Alligator - Lisa Moore [41]
The restaurant was noisy and the waitresses sprayed the plastic tablecloths with Windex as soon as they cleared the dishes and wiped them down vigorously but the blue ammonia scent hung over Valentin’s table along with the smell of gravy and french fries and trapped restaurant heat.
Valentin ordered a hot turkey sandwich. It came with dressing, peas and carrots, and cranberry jelly, which still held the ribbed indentation of the can it had slid out of. He ate all of it quickly and wiped his plate with the dinner roll that came with the meal and pushed the plate away with his thumb. He had tucked his paper napkin into the collar of his shirt, but he looked around now and saw no one else had done so and he took it off.
The waitress came to clear his plate and she asked if he wanted his bill and he said he’d like to pay tomorrow. He took his watch off and laid it by his plate. He saw right away it was the wrong thing to do. The offer of the watch had depressed the waitress.
She stood with a bottle of vinegar and a bottle of ketchup in one hand and his cleaned-off plate in the other and she put the bottles down and wiped her forehead with her free hand. It was as though his removing the watch had made her extra tired, and her shoulders slumped. She had a warm, damp look because of the heat and the place was crowded but she didn’t look hurried.
The waitress, Valentin saw, was beautiful and calm and disappointed. She stood with the back of her hand pressed to her warm forehead and his plate in her other hand, staring out the window. The water in the harbour was electric with sunlight, a spank of blinding white light, and his vessel was almost in silhouette. He could see someone walking around on the deck, pausing to lean on the rail. The waitress seemed arrested by the sight of the ship. Then, as though she could feel him looking, her fingers fluttered down from her forehead to the neck of her blouse and she touched a wedding ring that was hanging there on a chain.
You can put your watch back on, she said. She picked up the bottles and walked away and only turned around to put her bum against the kitchen door and push through it and he saw in her face she had already forgotten him.
Outside, on the front step of the restaurant, Valentin found a man having a smoke. He offered to drive Valentin into the Robin Hood Bay dump outside St. John’s, but he said the dump was closed on Monday afternoons and there was no use going there and you weren’t allowed to scavenge anyway and you couldn’t go in without a vehicle and he wasn’t taking his truck in because every time he did he got a flat, besides they had an electric fence.
Do you understand the concept electric fence? the man asked. He was squinting up at Valentin, his hand over his eyes.
The man tossed the butt of his cigarette and said, I’ll take you to the dump and you can see for yourself since you got your mind set on it. It’s no skin off my arse if you crowd decide to electrocute yourselves.
Valentin flicked another switch in the electrical panel and turned off the electric fence and touched it again and nothing happened so he opened the padlock. He walked past the weigh station and the fields were ploughed hard on both sides of the road. In the distance he could see the gulls sliding sideways across the sky.
They moved the sky sideways in long white sweeps and then there were sweeps of white sky sliding in the other direction. The gulls filled up the sky, gave it volume and motion. He came upon a small mountain of green garbage bags covered in gulls and there was a TV and a toy castle of durable plastic in primary colours big enough for a child to climb around and play inside.
Valentin thought for a moment he heard a baby crying and it chilled him, but it was only one of the gulls. They screamed in different voices and some