He opened his backpack, put on a fresh pair of plastic gloves,and stood in front of the trio of phones with his hands held stifflyoutside his pockets, like a gunslinger waiting for his duelling partner to make the first move. Finally he held his breath and reachedfor the phone in the centre, judging that particular receiver to bethe least greasy-looking.
He held the receiver as close to his ear as he could managewithout allowing it to actually touch his skin. A dial tone invaded his eardrum for three whole seconds before an admonitoryfemale voice said, “Please completely insert your card, or dial the number you are calling.”
The voice made no mention of inserting coins. Did coinsnot work in payphones anymore? Was he really allowed to dialDawn’s number without inserting a card, as the voice said?Before he could think another thought, the voice repeated theoptions. She sounded more annoyed, if that was even possible.
Aaron did as he was told and dialled his sister’s number.Some of the buttons were sticky. There was a brief pause, thenfinally the voice asked him to insert payment for his call. It didn’tspecify how much. Aaron took all the change out of his pocketand tossed his grimiest-looking loonie into the coin slot. Therewas another pause, this one longer than the last and full of static,then the line began to ring.
Just as Martin picked up and said, “Aye?” in hisCanadianized Scottish accent, a mob of dynamite-mouthedteenage girls tripped out of the station and onto the platform,laughing and shrieking and kicking each other’s backpacks.Suddenly the whole area smelled like hairspray and bubble-gum.
Aaron tried to say, “Yes, hi, Martin?” over the commotion,but he couldn’t even hear himself think, let alone talk. He turnedand gave the girls a pleading look, but they were fourteen—therest of the world was invisible to them.
On the other end of the line, Martin said, loudly, “I’m sorry, mate?”
Aaron stuck a plastic-coated finger into his left ear, andcringed as he pressed the dirt-flecked receiver against the flesh ofhis right. “Martin, it’s Aaron. Is Dawn there?”
“Aaron, Jayzus! Ah cannae hear yeh, mate.”
“I’m at a subway station. Sorry. Can I speak to Dawn, please?”
“Aye.” A fumbling sound. “Dohn! Yer bruther’s on the phoone!”
As he waited for his sister to pick up the line, Aaron venturedanother look at the teenage girls. They were taking turns showing each other pictures on their phones and cackling hysterically,saying things like “OMG” and “FML” and other acronyms hedidn’t know the meaning of. Normally he’d ask Samantha. She’dcall him an idiot and tell him the answer. He was going to missthat kind of stuff.
Finally, his sister came on the line. “Aaron?!” She almostsounded pissed off.
“Hi.”
“Say something else or I won’t believe it’s you.”
“Uh . . . Can I come over?”
She laughed. “What?”
“I had a fight with Samantha. I had to leave the apartment.But that’s not the only reason. I went to see Dr. Zilber r ecently—”
“Here we go,” Dawn said with a sigh.
Aaron stopped talking. He was hurt by his sister’s words, hertone, the implication that she was rolling her eyes.
A staticky silence passed between them, an agitated fore boding.
“Go on,” Dawn said with a dash of impatience.
“I, uh. Dr. Zilber found a spot. A suspicious mark. He gotme an appointment with a skin specialist in Guelph.” He took abreath. “He says hi, by the way.”
“Oh, Aaron, I . . . I’m sure it’s nothing, but . . . I’m sorry.Where are you?”
“I’m at Woodbine subway station. I was going to go to thebus depot downtown and catch the next Greyhound to Guelph,but I, you know . . . wanted to call first.”
“Yes, yes, of course. We’d love to see you. I’ll make up thebed in the guest room right now. Are you okay? What happenedwith Samantha?”
The loose knot that had been forming in Aaron’s throat wasyanked into a tight ball at the question. He gulped it back andmanaged to choke out, “I’ll tell you when I get there.”
“Okay, that’s fine. I’m glad you’re coming. We’ll pick youup from the station when you get here.”
“Sure, okay.”
“Great. I’ll see you later, then.”
Aaron could feel her smiling over the line, and it made him feel horrible.
“Bye, sis,” he said before hanging up. He never called herthat. Never. Things were weird.
The teenage girls were choreographing dance moves to theirring tones. He moved past them swiftly, and started down thestairs into the dank, garbage-filled miasma of the station, where arickety old train full of pestilent strangers would get him wherehe needed to go.
*
Samantha turned the first of the three locks on the door.
Clack.
Her palms were wet under the plastic gloves. She exhaledslowly through puffed cheeks in an attempt at slowing her anxiously thumping heart and reached for the second lock.
Clack.
She turned to examine herself in the mirror above the shoerack. She’d found an old pair of faded jeans in her dresser that shehadn’t worn in over three years. It took about ten minutes to wriggle inside them, pull up the zipper and fasten the button, but onceher flesh had been squeezed into the denim she was actuallypleased with how her ass looked. Then she threw on her favouriteblack sweatshirt with thumbholes in the sleeves and a MontrealCanadians toque with a pompom. She hoped she looked cute. Shedidn’t want to show up at Luca’s door in a garbage bag again.
She took a deep breath and reached for the third and final lock.
Clack.
The hallway was empty, thank God. She turned swiftly andlocked the door. Started walking toward the elevator, changedher mind halfway there, and headed for the stairwell. She wasdoing okay, just a little nervous. A little sweaty, too, which wasannoying, since she’d just had a shower. Her armpits weresoaked. By the time she stepped out into the parking lot she waspositively drippy. Did she have some kind of thyroid problem?Maybe it was diabetes. She’d have to do some research later.
She speed-walked to Luca’s apartment and knocked. Thedoor rattled like it was too loose on its hinges. A shadow movedaround behind the front window. Seconds later, he swung thedoor open and smiled.
“Hey, I thought I saw your boyfriend—”
“Want to come over?” she interrupted, looking franticallyaround the lot.
“But—”
“He left. We had a fight.” She stuck her head inside hisdoorframe and sniffed. “Your place smells bad. Come over. Idon’t like it out here.”
“Wait. What’s going on?”
She pulled her toque down further on her head and swipedsome hair out of her eyes. “I told you, Aaron left.”
“But why?” Luca’s eyes popped. “Did you tell him?”
Samantha shrugged.
Luca hung his head and shook it, laughing. “You’ve got tobe kidding me.”
“What?”
He lifted his head and looked at her. “Did you guys break up?”
She didn’t say anything, just looked back at him. He lookedtired, with dark circles under his eyes and sallow skin, but JesusChrist he was handsome. Finally she said, “I don’t want to bealone.”
He scratched his chin, then nodded like he finally understood something. “Okay, let me just grab some things.”
Five minutes later he was in her bathroom, tearing herclothes off. Why they ended up in the bathroom, Samantha hadno idea. She felt only partly conscious, like she’d been swept upby a tornado and was spinning dizzily in the gale. Luca was nakedtoo, this time. His skin was salty and rough on her tongue. Hishands were like tree bark on her body. He pulled her hair and bither shoulder hard. She gasped and scraped her nails down hisback and dug them into his fuzzy ass cheeks. He gra
bbed her bythe throat and held her against the wall. She reached out,clutched the shower curtain, and yanked it off its rings. Her kneebashed against the side of the tub as he lifted her into it andpressed her body against the cold tiles on the wall. His cock waslike a javelin inside her. Her insides liquefied as she throbbed andthrashed and melted against his brick-like body.
It hurt when she came—a blissful kind of pain, like alcoholpoured over a fresh wound—and as she lay in the tub, her orgasmsparkling, she imagined her body putrefying and oozing downthe drain like sour milk.
It made her want to die.
STAGE 6A: METASTASIS
Martha Haggerty had made up her mind. She was going tokill herself.
She found a bright orange extension cable in her living roomcloset—the colour of the cord would be a fitting tribute toNuggles—and watched an instruction video on Youtube on howto fashion a proper noose. She measured out the amount of cablenecessary to keep her feet from touching the floor, tied one endto the inside knob on her closet door, then covered it with layerafter layer of duct tape in case the knot came unfastened; tossedthe noose over the top of the door and dragged a stepping stoolacross the floor into place.
Nuggles’ corpse was in its cardboard coffin, propped on a pillowin the middle of Martha’s bed. She’d filled the coffin with purple tissue paper and dusted his fur with catnip. Martha herself had put onher tiger-print jumpsuit and clipped a purple bow to her hair. Shedidn’t write a suicide note because she’d never been a writer ofnotes, really. She hoped that whoever discovered her body hangingover her closet door would know, based on the scene in front ofthem, that she’d killed herself out of grief for her beloved pet.
She took a deep breath and stepped onto the stool; pulled thenoose down over her massive hair and let it hang loose around herneck. She wasn’t nervous or scared, but if cats weren’t allowed inhuman heaven she’d feel seriously gypped. Maybe she could bargain with Saint Peter at the pearly whites, tell him she was sureshe’d been a cat in a previous life, or that she’d be willing to spendeternity in feline heaven, even if it contained large and dangerouspredators. It’s not like the spirit-lions and tigers could kill her again.
This is it, she thought as she tightened the noose and wobbled her feet on the stepping stool, to test what kind of forcemight be required to kick it aside. She was seconds away from excruciating suffocation followed by bliss, and the prospect comforted her in a way that happy people would never understand.
“Mommy’s coming,” she said to Nuggles’ corpse, and slidthe stool aside.
She regretted her decision instantly. Digging her fingernailsinto the space between the cable and her neck, she thrashed andswerved and kicked, heels banging against the door, hopingsomething would snap and break and set her free.
And then, fuzzily, she saw an angel. It rushed towards herand clutched her legs, lifted her. She took in a painful and miraculous gulp of air and everything went sparkly, like a kaleidoscope. The angel was making noises she couldn’t understand,then finally it dawned on her, as she gasped and gagged for air,that what she was hearing was speech, that her savior was human,and that he smelled kind of funny, like vomit and smoke, andwhat a wonder it was to breathe such a scent.
*
Aaron stood on the subway platform, reading the news flashes on the telescreen: Canadian Prime Minister bit by goose in HydePark on day three of trip to U.K., stitches required . . . Blue Jays lose
When he’d first descended into the station, there was a cluster of people gathered around the screen on a part of the platformlabelled the D.W.A.—the designated waiting area. Assumingthere’d be some sort of update on the flu situation, Aaron hadapproached the area like a zombie, dragging his feet and fakecoughing into his mask. Most of the screen-watchers moveddown along the platform, away from him, save one middle-agedprofessor-type in khakis and a tweed jacket, chewing on the armof his wire-rimmed glasses.
Aaron stood close and coughed as loud as he could, but theman was unfazed. Could he see through Aaron’s charade, or washe standing his ground on principle? Whatever the case, Aarondecided to pull out ‘Old Hank’, a stained and threadbare handkerchief he kept in the side pouch of his knapsack for occasions such as this one. Old Hank was clean—he washed and sterilizedit almost daily—but it looked like something a homeless personmight use to stanch a bloody wound. It was a prop that had neverfailed him.
“Excuse me, sir?” Aaron had said, holding Old Hank out soit flapped gently in the tunnel’s dusty breeze. “Would you mindholding this while I tie my shoe?”
The speed at which the man rushed to the opposite end ofthe platform suggested he’d simply been caught up in reading thenews; just another absent-minded academic, oblivious to his surroundings until they were shoved in his face.
When the train smashed through the tunnel into view,Aaron jumped backwards and almost tumbled into the garbagebins. Old Hank, which Aaron had stupidly kept in his hand, fellagainst an upturned band-aid. He had to make the fast and heartbreaking decision to toss Old Hank before boarding the train. Sixyears of infallible people-repellent gone, left among discardedcoffee cups and mustard-smeared burger wrappers—an unjustend for a virtuoso that deserved better. Aaron thought of thebody of Mozart, tossed into an unmarked mass grave in St. MarxCemetery in Vienna, as he took a seat by the window and placedhis knapsack next to him as a sort of buffer.
The doors closed and the train started moving. Aaron experienced a moment of alarm when he realized he wasn’t sure ifhe’d boarded the east- or westbound train, but his fears were putto rest upon arrival at the next station. He was indeed headedwestward. Apparently he’d kept his wits about him, despite thelast few hours of trauma.
After a pair of teenage girls approached with the intent of sitting next to him, hesitated when they saw his mask, then continued down the length of the train, Aaron’s thoughts bent onceagain toward Samantha, and he cursed himself under his breath.His whole chest ached at the thought of her, like he was inhalingfrost. Had he done something to deserve her betrayal? Was henot giving her something she wanted? Maybe she knew something he didn’t. Was she making future plans, in case his penisfreckle was cancerous? Or was she suffering from one of those freakish diseases that causes changes to your personality—something like syphilis, Lyme disease, or toxoplasmosis? Did BuzzardFlu do that? He had no fucking idea.
He shuddered.
The thought of Samantha touching anyone other than him,let alone sleeping with someone else, was still hard for Aaron tofathom. Yet it had happened. It wasn’t long ago—two years ago,maybe? Three?—she’d had the incident at the hotel pool duringtheir trip to Niagara Falls, before she became a full-on shut-in.
Aaron had saved up for weeks for the weekend getaway.The trip had been Samantha’s father’s idea. He was always complaining that all the two of them ever did was sit around inSamantha’s bedroom drinking purified water and look up diseaseson the internet, though Aaron suspected he was simply deliveringgrievances that actually came from Sam’s mother, who never saidanything more than a mechanical “Hello” or “Goodbye” to himfrom beneath her heated blanket on the couch whenever hecame over.
Aaron remembered pulling up to Samantha’s parents’ housein a rented hatchback, the interior of which he’d wiped downwith rubbing alcohol and sprayed with disinfectant. Sam’s fathercame out first, wheeling his daughter’s suitcase in front of himlike a stroller, her Swiss Army backpack slung over his shoulder.
While Mr. Riske was loading the hatch, Samantha emergedfrom the house in a faded white bathrobe, the frayed strap tiedtightly around her waist, with her hair bundled into a bird’s nestunder a navy blue kerchief. The bottoms of her googly-eye slippers scraped along the pavement as she approached the rentedvehicle. She somehow managed to look like both a child and agrandmother at once.
“Ew,” was all she said to Aaron as she swooped into the passenger seat and slammed the door hard.
T
hey reeked the car up with the smell of Halls lozengeswhile Aaron drove the speed limit on the highway, stoppingonce at a roadside McDonalds to split a Happy Meal—Samanthaate the fries and the pickles and onions out of the burger, Aaron consumed what remained of the sandwich and washed it downwith the kid-sized Coke.
They arrived just after 4:00 in the afternoon and checkedinto a Howard Johnson, just a few minutes’ walk from the falls.Aaron had tried to convince Samantha to stay in one of thecampy motels on Clifton Hill, near the funhouses and wax museums, but she refused, requesting they stay somewhere with anindoor pool, since she wanted to swim without the risk of gettinga sunburn. Aaron was astounded, thinking back now, at his willingness, just a few years ago, to spend time in a touristy area ofany kind. He was even more astounded at Samantha’s desire toput her body—her precious temple—into something so vile andgerm-infested as a hotel swimming pool. How things hadchanged.
After checking in, they went up to their room, removed thesheets on the bed and replaced them with their own, cleaned allsurfaces with sterilized wipes, then took a brief one-hour naptogether to sleep off their car sickness before heading out for apre-dinner walk to the falls. Aaron pretended to fall over the railing and Samantha told him not to be an idiot. They ate at aKelsey’s with utensils Samantha had brought from home. Thenthey went back to the hotel and watched half an episode of CSIMiami while changing into their bathing suits before headingdown to the pool for a swim. It was after 9:00 o’clock and thepool closed at 10:00. They figured their chances of having it allto themselves were good.
But no.
A group of frat boys, who were no doubt planning an excursion to one of Niagara’s strip joints later that evening, wereengaged in an all-out cannonball contest in the deep end. Aarondespised them instantly—even before they all turned to gape atSamantha in her black one-piece bathing suit that had becometoo small for her in the past year.
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