Ghosted

by Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall

  “Trabeated architecture; post and lintel. A noose. Postmodern; doors open both ways. If it’s abstract, you’ve got to ask yourself, abstracted from what? Is drowning an abstraction of swimming?

  “Buckminster Fuller built a geodesic dome over an entire Japanese city to control its environment. So it could drown in its own air.

  “They’ll come for you. When you’re going down for the third time and there’s nothing but the waves overhead, crashing and rolling, the incredible weight of your own body, going down …

  “Rembrandt. The greatest portraitist ever. He lost everyone he ever loved—wives, children—they all died. Until all that was left was statuary. He loved the stuff so much he would have sold his soul, his fingers, for Medusa’s head. Paid for a shipload of classical statues: his entire life savings. The ship sank. Bronze and marble men clinging to each other, scratching at the crates, down and down … After that he painted his own face, a visual penance, reflected over and over until he died.

  “Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: His whole life in paint: nudes in the studio. Torn banners and empty mornings. His own self in soldier’s uniform, his right hand missing, a bloody stump. The Nazis declared it degenerate art. Made him watch as they destroyed his entire collection, then left him alone to kill himself.

  “Mark Rothko lived for colour. Painted every colour to its fullest. Each producing its own light—a source, a well of blood. Every fucking hue. Then he began to run out. In the year before he committed suicide, all of his paintings were grey. Painted himself into a box, into an ocean.

  “They’ll come for you. When you’re going down for the fourth…”

  As Soon speaks, he unbuttons his coat. Not turning. Still facing the camera.

  “The fifth …”

  His coat is off now. In a flourish he throws it—over his shoulder, over the railing, like wings into the sky, billowing then falling, and out of the frame.

  “And there’s nothing, not even the weight of your own body…”

  Mason holds his breath.

  The T-shirt is white with black lettering. It says: SOON. There is no harness. Nothing. Soon steps backwards.

  “They’ll come for you. You’re sure of it.”

  Step.

  “Always have been.”

  A quick turn.

  The back of his shirt says: NOW!!!

  And he is airborne….

  Mason shouts, smacks at the space bar. The image freezes on sky, cut by railing. Nothing else.

  But no—there is a bird, caught swooping into frame.

  Mason stares at the screen, the wings in half-flap.

  Who wants to brave those bronzed beauties

  Lying in the sun

  With their long soft hair falling

  Flying as they run?

  THE FIFTH

  INTRODUCING:

  Seth, Utopia

  and the Lady of the Horses

  45

  Sarah and Mason have finally escaped the family dinner and are on their way to the lake, drinking from a bottle of Teacher’s.

  “Can you believe the moon?” says Sarah as they emerge from the forest. It is a giant, silver hangnail among the million stars.

  They’ve come to the fence. Mason is holding a flashlight. It illuminates gravel then the cattle guard—a dozen iron bars, more than a hoof’s width apart. “Watch your step,” he says, keeping the beam steady as Sarah walks across.

  On the other side, a sparse stand of birch trees lines the gravel road. The rest is pasture, all the way down to the lake. The light in his hand dances as he crosses over the guard. Then something hits him. A flurry of wings. Then another, and another. They scratch across his hands, grab at his T-shirt. He hears Sarah shriek and his hair is being pulled. The beam of light is strobing. There is screeching all around. He throws the flashlight to the ground. His shirt is in his hands now and he’s beating the air as he runs. He can hear Sarah running, too, and keeps on going, down through the fields.

  Then above his breath and pounding heart, he hears Sarah laughing, her feet slowing down … and finally he stops.

  “Fucking bats!” she gasps, doubled over, but he doesn’t know what she means. His brain is still shouting:

  They came this far.

  They’ll always be coming.

  He wants to keep running, but Sarah is gasping now, her hands on her knees. She looks up at him still laughing. He’s holding his shirt like a useless weapon, sweating and shaking. “Fucking bats,” she says again. And finally he gets it.

  Any time else, he would have been the cool one. He would have been the one laughing—whisking them away from the birch trees and bats—especially for his cousin who looks up to him so much. They both know this. They’re not going to mention the swallows.

  “They didn’t like the light,” she says, catching her breath.

  “It probably fucks up their sonar.”

  “Echolocation,” she says. Then he sees she regrets it, didn’t mean to correct him. They begin to walk towards the lake—him, swinging his T-shirt, her, the bottle of Teacher’s. It’s quiet. They look up at the overwhelming stars. “You know,” she says, “aliens probably see this as the bat planet.”

  Mason laughs, though he doesn’t know why.

  “Seriously. One quarter of all species of mammals are bats. One quarter. And you know what else? Ninety-five percent of all seeds in the rainforest are scattered by bats. They’re the ones saving the planet.”

  “How do you know this?”

  She shrugs. “I just finished high school.” And now she’s running again, her long hair flying, down towards the dock.

  When he gets there the lake is shining, the reflection of a million stars. Mason kicks off his cowboy boots then fumbles with his belt.

  “I don’t know about you,” says Sarah, “but I’m skinny-dipping.”

  A bright naked body flies past him, into the water like a streaking ghost.

  He dives in and glides to where she floats, then starts to swim. He keeps on going until he’s halfway across the lake. He stops, treading water among the stars. He remembers what the swimming instructor told his mother when he was just a kid.

  “Won’t be going to the Olympics—but that boy of yours, he could tread water till the end of the world.”

  He takes a slow breath off the surface, looks towards the shore and thinks, What if I never go back?

  THE BOOK OF SOBRIETY

  When I was nine or ten, it was all about peashooters. I know that sounds like I grew up in the Great Depression or something, but that’s the way it was; some of us had Ataris, and some of us had BMXs, but we all had peashooters.

  We got them from a store on Broadway—which, in Vancouver, is what they call Ninth Avenue. It was a weird little shop—the shelves stacked with dusty cans of meat and shoe polish, displays of obscure plastic figurines, skipping ropes and stamp books, as if the proprietor had bought his personal quota of wares in 1954 and never sold a thing, until we started showing up to purchase his bags of dried peas and thick, plastic, swirling-coloured shooters. Little kids with just enough change. I still remember his deep-ringed, apathetic eyes: more like the devil than any dealer I know.

  Do kids today have peashooters? They should. Peashooters are awesome! It wasn’t just like, ptoooie—ptoooie, I got ya! You’d stuff a whole mouthful, then blast it like a machine gun. Or you could draw one all the way back almost into your throat and let it shoot like a rifle. Sometimes you’d draw in too much and swallow one. Writing this now, I can taste the peas in my mouth. It is a very particular taste, dusty with danger, drawing the saliva out of you.

  And getting hit by a good shot—it fucking hurt. We had teams and garbage can lids for shields, and belts we’d made that held the peas in a pouch. We ran through the alleys shooting at each other, and it didn’t always end well—so of course our parents were freaking out, but they couldn’t really do much. You had kids going to battle wearing their dad’s sunglasses so they wouldn’t lose an eye.


  Eventually it got boring shooting at each other (although, writing this now, I don’t see how it could …). One day we took it to the next level:

  All the way down my block there were cherry trees lining the street. They were fairly easy to climb, and so a half-dozen of us got up in the branches on both sides of the road, waiting like snipers. I don’t remember whose idea it was—maybe me, maybe Chaz—but it doesn’t matter; we were all into it.

  It wasn’t that busy a street: a car every two or three minutes, and we got a few shots off at the first couple without much response. The third one slowed down after a decent barrage and right away we stopped shooting. Then it kept on going, and we laughed and howled like we’d blown up the Death Star.

  I don’t even know for sure if I shot at the man in the black helmet. I remember seeing him coming—the bike and rider gleaming black in the sunlight. I was in the tree right in front of my house, and as he passed beneath me, he started to brake—the peas like hail bouncing off his helmet. The motorcycle came to a stop, and then—like they’d all been struck by the same gale—kids started dropping from the cherry trees, hitting the ground and running. And I jumped, too.

  For some reason, though, I ran away from my house—across the street, right in front of his bike as he gunned it to the curb. I reached the far sidewalk, turned to the right, sprinting over lawns, then dodged between two houses. In my panic I must have thought there was an opening that led to the lane. But there wasn’t. Just a tall pine fence. I turned around and there he was.

  All in black—boots to helmet, a mirrored visor covering his face. I don’t know why he kept the helmet on, but he did. It felt like forever, him just standing there, so huge in the sunlight there was no way I could get past him. And I could see myself, tiny in his visor.

  Then my memory starts playing tricks. I think he said something, but when I try to remember it’s just absurd—Darth Vader and the Devil kind of crap:

  “Now you must join the dark side!”

  Or, “You’re going to Hell, kid!”

  And sometimes he speaks my name.

  Whatever he said, he moved towards me. The last thing I remember is his big black boot. And that’s all I’ve got—him coming, and the terror blasting through me like an explosion. I’d never felt a fear like that. I couldn’t even imagine what was about to happen. I still dream about him, though: the Man in the Black Helmet.

  And he’s coming for me.

  46

  The doctor closed Mason’s notebook.

  “You missed our last appointment,” she said.

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  “We had an agreement: you come here once a week and I’ll get you into the program. Is that still what you want?”

  “Yeah. I was having a tough time. I’m sorry … but what do you think?”

  “About what?”

  “About what I wrote.”

  “What do you think about it?”

  “Give me a break!” He pushed his chair back and looked around the room—at the cod liver oil, her sign about nuts … “Hey,” he said, “Where’s your diploma?”

  “Excuse me?”

  He pointed to the bare patch of wall.

  “Getting reframed,” she said. “This is a place where things tend to get broken.”

  Mason nodded.

  She picked his notebook up off the desk. “It’s well written,” she said. “If you wrote it sober, you did a good job. Is that what you want to hear?”

  “I don’t know …”

  “Why weren’t you here last week?”

  “Because I’m fucked up!” said Mason.

  “Well, why are you so fucked up?”

  “You want a list?”

  “If you’re willing to give it to me.”

  He felt himself shaking. “Well, for one, I have a drug problem—that’s been established, right?” They looked at each other. “I keep losing money. My novel is not going well. I’m alienated from my family. I’m fucked up all the time and my friends keep killing themselves …”

  “What do you mean?” said Dr. Francis.

  “What do I mean about what?”

  “Have you lost someone else?”

  Mason stared at her. “Yes,” he said. “That’s why I’m so fucked up.”

  She studied him for a moment then put the notebook down. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

  “What do you mean?” said Mason. He knew, by the way she was looking at him, it was the wrong thing to say. “Can I …”

  She pulled the Socratic statements from a drawer and placed them on the desk. “I expect you here next week,” she said

  He picked up his things and left. She hadn’t told him what to write.

  41. Silence is golden.

  42. I usually want more salt.

  47

  They were difficult days. The only thing he liked about them was Willy—being with her in his bed, talking and making love. But that had its difficulties, too. She couldn’t feel anything, and then suddenly she felt too much. It was tricky getting her drugs; Chaz disapproved of heroin and was edgy since the raid. Mason dodged conversation with him and avoided certain things with Willy. He told her Soon had shelved the performance piece for a speaking tour in Iceland, and she didn’t push it. She was the same as Chaz that way, kept curiosity on a leash like a dog.

  When Willy slept, Mason didn’t. He hadn’t slept for days. He went to Ho-vee’s and drank milkshakes laced with vodka, his heart rate spiking every time a fat girl came through the door.

  He went to the library and searched for “Circe and the Stallion.” Finally he found it, in The Glimpse of a Bruise—a collection of poetry by Jonathan Follow.

  He started phoning various Follows.

  He drove back to the Old Jackson Bridge, and looked into the squalls.

  And once, when the fog came in, he went down to the lakeshore—a random spot on the docks that was usually full of people. He imagined Warren hurling himself in. He stood there for a while, listening to the water as it slipped against the moss-covered moorings a dozen feet below, trying to make it seem deadly. All he could see was fog—or rather, the path of moonlight through it—all the particles of air and water together with the shimmering light of a heaven moon. And he felt like he couldn’t breathe, because of the overwhelming ratio of water to air and all the unnameable beauty … Then suddenly the fog began to part, just slightly—a thin slice that made the moonlit air dance in swirls, reaching from the surface of the invisible lake straight up like an inverse funnel.

  This tall swirl moved towards him, cutting wider through the fog with the moonlight dancing over it. And then, from the lake, he heard a voice …

  “Quack,” it said.

  And he knew he needed to sleep.

  One morning—after a long night in the Cave—Mason and Willy emerged into the light of day. The air was warm. Mason scanned the street. He was sure that Bethany was out there, somewhere, making plans to take back her precious, but it wasn’t going to happen today.

  Then, through all those lanes of traffic, he saw Dr. Francis across the street, just standing there in front of the MHAD building. She was staring right at him—or at both of them, it seemed. Mason raised his hand, as if to say hello. The doctor’s eyes were fixed on his. A streetcar came between them and stopped at the stop. When it pulled away the doctor was gone.

  “Why’d you do that?” said Willy.

  “What?”

  “Why’d you wave at that woman?”

  “She’s my addictions doctor,” said Mason. He expected her to ask why his addictions doctor was standing out on the sidewalk, glaring at them across the nine lanes of Spadina, but she didn’t. “She takes her job seriously,” he said and coughed out a laugh.

  Willy said nothing. He pushed her the fifty feet down to his building then in through the door. It closed behind them. He sat down on the stairs facing her and took out a baggie of coke. He was getting better at the climb—but still, after such a long
night, he could do with the extra energy. At this point it was a matter of safety. He did a line then lifted her out of the wheelchair and onto his back. Where moments before he’d felt hollow, weak, troubled, he was now unstoppable—moving up the stairs strong and focused. The hit lasted as long as it needed to. He got her up both flights—into the apartment, into the bed—and then he collapsed, his back against the three-step ladder.

  Willy touched his head—the most generous sort of touch, from a hand that felt nothing. “I know her,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Dr. Francis. I know her.”

  “How?”

  “She worked at St. Vincent’s. It’s a women’s shelter I used to go to.”

  Mason breathed in. His body felt hollow. He was crashing now. It never got easier—more predictable, mundane, but never easier. That said, it was better like this: crashing with Willy’s hand on his head, better than doing it alone.

  “If I tell you something, will you promise not to tell anyone?”

  He breathed out. “Of course,” he said.

  “She risked her medical licence for me. Even jail time, probably. You know when Bethany sold my wheelchair?”

  Mason grunted.

  “Things got out of control. We’d been squatting in a room on the edge of Regent Park and Bethany took off. When Dr. Francis found me I was totally bugging out. She should have just taken me to emergency like that—let me suffer through it—but I was begging her, I was so messed up. So you know what she did?”

  Mason held his breath.

  “She went to the park and scored some smack.”

  He let it out. “Fuck,” he said.

  “She shot me up—right there in that room. And then she called the ambulance.”

  “How’d she even know where to find you?”

  “That’s Dr. Francis,” said Willy. “She can do stuff like that.”

  “Then I guess I’m in good hands.” Mason climbed the three stairs and crawled into bed.