The Evolution of Alice by David Alexander Robertson Page B

walked by the Adult Ed building, by the Elders’ home, and, finally, made my way by the community hall, which was a stone’s throw from the mall and doubled as the gaming centre. I never spent much time over there at the hall. Never played bingo, which was mostly what went on there, and I was never much of a gambler neither, so never had a reason to go into the gaming centre. Yeah, I wouldn’t’ve given that place a second thought, woulda been happy to pass by it and be even closer to the mall, because the grocery store was in the mall, and my liquorice and peanut M&Ms was in the grocery store. So, you could just imagine how annoyed I was when I heard an old familiar voice call at me.
    “
Hey
-uh, Gideon,” said the voice. It sounded almost exactly like Baby Huey from those old cartoons.
    I stopped right there in my tracks, closed my eyes, and cursed. I didn’t turn around at first, kinda wished I was imagining that I heard what I did. But pretty soon there were big, heavy footsteps coming toward me, then little bits of gravel sliding as feet skidded to a stop right behind me. I turned around and came face to face with Gunner, a big-chested, bigheaded, pencil-legged piece of work I’d sworn off as a friend over a decade ago. Tell you the truth, I was surprised he stopped me at all because we hadn’t spoken for God knows how long. I usually avoided being around anyplace he was at. Whenever I saw that stupid Sunfire of his, I just turned and went the other way. I didn’t see it anywhere in the parking lot this time, though, so he got one over on me there.
    “Hey,” he said, “what’ve you been up to?”
    “Nothin’ much,” I said.
    “Oh, yeah?” he said.
    “That’s what I said isn’t it?” I said.
    “
Geeeeez-us
,” he said, taking a long time to spit out the word, like he was trying to sound as offended as possible.
    I turned away, started walking toward the mall. I hoped he wouldn’t follow me. Stupid me. He didn’t take the hint, followed me right when I started to walk away, caught up to me quick, and started walking with me step for step like we were soldiers.
    “You comin’ from the health centre?” he said.
    I didn’t answer.
    “Man, I got one chick over there at the health centre, Roxie. You know her?”
    I stuck my hands into my windbreaker, kept walking in my own silence.
    “She’s a chubby little bitch, but man she can screw. I’m screwing her all the time, just got to call her. She’s my booty call.”
    “I’m not coming from there,” I said.
    When I got inside the mall, I passed by the lottery booth and made a beeline for the grocery store, sharp and quick, like I could lose him or something. Shoulda known by then that he wasn’t goin’ nowhere though, for whatever the hell reason. He was like one of them damn rez dogs begging for food. Probably woulda rolled over if I asked him to. I stopped right in front of the grocery store, and he stopped beside me.
    “Yeah? Where’re you coming from then? Alice’s place? You two are close aren’t you? What’s she like these days?” he said.
    “She’s fine,” I said.
    I looked out across the store and tried to recall what aisle I needed. I generally ignored the junk aisle, like I said before, but it wasn’t that hard to figure it out, because there was only four aisles in total. Aisle two was the one I wanted. I walked down that way, passed by soda pop, chips, and then got to the candy and chocolate bars. Bunch of vitamin water around that way too, all in rows one over top the other, and all different colours. Shit, all those bottles looked just like a rainbow. Anyway, that’s where I landed up, and that’s where Gunner followed me to, picking up and opening a bag of ketchup chips on the way.
    “Aren’t you and Alice screwing or something? I swear I heard you’re screwing,” he said in a muffled voice, his mouth full of chips.
    “What the hell are you talkin’ about? God, you’re a real shit,” I said.
    “
Shee-it
,