A new blanket

Winston rummaged in the dumpster behind the pharmacy. He’d eaten his evening meal at the Mission but this dumpster was always good for some extra food. So far, he’d found a couple of bananas, a box of crackers, two cans of soup, and a stick of deodorant, and shoved them into his duffle bag.

Something green caught his eye and he reached in for it. A stuffed frog, some child’s toy. It was dry. He picked it up and looked into its black fabric eyes.

“Well, hello,” said Winston to the frog.  “I can’t throw you away. You belong to someone, I just don’t know who yet.”

He popped the toy into the hood of his overcoat so that the frog appeared to look out behind him, and went back to his rummaging.

At 6’8” and about 300 pounds with a thick head of curly black hair, and always wearing an enormous hooded overcoat no matter the season, Winston Fields was a hard man to miss. He’d been on the streets for the last few years, ever since he’d lost his job and apartment. It had been hard at first, and he’d lost weight and landed in hospital twice with lung infections.

But he got better at it.  He could sleep almost anywhere now, so long as he was able to keep the wind out. He could sleep sitting up on benches, in library chairs, on buses; he’d slept in parks, under or in the branches of trees, and once spent an entire spring in a treehouse until school let out and children took it over and he had moved on.

On the coldest nights, and it could get damn cold in Ottawa, Winston would stuff his giant overcoat with newsprint and wrap a small plaid blanket around his feet.

He ate three or four meals a week at the Mission, and dumpster dived most of the rest of his food. He put the weight back on. The local cops and the homeless shelter workers knew him and were always good for a coffee or sandwich.

After a year on the street, Winston developed a sense for what people needed. He couldn’t explain it, but sometimes he would feel drawn to a particular trash heap or street and he would find something that he knew someone was looking for. He didn’t know who, but he knew that if walked around with it long enough he’d find them.

The first time it happened it was a CD of Snoopy vs the Red Baron by the Royal Guardsman. Winston recalled the songs from his childhood, “10, 20, 30, 40, 50 or more, the bloody Red Baron was rolling up the score,” he sang in his head.

Back then, it had been a vinyl album, not a CD, though. Other songs from the album suddenly splashed into his head. He picked up the CD and stashed it in his coat. He’d only walked a block when he passed a woman and felt a faint vibration coming from his pocket. The woman shied away from him as they passed each other, something Winston was used to, so he decided to walk on and figure out another way to give it to her.

He walked half a block, then glanced back, just in time to see her go inside a coffee shop.  A man sat outside at one of the shop’s two small tables, looking at his phone while simultaneously blowing on his coffee to cool it.

“Excuse me?” Winston said as he approached him. The man looked up and frowned, expecting to be solicited, and ready to say no.

“Could I leave this with you? I found it and I think it’s that lady’s,” Winston pointed inside at the woman. She was ordering and didn’t see him. “I think she might be a bit scared of me, a lot of people are but if you could…” Winston extended the CD to the man.

Winston saw the man’s eyes change. That was always a satisfying moment for him; when people saw him, not his shabby clothes or the threat his size implied.

“Oh sure, no problem. That’s really nice of you.”

Winston thanked him and went on his way. He turned the corner but stopped to look back and make sure the woman got the CD.

He saw her emerge and the man stop her, speak to her. He saw her look down at what he had in his hand, smile and give a small laugh. The two of them engaged in animated conversation for a few moments. She put the CD into her purse, and then shook hands with the man. He went back to his coffee and phone, and she went on her way.

Since then, he’d reunited many others with the things they sought. Most of the time, they were small trinkets, like that first CD, nothing special to anyone but the person looking for it. The small joys that make up life.  Sometimes, people didn’t even realize they needed it until they saw it. Not once was the person sad to get it and that made Winston happy.

Winston had just cleared to the bottom of the full pharmacy dumpster and spotted one promising bag when he heard a small, high-pitched voice behind him.

“Froggy!”

He turned. A boy, maybe two or three, in blue and red footie pyjamas stood behind him in the parking lot, pointing.

“Froggy!” the boy yelled out again. He was bouncing from foot to foot and had his arms extended, fingers wriggling.

“Ah. That was quick.”

Winston reached behind him and took out the frog and gave it to the boy, who hugged it, then squeezed it hard with both hands. The frog emitted a farting noise, sending the boy into screaming giggles.

Winston was caught off guard by his own laughter and he roared, which stopped the boy for a second, but which then sent him into even greater giggle heights. He squeezed the frog again and again, the farting noise echoing faintly through the parking lot and the big man and the little boy laughed together.

“Hey there little man,” Winston said, finally getting a hold of himself. He took a deep breath and crouched down in front of the boy. He still towered over him.

“I’m Winston. What’s your name?”

The boy hugged the stuffed frog and didn’t say anything.

“You really like the frog, eh?”

“My froggy!”

“Of course it’s your froggy, obviously. D’uh.” Winston grinned and the boy grinned back. “Does the froggy have a name?”

“Froggy!”

“Ah, well I guess that makes sense. What does a frog need with any other name, eh? Do you have a name?”

The boy nodded but didn’t offer anything more. Winston noticed that he’d started to shiver and he took out his blanket and wrapped the boy up in it.

“Well, I can’t just leave you outside all night.  Do you know where you live? I could carry you home if you can point me there.”

“Froggy.” The boy said it a little less gleefully and snuggled more into the blanket.

“If Froggy can help point, that’d be great. So, I’m going to pick you up now, okay? I bet your feet are pretty cold.”

The boy nodded and lifted his arms, the blanket falling away. Winston stood and opened his overcoat, picked up the blanket, then the boy.

“Wrap your feet around my back and your arms around my neck,” Winston said. The boy did as he was told. Winston wrapped the blanket around the front of him, then buttoned the overcoat, cocooning the boy.

He walked around to the front of the closed pharmacy and looked inside at the clock. It was almost three o’clock in the morning. Where had this kid come from? There were apartments nearby so he decided to check there first.

“I’ll make you a deal, little man. Seeing as I got your Froggy back for you, you’re going to help me get you home, okay? I’m going to start walking and you or Froggy let me know if I’m heading in the right direction. Deal?”

Winston awkwardly looked down at the boy with his head on his chest, his arms wrapped around his neck. The boy nodded, his chin digging into the stuffed frog’s head.

He crossed at a traffic light and walked towards the brightly lit apartment building. It was fairly new, only a few years old. Unlike older apartment buildings, this one had a variety of shops on the ground floor. A nail salon, a dog groomer’s, a gym, all things Winston would never understand people paying for when they could just as easily do their own nails, brush their own dogs, or go for a walk.

He slowed as he approached the front doors but the boy hadn’t moved.

“So, not this building, I guess?”

The boy had his chin on top of the stuffed frog. He shook his head but before Winston walked on, the boy took a hand from around Winston’s neck and pulled out one of the frog’s arms. He pointed the arm across the street, back to the parking lot where he’d found him. He yawned, dropped the frog’s arm, and shut his eyes.

Winston could feel the boy’s belly going in and out into his with his steady breathing, a feeling he’d never experienced before. It was comforting.

He walked back to the sidewalk. A car drove by and Winston briefly saw a small child fast asleep in a car seat in the back, her head lolling on one shoulder.

“Ah.”  

It dawned on Winston and he crossed back over, passed the dumpster, and went round to the back of the building. He saw the car immediately, a young woman, asleep in the front seat.

Winston paused. He’d seen enough mothers on the street and not all of them always had their kids’ best interests at heart. Winston would drink the occasional beer, when he could afford one or when he found them, but he didn’t do any drugs. Street drugs robbed you of your personality and your humanity.

He looked down at the boy, asleep in his arms. He was well fed. He looked back at the woman. One arm was flung across her face and her knees were scrunched up. Under the parking lot lights, Winston couldn’t see any track marks on her arm. Her skin looked good, like she knew how to eat properly. A thin blanket covered the rest of her and she was using a Walmart smock as a pillow.

Winston decided not to wake her, but he had to wake the boy. He unbuttoned his overcoat and gently pulled the boy away, setting him down in front of him. The boy clutched the stuffed frog but opened his eyes and yawned. Winston wrapped the blanket around the boy’s shoulders.

“Is that your mum?”

The boy yawned again and nodded. He took the frog’s arm and pointed at the car.

“Got it, little man. But we don’t want to wake her up, okay? Can you open the door on your own?”

The boy looked at the car latch, then back at Winston and nodded.

“Can you do it really, really quietly?”

“Froggy,” the child whispered.

“Perfect, just like that. Okay, go on. Time for bed.”

Winston backed away and stood in the shadow of the building. He saw the boy gently lift the back latch of the car and get in, slowly closing the door behind him. He saw him wave in his direction. He waved back. He watched the boy’s head disappear below the car door. He stayed until he was sure that the boy wouldn’t get out of the car again. He wished he’d offered him something to eat, one of his bananas or some of the crackers.

He headed back to where he’d left off at the dumpster.

A little after four o’clock in the morning, Winston secluded himself behind the concrete barriers that surrounded the hydro tower in the far section of the parking lot. He’d found some clean cardboard and used it to keep him off the gravel. He laid down and through the gaps in the barriers he had a clear view of the car. He’d set the bag of food on the driver’s side where she wouldn’t be able to miss it. He hoped the kid liked Fig Newtons.

He yawned and was soon fast asleep. When he woke up, the sun was up and the nearby highway was already humming. The car was gone and his feet were cold. Winston smiled. He had a new blanket to find.