Shelby and my mother and I squeezed into the cab of his truck and delivered the organ to Julie’s house. She and her kids were fast asleep and not answering the door, so we carried it into the shed in the yard and put a sign on her door telling her that we had brought an organ to her house and that it was in the shed. We drove back to my mother’s apartment block and she gave Shelby fifty dollars for his help. We said good night to Shelby and stood in her apartment dripping water all over the kitchen floor. There was also water all over the bathroom floor, and the river was forecast to spill its banks and lightning continued to rent the air.
Well, said my mother, that’s done at least.
I understood her need to accomplish something, however strange, something with clear rising action and a successful ending. She said she would try to get a little sleep before I had to leave but to wake her up first. I was wide awake so I went downstairs to the apartment building’s exercise room and stood on the treadmill. I pushed the start button and began to run. I was wearing chunky boots and tight jeans and my hair was spraying water all over the treadmill and onto the floor. I saw the empty swimming pool outside the glass patio doors and the list of Pool Rules written in cursive, and a thin red line against the horizon. I ran until I was drenched with sweat, gasping for air, until I pushed a button that said Cool Down, and I walked slowly on the machine, gripping the handlebars.
EIGHT
Dear Elf,
A handwritten letter, as commanded, as promised. We have an ant infestation. This happened while I was in Winnipeg. Our landlord believes it has something to do with the degree of filth in our apartment but I suspect it has more to do with the degree of natural decay in the universe. We’re not that filthy anyway, just messy. I’ve put little white plastic trays filled with poison all over the apartment. Will has gone back to New York. He can’t wait to see you and Nic this summer. He managed to keep Nora alive but the place is a disaster. Apparently mess doesn’t “scan” for either one of them. Nora has a boyfriend now, apparently, a guy in one of her classes who is also here on a scholarship, from Sweden. When I got home a boy was cooking an omelette in the kitchen. There were bags from Whole Foods all over the place. Whole Foods is an expensive healthy grocery store that I never shop at. I go to a place called No Frills. This stranger in my kitchen couldn’t speak English so I had no idea what he was doing there and I had to wait until later that evening, when Nora showed up, to find out. In the meantime I went out for several long walks and in between smiled at him and pointed at a few things, nodding, etc.
I have a little room off my bedroom where I had planned to sit and work but I never go in there, it’s too cold. So I write at the dining room table or in bed. I like to listen to the mourning doves when I wake up early. They make me sad and happy and nostalgic I guess for my childhood, our childhood, and the prairies and that feeling of waking up with nothing to do but play. Do you know I used to wake up singing for a while there when I was about nine and ten? When you were in that bedroom with the wooden walls and that Mikhail Baryshnikov poster called When Push Comes to Shove. Where is that guy these days anyway? And was it his dancing you loved so much, or his body, or the fact that he left everything behind in Russia with no hope of ever returning, just for his art? Anyway, apparently mourning doves are being shot and eaten these days. Can you believe it? When I heard about it I felt the same way I did when I heard that Joe Strummer had died. The music of my youth. When you’re fifteen and you wake up in the morning to mourning doves singing and The Clash you know you’re in Heaven. Anyway, Joe Strummer is dead and mourning doves are being eaten. What does that say about one’s childhood? Who is left to lead us out of the wilderness?
I don’t know a lot of people here. The only call I ever get is from a recorded voice saying Hello! Has your debt become uncontrollable? The last time it happened I whispered yes, yes, it has, and then quickly hung up like a hostage sending a cryptic message to my would-be rescuers. I’ve cashed in that RRSP thing that dad gave us a million years ago and have already spent my half of the house sale on rent in this city and yesterday my landlord told me it’s going up to some number I’ve never even heard of.
Finbar, the lawyer, is texting again. He says he’s worked through some stuff and thinks it’s okay if he and I get together again in spite of my peripatetic lifestyle. He admires my hamstrings. I have a sixth toe now. Okay, it’s a bunion. Sometimes, if I’m doing a lot of walking, it throbs like a little penis on the side of my foot. I also have some weird golf ball — sized thing growing on the back of my heel which I think is called Haglund’s deformity. Our dog had one of those once, remember, and Uncle Ray gave her one of his horse tranquilizers and then hacked it off with that gutting knife? I just remember you carrying her around for a couple of weeks because she couldn’t walk afterwards. Or you put her in that little wagon and pulled her everywhere. Would you do that for me if my deformity gets out of hand? Also, I was in a little accident the other day, did I tell you about that? Just a tiny fender-bender but with insurance here in Ontario being very expensive and blah blah and still having Manitoba insurance (whoops) I’m not sure that I’ll be covered and I might have to pay a million dollars to the woman for her totally unscathed BMW SUV. She actually got out of her car and took a picture of her absolutely pristine bumper with her cellphone while I stood there (in my cut-offs and green windbreaker, holding a six of Heinekens) saying c’mon, you are NOT serious.
Nora and I are conducting a bit of an experiment. We’re attempting to make eye contact with Torontonians. It’s frustrating. People are startled when we look at them and quickly look away or somehow will themselves not to even look in the first place. We’ve noticed that some people visibly will turn their heads away from us and even their shoulders so they’re not tempted to look. Today Nora and I went for a quick walk in our neighbourhood (Little Malta) and of the sixty-eight people we passed on the sidewalk only seven of them returned our gaze and of those seven only one smiled and it might not have been a real smile but a grimace due to gas. Nora and I pretend to be indifferent to it, but it hurts! We’ve wondered if it’s because of how we dress or if we emit some kind of vibe that makes people not want to have any contact at all with us or if we seem desperate or dangerous or weird. Well, I have to run to pick up Nora from a rehearsal and get her to a dentist appointment on time. In the meantime, I’ll be thinking of you and missing you and … floating on the wings of nothingness.
Your humble and obedient servant, Y (see? I have read the letters of your poet lovers).
Elf is not answering the phone. I call my mother and she says yes, that’s true, she’s not. Well, sometimes she does, well, actually, no, I guess she doesn’t. Well, sometimes, yes, sometimes but mostly not. Really not at all. Once in a blue moon, but basically no, she doesn’t.
I can’t bear to hear my mother waffle like this between hope and despair. My mother tells me that if she’s there, at Elf’s place, when the phone rings she does encourage Elf to answer it but even then it’s a struggle and mostly Elf wins and the phone goes unanswered.
I can hear the trumpets sounding on her laptop indicating that another Scrabble game is about to begin.
Dear Elf,
Today I went for a long walk and ended up watching ducks dive headfirst into Grenadier Pond in High Park. I wondered for how long they could hold their breath and I counted seventy-eight seconds before one came up for air. What is it for humans? A minute? Today I heard a pretty good conversation on the streetcar. This guy got on and he was swearing his head off, really foul stuff like that fucking bitch can suck my cock if she fucking thinks … and the streetcar driver said hey, whoah, you can’t swear like that on the streetcar and the guy stopped and looked at him and then he said he was really sorry, really sorry, he understood, and he got off at the next stop and started swearing again as soon as he’d stepped off the streetcar.