The Book of Living and Dying

by Natale Ghent

  “Kids toboggan here in the winter,” she said.

  He frowned, refusing to throw her a line.

  “I still come sometimes,” she continued to chatter. For some reason she couldn’t stop herself now. It’s the power lines, she thought again, controlling my mind. “What do you like to do? When you’re not in school, I mean.”

  “Well, I don’t spend all day whacking off, despite what your friend thinks.”

  Sarah laughed. It was funny to hear him say it. “She’s a jerk,” she said. “She’s full of it. I wouldn’t take anything she says to heart.”

  “Oh, I don’t,” he said coolly. “It’s you I’m worried about.”

  “Me?” Sarah exclaimed, stopping in her tracks. “Why are you worried about me?”

  He faced her, the hint of a sneer on his lips. “You seem … easily influenced.”

  “What? I am not.” But she couldn’t prevent the colour from rising in her cheeks. It was as good as an admission. “Donna doesn’t influence me,” she said, her voice betraying her.

  He shrugged. “Okay, fine. What do I care?”

  This was too much, Sarah thought. Of course he cared. Wasn’t that why he stared at her all the time in class? Wasn’t that why she was here, on this frost-scorched hill, following this path? She felt suddenly stupid and insignificant. “Well, is he or isn’t he?” she pressed.

  “As a matter of fact, he’s a doctor. Palliative care. Harvard Medical School for those who are easily impressed.”

  “So what are you doing here, in Terrace?” she asked, ignoring his sarcasm.

  He let out a sigh. “Convenience. Compromise.”

  She waited for an explanation, but he didn’t offer one.

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Between my mom and dad. Except they forgot to ask me if I care. And I do. I’d rather not be here. But I’ll be free of it all soon enough.”

  Free of it. Sarah wondered what that would feel like, to be so sure of something. She’d never even considered the idea of leaving her mother behind now that John was gone. Somewhere in her mind a small window opened, the breeze of possibility floating in. “How do you get on with your dad?”

  Michael looked at her warily. “You’re a regular private eye too.” But then his voice softened. “My old man’s all right. We have an understanding.”

  Sarah nodded. It sounded healthy. She felt him let his guard down, loosen, like a fist unclenching. He had every right to be defensive, she thought. She had been following him. Who’s the stalker now, Donna?

  They came to the top of the hill in front of an olive-coloured board-and-batten cottage, solid, although faded, like the tents of the small fair. It nested beneath a stand of old spruce trees that leaned protectively over it.

  “Is this it?”

  “Yeah. Want to come in?” He didn’t wait for her answer but moved around to the back of the house. Sarah followed and watched as he produced a key flashing like a goldfish on the end of a string and used it to jimmy the frame on the window. Pushing the window open with the ease of familiar repetition, he tossed his bag through and slipped into the house, as agile as a cat. “Throw your bag in,” he called out.

  Sarah hoisted her bag through the window.

  “Use the rock by your feet to get a foot up.”

  Sarah stepped on the rock and laughed. “What’s wrong with using the door?” she asked.

  He grabbed her hands and pulled her shrieking and laughing through the window, letting her fall onto the bed below, a tangle of hair and clothes. The secret of his private life was suddenly revealed through posters, books, comics, belongings.

  Sarah looked at him beside her on the bed. “Well,” she said, “you have a B & E career ahead of you if you decide not to finish school.” Then she added, “Have you always been this neat?”

  He stood and removed his jacket, a hint of tattoo showing beneath his shirtsleeve. Sarah couldn’t help noticing it—and the rest of his body. His waist was firm, his arms sculpted and strong. She was happy she had decided to wear her tight blue blouse and her good bra. She pointed at a box on the shelf across the room. “You play Monopoly,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant. “Which piece are you?”

  “Thimble.”

  “No way!” Her laughter filled the room. “Nobody’s the thimble! I took you for a cannon or a dog … a boot, maybe …”

  “What about you?”

  “Oh, I’m a dog, for sure.”

  He smiled knowingly. “I wouldn’t say that.”

  Sarah smiled too, until she remembered John’s ghost standing beside her bed. But she didn’t want to think of her brother that way. She wouldn’t allow it. She wanted to remember him the way he used to be. “My brother was the cannon—appropriately enough, seeing as he always blew me out of the water. I don’t know why I bothered playing at all, he always beat me. I can’t believe you’re the thimble.”

  “Believe it. What do you want to drink?” he asked, taking her coat and knapsack and tossing them onto a worn yellow upholstered chair in the corner of the room. Her bundle of photos dropped onto the floor. He retrieved the package, examining it. “What’s this?”

  Sarah jumped up and grabbed the bundle from his hand. “Just some photos. You wouldn’t be interested.”

  “How do you know?”

  “They’re just boring photos.”

  “So boring you carry them around in that anal little bundle?”

  “Yeah, kind of.” Sarah stuffed the photos back into her knapsack, zipping the pocket shut.

  “You’ve got a secret,” he said.

  She brushed the hair from her eyes defiantly. “Doesn’t everyone?”

  Michael leaned against the doorframe, folding his arms across his chest. “What would you like to drink?” he asked again.

  “Just a soda if you have one.”

  Sarah took the opportunity to peruse his room. The neat shelves, the rows of cyberpunk and sci-fi books, CDs, movie action figures, old VHS tapes labelled and dated, a small TV, VCR beneath it, magazine organizers full of comics stored in neat plastic bags. Beside the single bed a small wooden desk supporting a PC clone with a nineteen-inch screen—and not a speck of dust anywhere. Running one finger along the shelf, she inspected it for dirt.

  “Who’s your favourite?” she called out. She could hear the sound of ice clinking into glasses, the fridge door thumping closed. Michael appeared with two blue tumblers filled with cola, the soda sizzling and foaming against the ice. He handed her a glass, then took a sip from the other.

  “Thanks.” Sarah took a quick gulp and felt the burn of carbonation and rum across her tongue. She choked, caught her breath. “Isn’t it a little early to be drinking?”

  He laughed and tilted his drink back, draining half the glass.

  Sarah pointed at the rows of comics. “Who’s your favourite?”

  “Favourite what?”

  “Comic guy.”

  “Superhero or character? There’s a difference.”

  “I don’t know … superhero. Who’s your favourite one?”

  He pulled a magazine organizer from the shelf and removed a comic, handing it to her. “Dark Knight-era Batman. Definitely the top of my superhero list. But I love anything Frank Miller does,” he added, as if she would know what he was talking about. Taking another organizer from the shelf, he searched through the comics. “My favourite comic book character has to be Judge Dredd, the U. K. version, in 2000 A.D., by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon.” He selected a comic and handed it to her like a rare vase. “They cross over.”

  “What do you mean?” Sarah asked, glancing casually at the comics.

  “The characters. They cross over. Sometimes they’re featured together. Dark Knight Batman and Judge Dredd are like two opposing aspects of the law. Judge Dredd, he’s the letter of the law. But Batman, he represents justice.”

  Sarah nodded dumbly, completely taken aback by his knowledge and the depth of his interest. She politely examined the dark graphics on
the covers more closely. They reminded her of an old photo of John, holding one of his favourite comics, the picture taken just before he decided to embark on his great adventure at the age of twelve. He’d planned it for months, inspired by an ad in the back of an old DC Superman comic, next to the sea monkeys and “X-ray spex” and the Charles Atlas strip promising to turn any ninety-seven-pound weakling into a hulking he-man. “Giant submarine! Incredible detail!”

  “You can be the co-pilot,” he had told her so that she would help him. And she did, stealing the money from the back of the toilet where her father had left his change. When the package finally arrived it contained a cardboard submarine folded to fit the brown manila envelope. She would never forget his look of confusion and disgust, or the sound of her father’s scathing laughter, his raucous rendition of the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine” booming through the house. It was she who rescued the loathsome submarine from the trash and kept it for years, until it was eventually destroyed when the basement flooded.

  “John loved Superman,” she said.

  “Your brother?”

  “Yeah, he loved Superman. Batman too, but Superman was his all-time favourite. He told me once that Batman was going to come and beat Superman up, and then a new era would start. I think he was really sad about it.” She grinned sheepishly at how ridiculous the whole thing sounded.

  “You gotta love Superman,” Michael said. “He’s a class act.” He gestured to the comics in her hands. “You can take them out of the plastic if you want. I just keep them like that so they don’t get wrecked.”

  “It’s okay,” she said, handing him back the comics. “I bet you’re the only one who’s ever touched these copies.”

  He laughed at her insight.

  Continuing to inspect the shelves, Sarah stopped when she reached the action figures. She picked one up. “Who’s the messed-up guy with the chainsaw?”

  “Ash, from Evil Dead 2. A personal favourite.”

  “Pretty hardcore.”

  “You know it. He cuts off his own hand when evil possesses it and straps this chainsaw to his arm so he can fight the undead.”

  Sarah looked at him in wonder. “You’re really into this stuff, huh?”

  “Yeah. It’s my thang.” He took the figure from her and replaced it precisely on the shelf.

  “Your music …” Sarah started to ask. “You’re into retro … alternative …?” She groped for a label. The rum was taking effect, warming her with the earthy kick of fermented molasses, the sweet cola over top.

  “Some. But Mike Patton—he’s a genius. I’ve got all his work.”

  Sarah touched the rim of her glass seductively with her tongue. “Play something for me. Play the one you like the most.”

  Searching the row of CDs, Michael selected one from the stack. He held it up for her to see. “Fantomas, Amenaza Al Mundo.” He loaded it in the player and adjusted the sound. The music rose, filling the room. It flooded the empty space between them, sealing the fissures of uncertainty. They listened in silence, Michael watching her face for her reaction.

  “Anna Kournikova,” Sarah impetuously announced over the music.

  “What about her?”

  “I want someone to name a virus after me like Anna Kournikova. Then I’d be famous.”

  He leaned toward her, took the glass from her hand. “Is that what you want … to be famous?”

  “Yes, I do,” she said, tossing her hair back.

  He moved closer still, leaning in, their breath mingling, the smell of rum and sugar intoxicating. “Did you know that some natives believe you steal a little piece of their soul every time you take their picture?”

  Sarah felt the heat of his body. “Donna calls you Mortimer,” she said.

  “That’s creative.”

  Touching the edge of his sleeve, she pushed it up, revealing his skin, the colour of coffee and cream. “I want to see it.”

  He stood, rolled the fabric to his shoulder. The shock of green ink on tawny skin. Sarah outlined the design lightly with her finger. “What is it? A werewolf?”

  “Coyote. Trickster. Creator. Shape-shifter. He stole fire from the ancients to keep the human race warm.”

  Sarah pointed to an elongated horizontal figure eight floating above the coyote’s head like a halo. “What’s this?”

  “Lemniscate.”

  Sarah knit her brow in confusion.

  “The symbol for infinity.”

  “Ahhh,” she said knowingly, even though she wasn’t quite sure of its significance. At once she was aware that he was out of her league, that he knew things—important things. She felt somehow lazy and wanting, like she had spent all her time smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee while he had been exploring the world. “I thought Prometheus stole fire,” she said, challenging him.

  He regarded her with amusement. “That’s one mythology. But native Indians credit Coyote.”

  “Why is he standing on two legs like that?”

  “Because Coyote can assume human form.”

  The wires finally connected in her head. “You’re native?”

  “I’m half,” he said with some pride. “At least, that’s what I was told.”

  “What do you mean? Don’t your parents know?”

  The atmosphere in the room cooled instantly. “I don’t know who my real parents are,” he said. “I’m adopted.”

  “Oh.” Sarah flushed with irritation at her own persistence. She struggled to think of something acceptable to say. “Have you ever tried to find them?”

  His voice assumed a measure of contempt. “My mother’s dead … my real mother, I mean. She killed herself after I was born. She didn’t even know who my father was. One of hundreds, probably.”

  “But your adoptive parents …,” Sarah floundered, “… they’ve been good to you?”

  He turned his back to her, the music ebbing, the delicate fabric between them tearing away. She had crossed the line of intimacy.

  Unzipping the pocket to her knapsack, Sarah produced the bundle of photos. She took Michael’s hand and pulled him down on the bed beside her. They sat, shoulders touching, as she went through the photos, rhyming off names, explaining what she knew about the people in them. Except for the girl. She said nothing about her. But he asked about her almost immediately.

  “That’s my secret,” Sarah said, almost in a whisper. “I don’t know who she is … or why she’s there.”

  “Or what she is,” he added pointedly.

  “You mean a ghost?” She laughed nervously. “I thought you’d think I was crazy if I suggested it.”

  He picked up her glass. “Your drink is empty.” He walked from the room, leaving her sitting on the bed.

  Sarah rewrapped the photos quickly and pushed them into her knapsack. She looked for Michael and found him standing in front of the sink, ice cube tray in hand. The rest of the house was clean and modest like his room, save for the artifacts that crowded every surface. Masks on walls and stands, a totem pole, weapons, ceremonial garb, feathers, headdresses, dream catchers, beads, jewellery, moccasins, carvings, gloves, photos, bones. His dad’s “museum,” Michael called it. A closet anthropologist.

  “What’s he hoping to find?” Sarah asked as she looked at one of the masks.

  “A channel to another dimension.”

  “Come on.” Sarah turned to look at him and saw that he was serious.

  “There are those who believe that the dream world is the real world,” he said. “They believe that this world is an illusion or a trick. My father hopes to pull down the veil between dreams and reality, to open a channel for spirits to break through so that we can communicate.”

  “You mean, ghosts …”

  “Not just ghosts. Spirit walkers, travellers, guides.”

  It all sounded credible when Michael said it, like everyone thought that way. Like it was common knowledge that spirits wandered back and forth between worlds, spending time with the living when they weren’t hanging out with the
dead. Standing next to beds, boots glistening with mud. “Isn’t that a strange philosophy for a medical doctor?” she asked. “I mean, isn’t that kind of spiritual voodoo verboten in the scientific community?” She stood in front of an inscrutable red-and-blue face, the eyes striped with white paint like terrible claw marks, the face surrounded in wolf skin, the wolf’s muzzle draped over the forehead with two coal-black braids hanging down. “Who’s this?”

  Michael glanced at the mask. “A Cheyenne warrior. The cavalry called them dog soldiers. They were an elite group of the strongest and the bravest in the tribe. They were mean mothers, fighting as rearguards and sacrificial decoys so the rest of the tribe could escape.”

  Now it was her turn to look at him with amusement. “Do you always talk like an encyclopedia?”

  He shrugged.

  Sarah had to laugh. “You know lots of stuff,” she said. “Anyway, it’s you. Dog Soldier. That’s how I’ll think of you from now on.” She looked around the room. Over every door was some kind of symbol painted on wood.

  He followed her gaze. “Hex craft. It’s supposed to protect the house from evil spirits.”

  “Sounds like witchcraft.”

  “Actually, they’re love charms,” he answered snidely, “designed to beguile young women into submitting to my will.” He dropped ice cubes into the glasses, glugged rum overtop, the ice cracking in protest. Tipping the bottle to his lips, he drank easily, like he did it all the time, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. He turned to her and held the bottle to her lips, the amber fire pouring down her throat until she pushed his hand away at last, rum spilling over her mouth. They emptied their glasses in quick shots, discarded them in the sink and took turns from the bottle instead. Stumbling through the living room, Sarah pulled a blue mask with a lolling scarlet tongue from its stand and held it in front of her face. “I am Fire Water, Magic Tongue. Kiss me or die.”

  He took the mask from her and replaced it. He nudged her against the wall, pressing his body into hers. She could feel his breath against her face. The dusky gleam of half-closed eyes, dark lashes glistening, her heart skipping uncontrollably. She wanted him to kiss her, wanted to feel his mouth against hers.