Chapter Two
Sometimes a buzz begins at work and remains there all day. The men get their work done in spite of the buzz and when they leave work it follows. With an envelope that sums up eighty hours of their life they head to the bank, and some, to the tavern. It’s the day they’ve been waiting for. Those who choose to party go all night, eating up booze, good music and strong women. Some were legends, going from Friday until the beer ran out on Sunday. Some of us were pretenders, leaving early and losing our suppers in the ditch.
Yes, I had a job. I worked with the legends. I was one who heaved in the ditch. I wouldn’t often party with the legends or the women they ran with but I had money; biweekly, I had a bit of cash to play with. I remembered the girls who had turned up their noses at me. I dreamed that if they knew how I was putting in my time one of them might come to my level to take in the view. It didn’t happen but it was still a wonder to me that within a week of having decided work was a no go, I was labouring for dollars.
It seemed a good while since school’s melodramatic end, its pinch of promises to stay in touch and cup or two of overdone tears. Boohoo. My life would never be the same. For what it was worth, all signs seemed to point to there being life ahead.
I had a job. I didn’t possess or need any memories of the prom. Life had dealt me a measure of contentment. I kept an eye on myself, making a mental note to guard against becoming too smug. If I was inching close to that place where one is puffed up past the point that the world finds acceptable, I would pull back. If you stand on a pedestal admiring the view someone may be tempted to give you a nudge. I knew all about falls from grace and needed no reminders.
I was working where my father worked. He was white collar, while I was blue. I wore blue coveralls, and a blue hard-hat. Sometimes a blue mood graced my sleeve alongside my blue heart. I was oozing blue.
I was treated like anybody else at work. Nobody held my father’s white coat against me. Nobody knew that if there were trouble at work Dad would likely conclude that the fault lay with me. Nobody knew that and nobody needed to.
During this time of hard labour and, eventually, of disillusionment, I’d spend my evenings walking through the sweet smelling fields with a six-pack and hand rolled cigarettes. Now and then I was with Joe, but usually I was alone. I really wished that my thoughts would be pleasant as I roamed, but they were intent on misbehaving.
My brain could convince itself that people were hiding in the grass, quietly watching me. Sometimes I thought those hiding were men and women that had some control over me.
Sometimes the air attained form. The long green and yellow grass would bend into patterns and hiss. My heart would pick up speed and I’d walk, hurried footsteps making haste. Did I see someone? Did they follow me with their dull gaze? If they ever confronted me would my instinct for self-preservation rule or was flight my only option?
Many nights I saw them, or traces of them. They were a wicked, miserable force. Pathetic outlines resembling women and men, beings without substance. Sometimes I would run hard when I sensed them, half-laughing, breathing heavily while I crashed through the waist high grass and weeds, climbed fences, and sprinted until I could go no farther. By the time I was tired out the spirits would be gone. Sitting very still I’d relish the ale that soothed me.
It was becoming obvious that Joe wished to end our friendship. I may have had some thinking problems, but I wasn’t completely thick. I cut him out of my life, avoiding him at every turn. I made excuses for not being able to hang around with him when he did call. I was rude. Eventually the phone always rang for someone else and I attained the status of non-existence. I can’t say why I thought he was tiring of our friendship. Maybe it was something said, or possibly, a misread gesture. Maybe I felt unworthy.
So I was working by day and running around alone in circles at night. The hallucinations weren’t much company, looking ridiculous as they strove for invisibility. They couldn’t cheer you up, but they could scare you.
Darkness would see me home after an evening in the fields. Muttering a greeting to my parents, I would go to bed and curse ill will into my pillow. As tears of humiliation dried I would find my way into splintered sleep that felt better than being awake. The next day I would work again.
Time passed and little changed. People complained about the weather and sat in front of fans. Children ran through sprinklers, shrieking and getting soaked. Every weekend had its share of weddings, the newlyweds brash in their expectations.
Gradually I reached the conclusion that I was too young for self-imposed solitude. My belief that isolation was character building seemed wrong. After all, I’d been social until recently. The day I would leave the mess my life had become limped towards me. I decided to go west.
As I waited for the driver to inspect my ticket, I looked over my shoulder at the psychological baggage following me. Memories, regrets, disappointments were lined up to wish me a faux farewell. I was travelling to Edmonton, hoping to find some sense along the way.
We left the terminus and I made myself feel nothing. I rode along with the others, with whom of necessity and barring rest stops I was trapped, a bug in a spider’s web. For hours I watched the miles pass at a surprising clip. As we sped into the future I thought of work and the men I had laboured with. They had seemed to understand me.
What I’d saved from working was financing my flight from the specters in the field and the derision of other kids. It had bought me a seat on a Greyhound bus. Work was allowing me temporary freedom, a fragile distraction filled with daydreams. I would eventually discover the cliché to be true: you can run but you can’t hide from who you are.
As the trip wound on I got used to it. I slept as much as possible, smoked a lot of cigarettes and enjoyed sloppy meals at rest stops. The odd conversation was struck up with other travelers. We could discuss things that we would usually keep to ourselves because we knew we wouldn’t see one another again. To one woman I confided that I that I was escaping from trouble, though I did not go into detail. She was very sympathetic and I was attracted to her but nothing came of it. I don’t know what I expected possibly could.
We hit the prairies while I was asleep. When I woke there was nothing but flat land for miles. I felt liberated in a way I hadn’t for some time. I felt free, no longer a bug in a web. The feeling lasted until we hit Winnipeg where we endured a four hour layover. This killed the elation of the moment, though I knew I wouldn’t forget it. From Winnipeg the trip turned into a marathon, uneventful and boring.
Finally, the ordeal ended.As I entered the restaurant in the depot in Edmonton, the clock had just snuck past 5:30 in the morning.
“Coffee?”
I nodded and was served one almost before I had time to sit down.
“Menu?”
I shook my head and she assumed a frown. Had I been short with her? How can you be short with anyone who speaks to you in one word sentences?
When I finished my coffee I went outside into the brisk air and found myself energized. I sat my suitcase on a bench and walked back and forth, hands clasped behind my back, growing excited now that my fresh start had arrived.
Eventually my enthusiasm waned as I began to question my judgment. I was eighteen, lonely, cold and many hundreds of miles from home. To be unsure in those circumstances could be expected from any teen, regular or otherwise, but was it normal to be cowed by the ill will that seemed to be devilishly playing itself out wherever I looked? Was I delusional? Hallucinating?
After sitting on a bench and going over all the ways in which I could fail, I put my belongings in the trunk of a taxi and slid into the immaculate interior. The air felt colder than it had earlier and I asked the driver for a bit of heat. He obliged and tried to engage me in conversation. I felt a lack of clarity and repelled him with silence. I couldn’t have talked if I’d wanted to. The closer I sensed we were to my brother’s apartment the more anxious I became. How was I going to explain myself?
When we arrived at my destination I retrieved my bag and thanked the driver. He looked at me indifferently and sped away. In spite of my dread, I found myself hoping my brother was home and that he had some type of comfort food in his cupboard, something he and I had grown up on.
“It could be a hell of a lot worse,” my brother informed me, as I looked at the uninhabited space inside his cupboard.
We’d exhausted the formalities, the slapping of backs, shaking of hands.
“It’s great to see you,”
“You’re looking really good,”
“You think so?”
“Would I lie to you?”
“Look in the fridge,” he said, “there should be a few beers in there. It’s pretty much help yourself around here, bro. I have to get dressed for work. Got bills to pay, know what I mean?”
I heard someone talking in his sleep and raised my eyebrows.
“Oh that’s Frank. He sleeps through anything and doesn’t talk much. If he’s not up by eight, wake him, okay?”
“Sure, Bob, no problem.”
“Okay, I have to get ready. Grab a beer and make yourself at home.”
When my brother was leaving for work I spoke, between swigs of beer, “I can help with the bills. I saved some this summer. It’s just sitting in the bank getting mouldy.”
“Alright,” he answered, grinning and winking, “you can buy the beer tonight. See you around five.”
“Bob? Hey Bob,” I said, but he was gone.
I walked past the lump on the floor that was Frank and looked out the window at the cars in the parking lot and the other apartment buildings that looked, but for variance in colour, a lot like the one I found myself in. All of them three stories high, without elevators I guessed, and made of brick. Some were endowed with balconies and others weren’t. Momentarily, the sun came out from behind slow moving clouds, and then it hid.
I lay on the couch. I was dog-tired, but I knew I had to keep an eye out for Bob’s roommate. I kept pulling myself from tipping over into slumber, back to red-eyed consciousness, over and over until I didn’t care and I slept.
I spent the day snoozing complacently enough for one who’d let his brother’s roommate down before being introduced to him. Adrift in a sea of vivid dreams and colourful visions I was cleansed of a lot of fear. Many misperceptions that had jumped from the highway to roost in my head left, as I contentedly snored. Who could understand how I feel right now, I asked myself during a time of half wakefulness.
When I came to I didn’t know where I was and then it hit me; I was at Bob’s in Edmonton. There was something I was supposed to do, but I couldn’t remember what it was. After shaking my head so the cobwebs flew, I went over everything that I had done since arriving and still couldn’t remember. Maybe there wasn’t anything after all. I decided to try to relax and went into the kitchen to find something to eat. When I looked into the empty cupboards I remembered my assignment: GET BEER.
Thinking about trying to find the beer store tired me out. After finding it I would have to buy the beer and cart it all the way home. What if I got lost? Without looking I told myself I probably didn’t have enough money anyways. A voice in my head suggested going to the bank and I told the voice to shut up. I lay down again, to sleep, to spend just a little more time where perhaps humankind’s first narcotic, slumber, could weave some magic and, in the bargain, make me part of its tapestry.