by Dolly Dennis
Velvet has settled into the Complex Arms; Frosty has been furnishing her apartment with second-hand furniture that he salvaged from runaway former tenants: a sofa, a coffee table, a chest of drawers, and a bookshelf. He continues to assist in her search for the elusive Ryan.
Adeen has a thirst for a cold Molson. Nothing in the fridge and no stash left behind Irene’s bedroom door.
Frosty steps out under a blistering midday sun, excusing himself from the yardwork that Adeen assigned him. “But my wrist is sore today,” he complains. Her eyes beam threats at him, but he splits before she can shove a mop in his arms.
Velvet, at the same time, decides to explore the neighbourhood, stop off at the Mac’s store around the corner for an ice cream sandwich, and maybe inquire again about Ryan. She is in the lobby heading out when Frosty, sprinting down the hall, collides with her. Frosty signals with his finger to his lips to shush, to stay quiet, and gestures for Velvet to walk backwards. There in the lobby, under the threadbare welcome mat, a mouse is birthing a brood of scrawny, hairless, pink babies. Frosty counts four but more may be flushing out.
Velvet shrieks and Frosty hushes her up again, but the mother mouse, the doe, is deaf to any startling sound, so occupied is she in cleansing her brood. Two more pinkies emerge. Frosty again cautions Velvet to stay back then he removes his T-shirt and uses it as leverage to lift the two ends of the welcome mat. He flings the entire contents out the open doorway, like so much garbage, into a nearby shrub. The mice sift down through the interior branches, eventually finding soft landings. One puny pinky, the smallest, the weakest, slips out and hits the pavement, dead. The carpet lies motionless, one part folded over, like a discarded opened envelope. The doe seems oblivious to the fact that she has lost one of her pups.
“You’ve killed them! A mother and her babies. You’ve killed them all.”
“Nah, I didn’t. See.” And he points to sudden movement under the mat.
“They are probably hurt for sure,” Velvet said.
“Thought you didn’t care. Want to go rescue them. Go ahead.” And he bows from his waist and grandly gestures toward the floral shrub, a bleeding heart.
“At your disposal, ma’am,” Frosty says.
“Leave them alone. Leave them. They are creatures. They breathe.”
“All right. Want the critters? I’ll get them for you.”
“Murderer!” Velvet’s voice is an anxious squall. “Murderer!”
And she is gone. She springs back blindly inside the building with the speed of a runaway horse, up the stairs to her apartment, sobbing for all the dead creatures in the world, leaving Frosty behind scratching his head.
Adeen pokes her head out of her apartment and can see Frosty through the glass lobby door bent over laying out his T-shirt on the ground like a picnic blanket.
“Always have to show off your chest, eh, Frosty. What’s going on? Who screamed?” She is outside now nagging him.
Frosty hurries up the steps, ignoring the rants. He passes Adeen, and before she can utter another word, he says, “Mouse in the entryway gave birth and Velvet went crazy like I was some kind of monster ’cause I threw the mat with its package of vermin onto the front lawn. They landed under your blessed bleeding heart. One baby hit the pavement. Just gettin’ somethin’ to clean the mess before any of the kids get at ’em, especially Derrick. Spread germs, you know.”
“I’ll have a talk with Derrick. He promised me, only pet mice and in a cage. I thought we had evicted them all.”
“Never get rid of mice here. We live too close to the fields and marshes. We’re the ones intrudin’ on their livin’ quarters.”
“Only the strong survive,” Adeen said.
He passes in front of her and she says, “I have to see Rosemary upstairs. She’s inconsolable. Still mourning her husband.”
“Why don’t you just let her be?”
“She’s grieving, don’t you understand. She knows no one here but me. Have to go.”
“Go then. See your crazy tenants. Take care of them first. You could help me get rid of the dead mouse.”
“You know I can’t see anything die, Frosty. And mice. Not even cuddly.”
Adeen heads for Rosemary’s while Frosty stops at the broom closet to fetch a pail, mop, and trowel. The closet abuts their apartment and he can hear the phone ringing. He makes a hasty decision to ignore the dead mouse for the moment. He drops the cleaning equipment in the hallway, returns inside, and picks up the receiver.
“Hey, Burp. How’s it going?” Frosty checks over his shoulder to ensure he is alone. “Not now,” he whispers. One of his casino friends. “This place is a fuckin’ zoo. There’s a family of mice checkin’ out the real estate on the front lawn.”
A knock on the door.
“Hold on, Burp.” Knock again and there stands Velvet, shimmering like a newly minted loonie.
He’s already in the hallway, arms held out, reaching for her. “What’s the matter, hon?”
“Mouse and her babies. They deserve a decent funeral.”
“I was just gonna check and do that.”
And then he remembers Burp. “Come in, Velvet. Just on the phone. Only take a minute.”
Frosty is listening, nodding, then hangs up with a forlorn, disoriented expression, a grinding of teeth moving his jawline, a touch of red anger coating his cheeks.
Velvet follows Frosty and she begins to squeal as they near the front door.
“I can’t bear to look.”
“You better stay behind, Velvet, if you’re gonna act that way. Have enough crazy here to last another lifetime.”
“I won’t, I won’t. I promise.” Her fingers latch on to the back of his leather belt until she and Frosty near the bleeding heart. Frosty bends over it with deliberation and teases the lower branches with his trowel for a better view.
“Nothin’ here, Velvet. Come see. They musta taken off.” And the earth seems to once again settle back into place until the next round of drama.
With a caution bordering on paranoia, she tiptoes toward the scene of the mouse massacre, only to come unglued when she feels a light scampering over her sandal. The mother mouse is beating its way across the lawn in search of her lost pups. Velvet is hopping up and down like the soles of her feet are on fire. “Mouse, mouse.”
Frosty is grabbing her arm, drawing her toward him, and she is breathing into his heart, whimpering, and he likes it. He is squashing her with his long arms, chest to chest, his mouth sucking her neck and face.
She does the same, seeming to acknowledge this affection between them. She lets him kiss her full out on the lips, a lizard’s flicking tongue, and then she pushes him away and says, “I have Ryan.”
“Well, where’s the highfalutin dude, huh?”
“And you have Adeen.”
He lurches forward, grabs her waist, and spins her around again, his eyes on hers.
“I don’t have Adeen.”
“Don’t hurt her, Frosty. Besides, I love Ryan. Don’t confuse me. I still haven’t uncovered all the places he could be hiding.”
“But, Velvet.”
“Fuck off,” she shouts with a surprised finality and marches back inside the building.
“They is all crazy. All crazy.”
After burying the dead baby mouse under the bleeding heart, he drags the mat behind him by a corner, stops to hurl it inside the Dumpster in back. The dry grass, the colour of steeped green tea, tickles his ankles as he returns to the lobby. He thinks it’s a mouse and kicks it, but nothing there.
“Those critters still alive somewhere. Now I’ll never hear the end of it. Maybe I can flush them out. Besides, the lawn needs waterin’ and that tree is askin’ for refreshments.” He is talking to the birch now. “I know what we both can use. Whisky. At least for me. You get water and maybe some fertilizer.”
“Talking to yourself again, Frosty?” says Payton.
“Haha. Funny.”
“Heat got to you, too?”
“Lay off.”
Payton retires inside with a smugness bordering on conceit. Frosty slaps his hands against his naked chest, trying to erase the dirt and sweat.
The drought singes the City of Edmonton and the surrounding area. For Sale signs pop up along roadways. Prescribed burns in forests up north wait to ignite into an accident.
“Bloody heat wave,” Frosty says to no one and directs the garden hose on himself before drenching the birches.
ADEEN
People who need people always rely on the kindness of strangers. They say we all need someone, which is just a lot of bullshit as far as I’m concerned. Me, I don’t need anyone. You need yourself first. You are whole without another person hanging on to your rib cage, whether it is a husband or a child. If I had to do it over again … if I had to do it over again … Irene and Frosty need me, so I guess they are lucky they have me.
Told you not to judge me.
Rosemary wasn’t home, so I went back to wait for Frosty, see if he had cleaned up the mice mess. Interesting that the mother mouse, so oblivious to her brood she didn’t expect all of them to live anyway, was grateful for nature to lighten the load for her. Christ! I wondered if we should tell the Swanks about the mice? I knew I’d have to have a talk with Derrick first. At least there were no cockroaches like in Montreal.
Don’t I sound like a native Albertan? Hate this province. Never should have listened to Mona. I don’t know anymore. I’m losing whatever goodness I had left. Only so much a body can take.
Anyhow, as I was saying before the mice interrupted, I saw Frosty out our bedroom window lunging for Velvet, arms all over her like she was freezing and needed someone to keep her warm. When he started kissing her, I backed off. I’m no fool. He’d done this before to me. I knew it. Those nights when he was gone … Where do you think he went? Not midnight Mass, I can assure you.
Later that day, Frosty neglected his janitorial duties, took his notebook of poems to Black Jack’s, and waited until Velvet’s shift was over. How did I know? I followed him. He was still latched to his little dream of becoming one of those cowboy poets who read at fairs and rodeos. Bet Velvet liked that romantic side of him. Everyone did. His horsing days were over, and I guess he’d decided that he’d rather horse around with anyone who would listen to his stupid poems. He was convinced he would be famous one day, make money. “You’ll get your house, Adeen,” he would tell me.
Well, those days were gone. I’d stopped waiting for him to make good on his promises, stopped waiting for him to help me make my dreams come true. Stopped waiting for him, period. At night, I’d hear him come back to the Complex Arms, his voice raised in a drunken stupor after a night of drinking at Black Jack’s and sharing a cab with Velvet after her shift ended. I could hear them both laughing in the hallway like a couple on a date and then not a word.
One night I couldn’t stand it anymore. I stormed upstairs and I flung the door wide open, angry with hurt. The building seemed to vibrate. And there they were, eyes locked, Frosty deaf to anything but her sweet murmurs, and his hands under her elbows. Velvet spotted me over his shoulder and indicated my presence with raised eyebrows and further whisperings, speaking soft like I was interrupting something important.
Frosty looked over his shoulder, like he had just noticed me, and with a sheepish grin said, “Oh, hi, Adeen. Just deliverin’ Velvet home from Black Jack’s.”
“Full of shit” is what I said. But it was always the alcohol talking. I knew that.
“What more do you want from me?” He’d always throw that bit of nonsense at me. “What more do you want from me?”
Lots more, I wanted to say.
I didn’t want him cheating on me. I didn’t want him gambling. I wanted him to actually do some work, help me run the Complex Arms. Once upon a time he would check out the classifieds in the back of musical periodicals like Variety and Billboard, and at first I supported his sorry efforts. I hooked on to his dream. This was early in our relationship. Frosty would send his paltry lyrics to unscrupulous American music producers who greedily praised his poetics, pocketed his money — money that was not his to spend — and then he’d never hear from them again.
After he fell off that horse at Northlands Raceway and broke his wrist bones, and after his workers’ compensation ran out, he would complain that he could no longer carry a mop, that his back and neck would give out, that his wrist tired from the lifting. And so I took on a bigger load and left the watering to him until he complained about how heavy the garden hose was, so I finally relented and told him to take care of the banking and write his stupid poems. I didn’t want the Swanks to fire us because we couldn’t do the job.
I took comfort in my tenants. They were a distraction.
Mrs. Lapinberg, with the aid of her oldest son, was preparing to move out. I had mixed feelings. Such a dear soul. There are good people in the world.
Zita found a part-time job to keep busy and would leave Derrick with me when she worked the night shift at McDonald’s. Not much money, of course, and she developed a bad back from all that stooping and lifting, all day on her feet. Seemed strange, she, a young woman in her midthirties. “Not right,” I said.
Howard kept working up north at Fort Mac, and Zita’s extra wage helped with the groceries. He would come home every two weeks but, according to Zita, there never seemed to be enough to pay all the bills. Sometimes I would give her an extension on the rent during a particularly bad month. Where did his money go? I could have told her but kept my mouth shut … I would have told her if she asked but she never asked. I did what I could to help.
And Rosemary no longer wept for her Walter. Guess she kept everything inside. Days after the funeral, a friend set her up with a blind date, an old geezer in search of someone to take care of him in his old age. The usual story. She would have none of that and broke up the relationship rather quickly, I thought.
Instead, she returned to finishing the memoir she’d started so many years before. I guess she had an ending now that Walter was gone. Her emotional condition improved somewhat. I did notice, however, she was becoming more reclusive, self-absorbed, withdrawing from everything. A way of protecting herself, I suspect. Can’t blame her. I understood she wanted to tell her story. But memoirs bug me. They are all about me me me; I hated this narcissistic part of her. Everyone should listen to her whining as though everyone else lived a life of bedazzlement, but hers was one of martyrdom and sacrifice. I could tell her a thing or two. She asked me to help type the manuscript, but I declined this time. I didn’t want to know any more details of her life.
There was one happy senior in the building. That nice man, Jack, on the second floor, who dressed in women’s clothing, and went by the name of Jackie, after Jackie Onassis. Even dressed like her. Pillbox hats and spiffy pastel suits. A compulsive hoarder, he felt it was his mission to keep the world clean and beautiful, so he spent his days thrashing through Dumpsters in a bid to recycle every discarded can, bottle, and paper. He and Payton battled over the garbage until they eventually arranged a daily schedule of who went when to unearth his treasures. Civilized they were. Jack also painted in the manner of Modigliani, so I was drawn to him and our common love of art. We’d sit in the courtyard on the bench under the apple tree, Irene stretched out on one of the other benches, and we’d talk about paintings and books and music — all the things that nourished my spirit in the face of the absurdity that was the Complex Arms.
“Oh, Modigliani is my favourite painter right after Degas,” I would say.
He would chirp, “You must come up and see my paintings, dear, one of these days.”
And we would both laugh.
“That is so cliché, Jack,” I’d say.
“Oh, you know what I mean.” He would flop his wrist like a magician readying to perform a trick.
That was about as close as I got to being an artist. I only had a high-school education, and it is from Jack/Jackie (depending on the day), the retired principal, th
at I learned about art and literature. So he was no bother, an oddball who wore pink lipstick like his other namesake and a woman’s wig in the fashion of the sixties. To me he was a precious friend. I can accept just about anything in a person except dishonesty or lack of integrity. He had bucketloads of honesty and integrity and more.
“He’s harmless,” I would tell Frosty if he complained, “and doesn’t make trouble unlike some regular folks here.”
“What’s the world comin’ to?” Frosty would say. “The city has changed a lot since I was a kid.”
“You should talk,” I would say, but he didn’t understand. I mean, he was not the man I thought I had married.
Jack kept to himself most of the time, painting in isolation, forgetful of time. I understood. One day I dropped by to see if he needed anything and was taken aback by the filth of his apartment — worse than Payton’s. The man was a contradiction — like Shylene in some ways, like most of us in many ways. I guess Jackie must have been the clean freak, and Jack, the hoarder. Wall-to-wall stacks of newspapers, magazines, CDs, empty jam jars, discarded chocolate bar wrappers, and God knows what else. No wonder mice now nested in the complex. A hot pot of canned beans with ketchup on the stove was his daily nourishment, along with his bologna sandwiches. He still thought it was the Age of Aquarius and kept humming songs from Hair.
One day I said, “Jack” — he wasn’t wearing lipstick, so he was Jack — “I want you to clean up this mess immediately before I get in trouble with the Swanks and we all end up on the street.”
“Yes, Adeen,” he said. “After I finish this painting. I’m almost done.” He smiled an odd smile and then spun around his easel, revealing the canvas. I saw it was a self-portrait in the manner of a crazed Van Gogh, gloomy and dark, amateurish, primitive, with ugly slashes of colour drowning his face, giving him the illusion of a werewolf.
“That’s a nice hobby you have there, Jack,” I said, “but this is an apartment, not an artist’s studio, and if you don’t clean up, out you go.” I scolded him good.