Advocate

by Darren Greer

  “But he doesn’t know,” said my grandmother. “No one does, Caroline. It’s possible. Isn’t it?”

  “If anyone was going to get sick,” said my mother, “wouldn’t it be us first? We’re always around him.”

  “I suppose so,” said my grandmother. “I just hope Rebecca’s all right.”

  I didn’t know Rebecca. She was a grade behind me. What I had seen of her, she was a small and diffident girl. No trouble to anyone. Deanny wouldn’t look at her twice.

  When Jeanette came back, she said, “The grocery store is shut down.”

  “What?” said my grandmother. “It’s Friday morning for Lord’s sake! It opens at eight.”

  “Closed up tight. I saw people in there but they wouldn’t open the doors. Convenience store too. I saw Henry Hennsey walking downtown and he told me a bunch of people got sick and are at the hospital.”

  At this my grandmother became truly alarmed. “I’ve got to get on the phone.”

  She went into the living room. Jeanette sat down at the kitchen table.

  “What do you think is happening?” my mother asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Jeanette. “But I don’t think it’s good news.”

  “You don’t think …” said my mother, exactly the same way my grandmother had.

  “I told you,” Jeanette said, “I don’t know. Dr. Fred said it wasn’t possible.”

  “But so many people getting sick at once? What on earth can it be?”

  “Brace yourself,” Jeanette said. “The shit is about to hit the fan.”

  ▪ ▪ ▪

  by noon there were thirteen people in the hospital with fevers, puking and crapping themselves. Now, in the cold light of day and years after the event, we know it was the water. It had been, as I said, a dry year, and in dry years water stands and becomes fetid. Wells evaporate. Town reservoirs grow hot and stale. Bacteria breeds. The water main break in July, it was also surmised, might have allowed dirty water to run across the surface and encounter something spoiled before being reabsorbed into the giant aquifer beneath the town. Those bacteria then sat for weeks in the above ground reservoir on the outskirts of Advocate, before finally being drawn into people’s homes.

  In any other year and in any other time it would have simply been a case of water poisoning. A boil water advisory would have been put in place, and for a few weeks or a month people would have been put to the inconvenience of travelling seven miles out of town to the Carlsbad Springs to fill up containers and lug them home.

  But it was not another time. It was not another place.

  It was 1984, in Advocate.

  It seems silly now to mistake water poisoning for an outbreak of aids. But the dialogue was not rational, the understanding weak. People had been waiting for months for someone to get sick, and when the person finally did, it didn’t matter if they had a deep cough and cancer or vomiting and diarrhea. They immediately jumped to conclusions.

  By three o’clock twenty people were sick, and the local radio station from Trenton carried the news about the second cancellation of the Lemon parade. There was no mention of the Orange. So far all the people who got ill were from the Catholic side of the river. This was simply by chance, but no one knew that then, and there were all sorts of wild speculations that the virus incubated on our side of the river alone. That God was striking us down, one by one, because my uncle, even though he was miscreant, was nominally Catholic.

  My grandmother spent all afternoon on the phone. By five o’clock it was established fact my uncle was responsible for the illness, and many were in hysterics. She received a phone call just before supper from the mayor, who “expressed his concern.”

  Even though my grandmother likely believed what everyone else did, that the “chickens had come home to roost,” she still gave the mayor a piece of her mind. “Sloppy government,” she told him. “You should be looking to contain this, Thompson, and start pointing fingers afterwards.”

  I don’t know what exactly Thompson replied. My grandmother never said, other than that he suggested, politely, my grandmother “relocate” my uncle until it all sorted through.

  “Why on earth would we do that?” my grandmother asked. “The boy can barely walk let alone be relocated.”

  Thompson mumbled some reply and my grandmother hung up on him in annoyance. When my mother asked her what was said, Grandnan only harrumphed, and said things would have been done differently in her day.

  Jeanette wondered how they were going to cancel the Lemon Day parade one day before it was supposed to happen. The Trenton radio station would reach those from town and surrounding areas who planned to come, but anyone from farther away wouldn’t get the notice. She would be surprised when she heard.

  Roadblocks were to be set up on the river road to the south and the roads off the highway to the north. The rcmp would man them, along with local volunteers. The town was effectively under quarantine. A team of specialists were being sent in from Halifax to determine the origins of the sickness, though few people had any doubt where it came from.

  Dr. Fred came over after supper to talk my mother and Jeanette. “It’s ridiculous of course,” he said. “Everyone who is sick has the symptoms of bacterial infection. Nothing else. But none of them will listen. They are convinced they’re all dying of aids.”

  “And what about the other doctors?” asked my mother.

  “They’re on my side, for once,” sighed Dr. Fred. “They realize something gastrointestinal is going on, though some of the nurses are frightened. Some have left their posts and gone home. The head nurse is threatening to have them fired. She’s doing her best to maintain order. We’ve had sixty people without any symptoms asking if there’s a test for aids. Nurse Jones tells them to go home and only give her a call when they start shitting their pants. She’s a tough old bird. I wish we had a hundred like her.”

  Twice while Dr. Fred was at our home the phone rang. The first time was a hang up. The second time a nameless woman screamed at my mother to get my uncle out of town and to stop trying to kill them all. After the call ended, my mother stood bewildered with the phone in her hand and asked what was happening.

  “Paranoia,” said Dr. Fred. “Hysteria. This is what happens when the dam breaks.”

  “But don’t these people listen?” said Jeanette. “They’ve been told they can’t get it. What do they want us to do, for God’s sake? Burn him at the stake?”

  “People are foolish animals,” Dr. Fred said, “when they’re faced with something they don’t understand. They’re scared. They’re confused. They’re looking to take it out on someone.”

  “Well,” said Aunt Jeanette, “they won’t take it out on him. He only has God knows how many days left, and he deserves to live them in as much peace and dignity as possible.”

  “I agree,” said Fred. “This will blow over. We’ll find the cause of this illness. I suspect the water supply myself, so I wouldn’t drink any if I were you, unless you boil it. Until then you’ll just have to batten down the hatches. Maybe don’t answer the phone. I suspect they’ll stop short of a posse at the door.”

  ▪ ▪ ▪

  dr. fred was wrong. Five people arrived at our door at six o’clock that Friday evening, shortly after supper had concluded and my grandmother had started the dishwasher with its slow, soporific drone and occasional squeak. When the knock came, my grandmother wondered aloud who it was. I stood in the hallway and looked when she opened it.

  Standing there were Marjorie Moore, the head librarian; Joe Gall, the owner of the convenience store; and Thompson, the mayor. We had no doubt these three were representatives of the town. They had been chosen, rather than coming of their own volition. There were two others, but when I later asked my mother who they were, she said it didn’t matter.

  “I’m surprised,” said my Aunt Jeanette, “they weren’t all wearing masks and surgical gowns. Or rubber gloves, when they knocked at the door.”

  Neither my mother nor Jeane
tte spoke to these people again, long after all the fuss had died down and things went back to normal. My grandmother said they were being “unchristian.” She was, she said, perfectly willing to forgive and forget and let bygones be bygones.

  “That would be a first,” said Jeanette.

  But my grandmother was, in some ways, more practical than Jeanette or my mother. Thompson would remain mayor until 1990, a year after I went off to university in Toronto. My grandmother couldn’t very well not speak to him and keep her nose in town business. She had to compromise. Besides, as my mother and Jeanette had to know, she felt differently from the start about things. She may have even instinctively understood what was going on when she opened the door to the five townspeople standing on her front stoop that night. Aunt Jeanette and my mother were upstairs attending to my uncle. They had not heard the doorbell, or they ignored it if they had. My grandmother politely greeted all, and asked what she could do for them.

  “We have something to discuss with you,” said the mayor, who, at that moment, didn’t seem very mayor-like. Thompson wouldn’t look my grandmother in the eye, and he stood at the front of the phalanx like he had been pushed. He was stocky and balding, and wore rimless glasses, as well as a blue sweater and jeans and white sneakers, his summer uniform. He blinked like a bemused owl.

  “What do you want to discuss?” my grandmother said lightly.

  Just then, my mother came down the stairs and saw the crowd at the door. She asked my grandmother what was going on.

  “Thompson was just saying he’d like to talk to us,” my grandmother said. “Won’t you come in?”

  Whenever anyone came to the door in an official capacity, my grandmother always turned into a model of good manners and civility — provided she agreed with the purpose of the visit. In this case, assuming she knew what the visit was about before anyone stated it, she must have also known her invitation would be refused. Ours was the house of plague. Those people were no more likely to step into it than they would a World War II battlefield. But she invited them in anyway.

  There was some slight shuffling of feet as Thompson politely declined, and a few wavering gazes. It was as if they were a gang of naughty school children waiting to be scolded.

  My mother stood beside my grandmother at the door, blocking my view. “What’s all this about?”

  “Well,” said Thompson. “You must know that …”

  His tone dropped to a restrained mumble.

  Aunt Jeanette came down the stairs and stood behind my mother and grandmother. My grandmother stepped back and my aunt assumed her place.

  Thompson’s voice rose again. “We know how difficult this is for you, but the town is sick. We all know that whatever this is is spreading, and lives are in danger. We have to ask you to move your brother before something worse happens.”

  “You silly old fool,” said Jeanette.

  “Jeanette!” reprimanded my grandmother. “Be civil!”

  “I will not!” cried Jeanette. “He should know better. You all should. Shame on you. Each and every one!”

  “Fine for you to say,” a woman’s voice came from the back. “You don’t have any kids. What about us parents who are only concerned for the safety of our children?”

  “I have kids,” said my mother. “And do you see anything wrong with him?”

  I’m not sure when my grandmother slipped away from all this. I didn’t even notice she was gone until it was all over. Later my aunt said she had chickened out. My mother disagreed.

  “She’s ashamed,” she said. “For once, Mom is on the wrong side of the tracks. And she doesn’t much like it.”

  I stood behind my aunt and mother and listened to them argue. It got heated. Voices rose. Another woman threatened legal action. “You’re putting us all at risk and there ought to be a law. If there isn’t, we’ll get Thompson here to introduce an ordinance. How many people have to get sick before you do something about him?”

  “They’re sick because of the water,” Jeanette said. “That’s a fact. And when you all find out it’s true you’ll be shamefaced and begging forgiveness.”

  “From the likes of you?” the woman said. “Not likely.”

  If my mother wasn’t there to restrain her, I’m not sure Jeanette wouldn’t have stepped outside and challenged this woman, whoever she was, to a duel.

  In the end, nothing was resolved, and Thompson suggested they go. The woman who picked a fight with Jeanette gave one parting shot. “You’ve ruined this town,” she said. “The parade cancelled. The hospital full. When someone dies of it you’ll be sorry.”

  Jeanette looked like she was about to say something else, but my mother shut the door. She and Jeanette just looked at each other.

  “I just want to scream,” my mother said.

  “Scream then,” said Aunt Jeanette. “Let’s make them hear us.”

  And my mother did. A short, high-pitched bark of frustration.

  My grandmother shouted down from upstairs, “What’s the matter?”

  “You are!” Jeanette called back. Then she burst into tears.

  My mother hugged her and told her not to worry, and Jeanette sobbed on her shoulder. I had seen Jeanette cry before. But not like this — great gusts of emotion that seemed, in a sense, out of proportion to me.

  “They’re idiots,” my mother said. “They’ll see the truth eventually.” After a few minutes Jeanette pulled away and asked my mother what they were going to do.

  “What can we do?” said my mother. “It’s not like they can kick us out of town. When they find out what’s wrong with all those people they’ll pull in their horns. Meanwhile we just take care of David.”

  Jeanette wiped her eyes with her hands, and marshalled herself. She said she’d be damned if she was just going to sit around and let them get the better of her.

  “Don’t do anything rash,” my mother said.

  “I just wish …” said Jeanette, and let the thought fade.

  My mother watched her carefully. She knew her sister well. “What?”

  “I’ve got an idea,” said Jeanette. “Do we have any markers? Any bristol board?”

  “Somewhere in the house,” said my mother. “For Jacob’s school projects, I think.”

  “Good,” said Jeanette. “I think we should march in the parade tomorrow.”

  “Jeanette,” said my mother gently. “There isn’t going to be any parade tomorrow.”

  “Oh yes there is. It only takes two for a parade, and I bet we can get more than that.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Someone has got to make a stand,” Jeanette said. “Someone has got to get it into the open. And I think I know how to do it.”

  My mother would have asked her more questions, but my grandmother came to the top of the stairs and asked if the guests had gone.

  “I wouldn’t call them guests,” said my mother.

  “They’re gone,” said Aunt Jeanette. “No thanks to you.”

  “All this fuss,” said my grandmother. “All this unnecessary commotion.”

  “The woman lives in a river in Egypt,” said my aunt.

  “De Nile,” said my mother.

  Suddenly, and shockingly, they burst into laughter.

  ▪ ▪ ▪

  that night, my mother decided to officially let me visit with my uncle. She sat a chair near the door, not too close to his bed, and asked me to sit in it and help keep him company. He had a terrible cold and kept clearing his throat and coughing. The sheets were pulled up to his waist and he sat up in bed with the pillows behind him. He kept shifting his weight, as if he was uncomfortable, and his hands lay on top of the sheets twisting nervously, like emaciated birds of prey. He smiled at me and the effect was ghastly. Even his voice seemed to have changed — thinner, more a croak or a whisper. He kept taking sips out of a glass of water with a straw beside his bed. No one mentioned the little committee at the door. They didn’t bother to inform him of the cancellation of the Lemon
Day parade, either. Whatever inklings my uncle had of the resistance to his presence in the town he picked up by osmosis — by the attitude and gestures of his sisters, and by their refusal to talk about certain things. When he asked about the parade, they changed the subject. When he asked about my grandmother, they said she was great, which he must have known was a lie. My grandmother was never “great.”

  She still did not come in to visit him.

  She might bring him his tray if my mother and Jeanette were out, but she wouldn’t linger. Uncle David told my mother he now saw and heard less of his mother than he did when he was in Toronto.

  “Don’t worry about it,” my mother said. “She’s busy with the spring cleaning.”

  “Caroline,” David said. “It’s August. Spring has been over for months.”

  “Summer cleaning then,” said my mother. “What are you reading David?”

  My uncle’s illness did not prevent him from reading books. He read everything. Because the library refused to lend them any books, in case my uncle contaminated the volumes, my mother and Jeanette bought him what he needed. The book that lay open-faced on his bedside table was a tome, the thickest book I had ever seen.

  “War and Peace,” my uncle said. “I’ve been putting it off for twenty years. I figured I’d better get it in.”

  “Is it good?” asked Aunt Jeanette. I could see they were relieved to have the subject turn to the tangible and uncontroversial. My uncle briefly explained what he liked and what he didn’t about the book. “It’s strange,” he said finally, “to spend your life reading stories other people have made up. Lately I’ve begun to wonder if there is any value in it.”

  “Of course there is!” cried Aunt Jeanette. “War and Peace is one of the great works of literature.”

  My uncle shrugged, and through his pyjamas I could see how thin his shoulders were. They tented the shoulders of his pyjamas tops, rather than lifted them. It gave the impression of his clothes being more substantial than he was. “I don’t know,” said my uncle. “I mean, I love literature. I always have. In some ways, I guess, I’ve dedicated my life to it. But it seems the occupation of the living rather than the dying.”