The sun came out, came on like an overhead light, bright and ugly, and my eyes teared up. It makes no sense that your eyes tear up in bright sunlight because the tears act as magnifiers. What kind of naturally selected trait is that. I thought about climbing the fence and blocking the runway. Can you stop a plane once it is taxiing. Once it is gathering its thoughts and thinking of England. Or Montreal. Can you hang on to the wheels and keep it on the ground.
Do not go easter. This is as far east as you can go. Remember.
A pigeon waddled over and stood beside me, watching the plane. Then it looked over its shoulder, like, did I leave my lights on. Which made me wonder if I had. So I looked, and I hadn’t.
You could fly over this fence, I told it.
Not easily.
Pigeons fly.
Stomach’s full of Timbit.
Oh.
My dad told me once that flying animals—birds, bats, and the like—have smaller genomes than non-flying animals. Like part of their genetic code is missing. And it is this missing part that allows them to fly. You would expect the opposite. You would expect a flying creature to have a larger genome. Some extra code tacked on that says: You Can Fly. But no. It is we who have extra code. And the extra code says: You Cannot Fly. A whole section of our genome devoted to keeping us down.
Uncle Thoby’s plane reached the end of the runway and turned slowly around. Now it was girding. Oh please please please. Be Qantas.
Murph arrives with sparkling eyes and overalls. He crouches down to knob level and says the old hardware has to go. He’ll put a metal sleeve on her. He skips back to his van and returns with the metal sleeve. Industrial grey. I shake my head. We like brass. We like the old hardware. Which was not a sleeve.
I put the old knob in Murph’s hand. Let it speak for itself. Look at it. Look at yourself in it. Fix me.
Murph says there is no fixing. There is only replacing. The old door hardware is at least forty years old. The parts required to fix it are scattered nether and yond.
Pardon.
They are unfindable.
I explain how my dad and Uncle Thoby are away right now, and how they are used to the old door, which could be opened only by a secret family shove, and so my concern is that when they return and discover new door hardware, they will not be able to get in. I would like to keep the old hardware, if possible.
Murph, without looking at me, says, I was sorry to hear about your father. Jim told me he passed away.
I sit down on the steps.
You got a back door.
No.
Snow falls. The sound of the old door hardware coming off makes a dental crunch. I start crying. Because of this sound. Murph pauses and looks over his shoulder. I get up and walk around the porch to the back. I look through the window into the kitchen. The phone is blinking. A message.
I make a loop. I check the mail. There’s another recall notice for my dad and something from the War Amps for the previous owner, Mr. Rowe, who is dead. Who is also dead.
Murph tells me Jim Ryan used to be in the Stab. The what. The Constabulary. Oh. Murph has helped out the police on several occasions. With what. With home invasions. He can’t be more specific. That’s how he knows Jim. He also put a double deadbolt on the Ryans’ front door.
That’s not a double deadbolt you’re putting on now.
No girl.
I relax against the railing. I tell him how I once wrote a biography of Jim Ryan. It was two sentences. I didn’t know then that he was a retired cop. My biography could have been three sentences.
Murph finds the idea of a biography of your neighbour pretty funny.
Why.
He shrugs and paws around for a tool. You should write one about me. I got interesting kids.
I’m done with biographies.
Well, put me in the next thing you write.
That will be a cheque.
He laughs.
The house smells like something gone off. Funeral food. I track sawdust into the kitchen. Please let the message be from Uncle Thoby, saying: I’m in Montreal. It was all a mistake. I’m coming home.
But no. It is from Judd Julian-Brown, my local Christmatech representative. He is recalling the D-534 Christmas lights. So that’s a double recall. To be clear: Neither the D-434 nor the D-534 models are safe for indoor use. Outdoor, maybe. Indoor, definitely not. So if you wouldn’t mind returning both models, we’d be happy to issue you the newly minted D-634 model.
The royal we again. Come on, Judd. It’s just you in a basement somewhere, isn’t it.
No more messages. I kick off my boots. Sawdust from the door surgery all over the place. The metal sleeve looks like a hand clamped over the door’s mouth.
The previous owner, Mr. Rowe, probably installed the old door hardware. He was a carpenter. A not very good one. He built the porch, which is a bit dodgy. Anyway, my dad never met him. Mr. Rowe came to an untimely end, which necessitated the selling of his house. So we don’t know if Mr. Rowe originated the Northwest Shove, or if he had some other method of getting across the threshold.
Here is how Mr. Rowe died. He was building a rock wall and he ran out of rocks. He had heard about an island off the southern shore where there were some excellent rocks to be had. So off he went in a little boat. Yes, a rowboat. Mr. Rowe rowed to that island and loaded up his boat with rocks. Then he tried to row back, fool of a man, and the boat sank. He drowned.
Of course we laughed. Old Mr. Rowe who couldn’t row fast enough to get his boat full of rocks back to shore. It felt like a parable. It felt deserved. So we laughed. It was okay to laugh. The man was a cartoon. A stupid cartoon. Who had to die so that we could get his house. Because it was always really our house. Or waiting to be.
But Uncle Thoby did not laugh when we told him the story. Poor Mr. Rowe, he said. Stop it you two.
But the name, the name!
Stop it you two.
Okay, I’m stopping now. Mr. Rowe was a real person. Whose hand turned this brass knob many times. Whose body was reflected in this knob as he approached and left the house. His house. Mr. Rowe met an untimely end. There is no lesson. He did not deserve it.
Filling up a boat with rocks is something I’d do for Chrissakes.
I sit in the living room with my feet pointing at the centre and roll the brass knob up and down my chest. Someday will a different family sit around in here, laughing about the untimely end of Walter Flowers, mown down by a Christmas tree. Untimely for him. Timely for us. Our house now.
Over my mown-down body.
Or—I sit up straight—is there a family right now sitting around the Christmas tree that killed him. Holy. Right now, this very moment, sitting around the tree that killed my dad, laughing about the untimely end of a man called Walter Flowers who was, of all things, in the longevity business. Ha ha. I press the knob to my forehead. Of course. There are murderers. For the first time I am looking these people in the face. Or trying to. Who are they. Where are they. The Foul Play feeling hits me like a ton of rocks.
Which feeling is compounded when I look up and see an empty terrarium in the cheval glass. The black ribbon still tied to the wheel. I get up. Slowly.
Wedge is gone.
My first thought: Someone stole my mouse!
Who would steal your mouse. Come on.
Well, he is not in the terrarium. Therefore.
The grid roof is not exactly ajar but it is not properly fastened either. He might have got out by himself. He might have been swinging from the roof—building his upper body strength, as he is wont to do, the wheel not being good for that—he might have been building his upper body strength and found the roof not properly secured and pushed himself out through a tiny space.
How did he get off the mantel. Jumped. Fell. Oh God.
I sit down on the floor and call his name. He was probably dying for a run. Poor Wedge. I left the ribbon on and he was dying for a run, so he escaped.
Or did he.
When
was the last time I saw him. After the funeral. Looking very stressed. All those people milling about his terrarium. Let’s call them suspects. All those suspects.
Let’s rule out that he is somewhere in the house. Search the house and rule it out. Then compile a list of suspects.
There are people who, when they lose something, immediately assume it is stolen. As in: Someone stole my glove. Those people are ridiculous. On the other hand there are people who, when they discover their car missing from the driveway, think they’ve misplaced it. The trick is to strike a happy medium.
If I sit quietly, maybe I will hear scurrying.
I do not hear scurrying. I begin the search. It is not a systematic search. It is more like a panicked stomping about and falling flat on my stomach to look under furniture and calling his name, all of which will probably paralyze the little frigger with fear. He is huddled in a corner somewhere, biting his nails. Behind the fridge probably. Okay. I will move the fridge. And somehow I do. I marvel at my own strength. The Force is with me. Wedge is not behind the fridge. I leave it out from the wall at an angle. Why does a fridge have to be flush.
A knock at the door. I pause in my frenzy. My ponytail is gone. I mean, it is out. When did that happen. I am all staticky like a Muppet. I get a shock when I touch the new door hardware. Goddamn it. It is Byrne Doyle with a Piety pie. Not lemon. Blueberry. Still, that’s nice. Come in.
Jim Ryan told me, he begins.
My mouse is gone.
He told me your uncle is gone.
Him too. I carry the pie into the kitchen.
Byrne shuffles after me. Jacob Marley. Encumbered by a coat instead of chains.
You’d have a longer stride if you wore a different coat, I tell him.
It’s warm.
The pie.
No, my coat.
Yes, but at what cost.
I can see by your hair that you’re stressed, he says. Sit down and have some pie.
So I sit. Byrne shoulders off his coat. Looks askance at the fridge. Sniffs. Garbage needs to go out.
Yeah.
There are no clean plates so he washes two from beside the sink.
Thanks Byrne.
Your servant, he says.
I watch him eat. With the side of his fork, he cuts away geometric sections of pie, starting with the pointy end and working his way back towards the crust. Like he is shovelling a driveway. Whereas I eat my pie in layers. I lift the lid with my fork. This could take an hour. Look at all the blueberries.
Did you see anyone take Wedge out of his terrarium.
Hm.
My mouse. After the funeral.
He shakes his head and swallows.
Then it occurs to me: Did someone break into the house. Is that why the knob was loose. Did someone with an imperfect knowledge of the Northwest Shove come into the house and take Wedge.
Whoa, whoa, says Byrne, putting down his fork. Don’t get ahead of yourself.
Right. I tighten my ponytail.
He says he will help me look for Wedge. But he cautions me against shifting into what he calls everyone-is-screwing-me-over mode. There is no coming back from that. He’s a politician. He knows.
Who has been screwing him over, I wonder. The Poles.
I grab a bag of Licorice Allsorts and head upstairs.
How would a mouse get upstairs.
Running boards.
Oh. Byrne says he will take out the garbage.
Upstairs, I check under my bed. Listen for scurrying. The heat vent. Oh no. If Wedge got into the ventilation system. Calm down. The ventilation system is a maze like any other. Put an Allsort at the exit and move on.
I pause in the hall.
It would not be necessary to look in my dad’s room if there weren’t a mouse-high space between the bottom of the door and the floor.
I open the door.
The room still smells Daddish. I turn on a light. The bed is made but has a dent in it. Don’t look at the dent. The dent is where he sat down to put on his socks. Sylvester Stallone is still on the wall, but is curled at the edges. The book beside the bed says Repulsive Gravity: The Big Bang. That sounds sinister. The Danish desk holds itself together in the corner.
Wedge, I call softly.
Mice don’t come when you call them, gnomon.
Under the bed: A stack of old Lionel de Tigrel articles holding up one corner. The old red cot I slept on when Grandmother and Toff were visiting, its legs folded like a dead beetle’s.
On the desk: Laptop. Rubik’s cube.
Did he know. Did he feel it coming. I mean, when you sit on your bed for the last time and put on your socks and the future you are so used to stepping into will soon not be there. Do you sense it.
Hold it together, Wobbly.
The Rubik’s cube is solved. It would be. Focus on this. A Rubik’s cube requires you to see six sides in your head at once. My dad could do this. Not me. I could only solve one side at a time. When have you ever solved even one side of a Rubik’s cube. Okay, never. But I have wedged a knife down in between the squares and broken the thing apart and put it back together. There. Solved.
Doesn’t count.
I lift the cube in my palm. Imagine being able to see all the sides at once. To turn it around in your brain. As opposed to feeling trapped inside it.
I put it back on the desk.
Why did I come in here.
For Wedge.
Well, that was stupid. He’s not here. And now you have made your dad dead in this room. And you will keep doing this. Every new room you enter, you will make your dad dead in it. Now he is dead on the second floor. He is dead on the ground floor. There is only one floor left.
Byrne Doyle calls up from downstairs, Find him.
No.
It occurs to me that Uncle Thoby had no floors left.
The red Christmatech van is parked outside Julian-Brown’s Furniture. Otherwise there’s no Christmatech signage. I check the address on the recall notice and push open the door. It is almost exactly as I remember it. All the magical rooms within a room. A set for every scene you could want to act out. Love, crime, comedy. A bit more black leather than I remember. No cheval glasses. No customers either. I ring the bell, my box of D-534-model Christmas lights tucked under my arm.
If I had to choose one room to be my own at this moment, it would be that kitchen with the country-and-western theme. Check out the horseshoe handles on the cabinets and the cowboy hat on the coat rack. That is a nice touch.
I would not say no to a cowboy hat.
I put on the cowboy hat and take a seat in the kitchen. Drum my fingers. I think this is what is called a ranch-style kitchen. On a ranch, a stove is called a range. Thus range hood. Or is the whole ranch called a range. As in home on the. There is also something called a ranch-style house, which is one sprawling storey. Hard to believe that people actually live in stairless, one-storeyed places.
Now there’s a clumpety-clump and here comes the Judd. I bet. A door swings open at the back of the store.
The same grey sweater. Straight red hair. Lumbering walk. Towards the counter.
Howdy.
He turns.
I hold up my recycled pizza box or whatever it is. I’m answering your recall.
His whole face brightens.
I plugged in the D-534 model last night, indoors, even though I was not supposed to. I plugged in the lights, in my room, and it was like flying over Vegas. They were like Vegas from above. They left an imprint on my retinas that I will not soon stop seeing. I fell asleep with them across my bed. I know I should not have done that. What is in these lights, Judd, that is so hazardous. Do they catch fire or do they blind you. Well, whatever. I did not catch fire. And if my retinas are damaged, if I am radioactive, so be it.
The other model, the D-434, I don’t know where they are. Probably in the basement. My dad will be returning them to you soon. If that’s okay with y’all. But I have brought these lights back. And I would like to exc
hange them for the D-634 model. I am ready for the next model.
Judd sits across from me at the table. Half-smiling because of the cowboy hat. Though he frowns at the thought of me sleeping with the D-534 model.
So do you own this store.
My parents do.
I nod. And you run Christmatech out of here.
Christmatech is upstairs.
I look around. We bought our cheval glass here.
Your ice horse.
Our standing mirror.
We’re all out of ice horses.
You knit that sweater yourself.
Why yes.
It turns out Judd went to GOLEM and was Frenchly submerged like me, but he was four years behind me, so we didn’t really overlap. We both had Miss Daken for math. Lordy. Miss Daken, with the high heels and the braids. Judd remembers that he was quite smitten with Miss Daken. Remember how she put her students in her math problems, he says.
Her math problems were little biographies.
I was always weightless in a rocket, he says. Or I was climbing twenty flights of stairs.
I was always a Russian farmer trying to convert versts to kilometres. What was that about. Did she have a Russian connection.
Judd doesn’t think so. But there were messages in her math, he says.
What kind of messages. What was she trying to tell me, putting me in a Siberian field trying to calculate the distance home.
I don’t know. But she was trying to tell me to go on a diet.
And still you were smitten.
I loved how she walked around on tiptoes, he says.
Because of the high heels.
She’d stopped wearing the heels by the time she taught us, but her calf muscles had developed in such a way that she couldn’t walk flat-footed. So she tiptoed.
He gets up and turns the CLOSED sign on the door to say OPEN. Open on our side. Closed on theirs.
Someone who tiptoes either loves you or hates you, he says.
I think about this. Is that true.
Come on.
Up some metal stairs. They are porous, and they shiver. Judd’s boots clump like castles. We come to a door at the top. Still no Christmatech signage. He opens the door.
Welcome to the Christmatech workshop. Watch where you step, please.
Come, Thou Tortoise Page 21