He’s still ahead, he can’t have turned, I’ll find him there’s no way out, there’s nowhere to go: sound of their feet. And well, since they decided to lie, to hide . . . what’s that? Up ahead, it’s him! “Look there he is!” a stumbling run, my phantom out of sight. Desperate I must . . . pushing past them: “There, he’s gone I told you, there! you can see . . .” Roughly through, I have to, find him, barging frantic from their hands and bodies resisting. “LET ME GO!” And fighting now, I swing and twist to free . . .
“Just a moment, just.” But I won’t, I spin in their hands and cry.
“I have to go, I have to find him!” Panting, held, pressed harsh on the wall with his face, cold-voiced he leans:
“You can’t go rushing off on impulse.”
“But I know him.”
“No you don’t!”
“But I do, I’ve seen . . .”
“You can’t know him . . . it happens often.” He speaks softer as they hang on. “They think they recognize something, then they forget everything here and rush away . . .” It’s happened, they’ve seen it before: from above there’s a draught. “They never find it. Usually they come back . . . sadder, of course, and with nothing to show . . . they’re worse off really.” Squeezing hand as they nod. “We can’t wait you know, we never wait for long . . . so they drift back here . . .” Warning, or threats? “Well they almost never catch up. They just roam around in the shadows . . .”
“You’ve seen them!”
“Hopeless lonely men.”
“They’re deadbeats . . .” Reasonable, be . . . twisted about me . . . be reasonable voice and I was, I’m sure and the bastards stopped me, grabbed me! He paused and then he turned away; a beckoning shape at the corner just for . . .
Bursting Felix! “Come back, hey you . . .” Leaping they clutch at his clothing they seize his coat as he twists and he turns. “Hold him!”
“For chrissakes, don’t let him . . .” Desperate he slips like an eel from the coat and he’s free! To the corner without a thought, he leaps from their voices behind: “Don’t, don’t be an idiot!” Beyond them, solitary Felix gone too far
she’s what’s she? Black dress: “Please! just a moment. Just a moment please.” Voices fall, they. “I would like . . . Upstairs . . .” the museum! “In Martin’s poor Martin’s . . .” Words, “his room,” GODDAMNIT! museum. “I’d like you to know. We’re making his room into a memorial.”
“What a good . . .”
“Poor woman.”
“A good idea . . .”
“We’re collecting all of his . . . all of the things he lived with, loved so well . . .” The earth. Plop. “And I’d like, Mister Baillie and I would like . . .” Slow motion. “. . . come on, all of you . . . we’d like you to see . . .” It doesn’t matter . . .
Ann briefly in the other room; resigned . . . grey eyes, I need it doesn’t . . . What’s happening?
“Felix. I told you something, eh? I said I’d . . .” Teeth, his face. Eyes. “I’ve done it, old Max has hee! I’ve done it alright.” Bodies.
“What?”
“In the punch.”
“You what?”
“Alcohol.” Whisper-whisper what did he say? “Absolute alcohol in the punch.” He’s put, laughter, shit, this, oh no, too much!
“You son-of-a-bitch.”
“I did, I told you . . .”
“Didn’t!” his shoulder.
“. . . indubitously, I . . .” did the bastard hah did he . . . shit! if they knew, they’d . . . “I had a flask, you know how I . . .” Harsh “wait till we tell them, eh Felix? Wait till Jerry hears, he’ll . . . and Pat” too much too much “Oh no!” Laughter, our arms, baby-baby, his shoulder, yes, what can an old man? “You can’t cross old Max” pleading, “they’ll learn . . .” It doesn’t matter
in gathering light on this narrow hill: Felix running from their voices, but they don’t follow. A long rectangle of colder light with doorways firmly closed, small wooden doors on either side: too small, I’m sure, and old, cobwebbed, they haven’t been touched. Silence all around, that’s good! he must be still ahead, I can’t have lost him; listening for signs in the bright air to my face and climbing higher. Careful on like this and on to hear, to see some figure at this corner, the next and after that another
what voices? elbows, shoulders, where is he? Shrieks. “Get out of the way!” The room, Martin’s. Where is he? never get . . .
“How could you, how?” Martin’s room, we’re making a kind of. “That’s what I want to know . . . how could you . . . I don’t . . .” Susan. Crackell together, he’s certainly. “. . . hardly into the ground, he’s . . .” Excitement, what in Christ? Together. Terrible laughter in my head, her tearstained. What have they, what’s going?
“What’s going . . .”
“Oh Felix!” Oh.
Boom.
“What?” Museum for chrissakes!
“Felix!” Careful, I’ve got laughter . . . “They were . . . oh . . .” Hand, her eyes; tears. “I came in and found them, they were,” savage, “they were smooching.” WHAT?
“We weren’t! How can you say . . .”
SMOOCHING!
“You were, they were weren’t they, you all saw them didn’t you, you saw them!”
“MADAM! Mrs.!” empty, reaching his: “Mrs. Baillie, you don’t . . . NO!” Panic searching, crowded door. Run. “You can’t believe . . .”
“And on my Martin’s bed, the . . .” Too much, they ha! ha-hee I can’t, too much, oh HAWH-HAWH! hands spotted, “I think I’m going mad” HAH-HAH . . .
“We were only talking!” tears plop, shouting GOT YOU trembling at each other gawd, oh hee-hee-hee-heee-haaaawh!
“Surely you can’t . . .” gasping breath he’ll never. “Believe me please, believe . . .” Flushed and turning this way, that. “I’m here officially, you see . . .” And this, boom-boom.
“I’m so ashamed, how could you?”
“Oswald! Felix . . . you believe me . . .”
Crazy my OH HAWHAWHAWH! my face to bastards, lurching: the blurring door, his breathing call, bodies as I come, voices:
“Come back!”
Come back
“. . . disgusting . . .”
“FELIX!”
“. . . is he crazy or something?”
What
cold and bright, squinting Felix in opening sunlight, I’m out: pausing to stare at a rising hill at evergreens with new snow and silence. Cautious as in a dream, for where am I, what place is this? moving to where the snow begins and there’s not a mark! not a scar, just crystals of fragmented sun.
It’s really beautiful. The snow is clean and it’s drier than I thought . . .
Irresolute at the edge. Staring to the left, it’s a ravine alright, and then to the right. Irresolute. Which way. A ravine, with fine trees and a frozen stream. What’s that! from the bushes there? Stepping carefully in his street shoes, picking his way on the powdered surface with ice beneath . . . it’s treacherous! Shit, be careful. It’s beautiful alright, so cold and I’m not dressed for it. Left my goddamn coat behind. A sudden slide, wild jump! then fall dear! God, I crash like a. Bounding to my feet hah, and brushing whisk-whisk hand to my thigh, I must be . . . careful. Hah. Very cold hands, into my pocket and my feet are soaked. Got to be pretty careful, bruised like I am . . . could break a leg and freeze to death alone out here, completely. Across the clearing with breaking crust beneath and I’m in it up to my fucking knees! savage oh my shins . . . I’ll slide the old feet, skate on the surface like this where it’s new.
I wonder what it was, a raccoon? maybe an otter or something, a big cat? Skirting the hillock, peering among the bushes full of snow, then up to branches against the sky.
A cigarette: cold smoke, tasteless. What’s that? Somewhere traffic above me. I wonder wh
ere this is? Smoke from its tip in my hand; brightening. Did I imagine him, were they right after all? He didn’t come out here and that’s for sure . . . perhaps I passed him, maybe . . . it doesn’t matter I guess, it doesn’t matter . . . Shivering cold without a coat for chrissakes, stamping feet . . . I have to keep going . . .
Movement there, a bird, another! and a squirrel . . . the woods have life, he runs on flatter ground beside the hill and around this brush to . . . Fifty yards ahead, no more, this huge, a fire of glowing logs and swirling heat untended; whole trees for chrissakes, dead trees burning in a pile and there’s nobody . . . Jesus, that’s great! A hut for storage, for lawnmowers in summer and drums of gasoline. Door ajar as he circles wide, he must pass by: careful, two of them sitting in there, smoking and drinking from coffee mugs in the gloom. Good Christ he’s a big one and strong from the world, look away! he’s seen you . . . But you MUST go on! Stiffly Felix, hands deep-thrust, do I turn and nod? I can’t, don’t want . . . He turns to a breaking grin and offered cup, a motioning arm from bright green, nice the green workman’s hut behind him now; Jesus Christ, I got you can’t, I can’t! he shakes his head, forgive, I can’t . . . then running ahead impulsive to the heat, he’s running, skipping, free-sliding . . .
About the Author
GRAEME GIBSON is the acclaimed author of Five Legs, Communion, Perpetual Motion, Gentleman Death, The Bedside Book of Birds, and The Bedside Book of Beasts. He is a long-time cultural activist, and co-founder of the Writers’ Union of Canada and the Writers’ Trust. He is a past president of PEN Canada and the recipient of both the Harbourfront Festival Prize and the Toronto Arts Award, and is a Member of the Order of Canada. He lives in Toronto.
About the Publisher
House of Anansi Press was founded in 1967 with a mandate to publish Canadian-authored books, a mandate that continues to this day even as the list has branched out to include internationally acclaimed thinkers and writers. The press immediately gained attention for significant titles by notable writers such as Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, George Grant, and Northrop Frye. Since then, Anansi’s commitment to finding, publishing and promoting challenging, excellent writing has won it tremendous acclaim and solid staying power. Today Anansi is Canada’s pre-eminent independent press, and home to nationally and internationally bestselling and acclaimed authors such as Gil Adamson, Margaret Atwood, Ken Babstock, Peter Behrens, Rawi Hage, Misha Glenny, Jim Harrison, A. L. Kennedy, Pasha Malla, Lisa Moore, A. F. Moritz, Eric Siblin, Karen Solie, and Ronald Wright. Anansi is also proud to publish the award-winning nonfiction series The CBC Massey Lectures. In 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011 Anansi was honoured by the Canadian Booksellers Association as “Publisher of the Year.”
The A List
Launched to mark our forty-fifth anniversary, the A List is a series of handsome new editions of classic Anansi titles. Encompassing fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, this collection includes some of the finest books we’ve published. We feel that these are great reads, and the series is an excellent introduction to the world of Canadian literature. The redesigned A List books will feature new cover art by noted Canadian illustrators, and each edition begins with a new introduction by a notable writer. We can think of no better way to celebrate forty-five years of great publishing than by bringing these books back into the spotlight. We hope you’ll agree.
The Outlander · Gil Adamson
The Circle Game · Margaret Atwood
Survival · Margaret Atwood
The Hockey Sweater and Other Stories · Roch Carrier
Five Legs · Graeme Gibson
De Niro’s Game · Rawi Hage
Kamouraska · Anne Hébert
Civil Elegies · Dennis Lee
The Selected Short Fiction of Lisa Moore · Lisa Moore
Poems For All the Annettes · Al Purdy
Five Legs Page 27