Bow Grip (3 page)

I put on a pot of strong stuff, swept the floor, and read almost the entire paper before it was time to plug in the open sign. Franco showed up just before seven-thirty, clean-shaven and reeking of cologne still, a sure sign he had gone out to the bar last night after broomball and got drunk, or lucky, or maybe both.

He started in before the bells on the front door had even stopped jingling.

“You’re early. Hey, you know that substitute teacher from the French school? The one from Montreal? Ten minutes ago she was sitting in my lap, feeding me fruit with her fingers. What a night.”

I flipped the page on my newspaper. Said nothing.

He stared through his eyebrows at me, and made for the coffee pot. “You look tired. Hungover? Jesus, Joey, I could polish my boots with this. Look, there’s oil floating around on top of the coffee you made.”

“It just has some kick to it.”

“You look like you need it.”

“I’m fine.”

“I’m just asking, Joey.”

“What, Franco? What are you asking me? You’re not even making sense.”

“Jesus, your mother was right. You
are
a miserable bastard. A guy can’t even ask how his coworker is feeling around here these days without you getting paranoid.”

“You were talking to my mom about me? She called me a bastard?”

“See what I mean?” Franco took a big gulp of his coffee. “Well, I’m going to work. Can’t sit around all day reading the newspaper.”

I lit a cigarette to keep my hands from tossing the phone book at him. The weird thing about Franco is, the only thing that bugs me more than his non-stop talking is when he stops.

I got two tune-ups, a timing chain, and a set of rear breaks done before I even thought about lunch. My mind couldn’t keep up with itself, and I needed something to do with my hands, so I could think.

I wasn’t one of those guys who would have had a problem with my wife going back to school, was I? Why would she keep something like that a secret? She must have actually hid it from me, too, the mail from the university, things like that. Where the fuck had I been? Sleeping with Kathleen was something I could see Ally neglecting to mention, but long-distance education?

I thought about calling her and asking, but that would unlock the other five thousand questions that had been
banging on the insides of my eyelids for the last twelve months and thirteen days since she left.

I couldn’t ask her about school without asking her why she never told me about Kathleen. Without asking if she was lying when she dreamed about the bees and me and the farm just outside of town, or if she ever missed me. If they ever did it in our bed, under the quilt my mom gave me and that her mom gave her. Stuff like that. Stuff I didn’t know, couldn’t ask, couldn’t know but couldn’t help wondering about.

It looked to me like this question was going to have to join the rest of them and become just another one of Allyson’s secrets.

The thought of it all made me want to smoke.

Franco was in the office boiling water to make Cup-a-Soup and whispering into the phone to the French teacher, from the sounds of it.

“Give me a bit to go home and clean up. I’ll call you when I’m leaving my place, okay? I’ll bring the wine.” He hung up and eyed me while I lit a cigarette.

“You look like shit. Why don’t you take the afternoon off, get out of here for a while? You’ve already worked us right out of anything else to do today. I can close up.”

“I thought you had a date tonight?”

“Not till eight o’clock or so. I can’t get there too early. I have to pace myself, she’s half my age.”

Franco patted his gut and grinned. “Go home, Joey. Go play your new violin. Have a beer. Jerk off. Whatever you do.”

“It’s a cello, Franco.”

“Whatever. Go play it. You’re driving me nuts. Come
back on Monday, when you’ve lightened the fuck up a bit.”

“Since when do you listen to my mother?”

“Since you’re about as fun to work with as a hot rash on my ass. Since your mother is right. Take three days. Take a drive. Take a load off. Get a haircut. Get laid. Get over yourself. Something.”

I sighed. “Thanks, Franco.”

“Don’t thank me. I’m doing this for myself. And for your mother. She thinks you need counselling. Or Prozac.”

“Prozac? Fuck me. My own mother said I need pills? What’d you say to that?”

“I said I’d see about talking you into taking a long weekend. I’ll call you if I need you.”

I took off my coveralls, hung them up, and called the dog.

It seemed weird to be at home during the day. Middle of the week. No leaf blowers, no kids playing ball hockey in the street. Nothing but Oprah on, and the bald guy.

I took a shower, scrubbed the grease from the cracks in my hands, under my nails. Engine oil probably wasn’t great for cellos. I removed the instrument from its case, taking care not to bang it on the coffee table. I ran my index finger up and down the strings which whistled, hollow and mellow. I sat one cheek on the edge of the big chair and pulled the little stand thing out of the bottom of the cello. I pressed the middle finger of my left hand onto a string, thinking of this rockabilly band I had seen once at the North County Fair, and plonked the string with my other thumb. The cello hummed alive between my legs. Buck Buck growl-barked once, then circled around a couple of times before laying down beside me.

It only took ten minutes or so before the tips of my fingers
started throbbing. I needed to get up and cut the nail on my ring finger shorter so I could press the strings down with it properly. I leaned the cello up against my chair, but when I went to get up, Buck Buck wagged his tail at me and thumped the cello, which then started to slide down the arm of the chair. I snatched it by the neck and then carried it like a sleeping kid, safely placing it into its case. I would have to be more careful with the thing. It wasn’t an electric guitar.

On the way to the bathroom for the nail clippers, I caught a look at myself in the mirror. Franco was right. I did look tired. Blue bags under my eyes, and I needed a haircut. You could really see the grey. And the sink needed cleaning. The toilet, too, upon further inspection. The place was falling into disrepair. I didn’t want a bathroom like Franco’s, or Rick Davis’s since his wife Anna left. I dug around under the sink for some cleaner and a rag. I actually put a new roll of paper right onto the holder thing, and threw out two empty shampoo bottles. My wedding ring was sitting next to the sink. It was stuck there in a pool of dried soap leftovers, and when I picked it up and put it in the cabinet, it left a silvery green shadow where it had been sitting on the ceramic. I cut my nails, then collected up the dirty towels and went to go find the vacuum.

A couple of hours later I had cleaned the house, done three loads of laundry, and taken out the garbage and recycling. I took Buck Buck for a walk, heading down Eighth Avenue towards the Red Deer River. I could see a line of twenty or thirty sets of headlights on the highway, all going north out of downtown. I looked at my watch. Five o’clock, right on the nose.

I was hungry.

I ran into Marion Bradley, the librarian, in the cereal aisle at the Food Fair. She was wearing a dark red sweater and lipstick, so she looked a lot different than she did at work. I almost didn’t recognize her.

“Well, hello there, you,” she smiled. “I was just thinking I needed to call you about bringing my car in. Swap the snow tires on. Get a tune-up.”

I nodded, hoping she wasn’t looking into my cart. Cans of soup, cereal. Pathetic. I needed to cook more. “I was going to stop by the library this week, too.” I took a couple cans of kidney beans off the shelf and put them in my cart. Maybe I would make chili. I could make chili. “I need to see if you’ve got any books on how to play the cello.”

“Ally is taking up the cello? Is there anything your wife cannot do?”

I coughed, thought for a second.

“Uh, no. It’s for me. I’m learning. Well, teaching myself, at least I’m trying to, that’s why I need a book.”

“That’s totally great, Joey. Come by. I’ll find you a cello book, or we’ll order you one from Calgary. Do you and Ally jam together now? She plays the clarinet, right?”

“The oboe.”

“Right, the oboe. I’ve always thought it would be great to jam with people. I wish I played something. Do you do duets?”

“Ally moved to Calgary. I guess nobody told you. We split up. She doesn’t know I’m playing the cello.”

Marion’s face pinked up. “I’m so sorry, Joey, I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

This was the part I hated. All the I’m-sorrys and the how-are-you-doings and the you-should-come-by-for-dinners. What do you say to them all?

“I’m sorry, too.”

Marion stared at her shoes, then at mine. “Come by the library, and we’ll find you your cello book. You take care of yourself.”

Oh, yeah, and the you-take-care-of-yourselfs. I didn’t like those much, either.

One thing I had definitely discovered since Ally had left was that there were two distinct kinds of heartbreak I had to deal with: there was the private kind, and I guess I could pretty much deal with that, and then there was the more public version, the kind of shared tragedy that I found could really kick a guy in the ribs, because it could just sneak up on you like that, right there in the supermarket, when you were occupied trying to think about what to get for dinner.

I was halfway through my soup and sandwich when someone knocked on the back door. Must be someone I knew. It was Rick Davis, holding five cold Canadians, still in their plastic rings, a slim black plastic case tucked under one arm.

“Buddy.” He pushed past me into the kitchen. “What’s up? I tried to phone first, but nobody picked up.”

“Why’d you come over then, if you thought I wasn’t home?”

“I said nobody answered. Didn’t say I thought you weren’t home. Aren’t you going to ask me what’s in the case?”

“What’s in the case, Davey?”

“It’s a .22 pistol, nickel-plated, holds eight rounds. I need to empty these cans, so I can try it out on something. I thought you could help me out.”

He twisted a beer out of its plastic ring for me, and I popped the tab. I motioned for him to have a seat. He left his boots on, and flipped a chair around to sit on.

“It looks pretty good in here. You clean up or something? Is that a new stove?”

I nodded, and grabbed an ashtray for the table. Rick Davis was famous for talking with a two- inch ash hanging from his fingers, and I had just mopped the floor.

“Franco tells me you’re taking up the upright bass?”

“It’s a cello.”

“Fancy. So how’s the cello, then? Wanna play me a few movements? I told Franco you were smarter than we all think, taking up a classy instrument like that. Any dumb fuck can play ‘Stairway to Heaven’ on the electric guitar. But a classical type of deal, now that’s bound to attract a higher class of woman.”

“I’m not learning the cello to meet chicks, Davis. My mom is on my case to get a new hobby. It’s either that, or Prozac, apparently.”

“Your sister, too.”

“What’s that?”

“Sarah. She dropped by the job site. The gym floor, in the new school, me and Smiley got that contract. Keep us busy till after Christmas, that job. As long as I can keep Smiley and Jimmy Peel, the general contractor, from ripping each other a new one. Man, those two. Like fucking oil and water. I can never tell who started it with them. Stresses me out, too, being always caught in the middle. Pissing contest. You got any rolling papers?”

“The drawer beside the fridge. Anyways, what did Sarah want?”

“Well, she came by work a couple of days ago, asking if I’d seen much of you lately, how did you seem, if I could take you hunting or something, get you out of the house, shit like that.”

“Those two are the ones who need a new hobby. Mom and Sarah obviously have too much time on their hands.”

“Just do us both a favour then, Joey, and come and shoot some holes in some beer cans with me. I’ll tell your sister that you seem just fine, and they’ll be off both our cases.”

“I am fine. I’d be better if everyone and their fucking dog wasn’t asking me how I was doing all the time.”

“I hear you, partner. But that’s the way it goes. Same thing happened when Anna and I first split up, remember? Matter of fact, if I do recall correctly, you came by my place with a six-pack to give me the speech that one night.”

“Your dad talked me into that. But that’s because you were drinking.”

“Of course I was drinking. She took me to the cleaners. Thought I was gonna have to sell the business for a while there.”

Everybody knew that Rick had almost lost his business because of the booze, not so much the divorce, but you couldn’t say a thing like that to him. He’d got things pretty much back under control now anyway, so what would be the point? No one wants the whole truth about themselves all the time anyway.

Rick ran his tongue along a perfectly rolled joint and twisted one end into a point. He ripped a small corner off the rolling paper pack, rolled it into a tiny spiral, and slipped it into the other end of the doobie, to make a filter. “You wanna step into the garage with me?”

“I’ll come with you, but I don’t think I’ll smoke any. I’ll be crashed out by nine-thirty if I do.”

“No early night for you, buddy, I promised I’d make you get out of the house for a while. We’re going to the Capitol for a game of pool. There’s a bluegrass band in town. Steel
guitar, the whole shebang. Put on a clean shirt. Franco’s bringing his French teacher and a couple of her girlfriends. French-Canadian tree planters. Nothing like a new pair of hands creeping up the front of your Levi’s, like Franco always says.”

“Franco talks too much.”

“True enough, but every once in a while he’s right. That’s what finally got me to smarten up, remember? The front desk girl from the Westmark? The twelve-stepper?”