Alligator - Lisa Moore [5]
Frank has been selling hot dogs on George Street since April, but he knows this will be his best month. He has four weeks of steady sales until September, even longer, if the weather holds. He’ll work every night until the cruise ships have left for the season and the university crowd heads back to school.
He hears a band warming up on George Street. He lives a few streets up from downtown in a bed-sit, the cheapest housing he could find. There’s a retired Avon Lady on the floor beneath Frank and two Russian drug dealers on the floor above. Carol, the ex–Avon Lady, says they’re drug dealers.
There used to be an Inuit guy on the third floor, but he hanged himself on Boxing Day. They’d never got his name and it was something Carol felt bad about. She had been the one to call the police, when she noticed the Inuit guy wasn’t coming and going.
Frank dropped a bag of laundry on his bed and, opening the zipper, took out his pressed, folded shirts in a neat stack. There were eight. The woman at the laundromat on Gower Street put sheets of crisp white tissue paper inside Frank’s shirts when he had them pressed and he liked the soft crumpling sound when he was getting ready for the evening. He paid extra to get his shirts done and it was his only extravagance. He liked to wear a white shirt when he was selling hot dogs. He liked to look clean, and whatever kind of detergent the lady used — she had spiky black hair, wore tank tops and leopard-print leggings — his shirts always smelled as if they’d been hanging on a line. He wore a baseball cap to keep his hair out of the way of the hot dogs. He’d never had a complaint about hygiene.
He and Carol had known the Inuit guy was in trouble, but they’d tried to mind their own business. They’d listened to him shouting and crying in the middle of the night; they’d seen him with his cases of beer. Then there had been no sign of him. The cops had arrived seven minutes after Carol called them, ducking under the icicles that had hung from the door frame. They’d brushed against each other trying to wipe their feet on the welcome mat Carol had bought at her own expense and put out to cover the hole in the linoleum. They’d shut the door and the draft made the light bulb swing and their shadows dipped and stretched. The cops looked windburnt and content, as if they had worked most of the day outdoors and were ready to get home.
Have you got any reason to worry? one officer had asked, directing his questions to Carol, who seemed self-important and frail in their company.
Frank turns on the shower and takes the can of shaving cream out of the cabinet over the sink. He pulls the chain overhead and the light from the bare hanging bulb swings a soft gold arc on the beige wall. Steam roils above the shower curtain, which is transparent except for a print of big red roses. Frank takes off his T-shirt and leans over the sink to look at the stubble on his chin. He stretches his neck, checking both sides of his jaw. The mirror clouds with steam and he wipes a streak with a face cloth and begins to shave.
There was nothing in the bed-sit when he moved in except a hotplate and fridge and the bathroom with a toilet and shower stall. There was a mantelpiece above a bricked-in fire-place and he’d taken the urn with his mother’s ashes out of his suitcase first thing and put it in the centre of the mantelpiece.
A rectangle of autumn light had come through the window and he set the brass urn down so the light struck it and the urn looked like it might become warm to the touch if it sat in the sun long enough. He didn’t know if it was right to display the urn but he decided he felt more comfortable with it in view.
He’d sold all of his mother’s furniture in an open house he’d advertised in the Telegram. He stood in the centre of the bed-sit, on that first day, and he could see his breath. He stood there thinking about his mother. There were two windows and they gave an unobstructed view of the harbour. Frank had sat on the floor with his back against the opposite wall and looked at the harbour for