The Blue Helmet (6 page)

Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t you dare call me names, you pathetic loser!”

I slapped her so hard her head snapped back. Eyes wide with shock, she jumped to her feet, her hand on her reddening cheek.

I tried to put my arms around her. “Beth, Beth, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

She struggled free. “Don’t touch me! Don’t come near me!” She ran into the street. A car skidded to a stop, tires yelping and horn blasting. The driver leaned out. “Watch where you’re going, you stupid—”

But she was gone up her front sidewalk and into the house.

I stood in the parking lot, shaking, as the darkness ranted in my veins.

M
Y SECOND DELIVERY TO
Cutter’s was similar to the first—like entering a bank vault. He was polite but, after handing over his empties, got rid of me as fast as he could, slamming the door behind me. My third delivery—this time bringing aspirins, antacid, and dental floss rather than the meds—he greeted me in a V-neck sweater, cords and loafers. He was clean-shaven and his hair was combed, although he was still as pale as milk. He invited me in and almost smiled.

He handed me a key. “Mind picking up my mail for me?”

I returned to the verandah and opened the metal box, retrieving a bunch of envelopes and one package. Cutter locked the doors behind me,
raked his hair with his fingers. “Did you make sure to secure the mailbox?”

I nodded. He took the mail and dumped some of it onto an already overburdened table. The rest he fed into a huge shredder under the table, ignoring the cascade of paper ribbons spilling from its maw.

“Excuse me for a second,” he said, and went to his desk. “I’m just printing off the morning’s gleanings.” He punched a button. A printer began to crank out pages.

“The morning’s what?” I asked.

Cutter jumped up and snapped his fingers. “A seat,” he said to the ceiling, then scooted into the kitchen. He rushed back with a wooden chair and set it down by the desk.

“It’s part of my inquiries,” he began, looking at a spot over my right shoulder. “I scan certain newspapers and research services on the Net every day.” He held up a finger, as if delivering a lecture. “If you ever use the Net remember that they can track every move you make, plus read all your e-mail, plus invade your computer, spy on all your files, and leave cookies behind. You’ve got to stay sharp. Using the Net is like sitting naked in a glass house. Where was I? Oh, right. I also read certain magazines. You have to be
careful, ‘cause most mags are just propaganda sheets for them.” He pointed to a large-screen
TV
in a cabinet, the doors hanging open. I hadn’t noticed it before. “Got three dishes on the roof, all technically illegal. I’m tuned in to everything. It’s the only way I can keep track of them.”

“Them?”

“Yeah.”

“Who’s Them?”

“You mean you don’t know?”

“I don’t get out much,” I replied.

Cutter smiled. His eye began to twitch. “You’re making fun of me.”

“No, really, I’m not,” I said. Which was true. “It’s just that, well, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He searched my face, as if reading a map. “Okay, I believe you. I’m not very clear sometimes, am I?” In an instant, he was on his feet. “Want some tea?”

“Um, sure.”

A few minutes later we were sitting again, this time in his kitchen. There was one large window that probably looked out onto the back yard, but it was covered with thick curtains. I would have bet that there were aluminum disks hanging between the curtains and the glass. The window
in the back door, which was locked with dead-bolts, was also covered.

The countertop and sink were piled high with used dishes that gave the room an overripe odour. Cutter had poured tea for both of us and seemed to have forgotten his already. I sipped mine—black. He hadn’t offered milk or sugar.

“Take today’s research,” he said, picking up where he had left off. “I’m tracking down the financial statements of the corps”—corporations, he explained when I tried to interrupt—“that profit from sweatshop labour in the athletic clothing industry. They subcontract the manufacturing to jobbers in the third world—China, the Philippines, Mexico, Vietnam, lots of places where people are starving and will work for next to nothing—and the jobbers in turn subcontract to others who run the sweatshops. That way, the big corps in Europe and North America that sponsor tennis matches and basketball players and golf tournaments can pretend they’re not accountable for what goes on in the sweatshops. If you go up to the mall on the Queensway you can find a half-dozen stores that sell their stuff. A shirt that costs twenty-three bucks—guess how much they pay the girl who sewed it together.”

“Don’t have a clue.”

“Eight cents.”

“Eight
cents?”

“There are twenty-two separate operations to produce the shirt. Five to cut the material, six to attach labels—like that. The process is all broken down right to the second. Literally. The factory produces a shirt every six point six minutes. Know what that means?”

I played along. “What?”

“The pressure on the assembly line is enormous. A worker performs the same miniscule operation about two thousand times a day, sitting at her machine twelve to fourteen hours at a stretch.”

Eyes alight, spit flying, Cutter tumbled on with more of the same, his words gushing out of his mouth as if his speaking apparatus couldn’t keep up with his brain. Then he stopped.

“More tea?”

I drained my mug. “No, thanks.”

“Sorry to ramble on,” he said, rubbing his hands together.

Ramble was definitely not the word for Cutter’s headlong torrent of words. He looked around as if he’d just realized he was in the kitchen.

“I gotta get this mess cleaned up.”

“That’s what the dishwasher is for,” I said.

Cutter eyed the appliance as if it had magically appeared only seconds before and said sheepishly, “Forgot how to use it.”

I stood up. I doubted that the guy who manipulated all the electronics in the other room couldn’t use a dishwasher, but I also doubted he was focused enough to manage it. His mind was on his research.

“Okay,” I said. “I can load it up and get it going, I guess. Done it a million times at Reena’s.”

“Great!” he said. “They fire them if they get pregnant.”

“The dishes?”

“No, the girls. In the sweatshops.”

Cutter dashed into his office as if he had forgotten something. I heard him at the keyboard as I stacked the dishwasher and turned it on. While it sloshed and groaned, I filled the sink with soapy water and finished off the overflow, setting the pots and dishes and cutlery in a rack to dry. I wiped down the counter and hung the rag over the faucet. I would never admit it to anyone, especially Reena, but I didn’t mind washing dishes. It was satisfying, in a way.

In the other room I found Cutter standing with a handful of letters.

“Could you drop these at the post office on
9th for me, Lee? Don’t put them in a street box. They’re too easy to break into.”

“How come you don’t trust the post boxes but you trust me?”

Cutter inspected my face again, as if trying to memorize every hair and pimple. “Good question,” he said. His gaze slid off my face and wandered the room. “I can’t explain it. I just feel like you wouldn’t let me down.” He seemed to focus again, and handed me a twenty-dollar bill. “I sure appreciate this, Lee.”

I counted the envelopes, taking a quick look at the destinations. Various government offices, two for the United Nations, one for the Prime Minister. “Twenty is way too much, Cutter. A ten ought to cover it.”

“Keep the change. A tip.”

“No, give me a ten.” I figured ten bucks would pay for the mail and the library fine he had stuck me with.

He rummaged around in a drawer filled with bills and coins and gave me the money.

“Did you know you forgot to put your return address on these?” I asked.

Cutter smiled crookedly, his eye twitching. “They know who I am,” he said. “They know all about me.”

“And one more thing,” I added, pulling open the vestibule door. “Those disks hanging in your windows. What are they for?”

Cutter cocked his head, as if I had asked the stupidest question in the world. “They deflect radio waves,” he said.

I
WAS RELAXING IN
my booth, taking a break and letting my thoughts wander while the breakfast crowd got their caffeine and sugar fixes. Around me, the tinkle of spoons on saucers and cups, the grumble of conversation, the rustle of newspapers. The tables along the opposite wall were full, and everyone was reading the news. At one point, as if they had rehearsed it, almost all of them held their newspapers open at the same time, making a sort of billboard, each black-and-white patch floating between a pair of hands. A headline shouted that someone whose name I couldn’t pronounce was on trial for war crimes in a city I had never heard of. A picture showed a man in a suit standing behind a podium, with a
big sloppy grin on his face. Underneath, it said,
GABLER ANNOUNCES ENVIRONMENTAL INITIATIVE
. There was a story about the Sudan and Africa. An airline had gone bankrupt. And then, as people turned a page or shifted in their seats, the billboard broke up.

I pushed my half-eaten muffin away. I had never heard of Gabler or the man on trial, didn’t know what the Sudan was, knew nothing about Africa or the airline. I couldn’t have felt more empty-headed if the readers of the morning papers had stood by my table and peppered me with questions. And suddenly I was ambushed by a familiar image—me, on the outside of a building, looking through a locked window into a comfortable room. People relaxing around an open fire, laughing and talking together, people who understood how the world worked.

I was sick and tired of not knowing things. I shifted my eyes to the two guys by the café door, elbows on the table, heads together, the bills of their caps almost touching, then the students packed into the booth beside mine, arguing energetically about some book they were studying. Naturally, I hadn’t read the book. Naturally, I hadn’t even heard of it.

In high school, as far as I went, I got through
my courses without much effort, collecting credits the way you’d pick up stale food you really didn’t want in the cafeteria. But at the same time, although I never admitted it to myself, I always felt I was missing something. I knew I wasn’t stupid.

I was ignorant.

Not exactly a cheery conclusion to come to. Not exactly a morale booster. But I had to admit it was true.

Why today? What had brought this on, the way you realize you’ve got frostbite only when your flesh begins to sting? Was it being around Cutter the brain so much, with his books and computers and far-out theories? Or Andrea, running her own business? Or Abe, with his weather maps and charts and storm-tracking software? Was it because Cutter was persuaded his work was important and Abe was having so much fun?

The next time I took Cutter’s books back to the library—not overdue this time—and handed them in at the returns desk, I stood looking around at the ranks of shelves, the row of computers, the magazine rack. In grade nine we had had a library orientation class to teach us how the place operated and how to find stuff, but as usual
I hadn’t paid much attention. I didn’t know what I wanted anyway. I was hopeless.

I turned to go. Behind me, I heard, “Can I help you find something?”

The guy on the other side of the desk looked more like a janitor than a librarian—rumpled jeans, baggy sweatshirt, a screwdriver in one hand, a stapler in the other. A pen hung from a cord around his neck. The cord was caught on a name tag that said
CLANCY
.

“Um, well, I was sort of looking for—” what? I had no idea. “A good book,” I said stupidly.

Clancy looked me up and down. He figures I’m a bonehead, I thought.

“Why not try our Perennial Favourites table?” he said, pointing across the room with the screwdriver. “Over there. Call me if you need help.” He went back to trying to un-jam the stapler.

Wondering what “perennial” meant, I took a look at the display, just so Clancy wouldn’t think I was a complete idiot. About two dozen books had been placed on wire racks so their covers were easily visible. I picked a few up, riffled the pages, put them back. Then I spotted a really thin one.
The Old Man and the Sea
it was called. A kiddie book. I flipped it open to the first page.
He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff on
the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish
. Didn’t sound like a kid’s story.

I checked the book out, took it back to my room, and tossed it onto the table beside my bed. Maybe I’d read it, maybe I’d just hold onto it for a while and return it to the library. Later that afternoon, I was in Andrea’s drugstore to pick up a delivery to Mrs. Waslynchuck, a pensioner who lived alone—unless you counted the four cats—in an apartment on 33rd Street. In a rack of magazines and crossword puzzle books I saw a paperback,
Increase Your Word Power! Add one word per day to your vocabulary! That’s 365 new, useful words each year!
the cover said. Well, they can count, anyway, I thought, bending to replace the book. Then I changed my mind.

“I’d like to buy this,” I told Andrea as I stuffed the little bag of Mrs. Waslynchuck’s pills into my pannier.

“No way,” she replied.

“Huh?”

“On the house,” Andrea said, smiling.

“Enjoy.”

“Looks like we have a new customer,” Reena said as I pushed through the door into the café
kitchen. She was adding up the lunch receipts at a little table in the corner, a half-eaten sandwich and a glass of milk beside her calculator. “Andrea recommended him to us. He lives on 13th. Bruce something.”

“Cutter?” I said. “He’s ordering take-out?”

She tilted her head toward a brown bag on the counter under the phone. The top was folded over and the bill stapled to it. “Cold chicken sandwich and a tub of salad. An older fella, is he?”

“Thirties, maybe. In there somewhere.”

“Sounded a little strange on the phone.”