VenCo(5)

If you didn’t look up, her building appeared normal, maybe even charming. Thin and tall, the Victorian had already been converted into apartments by the time her grandparents moved in. The glass in the windows was now wavy with age, and the shutters hung, lopsided, from the remaining hinges. The whole place had been painted bright violet, a hue that had scandalized the neighbours when this was a suburb set apart from the downtown core. Over the years, as the city thickened and poured into every available nook, the purple faded to a matronly mauve, the preferred shade of Easter bonnets and sweater sets, and then to a dull mushroom, darkened by the subway overpass that now swooped above the sharp roof like a concrete cloud. Now Lucky did look up, drawn by the sweep of lights as the train took the curve overhead. Since that bridge had been built, there was no sun for their windows. No moon to weep under. Just the train’s headlights at night, and the shuddering of its passing on the way to somewhere else.

Behind her, a bright yellow bird landed on a branch, hopping carefully over the new buds to the tip, then turning its head as if to get a good look at the girl. Maybe an escaped pet, so confused by freedom it was roaming at night. Lucky didn’t notice it, though, because her eyes had dropped from the bridge to the window at the top of the house, now glowing with light that flickered with movement. The window was propped open with a book, and a steady plume of smoke was streaming out.

“Oh, fuck me.”

Lucky took off up the steps in a rush that sent the bird flying back into the dark.

Inside, the smoke alarm was blaring. “Grandma, Jesus!” she screamed as she burst through the door. “What the fuck is going on?”

Black smoke and a horrid stench emanated from the microwave in the kitchen, the timer set for another twenty-three minutes. She pressed stop and opened the door. A blackened bag of popcorn hissed inside, too hot to touch. She went to the window and pushed it open wider, then pulled off her jean jacket, using it like a matador’s cloak to sweep the smoke away.

Jinxy, Stella’s one-eyed cat, came to wind his way through Lucky’s legs, meowing angrily.

“Fuck off, Jinx.”

Lucky was allergic to him, and so, of course, he wanted nothing more than to be with her.

“Stella Sampson,” she shouted, “what the hell were you thinking?”

Lucky found her in the living room, sitting in her floral easy chair in front of the TV, where an old vampire movie was playing. Stella looked up, one eye—in the lens of a heavy magnifying glass—as huge and wobbly as an uncooked egg. She turned her face back down towards the Reader’s Digest splayed on her lap.

“Do you not hear that?” Lucky went to the smoke alarm and pulled it out of its socket, then flipped it over and took out the battery.

The alarm stuttered and stopped. That was when Lucky realized her grandmother also had the stereo on, at a seven.

Lucky snapped off the music and plopped down in the love seat opposite her grandmother, more tired than she’d been all day, all week. “Seriously, Stella? It’s two in the morning.”

Stella put the magazine and the magnifying glass on the floor by her feet, and Jinxy promptly sat on both.

“I told him he should have the foundation checked.” Stella shook her head, the red pom-pom on top of her toque flopping back and forth.

“What are you talking about?”

“The landlord, Pinkerton. Old fool.” Stella rocked herself in her chair, pom-pom bobbing steadily. “There were cops everywhere. The fire department showed up, but the firemen just stood there, leaning against their trucks, laughing, watching the nurses lead all the patients outside. It was cold, too, an early-spring night, but they didn’t help. They thought it was funny to watch all the carrying-on from the inmates, some crying, some screaming, others laughing. Once in a while, they’d even whistle at one of the nurses, skirts all hitched up, bobby pins falling out.” She reached up and touched her fingers to her own hair spilling out from under the wool hat. “We had big hair back then. I liked the French rolls. You know about French rolls?”

“Are you talking about the old hospital next door? Grandma, that place has been vacant for years now.”

“Pinkerton, he went over to see if we needed to evacuate. Me and Oswald watched out the window. Oswald was dying to get out there too. Just like a man. But I wouldn’t let him.” Oswald, her late husband—Lucky’s grandfather. He haunted Stella, and, in return, she facilitated his haunt with stories.

“So we see Pinkerton down there talking to one of the cops, the fattest one, which meant he musta been the most important. He talked for a long time, three smokes’ worth. Then he comes up to our place to fill us in.”

Stella got up and went to the kitchen window, where she stood looking out at the brick hospital wall. “One of the patients was locked up after he tried to carry off a mannequin from a department store, said it was his wife. He had tried to escape. He did, I suppose . . .”

She turned back to Lucky. “He’d quieted down after a few months inside, so they figured he was getting better. Ha. Fooled them, he did.”

She nodded, a faint smile on her face. Stella loved an underdog.

“He’d been sneaking out of his bed at night, down to the basement, where he was trying to tunnel his way out. Trouble is, he started digging on the east side, heading under the entire length of the building and out the west end towards our house. Poor bugger, but I guess if you’re deluded to begin with . . .”