The Night Poacher
I
“Just ‘cause it nasty, it don’ mean a thing… All that is good is nasty…” he whispered soundlessly in his mucousy throat as he sat up on his padded elbows, while laying on his soft belly in a puffy black sleeping bag. He allowed his tobaccoey breath to escape through the slit between tarp over him and his sleep sack. Today is going to be a finer day then the last, gentlemen and ladies. I will be a fed and shiny-skinned son of a mother. If you look yonder, you’ll see I’m cooking on a Coleman Grill: the grill of the working man, the grill of Hemmingway. Yes, but come the end of the week I’ll be calling up my man Quincy Jones, and, yes, we will be BBQing some Japanese steaks on a steel triple cooker. And I will treat myself to the purchase of a sharkskinned suit.
His middle finger gently pulled the tarp down, since his left pointer finger was gone, taken by a woodshop saw. Shuffling around quietly, he pulled out a dirty black velour pouch, his magic eyes, a tiny dark camo-green pair of binoculars. Big eyes! Big eyes! Gazing into his tiny binoculars and acclimating to their enlarged visions: he saw the stump.
I know that stump, saw that stump, Here is my Joshua Tree, tree of life, stump of life. Holding the golden eggs, the warm eggs. My Egg Man gonna come when the sun comes up, when the sun comes, my fair Russian brother the Egg Man will come to collect. And I’ll get my triple grill. I will keep those hatchlings warm with my trade, yessir, I am an importer and an exporter. An expert. Those eggs will stay warm, sir, and I will get my shepard’s pie.
Thirty yards ahead of him, a beach stump extended out onto the water, like Minerva’s arm holding a torch. Tucked into the end of that stump was the nest. Same place every year that nest, he thought, like a train matchin’ a time table, like buns in a warm oven. Goosey Goose, you’ve got me at least five eggs, yes?
His middle finger opened his tarp further, and he saw her: Mother Goose. Mama Goose. She was there, her white tail feathers were all he could see. She would wake soon he knew, and then she would feed. Her goose alarm gonna go off soon. His slimy brain began to run its gears, Jus’ cause it nasty, it don’ mean a thing… he knew Mother Goose. Feed me Mama Goose, feed me.
His brown eyes were on her, his sonar was flapping, and a jet scored the inky sky overhead. To his right he had an empty red Maxwell House plastic coffee container, 64 ounce. He lay on his stomach, in his huge black Nikes and army surplus jacket. His dreadlocks smelled like burned sticks and cigarettes and funk, his aroma filling up the bladder of the two concealed tarps he lay between.
Fast footfalls sounded behind him. His eyes glided to the right and he could see the white ghosts of athletic sneakers bouncing in and out of sight in the early morning darkness. He felt his wormy belly rumble and his breathing picked up. She would feed soon, go find some grub, swish her birdy eyes around in this manmade sewer pond.
Then he heard a soft, slow squash, a swoosh, a sweep of grass. Swoooosh, sweeeep, draaaag. Hmuh? He pulled his eyes out of his magic eyes, and saw dirty white sneakers dragging across the grass, passing down towards the cattails, towards the sewage lake, towards the stump. Damn man! Man! Get away from the stump. Shit man, these fucks. Sir you are pissing on my territory. This is my lawn, man. Git, off, away. Arrest your progress!
The vagrant stopped at the cattails, looked left, glanced right from behind his NY Giants winter jacket, and a stream of amber piss arched into the lake. He watched the goose tail feathers. They were vibrating, she’s stirring, stirring, nuzzling, sitting, laying, keeping those eggs warm. Warm. They gotta be warm or Egg Man won’t take ‘em. With one palm on either hip, the vagrant continued pissing, thrilled with himself, talking to himself, his cracked stubbly chin moving in the twilight like a laughing pig.
Not wanting to be seen, even by drunk, he drew back deeper into the tarp and waited for the idiot to pass. What would he do after he got the eggs? Where was the next hit? He’d been in this spot for a week and he’d been spotted lots of times. The early AM maintenance guys carting trees around would give him the hairy eye, driving by slowly in their trucks. Hasidic children would play to close to his tarp, and a mother would tersely grab the child, spying his shelter. Yeah, probably time to move on for this bard of the pond. He knew some more places, but the world is rotatin’, you know what I mean, the seasons are changin’. Winter cometh. He knew some houses he could go to, but he’d be in more trouble there than out here in this tiny manmade corner of God’s country. The outdoors was in his blood, damn he didn’t want to be in no hairy drama house, in Flatbush. Little Sister, oh no.
He could call his cousin, no she’s not really my cousin but we are closer than any real family. His cousin was a woman named Tamara, an islands girl he met once, who used to work at Phat Albert’s warehouse on Flatbush Avenue. He’d go in there all the time, get some socks, pocket a lighter, buy some T.P., switch his old jacket with a new jacket. Tamara was always in there, and she knew what he was doing, but what did she care? She was twenty two and she lived with her difficult-to-please grandmother. This made her really chill because she knew that life owed her nothing and she was the kind of girl with no boundaries, meaning she’d talk to anybody. Did he look like a nutso homeless person? Homeless, but not nuts. Charismatic as hell though, charismatic.
Tamara would say, “Hey you, what you say your name is again?”
“My dear lady, my name is Lexar. Ever met a Lexar before?”
“Lexar. What kinda name is that? Spanish?”
“You see, that’s the problem I’m in. I never knew my mother, but I’m pretty sure she was white. Lexar, I dunno, perhaps it’s Greek. Maybe it’s got an apostrophe of something, dare I say, Scandinavian in it?”
“Huh. Cool. Names are so strange,” her eyes quickly darted to his jacket pockets, which looked full. She didn’t say anything.
But now he was outside, in a tarp, at 5 AM. It was April and it was cold. He was stealing eggs to sell to a Russian guy in a van and for a minute his life really fuckin’ sucked.
