The Complex Arms

by Dolly Dennis

  “Oh, there you are. Knocked on your door but there was no answer.”

  “Sorry, Adeen. Just got here. I wanted to sit a bit before going inside.”

  “Well, he was a good boy. Went to the fair, won himself a toy …”

  Derrick pulls out a small stuffed monkey, his prize at the duck pond.

  “Derrick had fun at the fair, didn’t you?” Adeen says as he nods, yawns, yes, yes.

  “Thank you, Adeen.”

  “Something wrong?”

  “Does it show?”

  “Well, you’re usually more energetic.”

  “Just got fired today.” Zita lowers her voice, as though it is a deep ugly secret, not for her son’s ears. “Not a big deal. Wasn’t cut out to sling hamburgers anyway. There are other joints I can find work. It’s not like we really need the money, you know.”

  “Yes, I know.” A happy marriage? Adeen didn’t want to hazard a guess.

  Indeed, she knows how men working up north, away from home for weeks at a time, are tempted to live dangerously, spend their money frivolously, and when the time comes to return to their families, there is little left for household expenses.

  Adeen keeps her mouth shut, determined only to offer advice if asked. Next to Mona, Zita is her closest friend. As though through osmosis, they understand each other without explanation. They share a love of cooking and they both have issues with their mothers. Zita’s husband, a sociable extrovert, prefers the company of others to an intimate dinner with his wife. Summer evenings when he is home, they sometimes invite the Whitlaws for a balcony barbecue or a spaghetti dinner. Zita makes the best marinara sauce, he would say and give her a slap on the rump as she scurried past him from the dining room to the kitchen.

  “Well, Derrick will sleep well tonight,” Adeen says. “He has a bit of a tummy ache from all those corndogs. And Irene loved seeing him again. She didn’t want to leave him.”

  No mention of losing the kids at the fairgrounds.

  “Must be a vacation for you to have Irene with Mona. When she coming back?”

  “Another week. I do miss her.” And then Adeen spits out the words she has been avoiding admitting to anyone. “I’m considering putting her in the Michener Centre. She’s getting too much for me, and I think it’s a burden on our marriage.”

  “Yes, children can do that.”

  And then Adeen stops in midair. She wants to share something, her fears about her treatment of Irene, about Frosty’s infidelities, his lies. She is thinking of leaving him, but where would she go and how to keep living? She could never tell Mona because Mona would just rub it in, reminding her that she told her so. She’d offer no solutions. Adeen’s life was never going to untangle itself unless she did something. Zita would listen. But what would she think?

  Adeen decides to keep her secrets to herself for now. She reaches over and pats Zita’s arm. “Not to worry. Everything will work out. You’ll find an even better job, or maybe Howard will get a job in Edmonton. Stay positive.”

  So Adeen leaves Zita on a note of hope; stops to check her mailbox; and in the hallway bumps into Mrs. Lapinberg and her son who are just returning from their customary weekly dinner.

  “Such a show at the Mayfield Dinner Theatre, Adeen. A bit schmaltzy but the food was geshmak.”

  “Geshmak? ”

  “She means it was delicious.” Pause. “Mrs. Whitlaw. I need to have a talk with you. I’ll just put mother to bed. Are you available?” says Barney.

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  A few minutes later, a knock on the door. “Come on in,” shouts Adeen.

  Barney stands in the doorway with a nervous tic in his right eye.

  “Well, come in now. I won’t bite you.”

  “Mrs. Whitlaw.” Barney is catching his breath. “Did my mother by chance give you a Royal Copenhagen 1908 Christmas plate, ‘Madonna and Child’? It’s worth about four thousand dollars.”

  “Oh, my! Yes, yes. She did give me a pretty plate of some kind, but I don’t know where I put it. Four thousand dollars?”

  “I hate to say this, but that was an heirloom and should stay in the family. It belonged to my grandfather and is of some value as a collector’s item. He died in a concentration camp, Dachau. So you can understand the significance of keeping it in the family. I know mother meant well, but sometimes she doesn’t understand what she’s doing. May we have it back?”

  “Oh, goodness, I told her I didn’t want it but she kept insisting. Of course, you can have it back.” Adeen goes to the glass cabinet to retrieve it.

  “No! Oh, Barney, it’s not here. I’ll return it to you as soon as I find out what happened to it.”

  “I’d hate for it to get lost. It belongs to the family, you know.”

  “Yes, you said. I’ll ask Frosty when he gets home. Maybe he moved it somewhere else. It’s been chaotic lately.”

  After Barney leaves, Adeen searches the apartment, every nook and cranny, and not a trace. When Frosty shows up, just before midnight, she is in no mood for any of his shenanigans.

  “Finally,” she confronts him. “Did you have fun with Velvet?”

  “Adeen, it’s not like that. Stop it.”

  “I bet.”

  “We had some drinks. That’s all.”

  “She find the boyfriend?”

  “No. That was her date from the club. A friend of Black Jack’s.”

  “Oh,” says Adeen. “What were you doing at the grounds anyway? You’re too big for the merry-go-round. Or maybe that’s your style?”

  “Adeen. Look, Adeen. Stop with the questions.” And he pulls out an envelope overflowing with lottery tickets. “You wanted a house and so I bought tickets for the home lottery. We have a good chance. A beauty of a house. Did you see it?”

  “Yeah, I did. Where in the heck did you get the money? Certainly didn’t sell any of your poems, I bet.” And then it occurs to her. “Frosty, did you come across an antique plate in the back of my glass cabinet? The one Mrs. Lapinberg gave me as a gift.”

  He trips over his words and then spits them out with a slow stutter like a six-year-old sent to the principal’s office. “Yes. Wasn’t worth much. Got a hundred bucks for it, enough for a lot of chances.”

  And she is on him like a dog with rabies, arms repeatedly thrashing him. “You stupid idiot. Fool.”

  Frosty stops her arms in midair and her head falls back in defeat. “Barney came over to get it back.” Tears now. “His mother never should have given it away. It’s an heirloom, now what am I to tell him? It’s worth more than you got for it. How are we going to pay them? It’s worth four thousand dollars. Better try to get back your money.”

  “Are you kiddin’ me? Man, oh, man, Adeen. Can’t do that.” He’s walking in circles. “The draw is tonight and all sales final.” His voice is penitent, confused.

  “You stupid idiot. You idiot. You go and tell Barney what you did, you idiot. I’m not cleaning up this mess. Die. Just let me die. Can’t take too much more of this shit anymore.”

  Frosty with a hangdog face says, “But hon, it’s not my fault. I didn’t know and neither did you when you took the plate.”

  “Oh, it’s my fault now. It was a gift from an old lady. It was her way of thanking me for helping her over the years. My gift. MINE, not yours. You didn’t even consult me.” And she throws a cup at him that shatters at his feet.

  “All right. I’ll talk to Barney,” he says.

  Frosty winds his way out through a familiar tunnel of disoriented darkness where there are no signs of light anywhere. He really has done it this time. Years later, he would attribute the incident to an early attack of dementia, and Adeen would just file it away with all the other amnesiac to-do lists that never got done, forgiven but not forgotten.

  ADEEN

  I just didn’t know what to do anymore.

  A week later, Barney again inquired about the antique plate and I pretended ignorance. Don’t think he believed me whe
n I told him I was still looking for it and that it was probably stashed in a strong box with our important papers and to please leave me his number so I could call when I found it. You should have seen his face. Full of disgust. People aren’t stupid and he’s a lawyer so I was really scared he would sue or something, but he didn’t. I guess a Copenhagen plate was not high on his money-making list of priorities, and he didn’t seem hurt that he lost an heirloom belonging to his grandfather. And where was Frosty through all this? God knows. He liked to avoid problems, so I was always left mopping the shit out of his way. I was getting tired.

  Temperatures soared from hell: thirty-seven degrees Celsius; higher if you included the humidex. Against all rules, I opened the sprinklers for the neighbourhood kids to cool down, and even Jack slipped into his bathing trunks and went cavorting in and out of the spray of water.

  Anyhow, the week before the barbecue, which was to be held the last Friday of July, I put the Complex Arms Bulletin into everyone’s mailbox as a reminder. I ignored Frosty, who had fallen into a cloudy day of writing poetry. He sat there, cigarette ashes dripping on the kitchen table like he was Leonard Cohen. A trio of Molsons by his side, a joint or two in the ashtray to summon his muse, and he was set for the evening. He still believed that one day his words would find their rightful place in Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry, sung by the likes of Merle Haggard or Dolly Parton. “We’ll live off the royalties easy,” he said. Nothing was ever easy when it came to Frosty. He never saved a penny in his life. Ask his mom. I no longer believed in his dream and had abandoned mine when Irene was born. Life’s roadblocks.

  If I had known the consequences of raising Irene alone, how my life would twist and turn with disruptions like a wild thunderstorm, I might have taken another course, perhaps abandoned the baby girl on the Catholic Church’s doorstep for the nuns to find. Cliché now, but common then. They, the nuns, always made me feel insignificant and bad. There, I said it. Actually, I can’t blame them because I let them make me feel that way. Wish I had been more aggressive when I was a kid. I must have done something wrong in another life that this one was so difficult. The nuns could have had Irene. But that was not what I chose. I kept Irene because I am a kind person, a good person. Ask any of my tenants. I’ve always been there for them. It’s in my blood. I took a test once, and the results showed that I was one of those “feeling” intuitive types who should look at becoming a nun or social worker as a calling. Too late now.

  And, the thing is, I love Irene. With all her violent tantrums and pain, she is still a part of me. She is my responsibility. I know I keep contradicting myself. Some days I love her and some days I hate her. I’m trying to work things out. I think it unfair that she has the mental faculties of a two-year-old, but I brought her into this world … I had no options. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I made my bed …

  Some days, I’d sit on the front steps of the Complex Arms, pretend I was lying on a bed of clouds in a hammock looking down at the universe, trying to figure things out. I wonder why all kids aren’t born healthy and perfect. Don’t answer. It’s a rhetorical question.

  Irene was a beautiful girl and I worried about her every day. I feared she’d come to harm by some insensitive bully, and she wouldn’t know what was happening or what to do. Even screaming against pain was not in her. Irene thought everything was a game; just laughed and clapped and shook her hands as though she were drying nail polish. She didn’t have a clue. Happy, always happy. Well, most of the time. How did she find joy amid all her dark, violent moments? It was the drugs. Yes, the drugs settled her. Maybe I should’ve taken some of what she was taking.

  But I couldn’t let my personal problems interfere with the lives of my tenants; although, I was always there to listen and lend a hand if they asked. I’m not a monster. Are we not all part of the human race? Do we all not shit, bleed, and then die? We are all dying every day. We are born to die. Yes. I believe that.

  I am a caring person, but some days I’d wonder what would happen to Irene, who would take care of her when Frosty and I were gone? It still weighed heavy on me the day I hit her, but Irene’s memory is short. Give her a rattle and all is forgiven, and always that clap clap clap. That applause for being pleased with herself or others. Her way of saying I love you. I was sure of that. Maybe I should take a lesson from my daughter. After all, Irene hugged me when we parted at Klondike Days when Mona dropped off me and Derrick. I should really call, I told myself, and see how they are doing. Mona was such a good friend. The best.

  Irene was going to be home Friday to enjoy the long weekend and Heritage Days at Hawrelak Park with all its pavilions from various countries — Poland, Ghana, Germany, Japan — serving up their dishes, their cultural dances in their ethnic costumes. It was always hot and spicy that weekend. Something the city looked forward to. Me, I prefer a cold day. Should move to Iceland. Just saying.

  I’d usually go with Zita. Girls’ day out. Our time to sit and yadder. And I’d always do the barbecue on the Friday before the long weekend. I was hoping Mrs. Lapinberg could join us and bring her knishes, and Rosemary usually had a dip of some kind. Irene always enjoyed these yearly community meals. It’d become tradition now at the Complex Arms. She loved the buckets of ice cream and watermelon that the Ukrainian lady next door would bring from her family’s farm in Barrhead. I hoped it was going to be a good day.

  Anyhow, that’s the story there.

  BLACK FRIDAY

  The heat wave persisted all week into Friday. The night before, the hottest, most humid on record, multiple layers of haze — yellow and light tan — brushed the sky. Going to be a perfect day for an outdoor get-together, Adeen thought. Even so, the population was advised to stay indoors, close their drapes, keep cool, and be vigilant for folks who could easily succumb to heatstroke. Newspapers reported seniors dying from dehydration. Steam smoked through sewers; hydrants were opened to dampen the streets. For a moment, water conservation was not an issue.

  Environment Canada forecasted cooler temperatures moving in, with a heavy thunderstorm heading toward Edmonton. Relief was in sight. But there were warning signs, too. Hints of the consequences sometimes faced by those living in a place where the heat of a burning sun that produced cracked, dry soil where nothing grew could suddenly converge with a cold front, a dangerous combination. The farmers, bless them, ignored the forecasts from the government and still raised their weary heads, scrutinized the formation of storm clouds and lamented the loss of their harvest one way or another.

  That Friday morning, the last day of an emotionally turbulent month, the sky, a teal green, no breeze in sight, Frosty is on his way out when words get in the way.

  “I need your help here, Frosty,” she says.

  “Promised to help Velvet for another round of findin’ Ryan.”

  “And what about me? Perhaps he just doesn’t want to be found. Ever think of that? It’s been almost a month now.”

  “Adeen, today is the last day, okay. I promise. I just feel sorry for the kid.”

  She lets him go.

  Because of the precarious weather, Adeen announces the barbecue, or block party as she now calls it, will move indoors to the spacious lobby of the Complex Arms. Folks can use the stairs as seating, and she suggests everyone bring their own cushions for added comfort. Adeen opens her apartment for any spillovers of people or food. The tenants busy themselves setting up a beverage table in her kitchen for the beer, soda, water, and various platters of cold cuts, cheeses, baguettes, crackers, and crudités. Mrs. Antoniuk arranges slices of watermelon on a plate and sets it on the coffee table; the freezer is stocked with homemade ice cream. Adeen has extended an invitation to the neighbourhood kids and their parents. There is enough food to outlive Armageddon.

  By noon that corner of Mill Woods rocks to the hot tropical sounds from Billboard, including Adeen’s favourites: Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” and “Livin’ on a Prayer” by Bon Jovi. Someone has had the foresight to bring a boom box
and taped enough music to last the long summer day into night. The music echoes throughout the building, escaping through the open double doors of the entrance and into the countryside, scaring the gophers and magpies.

  The storm rolls in around 2:00 p.m., one raindrop at a time, then thicker and thicker, faster and faster, falling in slants; lightning explodes on the horizon over the dilapidated farmhouse. Adeen usually thrills to a light show. This time the flash of light and clap of thunder are so fierce and near that she backs away. The power and phones are already down, so there is no communication to the outside. The block party guests either sit pat or depart to their upstairs apartments and wait. No one is hungry.

  Zita, head bent down, tumbles into the lobby and joins the delayed party to report how she had picked up Derrick at the summer day camp, the Green Shack, and driven into the teeth of the wind. Adeen changes the tuner on the battery-powered radio from music to a news station.

  “I saw thousands of birds in the sky,” Derrick reports.

  Adeen wrinkles her brow and Zita leans over and whispers, “The birds were all the cars, trees, and people flying in the air.”

  Adeen reaches over and suffocates the child with hugs.

  At 2:30 p.m. the radio interrupts its usual broadcast with a piercing emergency signal, warning citizens of a tornado watch in effect.

  There is a dangerous beauty in how the multiple layers of the fast-moving winds shift the sky from an eerie green with a yellow pulse to, later, a vibrant tangerine — the northern lights unplugged. The tornado touches down south of them, off 23rd Avenue, picking up a large oil container and tossing it into the middle of the avenue. Cars and trucks are upended, pitched like Hot Wheels vehicles in the hands of a child with a temper tantrum. The Complex Arms stands its ground on 34th Street and on the other side closer to the Whitemud Drive. It is safe for now.

  Witnesses and the media will later describe the thunderstorm as a wall of black cloud that shape-shifted into a funnel and finally morphed into the green bulk of the tornado, fat with power, a demented furious twist to its face, rising and falling like an out-of-control spinning top, veering toward the outskirts of Mill Woods, past the Complex Arms. All of a sudden, it pivots on its heels, makes a sharp ninety-degree angle, bounces along the railway tracks, and heads north, wiping out several businesses on its route of destruction. It trips across the Sherwood Park Freeway, carries itself through the industrial section, the refineries in Sherwood Park around 3:00 to 3:30 p.m. Buildings are flattened, entire warehouses collapse, and vehicles are ditched helter-skelter. And then the hail begins. Dear God! The twister jumps in the direction of the Evergreen Mobile Home Park and cuts a devastating swath through the community of Clareview on its way to the north side, moving with a raging defiance bordering on insanity.