“You’re amazing,” I said. She laughed even more and took off her top.
After Betty died, I actually got to know this part of the city pretty well—or at least its motion detectors. But it’s like those nights are someone else’s memories now, someone with fast hands itching in a way that’s sort of like being on speed, or that’s something like sex, but not quite, not only. You get close, you scratch until it bleeds, but you never quite reach it.
I smoke and snooze, smoke and snooze. Headlights sweep over my closed eyelids, and I can hear my madre. “Aah, look at that one. I like the green and blue together— it looks so icy cool and yet it warms you right up.” It’s Christmastime, and she is riding high and making a cab drive us through the streets with fancy lit-up houses. I am sleepy, and she keeps pulling me against her flat chest and kissing the top of my head. It’s cold enough that exhaust fog sits in the air, holding tiny ice crystals, and the colored Christmas lights float by like cartoon fireflies. “Your father’s sisters clean these houses,” she says. “They’re hardworking girls.” More kisses on the head. “I’m sorry I’m not a hardworking girl.”
She has shown me pictures of her family’s house in Argentina, which makes these ones on Oak Street look like shacks. Already, I know that checks come in the mail for us and that they are never enough.
“The chemicals they use to clean, they give me a rash,” she says. “You know that.”
I did not know that, and I want her to stop talking. I nestle in further, and for once, she gets the hint. More kisses on the head, and I’m in heaven.
When my phone rings, the sun is already up and my mouth feels like I’ve been sucking on dead mice. I don’t recognize the number. “Mannie?”
I check out my tongue in the rearview mirror. I expect it to be covered in white fuzz or something, but nothing. Still, I would kill for a squeeze of toothpaste, just like on weekend mornings when sometimes I got up to pee, but what I really did was take care of my nasty breath. Now, I know exactly what she would say. You think I can fricking smell you over the phone?
“What the hell, Mannie? Are you there?”
All this time, all I’ve wanted to do was talk to her, but now I just want to go back to sleep, forget about the empty baggie on the seat and babies that scream like dying crows and Bev saying my name like it’s something rotten she needs to spit out.
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“Leave them alone, Mannie.”
How many times did I imagine this conversation? And still I got nothing.
“You signed papers,” she says. “You have no right.”
I notice there’s not even enough change in the cup holder for a breakfast sandwich.
“You made me,” I say. “Those papers mean shit to me. I’m the father.”
She laughs. “Please. You knocked me up—that’s all you did.”
“It’s my kid,” I say. “I’m responsible.”
She laughs again. “You want to be responsible, Mannie? I’ll tell you how to be responsible. Leave. Them. Alone.”
“It’s Emmanuel,” I say.
“What?”
“My name is Emmanuel.”
“Jesus,” she says, “it’s like talking to a doorknob.”
She hangs up. I remind myself that it’s not really her talking—Ray is probably listening in, rubbing his fingers against her back like a kidnapper with a gun. He can’t stand that she chose to have my kid, that she chose me over him, and really, I couldn’t believe it myself. Sick puppies like Ray, who think they can control the universe—they’ll stop at nothing.
He convinced Bev to give his own grandson away. He takes out restraining orders like they’re Chinese food. He thinks he can keep her there, make her his puppet, tell her what to say, but he doesn’t love her like I do. He doesn’t know how tough she can be, how she presses against me after a ride, like she can’t get close enough, like she wants to climb inside my skin.
I light up my last half-joint. My stomach is empty, but I’m not hungry, and I try to remember what day it is. Eight forty-four in the morning, and the streets are deserted except for the odd dog walker. It’s Saturday, a hazy Saturday, a bright, white sky. I need something to drink, need to kill this dead mouse, but I’m too heavy to move. I imagine Betty walking out of one of these bigleague houses on her bird legs, oversized T-shirt hanging over her round belly. She stands there, looking both ways like she might be lost, then purses her lips and sucks in the way she does when she’s not impressed.
Her obit said she didn’t suffer fools gladly. Nathan joked that that meant she was a bitch, but really, you could rely on Betty to tell it like it was. She was a hard-ass, but now and then she looked old and breakable, like when she wandered out into the jack pines at Keesee and knelt down with her pouch of sweetgrass to honor some dead relative, or when she stayed up watching the late movie and fell asleep in her housecoat and ratty slippers. That’s the first thing I thought of when I saw Bev: hard and soft. She didn’t give two shits about what anyone thought, but she was also this curvy, sexy little girl—so girlie it almost made you feel like a perv for watching her strut by in the skirt that rode up her thighs.
The phone rings again. “I’m serious, Mannie. Back off.”
I have no words left.
“You can’t have him. You know that, right? It’s a done deal.”
If it weren’t for Betty, I never would’ve met Bev, because before Betty got sick, I was going to go up north with Nathan to learn to fight forest fires. Betty thought getting us out of the city would keep us out of trouble. “Girls love those orange jumpsuits,” she said. “Go, get out of my hair and get yourselves lucky.” Only that summer she needed the chemo, and I said I’d drive her to her appointments, because I figured I owed her that. My madre, she had nice things in our apartment, stuff she brought from Argentina, like jewelry and silver goblets, stuff she stole, stuff she took into the loony bin. All Betty had was a house full of sons and greasy pizza boxes and smelly used furniture, and still she let me stay. And things went pretty good as long as I was driving her back and forth in her beater, until she died and Nathan was away, getting lucky, and I didn’t give a shit about anything. I made my madre’s shoplifting days look like amateur hour. Then I found out Betty had left me the truck, and just like that, she started talking to me again, giving me shit in my head, and I ended up scrubbing pots at fricking Ray’s.
“Please, Mannie,” says Bev. “Don’t be a moron. You know I’m right.”
I hang up. Most summers, Betty did get us the hell out of the city. We tented at Keesee, or stayed with Betty’s sisters on the rez. And now, it’s a hazy Saturday in River fricking Heights, but Betty is here, looking unimpressed, and all around me are rez dogs barking at bonfire sparks, voices rising in the black night, and stars. So many stars you almost believe in Betty’s jumbled-up stories about magic tricksters and the heavenly Creator.
The phone rings again, and I don’t know what to do. It could be Warren or Bev calling from another line to throw me off, or it could also be Mr. Nice who stole my kid. “Mannie?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s Will. You got a minute?”
“Yeah.”
“We spoke with our lawyer, and with Denise, the social worker. She was a little hesitant about all this but suggested maybe we could meet for half an hour or so in Assiniboine Park. The weather’s supposed to be decent tomorrow. Are you available?”
Mr. Lead Man is left in the grime and wrappers on the floor of Betty’s truck.
I go nuts for the next twenty-four hours, driving through the park again and again, winding around and around through the fields of picnic areas and Ultimate Frisbee games until finally dark comes and I pass out in the zoo parking lot, where it stinks of bison shit and old popcorn oil. I sleep until families start arriving in their minivans, slamming doors and yelling at each other, then head back across the river to grab a cruller and coffee.
I park on Portage Avenue and do what my madre and I used
to do when we took the bus: head across the huge arching footbridge where people eat ice cream and shoot the shit. The river is low, and the tall yellow grass on the banks has turned into a beach of nasty cracked clay. A little kid who looks like a boy in a girlie yellow hat is whacking at the clay with a stick while another toddler wobbles on fat legs, staring up at the hundreds of crazy birds who fly in giant, swirling circles, up from their muddy nests below the bridge, around this way or that, then back down to start again. One time, Betty brought us for a barbecue in the picnic area, and just as we got some good charcoals going in the fire pit, it started raining. All of us boys got stupid in the downpour, stripping down to our gitch and sliding in the mud while Betty packed everything up. By the time we got back to the bridge, it had stopped, and we ate our wieners raw on the riverbank. Betty told me what those birds were called, but I can’t think of it now.
When I came here with my madre, we mostly walked through the gardens. She hated the winter, refused to wear a toque because it flattened her natural waves, and when I asked her why she chose to live in this stupid frozen place, she said, “I had my reasons.” She hated winter, but she loved the goddamn flower gardens, said they reminded us that great beauty was always possible, was always around the corner, and she looked beautiful when she said it, her fingers trying to catch her black waves as they blew across her face. Most of the time I let her babble on, spewing out crap about lilies and dahlias and renewal because I liked the sound of her voice. But really, I didn’t give a shit about her gardens. I wanted to go to the zoo, watch the monkeys throw food at each other, catch a freaky owl turning its head full circle.
Now and then, she actually gave in and took me to the “animal prison.” One of those times, we were crossing the river and saw a guy standing on top of one of the cement walls that close in the bridge. A cop was telling him to get down. “Just grab on to my hand, bud. Come on down and we can all relax.”
“I want to be alone,” the guy said. “Leave me alone.”
I asked my madre what the guy was doing.
“He’s having a tough time,” she said. “He’ll be all right.”
My madre had said the same thing when we saw some kid throwing a tantrum in a store. “Poor little guy,” she said. “He’s having a tough time.”
I knew this wasn’t the same thing. “Is he going to jump?”
She laughed, flicked her black hair. “That water isn’t deep enough to drown in. The rivers here are like mud puddles.”
I loved her then, and didn’t care what was around the corner.
On the other side of the bridge, I stop at the road. The last thing I want to think about is my madre—right now, I would probably kill her for just one toke. The place is filled with hordes of dogs and joggers: big dogs, ratlike dogs, big joggers, ratlike joggers. There is some dickhead on a bike decked out like he’s racing in the Tour de France, and there’s a goddamn cat in a stroller. They’re all going in different directions, up and down the road, in and out of river paths, and I can’t seem to get my focus. I should know where the duck pond is. I used to know—I should still know. I did everything: I kept my nose clean, I delivered shitty two-for-one pizzas for my son, I took responsibility, and now I can’t find the fricking duck pond.
It feels like I’m convulsing, but no one seems to notice. Then the German car passes right in front of me. Someone inside is waving at me. It’s the woman, Helen, in the backseat, beside the hooded bucket.
I follow them west maybe two hundred feet and watch him back into a spot like a hot knife cuts through butter. I sit on a bench beside the public can, trying to look casual. A woman I don’t recognize, the worker maybe, is walking ahead of them and talking on her cell. It sounds like she’s yelling at her kids. “There’s enough for both of you. I checked. Yes, there is!”
She tucks away the phone and holds out her hand. “I’m Denise.”
Something about the way she shakes makes me stand up. Bev told me a bit about Denise—how underneath her blazer are crappy tattoos. Helen pushes the stroller, like always, with the hood up. She stops beside Denise and lets down some kind of brake with her toe. A skinny chick in a hippie skirt goes by with a baby sandwiched to her chest in some kind of sling; the little foot sticking out is covered in mosquito bites. Helen takes my hand and wraps both of hers around it. She looks older close up. Will stands back, gives a wave. “We’ve met. Hi, Mannie.”
“I’ll be over there,” Denise says, but we all ignore her. Helen touches my shoulder, steers me toward the stroller. She pulls back the hood, pats a yellow blanket covered in green dolphins. “He’s asleep.”
The head is pink and puckered and hairless, like a little old man’s. There are red pimples on his cheeks, and all I can think is that I didn’t know babies could get zits.
“We called him Olivier,” Helen says.
My hands start to shake, so I shove them in my pockets.
“Do you want to hold him?” Will asks.
“He’s asleep,” I say.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “He’s pooped. You could blow a bugle in his ear and he wouldn’t wake up.”
They obviously don’t notice the shakes. “It’s okay,” I say.
Helen pushes the hood back all the way and pulls the blanket to the side. You can see tiny blue veins branching across his forehead, like he’s covered in pimply tissue paper instead of skin. Only his hands look strong—little tight, wrinkly fists. They make you wonder what he’s dreaming about.
Helen puts her hand on my shoulder again. I can tell she’s the kind who touches a lot, for all kinds of reasons. “Thank you, Mannie. Thank you so much. I mean, look at this beautiful little person you made.”
She brushes the bumpy cheek with her finger and the lips move, make a little sucking motion. Beautiful isn’t the word I’d use. He looks nothing like the round babies on diaper packs, nothing like Bev.
“He gained two pounds last week,” Will says. “He’s a fighter, Mannie.”
It’s then I know I’m like those men on Betty’s reserve, left with no choice but to surrender peacefully. I am backed into a corner. I am a pussy. I can’t do it to these people.
The social worker brings more papers, and I sign again. I agree to a picture every birthday until he’s eighteen. That’s it. I walk back over the bridge, climb into Betty’s crappy truck.
Swallows, I think. They’re called swallows. Betty told me it looks like they fly any which way, but they make patterns. They know exactly what they’re doing.
TEN
I go back to the apartment, walk right in, don’t give two shits about Warren. I keep thinking I hear him huffing up the stairs, but no, I’m alone with three packs of instant noodles left in the back of a cupboard and some peanut butter. There’s no weed to be found, but it looks like luck still has my back. When my madre finally loses it for good, Betty is there; when Warren wants my ass on a platter, he disappears. One time, I jumped off a garage roof and landed on my feet, like a cat, and Nathan told me I had a horseshoe up my ass.
I try to remember how long it’s been since I’ve talked to him. Three months? Ten? At the funeral, he said to me, “You were there when she passed.” I’d patted his shoulder, waited, thought he was maybe going to thank me.
“It should’ve been me,” he said.
Before I can stop myself, I’m calling him up, even though the last few times he’s brushed me off, seemed in a rush to get off the line. He picks up after five rings.
“How you doing, brother?” I ask.
There’s a long pause. “Hey, Mannie, my man. No complaints.”
I suddenly can’t remember where he went to fight fires. Thompson? Gillam? “You still up there?”
A woman yells, “Is that Tommy?”
He ignores her. “Yeah, yeah. I’m living with someone. Connie.”
“Yeah?” I say. “She nice?”
“Yeah, she’s nice. Great legs. She’s Treaty.”
“Betty would be glad you’re getting luc
ky with a nice Indian,” I say.
He doesn’t laugh. “She probably would’ve hated her.”
I don’t expect this. Does he mean no one was ever good enough for her boys? “Mine’s Polish,” I say, to change the subject. “I work at the restaurant her old man owns.”
“Yeah? Nice, Mannie. Those Polish ones, they have asses on them, eh?”
“Easy, brother,” I say. “You’re talking about the mother of my son.”
“Are you shitting me?” he asks. “No shit.”
“No shit,” I say.
He laughs. “Jesus, a little Mannie, man. That’s scary.”
“You’re the one with the fricking webbed feet. Does your Treaty girl know about that?”
He laughs like he used to, like he’s going to puke up a lung. “Yeah, she’s kinda sick. She digs them, eh.”
“You remember we used to call you Duckie? Betty, when she was in the hospice, she started calling you that again. Did I tell you that? She never said Nathan. She kept saying ‘I hope Duckie is getting lucky.’”
He laughs, but it’s not the same. “You never told me that.”
“Yeah,” I say. “She kept trying to crack me up. ‘I hope Duckie is getting lucky.’”
“I didn’t know,” he says.
I want to make him laugh like before, but I don’t know how.
“Listen. Connie needs to use the phone,” he says.
“Right,” I say. “Yeah.”
“It’s great to hear from you, man. Congrats, eh.”
After that, I’m no longer Lead Man, I’m the Tin Man from Oz, who rusts up and can’t move a muscle, frozen forever until someone comes to the rescue. I’m scared again, more scared than the Cowardly Lion, more scared than any pussy has ever been. And I have no idea what to do; my brain is blanker than the retarded Scarecrow’s. That movie was my madre’s favorite—we’d watch it over and over, even on school nights, and she’d sing that rainbow song like she had a good voice, which she didn’t.
The sun is low, fallen behind the apartment block next door, by the time Betty comes back to me, pursing her lips, looking pissed. Don’t be an ass-wipe. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.
Your Constant Star Page 13