The Desperates

by Greg Kearney

  “What’s Chatelaine?” Anita asks.

  “It’s a women’s magazine here in Canada. It’s my favourite. It’s for the more sophisticated woman.”

  “And you read these with your son?”

  “Yeah, so, when he was in kindergarten he’d come home every day and tell me which boys he was in love with that day. In kindergarten! I should’ve … I should have, I don’t know, spanked him or something, but he was just being himself with his little face and his little arms and legs.”

  “I hear what you’re saying, sister. But we know that evil quite often assumes a pleasant disguise.”

  “He is not evil! I mean, I understand where you’re coming from and everything, but please don’t call him evil. He’s not evil, he’s just ass-backwards. And that’s my fault. I’ve coddled him, because — like you said, Anita — he was someone who seemed to need so much. I thought I was being a good mother, but I wasn’t. I’ve been a bad mother. I have.”

  Anita slowly rises, unassisted, from her chair. “She’s standing up!” Monty whispers excitedly. Anita palms the air downward, as though pressing down folded bedding to make more room in a drawer. Teresa isn’t sure what this gesture means; she decides to stop talking and wait for further instruction.

  “I came up Pentecostal. My girlhood was burnished in that beautiful faith …”

  “Yes, she did and yes, it was,” Monty affirms. “Burnished like a brass chalice.”

  “… and I am so grateful to have had that foundation. Where would I be had I not had that foun — ooh, my knee! — dation?”

  “Nowhere, is where. Nowhere, without a map!”

  “Since then, I’ve travelled the world with my dear husband. We were most often the only black faces, wherever we went. This place is no exception. Little babies stare at us in the grocery store like we’re monsters from space. And that can harden a person. I’m a bit hard. But I’m also a whole lot soft.”

  “Hard and soft,” Monty seconds.

  “Please stop rephrasing me, Monty. We’re not the Shirelles. In my faith we believe in the basic goodness of a person, but we also believe that goodness can be overwhelmed by evil. Now, we can wring our hands over this, and try to figure out what went wrong and when, and wonder if maybe we should bring in a psychiatrist. There is only one solution. We know what that solution is.”

  “Oh, Anita, please don’t,” Monty whimpers. “Our friends here aren’t ready for that yet.”

  Anita glares at Monty, who folds himself up on the floor by her feet. “I respectfully disagree, dear husband. I think you underestimate our friends. I think they are ready for that.”

  “What? Ready for what?” Teresa asks anxiously.

  “The only hope for your wayward son is exorcism,” Anita says, grave as a doctor delivering bad news. “I’ve seen a madwoman become a kindergarten teacher; I’ve seen a killer transform into a kind and patient gardener. But all of this, all of it came through exorcism. These people still write to me — thank you so much, Anita. I don’t where I’d be without my exorcism.”

  Digger looks at Monty with disbelief. Even in a state of grace, Digger has no time for foolishness; he keeps rotating his wrist-watch, tapping the heels of his cowboy boots together. Monty looks at his quaking wife.

  “When we say exorcism, we aren’t talking about heads spinning around and all that crazy stuff from the movie. It’s more of a stylized prayer. Wouldn’t you say, Anita?”

  “Yes, although there have been some terrifying supernatural incidents along the way.”

  “I’m definitely up for anything that might help Joel,” Teresa offers. “But demonic possession — I don’t think we have that in Canada. At least not in Ontario, I don’t think. Anyway, I think it’s really, really unlikely that Joel will consent to an exorcism. And what sort of demon presents itself as slow-moving and dreamy and sentimental?”

  “Doesn’t have to be a demonic possession, could just be a powerful, negative influence. Did your second son fall under the sway of someone when he was very young?”

  Digger Walsh tucks his jean shirt deeper into his jeans. Teresa can sense his impatience. She feels bad that the exorcism conversation is making him restless, but she can’t stop.

  “I think I’m gonna head on out,” Digger says, standing. “This is a bit much for me. This isn’t the way I worship.”

  “Oh, please stay,” Teresa pleads. “Please? I need your strength and prayer, more than ever. Please. Please?”

  Digger considers, then slowly sits with a sigh. “All right,” he says. “But the moment you all start throwing chicken bones on the floor, I’m out of here.”

  “Chicken bones,” Anita says, surveying the words carefully as though looking for structural damage. “So you perceive me as a practitioner of voodoo, do you? Because all powerful black ladies practise voodoo, right?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But you wanted to say that. In your eyes I’m just another uppity — ooh, my knee! —negress, doing uppity negress things.”

  “Anita, I have never seen you as an uppity negress. I didn’t even know the word ‘negress’ until now. Come on. We’re friends.”

  Anita considers a response, decides to let it go. She returns her attention to Teresa. “We were talking about negative influences. Think hard: what negative influences were there in your son’s childhood?”

  “Umm, negative influences. Well, his grandma is the biggest suckhole of all time, and she never missed the chance to ride him about using moisturizer, but she wasn’t around very much, thankfully. I know that he was a big fan of Farrah Fawcett when he was small, went on and on about how he wanted to grow up to be her.”

  Anita weighs the evil sway that Farrah Fawcett might wield. She doesn’t look convinced.

  “Okay, Farrah Fawcett. Yes, for sure. Anybody else? Really concentrate. A neighbour. A teacher who maybe turned out to be a molester. A wandering vagrant. Really think. Monty, go get those Percocet and some water. I’m sorry, I cannot stand this pain one more minute.”

  Monty’s head flops to the side in disappointment. “You don’t need those pills, Anita. You’ve been doing great without them. Just keep breathing through the pain.”

  “Monty, my pain has become unbearable. The doctor prescribed me those pills because he knew I would be having extreme pain. I am having extreme pain. I am not going to relapse. I am not going to crush and snort. Please go get my Percocet!”

  He slowly makes his way to where he’s hidden Anita’s pain pills. “I’m sorry about all this,” Anita says. “It’s a sad state of affairs when your own — ooh, my knee! — husband treats you like a dirty junkie. Well, he’ll get his. I shouldn’t say that. We’ll pray on it. What were we … Oh yes. The dark forces that may have taken over your child. Any other ideas? Take your time. I’ll sit down again and — ooh, my knee! Ooh, my knee! — wait.”

  Teresa Price is a skeletal woman, kneeling on a beige shag rug, trying to think of causes of corruption in Joel’s childhood.

  “Wait,” she says after several minutes of arduous reflection. “When he was really, really little — three, four — all of us would sit together, me and Hugh and Dallas and Joel, and listen to records really loud. Dallas next to his dad, Joel on my lap. This would’ve been, Christ, ’81, ’82? Those were good times. Supertramp, the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac. And I remember, when we played Fleetwood Mac, their big one — Rumours, I think it was, yeah, Rumours — Joel would stare and stare at the back cover, and kiss the blonde lady’s picture. Not the pretty one who sings “Dreams,” with the goat voice. The other one. It was the oddest thing. Her, of all people. Oh, what the hell is her name?”

  She looks around the room. Digger isn’t listening. Monty, back now with a pill bottle and crystal goblet of water, only shrugs. Anita pops a Percocet. And another.

  “We’re strictly a jazz and classical family,” Monty
says. “Ask me who wrote Moonlight Sonata and I could help you. Wait. Who did write Moonlight Sonata?”

  “Don’t get me more gummed up than I already am,” Teresa snaps. “God, now this is gonna really bug me. Hold on, Hugh will know.”

  She gets up and picks up the phone on the end table beside her. She calls Hugh. He answers with that amputated, surprised hello of his: ‘o?

  “Hey. What the hell is the name of that girl from Fleetwood Mac, not the pretty goat one, the other one. Christine McVie! Right.”

  With that she hangs up.

  “Christine McVie.”

  Anita nods, slowly. “Okay. So nobody from real life? You can’t think of anyone who’s not famous? You sure he wasn’t molested? Even a little bit?”

  “No, he wasn’t at all.”

  Obviously annoyed, Anita rolls her eyes, then closes them. Eventually, she makes a satisfied, sighing sound, as though she has slipped into a hot tub.

  “I’d like to begin with a room-cleansing chant that I learned from a First Nations documentary I saw recently. It’ll prepare the space. Monty, go get that paper that I wrote that First Nations thing off the TV on.”

  “Where is it?”

  “In the bedroom, by the TV.”

  “There are no papers by the TV in the bedroom.”

  “Well, unless you moved it — which you so often do, even though I’ve told you a thousand times not to move stuff around, ever — it’ll be beside the TV, because that’s where I left it. Go and get it!”

  Teresa and Digger look at each other. Anita keeps her eyes closed, muttering about how useless her husband can be. Monty can be heard in the bedroom, cursing Anita and moving stuff around. He returns with the piece of paper. Anita snatches the paper from his hands. Another long pause as she studies the words before her.

  “Hey-a hey-a hey-a hey-a hey-a hey-a — ooh, my knee! — hey-a hey-a hey-a hey-a hey-a hey-a hey-a hey-a hey-a hey-a hey-a hey-a hey-a hey-a hey-a — ooh, my knee! — hey-a hey-a hey-a hey-a hey-a — ooh, my knee! — hey-a hey-a —”

  “You’ve gotta be kidding me!” Digger barks. “Wrap it up already!”

  Anita’s earrings start to shiver. “How. Dare. You. Interrupt. My. First Nations. Cleansing. Thing.”

  “I’m sorry, Anita, but come on. I have been the honoured guest at powwows that were shorter than that.”

  “You’re lucky my Perkies are starting to kick in, or I would start again from the beginning. Hey-a hey-a hey-a ho. Now, what was the name of that girl that you didn’t know the name of again?”

  “Christine McVie.”

  “O, Christine McVie,” Anita incants, grave and sincere. “Your dark reign is over, do you hear me? Ooh, my knee! Study war no more. I cast you out of Teresa’s younger son, Christine McVie! Get out of that boy! Run! G’wan! Shoo! I want to hear your hooves clacking, demon Christine!”

  Digger stands again.

  “Well, that finishes it for me,” he says, stepping around Teresa. “I’m sorry, but how stupid can you get. How and why would a pop star lock herself in some pansy boy who smells like piss? Wouldn’t her friends notice that she was missing? Wouldn’t the rest of Fleetwood Mac notice?”

  “I don’t mean the corporeal body goes into the person,” Anita snaps. “We’re talking about — ooh, my knee! — soul exchange, essences and things like that.”

  “It’s the Percocet, Digger,” Monty mouths. “She’s not normally this — theatrical.”

  “Yeah,” Teresa says, “actually, this exorcism isn’t really working for me, either. Anita, isn’t there maybe another prayer we can do? Something more earthy?”

  “I am not a jukebox,” Anita says, turning away, deeply offended. “I am a fifty-three-year-old woman in great physical pain who is trying to save a stranger’s son from further — ooh, my knee! — torment. But now I feel like an intruder in my own home. That is not a pleasant feeling.”

  Digger huffs out. Monty follows him, in an antsy sidestep. “That’s it,” Anita calls after them. “You run along now. We don’t need you. Either of you. You’ve turned us both bulldagger!”

  She lines herself up with her chair and falls into it. “I’m just kidding about being a bulldagger. I witnessed first-hand, in my own church when I was a young girl, the torment of the sissies and the bulldaggers, and it is not something I’d wish on a dog. They would all hang themselves if they had the courage, but they don’t, so they kill themselves slowly. Did you know that? The sissy, he will insert absolutely any object he can get his hands on directly into his anus, and he will retain it, store it in there until AIDS takes place. Such a sad affair. Whereas the bulldagger, she eats. She’ll eat and eat and eat until she can no longer move. This then sends out a signal to other bulldaggers nearby. The other bulldaggers come zipping in their power chairs to her house and feed her to death, and then they move on when the next immobilized bulldagger who needs killing sends out her signal. It’s a tragedy, any way you slice it. Nobody wants that for their child.”

  This is all nonsense. Even Teresa in her shaky state can see that. But she’s come too far to forsake this crazy woman who might also be saintly, able to conjure transformation for Teresa and her fallen son. She crawls to Anita, sits at her feet in the same spot Monty occupied, wants to place her face in Anita’s lap — some gesture of surrender to the stronger woman, a physical declaration of Teresa’s own voided maternity. She gently places a hand on Anita’s knee.

  Anita shrieks.

  “I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry, Anita! I touched your knee. I can’t believe I did that. I’m so dumb. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” Anita says through gritted teeth. “Ooh, my — I’m okay. I’m all right. You’re a believer. That’s a rare thing. You think my Monty’s a real believer? He’s not. He says he is. But at the end of the day he dismisses me. All my life, all I’ve ever wanted is to help people. I was a good, dutiful daughter, granddaughter. I was a great mommy. What can you do. That’s all over now. Mommy time is over. We’re old and alone. Our men — all men! — are weak. Weeeeeeeak. We have nothing to live for. Might as well be lez-been bulldaggerssss ’n’ eat ourselves to death, know what I sssayin’?” Anita is slurring now. Teresa senses that Anita may not be lucid for much longer.

  “Anita. Anita? Anita!”

  “Hey. Wuz goin’ on, ladyfrien’?”

  “I want you to exorcise me. Well, I don’t want you to perform an exorcism on me, I want you to exorcise me, from my son. I think that is probably what you were getting at from the beginning, wasn’t it?”

  Anita’s head has slipped off to one side. Teresa bangs on the coffee table. Anita rouses.

  “I’m the dark presence that invaded my son’s soul when he was just little. It’s not anything to do with gayness. It’s me. I’m the problem. I’m the demon.”

  “I need to lie down for a little bit. Come and lie down with me for a little bit.”

  “Please, Anita, I know you’re in pain, but please try to focus. Please exorcise me from my son. Please, Anita. Please, now. It feels very urgent.”

  “Quit riding me, woman. Am I in my pyjamas?”

  It’s no use. As Anita sways in her seat Teresa realizes that she will have to do this — whatever this is, this self-exorcism aimed at a remote target? — on her own.

  19

  “YOU MUST LEAVE THIS HOUSE.”

  She has shuffled into the living room, picked up the remote and turned off the television. Joel is not in the mood. He learned how to use the debit machine at the museum gift shop today, as Donald’s shit breath billowed into his face in sighs of impatience, and now he has a headache in his right eye. His mother has yet to apologize for her last outburst; Joel does not know how to contend with the fury of his favourite person, who is wasting away. And now she has interrupted a rerun of thirtysomething.

  “I know I must leave this house. It’s not like I�
��m having a great time. I’m thinking of maybe giving Montreal a go. I feel like I could gestate there. Not that you care.”

  “No, you must leave now. I don’t care where you go. You’re out. Get out.”

  Joel looks around at the other faces he imagines in the room, all of them as incredulous as his.

  “Why don’t I help you get settled into bed?”

  “I don’t want to go to bed. You think I’m joking. I want you out. Now.”

  “Where am I supposed to go? It’s nighttime.”

  “Be resourceful. You need to be resourceful. The cord has been cut. I don’t care anymore.”

  Joel goes to his father’s room. His father is starfished on his stomach in frayed grey briefs.

  “Who’s there?” Hugh shouts when Joel shakes him from his sleeping pill coma.

  “She wants me to leave the house this instant. Should we call the doctor? What should we do?”

  Hugh squints. He can’t come to this quickly.

  “Hey? Leave the house. Maybe go stand outside on the lawn for a while?”

  “I don’t want him on the lawn,” Teresa pipes in, “I want him out!”

  “It — Who?” Hugh asks his pillow. “Oh. Right. I’ll drive you to Hazel’s, then.”

  “I don’t want to go to Granny’s. This is wrong. Mothers aren’t supposed to throw their children out of the house. Isn’t that, like, illegal?”

  “I’ll take you to Hazel’s; she’ll take it all back in the morning. Your mom’s haywire right now.”

  Joel puts his Walkman, a pair of underwear, and The Book of Rock Lists into his backpack. His mother, when he passes her in the kitchen, is grey and tearful, but still juts her jaw and sets her mouth in a pantomime of piety. He tries to think of something broken to say, something he would’ve said before, to disarm her: Guess what? I love you! Oh, you! You’re my favourite person! But the thought of saying such things makes him nauseous.