“When that Hockey Night in Canada ceases to be part o’ Saturday night,” Dad said out of context about twenty minutes and two more rye-and-Sevens later, “the elephant has rolled over. Free trade has squished our duffs. Canada: the fifty-first state.” He erupted into spontaneous song: “Oh say can you see …” We all joined in and got the words wrong. Mom insisted it was only proper we sing “Oh Canada,” also, and began it in her strangled soprano. We flubbed those lyrics, too, and nobody dared attempt the French translation.
Later on I did a load of wash and took a shower. By midnight, alone in my old bed, I envisioned a wet stream of life connecting Lucy and Gran and Derek’s new baby … everyone, in fact; an infinite thread of interconnectedness blossoming out of one big cosmic navel, exposing us all for what we really are: mass murderers, gluttonous swallowers of life—be it plants, insects or the ground itself, living and dying, ingesting and regurgitating with every moment. And on that thought I fell asleep, smiling and thankful, thoughts of Gran swirling. No life: no death. No death: no pain. No pain: no brain. No brain: no joy.
Waking with a start, I considered how wonderful it would be if the hormones essential for fertilization could only be released through the process of true love—a cosmological definition that no level of debate could ever alter. One either learns to love, or the species dies. Truly, then, by our fruits we would be known. Perhaps, I added, that’s happening, anyway. I thought of Lucy, and wondered if she’d used protection. Then I thought of Gran and had a little weep.
Boxing Day arrived for me just before noon as I stumbled into the front room dressed only in underwear, dress socks and a T-shirt. I’d never been so casual growing up. Dad and Derek, watching football in the front room, turned and gawked. I stood in the doorway, nervous.
“What?” I asked.
“You … you look different,” Dad said. “D’you get your haircut?”
“On Christmas night?”
“I don’t know … you look different.”
I shrugged as though ignorant to his questioning. I knew, though; I’d exposed to them the real Shelby Lewis; rebellious, unpredictable, half naked.
“Nice hair,” Derek said.
“Where are Mom and Kristine?”
“Out walkin’,” Dad said.
Derek looked down. “Nice gonch.”
“Have there been any calls?” I asked.
“A few … why?”
“Just wondering. Any for me?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“Were you expecting some?” Dad asked.
“No, I—”
“Shebby got a girlfriend,” Derek said with his goofy grin.
Dad, seemingly startled by the revelation, turned to Derek. “Does he?”
“Yup,” Derek said, “nice girl, too. Couple o’ heads and one eye. Shame about the foot odour.”
Dad turned back to me. “Son, I’m happy for you.”
“You seemed surprised,” I said.
“Dad thought you might be a fag,” Derek said.
“Derek,” Dad said.
“Sorry, Dad. Homosexual.” Derek grinned, stroking Dad’s ear.
“Why?” I asked. “Because I’m skinny? How Revelstokian.” I walked away.
Awhile later as I flipped through an old newspaper and munched away on a bowl of Shreddies at the kitchen table, Dad came and sat down. I continued reading. He stood up and opened the fridge door.
“No damn leftovers,” he said halfheartedly.
I didn’t respond.
“See that, son,” he said chuckling, “no damn leftovers.”
“You can have the rest of my cereal,” I said, knowing I’d finished the box.
“About that gay thing,” he said, “I just wondered what was wrong when we were goin’ through all those troubles.” He sat down again. “I didn’t mean anything. I asked him a lot o’ things.”
I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”
“You got a girlfriend, eh?” he said as warmly as I’d ever heard him speak.
I smiled. “Yeah.”
“Like her?”
“Oh, yes.”
“What’s her name?”
“Lucy.”
“Wow,” he said. “So … uh … had any luck with your calling?”
I looked up. “My calling?”
“Yeah.”
“Um … still unclear. I’m hopeful, though.”
“You know, sometimes I wish I’d … I just …” He shrugged. “Kids, marriage—I used to carve a lot, you know?”
“Carve?”
“Wood stuff. Little people and that. Whittlin’ away. I spent days doing it.”
“Do you have anything I could see?”
“Nah. Went into a rage in ’62—maybe ’63, built a fire and burnt it all.”
“I never knew.” He shrugged, smiling, and I, looking into the eyes of the genetic pool from which I’d liberally borrowed, felt suddenly overcome. He’d asked me about my calling!
“You thinkin’ about settlin’ down?” he asked.
“Pardon?”
“Settlin’ down. With Lucy …”
“Dad,” I said, edging towards him, “as cliché as it sounds I believe our meeting was predetermined.”
“Wow. What’s she do?”
“Uh … well, she’s between jobs. She’s very talented. She used to be a dancer.”
“Hm.” Dad scratched behind his right ear. “Thanks for the golf stuff, eh.”
“You’re welcome. I hope you take up the sport.”
He stood up and opened the fridge door again. “You ever think about going back?”
“To Vancouver?”
“To school.”
“Oh … sometimes.”
“You could do it,” he said, pulling the tab on a Fresca. “There’s no doubt in my mind you could do it without missin’ a skip.”
“Thanks.”
Dad took a swig from his pop and made his way towards the basement. “You could do whatever you want,” he said, not facing me.
“Dad?”
He stopped, glancing over his shoulder. “Yeah?”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Ah,” he said, sloughing me off with a wave of his hand. “Oh,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a rustic looking jackknife about six inches long. “Here.”
“What’s that?”
“That’s the knife I used to use. I want you to have it.” Before I could respond he’d disappeared downstairs. I sat, flabbergasted, when to my shock my boxer shorts shot up my anus.
“I want answers!” Derek yelled, hoisting me in the air. “Where is she?” The jackknife clanged on the kitchen table.
“Who?”
“The mystery woman.”
“Let go and I’ll tell you.”
Upon release I yelled “Ignoramus” and attempted to bolt away. My socked feet, however, offered insufficient friction to keep me in pivot and I crashed into the kitchen table, pole axed to the floor like a collapsing giraffe. Derek landed on me and twisted me into a quick half nelson and then spun me into a headlock.
“This is going to hurt me a lot more than it hurts you,” he said, throwing me face down, spanking me and laughing without constraint.
“Knave!” I cried.
He swung me over and sat on my chest, crushing his knees into my biceps.
“No!” I yelled.
“’Fraid so, Shel,” he said, “for your own good—and you’re still my little brother.”
“I’m twenty years old!”
“Well, cowpoke, Happy dang birthday!” He laughed and precariously dangled spittle inches from my face, slurping it up at the last moment. “It’s really an art form,” he said.
I flexed every muscle in an attempt to break free. “I’d kill you at chess!” I screamed.
“Checkmate,” he replied, slapping my forehead.
Getting in touch with Lucy was a grand relief. As it happened, she’d been out walking all day as she had on
Christmas, too. I asked her to pick me up when I got back into Vancouver. She was obliging.
“How’s your family?” she asked.
“All events considered, quite well. It’s strange without Gran around but the baby news was thrilling—even a second time. How’s your hand?”
“Uh … still a little swollen.”
“I miss you.”
“I stalled six times on the bridge driving home,” she said.
“Lucy, I had a wonderful Christmas Eve.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
“What does it mean? How can such joy and confusion come from the interactions of lovers?”
“Buddhist Noble Truth Number One: Life is hell.”
“Really?”
“No—hey, guess what?”
“What?”
“I quit my job.”
“For good?”
“Yes—well, I haven’t sent in my resignation or anything, but I’ve worked out all the plans.”
“You’re really going to do it?”
“Well, I’m a little anxious about it. It’s the toss-up between a lack o’ skills and a lack of excuses. But it’s like take a shit or wipe and get outta there, you know? I mean why the hell should I be afraid? Screw fear.”
“I’ve had some revelations, too. I can’t wait to share them with you.”
“Like what?”
“They’re just … right now … ideas. Life. Death. Love. How such an awarenesses effects the look of other issues. Oh, and my Dad, too … I … I’ll try to make some verbal sense of them before I return.”
She laughed. “You’re so corny.”
That night I had a dream. Lucy was singing in her kitchen. A crash of glass and a scream sent me sprinting in there to find her sitting on the floor, naked save for her bra, her face buried in her hands, blood dripping through her fingers. Scattered across the floor was glass and assorted vegetables, much as it was the evening I found her in the bathroom with her cut hand. But in the dream, she lifted her head from her hands and gazed at me with eyes and haircut identical to that of the little girl in the photograph I gave her for Christmas. It was truly haunting.
Not being able to sleep, I watched out my bedroom window the sun’s gentle ascent, and as the grays and pinks dappled above the mountainous skyline it occurred to me that, metaphorically, life runs on an identical revolution. In other words, just as the sun appears to live and die every twelve hours or so, it could be that Gran (being at the same time an example of life and death) never really died, either, but rather travels on the outskirts of some eternal ride that will eventually spin her back into my life.
Derek and Kristine left for home later that morning. It had been a wonderful visit, the rebirth evident, Derek and I perhaps closer than ever despite the thrashing he gave me on the kitchen floor. As they drove away the phone rang. It turned out to be Eric wanting to wish me a Merry Christmas.
“By the way, I’m going home tomorrow,” he said. “You need a lift?”
“No thanks, I’m going home on the bus tonight. How was your Christmas?”
“The bus?” he said. “Why would you do that when you could come back with me tomorrow?”
“I just need to get back.”
“Work?”
“No, I just need to get back.”
“Say no more, man, I getcha,” he said. “Are you going to bring her to the New Year’s party?”
“Who?”
“Fuck you who.”
“Lucy?”
“D-uh.”
“Um … I doubt she’ll come.”
“Snob. Why not?”
“I … We’ve got several things to discuss.”
“Oooh. Sounds like el cruncho time.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nina and I had that exact yap before I left.”
“What yap?”
“The Love Yap. Listen, man, I gotta ask you a favour?”
“What love yap?”
“It doesn’t matter. Remember Terry Anderson?”
“The guitar player.”
“Yeah. I gave him a call this mornin’ and his girlfriend said he’d gone on the road with a Top-Forty band—Thunder Frenzy—what a stupid fuckin’ name. Anyway, man, he’s left me dry for the Pig gig on Thursday night. Can you sub in?”
“I don’t know any of the songs.”
“Sure you do! We’ll do some SMEGMA BOMB! material and maybe a couple tunes from the Void. Just the cream, though. I’ve got a rehearsal booked for Wednesday night. What do you say, man? You and me, old times? Be your best friend.”
“Eric, I haven’t practiced in weeks. All the callouses on my fingers are soft.”
“Come on, man. I’ll give you woman advice.”
“I don’t need any advice.”
“One piddly night. Two at the outside.”
“Okay.”
“Atta boy!”
“Hey, Eric, what was that pungent odour in the apartment?”
“What …” Eric barked out a laugh. “Oooh, sorry about that. I bought a couple o’ big cohos to give to the polar bears.”
“What?”
“Coho salmon-”
“I heard you! You’re talking about the polar bears at Stanley Park, aren’t you?”
“You know any others?”
“You were arrested last time, Eric.”
“Yeah, by hypocrite assholes. Screw them.”
“But we’re talking about your freedom, Eric.”
“Shel, I can’t believe your attitude,” he said, sounding disillusioned with me, “it was fuckin’ Christmas …”
After ten o’clock and less than an hour and a half before the bus to Vancouver was scheduled for departure, Lucy was finally home to receive my call.
“If you’re never home, how am I supposed to let you know what time to pick me up?”
“Hey, Shel?”
“I hate taking things personally.”
“I quit work.”
“I know, you told me that yesterday.”
“No,” she said. “I did it. Twenty minutes ago. From a pay phone on second beach. I just picked ’er up, phoned my agent and said, ‘So long, no can do. Sayonara. I’m outta here!’ My agent says, ‘Lucy, what are you talkin’ about?’ Listen to this psycho-babble. I say, ‘I can’t do it anymore. I’m going off to find myself. I quit.’ She thinks I’m nuts.”
“Well she’s wrong.”
“But I ain’t nuts, Shel—but I’m free and I am done. Officially and unconditionally unemployed … with no skills. Ta-da!”
“I’m delighted for you.”
“I thought it’d kill me.”
“No way.”
“It didn’t kill me.”
“I’m very happy for you, Lucy,” I said.
“I can’t believe I did it. I can’t believe I fucking did it!”
“I never doubted you.”
“I know it—and you know how scared I was about havin’ no skills?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t even know what that was. Tell you the truth, I don’t give two shits!”
“I knew you’d do what was best for you.”
“I know you did.”
“So … uh … I’ll see you in the morning?”
“Yeah,” she said, her excitement reaching through the phone and tugging at my innards.
“About seven-thirty …”
“Great.” I could feel her smiling. It made me happy.
XXII
The world is ruled by letting things take their course
—Lao Tsu
With my parents waiting in the truck, I slipped on the ice outside the bus depot door, bruising my hip and biting my lip. But the serious injury happened inside: thirty-two buffoons from Golden were travelling to the city to see a Vancouver Canucks ice hockey game and, consequently, there were no seats left for the midnight bus. I was enraged. Didn’t they understand? Couldn’t they have chartered a plane? I had to get back to Vancouver. I immediately calle
d Eric from a pay phone and told him I’d need a lift after all.
“Vell, Herr Lewis,” he said, “it vood appeuh zee situation hass changed. Now who needs who, hmm?”
“I have no time for jokes, Eric. Just remember I was there for you without a moment’s hesitation last night.”
“True enough. Pick you up at nine.”
“Nine? Come on, seven. I’ve got to get home.”
“Ten.”
“Eight?”
“Eleven.”
“Okay, nine …”
I went out to the truck and explained the situation to my parents. Arriving back home furious, I telephoned Lucy immediately.
“I loathe ice hockey!” I cried.
“Shel?”
“The bus is booked! I can’t get home until tomorrow afternoon.”
“Okay.”
“Assuming Vancouver doesn’t have a soccer team!”
“Shel, it’s no biggie.”
“Thirty morons from Golden! I’ve nearly bit my lip in two. My hip? It’s a miracle it’s not fractured. I have to drag it behind me like a club.”
“It’s okay. Settle down.”
“I want to get home!”
“You’ll be home in the afternoon.”
“God willing.”
“I just remembered, I can’t meet you in the afternoon.”
“What?”
“I’ve got some business stuff I’ve got to take care of.”
“What kind of business?”
“Just stuff—and I’m working tomorrow night. The last waltz!”
“Well when will I see you?”
“Did you hear what I said, Shel? My last dance.”
“Terrific, splendid—damn I wish I was on that bus!”
“Jesus, Shel, relax. Look, I’ll leave the key for your car under your seat. Can you take a cab from the bus depot?”
“I’m driving back home with Eric.”
“Oh, perfect. That’ll be way better than the bus.”
“Lucy, can we get together for dinner tomorrow night?”
“I can’t. I’ve got stuff I have to do.”
“Like what?”
“Like working, for starters.”
There was a pause as I considered my options. “Okay … I’ll call you tomorrow night, then.”
“I’m working tomorrow night.”
“Afterwards?”
“What the hell is your problem?”
“I want to see you! Both of us free. We should be together.”
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