Monoceros

by Suzette Mayr

  — Y-yes, maybe, says Walter, his voice wilting. He hands her a tissue from the box on his desk.

  — It’s all too bad! she says, dabbing the inside corners of her eyes with the tissue, blowing her nose. — Well, she says, straightening and pulling down the bottom of her blouse, her breasts a high and mighty shelf. — You have a good weekend then. Any plans?

  Joy has a shred of tissue stuck to one of her nostrils. Walter hesitates. For once he can tell someone at work about what he’s really going to do on the weekend with his boyfriend Max. Then he remembers he’s left his boyfriend Max and plans on taking full custody of their cat. He fumbles around in his head for the reason why he has Max’s picture on his desk if they’ve broken up. What is he doing? What has he done? What will he do without Max to protect him and remind him? What will he do when he goes back to the inside and there’s nothing there?

  — Maybe get the cat’s nails clipped, he says, flimsily. He clasps his fingers over his protruding belly. One microscopic, out-of-the-closet step at a time. He would like to go to the wake. If Joy knew the truth, she would uninvite him.

  — I didn’t know you had a cat, says Joy. — What kind?

  — A white Persian.

  — Max has a white cat too! That’s funny.

  — Yes it is!

  Joy claps her hands together. — I’m halfway through that book you were talking about, she says. — Got it from the library.

  — Which one’s that now?

  — The one with my name in the title of course!

  Walter’s skin prickles.

  — The Pride and the Joy. Boy, that’s a page-turner. I’m going to give it to my twin brother to read when I’m done. He’s the gay one in our family. The baby of the family because he’s ten minutes younger than me. He hates it that I’m his older sister and I remind him every time I see him that he should respect his elders. He hates that! she laughs.

  Suddenly Walter cannot move a muscle. Not a twitch, not a shiver.

  Joy claps her hand to her face, touches, brushes the shred of tissue. — Have I had this on my nose the whole time? She looks at the piece in her hand, — And you didn’t tell me? Shame on you, Walter! She laughs again, sticks it back on her nose. — There, she says.

  — You have a good weekend now, says Joy, packing up her album. — Tell me if you find any other books like that. It’s really good.

  Joy’s heels clicking out the door.

  Joy

  My picture on his desk? asks Max.

  — What about it?

  — Nothing, says Joy. — Didn’t know you hiked together.

  — Just the once.

  — Ah.

  — That it?

  — No. Jésus García Hernández’s mother returned your call when you were meeting in the Area Office today. I told her you’d call her back in the morning.

  — Okay.

  — You okay?

  — You okay?

  Joy will buy Max a box of Belgian chocolates tonight on the way home, he’s so obviously flustered by the suggestion of human contact; she feels sorry for him and his robotic, humanoid goofiness. She wants to hug him. Maybe suggest to Isaac they have him over for dinner— they haven’t shared a single meal even once in the nine months she and Max have worked together. Not even drunk a cup of coffee together. Max pretending he’s king of the school when really he’s just the lonely runt of the litter, the last unsold kitten pacing figure eights in its cage.

  Joy is also surprised at how pretty Walter looked when he smiled. She’s never noticed the gap between his two front teeth before. Although he seems to be bloating up more and more each time she sees him. She doesn’t want to be around, she decides, when he finally pops.

  Faraday

  Finally at the end of this horrible week, in the little pool of time she has before she has to leave the house to go see Dr. Linus Libby, Faraday pulls on her unicorn toque and clips the leash onto Shinny’s collar for a dog poo in the park.

  It’s never occurred to Faraday until right this instant, her breath freezing into white clouds, Shinny’s broad shiny back swaying mid-step, that she and her family regularly walk their dog in a park by a cemetery. Their house only blocks away from a vast field of dead people. During the first and last driving lesson she had with her mother, she accidentally drove them into a funeral cortège and what bothered her most at the time was not the corpse in the long, white car in front of them, but the fact that she had just driven straight through a stop sign. Her mother wouldn’t stop yelling in her asphalty voice and was a douche. Funeral cortèges are not a big deal in their neighbourhood.

  Shinny sits on her black haunches outside the cemetery fence, panting out dog breath. Ears perked, she noses the air. She leaps and burrows her nose under the snow, her tail whipping back and forth. She pulls out a frozen hamburger bun and starts to chomp. Faraday could pry it from her mouth, but the process is so slimy, and her hands aren’t strong.

  Faraday remembers once when she was little digging in the backyard for treasure with George M. and Jonas. Their father said, — You can dig for treasure in the corner by the wheelbarrow, but not by the fire pit. Dig down and find the very bottom of that rhubarb plant’s root.

  Their yard frilly with rhubarb leaves. She remembers how the soil absorbed her and her brothers, the prairie layer of topsoil then clay then rocks and roots all the way down. They wiped clay clumps off a twisted silver spoon. An old beer bottle. Some long, rusty nails. A buried car muffler. Bone fragments. Maybe a pet cat’s.

  She had sobbed quietly under a tent of rhubarb leaves about the cat, poor Bernard. George M. had decided that the cat’s name when it was alive was probably Bernard.

  Shinny gulps chunks of bun. Faraday plants her feet in the snow by the fence, the long rows of headstones rolling down the frozen white slopes in front of her. The air cold on her lips and the tip of her nose, and around her mouth the rough wool scarf dampens from her breath. Each headstone stands guard over a dead body. Of course. Maybe Patrick with his perfect skin lies under one of these tombstones. Maybe several Patricks lie under several of these stones, the grief of an entire school enfolding each of them. She grasps the chain-link with both mittened hands. Her boot soles this close to standing on top of the bloody, bony, hairy, dirty cemetery pile. Right this instant, she can’t stand her feet on the ground, her feet stepping on Patrick. She snatches up the end of Shinny’s leash and runs, flees, all the way home, the dog galloping beside her.

  Max

  A dead child. His lover the tramp. Friday evening on his way home from the school, the window squeaked down a stitch to fan out the cigarette smoke, Max marvels in amazement at how well he’s handled the crisis in spite of Walter fumbling his job:

  He contacted the crisis team immediately.

  Talked to the father and collected the facts.

  Sent a letter to all the other principals in the city.

  Aside from the one girl accosting him in the hallway (her father assures the principal she’s seeing a child psychologist), the fallout among the students has been minimal.

  Three parents calling, each thanking him for protecting their child from this nasty incident. Excellent.

  Hysteria at a minimum in general. (Except for Joy’s bright red face. At least she doesn’t say anything. He should get her a secretary appreciation card. He should get her transferred. He’s not sure someone so sensitive should work directly under him.)

  Arranged to get the graffiti in the north stairwell painted over within the next two weeks.

  So maybe his cigarette budget has doubled with him needing to drive away from the school during the lunch break more often than usual to smoke in his car in a distant neighbourhood where no students, no one, can see him.

  Walter hid out at the condo last night— Max’s figured this out like the way he’s figured out this year’s maintenance budget. Why Walter would sleep in that greasy hovel when they have a house in a thriving, orderly neighbourhood with neighbours they nev
er see makes about as much sense as Walter always wasting his money on hardcover novels when he could easily just wait for the paperback reissues or borrow from the library. Probably Walter dug up some old boyfriend at badminton practice because he’s always playing badminton with those people, Brecken and her girlfriend, plus those guys who coo ‘babe’ to each other all the time even though someone might see Walter and jump to conclusions. One night and almost an entire morning come and gone, which would mean at least six men. That’s the way Walter used to operate, one guy in, one guy out, two guys in, one guy out, one guy in, one guy in, one guy in. The dead boy’s principal thought for sure Walter had reformed, but a worm can’t live above ground too long.

  Max zips down the window, takes a last pull from his cigarette and tosses it out into the street. He starts the car. Steps on the accelerator. Zips the window back up while he turns the corner on to the main drag. The traffic report tumbling from the radio, Max lulled by the reporter’s voice and its deep, rough song as he reports a two-car pile-up on Deerfoot, traffic backed up on Crowchild Trail, one lane blocked for road repairs heading west on McKnight Boulevard. The ruggedness of his voice, the beautiful punctuality and simplicity of his traffic reports. Max idly scans the licence plate on the moving van in front of him, NCC-1701, and wonders why it looks so familiar to him, the van edges forward, he edges forward in his white Toyota, the van inches, he inches, and when the van accelerates forward Max jams his foot down on the accelerator and almost manages to swing the Toyota completely around the corner before he sees he is screeching against a red light and when the other car slams him on the side, right near the gas tank, he thinks Jesus goddamn Christ the fucking insurance.

  His metal side screams, a punch in his door, the gouged paint, his tire gashed and melting. His car skids and squeals and he wonders how he is going to argue his way out of this one, he has a report to write for the director, he has budgets to balance, he can’t fritter away even fifteen minutes worrying about nonsense like this, how many witnesses, he can taste blood, this is no easy speeding ticket he can play stupid with. Maybe he will die, and he guesses dying will solve his problems, but he doesn’t want to die, he doesn’t want to be in pain, he wishes he could have said goodbye to Walter, Oh Walter, I love you, I’m so so sorry, who cares about a table. Why did he care so much about a stupid table? Someone who cares that much about a table deserves a one-way ticket to Ponoka.

  His blood falls from his head to his foot crammed against the brake, hands sticking to the wheel in this strange cold, this electric world, he will die, the world will incinerate, he’ll die. The inside of his beating head, ba-dum, ba-dum, the sound of his blood pressure ticking off the scale.

  His car facing the concrete wall of the underpass, his body frozen inside a metal and concrete glacier. The window beside his head knocking. How could knocking be coming from the window? Engines knock, not windows. He just paid $1,300 in car repairs. He pours his face against the window.

  The most beautiful woman in the world, Colonel Shakira from his favourite TV show Sector Six, knocking on his window and shouting at him through the glass. He steams up the glass staring so hard at her beautiful, rich skin on this cold, grey day.

  The door exploding outward.

  Colonel Shakira gripping him by the elbow, the shoulder, her arm lifting him by the waist, his head on her shoulder, he’s always known how tall, how strong she must be, a veritable giantess lifting him up and setting him down like a carton of cigarettes, and he is tick-tock answering questions from a paramedic and a police officer scribbling on a pad, cool rubber gloves patting his head, pulling up his eyelids, pulling down the bags under his eyes.

  Colonel Shakira a drag queen ruining her heels and her hair in the snow.

  Are you hurting? she shouts at him, her breath mint and cigarettes.

  — Is there anyone you want to call? asks a paramedic.

  — No, says Max, straightening his shoulders, he is a single, professional man in his late forties and so he doesn’t need any help. No one.

  — I guess we’d better trade insurance information, says Shakira. — Too bad. I’m going to be so late for my show. Oh well. Drag Queen Time, n’est-ce pas? she says, and blinks, her eyelashes dotted with snow.

  — Of course, says the principal.

  — Are you sure your fella won’t be worried? asks Colonel Shakira.

  — My what?

  — Honey, listen. I’m doing a show tonight at Galaxy Lounge. Why don’t you come? I’ll get you in free, you’ll have a great time. Bring your guy, make a night of it. We can talk afterwards. Let’s not do the insurance shit, okay? I’ll dock my starship at my mechanic’s, figure out the damage, you just pay me cash, all right?

  — Of course, Colonel.

  — You know it, darling. What’s your name?

  — Principal, Colonel ma’am.

  — All right, Principal, you’re on the guest list. You and your guy, okay?

  — Yes, Colonel.

  — You’re sweet, she says.

  Max sinks down on a snowbank, stars in the shapes of snowflakes flutter around him.

  Max wipes his face with his gloved hands. He pulls off his gloves, and wipes off grit and melting snow with his bare hands, the soggy inside of his elbow, road grit, salt, and pebbly snow trickling into his collar, grating between his teeth. He announces to the police officers’ backs, the tow-truck driver hooking up the Toyota, that of course he would never attend a show like that, for goodness’ sake. He hopes the police officers didn’t notice he called her Colonel, he was in shock, everyone should know he was in shock. Why doesn’t Walter just splash up and take him home?

  He sags on the bench in the front hallway of their little house, the little bench that the few guests entering or leaving the house are supposed to sit on when they take off or put on their shoes, but they never do, they’re always hopping around on one foot trying to unlace their shoes, leaning against the wall and knocking askew the framed print of a Canadian Rocky mountainscape as they pull up each boot, hook a sandal strap over a heel. The house dark, and the air that settles on his upper lip is cold because the furnace hasn’t clicked in to its normal temperature yet. His stockinged feet soaking up snow runoff from his boots. He would like Walter to take him in his arms; he would like to rest his head on Walter’s shoulder or against his chest, smell the faint odour of sweat in Walter’s shirt, curl against the warmth of Walter’s round belly under the wool of his sweater. It has been a hard day in the hardest week, and Walter isn’t here drinking Diet Coke in front of the news. The weekends are theirs, when they live their real lives together, ripping up the carpet in the basement, cleaning house, making love. Max really just wants to put on his old sweatpants, pour a beer and watch an episode of Sector Six, Walter sitting there next to him, stroking his feet. The Grizom episode, those fuzzy little hamster aliens the Grizoms, the clarinet-dominant soundtrack noodling in the background and the sheepish looks on the actors’ faces always make him laugh, but after today’s Colonel Shakira hallucination, he is afraid of feeling foolish, even if it’s just him and a beer and a cigarette. Maybe he can watch the wasp-woman episode of The Outer Limits because that always cheers him up.

  Walter will be phoning anytime now, anytime. He would like to be dancing with Walter right now, the way they sometimes groove around the kitchen in each other’s arms when they’ve just polished off a tasty meal and the radio’s playing a silly song like ‘The Monster Mash.’ The way they used to before boys started dying.

  He flips through the Tupperware containers and lumpy plastic bags in the fridge. A small circle of steak. He sniffs the steak. Up close, the meat is definitely turning green. He slides it back into the fridge, toward the back of the shelf. Brings into the light a container of Ethiopian beef and another container of cooked spaghetti. He heaps them both on a plate, shuts them in the microwave. Slips the Sector Six episode ‘Giddy With Grizoms’ into the machine, and eats his recycled supper on the couch. The house fills wit
h light and music, Colonel Shakira looking bewildered at all the tiny, furry Grizoms cascading around her in her tight gold uniform. Colonel Shakira brushing off the Grizoms and aiming her Rosette Nebular at a Reptiloid. The Reptiloid roars, the Reptiloid lunges, the Colonel shoots. — I am Colonel Shakira! shouts Colonel Shakira, and Max wants to cheer out loud but restrains himself.

  Ginger and Furey

  The first time they really met, in October, Ginger and Furey were silent in the weight room, a pond of clicking and clanking steel, the twenty-months pregnant guidance counsellor and his bouncing moobs substituting as their phys-ed teacher shouting out, his clapping and shouting frenzied, — All right, people! Go, people! You got it, people! No pain no gain, people!

  Ginger’s chest and shoulders popping as he bench-pressed, Furey poised just above him, in the centre of his eyebrows a perfect frown line, Furey’s eyes on Ginger’s, Ginger could have sworn he’d just been kissed.

  Ginger popped up, wiping his forehead with the belly of his T-shirt, and Furey pressed himself into Ginger’s outline on the bench, his body cradled in Ginger’s damp warmth on the plastic, their bodies humid twins.

  They grunted to each other about weights, hey, the guidance counsellor who looked like a whale, yeah, video games— You like playing World of Warcraft too? I like Divinity XII. You some kind of Divinity XII fanboy? Ha ha, yeah, wrestling, music. — You downloaded that song too? Shuddup! They talked about Sector Six, — No such thing as heroes, just a bunch of ones and zeroes, Patrick chimed the song. World Wrestling Entertainment, wrestling, wrestling.

  That sweating teacher with his whale stomach and Easter ham legs, clapping his hands, — That’s it, people! and Ginger blooming on the inside: someone to watch Sector Six with, play Divinity XII with, a WWE night next Wednesday, his inner nerd bounding free from quarantine.