by Derek Hayes
Sid and I are in the kitchen. I bend over and pour milk into the bowl. I feed the obese cat and pet his white fur. He doesn’t return my affection.
Sidney says, “My sister’s cat . . . fat cat, Mark. My sister loves me, Mark.”
“Is your sister married?”
“Yes. I don’t know. CJBK Radio, Mark.”
“Sidney invited me here,” says Adriana, Sidney’s sister. “Do you mind if I ask — I don’t mean to embarrass you — but Sidney told me you wanted to meet me. Is that true?”
“Well, it’s always nice to meet new people.”
“Yeah, at my age I should take some risks. If I don’t make any effort I might as well throw in the towel,” she says, laughing.
“I know. Being single in your early forties is challenging. I love being here with the guys. These guys are like family for me — though like you I’d love to meet someone as well.”
She says, “I had this boyfriend once . . . ”
Jeremy, Adriana, Vivian and I sit in front of the cold fireplace. Adriana rolls the dice, cheers whimsically when she lands on pink, and says, “Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca.” This board game’s consuming her, I think.
Sid doesn’t pay much attention to his sister even though she’s his one advocate. Last year he told Adriana on the phone that he needed to get away from Jeremy, who’d been bugging him constantly about picking up his pee-stained Fruit of the Looms. She called my boss and demanded that someone find Sid a new room.
Why doesn’t she notice me? If only I could somehow summon You, God, and have You force her to see me from Vivian’s point of view. Vivian loves my sense of humour. She knows that I’m a caring person. I smile at Adriana when I pick up the dice, but she impatiently implores me to roll. She gives me a clue after I land on orange, and gently mocks me when I bungle this easy sports question. I stare unblinkingly at her even though it’s no longer my turn, or hers. After a while she glares back.
Jeremy rolls, and lands on orange. He says, “I don’t have a clue as to what the correct answer might be.”
“It’s fishing or angling,” Adriana says.
“You’re not so smart!” Vivian says. She’s been seething for a while and I probably should’ve done something to prevent this outburst.
“Be nice to her, Viv,” I say.
“Vivian should be more polite to Adriana,” Jeremy says.
“She’s our guest.”
“Be polite to my sister, Vivian. Be polite to my sister, Vivian,” says Sidney.
Vivian slaps Sidney’s mouth. One of the game pieces nestled between his lips goes flying. A thin gob of spit hangs from his chin, which he wipes with his shoulder.
“I have to go anyway,” says Adriana.
“Hold on,” I say. “I’m going snowboarding this weekend. I have my own skis. I wasn’t sure that I had the money for the boots, but my dad persuaded me to put it on my Visa. I love that man. I can’t see myself living anywhere but at home, except of course if I get married, but that’s not something I think too much about. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I just love to snowboard. I didn’t fall too often the first time, but all it takes is one wipe-out. I bruised my thigh. Do you want to see my leg?” I roll up my pants but can’t get them past my knee. “Oh well, I’ll show it to you some other time — it’s big and purple . . . ”
Sidney and Jeremy are searching for the missing game piece. I stand near the curtain and watch Adriana’s car roll down the driveway. If I don’t get to her right away she’s going to find another boyfriend. I’m going to be left with these people. I will die with these people. If I don’t end up with her, I’ll be alone, except I’ll be one of them. No more worker-member relationship. If I can’t be with her I’m going to check into here, live out my life in drudgery, doing the dishes, going to Tim Horton’s, and watching television. Maybe I’ll marry Viv. At least I’ve got an option. After she’s had her meds she can carry on a decent enough conversation. Fuck. Fuck. I’ve gotta get to Adriana right now!
Left hand clutching his trousers, Sidney says, “Don’t call her, Mark. CJBK Mark. Rolling with the tunes, Mark. Don’t call her, okay Mark?”
Lifetimes later the wallpaper has peeled in the corners. In the barren living room Vivian asks me if we can go to Tim Horton’s.
“We’re helping Jeremy right now, Viv.”
“Oh, right,” says Vivian. She trudges off to the kitchen.
Jeremy takes down the prints of Lake Louise in his room, then removes the clothing I’ve packed in his suitcase, and meticulously refolds his underwear and T-shirts. With a long poster of the New York skyline wrapped around his hips, Sid says, “Is this okay, Jeremy? Is this okay?”
Panicked, Jeremy runs to where Sidney’s standing. “You’ve got to gently roll up the posters.” He seizes it from Sid and rolls it up, and then turns to me, sucking air noisily through his lips, and says, “I’m going to like doing things my own way for a while. Sidney can’t get in my way over there.”
“Sure thing, Jeremy,” I say. “But who are you going to talk with? You’re going to miss Sid and Vivian, aren’t you?”
“I won’t miss anyone,” he says.
On the way we stop at a mall where a nearly self-sufficient Jeremy enters the Future Shop, and speaks to a teenaged clerk. “I’d like a Panasonic 500, young man,” he says. “I’m going to pay cash.” He peels 300 dollars from his wallet and hands it over. I make a detour past Young Thai and pick up two plates of green coconut curry wrapped in foil. At Jeremy’s new apartment on Mills Street we unpack his sparse belongings and eat in the uncluttered one-room, smoking until midnight. Sitting with this man I’ve known for over fifteen years, I feel that we’re sharing a special moment. Jeremy reveals that the empty room intimidates him. Smoke swirling in the dark room adds to the eerie quiet. I think about the dullness of our existence at the group home. I’m about to leave when Jeremy grabs me. “I need you to visit me, Mark. I need this more than anything.”
I visit him Tuesday evening and am shocked: his normally nicely trimmed moustache has grown unwieldy, and there’s a lopsided quality to his face. He’s walking around without a shirt on, and I can smell his body odour. With help from Sidney we move a second-hand, beige sofa into the apartment. I bring in a night table and curtains. Jeremy, puffing madly on a cigarette, paces the room while I hook up the cable.
“Do you want to play euchre, Jeremy?” I say.
“I don’t really care much for euchre, thank you very much,”
Jeremy says gravely. “The TV’s okay Mark, but I really need you to visit.”
I’m tying Vivian’s shoelace. Her lack of balance is an effect of the tiny purple pill, chlomopromazine, which causes her to stumble even when her footing is secure. “Just be a second, Viv. I’ve almost got it.”
Through her legs I see someone who is obviously not a member. She’s wearing an ironed and elegant-looking yellow blouse. There’s a waft of Chanel perfume. Is she the new worker that I’m to train today?
Viv’s shoelace is properly tied. My hands are still on her swollen ankles, my tongue semi-protruding. A flush of dopamine burps through my cerebral cortex: I must look like a pervert. Woe big fella, there are many plausible explanations as to why I’m on my hands and knees in front of Vivian: maybe she’s twisted her knee and I’m tending to it, or maybe she fell down and I’m feeling for bruises. There’s no reason for this woman to think I’m a pervert. Maybe I was just doing something as harmless as tying her shoes.
The new worker’s struggling to get her spring jacket off over her bony elbows. She’s probably disoriented herself. With a gentle push I get away from Vivian, unpleasant thoughts floating away with the ebbing dopamine. The woman walks toward me, her right leg muscled, and her left dragging. Wait a second! What is this? A bum wheel? One of God’s imperfections? She keeps her balance by hyper-extending her ankle so her heel presses against the floor, giving her leverage and steadying her. This is actually quite liberating for me. Not that I rejoice in
her misfortune. Rather, I’m simply more comfortable around other people, who like me, have a physical disability. Is this really so awful? I remind myself that, despite any impulse, I must not bring up her chicken leg. “Hi. We were expecting you,” I say. “I’m Mark.”
“I’m Nicole. Nice to meet you, Mark. Who is this?” she says to Vivian.
“What’s wrong with your leg?” Vivian says. She sort of laughs, but the noise could be confused with a smoker’s cough.
“I was born with this. What’s your name, dear?”
“Vivian.”
“I didn’t notice it,” I say. I smile at her.
“I think it looks funny!” says Vivian.
“Viv, maybe you should show Nicole where the office is so that she can put her bag down if she wants.” Dear Lord, if you can hear me now, I want to tell you that I’ve noticed this woman’s atrophied, hideously deformed leg, and, I’ll level with you, Lord, it doesn’t bug me one bit. I will even gently gnaw on the purple limb to show you that I’m telling the truth. The only thing is this, Lord — let her accept my scoliosis. The curvature of my spine is even more pronounced these days. She can’t find my bald head unattractive either. Have we got a deal, Lord?
The cat lying on the sofa yawns and slowly gets up on its feet. Now sixteen years old, it sidles up to me and rubs its belly against my leg. “How are you, Felix?” I say. “You want a nice belly scratch, don’t you?”
Nicole is studying me. I pick some lint from my sweater and smooth the wrinkles on it above my belt buckle. “We have a great group of people here,” I say. “I think you’re really going to like it.”
“I can see that,” she says, “but I’m a little nervous. I got my degree from George Brown just last year but nobody’s hiring. I don’t want to mess up this opportunity.” Her grey hair is tied back in a ponytail that flicks from left to right off her wiry shoulders.
“You’re going to be fine.”
So what if I am self-conscious of my scoliosis and baldpate. I want to show off how much I know about the Riverdale Group Home: how dispensing medicine is crucial to the mental health of each member, how it’s important not to condescend to them but to treat them with dignity. How Sidney is agitated when anyone is in the hallway outside his room while he’s putting on his pajamas, how Vivian doesn’t like to be asked how she’s doing, how John and Sidney can’t sit beside each other at the dinner table because Sid thinks that John is always making fun of him.
“Come with me,” I say, and we enter the washroom, where Sidney is standing in the tub, scrubbing mold from the tiles. He trembles at the sight of the new worker. I introduce them, get down on my knees and help him clean the wall. “CJBK Radio, Mark. Rolling with the tunes, Mark.”
Bending into the tub, Nicole pats Sid’s lower back, and he makes a just-audible purring noise. Sid is my litmus test for anyone new to Riverdale. I have a nascent erection — one that I attribute to pleasant thoughts in general, and not from any excitement generated from watching her touch Sidney. At least I pray that this is the case.
“I cleaned the bathrooms at my placement at Hillcrest,” Nicole says.
I think: what if she is trying to impress me? An equally foreign thought: Do I like her?
In the kitchen Vivian is writing out a grocery list. “We might need some more mayonnaise,” I say, “and we’ll probably need another two loaves of bread.”
Nicole says, “I really like the scarf that you’re wearing, Vivian,” which is nice, but a lie. Viv’s scarf is tattered, and a muddy-brown colour, as if Viv has cleaned herself with it. “Ss-stay away from my ss-scarf . . . ” Vivian’s voice trails off. She shuffles away, her head down, greasy bangs drooping over her flushed face.
How delightful it is to work with someone like Nicole. I make a new pact with God. I don’t actually need to be her boyfriend if we can be friends. If we can work in a pleasant environment together, she may stick around long enough to appreciate my strengths. Perhaps I should conceal my longing. After all, there’s no pressing need for her to consider me a suitor. “You have a warm touch with the members,” I say. I’m again astonished. Nicole is blushing, not necessarily because she fancies me, of course, but because I appreciate her for her strengths.
To my relief, Sidney comes out of his room to show me a large perspiration stain on his shirt. The pleasant exchange between Nicole and me has been almost too much. I hustle Sid back to his room and raid his closet. Then, wearing jeans and clean shirt, Sidney bounds out to the patio where Nicole is smoking with Vivian. I follow in time to see Viv flick ashes on Nicole’s arm.
“She’s not an ashtray, Vivian,” I say.
John brings out a malformed cake, fingerprints on the icing’s surface. I attack it with my fork, taking a big piece, patting my stomach. “I’ve gotta keep feeding this thing.”
Finding myself alone with Nicole, the sun setting behind the house, I coolly say, “Our house is a gang. We’re all just looking to get along. Sometimes I think I’m the one who is mentally afflicted.”
Nicole giggles unnaturally, a shrill noise from her thin lips.
Oh Lord, I can’t do this. What makes me think I can pull this off? Let’s examine my history with women, shall we? What do I see? The nervous, deranged twenty-four-year-old, the thirty-three-year-old insufferable liar, and the needy, desperate twit of my forties.
But is it too late?! I can still get my act together. I can feel it. Euphoria! Why didn’t I feel this before? Forget about before.
A week later in the garden I ask, “Are you single?”
“Yes.”
I’m alone with her for the first time that day. The members are inside washing up. I walk with her from the shed to the house. I listen to her anecdotes about high school — she always felt self-conscious because of her autistic sister, and lived with guilt because she hadn’t given her enough support at school, and hadn’t really taken care of her.
How life affirming it is to listen to someone. I recognize the look on her face. Her expression — the anxious one — is exactly my own. I understand that she’s vulnerable too. I am full of love. I want to comfort this anxiety-laden woman, and for the first time, I follow an instinct that proves healthy. I pull her to some shrubbery and kiss her on the lips.
Jeremy’s boss at Value Mart calls and tells me that Jeremy hasn’t been to work for three days. On the phone, Jeremy’s voice sounds frail. I enter with the key he’s given me. He is lying on the sofa, unshaven, his soiled collar tucked the wrong way, and his glasses crooked. The nine of diamonds and the seven of spades are on his chest. I take his large, burly hand — a hand that never shook, but now does — and lead him from the vomit-smelling apartment and into the van. Jeremy glumly returns to Riverdale and is treated as if he never left.
A month later he is finishing a grilled cheese sandwich when he has a massive heart attack.
Sidney and John wear musty suits rooted out of a closet in the unused downstairs hallway. The men are mirthlessly disinterested in the proceedings, that is until Shirley rolls in. They slowly come to their feet and, heads down, walk over to her. She’s wearing the frumpy blouse that she wore when she first volunteered at the home all those years ago. Her uneasy behaviour makes me think that she’s ready to make a quick exit.
“Nice to see you,” I say.
“He was calling me two or three times a day,” she says, gently crying.
“You were really nice to him, Shirley,” I say. I put my hand on her arm. She’s nervous, but I keep it there anyway. “You were great to him,” I repeat and look into her eyes.
“Thanks,” she mumbles. “He was such a gentle guy.” She then says, “How about you? You’ve changed.”
My woman is bringing me lemonade. I pat her on the bum and say, “This is bliss.” Viv and Sid are snug on both sides of me. We’re all lounging under an umbrella. I’m still at Riverdale. Nicole, though, works at a different group home. It just made sense to us for her to find another job. After all, we’re hitched. Sex wi
th Nicole is wild! Her atrophied leg doesn’t even get in the way much. We did it once in the common room when the guys were asleep. I think Vivian was watching, which is a little scary, but Nicole doesn’t need to know. At times she can be a little possessive, but who am I to complain? At fifty-two she’s too old to give me babies, but we’ve adopted, kind of. Viv’s cooking is getting better. Sid isn’t as nervous. He hasn’t shit himself in three years. And I like to think about Jeremy on a nice day like this.
Are You taking care of him?
DEREK HAYES has worked as a high school teacher in Toronto, Taipei, and Istanbul. His stories have appeared in literary journals such as The Fiddlehead and The Dalhousie Review. He was born in London, Ontario and lives in Toronto.