by Ian Williams
And then, when the skinny boy was close enough to smell her, Heather dropped the single most brilliant line of her life. She turned her pink breath toward his passing head, looked at his belt and said, Need a hand? It seemed like it happened in slow motion, with close-ups of her lips and his belt, but it happened very quickly: she was passing, she said, Need a hand? Need a hand was at once so banal as to be forgettable and so full of insinuation that it could not be. Did she throw cotton panties or lingerie at him?
He paused. He was trying to figure out which. His neck tinted.
She pulled a sleeve from the cart. Menswear, she said.
His jaw mottled red.
She tugged the tip of the hose with her thumb. Garden centre.
His cheeks. His temple. Vines of blood climbed his face.
Diane affected boredom. She said, I’ll meet you at the nails place. She had been considering her nails like a posh wing-girl the whole while, with the palm facing outward instead of like a man with the fingers curled inward. She knew when to scat. The power of two hot girls in all their skimpy, tanned, moist-necked, bubblegummy glory had already overloaded Skinnyboy’s senses.
You were here yesterday, Skinnyboy said.
In the mind of a lesser girl than Heather, rotating alarm beacons would go off. Danger! Danger! Evacuate immediately! But Heather simply frowned. Was I? I guess. Right, looking at CDs.
You’re here pretty much every day.
She screwed her face up into concern. You’re not some kind of creep?
Good song, he said.
Radiohead.
I think I listened to it for like two months straight.
What the hell am I doing here? Heather quoted.
I don’t belong here, he finished.
For a few moments, everyone in the world vaporized, and left the two of them standing in the wide aisle among endless plains of consumer goods.
Where’re you heading? Heather asked.
He pointed his head without releasing her eye.
She pointed her head in the same direction, but as a question.
He answered by inclining his head more deeply.
So you look for me every day? Heather asked when they had straightened up.
Yeah, no, I can just tell the people who come here because they don’t have AC at home.
Then the two of them walked toward the garden centre, Skinnyboy trailing the cart behind them. From the garden centre, they walked to health and beauty to men’s wear to electronics back to the garden centre. He greeted other employees with the barest facial tic, perhaps a slight pout of the lip, and impressed Heather by saying cool things like, Hi Paula, and, That was my old supervisor. Real adult things.
She offered him bubble tape among the CD racks and lilies.
But his real passion, his words, was music. Of course. He played guitar. Acoustic and a little bass. He was in a band. Their sound was like Nirvana meets Joni Mitchell with a little bit of Bob Marley, he was explaining while up on a red ladder, restocking items from the cart.
What’s it called?
What’s what called?
The band.
Mmrm.
What?
Murmur.
You always do that?
He snorted. First time, he said. But I should. Watch your head. He lifted a large flowerpot from the top shelf.
My dad had a band, she said. He quit it because he has tinnitus.
Coo’.
They used to play covers.
We only do original stuff, Skinnyboy said. I mean, some covers. If you’re playing a three-hour set in a bar to a bunch of old dudes you better bring the Eagles. But like 90 percent original.
They started off making their own music. Heather wanted his respect. Like one of their songs got pretty big.
What song?
Pine Cone.
The skinny boy shook his head, or cleared his hair from his eyes. He was wearing the flowerpot on his arm like a large thimble.
It wasn’t huge-huge. But it was on the radio and stuff. Not his version. A cover version from a French band. Péter covered it, sort of.
French or French-Canadian.
French-Canadian. Montreal. Anyway, some band—she made finger quotes around the word—covered it. They kept the chords but changed the lyrics so it was different enough to be their song. Whenever my dad sings it, it sounds like he’s Weird Al. It’s a complicated story.
The skinny boy twirled the flowerpot from the inside for her to continue.
So Heather complicated the story further. Their band had a record deal. My dad and mom got married. They broke up. The band, I mean. And my parents too, I guess. I doubt it was all my mom’s fault, although my dad calls her their Yoko. They had the usual band problems. Creative differences. There’s only so much guitar my dad wanted to play in the background. Anyway, the label dropped ’em before they broke up. And Pine Cone was big in Quebec for some reason.
Coo’. The conversation had strayed too far from him. Hey, I should—
Heather wanted to be the one to end it. I should find Diane. She stuffed her hands in her pockets but kept her elbows locked so her body stretched itself out lean and her shirt rode up and her shoulders rose high and sexy to create a valley for her face. She took a few steps back while he took her in. From his vantage, he’d be able to drop coins down her tank.
I’m Heather.
Heather, he repeated but he didn’t give his name.
They revived the routine.
I live a couple of blocks that way. She pointed her head.
That way. He pointed his head.
At 55 Newcourt. By the catwalk.
He climbed down the ladder and walked her to the edge of the store. Between the electromagnetic shoplifting gate, he finally asked, You have a number?
Just come by, Heather said. Maybe change first. 55 Newcourt. With your guitar.
He very gentlemanly opened a door for her. It was automatic. But still. He reached out a hand.
* * *
+
Heather found Diane outside the manicure salon, reading the covers of tabloid magazines and sucking on an eighteen-inch freezie. They passed the ice between them on the walk to Diane’s house while Heather went on and on about Skinnyboy. They talked about him through a makeshift dinner of instant noodles on Diane’s bed (her parents were divorced). Now that Heather had seen him up close, she tried to convey what a rare creature he was, how he had reached in between the upper buttons of his shirt to scratch his chest, how he didn’t laugh once—possibly couldn’t—with his tiny Edward-Scissorhands mouth, how he was a man who would have had a horse centuries ago, a man whose coastal village people must have worn white, silk puffy shirts and stood on cliffs, looking into the moody sea.
It was almost dark when Heather walked back to the garage, strutting in among Army’s boys, with a can’t-put-your-finger-on-it confidence and glamour, like she was in front of an industrial wind machine.
Where’s my bubble tape? Army wanted to know.
She had finished it all. She took the gum from her mouth and stuck it on his improvised counter. Then she slapped his butt and went upstairs.
* * *
+
Two days Skinnyboy didn’t come by. Were she in Grade 8 she’d stuff a note with her feelings, with the kind of flattery that no guy in a band could resist, fold it into a fortress, and send it off with Diane for secure delivery, analysis, and reportage.
On the third day, she returned to Zellers without Diane. On the way, she unbuttoned her shirt to expose her midriff under her tank top. She’d find him and ask him whether she should pierce her belly button or not.
I came looking for you yesterday, he said.
Yesterday? She was home most of the day except for dinner. Oliver had finally cracked under their complaining and taken them out.
There was a guy in the garage who kept trying to give me a haircut. I thought it was your brother.
That’s the guy in the basement. Army.
Army, right. He didn’t know you.
He knows me.
He said he didn’t know you.
You went to 55 Newcourt?
Yeah, 55 Newcourt. Army was the kid’s name. How many Armies do you have on your street?
Heather still couldn’t believe it. He was a half-black kid, right?
Yeah.
About this tall? She held her hand five inches over her head.
Low hair, talks kinda fast, no shirt, thinks he’s a stud, Skinnyboy finished.
It was Army. Was my brother with him?
He was alone. Anyway, the kid said I had the wrong address and then he tried to sell me stuff, actual stuff, not like weed or anything.
When Heather had climbed out of Oliver’s truck after dinner, Army was still in the garage.
Did you bring me back some fries? Army had asked.
Hendrix gave him a box.
Heather specifically but casually but clearly asked, What’s up? Meaning, Did anyone come by for her?
Army filled his mouth with fries and shook his head and she went upstairs and called Diane.
Skinnyboy looked over his shoulder. He couldn’t spend his shift talking to her and Heather wanted to get home and deal with Judas. Which was the one who denied Christ? Her biblical knowledge was fuzzy. Peter. With a kiss? Someone’s ear got cut off. Van Gogh.
You have a pen? she asked.
This time Skinnyboy was ready. Heather wrote her number on the inside of his arm. In the time it took to write seven digits, they exchanged information. She told him she was almost eighteen. He was twenty-two. She looked young, yeah, she knew. She was a dual citizen. No she wasn’t in university. She might study journalism in a year or—because he didn’t seem impressed—pursue acting. And she issued a warning. If you call, just say you’re looking for a haircut or something. My dad can be a dick on the phone. She capped the pen.
Coo’, he said.
Sorry, she said. Just a general, blanket sorry for the inconvenience of her presence and absence and attention and residue.
I got a guitar out of it so, I mean, whatever.
Skinnyboy walked away from Heather with the back of his shirt untucked into an Employees Only area before she could ask him whether she should pierce her belly button or not.
Oliver
Experience
When Felicia showed up to inspect the basement with her swivelheaded son, Oliver liked them immediately. They’d be quiet, appreciative people. There was secrecy in her face but not the scheming kind—past secrets, not future ones. Army had spoken like Felicia’s lawyer. Did Oliver require first and last? Were utilities included? What was the average utility cost? Would he consider including them? Shovelling of snow and grounds maintenance? Oliver found himself trying to please them, courting them. There was a nearby stripmall. The house was a catwalk away from the bus route. Army wouldn’t have to change schools. But Oliver was firm on the occupancy date. Felicia wanted to wait until the end of the school year for Army and herself—a July 1 move in—but Oliver insisted on June 1, emboldened by the advice of two brothers-in-law. The basement had been empty for a month already. Others were willing to rent it. His other choices were a family of five which would put pressure on his utilities plus the wife looked telenova dramatic; a Portuguese couple with a baby but the man looked like a drunk and together they made him feel Portuguese Lite; another couple where the wife didn’t work and looked depressed while the man looked oppressed as if he wanted to but could not divorce his wife; a single man who had too many factory jobs in the last few years and was trying to get a place so the courts would grant him visitation rights; a large Indian family with grandparents. Felicia was neat, in heels, skirt, professional, attractive, direct, had a checklist. He spied in her car; it was clean.
Oliver had taken his divorce out of storage between the time she rented the place and moved in, after the year’s contract was up, and squeezed everything into a hill on his side of the garage. The divorce rubble sloped from ceiling to floor, back wall to garage door. It took up so much space that Felicia could barely open her car door. Oliver had seen her squeezing out, eyeing a bicycle wheel or gas can or printer box.
She told him, curtly and professionally as if she planned how to tell him, to clean it up.
Army offered to help for a fee. Then he cannibalized it for free.
When Army was setting up for the grand official opening, he found a leather footstool (which he carried upstairs and rang the doorbell and asked Mr. O if he could use), a box of Mason jars (which he carried upstairs and rang the doorbell and), a standing scoop (which he carried upstairs) and an alarm clock (which he) until Oliver just said he could use anything he wanted, just don’t wreck anything.
All of the furniture in Army’s barbershop was salvaged from Oliver’s divorce rubble. Until recently, he used to cut hair in the bathroom, in the bathtub, and wash the hair down the drain. As landlord, Oliver had to clean the drain with a coat hanger and Drano.
Today Oliver was going to sort through the garage. Monday seemed an appropriate day for that kind of work. He backed up his truck so he could toss whatever he or the kids didn’t want into the bed. Heather was still sleeping, at 9:00 a.m., so it would just be Oliver and Hendrix. They’d just put her stuff in a pile.
Maybe we can get the barbecue going, he said to Hendrix.
When he opened the garage door, Army peeked out from the basement entrance, sleepy-faced, half-naked. He put on some sneakers and strolled out. He asked for Heather, which Oliver did not appreciate first thing in the morning, the boy still thick in the shorts, asking for his daughter. She was sleeping and to remain sleeping.
Holla if anyone comes by for a cut, Army said, then went back inside, yawning.
After half an hour, Hendrix said, I’m getting Army.
For what?
It’s kind of his garage too.
It’s my stuff. Oliver caught himself thumbing his chest. The boy was such a provocation sometimes. So very different from Heather. Before either of them, he had hoped for a son, but Heather had taken to him or after him so easily, preferred him even as a child, as though she knew his ex was unworthy of attention. And Hendrix, no, not the same.
Oliver said, I might have some of Grandpa’s old hunting stuff in here.
Guns? Hendrix asked.
It was time to get down to business. Oliver opened a Zellers bag and met instant opposition.
Don’t throw that out, Hendrix said.
It’s hair.
I’m going to feed it to my ants.
Ants don’t eat hair.
They do too. At least mine do. Hendrix took the bag from him.
Oliver sighed. Maybe the hair of teenage boys was the poison that could finally rid his front yard of ants.
After another thirty minutes, Oliver was overwhelmed. No, irritable. No, thirsty. He was thirsty. He sent Hendrix up for some juice. Hendrix returned, weird satisfaction on his face.
Where’s the juice?
Oh yeah, Hendrix said and went back.
Oliver had spread piles around the garage and he was becoming convinced that there wasn’t too much of use in any of them. There were sentimental things. Everything he touched had a memory and place in his old house. Yellow sprinklers. Boxes of records. Boxes of clothes he used to wear in high school. Boxes of shoes. That area was a high school zone. Toys and furniture. Helmets. Duplicate tools. Old drills. Box, box, box, box, ab-roller, rope, tools, tools, bumper, plates, box, box, books, candles, a fan, lamp, wooden bowl, Vovó’s hair pins in small tin boxes, velvet dining chair, a bust a friend made of him, car rims, fringe curtains, wooden rods, lampshades, a portable AC unit, some wood, fireplace irons, (gentleman’s mags missing,) two ornamental gold cats, (also some VHS tapes missing,) wooden hangers, wire hangers, a wicker hamper, books from university, teaching textbooks, posters, sheet music, table legs, bookshelves, sneakers, clothes, rackets, hockey gear, hockey sticks, what was he looking for? Really, what was he looking for?<
br />
A hundred years went by. He shouted for Hendrix.
Hendrix came out.
Moments later, Heather came.
And finally, Army came. He was ready to set up his business but Oliver’s divorce rubble had spread into his shop space.
But, Mr. O. This is my livelihood. You and I reached an agreement, if you recall, Shaw versus Soares, last Thursday. Right to practice? We shook. We had witnesses.
I was the witness, Hendrix said.
I mean, that’s like legally binding.
Take it inside, Oliver said. Or use the driveway. I’m looking for something.
Guns, Hendrix said.
When Army said there were no guns, Hendrix promptly lost interest in the divorce rubble and turned to look for his ants next to the recycling bin.
Army pulled out one of the barstools and sat, looking out at the street, and explaining to Oliver the principles of running a good business. Business 101. You had to be open.
A pile teetered near Oliver when he tried to dislodge a case from the middle.
Grab that music stand, Oliver said.
Mr. O, Army said, you know I don’t work for free and I’m losing money as we speak since—
Hurry up. Oliver was straining under the weight.
Army grabbed the stand and together they prevented an avalanche.
Damn it. Oliver wagged his finger. He had cut himself.
I reorganized that corner, Army said.
Just leave my stuff alone, all right? I know where everything is.
Army took his seat on the barstool, looking out into the street with his back hunched.
Oliver cooled down. He’d been snapping at people or storing up hurts then confronting people. This moodiness was an effect of the divorce that worsened when his children were around. Their presence activated surges of elation, frustration, rage and despair, sometimes within an hour, like New England weather.
I see your tan line. Hendrix pointed to Army’s thigh.
He doesn’t tan, Heather said.
I bronze up, Army said. Whut?