My Life Among the Apes (3 page)

I KNOW A FEW CHORDS. Or think I do, because when I get back to the motel room and try to play, I find that my memory isn't too good. Or maybe I don't remember how to tune properly. Whatever the reason, all I get out of that shitbox is a godawful noise. I'm only banging on it for a couple of minutes before the porn addict next door starts pounding his hand on the wall because I'm ruining his appreciation of
New Jersey Housewives.
So I take the guitar and go down the hall and out the back door of the motel. I'd planned to sit at the picnic table but it turns out to be covered in bird shit from seagulls who seem to be lost, so I keep walking, over the collapsing link fence, through tall dandelions gone to feathery seed, to the first lawn of the new subdivision. Nobody seems to be working today and the little bulldozer has been left behind. I walk up the path to the third townhouse, third seems like a good spot, and sit down on the front steps since there's no actual porch. I strum my chords again and then try to pick out a scale, but the truth is I don't know what I'm doing and give up. I stand up again and on a whim try the front door of the townhouse. Lo and behold, it opens.

I've never been inside an unlived-in house before, and it's a strange feeling, both spooky and alluring. This one looks just about finished, the walls painted white, the baseboards and sockets in, the oak-veneer kitchen cupboards installed. The only incongruity is a toilet squatting in the centre of the dining room, like a work by Duchamp. The bannister is still wrapped in plastic. Upstairs, the bedrooms are small but the master bedroom has an ensuite bath. Ah-ha, the bathroom is missing its toilet — thus the one downstairs.

Back on the ground floor, I put down the lid of the toilet and sit. I wonder who will live here and what their story will be. They will eat and laugh and bicker around the kitchen table, watch television in the den, play Monopoly in the basement. The kids will dare each other to enter the dark furnace room, the parents will wait until Saturday night to have sex.

Or maybe such lives don't exist anymore. I know they once did; that's what I fled from in the first place.

ON MONDAY, I USE MY cell to phone Long and McQuade in Toronto. I order an electronic tuner, a set of Martin strings, a capo, a dozen Fender picks, and three instruction books. The bill comes to more than twice what I paid for the guitar.

ON FRIDAY, WHEN I COME in, Fred, the motel owner, looks at me with the placidity of a man who knows that time is an illusion and hands me the package from Long and McQuade. Walking quickly to my room, my sample case in one hand and the package in the other, I fantasize about telling Candice that I have taken up guitar, as if somehow this might impress her the way I had hoped to impress girls when I was twelve. The fantasy is somewhat spoiled by my knowing that Candice would be confirmed in everything she thinks about me, but I'm feeling too expectant to let that get me down. On my bed, I unwrap the goodies and lay them out, everything just so cool. The first thing I do is change the crappy strings. It takes me a good forty-five minutes, puts me in a total sweat, and three times I lance the tip of a finger with the sharp end of a string.

Next, I tune up, checking one of the instruction manuals.
E
very
A
thlete
D
rinks
G
atorade
B
efore
E
xercising. Finally, I take one of the fake tortoiseshell picks, smooth and pleasing to the touch, find my G chord, and strum. To my amazement, the room expands with sweet fullness. Turns out even a shitbox of a guitar has music sleeping inside it. I strum hard and faster, but when I get a decent rhythm going, when I'm starting to feel good and thinking that I could play this one chord into eternity, the porn addict next door starts pounding on the wall again.

I take the guitar out back, along with the instruction book and an unrefrigerated beer. I head for the townhouse that I like to refer to as my own. I am vaguely dismayed by a SOLD sign on the one next to it, but I march right inside mine, calling, “Honey, I'm home!” and sit on the toilet in the dining room. With the instruction book open on the floor I practise these little four-bar exercises. After about ten minutes the fingertips of my left hand start to get sore, so I skip the next seven pages of exercises and plunge right into the first song, “On Top of Old Smoky.” Dang, I've always wanted to play that ol' classic. I make my way haltingly through it, pausing for a swig of Blue, the working man's beer.

“Candice, babe,” I say aloud, “It does not get better than this.”

TODAY I HAVE SEVEN APPOINTMENTS with doctors serving the suburban Chinese community from shopping mall clinics. I like these doctors, first or second-generation Canadians who are less arrogant and dismissive of parasites who feed on their underbellies. Plus, at lunch time I have my choice of Chinese restaurants.

Back at the motel, I change into jeans, grab a beer and my guitar, and head out back towards my townhouse. But, crossing the street, I hesitate. Someone is at the house on the other side from mine, pounding another SOLD sign into the ground. All I can see is that she is wearing a sweater and a knit skirt too warm for the weather, stockings and heels. I decide to lay the beer down at the roadside and continue on. She is straightening the sign as I come up the walkway. East Indian or Pakistani, pretty but thin, with a beaky nose and a premature streak of silver in her hair.

“Hello there,” she says, reaching out. I have to switch the guitar over to take her enthusiastic, real estate agent's handshake. “Beautiful houses, aren't they?”

“Yes, I've been admiring them,” I say, not altogether disingenuously. “It looks like they're starting to sell.”

“More than half are already gone. The agents are too busy to put up the signs. Everything will be finished in two months. I find it so exciting when a new community begins. It's like instant happiness.”

“So, who is moving in?”

“Very nice people, lovely people. Mostly from Mumbai. Originally, I mean.”

“Really.”

“The builders have some connections there. And there are a lot of Indian people living on the other side of the highway. Maybe you've seen the Hindu temple, it's quite handsome.”

“Do you represent this one as well?” I asked, pointing to my house.

“Yes, I do. Would you care to take a look? It has an ensuite master bathroom.”

“I know. I mean, I've been inside. The door wasn't locked.”

She frowned. “The tradespeople can be so irresponsible. Did you see the basement? Unfinished but very easily done. It would make a good play room for children. Do you have any kids?”

“No. Not yet, anyway.”

“It's best to get into the market as early as you can. In housing, prices are always going up. Of course, it is more than an investment. It is your home. Do you know what mortgage you are able to carry?”

“I'm not really sure. I mean, I haven't worked out the fine details.”

“What is the down payment you can make?”

I think of the money from my grandfather's estate, which was invested in blue chip funds. I haven't touched it except for taking Candice to Cuba last winter. “I've got about sixty thousand dollars,” I say, although actually it's closer to forty.

“That's quite good. Better than most who buy here. With the low interest rates, you would have to pay only nine hundred dollars a month mortgage, plus the tax, heating, and other usual bills. Could you manage that?”

“If I was careful.”

“It is good to be careful, I think,” she says and smiles. I've never seen a lovelier smile. I'm convinced she really wants me to be happy. “I must tell you that several families have come to see this house in the last two weeks. It won't last long. Here, let me give you my card.”

She snaps open her purse, takes out a card, and hands it to me, just as her cellphone starts to ring. I nod to her, but she is already too involved in a conversation about plot surveys to notice, and retreat back across the road, swiping up my beer as I go.

I CONSIDER TELLING EVERY DOCTOR I visit of the various symptoms I have been experiencing lately. Depression punctuated by fleeting moments of desperate exhilaration. On my last call of the day I give in to the need and confess to a family physician whose patients call him “Doctor Dan.” Without a word he takes his pad, writes a prescription, and hands it to me.

Rexapro.

“This is one of our competitors' products,” I say. “I think it will suit you better.”

“Ours has fewer contra-indications.”

“This one is more generally effective, a wider umbrella.”

“Really?” I'm disappointed. The vice-president said that ours worked the best for the most people.

“You know what their rep gave me?” Doctor Dan says. “A cappuccino machine. Makes pretty good foam.”

BACK AT THE RANCH, I tuck the prescription into the Gideon Bible in the drawer by the bed. I have my usual sumptuous dinner and head out for a night on the town. Along the strip of highway, cars slide past, their lights receding in the dark. It takes me no time to reach Bob's Place, and although it's early in the week, there are a dozen Harley-Davidsons gleaming in the lot. I go up the chipped cement steps and open the door; the music that has been vibrating though the glass windows now blasts me in the face, along with the rank smell of beer. In the dark I can just make out the bikers at their tables, big guys with greying ponytails, leather vests or jackets, beefy hands around their mugs. Also a few women, who match them in bulk and smoke-scarred voices when they laugh. I wonder if they're pissed off about tattoos becoming so popular. The band is crowded into the far corner, thrashing away on some Rush song as if they're playing Maple Leaf Gardens. Most of the bar stools are empty and I pull myself onto one. The bartender, a woman my mother's age (although I doubt my mother would show that amount of cleavage), gives me a friendly smile as she wipes down the bar.

“What can I do you for?”

“I'll have a Blue.”

“You got it.”

The band takes a break. Only when they come down to join the bikers do I realize they're not young guys. I don't think the bikers are Hells Angels, at least it doesn't say so on their jackets. The beer is so cold it hurts my teeth. Suddenly I have to pee and find the john down the hall from the grease-stinking kitchen. It reeks of piss and marijuana. I relieve myself, decide against touching the sink, and head back to the bar where I down half my beer. My hands are trembling, God knows why, and I slip my right hand into my pocket for some change to jangle but instead my fingers touch the smooth side of a pick. I must have put it in my pocket after practising. I bring out the pick and press it in my palm so that I can feel its rounded corners. I place it on the bar and admire its triangular shape, like it's one of those basic forms of nature.

“You play guitar?” the bartender asks, spotting the pick while she taps a beer.

“Just started really.”

“We got an open mic night on Mondays. We could use a fresh face. What's your name?”

She is already taking a clipboard down from a nail beside the shelf holding the hard stuff. I say, “Mitch.”

“What's that, a nickname?”

“It's short for Mitchell.”

“Okay, Mitch, you're on for next Monday. Eighth slot. We start at seven-thirty. You get a free beer.”

“All right,” I say.

“You want another?”

“I've got to get up early for work.” I take out my wallet and put down a bill and some change. Outside the door, the night air caresses my face, the black star-filled sky sprawls above me. Going down the cement steps I hear grunts, and coming round the building see a couple of bikers beating up some guy, each taking a punch at him in turn, hauling him up for another. I realize that the guy is the lead singer in the band. They let him drop in the dirt and walk past me as they go back into Bob's Place. The singer is up on one knee, spitting blood. I head back down the highway.

ON FRIDAY, THE PRODUCT REPS have a conference at the airport Delta. The star reps are all men in their fifties who never wanted desk jobs. The crowning moment of the day occurs in the conference theatre where a sleek video advertisement showing sunsets and mountain vistas and waterfalls is projected on the huge screen. And then the name
Sopora
, our new sleeping pill. The Canadian vice-president of marketing walks out to a standing ovation, our fists punching the air.

I GET BACK TO THE motel about eight, pulling onto the gravel lot. It isn't as dark as it was a week ago; spring is moving into summer. I drop my crap, throw off my jacket and tie, and pick up the guitar from its case. It was while listening to the vice-president's speech that I suddenly decided what song I wanted to perform at the open mic: Leonard Cohen's “Bird on the Wire.” I'd loved the song when I was sixteen — it was so melancholy and cool, and it implied that the singer had experienced a lot of sex and that there would be more in his weary future, but that he would always be moving on. Plus, I still remember the words.

It takes me a full hour to figure out the key and the chord changes. Hearing the A, D, and E chords aren't too hard; it's the B minor that takes me so long, but when I get it the melody falls into place. I can't imagine what it must feel like to create something so yearning, so egotistical, so perfect. I sing and play it over and over, trying to keep in time, make the changes cleaner. When I finally go to bed the tune goes round and round in my head.

SATURDAY MORNING AND I AM standing on the steps of the townhouse, wearing a jacket and tie with my jeans and running shoes. It is a stunning day, the sun bright and buds opening on the spindly trees that have been planted and those still with their roots bundled in burlap. Two blocks down I can see a moving van backed up and two men hefting out a box-spring mattress. The truth is, I wanted to stand here holding a bouquet of flowers, something modest like daisies, but didn't have the nerve. Empty-handed, I watch as Shanti Bhaskar, the real estate agent, pulls up in her Ford Escort and waves to me as she gets out. To my surprise, she isn't wearing her real estate agent's outfit, but jeans and Converse runners, and she looks really great. “Hi, Mitch,” she says, like we're friends, “I'm really glad you called. This whole section is selling out much faster than we anticipated. I know there's another agent in my office showing this one today. Shall we go in?”

“Sure,” I say as she comes up. “Of course, I'm not quite ready to decide.”

“I understand,” she says, touching my arm. “It's a problem. You see something you like, you want to take some time over it, but if you do you'll lose it. You need to accelerate the whole internal process.”

Well, I couldn't decelerate any more than I already have. She opens the door and ushers me in. “So,” I say, “Any chance you're thinking of buying one around here for yourself?”

“I already bought last year,” she laughs. “In the subdivision just south. I wasn't sure that I was ready either but my husband really pushed it. A good thing too, they're already reselling at ten percent higher.”

Only now do I see the ring on her hand. Stupidly, I hadn't looked. Inside the house, the toilet is gone from the dining room and the plastic has been removed from the rails. Shanti turns and smiles gently as she looks at me with her brown eyes, as if she knows my disappointment, as if my own skin is as transparent as Saran Wrap.

“I have tried to be free in my way,” I say quietly.

“I'm sorry?”

“It's from a Leonard Cohen song.”

“Oh, right. ‘Bird on the Wire.' Great song.”