of where she was sitting, the sweater touching the snow on the ground. Eunice thought he'd be better off without it, but it was the red one, her favorite. She liked the way it looked against his white fur, the way it made the patch on his right eye pop out. Florida, she thought. A tattoo on his hand. Nodding to herself. Thinking if the soldier ever
showed up again in this lifetime, she'd tell him what she'd heard, see if he'd go over to Penn Station with her. And then there he was, his hands empty, chewing on the last of his lunch. Eunice felt hollow with hunger, mad, too, waiting in the cold while he had a sit-down lunch, coming out without her tomato soup, not even tomato rice, a soup kitchen, you figure you'd get a choice, wouldn't you? Or is that only in a restaurant, only where there's a menu laminated in plastic or printed fresh every day. Eunice sometimes read them in the restaurant windows. Soup of the day, always hoping it was tomato.

“Come on,” he said.

“No soup? They wouldn't let you?”

“You coming or not? It's all the same to me.” His lips trembling, his color bad. He walked back into the park, found a bench, sat down, drumming one foot nervously up and down on the snowy path.

“What happened? They ran out of tomato?”

“They called me Eddie,” he told her, stuttering, his voice cracking. “‘Some soup, Eddie?' That's what she said, a gray-haired lady, a scarf on her head.”

“You gotta cover your head so your hair don't fall into the soup,” Eunice told him.

He was shaking now, his whole body, as if he had a fever. “‘Some soup, Eddie?'” he repeated, Eunice seeing why he was out on the street, seeing the loose screw, the incomplete deck, that he had ten fries short of a Happy Meal. Every story was different, every one the same, too. It all boiled down to one thing—you couldn't make it. You couldn't hold a job, pay your bills, take out the garbage. You searched the garbage. You ate the garbage. You were the garbage.