“Are you still drawing?” I asked.
“Naw. I can’t draw—play around a bit, is all.”
“What’s that, then?” I pulled a sketch pad from the open mouth of a canvas bag he’d dropped beside him. There was a brick hastily sketched on its cover. Putting on my old taunting look, I scrutinized it carefully. “Muddy it up,” I intoned. “Soften it with petals—metal petals, infuse it with time.”
He laughed, his eyes softening on my face. “Still the same strife-breeder. A brick’s a brick, silly girl. Yeah, you’re a strange one; straight as a flute, yet riddled with thought.”
“How do you know I’m straight—what’s straight—is that a bad thing?”
“That’s a good thing.” He tossed a pile of leaves onto my head and lay back laughing as I brushed them aside, pitching a handful back in his face.
It became our favoured place to meet, beneath that disrobing oak tree. Then the chilly October wind drove us into the cafeteria or the bar, where we indulged in our old silly ways of arguing, of me bedevilling the realism he loved in art, his belief that today’s world is tomorrow’s history, catch it if you can. And me with my staunch belief that history is as contingent upon tomorrow as it is on today; that art, like time, isn’t a thing to be caught, but pours through us like dreams through sleep.
“And here we have a trunk,” I said, coming up behind him in the student centre one evening, watching over his shoulder as he doodled a rough wooden trunk on a scrap of paper. “So, now, what kinda trunk is that?” I asked, sitting down beside him.
“A nothing trunk.” He tapped my fingers with his pencil, smiling. “You’re looking nice. Here, have a sip.”He pushed me his paper coffee cup, its steam reeking of whisky.
I took a gulp and near choked, yet despite my watering eyes managed to keep a calm face and a steady voice. “So, when’s a trunk just a trunk?”
He took back the cup and touched a finger to one of the fat whisky tears rolling down my cheek. “All the time. It’s always only a trunk. Your mother,” he said. “You look like your mother, same eyes, only brown.”
Mesmerized by his attention, I stared at the trunk with mock contemplation. “A trunk’s always a trunk? Noo, not so— shh, listen.” I held a silencing finger to my lips, peering closer at the sketch, thinking back on those boarded-up houses in Cooney Arm. “There’s voices in there,” I whispered. “Oh—but the lid’s closed—can’t hear them too well. Let’s pry it open a crack, let them out—a memory, a piece of clothing, maybe, trailing from its insides.”
He shook his head solemnly. “Nope. Sorry. My trunks are all neatly packed.”
“Hey, don’t leave,” I blurted as he shoved his book inside his bag, “just cuz I pack more into a trunk than you do.”
He stared at me with bemusement. “You old enough to have dinner with a man?”
“Uh?”
“Dinner. You old enough to have dinner with a man?”
“I—uh, actually own my own booster seat.”
He ruffled my hair, pulling me to my feet. “C’mon, dinner, grab your books.”Wrapping an arm around my shoulders, he led me through the student centre, my heart near bursting. He hailed a cab and scrunched in beside me, the smell of liquored coffee from his breath beguiling each breath of mine during that glorious ride downtown, corrupting any thoughts of study, essays, due dates, and all else remotely connecting the world outside to the back seat of that cab.
The harbour wind whipped at our backs as we climbed out on Water Street, chasing us deep inside an overpacked bar with low, heavily beamed ceilings and lights so dim I could scarcely see across the room. A folk singer stood in a corner before a microphone, fingerpicking a medley on an acoustic guitar. Digging out a bar stool from beneath a pile of coats, Ben bolstered me onto the seat, leaning against my back as he sought the bartender’s attention. After ordering beers and fish and chips he managed to secure a stool next to mine, and we spent the next hour munching chips, drinking beer, and talking over the music—Ben talking mostly, and me trying to hear over the drummer and electric guitarist who’d joined the folk singer. Most times I read his lips or simply nodded and smiled, caring nothing for what he was saying, only that he was sitting so close. I’d kissed a few guys, made out some, but nothing drew me like those wintry grey eyes of Ben Rice.
A clap on his shoulder and Ben hastily swallowed a mouthful of beer. Trapp. And a fistful of the big-haired reds and bearded gurus from the campus bar. They jammed around Ben, lighting up smokes and shouting at the scrambling bartender for beer, for wine, for bags of chips and pretzels, hollering at each other—and then, the unforgivable—nudging Ben off his stool so’s one of the reds—who apparently was having a rough night—could sit.
Clamping my resentment with a smile, I nodded to the faces Ben introduced me to, smiled at Trapp, all the time wishing Ben would take my arm and lead us away from this densely packed bar, the stench of pot floating off his friends. But Ben huddled eagerly into them, puffing smoke and talking into their faces, chortling and thigh-slapping and occasionally tweaking the locks of the reds as he’d done mine. A few times he gripped my shoulder, giving me a shake, asking, “You all right? Like the music?” and before I had a chance to answer he’d be jostled aside by the stream of bodies making their way through or the big-haired reds nuzzling around him or the gurus hip-butting their way into the action, all of them swaying and singing, guffawing, cigarette ash falling onto my clothes as they bumped or stretched past me for beer or ashtrays or wine glasses, the smell of pot like burnt rope on my tongue.
Midnight saw us squishing inside a couple of cabs with the same hooting and hollering, and motoring back to campus. Being crushed against Ben brought some measure of comfort, but it ended quickly when, upon Ben’s orders, the cabbie pulled up before the first-year residence.
“Sleep good,” he whispered into my ear, and fell backwards out of the car as he opened the door from behind him. Standing on the curb, I watched as he bundled himself back into the cab, which peeled off with the door half shut. Disappointed, I walked to my matchbox room inside the dorm.
Couple of days went by before I saw him again. He was sauntering through the cafeteria looking like a shaggy dog with his unkempt curls and bearded face. Slouching on a chair beside me, he took a sip of coffee then offered me his cup, the steam once more pungent with whisky.
“Morning specialty?” I asked, wrinkling my nose, unable to suppress my excitement at seeing him.
“Hair of the dawg,” he replied. “Wanna play? Come on, let’s get outta here—great band playing tonight, gonna be a party.”
It was only Tuesday. I had an exam in the morning. “I can’t be late,” I said.
That became the way of it during the passing weeks—Ben stumbling across me in the cafeteria, where I just happened to be sitting. And then the two of us heading downtown to the same loud, congested bar, occasionally dropping by the basement apartment he shared with Trapp and one other guy for an intense hour of smoking pot and chugging beers so’s to save money once we got to the bar. Despite the faded jeans and lacy tops I bought at the Salvation Army store, the two-inch cowboy boots and floppy earrings, I received little more than polite smiles from Ben’s pals before vanishing from their sight like a pricked bubble. No doubt it was the age difference—I was five or six years younger than most of them; I was Ben’s “little sis” from the outports—which, much to my chagrin, was how he introduced me. And how he saw me, I was starting to realize with a sinking heart, for several times I’d caught a quick exchange between him and his friends wherein he’d warn them away from passing me anything more than a joint. Sometimes I caught him looking my way with a guilty expression—the brother thing, no doubt, leading his younger sis astray.
“Stick to the beer,” he ordered me one evening as they all popped pills and snorted coke around me. A command easily followed, given how nauseated I was suddenly becoming—and I’d taken only a few puffs of pot. Most times I didn’t smoke at all, preferring w
ine.
“Babysitting, babysitting,” Ben grumbled in good humour, walking me around the block for air.
“Drugs—is that all you and your friends do?”
“In between breathing.”
“God, how come you does so much drugs?”
“Just what I need—another mother,” he said dryly.
“Some might think so.” And then I held my sick stomach and hobbled to a park bench. “Can we sit for a while—I just need to sit for a while.”
“You didn’t do anything, did you—pills?”
“No.”
“You certain?” His tone had become tight with worry. “Perhaps you shouldn’t be here—be with your own crowd.”
“I don’t have a crowd.”
He was quiet for a moment. “That’s not a good thing back there,” he said, gesturing to his apartment, “the drugs. Pot. Stay away from that shit.”
“Why don’t you?”
“I will. Graduating soon—gonna be a big boy.”
“Soon? When?”
He was still looking back towards his apartment, and missed the startled look on my face.
“Yeah, gotta do some cleanup soon—real soon,” he ended on a quiet note, then turned back to me. “I have something to do. I have something to do over the next week. And then, then I’m gonna clean up. C’mon, I’ll call you a cab.”
“But when are you graduating?”
“Next semester. How you feeling?”
Next semester. I grappled with the thought of Ben not being on campus. Swallowing back the bile that was still welling up in my throat, I stood and started down the road.
“Hey, Sis, you’re going the wrong way.”
“Meet you at the bar.”
“Hold on, I’m calling you a cab.”
“I’ll save you a seat.” Stiffening my shoulders, I carried on walking. He followed, muttering loudly. So’s to deter him from that Sis business and You’re nothing but a child business, I put on a gay face for the rest of the evening, shouting over the music into the faces of the big-haired reds, the bearded gurus, grinning at their jokes, listening with feigned looks of interest to their sporadic expulsions of personal observation and insight into the Stones’ influence over the skinny-legged singer prancing about the tiny stage and the drummer’s flamboyant Peter Criss drum rolls. I kept checking to see if Ben was looking my way, but aside from his periodic big-brother glances, he spent the rest of the night deeply engaged in conversation with some burly reddish-haired guy I’d never met.
Trapp, like the solitary cat he resembled, hovered in the background as he always did, and yet was seldom farther than a foot from Ben’s side. Times I caught him looking at Ben’s friends with the same look of detachment as I did. At one point one of the big-haired reds had been crushed up beside him and made some apologetic remark, to which Trapp saluted her with that Cheshire smile of his. She turned her back to him, linking her arm through Ben’s, oblivious of the long tunnel of smoke Trapp was now blowing into her back-combed, beehived hair. Catching me watching him, he flashed a conspiratorial wink and grinned, stunning me with the charm of a genuine smile, and started tunnelling more smoke through big red’s beehive. I gave my first honest grin of the evening and settled into a feeling of inclusion felt heretofore only with Ben.
It was a feeling short-lived. I didn’t see Ben the following day, or the next. Towards the end of the week I had it figured he was distancing himself. I kept hearing his worried tone when I’d gotten sick, kept seeing his big-brother guilty look. And most disturbing was the knowledge that he’d be graduating the following semester.
Friday evening came and suddenly, amongst the crowds on campus, I never felt more alone. Ben’s face, his laugh, his rioting black curls haunted the corridors, the cafeteria, the campus bar. A fantasy was what he’d been during those summer days back on the wharf, a mesh of unformed lines like one of Chris’s drawings. But now that I’d touched his flesh he was more firmly fixed before me than any of those deeply entrenched portraits from his sketchbook of yesteryear.
After handing in a big research paper I headed for the downtown bar, feeling sickishly obsessive yet unable to dissuade my step. Ben happened to be standing outside the bar as though waiting for someone. He looked uncertain upon seeing me, then grinned, and taking my arm, led me down a couple of streets to a tavern where he said he sometimes hung out.
Maybe it was that genuine smile I’d exchanged with Trapp that made me so carelessly invoke his name as we neared the tavern. Or maybe I was so overwhelmed by Ben’s taking me somewhere other than the usual bar that I needed to say something extra interesting so’s to reward his attention. Whatever the case, ever since that charming, co-conspiratorial smile with Trapp I’d been plagued by the notion that he was as obsessed as I was over Ben.
“So, is Trapp gay?” I blurted.
Ben near tripped over the stoop of the tavern. He gaped at me as though accused of some heinous crime. I walked inside, regretting the impulsive question. “Where did you get that?” he demanded. He jerked on my arm, turning me to face him, then shushed me as a waiter hurried past, calling out a greeting to Ben. “Where the fuck—”Ben started again, but I drew away from him and into the dingy dive with its odour of stale beer and vinegar, butt-seared carpets, and thick smoke from hand-rolled cigarettes drifting like fog into my face. Harsh coughs and raspy voices filled the air and laughter wheezed from faces that crinkled like dried mud as I walked past them.
“Over here,” Ben ordered.
I followed him to a table where more waiters, bearing trays of wings and french fries, busily swung back and forth through saloon-style kitchen doors, creating a draft and the illusion of air.
“What kind of place is this?” I began, then sat back as a waiter materialized out of the haze.
“Kinda place Paul McCartney hangs out in,” said Ben. “Couple of Black Horse,” he said to the bartender.
“Paul McCartney!”
“Yuh, inspires him.”Ben leaned in urgently. “Now, what the hell’s this about Trapp being gay!”
“I didn’t say he was gay, I asked if he was gay.”
“Why the fuck would you ask that? Hold on a second.” He got up, his attention snared by the burly, reddish-haired guy he’d been talking to in the bar a week ago. “Just a sec, be right back,” he said and went over to the guy. They exchanged words. They exchanged something else, too, from Red’s pocket into Ben’s.
I dragged a thumbnail down the centre of the beer label, drenched in disappointment. Obviously I wasn’t the reason for Ben’s being in this bar. I watched as he continued talking with Red, growing warm beneath my jean jacket. I rolled up the sleeves so’s to show off the plaid lining inside the cuffs, then impatiently pulled the jacket off and slung it over the back of my chair.
Clapping Red’s shoulder, Ben finally took his leave. “Sorry about that,” he said, sitting back down. “Had to work something out. Now then.” He landed his beer bottle on the table with sudden consternation. “So what were you saying—” he glanced about, lowering his voice, “why the hell did you think Trapp’s gay?”
I shook my head, wanting to do away with the subject. “It was stupid, I shouldn’t have said it.”
“You got it from somewhere—where the fuck did you hear that?”
“Ohh, relax, Ben, cripes, it’s not contagious, nothing’s out to get your penis.”
He sat back with a look of surprise. My arms prickled with fright. I had invoked his penis. My head started shaking and I forced it to shake sideways so’s to make it look like an extension of speech as I quickly exclaimed, “Nothing, nothing, just the way he looks at you is all, like he’s jealous.”
“Jealous! Jeezes.”
“No, I didn’t mean that he was—only that—” I trawled for words, my neck growing hot. “It’s just that he doesn’t look at women,” I blurted.
A look of relief swept Ben’s face. “Jeezes, that’s cuz he’s a ditz, I told you he was a ditz, a social ditz. J
eezes”—he took a swig of beer—“you had me going. How do you know he don’t look at women? He looks at women.”
“Well—he doesn’t look at me, and I’m a woman.” I wrapped my arms behind the back of my chair. Inadvertently Ben looked at the smallish but nicely rounded front of my T-shirt, its two puckered points.
“Can see, perhaps, why you think that,” he said, and laughed a little too hard.
“Oh, you’re not sure? You like to check the merchandise?”
The words had come out fast. They hung like bits of my clothing around him, leaving me bared.
Ben was gripped in silence. I flushed. I started pulling on my jacket, an excuse to twist my face from view. I fisted through a twisted sleeve, hooking the cuff on my watch strap as I did, tearing at the stitching. “See that,” I muttered, examining the cuff, “should always check your merchandise—just never know what you’re getting, eh.” I smiled flippantly.
Ben raised his eyes to mine, holding them, but then they fell. “That’s why I like’em twice but nice, from the second-hand stores,” he said lowly. “Wear’em when I want, chuck’em when I don’t.” He touched the back of my hand, and then stroked it with an unbearable gentleness. “You wouldn’t do that to something nice, would you—something new and nice?”
Trapp appeared by the table, a jarring release from the awkwardness of the moment. The relief in Ben’s voice as he greeted him was painful to bear. “Grab one for me,” he called as Trapp trekked to the bar. “What about you—hey, where you going—?”
“Ohh, another jaunt through the cleaners,” I said with a feigned tiredness. “Gotta keep things at least looking fresh and nice. You know.” Flicking my hair over the collar of my jacket, I swaggered on my two-inch heels towards the exit. Trapp looked up as I sauntered past.
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