May 1st brings cold weather. Or average temperatures, though compared to our late-April heat wave, it’s cold. Barbara inspects the fisherman’s knit cardigan and fingerless suede gloves I’ve selected to wear for my inaugural graveyard shift. I wait for her comment, “Suede, really? For outdoor work?” But the way she estimates the precise warmth of the wool with her meticulous hands is her own form of protest. As expected, she took the news of my new job at The Point as a betrayal—another unconventional move of mine that sets me poles apart from her. Night and day, literally.
She packs me a snack. The tomato and cheese sandwich in a Ziploc bag means I still love you, dummy. The apple juice box, be safe tonight.
The bus stops running at seven p.m., which is when my shift begins. Seven p.m. to seven a.m.—dusk to dawn. I guess it’s about a forty-minute walk, so I give myself an hour. The nearly set sun stretches my shadow out long behind me. Street lamps blink on as I pass. Their fluorescent shrill is the only sound as I zigzag through the side streets. I am painfully reminded as I walk that I am lucky to have employment. Particle board to my left. Papered-up windows to my right. What used to be called Hotdog Alley has become a ghost town stroll. The bus doesn’t turn down this street. It is the first time I’m truly seeing the once cute pastel-painted storefronts now time-beaten and completely abandoned. Of course I understood, conceptually, there wouldn’t still be bustling fish fry shacks or souvenir shops. Even when I was a teenager, Hotdog Alley was already in decline, with fewer and fewer tourists coming each year. Some blamed Canada’s Wonderland and Fantasy Island—newer and much bigger amusement parks a couple hours to our north and south. Some blamed the rise of heroin and hashish smuggled up from Buffalo. Some blamed Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and President Ronald Reagan. That’s apt—blame conservatism. We’ve always been a party town, after all. We blamed the exchange rate, which put the Canadian dollar at only seventy cents to the US dollar. Some blamed factory closures on both sides of the border. Some of the more superstitious locals—a fair few—blamed Lemmy, the local legendary Lake Erie Monster, for making too many appearances within the pages of small-town tabloids and scaring away tourists.
Blame, too, is a concept.
Smashed windows are tangible.
Ripped-up awnings are tangible. The faded “For Rent” signs are about the same as a painted x on each door. Sickness lives here—not the Black Death, but Black Monday. This credit crunch couldn’t be quarantined. It looks like, when the Park was dissolved by creditors, the community was more than bit by the recession bug—it was chewed bare.
The last storefront on Derby Road is the former home of the Hall’s Candy Company. No one should see a favourite childhood sanctuary swollen with failure. The white wood siding is warped from being empty and unheated for the winter, though the rot is more than one season old—the candy company must have struggled to its end. The door has buckled out from its frame and hangs askew. The street lamps aren’t really bright enough to allow a proper peek, but I pry the door open anyway and am surprised at the sugary stillness inside. The aroma is almost how I remember it. How can neglect smell so sweet? I could lick the humid, dark air. I take a step farther, right up to the candy counter, and run my fingers along the dusty countertop. Unidentifiable debris crunches beneath my feet. I lean in. “One cinnamon sucker,” I say to sentimentality. If you grow nostalgic for this place—I warn myself—then it will have you. It will be that much harder to move away a second time.
Something scampers across my foot. I’m not yet finished screaming before more somethings dart past my face. Mice don’t leap—I manage this single, rational thought before I bolt for the door. A succession of small, unknown objects skip off my back. House sparrows maybe? Has to be birds, has to. Swallows nest in abandoned buildings. And bats, fucking bats, do too. Right? Bats?
Back out on the street my voice is choked, as if stretched thin by the expansive vacancy of Derby Road. The Hall’s Candy Company storefront is dead quiet. I wait for the sound of swallows whistling a warning from inside. Nothing. I cross the street, quickly. No one witnesses my outburst, which for some reason makes my screaming seem more foolish. The flash of fear quickly rendered unreal. Just like no one witnessed me launch myself down Niagara Boulevard, fleeing Tamara Matveev. All my embarrassing moments go unseen now that I’ve left the city. I’m not going to be that girl who cried on the subway while other commuters tried to look away. I’ll just be that girl who cries. Period. How many times have I wished I could turn invisible? Careful what you wish for. Ironic self-fulfilling prophecy is something to be nervous about. An abandoned candy store is a creepy metaphor, but it’s not real. “It’s not real,” I say aloud as if saying it will break the spell. But my heart pulses tediously at my temples as I speed along the stretch of closed-up cottages off Derby. Their busted shutters and screen doors seem to clack at me as I pass. Overgrown grass rustles. Leave me alone. It’s not my fault no one wants to vacation here anymore. I curse under my breath.
Mostly middle-class Americans own these summer properties. Barbara always made it her business to introduce herself to any single men staying long enough for her to “befriend.” There are certainly no more David Hasselhoff types to be found. The cottages look more slasher film and less Baywatch. Where are the Americans with money now? I’m relieved when the last deserted holiday home is well behind me and I walk the unlit gravel road. Whatever could go wrong for a young woman walking alone along a rural road at night? Besides, there’s the occasional banjo twang of frogs in the ditch to keep me company.
Rose waits for me in a lawn chair set squarely on her front step so she can hear her television through her screen door. I hear a muffled Buffalo Channel 7 Eyewitness News with Irv Weinstein signing off as I approach. “You came.” She sounds despondent as she stands and wraps her arms around me in warm greeting. I hug her back, guessing that I set the standard of familiarity at my interview. “What the heck you got stuck to the back of your sweater?” She spins me around. “Sweet God in Heaven!”
I can’t help myself, a yelp bangs past my teeth when I see it. My toes curl in my sneakers as if I might run yet again. Rose shoots me a sharp look before her gaze returns to the improbable object in her hands. We both marvel at it. Except my wonderment is laced with a heavy measure of dread. One cinnamon-flavoured Hall’s Original Sucker, perfectly intact inside the cellophane wrapper. “They don’t make these anymore,” Rose says, handing it back to me. “Where did you get it?”