Burridge Unbound

by Alan Cumyn

  Finally I see Patrick crouched in the corner beside my father, who sits on the floor with his knees drawn up close to his chin. The two are looking at something in front of them. A spider dragging a broken leg, scurrying from Patrick’s corralling hands.

  “How are you, son?” I ask, and he looks up at me, eyes bulging behind the goggles.

  “Dad!” he says, and for a moment I’m transported to somewhere light and joyful. A spontaneous and utterly unreserved hug. “I hurt my head and went to the hospital!” he blurts.

  “I know, I saw you.”

  “You did?”

  “I was there. You were sleeping though. Didn’t your mother tell you?”

  The spider steals his attention and in a flash he’s back after it. “I’m trying to get it outside before someone else steps on it.”

  It seems a dreadfully important mission. Patrick herds it towards me and I scoop it up in my hand, then the three of us head for the door across the crowded room, Patrick pushing his little body between the adults, me and Dad following in his wake.

  “Is everything all right?” Joanne asks.

  “Fine. We’re saving a spider.”

  “You’re what?”

  More spilled drinks. What a night. Patrick gets white wine on his sweater and I get soda splattered on my shoes. We don’t stop. “It’s a wounded spider!” Patrick announces, pushing on. “We’re saving a wounded spider!”

  Outside, in the fresh air, I walk a few paces and then release the prisoner. My father stays right at my elbow. He seems happy to follow along. Look at him quickly, in a certain light, and he just seems odd, not addled with Alzheimer’s. Patrick says, “Dad, you ate spiders when you were captured.”

  “Did I?”

  “You told me. You used to eat them for protein.”

  “It must be true then.”

  “Well, didn’t you? You said!”

  “I said it, so it must be true,” I say.

  “Can’t you remember?”

  “Some things I don’t want to remember.”

  “Grampa can’t remember anything. He calls me Graham.”

  “It’s because you fall down all the time,” I say. “Just like Graham.”

  “He fell from a roof,” Patrick says.

  “When does the game start?” Dad asks. Here but not here. Patrick says, “What game?”

  Dad says, “You know. What you were talking about.”

  “We weren’t talking about a game! I said you always call me Graham.”

  “Where’s the fire, for Pete’s sake,” Dad mumbles, his hands shaking, shaking. It’s always been one of his great stock phrases, delivered not as a question but in affirmation of the chaotic state of the world. Where’s the fire, for Pete’s sake.

  Patrick tells me about school and soccer, about being in the hospital and how important it made him feel, just like his famous father. “I didn’t remember a thing!” he says about the accident. “Just like you!”

  I’ve told him this story many times, to keep him from asking for details. And he’s just young enough to still buy it, even though he knows that I’ve written a book about it all.

  “What are the goggles for?” I ask.

  “Mommy gave them to me,” he says. “They’re all steamy and I can’t see a thing. She told me I could wear them tonight so it’s all right.”

  Yes. It’s all right. We could all use a steamy pair of goggles tonight. I return indoors, talk and visit and sip soda and the clock swings round. Eventually I have to look at Maryse’s exhibit: Shards. A series of luminous acrylic paintings of women in ordinary scenes: standing in a kitchen at night, washing dishes in the sink; reaching for a bottle of ketchup in a hyper-coloured supermarket aisle; in a white slip brushing thick black hair in the bathroom mirror while a baby examines a red rubber boat; stepping onto a bus with a briefcase, a purse, a skirt twisted in the wind; sitting in the sun by a flower garden, a white blouse rolled off the shoulders, face lost in the shadow of a huge sun hat. In fact, the face is obscured in all the pictures – turned away, looking down, or the figure shown only from the back. The light is intense, dazzling, the colours radiant, almost overwhelming; the skin especially approaches translucence. And it’s only when you get quite close that you realize that it is translucent in some areas – that bones are showing underneath, naked to the world, white and ghostly in some pictures, darkened slightly in others, with fracture lines and small brownish growths.

  I can’t look for long, can’t help noticing that after viewing them for a time most of us turn away and chat, avert our eyes as much as possible.

  Mom collects Dad and takes her leave. I tell her I’ll visit them but don’t say when. When I’m better. It’s understood. I’m still getting better.

  I need to leave too but can’t think of what to say to Maryse. The age-old problem. If I just go she’ll be hurt. If I open my mouth the same old crap will pour out.

  She has been swarmed by friends and supporters all evening, is now standing with the owner of the gallery and with a woman she knows from the Citizen. “It isn’t for profit,” the gallery owner keeps saying. “This is for art.”

  Finally I get Maryse aside. She has been enlarged by all this, could squash me like Patrick’s spider. “They’re fascinating, but very sad,” I say.

  “I didn’t really expect you’d come,” she says.

  “But you sent me an invitation.”

  “Well. You are family.”

  Family. Blood. Mine has seeped into hers and our misery is posted on these walls.

  “Thank you for Patrick’s goggles,” I say. “I think they’re an excellent idea. I’m just hoping against hope that he can stay as innocent as he is for as long as possible.”

  “He’s seen the very worst,” Maryse says.

  “Yes.” What more does he need to see? He saw me in the Kartouf video with my bones poking at my skin like tent poles and my eyes blinking, blinking against the light.

  “I’m sorry about the hospital,” I say.

  “Forget about the hospital.”

  “I’m sorry about all of it.”

  “I know.”

  It’s time to go. People are drifting away and need to say goodbye to Maryse and I have nothing more to add. Except one stupid, pathetic remark. “I’m getting better,” I say, sounding like Patrick spouting off about his goggles. Hope against hope.

  She turns to someone else. I know she doesn’t want to hear it. I know it’s the last thing in the world I should say.

  Suddenly I need to go. I turn and push my way out the door, start looking for Joanne. For a moment I’m upset that she isn’t here with a taxi exactly when I need her. Then I manage to relax a fraction, realize I’ve said nothing to her. So I turn. In a moment she’ll recognize that I’m not there any more, will come out to find me.

  But she doesn’t. Where is she? She’s got to realize that when I need to go I can’t be standing around like this. It’s like waiting for a twister to hit when you know it’s coming. Those images, so innocent from a distance. They’re not for me. I’ve seen all my eyes need to see for this lifetime. I don’t need to give my brain any excuse to drag me through the shit all over again. Where is she?

  Pacing, pacing. These goddamn parties. Why do people need them? You chat without saying anything and stand around and nibble and drink and the words fill the room until there’s so much pressure but you can’t leave, you stay there pretending nothing is wrong, it’s all perfectly fine …

  Damn! She’s not noticing. I have to go back in. I barge back through the door. It’s time to leave, for Christ’s sake! Where is she? Towering over everyone in those ridiculous shoes. She should be easy to spot. But no. She’s disappeared. Just gone. Jesus! How am I supposed to get home? She carries all the money. She gets the taxis. She’s the one who talks to the fucking driver. What am I supposed to do if she’s not around? Where’s she gone?

  Finally I see Joanne. Walking up to me as if everything’s fine.

  “Where th
e hell have you been?” I demand. Everyone’s conversation stops at once. Too much force. “It’s time to go,” I say, trying for a more normal tone but achieving a stage whisper that echoes to the rafters.

  “Fine,” she says, turns and leaves. Bodies part for us, eyes peer through the window as we stand on the sidewalk. She hesitates, looks up and down the street, then thrusts fifteen dollars at me.

  “This should see you home. I think I’ll walk,” she says. I start after her but even though she’s a bit wobbly on her platform shoes she easily outdistances me in a few minutes. I don’t call after her. If she’s going to be this irresponsible.

  No taxi comes. I won’t wait. I can just walk. I know where I live. If I just take it slowly. I don’t need any of them. Bloody leeches. Suck your strength. I don’t need them.

  It’s dark and starts to rain and my hip becomes painful and these damn shoes, they don’t fit my feet very well. It doesn’t matter. I’m not an invalid. Some homeless man asks me for a quarter and I swear if he’d stuck his hand out I would’ve chopped it off. Don’t mess with me. Don’t mess.

  When I get home I don’t have a key to my own apartment, so I sit and shiver at the door, but no one sees me. I wait and wait. Finally something seeps through my brain and I take the elevator back down and call security. No problem. Something comes up, I solve it. I don’t need anybody. I’m Bill Burridge. The world is my oyster.

  The security guy is going to be here in fifteen minutes. When I get back to the apartment, I promise myself, I’ll switch on Abbott and Costello Go to Mars, the one in which they actually go to Venus and are swarmed by beautiful, lonely women in gossamer gowns. I imagine watching it through foggy orange goggles with Patrick beside me slurping his drink, guffawing at every mishap, squirming at the mushy bits. Asking every minute, Is this true? Could this happen? Is there really a queen of Venus with a positronic brain?

  Breathe and breathe and breathe until I get there.

  7

  I peer inside the room but my feet won’t move. They didn’t say it was going to be like this. It’s too dark. I thought it was supposed to be a studio.

  “Just in here,” the technical guy says. He’s maybe twenty-one, six-foot-five or taller, in long sloppy clothes with his hat on backwards.

  “I can’t go in there,” I say. “I’m sorry. I thought we were going in the studio.”

  “This is the remote studio,” he says. “It’s okay. It gets light once you’re inside.”

  “But I can’t go in,” I say, backing away. “This isn’t what I thought.”

  He whacks his clipboard against his thigh a couple of times, looks at me like I have a mental disease. “Let me get Cheryl,” he says. “You can just have a seat outside here.”

  I sit in the hall, a naughty boy waiting for the principal. The door to the room remains open – the blackness looms like the inside of a hood. A blackness I know too well. It’s not what they said. I can’t go in there. It’s just asking for trouble.

  Joanne should be here, or Derrick. I should’ve insisted. They could explain this. I can’t be expected to sit alone in a black room. I’ve used up all black-room time for the rest of my life.

  Cheryl comes back with the technical guy. She’s maybe twenty-five, is wearing jeans, a blue shirt, sandals, and a headset. She also looks over six feet tall. I wonder, briefly, what’s happening with the children these days. Too many steroids in the milk?

  “Is there a problem, Mr. Burridge?” she asks. The technical guy’s clipboard goes whack whack whack.

  “I thought I was going to be in a studio, not a black closet,” I say.

  “It doesn’t stay black,” she says. “Actually it gets quite bright during the telecast.”

  “I can’t do bright, either,” I say. “I’m sorry. This wasn’t explained to me.”

  Whack whack whack. Cheryl knocks her pencil against her thumbnail in time, click click click. “David, we have a problem,” she says, but looking straight at me. It takes a moment for me to realize she’s talking into the headset.

  She moves off to explain the problem. The technical guy looks in the little closet as if noticing for the first time that it’s totally fucking black. How’s anybody supposed to go in there? It’s 6:07. They’re on air already and I’m supposed to be featured live at 6:11.

  “Bill, how about if we keep the door open?” Cheryl asks calmly. She’s been through this eight hundred times. Probably every single expert guest balks at going into that broom closet.

  “Won’t that ruin your picture?”

  “It’s fine. We can get around it. Why don’t you just try the seat and see how it goes with the door open?” She turns her head slightly and says in a small, calm voice, “We can’t get Foster. There’s absolutely no time.”

  If Joanne or Derrick were here, I could say no. Derrick would sit in for me. Joanne would explain. There are some things you just can’t ask. It’s like getting someone to hold up a long metal pole in a flat field in the middle of a lightning storm. No fucking way. If Joanne were here I’d be able to say it. No. Fucking. Way.

  But my feet move towards the little room. 6:09. The imperative of the newscast. How long can the interview last? Four or five minutes. They’ll keep the door open at least. Breathe. Breathe. Elbows out, chin in. Breathe. I’m going to do it. I’m now going to grasp the long metal rod and hold it high in the air while walking barefoot through this flat field by the light of this thunderstorm.

  “It’s all right,” Cheryl says, guiding me in the dark into the enveloping chair. In front of me is nothing – the abyss. I can hardly stand it. I breathe and breathe but half expect to smell the oiliness of the hood. Oh God. If her hand weren’t on my shoulder, I’d have bolted.

  “How’re you doing, Bill? Would you like some water? It’ll just be another few moments.”

  I shift in the chair, grip the rests, breathe and breathe.

  “If you could just say a few things, Bill, we can get a sound level on you. What did you have for breakfast this morning?”

  No words come out. I’m having trouble getting enough air. The problem is there’s just the one hole barely big enough, every breath is an effort.

  “Relax, sit back,” she says. “Here’s some water.” I hear her through fog. My hand goes up, grasps the glass of water. I’m not going to be able to drink it. She knows that. Jesus. I really have to get out of here.

  “Just another few moments, Bill,” she says. Her hands press down on my shoulders now, keep me in the chair. A sudden pain flares through my chest and I think, this is it, what a stupid time to go. Everything pressing down on me now. Everything.

  Then nothing. No pressure on my shoulders. I’m free to go. I start to rise and a light suddenly blinds me, wham! I turn left, right, but there’s no escape. Behind me blackness and no Cheryl. She lied to me, of course. The door is shut up tight.

  Then a voice comes down like the voice of God – a female God at that, from somewhere behind the light. The pain, the light, the voice … this is it, I think. It all makes sense now. It all …

  “Joining me now is Bill Burridge from Ottawa,” the voice says. “Mr. Burridge heads Freedom International, and also survived nine months of captivity in Santa Irene at the hands of the terrorist group Kartouf. Mr. Burridge, are you surprised at the events of the last few days? Did you think that Suli Nylioko would be able to pull this off?”

  I stare transfixed at the light. Not death after all. Not yet.

  A voice says, “Like everyone, I wasn’t sure how this would play out. My fingers were crossed, of course, but one nervous soldier among thousands could’ve spelled disaster.” Not a smooth voice, not polished, but quaking a bit. My voice. Coming from somewhere I don’t understand.

  “We have seen scenes of amazing jubilation today,” the announcer says. “There was dancing in the streets as soldiers from both sides melted into the crowds, slipped off their uniforms, and joined Suli’s prayers for peace. How did you feel watching those scenes?”
>
  My voice again, saying reasonable things, heartfelt things, in interlocking thoughts, nice little sound bites. All while I’m trying to breathe, hang on. My heart going boom! boom! boom! My eyes must be bugging out of my head. But the words file along, little soldiers nicely lined up, uniformed and polished, marching clip clip. I can hardly feel my mouth move. Sense of awe. Transfixed. Witnessing a miracle. Tremendous relief. They avoided a slaughter. Island passions. Time for healing. Tremendous challenges. Sense of history. Those U.N. words coming from me, the same kind as the Danish delegate mouthed. Predigested, plastic-moulded, sterilized, child-safe.

  “The country now has triple-digit inflation, and considerable infrastructure damage from the chaos following the assassination of President Minitzh,” I hear the announcer say. “What sorts of challenges are awaiting Suli Nylioko, and does she have the experience to deal with them?”

  I wait and, sure enough, my voice continues to come through. “I have to remind you,” it says, “that Suli Nylioko, though immensely popular, is not an elected leader at this point and has no official mandate to rule. What she has done is defuse a potential catastrophe. She’s now going to have to set up a commission to oversee free and fair elections. She’s going to have to reassure International Monetary Fund officials that Santa Irene can reform its government spending and crack down on corruption, which is considerable. And she’s going to have to keep these two factions of the military from overthrowing her and going for one another’s throats.” My voice authoritative, as if it knows anything about this at all.

  As if I’m not shackled here, a prisoner, the Kartouf virus running round my brain.

  “… potential for disruption?” the announcer finishes, and I haven’t been paying attention. I’ve been staring zombie-like into the light.

  “As far as I know we’ve heard nothing from the Kartouf in all these days of turmoil and uncertainty,” my voice says. Soberly. Legally correct but incomplete. There’s something else that I’m not at liberty to divulge. That the Kartouf are still keeping me hostage. That they can blow me apart at any instant live on national television. An historic act. Burridge finally eliminated. No one knew. The virus was inside him all the time.