Daddy's Gone a Hunting

31

As Clyde Hotchkiss had scrambled to get away from the complex early Thursday morning before the cops and fire engines arrived, he frantically threw just about everything into his cart and opened the back door of the van.

He could see that all the buildings in the complex were on fire. Thick clouds of smoke were being blown around by the wind. His eyes began to water and he began to cough. In the distance he heard the sound of sirens. Sobered up by the shock of the explosion, he had been desperate to get out of there and reach the subway station. He was pretty sure that he smelled of smoke. But he was lucky. He always kept a fare card for one subway ride and he was able to lift his cart over the turnstile gate and get down the stairs and onto the subway platform just as a Manhattan-bound train was pulling in. With a sigh of relief Clyde got on. The train was almost empty.

He closed his eyes and began to think. I can never go back to that place in Long Island City. When the fire is over, they’ll surely move the vans and if they look inside the wrecked one, they will know someone had been holed up in it. They might even try to blame the explosion on me. He’d read enough papers to know that street people were often blamed if they had been hanging out in an abandoned house or building where a fire occurred.

Then he had begun to think about the girl who climbed in his van that time. For some reason he had been dreaming about her when the explosion happened. I don’t think I hurt her, he thought. I did take a swing at her when she kept talking and asking questions and I needed her to be quiet. But I don’t know… I just don’t know… I think I punched her…

He panhandled all that day on Lexington Avenue. That night he went back to one of his old spots. It was a garage on West Forty-sixth Street that had a ramp from the street to the underground parking area. Between 1 A.M. and 6 A.M. the garage was closed and the overhead door at the end of the ramp was lowered and locked. Clyde could sleep next to the door, protected from the wind and out of sight of the street.

He hung around about half a block away until he saw the attendant come up the ramp, then he scurried to settle in there. It worked out okay because he usually didn’t need much sleep, but he realized how much he missed the comfort of the van.

On Friday morning he left before dawn and wandered down to panhandle on West Twenty-third Street. Enough quarters and dollar bills were dropped into his cap that he was able to buy four bottles of cheap wine. Two of them he drank in the late afternoon. That evening, he dragged his cart back up Eighth Avenue to Forty-sixth Street, keeping a sharp eye out for the do-gooders who might try to force him into a shelter.

He had drunk even more wine than usual and he grew impatient waiting for the parking attendant to leave. It was nearly 1:15 A.M. before Clyde heard the slam of the overhead grate as it hit the ground. Seconds later the attendant came up the ramp and disappeared down the street.

Five minutes after that, Clyde was settled by the grate, newspapers beneath and over him, sipping the wine with his eyes closed. But then he heard the sound of another cart coming down the ramp. Furious, he opened his eyes and in the dim light saw that it was a real old street guy whose name was Sammy.

“Get out of here!” Clyde shouted.

“Get out of here yourself, Clyde!” a raspy voice shouted back, the words slurred. Then Clyde felt the bottle he was holding yanked out of his hand and the contents spilling on his face. In an instant his fist shot up and caught Sammy on the jaw. Sammy staggered back and fell, but then managed to get to his feet. “Okay, okay, you don’t want company,” he mumbled. “I’m going.” Sammy put his hand on his cart, started forward, but then paused long enough to knock over Clyde’s cart before hurrying up the ramp.

Clyde’s last bottle of wine rolled out of the cart and landed next to him. He’d been about to spring up and chase Sammy. He knew he could catch him and he was aching to get his hands around Sammy’s throat. Instead he paused and reached for the wine bottle, unscrewed the top, and settled back onto the newspapers. With the sleeve of his filthy outer jacket, he wiped the wine Sammy had spilled on him from his face.

Then he closed his eyes and began to sip from the bottle. Finally, when it was empty, with a satisfied sigh Clyde fell into a deep sleep.