Knucklehead & Other Stories by W. Mark Giles Read Free Book Online

didn’t say.) About a silver-haired man who walked his poodle through the green commons twice a day: “Wife left two years ago.” Three women in saris, pushing a shopping cart from the supermarket down the road: “Never so much as a hello to us, just nattering away to themselves in their own gibberish.” Two clean-cut men riding matching bicycles, one with a white helmet, the other yellow: “Those two are gay! I know because they told me themselves, they tell everybody.” A young mother limping after her two boys as they kick a soccer ball through the parking lot: “Recovering from hip replacement.” A man who drove a panel van with the logo of a painting and decorating company: “Jewish.” A woman with her hair in curlers: “Alcoholic.” Beverly remembered Mary and Frank: “Daughter joined a cult.”
    Beverly looked at the man again. His shoulders seemed hunched a little more, his shivering intensified, the look in his eyes now plainly miserable. She noticed a clump of wet clay on the blade of the spade. In her own little patio at the back, Gaddie had taken up all the annuals before she left, deadheaded the perennials, pruned and mulched the planters, and generally made the little garden fallow. She said she wouldn’t dream of foisting her chores on them, especially with Beverly in her condition. The meaning was clear—she didn’t trust them to do it to her standards. Beverly couldn’t remember if Gaddie had mentioned the gardener for the common areas of the complex.
    It seemed Gaddie had exhausted in detail all the routines of the complex: trash collection on Tuesdays now, but the schedule slips a day after every statutory holiday, so by the time she gets back, it’ll be back to Tuesdays. Put the cans by the lane, not in the lane. Separate the paper and metal and glass. No visitor parking except in the designated lot, absolutely no stopping in fire lanes, use of the picnic pagoda by appointment only, 10:30 outside noise curfew.
    A drop of water clung to the tip of the man’s nose. Beverly suddenly thought, This man is cold and wet and hungry. “What the hell,” she said, “Come on in.”
    In the tiny vestibule, the man struggled with the laces on his boots. A toe showed through one sock. He slipped off his jacket, and held it in one hand slightly away from himself, reached for a hanger in the open front closet, and swept his eyes over the contents—Colm’s leather bomber, Beverly’s raw silk quilted jacket, Gaddie’s lambswool overcoat zipped in a plastic garment bag. Colm’s ancient golf clubs that had belonged to his father. He turned and hung the jacket on the doorknob, where it dripped onto the ceramic tiles.
    Beverly led the man through the hall and up the half-flight of stairs to the kitchen. The townhouse was tall and narrow, the third unit in a building of four; that building in turn one of twenty-five or so arrayed on the condominium property. Each unit was a five-level split, the levels staggered front to back to maximize the use of space. The single-car garage occupied most of the main level, with the front entrance and matchbook lawn. On the second level, the kitchen and family room opened through a sliding glass door onto the compact patio.
    Beverly had set up a long folding table in the middle of the family room, and piled it high with fabric, half-finished garments, and her sewing machine. She kept the long vertical blinds closed over the glass door, to shut out the patio and its orderliness. Interlocking colour-coordinated paving stones, scrubbed and swept. The rigid planters terraced in every nook and cranny. The barbecue with its insulated cover, covered again by a plastic sheet. Une place pour chaque chose et chaque chose à sa place. She had detested high school French.
    The man plunked his sodden paper sack on the counter between the two rooms. “Nice place,” he said. He walked