“Burma 1941. Morale is at its lowest ebb since the war in the South Pacific began. The British troops are fighting a battle that, logically, cannot be won. They are forced to retreat …”
VIII
Love lodged in a woman’s breast Is but a guest.
—Sir Henry Wotton
Knowing that mere hours after our lovemaking session Lucy would be parading around as a mobile fantasy for several hundred men was upsetting, and left me feeling all the more alone upon returning home to a dark and empty apartment. There was a note scribbled in pencil by the phone:
THURSDAY NIGHT
Your parents called … again!! They asked how you were doing. I tried to cover for you. I’ve got a gig in two weeks. Big shots from Toronto are coming in for it. Might need you to play. Bring home some Bratwurst. Eric.
He must not have known I was no longer working for Uncle Mannfred and Auntie Carol. The apartment was speckled in beer cans, cigarette butts and other party remnants, the stench of which all converged at and/or around my pull-out couch. The garbage had gone foul, the sink was coated with globs of what may have once been pasta and the fridge was empty save the imitation syrup spilled all over the bottom shelf and the residue of rotten vegetables in the crisper. I stood with the fridge door open and my eyes riveted on nothing, as if that might make a ham sandwich appear. In the end I ordered Chinese food—high on the gloss—sweet and sour pork with red sauce, two egg rolls, chicken chow mein and rice. I stayed home and read Walt Whitman. I spoke in accents. I drank water and wine. In short, I danced alone. Then I had some peach schnapps and thought I might throw up.
The following morning was spent reflecting on the three days I had spent in Lucy’s company. Never had passing time been so easy—and in that lay our magic. In a sense I was like a late blooming flower, for the first time open enough to enjoy the warmth of life on the inside. As a youngster, just reading about relationships had been enough. What amazed me now was how sex—the mere mention of it it, even—could realign the focus of my week.
By midafternoon, grocery shopping had landed me outside Lucy’s apartment, smiling at the calico cat in her window. I noticed her front door was ajar. I ran up the stairs and peeked inside to see a suitcase in the foyer.
“Hello?” I said to no response. I stepped inside and walked into the front room. “Hello?”
A “Yeah?” came out of the bedroom. “Who is it?”
“It’s Shelby.”
“Come on in,” she said, “I’m in the bedroom.” I walked in to find Lucy sitting on her bed tossing panties into a half-full suitcase. She looked up and smiled.
“Hey, Shel.”
“Hi, I … I was out shopping and I thought I’d drop in.”
“Cool.”
“You seem to be packing.”
“Road time,” she said in a chuck-wagon drawl.
“You’re going away?”
“Work.”
“Oh.”
Lucy stopped packing. “You seem confused.”
“No … it’s just … you made no mention of leaving.”
“Hmm. I guess … sorry about that. I guess … Alzheimer’s. I’ll tell you now. I’m going on the road.” She threw another pair of panties in the case.
“For how long?”
“A few weeks.” A car horn beeped outside. “Oh, that’s my cab,” she said smiling.
“Cab? I could give you a lift.”
“Oh thanks, Shel. That’s okay, though. It’s already here.” She zipped up her case and walked by without even touching me. Picking up her other suitcase inside the already open front door, she positioned herself to allow me to leave before her. My offer to carry one of her suitcases was declined. She stepped into the taxi. There were no words exchanged between us. No hugs. Not a kiss.
“What about us?” I asked. She shrugged as though surprised by the question. The car door slammed and she leaned forward to say something to the driver. As he pulled out from the curb Lucy smiled at me and waved. I waved back as the taxi drove off. I was stunned. Turning away, I noticed on the window ledge the calico cat perched on its backside, holding its belly, laughing uncontrollably. Suddenly the taxi screeched to a stop up the road and backed up whence it had left. Lucy grinned through the window. Had I not been forsaken? My heart fluttered like a butterfly grappling to be freed from a now useless cocoon. Into slow motion we galloped, lovers about to embrace in a gasping field of daisies.
“I forgot to ask the landlord to feed the damn cat,” she said as she sprinted past me and up the stairs. “See ya!”
Hours into the fourth night after Lucy left I woke up in a sweat-soaked panic, my heart pounding up to my temples, my body paralysed with fear. I got up, turned on the light and examined my penis for spots, twisting it in all directions to see all sides. There were no new blemishes. I lay back on the bed, frozen, and then looked again. I lay back down but couldn’t sleep. I paced around the kitchen and into the front room. I gazed out the window and saw streetlights and parked cars, the haunting rumble of the city wrapped up in blue shades of night; seeing the distant apartment lights, I envisioned AIDS sufferers, still awake, annihilated by the reality of their condition. I fell back on the pull-out couch and pounded my fists into the mattress. Reaching across the bed, I picked the phonebook up off the floor and looked up V.D.
Venereal Disease Information Line: 872–1238.
I dialed. Six rings. No answer. I looked up AIDS. My temples started to pound again. There it was: AIDS Vancouver: Information and Counselling. 687–2437. I dialed. Eight rings. No answer. I crumpled back down on the bed and rolled … and groaned … and moaned until sleep finally took me.
Halfway through dialing the AIDS Line the following morning, I examined my penis and became erect.
“AIDS Vancouver,” said a man in the middle of my demoralised groan.
“Oh … uh … I …” Suddenly disgusted, I yanked in desperation as hard as I could on my loathesome erection, agony causing me to yelp simultaneously as the telephone receiver cracked on the floor. Before me, my penis wilted like an old carrot. Trembling, I picked up the phone and slowly brought it to my mouth.
“Hello?”
“AIDS Vancouver.”
“I had sex with a promiscuous woman.”
“And you’re worried about …?”
“I’m phoning an AIDS line! I’m worried about AIDS.”
“Calm down. Was your partner high risk?”
“She … we were sexually active, initiated by her, she seemed experienced. She put a prophylactic on me in seconds …”
“So she was using a condom?”
“She did. And then she … we didn’t. But I just couldn’t stop myself.”
“Is she a drug user?”
“No. I don’t know. Tylenol.”
“But no needles?”
“Tylenol.”
“Is she a prostitute?”
“No! She’s a dancer. She …” Beads of perspiration formed on my forehead like tiny turtle shells pushing up from beneath the sand.
“So she’s a regular partner?”
“Was a regular partner! Now? God knows! And to think I was going to be a doctor. Now I’m a slut, all dreams shattered!”
“Did she tell you she was promiscuous?”
“Oh yes, she sent me a note saying she’s a whore! I told you! She’s a prophylactic virtuoso—swoosh and it was on!”
“Sir, I think—”
“Indeed, the flesh does kill! Oh wretched day! Oh—”
“Sir!”
Startled, I stood shaking.
“Now I realise you’re tense. But please …”
“I … I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right. Take a breath.”
I did.
“Now, I suggest talking to her.”
“How can I? She’s miles away cavorting in the nude for strangers!”
“Well, in the meantime, celebrate the fact that she uses condoms. Many people still don’t.”
> “But what if …”
“She uses condoms.”
“But I—”
“No blame.”
“She—”
“She uses condoms, Sir. She practices safe sex. Talk to her.”
“I … I will,” I said.
“Good. Are you all right?”
“Yes … I … feel better. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Talk to her.”
Relieved, I hung up and crumpled onto the bed, tentatively excited and relatively certain I was most likely still uninfected. In fact I was so inspired I packed a knapsack full of essentials, drove west and spent the remainder of the day at Spanish Banks playing my acoustic guitar and reading the Bible. Exodus 22:18 was disconcerting: Do not allow a sorceress to live. What about one whose powers are waning? I asked myself. Eerily, at that moment a cold wind shot off the ocean, momentarily freezing me with terror.
By evening and after having spent a day watching joggers running in pairs, lovers strolling arm in arm and parents pushing carriages, it was clear how few good friends I really had. Lucy? No. Gran? My best friend. Brother Derek? There when I’m in dire need, but hardly a chum in the true sense of the word. Eric? Willing yet unpredictable. Beyond that was Carl Tkachuk, a pornography-addicted pal I occasionally chatted with in high-school.
The most interesting event over the next couple of weeks was a date I bravely initated with Suzanne, Eric’s friend I’d met but one time previously at the Aristocratic. On the phone, she didn’t even know who I was. Nonetheless, explanation ensued and sure enough we met for coffee at Bino’s that very night. It was just what I needed to rekindle belief in intimacy and its essential role in one’s journey. But enough about the mystical.
Suzanne: Although somewhat reserved, she showed an extraordinary passion for her creative endeavours. Dressed all in black save a Guatemalan vest of oranges and reds, she said in her deliberate way, and I quote:
“Clay has moved me since the first time I heard that, ‘The Lord God formed man from the clay of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.’ My God, what an image. And I, in my humble—humble from the greek humus, meaning earthy—way, am doing the same. The breath of life coming, of course, from those who are moved by my creations …”
Watching her fully-ringed hands express such a testimony, my innards softened to the consistency of corned beef jelly. I was enthralled to hear a women quote scripture. Sensuality had returned to my senses. Was sex a sin? Who cares. Granted, there was no indication from Suzanne that we would soon tumble. Nonetheless, her grounded presence assured me of one thing: There was life after Lucy.
Two days later, the first of July, I awoke with what appeared to be the flu; sore joints, runny nose, headache and nausea. My anxieties, however, had a different diagnosis. Twenty-two days had passed since I last saw Lucy and I was now more terrified than ever that her virus had booked a room in my bodily fluids. A phone call interrupted me in mid groan.
“Yes?”
“Shelby?”
“Yes?”
“You all right?”
I leapt up. “Oh, hi, Dad. Yes, I’m fine—mildly clammy. How are you doing?”
“Good and bad. Here’s the bad: Derek and Kristine are talking about breaking up.”
“They are?”
“Listen, I’ve got a couple of letters here from the university adressed to you. We could really use some good news.”
“Kristine and Derek are breaking up?”
“Ah damn, I can’t talk about that anymore! When are they going to learn marriage ain’t some summer vacation? More important, your marks are here.”
Out oozed a nervous sweat.
“Did you hear me, son?”
“Um … yes.”
“So, should I open them.”
“I … I’d rather you sent them to me.”
“What?”
“It’s a very personal thing—being judged by peers.”
“Come on, don’t keep us waiting. Oh, speakin’ o’ waitin’, Larry wants to know if you’re coming home. If not he wants to fill your position.”
“Position? Dad, standing in a four-foot trough shovelling sludge is not a position. Tell him to hire a retarded orangutan.”
“Ha! That’s funny. Anyway, when are you coming home?”
“Uh … I’m not sure … I’m doing a lot of research.”
“Oh great,” he said, “that’ll cheer up your mother. Let’s see. Anything else you want to add? Drug addiction, maybe?”
“What?”
“Come on, Dr. Lewis,” he said, “let us at least open the letter.”
“Dad, I—”
“What’s the problem? You fail everything?”
“No!”
“You figure your old man can’t read?”
“Of course not.”
“I can read,” he said.
“I know.”
“Don’t tell me you dropped out!”
And so rose the opportunity to confess my parachuting from Academia Airlines. But, alas, nary a syllable on that subject plunged from my tongue.
“Dad, please …”
“Ah … okay,” he said, “but let us know, eh?”
There was a pause of relief. “I will. Thank you …”
After hanging up, a bout with post-call melancholy and a yearn for friendship found me dialing Lucy’s number. She answered (evidently having returned from her tour) and I hung up immediately. The question, however, of how feelings generated via verbal intimacy and intercourse could be obliterated as though shot with a bazooka still persisted. I had been rejected without consultation.
From bedside over the next five days or so, I enquired through the classified adds for jobs as a waiter, a construction worker, a messenger boy, an inventory clerk and a water filter salesman. None of them offered either medical or pension benefits. I also contacted a couple who were seeking a nanny for their three-and-a-half-year old son. Being male, I didn’t get an interview. The process was exhausting—and carrying around the tail end of the flu didn’t help. Reality had returned; I was more indispensable than ever to the process of life. Love was a bust. Perhaps only social activism remained. Speaking of which, over another coffee rendezvous with Suzanne I confessed the symptoms of my lingering illness and how scared I was about getting a checkup.
“I would be, too,” she said, “the doctor will probably give you two seconds of time and then prescribe a garbage can full of antibiotics.”
“I’m not afraid of that.”
“You should be.”
“Why?”
“Shelby, come on. Antibiotics wipe out the immune system long term.”
I chuckled. “You make it sound like radiation treatment.”
“You said it, not me.”
“You’re serious?”
“You bet I am.”
“Penicillin has saved millions of lives.”
“Some would say the same for chemotherapy,” she said, “but it’s no cure for cancer.”
“But it’s an effective treatment.”
“That’s the whole problem right there, Shelby: treatment. We don’t seem to care about prevention. Cancer is about as internal a disease as getting hit by a car.”
“My Grandfather had cancer,” I said.
“And chemotherapy?”
“I think so.”
“And where’s he now?”
“Dead.”
“There you go. Did he smoke?”
“Yes.”
“Meat with every meal?”
I shrugged. “My father’s a butcher.”
“And I bet he’s on high blood pressure medication, too, right?”
“I don’t know.”
“Useless. Did you know over half the patients in St. Paul’s hospital are there for drinking or smoking related diseases?”
“Where did you learn all this?”
Suzanne smiled. “It’s kind of a hobby. Plus both my parents are doctors.”
&nb
sp; “Wow … Did you know I applied for medical school?”
“I think you mentioned it.”
“Last year,” I said. “Then I dropped out.”
“Good for you.”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah. The health system’s dying. I’ll bet it falls apart inside of ten years.”
“What?”
“It has to. We just don’t have the guts to monitor people’s health habits—smoking, drinking, obesity—and billing by the cigarette or the pound or whatever. Even my parents say to do that would be a violation of human rights. I say political correctness is killing us and that when the system collapses and we end up like the U.S. of A. where only the rich get care, then we’ve got violation.”
“I’m stunned.”
“It’s all about supply and demand, Shelby.”
“Even medicine?” I asked, disheartened.
“Sure. Health and capitalism. N-A-F-T-A. Big business. We sanction the promotion of useless drugs, bad food, cigarettes. It’s amoral. Same goes for medical research: I mean how many animals will die before we admit that the physiology of a rat is irrelevant to our own?”
“Millions?”
“Trillions.”
“I had no idea how much you knew.”
“Hey, I’ve been in the biz all my life.”
“Why does this happen?”
“I’ll tell you why, Shelby. Because to a businessman, a dollar saved will never be the same as a dollar earned.”
“So you don’t think I should see a physician?”
“Are you kidding? You look terrible.”
Fittingly, it was rainy and gray when I slipped into the Venereal Disease Clinic the following morning. I gave the woman at the front desk my real name and then instantly regretted doing so. She didn’t ask for identification. I could have said anything. Now I was forever enshrined as one of those who consent to sex with people they barely know—a fact that, if leaked, could get me shot should a military and/or moral majority fundamentalist government ever rise to power.
Shelby Page 8