Shelby (28 page)

“Weird.”

“And how long can it last? Surely it isn't
true
peace.”

“What time is it?”

“You just—good God. Twenty past four.”

“Jesus. Maybe he ain't coming home.”

“What?”

“It's four-thirty. Where the hell could he be?”

“I sup—”

“Shut up.” We both froze in the darkness as a door slammed in the distance. Eric grabbed my shirt and yanked me behind him. “This could be it,” he said, bracing himself, the gun firmly grasped at his side.

“Anything?” I whispered.

“I gotta take a leak.”

“Nerves.”

“Beer.”

There was a pause. “It doesn't sound like whoever was there is there anymore.”

“I tell you, man,” Eric said matter-of-factly, “I don't think he's coming.”

“What should we do?”

“We'll write him a note. Let him know he might lose an eye or something if he doesn't back off.”

“An eye?”

Eric clicked on the light. “Got any paper?”

I felt through my Gortex jacket and found a pen in the breast pocket. Eric picked up a slightly stained brown paper bag off the coffee table and tore it down one side.

“This'll do,” he said, handing it to me.

“What should I write?”

“Uh …
Hey Frankie-boy, just thought we'd leave you a little warning …
hang on a sec, I gotta take a leak. Keep an eye on the door.” Eric disappeared around the corner.

“For the record, Eric, I fear threatening him may only serve to—”

“Oh God.”

“What?”

“Oh shit.”

“What?”

“Come here, man.”

“No.”

“Come here.”

“Why?”

“Come here.”

I nervously walked to the end of the room to see Eric standing frozen in the doorway, staring. I peeked over his shoulder. “
Aaah
!”

“Easy, jeez.”

On the bed lay Frank; still, nude, horribly white, a peach towel around his hairy waist, his genitalia unavoidably exposed. He had one leg bent, the other straight out. There were what looked like hockey cards stacked all over the floor. The room was muggy and stale.

“Look at that thing,” Eric said.

“Is he dead?”

Eric shrugged and gingerly approached the body, brushing Frank's hand as a game warden would fearing to wake a tranquilized bear. “Stiff,” he said.

“Is he breathing?”

“I don't think so.”

“Are those hockey cards?”

He bent down towards Frank's hand. “Look at this, man, a Bobby Orr rookie card.”

“What are we going to do?”

“He musta been playin' with 'em when … when …”

“
Eric
, what are we going to do?”

Eric turned to me, his eyes glancing left and right as though seeking possibilities. “Split.”

“What?”

“You got a better idea?”

“What if he's still alive? We should call 911.”

“He's
stiff
.”

“We have to report it.”

“
Shel
, we broke into his
place
.”

“We can't abandon him.”

“We have a gun, man. You
already
assaulted Suzanne tonight. They'd find out in about two seconds the guy punched your face in. It might even come out about what he did to your car.”

“So?”

“So what are we gonna do? Make him dinner? Look at your face. It's a mess. What would you tell the feds? A birthmark? You'd be revenge suspect number one …”

“Suspect …”

“We gotta split, man.”

“And go where?”

“Home.”

“Home?”

“Where else we gonna go …?”

XIX

Razis tore out his bowels with both hands and flung them at the crowds. So he died, calling on Him who is lord of life and spirit to restore them to him again
.

—
II Maccabees

“I can't make it on my own.”

“I got you the glue,” Eric said, tossing it on the pull-out couch.

“Oh wretched humanity!” I cried, perched on top of the covers, slightly fetal, leaning over
Fish-tail Pie
, its two broken tails resting on my thigh. “Man-made decisions will be the end of us all!”

“You still got the runs?”

“I surrender to God, Eric. Right here, you as my witness.”

“Look, man, you did nothin' wrong. We were protecting Lucy. Frank was dead when we got there.”

The phone rang. Eric picked it up. “Yeah?” Eye movement. “Oh. Oh … hi … yeah, just a sec.” Eric covered the receiver with his right hand and groaned. “It's Lucy,” he said.

“Oh no. What does she want?”

“You.”

I took the receiver. “Hello?”

“Can you come over?”

“You're home.”

“I need you to come over.”

“Really? Is everything—”

“It's Frank.”

“Oh … okay. I'm on my way.” I hung up.

“What'd she say?”

“She wants me to come over.”

“Does she know?”

“I think so.”

“About us?”

“I don't know.”

The door opened. There was Lucy. “What happened to your face?” she said.

“Oh … uh … Eric and I were wrestling.”

“Frank's dead,” she said.

“
What
?” A police officer stood in the hallway.

“Shel, this is … sorry I forgot your name.”

“Kravchuck.”

“Officer Kravchuck.”

The officer extended his hand and offered a tight-lipped nod of acknowledgement as we shook. “Well, Mrs. Moon, I'll get out of your way. My deepest sympathies.”

“Thank you. Thanks for your help.” Lucy escorted the man out, closed the door and turned to me, her face expressionless.

“What happened?” I asked.

“He O.D.'d.”

“Really?”

“The dumb bastard,” she said. “He never shot up while I was with him.”

“He killed himself?”

“Smack, they figure. There's some super potent shit goin' around,” she said, raising her hands to her face and rubbing her eyes. “They found a strange note on the floor outside his bedroom.”

“Hm. What kind of note?”

“Some sort of half-written warning. Cops asked me if I could name any enemies. I said it'd be easier to name friends.
None
.” Lucy walked into the front room and picked up a packet of cigarettes from the coffee table.

“How do you feel?”

She shrugged. “They found him on his bed. He'd been dead for two days.”

“I'm sorry.”

“I was married to the man! I should at least be crying.”

“You never cry.”

“They got tipped about the body from a couple of strange phone calls at dawn this morning.”

“Strange?”

“Some guy. Very high strung. Maybe another user, they figure.”

“I bet he wasn't that strange,” I said, disgusted at my inability to own up.

Lucy put her cigarette in her mouth. “Well … I'm
back
!” she said.

An acute pain gripped my lower intestine. I winced, and actually felt the colour drain from my face. “Could I use your washroom?”

“Of course.”

Due to the speed of the attack, I had to wobble with my cheeks clenched just to keep it all at bay. Skirting around the corner and into the bathroom, I turned on both the hot and cold taps in the sink, yanked down my corduroys and sitting down on the bowl let the rest happen voluntarily.

Amidst noxious fumes, it came to me that life does not last, love is eternal and humanity, in its urge to have The Answers, has made blunder after blunder. Denial of this had already left me unable to accept Suzanne's wondrous gift. My God, she came offering her soul and I, terrified by honesty, lashed out like an animal. And why? Because just as God cannot stomach sin, liars despise honesty. It would seem general confusion exacerbated by drugs and alcohol had left my troubadour within trampled by his very own horse. And now in the front room stood a troubled Lucy, my one love, relaying to me police details that I already knew!

And so, prostrate on Lucy's bed sometime later that evening I confessed to the previous night's commotion at Frank's apartment and begged her not to make me go to the police. Lucy was a combination exalted and appalled—much like life itself, I thought to myself, suddenly aware that all was coming to me as metaphors of existence. I told her Eric and I had reason to believe the last thing Frank did was read Bobby Orr's scoring statistics. For fear of overload, I made no mention of my attack on Suzanne, instead carrying that guilt around as bursts and bubbles of intestinal spasm. I was shocked that both the person I most loved and the person I most despised had died within months of each other. What did this mean? Exhaustion eventually freed me in the form of slumber, the drift of rain in my ears, the taste of Pepto-Bismol in my mouth.

Awakening heavy headed before dawn, I heard the patter of bare feet on wood. Paying heed, they gently waned, to be replaced by a door squeak, running water and, finally, silence. Anxiety gripped my chest and I shook. I was as loathsome and angelic, it would seem, as all the rest. I lay back and concentrated on listening, becoming aware of the household hum and the heater, electricity in general and then sounds I didn't recognize—life going about its business, I presumed. Still fully dressed, I got up and tiptoed towards the kitchen, untangling my underwear where necessary. The apartment was warm, both in temperature and ambience, not unlike a child's sense of Christmas Eve. From the hall, the gentle peep of the stove light on the front room floor and the familiar odour of Lucy's cigarettes indulged my senses. One more step and I saw Lucy, the door frame blocking all but her elbow on the table and the side of her face leaning on her cigarette hand. Creeping closer, I could see her eyes were closed and, save for her bra, she was unclad. For fear of either waking, frightening or embarrassing her, I remained silent. Every minute or so, without opening her eyes, she'd take a long drag of her cigarette and then maybe scratch her shoulder with her cigarette hand or rub her eye. I figured one day soon I would confess being so fond of her that it would be in both of our best interests—and perhaps our children's—if she abandoned cigarettes altogether. I smiled at the thought of her reaction to such a notion. She stood up and walked to the sink, filled a glass with water and took a sip, the kitchen light warm across her back and down her legs.

“Lucy,” I whispered. She turned around, briefly trying to cover her nakedness, and then for a lack of hands, gave up.

“Hi, Shel,” she said softly, “what are you doing up?”

I shrugged. “Restless, I guess. Are you all right?”

Naked to her bra in the stove light, Lucy gave me a double thumbs up. It was beautiful.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“It's so strange,” she said. “Frank's dead. Kinda closes a book, you know? I don't know how to react; sadness, guilt, fear, anger, relief—in all honesty, the guy was a prick.”

“I wish I could help but I gave up having answers this morning.”

“Running from your past is like running from your legs,” she said.

“Do you want some juice?”

“And how can I judge him? I ain't exactly Mechtild of Magdeburg?”

“Who is?” I said, realising I didn't know who that was.

“Listen to this,” she said, putting her cigarette in her mouth and picking up a paperback that was folded open on the table. “‘Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness. All can know good as good only because there is evil'.”

“What's that?”

“The Tao Te Ching,” she said. “It's dicks like Frank that make flowers so damn beautiful, you know?”

I pictured his stiff body; white, large, dead—hardly a blossoming iris.

“He wasn't so bad,” she said.

Back home the following evening, still nauseous,
Fish-tail Pie
pieced together and in view on top of Lucy's little television, I read over my attempt at restitution with Suzanne.

Dear Suzanne
,

As I sit gazing at Fish-tail Pie, I realise you offered me a seal pup and I clubbed its furry head. Why? Amidst tears, vomit (yesterday) and diarrhoea, one reality pushes forth
.

Truth. That is, a lack thereof
.

At three days, surely the infant boy must wonder, why have they clipped my foreskin? At five we discover the tooth fairy is a lie. At seven or eight, Santa Claus. Adolescence is a time of intense self hatred over abstract ideas that only have meaning because of more lies; weight, complexion, body hair and so forth
.

But it is at twenty years of age that I have seen how pervasive society's lack of truth really is: education, success and sex—mainstays
,
if you will—have all crumbled before me as illusion. And I ask: from what spring do answers spew forth? Science? God? Indeed, I have done well in neither works nor grace. Since I was a child I have been taught that it is more important to believe Jesus Christ died and rose than it is to live a life of harmony with all that surrounds us. This troubles me greatly
.

I never told you, but my Granmother died a short while back. She was my closest ally. Bussing back from the funeral, it was revealed to me that the soul is a big ear. Where was mine when you offered your gift? Filled with wax, I presume
.

There is no satisfactory excuse for my behaviour. Perhaps I am a reflection of general social decay. More likely, though, the outburst stemmed from an ever increasing fear that women find me sexually repugnant. If you have any ideas or agree, please let me know. Again, I am sorry. I HAVE NO ANSWERS
.

And if you have any plans to charge me for assault, call first and I will turn myself over to the authorities, with whatever written statement you would deem appropriate
.