Read Online The Beggar's Garden by Michael Christie - Free Book Online
Authors: Michael Christie
Tags: Contemporary, Adult
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on a sheetless mattress in my room, watching a moth bludgeon itself on my naked light bulb. Over near the window sits a small television I never watch, beside it a hot plate I never use. I spend most of my time here, thinking about rock cocaine, not thinking about rock cocaine, performing rudimentary experiments, smoking rolled tobacco rescued from public ashtrays, trying to remember what my mind used to feel like, and, of course, studying my science book. I dumpstered it two years ago and ever since it has been beside my mattress like a friend at a slumber party, pretending to sleep, dying for consultation. I read it for at least two hours every day; I know this because I time myself. Itâs a grade-ten textbook, a newer edition, complete with glossy diagrams and photos of famous scientists who all look so regal and determined, itâs as though the flashbulb had caught them at the very moment their thoughts were shiftingthe scientific paradigm forever. I like to think that when they gazed pensively up at the stars and pondered the fate of future generations, they were actually thinking of me.
I excavated the book in June. The kid who threw it out thought he would never have to see science again, that September would never come. What an idiotâI used to believe that.
My room is about the size of a jail cell. One time, two guys came through my open window and beat me with a pipe until I could no longer flinch and stole my former TV and a can of butts, so I hired a professional security company called Apex to install bars on my window. I spent my entire welfare cheque on them, just sat and safely starved for a whole month. I had to pay the guy cash up front because he didnât believe I could possibly have that kind of money. It felt good to pay him that kind of money, he did a good job.
Someone is yelling at someone outside, so I go to the window and look out into Oppenheimer Park, which is across the street from my rooming house. There I see only a man calmly sitting on a bench, smoking. Everyone says this park was named after the scientist who invented the nuclear bomb. It has playground equipment, but itâs always empty because no parent would ever bring their kid there, on account of it being normally frequented by people who are like me or Steve or worse. The park is infamous, an open-air drug market, they say. From my window, Iâve seen people get stabbed there, but not all the time, good things happen in the park too. Some people lie in the grass all day and read. The people who are reading donât get stabbed. Iâm not sure why that is.
Iâm finished studying, so I go out and cut across the northeast corner of the park, walking west up Powell. I approach a group of about six Vietnamese men. You can always tell the drug dealers because they are the ones with bikes. I purchase a ten rock with a ten-dollar bill, all of my money until Wednesday. Eye contact somehow seems to make things more illegal, so I stare at the ground while one of them barks at me. He is cartoonish, his teeth brown and haphazard like tusks. He shifts side to side on his toes like a warmed-up boxer and aims nervous glances to the street. âPipe?â he barks. âNo,â I say, âI have one, thanks.â
Crack melts at a tepid eighty, and if you heat it too fast, it just burns off with minimal smoke. Smoking it is one thing Iâm good at. I donât really feel the crack craving people talk about; I would describe it more as a healthy interest than anything else, like Iâm fine-tuning a hypothesis, or conducting a sort of protracted experiment. I know it sounds strange, but I feel if I could get high enough one time I would quit, content with the knowledge of the actual crack high, the genuine article. Unfortunately, a paltry approximation is the only high I have been able to afford so far.
In an alley, my brain has a family reunion with some long-lost neurochemicals, and I crouch beneath
I excavated the book in June. The kid who threw it out thought he would never have to see science again, that September would never come. What an idiotâI used to believe that.
My room is about the size of a jail cell. One time, two guys came through my open window and beat me with a pipe until I could no longer flinch and stole my former TV and a can of butts, so I hired a professional security company called Apex to install bars on my window. I spent my entire welfare cheque on them, just sat and safely starved for a whole month. I had to pay the guy cash up front because he didnât believe I could possibly have that kind of money. It felt good to pay him that kind of money, he did a good job.
Someone is yelling at someone outside, so I go to the window and look out into Oppenheimer Park, which is across the street from my rooming house. There I see only a man calmly sitting on a bench, smoking. Everyone says this park was named after the scientist who invented the nuclear bomb. It has playground equipment, but itâs always empty because no parent would ever bring their kid there, on account of it being normally frequented by people who are like me or Steve or worse. The park is infamous, an open-air drug market, they say. From my window, Iâve seen people get stabbed there, but not all the time, good things happen in the park too. Some people lie in the grass all day and read. The people who are reading donât get stabbed. Iâm not sure why that is.
Iâm finished studying, so I go out and cut across the northeast corner of the park, walking west up Powell. I approach a group of about six Vietnamese men. You can always tell the drug dealers because they are the ones with bikes. I purchase a ten rock with a ten-dollar bill, all of my money until Wednesday. Eye contact somehow seems to make things more illegal, so I stare at the ground while one of them barks at me. He is cartoonish, his teeth brown and haphazard like tusks. He shifts side to side on his toes like a warmed-up boxer and aims nervous glances to the street. âPipe?â he barks. âNo,â I say, âI have one, thanks.â
Crack melts at a tepid eighty, and if you heat it too fast, it just burns off with minimal smoke. Smoking it is one thing Iâm good at. I donât really feel the crack craving people talk about; I would describe it more as a healthy interest than anything else, like Iâm fine-tuning a hypothesis, or conducting a sort of protracted experiment. I know it sounds strange, but I feel if I could get high enough one time I would quit, content with the knowledge of the actual crack high, the genuine article. Unfortunately, a paltry approximation is the only high I have been able to afford so far.
In an alley, my brain has a family reunion with some long-lost neurochemicals, and I crouch beneath
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