‘What about Huff and Lund?’ Tora asks.
‘What about them? They just want me to do the work so they can punch out on time.’
Tora stares at me, looking like the shrink she’s going to be once Creative Writing goes bust. ‘You’re planning to drop out, aren’t you?’
‘It’s a possibility.’
A few weeks ago I asked Rossi why she doesn’t paint anymore. She said, ‘What for?’
‘For yourself. Milne did it for himself. The most he ever got for a painting was five hundred bucks. Everybody was chasing the Group of Seven, they didn’t give a rat’s fart about Milne.’
‘I’m no David Milne,’ she said and I wanted to shout, how do you know unless you work at it, work at something besides getting butt-scratchers to notice you? But I knew I wasn’t exactly a great example of a hard worker.
‘Kirsten’s going to murder you,’ she says.
‘Tell her to make it quick.’
Naturally there would be a lockdown on the day I want to leave early to check on Kadylak. Some borderline cases started brawling. The cops say it wasn’t gang-related, just some boys doing the payback thing. A bystander tried to intervene and got knifed. We were slipping on his blood in the hall. I had to keep reminding myself it was real. We’re not allowed to leave the classroom. It stinks of vomit, thanks to one of the concussed girl jocks. Everyone was hysterical at first, yammering on cells to anybody who’d listen, including the press, acting like it would be a miracle if we made it out alive. After calling the TV stations they called their mothers. Nicole keeps coughing and snotting in my direction. Which gets me thinking about the Black Death killing Alfonso. Isabella was next in line for the throne unless Enrique managed to snuff her. You have to wonder about all those royals smoking their siblings. Elizabeth I never named a successor because she knew it would mean the successor, or the successor’s backers, would plot to kill her. Same with a husband. She figured once she’d popped a child, the husband would off her so the kid could rule under Daddy’s control. What’s so great about control is what I’d like to know. Why can’t we LEAVE EACH OTHER ALONE?
Mrs. Freeman keeps trying to quiet the class by holding her finger against her lips and saying sshhh. Nobody pays any attention. Some of the simpletons are playing Monopoly, most of them are gaming on their cells or plugged into iPods. Mrs. Freeman, clearly agitated, keeps sitting down and standing up and peering through the window on the door. She tries to get a discussion going about the American soldier who’s hiding out in B.C. because he doesn’t want to go back to Iraq and kill innocent people and get blown up. Nobody’s too interested. ‘I think it’s great,’ I say over the racket. ‘It’s not like he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he was there, saw all those kids getting their hands and feet blown off.’
‘But he enlisted,’ Megan, the former mute, insists. ‘He has to follow orders.’ There’s no question she’s been taking SSRIS. People get aggressive on them, start spouting opinions all over the place.
‘If a few thousand soldiers had stopped following orders,’ I say, ‘maybe there wouldn’t have been a Holocaust. Soldiers are supposed to have morals and all that. They’re not machines. He thinks it’s an unjust war.’
‘He signed a contract,’ Megan says.
‘So did Hitler. A piece of paper means squat.’
‘I fucking got Park Place!’ one of the Monopoly stooges shouts.
‘Fuck you, man,’ shouts another, ‘I got fucking Boardwalk.’
The cheerleaders watch the coverage of our school on their cells. There are cruisers flashing and a crowd of parents waiting for their bundles of joy to escape certain death. Mrs. Freeman looks ready to pass out. She had a Black Panther boyfriend once who got shot in the face and took six days to die. Kirsten’s overfed mother is on TV, wearing pounds of makeup, saying how worried she is about Kirsten. ‘If the school’s not safe, what is?’ she demands.
I keep reading. Old Lovelace takes Clarissa to the opera. She gets all dreamy and says it’s the happiest day since she left her father’s house. She didn’t seem too happy in her father’s house so I don’t know what she’s on about. Lovelace escorts her to her bedroom and seizes the moment to disrobe her. She fights him off and he says she’s trying his patience. He offers to marry her which is a ruse to get her in the sack. He’s even got a fake licence. So just when she thought Lovelace was cultured and sensitive, poor old Clarissa discovers that he’s your regular sex maniac.
A cop struts in and stomps around in his bulletproof vest, checking us out. He takes a couple of butt-scratchers into the hall for questioning. Nicole coughs and snorts. I figure the Black Death is on the rebound with all those antibiotic-defying mutant bacteria. In the old days they shut down the towns, didn’t let anyone in or out. Old Isabella was cut off from her mother again. You have to wonder about all those motherless queens. Just like elephants growing up motherless, they turned nasty. Maybe I’m turning nasty. I sure don’t care who got knifed or if they’re dead. I’m sick of boys with weapons. Join the military. Do the payback thing with a suicide bomber. Take a vacation in sunny Uganda.
18
I can tell from the way the nurses are huddled that something’s up. I hoof it to Kadylak’s room but of course she’s not there. My legs wobble as I hover by the nursing station. As usual it takes them about an hour to notice me. Brenda looks up as though she’s surprised I’m there.
‘Is Kadylak okay?’ I ask.
‘She’s still in icu. We have a new patient for you to keep an eye on. He keeps pulling out his IV and scratching at his sutures.’
I follow her down the hall, past Kadylak’s room. ‘Is she still on the ventilator?’
‘I don’t know the details,’ Brenda snips, pushing open a door and pointing to a crib. ‘This is Bradley. He’s eighteen months. He had a malignant tumour the size of an orange in his abdomen. It’s important that he doesn’t pull out his IV.’ This must be why the nurses were huddled. You don’t see a baby with an orange-sized malignant tumour too often. ‘His parents should be back shortly. They’re exhausted. I told them to grab a bite.’ She marches off into the next tragedy.
I see evidence of the parents on the sofa bed: a pop novel, an Evian bottle, a hairbrush and a copy of Sports Illustrated. Was Dad really able to read about golf while they were cutting into Bradley? Or was it a cover because Mom was unable to converse or stand straight for more than two minutes? I’ve seen this before, the husband trying to keep it together while the wife flails, or vice versa. It doesn’t last long. After a week or so the demands of the living take over and they start spending less time with the kid.
Bradley doesn’t look too good. No doubt he hasn’t eaten since the surgery and babies drop weight fast. His eyes are barely open but his little hand is working at the IV. I gently pull it away and hang on to it. He doesn’t understand what’s going on, and nobody can explain it to him. I’d like to tell him to pack it in because there’s no way he’s going to make it and the treatment’s going to be brutal. He’s murmuring something and I lean over to try to hear it, hoping he has secret knowledge. There must be some reason a kid this young gets blasted by cancer. Don’t they say the wisest souls live the shortest lives? It’s the rest of us, thrashing around year after year, who are the slow learners.
Speaking of slow learners, it was quite the scene exiting the school with all those hysterical parents about. Kirsten and Nicole painted up and headed straight for the cameras. Kirsten’s mother squeezed her greasy mug in there again too. It was one big reality-show reunion. Coombs, super-jock phys. ed. teacher, started holding forth, flexing muscle, while Brimmers did pr damage control. I looked around to ascertain that Drew wasn’t about. I’d thought maybe news of bloodshed would have lured her out. Mrs. Barnfield had hightailed it to the school, was clinging to Rossi, kissing her over and over and stroking her hair while tears dripped on her name tag. It’s hard to think of her as ‘Marg.’ Marg has no idea that her baby’s pink shots are being broad
cast worldwide. She has no idea her baby spreads her legs for anything that walks. I want to protect Marg from the inevitable awakening. When she saw me, she started hugging and kissing me too. She smelled of those expensive medications she takes for her stomach. It was nice to be hugged.
Bradley’s parents return in a spat.
‘Who are you?’ Mrs. Bradley demands.
‘A volunteer.’
She stares at my hand holding Bradley’s.
‘The nurse wanted me to keep an eye on him while you grabbed a bite. He keeps trying to pull out his IV.’ I want to feel sorry for these people but they have vicious faces, although they’re probably just scared. Scared people turn vicious. Which is what’s going to happen to the six billion of us when the oil runs out.
Mr. Bradley sits on the sofa and snatches the Sports Illustrated. Mrs. Bradley takes Bradley’s hand from mine. ‘That will be all, thank you,’ she says, like I’m her servant.
‘I’ll be around if you need a break,’ I say.
‘Thank you,’ she says without meaning it. To her I’m just another clueless teen, not worthy of Bradley, and she’s probably right. What she doesn’t know is that when she gets tired of holding his hand, when it gets too frightening for her, when he starts to look emaciated, when it’s time to get her roots touched up, I’ll be doing the hand holding. I can hear the Bradleys bickering through the wall. This can’t be good for Bradley. I consider charging in there and telling them to zip it, but this would guarantee my expulsion from the floor. You have to wonder if Bradley’s yanking at his IV because he can’t stand listening to his parents squabble.
I play Crazy Eights with Molly whose father hasn’t shown up. He bought her a Black Berry and always lets her know when he’s going to be late, which is all the time. When he phones he tells her he loves her and she always says, ‘I love you too, Dad,’ like she’s on automatic. Her mother flies all over the place selling computer widgets. She texts Molly from airports and taxis.
Molly keeps changing the rules of Crazy Eights. I let it pass because she’s a seriously poor loser and I don’t have the energy to deal with her sulking. Wackoboy joins in with his version of the rules.
‘That’s cheating!’ Molly shouts.
‘It is not!’
‘It is too!’
I redirect them to the computer games. Within seconds they’re totally focused on the screens. No wonder the corporations want us hooked on media gadgets. It keeps us quiet. I dig around in my backpack for something to read and of course pull out Tilly, which stops me breathing because I don’t want to touch it if Kadylak’s going to die. I see her face all happy at the beginning when Tilly was cheerily collecting firewood. I want to see her like that again but I know the novel’s going to take us dangerous places before we end up with a wedding. This can’t be good for Kadylak. Especially after she’s been blasted by the ventilator. I dig around for Clarissa. Old Lovelace convinces a couple of whores to dress up like his ‘dear aunt’ and ‘cousin.’ They talk with tony accents and call Clarissa my dear. They kiss her cheek and pat her hand and Clarissa believes them when they say they’ve come to look after her. They dope her tea and Lovelace gets her in the sack. The whores pin her down while Lovelace rapes her.
‘Can we have freezies?’ Wackoboy asks.
‘Sure.’ On my way to the kitchen I listen outside Bradley’s room. It’s morgue quiet in there. I push the door open slightly to make sure they’re still around. Hubby’s asleep but the missus looks at me. If she were a cat, she would hiss. I close the door.
I wish Mr. Paluska was here. I used to think I looked forward to his arrival because of what happens to Kadylak when she sees him, but now I’m thinking it has to do with what happens to me. Just like all those heroines, I’m pining for some guy. Only my hero’s married and hardly speaks English.
I pick two freezies the same flavour so they can’t argue. I hand them over then cruise the unit. Scientists are saying all the crap in the environment is showing up in umbilical-cord blood. They say they can tell from looking at the blood if the child’s likely to get cancer. So this whole idea of the baby being protected by the placenta is bogus. The mother can eat right, but if she’s breathing she’s going to poison her kid.
The nurses are talking about some Iranian who set himself on fire in a Tim Hortons toilet.
‘His wife left him,’ Brenda says. ‘Took the kids.’
‘But why Tim Hortons?’ brainless Nancy asks.
‘Why not?’ I say. ‘It’s contained. He knew the fire wouldn’t spread. Plus he wanted to make news. If you want press, you’ve got to go public.’ They look at me with who-asked-you? expressions. The Iranian’s wife must have heard about it by now. She’ll probably be disgraced, stoned in the streets for forcing her husband to set himself on fire.
‘I guess people won’t be lining up for Timbits for a couple of days,’ I say. ‘It won’t last, though. They’ve got to get their sugar fix.’
I don’t know why the nurses don’t like me. Overall I think I behave pretty well at the hospital. Peggy, who’s obese and has rheumatoid arthritis, talks to me about her cats. She moves really slowly because of her fat and all the pain in her joints so I help her carry stuff. Anyway, she’s not on tonight and, without Kadylak or Mr. Paluska, it’s pretty much a desert in here. If I knew how to cry I probably would, but I haven’t cried since Alice, my hamster, died.
Back in the playroom Wackoboy and Molly are fighting over which dvd to watch. I do Eeny Meeny Miny Moe to settle it. In seconds they’re absorbed in some Disney crap. Old Clarissa’s in seriously bad shape after being raped and all that. She manages to escape the whorehouse and take refuge in a church, but a copper nabs her as she’s leaving. It turns out the madam at the brothel is charging her for not paying rent. So old Clarissa ends up in debtor’s prison. She keeps writing letters, though. And praying.
‘There you are,’ Treeboy says, blinking in the fluorescent lighting. He looks too woodsy for these pastel walls. ‘We’ve been looking for you.’
‘Who?’
‘Drew and me.’
‘You mean Drew left the house?’
‘No, but she’s been calling around.’
‘Well, you found me.’
‘Could you come home?’
‘Why?’
‘Because she wants to see you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she’s worried about you.’
‘Just call her and tell her I’m alright.’
He sits on one of the kiddy chairs, meaning his knees are up around his ears. ‘I’ll wait for you.’
‘I’m not leaving.’
‘Okay.’ He’ll sit there for hours like some kind of spider. One thing about tree sitters, they’re in no hurry.
Molly drags her IV over to him. ‘Are you Lemon’s boyfriend?’
‘I’m her friend and I’m a boy.’
‘She’s gross. You’d have to be totally desperate to be her boyfriend.’
‘I am totally desperate,’ Vaughn says.
‘Why?’
‘Don’t like the way things are going.’
‘What things?’
‘Most things. How are things going with you?’
‘I’ve got cancer.’
‘What’s that like?’ I can see she’s a little uncomfortable under his tree-frog stare, which is unusual for Princess Molly.
‘Nobody likes you when you’ve got cancer,’ she says.
‘Why not?’
‘You smell bad and sometimes you barf. And you never know when you’re going to have to go to the hospital again so nobody wants to be your friend.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you might die, stupid.’
‘We’re all dying.’
‘Not right away.’
‘You’re not dying right away, are you? Do you want to play checkers?’
I leave them to do the rounds. Most of the kids are unconscious or watching TV. A few parents skulk about. The younger childre
n can never understand why their parents don’t take them home. It wrecks the parents every time the kid asks. They stop asking after a while.
I untangle the lines of a sleeping teen who reminds me of Faith who died of septic shock after a nipple piercing. Drew called a school assembly in her honour and everybody pretended they gave a buzzard’s ass when the fact is Faith was low on the pecking order, Kirsten’s errand girl. In elementary school Faith was the only person who didn’t say it was retarded when I galloped around on my imaginary horse. I even told her my horse’s name, Feodora, and colour, palamino. Faith imagined her own silver horse and called it Star. She galloped around with Feodora and me for about five minutes before she decided it was boring. She hitched Star to a parking sign and went chasing after the popular girls. Even then they were sending her on errands, telling her to give notes to so-and-so, or tell so-and-so ‘she’s not my best friend anymore.’ Faith sometimes made it to best friend for a day but it never lasted. Anyway, you have to wonder about the nipple piercing, if she did it because Kirsten told her to. Or because she thought it might turn on some yokel. Anyway, she’s dead and forgotten. Except to her parents who must wonder how their beloved daughter could die from a nipple piercing. Unless, of course, she was driving them nuts. Dead, she can shrink back into the baby pictures, be forever adorable and free of piercings.
No action coming from Bradley’s room. I push open the door a crack even though I know it will piss off the missus. She’s unconscious on the armchair while old Bradley’s working on his IV again. I gently take his hand and wrap it around a teething ring.
Vaughn and the two kids are kneeling on the floor. At first I think they’re praying but then Wackoboy shouts, ‘Bug!’
‘What kind of bug?’ I ask.
‘Tiny,’ Molly says.
I kneel beside them and see nothing except specks in the linoleum until Molly points out the bug. It’s less than crumbsized, grey with white spots. It’s slowly, deliberately working its way around some building blocks. ‘How does it think it’s going to get out of here?’ I ask.
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