Bad Ideas

by Missy Marston

  “We saw unicorns. It was close to here. But they’re not there anymore.” Mercy unzipped her jacket to reveal a pink T-shirt with a sparkling rainbow iron-on on the front. “Trudy made me this shirt.”

  “Nice,” said James. “You think she’ll make me one?”

  “No! They’re for little girls!” cried Mercy, scandalized.

  “But I like rainbows. Why can’t I have one?”

  “You’re silly, James!” Mercy was laughing, doubled over. As if she could see it in her mind: great big tall James in a tiny tight pink rainbow T-shirt.

  “Mercy, why don’t you show Mark and me where you found those unicorns? Maybe they’re back.”

  “Can I, Trudy?”

  Trudy looked at James and Mark, smiles on their goofy faces, and at Mercy, sitting up as straight as she could, as if it would help. As if good posture might sway her. “OK, then. But come right back. We have to get home soon.”

  Mercy kissed Trudy on the cheek hard and loud and waved at Jules as she grabbed James’s hand and pulled him toward the screen door and out onto the porch. Jules felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up as Trudy turned to face him across the table.

  Alone at last.

  Because so many sad stories are almost the same

  Alone at last and look at him. He was hobbled. Unable to get up from his chair without grunting like an old man, unable to get closer to her without hoisting himself onto his crutches and labouring to hop and swing over to her. It was unthinkable. Why was she way over there on the other side of the table?

  “Come sit beside me.”

  “I’m fine here,” she said. The sun was still behind her, shining in through the door. He couldn’t tell if she was smiling. If she was laughing at him.

  “You think I’m ridiculous.”

  “A little bit.”

  “But you don’t know me.”

  “Nope.” She had started to smile. He could hear it in her voice. He could see the shadow of it on her face.

  “I’m a very interesting person.”

  “I have no doubt.”

  And so he told her the beginning of his story. His long, sad story. The apartment by the railroad tracks in Montreal. The room he shared with his brothers, the window looking out on the parking lot filled with garbage.

  How the trains shook his bed at night the way the engines of the ships had shaken hers. How they chased rats for fun, built go-karts out of scraps they found in the alleyways. How he quit school in sixth grade and worked as a grocery-store delivery boy.

  He told her about the school where nuns smacked him on the back of the head with rulers, called him stupid, dirty, and bad. Which maybe he was. Which maybe he still was. How, like Trudy, he had never known his father. He had, in fact, never heard a word about him. Didn’t even know his name.

  How his mother left and came back and left and came back until the boys were half crazy, half wild.

  Then one day she left and she didn’t come back.

  He told Trudy how, after that, they never, ever answered the door. How the police came one day (he never knew why — to kick them out? To take them away? To bring some terrible news of their mother?) and they crept out onto the fire escape, scurried down the metal stairs, jumped down to the pavement, and scattered like alley cats, knowing they should never go back to the apartment again.

  That they would have to make their way in the world now.

  He told her how before long he had lost track of his brothers and never heard from them again.

  (He didn’t tell her that he was sure that he had never mattered very much to anyone. And that now he suspected he mattered nothing at all. He didn’t tell her how sorry he felt for himself sometimes.)

  Trudy stood up and walked around the table, sat in the chair next to his. She put her hand, palm up, on his thigh. He put his hand in hers and squeezed. His breath caught in his throat. He didn’t dare speak. What was it about beautiful women that made him want to cry like a baby? What purpose could it possibly serve?

  He thought he could hear voices outside, so he leaned in to kiss her before the moment passed. She pulled her head back, eluding him. And then she smiled. “I think I hear Mercy.”

  “Just one,” he said. “Quick.”

  And like magic, she closed her eyes, leaned toward him, and put her soft lips on his.

  Rainbows. Unicorns. Pure, hot, joy.

  Then the screen door opened and let in the noise.

  Trudy

  Because even monsters can be lovable

  “What in the name of Jesus Christ is that?” Trudy was astounded.

  “It’s a dog, Trudy!” Mercy was dancing around the enormous wrinkled lump of brown-and-white hide that was sprawled on the living room carpet. “Her name is Speckles!” Mercy knelt on the floor and laid her head on the dog’s back. The creature raised its big head and looked at Trudy with baggy, bloodshot eyes. “She’s a puppy, Trudy! She’s a basset hound! I LOVE HER!” The dog grunted and sighed, laid its chin back down on the ground, eyes still fixed on Trudy.

  “OK, OK, pipe down a bit, Mercy.” Trudy’s head was pounding. She could not see how this could be a puppy. It was huge. Over two feet long and fat, it probably outweighed Mercy by twenty pounds. Puppy! It looked like a frigging monster. A gargoyle.

  Its short legs splayed outward.

  Its feet looked webbed.

  It smelled like a wet skunk. And raw meat.

  “Where’s Grandma?”

  “She’s upstairs. I’m just taking care of the baby.” Mercy patted the dog firmly on the top of the head and the dog squinted with pleasure.

  Baby! thought Trudy. God help us all.

  Because you should be careful what you wish for

  Trudy, Claire, and Mercy were sitting at the kitchen table. It was weekday dinnertime, and Claire was waxing sentimental. “I always thought I would have another baby.”

  “Mom. Come on. What are you talking about?”

  “I always thought I would have a third baby. A boy. I would have named him Jerome.”

  “Like the giraffe!” said Mercy.

  Claire laughed. “Yeah, that’s right, Mercy! Just like the giraffe!”

  Trudy rolled her eyes. Mercy rolled a meatball back and forth between her fork and knife.

  Claire shot a look at Trudy. “It could still happen, you know. I’m not too old.”

  “Baby Jerome,” sang Mercy. “Somebody younger than me!”

  “He would be your uncle, Mercy. A baby uncle. What do you think of that?”

  “That’s funny, Grandma Claire.”

  “That’s one way of looking at it.” Trudy pushed her chair back from the table. She picked up her plate and walked over to the sink. “This conversation is ridiculous.”

  “Why? Because I want something good to happen?” Claire was standing now, arms rigid at her sides. Tears filled her eyes, and she let out a little sob. Startled, Speckles got up from her cushion in the corner of the kitchen and walked over to stand beside Claire. She lifted her big, heavy head and looked from Claire to Trudy still standing by the sink, plate in hand. Mercy put down her fork and knife.

  “Have you completely lost your mind?” Trudy shook her head. “You can’t be serious.”

  “It’s OK, Grandma. Trudy’s just tired. She doesn’t mean it. You can have a baby if you want to.”

  “Oh my god.”

  “You can be very cold, Trudy. And you lack imagination. Our lives could be completely different in a couple of years, you never know. You don’t know.” Claire’s chin started to tremble again.

  Mercy got up from the table and walked over to her grandmother. “Come on, Grandma Claire. Me and Speckles want to watch TV.” She grabbed Claire’s hand and led her out of the room. She looked back at Trudy and scowled.

  Trudy turned her back on them and filled the sink
.

  For the love of Christ, she thought. Where are the grown-ups?

  Because you learn something new every day

  Trudy was back on Old Murphy Road again, pulling over onto the gravel shoulder. The sun was setting. She had left Mercy and Claire at home with their smelly dog and their fantasy baby, Jerome.

  As she walked toward the porch, she could hear their voices, their laughter, and stopped for a second. Why was she here? She turned and looked back out over the bay and considered leaving. Just going back home. But instead she took one step at a time up to the porch, quietly, stealthily. She stood at the screen door, thinking it would be funny to just wait there until someone noticed her. Maybe give them a little fright. She saw Jules, leaning back from the table, his foot in its cast resting on a chair. He was smiling.

  And then she saw something amazing, something she never thought she would see: James and Mark cuddled up together on the old couch against the back wall of the kitchen.

  Those two big grown men, pressed right up against each other. Mark had his arm behind James across the back of the couch and his leg draped over James’s thigh. He was almost sitting on his lap.

  She turned away and crept down the steps.

  Then she turned around and walked right back up the stairs, making plenty of noise and thinking, I don’t know anything about anything. Not one thing about anything in this whole world. James opened the door before she even knocked. “It’s a woman,” he said. “Thank God. Come in. We were getting tired of our own company around here.” She doubted this, but she liked the way it made her feel when he said it. Jules looked at her and smiled, patted his lap, and nodded at her. She walked over and settled her weight on top of him. Trudy saw him wince a little and she started to get off but he grabbed her hips and brought her back down. “No,” he said. “It’s good. It feels good.” James grabbed Mark’s hand and led him out of the room. Trudy stared after them.

  “Never mind them,” said Jules. “They’re always like that. All over each other.”

  Trudy didn’t know what to say.

  Jules looked her in the eye. “What’s up? You OK?”

  “Yeah. I guess I just never really thought about it before.”

  “Never really thought about what?”

  “You know, being gay. Around here, it’s just a name people call each other, a joke. I never really thought about it being real.”

  Jules was laughing now. He couldn’t help it.

  “Don’t laugh at me!” Jules pulled her close and kissed her. She kissed him back and thought about James and Mark. About them kissing. Their faces rough against each other. Their strong arms around each other. Jules’s breath was hot in her ear and he was kissing her neck, his hands on her thighs. “Stay with me,” he said. “Come upstairs with me.”

  “I can’t. I have to go to work.” Her body felt heavy, magnetized. Like she would have to be hauled off him with a crane. He was kissing her again, and his hands were under her shirt, undoing her bra, his fingers tracing a line down her sides, barely touching the sides of her breasts. His voice was in her ear again. “I will make you feel good, I promise.”

  Trudy kissed his neck, his cheek, his ear, and pulled away. “I’ve heard that one before,” she said.

  (This was a lie.

  Nobody had ever said anything like that to her before. Ever.)

  She shrugged her shoulders as she did up her bra, straightened her shirt, and flipped her hair back over her shoulders. She grabbed her fringed purse and headed for the door.

  “Promises, promises.”

  Because it doesn’t take much

  Driving back home, Trudy thought, it didn’t take much.

  That face, that body. That voice. The freckles on his arms.

  A sad story, a sly look.

  A deep kiss. A light, glancing touch.

  The promise of pleasure and the spectre of a terrible, violent, public death to make it all ridiculous, sad, pointless. Irresistible.

  Just these things and the sailing arc of cupid’s arrow and she was done for.

  Lost.

  Stupid, stricken, sick with love.

  Because that’s life

  Trudy sat on the edge of the tub, put the stopper in, and turned on the water. She let it run over her hand, cold at first, slowly warming up. When the water was a few inches deep, she swirled it around the tub with her hand, mixing the cool with the hot. “Mercy! Bath’s ready!”

  Mercy came padding into the small bathroom, pink bathrobe crisscrossed over her little body, belt pulled tight around her waist, matching pink slippers slapping against her feet. Trudy grabbed the end of her belt and pulled her close, squeezing her. There was something about the way Mercy did these things so precisely — tying her robe, combing her hair, the careful, systematic way she divided the food on her plate into sections before eating it, one tidy bite at a time — that made Trudy want to cry. It was so strange, so at odds with everything and everybody around her.

  “Trudy, you’re crushing me!”

  Trudy let her go.

  “Trudy, can I have bubbles? Please? Please! Please, Trudy.” Mercy was standing on her tiptoes, bouncing, trying to reach the box of bubble bath on the shelf behind the toilet.

  “Alright, alright.” Trudy got the box down and sprinkled the blue powder under the running water.

  “More! More! Trudy, I want the bubbles to reach here!” Mercy was waving her hand high above her head. Dancing from foot to foot.

  “OK, lady. That’s enough. Get in there.”

  Mercy took off her robe and hung it on the doorknob, kicked off her slippers and stepped into the tub. She carefully skimmed the surface of the water, pushing all the foamy white bubbles toward the front of the tub, piling them up high in a mound, then gathering up handfuls to put on each shoulder, on the top of her head, on each knee. Singing quietly to herself, “Who loves bubbles? I love bubbles . . .” She patted a handful of foam carefully onto her face, making a beard and moustache.

  Trudy lowered the lid on the toilet and sat down, lighting a cigarette and throwing the match into the sink. Watching Mercy in the bath, slippery and perfect as a seal, she wondered — against her will and in the strange detached way she always thought about this — about the baby she could have had. Would it have been another girl or, unimaginably, a boy? Could she and Claire have cared for both kids, Mercy and the other one?

  Maybe, if Trudy had kept the baby, Tammy would have stayed to help out instead of taking off. Maybe Claire would be able to make it through the day without crying her eyes out.

  And maybe Santa Claus would come on a magic sleigh pulled by a red-nosed reindeer to give them a million dollars and they would all live happily ever after in Fairy Land.

  Tra-la-la.

  “OK, champ. I think you’re clean enough now.” Trudy ran her cigarette butt under the tap in the sink and threw it in the trash can, rinsed the ashes down the drain.

  “No, Trudy! Not yet!”

  “I have to go to work, Mercy.” Trudy reached in the tub and turned over Mercy’s small hands. “Look at your hands, they’re like prunes!”

  “They’re not!” They weren’t. But that was life. Trudy had to go to work.

  She pulled the plug while Mercy wailed, “Nooooo! ”

  Trudy held out a towel, and Mercy dejectedly stepped into her aunt’s arms and put her head on her shoulder. “I love you, Trudy, but you’re mean.”

  “I know, pal. I love you, too. Bed time.”

  Because real love is always mixed with terror

  Mercy loved to ask questions. She was a question machine. Spitting out question after question after follow-up question. What’s that? Who’s that? What are you doing? What’s Grandma doing? Why? It had started early, as soon as she could talk. And that’s when Tammy had disappeared — when the questions started.

  Trudy remembered every detail, every m
oment, of the day Mercy was born. Her memory of that day had a special glassy clarity about it. A bright, crisp September morning. There had been a chill in the air. The smell of wet leaves and cut grass. A bright blue sky and the sun sparkling on the river as they drove to the hospital. Trudy was driving, Claire was fidgeting in the passenger seat, and Tammy was a writhing mass filling the back seat, her soft face turned to the ceiling, appealing to her saviour.

  “Jesus Christ! Jesus. Goddamn!”

  “Almost there, Tammy. Hold on,” said Claire. Trudy turned on the radio. The Bee Gees, Captain & Tennille. It made her cringe. Her kingdom for some rock and roll. Claire was on her knees, turned around, facing the back seat.

  “Fuck ME, that hurts!”

  “Tammy, that’s horrible. Please. Think of the baby.”

  “Urgh! Mom! How can I think about anything else?”

  Trudy turned the radio off and rolled her window down and breathed in the fragrant autumn air. The baby, the baby. How could any of them possibly think of anything else?

  And then the hospital.

  That same hospital in Harristown. Dirty white paint flaking off the red-brick exterior. Stone steps worn smooth in the middle by generations of shuffling patients, the hollow makeshift wooden ramp on the side. Lit-up exit signs boxed in with wire grates. Pale yellow walls and grey and white and black speckled terrazzo floors. In reception, there were nurses with white caps, spotless white belted dresses, white stockings, and flat white rubber-bottomed shoes. The ones smocked in dull green did their work elsewhere, out of sight.

  Trudy remembered.

  As her sister was admitted — as Tammy testily answered the nurse’s questions between the painful waves of her contractions — Trudy could think only one thought: she is here for this and I was here for that. What a distance there was, she thought, between this and that.