Shelby

by McCormack, Pete;

  Uncle Larry wound up in an asylum where he remained for three and a half years—upholding our family’s tradition of mental illness. Upon release he preached that only his undying love for God got him through the ordeal (Gran added: The four meals a day, laxatives, sponge baths, a private room and a colour T.V. couldn’t have hurt). Repercussions from the arm chewing included sensation loss in his fingertips that to the present leaves his handwriting illegible, the result being banking dilemmas everytime I attempt to cash my monthly summer paycheque. Whenever he can, which is whenever I work for him, Larry reminds me there is a Hell.

  Despite feeling fluish after an all-night study session, my exam adrenalin flowed full throttle as I sat in the auditorium at 8:30 Monday morning and awaited the start of the Medical Collegiate Admissions Test. There were no disrupting thoughts of Minnie T. or Uncle Larry or SMEGMA BOMB! or any other of life’s trivialities. Nay, my brain felt poised and clear.

  The first dozen questions, general chemistry, were as challenging as chit-chat in a home for senior citizens. By nine-thirty I’d stumbled a few times, but my overall performance exceeded expectation. It came as a surprise when the examiner yelled “Stop” at 10:20. I raised my head to see a room full of would-be doctors seemingly more at ease than tourists tanning in the Galapagos Islands. Panicked, I oozed a cold sweat and pencilled in the last forty blank computer ovals at random.

  The situation worsened with Section II. I had become a victim of intellectual paralysis: this time by the ticking clock, performance anxiety, a repulsion for small print and a coughing fit that lasted over fifteen minutes.

  For lunch I threw up.

  We were back slogging by one and by two I was bored—a boredom that soon turned to agitation. I was fed up answering questions that in no way pertained to the world at large. Disgruntled, I finished the last few questions of the section and slammed down my pencil. Without forewarning intestinal spasms twisted my insides. I groaned, rambling hunched over, clutching my sides, to the front desk where the examiner sat reading The Globe and Mail. He tilted back his dandruffed head to reveal the darkest rings-beneath-eyes I had ever seen. His nose twitched rabbit-like.

  I held out my exam. “Sir, I know we’re not allowed to leave the audit—”

  “Hold it, young man.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve noticed you throughout the day grunting and groaning.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Flipping your pencil. Shaking your head, miserable with life.”

  “Sir, I assure you it’s not—”

  “Do you realise that Newton uncovered his fabulous laws only after having left Cambridge to avoid the plague?”

  “Sir, my stomach—”

  “Did you know Einstein formulated his theory of relativity without the aid of a laboratory or university post?”

  “Please …”

  “Twenty-seven years ago I stood exactly as you do today,” he said, impassioned, his halitosis just then reaching my olfactory glands. “Pasty faced and unpopular and yet yearning to contribute … and yet I acted not.”

  My bowel gurgled. “Sir?”

  “You adore poetry, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You like William Blake, correct?”

  “He’s one of my favourites.”

  “I knew it. Whitman?”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “It’s in your face, your eyes—now go! Pick up the Upanishads, the Koran, the Bible! Read them as myth! James Joyce! Dante! Aldous Huxley! Let it move you!”

  “Sir, I’m intrigued but I have to—”

  “You have to throw down that exam and run far away from this dilapidated sanatorium!” I didn’t move, petrified by the panic in his eyes. “Look at these wrists,” he cried, turning over his hands to reveal zigzags of scar tissue.

  “Good Lord.”

  “Look me in the eyes!” I looked. “Look me in the eyes!”

  “I’m looking.”

  “Can you see yourself?”

  “Not in this light.”

  “You came up here wanting to break from the constraints, didn’t you?.”

  “Actually—”

  “Dammit, man, act on your instincts!” He yanked at my shirt and twisted me towards the class. Students looked up, curious at the commotion. “Dead,” he said. “All of them.”

  I turned to the man. “Sir, I—”

  “Go! Before the chance is gone!”

  “But I haven’t finished the exam.”

  “Lead our children!”

  My bowels rumbled. “Sir, I really—”

  “Will you be that man?”

  “Go!” he cried, head dropping forward, wrists flat out before me.

  “I’m going … but not … I have to … my bowels …” I turned, staggering towards the exit, all eyes upon me. Would I be what man? they wondered. Heart cracking in my chest, head spinning with confusion, I dashed into the men’s washroom, undoing my corduroys in transit, and crashed into the nearest stall, relieving myself upon landing. My sweaty head dropped into awaiting, trembling hands.

  It was awhile before my bowels were emptied. Pushing myself up, dizziness caused my eyes to close. The man’s horrific wrists reappeared. How did he know of my fondness for Blake? What right did he have to unload his past blunders on me? especially with the final section of the MCAT still remaining. I pushed the stall door open, revealing myself to a wall of mirrors. Before me I saw misery, confusion and a fiery boil on the forehead of a man who believed that one person could alter the shape of history for the better. And the question lingered: Would I be that man?

  I never went back to the auditorium. I returned to my dorm and slept. And later that night, bewildered and frightened, I arrived at The Cruel Elephant to find Eric gulping hard liquor at the bar. He was distraught over SMEGMA BOMB! not getting a sound check because the doors letting in the public had already opened. He was convinced the last band to set up had intentionally stalled.

  “Those bastards’ll be sorry, man, when they’re tuning my guitbox backstage and bringing me fan mail,” he said, spraying my face with soggy consonants. “And if that never happens … well fuck ’em then …”

  Four hours and three bands later I was sitting on the edge of the stage shaking. Bryan was slack-jawed and asleep at a table at the back and Eric was crumpled at the bar in an alcoholic haze. It was ten to one and the place was barren. A staff member approached the stage and sat down beside me.

  “Listen pal,” he said, “I know you guys have been waiting all night to play. But, you see, the thing that makes rock really roll is the crowd … take a look around.” He looked around. I looked around. “If there’s no one here … there ain’t no show.” He shrugged his shoulders. “So what say we pack up this little Woodstock right now and get the hell home?”

  “Rock and roll’s got nothing on poetry,” I replied.

  Suddenly Eric came hurtling towards the stage with his swollen face and his fist thrusting skyward. In a horrible English accent he shrieked: “We are carrying the torch of rock ’n roll! The show must go on! Anarchy!” He slipped and fell, badly bruising his thigh. We played. We were awful. And all the while nobody knew that Shelby Lewis, scholastic prodigy, perhaps only in his own mind, was a university dropout.

  III

  Surely some revelation is at hand.

  —W. B. Yeats

  By five-thirty the following A.M. as the sun rose outside my window like a flashlight behind a gray sheet, I had packed all of my belongings into four boxes and was startled at how easily I could tie up my life. Pulling the cap off a Jiffy Marker, I scrawled on the wall above my desk:

  IT IS RIGHT IT SHOULD BE SO

  MAN WAS MADE FOR JOY AND WOE

  AND WHEN THIS WE RIGHTLY KNOW

  THROUGH THE WORLD WE SAFELY GO

  —WILLIAM BLAKE

  I shrugged and smiled. Gazing out the window, I took a final survey of the campus that had come to be home over nearly three years of toil
—good years all in all. The streets were barren save a scattering of crows and the occasional car pulling in or out; the tennis courts were wet, the Student Union Building was dappled in fog. I touched the pane like one would gazing through plexiglass at an imprisoned lover. The coldness on my fingertips was soothing. Goosebumps sprouted across my forearms. I shivered, then lay back on my bed and quietly masturbated in my dorm cot for what I knew would be the last time. Minnie was involved.

  I arrived at Eric’s apartment just after seven. The door was unlocked. I put my belongings in the corner of the front room and stood there, warmed with sadness—if that’s possible. Eric wasn’t up yet and I doubted he would be for a few hours. The place was ripe with beer and cigarette odours. I went into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee but couldn’t find any. I scoured through the cupboards for something to nibble on and ended up settling for a glass of water. I went back into the living room.

  “Shelby?” said a croaky voice.

  Startled, I turned my head to see Eric peeking his head out from the hallway. “Hi Eric!” I was happy to see him.

  “What are you doing here?” he said stepping into the room. He was in his underwear and surprisingly muscular. He appeared concerned.

  “Oh … dear God,” I said, just then realising what I had done. “I forgot to ask you if—”

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Um … I was in desperate need of lodging and I remembered you had mentioned that your Dad had moved out—”

  “Boozed out,” he said.

  “I’m sorry—”

  “Missed three rents. Last I heard he was in the Yucatan selling sandals.”

  “I … didn’t … I’m sorry about all that. But I’ve got some news of my own. I didn’t tell you at the concert. I’ve quit university.”

  “What?”

  “It’s true. And now I’m in extreme need of shelter until I can ramble up a few coins and establish permanent lodgings elsewhere.”

  “You quit?”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call. I don’t know what’s come over me lately.”

  Eric rubbed his eye, sighed, and reached down the side of the couch, pulling it out into a bed. “You can sleep here,” he said, giving it a wack. Dust mushroomed up in a cloud of mildew.

  “Really?”

  He walked away. “Yeah.”

  “Eric?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thank you.”

  He turned around. “Straight up, Shel, are you a fag?”

  “Homosexual?”

  “I thought so.”

  “I’m not! In fact I find the whole concept unnatural and …”

  “Look, man, what … I just … there’s just something about you. My mistake. You got a girlfriend?”

  “Not at present.”

  “Tell me you’ve been laid.”

  “I can’t. But it’s by choice. Abstinence is very common among scholars. Isaac Newton died a virgin.”

  “So did Fig Newton. What’s your point?”

  “A man of single-minded pursuit must be true to the call.”

  “Okay, what’s your angle?”

  “Angle?”

  “Shel, you’re built like my ex-girlfriend. You talk like you’ve got a small house shoved up your ass, you’ve never been laid and you just B & E’d my apartment. Somethin’ ain’t right.”

  “I assure you I am as I appear to be … and I didn’t choose to be an ectomorph. Many a night I’ve longed for a rippling chest—much as my brother Derek’s. As for my breaking in here without calling, I implore your forgiveness.”

  He grinned. “Look, I’m going back to bed. I’ll see you in a few hours. We’ll talk rent …”

  I lay back on the pull-out couch and eyed a stain on the ceiling that was reminiscent of a large fig. Less than a day had passed since I quit school. I was the same person except now the rules were my own. I rolled over and slept.

  Popping and cracking sounds from the kitchen woke me up what seemed like minutes later. I peered over the top of the couch. Eric was frying what appeared to be eggs.

  “Good morning,” I said.

  Eric looked over, one hand on a frying pan. “Afternoon,” he said back, “how you doin’?”

  “Uh … Fine … you?”

  “So you’re taking a year off, eh?”

  “Hardly. I’m seeking whole new roads. Life is a continuum.”

  “I thought you said university was your destiny—you want an omelette?”

  “You’re misquoting me. I was merely referring to the exploits of our greatest visionaries, Newton, Einstein et al., and my desire to contribute to humanitarian causes. I’ve since realised destiny cannot be achieved, it can only be experienced. Surely you must have some aspirations of your own?”

  “Two-ten.”

  “Two-ten? What’s that?”

  “Your rent. I’ve decided every time you act like an asshole, it goes up ten greenbacks. End of the day I’ll give you the total, at which point you can take it or leave it.”

  “That’s extortion. I refuse to change the essence of my personality to get shelter. I’d rather wind up on the streets than succumb to such badgering.”

  “Two-twenty. So what’s it like being an old virgin?”

  “Old? Your question is as inane as asking a black person what it feels like having a lot of melanin. It’s like asking you how it feels having blue eyes.”

  “Two-thirty.”

  “Two-thirty. For what? I’m dumbfounded. Your system is Machiavellian. I’ve booked a room with Josef Stalin …”

  “Two-forty.”

  “And I couldn’t be happier.”

  Much like indigenous peoples throughout the New World who have yet to recover from having their mythology—indeed, their very foundation—slaughtered by the influx of pious Europeans, I, too, had difficulty grasping my new mode d’existence. Yes, I still believed my contributions to humanity would be forthcoming. But in the meantime, what was I to do with an excess of leisure time? Where does a free-thinking intellectual go for stimulation? For the first time in my life I found myself absorbed by television; intrigued by soap operas, talk shows and home improvement programs. Not only that, my bed-ridden depression prevalent mere weeks earlier had returned. Only a fear of starving to death urged on a search for part-time employment—a motivation hindered by the alternative fear of becoming trapped into yet another social labyrinth. As for contact with the outside world, I avoided my parents altogether but called Gran on several occasions, confessing to her my dreams and fears without actually admitting to having left university.

  “… and I saw a Peace Corps commercial that piqued my interest—sort of a primer in humanitarian causes. Out in the desert digging wells and planting millet and so forth. I wrote the number down.”

  “Doll, you bruise like a peach … you get burned in a well-lit room.”

  “I could wear a big hat.”

  “What about school?”

  “Oh. Fine. Fine. Why would you ask that?”

  “Why would I ask? Last week you tell me the family dream is in … what was the word?”

  “I believe it was peril.”

  “That’s it,” she said, chuckling, “and I didn’t even know we had a family dream. Now you’re thinking o’ signin’ up with the Foreign Legion.”

  “The Peace Corps and school’s going fine,” I said, ashamed to be lying.

  “You sound bored.”

  “Bored? How could I be bored?”

  “Look, Doll, you gotta get out o’ that dorm once in awhile and start givin’ ’er the ol’ Atomic Drop.”

  “What?”

  “Give ’er the figure four leg drop. The pile driver. The half suplex. The body slam.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Life, Shel. It’s like wrestlin’. You gotta get out there and slam it. You don’t need to dig wells.”

  “What’s wrong with digging wells?”

  “Nothing. I just figure that befor
e my little Shelby up and leaves the country he should at least make a few decent friends.”

  “With all due respect, Gran, this notion of slamming into life head first is at best perilous—what with AIDS and gurus and gangs and drugs. Fact is I’m a little disappointed you’re trying to steer me in that direction.”

  “I’m just trying to help.”

  “I know that. It’s just-”

  “Stop thinking so much, Doll. Give your head a rest.”

  “What’s wrong with thinking? I’m a thinker!”

  “True. But if it takes away your courage, what’s the point? You got no life.”

  “Thinking does not take away my courage.”

  “Doll, you never do anything but study.”

  “I just said I was willing to dig wells in some African hellhole. That’s hardly nothing. At the very least it’s courageous.”

  “That’s true.”

  “I have a lot on my plate these days.”

  “I know. You’re right,” she said, conceding, “and you do have to be careful out there. I keep forgettin’ that I was a kid at the turn of the century. Different ball game.”

  “It’s not that I don’t appreciate your feedback, Gran.”

  “I know, Doll …”

  Denial aside, I hung up knowing Gran was at least partly right. Who was I kidding? I didn’t want to dig wells in Kenya. Not only that, I didn’t do much. Then again, I could hardly be accused of cowardice for not having participated in the boring frivolities of an average twenty-year-old whose idea of fun is sex with strangers and drinking-induced regurgitation. Realising that, my depression deepened.

  Needless to say, days later Gran’s advice reared its intuitive head. I had stumbled upon Lucy’s number again in the back pocket of my corduroys while doing laundry and, in a rare moment of spontaneity inspired by Gran’s attack on my fortitude, ran to a pay phone and dialed without hesitation. A woman answered. After confirming it to be Lucy I introduced myself and detailed to her how I had “Thoroughly enjoyed our brief tête-à-tête at the post-concert soiree two Thursdays ago.”

  “First off, ass wipe,” she said, “I’ve never heard of you. Second off, I wasn’t in town two Thursdays ago.”

  “Wednesday, I mean. Yes, def—”