Going Down Slow

by John Metcalf

  David looked at the diagram again.

  “Think we can work it?” Garry said.

  The doorbell rang.

  As David went down the passage he said over his shoulder,

  “I hope your uncle wasn’t . . .”

  “Hardly knew him,” called Garry. “It’s one of those family things – my mother . . .”

  David opened the door and saw Susan.

  “Hi,” she said.

  David grimaced and shooed at her with his hand.

  West-lake, he mouthed.

  “What?” said Susan loudly.

  “Is that Jim?” called Garry.

  “Westlake!” whispered David.

  “Oh, Christ!” whispered Susan. “Look, I’ve got this . . .”

  Someone gave a loud moan.

  “What’s . . .”

  “Is it?” said a slurred voice. “Is it the place?”

  Garry came down the passage.

  “Oh,” he said. “Hello.”

  “Hi, Mr. Westlake,” said Susan.

  “And what can we do for you, Susan?” said David.

  “I remembered you said once you lived on this street, Mr. Appleby, near St. Mark, and I’ve been going from apartment to apartment looking at the names and it’s been awful . . .”

  “Is it?” said the voice. “The place . . .”

  “Who’s that?” said David.

  “It’s this man . . .” she said.

  David and Garry went out onto the landing and looked round the corner at the man sprawled on the floor.

  “I was with Frances Campbell and we were drinking Cokes and reading the magazines in a laundromat and he came in and he was dancing,” she prattled, “and he took this woman’s clothes out of the drier and he was trying to put a bra on and a policeman came . . .”

  The man rolled onto his side and drew up his knees.

  “And he fell down and did that to his head and we said he was with us because the cop was going to arrest him and then later he wanted to go in a bank and it’s Saturday and he started waving his arms and Frances took off and I didn’t know where to go . . .”

  The man groaned.

  “I’m sorry if I . . .”

  Her voice trailed away, almost childishly.

  “No, that’s O.K. Don’t worry about it,” said David.

  Garry bent to look at the man’s face.

  “What a mess!” he said.

  Behind him, Susan crossed her eyes and jabbered her tongue in and out.

  David frowned at her.

  “I didn’t really know what else to do . . .” she said.

  The gash on the man’s forehead looked like shallow lips. The crust of blood was dark brown but thick beads of crimson stood along the centre of the cut. His black suit was dishevelled and dusty, his white shirt stained with blood on the collar and front. He looked about thirty years old, short brown hair. He was gripping a black leather briefcase on which was stamped in gold the initials W.P.C. On his finger, a big square ring. His left trouser leg was rucked up, revealing a short black sock and a few inches of white leg.

  “Well . . .” said David. “I suppose we’d better get him inside.”

  “Can you take his bag, Susan?” said Garry.

  “He won’t let go of it,” she said.

  “Is he basically . . . friendly?” said David.

  “Sure,” she said. “His name’s Bill.”

  “You take the other side, Garry.”

  They struggled to hoist him to his feet. He was heavily built and about six feet tall. They got him upright and propped against the wall. His head hung. The black bag pulled him down.

  “Bill?” said David. “We’re going into the house now so you can rest. Do you think you can walk?”

  “Was he like this before?” said Garry.

  “No,” said Susan. “Just since he was lying down.”

  “Bill?” said David.

  “This is the place, Bill,” said Susan. “O.K.?”

  He stiffened and forced his head up.

  “If I’ve offended you,” he said slowly, “want to apologize.”

  He swayed forward and Garry pushed him back against the wall. “Susan, can you get the door? Garry.”

  They struggled down the passage and dumped him into David’s armchair, arranging his limbs as if he were a lay-figure. He still gripped the black bag. They stood looking down at him.

  “It’ll be more comfortable on your knee,” said Susan, lifting the bag.

  “We’d better clean that cut,” said David.

  “We ought to phone for an ambulance,” said Garry. “He needs stitches in that.”

  “But if he goes to hospital like this, won’t they arrest him or something?” said Susan.

  David shrugged.

  “I wonder if there’s anyone we can call?” said Garry.

  “Look, I think we ought to clean that,” said David. “He’s too drunk to feel anything.”

  “Maybe if he’s married . . .” said Garry.

  “Yes, he is,” said Susan. “He said that every morning his wife vacuums the sheets to get rid of body hair.”

  “What?” said Garry.

  David cleared his throat.

  “Bill?” he said quickly. “What’s your other name? What does the ‘C’ stand for?”

  The man stared at him and then slowly fumbled into his top pocket and got out some cards. Garry took them from him.

  William Payne Collins

  District Representative

  Monksford Pharmaceuticals

  “Well, that’s not much help, is it?” said David.

  “We could call his company, I suppose,” said Garry.

  “But he’d get into trouble,” said Susan.

  “He might have concussion or brain damage, Susan,” said Garry. “I’m not trying to sell him for thirty pieces of silver. Look at his colour.”

  “Where do you live, Bill?” said David.

  “We should get an ambulance,” said Garry.

  “Tell us where you live,” said Susan.

  He got his hand inside his jacket and groped into his inside pocket. He brought out four plastic ballpoints and held them out to Susan, indicating Garry and David. “Compliments,” he mumbled.

  She handed them each a pen.

  On the pens was a caduceus crowned by a large M. Underneath the caduceus were the words,A Nation’s Health . . .

  “This is ridiculous,” said Garry, sitting down in the rocking chair.

  “I’m sorry,” said Susan, “but I didn’t know where else . . .”

  “I’m going to clean that,” said David.

  The man’s eyes were closed; his head lolled.

  “Can I do anything to help, Mr. Appleby?”

  “How about making some coffee all round?” said David.

  She started towards the kitchen.

  “Kitchen’s down there on your right,” said David. “Cups and coffee in the cupboard over the sink.”

  “Yes,” said Garry, getting up and choosing one of the rolls of drawing-paper. “Give him some coffee. Perhaps he’ll dance again.”

  He sat down in the rocking chair and spread the diagram.

  “Well, it might buck him up a bit,” said David. “He’s very white-looking.”

  He got warm water and cotton wool from the bathroom and started to soak off the dried blood around the cut. Trickles of water cut clean paths through the dirt on the man’s cheek. He did not open his eyes. Susan brought in coffee on a tray.

  David held the man’s head up while Susan held the cup. He tried to turn his head away.

  “Drink some,” said Susan. “You’ll feel better.”

  They managed to get half the coffee down him.

  “That cut’s not as bad as it looked,” David said.

  “Needs stitches,” said Garry from the rocking chair.

  The front door opened.

  “Oh, Jim!” said David as he came into the living room. “This is one of my students from Merrymount, S
usan Haddad, and you know Garry, don’t you?”

  “Hello,” said Jim, nodding round. “And who’s that?”

  “That,” said David, “is William Payne Collins. And he’s paralytically drunk. Susan found him in a laundromat and thoughtfully . . .”

  The man suddenly started to struggle into a sitting position. His breathing was loud and heavy. He dropped his black bag on the floor. David and Susan and Jim stood watching him.

  “What the hell’s he been drinking?” said Jim. “Gasoline?”

  Grunting now, the man worked himself forward to the very edge of the chair. Suddenly, he tipped forward from the waist, as if severed, and spewed on the floor.

  “Jesus Christ!” said Jim. “This is intolerable!”

  He walked out and his bedroom door slammed shut.

  The man hung there, a string of drool spindling from his parted lips.

  “Heigh-ho!” said Garry.

  “I’m really, really sorry, Mr. Appleby,” said Susan.

  William Payne Collins began to snore.

  “O.K.! O.K.!” said David. “That’s it. There’s no point in trying to do anything with him. We’ll dump him on the floor and leave him till he wakes up and then he can go to a hospital or home or the nearest bloody bar or whatever the fuck he . . .”

  Susan came back from the kitchen with a bowl of water and a sponge. She started cleaning up the spattered vomit.

  “Garry?”

  They heaved him out of the chair and stretched him out on the floor beside the bookshelves. David undid his collar and pushed a cushion under his head.

  “I don’t think it’ll stain much,” said Susan. “It’s mainly the coffee.”

  “On this carpet,” said David, “it couldn’t matter less. Scrub much harder and you’ll be through to the floorboards.”

  “Got any air-freshener?” said Garry, opening the window.

  “I feel really awful about it,” said Susan.

  “Well, don’t,” said David. “It’s not your fault he threw up. And it doesn’t matter anyway.”

  “But I brought him here,” she said.

  “It’s perfectly O.K. Susan.”

  “We’ll probably get to like him,” said Garry.

  “I ought to pour this down the toilet,” she said.

  “On your right,” said David, pointing.

  When she came back into the living room, she said, “I put some bleach in the bowl and left it in the tub. I don’t think it’ll . . .”

  “It’ll be cleaner than it’s ever been before,” said David.

  “Well . . .” she said.

  “Yes,” said David.

  “I suppose I’d better be going . . .”

  “O.K.,” said David. “And don’t worry about him. He’ll be just fine when he wakes up. Sadder but wiser, as they say.”

  “Bye, Mr. Westlake. And sorry I disturbed you.”

  “Goodbye, Susan.”

  David walked down the passage and opened the door for her. As he did so, she puckered her lips at him in a mimed kiss; in reply, he rolled his eyes heavenward. Then pulled back quickly as she brushed her hand against his cock.

  “Bye, Mr. Appleby.”

  “See you on Monday,” said David as she started down the stairs.

  She wasn’t wearing a bra again.

  “Well . . .” said David, as he went back into the living room.

  “Incredible,” said Garry.

  “Never a dull moment, as they say,” said David.

  Garry closed the book he’d been looking at.

  “If you’d asked me,” he said, “which single kid in Merrymount would be most likely to find a transvestite drunk in a laundromat and take him to a teacher’s house, Susan Haddad would have been my first choice.”

  “Ah, well,” said David. “It’s all part of life’s rich pageant.”

  Garry shook his head.

  “And her friend as well,” he said. “What’s-her-name. Frances! I mean, what other kids go to laundromats to read old magazines?”

  “Actually,” said David, “she’s very bright. They both are.”

  “Sure,” said Garry. “She’s probably the brightest kid in Merrymount. I had her last year for grade ten history. But it’s all wasted.”

  David shrugged.

  “She never did any assignments,” said Garry, “just sat there reading novels.”

  “Good novels?”

  “Umm?”

  “Who is this speaking?” said David. “Surely not Our Man from Summerhill?”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake!” said Garry. “That’s got nothing to do with it. It’s a matter of intelligence. We’re already operating in a system – and the way she behaves – well, it’s just unintelligent. She’ll probably flunk her matrics if she’s carrying on the way she was last year.”

  “Well,” said David. “It’s her funeral. I don’t suppose there’s much you can do about it.”

  “It’s the waste,” said Garry. “Ever seen her Cumulative Record?”

  “What, Kardex things?”

  “And the file in guidance. Incredible. Trouble right back to grade six. Bright as hell, but you can’t do anything with her. You ask Brunhoff for that file sometime – drunk in art classes, a gallon of wine found in her locker, breaking into McPhee’s office with one of the West Indian kids . . .”

  “When did she do that?”

  “Oh, this was all grade eight. Imagine!”

  “Why did they . . .”

  “Stole the strap and the punishment-book and then – yeah, O.K. – but it isn’t really all that funny,” said Garry.

  “Highly public-spirited,” said David.

  “Yes, O.K. In one way it is, but . . .”

  “We should put her forward for the Lamp of Learning Award: Special Services.”

  “But it’s not an isolated thing, you see. It’s part of a pattern. And don’t forget that breaking and entering was involved.”

  David pulled a serious face.

  “They stole money, too,” said Garry. “And then she’s run away from home three times and there’ve been two arrests under age in a licensed jazz club, suspected drug-use. It just goes on and on. You take a look sometime. A real self-destructive pattern.”

  “Neonates,” said David.

  “What?”

  “Psychology textbooks.”

  Garry shrugged.

  “It’s all there,” he said. “Promiscuous, too, if you can believe the books.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” said David. “I rather like her.”

  “Me, too,” said Garry. “She’s an attractive person. And she’s damn good-looking. But just be a bit careful, that’s all.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, coming to your apartment and that sort of thing. She’s a student and you’re a teacher.”

  David pulled a face.

  “It puts you in a vulnerable position,” said Garry.

  “You were here,” said David.

  “People talk, you know,” said Garry. “She tells a few kids she was at your apartment . . .”

  “Oh, come on!” said David.

  “You didn’t know Pete Russell, did you? He was at Merrymount three years ago. He went to Ottawa on the bus with the Senior Girls Basketball Team and he was sitting next to one of the girls on the way back. That’s all. Chatting to her. But rumours started about him and the Board transferred him at the end of the year. And the next year, his contract wasn’t renewed. He’d been inspected a lot and they suddenly discovered he was incompetent.”

  “Typically shitty of them.”

  “Sure,” said Garry. “But that’s the way it is. And please don’t tell me it shouldn’t be.”

  David said nothing.

  “Oh, I know what you’re thinking,” Garry said. “You think I’m being cautious and petty and anti-human and . . .”

  “Look, I didn’t say . . .”

  “And you’re damn right! I’m married and I’ve got a kid.”

  �
��Fair enough,” said David.

  “It’s the one thing,” said Garry. “A whole career . . .”

  David nodded.

  “Christ!” said Garry. “Some of those guys at Merrymount won’t even see kids alone in their classrooms unless the door’s wide open. Did you know that? Girls or boys.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” said David.

  “Each to his own,” said Garry.

  David nodded.

  There was a silence.

  William Payne Collins burbled on.

  “Still,” said Garry, “no damage done.”

  “Anyway,” said David, “how about a scotch?”

  “Quarter to two,” said Garry. “No, I’d better be moving.”

  “A small one,” said David.

  “No,” said Garry, getting up. “I’ve got to pick June up at her mother’s and we’re supposed to be going down to Eaton’s.”

  “You haven’t time for a quick lunch? A sandwich?”

  “I’ll take a rain check,” said Garry. “Look, about the play. Think about it and take a look at the diagrams and call me tomorrow? If you think it’s O.K. we can get a Monday evening rehearsal put on the Bulletin.”

  They went down the passage to the door.

  “God, it smells out here!” said Garry.

  “So,” said David. “I’ll call you on Sunday. Tomorrow.”

  “In the morning,” said Garry.

  “See you, then.”

  Garry turned on the stairs and said, “If we do it on Monday, we won’t be finished before seven, seven-thirty, so would you like to have supper with us afterwards?”

  “Fine,” said David. “Thank you.”

  “And then I can give you a lift home.”

  “Perfect,” said David. “I’ll look forward to it.”

  Garry saluted, and was gone.

  Chapter Seven

  The bell rang.

  The day’s last class began to drift in.

  With the opening performance of Night Haul at eight p.m., David found it difficult to concentrate on teaching. And the exam was squatting on his mind; a day and a half to go. It was beginning to look as if diarrhea would have to strike tomorrow.

  Sitting on the desk in front of him were copies of The Teacher’s Handbook for Use in Quebec Protestant Schools and Early Days – A Memoir – the prescribed texts for the Permanent Certificate exam. He had been carrying them all day. On Saturday morning he would be sitting the exam for the third time. But this time he really intended reading the books. During the course of the day, he had mastered two pieces of information: the legal maximum of chairs allowable in one classroom and the best methods of assisting in developing good attitudes to health.