Seeing Red

by Shawn Sutherland

  I haven’t thought about what I’m going to say. Any of it. And so it all pours out, unfiltered, from the moment I hear the beep:

  “Hey, Natalie. This is Ethan. I’m sorry for calling you so early, but I kinda figured I’d get your voicemail anyway, so . . . I’m actually stranded in Kincardine right now, believe it or not. Jeff and I drove out here yesterday and then my car broke down, so now I’m stuck—oh, and I’m calling you from a pay phone, so if it cuts out, that’s why. Anyway, I just wanted to say I’m really sorry about what happened the other night. I don’t know why I get like that. I think I’m just . . . angry at myself for things that happened a long time ago and, for whatever reason, sometimes it just comes out. But it had nothing to do with you. I, uh . . .” I exhale and shake my head, trying to find the words. “I don’t know . . . I guess I kinda push people away, y’know, when it feels like they’re getting too close. It’s easier that way. It’s . . . it’s easier to be alone, to stay detached, to keep everybody at arm’s length and leave them before they leave you. But I don’t wanna do that anymore. . . .

  “Anyway, I really liked spending time with you. I mean, I don’t know what I want, but the truth is, I don’t even worry about that stuff when I’m with you. So, if you’ll let me, I’d love to make it up to you sometime. My friend was telling me about this coffee shop on Bloor where they have, like, a thousand different board games, so we could check that out. Or I could come see your band play again sometime. Anyway, that’s it. Call me when you get the chance, okay? Take care, Natalie.”

  I hang up the phone and stare vacantly at the receiver. Not the most eloquent message I’ve ever left, but, for once in my life, I was being sincere.

  THIRTY-SIX

  “How long have you owned this car?” Gerry asks. We’re standing in the garage and his arms are crossed and he appears to be agitated.

  “Actually, I bought it yesterday.”

  “From who?”

  “A friend of mine.”

  “Well, let me tell you something. This friend of yours? He treated this car like a piece of shit!”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah! The oil was way down. We’re talkin’ bone dry here. The brake fluid. The transmission fluid. Christ, even the wiper fluid was empty. And look at these spark plugs!” He shows me a handful of small metal cylinders covered in black gunk.

  “Looks bad.”

  “Oh it’s bad. Not to mention she’s leaking oil all over the damn place.”

  “Can you patch her up?”

  “I can try. But my God, do me a favour and tell that friend of yours to never, ever own a vehicle again, would ya?”

  “I will.”

  Within two hours Gerry has the Widowmaker working properly again. I hand him a credit card and we wait for the machine to print out a bill.

  “So where you off to now?” he asks.

  “Well, I’ve gotta drive my friend back to Toronto, but after that?” I pause a moment. “Say, if you could go anywhere, where would you go?”

  “Someplace warm probably! It’s great here in the summer, but wait ’til winter rolls around, I tell ya. I’d rather be at an all-inclusive resort somewhere, kicking my feet up and drinking margaritas all day long.”

  “I hear ya.” He passes me a receipt and I sign it. “Thanks, Gerry. Have a good summer.”

  “You too! Safe travels. Hope she runs well for ya.”

  I get in the car and drive down the road, leaving Gerry and his garage behind. The engine is running smoothly with no hiccups and no shaking. I fill up at a gas station and then stop at the first intersection I come across—there’s no traffic and the radio is off and the air is silent. All I hear is the hum of the engine and I notice my knees aren’t aching anymore. The day is young. Another beautiful day and it’s not even noon yet.

  I idle at the intersection while I think back to all the people I met over the weekend: Charlie, Swan, Sofia, Anna. Each of them tried to tell me something. People have given me advice before, but they’re all just words, and they all fade, eventually. I continue to live my life through trial and error, sometimes not recognizing the error until it’s too late. Ultimately, the question I struggle with most is: What am I supposed to do with my time here? In other words: What’s important to me? A career? Earning money? Family and friends? Love? Do I stay in one place and try to build something, or do I travel the world and live out of a suitcase? Do I live solely in the present, or focus on creating a future? Time is the most valuable thing we have, and I’m so afraid of squandering it. So now I ask myself: What should I do?

  My phone is dead. The gas tank is full. And come tomorrow there’s nowhere I have to go, nowhere I need to be. It’s a freedom most people will never know. I may be running out of time and money, but, right now, the past doesn’t matter. Neither does the future. It’s only the moment. A clean slate.

  The town of Kincardine is in my rearview mirror. I think about the beaches and the bonfires and the lighthouse at the edge of the river and the pristine waters. It’s a shame I have to leave this place, but I’m overwhelmed by the curiosity, the sense of wonderment and intrigue of what else is out there for me to find. One day, when this is all over, I’ll return to Toronto and build a real life: get a decent job, start a career, form long-lasting relationships. I might even hang some paintings on the walls. But for now, all I have is a map and an open road. An entire continent to explore. And I’m ready.

  EPILOGUE

  It’s the end of February and the snow is falling. I spent the rest of the previous summer journeying across Canada. It’s a beautiful country; all my life I’ve driven down its roads, lived in its suburbs, but never saw it for what it really was. For weeks I explored the small towns, parked my car on gravel shoulders and walked through forests of majestic trees, swam in freshwater creeks and daydreamed in the warmth of the sun. I’ll never be able to describe what I saw and felt and experienced to another human being—those memories are mine and mine alone.

  In Northern Ontario I went to visit one of the towns I lived in when I was a kid, a blip on the map called Onaping Falls. I hadn’t been there in fifteen years, yet the place seemed to resist time; the stores and houses looked exactly as they had in my dreams, although a few were boarded up, discarded and forgotten. I strayed from the highway to walk along the river and stand where A.Y. Jackson painted alone in the wilderness nearly a century ago, and the surrounding trees loomed larger and seemed more confining than they had in the past.

  When I arrived at my old house I was surprised to find nothing more than a pile of brown dirt and ash and debris. The property had been completely levelled; I stood beside my car and stared at the mound of dust feeling oddly relieved. Then everything became clear and at that moment I finally understood: I rooted through my backpack and found Rachael’s postcard and placed it atop the rubble. I didn’t need it anymore. I didn’t need an old piece of paper or a photograph to remember her by. I thought I could forget about her, that I could burn away all the memories, but she was with me wherever I went. Always. She changed my life. She continues to change my life. She taught me so much. And I feel so happy, grateful and fortunate to have known her.

  Anna and I sent emails back and forth while we were both on the road. I would go to internet cafés and login to my email account and there would be pictures of her mountain biking or hiking in the desert. I was seriously considering driving all the way to California until I heard she had met someone during her tour of the Grand Canyon. He immediately introduced her to his parents and then proposed a few weeks later. She said yes. They’ve already set a date. So it goes.

  I returned to Toronto and paid Doc what I owed him for the car, which he used to buy a plane ticket to South Korea. He left a few days ago. I’m thinking about following his example and dropping out of school too; I want to leave this city and drive south, far over the border, someplace where it’s always warm and the water
s are crystal blue. I want to experience a world I can see and smell and touch.

  Natalie never called me back. It’s been over seven months and I still haven’t heard from her. I don’t blame her. Our mutual friends don’t really talk anymore either. I’m not even sure if she heard the message I left on her machine. One night I dreamt she snuck a pack of guitar strings into my mail slot, but that was just a dream. Now, anytime my phone rings, I eagerly check the display, hoping to see her name, but it’s never her. Maybe hope isn’t enough. I’ve been hoping for a lot of things to happen for a long time. Maybe it takes more than hope.

  Craig recently started dating a girl named Alicia who is a few years older than we are. I’ve met her a few times and I think they’re great for each other. He also formed a band in which he sings and plays rhythm guitar and they rehearse at least twice a week. Between band practice and his new girlfriend I hardly see Craig anymore, but I’m happy for him.

  Thankfully, I haven’t had a blackout since July. I tried quitting alcohol cold turkey, but I couldn’t do it. Didn’t have the willpower. And I couldn’t stand being with my friends when I was sober. Now, whenever I meet up with them, I moderate myself by drinking no more than what’s in my hip flask—usually less than six ounces. I severely water down my drinks, too, and nobody seems to notice. There’s been a relapse or two, nights when I drank more than I should, but certainly not on a daily basis and nothing like before.

  These days I find myself in coffee shops more often than bars. I bring a laptop or a pad of paper and write for hours, usually until they kick me out at closing time. It’s not much, but it gives me some small sense of purpose—a reason to get up in the morning. In retrospect, I think part of the reason I drank so much was because I didn’t have a routine. Alcoholics need a stable routine and a preoccupation to keep them busy. I didn’t work hard enough because I didn’t know what I wanted. Now, I have something to work toward. I want to be a writer. Someday.

  An alcoholic support group often meets at one of the cafés I frequent, and sometimes I can’t help but overhear their conversations. They talk about their struggles and why they want to stay sober and their words often strike a chord with me. I want to walk over to them, talk to them, share my experiences, but I wouldn’t know what to say. I never know what to say.

  At that same café, there’s a girl behind the counter who pours my tea and takes my money and she has a soft voice and a gentle smile. During our exchanges, in the brief moments we have together, I want to initiate a conversation, but I don’t know where to start. The fearlessness I used to have, that confidence brought on by inebriation, is long gone. I still haven’t figured out how to function in the real world without it. But I will. Eventually. It’s like learning how to walk again after years of being stranded out in space.

  Everything I’ve written here is true. Mostly. Granted, the names have been changed, the characters are generally composites of two or more people, the locations are not always exact and the chronological order has been altered, but everything in the book actually happened. I did meet a fisherman at a bar and ask him to play “Hey Jude.” I was denied a spoon because of heroin usage in the bathroom. The teacher who was cheating on her husband? That exchange happened, word-for-word. I snorted cocaine, took ecstasy and extracted codeine from painkillers. I recklessly abused alcohol on a daily basis for over seven years. I did get into a fight with a homeless man over three dollars. Then I shared a slice of pizza with the next panhandler. He still hasn’t won the lotto yet. A waitress did accuse me of eating chili peppers and chugging vinegar to impress a girl. Another bartender told me I passed out in an alcove and the staff had to pour water on my face to wake me up. I did chug a bottle of tequila and fall asleep in someone else’s apartment. I did tell that forty-year-old man in the blazer to fuck off. The police did blame me for kicking over mailboxes. I did get punched in the face by a Korean guy for trying to throw a pylon onto a roof. My friend really did get distracted by a guy eating a jar of mayo. I did drive to Turkey Point; I swam in the lake and helped them lift that house frame and then drank at a bar with the locals. I did witness a fire outside of Bathurst Station. I did have an argument over the phone with a prostitute who wanted to go to law school. A girl did tell me that atheism is a turn-off. I did run into three girls who were building a model cathedral outside a church while I was high on codeine and they asked me what my real name was. The interviewer at the coffee shop did tell me to cut the bullshit. The guy who looked like John Lennon really did tell that calculator story. I did get advice from a man in his forties who warned me about the midlife crisis. My car did break down on a country road and I had to keep it above sixty kilometres per hour or the engine would stall. My friend and I really did sneak into an elementary school and play with the gym equipment. We also had that conversation on the pier. I did wait in a café for a girl who never came. I was in love with her for over ten years. I did meet another girl at a small town pub and we built a bonfire by the water and she wrote on my arm. We still keep in touch.

  I’m not telling you this because I’m proud of what happened. I can’t condone my behaviour or offer you an explanation for addiction. It’s just something that some of us deal with, especially in this day and age when so many people are struggling. Long-term substance abuse ruins nearly every cell in your body. My brain is irrevocably damaged. My liver is no doubt fat and inflamed. There are scars everywhere—you can see it in my eyes and in my face. I’ve lost friends and family and people I cared about. I’ve lost everything. But my heart is still beating, pushing, moving me forward. It’s the search that keeps me going—the search for that sense of fulfillment that comes so easily to some, but eludes so many. It’s what gives my life meaning, and my life will have meaning for as long as I keep looking.

  To tell you the truth, I’m not sure why I wrote all this down. The process didn’t feel particularly cathartic. I think I was just tired of the phoniness, the inauthenticity of it all. I’ve never recognized myself in any of the characters I’ve seen in books or movies or on television. They never talk like me or my friends or the people I know, nor do they deal with the same problems and concerns. I wanted to write something real, something true, in the hopes that there were other people out there like me who had lived through something similar. I wanted to let them know that, in spite of everything, I was still alive. Because none of us are truly alone. I’m gradually learning how to see past all the little things, to just live and breathe, and accept whatever may come as we wander through this land of the blind.