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Not Getting Caught (rom)
Ripping off the traffic sign was Janet's plot. Totally her scam. She planned to take it all, the sign, the metal pole, the street names at the top. "Two fucking bolts. Thirty seconds tops. Tops!" she'd argued. "You get to keep the fucking post and 'Stop.' It's fucking crap to me." Her words. Not mine. Her expletives especially.
My coffee table - a bright red, metal octagon atop a stack of cinder blocks beside my sagging chesterfield. Not exactly French Provincial but quite a conversation piece. Sentimental value? I suppose.
I'm Stephen Newcomb. I paint houses in the summers, take General Arts and Science at the college in the fall. I should have said that right at first. I'm not that strong at composition but like to read a lot. Oh, yeah, I jog. And bike. Not motor. Last year I bought an old Gitane. It's off the topic, though; I'll cut that in my second draft. "I jog" is where my story should commence. That's where I met her, met them both, I guess. Heather first, a year ago almost, so I should start with her.
Heather ran the path along the North Saskatchewan not far from Pinnaird Park. Who wouldn't notice Heather? Not that she was beautiful, not that she was all big tits or wow what ass. I don't go in for talk like that. She was cute, I mean. Way more than that, she had a look about her. Quiet, confident. Bear with me, eh? Writing's harder than it looks from reading other people's books. Okay, her eyes were warm and brown. I notice eyes. They weren't that hurt or mean. Maybe quiet, just a bit. The kind of eyes that you could look at over corn flakes half a life and never lose your interest, the kind that sparkle even when they're half-asleep, just waking up or tuckered out from chasing kids all day.
Her skin was dark. Not Black, but maybe partly Black, or partly Aboriginal, or maybe only tanned. I think, not tan. It was the spring, too cool in Edmonton for lying in the sun. Somehow, out of breath in sweats that clung against her body in uncomplimentary ways, somehow everything about her smiled. Not at me. She didn't know that I existed. She smiled at everything. I knew right off I'd try to meet her.
I'm a painter not an athlete, so I had a hard time keeping up her pace. I caught her, finally, six weeks later (a dozen days she'd breezed right by me) waiting at a fountain. I was out of breath, of course. Well, out of words, in fact. You might have guessed I don't possess a plethora of pick-up lines. I sputtered. Awful. My brain was caught on strands of coal black hair that had escaped her braid and matted to her neck. I fantasized I'd weave them back into the scarf that swayed along her neck.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," I gasped. "I'm Steve," exploded with a second breath.
"You ought to take a slower pace to start, Steve."
"I'm Steve."
"Build up gradually. You sure you're okay?"
"Steve." I was really doing great.
"Hi, Steve." She thrust a hand at me. The grasp was limp, or gentle, like she held a satin negligée and not my sweaty palm. "I'm Heather. I see you almost every day I jog."
"I paint. And college."
"You paint here in the park?" She looked away from me across the sweep of boiling rapids. Clavicles appeared above her grey ribbed neck each time she breathed. I memorized the moment.
"Houses. Not pictures. Interiors. Exteriors. That sort of thing. You?"
"Nails."
I pictured six inch, galvanized and twisted. "Nails?"
"I paint nails." She sensed perplexity. "Manicures. Cosmetology."
"Oh."
"We should walk awhile. You're looking pale. I think you're going to faint."
"Really?" Could I have done it any worse? First impressions, I remember thinking as we walked, were not my strongest suit. Fainting sounded better every step.
"Princes St. S." and "Janet Ct." Just like that, the one above the other. "That's my fucking reason."
"They'll know you did it by your name," Heather interjected.
"As if. It's way the fuck the other side of town. No one would know me. It's in a fucking subdivision. I got lost there looking for a mall. That's when I spotted it. I checked it out real good."
"I don't get your reasoning," I said but then regretted.
"I don't always fucking need a reason."
"Reasons ..." It was futile.
"Reasons are excuses for doing fuck all. I'll find someone else to help me if you're chicken shit."
Heather's eyes found mine or mine found hers. We had no choice. Janet always overpowered us. Even both of us together couldn't change our helplessness.
For weeks, we'd jogged the parks along the river. More or less together. Friendly but not friends, I guess you'd say. I was working up my nerve to ask her out for something real, a meal, a movie, but she was special, so special that she scared the heck from me. I wanted it to be just perfect. Anyway, it's hard to have a conversation when you're jogging. I liked the silence. Perhaps she liked it, too.
"I finish up." (Pant) "That house on." (Pant) "Friday."
"You'll have a weekend off. You work too hard."
"Might see a." (Pant) "Movie have." (Pant) "Have a snack."
"They called me in for all day Saturday and Sunday, too. Bummer, eh?"
That's the kind of timing that we had. Each time I almost asked her out somehow it got derailed.
By then, though, every time I rested, completely out of breath, she'd stop with me and jog in place. And when I turned for home or walked, she did the same. We were a sort-of-couple, at the least, that's what I thought we were, the day that Janet found us at the fountain.
"I fucking hate this."
"What?"
"How do people do this shit? What's the fucking point? Race you to that bend and back?"
I looked at Heather. She was looking at her shoes. Someone mumbled, "Not really." I don't remember whom.
"Fuck! I didn't think so. Fucking, joggers!" She was taller, leaner, and, of course, much faster, too. More abrasive hardly needs a mention. (That line's superfluous, as well.) Her sports bra was defined behind a tight, white tee. She wasn't shy about her body. "Fucking rehab for my ankle," she confided. "Two fucking weeks of this before they'll let me play."
"What do you play?" Heather's voice was soft as fleece adjacent to the jagged edge of Janet's.
"Badminton. Tennis. Whatever's got a racquet. There's a tournament right now. Fuck!"
"Your ankle?"
"I was off it for three weeks. Now I need to build it back with weights and fucking jogs."
Then we raced. We didn't want to, but she teased us. Then she threatened, and we gave it up. She beat us easily at distances she chose. Eventually her ankle healed in spite of breaking rules. It works that way for Janets in this world.
We'd parked my van, the one I use for painting jobs, five city blocks away. Heather was the driver. Or "fucking wheel man," depending on who named her role in this. We left her in the darkened vehicle. She'd give us seven minutes, time for us to jog back down the street and do our work before she slowly rolled up to that corner, Princess and Janet, in the van. I'd open up the panel door. Slip the sign into the back. Janet and I would jump in after just as Heather pulled away. A piece of cake, I thought. "A piece of fucking cake!" said Jan.
One AM. The burbs were like Siberia. A couple, running? Strange but not the kind of thing you'd call the cops about. A small pack sack. (My socket wrench.) It seemed so juvenile. "It's really stupid, maybe, but not that fucking risky," she assured.
She was right of course. It worked. Janet stopped to tie a shoe while sitting on the curb, watching up the streets for nosy neighbours. I hopped in place, and fiddled through her pack. Two nuts. Thirty seconds each. Then some phoney stretches up against the sign to loosen it. Once the bolts that anchored it were out, the rest was simple. Heather. Right on time. I yanked it out and slid it in the van atop a drop cloth that I'd spread to muffle any scrapes. The door slid open; the door slid closed; the van pulled out and that was that.
"Fuck! We did it!"
Yes. I felt a kind of thrill. My knees were shaking, anyway. My heart was fast. I'd never done a thing like that. I never painted swears along a hoarding; I never broke a window just for fun. Now I had. It's like I'd joined a cell of terrorists or robbed a bank. "Right fucking on," I solemnly pronounced. I reached out in the darkness of the van to high-five Janet, and I struck her lightly on the head by accident.
Heather kept on driving. It's old, my van. The motor needs a tune. I doubt she heard me say the swear or heard the slap. I know she couldn't hear how Janet had reacted. She might have seen it, though, by glancing back or even in the rear view mirror. It was dark, but she'd been sitting in the blackened van enough her eyes were more accustomed to the night than ours. A shadow hand reached out and grabbed me, held me while a shadow head approached and suddenly our mouths were all involved in kissing.
It must have been the thrill of simply doing it. Not getting caught. My knees still trembled kneeling in the seat-less back. Vague scents of turp and latex primer filled my brain. I couldn't think. Janet's tongue was deep inside my mouth. I couldn't help it. Her hand was on my crotch, and all at once, I was excited in the other way.
The van rolled smoothly onto Jasper Ave., flooding us with neon. Mission accomplished. Janet straightened up, but left her fingers resting on my thigh. "Fucking A," she chimed in celebration.
Heather didn't say a word. I couldn't see where she was driving.
My truck pulled up, to my surprise, near buildings that I'd never seen. Heather turned and smiled and said, "End of the line for me. My folks live here." I looked around for clues about her life. "You guys can keep the loot. Thanks. It was a kick."
"We could go get something small to celebrate," I begged. We'd had a plan to go to my place for a beer. Janet tugged my arm. I struggled with the sliding panel door.
"I'm wiped. You go ahead."
"Heather?"
"I'll prob'ly see you Tuesday in the park, okay."
"Okay."
"You were fucking cool, girl! Thanks."
"See ya, Janet."
"Tuesday. By the fountain? Six?" I hoped.
Of course, she wasn't there. Never was again. I was glad, at first, she wasn't. I would have felt too guilty. That night we stole the sign, I screwed things up completely. I'm still not sure just how I did. I tried to take her home. She had a beer. I had a couple. We recounted what we'd done. We both said "fuck" a lot and laughed. She loved the street sign with her name and "Princess." She seemed so happy that I let her have her way. She went to use the john. I heard the tap. She had a shower. She didn't even ask! "I fucking smelled like shit," she said as she came out in just a towel. "Got a tee or something I could wear? Or nothing? What the fuck."
That's Janet for you. She's been here almost every night since then.
Oh yeah, the coffee table. Made by Janet. One evening we were lying on the chesterfield, a post-coital snack. Naked still, she tossed me grapes and cracker fish by aiming at my open mouth. "You need a fucking place to put your shit." The bowl of grapes was cradled underneath her breast; the biscuit box was nestled where her pubic hair had been. "Where's that fucking sign?"
The table's kind of weird, of course, and tippy, but it's here to stay, 'cause Janet made it. I love it dearly, really. (I'd never want to let this out to Janet, though; she's way more fragile than you'd think.) It's something stolen, something secret. Like a memory of soft, brown eyes.
John
johndear@softhome.net