Cluck

by Lenore Rowntree

  Henry laughs out loud. He can’t believe there’s a radio station called KLUK, with a cute sounding announcer making chicken jokes. Ha, he’s a turkey and chicken man himself. Omens come in threes, his mother used to say. Pay attention. He makes a date with himself to be back under the bridge at seven o’clock sharp on Monday evening.

  Monday morning, Chief is the only other person in the coffee room, yawning and rubbing his mostly bald head, as if friction will somehow rev up his hair-growing machine.

  Morning Henry, Chief says.

  Morning sir. What brings you in so early?

  Getting ready for vacation.

  Oh yeah. Hawaii again this year. Right?

  Yes, the bar at Mona Kona awaits. Look, there’s something I want to tell you. After I’m back, I’ll be announcing my retirement. Next spring, that is. Just giving you the heads up.

  Wow, I had no idea.

  No idea. What — that I was that old?

  The two of them laugh. Henry knows there’s no chance he’ll be promoted, even though he’s a good employee, never calls in sick, always shows up on time, never drinks, has taken all the extra poultry courses, and knows chicken and turkey like nobody’s business. Problem is, he’s only a technician. But he really hopes it won’t be Elaine.

  Any idea who might replace you?

  I think the job has more or less been promised to Elaine.

  Shoot, he thinks. Elaine has been at Agriculture for less than three years. Even though she has that fancy university degree, she’s too young. And what pressure this is bringing down — for two years he’s been thinking about asking her out, but how can he if she’s going to be the big boss? Alice’s voice comes into his head. Make pie with sour cherries. Use lots of sugar. Odd that she would interfere at this time, and on this point. She never seemed to want him to date anyone when she was alive. Maybe she’s mellowing in the great beyond. Maybe she knows he’s destined to be alone if he doesn’t get cracking.

  Soon as Elaine is in her office, he walks down the hall and hangs at her door. She’s done something with her hair over the weekend. It looks like she’s tried to dye it blonde but it’s turned a funny orange colour. Still, she looks pretty.

  Hi, Elaine. I like your new colour, he says.

  She looks up and scowls. He fingers his soul patch — maybe they are even in looks now that he’s classed himself up and she’s been downgraded.

  I mean your hair colour, he says.

  Really? she answers. She plumps up her hair and adds, It didn’t really work out like I planned.

  Mmmm. Thought so, Henry says.

  He doesn’t believe he said that, but she starts to laugh, so he does too.

  I like your honesty, she says.

  He’s on a roll, this could work. Would you like to have lunch today? he asks.

  Elaine doesn’t say anything for long enough that Henry feels that stupid laugh begin to well in his throat. Maybe he’s been hasty thinking they are somehow almost equal. Alice’s voice hovers again too. Henry why do you set yourself up? She’s too fancy to be interested in you. This at least is more what he expects. And she’s right. Elaine with her expensive spiked heels and purses with gold chain straps wouldn’t be interested in the likes of him. Even Elaine with funny orange hair.

  I’ve got lots on my plate right now, but how about coffee or something after work? she says.

  Henry would have whooped for joy except for the slightly over-excited sick feeling that creeps into his stomach, as if there’s too much Black Forest cake in there. But she’s actually sort of saying yes. His date with Jamie Lee and the radio show can certainly be postponed for this.

  He is back at Elaine’s door at five o’clock, normal quitting time.

  She looks at him and says, I’m still working. Come back in an hour.

  He goes back to his own office and tackles a stack of files piled in the corner waiting to be closed. The closing checklist mandates that he stamp each file three times and initial up to eight different boxes to indicate all final checks have been made. He gets into a robotic state, stamping and scribbling in more or less the proper boxes, but it’s so mind-numbing he’s nearly asleep by 6:20, when he gets up from his desk, takes in a few deep breaths, and does a repetition of leg bends from his 5BX Exercise book. The oxygen feeds his brain and gives him the energy he needs to wander slowly down the hall. By 6:25 he’s back at Elaine’s door feeling stupid for wasting his time. Clearly, she’s still working.

  Be a dear, Henry, she says. Can we do this tomorrow?

  Sure, why not.

  His headache is fierce as he pulls out of the lot at work. Sometimes the yellow glare reflecting from the hood pisses him off. This is one of those times. Plus it’s too late now from where he is to make it to under the Lions Gate Bridge for the start of Jamie Lee’s show. He likes to hear things from the beginning if possible. So because of all this, he decides against the rush of Highway 1 back into the city, and drives the Subaru around Still Creek and onto the Lougheed hoping for a more tranquil trip home. At the first stoplight, the gleam from the setting sun on the hood makes him wonder whether it’s too late to return the car to the smarmy dealer. He’s only driven it a few hundred kilometres and it really is an embarrassment. Why didn’t he buy a car in a regular colour?

  He is impatiently drumming his fingers on the steering wheel waiting for the light to change when a car with four teenaged girls in it pulls up beside him. The brunette in the back seat motions to him with her hands and mouths a few words. The last thing he sees as the car pulls away is her candy-coloured lips puckered into a kiss. This is both startling and satisfying. He floors the Subaru to try to catch their speeding vehicle, but they fly through the next stoplight and he is forced to stop on the orange. As he waits, he wonders what he would have done if he’d caught up to them anyway. By the time he’s at the next light he’s convinced himself they were mocking him and his stupid yellow car, but still the image of the puckered lips lingers.

  At the corner of Cambie and Broadway, he feels a boner begin to grow in his pants. He keeps it alive along Broadway with gentle hand pressure on his fly, and every now and again taps his middle finger and focuses on how Elaine looked when she said be a dear, Henry.

  By the time he’s at home parking the Subaru on 7th Avenue he’s in a rush to get into the house. But Chas is on the front lawn bringing garbage out to the sidewalk.

  Evening, Henry, how’s it going?

  Good, Chas. Talk to you tomorrow. I’m late.

  Late for a very important date?

  Something like that. Chat later.

  He rushes to open the front door. Once inside, he draws the drapes in his bedroom, hastily pulls off his pants, flops on the bed spread-eagle, and grabs himself. He focuses on the way Elaine sucked in her lower lip when she said be a dear, Henry. He’s certain she licked that lip, maybe even her upper one too — be a dear with each stroke, be a dear, be a dear — everything more and more lubricated. Then his headboard begins to pound the wall, and the lubricated word dear swims in the scent of his excited penis. He’s about to arch his back into orgasm when of all damn-fucking-stupid things, his mother’s voice floats into the room. How to make Little Ducky fly? Suddenly, he is five again and his mother is laying him down on the bathroom floor after a bath, pulling his legs apart, inspecting his anus, putting cream on it, saying listen to me, you have to keep it clean down there. His hand stops moving, his erection goes limp, and the head shrinks into the foreskin.

  He tries drumming with his fingers softly just under the tip. Thinking about Elaine’s orange hair helps, he takes it to breasts and erect nipples, these thoughts are working but then turn to soapy bathwater, cream in anus, and he has to fight for a time to keep it more neutral, less demanding, Elaine sucking in her lip — all the wild seraphs of love start dancing; but then some of them begin to tread in muck. He yards on his boner — orange nipples, lips on penis, worth his life to take off, to fly. But the seraphs are too crazy and he can’t do it. T
houghts of his mother prevail, kissing him while he’s in the bath, kissing him in his bedroom, on his bed, the very bed he is lying on, kissing him before his pyjamas are even on. Everything is always damp and boggy when his rod goes numb.

  He gets up from the bed; to lie there any longer is pointless. He opens the front door and sits on the top step of the porch. The night has become foggy, the air balanced between the energy of evening and the numbness of approaching sleep. He feels everything, even the individual droplets of fog, but he doesn’t know what he’s feeling. He tries to organize his thoughts; the margins between dream and reality are almost nonexistent. It’s sort of comforting to be in a trance sucked in by the fog, so it’s with annoyance he hears the sound of the door to the basement suite closing. He braces himself for it to be Jim coming around the corner, but it’s Chas. He comes to sit on the bottom step.

  Foggy, isn’t it? Chas says.

  Unusual to have this much fog in early October.

  Want to go for a walk down to Kits Beach?

  Okay. Why not.

  Thought you had a date. What happened to that?

  Ah, it didn’t come together. You know how these things are.

  Been there, had that done to me.

  They walk quietly down Bayswater toward the ocean. Evening turns to night and the fog thickens so that by the time they are at the beach it’s difficult to see more than a few inches ahead. Without saying anything to each other, they walk toward the place where there are some swings. When the top of the swing set looms in the fog, each reaches out and takes a seat. They just hang there, they don’t swing, don’t move at all until Chas begins to talk.

  Sometimes I get confused about how to be with you. Part of me wants to mother you. Part of me just wants to be . . . well, you know, be your friend. We’re sort of the same. Same age that is.

  Henry can’t see Chas’ face very well for the fog but he is aware that Chas’ voice has changed. It is a bit softer. Or maybe it’s just the fog distorting everything. But what does Chas mean? Henry can’t think in what way they are the same. He feels a little unstable as he tries to give himself a push on the swing. He misses the ground and instead flails his foot into the fog.

  See what I mean? Chas says. You need a mother to push you.

  Chas gets off his swing and comes around behind to give him a push. He’s good at it and he gets Henry flying so high in the air, he starts to wonder if he’s going to go right over the top of the swing set. It is exhilarating and frightening at the same time.

  You completely disappear into the fog every time I push you, Chas shouts up.

  Good, Henry yells back.

  Then Chas is finished pushing, and the swing returns to equilibrium.

  Do you want a push? Henry asks.

  Me? No, I’m afraid of swings, says Chas.

  I don’t believe that.

  Believe it.

  As they walk back home, he wants to tell Chas he appreciates his friendship but something stops him. It feels like new territory, or maybe it’s just been too long since he made a real friend. Whatever it is, his footing is unsure as he mounts the steps on the porch. He stumbles on the top one. Chas, who has already gone around the corner to his suite, hears him.

  Careful now, Chas calls out.

  I always am, he replies.

  EIGHT

  Radio Noise

  ELAINE IS ON THE PHONE when Henry goes around to her office to pick her up. This time he’s waited until 5:30. He didn’t want to leave it too late in case she actually finished more or less on time, but he knows how aggravated she was when he arrived right at 5:00 last time. She holds up one hand. He is not sure whether this means go away, stay out of my office, or is just a friendly, I’ll only be a minute. Out of a healthy respect for her unpredictable and sometimes withering impatience, he stays in the hall. His right shoulder is high with hope, his left drooped as if he’s already been slugged. As he waits he wonders about his attraction to someone who can be so ornery. Why does he never go for the sweet girls? Why this one with the bad dye job and a mouthful of nasty?

  After Elaine puts the phone down, she starts talking before she’s even out of her chair. What a day, he can hear her say as she stands up. Then she walks out of the office and is face-to-face with him. Let’s get this over with, she says.

  He can’t quite believe this is what she meant to say, so he doesn’t respond. Silently, they walk down the hall, out of the building, and into the parking lot toward his car.

  Is this yellow one yours? she asks.

  Yes.

  What colour do they call this?

  Volt yellow, he says.

  Did they forget the re?

  What?

  Revolt, she says.

  Now he really doesn’t know what to say. He walks to the passenger side and opens the door for her. He is standing with it open when she says, Let’s just walk to Denny’s on Kingsway.

  She makes it sound like Denny’s is only around the corner, when it’s a good three miles from where they stand, and to get there they’ll have to cross the busy eight-lane Trans-Canada highway. Now he is certain she does not want to be doing this. As if the stupidity of her suggestion will make him say forget it, let’s do it some other time. But she starts to walk generally in the direction of the eight lanes and he decides to be polite now that he’s gotten himself this far into it.

  I think we better drive, he says.

  Okay, she says, turning on her heel back toward the car.

  He has always hated Denny’s. The tacky mud-brown-and-orange carpet takes his appetite away the minute he walks in, and it’s an odd choice for coffee. But Elaine surprises him and orders a full dinner. Then when he orders cinnamon toast, she laughs.

  What’s wrong? she asks. Have you got gum issues?

  What?

  You know, bad gums. Only old people or people with bad gums order cinnamon toast.

  I don’t know. I feel like eating toast.

  They sit quietly waiting for the order, as if their first attempt at conversation has been too much. When the food finally arrives, Elaine begins to bolt it down, stuffing mash and Swiss steak so fast he has barely finished one toast finger before her meal is nearly gone. And this, the same mouth he was trying to masturbate over just the day before. Elaine with her mouth full, mushrooms blanketing her front teeth, starts to complain between bites about her boyfriend Bob.

  What a tool . . . doesn’t he know how hard I work . . . does he have to clip his toenails in the bathtub . . . why are men so inconsiderate . . . every one of them a sex-crazed maniac, humping everything in sight.

  Elaine speaks as if he was not a man, as if somehow he should be agreeing with her. He sits in stunned silence until out of the blue she switches topics. With a kinder voice she says, Chief is reassigning the Swift Farms file to me and I’ll be taking it over. Then, as if her pronouncement were the whole point of her agreeing to come out with him, she says the word, There!

  Swift Farms is the biggest file Chief has given him yet and Henry can’t believe he would take him off it completely without discussing it, but then maybe Chief is not happy with his performance, or maybe Elaine is just that much better at everything she does and Chief has no choice. Anyway, that’s the way Chief is sometimes, quick to make decisions. This is a very delicate subject and Henry is not sure how to play it. By the time he’s gathered himself together enough to say, Really, I won’t be running any of the tests out there with you? the waitress is setting down apple pie and whipped in front of Elaine. The sweet takes her attention away from him and his question, and seems to satiate her appetite for slamming men. By the third mouthful her face turns moony.

  Do you think it’s okay Bob spends every Friday night with the boys?

  He decides the switch of topic back to Bob is good for now, and he’ll run with it.

  It depends, he says.

  On what?

  On what he’s doing. If he’s playing broomball then okay, but if he’s out in the bars ma
ybe not.

  Broomball! Jesus, is that what you do with your weekends?

  No. I mean I’ve played it before, but it’s not a regular thing. It’s something I . . .

  Then why would you say broomball?

  I don’t know, it just came into my head.

  Broomball, what a stupid thing.

  He wants very much to have nothing in his head. This date is not in any way going in the direction he had imagined. Why can I never figure out what’s going on? Why do I feel like I have a layer of Saran Wrap over my brain? Oh Jesus . . . Why do I still find that stupid orange hair appealing . . . the mouth full of whipped cream a turn-on? Shit, what is wrong with me?

  What are you staring at, Henry?

  Nothing. I mean your shirt. It’s nice.

  Thanks. It’s Bob’s favourite.

  When the tab comes Elaine picks up her purse, the chain strap clanks on the table, but she makes no move to open it, no motion to expel any small part of its contents. Not even a few coins offered toward a lousy tip. Though he is happy to pay just to, as Elaine predicted, get this over with, he did not anticipate such a large bill. Sure enough, inside the cloth band of his billfold there’s only two five-dollar bills.

  Can I borrow a couple of bucks?

  God, can’t you guys ever get it together to take a girl out for a proper meal? Okay, but you owe me.

  Finally it’s Wednesday. Just before 7:00 PM, Henry arrives at the trailer court under the bridge in West Vancouver. He parks beside a doublewide with red geraniums in a whitewashed tire. He’s mad at himself for messing up the night before and hopes the radio date will be a nice break. He tilts his seat back, sets the scanner searching, and is happy to see it stop by itself at 680 — the signal will be strong. He’s read in the car manual how to make 680 a preset and he holds his finger on the button till it takes. He’s come early enough to hear the evening news, maybe pick up some clues about where Silverton is. While he waits, he stares up into the early evening sky and begins to bliss out on the friendly halos of melon green and indigo rose encircling the bridge lights above.