Losing It

by Alan Cumyn

  “Food Plaza is open right now, but the coupons won’t be there all day,” his mother said. “I need lemons and eggplant. Did you hear me?”

  His spine was subtly stretching and compressing with each breath, exercising the three “hinges of power”: the base of the spine at the pelvis, the middle where the chest opened and closed, and the “gate of heavenly awareness,” where the spine meets the skull. Each co-ordinated stretching and compressing was designed to pump life-force energy from the “lower well of power” to the middle and upper wells and back again, to balance out his state, smooth out the edges, harmonize darkness with light. He needed to be in a state of complete awareness and relaxation to make it work. His jaw, however, was clamped tight and now he could feel his shoulders knotting.

  “Are you hugging the tree again, Donny? Didn’t you do that yesterday?”

  “I’m almost done, Mother,” Donny barked, his voice rougher, his anger stronger than he expected.

  “It’s just the coupons, dear,” she said.

  Eighteen breaths, three times with his arms rounded in front of his chest and face, elbows lower than his hands, the energy portals of his armpits open, not squashed closed. Julia on the in-breath, Carmichael on the out-breath, his energy wheel expanding and tightening.

  “I don’t mind so much about the lemons,” his mother said. “It’s more the coupons. I don’t know how long they’re going to last. Maybe they’ll be there all day. I don’t know. But I would think there’ll be a terrible rush. You know how the Food Plaza gets on Sundays. It’s best to go a bit early. And I would like the eggplant. Though it’s horrible for my digestion. Are you listening, dear?”

  Eighteen breaths, three times through with the arms up, then eighteen breaths, plus nine more, with the arms lowered, hands palm up in front of the abdomen, holding the energy in the lower well of power. With each breath, cosmic energy is drawn through the body’s portals of connectivity: the top of the head, eyes, nostrils, palms of the hands, soles of the feet. Draw in fresh life-force, then on the out-breath expel the toxic refuse built up in your energy channels.

  “I don’t see why you have to hug the tree today when you just did it yesterday,” his mother said. “If you found a girl you wouldn’t have to hug the tree any more, or do any more foot-stamping or those snaky things with your arms. Whatever happened to what’s-her-name? Do you ever see her any more?”

  Julia on the in-breath, absorbing the fresh energy of the universe. Carmichael on the out-breath, releasing the toxic grubbiness of this dark little house.

  “I don’t see why you can’t talk to me, Donny,” she whined. “I’m stuck up here. I’d go get the coupons if I could. I did it for years and years. I know that they don’t last. That’s all. I don’t mean to bother you. Could you answer me?”

  Julia … Carmichael. Julia … Carmichael.

  “Donnnn-ny!”

  He tried to stay focused. She said, “I don’t know where you go at night. I wish you would tell me. I worry so much. There are so many stupid things men can do at night.”

  “I’m not doing stupid things, Ma. I’m just walking, that’s all. I like to walk.”

  “You go off in your truck!” she said. He stayed very still, his breath slipped in and out like a single strand of silk being pulled smoothly from the cocoon, no jerking, no sudden, abrasive –

  “I said, you go off in your truck! Why won’t you talk to me?”

  “Because I’m meditating!”

  “I don’t understand why you can’t meditate and talk at the same time.”

  “It’s not like knitting, Ma.”

  “Well there, you’re talking now. You see, you can do it!”

  There are many ways to kill somebody, Donny thought suddenly. A quick blow to the front or side of the neck. A knuckle to the temple. Collapse the sternum. Overwhelming force to the solar plexus. Anything like that. One reflex spasm. You go from reptile-brain readiness to catastrophic action and then back to readiness. Like a crocodile exploding out of a muddy hole to pull down a young water buffalo. That’s reptile brain. Donny thought of Waylun Zhi demonstrating it: this scrawny man in glasses rounded his shoulders, spread his fingers, widened his stance, became very still and dangerous. Not angry, that wasn’t it; a crocodile isn’t angry. It’s just coiled and loaded on a hair-trigger. Bam! Set to go off.

  “What was her name, anyway? That last one. Renatta? Rhoda? Reisa?”

  “Ramone,” Donny barked.

  “Oh, Ramone. I remember her now. She wasn’t right for you. Too – what was it? She wasn’t right. She was too -”

  “Married, Ma. She’s too married!”

  There were other terrible, terrible things you could do to someone. A quick blow to the side of the knee, snap! It didn’t even have to be much pressure. Or stamp on their foot, that will get their attention, collapse their arch. Or a palm strike on the front of the chest, then drag your hand downwards quickly, inflicting great pain and disrupting their energy flow. Someone like Waylun Zhi could pour overwhelming energy into any vulnerable spot on your body, just through touch, a particular grip. On the elbow joint, for example. Donny had seen him knock out a senior student that way in a demonstration. One minute standing fine, then a little squeeze of the elbow and the legs buckled, the eyes rolled back as the body collapsed.

  “Not for you!” his mother said. “I knew it as soon as you told me about her. But what about this new one? The one you were out with till all hours. She’s married too, isn’t she? Don’t you ever learn?”

  It’s easy to get sidetracked, to focus on the violent aspects. You don’t want to become a psychopath in order to protect yourself from psychopaths. But it’s difficult not to think about it. Waylun Zhi called it sneeze power: pouring everything into one focused explosion, then letting it go, relaxing again. A whiplash through the whole body, making every point of contact a weapon. He could’ve used it on that guy on the street the other day, the jerk who was so furious after Julia knocked him over. He actually wanted to strike the baby; he was crazy with it, drunk with rage, but stiff as a ladder; Donny just swept his leg out and the guy toppled over. He could’ve done much worse: kicked him in the groin, or poleaxed the guy with his elbow as he charged in. He could’ve chopped him in the neck and killed him on the spot. If Donny hadn’t stayed calm, hadn’t been equal to the situation.

  “I said, don’t you ever learn?”

  “No, I don’t, Ma,” Donny said. “I never learn.” He lowered his hands, blinked several times, walked around the dim living room slowly. All the furniture was old and ratty, had been bought nearly fifty years before. His mother used to keep the plastic cover on the sofa in case of accidents, until the plastic was ripped and shredded. Now the sofa itself was coming apart. The cushion covers had split their seams; the arms were beaten down, exhausted; the whole thing sagged in the middle and looked as if it couldn’t support more than one light person at a time.

  It was dangerous to just leave off like this, raise and accumulate the life-force without circulating it throughout the major organs and limbs, balancing it properly, then storing it again in the wells of peace. But it would take several other exercises to finish and he couldn’t manage them anyway, not with his mother in this kind of mood. He’d probably get angry, with his energy like this, but there was nothing else for it. He walked to the base of the stairs.

  “Her name is Julia Carmichael,” he called up. “I used to go to school with her. She’s married now, has one son. I was helping her out the other night because her mother was lost, and I’m going to do her kitchen floor tomorrow. That’s all. I’m going out now to get the coupons.”

  “How could her mother get lost?”

  “It just happens sometimes.”

  “What kind of woman allows her mother to get lost?”

  “She’s just lucky, I guess,” Donny said.

  “What was that? What kind of joke was that?”

  “I’m going to get the coupons, Ma.”

  “What abou
t my kiss?”

  He could hear her struggling to get out of bed, to drag the walker closer.

  “I’ll just be gone a few minutes, Ma.”

  “Not without my kiss!” she said, and then he heard her clump-thumping across the floor. He started up the stairs.

  “I’ll be back in ten minutes, Ma.”

  She got almost to the bedroom door, then quit and sagged against the support. Donny climbed the stairs quickly, took her gently in his arms, lifted her as if she was nothing, which she was, practically, light as a thorn bush.

  “Don’t you ever leave without my kiss,” she said.

  He put her back in the little bed. The drapes were closed; the room was gloomy and airless. It didn’t take long for his mother to make it feel like it had been shut up for decades.

  He kissed her on both sagging cheeks.

  “I’ll be back in about eleven minutes,” he said. “What was it you wanted besides the coupons? Lemon and something?”

  “I wish you weren’t in love with this Julia person,” she sputtered. “I don’t see any good coming out of it.”

  “I’m not in love with her. For God’s sake!” he said, with too much force, he could feel his body ugly with it.

  “Of course you’re in love with her. You never mention the name of any woman you’re not in love with!”

  “That’s not true,” he said.

  His mother looked at him. “Why couldn’t you just be normal?” she asked.

  “Because I’m taking care of you,” he whispered, and took her hand gently, so softly. He had a horrible, fleeting image of his fingers on her tiny throat, but it was gone in a second. “Let it go,” Waylun Zhi was always saying in class. Whatever it was, that stupid, profound, amazing, passing thought. Let it go and it will not harm you.

  19

  Bob stepped out of the house. It was a chilly, uninspiring, dull morning, but the cold air seemed to him at least fresh, vital, and as he walked away he felt as if released from bondage. It wasn’t just the near-sleepless night, it was his mother-in-law endlessly fussing at breakfast, his son scattering sugar-frosted cereal all over the kitchen floor, his wife distracted, helpless to cope … and the anticipation of all that awaited with Sienna tomorrow, blessed Monday. It couldn’t come too soon. He’d avoided a fight, had handled himself with restraint, had walked the knife-edge of wordlessness and acquiescence for the sake of domestic non-violence. Now he was out and almost away.

  But the front door squeaked open. “Honey,” Julia said in a unthreatening, reasonable, and completely commanding voice. “Honey, could you take Matthew. Please?”

  Bob had a wild thought – he could just keep going. Get in the car, drive away, never be heard from again. He could pick up Sienna at her residence then drive south. They’d be in the States in an hour, could go all the way to Florida in three days. Two if they pushed it, but they wouldn’t need to push. They’d be together. Wherever they were, it would just be them.

  They were always looking for professors in Florida, he thought.

  “I’m sorry to ask you,” Julia said, pleading this time. She was leaning halfway out the door in her old terry-cloth bathrobe, her hair a mess, face drained and puffy with strain and fatigue. He could hear Lenore’s voice from inside, whining about something. “But it would probably save a life if you just took him for a bit. I’m not asking you to take my mother,” she added, and he knew one word of disagreement from him – one syllable of protest, of non-compliance – and the detonator would go off. Part of him desperately wanted to do it anyway, to say, “I’m just going to the drugstore,” and then watch the mushroom cloud rise.

  “That’s fine,” he said instead, though not cheerfully, not willingly.

  “Oh, would you? Oh, thank you!” she said, and if he’d been at the porch still she would have hugged him. He knew that and stayed where he was, feeling brittle, resentful. “I’ll just get him changed. I won’t be a minute. What is it, Mother?” she said, then disappeared, the door closed.

  Bob stood on the walkway, shoved his hands in his pockets. She wasn’t ready in a minute. He knew she couldn’t accomplish anything in a minute. But she wasn’t five minutes, either, and then she wasn’t ten, which seemed like an hour to Bob anyway as he stood in the chilly air suspended where he was like a puppet. He hadn’t put his sweater on, just his light jacket, because he knew he was just going to be in the car and then the store. He shivered, paced a bit up and down the walkway. The maple tree in the front looked naked and dead. In just a few days most of the leaves had blown off. There they were, lying on the lawn, one more thing for him to look after.

  He didn’t want to go back in. Chilly as it was, being outside still felt better than being in the madhouse.

  When fifteen minutes had passed, Bob almost decided to leave. He could probably be back before Julia had Matthew ready anyway. He’d say, “Too late,” as he walked in the house with his little bag from the pharmacy. “Too late,” he’d say, and watch the meltdown.

  But when twenty minutes had passed he stepped back onto the porch, put his hand on the door handle, and watched, both knowingly and in amazement, as the inside door opened and Julia thrust a hat-and-mittened, jacketed boy at him. “I’m sorry, it couldn’t be helped,” she said crossly. “I’d be happy to take him if you want to stay here with her.”

  “No,” he said calmly, reasonably, as sweet-naturedly as he could summon. He took the baby in his arms. “Matthew and I will have a good time.”

  “There are a few other things I need you to get,” she said in her way. A few other things. Bob rocked back on his heels as she produced the list. “We need the children’s multiple vitamins,” she said, “not the dinosaur ones, he won’t take those, but the robot ones in grape, not cherry. We need toothpaste, too, both a new tube for us and one for Mother. She uses Longworth’s tooth powder, there’s only one place that has it, it’s the McIntyre’s downtown on Rideau Street. Do you know the one I mean? I’m sorry, if you can’t manage I’ll do it myself later. I just thought that since you’re going -”

  “I didn’t say I couldn’t manage it,” Bob said stiffly.

  “Well, you gave me your look.”

  “What look?” he asked. Ten seconds to meltdown. He could feel the detonation building.

  “Your look,” she said lightly. “Like you’re putting up with me.”

  Bob tried not to look at her that way.

  “I’m sorry. Anyway,” she continued, “I need sanitary napkins. I know you don’t like to get them but it would save me a trip and I do get condoms for you. I like the Daisy Clear but not with the wings. You might as well get the bulk box. I love you,” she said, and handed him the list, leaned out the door, and caught his ear with a kiss that was close to being a bite. “I adore you,” she whispered. She gave his bum a very familiar squeeze, right there in the doorway, and as he turned away she said, “Oh, and diapers, please. I think we need him in disposables at night. Check the weight to get the right size! He’s twenty-nine pounds, if you can believe it!”

  Bob smiled numbly as he turned away. His feet were cold from standing so long. Matthew started gurgling about a squirrel and Bob opened the van door, put him in his baby seat in the back. “A five-minute errand,” he said to the boy as he buckled him in. “Do you see how this works? You want to go out for a five-minute errand and you end up with a yard-long list that takes you all the way to Rideau Street buying sanitary napkins!”

  Matthew said, “Kwirrel! Kwirrel!” and pointed out the window.

  20

  “Hello,” Julia said into the phone. She was in the master bedroom, had shut the door, did not, at that moment, know exactly where her mother was or what she might be doing. “Is that Lisette Tremblay? Oh, wonderful, you’re there. Yes, hello,” she said, and introduced herself, her voice sounding foreign, as if it belonged to some other daughter whose neck was not wooden with strain, who didn’t have what felt like an arrowhead buried deep behind her left eyebrow. “We met in the summer.
I’m sorry to call you on the weekend, but you’ll remember that my mother, Lenore Carmichael, is looking for a room in a full-care facility …”

  Lisette Tremblay did remember her, and Julia remembered Rideau Gates, with its tired carpets, bored-looking attendants, the vague odour of vomit in the elevator. It had been “no, thank you” then, but now she was desperate, and Lisette Tremblay had seemed like a caring, competent person who wouldn’t choose to work somewhere that wasn’t worthwhile. It was hard enough to get hold of anybody on a Sunday, but of those Julia could get answers from, the waiting list at Rest Haven was a year and a half, at Tanglewood almost two years. And under no circumstances would she take her mother back to those incompetents at Fallowfields.

  “Yes, yes. And are you still looking?” Lisette Tremblay asked. A lilting French accent. “Your mother does not need full-care though, does she?”

  When they visited in the summer, they’d just been looking for a smaller place for her mother, for a bit of extra care; they didn’t know then that her mind was in the process of rapidly falling apart. So Julia told the woman the story of the diagnosis and explained what had happened at Fallowfields. Low noises of surprise or empathy came over the line – Julia remembered from their summer meeting how this woman would suck her teeth when she concentrated.

  “She must be kept absolutely safe. There is no negotiating this,” Julia said. “She must be well fed and looked after by competent professionals who’ve been properly trained in dealing with Alzheimer’s sufferers.”

  “Of course. Yes!” Lisette said, but added, “You know, Fallowfields really has an excellent reputation.”

  “You have to understand,” Julia pressed. “I can’t leave my mother there any more. I have no confidence …”

  “Absolutely,” Lisette said, as if she understood. But how could she? It hadn’t been her mother wandering in the wild waters at Hog’s Back. Suddenly Julia thought, they stick up for one another, these old-age-home workers. Probably residents at Rideau Gates wander loose all the time too. She was so angry that she had to stop and ask Lisette to repeat what she’d been saying, which turned out to be a variation of what Julia had already heard elsewhere: “It’s just that full-care, you know, it’s a much longer waiting list. There are so many now. I think it would be best if you brought her back to Fallowfields. If she still has a bed there.”