Monday Night Man (11 page)

“The pattern. Just tell me the pattern.”

“White sheets, Horst, we got white flannel sheets. Now go back to bed and sleep it off.”

Horst heads down to the beer and wine store at the Waldorf.

If Corinne didn't take the sheets, thinks Horst, then she must have left them down here in the basement, which is where Werner found them. Werner's always prowling through the boxes left by people no one, not even Leo Buljan, the landlord, remembers. People from the sixties and even the fifties. Maybe further. Horst sets his wine bottle on a trunk and looks around. It's musty and dank and the rough cedar planks supporting the main floor are only inches from Horst's head. In a corner lies a gutted mattress, paint cans, a roll of carpet that stinks like a sack. Horst spots Corinne's wicker picnic basket … A couple of rolls of wrapping paper stick out. Images of Christmases past pump tears to his eyes. He reaches for the bottle, realizing he should've got two.

The bells ring for five o'clock mass up the street. Drunk, Horst recalls how a couple of weeks ago, he was walking over to the track in the evening, and as he was passing the church he saw an old lady slowly climbing the steps with a cane. She was wearing her best clothes. Horst smelled her face powder from the sidewalk. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He nearly turned around and went into the church himself. But he knows what it looks like inside — he and Corinne got married there. He kept going. He bet heavy that night.

Horst watches those sheets float on the October breeze. Hell, he thinks, I'm taking them back. If Werner comes knocking, say — I don't know. Why would I take your sheets, man? What the fuck can Werner say to that? Horst finishes the last inch of wine, listens for sounds from Werner's suite, then steps onto the porch and takes them. He strips his bed then remakes it. Then he sits, and slides his palm slowly over the surface … He remembers that time in Alberta, near Red Deer, way out in the middle of nowhere, all rock and dirt and flat land. The car broke down and he and Corinne were arguing. As usual, Horst was losing. Even when he was right he managed to lose arguments. They argued until they were exhausted. Horst remembers thinking how bleak Alberta was. Tumbleweeds snagged in barbed wire, coulees full of baked red dirt. What a fucking hole. They used up all the windshield cleaning fluid in one day. The car was crusted. They sat out there under a sky the colour of a rusty saw-blade, the pebbly prairie wind nicking the windows and the gusts rocking the car. That's where it ended. That's where Corinne said she'd had it.

She'd stared straight ahead: “I hate Vancouver. I hate the rain. The mountains make me claustrophobic. The sea stinks like a sewer.” She'd turned to him.

“So what's it going to be?”

Horst had avoided her eyes and said nothing, which pissed her off even more. As usual, by doing nothing, he was forcing her to make all the moves.

“Well?”

Horst had shrugged. He was relieved and crushed at the same time.

Horst pulls the sheets up and pins them back onto the line. He stares out at the blue-black sky. The sun's gone, leaving blood-red clouds above the rooftops. He hears the popping of fire crackers. In two weeks it'll be Hallowe'en. Then everyone'll be knocking at his door, expecting something.

WERNER RUGG PAINTED
houses for a living. Maybe it was the paint fumes, but lately Werner was getting stranger. Saturday night was the worst. First of all, he barked like a dog at his TV. Then he went in and out of his apartment. He stepped outside, stepped back in, a minute later went out again. Back and forth, in and out. He went in and out twenty times in an hour. Horst counted. Werner knocked on doors. He knocked on Leo's door. Leo was usually drunk and passed out so didn't answer. Then Werner tried Horst's door. Werner knocked, listened, knocked again. Horst sat inside as quiet as possible. Werner went into the basement, rooted through the boxes, and talked to himself. Some Saturday nights Werner had visitors. Werner welcomed them in his lithium-smooth voice. Yet an hour later he'd drive everyone out the door, screaming what mutt-fuckers they all were.

A WELCOME
PLAGUE

H
orst hears feet stumbling about in Werner's place next door, then the sound of slapping. A woman's voice shouts: “MAKE IT HURT!”

Horst groans. He hears another slap. Two bodies bump so hard the picture on his TV screen jumps.

Horst goes naked into his bathroom and stands listening. Water suddenly gushes on next door in Werner's tub.

“Get him in! All the way!”

Horst leans closer to the wall. Fuck … They're drowning someone … Maybe they're drowning Werner … Horst feel a flicker of hope at the thought. He doesn't hate Werner, but he'd like to get rid of him and have some quiet elderly couple move in. Horst wonders what to do. It really would be great to get a better neighbour. A kick against the wall bangs open Horst's medicine cabinet door. He leaps back.

Horst hauls on his jeans. He doesn't feel safe naked. And he doesn't know whether to run down the alley and hide, or go over and knock. He peeks into the hall. Then he tiptoes down and taps Werner's door.

That woman's voice barks: “Yeah?”

“What's goin' on?”

“Who're you?”

“Neighbour”

“The fuck you want?”

“Where's Werner?”

“Takin' a bath.”

“He all right?”

“Call him tomorrow.”

“What was all that noise?”

“Nothin'.”

“I'm calling the cops.” He listens. He hears whispering.

The chain drops off and the door opens. A small blonde woman stands there. She's slender and pretty. Horst hadn't expected that.

“So you live here, eh?”

Horst points down the hall.

She leans out and checks both directions.

“Hey, sorry ‘bout the noise. We got a situation here. Don't got a smoke do ya?”

Horst pats his pockets even though he doesn't smoke. He steps into the room's dog-blanket stink and sees a puddle of vomit. He follows her past a kicked-in TV, and on into a tiny bathroom with a bare bulb.

“Hit himself up with a boot-full,” says the blonde.

Horst sees Werner slumped in the tub. Cold water sloshes around him. He's fully dressed in his work clothes, paint-scabbed shirt, white pants, General Paint hat. A biker-type in a ripped jean jacket, goatee, and long greasy hair flung straight back, splashes water on Werner's death-white face.

Horst is fascinated. In fact, he wishes he was here earlier to see Werner shoot up. Horst's never seen anyone shoot up. He leans in close, studying the blue-black bruises inside Werner's elbow. Maybe Werner'll die. Horst hasn't seen anyone die in years. It'd certainly salvage a dull Saturday night. The bruises remind Horst of a picture he saw in a magazine of a torture victim from Argentina. The police had beaten the guy's arms with axe handles. The picture had terrified Horst. It had made him weep. But this doesn't make him weep. It occurs to Horst he should suggest they call an ambulance. That'd liven things up even more. There might even be a TV crew. But, at that very moment, the biker suggests exactly that:

“Like, maybe we should call him an ambulance?”

“No fucking ambulance!” The blonde shoves by Horst and leans over Werner. “Baby, you don't want a dirty old ambulance, do you?”

Werner stares at his knees.

The blonde makes a fist and punches Werner in the cheek.

Horst cringes.

Werner doesn't blink.

The blonde grips Werner by the jaw, turns his face one way, then the other, then lets go. His head flops forward. She looks at Horst and the biker. “Get him up. He goes under now that's it. He's dead. I've seen it.” Then she glares at the guy in the jean jacket. “Ambulance! You piece'a shit. Ambulance means cops!” She raises her arm as if to give him a backhand. Defiant, the guy stands up tall and flexes his chest. Then the blonde sees Horst just standing there by the sink. “The fuck you waitin' for? Get him up!”

The biker gets Werner under the armpit then looks at Horst. “Get in here!”

Horst wishes he wasn't such a good neighbour.

They drag Werner up, along with half the water in the tub, soaking their feet. They step high and curse. As they haul Werner into the front room his feet start moving, as if they've been kick-started.

“That's it, baby. Come back to us.” The blonde's voice comes from the kitchen, where she's got her head in the fridge. “Fuck! We use all the ice?” She pours vodka into a glass, gulps, then pours more.

For the next half hour, Horst and the biker walk Werner back and forth past the kicked-in TV, avoiding the puddle of vomit. Werner's arm is slung across Horst's shoulder, and Horst can feel Werner's clammy armpit and smell his hair, his b.o., and the rancid blanket they've wrapped around him. The blonde, meanwhile, drinks vodka, and bitches.

“Fuck this. I'm gonna be a stewardess. I mean come on! I've been a waitress. I know what they do. Sure there's that safety shit — life-vest, oxygen mask. But fuck. Hey, you got any ice?” She stares at Horst.

Horst looks at her crotch-taut jeans. He thinks you'd have to have a cock like a hammer to fuck her.

“I'll check.” He knows he doesn't have any ice. He never has ice. His ice trays are in the drawer by the kitchen sink. But he figures this is his excuse to get out from under Werner's armpit. He leaves Werner slumped on the biker and heads out. Back in his place, Horst scrubs his hands and face and neck, getting Werner's stink off. He wonders if he should run down to the 7–11 and buy a bag of ice. She might get pissed off if he comes back empty-handed.

When Horst returns, he finds Werner facedown on the floor and the others gone.

It takes Horst half an hour to wrestle Werner into a coat and shoes. A half hour of touching and holding the guy. When he finally gets Werner outside, the winter air hardens Horst's lungs to sacks of ice. His ears turn to tin and his clothes hang as stiff as aluminum. The air smells sharp with impending snow. Horst whimpers in frustration at what he's got himself into. He struggles just to hold Werner up. “You junkie shit motherfucker!” Horst stops cursing only when he has to shift sides, at which point Werner collapses to the frozen sidewalk. “Fuck!” Horst is already exhausted. He stares at Werner, then glances round, thinking of just leaving him. But it hits him — they have to keep going.

Horst hauls him up. They head toward the waterfront because it's easier walking downhill. They're halfway there when Horst thinks — Shit! Why didn't I just call that ambulance? They arrest Werner for smack it's fine with me. He stops, and, propping Werner up like a mattress, looks for a phone booth. Nothing. So Horst tries hurrying on, suddenly frantic to find a telephone. He slips on ice and goes down, forehead hitting cement.

Horst isn't sure if he passed out, but when he's thinking again he knows he's freezing to death. He crawls out from beneath Werner. Blood, like red glue, has sealed Horst's left eye shut. He wipes it away. His forehead is hot, and delicate as a soft-boiled egg. It's the one warm place on Horst's body. He touches his forehead with numb fingers. Werner is facedown, half on the sidewalk and half off. Horst nudges him with his foot. “Hey.” Nothing. Horst hauls at Werner's arm (and flashes on a scene from the evening news of a fireman pulling at a man's arm and the arm coming clean off, and the fireman falling backward still holding it). Horst tries heading them back uphill toward the house, but no way, it's too steep. And so, having to move or freeze, they go downhill, across the railroad tracks where Horst hears the gunshot shunt of coupling railcars and sees, every fifty yards, patches of glass glittering beneath cones of light. In a moment that hits Horst like an hallucination, they pass a bag lady standing with her shopping cart in the narrow alley between shipping containers stacked four high. Her face is turned upward, basking in the light of a tower lamp.

When the containers end, Horst sees the black water of Burrard Inlet. Long scarves of red and yellow ripple on its surface. From up ahead comes the crack and roar of the Alberta Wheat Pool. Beyond, the Second Narrows Bridge spans the inlet. They cross the frozen grass of New Brighton Park, and by the time they reach the pissy stink of pigeons and fermenting grain at the wheat pool, Werner is finally walking on his own. Horst is relieved, but has to admit it was warmer with Werner's arm over his shoulder.

Like a zombie come to life, Werner says: “Paid her fifty bucks and she got away.”

Horst stares. Not a word of thanks. Not a word about the blood all over Horst's face. Horst realizes he has as much chance of a thank you from Werner as he does from a lizard for throwing it meat.

Still, Horst keeps moving along with Werner, past the wheat pool, whose massive pipes and silos are lit up like some 1930s science-fiction city. Horst is beaten. He's done in. His frustration has burned itself out and exhausted him. He wants only to sleep. His feet are bricks, his pant legs stiff as pipes, the fronts of his thighs frozen, and his forehead throbs.

Horst and Werner are heading back to the house when the snow finally begins. The first flakes settle slowly. Then they speed up. And suddenly Horst is engulfed in a swarm of white, a welcome plague of snow-white locusts that will scour the city. Horst's glad it's snowing. When it snows the city becomes clean and quiet. Raising his face, he feels the flakes touch his bruised forehead.

“Bitch was standing in this alley right here,” says Werner, pointing.

Horst looks into the alley. The dumpsters, the cars, and the ground are white and still and innocent.

“I'll be looking for her,” says Werner. “You thought I was fucked up. But I saw her.” He hunches his shoulders and leans harder into the spinning snow.

RUPP ASKED HORST
how the job search was going.