Stone Woman

by Bianca Lakoseljac

  But what does it matter? She and David never did see each other as more than friends. What happened between them that night had nothing to do with how they feel about each other. She had pushed that memory out of her thoughts. Now, she and David are on a mission — the antiwar movement. She worries when he sneaks across the border. If he gets caught, he’ll be jailed. As long as he remains in Canada, he is safe.

  Every once in a while, though, her memory takes her back — back to the scene with the drunk and drugged gang that night. She had tucked this event away in a compartment of her private life she keeps separate from her public one. In her mind, she carefully scrutinizes every decision, gesture, and word, against these two lives she lives — each exclusive of the other, yet both continuing in parallel universes — as if uniting them would trigger an inner atomic bomb.

  These two lives are kept in balance by one common element — David. He is aware of her public life only, and a molecule of her private one — the very molecule which, literally, conceived her private one. She could cut him out of her life. Could stop helping with the antiwar movement. Could stop the clandestine work that fuels the fears for her job and a communist label. But that is her link to David — her life-link — as vital to sustaining her secret private life as oxygen is to breathing.

  Lately, she finds herself going back to that night at the Hells Angels’ clubhouse just outside of Boston and realizes that only David could have pulled it off. He had been riding with them for a while — a fugitive in his own country. After he escaped to Canada, riding with the Angels was a way to get back to the United States and help with the antiwar demonstrations without being arrested — a way to hide. He had been dividing his time between a chapter in the US and another one in Canada, a precarious position for any Angel — and especially perilous for a draft dodger who is not a member but just a friend. David has been a master at mediating between the Angels and the bar owners, paying for damages, and bribing police officers to drop charges for unruly and drunken gang members. Rumour has it David has been squandering his inheritance and the Angels don’t mind being the benefactors. Besides, when riding with them, he transforms into a picture-perfect biker with his red hair and beard and mirrored spectacles that never leave his face. They call him Flaming Davy Do-good. In their eyes, Davy’s downfall is his cleanliness and his measure of propriety and justice — not to the Angels’ code of conduct.

  Yet that night they listened.

  One of the women had accused Anna of going after her ol’ man. After that, everything happened quickly. Several women had encircled her. One had ripped open Anna’s shirt, and they had begun tearing off her clothes. The scene flashes in her mind.

  “Wanna fuck ma ol’ man, don’ you, bitch,” a woman hisses.

  She steps toward Anna, her blood gorged face only inches away. Watery blue eyes like thawing ice, launching menace. She grins. Her canines and molars are missing. Her front teeth are stuck in her gums like an unfinished picket fence. She flicks a switchblade and presses it against Anna’s nostril.

  “I’ll make a flower out of that pig-snout,” she spits, and scratches a semi-circle across Anna’s cheek. She traces the blade to the corner of Anna’s mouth.

  A few intoxicated Angels crowd around them. One yanks the belt from his oily jeans and drops it on the floor, and the heavy buckle thuds like a hammer on the worn boards. Another unzips his fly and thrusts his hips, ready for action. Beer in hand, more Angels stagger from the bar and throng into a loose line-up. The women are clapping and whistling and yelping: “Fuck the bitch, fuck her brains out . . .” Foot-stomping and grunting, the gang-rape about to commence.

  David pushes through the crowd, grabs Anna by the arm, and drags her out of the mob, his Engineer boots reverberating like cannons, his voice barking and snarling and hissing profanities — unlike anything she’d imagined. She was his momma, and he would be the one to inflict the punishment. No one dare come near him and his ol’ lady! She never could believe they actually bought his act. After she and David had made love — to the vulgar growls and shouts of exhortation from the frenzied gang — he’d held her close all night, keeping at bay the Angels eager to “share with” and “help” their buddy. David’s barks were coarse that night. She never forgot that snarl in his voice, although she’d never heard it again. He was as much the wounded animal as she was. And she felt safe in his embrace.

  CHAPTER 15

  ANNA CRINGES. THE bar is full of bikers. From the second floor, she hears a crash of falling furniture, as if someone has thrown a chair across the room. A loud thud as if a table has collapsed. Gruff mumbling. A number of guests raise their drinks and cheer the Mynah Bird’s resident ghost.

  Someone yells: “Hey, ghost, have a beer, man. You’ll feel better.”

  Another says: “Take it easy, dude.”

  And another: “We ain’t here for no reason but fun, good time man.”

  And “Peace, man,” and that prompts many peace signs in the smoky haze and many shouts: “Peace an’ love man, peace an’ free love.”

  “Our ghost don’t like the porns, dude. He’s religious. No porn for ‘im, dude,” someone says.

  “He ain’t religious, man. Or he’d be in heaven. With God,” another says, and others join in a jumbled chorus.

  “Maybe this is heaven, dude. Whiskey an’ burgers, an’ all the beer you want. An’ girls. Maybe he ain’t a ghost. Maybe we’re in heaven.”

  “That ghost up there’s mad, man. Throwin’ furniture. We ain’t in heaven.”

  “Well, you know, that’s like your opinion, dude. Very free spirited.”

  “He don’ like nudie girlies, that’s what he don’ like. The ghost.”

  Someone yells: “Whatsa matter, ghost? Why you don’ like nudie girlies? I like nudie girlies. An’ free love. An’ peace. An’ did I say free love?”

  “Yeah, man. That’s what that ghost needs. Some real good lovin’, man. Then he wouldn’t be so angry. Wouldn’t be throwin’ those chairs ‘round.”

  “That’s free spirited of you, dude. That nudie girlie up there can give our ghost some good ol’ fashion lovin’ . . .”

  The smell of marijuana is thick, and combined with the whiff of perfume some patrons claim is dispensed by the ghost believed to reside on the second floor, it conjures up a taste of sweetness. It reminds Anna of burning incense at Saint Joan of Arc church at Bloor and Keele, except that this is anything but a church — not a house of God in any way, no. Or is it?

  It is at strange places and in peculiar circumstances that Anna finds herself contemplating God. When she is at a place of worship, she reflects on the art and the architecture and the rituals — the icons, the stained glass, and the pagan rites that have morphed into religious ceremonies. But not on God. God she searches for in bars and coffee houses, at street corners where old men and women with gaunt faces and faded eyes beg for spare change. In “needle parks” where teenagers overdose and thirteen-year-old girls sell themselves to depraved old men.

  She took her niece Jane, now a toddler, to the neighbourhood playground and found a used syringe in the sandbox. The notion that the teenagers who inject themselves might have played in that same sandbox only a decade earlier, eats away at her like rust on iron. How could she protect this child from such a fate?

  Does God venture out to Vietnam where children are burned by napalm? She wonders.

  She does not buy into the theory of God’s acolyte, the devil, being responsible for all the horror in the world — a cowardly method of explaining away and shifting responsibility. Just as she knows that her own contemplation of God’s existence does not lead to any resolution.

  She is not an atheist. She cannot deny the existence of a Supreme Being. She considers herself an agnostic. How could anyone prove or disprove the existence of God? The concept of an agnostic, always controversial and always evolving, she had inherited from her parents who w
ere followers of Thomas Huxley. But she had not been indoctrinated by them — she was to make her own choice when old enough. Now, she finds solace in this noncommittal position about God and sees no reason to change. Yet, every once in a while, she senses a presence. Presence within my own thoughts. Is it the spiritual side of me, the divine? My conscience? She wonders. Is that my God? To her, places of worship offer a glimpse into a philosophy on life and existence — an expansion of her horizons. But when she inhales the fragrance of a rose, or glimpses a smile on a child’s face — she thanks her God.

  More people pour in and the bikers blend with hippies, students, artists, business people, and tourists. Soon they tune in to the debate with the resident ghost — offering to appease it with beer or advice. Some patrons claim that a prankster upstairs is set up by the owner to amuse and draw the crowd. Others declare there must be some form of energy. A restless spirit? Anna is uneasy. And it has nothing to do with the ghost. She is uneasy about the living unquiet type — there are too many bikers. They seem to be everywhere.

  She checks her watch. David should be here by now. She is having second thoughts about renting her apartment to Ricky — taking in a deserter. She’ll give David a few more minutes and, if he doesn’t show up, she’s leaving.

  David rushes in and catches sight of her, and she wonders if he has some ancient mariner compass implanted in him to be able to spot her so quickly in this hazy cauldron of people and smoke and glimmer of Chianti candles. He signals to give him a moment and makes his way to the band. After a brief chat with a lead guitarist, the music stops.

  David takes the microphone and announces that he has some very sad news to share. “A great man, a singer-songwriter, a folk-musician and an inspiration to many — is dead. If I tell you his guitar carried a slogan, ‘This machine kills fascists,’ you’ll know who he is.”

  A murmur passes through the crowd. Glasses clink along with words of regret. Of praise. “Here’s to you, Woody, wherever you are. You’re the man, Woody. You rock, man.”

  David says into the mike. “Woody Guthrie died last night. After a long and cruel illness.” He invites everyone to join him in a moment of silence in honour of this American icon.

  Afterwards, David says: “I’m sure many of you know that Woody’s most famous song is ‘This Land is Your Land.’ He wrote the American version, and it’s been adapted by our new homeland here.”

  He waits for the applause to subside, then continues. “On the typescript submitted for copyright of ‘This Land Is Your Land,’ Woody wrote: ‘This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don’t give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that’s all we wanted to do.’”

  Again cheers and shouts of affirmation swell through the bar.

  David says into the mike: “Just for the record, as we speak, a number of organizations claim copyright for many of Guthrie’s songs.”

  The crowd boos and hisses.

  The band begins to play “This land is your land . . .” and everyone stands up to join in the lyrics.

  When the song is over, another version of Guthrie’s hymn, “The Travelers,” popular with Canadian folksingers, gushes out.

  When Anna stops singing along, she raises her arms toward the smoke-filled ceiling, and cries out: “Bet you enjoyed this? Ha?” She turns. David is now next to her. He lifts his eyebrows and says nothing and she is glad. She couldn’t exactly explain her conversation with her God, could she?

  Suddenly the answer she has been looking for comes to her. Woody lived life his way — for his music and the causes he believed in. Not unlike Ricky. And in a way, not unlike her own. Except she feels crippled by fear — fear of openly supporting the antiwar movement, of being ostracized by her coworkers, of losing her job, of being labelled . . . No, I will not be ruled by fear, no.

  CHAPTER 16

  August

  LIZA STEPS OUT of the elevator at her fifteenth floor office at College and Bay. Balancing a coffee cup in one hand and a briefcase along with a small bouquet of pink roses from her garden in another, she passes a police officer standing by the Department of Culture’s double panel doors, flipping through his notebook. She enters the office, nods good-morning to the receptionist, checks her message box, and proceeds to her desk, anxious to finalize the Symposium progress report before the department’s weekly Monday morning staff meeting.

  She rushes to the ladies’ room and fills a vase with water for her flowers. A few minutes later, notes spread out on her desk, she is typing the report and is startled by the receptionist’s rapid double knock on the door.

  “Sorry to interrupt, Liza, but there’s a police officer asking for you.”

  Liza shrugs, puzzled, picks up the vase with roses and inhales their fragrance, needing a few seconds for the words to sink in. Walking toward the reception area, they exchange questioning glances.

  The policeman standing by the front desk looks up. “Miss Liza Grant?”

  It’s the same officer she had passed in the hallway —six foot four, trousers too short, as well as his jacket sleeves. If it were not for his dark bushy eyebrows, he would look more like a high school student in a poorly fitting band uniform. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other nervously as if it’s his first day on the job.

  Suddenly, Liza recognizes that look. Of course, he’s the officer who carded me at Yorkville. The same officer whose bike got decorated with tulips at the Love-in. He wore a better fitting uniform, then. And his buzz-cut has grown out.

  Liza extends her hand. “What can I do for you, officer?”

  He tilts his head and squints an eye, and she realizes that he might recognize her as well. But their Yorkville encounter was at night, and she was dressed very differently. At the Love-in, she was practically “masked” and part of the crowd — he did not notice her.

  The phone rings and the receptionist picks up. “She is not available right now. Can I take a message?”

  Palm over the receiver, she turns to Liza. “There is a reporter calling from the lobby. Wants to talk to you. From The Telegram.”

  “A reporter? What about?”

  “Didn’t say. Sounds rather pushy. I’ll tell him you’re in a meeting.”

  The receptionist continues into the receiver: “You need an appointment, Sir. Miss Grant is in a meeting.”

  She looks at Liza, exasperated. “He’s not there any more. Sure hope he’s not on his way up.”

  Liza turns to the policeman. “Officer?”

  “You need to come with me to the station, Miss Grant,” the policeman says. “We need you to make a statement.”

  “Me? A statement? About what?”

  “I’ll explain on the way.”

  Liza glances at her watch. “Officer, can’t this wait? I have a meeting at ten.”

  There is a loud knock at the door and the next moment the door swings open and a flash lights up the monochrome interior. Two men stumble in as if someone is chasing them. One is holding a camera and the other a microphone.

  “I’m looking for Miss Liza Grant! I’d like a few words with her!” The reporter thrusts the microphone to the receptionist’s mouth. “She works for the Department of Culture. Correct? She is on the Symposium Committee. The High Park one. Correct?”

  The receptionist stands up. “Please leave these premises or I’ll call security.”

  “Just a short interview. Five minutes. Which way is her office?”

  The receptionist sits down and dials. “Security? Fifteenth floor, please, fifteen o’two. Department of Culture. A newspaper reporter’s trying to muscle his way in.”

  “Miss! She is on the Symposium Committee? You could confirm this, couldn’t you?” The reporter jabs the microphone at her.
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br />   The receptionist places her hand on the mike. With a disgusted look on her face as if the microphone and the reporter’s hand that seems glued to it were contaminated, she pushes it away.

  Liza and the policeman stand in silence, taking in the confrontation.

  The receptionist calls out to the policeman: “Officer, can you please do something? These reporters have no permission . . .”

  Seeing the policeman, the reporter and the photographer excuse themselves and quickly back out of the door and into the hallway, still apologizing as the door closes behind them.

  A smirk of satisfaction flashes on the officer’s face. He takes on a confident stance as if he’d just won a boxing match.

  “Officer, what’s this about?” Liza asks.

  “We need to talk to you. About the last time you were at the Symposium site. In High Park. If everything was in order. That nothing was missing.”

  “I visit every Friday for the report update. And I live just a few blocks north of the park. I’m there every spare minute I get.”

  “You know the sites very well, then.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Last night, a block of stone was stolen. A large block. Belonged to one of the artists.”

  “What did you say? That’s preposterous!”

  “That’s what some others said. Who’d steal a block of stone? But it’s gone.”

  “That stuff weighs tons. It’s not like somebody just walked in and took a rock from the park. It can’t be!”

  “We think it’s a professional job.” The officer’s voice drops an octave. He straightens up and takes on an authoritative tone. “It had to be. They’d need a truck and a mini crane.”

  “That’s impossible. What kind of stone?”

  “We believe it was a large block of marble. White Carrara.”

  “Have you been to the site, officer?”