by Méira Cook
“Every day should come with trigger warnings and spoiler alerts and age restrictions! Not to mention helpful advice from the goddamn Surgeon General,” she yelled, banging out of the office.
The following day her husband, together with a young woman — “the Hitchhiker” — was killed in a highway collision. There had been no warning signs.
But Brodsky was unmoved by Maggie’s bereavement and responded to her copy by editing out every last syllable but one. His red pencil moved swiftly over the page, scrawling out phrases and lines and eventually whole paragraphs. In the end, only the half word can was left intact, briefly parting the Red Sea of “What if?” and “Why me?” and “Who knows!”
In Maggie’s absence, but presumably in sympathy with her tragic loss (not to mention the news staff’s commitment, equally, to freedom of the press and wasting time), the office divided into anti-censorship lobbyists and cancer advocates, neither faction realizing that they were basically on the same side. Brodsky tried to toss a dollar into the swear jar just to give himself some leeway but Miss Leonard fished it out again.
“You don’t get to cuss on credit, young man,” she chided.
But even without Brodsky’s prepaid contribution the swear jar filled up then brimmed over. Miss Leonard clapped her hands in delight; she was relentlessly good. As good as she was homely, Shapiro’s father had always maintained. She volunteered at the Mission on weekends and stuffed envelopes for World Vision in her free time. Now she turned her gleeful attention to the brimming jar, which she planned to run down to the credit union first thing on Monday morning.
“Enough money for a goat!” she sang out. “I know of a certain Kenyan subsistence farmer with limited access to grazing pasture and no clean water supply who is going to be pleasantly surprised.”
On days when his aged parents’ custody battle got the better of him, Brodsky walked the four blocks to Shapiro’s house. The neighbourhood was made up of Tyvek-covered condo conversions, thirties-era apartment blocks, and baggy old, energy-leaking houses that neither man could have afforded in today’s market. The shops on the main street reflected the residents’ preoccupation with yoga and nostalgic vinyl records, knitting yarn, hemp products, and fair trade coffee, a takeaway cup of which Brodsky was now staring into glumly. Today he was in mourning for his childhood and hadn’t put razor blade to face for three days.
“Neither of them wants me,” he complained. “They’re fighting to waive custody.”
The bottom half of the copy editor’s face had come in nicely, but with an unexpected nod to the red-headed Cossack who must have inveigled his way into the heart of a long-ago female Brodsky. Shapiro wondered how it must feel to wear your family’s shameful past emblazoned upon your lower lip, but before he could inquire, his wife came in to offer her condolences.
“No one died,” Brodsky protested.
Allie gestured at his nubby ginger cheeks, pretending surprise. But her malice pre-empted her surprise and it was an unsuccessful subterfuge. After Allie had been ousted from the company of men, Brodsky pretended to comfort his friend for having married such a savage woman by wondering aloud at the quality and hue of Shapiro’s future beard.
“For when you have to sit shiva for the fishwife,” he explained.
The two men mooched about, drinking beer and watching SportsCenter while discussing stubble and second-day-itch and the verdant, manly bushel that represented a full week’s mourning. Although he would later attempt to assuage his conscience over his wife’s premature death, at least — momentarily — her death in his heart, Shapiro was intrigued by the prospect of his shiva beard. So much so that in no time at all he grew resigned to his bereavement.
But the truth was, Shapiro had more than a passing acquaintance with the rites of mourning. His mother and father had died within a year of each other. One day, almost without warning, Shapiro, an orphan, found himself standing at his father’s graveside, his shirt ritually torn, his hand on a shovel, ready to throw the first clod of earth on the coffin. As Rabbi Zalman began to intone the mourner’s prayer, Shapiro remembered his father in the throes of his final illness, his frail body shaking with the effort of words that had jammed in him like rotting river ice. How many words and for how long had they stopped up the flow of his love?
An editor, a reader all his life, a poetry lover, it was ironic that the old man had always used words so judiciously, so sparely. And it was words that deserted him in the end, as everything had already deserted him: his wife, his sight, even his faith. His blind eyes blazing at the confluence of speech and silence, the terrible fork of that unnavigable river, Shapiro’s pious father raised his fists in the air and shook them. Take that, God!
In the days that followed, Shapiro lost his voice. It was as if his voice had pursued his father into the grave. For a month he couldn’t utter a word. Rabbi Zalman visited and instructed him to come to the synagogue and say Kaddish for his father. Even a whisper was permitted in extraordinary circumstances, the rabbi explained. But Shapiro was too sick to whisper.
March came in like a lamb, a bleating flock chasing through the streets in soft billows of drifting snow. But by the evening, opinion and the wind had changed, the last bearing down hard and fast from the north. Nope, it was the lion all right, people agreed, hurrying through the blustery, darkening city, herding their kids into minivans and white-knuckling it home through fish-tailing skids, past cars stalled at intersections and pedestrians canted awkwardly into the wind. All night, that crazy lion bounded between city blocks, behind suburban lanes, and across parking lots, roaring his damn fool head off.
At night the mercury plunged and the sidewalks froze into jagged contour maps of their former fluencies. All over the city the distinctive sounds of falling could be heard, the sound of hipbones breaking and ribs cracking. One night the weather, too, broke with an audible crack. The next day meltwater rushed through the drains and dripped from the eaves. Overnight the world had turned to water again.
It was nowhere near Grey Cup season but the sportswriter seemed to have grown restive. Apparently abandoning his dogged allegiance to the CFL he got carried away for the first time ever, grew a playoff beard, and staked his reputation on his March Madness bracket.
“Who are we and what are our dreams?” he asked.
Shapiro found himself growing irritable at Maggie’s absence. How could he be expected to run an office with no staff? One thing he didn’t miss about his errant Girl Friday was the way she raided the stationery supply cupboard to keep her messy hair in place. Pencils and bulldog clips and rubber bands! But her hair’s failure to be subdued was much like the rest of her, her upstream-swimming contrariety, her willingness to storm hell armed only with a bucket of water. Now and then the image of her taut, nicotine-patched stomach flashed into his mind, unbidden. The ruby merchant called, he imagined telling Allie. He wants a refund.
The river was melting, ice breaking off in rotting chunks and chugging heavily downstream. For once the muddy slide into spring was uneventful. For a couple of days the waterway was clogged with greasy, exhausted-looking ice floes. Then the current picked up and the river cleared itself. There was no flood, although talk of one overflowed newspaper columns and engulfed local radio stations for weeks. Speculation about the on-again off-again flood churned upstream from North Dakota where it could usually be guaranteed to swell the banks of the Red with American bombast. But not this year.
After some consideration, Shapiro ran Brodsky’s story: “City Says No To Flood.” After more consideration, he decided to punctuate the headline with an exclamation point indicative, he hoped, of the relief folks must feel at having escaped what they might not otherwise realize they were in no danger of experiencing. “City Says No To Flood!” But it was a feint in the direction of relevance and fooled no one. Every spring the readers grumbled at the this-thatness, the humdrum finger twiddle of what passed for news in this pr
airie city. Even Aunt Betsy had taken to sending in her own retractions.
Dear Editor,
Some foul copyist has edited the blueberries and raspberries right out of my famous Three-Berry prairie Muffins. There’s nothing but bananas left. It’s a tapestry!
“She means travesty,” Miss Leonard translated helpfully.
Dear Editor,
Kindly replace the ground elk meat in my traditional recipe for Wild Bison Burgers. If your staff continues to play fast and loose with my sacred ancestral heritage I shall be obliged to prostitute.
“Prosecute?” ventured Miss Leonard.
What heritage? Shapiro wondered. As far as he knew, Aunt Betsy was a hearty Mennonite lass who lived near Lac du Bonnet. Of course she might also be Miss Leonard, despite that good woman’s frequent protestations that she couldn’t cook for toffee. Except for cheap bulk meals, she hastily amended, referring, as she so often did, to her volunteer work at a downtown soup kitchen. She certainly knew her way around poor man’s soup and potato hashbrowns, she told Shapiro, but anything else was beyond her. A no-toffee deal.
Shapiro was growing increasingly impatient with disguises. It seemed that no one was who they seemed and the only emperor was the emperor of ice cream, as his father frequently declared when he ran the paper. For the first time in a long while Shapiro wondered what his old man would do in his place. He’d go out for Dairy Queen, that was for sure, but when he came back?
He decided to confront the problem head on. No more disguises!
“Who are you?” he emailed Aunt Betsy.
For three weeks she didn’t reply to his query, and when she eventually did it was in the form of an obituary: her own. Aunt Betsy wrote a splendid eulogy, a paean to a much-loved wife, mother, community activist, sustainable organic farmer, philanthropist, and culinary innovator. Dearly loved, sadly missed, always remembered. Donations could be made to the Mission soup kitchen although flowers were also welcome and should be delivered to the offices of the Riverview News where Aunt Betsy had spent many a busy hour.
“What a liar!” Brodsky exclaimed in admiration.
The deceased was especially fond of lilies, confided the anonymous eulogist.
With her customary irresponsibility however, Aunt Betsy neglected to include information about her funeral and its accompanying memorial service. As always, the most important ingredient was missing. Nevertheless, Shapiro ran the notice in Passages and the floral tributes soon began arriving. The heavy-breathed odour of lilies made everyone feel hungover but Miss Leonard walked around with a pollen-yellow nose, looking happy.
“Aunt Betsy will certainly be missed,” she murmured, lining the vases along the windowsill.
Meanwhile, the condolence cards piled up on Shapiro’s desk, tipping over every time someone slammed his office door.
The most recent door slammer was none other than Maggie Binder, who had interrupted her bereavement leave in order, specifically, to come to the office and rail at her boss. She looked pale and sick, thinner than Shapiro remembered, her bright hair flaring out like a neon halo around her wan face. Her lips were cracked and dry, and the circles beneath her eyes were as dark as the nights she must have spent acquiring them. She looked like a fallen angel, not so much brought low by sin as fallen on hard times. Is this what grief looks like? Shapiro wondered. This burnt-out woman with feverish eyes? This widow?
He tried to imagine Allie in mourning, but imagination failed him. His wife had an air of irreducibility that grief could not embellish. She was always exactly herself: no more, no less. In contrast, Maggie looked as if she’d been boiled down to her essence. Impressed, despite himself, at her theatrical decline, Shapiro pulled out a chair, an uncharacteristic gesture that appeared to goad Maggie to fury. She hadn’t come to be patted or pitied. She glared at him, tapping at his keyboard with such vitriol that the condolence cards once again toppled and this time hit the floor where they scattered in disarray. Still tapping furiously, Maggie brought up a recent email.
Dear Miss Belief,
How can I explain to my wife, Carol, that Mister Ed is not just any horse, no sirree. The wife thinks I love Mister Ed more than I love her (which I don’t). It’s just that Mister Ed talks sense — horse sense, ha ha — and the missus talks no sort of sense at all.
Yours truly,
Wilbur Post
P.S. They say that marriage is an institution. But who wants to belong in an institution, eh? WP
P.P.S. The above is not my own joke. Just wanted to let you know, on account of copyright concerns. WP
P.P.P.S. Although, come to think of it, it might be my own joke. I’ve been around a while, ma’am, is the problem. WP
“Seems to love his wife,” teased Shapiro. “Whoever he —”
“The Fucker!” yelled Maggie, punching the air so hard that she swivelled around on the pivot of her anger. “The fucking Fucker!”
She was using the word as a noun, an adjective, an honorific, an exclamation, an expletive, a curse, and a proper name. Clearly she believed that that goofball was all things to all people, all tenses, all times, and all that was wrong with the world. The ineffable Fucker.
Maggie didn’t even bother to mouth the word. Because, frankly, fuck Miss Leonard.
Shapiro came home early from work to find Brodsky in his bed. He paused in the doorway, watching Brodsky and his wife, who were too absorbed to notice him. Brodsky was either sitting on a spread-out section of last month’s Riverview News or was reading the newspaper in an unconventional manner. His wife was kneeling between the other man’s feet, her fingers busy. She seemed to be massaging both halves of his face with her exquisite, extraterrestrial fingers. As Shapiro watched, silent, on the threshold, Allie tilted the copy editor’s face toward the light, the extra ten percent of daylight savings time tacked onto these late afternoons like a sales tax. Brodsky’s chin and cheeks were covered in foam whipped to the friable stiffness of meringue topping on a slightly wobbly pie.
Allie ran Shapiro’s safety razor down Brodsky’s cheekbones and began to shave off his beard. Shapiro imagined his wife’s face as he had so often seen it, engrossed in concentration. Her eyes, he knew, would be half-closed, her mouth half open.
She turned when she heard Shapiro, glancing back at her husband over her shoulder. It was a Giaconda look, imprecise and disputative. Her eyes might have been secretly following him around the room. The notional curve of affect that didn’t quite reach her lips might have been the beginning of a smile or its slow chiaroscuro fade. She looked her calm, catastrophic look. Who do you think you are?
“Whoops,” Allie said. She was embarrassed at having been caught using her husband’s razor on another man’s whiskers. It was an unhygienic practice. Careless, unworthy of her.
When the snows melted, the grass was dun-coloured and mangy as the fur of a stray dog. Spring was always a terrible month on the Prairies: belated, belaboured. Perhaps everyone resented having survived winter, coming out of hibernation only to find themselves at the intersection of Flat and Dusty again. Right back where they’d started. One day Shapiro saw Brodsky in the neighbourhood, walking his beagle and once more peering into his takeout coffee. Oh Brodsky, why always so glum, thought Shapiro, so disheartened? As ever, Brodsky gave the impression of being on the wrong end of the leash but perhaps that was just the beagle. An alpha sort of dog. Brodsky, on the other hand, was looking down-at-heel, shabby, decidedly beta. After Allie’s intervention he’d started coming to work clean-shaven and sweet-smelling, spruce as a pine. Now Shapiro noted that, once again, the other man hadn’t even bothered to shave.
“Hey, buddy.” Shapiro tapped his copy editor jovially on the shoulder. “Who died?”
Even the beagle seemed to rear back in dismay.
Later, at Resnik’s Diner, Shapiro ran his hands through his hair. “But how was I supposed to know?” he implored.
“How did she go?” Shapiro asked.
“Terrorists,” Miss Leonard chortled, cracking herself up.
Resnik hovered, torn. “At least have something to eat,” he coaxed. “A bite.”
But Miss Leonard, looking as if biting was precisely what she had in mind, waved him away. She was unusually snappish because Brodsky, in his grief, which he claimed he had the right to express as fulsomely as possible, had flung the swear jar out of the office window.
Sixth floor, concrete sidewalk, quarters everywhere.
Another week passed before Shapiro encountered Rabbi Zalman again. Once more he was standing on the street corner, yelling into the phone.
“Chem glubzhe skorb’, tem blizhe Bog!”
Once more his words hung in the air, cursive and inscrutable. Once more he was snarled in the telephone cable of his tangled preoccupations. Then his words flipped from one language to another, rearranging themselves like fridge magnets. The deeper the grief, the closer is God! Shapiro thought he heard him cry. Was this the answer to all the questions that had been churning through Shapiro’s mind for months?
What would his old man do? Who are you? Is this what grief looks like? What’s cancer good for if you can’t lose the extra weight? Shapiro, did you even taste my sticky toffee pudding? Who do you think you are? But how was I supposed to know? What the hell is a bushel? Who was the mysterious hitchhiker? But what is resemblance? If she still wanted him would he want her back? How can you live and have no story to tell?
As always, Shapiro was stymied, at a loss. Lost. The rabbi whirled around and Shapiro noticed that the man’s beard had turned pure white. Driven snow. Fleece of the lamb. Last page of the world’s last book.