by Colin McAdam
The golf-course idea, if I could secure the land, would avoid that sort of problem. The land I wanted came off the back of my phase five. I had already indicated to the Government, to Schutz, that I wanted it, and some of the angel demons were willing to put some money into it.
Imagine: a vast area of pure McGuinty forming a broad crescent around this golf course. The airport was nearby: planes could fly over and make the golfers feel even wealthier, at the center of an International Destination. (Not that my houses would be under the flight path.)
Fantastic.
THERE WAS THIS other problem that the doctor mentioned, “something else, possibly a concern.” While he was checking out Kathleen, making sure she was OK, he found that there was something wrong with her liver. Some test or something.
I tried to tell Jerry about it when she was still in the hospital. I said, “I think it’s bullshit, my friend, but Mummy might have something wrong with her liver.” I don’t know where the liver is but I gave Jerry a little chop with my fingers in his side. “In her liver,” I said, chop, and made him giggle despite himself.
I figured it was bullshit. This doctor, you know. Doctors. I’m happy for them to buy my houses but I have no respect for people who look up people’s asses all day and then behave like the view up their own is delicious.
He was up there on the high ground: “Your wife drinks too much, Mr. Herlihy,” as if he would know.
I put it out of my mind. She was sick, yes, I knew that, but of course you’re going to feel sick if you’ve betrayed your husband, almost killed a friend, broken two ribs, and lost a tooth. You can expect to look a little yellow.
She needed a lot of attention. Once her ribs healed and she could move around a bit, she still felt a lot better when she was lying down. She was helpless for a long time, even when she could probably help herself. And since I was so busy, Jerry looked after her.
“Jerry!”
“Jerry!”
“Jerry!”
“Jerry!”
“Jerry!”
Less and less was it meant for me.
I guess he fed her often, because I don’t really remember eating with them together and I doubt that either she or I cooked. I kept the house stocked up with food and juice and booze but I didn’t have much of any of it, as far as I can recall.
We didn’t sleep in the same bed because it would hurt her ribs to have me rolling around.
“Where’s my feckin painkillers, Jer!”
“Jerry, get your mummy her painkillers, please.”
She was on those for ages, and when that doctor said he wouldn’t prescribe them any more I found another who would. She was clearly in pain, and they helped her sleep.
“I’m going to be late again tonight, buddy, so if you’re making dinner for Mummy, don’t forget to give her her painkillers.”
“I know, Dad.”
“I know, buddy.”
I was home one afternoon, picking up some paint samples that I wanted to show the real-estate agent, and I just poked my head upstairs to see how things were going. Kathleen was asleep in her room, looking no different from when I saw her in the morning. Jerry was in his room.
“Hey! How are ya?”
“OK.”
“Did ya . . . how’s things?”
“OK.”
“You look tired, buddy.”
“I am tired.”
“How was school?”
“She makes me come home early.”
“Cool. Get out of class early?”
“Yeah. Cool.”
He was pretty grumpy so I thought I should leave him alone. As I was leaving he said, “Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“You know Kwyet? My old babysitter?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t see her much now, do I?”
“No. We aren’t going out much, are we?”
“I saw her the other day, you know?”
“Oh yeah?”
“She came by here. She’s nice, Dad.”
“Sure.”
“And she asked me . . . she wants me . . . she said I could fly in an airplane. She said she’s got, like, a friend with, I don’t know, who flies an airplane. Can I fly in . . . she said they could take me flying.”
“Fuckin A, buddy. When?”
“Maybe on the weekend?”
“Can I wave at you?”
“I can go?”
“Fuckin A, you can.”
“What about her?”
“Who?”
“Mum.”
“Right. What about her?”
“Who will look after her?”
“Right. She’ll be fine. I’ll look after her.”
KATHLEEN’S TRUCK was totaled, front axle snapped, steering rod all stupid, frame bent.
I scrapped it.
I kept some of the parts that were working. You know that one shitty pickup I’ve got on my driveway out there? That’s got the engine from Kathleen’s truck in it. That’s nice, isn’t it, like its heart is still beating.
What can I say about that truck? I didn’t want to chase it any more. I wanted to scrap it. I might have scrapped it even if it wasn’t totaled. Edgar in there fucking her.
I felt like there was a load of concrete on my chest when I looked at the truck all bent in the junkyard.
She could get another one, if she wanted. Maybe when she got better we could have a talk and she might get another. I personally didn’t think it was a good idea, but maybe.
I told her about it one night. “I had to scrap your truck, Kath,” I said.
She said, “Augh, Jesus, Jerry,” very quietly and cried cried cried with her hand on her ribs.
“WHERE’S HE GOING?”
“He’s going flying.”
“What?”
“Yeah. That Kwyet, the babysitter, she’s got a boyfriend or something who can fly a plane.”
“He’s not going flying.”
“Yeah, he is. He’s all dressed for it.”
“You’re not going flying.”
“Go on and wait for your friends, Jerry. Have fun if we don’t see you.”
“You’ll feckin die up there is what’s going to happen. They’ll, they’ll be necking and lose control. I won’t be sorry.”
“Go on, Jerry.”
“Yeah. Off he goes flying and I’m here in this flippin bed again. Who’s going to look after me? You, I suppose.”
“That’s right.”
“I don’t need looking after. See how quickly he ran out of here? That’s because he thinks he looks after me too much. I can tell. I spent twelve years looking after him, doing everything for him, and now he complains about looking after me for, what, a few months. I could get up, Jerry. I’m not that sick, but I think it’s time I was looked after for a while. Not that I like lying in this . . . fffeck . . . freckin bed all the time.”
“I thought I might do some tinkering in the basement.”
“Yeah, well, you go on then.”
I saw Jerry getting into a car with his friends when I went downstairs. Kwyet had called to get permission, by the way. Nice girl.
THE CHIEF PURSUITS, you might say, at that particular point in my life were selling a lot of houses and putting together the golf-course proposal.
As far as the house-selling went, I had taken the decision to get a real-estate agent, and that led to the less businessoriented decision to slide inside her for thirty seconds. She was a pretty girl, lipstick, just the type to sell a lot of houses, and we seemed to flirt with each other every time we met.
So I met her one day in a house that was going to be a model home. I brought a few color samples and got her opinion for the paintwork. She held my hand when I was holding a color and we laughed at the name, “California Dreamin, ha ha ha,” and next thing you know I’m between her legs and my entire body is shouting. I was heavily aware of my own weight after those thirty seconds. I had a cramp in my leg so I couldn’t get off her as quickly as I shou
ld have, and about all either of us could say once I did get off was “golly golly golly” whether we actually said it or not.
She was a really nice girl. I felt so guilty, and ashamed for feeling guilty and embarrassed that it took me thirty seconds, and when I gathered together all those color samples with all the silly names it was like they knew what I was feeling. I wanted to run away and hide, but she had the Christianity to say, “That was nice.”
Oh, my friend, it was not nice.
But enough. I am not going to explain myself for the sake of your weird curiosity. I was unfaithful to Kathleen, that’s all you need to know. I bought her some roses and a nice bottle of vodka—to apologize without telling her anything—and spent the evening at home.
As for the golf-course proposal, my other chief pursuit: I told Schutz about it, gave him a bit of money and he said he would do what he could, but as much as that guy puffed himself up he didn’t have much power over his department. What I proposed was this:
200 houses, strong, self-cleaning;
1 golf course, 9 holes, green.
Like you, I had never built a golf course. My instinct told me it involved more than a lawnmower, so I made some inquiries and discovered that there is a type of human called a “golf-course architect” who seems to think it is a respectable career to build sand castles. If the game of golf seems a little silly to you, imagine a man who treats a blade of grass like a house, a lawn like a city, an acre like an empire, an empire whose only purpose is to support a small white ball and a clown.
Well, the fact is, I can admire that man’s career more than most, and there were a few moments when I actually loved the silliness of it—when I learned how complicated it all is, the importance of soil, the drainage problems, the shaping of hills as walls or encouragements, the name of this grass: fescue. Fuck me, the world can be a wild shaken-up jumble of soul-tickling mysteries, so many little games for so many little people, and I want to play, yes, I want to play sometimes and make more mysteries.
Golf-course architects were not a common sight in Ottawa. I had to bring a guy up from Toronto who charged me for every breath he took once we got off the phone. And he said, “Well, see what the Government says first because there’s a lot to consider these days, you know, environmentally.”
And this is what the Government had to say:
Mr. Jerry McGuinty
McGuinty Construction
4 Kathleen Crescent
Ottawa K18 2N4
13 May 1982
File: 80814
Re: Blah blah, Planning Approval Application: “The Green” Residential and Recreational Development blah blah
Dear Mr. McGuinty,
Thank you for your application, yadda yadda yadda.
As you may know, the approximately 800 hectares of land in Ottawa South, now commonly known as the Greenbelt, is an area of uncommon potential and precious resources, which has come to be monitored closely by this Government and this Division particularly.
Why is it monitored at all? That is a question often asked, the guy says, yadda yadda yadda.
A Capital plan must consider attributes such as the symbolic role of the Capital itself and it must reflect the trust that you and your countrymen place in the Federal Government to plan the Capital properly.
What is the symbolic role blah blah reflect the values that are central to Canadian society, including freedom, democracy, peace, order, good government, our vast geography, tolerance, respect for both official languages and offering general access to people with disabilities.
The Capital is a window on our country, and it is important to keep that window clean.
As you know, Sustainable Urban Development involves maintaining and enhancing the quality of the biophysical, chthonic, macrosocial, and petty economic components of the rural-urban cosmos for existing and future generations. Sustainable Urban Development is implemented through the protection of environmental components while understanding their inherent interrelationships and the both natural and artificially imposed balance between them. The quality of the biophysical environment can be enhanced through the protection of the air, water, land, flora, and fauna, and the evolution of an economy that respects the inherent limits of that environment.
We are all interested in creating a model of urban ecology, in developing a Capital Concept that fosters the emergence of a Healthy Community and that provides for continuous activities, throughout the day and evening.
So the little bloodless pencil goes on to say
4
that I look forward to considering your application more closely in conjunction with my colleagues.
As you may appreciate, this Division is overwhelmed with applications. You may be asked to submit supporting material, but we ask that you do not contact us with inquiries regarding the progress of your application.
Yours sincerely,
Simon Struthers
Melancholy Guardian of the Rural Urban Cosmos
IT IS A MASTERFUL little irritant, is it not, Mr. McGuinty? Please accept my apologies. A nice mixture, nonetheless, of modestly preposterous rhetoric and bewildering vapidity. I hope that you keep it; it is printed on acid-free paper and should last for generations.
I am sore, Mr. McGuinty. What is Eros spelled backward? That is right, sir, sore from tip to tip from Love’s return journey.
Saint Matty chanting her gospel of betrayal. What does a betrayer know of betrayal? Betraying me to cease betraying her husband.
HE UNDERSTOOD that Mr. McGuinty was one of the builders who had had some dealings, a little quid pro quo with his boon companion Schutz.
Simon had his own designs on that land.
KICKED IN THE FACE by Time’s busy boot. That’s how he looked with those bags under his eyes.
He was getting uglier, there was no question about that. He caught glimpses of himself everywhere—at home, in the mirrors of his car, store windows—he looked constantly and was patently disappointed with what he saw. Narcissus grown to hate himself.
Sometimes he would catch himself in a mirror smiling, and a look of self-awareness, shame, would cover his yellowing teeth. In restaurants, for example, a beautiful, incompetent waitress might knock his wine over and he might smile what he thought was a dashing boy’s smile, “That’s all right, that’s all right, don’t worry, it’s funny,” and he would see his smile in the mirror across the room. The change to his face!
The change was everywhere. The restaurants. They never existed before. That restaurant near Matty’s which he now dined at as often as he could, that was never there before. Neither was the store next door where Matty often shopped. The restaurant was called an “eatery,” a new word to him, more change. It was also a forlornery, a bringherbackery, an isKwyetintownery. From a window table at lunch he could see Matty shopping next door. If, on a Friday, she had an extra bag or two, it usually meant that Kwyet was in town for the weekend. If corn chips were visible in one of the bags—Kwyet had a weakness for corn chips—she was definitely in town.
He sat in the eatery every week and wondered if Kwyet would be near. He ate a lot of deep-fried zucchini and chicken wings, and the face in the mirror grew larger.
But what if Matty walked into the eatery and saw Simon there? Would she join him, have a happy chat? She had given him an ultimatum. “I don’t want to see you any more. I can’t even see you socially—it wouldn’t work.”
Simon considered that flattering: seeing him would be too much, he is irresistible, she would be overcome. Whenever he saw her from the window he was torn between calling to her, and wanting to hide. He would have no reason to give her for being so near her house.
He ate more chicken wings, more deep-fried vegetables, chili, veal schnitzel, the occasional Polish sausage.
It was what you men of morals call a State of Want.
Swedish meatballs, spaghetti bolognese, a half carafe of the house red, might as well make it a whole. Desire can be stupefying.
But i
f she was carrying the extra bag, if he saw corn chips through the shopping bag (like a leg through a sun-soaked skirt), he would spring to attention, crane his neck. Maybe Kwyet was still in the store? Maybe she was waiting in the car? Maybe he could run out before Matty noticed and slip Kwyet a note?
Week after week after week. The face in the mirror grew unrecognizable.
Chicken fingers with fries and the house plum sauce. Three-cheese melt. A bacon burger with salad and/or fries. Was he trying to look like Leonard?
The face grew shiny, sad, cruel. To be honest, it began to look like mine.
Dr. Paul Overington
National Research Council
1028 Montreal Road
Ottawa K14 6Z8
Dear Paul,
A voice from the past can be a pleasant surprise under controlled circumstances, no? So here I am, writing rather than calling.
This is a strictly professional communication. I was at a Cambridge Society dinner recently and someone mentioned that you were now in charge of aeronautical research at the NRC. I have something that I would like to discuss with you—a proposal of sorts.
Could we meet? I would like to show you something, and I know a perfectly dreadful restaurant nearby. I could take you to lunch.
Feel free to call, or write.
Congratulations, of course, on your appointment.
Kind regards,
Simon
P.S. Do say hello to Evelyn, if you think it appropriate.
HE SAW HER AGAIN one Friday sitting in the car waiting for her mother who had just run into the store. Now was his chance to talk to her. He planned to slip freely from the eatery, but he was stiff, awfully sluggish as he stood up, and slightly dizzy. He stumbled toward the door and the waitress said she’d see him later. It was very bright outside. When he got through the door he stopped defensively, shielding his eyes as if he had stumbled into some sort of inquisition. Out of the corner of his eye he saw someone emerging from the store next door. He realized it was Matty, already, so he quickly retreated into the eatery and watched her through the tinted glass door.