Order of Good Cheer (15 page)

Yes, he was alone. He felt depression's inevitable attacks, and worked to blunt the triple prongs of no love, no children, and a non-career. What helped was the suffering of friends — those with love, children, and careers — and the daily pain on their faces. Their lives had high points, bubbles of bliss he had no clue about, but these friends were burnt and tossed and soured by care. (A walking sandwich board of pain, Drew had been a huge help in this, for years.) Andy took from all of it that, while he had no keys to happiness, they sure didn't have any either. In thirty-nine years of examining the evidence, it seemed that no one, anywhere, had any of the main questions figured out. So in this sense at least, Andy had lots of company. Read history, turn on the news, talk to a friend — you encounter more floundering. If anything, for all this shared confusion the world felt crowded and familiar. He wasn't alone at all.

Breaking the pencil lead dotting her exclamation point, Pauline finished Andy's list. They put on their coats, she led the way out the door into snow flurries, and since Pauline hadn't driven his Mustang yet, Andy decided to give her complete control of the day and suggested she take the wheel. Pauline was anything but a car person but she pretended to be excited to drive his cool car. She had always been kind that way.

IN THE CLOSET'S
full-length mirror in his parents' old room, Andy checked out one of his four new outfits. Tonight he would
be a man in black, though the belt was more a deep purple. And the shoes dark brown leather. They seemed too thick-soled and somehow nursey and he still couldn't find a way to like them. Downstairs, some Vivaldi was playing too loud. That music and this clothing didn't mesh at all. His mood had bifurcated badly, maybe permanently. It was easiest to change the music. Though he had no Johnny Cash. He had nothing new either, nothing he didn't know every note to. He'd try some latter-day R.E.M., some of which he didn't like very much — maybe he'd hear something new in it. The banquet began in an hour. Maybe he should nudge his humour with a beer.

On leaving the last store, when Andy moaned about spending seven hundred dollars on clothes, Pauline gently reminded him that most men his age with his bank account had no problem spending that much on a leather coat, or two new truck tires, or a charter on Leonard's boat. In Vancouver, she continued, four people could drop that on a nice meal. Especially, she said, if Drew was there and you included the bar tab. It was here she added somewhat casually that it looked like she and Drew were splitting up.

Almost in a panic, Andy asked if they were both still coming tonight, as if checking to see if they'd broken up yet — because if they had, maybe they wouldn't.

Pauline said they were coming. She added that it wasn't just a fight, it was bigger.

“But this is — I knew you guys were sort of, I don't know what, but I hate hearing this, this is awful.” Andy had watched Drew and Pauline go through puberty holding hands. You couldn't imagine them apart.

“Well, it looks like we can't stand each other any more.”

“That's hard to believe.”

“Nope.” Pauline was chatty, ready to break out in jokes. “He can't stand me, I can't stand him.”

“How? I mean, I know it's probably complicated, but how did this happen?
When
did this happen?”

They were passing the mouth of an alley next to the Elks' Lodge, and there nestling up near the base of the cinder-block wall was what had to be human feces. Last night, someone had taken a mere two steps into the alley and yanked down their pants. What was that about? Why not go ten more feet and turn that corner? Why not run into the bar?

“Well, he's been depressed — Andy, he's been depressed a long time now. Not
depressed-
depressed, but just really sort of down. And when he gets depressed he gets critical. Of me mostly.” Pauline's voice got thin here, almost shaky. “Drew gets mean. I get mean back. That's what's been going on for a while now. You try to be kind, and I think he tries too, but it doesn't last long. I mean, he
mocks
me for trying to be nice to him. C'mon, Andy, how bad is that?” She looked up and watched him nodding. “So — we can't stand each other any more.” Staring at her feet, shaking her head, Pauline was feeling her words. She added softly, “So why fucking put up with it for the rest of your life, you know?”

“That's really sad to hear.” Andy shifted all his black plastic bags to one hand and took Pauline's in his free one. She was his friend too, and this was allowed, this was fine that he be her girlfriend for a bit.

He couldn't imagine them splitting. They weren't an ugly, bickering couple. Maybe the one time he'd seen them truly angry with each other was back when — ten, twelve years ago? — Drew built an English pub in the basement despite Pauline's pleading with him not to. He built it anyway, their marriage survived, and two or three good parties followed, but it never
became the hub of social gaiety Drew envisioned, and then it became Chris's bedroom. Andy remembered joking to Drew about the wisdom of giving a boy a pub for a bedroom, a sad irony now, one Andy was careful to avoid pointing out, given Drew's worries about Chris.

“Drew drinking lots?”

“Not really. He doesn't drink at home at all any more.” She turned to him with a mischievous deadpan. “He's too depressed.”

“What do you think he's depressed about? I'm asking because you seem to be thinking this is where it started.”

“You name it.” Pauline said Drew couldn't watch tv news any more, or read newspapers. Andy said that didn't sound good, and she said it wasn't just that, it could be triggered by anything. For instance, she said, last night, Drew got depressed reading
The New Yorker
cartoons. His dad had started their gift subscription to
The New Yorker
again and their first issue in years came yesterday, and Drew scanned the cartoons first, as always.

“You know that R. Crumb? The old hippie cartoon guy?”

“I
love
R. Crumb.” He hadn't seen R. Crumb in a while, except that film about him. He and Drew had seen it together.

“It depressed him.”

“It did?”

“I think because R. Crumb was in
The New Yorker
at all.”

“Huh.” He could see being disappointed by it, but not depressed. And why not spread the dark joys of R. Crumb to the conservative masses? Still, you could understand the nostalgic underground strand Drew was clinging to.

They walked a few more strides before Pauline asked him what he thought Drew was depressed about.

“I don't know. He does seem sort of down.” “Down” had always been Drew's way, though. Andy pictured, maybe they
were twelve, Drew pulling his face back from a new microscope, having had a gaze at hairy scooting things, and on his face was knowledge that all life was hungry in a dangerous way, malevolent, and fundamentally wrong. “Down” was something Drew generally brought to the table. Though maybe he'd been farther down of late, come to think of it. He'd been meaning to lend Drew that book on S.A.D. It said excess melatonin might be the culprit, which was surprising, as was the fact that northern latitudes didn't appear to cause it, despite the twelve percent of Inuit who —

“And if he's suicidal,” said Pauline, “me being there won't make a bit of difference.”

“
What?”

“Okay.” Pauline stopped and threw her hands up as if warding off a crowd. “Forget that. I didn't say it. Mistake.”

“Jesus.”

“You can't help thinking about everything, you know?”

“Has he said something?”

“Forget it.
I'm
more likely to kill myself.”

“Are you thinking about his mother? Because —”

“She fell asleep at the wheel.”

“True.” Who knew what Drew thought. He wouldn't talk about his mother, and what could be more telling than that?

“It's funny but—” Pauline was suddenly quite cheerful now. “It's not
funny
, but he thinks you're depressed too.”

“Me?”

“Maybe it's, when you're depressed, you think everyone's depressed.”

“He thinks I'm depressed?”

From Pauline's look it seemed she was going to ask, Well, aren't you? Instead she said, “He calls it ‘your rut.' I think it's the solitary life you lead that worries him. Actually”— Pauline
squeezed his hand, though it was more timid spasm than squeeze—“I guess we both worry about you sometimes. But hey—” She turned to him and laughed. “This isn't about you!”

He spotted his car a block away looking too wedged in between a white pickup and a yellow hybrid taxi. They were done talking, but Pauline quickly asked him not to mention the breaking up to anyone because they hadn't told Chris yet. Andy said he'd thought Chris was still in Calgary, and Pauline said he was but that she didn't want him hearing it from friends over the phone. Barely sixteen, a month before grade eleven exams, Chris had driven to Calgary with an older friend who'd taken his father's truck without permission. When the father threatened to press charges the friend came back with the truck, but Chris stayed. He was flipping burgers, or that was how Drew described it to Andy. “Doing anything he has to do to stay away.” According to Drew, Chris might have got a U.S. scholarship in either hockey or tennis, and Chris's response to this kind of encouragement had been to drop competitive sports. To hear Drew tell it, his son dropped sports
because
of Drew's encouragement. Now even high school was a question mark. Andy liked Chris. He'd met him when Chris was a day old, and Andy was probably the closest Chris had to an uncle. He'd been Chris's fellow student when Drew taught them both to fly-fish. And Drew was right — Chris had been the normal little kid, eager for Dad's attentions. Andy had watched him hit puberty and grow into a wise little cynic, not unlike Dad, but even Dad fell under his freshly baleful gaze. Andy didn't know if Chris had drug issues, but he looked the type, with his knowing eyes and careless hair and acid-wit T-shirts. In any case, Chris was probably the main reason for Drew's depression and no need to state the obvious to Pauline. If Andy had seen Drew tear up on the subject of Chris, imagine what she'd seen.

Before they climbed into the car, Pauline smiled at Andy over the black mirror of the car's roof. “Anyway I don't know. It just might be better to be away from each other. We're both wondering what that might feel like.”

Pauline didn't care to drive the Mustang back to Andy's.

IT BEING WEDNESDAY
, on the way to the Wheat Women party Andy dropped by his mother's for an abbreviated visit. He was ready for her to see him in his black clothes, disapprove, and pronounce something in singsong like, “But clothes don't make the man,” absolving him.

He was hardly noticed. Laura's mother had gone for her walk but failed to return. She'd been gone two hours, it was dark, and now raining. They'd all been out looking, and Doris's daughter's husband still was, and they'd just called the police. The dining table was set for four and centred by a bucket of chicken, its famous smell of spiced fat thick in the room. Coleslaw and French fries had been put into bowls and serving spoons laid out, but nothing had been touched. Andy's mom seemed particularly stricken. She looked grey and her eyes betrayed that she'd been crying. Andy didn't think he'd seen her like this since his father died, and this bothered him, the similar weight given his father and Mrs. Schultz.

He wanted to ask if Laura had been called yet.

“Is this the longest she's wandered off?” he asked instead.

“I think so. But it just feels wrong. Something's wrong this time.”

“Well let's hope she rolls up in a taxi at any moment.”

“It feels different. We all agree.” His mom looked over to Rita, who said “Mmhmm” without looking up from leafing through the phone book. Doris agreed from her living-room chair.

“We drilled her,” said Andy's mom. “We made her promise and promise to call us. Her coat pocket has our phone number, her purse has our phone number, her wallet has our phone number. We told her to phone, phone, phone. If she forgot that, I swear she'll forget to breathe.”

Andy didn't know what to say so he said nothing.

“But you look very nice, dear.” His mother was looking at him down her nose. “Very ‘of a sort.' For your party. Your shoes especially.”

“Thanks.”

“Doesn't he look good?” His mother didn't raise her voice but aimed the inflection at Rita and Doris. Doris responded that he looked very nice, and Rita said so too, but without looking up from flipping her Yellow Pages, which stung Andy a little.

“Maybe I could go back for my car and do some looking too.”

“No, dear, you have a party to go to. We've checked all the places we can think of, and now the police are checking . . . some of the ‘other' places.”

Places a body might be found, Andy understood.

“Well, this is really a drag.”

“It is, dear.”

He watched his mother shake her head, for herself only, not performing. She said, barely audible, “Either way, it's the end.”

Doris scampered up to Andy apropos of nothing and, smiling, asked if he wanted some chicken. Andy thanked her and explained that he'd be eating at the party. Rita, funny and his friend again, did a voice to ask Doris “why would he want trailer-trash chicken when his party's hoidy-toidy catered?”

But the room sobered quickly. Not even tea was being offered so Andy decided it was time. He wished them luck in finding Mrs. Schultz. He said he felt guilty going off to have fun. He added that he had spoken with a contractor about building a
seawall. His mother nodded and said that was good to hear, but she was plainly bound up in her worry. Andy hadn't seen her like this. He went to hug her but she didn't get up. She raised her cheek for a kiss, distracted, hardly aware of his lips. To his back she said, “Even the best of friends must part.”