Dreams Underfoot

those of a rag doll that had been tossed into a corner and forgotten. She knelt down at Zinc’s side. Something glinted on the wet pavement. A small tin monkey charm. She picked it up, closed it tightly in her fist before anyone could see what she’d done.

“C’mon, Jilly,” Lou said as he came up behind her. He helped her to her feet.

It didn’t seem possible that anyone as vibrant—as alive—as Zinc had been could have any relation whatsoever with that empty shell of a body that lay there on the pavement.

As Lou led her away from the body, July’s tears finally came, welling up from her eyes to salt the rain on her cheek.

“He ... he wasn’t ... stealing bikes, Lou ....” she said. “It doesn’t look good,” Lou said.

Often when she’d been with Zinc, Jilly had had a sense of that magic that touched him. A feeling that even if she couldn’t see the marvels he told her about, they still existed just beyond the reach of her sight.

That feeling should be gone now, she thought.

“He was just ... setting them free,” she said.

The magic should have died, when he died. But she felt, if she just looked hard enough, that she’d see him, riding a maverick bike at the head of a pack of riderless bicycles—metal frames glistening, reflector lights glinting red, wheels throwing up arcs of fine spray, as they went off down the wet street.

Around the corner and out of sight.

“Nice friends the kid had,” a plainclothes detective who was standing near them said to the uniformed officer beside him. “Took off with just about every bike on the street and left him holding the bag.”

Jilly didn’t think so. Not this time.

This time they’d gone free.

That Explains Poland

1

Maybe that explains Poland.

Lori’s mother used to say that. In the fullness of her Stalinism, the great hamster (as Lori called her) was convinced that every radical twitch to come from Poland and Solidarity was in fact inspired by the CIA, drug addicts, M&Ms, reruns of “The Honeymooners” (“To the moon, Alice!”) ... in fact, just about everything except the possibility of real dissension among the Polish people with their less than democratic regime. It got to the point where she was forever saying “That explains Poland!”, regardless of how absurd or incomprehensible the connection.

It became a family joke—a proposito to any and all situations and shared by sundry and all, in and about the Snelling clan. You still don’t get it?

Maybe you just had to be there.

2

“Listen to this: BIGFOOT SPIED IN UPPER FOXVILLE,” Lori read from the Friday edition of The Daily Journal. “Bigfoot. Can you believe it? I mean, can you believe it?”

Ruth and I feigned indifference. We were used to Lori’s outbursts by now and even though half the clientela in The Monkey Woman’s Nest lifted their heads from whatever had been occupying them to look our way, we merely sipped our beer and looked out onto Williamson Street, watching the commuters hustle down into the subways or jockeying for position at the bus stop.

Lori was an eventful sort of a person. You could always count on something happening around her, with a ninetynine percent chance that she’d been the catalyst. On a Friday afternoon, with the week’s work behind us and two glorious days off ahead, we didn’t need an event. Just a quiet moment and a few beers in la Hora

Frontera before the streets woke up and the clubs opened their doors. “Who’s playing at Your Second Home this weekend?” Ruth asked.

I wasn’t sure, but I had other plans anyway. “I was thinking of taking in that new Rob Lowe movie if it’s still playing.”

Ruth got a gleam in her eye. “He is so dreamy. Every time I see him I just want to take him home and—”

“Don’t be such a pair of old poops,” Lori interrupted. “This is important. It’s history in the making.

Just listen to what it says.” She gave the paper a snap to keep our attention, which set off another round of lifting heads throughout the restaurant, and started to read.

“The recent sighting of a large, hairy, humanlike creature in the back alleys of Upper Foxville has prompted Councilman Cohen to renew his demands for increased police patrols in that section of the city. Eyewitness Barry Jack spotted the huge beast about I A.M. last night. He estimated it stood between seven and eight feet tall and weighed about 300 to 400 pounds.”

“Lori ...”

“Let me finish.”

“‘While I doubt that the creature seen by Mr. Jack—that a Bigfoot—exists,’ Cohen is quoted as saying, ’it does emphasize the increased proliferation of transients and the homeless in this area of the city, a problem that the City Council is doing very little about, despite continual requests by residents and this Council member.’”

“Right.” Lori gave us a quick grin. “Well, that’s stretching a point way beyond my credibility.”

“Lori, what are you talking about?” I asked.

“The way Cohen’s dragging in this business of police patrols.” She went back to the article.

“Could such a creature exist? According to archaeology professor Helmet Goddin of Butler University, ‘Not in the city. Sightings of Bigfoot or the Sasquatch are usually relegated to wilderness areas, a description that doesn’t apply to Upper Foxville, regardless of its resemblance to an archaeological dig.’

“Which is just his way of saying the place is a disaster area,” Lori added. “No surprises there.”

She held up a hand before either Ruth or I could speak and plunged on.

“Goddin says that the Sasquatch possibly resulted from some division in the homonid line, which evolved separately from humans. He speculates that they are ‘more intelligent than apes ...

and apes can be very intelligent. If it does exist, then it is a very, very important biological and anthropological discovery.’”

Lori laid the paper down and sipped some of her beer. “So,” she said as she set the glass back down precisely in its ring of condensation on the table. “What do you think?”

“Think about what?” Ruth asked.

Lori tapped the newspaper. “Of this.” At our blank looks, she added, “It’s something we can do this weekend. We can go hunting for Bigfoot in Upper Foxville.”

I could tell from Ruth’s expression that the idea had about as much appeal for her as it did for me.

Spend the weekend crawling about the rubble of Upper Foxville and risk getting jumped by some junkie or hobo? No thanks.

Lori’s studied Shotokan karate and could probably have held her own against Bruce Lee, but Ruth and I were just a couple of Crowsea punkettes, about as useful in a confrontation as a handful of wet noodles. And going into Upper Foxville to chase down some big muchacho who’d been mistaken for a Sasquatch was not my idea of fun. I’m way too young for suicide.

“Hunting?” I said. “With what?”

Lori pulled a small Instamatic from her purse. “With this, LaDonna. What else?”

I lifted my brows and looked to Ruth for help, but she was too busy laughing at the look on my face.

Right, I thought. Goodbye, Rob Lowe—it could’ve been mucho primo. Instead I’m going on a gaza de grillos with Crowsea’s resident madwomen. Who said a weekend had