‘C’mon, Maddie, pull up a chair.’ Richie was smiling, brandishing a pair of tongs.
I sat down on the step. ‘Hi.’
‘How do you like it?’ He flipped open the barbecue lid and peered inside.
You were wearing an apron, one of Mum’s plasticized ones with a picture of Oxo cubes on the front. ‘She likes hers practically still alive,’ you said.
‘Rare, eh? Some rare meat for a rare girl.’
Was this an insult? I didn’t care. I took the steak.
Richie closed the lid, sat next to me and tapped out a smoke. ‘How do you think you’ll die?’
‘From death,’ you said, even though there was a possibility the question was directed at me.
‘No, really.’
‘Dunno. Cancer. Falling piano. You?’ You lit his smoke for him.
‘Not sure, but I sure hope I lose my marbles first.’
We all laughed at that because it sounded like something our mums might say.
The day Dad died, Richie’s mum came to the door with a bundle of chrysanthemums and a supermarket strudel. Richie had been in jail for two years at that point; Mrs. Henley had the cheerless stamina of a prisoner’s mother. This was when we were still allowed to coast around inside our shock, buffeted by its outsides, glad to be sad. Dad was gone, but we were the most there we had ever been, weren’t we? Loving each other purely, distractedly, all aglow, like a family of defeated angels. I was in a state. Still, I noticed when you cleared a space on the mantel for the sympathy card she brought.
There was a phone call deep in the night of the murder. It rang one, two, three, almost four times. Then it stopped. Later, Dad said that was around the time you went off the rails. There are times I want to believe you picked it up, then spoke, low and comforting, into the receiver, but mostly I hope whoever it was gave up and left you to your own depths and devices.
It is possible I made up the late-night phone call. Writing is supposed to be the ultimate act of empathy, but it’s not. It’s forgery; the ultimate act of a mooch.
One summer we rented a cottage in Bracebridge, and you invited Richie up for the weekend. I was eleven and beginning to chub out in the places that would eventually become curves. I wasn’t sure how to dress, or what stance I should adopt while discussing things. There were certain phrases I felt certain I should commit to memory. Smooth move, ex-lax. Yeah, you and what army? Even, Why don’t you go fuck yourself? I noted all of these diligently, then was silent and dry-mouthed when it came time for the comeback. I was mortified with my entire self. I lay on the floating dock and waited for my skin to be brown but not blemished, my hair to be blond but not brassy, my brain to be bold, never bossy. You and Richie practised ass crackers off the side, and once, when you thought I was asleep, aqua-shat next to the reeds near the shore. It’s a floater, I heard you say. Don’t let it follow you, man, from Richie.
Sunday morning we all three went out, breaststroking sloppily to the raft.
‘What’s with the pudge, Maddie?’ you said when I stopped to recline and bob around on my back.
‘Yeah. Pudgeville, Arizona,’ said Richie, and splashed me.
‘Nothing,’ I said, when I should have said nothing.
‘Nothing,’ you said.
‘Nothing,’ Richie said.
‘Nothing,’ you said again.
‘Nothing like a little pork on your fork,’ said Richie.
‘Put pork on your fork,’ you sang.
‘In Ontario!’ Richie continued. ‘Put pork on your fork!’
We reached the raft and hauled ourselves up onto the dry warm boards. I lay down on my stomach and was silent, watching you both. You took two heavy-footed strides, then straddled the air before the splash. Richie paused, shook his head to free the clumps of wet hair at the back of his neck, then smoothed the clumps back down behind his ears. That’s when I noticed. He was still wearing his watch. I took a second to rehearse, then realized there was no time. I wanted more than anything to be helpful.
‘Hey,’ I hollered, as he was preparing to jump. ‘Hey, you’re still wearing your watch!’
Richie ran his eyes up and down my body as if he were frisking me, then averted them dismissively. I understood then that I would never catch up; I could never measure up to you, to what you and he had. It was a realization that started in my gut, then spread over my body like a rash. I could feel every inch of my skin flushing, beginning to itch.
Richie lifted his wrist in the air before speaking. ‘The watch is waterproof.’ There was scorn, and something else in his demeanour. Pity? He made a splash that put yours to shame and you swam off together to a distant rock. At no time since have I felt the intense humiliation of those moments as I observed the watch glinting in the sunlight at the apex of Richie’s every arcing stroke. After all this, what you felt for me, what you might feel for me now, is still only an amalgam, a layering of what I think I know, what I seem to remember, what I observed. What still knocks me out is that this huge incident – murder, for God’s sake – seems to have gotten lost in the hazy scrabble of those years. Was it hidden from us? Partly, but we didn’t ask. Richie was one of the killers, which was unfathomable. The dead guy was gay, and like I said, we didn’t know any gay people then.
(One of the important rules when you’re writing a story is to carefully choose your moment. You should have one – and one only – pivotal, astonishing instance from which the story hangs and balances. This moment should reverberate and resonate throughout the story; it should shine. Also, more than one death is not a good idea. It’s more weight than the story can bear.
But the problem with deaths is that they line up like dominoes in the heart. Nudge at one, they all come clattering down.)
It’s not exactly a full or bristling moment I would choose to write about. (A family of defeated angels? A bit OTT, my instructor will say. And she’s right, she really is. But how do you transfer years of yearning onto the page; how do you shape your family into action, into story?) Okay, so the moment I choose is something more static, a slowing down after all the action. And it’s not exactly from childhood either, but for some reason it reminds me of the corner of my Grade 3 pillow slip, where the sateen was worn from the hours I spent rubbing it against my cheek and between my fingers.
It was a night three days after Dad died, when old snapshots still lay like bits of discarded gift wrap on the living room floor, and we were clean from the inside with grief. I found you sitting like an Indian chief on the landing, stuck between upstairs and down, and when I asked you what you were doing you said, ‘I can’t decide.’ So I sat with you until Mum woke up and found us.
‘We can’t decide,’ I told her. You were wedged into the corner, and I was kneeling by the banister, so Mum took the bottom step and settled in with her cotton nightie pushed to one side over her knees.
‘Go get the sleeping pills, Jeremy,’ she said after a while. More than a few minutes of nothing together was more than any of us could bear.
You came back with the bottle wedged showily between your thumb and pointer finger and held it aloft, staring at Mum. ‘We could take them all,’ you said, and shook the bottle appraisingly.
I shifted my bum to the side and sat with one leg stretched out like a ballet dancer. I watched you and Mum watching each other.
‘I would never do that,’ Mum said. ‘Never.’ On the outside of you and Mum was me. I waited.
‘Okay,’ you said, ‘but one extra.’ You shook the pills out like candy, and we swallowed without water. The next day, after the funeral, you were gone.
Bye Bye Flangle Nuts
‘NOW, CLOSE YOU EYES,’ Rosa said. ‘But close them as if they’re open, or you’re surprised, if you know what I mean. It’s maximum important not to bunch the lids up.’
Jeremy leaned his head back and thought
that even when his eyes were closed he had to pretend he was awake. And he didn’t need to pretend, because he was. Always. Awake.
‘That’s good, but you’re doing something totally fucked with your eyebrows now.’ Rosa smoothed one of his brows with her index finger, leaned close, possibly to kiss him or identify an imperfection, then pulled away. He heard her rifling through her instruments, pictured the glorified tackle box teeming with tiny pots and slender brushes, her irked efficiency as she worked free an eye pencil or cheese-shaped sponge.
‘Awake with your eyes closed,’ Rosa said. ‘We’re going to make you gorgeous.’
He nodded.
‘Stay still. Remind me to call Maddie about Mum later, will you?’
He nodded again.
‘Stay still,’ Rosa said.
Jeremy stayed still and thought about his sister, Maddie. He had been asleep when she called mid-afternoon – six months ago now – sleeping off the twelve beers and fearlessness of the night before. The phone rang at least eight times that he could count before Rosa picked it up. How fantastic it was to know that the racket was over with, what irreplaceable relief. He turned his head into the pillow, flipped himself over with effort and felt sleep squatting on the bridge of his nose.
‘Jer,’ Rosa called from the doorway. ‘Jeremy, it’s Maddie.’
‘She can call back.’ Dim-witted of Rosa not to know this.
‘I don’t think so.’
He hoisted himself onto one elbow and kicked some covers free. ‘Bring it here,’ he said. ‘Just toss it over.’
But Rosa had walked it over, holding the receiver in her hand like a piece of fine china, choosing her path to the bed with uncharacteristic, mincing care. So he knew then, as he had known the night before, the premonition enveloping him like scent. His father dead. I made it happen. But I took it back, I took it back.
‘What should I do?’ he asked Maddie.
‘Come home,’ she said. ‘Come home.’
‘Open,’ Rosa said, ‘and look up.’ She unscrewed the lid of a mini UFO-type disc, muttered to herself, then screwed it back on. ‘Where’s ... ’ She patted her pockets, went back to the tackle box and fished out a finger-shaped tube. ‘Up,’ she said.
It took discipline to stay like that, gaze fixed on the light fixture, fighting the distractions of country-style wallpaper, coffee maker and obsolete clipped coupons. It took concentration and a monk-like resolve. When you blinked, there was always the danger you would lose it all. Rosa smeared a thick, chilly liquid underneath his eyes, rubbed it into the soft, giving tissue there.
‘Okay, close again.’ She fingered his eyes shut. ‘We just need to get you looking even. Too bad you didn’t shave.’ Her tone was strict but merciful.
Rosa had called the bus station. Only later had he realized – with a thrill shot through with regret – that he could have chartered a plane, a high-speed train, sweet Jesus, even a taxi. A rinky-dink two-seater, a paraglider, a yellow checker, a high-class French commuter mover. From Hamilton to Toronto? Was it possible to charter a plane? Whatever. When you are drunk or someone is dead, these options open up to you. To hell with the cost, you cry, I have somewhere to be! He pulled his suitcase from the back of the closet and began to toss socks inside. Seven pairs. Would he stay longer? ‘Rosa,’ he yelled. ‘Where are all my socks?’
She had appeared beside him like a shape-shifting, dishevelled saint, pointing with good grace to the hamper. ‘They’re dirty,’ she said, ‘but we can find them.’ Thirteen pairs in total. It seemed right. He lifted the lid of the suitcase and scanned the careful balls, curled into themselves like snails. Tube socks, dress socks, work socks. White, grey, brown, navy. Did he not own any black socks? Tears pricked at his eyes.
‘You’ll need something black,’ said Rosa. ‘For the funeral. A shirt and pants.’
The funeral, he thought. It soothed him. It was something to do, wasn’t it? A goal. At the bus station, Rosa kissed him on the mouth and forehead, embraced him for too long. ‘I’ll see you in a couple of days,’ she said.
He nodded. Why not? ‘I’ll see you in a couple of days,’ he said.
The bus made a sound like a horse as it pulled into the station. Not a whinny, something more throaty, deep and full. A pissed-off horse noise. Oh, the steps up to the bus were tall! How ridiculous to have to lift your knees with such purpose simply to board. He found a seat at the back, near the bathroom, slid his case in the overhead compartment, folded his duffle bag in two like a sad sausage and forced it under the seat in front of him. He was on his way home for a funeral.
‘No,’ he had said to Maddie, meaning, Just you try to say that again.
‘Yes,’ she said. And, ‘I don’t know.’ And, ‘Maybe brain aneurysm.’ She spoke these things as if she were not joking.
He knew of a man who had died of a brain aneurysm, alone, on a fishing boat. A friend of Rosa’s father. According to Maddie, their own father’s demise had been much more demure, pastoral even. He had been feeding the birds in the backyard, bundled and magnanimous, when it happened. Yet, Jeremy couldn’t help it: in his version, it started with fish refusing to bite, a cloudless afternoon, six bottles, twist-off caps, a cooler in the bow, a tangled line and cursing. A lightning bolt came from the sky, only the sky was the inside of this guy’s head. A curse and a carp and a bolt, sound struggling to match up with light. But he knew for his father it would have been different. What he meant was there had been a mistake.
‘Okay, you’ll just feel a pressure along your brows, and some tiny sort of flicky pains. I’m just, like, tweaking and defining.’ Rosa uncapped two midget pencils, shup, shup, held them together, and then up to the light to check out their shades. ‘Your eyebrows are quite fair and sparse, really, for a man.’
He liked her talking to him like this, like he was a science project or a show dog. He liked being told what to do. And he could tell she was pleased too, happy to have made it this far in the transformation business. ‘I’ll be a cosmetics agent,’ she had confided when she first got up the guts to register.
‘You mean, you’ll sell twelve-dollar lip gloss and creams dressed up as dreams to lonely ladies-in-waiting.’
‘Maybe. So what? Besides, people like having their faces touched. And what’s with the rhyme, MC Expert-Head?’ She nudged him with her knee, stroked his cheek unprofessionally.
He had not spent the night in the same bed with her for weeks, frightened as he was by his own unwitting trances and outbursts. He would start out beside her, limbs stiff like a soldier, eyes closed in a toy-box parody of sleep. But then the curtain would part and the show would begin: his father reaching quaintly for a handful of seed, weighing the grains in his hand appraisingly, then extending his palm wide, all hope. The birds would have begun to assemble like slivers of iron gather and pause before rushing towards a magnet. One might even have attempted descent, hovered uncertainly over his father’s head, his shoulder. And then he would have felt it – what? An in-burst. A pain centred over his left eyebrow, zinging and pure. Was there, as they say, a fast-forward reel of triumphs and tragedies beginning with birth? Or one moment that floated, helium-filled, into his field of vision, occupied it fully, unapologetically, until he succumbed to the darkness? Or maybe none of this. Instead, a set of tracks in the snow – three-pronged, tiny and intent – and then nothing. Did he know that Jeremy loved him and hated him? That his son knew him, had predicted this very outcome? Did he cry out for succour or solitude? Or both?
The questions tailed Jeremy to the couch, lurked like poltergeists in the television. He was exhausted and wanted to sleep. But sleep itself frightened him. What would he see without the benefit of conscious borders and bylaws? It was important to stay in control. Nevertheless, he tried them – potions and mantras, hot baths, massage and tranquilizing drugs that sent him hurtling down a steep surface, clambering for pu
rchase. He let Rosa straddle him, with her thin middle and lovely side-winding breasts, and he rummaged around there, emerging a man momentarily, thankfully lost to himself. He would surrender for a few ragged hours and wake with a start, raging against his own body, so easily, utterly duped, so vulnerable to its own reckless rhythms.
He had not told anyone, not even Rosa. How to say it? Rosa, you know how my dad died and everything? And you know that show Carol watches with the smarmy, bad-pleated-pants dude who talks to the recently croaked? Well, I’m like that too. But that wasn’t exactly true – it wasn’t that he had predicted his father’s death. More that the possibility had overwhelmed him – and he had let it. Rosa had a pack of tarot cards she and her friend Carol stroked and fanned, laid out in crucifix patterns on the table like kids in cahoots. ‘Oooh,’ he once heard Carol crooning, ‘the High Priestess. That’s totally about opening to what could be and acknowledging the Shadow. And Death – not really death, y’know, more like taking care of unfinished business and no point avoiding the inexecration of the future.’
‘I can’t believe you’re into that crap,’ he told Rosa later as they stood spitting toothpaste down the drain. ‘There is a thing called science, you know, and if you’re not into educational TV shows, there’s this concept called common sense.’ He took her toothbrush and ran it under the water, then flicked the bristles appraisingly. Hygiene was not always Rosa’s main thing. She sat to pee, then fluttered her eyelashes winningly. ‘It’s just a different way of looking at the world, at your life, getting different angles and perspectives and, like, finding your bliss.’
Your bliss? It made his brain hot and dry to hear this.
Out the window of the bus an angry line of cars idled, the drivers shellacked and safe, singing along to someone else’s heartache. The bus inched along, and Jeremy thought of the anxiety he should be feeling, drew the shape of it in his head: something many-cornered and impossible to slot into place. An octagon: plasticky yellow edges. Or a pentagon: large white building for warriors and decision-makers. Or maybe not corners, but lack of corners. Something oversized and dense – like one of Rosa’s sponges. Sponges. They lived like squatters at the bottom of the sea. Barely lived. Squatting and feeding; soft, unlikely things. We harvest them, he thought. How odd.
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