‘It’s you!’
‘Oh my!’ she said.
‘That young man drew it. He says you can have it,’ the barista said slowly and clearly.
‘Oh, thank you,’ the old woman said toward my general area.
‘You’re welcome,’ I said and earned another wink from the barista.
Besides the coffee shop, I went to the graveyard where Mom was buried.
Her grave was beautiful and it was Jack who had cared for it. Alternating grey and red stones, the size of fists, half buried, marked the perimeter. Within the stone border, a thick blanket of chamomile, studded with plush yellow buttons and white petals, scented the air with bubblegum. Beside the plain headstone, two white-blossomed and red-lipped orchids stood guard in their pots. A freshly cut spike of tiny yellow orchids rested below the carved dates marking the limit of my mother’s life. I was part of it for a small fraction. The blooms, intricate as watch gears, were still full of life. Jack probably went daily. I didn’t know. We never talked about it. Even as the remnants of our family fell apart after her death, this place was hallowed ground. Here we paused the terror, sadness and confusion and thought about her. She, beatified and canonised, was no longer able to fail us. Only death perfects us that way. When I picture Mom, even now, she is crowned in bandages with the coma-sleep grin as we lie together in her hospital bed.
I wanted to lie beside the grave, but I didn’t know how to get down out of the chair, even less how I would have gotten back up. Thinking about the dead weight of my legs overwhelmed me with hopelessness.
The pot-bellied, baseball-capped elderly caretaker made his way along one of the rows of gravestones in a golf cart. He paused at a grave, leaned cautiously, one hand anchored on the steering wheel, and plucked the small American flag marking the grave of a veteran. He put it into the back of the cart, which jolted forward and onto the next grave. He passed me with a nod, and I pushed myself back to the house.
There was Jack now and Jack from when I was a child. Nothing in between. It wasn’t dissimilar to how I became disabled. One day I walked and the next I couldn’t. In one way, it was better than if I had had a degenerative disease with function slowly leaching away. Having constantly to readjust to a slightly worse status quo, over and over, accumulating resentment every step down. Running away gave me, gave Jack, ten years of scar tissue. It was damaged but functional flesh. The body as a whole could be saved if we left the past to pulse beneath old wounds.
I entered the greenhouse by popping my wheels over the small lip at the entrance. It was getting easier to manoeuvre around the everyday obstacles like sidewalk cracks, a small step here or there, and grass or dirt.
A jasmine sweetness peeked out from under the smell of damp earth. Potted plants packed the table. Digital-faced devices measuring temperature and humidity hung along the wall. Wood chips and soil covered the squares of concrete that made the floor. Plants with their sparse white beards of roots hung from the beams of the ceiling. Zigzag branches strung with prehistoric blooms blasted from waxy green leaves. The flowerpots, wire pot-hangers, bags of soil, a box of woodchips and a rusty fold-up chair were tucked away – everything fitting perfectly – below the growing tables. I understood how Jack found solace here.
Jack’s head and shoulder pinched a cordless phone to his ear.
‘I’m fine. I’m not paying some doctor for the privilege of him telling me what I already know. I wouldn’t have said anything . . . No, it’s not that. I’m paying you back . . . I don’t care. That’s how it works . . . Patrick, give me a break here.’
‘Jack.’ I knocked on the doorframe to announce myself.
‘I’m going to put bells on that machine of yours,’ Jack said, turning to look at me. ‘Patrick, Jarred is in here sneaking up on me. I’ll talk to you later. Give my love to the babies.’
‘Everything okay?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, yeah. Patrick just being mother.’
I thought of Mom’s grave and the care he had shown it. Silences between us made Jack anxious and he was always eager to fill them with an innocuous quip. It used to agitate me but I appreciated his constant steering me toward neutral ground. I didn’t have the strength then. I don’t know how he did.
‘How was today’s wander?’ he asked.
‘Good, thanks. You want to get Mr. Do-nut after you finish in here?’
He smiled. ‘Sounds good. Come here. Help me pollinate this Monk.’
I pulled up to the table. Jack showed me a square of paper. A dozen yellow grains of pollen rested along the crease down the centre. Jack handed me a jeweller’s headband, a chunky pair of metal glasses. He placed an orchid on the table and, through the headband’s magnifying lenses, I marvelled at the mottled green of the leaves that looked more leather than plant.
‘Handsome devil, huh? Monk orchids are tough as nails. He started in Africa, made his way up South America, the Caribbean and now he’s invading Florida. Florida is perfect for orchids. I would have moved there, but there’s one problem.’
‘What’s that?’ I raised the magnifying glass of the headband, thinking he was serious.
‘Floridians. They’re a cross between New Yorkers and rednecks. Arrogant and backward. No thanks. Take the tweezers.’
I rolled my eyes and snapped my head to make the lens fall back in place.
‘You need to find the hole for the pollen. Have a poke around. It’s called the “stigma”. It’ll be shiny. It should be underneath this bit.’ Jack’s huge gloved finger entered the fish-eyed magnified view. ‘That’s it. See? Now take a grain from the paper and poke it in. It should stick immediately but you might have to give it a nudge or two to make sure it doesn’t fall out. Good.’
Jack put the flower on a nearby counter, explaining how with luck it would make a seedpod with a new cross species of orchid.
‘Thanks for helping. My eyes are starting to crap out and my hands aren’t as steady. My advice is don’t get old. It’s a pain in the ass.’
15
I remember it happened on a Saturday or Sunday. Above our house a thunderstorm abused the sky. I had wrung dry every distraction. In my bedroom, an eleven-year-old me lay on my back firing my rubber-band rifle at the scratch-and-sniff lemon stickers on my ceiling.
Now we are ready to hunt the most dangerous game, I thought. I took off my black t-shirt and fashioned it into a ninja’s cowl. With the sleeves tied behind my head, my eyes peering from the neck hole, I put on black socks – now ninja shoes – and carefully, slowly, inch by inch, opened my bedroom door. Dad’s lower half was visible, lying on the couch. I crept closer. His bare feet hung over the edge above me, one crossed over the other. I sneaked up beside him and placed the other rifle across his chest. He was a soldier dreaming of parade.
I stood up and faced my quarry, steading my aim, right between the eyes, his sleeping eyes.
‘Armageddon!’ I fired.
Dad shot to his feet, roaring.
He lunged. I turned. He stood to chase me but tripped on his rifle. The crash of his body rattled the house. I hid in the closet. He punched my bedroom door, leaving the rectangular hole in the flimsy wood. The house shook with the slamming of the front door, but I stayed in the closet that night.
16
‘Hello, Jarred McGinnis?’ a moustached man said.
‘Is that Patrick?’ Jack shouted from inside the house.
‘No!’ I shouted back. Bills had become collection notices, which had become phone calls to Jack pretending to be old friends of mine, which became visits from moustached men with golf shirts and khaki pants that screamed off-duty cop.
‘He’s dead. He blew his brains out yesterday.’ I mime the back of my skull exploding. ‘Word to the wise. When cleaning the gore of a beloved family member, you need the good stuff. None of the “ecofriendly” nonsense.’
He looked over my shoulder toward Jack’s voice. He dropped a large brown envelope in my lap. ‘Can you—’
I frisbeed it over his shoulde
r and slammed the door.
‘What was all that about?’ Jack asked.
‘Jehovahs.’
‘Bastards. Come out to the greenhouse. I want to show you something.’
I followed him across the yard.
He talked to me over his shoulder. ‘When Patrick comes by this week, can you be civil?’
Inside the greenhouse, it was warm and humid and comfortable. The sun shone through the glass roof. Jack pulled his smock off the peg and put it on.
‘I tiered the table on this side so you can work in here too,’ he said. One table was empty, lower than the others. Its wood, yellow and bright, was missing the soil-and-water-stain patina of the others. The shelves below it had been removed to accommodate my wheelchair.
‘You built this? Took you long enough.’
‘What you mean?’
‘How long have I been in this house? And you’re just building this now.’
Jack sputtered. ‘Well, if you didn’t spend all your time eating goofy pills, sleeping all day or having hissy fits any time someone tries to help you . . .’ He stopped when he saw that I was smiling. ‘You ass.’
‘It’s a nice thing to do. I appreciate it.’
‘It’s not too late to put it back and cut a moat. Now pay attention.’
He picked up a slipper orchid. Underneath its thick, waxed leaves, he examined the overgrowing roots. He explained what he was doing and why. Jack washed the lingering bits of woodchip and dirt from the roots, dunking it in a bucket of rainwater. He repotted the flowerless plant and set it in a shady part of the greenhouse.
‘Do I have to wear the little outfit?’ I touched the apron of his smock.
‘It’s a tradition,’ he reminded me. ‘I need you to help out around here. I’m going to work.’
‘What do you mean? Work work?’
He nodded.
‘You didn’t tell me you got a job. Where you working?’
‘I’m a security guard at a warehouse for dog food. Or something. A job is a job. I know that look.’ My face must have done something to betray what I was thinking, because Jack said, ‘Don’t get heavy on me. It would be a big help if you can keep an eye on the kids for me.’ He waved his hands over the orchid tables.
17
The school secretary presented me with a handful of potato chips on a paper towel holding their greasy shadows. I had resolved not to eat her pity gift, but as I waited for Dr. King to call me into his office, they found their way into my mouth. As soon as I was done she stood, her desk chair creaking, walked over, knelt to my eye level, and asked softly if I wanted more.
‘No, thank you.’
She took my balled-up paper towel. Dr. King led two chastened third-graders out of his office, then motioned for me as the secretary handed him my file.
We sat across from each other. The front of his desk had shoe scuffs from the parade of fidgety children that his days were made of. My file was opened and turned to the latest report from the teacher. The ends of his moustache nodded as he read.
‘You okay?’ he asked.
I had been hearing that question a lot. At that age, what was okay? I was too young to understand that parents don’t necessarily suffer horrible illnesses. I hated that Mom was dead, but I didn’t have the additional injury of knowing the injustice of it. That it wasn’t okay. That it didn’t have to happen this way and that millions of people including the wicked and the undeserving never needed to mourn their mothers while their fathers drank themselves to death.
‘He was a bully,’ I said.
‘Was he bullying you?’
I shrugged. ‘Are you going to paddle me?’
‘Would it get you to stop fighting?’
Another shrug.
‘Do you know your dad’s work number?’
‘He doesn’t work.’
The way he was looking at me was worse than any corporal punishment. I toed the front of his desk to see if my shoes would also leave a scuff mark, wishing he would hurry up, paddle me and send me back to class.
‘Is there someone else I can call?’
I started to cry.
He flipped through my file. ‘What about your brother? Do you know his number? What’s his name?’
‘Patrick.’
‘We’ll look him up in the telephone book.’
Patrick arrived at the school office. Mom’s dark-eyed dark-haired beauty was there in a tailored suit and tie. A handsome man full of command and confidence. An alien being to my world.
As we got into his car, he explained, ‘Pops isn’t feeling good. Do you want to have dinner with us? You can meet your new niece.’ He was still married to his first wife and their first child had been born a few months earlier.
I don’t remember the make of the car. A sports car, but to me it was a spaceship. Patrick quickly but gently admonished me for touching the row of buttons on the stereo’s equaliser.
‘Jarred, when was the last time you took a bath? You’re smelling pretty beefy, kid. While we’re cooking dinner, how about you take a shower?’
‘No!’
Patrick was taken back. ‘The principal said that you got into a fight because the other kids called you stinky. How about this? Would you like to use our pool? You swim and Fran will make us some fried chicken and mashed potatoes.’
I swam in their pool. I looked at their baby, unsure what they expected me to say. It was small and bewildered. I said hello to it. I ate their dinner, which was good. I kept my eyes down, hoping his wife would stop talking to me with her eyebrows fixed with worry. I watched tv and ignored them talking under their breath about Dad and me.
‘He’s home now. Or, finally sober enough to answer the phone.’ Patrick said to his wife, hanging up the phone. ‘Not sure if I should take Jarred back there. What do you think?’
‘You need to talk to your father. He’s got a problem. He can’t be doing this to your brother.’
Patrick noticed that I was listening. ‘You ready to go home? Should we stop and get some groceries for the house?’
At the grocery store, I stood on the cart while Patrick pushed. He asked what I thought the house was out of from that aisle. He let me choose, but coaxed me toward sensible things: toilet paper, fruit and veg and frozen dinners. Patrick pushed the cart down the aisles, making tyre-squealing and engine-revving noises. We rushed around with Patrick calling out a food – Ritz crackers! – and as we zipped past, I would snatch the item from the shelf and throw it in the cart.
He was worried about how we would get into the house if Dad wasn’t there. I told him the house was never locked.
‘You need to make sure the house is locked. It’s safer that way. Do you have your own key?’
I shook my head.
We put away the groceries. The last item to go into the fridge was the prize, a bottle of antifreeze-green Mountain Dew.
‘Shall we do the dishes?’
‘Okay.’
Patrick washed. I dried. Jack came into the kitchen and watched.
‘Jarred, can you go to your room, please?’ Patrick asked.
I hesitated.
Jack snapped out of his bleary-eyed reverie. ‘Go!’ He kicked me in the butt with the side of his foot. I buckled, banged my knees on the cabinet. I ran to my room and listened to them argue from my closet.
18
Around the age of twelve, he stopped being Dad, was demoted to Jack. I called him Jack because it irritated and wounded him. A single-syllable jab I knew he could still feel.
I was looking for detergent for the washing machine. I had a sliver of hand soap to throw in with my clothes if I couldn’t find any, but I wasn’t sure if that would work. It didn’t.
On my tiptoes, I tugged at a canvas bag to see if there was any detergent on the top shelf. A full beer can rolled out of its case and with depth-charge precision hit me in the forehead with a humourless thunk. Tears burst from me. I picked up the can, dented from when it hit the ground, and ran for my father’s com
fort.
I found him in the hallway with the smell of burning coming from the kitchen. His chin shone with grease. Listening to my blubbering explanation, he took the beer and opened it, spraying the suds into my eyes, on the walls and himself. He wiped his bare chest, sucked a finger and drained the can.
‘Man up, you got mopping.’ He handed me the empty and moved unsteadily down the hall.
‘Fuck you, Jack,’ burst from me. I was shaking with fear at the huge silhouette of my father. He seemed to be fixed to the spot. His back was still turned. The hot welt above my eye from where the can hit throbbed. I was already crying for what would happen next.
He turned.
I stepped back.
He slapped me hard and left me alone with my heart bouncing against my ribs.
19
Jack knocked as he entered my room. He was wearing a plain blue tie. I was sitting in my wheelchair and sketching. He picked up an empty beer bottle, read the label and set it back on the nightstand.
‘I’m heading to work in a couple of hours. You need anything?’
I continued sketching.
‘Jarred, am I going to have to worry about you while I’m working? You were doing better. You were getting out and now you clam up in here again.’
‘Do you want to see something magic?’ I feigned brightness and excitement, wanting to avoid hearing said out loud what I was thinking.
Jack didn’t answer. He wasn’t in the mood to play along.
I transferred over to the bed, pulling my legs onto the mattress. I took off my sock while singing the 20th Century Fox theme. ‘Are you ready?’
Jack stared.
‘I said, are you ready?’ I asked.
‘Jarred, I’m not playing around. This isn’t healthy—’
‘Behold and wonder, mankind,’ I said loudly.
After a moment of silence, both of us staring at my foot, my second toe wiggled.
Jack’s face lit up. ‘When did you figure out you could do that?’
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