by Lee Gowan
I drive south with another of my fired helper’s locations as my destination. When I get there, it is a disappointment: a lovely old barn, but the architecture is clearly twentieth century. Perhaps it could be cheated, but James Aspen doesn’t approve of cheating.
I get back into my car and drive towards the city, trying not to think about tomorrow. The car takes me with it. There is nothing for me to do but hold onto the wheel. I am floating to infinity. There is nothing between me and the sky. I can feel the wind rushing across the Plains from the west, pushing the car slightly to the east, to the hard edges the shadows make of the evening. I light each cigarette off the butt of my last one and think of my father and my mother, wondering if they are thinking of me.
As I drive back into the city, I stop to get a few shots of a sign in front of a church: WHEN YOU HEAR THE BELL, THAT’S JESUS AT THE DOOR.
JUNE 28th, 2000: TORONTO
THE LAST TIME Sam had had sex with anyone but Gwen was a vague and misty memory, recalled only occasionally, usually during masturbation, but as he unbuttoned his shirt he remembered details of that afternoon long ago—details that until now he’d thought were long erased. Cecilia was her name. She had lived in a basement apartment that smelled of lemon-scented laundry detergent. Mostly he remembered the terrible awkwardness of undressing in front of a stranger, an awkwardness that was all the more acute now that he was pushing middle age. His belly suddenly seemed much larger to him, and he wished he had paid more attention to keeping in shape. He’d meant to have that mole removed.
Erika must have been having the same difficulties. After they’d kissed for awhile on the couch, she led him to the bedroom and stepped out of her dress and, still standing, they kissed another while, and he fumbled with her bra, finally giving up, and as she reached back and undid it she suddenly said, “Sorry, but that’s all there is.”
He immediately assured her that he liked breasts just the size of hers. And he meant it. They really were lovely breasts, and he really was excited, but even as he rolled onto his back and she rolled on top of him and slipped him inside her, her eyes closing at the feel of him, he couldn’t help thinking about Gwen. Even as she bobbed on top of him, her breasts bouncing like playful puppies, he kept thinking, What if Gwen were to see this? What if Gwen were ever to find out? How will I explain this to Gwen? She’ll know. She’ll know the minute she looks at me. Even as it was happening, he could feel it writing itself all over his face.
He didn’t even manage to come. Erika definitely did, at least. Unless she was faking, which was not altogether out of the question. It was a particularly showy sort of orgasm; of a kind he’d only seen before on film or television. At any rate, she didn’t seem to notice that he hadn’t. They were both pretty drunk.
As she rested her head on his shoulder, their sweat beginning to cool in the breeze coming through the balcony screen, he said, “It’s funny,” approaching the subject with what he hoped was some delicacy, “Everybody calls me Cowboy here.”
“Yeah. Why is that funny?”
“I’m a banker. Do I really look like a cowboy?”
“Sorry,” she said, “I didn’t realize you were sensitive about it. You shouldn’t be. It’s quite attractive. It’s different.”
“But what is it, exactly?”
She gave him a look that told him to drop the subject, but he would not. “Really. I need to know. What made you call me Cowboy?”
Wearily, she raised herself up on an elbow to study his pale, freckled body. “Well, there’s something about the way you carry yourself … but it’s not really looks. There’s that bit of a drawl you’ve got … but it’s not really that either. I think it’s actually more your … aura. There’s just something old-fashioned about you.”
“What do you mean?”
She shrugged. “You just seem so … chivalrous or something. It’s like you haven’t entered the new millennium with the rest of us. Well, for instance, I’ll bet you feel so guilty about this tomorrow, you rush home and confess the whole thing to your wife.”
She collapsed back onto her pillow. He didn’t know how to respond.
“It must be wonderful living in the country,” she murmured, as she rolled over and immediately fell asleep, dreaming, he imagined, of horses galloping into sunsets.
He lay there watching her for hours, the hum of traffic and the clanging of streetcars pulling him back each time he was close to surrendering consciousness. There were no curtains on the windows, and the wasted light of the city seeped inside, making it possible for him to clearly see Tolstoy and the Bronte sisters and Jane Austen and even John Bunyan on her shelves and to study the quilt hanging on her bedroom wall. He decided there might be some hint of old-fashionedness in Erika too.
Lying there, he began to see how arbitrary his life was. Why Gwen? Why not Erika? Erika liked opera. Erika liked literature. Erika laughed at his silly jokes. Erika actually seemed to enjoy his company. How different his life would be if he were with this woman. He began to imagine that different imaginary life, and as the night passed his imaginings began to take on shape and weight.
By the time Erika woke, he was sure he’d never been so in love in his entire life. He kissed her, and she eyed him groggily, then rolled out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom, not bothering to close the door when she entered. He lay there listening to her deliciously intimate noises, punctuated by the sounds of the traffic.
“Fuck!”
He sat up straight. That wasn’t her voice. It wasn’t his Erika in there. Some other woman must have been hiding behind the shower curtain, waiting for the first opportunity to replace her.
“What’s wrong?” he called.
“Shit! I forgot to take my tampon out.”
It was quite some time before she managed, mumbling indignantly, to extract the offending (and offended) object from herself. At last she shuffled back into the room and fell into bed. He wondered if she’d gone straight to sleep when, once again, that unfamiliar voice came out of the night: “I hope you’re aware it’s bad manners to still be around when a lady wakes up in the morning.”
Half an hour later, after searching for, almost giving up, and finally finding his missing sock tangled in Erika’s dress, he slipped silently out the door, down the seven flights of stairs, turning and turning and turning, and eventually entering into the night and the numbing argument of cars and drivers grinding restlessly on towards morning. Five in the morning. Wednesday. A golden halo had appeared in the narrow band of sky revealed between the row of narrow brown Victorian houses to the east. A yellow strip of paper decorated his windshield. As Sam studied the parking ticket for the particulars of his offence, a young woman strolled past, dragged by a drooling German shepherd. The young woman eyed Sam’s dishevelled clothing and smiled faintly, perhaps even ironically, to herself.
“Morning,” Sam offered, to which the woman looked away nervously and quickened her pace, glancing back once over her shoulder with an expression of terror so profound that one would have thought a caped skeleton with a scythe had just spoken to her.
If it weren’t for the dog, perhaps Sam could have killed her. But what would have been the point? There were too many witnesses. All those people at the opera. And the rusty-walled club. He unlocked the door and slid in behind the wheel.
Sam needed air. The boardroom’s filtered and conditioned facsimile would not do any longer. He couldn’t concentrate on what anyone was saying and had been caught drifting when a question came his way.
“Would you concur with that, Sam?”
Eyes all on him, except Williams from Vancouver, who was fast asleep. Williams was sixty-four, and so this behaviour was tolerated. To the bank, Williams was Vancouver.
“Uh-huh,” Sam finally responded, and this seemed to satisfy them, but left him wondering what he had agreed to. Probably nothing. They were only talking in circles, discussing whether Goals 7 and 8 were really different, or were part of the same lofty pursuit. He drifted away
again, returning to the reverie about his flight the next day, imagining the jet plane in tailspin, his body pinned to his seat by the force of the fall, the eruption in flames as they met the earth, debris spinning into the air in beautiful bright arcs and the terrible screams silenced.
He was going to die tomorrow. He knew it with certainty.
Everyone including Williams was standing and filing towards the door. Smoke break. He decided to follow them down for a whiff of the smog. There was an alert today, the air heavy with humidity rolling in off the lake. Asthmatics were ending up in hospital. Senior citizens were dying.
“You okay, Cowboy?” Philips, a manager from Winnipeg, asked him in the elevator. To the bank, Philips was Manitoba.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“You don’t look so well.”
Sam ran his hand through his hair and pasted on a wider smile. It showed. If Philips from Manitoba could see it, there was no doubt Gwen would.
“I’m just fine. Never felt better.”
“You shouldn’t let it get to you. I know it’s tough where you are, but you have to push it away. You’ll never make everybody happy anyway. Would they be happy if we were losing money? Sound management protects their money.”
Yes, the pressures of his job were getting to him. It was an interpretation he was willing to encourage. “That doesn’t play too well when you’re taking away their land.”
“I suppose not,” Philips nodded gravely. “You should get out of there.”
“Maybe,” Sam said.
“When are you flying back?”
“Tomorrow.”
“I’ll introduce you to Tom White. He’s the man you should talk to. He’ll be coming down for a smoke. Have you finally taken up the habit?”
“No. I just need some air.”
“You oughta take it up,” Philip chuckled. “With these strict smoking rules, the best place to meet the real movers and shakers you might not normally get a chance to face-to-face with is outside the tower by the ashcans. I saw the big man down there the other day.”
“Even he can’t smoke in his office?”
“Well, you’re right. He’s probably got his own smoking room. He was probably just down to mix with the troops.”
Outside the building they stood in the cement courtyard like a group of teenagers, baking in the hazy heat, the smoke rising lazily into the leaden air. Sam was introduced to Tom White, who muttered hello and then spent the rest of his cigarette swearing about how he could be at the cottage if it weren’t for this stupid meeting. Everyone nodded their commiserations. When they were finished and heading back into the building Sam said he’d be just a minute and wandered over to a bench to watch the traffic roll past.
A man was standing by the newspaper boxes with a sign that read FATHER OF TWO KIDS HAVING HARD TIME. PLEASE HELP. He had a mournful expression that made Sam think of the boys’ former dog waiting for his bowl to be filled. The school bus had run over the dog. The man was thirtyish, white, unshaven, his eyes a shade too close together and shallow enough that Sam thought he could see bottom. Certainly an improvement over the man in the drugstore, at any rate. A family man. Sam looked away, up towards the tower. He drifted off and saw the jet falling. He took a deep breath and, meeting the man’s eyes, rose and reached for his wallet. He had a fifty, nine twenties, and a ten. He touched the ten, reconsidered, and handed the man the fifty.
“Bless you, sir! God bless you! God bless your family, sir!” The man was actually bowing to him. Sam rushed back into the building.
That evening he packed up his things, put his suitcases by the door, ordered a wake-up call and phoned Gwen to make sure she’d be there to pick him up.
“Yeah. I’ll bring your car. Mine’s still not fixed. Vern’s got the part on order.”
“Vern? Isn’t it at the garage?”
“Vern said he could fix it.”
“Vern said … I called a tow truck …”
“Vern towed it home with his truck.”
“Why? I had handled the situation. I had called my garage.”
For a few moments he could hear only her breathing.
“He said he’d fix it. He said we were just throwing away money.”
“But it’s not fixed.”
“He’s waiting for a part.”
“Gwen. I’m going to call my garage and leave a message for them to come and get the car …”
“Why? He said he’d get the part tomorrow. What difference does it make who fixes it? Will it help to pay extra money to get it fixed?”
“But it’s not fixed.”
“He said he’d get the part tomorrow. What difference does it make to you anyway? It’s my car. I’ll come and get you with your car. See you there.”
And she hung up.
He took a tranquilizer to help him sleep.
He’d never before had the slightest fear of flying, but the next morning he found himself clutching his armrests as though his grip might stop the clumsy aluminum bird from diving for Earth. He could barely breathe. The woman across the aisle eyed him with amusement.
“Fear of flying?” the woman asked.
“No,” Sam said, brushing away a bead of sweat that was forming on the tip of his nose. The woman smiled and went back to her magazine.
A flight attendant became so concerned that she kept pestering Sam, offering him drinks and pillows and magazines. Apparently her training had taught her that interfacing with the people he’d handed his life over to was supposed to lessen his anxiety. She wanted to prevent the panic from spreading. But Sam wasn’t about to make a spectacle of himself. He shook his head grimly and bit harder on the inside of his bottom lip.
“I’m fine,” he insisted. “Never felt better.”
It was as absurd as it was embarrassing. In reality, what terrified him was a successful landing and the meeting with Gwen that would immediately follow. She would read it in his eyes. Being smashed like a grape inside a mangled piece of metal would actually rescue him from having to look into her eyes. Dying would save him. They’d have a lovely funeral, and his boys would stand over his grave and throw flowers down on his cooling soul.
But, no. He wanted to live. He had bargained with his conscience and had vowed to change. He would be a better husband and father. There would not be another Erika. If Gwen wanted, he would quit his job and do something else. Maybe he could work with his brother and his father. Maybe, at forty, he could become the farmer his father had always wanted him to be.
The possibility of retribution frightened Sam into complete submission. At this moment, just as he was about to save his shattered marriage, claim back the two sons he had so neglected for the sake of financial security at forty-five—at just this moment he was ripe to be smashed by some vengeful god, or by the weight of an irony that had become so close to the only meaning left, it had all but attained godhead. He already had his place in the country, his wonderful wife, his loving family, and what was the sense of risking all of that for vapid sex in the narrow and noisy corridors of an empty city? He was repentant. He would make things right, if he were only given one more chance.
Air Canada was willing to cooperate: they landed fifteen minutes early due to an unusual tailwind. Gwen was waiting, which wasn’t surprising, as Gwen always planned for disasters—flat tires, burnt clutches, carjackings—and arrived early when they didn’t occur. Sam threw his arms around her, and they clung to each other for so long that Sam began to feel she was actually comforting him; that she had seen everything in his eyes and had already forgiven him. At last she gently extricated herself from his arms and sent him off to get his bags.
“Where’re the boys?” he asked, as he lugged his luggage across the parking lot.
“With Vern. Helping fix my car.”
“Oh, God. He’s probably teaching them to drink whiskey and roll their own smokes.”
Sam chuckled aloud, feeling better than he had in years. He’d made it. He was alive. He had made his bargain,
and whatever force controlled the universe had granted his wish, and now he would keep his side of the deal. His life would be different from here on. He promised.
As they neared his car, the wind gusted and he caught a mouthful of that clear clean air and pulled it into his lungs. “I feel like a new man,” he said.
“What?” Gwen asked.
He blushed and shook his head. “Nothing. Just talking to myself.”
She stared at him grimly and nodded.
“I’ll drive,” she said, when the bags were in the trunk.
“But you must be tired.”
“No. I feel like driving.”
“Okay.”
Sam got in and sat back into the passenger seat of his car. It was a strange new perspective. Another sign that the new world had begun. He felt good. A little ecstatic, in fact. When they were out of the parking lot he couldn’t help but tell her. “It was the weirdest thing. I had this kind of … vision of the plane coming down and … Well, I was sure we were going to crash. I mean I knew for sure we were going to crash, and all I could do was wait for it to happen. Can you believe that? Me? Have I ever been afraid of flying?”
Gwen didn’t answer. She stopped at a traffic light and turned onto the highway that led home. When she reached the speed limit, she glanced at him and said, “I hope you can find somewhere else to stay tonight. The last three days without you in the house made it clear to me. I’m not just saying it this time. I really mean it, and I think it would be best for us both to start right now. I want a separation.”