Seeing Red

by Shawn Sutherland

  As I’m walking past the children, one of the girls—she can’t be more than five—lowers her water gun and waves at me. I hide the cigarette behind my back because I don’t want her to see me smoking and then I smile and wave back. Content, she turns around and rejoins the game. I continue down the street and I can hear one of the parents sternly reminding her to put her shoes on.

  I wonder what it’s like to be one of those parents, to wake up next to the same person every morning, driving around in a family-friendly mid-sized sedan and chasing after a bunch of kids who have infinitely more energy than you, worrying about whether they’ve eaten enough or washed their hands or remembered to put their shoes on. In a way I pity them because they must be sleep-deprived and mentally exhausted, never having a moment to themselves. But, deep down, I also envy them because their goal is simple: go to work and take care of the family. Nothing else matters. When you’re single, the highs are higher and the lows are lower. There’s less stability, no consistency, and every day is unpredictable: it could be amazing or it could be awful and either way you have to face it alone.

  When the pizza is ready, I carry it to the side of the building and sit down on a pair of wooden steps. I’m absolutely starving. Opening the box, I rip into it as if I haven’t eaten in days, burning the roof of my mouth in the process and breathing heavily between bites. Across the street I see a panhandler with a bushy grey beard and a dirty white shirt. He has an upside-down baseball cap placed in front of him and there are probably a few nickels and quarters inside. I figure I owe the homeless a favour after that altercation last night, so when the light changes, I cross the street and approach him.

  “Hey I’m sorry, man, I don’t have any change, but do you want some pizza?”

  “Yeah!” he exclaims. He’s more excited than I would have predicted. “Thank you. I’m starving. And it’s hot as hell out here.”

  “I know.”

  I slump down beside the panhandler with the box on my lap and we both eat a slice while staring out at the passing traffic. Row upon row of uniform cars moving in opposite directions. I can’t make out any of the faces behind the windshields due to the reflected sunlight, so every car looks the same. An infinite number.

  I think the hardest part of being homeless would be the boredom. No television, internet, movies or video games; entire days spent glancing at the passers-by and hoping they pity you enough to toss a few coins into your hat. I often see homeless men sleeping in the subway tunnels underneath a pile of heavy blankets and they’re always by themselves. When I was eight years old, I ran away from home and decided I was going to live under a bridge. I packed a Game Boy, a change of batteries, a sleeping bag, a spoon, and several cans of Chef Boyardee Ravioli—I figured that would last me for at least three or four months. Within two hours I said “forget this” and went home to laze on the couch and watch cartoons again. I was so goddamn bored under that bridge.

  Later, in high school, I would often skip an entire day of classes and drift along the streets from nine o’clock in the morning until three in the afternoon. The teachers all knew I was playing hooky, but they didn’t care because I managed to score higher than the other students despite my poor attendance. And my attendance was very poor: I missed over two hundred classes in my senior year. Sometimes I just couldn’t take it: another boring day at school surrounded by asshole teenagers. I had zits on my face, long hair and a lanky body I hadn’t quite grown into, and the other kids made sure I knew about it daily. So I would sneak away to a library to read books or to an art gallery to look at black-and-white photographs or wander downtown to find an alleyway to sleep in. With little money my options were fairly limited. I felt like an outcast, cowering behind dumpsters and smoking Colt cigars while huddling beneath my winter jacket. I fantasized about becoming a famous rock star and writing a song about being poor and homeless like Kurt Cobain did with “Something in the Way.” I could play the guitar, but my technique was all mechanical; I had no natural talent as a musician and the lyrics I scribbled down were hackneyed and meaningless. Good musicians can wear their emotions on their sleeves, and I was never able to do that. In the end, it was just me outside in the cold with little more than a pipe dream to keep me warm.

  Not surprisingly, that was about the time I started drinking. There was a store not far from where I lived where I’d buy beer whenever I had the cash. The old man behind the counter must’ve been severely near-sighted because he never asked me for ID. Or maybe he just took pity on me. From then on I always kept a few bottles of beer and liquor in my backpack and used them whenever I needed them. I drank behind gas stations, in empty parking lots, on playgrounds, in the backseat of cars, even in the school cafeteria on one occasion. I never want to be homeless. But the way things are going it’s a definite possibility. I should be nice to these panhandlers—I might be begging alongside them someday.

  The panhandler and I are sitting side by side on the pavement, still staring out at the passing traffic in silence while we chew and digest and breathe. As soon as he’s finished eating, he asks, “Can I have another one?”

  “Yeah, for sure.” I rip off a slice and hand it to him.

  “Thanks. Don’t worry. I won’t take any more from you.”

  “Are you sure? There’s plenty to go around.”

  “No, that’s okay. You go on now. And as soon as I win the lotto, I’m gonna pay you back!”

  On the walk home I take a short detour and find a park bench to lie on and look up at the sky. I’m relieved my stomach doesn’t hurt anymore; it probably won’t hurt again until tomorrow morning. It’s an awful feeling, to be paralyzed by hunger. Every day, for the first few hours after waking, my stomach is so sore from the alcohol that the mere thought of food makes me nauseous. If I tried to eat, my body would immediately reject it, and at the same time it growls, it moans and it aches because it needs food. I have to starve myself because I’m physically unable to eat.

  I’ve lost fifteen pounds since last year.

  THIRTEEN

  When the mail arrives through the door slot there’s a letter from the Faculty of Law at Queen’s University, and I know by the size of the envelope that it’s a rejection letter. When a school accepts you, they usually send a handbook, a catalogue or a big academic calender inside a large yellow envelope. This envelope is small and white. I tear it open and read: We regret to inform you we can only offer enrolment to a certain number of applicants and your application for the fall semester was not accepted. They encourage me to try again next year. More rejection letters will be coming soon—this is just the beginning. I rip the letter into several pieces and then toss it into the trash. I wouldn’t make a good lawyer anyway. There’s also a note from the superintendent reminding me that my rent from June is overdue. I’ll have to put it on my credit card.

  My phone vibrates and I check the display to see it’s my friend Nikki calling. I met her through Craig a few months back and she often comes out drinking with us. Nikki has rich parents and lives in a loft downtown, so she doesn’t have to worry about work or money. Instead, she spends most of her time cooking, blogging, taking theatre classes and studying to become an optician. I’ve never seen her wear the same thing twice and her outfit is always eccentric and colourful. She’s attractive, but she only sleeps with men after they’ve dated her for several months, so my friends and I have given up on that endeavour. Now, we consider her a part of the group, a fifth member, one of the guys. I never saw her as a potential mate, anyway, because she’s blonde—not that I have anything against blondes, mind you, but they, for whatever reason, never seem to have any interest in me. Not sure why. I’ve hooked up with at least fifty women in my life and I can’t remember one that was blonde.

  “Nikki, what’s up?”

  “Hey! How’s it going?

  “Real good,” I say sarcastically. “You?”

  “I’m great. Sorry I couldn’t han
g out with you guys last night. I hear Silverchest killed!”

  “Yeah, she beat those trash cans pretty good. . . .”

  “Cool! Okay. So. Listen. I’m meeting a friend of mine for drinks in about an hour and we’re gonna be in your neck of the woods. Wanna come?”

  “Hmm . . . I don’t know. I’m supposed to meet up with Natalie tonight and I was hoping to be at least somewhat sober—”

  “Forget that! Forget that ho! C’mon, you don’t have to drink much. And my friend Charlotte is really cool. You’ll like her.”

  “Alright,” I sigh. “I’ll make an appearance.”

  “Cool! We’re going to the Duke of Kent north of Yonge and Eglinton. Be there at four.”

  The Duke of Kent markets itself as an English pub and it has all of the usual features: a wooden bar with golden pillars, yellow walls, red and green carpeting, soccer on the television and bangers and mash on the menu. They sell pints of draught beer primarily to an older, dedicated clientele, all of whom seem to know each other, so I feel right at home hunched over the counter on a plush red stool and sipping a gin-and-tonic while waiting for Nikki to arrive. They’re even playing “Smokestack Lightning” by Howlin’ Wolf over the speakers—a favourite blues song of mine. I sit there and drink and stare at the soccer game on the television mounted onto the wall and Germany is playing Uruguay and the score is tied. A large group of devoted, face-painted football fans have shown up to watch the match and they’re hooting and hollering at the screen anytime a player does anything—passes, shoots, slide tackles, anything. I holler along with them on particularly egregious plays.

  Beside me there’s a man and a woman in their mid-thirties perched on stools ignoring the game. The woman is droning on incessantly, complaining about her ex-boyfriend while the guy looks longingly into her eyes with his chin cradled in the palm of his hand. She’s loud and obnoxious and he’s hanging on her every word, nodding and smiling at all the right moments, but I can tell by her body language that she has absolutely no interest in him: her feet are positioned away to the side, she’s leaning back, she doesn’t maintain eye contact or mirror any of his gestures and she barely looks at his face. I actually feel sorry for the guy: this poor bastard has probably been told his whole life that all he has to do is listen to women and they’ll instantly fall in love with him. It’s a little more complicated than that. This particular woman is used to having everybody listen to her because she’s pretty and overly talkative. Simply listening to her won’t work. With somebody like that, you have to be energetic, spontaneous, keep the conversation moving equally in both directions. Stand out. Be confident. Rachael taught me that. It’s the quiet, introverted ones that you really have to listen to. You should ask them questions and listen to the answers because they actually have something to say. Women are infinitely more interesting than men, but not this one, and this poor bastard doesn’t have a prayer.

  I’m so distracted by their one-way conversation and the unruly soccer fans in the background that I don’t notice Nikki coming into the pub. She walks up behind me and squeezes me on the shoulders. “Hey there, cutie!” Her hair is slightly shorter and darker at the roots than the last time I saw her and it perfectly frames her face.

  “What’s up? Where’s your friend?” I ask.

  “She’s on her way. Wanna grab a table?”

  “Sure.”

  When I tell the bartender I’m moving, she stops and does a double-take and then suddenly recognizes me. Her brow furrows and she asks me if I’m going to be “drinking a lot tonight” because apparently the last time I was in here I passed out in an alcove and they had to pour water on my face to wake me up. I apologize and leave her a good tip and then meet Nikki at a round table at the back of the pub. We’ve barely taken our seats, but she’s already eager to tell me everything about Charlotte. “She’s originally from Winnipeg, but now she goes to school at U of T. She’s doing her undergrad in science. Biology, I think.”

  “That’s cool. I love science.”

  “She hates chemistry though.”

  “Why? What’s wrong with chemistry?”

  “She doesn’t like it. So don’t bring it up.”

  “But what if I have to?”

  She laughs. “Don’t!”

  “I was gonna ask her about bunsen burners and shit. . . .”

  She laughs again. “Just don’t!”

  Moments later, Charlotte wanders in through the centre of the pub and Nikki sees her and waves at her and then we slide over and she takes a seat across from me. I introduce myself and shake her hand. She has a pretty round face, long brown hair and a bright purple top, but she seems a little shy. Nikki and Charlotte talk about their classes and mention a few mutual acquaintances, people I don’t know, and then I ask her about where she’s from and what she’s doing in Toronto and she tells me about her program at school before eventually excusing herself to go to the washroom.

  When she’s out of sight, Nikki turns to me and says, “So! Whaddya think?”

  “She seems nice.”

  Nikki smiles and says coyly, “Cool.”

  “Wait, are you trying to set us up or something?”

  “Maybe . . .”

  “’Cause that’s the last thing I need right now.”

  “It’s exactly what you need, Ethan! It’ll be good for her, too. She has a boyfriend, but I really don’t like him—”

  “She has a boyfriend?”

  “Yeah, but I really don’t like him.”

  “It’s not your call!”

  “No, seriously, he’s pretty weird. . . .”

  “So, what, you want me to try to break them up?”

  “No! I don’t think they’ll last much longer anyway.”

  “Well, fingers crossed!” I say sarcastically. Then I take another sip of gin and loudly inhale before adding, “This is kinda fucked up.”

  “You need a girlfriend, Ethan. I know you. You’re not like Craig or Jeff, no matter how much you might try to be. Don’t get me wrong. I love those guys. But they’re assholes. You’re not an asshole. You’re the kinda guy who would rather stay at home and curl up on the couch and watch movies. You should be in a relationship.”

  “No, Nikki, I shouldn’t. I need to get my shit together.”

  “Ah, your shit’s fine.”

  “My shit sucks!”

  Charlotte returns just in time to hear me shout that last line, but she doesn’t say anything about it. She takes her seat and we order another round of drinks and then the conversation gradually veers toward me and what I’ve been up to lately. I tell her about my law school applications, how I’m between jobs at the moment because the economy is slow and businesses aren’t hiring, and then I talk about my useless bachelor degree and how I probably should have studied something other than English and History. I use a joke I heard from Larry David about how my degree is “only good for solving crossword puzzles” and she laughs and in the corner of my eye I see Nikki flashing me a knowing smile, as if to say, “See?” But the sparks aren’t exactly flying; I’m too hungover and thinking about Natalie and wondering if I’ll actually get to see her again tonight.

  About half an hour later I begin to feel bored and find myself daydreaming, glancing at the soccer game and pondering other things while they continue to converse. Suddenly, Charlotte asks me a question about my astrological sign and it catches me off guard.

  “Huh? Oh, I’m a Libra.”

  “Ah, a libra,” she repeats. Then she turns to Nikki and says, “They’re all about balance.”

  “Balance . . . that’s me, alright.”

  She doesn’t detect the sarcasm.

  “My boyfriend’s a Scorpio,” Charlotte says, “which is great because I’m a Pisces and we’re really compatible with Scorpios.”

  “All the Scorpios I’ve met have been kinda weird,” Nikki mutters.<
br />
  Astrology. They talk about it like it’s a fact. I know I shouldn’t debate the issue with someone I’ve just met, but I feel compelled to play the devil’s advocate here—plus, I sense an opportunity to liven up the conversation. “Wait, you don’t actually believe that shit, do you?”

  “It’s not shit,” Charlotte recoils. “It’s true.”

  “You think giant balls of gas millions of light-years away are gonna determine whether you and your boyfriend get along or not?”

  Charlotte scoffs. “It’s more complicated than that. It’s about their position and relation to the earth relative to when you were born.”

  “Do you believe in psychics too? Ghosts? Angels?”

  “Yes?”

  “What about unicorns?”

  “Well, not unicorns—”

  “Why not? What’s the difference?”

  “Ethan,” she says condescendingly, “there are some people who have been proven to be psychic.”

  “Like who?”

  “Lots of people. They help with police investigations.”

  “Well, I’ve read about this guy named Randi who’s been offering a million dollars to anyone who can prove they have any kind of psychic power for, like, thirty years, and not one person has been able to claim the prize.”

  “So? That doesn’t mean psychics don’t exist.”

  “Kinda odd though, don’t ya think?”

  “What about when you get déjà vu? Or when the phone rings and you know who’s calling?”

  “Déjà vu is caused by a glitch in the synapse of your brain—”

  “No it isn’t!”

  “—and the phone thing is just intuition.”

  “It isn’t!”

  “You’re supposed to be a scientist!”

  I notice Nikki is frowning and obviously irritated by the direction the conversation has taken; she tries to intervene and change the subject, but we ignore her.