Chapter Forty-Two
Road weary in Edmonton; hadn’t I done this before? Perhaps neither with such haste, nor with such a mind-boggling war zone left behind. I walked the familiar, gritty, western streets. The pavement underfoot seemed to have a certain give to it, it accommodated my weary footsteps. This time around the cityscape was comforting, yet I didn’t take that for granted as Edmonton had turned on me in the drop of a hat before.
I wanted to celebrate my freedom from Marie with a strong drink of whiskey chased with a beer. I wanted good music and to drink and smoke, but the bars were yet to open their doors to those who liked to drink in the morning. I walked and then I called my brother. He was surprised to hear from me. He hadn’t expected me, yet there I was, his unstable and needy sibling, intent on visiting and sharing a story of misery with him and his wife.
I showed up with enough grease in my hair to oil several rusty bicycle chains and an odour, I fancied, that could have landed me a job in the advertisements as a hard won convert to the virtues of deodorant. My whiskers rounded out the whole picture, making me look as dirty as I felt. Even before I’d left Kingston, I had not really been looking after myself.
Nevertheless, I was back in the Promised Land. Thank the Gods in charge of beating a hasty retreat, it wouldn’t be necessary to get back on the bus for a good long while. Or so I thought.
It had taken me over half a week to reach the city in which, at one point I had known considerable discomfort, in which I’d found myself sitting on the grass of a downtown park, dazed and incapable of much in the way of movement. I had then been like a swatted fly that’s not quite dead.
After my brother had talked me into a shower, I spent much of my first day in his company spinning fearsome tales for the sake of him and Katy. At some point, as I, with perhaps a little too much mustard, poured my broken heart out from one of the cracks in it and obscenely bared what was left of my soul, my father phoned and without much ado told me to haul ass back to Kingston. I was, dutifully, back on the greyhound bus the next day, feeling this time like a fly in October, bedazzled and stupid.
I was a few hundred miles from Kingston, the town in which my whole voyage had begun, the place I had run from screaming. The guy who was beside me, turned my way and asked,“Do you know how the band Lynyrd Skynyrd got their name?”
“Huh?”
“Where they got their name, you know, what people call them.”
“No,” I replied, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Well, it seems the guys in the band had a gym teacher who always told them they’d never amount to anything. The teacher’s name was Leonard Skinner. The band modified his name, took it as theirs and the rest is history.”
“Yeah,” I said, “that’s weird.”
“I’m just telling you that because you look like you believe people when they tell you that you won’t amount to much. Don’t listen to them.”
“Thanks, man,” I said, “thanks for caring.” He was sloppy in the head too, I could tell. He insisted on shaking my hand for far too long and his grip was limp and clammy.
I turned from him and thought of Kingston, home of the government hospital and my zany fiancée. I wondered at my father who was convinced that was where I belonged, in and out of an institution in an institutional town. As I thought of the past few weeks, I thought that I might spew battery acid if someone pierced me. I had once again been separated for far too long from my medicine.
When that snake of a vehicle finally pulled into Kingston I was a snake’s child, tired, with a mean eye watching, ready to apply venom to anything that looked the least bit menacing. I was more than angry. My wrath had been contained over the trip and so it had managed to build up and intensify to the point that, now that the trip was over, I was frothing-at-the-mouth furious.
Could anyone tell me why this town was one of the few and perhaps the only one in which I was being told, not asked, to believe I would ever belong? What made it so all-fired great, besides the warehouse for lunatics down the road? Who was my dad anyways? He was just a guy whose hormones had been impossible to control, who had to pay the piper for being human, every time he thought of me.
That was how I was seeing it all as the elongated van, short on love, packed tight with misery, indifference and poorly disguised nastiness pulled into the terminal with a sigh. I had no remorse for my thoughts. Let me take the stand in my own defense. I don’t know anyone who could travel for days on a bus, get off for a day and a bit, go back from whence he came in the same fashion and disembark as rosy, jovial and full of good cheer as Santa Claus in a snowstorm. In fact, if I knew anyone like that I think I’d write him off as ever having been an acquaintance, or at least regard him dubiously for a time. Yeah, I was grim.
I walked to a nearby tavern and had a nice tall glass of beer. It cooled my throat and my temper. After two glasses and a third on the way, I mumbled, “Sorry, Dad,” under my breath.
Not long after voicing my regret to a man who didn’t really think I was capable of having a thought, let alone a bad one about him, I remembered I had to deal with the woman who would have been my bride. I didn’t feel bad about having stood her up; after all, she’d destroyed me by being on a mission to have a go with any male in town that was in possession of a pulse. Facing her was an obligation, something I had to do for myself, not her. I didn’t believe that I owed her anything, not an apology nor an explanation. I left the bar a little tipsy.
The showdown took place the very day I arrived back in town. It didn’t quite happen the way I had envisioned it would. I suppose I should have been ready for something from her that would be tactless and minimize any role I had played in our relationship, but I wasn’t. I’m quite sure that I was a person she had cared for and I’m equally confident that within a day of my leaving I was, in her mind, gone, nothing more or less. By the time I reappeared, I was simply a fading memory or perhaps, I didn’t even exist anymore. It sounds harsh, but she knew that most every guy has an appendage that clouds his judgment to one degree or another. If I didn’t want to play dead while she stepped on me, she’d take what she could carry and walk away. She’d find some other sap to lead around, a fool for her who, like me, would end up thinking he should have known better.
When I got home to my apartment and let myself in the door I was unconcerned, not in the least worried about whether she’d be there or not. All was quiet, not too quiet, not sinister, but pleasantly hushed as though in awe of my wanderlust and me. Having found the place empty though, I admit to playing detective, checking for recent occupation by touching the kettle – no, it wasn’t hot. I couldn’t help myself and ran my hands over the bed sheets to see how recently they’d been soiled. When I realized what I was doing, I was repulsed, I mean, it really wasn’t that important. Remember, I told myself; she is a person you once cared for. A man deceived can be a touch indelicate. I really have to bring closure to all this in an appropriate way, I thought, in a way that minimizes the pain and bother for both of us. I lay down to rest.
I was finding my way into a slipshod, alcohol induced slumber when noises on the stairs brought me around and for some reason I smiled widely. I realized that I still loved her but I knew it could never happen, it would never work. I heard a key turning this way and that and knowing that she was the only one besides me who could gain admittance by working the lock, I reclined quietly, becoming still, scarcely moving lest I give myself away. I heard two people talking. Who was she with? Were they here to use the bed? Thinking thus I grimaced and wished I could stop thinking she had the brain of a man and therefore would often be found thinking of only one thing. Then, with her track record, I thought and then the thought faded as their conversation came more sharply into focus.
I listened as the two of them talked, Marie and another woman, speaking French. I strained but couldn’t understand anything at all of what they were saying, not a word. I didn’t know what they were doing either. I grew tired of lying there, passively eavesdropping on their unintelligible conversation. I walked out of the bedroom and caught Marie with a bag of rice in her hands. She clutched it to her chest, looking guilty at being caught in the act. Her sister was foraging amongst the cutlery and paid me no mind whatsoever.
“Well, well, look who’s back. Did you get your hair cut?” That was Marie for you, acting as though I’d just been downtown for the afternoon.
“What the hell are you doing with the rice,” I snarled and immediately felt ridiculous for snarling.
“It’s mine,” she replied, holding the bag tighter as though I was going to tear it from her, rip it from her hands and run through the streets, arms and rice held high, the victory won.
“Ah, keep the stupid rice,” I muttered, “What else have you taken?”
As I went from room to room, it became apparent that I’d been pretty well stripped bare. Dishes, ashtrays, chairs, even my record player and stereo speakers were gone.
“Get out, thieves,” I said loudly and with enough serious intent that the two sisters went quickly, taking my rice and God knows what else with them, in their pockets.
Later that evening the phone rang. It was Marie. “Listen,” she purred, “I’m not staying too far from you. I’m at my cousin’s. If you want to see me, call me first. I love you.”
She gave me her phone number and address. I couldn’t believe anyone could be so brazen; nonetheless, I tucked the slip of paper, on which I’d scrawled the particulars of her living arrangements, into a pocket in my wallet.