How Does a Single Blade of Grass Thank the Sun?

by Doretta Lau

  “This is an opportunity for you to change careers,” she said. “My cousin Mark told me that his bank is hiring. I can give him a call.”

  “That’s not part of the plan,” he said.

  “I’m not hungry,” she said, pushing her plate towards him. “Thank you for cooking.” She took her wineglass, walked to the living room and turned on the tv. He heard the theme music for Friends, a program that she loved and he loathed.

  He sat by himself at the kitchen table, and finished her portion of chickpea stew and brown rice.

  Kent pretended to be asleep while Jessica got ready for class. As soon as she left, he put the Smog album Red Apple Falls on the stereo and read Punk Planet for half an hour before getting out of bed. Unemployment, he decided, was akin to a vacation. He was determined to enjoy his time off.

  After searching through the cupboards for food, he settled down to watch Passions, a soap opera so ridiculous that it was transfixing. He flipped through a book of photographs by Garry Winogrand, and thought about taking pictures of people hanging out on Main Street. The hours slipped by, and by five o’clock he was bored. He looked in the fridge and saw the unfinished bottle of Sauvignon Blanc next to eight rolls of film. It had been six years since he’d had alcohol of any sort—he had been straight edge since the summer before university started. He stared into the fridge for a minute before deciding to have a glass of wine. Then he had another.

  Jessica returned home to find him on the couch, drunk. “I guess you’ve outgrown your straight-edge phase,” she said. “What’s for

  dinner?”

  “Leftovers. We should finish the chickpea stew before it goes bad,” he said.

  “Can you do the grocery shopping tomorrow? I’m meeting with my study group in the afternoon, but I’ll be back in time for dinner.”

  “Sure.”

  “How was your day?”

  “I have an idea for a new photo project.”

  “Mark said you should give him a call. Maybe we can have brunch with him on Sunday. He has some leads for you.”

  Kent took in a deep breath. He didn’t want to fight with Jessica, so he said, “Thanks.”

  “Do you mind if I study while we eat? I’m a bit behind in one of my classes.”

  “Go ahead.”

  He read a newspaper while she highlighted a textbook. His stomach didn’t feel quite right, and his head was starting to ache. By 10 p.m. he was ready for bed. He put the dishes in the sink, and resolved to wash them first thing in the morning. Jessica remained at the kitchen table with her books.

  When Kent woke up, he discovered that Jessica had already left for school. His body felt dry, and he had a headache. He glanced at the Garry Winogrand book on the nightstand and thought about taking photographs.

  In the kitchen, he saw that the dishes were done. He washed down an Aspirin with a cup of coffee. Shortly after, he threw up in the bathroom sink.

  Halfway to Main Street, he realized he didn’t have his camera with him, so he decided to go grocery shopping. The liquor store beckoned, so he bought a bottle of wine, a six-pack of beer and a bottle of whisky.

  He returned home in time to watch Passions. Partway through the episode, the telephone rang. He picked it up on the third ring. It was Jessica.

  “You’ll have to eat without me. I’m covering for Heather at the restaurant—the bus is here. Bye!” She hung up.

  Kent did not enjoy eating alone, so he had a bowl of instant noodles, drank four beers and fell asleep on the couch.

  Hours later, he awoke to find that Jessica had placed a blanket over him. It was still light out. Or was it another day?

  The couch was comfortable, and soon he was asleep again.

  On Sunday morning, Jessica tried her best to rouse Kent from bed.

  “We’re having brunch with Mark and his wife,” she said. “Get

  up!”

  “I think I have the flu,” he said.

  She gave him a look that indicated she didn’t believe that he was ill, but half an hour later she left without him.

  He stayed in bed.

  When he next saw Jessica, her first words to him were, “Are you going to look for work today?”

  “Of course,” he said, pulling the duvet over his head as she closed the door and left for school.

  Twenty minutes elapsed. He couldn’t get back to sleep, so he rose and went into the kitchen.

  The table was covered in paper, bills mostly: telephone, credit card, hydro, student loan, another telephone bill. There was a calculator, a pencil and a notepad next to the open envelopes. He could see that Jessica was worried about money. It was time for him to find a job.

  He turned on his laptop and searched the Human Resources Development Canada website, applying for jobs ranging from dishwasher to photographer’s assistant. Then he scanned through the newspaper and spent the afternoon composing cover letters and tailoring his resumé for each posting.

  Jessica returned at midnight to find Kent watching television.

  “I’m sick of this shit,” she said, pushing the papers from the kitchen table onto the floor. “I hate my job.” She pushed her bangs from her eyes, and he could see that she was crying.

  He walked over to her and massaged her shoulders. She relaxed a bit. He kissed her neck and unbuttoned her blouse. She pushed his hands away.

  “No sex until you get a job,” she said, and made him sleep on the couch.

  Kent woke up with an erection. He’d been dreaming of Jessica. He started to masturbate, but he began to think about money and work and failure. Why hadn’t anyone called him for an interview? He let go of his cock and reached for the telephone. There was no dial tone. The phone was dead.

  He got off the couch and turned up the heat. He looked out the window at the phone booth on the corner. It was raining. He sighed, and put Cat Power’s Moon Pix on the stereo. After drinking a cup of coffee and eating a piece of toast, he took four quarters from the laundry jar, which was nearly empty, and went outside.

  First, he called his brother Ron. “Can I use your pager number on my resumé?”

  Ron said yes.

  There were three quarters left. Kent looked at his list and ranked the jobs in order of desirability: the most appealing was a photographer’s assistant position. A phone call later, he had an interview scheduled for the next day.

  Rain fell as Kent rode his bike to the interview. He was listening to Destroyer’s City of Daughters on his Discman. His brown polyester pants were soaked. As he approached his destination, the smell of death filled the air. The office was near a meat-processing factory, and the stench of rotting flesh permeated everything. He locked up his bike, then gagged and dry heaved, steadying himself on a graffiti-

  covered brick wall. There was a sticker that read obey giant.

  He entered the office through an unmarked door. A woman wearing a headset sat at a large table, reading Cosmopolitan.

  He walked up to her. “Hello, I have an interview. My name…”

  She looked up from the magazine and gave him a surly look. “Wait over there.” Kent tried to smile at her, but she was focused on reading. He backed away and looked past her into the hallway. There was a watering can, a chair and a milk crate.

  “Carl,” the woman said into her headset. “Your three o’clock is here.”

  Kent noticed that his pants were dry and pondered the miracle of polyester.

  “Go down the hall,” the woman said to Kent. “It’s the blue door on your left.”

  As he walked to Carl’s office, a blonde woman in a white terry cloth bathrobe passed by. She looked Kent up and down and licked her lips. Kent kept walking until he found the blue door.

  The office contained a table, two chairs, a computer and a phone. Carl was a large man with massive arms. His chest was twice the breadth of Kent’s, and he was wearing a ring with
a huge diamond on his left pinkie. He didn’t look like any of the photographers Kent knew.

  “I didn’t think you’d be Chinese,” Carl said, gesturing to a chair. “I’m not sure you’d be the right fit. Now if you were a girl that would be a different story.”

  “I don’t follow,” Kent said, sitting down.

  “I’m just telling it like it is. How old are you, sonny?”

  “Twenty-four,” Kent replied, staring at Carl’s mouse pad. It bore a picture of a naked, red-haired woman with her legs spread open. She had a Brazilian wax.

  “You like that, I can tell,” Carl said, pointing at the mouse pad. “That’s great. So, can I see some id?”

  Kent took his driver’s licence out.

  After examining it carefully, Carl said, “Good, good. Legal. I don’t want any trouble.”

  There was something about Carl that Kent found distasteful, but he wasn’t sure what it was. He pushed the thought from his mind, concentrating on how happy Jessica would be if he found employment.

  “So you think the job’s easy, do you, sonny?” Carl asked.

  “I’ve done it before.”

  “You have?” Carl raised an eyebrow. “In Vancouver?”

  “Yes.”

  Carl’s gaze drifted to Kent’s crotch. “Sonny, just cause you fuck your girlfriend doesn’t mean you can do this. You gotta fuck in front of people with the cameras rolling. You think your erection can handle that?”

  “What?”

  Carl held his hand up to indicate that he wanted to finish speaking. “This isn’t like fucking your girlfriend. Can you get erect on cue? Cause we’re not going to baby you. This isn’t a fucking sperm bank. We gotta put you through some tests. Have you masturbate in front of the camera guy…”

  “I think I’m in the wrong interview,” Kent said in a loud voice.

  Carl sat back and stared at Kent. “Shit, sorry.” He paused for a moment. “You sure you don’t want to give this a try?”

  Kent was about to say no, but Carl named a sum equivalent to his share of the rent for a day’s work. He thought of Jessica studying with her law school classmates, and he knew that she would slip away from him if he didn’t take action.

  A minute later, he found himself reclined on a bed, pants and underwear around his ankles and cock in his hand. Carl and a camera guy were watching him. He thought of Jessica, but he couldn’t imagine her naked, not with a hot light shining upon him. He tried to think about the first time he saw her in his bed. Nothing worked. He couldn’t get hard, even though he hadn’t had sex in weeks.

  “For fuck’s sake, we haven’t got all day,” Carl shouted.

  Kent thought of the unpaid hydro bill. He wondered how much more disappointment Jessica could handle before she decided to leave him. “I’m trying,” he said, pumping his cock faster. But it was no use. He wasn’t accustomed to being naked in front of other men.

  “You can stop,” Carl said.

  Kent thought about how dark it would be when the electricity was cut off. “Please, give me another minute,” he pleaded.

  “It’s not going to happen,” Carl said.

  Bile rose up in Kent’s throat. He pulled up his pants and started to walk to the exit.

  Carl grabbed his arm, shouting, “Where are you going? This is Winston, the camera guy.” Winston stepped out from behind the camera. Kent wondered if he had been filming, and a cold feeling took hold in his chest.

  “This is Kent,” Carl said. “He wants to be your assistant.”

  “Hello!” Winston said, extending his hand for a shake as if he had not just witnessed Kent’s humiliation.

  “Step into my office.” Winston led Kent across the room.

  As Carl left he shouted, “Don’t smoke in the studio!”

  “Yeah, yeah. You tight-assed bastard,” Winston muttered. “You’d think he was running a baby food company, the way he goes on about shit.” He turned to Kent and lit a cigarette. “This is our little secret. Sit down.” He pointed to a couch. It was a set prop. Kent hesitated, then sat on the edge of a cushion and tried not to think about how the couch was used.

  The half of the room they were sitting in was a replica of a living room. The other half was a dominatrix dungeon fashioned like a cave. In addition to medieval stocks and wrist restraints on the wall, there were metal cylinders, chains with clamps, chains without clamps, and whips and dildos in various sizes.

  “It’s not a hard job. It doesn’t fucking matter. You’re just pointing the camera at pussy. The only rule is: you can’t fuck the girls. If you want to fuck the girls, you do it in front of the camera. Do you understand?” He blew smoke in Kent’s face. Kent felt ill; his feet were asleep and a sheen of cold sweat covered his body. Winston continued talking.

  “My last assistant forced girls to service him. He fucked the girls, I fired him. It’s sexual harassment to fuck the girls, so don’t be poking your dick in their pussies or any other holes. That’s fucking harassment.”

  Kent eyed the door. It wasn’t far—ten steps at most. He could get up and run for it. Winston wasn’t as intimidating as Carl, and he probably wasn’t much of a runner.

  Winston continued. “Like I said, the job’s easy. The thing is, when people are having sex for long periods of time, it gets messy. You’ll get to hold the camera after a while, but you’ll also be in charge of the mop and bucket.”

  Kent tried not to dry heave. He shifted closer to the edge of the couch, wondering if they ever cleaned the covers.

  “So, can you start this week?”

  “I’m still a student,” Kent lied.

  “What are you studying?”

  “History.”

  “I fucking love fucking history. You gotta remember though, on this job, you can’t fuck the girls.”

  “I’m a full-time student,” Kent said. “I have to go to school every day.”

  “Oh,” Winston said, putting out his cigarette. “Too bad. You seem like a nice kid. You probably wouldn’t have fucked the girls.”

  Kent biked quickly to escape the stench of meat. The rain had stopped, and he dodged a number of puddles as he rode through the streets. Fugazi’s Steady Diet of Nothing was blasting through his headphones. Halfway home, the smell of smoke enveloped him, but he continued to pedal.

  Just up the street, a house was on fire. Flames were shooting into the air, sparks threatening to ignite the homes next door as well as the tall tree in the front yard. He dismounted, unable to ride by without stopping to look. He marvelled at the jagged flames. It was the biggest fire he’d ever seen. It was out of control.

  Several other people were standing on the sidewalk, watching the house burn. One woman was crying. For the first time since losing his job, he took his camera out and started shooting. Click. The windows shattered. Click. Fire trucks pulled up. Click. The roof on the next house caught fire. Click.

  When he finished the roll, he turned his back on the house. He got on his bike and pedalled hard. His hair and clothes smelled of smoke, and rain began to fall. He wanted to get home before Jessica did. He wanted to develop the roll of film so he would have something to show her, an accomplishment. To make her smile again—could he hope for more? The streets flew by: Victoria, Fraser, Main. He had thought that happiness had been eluding him, and existed only in the distant past or in an unattainable future, but as he cycled home, he knew he was wrong.

  Left and Leaving

  In the winter of 1997, world leaders descended upon Vancouver to discuss important matters. Two kids in Victoria battered and drowned a girl they barely knew. The dead girl, Reena Virk, and I were the same age: fourteen. Dozens of women who lived in the Downtown Eastside had disappeared, but few people seemed concerned. I was preoccupied with my own troubles. My older sister, Lisa, could not stay sober to save us having to move from one foster home to another. Our mother continued
to be missing. In my imagination, she was merely out of town.

  “She’ll be home for Christmas,” I said one afternoon. Lisa and I were sitting in a wooded area behind the high school we were

  attending that month. She was smoking a joint. The wound over her right eyebrow, a gash acquired from falling down a flight of stairs during a fight at our last school, had closed with the help of five stitches. There was going to be a lasting scar, one so prominent that it altered her appearance. I wondered if her father—we had different fathers—would recognize her if they had a chance encounter on the street.

  “Mom’s probably dead, you know,” Lisa said. She started laughing. I couldn’t tell whether it was the pot or if she was just callous.

  “Shut up,” I said. I had many thoughts about our mother—some horrible—but I didn’t want to believe she was dead.

  Lisa and I were living with foster parents, Edward and Judith Forsythe, because we had run out of family. I worried we would soon run out of fosters. People Lisa and I lived with either left or died. In the span of three years we’d passed through the care of our mother, my paternal grandmother, a great aunt and an uncle who was the younger brother of Lisa’s father.

  Neither Lisa nor I recalled our fathers. Mine was half-Chinese, half-English. Hers was Haida or Coast Salish—we weren’t sure which. There was little family resemblance between us. I was short and had pale skin and black hair. Lisa was two years older and eight inches taller than me. This never stopped her from borrowing my clothes—everything in my wardrobe was slightly too big for me. Her skin was several shades darker, while her hair was several shades lighter. She resembled our mother more than I did, which had made me very jealous when we were still living with Mom. Lisa and I took turns being the beauty of the family; it wasn’t hard to share because there was only one other person to divide things with.

  I liked living with Grandma best. We ate dinner together every night and she taught me how to bake cookies and cakes. The radio was always on if we were in the kitchen. I’d dance around with flour on my hands and ask to see pictures of my father when he was a boy.