The Complex Arms

by Dolly Dennis

  Nights were often spent playing solitaire in her kitchen. Adeen would sometimes join her in a game of bridge or hearts or Scrabble. Those were the cheerless hours when both craved companionship.

  In her manic phases, when Shylene yearns for male attention, she searches the downtown bars. She is a creature of contrasts: a lonely child one minute and a promiscuous spirit entertaining men in her apartment the next. In the morning she comes to her senses and, in a rage of contempt, throws out the bewildered “dates” like so much garbage. Adeen ignores the comings and goings. It is none of her business, as Frosty always reminds her, unless Shylene’s behaviour crosses a line, and infringes on the rights of her other tenants. A complicated woman, whom Adeen accepted without judgment.

  One day Shylene rescued an abandoned ginger-coloured kitten in the field across the road from the Complex Arms. She couldn’t believe how cruel people could be. She hid the poor thing inside her shirt and carried the animal home. No pets were allowed, and when Adeen heard the meowing from somewhere in the building, she confronted Derrick, who denied harbouring any pets except for the store-bought white mice. Shylene admitted ownership, insisting he was family, a harmless addition, a companion in need of mutual affection, so Adeen, being the understanding compassionate human being that she was, yielded and allowed Shylene to keep Cumin. Perhaps it would help her depression.

  “Oh, thank you. Thank you. He won’t be any trouble.”

  “Okay, just watch that she doesn’t go wandering into the hallways peeing. Don’t want to hear from the Swanks. Between Derrick’s mice and your kitten, something will give eventually.”

  The window air conditioner, which Frosty had installed earlier, had chilled the apartment to a comfortable temperature. Adeen notices that Shylene has purged most of her furnishings and is keeping the decor to a minimum.

  “You leaving and not telling me or something?” Adeen says. “We would really miss you.”

  “Leaving?” Shylene possesses the startled look of a frightened winter hare about to be attacked by a wild dog. “Oh, heaven’s no. This is my home.”

  Adeen fondles a well-worn tan leather jacket, just lying there begging to be bought. She waits for Shylene to speak, to take a break from sorting through the pile of shirts, skirts, and Gucci bags and shoes. “I love this belt. Leather. Haven’t worn it in ages. Too fat.”

  “But you’ve lost so much weight. You’re looking really good — even too thin.”

  The last month or so, Adeen has also become aware of how Shylene is always on the brink of tears, complaining about the eternal exhaustion that never seems to leave, no matter how long or how often she sleeps. Adeen knows the signs.

  “You coming for the big barbecue?” Adeen is picking over more clothes.

  “Wouldn’t miss that for the world. When is it again?”

  “Friday, July twenty-seventh. Two p.m. Just bring yourself, okay.”

  “I’ll make a potato salad.”

  “How much for the leather jacket?”

  “Keep it, Adeen. I owe you more than any jacket.” The finger snapping, a comforting obsession, accompanies the words.

  “Really? I love it. You sure?” Adeen sniffs the scent of sheepskin and says, “I always wanted one.”

  After the final giveaway of her worldly possessions, Shylene says, “Well, that’s so liberating. Don’t know why we need to cram our lives with such useless things.”

  Oh, what Shylene wouldn’t give to have someone put their arms around her now and not some crummy jacket. Someone to tell her she is loved. Where is Cumin? Nothing can compensate, not even a lost cat. Before leaving, Adeen gives her the long-needed hug. Shylene prolongs the moment with a minute’s worth of heartbeats, as though this act alone will ward off her loneliness.

  Later, Shylene polishes her apartment until it sparkles like a diamond and circles the living room, examining the floors and windows. Then she goes out to her patio, lies there on the lounge chair studying the vacant sky. She instantly falls asleep, slumbering in the oppressive heat until the squabbling of birds wakes her up.

  Shylene steps back inside; the apartment’s coolness contrasts to the heat wave outside, and this seems to invigorate her mood momentarily, or perhaps it was the nap? In any case, she pulls her will out from a drawer in her desk and places the envelope on the kitchen counter beside the sink. Her pep leaves her as suddenly as it appeared and now she feels engulfed in a lethargy, as though all her brain cells have been destroyed. Nothing left. Running on empty.

  She reclines on top of the duvet covers and dozes off again. Is too much sleep a sign that death is near? Some days she sleeps for twenty-two hours at a time, and other times she is a night owl with insomnia, dusting her collection of vinyl records from the sixties, fondling her favourite books lining the numerous shelves, and snacking on fresh strawberries from the market. She wakes up intermittently to use the washroom, checks the medicine cabinet, and in her fogginess from waking up, she swallows her pills until the container drops empty into the sink. She slumps over and spills to the floor.

  ADEEN

  I hadn’t seen or heard from Shylene in over a week after I left her apartment. Worried sick, I knocked on her door several times and when there was no answer … I mean she rarely went out, except with me, withdrawn as she was, and I understood that part of her. But she always allowed me to enter her world, and we’d have a cuppa tea or glass of wine and talk about what was happening in the world and how we could change it for the better. Zita would sometimes join us.

  That day, I unlocked the door with my spare key, and notwithstanding the chase of cool air from her unit in the window, there was a faint musky odour that hit my nostrils as I peered inside.

  “Shylene,” I called out, “are you here?”

  I shut off the noisy air conditioner, which seemed to have been in a spin since I left her that day. The apartment felt like an iceberg. I slid open the patio door to release the cold and let in some fresh air and then checked the bedroom. The bed was a holy mess, as though she had to rush out while changing the sheets. The bathroom door was slightly ajar, and when I peeked in, there she was sprawled on the tile floor, her scrawny back to me.

  “Shylene!”

  I ran to her but I could see it was too late. I screamed when I turned her over: she was the portrait of death — her face and body, bones protruding like a child from some Third World country. I can’t describe the scene without tearing up.

  S’cuse me. Give me a moment.

  Okay, so I called emergency and they came and took her away. I found the envelope addressed to me on the kitchen counter. There was her rent money for the rest of her lease and her will. Her only possessions were her car and Cumin. Couldn’t find the cat anywhere. She left the car to Frosty and me “for our generosity.” She remembered how I was getting tired of riding around on that two-wheeler or having to take the bus everywhere. So thoughtful of her, I thought. So Shylene.

  After the coroner removed her corpse, I mean, they had to ascertain whether her death was natural or a killing apparently — but who would want to kill Shylene? — I sat on my patio, waiting for night, which takes forever here because we are so far north. I was catatonic, couldn’t move. Guess it hadn’t hit me yet. Death always makes me think of life. I thought of my mother and my father, Irene and what will become of her after Frosty and I are gone. Frosty, who always left the workload to me while he gallivanted around town like a horny dog.

  I left Shylene’s that day, with all these expensive clothes, feeling quite uneasy. Should have trusted my instincts, I never do. I should have gone back, stayed with her, played a couple of games of Scrabble. I knew the signs.

  Not too many people at her memorial service: a couple from Ponoka who knew her parents; her psychiatrist; all the tenants from the Complex Arms; three unfamiliar faces, one of whom showed up as this distant cousin from Millet and who immediately accosted me and asked straight out at the reception later if she was in the will. What nerve!

&nb
sp; Didn’t know what was expected of me at the memorial service, but I read a short eulogy and stressed the positive nature that was Shylene — intelligent, generous, kind, creative, a lover of the arts, and protector of animals, a voracious reader, and good friend. That’s all anyone had to know.

  She was a private person. I guess because of her illness. Sometimes she sounded so happy, snapping her fingers like a fool and flirting with Frosty, and other times, so miserable, irritable, and yelling at Derrick and Irene. I put a halt to that nonsense and came right out to ask if she had forgotten to take her meds. And then she would guffaw, snap her fingers like a period at the end of a sentence, and say she had taken them. I knew she was lying and changed the subject. She was always joking when she was in a manic phase. A camouflage, a facade, I realize now. Comedians have the saddest lives, I read somewhere. How they can find humour in tragedy, I don’t know. With all the weight loss, she’d been looking pretty good, except toward the end. All bone and cartilage. I would always remember the joy that was Shylene and the great times we had, which made up for the bad.

  She willed me a small amount of money if I would be the executrix. Guess I was as close to a family as she got, notwithstanding that distant cousin whom she never knew. I cried. No one should be so lonely. She was a good friend. I gave her hugs like I did for all my tenants who needed to feel someone’s arms around them. But Shy Shylene was so needy, could drain the life out of you sometimes. But so special nonetheless.

  I still can’t believe she’s gone. People’s lives. At one point yoga replenished her energy. I thought that was a positive sign, but she quit after a month’s worth of headstands and meditation. She mentioned wanting to travel and asked me about Montreal. Told me how she wanted to live there one day and learn French and marry a Frenchman because of her ancestry. I told her to go to France if she wanted a real Frenchman. She rarely laughed, but when she did, it was one of those ballsy, earthy, rolling-in-the-dirt kind of laughs accompanied always by those jazzy snap-snap fingers. She wanted to experience the cosmos, she told me once. Everything. Didn’t understand what she meant. But I guess she meant death. As you can see, she was a complex person, a broken spirit, like most of my tenants. And now she was stardust.

  Anyhow, that’s the story there.

  BLUE VELVET

  He had sent her the plane tickets, said he would meet her at the arrival gate from Toronto, 1700 hours. The flight was late getting into Edmonton and she couldn’t find him.

  She wandered around the airport, stopped, leaned her slight body against the gigantic windows, surveying planes landing and taking off. She returned to the baggage carousel in case he had been delayed and had just arrived, but the area was almost empty except for a few suitcases meandering in circles. She had him paged and remained in waiting mode. Nothing. She went to the ladies’ room, thought she would freshen up. For sure he would be there by the time she finished, but no. She was getting hungry and plucked up a turkey sandwich from the autovend. He would surely surface, all aflutter with apologies, and from the corner of her eye there he was. A tall, blond, sturdy hunk, dressed in khakis and a black T-shirt. Baseball cap turned front to back. She broke her stride. “Ryan, Ryan,” she cried out, but when the fellow turned around, she saw it wasn’t him. Always the anticipation.

  As the day wore on, she realized something must have happened to him. He wouldn’t stand her up in this godforsaken place. He’d said he would buy her the moon when she got here. So cliché and yet she believed him. A small-town girl, a dreamer, a romantic, a Saultite — that’s what they called residents from Sault Ste. Marie, or the Soo. She didn’t want the moon, just him. She remembered the slip of paper where he had scribbled an address and phone number. “Call me if I’m not there.” She thrashed about her purse and pulled the note from her wallet and, at a pay phone, followed his instructions.

  “May I speak with Ryan?” The girl on the other end giggled, her voice barely audible as though she had put a hand over the receiver and was having a conversation with someone else in the room.

  A muffle of nervous laughter and then sharp and loud: “Sorry, but you have the wrong number.”

  “Is this —”

  But the girl had already hung up. Dead, except for the beeping tone.

  Velvet sat back on the unyielding plastic airport chair. Night now, and the stars seemed to blend with the lights from the aircrafts approaching the runway. Had she been here that long? Eventually, the hum of engines lulled her to sleep. Even the sudden screech of planes braking didn’t wake her.

  And then it was morning. The airport was abuzz with travellers, everyone in a rush of living, going somewhere. She could smell roasted coffee from the nearby eatery. Maybe she had the wrong day and so she decided to run back to the arrivals gate from Toronto. Passengers were awaiting their luggage and she circled the carousel again looking for that blond head of hair. He was a musician, tattoos climbing his arm, a button earring in his right ear, so against the grain of what was considered normal here in the West. How could she miss him? But he was nowhere. Vanished.

  Velvet had withdrawn all the money she’d saved from her sales job at a record store in Sault Ste. Marie where she first met him. Said he was passing through, but he stayed. Played some of the bars around the Soo with a backup band, and hung around long enough for her to fall in love. Then with a sudden turn of events he announced he was heading for a gig in Calgary and another in Edmonton.

  “Lots of money to be made in Alberta,” he said. “I’ll send for you when I get settled.” She thought that was a new pickup line but he did call and he mailed her the airfare. He was working in a town called Red Deer.

  “Red Deer. What kind of name is that?”

  “A stopping point in the middle of Alberta. On my way to Calgary first and then back up to Edmonton next month if things work out. I’ll meet you in Edmonton. I’ll be staying with a buddy of mine in this new part of town called Mill Woods. There’s a future for us there, babe,” he said. “There’s a future.” And here she was, still waiting for her future.

  She cleaned up in the ladies’ room at the airport café then ordered a coffee. Black. She picked up the Edmonton Journal that someone had forgotten at her table and read the headlines. It occurred to her that perhaps something had happened to him. A small article caught her eye. An elderly couple had stumbled over a dead body in a Mill Woods ravine. Could it be? She shook that notion out of her head and took another sip of coffee, ignoring her anxiety. What would she do if that dead body was Ryan? How would she find him? She fingered his folded note and decided to present herself. She had been prudent and had stayed within her meagre budget, but considering the situation, she decided to forget her thriftiness and splurge on a taxi. She gave the Punjabi driver the Mill Woods address.

  It was an apartment building across the street from the Moravian Church cemetery. How could he choose to live near the dead? With tentative fingers, she buzzed the apartment number and, after a few seconds, a female voice barked over the intercom, “Yeah?”

  “Does Ryan live here?”

  “Who?”

  “Ryan. I called last night from the airport. He was to meet me there but never showed up. He gave me this address and —”

  “Oh, sweetie, I would take the next plane back to wherever you came from. You don’t want to know Ryan.”

  “But he’s my boyfriend.”

  The girl began to chortle and then a male voice intruded, “Who’s that?”

  “Another one of Ryan’s whores.” The intercom went dead.

  Velvet buzzed again and waited a moment in case the male voice would let her in, but there was only silence. Despondent, she turned around and headed out. The building was one of those four-storey walk-ups common to the neighbourhood. When she met the sidewalk, she decided to let logic guide her. She had some money but that could evaporate in a moment’s temptation if she wasn’t careful. The cab fare from the airport alone was more than expected. She needed a job and a place to live. S
he strolled around Mill Woods, in and out of farmers’ fields and meadows, choice real estate yet to be developed. She came across a vacancy sign at the Complex Arms and walked in.

  A waiter at the airport café mentioned rents were quite cheap now. The price of oil in a downward spiral. People on the Klondike Trail looking for black gold now returned to their origins: the Maritimes, Quebec, northern Ontario. The server also suggested that perhaps she, too, should follow their course and head on back to the Sault. “A young girl like you alone in the Wild West. Yep, if I were you, I would go back and make your little life there.” She ignored his suggestion, a stranger to her. What did he know of her life?

  The Complex Arms was in an area designated as Burnwood. A woodsy scent in the surroundings seemed to energize her. Nature abounded. Birds cheeped and squeaked, which reminded her of the Sault. Small-town living felt comfortable. She could be on the verge of happiness, contentment, if only she could find Ryan. Her thinking was that, living in Mill Woods, she could easily bump into him in the street, the mall, the park nearby, maybe at a bus stop.

  The following day, after she moved in with her sparse belongings and a new bed from a wholesaler, she checked out the various bars in the vicinity. She hoped that perhaps Ryan had played in one of the venues in or around Mill Woods since the address he had given was in that section of town.

  Her first stop: Black Jack’s on Calgary Trail. She was drawn by the small blinking neon light in the bar’s window, advertising two dancing feet in stilettos. They were hiring dancers. She had some experience as a backup dancer for every band that came through her hometown. She could do that, she thought. No Ryan at Black Jack’s but everything was not lost. She had landed a job as a waitress. Minimum wage to start, but the tips made the work worthwhile for a naive girl from the Soo. The owner told her that she could earn more money if she stripped and would receive an additional bonus if she persuaded customers to buy her drinks, watered-down shots masquerading as vodka. Her innocence would not let her commit to taking her clothes off. Not yet. She wasn’t that desperate.