Lockdown by Zilla Jones
2021 Writing Contest Winner
FIRST PLACE
When the train come round the corner, it slow down some, and I know I needs to jump off before it go under the bridge. My legs is stiff and cold after hours crouched between the shipping containers and I only hopes they gon work long enough to get me back on the ground. I surely be too old for this now. Sixty years old be no age for train hopping and I musta been crazy to try it again. But as I walk past that train just sitting there in the Calgary station, it too tempting to pass up just one more ride.
Usta be the way I lived all the time. See a train, jump on, see a place you like, jump off. Started doing it when I sixteen and needed to get away from my stepfather messing with me. That was in New Brunswick and all I could think of was going west, but I been all over Canada, and the US too, though that be a mistake. The rhythm of that train so comforting, I fall asleep on top of that box car and don’t realize I be in another country till I wake up and see that Stars and Stripes. I stays a while, but I eventually I gets caught tryna jump on a train in Arizona. The immigration judge smiling a bit when he send me back. “Just be more careful next time,” he say. Even though train hopping be against the law.
Made lots of friends on them trains. We panhandles together, sleeps together – not sleep sleep, though okay, that happen some, but we shares sleeping bags to stay warm at the stations while we waits for the next train, smokes and drinks together, shares our stories. Not too many Black girls on them trains, but I likes that. I likes not seeing reminders of my step in every other man around. I likes being unique and not just one girl of too many daughters. But today, I on my own. Less and less people riding the trains now. The police and the fines getting to be too much. Besides, in winter everyone in Canada want to go west to British Columbia where it be warmer, not east.
I stands up, feeling my bones snapping in little cracks like popcorn. The air be like a drill of ice pricking cold into me from every inch. I opens and closes my hands inside my mittens as I shuffles to the edge of the shipping car. Now. Do it now. I fixes my eyes on the patch of ground I wants to land on, which be covered in so much snow shining white under the moon that it almost look like them sand deserts in Arizona. The old fear rise up like to strangle me, squeezing out my breath. I always hates jumping off, always feared it. Usta just wait till the train stop in a station, but I can’t wait now. I too cold and uncomfortable and with my condition I shoulda been somewhere warm hours ago.
I breathes in that chill, swings my arms and flies off that train. I can tell I jumped wrong and I lands hard, barely clearing the tracks as the cars rattle by me and the train whistle blows that sad hollow note I usta hear lying in my bed as a child, and even then followed it with my mind, thinking of escape.
I falls hard on my ankle and it twist but it hold up, it don’t break, and when I stand I feel that rush. I did it. I sixty years old and I done jump off a train all by my lonesome. Now, where I be? I looks around and sees them two rivers merging together, the moon shining on the water along with the city lights and all them trees on each side, and I would know this place anywhere. I’m in Winnipeg.
I remember there used to be a Tim Horton’s down the road from this train station, on Broadway I think they calls it. It’s funny how cities don’t really change none at the same time that they hard to recognize from even years ago. The streets is laid out like they always been, the weather what it always like this time of year, but the buildings be completely different. In Winnipeg, the missing teeth in the skyline be filled in so there be more concrete blocking out the sunset and the river and there be some big fancy building that weren’t here before that look like a finger unwrapping a scroll of paper, pointing up at the stars. But Broadway still gon be where it always been.
I walks to the direction of that Tim’s. Got five dollars and that can still buy a cup of coffee. Usta be less than a dollar. Man I’m old. I sees the red sign and I so glad. I really needs to sit somewhere warm and tell you the truth, also be nice to use a proper bathroom and clean up some. That shipping container be streaked with grease and dirt and I been leaning against it so long it work its way into my skin and probably under it and into my blood by now.
I pull on the doors of the Tim’s, but they ain’t opening. I looks at the sign. I not much for reading, didn’t get too far in school, but I knows the picture of the face mask. I keep forgetting about that damn virus. Got me a couple of masks from a church mission in Calgary, and I feels in the pocket of my parka, but they not there. Musta fallen out when I jumped. Shit, now they won’t let me in anywhere. I looks at the sign again and works at those letters a while till I figure out what it say. NEW COVID HOURS. That mean they close early, so mask or no mask, I ain’t going in.
Now what? Winnipeg ain’t exactly a nightlife capital, but it gots to have somewhere to go at night. I looks down the street and everything quiet. They still have they Christmas lights up near the end of January and the red and green shapes of presents and bows stretch over the snow banks and all the office buildings with they windows dark like the river. Not a person around. I thinks for a minute and remembers if I walk north, I get to Portage Avenue.
My legs sore and every step I take feel like ten. I thinks, Now, Dulcy, why you think this such a good idea again? But I gots to keep walking. If there’s one thing I learn in life, it be that – keep walking, don’t never stop. I takes mebbe three more steps when I can’t take no more because that pain just start from nowhere in my legs, just licking around my joints with a hot tongue made out of needles and even though it in my legs it hurt so bad I can’t hardly breathe. And I know this is one of them pain crises and I got to get a hospital and get some methadone before it get real bad, so bad I can’t move. I ain’t had a pain crisis in a few months now and was beginning to wonder if I outgrowed it, even though sickle cell disease ain’t something you outgrow. I be born with it and I go die with it.
Now, where the hospitals be in this place? I thinks and thinks and I remembers I seed a red cross in the sky not long before that train stopped. It was east of here. If I walks east, I should be there in a few minutes. I has to force my legs to carry me a little bit longer even though all I wants to do is curl up in a ball on the sidewalk and cry. Mama usta put hot cloths on me when I be small and the pain hit bad. That was before she married my step, when she still cared. After he come along, she never even notice if I stuck in bed moaning and wanting to die. And me being trapped there all the better for him. The anger I still get thinking of his dirty old ass give me enough fuel to walk on, even though my legs burning and buzzing like you wouldn’t believe.
It further than I think, but finally I standing outside the sign Emergency and I goes through those glass doors. There be warmth for the first time in I don’t know how long and I just needs to sit a bit before I looks for a nurse, so I flops down in a plastic chair and closes my eyes, because the lights in a hospital so bright all the time.
“Ma’am, can I help you?” It be a security guard, crouching down in front of me but careful not to get too close. Half he face cover in black cloth. Usta be only guys bout to rob you look like that. He say, “Face masks are required in this building.”
I tries to say that I lost mine, but I ain’t talked in days and the pain so bad that my tongue sticking in my mouth.
He shake he head, go over to a desk and come back with a blue paper mask for me and I puts it on, but slow, because the pain starting up in my arms too. He watch me struggle with it and then him say, “This is not a place to spend the night, Ma’am. You need to go to a shelter.”
I swallows, tries to make my voice work. Finally it creak out from behind the mask. “Need – a – doctor-“
“What’s that?” He bend a little closer.
“Doctor.”
“Emergency is thataway,” he say, nodding he head back through some glass doors. I tries to stand but the hurting fire lick through my legs and I fall back in my chair. Ain’t be this bad in years. The tears comes into my eyes and the guard go behind the desk again and come back pushing a wheelchair. I somehow manages to get on my feet long enough to fall down into the wheelchair and the guard pushes me through them doors. He leave me in the chair sitting in the emergency triage and go to talk to the nurse. There be a man with he hand bleeding, a woman and a little kid sleeping in she lap, a guy in a wheelchair with no legs.
The news be on and I watch as a announcer, all pretty in a nice pink jacket, say, “The lockdown may be harsh, but it is necessary. We ask that everyone go home and stay home. The lockdown will save lives.” What if you doesn’t have a home, I wonders. Always been that if you live on the streets, you seen as a nuisance folks wants to get out of the way, don’t want you stinking up where they lives or works, but now we a actual threat could be spreading diseases, we needs to be locked down.
The nurse come near me but stands at a distance holding a clipboard, asking me if I got a fever, sore throat, trouble breathing. I shakes my head. Then she ask me what’s wrong.
“Pain,” I say, still fighting them tears. “Needs methadone.”
She shake she head. “Sorry,” she say, “we are not an addictions clinic. There are community programs that distribute methadone.”
“No,” I tries to tell her, “it be for a pain crisis.”
“We don’t give out methadone, Ma’am.” She getting annoyed now.
It hurts. It hurts it hurts it hurts I needs medicine.
“We need to limit the people in this area,” she go on. “I’m going to ask you to leave.”
“But- I has-“ She call to the guard, and he come and push my wheelchair to the front, then stop and say,
“Okay, time to get out.” But he don’t say it harsh like - his voice soft with kindness and for one minute I thinks of falling into he arms, having them go round me and hold me, just for one minute. Then I almost laughs. This white boy probably half my age, he ain’t want me. He say, “Go down Main Street,” he point, “and there are shelters where you can stay. It’s cold tonight.” I thanks him, hauls my body out of the wheelchair, takes a few steps, and then I sits down in the driveway in front of them doors because it hurt too bad to keep walking.
The pain oh sweet Jesus the pain and I remember some doctor explain it to me once, my red blood cells be the wrong shape so sometimes they gets stuck going through my veins and clumps up and the pain be my veins not getting enough oxygen and screaming out for it and oh God it hurts.
I looks back at the glass doors of the hospital and I sees what everyone sees. A old Black woman, looking twenty years older than I is. Hair going in every direction, face dirty, clothes dirty from leaning against the shipping container and my sleeve tore where I jumped off the train, eyes screwed up with pain. I looks crazy.
Gonna have to try to get to that shelter if I have to crawl there. Mebbe the shelter workers will listen and bring me back to the hospital. I can see the lights the security guard says is Main Street, thinks I remembers that, but it be across the river and I has to get over that long bridge with the web of cables like fishing lines that didn’t usta be there. I takes two steps, then I waits for the flashing, crashing waves to ease up just enough to take two more, and I hobbles and creeps and pulls myself all the way over that bridge to Main Street. Cars goes swooshing past me and not one stop to ask me if I needs help. I knows what they thinks: I be drunk or high, and best to ignore me.
I did it, I thinks to myself. Always knew I had more fight in me than everyone thought. If I can get through living with my step, I can get through anything. It almost feel like my legs be hurting a little less as I stumbles to the door of Grace Mission. I still wearing my blue mask, so they has to let me in. But the windows is black. The space behind the door too. Don’t look like anyone be around. Shelters supposed to be open twenty-four hours a day. I pulls on the door, bends over double, gasping as the hot agony pulse through me, and pulls it again. There be a sign, CLOSED. I squints at it, holding onto that door to hold meself up through the next wave, and I see the word COVID, and that all I needs to know. This place be locked down too.
Took all my energy to get here, and I knows I can’t struggle any further to check another shelter. I gots to sit down and just wait. It be late now, and mebbe someone come in the morning. Can’t read the rest of the sign, but they could still have a breakfast program or something like that. I looks for a bench or a bus stop, somewhere to keep off the wind, but I ain’t seeing anything like that here. Just a big old bank of snow that the streetlights shining on so it sparkles like that glitter they usta put on the snow on Christmas cards. Winnipeg always do have beautiful snow, until the fumes and dirt gets to it.
Mebbe if I go put my legs in the snowbank it freeze out the pain. I knows cold ain’t good for sickle cell, but I do anything to be able to breathe without my air squeezing up every few seconds as them hot claws raging through me. I plunge my legs into that snow, watching the holes they make, and at first the ice feel like it cutting me and maybe this be a mistake, but then my legs starts to feel warm again, and some of that pain seem to go into the snow and as I free of it, I see my breath streaming out in silvery clouds rising to join the stars.
I’se so tired from all that walking. My head be flopping onto my shoulders, and I feels myself sliding backward as I lets my eyes close. Just for a minute.
***
When I wakes, I is shaking so hard feels like my heart and all my organs about to break loose of my body. I doesn’t feel sickle cell pain anymore, but now the hurting coming from my fingers, my toes, my ears, everything that touch this cold. I done stay here too long. I needs to move. But I’se stuck. I tries and tries to curl my leg, lift it out of the snow, and it stiff, frozen into one position. I flexes my fingers, tries to dig the snow away from me, but now my hand be burning, burning, like I done stick it in a fire.
I look around to call for help, but nobody be around. Then I remember there be a lockdown, and there be no reason for anyone to be around here, because everything done close. The lockdown will save lives, that news announcer said. Well, they all inside being saved while I be out here freezing. I topples sideways again looking up at the moon, wondering when it start fading to make way for the sun. But I already knows it will be too late, and that moon be the last thing I gonna see.
Zilla Jones is an African-Canadian criminal defense lawyer, anti-racist educator, mother, singer and writer from Treaty 1 in Winnipeg, who has been writing since the age of three, but only began submitting her work in late 2019. She has been longlisted for the CBC short fiction competition, shortlisted for the Writers Union of Canada short prose competition and The Fiddlehead magazine short story competition, and won Honourable Mention in the Room Magazine short fiction contest and first place in The Malahat Review Open Season fiction contest. This week she was longlisted for the Jacob Zilber fiction prize of PRISM magazine. Her work has been published in Prairie Fire magazine and nominated for the Journey Prize. She was selected as this year’s recipient of the Sheldon Oberman mentorship of the Manitoba Writers Guild and is thrilled to be mentored by Angeline Schellenberg.