by Anne Simpson
1
the strong river rushing rushing rushing through him –
DAMIAN PUSHED THE KAYAK away from the bank and, through the sumacs, watched it float, tipsily, over the water. Orphaned. He went back to the car and got his wallet, knapsack, and drawings; he put the keys in the glove compartment. When he turned around, he couldn’t see the boat on the river. Maybe it had already gone over the brink. Maybe it was falling. By now the ashes would have become one with the water. He walked along the path by the river. He’d done what he’d come to do. His feet moved ahead, but he could feel things collapsing. His body, a house of bone. Soon he could rest. It took a long time to walk to the bus terminal. A woman and a man, sitting by the wall, talking, as the man divided a chocolate bar into pieces. No, he said to her. You can’t look – you have to shut your eyes. He put a piece of the chocolate bar on her tongue, and it seemed to Damian that darkness rushed into her mouth at the same time. Toronto, said Damian, at the counter. No, just one way. The kayak floated gaily down the river, tropical yellow on the grey water. He could have gone with it. By now the box had been thrown out of the boat; the box flaps pulled open by the force of the water, the urn shattered. Niagara Falls to Toronto. That’s $28.76. Man behind glass, an insect. Leaves at 7:10. The ashes had spilled into the river. Shards of urn, like bone, turned over and over in the water. The man stroked the woman’s closed eyelids. The ashes were part of the water too, now, flickering in it, part of the chloride, mercury, phenol, phosphorous, a brilliant taint of water, pouring from Lake Erie into Lake Ontario. Mmmm, she said. He put another piece of chocolate in her mouth, then another. She laughed each time he did it, and he smiled as she ate it. Then he kissed her; she was loose in his arms, letting him taste the sweetness on her tongue. Damian went outside to wait for the bus because he couldn’t look at them. Once, there had been a green moth, with wings like doll-sized sails, dying on the screen of the back door. He’d put his finger up to the screen, on which the creature was hanging, limply, but not so close his finger touched it. The moth didn’t move. Then, as he watched, it twitched weakly. Or had the air moved its wings? It was the first time he’d seen something die, but the moment came and went and he didn’t catch it. A moth, dying. A soft band of purple all along the top of the wings; markings that looked like eyes, and antennae, feathery and delicate. The wings themselves were green and transparent, thinner than the thinnest silk, shot through with morning light as it hung on the screen. He’d never seen anything so beautiful, but it had been dying. Ticket? You got a ticket? The bus driver ripped off part of his ticket and handed the receipt to him. It was snowing the morning Damian’s father left. The cabbie thumped the trunk shut, so the shadows inside the trunk would stay there, together with the red suitcase and the old brown one with the straps. Tears on his father’s face. Can’t stay here, a man said, leaning over Damian in the bus terminal in Toronto. The man’s breath stank. He could have buried the green moth, but he didn’t want to think of putting heavy earth on top of those wings. So he left it and by evening it was gone. Can’t stay here, repeated the man. Security’ll come. You gotta go. It might have blown away after it died, because he couldn’t find any trace of it when he looked outside. The man had a chain around his thick neck, tight, so it pressed against the flesh. He said that his name was Yvan, like Yvan Cornoyer, one of the greats. In 1972, Cornoyer passed the puck to Paul Henderson with thirty-four seconds left in the game, so they scored the winning goal, and that was a great moment. No great moments any more, but that was a great one. Yvan used to have a pet rat called The Terrible, but The Terrible had died. He laughed; he had a missing eye tooth. He took Damian to the mission on Spadina Avenue, but it was full, so he took him farther. Around they went, and down, like two small creatures caught in water as it swirled them past the rocks. Yvan found him a place in a hostel and gave him a peace sign when he left. Be cool, man. There was a smell in the hall of the hostel, but it wasn’t the same as the sharp, acrid smell of the stained urinals. It had the thick sea smell of eelgrass. On the door of Damian’s room was a plastic-covered placard explaining the rules. Block letters, tilted and pressed close together. A lost and found box by the door of the hostel’s office, filled with unmatched shoes. The eelgrass washed along the shore, that in-between place between high tide and low tide, where there was always a thick, musty smell of salt. Death came to the beach every day. Usually it was so small no one noticed – a crab, the remains of a lobster – but sometimes it was larger. One of the shoes in the box was a child’s black patent leather shoe with a strap and a sparkling fake diamond clasp. There had been the kid who had been diving with his friends, and the other one who had been hit from behind by a Sea-Doo. There was the man who’d had two vials of Ambien in his knapsack, one empty, one full, who had walked into the water, up to his knees, his thighs, his waist, waiting for the cold water to take his sleeping body out to sea, as far as Georgeville, on the other side of the cape, where a twelve-year-old found it. The clasp on the shoe glinted, mysteriously, in the box. When he was turned out of the hostel in the morning, Damian went to lie down under a tree in a park. Children in a wading pool. A body could be washed into shore; it could be rolled back and forth, as the tide pulled away. Sometimes the children in the wading pool screamed. Lengths of eelgrass over the white skin of a drowned man’s legs. And on the beach, higher up, the eelgrass was matted, woven together, in long scrolled patterns. Here and there were jellyfish, purpled and shiny, and flattened into round, gelatinous disks, like organs taken out of the body: a liver, a heart, strewn here and there. He didn’t like it when the jellyfish were in the water, because they stung him. They usually came in July during a spell of slow, humid heat, but they were gone by early August. Jellyfish thronged the water like blooms and died on the sand, with the eelgrass in strands over them, the way hair falls over eyes. He left the park and went to the terminal on Bay Street, taking a bus out of the city. He didn’t care one way or the other that he was running out of money. Inside the bus it was cool, but it was very hot when he got out. Waves of heat, making the road look fluid as he walked from the Bowmanville bus terminal to the truck stop by the highway. The Fifth Wheel had full-service fuel islands, parking for more than one hundred rigs, drivers’ lounge and showers, a forty-nine-room motel, a restaurant featuring an All-day Breakfast, Daily Buffet & Weekend Brunch, and, in the parking lot, near one of the fuel islands, the softened pink mess of a strawberry ice cream cone, melting. It was harder to swim when the jellyfish were in the water. They came in droves. In the gift shop, Damian fingered a miniature tiger with a bobbing head as people washed into the shop and out of it, swirling around him. He was hungry; he would have eaten the sweet, pink ice cream lying in globs on the pavement. He would have fallen to his knees to eat it. The glossy mass of a dead jellyfish on the sand. I’m going as far as Trois-Rivières, said the driver, his moustache like a grey-white brush above his lips. I’m not supposed to pick up anyone, but you don’t look so good. So what am I gonna do – let you die of heatstroke? When he turned the steering wheel of the eighteen-wheeler he used both arms to do it, pulling hard. Where you from? Halifax. You sick? No. Eat something. Eat that bag of Cheezies, kid. I’m not sick, said Damian, opening the bag of Cheezies. The world was darkening slowly. Lights flashed at the side of the road. Red, yellow. My name’s Greg, said the driver. That’s my father’s name, said Damian. Well, Bob’s your uncle. What? Damian’s father had taught him about fireflies. It was June, and they were in the backyard, watching as the night air lit up, closed, lit up again. They’re talking to each other, Damian’s father had said. Look, there’s one now. This one’s talking to that one over there. The way I’m talking to you. Damian’s face in the truck’s passenger window, pale, in a black window, through which passed a gloss of red and white light from a gas station, yellow brilliance from a U-Store-It. Aria of lights, passing through him. Well, you look kinda sick. You had trouble with your girlfriend or something? asked Greg. I had a girlfriend, I guess, said Damian
, until I – Lisa had looked at him with her clear hazel eyes, judging him, the needle still in her hand, as she embroidered a flower on her jeans. Now he felt the needle under his skin, stitching it. Shit – you ran away from her, didn’t you? Greg laughed. And now you’re kicking yourself. Lisa pulled the thread taut, and Damian felt it glide through his flesh and stop. Then he felt it again. The thing with women is you gotta understand them, Greg said. That’s the thing. Most guys don’t even try. I buy roses, you know, on Valentine’s Day. I buy roses on birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas. Always the same, always a dozen. And red, not pink or yellow. Red. I take her out to a steak house. I treat her like a queen. That’s the way she should be treated. Greg took down a photo from a clip on the sun visor. Her name’s Angela. Damian looked at Angela’s curled brown bangs, the soft cleft in her chin. She’s a great gal – Angela, said Greg. What’s your girlfriend’s name? Jasmine. You love her? Well, said Damian. No ifs, ands, or buts about it, said Greg. You love her, she loves you. What you need to know about fireflies, Damian’s father told him, is that the male does a kind of aria in lights – an entire light song. But the female only flashes once. I don’t think she wants anything to do with me now, said Damian. How does he know which one is the girl for him? his father said. It’s a case of timing. So many beats in the darkness, then just one beam of light, like a voice. Oh, there you are, she says, lighting up. It’s a two-way street – that’s what I figure, Greg told him. If you’re good to her. Remember what I said, kid, Greg said, as he dropped him off. Remember it. Damian got a ride to Cabano, then a ride to Edmundston in Jean-Marie’s pickup truck. He remembered everything Greg had said, waiting half a day by the side of the road in Edmundston, watching the smoke from the mill plume into the air, filling it with a noxious smell. Jean-Marie had given him two rolled cigarettes, an old pack of matches, and a package of beef jerky. Had he slept? Had Jasmine slept, far away from him? The sky was white, the heat was white, and even the smell of the pulp mill was white. Had he dreamed? He could taste it in his mouth: cloudy, thick, and almost sweet in its sourness. He smoked one of the cigarettes and afterward he felt sick because he hadn’t had enough to eat. He lay down by the highway under a tamarack tree with his head on his knapsack, and even with his eyes closed it seemed there was an intricate contraption hovering above his face, a finely made miniature palace. He put his hand up to touch it, but he couldn’t find it. Oh, there you are, said Damian’s father. He could hear the logging trucks passing on the Trans-Canada Highway. There you are, there you are. How soft Jasmine had looked when she held the candle between them. Her face, her skin, her eyebrows, her eyes, gazing at him. The candle, fixed in the little dish, divided the world into light, into darkness. You love her? Damian turned his head. In the ditch, the clover swayed. Some of the flowers were purple, some were blackened and dead. Damian, stop, Jasmine said, but he didn’t want to stop, because if he’d stopped, he wouldn’t have been able to go all the way through her body. She wanted him to stop. He didn’t stop even when her head began to hit the wall each time he shoved himself inside her. Both of them were sweating, and it wasn’t easy to keep a firm grasp on her hips. He heard his own body against hers. Slapping. He groaned as he came. Smoke filled the air above him, grey against white, making itself into Jasmine’s body high in the air, where it hung, suspended. She’d turned away from him and curled up on her side of the mattress, without saying a word. There she was, light as cloud, with her back to him. It was hard to breathe. Damian was on his way home, away from her. I treat her like a queen, Greg said. That’s the way she should be treated. Damian would go to the beach at Cribbon’s, where there were wild rose bushes on either side of the path. He wouldn’t go near the cottage. Lisa might be there, sitting on the couch, asking him why he’d taken so long. He’d go straight to the beach, where water would shimmer, in its coolness, over his thighs, his waist, his chest. There would be a familiar, almost savoury, smell of kelp and eelgrass. One arm would slide into water, then the other, and the ocean would be pearl-grey, calm and quiet. It would be easy, slipping into it. He didn’t need a Sea-Doo; he didn’t need vials of Ambien. He’d swim as far as he could, to the east, as far as the blue of Cape Breton. In a fringe of spruce near the water there would be one crow, another, then a frenzy of crows. High up, much higher than the crows, would be a single bald eagle, cutting silently through air.
THE SKY WAS A FRESHLY WASHED BLUE, and the air was cool, much cooler than it had been the day before. Two men came to the front door of a little bungalow on Stanley Street. One fiddled with a hangnail on his thumb. His cheeks were slightly flushed and he had a neatly trimmed moustache. The other was older and less self-conscious. There were wrinkles around his eyes, and his dark brown hair was beginning to turn grey at his temples. Both were dressed in uniform.
The older one, Bob Rieker, had done this kind of thing before, but it was the worst part of his job. The only good thing, he thought, as he knocked, was that he’d had two cups of strong coffee that morning; this helped, though not much. He knew that Warren Sangster, the young policeman next to him, was hoping his inexperience might not be apparent to the person who came to the door.
Rieker rapped hard on the door a second time, and now they could hear someone unlocking it.
Good morning. Jasmine Blakeney?
A purplish-haired young woman faced them at the threshold. He flipped open the leather wallet that held his identification and the younger policeman did the same.
We’re with the Niagara Parks Police, said Rieker.
The woman tightened the belt of her terry-cloth robe. Jasmine, she called. Couple of cops here to see you.
She scrutinized them.
So what’d Jasmine do? she asked. Rob a bank or something?
No.
Another young woman came along the hall in bare feet, smoothing her sundress.
He won’t tell me what you did, Jas, said the purple-haired woman, drifting away from the door.
Jasmine Blakeney? I’m Constable Rieker and this is Constable Sangster. We’d like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.
I don’t mind, she said.
Do you know someone by the name of Ingrid MacKenzie?
Damian’s mother, she said blankly. Yes.
Have you spoken to Ingrid or Damian this morning?
Why? she asked. What’s happened?
We have reason to believe that Damian is missing, Rieker said, thinking how she was about the same age as his daughter.
Missing?
A jogger saw a car, a car with a roof rack, parked near the Hydro Control Dam early this morning. She also saw a yellow boat, which she described as a kayak, going down the river toward the Falls. She thought she saw someone in it, a man, but she wasn’t positive. She contacted us early this morning. She also contacted the Niagara Herald, unfortunately –
What are you saying?
We’re just conducting an investigation at this point, he said, as casually as he could. We’d like to find the owner of the car that was abandoned. It’s got Nova Scotia plates and the owner is Ingrid Elizabeth MacKenzie, from Halifax. Halifax police have been to her residence, but there’s no one at home. What we need to know is whether she owned a kayak – there’s a roof rack on her car, but no kayak.
Yes, she said. No. It’s Damian’s kayak. Are you saying that he could have – I don’t think – no, you must have the wrong person.
We’re just trying to find out more, he said quietly.
She made a moaning sound and backed against the wall. Tarah, she cried.
The purple-haired woman came and put her arms around her. Oh God, she said. Oh shit.
There was a card on the passenger seat of the car, Rieker continued. He held the card away from him because he needed his reading glasses.
Victorian Hair Wreaths & Braided Pictures, Jasmine Blakeney, 5934 Stanley Street – He looked up from the card. You’re Jasmine Blakeney, aren’t you?
She didn’t answer, and her friend, still h
olding her, nodded for her.
All I can say, Miss Blakeney, is that a car has been abandoned and a kayak is missing. That’s as much as we know. Rieker wanted to be out of the dark hallway, out in the clean morning air again.
His partner pulled out a pencil and a small coil-bound book.
You’re Tarah? he said.
Yes.
Maybe you can help – do you know who else Damian has been in contact with since he’s been here? he asked. Do you know where he’s staying?
I know he was staying with his uncle, said Tarah. Damian and his mom were both staying there. Roger Hock – something.
Hockridge, said Jasmine. On River Road.
He noted it in the book.
What are you going to do? asked Tarah.
We’ll be in touch as soon as we can, said Rieker.
Their shoes made crisp, authoritative sounds as they went down the steps. The younger man got in the car, but the older man paused with his hand on the door handle and looked back at Tarah, still holding Jasmine in the doorway. Then he got in the car too.
What Bob Rieker hated was telling the mother, who’d said nothing at all. She’d just closed her eyes and put her hands up as if to shield herself. Then she’d gone quickly out of the kitchen and down the hall; he heard her going up the stairs.
That left the blind guy, sitting there crying like a child. He imagined the worst, right away.
Last night Damian was upset, he said, wiping his face. There was just no reasoning with him. His sister died less than a year ago, and last night he couldn’t find the box that held her ashes. His cousin had taken it – my son. And Damian was just beside himself. It’s all my fault.