The Slow Fix

by Ivan Coyote

  Some guy asked me for change outside of the bank today. He looked skinny and drawn and nervous, just like you did the last time I ran into you on the Drive, and for some unexplainable reason I felt like punching him. Instead I took a deep breath and asked him when was the last time he called his mother?

  The self-help books and the twelve-step doctrines would probably feed me some line right now about how no one can really help you until you are ready to help yourself and to not to allow myself to feel hurt that I haven’t heard from you in almost a year, that it is your addiction governing your behaviour right now and not you. But I call bullshit on that. We have known each other since we were kids, I would and have done anything to help you, and I deserve better than this.

  This not knowing. Remember when I dragged you off the street and let you sleep it off for days and fed you and helped you track down the bits and pieces of your life so you could start putting them back together? Back then you said you were done with it all, you were ready, you wanted to change your life, and you needed my help.

  I told you that night on the back porch I would do whatever it took, anything in my power to see you through this time, but that I had one condition. My one condition wasn’t even that you stay clean, because I know what a demon the meth is, and I didn’t want you tossing me out with the clean and sober bathwater if you backslid. My one condition was that you didn’t lie to me anymore, that if you used I wanted to hear about it from you. No more bullshit.

  Maybe that is why you haven’t called, maybe the truth was something you thought I wouldn’t want to hear, or something you weren’t prepared to say out loud.

  I asked after you at your favourite old coffee shop the other day. The owner’s grandson, the cute one, he surprised me by saying yes, he had seen you, and that you were looking great, that you had cleaned up and were living in the suburbs somewhere, and working construction.

  I let out the long breath with your name on it that I had been holding for almost a year, and went straight home to call your brother. I was so glad to have word that you were alive and well that it took me a couple of days to get around to wondering why you hadn’t gotten in touch with anyone.

  The guy who first said ‘No news is good news’ obviously never had a best friend fighting the ice.

  And the guy who coined the phrase “fair-weather friend” never met either of us. I once told you I knew that if ever I found myself in your shoes, I had every faith you would be there for me, and you hugged me in place of a yes.

  I think of you whenever I swim in a lake, whenever I pass a rusty pick-up truck on the highway, whenever I see the northern lights or a blue-eyed dog. I miss you whenever I hit my thumb with a hammer, ride my bike, or walk past a lawn that needs mowing.

  I’m not writing this to judge you, or to make you feel guilty. I’m writing this to let you know that whenever you are ready, I will be here. I refuse to give up on you. The fire that burned my house down spared the garage, so I still have most of the tools you stored at my place. A couple of times I had to laugh out loud at the same time as I was cursing your name, as I’ve moved around a lot since my house burned down, and I must really fucking love you, because I can’t think of anyone else I would move an entire set of free weights five times for, myself included.

  I will pick up that phone whether you are still using or not, and I will listen to you whether your news is rosy or rainy. I want you to know that I meant what I said on the back porch that night, no matter what. No bullshit. A lot of things have changed for both of us since then, but not my home phone number.

  Oh yeah, and my grandmother says to say hello.

  The Slow Fix

  I’ve never been the sort to fix what ain’t broke. If something works for me, or almost works for me, or pretty much works for me the better part of the time, chances are I’m going to leave it be. I still have the same savings account my Uncle John opened for me the summer I turned nine, and I’ve never spent my last ten dollars because it was my first ten dollars. I drive my laundry twenty-two blocks because I like the way the lady there smiles at me the same way she did when I first asked her for change back in 1991, when I lived on East Georgia. I’ve had the same barber, the guy at the corner of Charles and Commercial, since 1989. Back then he charged ten bucks for a haircut, and seventeen years later it has gone up to a whopping $13.50.

  When Daniel first started cutting my hair, he was single and flat-tummied, and so was I. He would neatly fold and tuck a paper towel under and over the collar of the plastic poncho thing they Velcro around your neck, so no little stray hairs would make me itch later.

  “Same same, like always?” Daniel has asked me this once a month for almost two decades.

  This is where I nod, and say, “Not too short, or you’ll make me look like a dyke.”

  Then we always smile, as if I could easily blend into heterosexual anonymity, if only he is careful not to take too much off of my bangs.

  Back in the day, Daniel would go on about how he was never going to have kids, how they were too expensive, and then he would point at the red sports car parked outside his side window, and wink at me.

  Now his kids are twelve and ten, and him and the woman who used to rent the chair next to him commute to work together in the same minivan, and he doesn’t wink as much, not with the wife around.

  Last summer Daniel opened a second shop on Robson Street. He told me that as of next month, I would have to go downtown if I still wanted him to cut my hair, and that his wife and new employee were going to stay behind and run the old place. I didn’t tell him that I wouldn’t go to Robson Street with a gun to my head, not for any reason, even a thirteen-dollar haircut. It was just not my way. I don’t get my hair cut on Robson Street; I get my hair cut at the corner of Charles and Commercial. I didn’t tell him that I was broken-hearted at his nonchalant disregard for our relationship, at how he could just turn his back on seventeen years of satisfactory haircuts with a casual wave of his scissor hand. I thought about finding a new barber altogether, but that just seemed like too much change all at once.

  I ended up getting his new employee to cut my hair the next month, which was weird because the only instructions I had ever given Daniel were “same, same, like always,” which didn’t work much for the new girl. She even tried to bust out a blow dryer on me, which was terrifying in its wrongness.

  The second or third time the new girl cut my hair, Daniel’s wife was putting the final touches on the neckline of a beefy guy in his early twenties in the chair next to me. He was going on about this fucking faggot who cut his hair the last time, and how the fag wouldn’t cut the back in a straight line how he liked it, but instead the homo tried to talk him into a more natural neckline and how he was forced to tell the fucking pansy that he didn’t want his faggoty advice and that in fact he didn’t even want him touching him with his AIDS-ridden fairy hands anyways...

  And so on, like that. I tried to tell myself to just keep my mouth shut and get my hair cut, that it was sunny out and up until that point I had been having a great day, and that I had a gig that night and I needed to conserve my energy....

  And so on, like that. But then I looked up and saw the two dykes waiting in the chairs by the door, and I thought of how I had been coming here for haircuts since this mouthy fucker was in training pants, and that this was my neighbourhood, and there were only six of us in the room, and I knew for sure that three of us were queer, and yet five of us were remaining silent while one of us was spewing hate unabated, and I turned to the guy and told him to shut his ignorant mouth.

  He stopped talking for a minute, and his ignorant mouth hung open. I told him that he was talking about my family, and that I would never come into his neighbourhood and sit next to him and talk about his family like that, and then he said a bunch more ignorant things that were neither witty nor interesting enough to repeat here, and besides, we’ve heard them all before anyway, and then he tossed a twenty on the counter and left.

  L
eaving me, the two other dykes, and the two hair-dressers draped in an uncomfortable coat of quiet. To break the silence, I started chatting up the new girl about North Korea, where she had lived up until two years ago. She told me things were different there; for instance, if I had done what I had just done in North Korea, I could have been arrested. I forgot to ask her if she meant I could have been arrested just for being queer, or for refusing to take abuse for being queer.

  Last week I noticed that the windows of Daniel’s shop were covered in newspaper, and a sign in the front announced that a clothing store was opening soon. I knew right away that I would never set foot in the new hipster clothing store just on principle, and that I needed to find a new barber. Just as well, I thought, because ever since Daniel left, things have never been the same same, like always.

  It Works Like This

  I have to admit, I thought saying goodbye to my bachelorhood was going to hurt a lot more than it actually did. After living on my own for thirteen years, the concept of a roommate seemed uncivilized somehow, and the thought of living with my lover used to make my necktie feel too tight.

  I had grown attached to working in my underwear and eating soup straight out of the pot. Perpetrating these and some of my more unmentionable habits on a partner seemed somehow ungentlemanly, and changing things about myself that I personally didn’t have a problem with seemed highly unlikely.

  We moved in together last December, and aside from an ongoing struggle for domestic dominance between me and her cat, it has been bliss. There have been some adjustments, for sure, but nothing that left me longing for the good old days. Mostly, I’d say it has just been educational.

  For instance, one might think that jumping into the shower while she is blow-drying her hair is acceptable behaviour, but it turns out that I had much to learn about the physical properties of steam. Steam from a shower can not only lead to unwanted frizzing of the hair, but it can also be hazardous to the clinical application of a proper amount of mascara, not to mention the tribulations of applying lip-liner in a foggy mirror. I mean really, what was I thinking? In case you are wondering, showering while she is attempting to use the straightening iron is even worse.

  I have also learned that it is not necessary to wait until you have completely run out of a particular product before purchasing more of said item, it turns out that a girl can never have too many different kinds of moisturizer or shampoo, nor is it true that all toners were created equal. I have worn the same cologne for years, never realizing that I may have been selling myself short all along: not only might it not have been my signature fragrance, I have been negligent when it comes to scenting for seasonal change. My spring fragrance now possesses a much lighter citrus top-note, far more appropriate for the weather than my more woodsy winter blend.

  Not to mention this news flash: a good facial moisturizer is not optional.

  I was going to comment on moving day that she might need to pare down some of the four boxes of bathroom products I packed up our stairs, but then I remembered that she hadn’t blinked an eye at my entire truckload of tools, or even inquired as to why I owned three bikes, none of which she had ever seen me actually ride. Before my house fire, I owned eleven pairs of black boots, and she never raised an eyebrow at that, either.

  We have a much different approach to home improvement, hers is the ‘Why don’t we just try this and see if it works’ method, as opposed to my ‘Let’s read three books and consult a professional, and then take the eight-week course’ tactic. I wanted to wait until I had time to buy the half-inch bell-hanging drill bit and drill a hole through the wall to properly run the ethernet cable into her room. She waited until I was out teaching a class one night, and tacked the cable along the carpet and across the stairs instead. I couldn’t even complain that it was unsightly, because I walked right over it without noticing, largely due to the fact that she had painted the cable the exact same colour as the rug with low-gloss nail polish. Now we don’t have to bring paint swatches home to match colours to the carpet, we can just bring the bottle of “London Bridge Is Falling Brown” straight to General Paint, saving us yet another superfluous and time-consuming step.

  Since the old pipe connected to the shower in the bathroom was rusted and its threads were welded to the old leaking showerhead, I mistakenly believed that installing the new detachable one was going to be a big job. I was pretty sure that we were going to have to knock out a couple of tiles to get at the old pipe and replace it, and that while we were at it we might as well re-do all the tiles as well. I had completed the preliminary research and signed us both up for the tile workshop at the Home Depot, and then I had to go on tour for a couple of days. When I got home there was a gleaming new silver showerhead installed. She had bypassed the old shower altogether, and just removed the main faucet and attached the hose for the new shower to that pipe instead. The old shower now provides a nice place to hang that puffy pink bath-scrubber thingy from.

  I have learned that the right way to do things is often the long way to do things, and that sometimes the long way doesn’t get done.

  We also have a lot of common interests, which is one of the reasons I think we co-habitate so successfully; our shared love of cigarettes, all foods made of meat, and Air Supply, to name but a few. We both believe in the importance of a clean bathroom, Sunday dinner, and the morning paper.

  Sure, living with my girlfriend has cut back on my ability to bring home lap-dancers in the middle of the night, but those kinds of activities always turned out to be more complicated than they initially appeared to be anyway, and often more trouble than they were worth.

  I can still work in my underwear, but I hardly ever eat soup right out of the pot anymore. It seems a little gauche now, what with the new table and the floral arrangements and all. Besides, it marks up the coasters.

  Pushing Forty

  I keep thinking if I ignore it long enough, it will just go away. I keep telling myself that I can’t possibly be lactose intolerant, on account of how much I love cheese, and ice cream, and drinking milk right out of the carton. I figure if I just persevere, and just make sure to have a little dairy every day, that slowly I will build up an immunity again, and it will all be good.

  Adult onset allergies, my doctor tells me, are more common these days than ever, a combination of pollution, stress, immune systems weakened by antibiotics; I’m not alone, she tells me, she sees it all the time.

  This doesn’t make me feel any better, this knowing that I have a rather common kind of garden-variety ailment. I’d almost prefer to be debilitated by something a little more rare, something elusive to diagnose and involving a lot less phlegm. Something a little more butch.

  My little sister was always the allergic one growing up, along with my mother. Carrie couldn’t drink milk or eat strawberries. Her entire childhood was shadowed by a running nose and itchy bouts of hives. My mother’s foes were dust and dogs and cats and a certain kind of pollen from an indigenous species of tree, especially in the spring.

  Back then, in the seventies, family policy was to just kind of ignore allergies, there were pills you could take I’m sure but no one believed in them, and it was generally implied to us all that those prone to allergies were somehow weaker than the rest of us, or possibly doing it for the attention, or just plain not trying hard enough. Getting rid of the dog or using a soy substitute would only encourage their inconvenient behaviour. Why take it out on the poor pets, or milk and milk products? Why punish the many strong ones and coddle the faulty few?

  My mom tells me on the phone that her allergies changed right around the time she was my age, that in her late thirties she developed a whole new batch of intolerances, and that she had to add a multitude of processed food preservatives, penicillin, and sulphates to the already long list of things her body reacted to. “You’re just getting old,” she told me, like I would find this news comforting.

  It still seems bizarre to me, somehow, that foods I have always considere
d friendly, my body now finds hostile. That someone born and raised in the Yukon could possibly sneeze when exposed to tree pollen. That a former landscaper could develop an intolerance to lawn clippings. That this person could be me. That I could be pushing forty. When did I turn into the person perusing the soymilk selection at the health food store? Where did the lines in my forehead come from, and whose hips are those, anyways?

  I was lamenting my ever-increasing hips a couple of days ago to two of my older butch friends. They snorted at me, like I was complaining that I was still too young to buy my own beer.

  “Wait till you start to grow the gut,” one laughed.

  My other friend nodded in sympathy, patting her own belly. “The hip thing slows down once you hit menopause, but then the belly speeds up. What really gets me though, is the turkey skin under my chin. Losing my young neck was the hardest thing for me. That, and my eyesight. Bi-focals are fucking expensive.”

  Again, I was not comforted.

  My mom calls again, this time to inform me that she has recently been diagnosed with Celiac disease, meaning she is now not allowed to eat wheat, rye, barley, spelt ... the list goes on for a frightening long while. She then informs me that this condition is hereditary, and that I need to go get tested myself. She starts bemoaning her imminent divorce from pasta and fresh bread, but I can no longer hear her, the sound of blood rushing in my ears has become too loud. I am imagining myself as one of those people I used to make fun of, the ones who show up for dinner at a friend’s house with their own special salad dressing in a Ziploc bag. The ones who interrogate the harried waitress for ten minutes and then end up ordering a miso soup. Wait a second. Will I still be allowed miso soup? Thank Christ I’m not a vegetarian, I think, and then wonder how long a person can actually live without pancakes. If I might eventually go nuts and start snatching handfuls of pasta off of other people’s plates when out in public. If I could actually go out in public. All that starch, just taunting me like that. She hangs up, and I Google Celiac disease. The first website that pops up is www.whats-wrong-with-me.com. I’m not making this up. Seriously.