Alligator - Lisa Moore [42]
Valentin had a son in St. Petersburg who was three, a boy with pale blond curls and brown eyes. He loved the child with a quick, hard, religious depth. If it wasn’t for the child, Valentin would have killed himself in prison, or allowed himself to be killed, but instead, he managed to get out and found himself a berth on the ship because he wanted to buy the child things like the plastic castle and, later, an education.
He had an idea that his son would never ever find himself standing in a vast sea of filth, confronting helplessness. He would make certain of it. Near the garbage bags there was a pink velveteen armchair, it looked brand new, without a scratch or stain, and there was a gull perched on the back. He thought of his son and picked up a piece of pipe and raised it over his head and yelled at the top of his lungs. He flung the pipe at the gull on the back of the chair and the bird lifted itself a foot or two out of the path of the tumbling welter of metal and settled down again.
Sometimes the boy fell asleep on Valentin’s chest while they watched television and Valentin was greatly moved by the rhythm of the child’s breathing, which was deep and committed and gentle and trusting. He would never let the boy see what his father was really like, Valentin had decided. As the child grew older Valentin would show up at the apartment less and less, gradually establishing a distance between himself and the boy. But he would provide for the boy and watch from afar and send money and pay for his education.
Valentin loved to run his fingers through the boy’s hair or hold one of his feet in the palm of his hand. He loved to feel the spring of his curls in his fingers. He loved the smell of him.
The gulls were very big and they tore at the plastic bags, puncturing them and pulling out the contents. He saw a gull dragging the carcass of a chicken from one of the bags. The gull’s wings flapped hard but it was moored to the bag and then the bag gave and the carcass came out and the gull squawked and tossed the chicken, and grabbed at it with angry pecks and abandoned it.
The stink came in dense clouds and went away and came back. He saw a stove with a red-and-white-checked dishcloth still folded over the chrome bar of the oven door. Valentin came upon six scattered paper plates that still had gravy on them and green peas and tiny cubed carrots, the same frozen peas and carrots that were served with his lunch. The bright orange of the carrots on the white plates had a menacing buzz and he had to look away.
He left the road, walked for perhaps ten minutes over the hills of ploughed garbage, and the gulls became thicker and he could feel the breeze from their wings near his head; he was not afraid of gulls. He saw, on the distant hills, narrow pathways beaten into the grass and knew they were rat paths, probably several years old and when it started to get dark the rats would pour down the paths like oil.
In less than three hours he had filled two sacks with copper pipes and brass fittings. Then he hitchhiked to St. John’s and found White’s Salvage, where he sold the piping for $187.
He found the Salvation Army twenty minutes before closing time and he bought a suit jacket and a pair of jeans and a white shirt that fit him well, though under the arms the shirt was slightly yellowed. Valentin went into the bathroom in the back of the Salvation Army warehouse and he found a small bar of soap wrapped in paper on the sink and he unwrapped it and stripped naked and washed every part of himself, even his feet.
He dried