The Withdrawal Method

by Pasha Malla

  I froze. A million things went through my head to scream back at her for this. I pictured myself grabbing fistfuls of her stuff and whipping them around the room. But I was not the type of guy to lose it. I breathed, looking away. Very calmly, I peeled my jacket off the back of her desk chair, made my way in silence down the hall, and quietly closed the front door on my way out, walking sockless in my shoes all the way across town to work.

  Maybe half an hour later Kaede showed up in her uniform, breezing in through the front door while I was going through some paperwork. She browsed absently through the postcards, moved a few things around on the shelves, not acknowledging me until she held up a maroon and gold Canada sweatshirt to her body. "What do you think?"

  I had no reply, just made a note on the page I was working on and turned to the next.

  "You guys are so tense."

  I flipped through the pages as though I were looking for something.

  "In Japan they have places for people like you, for businessmen."

  I glanced up from the files. I was a businessman now?

  "To blow off some steam," she said, coming toward me. "Shops where people buy a ticket and they can smash things."

  "Shouldn't you be at work?"

  "People go nuts for it. Apparently it's a huge release, destroying all these delicate things - china, crystal, glass. They just smash the shit out of everything."

  "What do they use?"

  She clasped her hands together and swung them, whistling.

  "Baseball bats?"

  Kaede nodded. "And whatever else - tire irons, swords, you name it."

  "Swords?" I struggled not to laugh. "People pay to do this?"

  "Lots."

  I stood there looking around the shop at my stock, wondering. But Kaede acted first. She grabbed a snow globe from the shelf. "Let's smash this."

  "Whoa."

  "Come on, aren't you mad at me?" She winked. "Won't this be a good release?"

  I paused, she let out a frustrated huff, and before I knew what was happening, she hurled the thing against the tiled floor. It shattered, sending its contents - an igloo, a snowman, a couple of evergreens, a handful of white confetti - flooding outwards on a wave of murky water and broken glass, leaving half the cracked globe rocking back and forth on its side.

  "What the fuck are you doing? That's our stock!"

  But she just handed me another one, giving me a look like, Come on.

  "Kaede."

  That look again.

  I took the globe from her hand, felt the dust that had accumulated on the smooth glass, weighed it, then dropped it beside the other one. It bounced harmlessly, rolled a bit, and came to rest against the counter. Kaede picked it up, looked at me with a frustrated expression.

  I sighed, took it from her. "Okay," I said, "fine."

  When the globe exploded I honestly felt something, a rush, as though a floodgate inside me opened up when the glass bulb split and spewed its contents all over the store. I looked up at Kaede. She smiled, already handing me a paperweight in the shape of Horseshoe Falls. This I hurled at the ground, laughing, screaming, "Motherfucker!" Ceramic shrapnel sprayed up as it hit. My body was buzzing. I put my hand out, greedy for more.

  Kaede took another paperweight from the shelf, juggled it from one hand to the other, then put it back. "We need to save things for other people."

  THAT NIGHT KAEDE made me spaghetti at her place. Over dinner we planned the whole thing, settling on twenty dollars a person - all my friends could afford, I figured - and decided that a week would give us enough time to get everything ready. Kaede made it clear that we had to be very specific in the area we allotted each participant. Otherwise, she advised me, there would be mayhem. "In Japan there are very strict rules. Do you think we need to do the same?"

  I thought of Dave. "Yeah, that's probably a good plan."

  When dinner was done I offered to clean up, but I'd only washed two dishes before we were peeling each other's clothes off right there on the kitchen floor. She pushed me down and climbed on top, hands running up my chest. In the light I noticed her face: a weird half-smile played at the corners of her lips, as though she were trying not to laugh. I scooped her up and flipped her around, wedging myself between her legs.

  She went rigid.

  "Kaede - is something wrong?" My pulse quickened. I'd been too rough, too creepy.

  "Um, sort of." She looked uncomfortable. "It's just that - well, these tiles are really cold. I know it's boring, but can we just go to my room?"

  After we'd finished, chatted each other to sleep, and then rolled away to opposite sides of the bed, I woke up in the middle of the night freezing. In need of clothing, I stumbled in the dark into the kitchen to retrieve my boxers and T-shirt. On the walk back to the bedroom I stopped at the living-room window. I'd forgotten that strange shape, that kid, whom I'd seen the night before. I stood for a while gazing out into the night. But there was nothing, no sign of any movement or anyone skulking around in the shadows, no kids or adults or anyone to speak of.

  Back in bed I lay there on top of the sheets staring at Kaede's back, curled away from me. I spooned up behind her, wrapping an arm around. Whether she was asleep or not she looped her fingers through mine and pulled me even closer. It was good, comfortable, but every time I started fading into sleep I'd hear noises from outside. I'd snap awake and lie there, hugging Kaede, imagining that little shape scuttling around the building, bursting up out of the night with its face pressed to the window. I didn't fall asleep until the first light of dawn began to crack its way through the curtains.

  I SPENT THE NEXT day going around telling my friends about Kaede's idea - our idea, I suppose. At first they just raised their eyebrows and laughed, but when they realized that the invitation was serious they were quick to sign up. Lisa and Colin were a bit more reticent; there was almost something sympathetic in the way they agreed to come.

  "Are you sure this is something you want to do, Pauly?" Lisa said.

  "Sure as sure. Just go nuts. Like bulls in a china shop. It'll be fun."

  Colin shook his head. His folks had been friends with mine; I wondered if he was thinking about what they'd make of the store smashed to bits. But then he just smacked me on the back and said, "Well, Dave'll be happy. At least a paperweight won't fight back."

  Eight people confirmed, all old friends. A hundred and sixty bucks isn't exactly a fortune, but it was a lot more than I'd make trying to sell the stuff. And everyone seemed to be genuinely excited - both for themselves and for me.

  Until the big day a week later, Kaede and I spent every night together; if she could work her security patrol so it swung past the store, she would, hanging out until she thought the CanAm folks might wonder where she'd got to. She had the day before the big smash-up off work, so I surprised her with an impromptu trip to Marineland. Nearby was the warehouse space where I kept everything the other souvenir shops had passed along to me, so we decided to go by there as well.

  We parked on the main road about halfway between the two places and hit the warehouse first. The place was like an airplane hangar, full of junk. Kaede poked around taking photos, kneeling to snap the boxes full of knick-knacks, getting up close to shoot the postcard racks and shelving units teeming with relics of a place that no longer existed.

  "After we get through everything you've got in the shop, we'll restock it with this stuff."

  "For who?"

  But she just raised the camera to her face and took my picture.

  Then we walked back past the car and on to Marineland, where we hopped the wall by the front gate. It was another chilly, grey day, and the few trees that still sprouted from the cement walkways were leafless and lonely-looking. I took Kaede down to the old killer whale tank, where we crossed over to the stage and sat, dangling our legs above the empty pool. Everywhere the blue paint was flaking, the muck of rotten leaves clinging to the corners in brown clots.

  "So what did this used to be like?" she aske
d, shooting the tank with the flash on, then off.

  "I used to come here every summer with my parents. The whales were the best, the way they splashed around, how it looked like they were smiling. We always sat up close on purpose, because the orcas would do these backwards flops that'd spray up into the crowd. Then we'd walk around, get cotton candy or something, and dry off in the sun."

  Kaede pulled out a pack of cigarettes from her purse and put them down between us, took one for herself and lit up. After a few drags, she took the cigarette out of her mouth, leaned in, and kissed me on the cheek. "Paul, this is going to be so good. You feeling okay?"

  I nodded at her cigarette. "You smoke the way my mom used to, like every drag is the first one you've ever taken in your life."

  "Shut up!"

  I faltered for a second, looking at her face - the incredulous expression in her eyes, faking hurt - and then went in. Her mouth parted and I felt her tongue. Then she was at my neck, I was at hers, our hands were everywhere. After a while I started laughing. "Man, this is the sort of shit I used to do in high school: sneak into abandoned parks and make out."

  "Is it good?"

  "Yeah," I said, leaning into her. "It's good."

  ON THE WALK back to the car, I took Kaede's hand, swung it happily. The sun had started setting, but there was no sunset - no colours, no light. The clouds just started shifting to darker shades of grey and the world under them began to fade in their shadows.

  We reached the gate and, holding her camera, I helped boost Kaede up. She straddled the top of the wall and then dropped down, out of sight, on the other side. While I was draping the camera around my neck I heard her call out, "Paul! Paul, there's someone over here."

  I thought instantly of that dark shape in the street our first night together, rising from the ground like something feral. "Hold on," I said. My hands were shaking as I scaled the wall. "Kaede, where is it? Kaede?"

  "It's in the trees. There - there, I saw it move again."

  Perched on the top of the wall, I looked down at Kaede, standing there at the bottom. Across the parking lot were the woods, the evergreens thick and dark, the maples and birches bare with their empty branches clawing in the wind at the darkening sky.

  I scanned the trees. "Where is it?"

  "It was there," Kaede said, pointing. "I saw it move between the trees. I think it's watching us. Who is it, Paul?"

  I dropped down from the top of the wall. My knees had turned to jelly and I crumpled on landing, turning my ankle. "Fuck," I said, wincing when I stood. "Come on, let's go."

  With Kaede supporting me, we made our way toward the car parked around the bend. Both of us kept our eyes on the line of trees on the far side of the road. I couldn't see anything. "Are you sure there was someone in there?"

  "Yeah, of course I'm sure. There was someone watching me."

  Then the car was in view, up on the soft shoulder where we'd left it. My ankle was killing me; I moved stilt-legged on it at a trot while Kaede hoisted up my weak side. "If there was something in the woods, it's gone. We probably scared it off."

  Kaede just kept scanning the trees. "It was small," she said, "like a kid."

  We got to the car and, leaning against the door, I struggled with the keys. I was so focused that I almost didn't notice what someone had scratched into the paint on the hood, the letters two feet high. My stomach did a backflip. I slammed my fist into the windshield.

  "What?" Kaede said, but then saw where I was looking. "Oh, Jesus. Who would do that?"

  Shaking, I opened the door and got in. Kaede hopped across to the other side. The word had been written facing inward, so I had to read it from the driver's seat. I hit the power-locks, then sat breathing behind the steering wheel. "Okay," I said, and started the engine.

  Just as we were pulling away there was movement up ahead in the woods. With all the streetlights out it was hard to tell, but it looked like something was coming thrashing toward the road through the trees.

  "There!" called Kaede, pointing through the windshield.

  Then it was out of the woods, a small shape scampering along the gravel shoulder. A kid. In a panic, I pressed down on the accelerator and laid on the horn. But the kid kept coming, and instead of fleeing back into the woods it burst onto the road, hands up as though to stop the car. I honked and sped up, the motor roaring.

  "What are you doing?" Kaede screamed.

  At the last second I tried to veer out of the way, the tires screeching as I cranked the wheel, but it was too late. The fender hit the kid at the waist, flinging him up onto the hood. He smashed against the windshield and, as I slammed the brakes, rolled back down into the street. At the moment of impact my headlights shone right into the kid's face: he was maybe ten years old, the eyes not so much wide in terror as they were with something enraged, something desperate.

  I STOOD OUTSIDE the hospital with Kaede, watching her smoke. It was close to three in the morning, but I felt almost unnaturally alert. Kaede, meanwhile, had withdrawn. She wouldn't look at me. Every time I tried to touch her she shrugged my hand away. And as soon as each cigarette was done, she lit another - now on to her second pack of the evening.

  "He's going to be okay," I tried again. "You heard the doctor."

  Kaede shook her head, ashing onto the ground.

  "They'll find his family. These people all live around here, they all know one another."

  Nothing. Not even a glance in my direction. I wondered if she could sense in my voice the doubt that, even if they could track the parents down, they'd care enough to come in to pick up their son. I'd heard about the way the pickers lived - like animals, apparently. And these were people with decent jobs only three years ago. It's amazing how quickly human beings can degenerate. I looked back at Kaede, standing there shaking her head. I'd had enough.

  "Oh, come on, would you? He ran right into the road. What was I supposed to do? You think I wanted to hit him? You think this is how I wanted to spend my night, at the fucking hospital, talking to cops and doctors and nurses and whoever? Jesus Christ."

  "Right," she said.

  "Listen, there's no sense hanging around here. Do you want a ride home?"

  "No," she said. "I'm going to stay for a while. I need my camera from your car."

  I left Kaede standing at the door of the boy's room. He'd been shifted from the ►cu to a regular bed. Luckily, all the accident had resulted in was a broken leg, a dislocated shoulder, and bruised ribs. Other than a nasty black eye he hadn't done any damage to his head, which was their main concern.

  Even so, the doctors wanted to keep him in for observation for the night. "Still trying to track his parents down," I heard a nurse telling Kaede as I moved away down the hall. "With these cases it can be tricky, though. Could be a runaway or abandoned, just living off garbage and staying in empty buildings. You never know."

  THE NEXT MORNING I called the hospital, explaining who I was. By some miracle they had found the boy's parents, part of some sort of squatting commune in an old winery off the 420. With my car in the shop to fix the windshield and buff the scratches out of the hood, I hobbled up to Kaede's place that afternoon to let her know, but there was no answer. As I turned to go home, I nearly ran into a woman coming up the walkway. She wore the CanAm security uniform, seemed to be in her mid-thirties, sort of pudgy; her nametag read, Carol. I guessed that she was American: Dave claims all the women wear white tennis shoes, and Carol sported a pair of gleaming Reeboks.

  "You looking for someone?" Carol asked, pulling out her keys. "I'm the super."

  "Kaede?"

  "The Japanese girl? Pretty sure she didn't come home last night. You her boyfriend?"

  "Didn't come home?"

  "Listen, pal, she might be gone for good. It happens all the time - you get these foreigners over here looking for work, then they don't like it and bail." Carol looked me over. "You in the market for a job?"

  I shook my head. Carol excused herself, moved past me, and began unlocking
the door. Watching her fumbling with the keys, my body felt heavy, as though I'd gone swimming in my clothes and was now trudging back onto land. I turned and dragged myself down the steps.

  I HEADED DOWN to the store about an hour before everyone was scheduled to show up - it was just gone seven, right around dusk. I hadn't slept the night before and other than my one trip out, I'd spent the entire day at home waiting for the phone to ring. It hadn't.

  With my ankle still badly swollen, the walk down there took about three times longer than it normally would. In the parking lot I had a good long look at the shop: the chipped paint, the sagging foundation, the stain of where the G had once been above the door.

  As I went to let myself in I noticed a letter tucked into the mailbox. As I pulled it out, a lump collected in my throat, hard as a stone. Inside the store I ran a souvenir letter opener up the side of the envelope and shook it open. All that came out was a photo - no note, no indication of who it was from. Although that much was obvious.

  The photograph was of the boy I'd hit, lying in his hospital bed. It was a close-up. Kaede must have gone into his room to take it. He was in rough shape: torso wrapped in bandages, right arm in a sling, left leg up in traction. He was asleep, one of his eyes ringed with a deep purple bruise.

  I was furious. My foot bearing down on the accelerator had been an accident, the wrong reaction to the situation for sure, but certainly not purposeful. Forget what he'd scratched onto my car. I didn't get angry. I wasn't that kind of guy. What kind of monster would try to kill a kid?

  I went to throw the picture out, but then reconsidered, instead stashing it in the cash register underneath the one of my parents. At some point I'd look Kaede up in Calgary and send the thing right back to her: fuck you.

  A few minutes later the first of my pals arrived with their respective smashing tools - two baseball bats and a shovel. As more people began to show up, I got busy administrating the ensuing chaos and forgot what had happened the night before. But then, once things were set up, my friends stationed in their various assigned positions around the store, it all came back. I wondered if the kid had gone home yet - or to whatever approximation of a home his parents kept. And I wondered where Kaede had gone to: maybe she'd moved into the pickers' commune out of solidarity, or maybe she was already sitting on a plane over the Prairies, looking out the window thinking what a monster I was and what a mistake she'd made with me.