One Foot Off the Gutter by Peter Plate Read Free Book Online

louder.
    A wiry man with long hair tumbling to his shoulders
came running out of a garage door; two kids peeked their noses from the doorway behind him. There was a pile of dirty dishes on a picnic table near an outdoor brass spigot. A clothes hanger was draped on a barred window to the left of the door. A plastic gallon jug on the ground appeared to be filled with a liquid resembling urine.
    â€œThey don’t have no toilet,” Bellamy said, getting mottled, embarrassed, blood heightened cheeks. “See that jug? They piss into that. And look at this.”
    He pointed at the dirty dishes; the faucet was leaking water steadily into the basin. I assessed the man and the woman, the two kids standing behind them. They, too, existed with the devil around them. I could see it in their eyes. The woman’s eyes were yellow, not from jaundice, but from lack of sleep.
    â€œWhat do you expect me to do about it, Bells?”
    â€œWe just can’t leave them here. They’re living in a backyard, man.”
    â€œThey’re lucky not to be in the streets. I say we give them a break and leave them alone. Maybe they’ll manage on their own.”
    â€œAnd what if they don’t make it?” Bellamy challenged.
    I gazed at him with pity. “We’re cops, Bells. Do I have to remind you of that? We can’t help anyone until we learn to help ourselves.”

ten
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    d octor Dick woke up prickly under the Scandia down comforter. Patsy had gotten it on sale at the Whole Earth Access store on Bayshore. He didn’t know if he liked the comforter or not, and for a second, he wasn’t sure of his bearings. He was having a lot of trouble getting proper sleep since they’d had the kids.
    He didn’t feel cold toward Malcolm or Celeste, nothing like that. But the responsibility of child rearing was doing him in; he just couldn’t handle it. Instinctively, he reached for Patsy. She could have been in another galaxy for all that it mattered. She was snoring on the other side of the futon with her back turned to him; a picture of classic alienation sealed inside a vast, hermetic unconsciousness.
    The wind was scratching against the window. It was a dry, hot wind, not unlike the Santa Ana winds in Southern California. A wind so dry, you couldn’t sweat, no matter how hot you were. On the street, a dog was barking in
mournful, repetitive bursts. The cur sounded insane with loneliness.
    The whole world with everyone in it was suffering from anxiety. That’s what had woken him up; the totality of humanity’s discontent. It was a pain in his guts, and the doctor could never get away from it.
    He laid there for what felt like an hour, getting nowhere with his nocturnal ruminations. He’d been awake for so long, staring into the darkened bedroom, he didn’t think he could fall back asleep. He closed his eyes under the pretext that he could at least try to rest. But his mind kept racing back and forth between two poles: Patsy in the bed next to him, and Patsy when they first got married. Thirty seconds later, he was fast asleep.
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    He was standing in an empty, barren hallway. He’d been on duty for the last twenty hours. He needed a shave and a cup of tea. The patients in the intensive care ward were crying for meds and water. He could hear them through the walls. Where was the nurse? The doctor looked down at the floor. A dollop of fresh blood was shining on the linoleum at his feet. He inspected the blood for a moment. The red arterial liquid was a hypnotic sight, but he didn’t like it. His face darkened with anger; whenever you needed a nurse, you could never find one.
    The doctor heard two male voices arguing heatedly out of sight in a nearby room. He took off walking, not thinking about where he was going.
    The first person he saw in the corridor was an orderly wheeling a geriatric towards the incinerator room.

    â€œWhere are you