Pallbearing

  “Ma, come on.”

  “I’m just saying you should worry more about your own business than mine.”

  “I know, Ma. But I think this will be good for you.”

  “You’re telling me what would be good for me?”

  Mark sighed and slumped, like jelly freed from its mould.

  Barb shuddered.

  Her son said, “Look, I got to run.”

  * * *

  Barb hadn’t seen much of Mark after they’d fought over the divorce and her attempts to prove his dad was a scumbag. He came by on holidays, but never seemed to want to be there. Eventually he just starting calling instead. He had always favoured his father; she didn’t need him in her life.

  Barb spent a few years trying to get enough money together to move out of the trailer park, but ran up against endless setbacks. Her car was stolen, probably by one of the druggies in the park. Then the park flooded and she had to re-floor her trailer, only to find out her insurance wouldn’t cover it after the work was done — they considered flooding a known risk of living there. And she was forced to pay a large fine or serve jail time after her ex reported her for violating the restraining order, even though she had a perfectly good reason for being in his subdivision. The judge did not believe that she was visiting her Avon lady. “Don’t they come to you?” he’d asked.

  Eventually, she settled into a routine. She woke up in the morning, went to the coffee shop downtown, and then to work. She stayed late, ate at the Denny’s on the highway, and got home in time to watch an hour of TV before falling asleep.

  But then she got laid off. She was given a small severance, enough to carry her to when her retirement would start coming in if she lived cheaply. There wasn’t money for much, so she started spending her days inside. TV was cheap; she watched a lot of it but found daytime TV distasteful — people airing their problems on national TV, reminding her of her neighbours. She spent her days rolling her eyes in disgust and flipping over to the news, only to flip back to see what new low these shows could deliver.

  A couple of months into her forced retirement she heard a car idling outside her window. She leaned over the back of her couch and looked through the curtains, then got on with her day without a second thought. A few days later, she heard an idling car again. It looked like the same car, and it was around the same time of day, she thought. A few days later, there it was again. This time she knew for sure it was the same one, and the same time. She was ready for it the next day.

  She watched it pull into the trailer park through a crack in her curtains. She instinctively ducked when it came to a stop at the intersection, then felt silly and looked up. The Anderson boy from trailer 34 was handing a bag through the window. She couldn’t tell, but it looked like he got something small back. Then the two did some sort of slap, high-five handshake thing. The Anderson boy left, and the car turned around in the intersection, hopping up on Barb’s lawn. At the very last minute, Barb thought she should get the licence plate. Between the car pulling away and her finding a pen and an envelope to write on, she only managed to get three letters: AFG. She wasn’t sure what to do with that information, but thought it might be important.

  The car came back the next day. She marked down the time and got the full licence plate. It happened every Monday to Friday. She started keeping half an eye on the window while she went about her business, watching for the drop, hoping to see proof of her suspicions that it was drugs.

  She started noticing other things though. One day, a car entered the park and stopped a long time at the sign before it turned in and drove slowly out of sight. Under a minute later, it appeared again from the other direction, turned slowly, and left the park. She wrote the plate number down just to be safe; that was certainly a suspicious way to drive.

  Soon, Barb bought a notebook and drew columns for plate numbers, arrival times, departure times, and notes, where she wrote things like “Drove slowly, looking,” or “mailman,” or “Indians.” She left the notebook open on the back of the couch while she craned around to look through the window.

  A month in, she started to get a serious ache in her arm and back from all the twisting. It was then that Barb rearranged the house. She moved the couch to the opposite wall. She got a small writing desk from her bedroom and placed it under the window, with a kitchen chair beside it. Then she set up the TV where she could see it while sitting at the desk.

  She filled up the first notebook in two months.

  * * *

  “It’ll free up your days.” Her son had wedged his body in between the desk and the wall, groping for the sockets while staring at nothing. “You can get out of the house. Walking will be good for your back.”

  “You’re a doctor now? I can barely get across the room.”

  Barb was livid. He’d come in, dropped off the groceries, and gone right for her desk. She had told him not to mess with anything but he’d just done it. His stupid fat body looked like a lump of dough slopping down the wall. She stood above it, wishing she were big enough to haul him out like when he was a toddler.

  “Ma, you got to go out every now and then. It’s better for you than sitting around.”

  “And you, when do you go out? When do you get exercise? What do you know about it?”

  His head slumped to the desk, but then he pulled himself up. He sat down in the chair. Barb wasn’t sure it would survive his bulk. He started opening windows on her computer.

  Barb said, “Don’t mess with that. I need to be able to find my programs.”

  “I’m just going to set up the webcam.”

  “Last time you were on it, everything disappeared.”

  “Ma, the computer updated. The folder icons just changed. Everything was where it was.”

  “Well, I couldn’t find them. What’s that, what are you doing?”

  “Just downloading a program, don’t worry.”

  “Am I going to get hijacked? I get warnings.”

  “You’re not going to get hijacked.”

  “How do you know? I hear all the time about them tying up your computer, holding it hostage.”

  “Ma, if ‘they’ hold all your 1950s murder mystery programs hostage, I’ll come over and replace them.”

  “How can you talk to me like that, I’m your mother.”

  “I know, Ma.”

  Things popped up and disappeared all over her screen. She was surprised at how quickly her son’s fat fingers could type; it was like watching sausage links flap in the wind. No wonder he couldn’t keep a girl. She briefly thought of his father’s meaty mitts pawing at her.

  “What’s that? Who can see that?”

  It was her, on the screen. The computer-her lagged a half-second behind real-life-her. She scowled. Computer-her scowled back.

  “Only you can see it.”

  “Because I hear about them hijacking webcams and watching.”

  “Well, once again, ‘they’ probably won’t bother. And besides, the camera will be pointing outside.” He put the webcam on her station by the window and pointed it outside. Then he pulled the curtains so that just a crack was open. The intersection appeared on her screen.

  “Now you won’t have people looking in either.”

  She sat down, then stood back up. She said, “But this is running all the time?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Won’t it cost money? The electricity?”

  “Ma, I don’t think you even know how to turn off your computer. It’s not going to cost anything extra.”

  “Sarcasm is an awful trait.”

  He sighed, but went on. “It’s motion-activated, so it will come on when a car goes by. Watch.”

  He clicked a few things and the screen went blank. They sat quietly. Neither said anything for a few minutes. Then Mark said, “Well, I guess there’s not a lot of tra —”

  A car a
ppeared on the screen. It was from the neighbourhood. After it rounded the corner, the screen went blank again.

  “So?” Barb asked.

  “It’s saved. Now let’s say that guy goes and sells everyone a bunch of those nasty drugs, I come over and . . .” He slapped the keyboard for a minute, and then the footage appeared again. He made it stop and somehow zoomed in. “There you go: FHY 863. You’ve solved the crime. And you don’t have to sit here all day.”

  “I don’t know . . .”

  “Ma, it’ll change your life.”

  * * *

  Barb had called the police once, three years before. She’d never gotten to the bottom of the Anderson boy’s drop-offs; they’d continued for six months, then stopped out of the blue. But the boy grew, and after a few years, started getting into serious trouble. He seemed to have his run of the place; his mother, who was just as bad as him, was never around. She’d hooked up with some biker, Barb heard. The boy never seemed to go to school. He came home at all hours, and people were coming to visit him all the time. Young girls wearing tank tops that showed everyone everything. The useless boys, now pretty much men, leering at the girls, all of them drinking and getting into trouble. For three weekends in a row there were parties loud enough to hear in her trailer. Her noise complaints got her nowhere and the ruckus kept her up all night while she marked down all the licence plates of the cars coming and going and thought of all the horrible things she would have done to the kids.

  The morning after the fourth weekend party, she called the police again and insisted they send someone. She had, she said, several crimes to report — and no, she didn’t want to file a report over the phone with a receptionist, she wanted to talk to a real police officer. Three hours later a police cruiser pulled up to her trailer.

  Barb was ready, waiting on her steps. Before the two officers got out of the car she told them about the drug deals, the noise, the parties. The young people, the sex, the drinking. She said she had proof and brought them inside where she showed them the book. She explained about the cars coming and going, the drug dealing. She told them about the noise and how it was the Anderson boy and all the trouble he brought with him. The officers had started to write down what she said, but by the time she was done, they had both closed their notebooks.

  The two officers looked at each other before the older one responded. “You write down every car’s licence plate?”

  “Not every one. Just the suspicious people.”

  He flipped through her book. She reached out and grabbed it. The officers exchanged a look.

  “They’re bringing drugs in here.”

  “This isn’t proof, ma’am; it’s just a bunch of licence plate numbers.”

  “But I see them.”

  “Look, we can’t do much with this. But we can go talk to the kid — Anderson, was it? — about the noise. And we can keep an eye on things.”

  They left her after she explained to them they were doing things the wrong way. The cruiser drove around the corner toward the Anderson’s trailer. Barb went back inside to her station by the window. A few minutes later, the police drove out. One of the officers flashed her a thumbs-up before they turned.

  A few minutes after that, the Anderson boy’s car pulled up to the intersection. He rolled down the window and held up his middle finger. She stepped away from the window.

  * * *

  She saw her son pull up to the trailer. He didn’t take anything out of the car, but did walk across the lawn to straighten the rocks that formed the border of her garden. He waved at her and smiled his stupid, slack grin.

  He came in without knocking and said, “Hey Ma, I thought you might like to come grocery shopping with me today. It would be good for you to . . . Ma, where’s your computer?”

  “I packed it up. It’s more trouble than it’s worth.”

  Mark let his arms flap down. They didn’t hang straight; they couldn’t with his gut sticking out the sides the way it did. He said, “Ma, I’m trying to help you. You need to get out of the house more.”

  “You’re one to talk. You should get out of the house more. Look at you. How did I end up with a son who could let himself go like that?”

  “Ma. Just shut up a minute.”

  “How dare you!”

  He ran his hand over his forehead. “Ma, I’m really trying here. You got back in touch with me; we’re seeing each other again. I want to help, but you’re being real awful. I mean, you’re becoming a shut-in.”

  “Better a shut-in than a fat slob.”

  “Jesus, Ma. Look, I know I’m carrying a few extra pounds. But that’s not what we’re talking about. You’re just going to sit here and stare out the window recording licence plates so you can report crimes that don’t happen? What’s the point in that? I want to help you, Ma.”

  She was surprised that he was shouting; he never shouted. She wasn’t sure what to do, so she let her head fall down and she began to cry. Quiet dignified sniffles into a tissue she plucked from a box on her desk. Her son didn’t move.

  Barb bent down again and sobbed harder. When she didn’t hear him moving, she said, “It’s just . . . it’s been so hard for me, you know?”

  Mark said, “You know, Ma. Dad said you’d do this.”

  She stopped crying and looked up. “Don’t you bring your father into this.”

  “He knows you. He said you’d fight and bully, and if that didn’t work you’d cry. Just like when I was a kid. Just like when you were married.”

  “How could you listen to that lying, cheating —”

  “You know what, Ma? I’m done with this. I thought we could see each other, have a relationship again. But you have never once been anything like nice to me. It’s not worth it for me. I’ve got to go.”

  “But my back . . .”

  “If you packed up the computer and threw it out, you’ll be fine to pick up groceries. Bye, Ma.”

  Barb sat on the couch and watched Mark’s car leave.

  Her son, she’d always known, was ungrateful. Always had been. And she didn’t need him coming around anyways. His girth making her home look small, heating up the room with rancid body smells barely masked by his terrible deodorant. Just like his father. And why bring him into it? What did Mark know about his father? But he’d side with his dad, of course; he was his father’s son. If she hadn’t carried him nine months, she’d have been sure he wasn’t hers. He certainly didn’t get much from her.

  Barb’s train of thought was broken by a car pulling into the trailer park.

  Little to Lose

  When the bill came, Debbie was relieved to see the waitress had included the seniors’ discount without prompting. She went over to the ATM and punched in sixty dollars and got an insufficient funds message. She tried forty. Two bills shuffled out at her. The slip let her know she was just eight dollars away from the limit of her overdraft.

  Back at the table she made a show of carefully looking over the bill and then her money while the waitress waited. Debbie said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t take out enough money. I need to hold on to this cash” — she held up the two twenties — “but I could use some change.” She bit her lip like she was puzzling out a problem. “So, can I put eight on my debit, then have you break this twenty for the rest? Is that okay?”

  The waitress didn’t care.

  Debbie left the restaurant and walked across the parking lot. She had thirty-eight dollars in cash and her overdraft was at its limit. Her Visa was at ten thousand, with a minimum payment due the next week. Her other credit cards were maxed out at five and six thousand dollars, but their payments weren’t due for three weeks, so she didn’t have to worry about them. Her paycheque was coming in later that week, but it would only just cover rent and not any of the bills, which were so far behind she couldn’t even think about them — which reminded her that she did have to worry about the car
insurance, even though there was really nothing to do about it and she’d been driving uninsured for a month anyways. The main thing was the minimum payment on her main credit card: fifty dollars. An amount she was twelve dollars short of.

  The thirty-eight dollars cash she had was as good as useless since it wasn’t enough to actually cover any of the bills, so she thought she might as well try to make something of it. By then she had walked across the parking lot and crossed the street to where the town’s tiny casino was housed.

  She walked through the sliding doors onto the thick electric-patterned carpet. She tried to slip by the security guard while he chatted with two regulars, but he caught her eye and smiled. “Hold on there, miss,” he said. “You look too young to be coming in here.” She made as if to pull her wallet out of her purse and the guard just laughed and waved her by, saying, “Nice to see you again, Debbie. Good luck.”

  She went straight to the bank of quarter slots near the back wall, ignoring the five-dollar machines by the door. The payouts on those were big, but the money disappeared too quick; if she could play longer, she had a better chance of winning, Debbie figured. Six machines grouped together were tied in with a TV show she liked. She fed a twenty into one and her credits appeared at the bottom of the screen. She pressed the Bet Max button.

  Shapes on the screen spun while the theme from the TV show played quietly in the background, blending in with the noise of all the other machines. The shapes settled into five columns and rows, and red lines appeared connecting the patterns that matched. Her credits went up. She played on, sometimes three or four lines connected, sometimes none. When half her money was gone, Debbie switched to the next machine over and started betting less. Less risk meant less payout, but she could play longer. She kept at it and then everything lit up and the machine said, “Bazinga!” Everything connected, but she had only bet on two lines. Her credits went up, but not as much as they could have. She was angry at herself for the missed opportunity. She started betting more and her credits went steadily down to zero.