I Have Demons

by Adam Christopher

  Driving past the YMCA on Argyle, Solomon saw himself sitting in the hot tub after disciplined laps in the pool — enjoying the comfort of his accomplishment, especially as his face felt hot and fiery red from exertion. But as the city gave way to suburbia, then the vast greenbelt, followed by just a sprinkling of homes and then mostly farmland and forests, a sense of foreboding settled over the world of daydreams, quickly suffocating it.

  All that Solomon knew was that they were driving west, well past Kanata now, but there was no indication from Leclair as to their final destination. Leclair slowed down as they continued along March Road. The odd house, hidden deep within long lots and marked by little else but a mailbox along the side of the road, was eventually replaced by indistinguishable wilderness on either side.

  No sooner had they been greeted by a sign welcoming them to Lanark County than Father Solomon lurched forward to the dashboard as Leclair hit the brakes.

  “What’s the matter?” Father Solomon’s perplexed question was too late to elicit a response. Leclair had jumped out of the truck and started furiously kicking the tire.

  “Shit!” Leclair’s palm seemed to be glued to his forehead as he looked around him, clearly frustrated and confused. Father Solomon decided that it was time to get out of the truck. He opened the passenger door, got out and cautiously moved toward Leclair, staring at him with a look that demanded immediate clarification.

  “I don’t know where the fuck we are! All right? Happy now?” Leclair glared at Solomon.

  Solomon knew he had to compose himself. Take a deep breath and don’t speak until you’re centred. He tried to chip away at a patch of ice on the pavement with his right shoe, kicking its edges with stubborn vigour. Okay, go for it.

  “You said that you came to this plot of land many times before...” Solomon’s words were tinged with exasperated disbelief.

  “Yeah, sure. When I was fifteen. I can’t believe this. I’ve gone all foggy in the head again...” Leclair formed a snowball and threw it at the trees, just barely missing the priest.

  “Do something! Do something! Do something!” Leclair roared, and it wasn’t clear if he was yelling at himself or at Father Solomon.

  These were the times that required pastoral patience. Solomon knew that he wasn’t any good at it.

  “Look, do you want to come back another time?” But Leclair just scowled. “We can go back to the rectory — I’ve got a regional map in the office. Maybe we’ll take a look at it and try again next week. How do you feel about that?” Solomon hoped it wasn’t too late to close the curtains on this winter gong show.

  But all hopes were dashed when Leclair stormed up to Father Solomon and pushed him against the hood of the truck. As he came within an inch or two of the priest’s nose, Leclair glowered at him, clearly seething.

  “There’s no going back.”

  Father Solomon was in an awkward pose against the hood of the truck and his back was beginning to ache.

  This was a time to stay calm, cool, level-headed. “It’s going to get dark soon. We can’t do anything after darkness falls...”

  Leclair continued looking at Solomon with fierce intensity. He was still holding onto his coat with one hand but wouldn’t say anything. After a moment seemingly frozen in time, he finally let Solomon go. Turning his back to the priest, head bowed, he lay down in the middle of the road, on the thin layer of discoloured snow bearing the tire marks of hundreds of cars, and started making what appeared to be a snow angel.

  Solomon should have taken the time to compose himself, but instead he hovered over Leclair, looking down on this bizarre spectacle.

  “Mr. Leclair, you need to get up!” Leclair didn’t respond and appeared to be caught up in a world of his own. “I said get up!” Solomon had lost his patience and gave Leclair a firm kick in his side as he thundered out an order. It felt good, weirdly healing, but none of that lasted more than a split second. He had kicked the proverbial man right when he was down. Wisdom and ethics, shared across religions and across the vast planes of agnosticism and religious indifference, came together to frown collectively on that sort of thing. Everyone agreed it was sacrilege of the highest order.

  Leclair winced and then muttered to himself in distress. “We’re not going back. We’re not going back. We’re not going back.”

  Mantras are meant to centre the soul and mind. But Leclair sounded more like a scratched-up record, the needle held captive by one of the grooves.

  Solomon felt anxiety creeping up on him. He felt light-headed, as though he had run a marathon and was struggling hopelessly to catch his breath — or at least to take in enough oxygen to keep his mind and body operational. They had passed the exit to Kemptville and had turned off the main road. If it were up to him, within an hour they would be reassuringly rolling down the more familiar urban terrain of the 417. Instead, they had to push forward, but neither of them knew where.

  ***

  Solomon hated when he did this. He found himself pacing nervously, having to turn and change direction far too often due to the confines of an oppressive space. He felt as though the four walls of the dingy motel room, covered in wooden panels that had absorbed their fair share of tobacco over the years, were trying much too hard to feel like a cozy forest cabin. It wasn’t working. They were conspiring to asphyxiate him.

  An hour earlier, he and the man had been on the edge of a small town. Leclair was silent as Father Solomon gave him directions to the only place in the area he’d visited before: Almonte. Mill Street, a cheerful little strip during the summer months, was deserted as the sun began its descent on this frigid evening in March. Leclair turned his head and blew cigarette smoke towards the street. He didn’t seem to think he had any responsibility in helping Solomon find lodging for the night. Leclair refused to turn back, had no viable plan to move forward and appeared to have retreated into himself.

  Eerie circus music seemed to linger above the town — the type that only a carnival clown would like: the thin, unconvincing layer of childlike bliss that serves to conceal at best profound sadness and at worst something sinister not far below. A circus on a weeknight in early March? Solomon felt disoriented.

  One of the antique shops was still open and he could see an older woman perched on a stool behind the till, reading a book.

  “Wait for me here.” Solomon sounded as though he were instructing a child. Leclair’s eyes seemed glazed over, uninterested in his surroundings or the priest. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”

  Solomon kept an eye on Leclair as he perused the store, looking for something small and inexpensive to buy in exchange for the woman’s help finding lodging. Solomon saw the world and human interaction as a web of mutually beneficial transactions. The woman needed business; he needed local information. They could help each other without one side doing the other a favour. Nobody would feel vulnerable.

  Leclair was still standing outside the store facing the street, shifting his weight from one foot to another, as though he had to use the washroom. Deep down, Solomon quietly hoped that the next time he turned around, Leclair would be gone — maybe he would climb back into his truck and drive away. Being stranded alone sounded so good now. Solomon would spend a quiet night in Almonte and then find his way back to the city the next morning, one way or another. It would be a relief. But would it really? Leclair looked far more pathetic than menacing. He didn’t need to pee. He was clearly freezing out on Mill Street.

  The aroma of coffee lingered in the shop, combined with the warm, signature smell that emanates from things of the past: ornate oak cabinets and side tables, mechanical typewriters, books, postcards, old paper bills, radios and telephones. The marble cherubim and an eclectic mix of mismatched Royal Albert cups and saucers tempered the homey atmosphere with the cool remnants of class. You would need the patience of an oyster to painstakingly find, over years and years of searching, enough matching cups and saucers to create a complete set. In the quietest corner of the shop sat a record player
and a tower of records. There was something soothing about obsolete technology; it lost that edge of functionality, of being in demand and of being indispensable. It was harmless and still.

  “That poor, poor man…” The woman behind the counter let her thick-rimmed glasses slide down to the middle of her nose as she peeked out the door. “One can’t help but wonder how on earth the homeless make it out all the way here and what they hope to find…”

  Solomon absent-mindedly picked up a cup and saucer adorned with the prairie lily and walked over to the counter.

  “No, madam. As a matter of fact, he is with me.” The woman caught a glimpse of Solomon’s clerical collar and her facial muscles seemed to go soft.

  “Reverend!” she exclaimed with an enthusiastic smile. “Are you from around here? I don’t believe I’ve seen you before.” She carefully took the cup and saucer from Solomon’s hands, inspecting it lovingly from every angle. “Well now, look what you’ve found — isn’t it just lovely, Reverend!” She began scraping the handwritten five-dollar price tag off the inside of the cup.

  “I am Father Solomon, from Ottawa…” Solomon’s voice trailed off as the woman stopped her scraping and as her facial muscles tensed up. She put the cup and saucer on the counter. Her glasses slid to the very tip of her nose as she inspected Solomon from head to toe and then from toe to head. Her face softened and she returned to her scraping of the intransigent price tag.

  “I’m Baptist.” Scrape, scrape. “But we’re very tolerant around these parts. Very tolerant of all kinds,” she added without looking up.

  Solomon found the air heavy. The smell of old books, oak furniture and knick-knacks was no longer warm and familiar. It had become stuffy and oppressive. He thought he could still hear traces of that circus music creeping into the shop. It seemed obnoxious, obscene.

  “May I ask you a question, madam?” Solomon wasn’t sure if it was appropriate to disturb her amidst her scraping. She didn’t look up and she didn’t stop.

  “Well of course. We don’t bite…”

  “My friend and I are looking for a room.” He glanced at Leclair, who huddled over his lighter as he lit up another cigarette. This time, the woman behind the counter looked up with a poker face. Father Solomon forced out a short cough. “More of an acquaintance, actually. We just need something economical for the night…” His voice trailed off again. The woman made him nervous. One moment she seemed to be a kindly shop owner, the next he felt like a student entering the hallowed offices of a stern headmistress.

  “Economical, of course…” The shop owner’s hands sped up as she wrapped the china in tissue paper. “There are a couple of places right out of town that should suit you and the gentleman outside.” She took Solomon’s five and quickly placed it in the till. “They’re barely a ten-minute drive from here. You should have no trouble finding them.” A faint smile returned to her face. Solomon nodded and said a barely audible thank you as he turned towards the door.

  “Is there any chance I can interest you in a Bible?” She fiddled with her eye glasses in her hands as Solomon reached for the door. “I have a beautiful hardcover King James Version, gilded page edges.” She gave Solomon a wide smile, baring her teeth. “Some good reading for you while you enjoy your next tea from that gem of a cup!”

  ***

  Leclair was in bad shape. Solomon had found them adjacent rooms at a tired motel on the edge of town — the Lanark Solstice Inn. But he hadn’t had a chance to check out his room. No sooner had they arrived than Leclair grabbed one set of keys from Solomon’s hand, opened the door and shut himself in the bathroom.

  “Is everything all right?” Father Solomon stood outside the door and heard the sound of water spraying from the shower, bouncing off the porcelain tub. No response.

  “Mr. Leclair, are you all right?” Father Solomon slowly opened the door and saw Leclair, naked, sitting under the shower head in the bathtub, with hot water pouring on him. A thick cloud of steam enveloped the small bathroom; the white and turquoise tiles glistened.

  “Pardon me, I didn’t mean to intrude...” Solomon looked away feeling awkward. He instinctively turned around, about to exit the bathroom as quickly as possible. Leclair made no eye contact; he continued to stare at the moist tiles across from him. Motionless.

  “If I don’t take the pills, they say I’m not myself. If I do take the pills, I’m lost in a haze so deep that my brain feels like a milky mush.” Leclair rubbed all ten fingers over the top of his scalp, pushing his dark drenched hair away from his forehead. He tilted his head back, let the shower fill his mouth with water and then spat it out.

  “It’s a lose-lose situation. I’m cursed.”

  Solomon determined that Leclair’s decision to talk signalled that he was comfortable with him staying. When someone said they were cursed, Solomon often viewed the declaration as self-pity. He was notoriously impatient with people who wallowed in it. He found it too easy, and taking the easy way out, frivolous. But this was different. Leclair was tormented and had no road map to guide him out of his agony. Water had splashed across much of the bathroom floor and Solomon saw that Leclair’s clothes, which lay in a deflated pile next to the tub, were getting wet too. He picked up the pile, the socks on top completely soaked, opened the bathroom door and dropped them on the other side. Leclair’s eyes followed the pile as it was carried out, as the door opened and closed, without making eye contact with the priest. Solomon sat down on the floor in the space between the sink and tub, directly parallel to Leclair, and crossed his legs. He closed his eyes for an extended moment, inhaled and exhaled before speaking.

  “Tell me about your neighbour, when she was still well...” Solomon determined that he didn’t need to look at Leclair directly. He stared ahead at the towel rack in front of him, and Leclair kept his eyes on the tiled wall, where drops of condensation grew and grew until they could hang on to the smooth, slippery surface no longer and trickled all the way down. The sound of the water spraying from the shower, with occasional stray droplets landing on Solomon’s forehead, was like soft, soothing background music — monotone, predictable, safe.

  From the corner of his eye, Solomon thought he saw Leclair smile faintly.

  “When I was like this, she never gave me booze, even when she’d have sherry in the afternoon herself. She sat in a wing chair, layed back and rested her feet on a stool. Her body was like this blob, all comfy. I never knew where her breasts ended and where her belly began. She wasn’t really hot shit. But it didn’t matter how she looked — it’s not as if we were screwing or anything. I was usually glued to some afternoon garbage on cable. And she just sipped away and buried herself in a copy of Reader’s Digest before dozing off. She felt bad for me. Once, she prepared a Shirley Temple but said I can’t ever let my old cellmates and prison buddies know. She said a Shirley Temple isn’t a good look for a guy like me.” Leclair folded his arms and chuckled.

  “Nor for me…” For the first time in longer than he could remember, Solomon felt genuinely amused. A smirk settled on his face — that youthful, innocuously mischievous smirk that often fades with time. Although his simper receded almost as quickly as it had come, he found himself mostly at ease. He started slowly.

  “You know, I can’t pretend to know what you’re experiencing. But what you told me about yesterday — what you say you had to do...” Father paused, taking in a gulp of the humid air as he inhaled. The air tasted mildly of citrus as it settled on his tongue. Shampoo?

  “You were in a really tough spot and I don’t know what I would have done in your place. But when we examine our conscience, it’s the intention and motive that counts the most.”

  Leclair’s mood darkened. “She was all but begging me. A woman who opened her home to a wreck who had shit-all to show for his thirty-five years on this earth. Except for a conviction.” A long paused followed and both seemed content to sit in the warm, dewy silence. Eventually Leclair chuckled to himself quietly and Solomon glanced at him.
/>   “Hey, does this count as a confession? Am I good, Father?”

  Solomon slowly got up from the bathroom floor. The hot air seemed to have zapped him of his energy and he felt dizzy. He opened the bathroom door a crack, but the crisp, cool air that snuck in proved decidedly unwelcome. He turned to look at Leclair, who had finally shut the water off and was rubbing his eyes.

  “Put your clothes on. I’m going to get us something to eat.”

  ***

  Every fifteen seconds or so, a car or truck zoomed by Solomon, who felt increasingly out of place walking along the side of a road not meant for pedestrians. If it isn’t the biting wind, a minivan will put me out of my misery today. He hadn’t realized how tattered he’d looked until he got back to his own motel room after dealing with Leclair. He’d seen himself in the long mirror hanging on the bathroom door. His navy-blue pants looked slightly purple, discoloured from years of repeated washes, wear and tear, and the sun. Road salt was diligently eating away at the leather on his cracked, beat-up shoes, and even his black clerical shirt seemed to be fading. Solomon didn’t look unkempt as such. He just seemed worn — like the old man who makes the effort of dressing up properly every weekday in a tired fifty-year-old suit, smelling mildly of mothballs, the remnants of decades-old cigar smoke absorbed deep into the fabric and the residual whiff of cheap drugstore cologne.

  The walk to the nearest convenience store was proving more treacherous than Solomon had thought it would be. In the dark of a cold March night, he was nothing more than a shadowy figure without a face, dressed in nondescript, gloomy clothing, making his way down the narrow strip of icy gravel that ran between the pavement and a ditch along the length of the road. Solomon turned back for a moment to size up the next vehicle to hurtle by him. It was better to know what was coming, instead of being startled. He noticed that it must be a truck: orange lights piercing the darkness above the windshield and that deep, mature rumble that declares with confidence that you’re not dealing with some namby-pamby hatchback.