Use Your Imagination

by Kris Bertin

  The first came after a long argument, when both men stood facing each other with blazing eyes and arms at their sides, outside of a basement bar called The Jug that had comedy shows two nights a week. Luke had been more than imposing back then, but Frank was furious enough that he didn’t care. He shouted as loud as he could with his polished, radio-ready baritone voice, in perfectly timed, measured blasts. Luke later told Frank he’d enunciated fuck and cunt and asshole like he was teaching English as a second language, like he was trying to show off the shape your mouth and tongue should take when cursing.

  But in truth, Frank was scared. Luke wasn’t merely muscular; he studied martial arts and had been in a few actual, real fights. There were stories about him. One was that he had beaten up a heckler who had tried to come on stage at one of his shows—which was true—and another one about a waiter he beat up for spilling a drink on him—which wasn’t. Luke, however, would never fight another comic, would never raise his hands in an argument. He would rather win it.

  The dispute had been about how Luke had been treating a friend of theirs, another comedian, a small and timid man named Nick Webe, who had been bumped off a show more than once by Luke’s arrival. Though years later neither man could recall the exact comment that had led to the fight, Luke had said something about Nick Webe’s status as a hack. This kind of ball-breaking was normally fine, but Luke had just been through his first string of good years—where he’d landed a role as a mouthy, wisecracking bartender on a laugh-trackless sitcom, and filmed not one, but three stand-up specials in Canada and the US—and so any teasing stung more than before.

  Frank also believed, in his heart, that Nick Webe was a genius. Nick was a Black comic who never mentioned race, except to mention that he didn’t conform to the stereotypes attributed to him. He wore a bow tie, a set of red eyeglasses that they called him Sally Jessy Raphael for wearing, and a suit jacket with a different brightly coloured pocket square for each of his sets. Frank called him Fancy Urkel. His jokes were mostly—unbelievably—about being a peeping Tom. He had the usual unfuckable loser set-ups but his punchlines were shocking confessions, delivered in a strangely quiet, nasal voice. Frank’s favourite Nick Webe joke went:

  I was at the club once, you know, dancing, and I asked this one woman to dance with me. She said no. And when I asked her why, she said it was because I was stalking her. So I said that’s fine. I’ll see you at home.

  No one really laughed at his jokes except the comics. They were too weird, too ugly. They made people uneasy. They made people’s wives uneasy. And they sounded true, like he really did have a record. Like the police really did know who he was. Like he really did watch women in their sleep. Luke’s comment would most likely have been about this discomfort—the one Nick routinely caused. A comment about the way he could ruin a room with that special kind of contempt he could conjure up. About what an absolute fucking creep he was.

  But Frank believed in his heart that Nick Webe understood comedy, and that if he could just move away from such upsetting material he could really flourish.

  The silence that came on after their argument was long. The bar staff that were watching were worried the men would come to blows. The comics, all crowded at one long table near a snack machine, hoped they would. But contained in that silence was the beginning of Frank and Luke’s friendship. After it, they respected each other. It was their first and worst fight, and the end of their run as strangers who had merely heard of each other. The next time they met, they shook hands, and Frank said:

  That was fucked up, wasn’t it?

  And Luke agreed:

  You were really funny though.

  The fight also marked the end of Nick Webe’s career. He wasn’t mad at Luke for mocking him but at Frank for defending him, as if he couldn’t do it himself. Nick Webe moved away within the year, but before then drifted away from them, and disappeared from their lives, from the comedy circuit altogether. Someone later reported that he had purchased a glass-bottom boat and was doing fishing tours in Maine. It was one of Luke and Frank’s personal jokes that this was what you became when you were washed up. It became a shorthand.

  One would say to the other:

  Go buy a glass-bottom boat, you fucking hack.

  And they would laugh.

  9

  The second silence like this came when they—and Frank’s radio producer—were in jail for public drunkenness and disorderly conduct. They had done a show for St. Patrick’s Day, where, if they said something unfunny, they were made to drink from a forty-ouncer of Jameson. Four official complaints were lodged with the FCC as a result of this show, and a pair of advocacy groups called for a boycott afterwards. The company threatened to take away the show as a result, and at the end of that year, when Frank renegotiated his contract, there was a new clause in there about alcohol in the studio.

  When the St. Patty’s show was over, the three had gone to a bar, then another, and then another, until Frank and Luke went outside for a smoke and Frank pushed Luke through a glass bus shelter near the bar. When they were arrested, they were throwing handfuls of little safety-glass cubes at each other, laughing.

  In their holding cell, Luke was still drunk and chatty, while the other two were already heading into their hangovers. He wouldn’t stop talking, guessing out loud what each guard’s home life was like. Who was a henpecked loser. Who jerked off while huffing their wife’s panties. Who had an unhealthy relationship with their father. Who was a racist. Who liked going to yard sales but never bought anything.

  The more he shouted, the longer a nearby guard told them that all three were going to stay. Luke would yell, and the guard would say That’s another hour, boys. He claimed to have added twelve extra hours to their stay, but what he really did was write them up for bad behaviour, so that the judge had a little note about what a shithead Luke had been, which led to their bail being set twice as high as it should have been.

  Frank—along with his producer, two drunk girls in tube tops, three shitfaced winos, and one obliterated Ukrainian man arrested for domestic battery—screamed at him to stop, to shut the fuck up, to be quiet, to leave the guards alone—and there was a deep, exhausted silence that followed, where Luke’s bloodshot eyes widened with surprise. Then, little by little, over the course of twenty minutes, closed completely. When his chin was on his chest, Frank whispered to his producer.

  Thank god.

  10

  This silence is the worst one.

  Both of them hope for the hiss of wind and rain, or a thunderclap to open up the sky, but nothing comes. There is only their bodies and silence, and the space between them in the room. Frank searches inside himself and in their shared past for something to say, but still there is nothing.

  11

  Finally, a buzzing begins, rising from Luke.

  Frank stares at his friend’s body, dead centre at his torso, where all the bad parts are. For a moment, he thinks it’s the sound of Luke’s soul leaving his body, or an organ that’s winding down with a final kazoo sound. At last there is something to say, and Luke speaks first.

  Luke, with no water in his eyes whatsoever.

  Luke, with a righteous anger on his face, his mummy’s mouth twisted.

  Luke, staring in his friend’s eyes like a furious old man.

  I’ve got something for you. To do.

  What’s that?

  This guy.

  What guy.

  This guy here.

  I don’t understand.

  Luke turns his head slightly, as if to clarify:

  Kill this guy.

  Frank looks at his friend and thinks about everything he’s read—the things he’s supposed to be watching for. How when you start seeing and hearing shit that’s not there, you’ve probably only got hours left. Some people have a horrible death-fever that goes on for days. Maybe this is the start of that. But Luke’s eyes a
ren’t cloudy, don’t have that faraway quality to them. Frank clears his throat:

  What are you talking about?

  Luke raises the same finger he tapped his eye with, and points at the window behind him. It’s then that Frank hears it. The panicked sound of a little body trying to escape. The hopeless ding as it bounces off the glass and tries again, over and over.

  This bee. He’s been—I want you to kill it. Behind me.

  Frank squints and finally sees its furry little body scrambling around. He gets to his feet, happy to have something to do:

  Want me to put him outside?

  No. I want him dead, please.

  Well, okay, what do you want me to do? Here—is there a newspaper?

  Just kill him.

  Frank looks at his friend, who frowns and points.

  Finally, he leans over and Luke works hard to tilt his head and watch. They see the bee struggling against the window, inches away from freedom, trying his hardest to find an escape route. Frank, the animal lover, the man who collects spiders in glasses with paper to let them outside, crushes the small yellow body through the lace curtain with his fingers. Does it quickly so it drops to the sill, twitching, but utterly destroyed.

  Luke puts out a hand. There are purple marks all around his wrist and palm.

  What are those?

  What? Give me the bee.

  On your hand. What’s all that?

  I’m dying, retard. Gimme the bee.

  Pick it up, you mean?

  I wanna make sure he’s dead.

  He’s dead, Luke.

  Luke takes a deep breath, burps, and clears his throat. Looks up at Frank with his eyes that look too big, too exposed in the sockets, like a ventriloquist’s dummy. He has that same righteous fury on his face, except this time it’s different. This time he looks as much like an old man as he does a child, like there’s some innocence inside him now, too.

  Give me. The fucking. Bee.

  When the insect’s body is dropped into his palm, Luke immediately slaps it into his mouth.

  He looks Frank right in the eyes when he eats it up, except he’s really chewing it, really eating what he’s not supposed to be eating. Frank sees a leg and a wing poke out from his friend’s mouth for a second and then comes a very loud crunch. He swallows with some exaggeration, then burps.

  12

  The sound that erupts from Frank is like a thunderclap.

  13

  When he leaves, Frank makes no special effort to hug or kiss or touch his friend in any way, though he desperately wants to. He wants to hold him in his arms—pull him against his chest, press his face into his neck—and kiss him. He wants to tell Luke how much he loves him, how much he has always meant to him. He very nearly blurts it out, but keeps from doing so by clenching his teeth so hard one of his fillings makes a horrible wet squeak inside his skull.

  They shake hands like always, except this time they trade frosting on contact. Cake remnants and coloured topping sticks to their faces, their clothes, Frank’s shoes. A glob of vanilla frosting covers the entire face of Frank’s wristwatch. Luke’s head has such an enormous glob of cake sitting on it that when he runs his hand through his hair, he smears it dark on one side. Cakes are smashed all over the back deck, strewn all over the lawn and patio furniture. A great chocolate starburst is on the back of his neighbour’s garage. Birds were already feeding on the mess before they were done, and when they went inside afterwards, the entire yard was covered in magpies and seagulls and other scavenging birds.

  Frank leaves without saying anything, something they’ve always both done, something that seems important to keep going, even now. They nod to each other. And that’s it. He believes he won’t see his friend again.

  Under the ceiling fan, Frank remembers what he wanted to tell him, that he and his wife had witnessed a long fleshy stream of nude cyclists on their way over. They were protesting for more bike lanes and, of course, World Peace. The joke he wanted to say was something about how it didn’t matter how beautiful the naked women were, the thing he couldn’t stop seeing was the one Italian-looking guy with a goofy moustache and an unreasonably long dick slung over his old-time banana seat. When it happened, Frank had been grateful for it. It was something to talk about, something to open with, something to keep silence away. But the memory had slipped away the moment he laid eyes on Luke’s green little body.

  Frank lets out that same croak as he passes under the ceiling fan, unable to hold it in.

  As he approaches the door he can see his own shining face, except this time rising up into the surface of the dull blue of the day. Outside it’s still hot and dry, but the wind is picking up. People on the sidewalk look at Frank, with green frosting in his hair and on his forehead and mouth. A lump of chocolate filling on his shoulder like a turd. Those who might have something funny to say about how he looks don’t say anything, because his face is red and tears are streaming down his cheeks, and he’s sobbing audibly.

  Frank doesn’t notice any of them. He’s looking up and all around him and at the trees, moving back and forth, hissing with the wind, and thinking of his friend. Up above are swollen grey clouds the colour of stone, heavy and pregnant. A hard gust of wind nearly shoves Frank over and he lets out a sound. Everything is set to burst.

  All of us hated their house, even before it was built.

  This was, we said, because they’d purchased a corner lot on our road, one which had gone untouched for so long that we forgot it could even be sold in the first place. It was, for decades, a mere backdrop to the neighbourhood. A wall of trees in behind a guardrail, near a stop sign. The kind of place you barely thought about. A spot where the ditch began, and where kids sometimes played, though we told them if they did play there to be careful. The lot just stopped at some point, and down at the bottom of a sixty-foot drop was asphalt, rocks, and highway. If it was dark, children weren’t allowed there. For them, and for the teenagers, the spot meant something, but for the rest of us, it meant very little.

  We took it for granted, we said.

  Then, when it was cordoned off with orange tape and we noticed, it took on new meaning. It became sacred. We started to say it was the reason our street was so great. This undeveloped patch, we began to say, offered great cover from the nearby highway. It kept things quiet, and secluded. It made our property valuable, others said. This corner lot, despite being an eroding and overgrown bit of nothing, was all we talked about for a while. Though we all had lives and jobs and families to worry about, this major alteration of our surroundings became the plain news coming in through the window. When the households spoke to one another, it was talked about first, and grew, in this way, from an observation to a concern, to a shame.

  “It’s a shame, what’s happening up the road.”

  People said that. We even said it. This, I think, was because we all took our cues from the Grangers, who disliked the change more than anyone.

  They were the family that had been here before everyone else, who had taken a green, rolling valley dense with conifers and a forty-foot ravine, and turned it into saleable land in the 1930s. Even though the Grangers sold it all off—all except for their giant territory, which now holds three large properties and houses three generations of their family—they remain the de-facto lords of the land. We called them big shots and fat cats and uppity and stuck-up and crooks and assholes.

  Still, the eldest Granger, spry and mobile at eighty-six, could visit your driveway and point at a nearby boulder and explain where it had been moved from, how they had done it, and why. When he was ten, he had helped clear brush with a scythe, drove horses dragging felled trees, and was there when his father bulldozed the ravine into a massive trench that would become the lake. His father even let him light the fuse on the first stick of dynamite used to blast a plateau apart and redirect river water into the freshly dug basin. Whichever way w
e felt about them, there weren’t a lot of people like him left. He deserved regard, if not respect.

  Though the Grangers saw themselves as mere stewards of Long Lake Drive, they talked of it in particularly possessive terms. When a Granger talked about something shared, like, say, the lake, it was never the lake, it was always our lake. Meanwhile, something privately owned received the opposite treatment. Never your house, but instead this house here. As if all of it were merely in the temporary care of others. As if it was their rightful homeland, and the rest of us were mere squatters upon it. This was particularly unfair, because they had traded it for their new kingdom in the heart of the downtown area: a stretch which included their hardware and lumber store, their convenience store, and two strip-mall plazas that housed small, often ephemeral businesses. This empire reached out into the industrial park, where they collected and rented heavy construction equipment and machinery, all the way to the edge of the county where their ice cream stand is. Their wealth was large, but not enormous, though it was considerable enough that people were confused by it.

  When they went to the Pietres, an aging francophone couple who lived next to the newest Granger house, and complained that the new lot was going to make their street a lot uglier and noisier, the Pietres were the first to agree, and disseminated the same information, adding:

  “And the Grangers there. They’re getting rich of it and we just live with it.”

  Which wasn’t true. Someone else owned it now, someone from the outside who didn’t have to live here. Someone with an office full of pictures of little green tracts of land, virtually indistinguishable from the corner lot. Still, this piece of misinformation grew just as strong as the original Granger assertion that the land was compromised by this new development. These two notions—that the lot’s sale was bad, and that the Grangers were profiting—grew in time, side by side, and a lot of us believed it. Of course, a lot of us also regarded the Grangers as they wanted to be regarded, as go-getters and captains of industry. Many who believed they were profiting off of the purchase of the corner lot also commended them for it.