with gel from the night before. He was tall and fitand muscular, his brown calves flashing through the vent of hishousecoat. He was smoking a hand-rolled cigarette and clutching a can ofCoke.
Alan shut down the saw and shifted his goggles up to his forehead. "Goodmorning," he said. "I'd stay on the porch if I were you, or maybe put onsome shoes. There're lots of nails and splinters around."
Krishna, about to step off the porch, stepped back. "You must be Alvin,"he said.
"Yup," Alan said, going up the stairs, sticking out his hand. "And youmust be Krishna. You're pretty good with a guitar, you know that?"
Krishna shook briefly, then snatched his hand back and rubbed at hisstubble. "I know. You're pretty fucking loud with a table saw."
Alan looked sheepish. "Sorry about that. I wanted to get the heavy workdone before it got too hot. Hope I'm not disturbing you too much --today's the only sawing day. I'll be hammering for the next day or two,then it's all wet work -- the loudest tool I'll be using issandpaper. Won't take more than four days, tops, anyway, and we'll be ingood shape."
Krishna gave him a long, considering look. "What are you, anyway?"
"I'm a writer -- for now. Used to have a few shops."
Krishna blew a plume of smoke off into the distance. "That's not what Imean. What *are* you, Adam? Alan? Andrew? I've met people like youbefore. There's something not right about you."
Alan didn't know what to say to that. This was bound to come up someday.
"Where are you from?"
"Up north. Near Kapuskasing," he said. "A little town."
"I don't believe you," Krishna said. "Are you an alien? A fairy? What?"
Alan shook his head. "Just about what I seem, I'm afraid. Just a guy."
"Just about, huh?" he said.
"Just about."
"There's a lot of wiggle room in *just about*, Arthur. It's a freecountry, but just the same, I don't think I like you very much. Far asI'm concerned, you could get lost and never come back."
"Sorry you feel that way, Krishna. I hope I'll grow on you as time goesby."
"I hope that you won't have the chance to," Krishna said, flicking thedog end of his cigarette toward the sidewalk.
#
Alan didn't like or understand Krishna, but that was okay. He understoodthe others just fine, more or less. Natalie had taken to helping him outafter her classes, mudding and taping the drywall, then sanding it down,priming, and painting it. Her brother Link came home from work sweatyand grimy with road dust, but he always grabbed a beer for Natalie andAlan after his shower, and they'd sit on the porch and kibbitz.
Mimi was less hospitable. She sulked in her room while Alan worked onthe soundwall, coming downstairs only to fetch her breakfast and coldlyignoring him then, despite his cheerful greetings. Alan had to forcehimself not to stare after her as she walked into the kitchen, carryingyesterday's dishes down from her room; then out again, with a sandwichon a fresh plate. Her curly hair bounced as she stomped back and forth,her soft, round buttocks flexing under her long-johns.
On the night that Alan and Natalie put the first coat of paint on thewall, Mimi came down in a little baby-doll dress, thigh-high stripedtights, and chunky shoes, her face painted with swaths of glitter.
"You look wonderful, baby," Natalie told her as she emerged onto theporch. "Going out?"
"Going to the club," she said. "DJ None Of Your Fucking Business isspinning and Krishna's going to get me in for free."
"Dance music," Link said disgustedly. Then, to Alan, "You know thisstuff? It's not playing music, it's playing *records*. Snore."
"Sounds interesting," Alan said. "Do you have any of it I could listento? A CD or some MP3s?"
"Oh, *that's* not how you listen to this stuff," Natalie said. "You haveto go to a club and *dance*."
"Really?" Alan said. "Do I have to take ecstasy, or is that optional?"
"It's mandatory," Mimi said, the first words she'd spoken to him allweek. "Great fistfuls of E, and then you have to consume two pounds ofcandy necklaces at an after-hours orgy."
"Not really," Natalie said, *sotto voce*. "But you *do* have todance. You should go with, uh, Mimi, to the club. DJ None Of YourFucking Business is *amazing*."
"I don't think Mimi wants company," Alan said.
"What makes you say that?" Mimi said, making a dare of it with hipshotbody language. "Get changed and we'll go together. You'll have to pay toget in, though."
Link and Natalie exchanged a raised eyebrow, but Alan was already headedfor his place, fumbling for his keys. He bounded up the stairs, swiped awashcloth over his face, threw on a pair of old cargo pants and a fadedSteel Pole Bathtub T-shirt he'd bought from a head-shop one day becausehe liked the words' incongruity, though he'd never heard the band, addeda faded jean jacket and a pair of high-tech sneakers, grabbed his phone,and bounded back down the stairs. He was convinced that Mimi would belong gone by the time he got back out front, but she was still there,the stripes in her stockings glowing in the slanting light.
"Retro chic," she said, and laughed nastily. Natalie gave him a thumbsup and a smile that Alan uncharitably took for a simper, and felt guiltyabout it immediately afterward. He returned the thumbs up and then tookoff after Mimi, who'd already started down Augusta, headed for QueenStreet.
"What's the cover charge?" he said, once he'd caught up.
"Twenty bucks," she said. "It's an all-ages show, so they won't beselling a lot of booze, so there's a high cover."
"How's the play coming?"
"Fuck off about the play, okay?" she said, and spat on the sidewalk.
"All right, then," he said. "I'm going to start writing my storytomorrow," he said.
"Your story, huh?"
"Yup."
"What's that for?"
"What do you mean?" he asked playfully.
"Why are you writing a story?"
"Well, I have to! I've completely redone the house, built that soundwall-- it'd be a shame not to write the story now."
"You're writing a story about your house?"
"No, *in* my house. I haven't decided what the story's aboutyet. That'll be job one tomorrow."
"You did all that work to have a place to write? Man, I thought *I* wasinto procrastination."
He chuckled self-deprecatingly. "I guess you could look at it thatway. I just wanted to have a nice, creative environment to work in. Thestory's important to me, is all."
"What are you going to do with it once you're done? There aren't a wholelot of places that publish short stories these days, you know."
"Oh, I know it! I'd write a novel if I had the patience. But this isn'tfor publication -- yet. It's going into a drawer to be published after Idie."
"*What*?"
"Like Emily Dickinson. Wrote thousands of poems, stuck 'em in a drawer,dropped dead. Someone else published 'em and she made it into thecanon. I'm going to do the same."
"That's nuts -- are you dying?"
"Nope. But I don't want to put this off until I am. Could get hit by abus, you know."
"You're a goddamned psycho. Krishna was right."
"What does Krishna have against me?"
"I think we both know what that's about," she said.
"No, really, what did I ever do to him?"
Now they were on Queen Street, walking east in the early evening crowd,surrounded by summertime hipsters and wafting, appetizing smells fromthe bistros and Jamaican roti shops. She stopped abruptly and grabbedhis shoulders and gave him a hard shake.
"You're full of shit, Ad-man. I know it and you know it."
"I really don't know what you're talking about, honestly!"
"Fine, let's do this." She clamped her hand on his forearm and draggedhim down a side street and turned down an alley. She stepped into adoorway and started unbuttoning her Alice-blue babydoll dress. Alanlooked away, embarrassed, glad of the dark hiding his blush.
Once the dress was unbuttoned to her waist, she reached around behindher and unhooked her white underwire bra, w
hich sagged forward under theweight of her heavy breasts. She turned around, treating him to aglimpse of the full curve of her breast under her arm, and shrugged thedress down around her waist.
She had two stubby, leathery wings growing out of the middle of herback, just above the shoulder blades. They