The Insomnia Museum

by Laurie Canciani

  I don’t know.

  Tick burned the petals of the flower and then he held the lighter against the dry grass until the flames took and began to whip. He stood up again and walked along the path and she followed.

  He tried to do it, he said, but he failed each time so he decided not to try anymore. He woke up one morning and decided that Jesus or someone was telling him he had to live because he had to help someone. He’s been going through people ever since, trying to find that one person he has to help before he’s allowed to die. He’s helped a lot of people. He does everything for them. He’s selfish like that.

  Why do they need help?

  Everyone needs help. Watch the news. Take a walk. People are poor and nuts. They’re sad. Look at those people with signs over there and you can see for yourself why they need help. Look at what they say. Too hungry to beg for food. Been made redundant. Need a job. Kids to feed. Benefits stopped. Kids starving. Can only eat what my kids don’t finish. Need to work. Need anything. Any spare change? Will accept any job. I don’t have to read them all to know what they say. People are poor. Unhappy. Downtrodden. Too hardworking. Not the right work. Abandoned. It’s not their fault. It’s not anyone’s fault. It’s their own fault. It’s just the way things are. I don’t know. Watch the news. Nobody cares about them. Not even me. See it all for yourself. Or don’t. Watch cartoons instead. Watch cartoons and you’ll be happy just like me. Watch TV just like anyone. It’s good.

  She watched Tick while he talked and she looked at his shoulder and then at his hand that jerked at his side. She reached slowly and opened her fingers and slipped her hand inside his. He stopped and looked at her. He was still. They looked at each other. He tucked his chin to his chest and smiled. His cheeks grew roses. They walked on. They held hands and kicked the beer cans that were chucked along the path and she tried to climb the fences that were still wet from the rain that had fallen sometime in the twenty-ninth hour while she was asleep. Somewhere along the black road a dog barked and a woman screamed and a pack of drunks went running into the dark and she didn’t care about being happy or being bad or feeling sad for others. She only cared about being alive. Being outside. Smoking cigarettes. Eating sweets. Playing games. Fast cars. Ugly love. That’s all. And that’s just life.

  *

  She was outside longer than she had ever been before. She shivered. Tick talked and the talking sped up and she listened and tried to force his sentences together in her head but she couldn’t. She didn’t feel well. His words went from his mouth into the air and sailed colourful and fast on the smoke waves that rose up from the tower block. Between the wooden wall and the estate she took off her glasses and closed her eyes to give them a rest from all those green fizzing shapes. There were black boxes shoved underneath a concrete balcony alongside the path and they were marked with white numbers four and six and eight and inside there were black bags stuffed too fat that rose up out of those thick plastic mouths like food that had not been swallowed. Some were tied and others were open and she could smell all the junk that was going bad on the inside. She didn’t think of her mother and didn’t think of Dad. Chasing rabbits and. She didn’t think of any of it. Not even once. Not even when it was. She was hungry.

  I want to see what your eyes look like, the boy said. He tried to take her hands off her face but she wouldn’t let him. What colour are they? What do they look like? I bet your eyes are nice.

  She was stronger and taller than him and he struggled and then he returned his hands to his pockets and jerked his chin.

  Ugly, she said, and put the glasses on again.

  You shouldn’t say that about yourself.

  Ugly isn’t bad. Ugly is ugly.

  They walked. There was a long concrete staircase with a blue rail that led to another patch of concrete separate from everything else. Beyond that was a path and beyond that was another tower and above everything were stairs and bridges and more wire and railings in blue and green and red paint chipped and peeling and squeaking with all the noise of disuse. On the path there was an abandoned wet coat and a deflated orange ball and a doll that cried when she stepped on it with her broken red shoes. The path split into two and went around a wide patch of wet grass and through towers that broke apart at either side. The patch of grass led to a park that Tick wanted her to see.

  The park was set in a wide hollow in the ground where the concrete was laid flat but had been churned along the edges into mounds of dust and broken stone that raised up underneath their feet as they walked. In the middle of the hollow were tall metal frames that stood holding hands like iron skeletons. They were bolted together and he said they used to be red but were then peeling and flaking like burnt skin into orange and grey. Beneath one of the frames was a rubber seat that had two chains on either end hung long and low, connecting it to the frame again. The seat swung when the wind blew and she steadied it and looked at all the other frames with turning swinging parts and she looked at it all as it stood there shining in the concrete.

  She thought that she had seen it before. Something like it, years ago. When the sky was dark and there were no people around and her mother pressed her hands against her back and pushed her so high and so fast that she lost the ground and the sky and everything became the same. One colour. Dizzy. Wild. She closed her eyes and thought hard. Her thoughts were fragments in which she recognized only the closed doors and windows of the rooms in which she stood. It was. And no. The past would not stay still. She looked through the green glass once more and though she didn’t see anything she heard something in the back of her mind and far away. It was some kind of music, clicking, a driving rain and then.

  She heard it all from the long ago and it was. She heard the word fuck over and over. There was a breeze kicking dust into the air. There were children talking fast and loud and running with unlaced shoes and there was a knock and the smell of burning. There was a fast suck and then came the slow quiet. It sounded like. They were all the sounds that ever were and they were jumbled and slipping inside her head. It sounded like something she had been waiting to hear for years. It sounded like her mother. Stupid. Gone.

  This is our park, Tick said. I used to come here all the time when I was a kid with Mum and now I just use it as a place to smoke or whatever. I watch the little kids sometimes. When they go home I tie the swing to the frame so they can’t reach it and I have a good laugh about that. I sometimes hide under the slide when I’m supposed to be in school and sometimes I pick up those rocks and throw them against that wall there. People chuck all their rubbish down here, like that old fridge with the door off. I once pissed in that.

  They walked through the park and she touched the junk that was thrown along the edge like the junk that swayed and creaked along the edges of her museum. There was a kettle with the plug broken off and the cord broken into three pieces and twisted back through the spout and into the bowels again. There was a rusted fridge that smelled like piss and a microwave with a smashed face and a broken mirror with bulbs all down the sides that she looked into and pretended to be beautiful.

  How come you look into a mirror and look at everything else?

  Beats the shit out of me, the boy said.

  Tick picked up a stone and so did she. He chucked his so hard it cracked into pieces and coughed up dust when it landed against the hard broken back of an old TV. She raised the stone high. The wall that went all the way around was higher inside the park than outside of it because the path level was raised against the towers and the park seemed to have been dug up out of the ground. A child’s bicycle lay discarded and rusted on a pile of stones. A scooter was planted in the dirt. A toy man lay headless and alone. A dog barked. She dropped the stone next to her feet and wiped the dust off her clothes. She looked at the wall.

  What’s that? she said.

  That’s the bit of the wall they were going to knock down to get the machines in to start work on the new park. It’s partly knocked down now and there’s a gap over there with r
ubble all about and it’s pretty dangerous but most kids can climb it. It’s a bit of a building site. There’s some tiff going on about something so the men stopped working on it. It’s kind of like a building site with an old swing set and slide in the middle and we’re not supposed to play here but there’s fuck all else to do so whatever. He lit a cigarette and gave it to her and lit one for himself and they sat on the swing and smoked.

  She didn’t understand him. He looked at her when he thought she couldn’t see and then he looked away and smiled into his pack of smokes. Although he had Lucky’s eyes he was not Lucky. He was boyish and rude and quick and loud and the estate was an audience that turned back and sat down to watch him. He talked too fast and drew looks from birds and dogs and naked children with their faces pressed against windows. He was young and yet so much older than her.

  She got inside the rusted shell of an abandoned car with no seat and pretended to drive it and said sit next to me I’ll take you someplace. He got into the passenger side and pretended to press the buttons for the radio and started whistling songs through his front teeth. He sang. She took his mind to the films she’d seen growing up and spoke the words from famous scenes and talked about endings that weren’t always happy but always mattered. He listened. He told her they could do whatever they wanted because there were no walls or old men to stop them and when they were outside they didn’t have to follow rules and they didn’t have to listen. She got out of the car and so did he and he picked up a stone and so did she and they threw the stones far into the sky and beyond the edges of the estate. She pointed. What’s that? she said.

  That’s the dog on the wall.

  The dog was painted on the inside of the wall and it was big and black and it watched her as she watched it. She lowered the other stone she had picked up and tossed it into a bucket that was half filled with water and floating bits of leaf and dirt. The dog had a mane of black fur that stuck out star shaped and wild and a shiny black nose and grey patches and pointed ears and feet ready to run and a tail ready to whip and a wide laughing mouth and big yellow eyes.

  He’s laughing at me, she said.

  No he isn’t.

  I don’t like him.

  Why?

  I don’t like his eyes.

  Why?

  I’ve seen them somewhere before.

  The junk dog would not turn away and she picked up another stone and threw it as hard as she could and it smashed against the wall into specks and stars. Her legs were sinking into the ground like the lopsided swing or the burnt out car that had no tyres on one side. Inside the tower a child ran around a table in a room behind glass and its mother caught up and slowed down and sent it off running wild again. In another room a baby was held up to that cold artificial light glowing green in a million different rooms that were all the same. A man scratched his bare chest and smoked and leaned over the side of one of the concrete balconies. There was nothing left of Dad but that one big eye beating grey and cold above the tower. She could see too much of everything on the outside and too much of what was inside and she could see everything that was and everything that hadn’t happened yet. She could see nothing at all and she wanted to disappear.

  Tick held her hand and said fuck really loud.

  She laughed.

  Do you want to see something?

  She looked at him and he looked at her. He had a serious face and his body didn’t jerk once while he spoke. The freckles on his face blended into pale skin and the Plastic Jesus on his top seemed to sit on his chest and nod yes, yes, yes, so happy to be surrounded by all the colours of hate. His eyes were big and she saw her own face twice over in the shine there. She was hungry.

  Something you’re not supposed to see, he said.

  Yes.

  That’s good.

  I want to see all the things I’m not supposed to see.

  Good.

  I want to do the things I’m not supposed to do.

  He squeezed her hand and she squeezed back. The dog on the wall looked at them and tossed his tail about and began to bark and the Dog in heaven stayed quiet and let the world chase its own hairless tail. They stood up and left the swinging seats and walked back along the slant of rubble and broken junk. They went beyond the wall and through heavy doors and shouted and called and swore to the empty corners of empty stairways. She didn’t turn again to look into the eye of the dog as she went and didn’t turn to think of her father or her mother who both died over and over again somewhere far behind, in wide colourless rooms, a long, long time ago.

  21

  Please Knock

  I’M HUNGRY. I’M hungry. I’m hungry. I’m hungry. I’m hungry. I’m hungry. I’m hungry. I’m hungry. I’m hungry. I’m hungry. I’m hungry. I’m hungry. I’m hungry. I’m hungry. I’m hungry. I’m hungry. I’m.

  You talk too much.

  The boy walked and she followed. Chip-shop and takeaway smells bellowed on the back of the smoke and steam that washed over the black road and then down the paths where good people did terrible things for no good reason. Four people smoked out of the back of a building that could’ve been a Chinese or Indian or anything and they looked at her as she passed. A cat chewed a piece of plastic. Its little tooth bright and sharp in the green light. A tribe of people ran. Somewhere someone cried but it wasn’t her. It was nobody.

  Where are we going?

  Not too far. Round here. Up a bit. There.

  He slid his arm around her waist and she didn’t stop him and they walked like that beneath the sky and she thought about everything and her thoughts were misshapen and strange. Round the wooden wall slashed with curses and long letters and up a concrete staircase with an iron rail painted blue was a row of flats too short to be another tower block. There were gardens outside and crumbling walls and crooked paths that were narrow and raised towards red front doors and the grass was not cut and the windows were not cleaned and everything was slanted under a thirty year press that would take another thirty years to fall. There was a road outside. There was the rain washed pavement and a wall and a half-paved half-grassed field with concrete blocks and big red metal doors that Tick said were garages.

  A place to put cars, he said. Metalwork. Hobbies. Boxing bags. Old stuff you don’t want anymore. Somewhere to stash what you don’t want anyone else to find.

  They sat on one of the half-fallen walls that went around the garages and they tried to kick each other’s shoes off. They were watching one of the flats in the middle of the street when the light came on and a man in dark clothes stood looking out through the window. It was Lucky. The boy watched his father with one hand in his jacket pocket and the other holding the end of a cigarette that he brought to his mouth and supped in sharp bursts. He kept the smoke behind his teeth. His mouth was twisted. His chin jerked. He blew two jets of white smoke through his nose. His eyes were slanted against the lifting smoke and she thought that he watched Lucky like she sometimes watched Dad. With monstrous love and anger and fear and care and pity all spilled from a loose cage. Contempt. Fear. Irritation. Need. And such longing.

  All the lights on that side of the street were smashed or wounded and the dark closed around them where they sat. They held hands. A habit. She watched the lovely ugly man who stood straightening the curtains in the window and felt the moths in her stomach wake in dust. Lucky turned in the window and went into another room and sat down and talked to a small man and laid his hand on his shoulder and then on his head. He stood up and went into his pocket and took out his wallet and counted out the bills and handed them to the man who cried into the money like it was his own mind or his own heart broken into pieces and falling through his fingers. Lucky rested his hands on his shoulder again and took off his jacket and wrapped it around the crying man and then he went off and came back and handed him a steaming cup. He said something that she couldn’t hear. The man rested the cup on his knee and held the money to his forehead. He looked up again as Lucky left the room and she saw his eyes that wer
e dazed and lost and searching the room as though he was looking for a TV or a remote or his own Plastic Jesus that was not nodding in the corner. Lucky opened the front door and lit a cigarette and smoked it and it shone ginger in his eyes and he closed the door and walked the garden path and went through a gate that was hanging off its hinges. He stood for a moment in the middle of the road. He smoked in the dark and scratched his face and looked at them standing on the other side of the street but didn’t see them near the garage door. He was older than she remembered. Hunched over. A crow. In the bad wind. He rubbed his eyes and crossed his arms against the cold and walked away and went down the road looking at his own two feet that were as slow and soundless as the smoke he blew into the sky.

  When the little light from the end of Lucky’s cigarette disappeared around a corner the boy went into the middle of the road and stood watching the window. She followed. They stood there while the man inside finished his hot mug and rubbed his face and when he was done with that he stood up and pulled his arms through Lucky’s jacket and went to the front door and opened it. He came into the road and didn’t speak. The boy went into his pocket and took out a clear plastic packet with a round white sweet inside. She got closer. On one side of the sweet was a little rabbit with long, long ears. Tick gave it to the man and the man handed the boy all the money that had come out of Lucky’s wallet. He held the little white sweet in his hand and then held it to his head and he said bless you, bless you, bless you over and over and walked backwards stumbling into his own front door again. The boy stuck his cigarette back into his mouth, turned to the girl in the dark street steaming with green smoke, and smiled.