The Blue Helmet Read Free Page B

shudder rattled my bones. Before long I found myself on the sidewalk beside the café, shoulders hunched against the cold, the side of my face burning from the sleet driven by the wind, banging on Reena’s door. It took her a long time to answer.
    “Forgot your key, I suppose,” she said, standing in her nice warm vestibule wearing furry pink slippers, holding her woollen robe closed at her throat.
    She knew damn well why I was standing out in the cold. “Yeah, right,” I said.
    “You look like a drowned cat.”
    “If you’re planning to apply for the Mother ofthe Year award, I wouldn’t bother,” I said, pushing past her and clomping up the stairs.
    But she made me come back down to the kitchen after I had changed my clothes, and she sat me down at the table.
    “Look, Lee, even a fool knows when he’s got no choices left.”
    “I guess you’re right,” I admitted.
    “So, give this place a chance. It won’t be so bad. If you want to call up your friends once in a while, I don’t mind. Long distance to Hamilton isn’t very expensive.”
    “Okay,” I replied, suddenly tired. “I’m going to bed now.”
    I returned to the room upstairs, lay down in my clothes, and looked at the clock. I didn’t tell her that I had no friends to call, anyway.
    Now, sitting across from me in the booth, squinting against the smoke, she asked, “In the mood for a surprise?”
    “I guess,” I answered.
    “Come on.”
    She led me through the kitchen and out the back door into the tiny courtyard, an area about the size of four cars parked side by side, enclosed by a two-metre-high brick wall. Huge flowerpots waited for the spring planting. Lawn furniture,rusting at the edges, had been shoved into one corner. Against the wall near the steel-clad door stood a bicycle.
    “I’ve decided, if you agree, to start a delivery service,” Reena said. “Solid, longtime customers only. And a few who aren’t quite ready for Meals-On-Wheels but find home service convenient. Maybe a few deliveries a day.”
    “With that?” I said.
    It was a hybrid, a cross between a street bike and mountain bike. The olive paint job was scaly and blotched with rust.
    “Nobody,” I said, “will want to steal
this
thing. It looks like a stripped-down tank.”
    “I don’t know from bikes, but a friend told me it’s in good condition. Said I could have it cheap.”
    I crouched and looked closer. Eighteen gears, no springs or shocks, wide tires with street treads, straight handlebars showing rust at the welds. A chain shiny with oil, new cables, clean hubs. A crappy-looking but well-maintained rig.
    “Yeah, it’s in good shape,” I admitted. “I take it I’m the new delivery boy.”
    She pushed a strand of blonde hair off her forehead and grinned. “Let’s say ‘courier.’ It sounds classier.”
    “How do you know I won’t take off one day and never come back?”
    “If you do, send back the bike. It cost me a hundred bucks. Anyway, what do you think?”
    I was attracted by the idea of getting away from the boredom of the restaurant from time to time. And I liked the fact that Reena had said “if you agree.”
    “We’ll need a good lock,” I said. “And a rack. And pannier bags to carry the deliveries. Oh, and a map. I grew up in Hamilton, you know.”
    “Well,” Reena said, flaming a new cigarette, “nobody’s perfect.”

FIVE
    A COUPLE OF DAYS later, my first delivery took me to a home right on the lake at the bottom of 12th Street. The long, one-storey building looked more like a miniature factory than a house. Reena had warned me to be polite to the customers and had given me a long list of useless instructions. How hard can it be, I asked myself. Drop off the bag and leave. I didn’t even have to handle the money—all the orders would be put on account.
    Reena had said to take the food to the back door, so I coasted down the driveway into the yard, parked the tank against the house, and lifted the bag of food out of the