Sweet Life (17 page)

I commanded my mother to get up and make me pancakes, but she told me she was sick, that I should shut the door and be quiet.

I slammed the door and headed out on Hallway Patrol, another job foisted onto me by Super Rick, who said he trusted me to keep the building safe from bad guys. As the sheriff, I pretended my rain boots were cowboy boots, and for a gun, stuck the last banana we had into my waistband. No cowboy hat, but I had the Montreal Expos cap given to me by my father.

The Expos were our team and we’d cheer them on every time they played. My father was a gambler and bet serious money on those games, bet on anything and everything, no matter what the odds. His last gamble was in believing the only thing wrong with him was a bad cold.

On this day, I came across the sleazebag one floor down and immediately forgot about Hallway Patrol.

“Can I paint, too, Super Rick?”

The creep straightened, sucked back on his cigarette and, through his coveralls, gave his scrotum a hike. “Believe me, kid, if I thought you could handle this, I’d let you.

“See, this kind of work’s too messy for a little kid, know what I mean? Your mother wouldn’t like it if you got paint on your clothes.”

“She won’t care.”

“Yeah? How come I haven’t seen her around, anyway? She hiding out?” He stubbed his cigarette against the wall and let the butt drop.

“She’s sleeping.”

“I’ll bet your mother wears see-through nighties when she goes to bed. Well, you tell her that if she gets lonesome, Super Rick’s in 101 and just like this wall –” He knocked it with his knuckles. “I’m primed and ready.” He lit another cigarette, blew smoke and winked.

I didn’t understand what the pig was getting at, but there was something about the wink I didn’t like. I said I was going back on Hallway Patrol and he said, “You do that, kid, and don’t forget the lobby.”

Down the elevator I went to get at his job: stacking a few brochures and emptying cold butts into the garbage. For the first time, it occurred to me to go outside and stand on the single step.

There wasn’t much traffic and I looked for the Monte Carlo, thought it could be parked down the street while my father looked for our apartment building. Then I saw the Chinese restaurant on the other side. It was close enough that, from our balcony, I was able to track who went in and out.

I’d already considered taking money from my mother’s wallet while she slept and risk going out on my own to find a store. But I would’ve had to ask Super Rick for directions, and even a dolt like him would’ve asked questions, questions I didn’t want to answer. My parents had drilled into me that no matter what anyone asked, I was to keep my mouth shut about family business. It didn’t occur to me to ask for help.

But there was that restaurant. Back up the elevator I went to the fourth floor, into our unlocked apartment with the closed bedroom door.

The phone rang and I got the receiver off the wall by pulling on the cord. Before Uncle Al could say more than hi, I told him I was starving and my mother wouldn’t get out of bed. He said, “Tell her to come to the phone.”

Her window blind had been drawn so long, I’d forgotten I’d ever seen light in there. The room no longer smelled like my mother’s perfume; it smelled like dirty laundry. She was awake and staring at the ceiling, but when she saw me, she turned to the wall. “Tell him I’m too sick to talk to anyone.”

I went to the living room, grabbed my pillow, stomped it, took the banana from my waistband and shot up everything in sight. Then I hauled my blanket to the balcony railing and pushed it over. I expected to see the blanket float to the pavement. Instead, it made a lopsided tumble and landed inert as any roadkill.

I dropped to the balcony floor and cried. I’ve often wondered how it was that no one heard me. Didn’t anyone have a window or balcony door open? Or was it that no one gave a shit?

Loud knocking got me running to the door, expecting to find my father there with his arms wide. But it was Super Rick who walked in.

“I see your mother’s not finished unpacking.” He waved a cigarette toward the bedroom. “She in there?”

Without answering, I stepped between him and the bedroom door.

He strolled into the living room and out to the balcony, walked back to the kitchen and saw the phone was off the hook. “Hell, no wonder.” He hung it up and looked at me.

“Some guy called my place, said he’s your Uncle Al. Asked me to tell your mother he’s coming over in the morning. Guess you can tell her.”

No mention of my tears. Asshole goes back to the door then looks at me, again. “Uncle, eh. Likely he’s one of those guys, visits your mother and says you gotta call him uncle. That right?”

He made an idiotic wave with the cigarette and I locked the door after him, forgetting he had a key.

Much later, I awoke when my mother rolled over. They told me she couldn’t have rolled over and that I had imagined it. But just as I’d had absolute faith that my dad would show up, to this day I have absolute faith she did roll over. She did take my hand.

And In the morning, it was Uncle Al who gently pried her fingers, one by one, from mine.

~

I didn’t want to burden you or anyone, Cindy, by talking about the times I’d wander far from Uncle Al’s farm, find a coulee where I could be alone to cry. Where I could howl like a coyote calling for its family. And every autumn, since my mother died, I pretend I’m not enduring a misery grey as ashes and just as cold.

As a boy and now, I wonder why I wasn’t enough reason for my mother to carry on. Did I somehow let her down? Was I in some way responsible for her flight from life? I’ve kept this idea away from the light, afraid to look at it closely.

If you had been what they call
a successful suicide
, your mother and I would be staggering through arrangements like victims of a hit and run. Coffin, funeral, headstone. Would we agree on the epitaph? Not likely. Not likely we’d agree on anything ever again. You didn’t consider how ripped apart you’d leave us. Probably thought we’d be sad for a month, and then get on with things. As though your suicide would be nothing more than another detail of our shared lives and not become the central point of its undoing.

Tonight, you’re safe. I can turn off the light, go back to the guest bedroom and hope for sleep. Hope for the right words.

Susp
ension

A woman wearing an unbuttoned cardigan
stands on the front veranda of a two-story and shakes dust from a 0mop. Darryl, sitting on the bench across the street, sees that her sweeping is an excuse to get a closer look at him: a man at a bus stop who keeps buses from stopping by waving them on. He considers waving the woman on, too, but is afraid she’ll either be offended or make the gesture an excuse to cross the street and ask him what it is he’s doing. She takes a last look in his direction and goes back inside.

What a mystery we are. Who are these strangers driving by? What are they thinking? The two elderly women who walk past and nod at Darryl return to a subdued argument. At their ages, what is there left to disagree about? After all, city living here is easy; these people appear to have everything. Except wild animals. Or impromptu celebrations and faces alive with gratitude or joy or suffering. Real life is boxed away in places like the bungalow into which Darryl recently moved, where he showers every morning and can’t scrub away the night’s incubus. Someone else makes him coffee and toast while he waits at the table like a wobbly child who can’t be trusted with the breadknife.

There are days when he does better, when he makes it to the hardware store and stocks shelves while his boss, Gerhardt, deals with customers. Direct and honest, he knows how to talk, which is why his customers haven’t yet taken their business to the larger stores. Darryl, on the other hand, prefers dealing with things. They’re easier to hold onto than people.

He should’ve arrived at the hardware store an hour ago instead of sitting here
squashing the egg salad sandwich inside his pocket. In the other pocket rests the unobtrusive heft of the switchblade he brought from Africa. Any sudden movement – the dart of a sparrow, the dash of a child – and his hand reaches for the knife.

Another bus approaches and begins to slow. Darryl waves
it on. But this one stops, the back doors fold and a man descends.
“Good day for loafing. Wish I had the time.”

Darryl tries a polite smile. According to Gerhardt, Darryl’s attempts at pleasant expressions resemble a man fighting gas pains. And what’s Gerhardt doing this minute? Watching the door each time it opens, hoping Darryl will plod through and start inventory? It’ll take more than counting hammers to get him off this bench.

Mornings like this are hard. He creeps into them tentative as a newborn calf, waits in bed for sunlight to peel away his bafflement. Where are the voices from the hospital tent? Where are his boots? Whose are these corduroy slippers, the type his dad used to wear?

His dad. Passed on nine years ago, leaving Alma as his widow.

Although it was his dad who invited Alma Bloor for tea, it all began innocently. It was only Gloria who suspected that the woman’s first, hard ringing of their doorbell portended disaster. Gloria’s nickname for her was “that Marilyn Monroe wannabe.”

Alma was a regular at family dinners for several months. When she stopped coming over, her presence in the house was substituted by lengthy silences. When did Darryl’s parents fight? They must’ve duked it out
sotto voce
after he went to bed. Until the Saturday in September, when his dad loaded the Plymouth with suitcases and drove away.

~

Darryl knew his sister had been born smarter than the rest of the family. At sixteen, she sparked ideologies that annoyed the hell out of his parents. No one else had a daughter who belted out choruses of “We shall overcome”
and covered her walls with slogans like BAN THE BOMB, photos of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Darryl’s dad believed her intensity was fuelled by an oversupply of adolescent hormones. What he actually said was: “Come on, Betty, remember last year? She was gaga over what’s-his-name.”

“Elvis Presley. But Arnold. This year, it’s pictures of
Negroes
on the walls.”

Gloria had planned her future. She would attend medical college after high school and get her nursing certification, fly to Africa where she’d heal the continent’s sick. No adult could talk her into a safer occupation such as typing.

Darryl’s own aspirations were no more than sporadic, fluttering drizzles. He kept his thoughts to himself, recording them inside a fluorescent green diary where he tracked details about his own gaucheness, how he didn’t fit in at school and didn’t fit in at home.

~

Now, the weight of who Darryl is keeps him here at the bus stop, tired out before he’s begun. He can see the elms, sees how they’re turning from green to gold. Gusts rattle papery leaves against the curbs and frost-browned flowers huddle against fences. He hasn’t witnessed this season in a long time, yet he feels nothing for it. The only thing that is real is the barrier dividing his chest, a barrier solid as the concrete fence across the street.

Gerhardt doesn’t complain when Darryl arrives late at work, leaves early or takes sudden breaks. Darryl will stand outside to gaze at the garbage bins and the telephone poles and the fences and the sky. At those moments he is inconsequential, no more than a scrape of paint and no larger than the pause at the end of a sentence.

Gerhardt is an optimist and the only friend Darryl has in this place. He assures Darryl that he’ll soon feel better; it’s only a matter of time. Darryl’s not sure. Time can set you on your feet. Or it can drop you on your head.

After all, Anin could be alive right now if Darryl had made it back in time. He thinks about this a hundred times a day. On the other hand, he, too, could be resting in a meagrely marked grave.

I kill the Jeep’s engine. The compound is quiet. No lamp burning in our tent. Why didn’t I light it before I left? The door is open. I stumble through the mess, calling, but there’s no answer. I kneel next to what used to be Anin, my hands sliding through his blood.

I kill the Jeep’s engine. Silence shoves me to the door. Oh my God, my God, this can’t be real. Anin, don’t die on me!

I kill the engine.

The agony imprisons Darryl, chokes him within a loop of repeating memories. Although he wasn’t there to hear the final rush of feet or to hear Anin’s cries for help, the sounds repeatedly rattle through his consciousness.

And those other sounds. The ones he did witness.

~

After his dad left, Darryl kept to himself, hiding in the slums of Dickens’ London, slogging down the tepid porridge of happy endings. He pretended not to hear when Gloria and their mom went at each other, voices shrilling over trivialities. Gloria concluded each argument by slamming her bedroom door hard enough to shake the house.

Everything shook. Darryl’s hands when lifting the receiver to speak to his dad after Gloria, once again, refused to talk to him, or when his mom, after seeing her lawyer, dropped onto the sofa, gripping a cushion as though to protect herself. Gloria shook when she yelled at Darryl to keep his freak face out of her room. She began skipping classes and climbing out her window after their mom went to bed. She woke Darryl hours later when she tumbled back into the house, not bothering to close the bathroom door while she retched.