For a moment Cyril almost believed his brother had found faith. Was this what happened when you faced death?
The others came back in. When Paul told them his opinion of Cyril’s offer no amount of argument could change his mind, and to put an end to the debate he kicked them all out saying he was tired.
They went to the cafeteria.
“It’s because you’re reluctant,” his mother said. “He sees it. He senses it. It’s in your eyes and in your voice and even in the way you stand.”
Stand? How did he stand? Aware of Della and Steve and Chuckie watching, Cyril said he’d only wanted more information, was that so unreasonable, to want more information? “I’ll do it. I told him I’d do it. We talked about it.”
“It’s too late,” said his mother. “It’s not a gift from the heart.” She looked away and it was all Cyril could do to keep from reaching across and smacking her just as she’d smacked him.
“It’s not too late,” he said. “He’ll come around. He has no choice.”
Two days later Cyril met with the surgeon who outlined what kidney donation entailed. Apparently it was harder on the donor than the recipient. Cyril nodded. He’d heard that. They ran tests, he gave blood, he was given a strict diet, and he became depressed and resentful and afraid.
Not that it mattered. Paul continued to resist. In fact he seemed strengthened by this final act of defiance. When their mother begged him he turned his face to the wall and refused to sign the papers: no signature, no operation. Only Della respected his decision.
Yvonne had come to the hospital a number of times as well. She urged Cyril not to feel guilty. He appreciated that. He was glad she’d come. They hadn’t seen much of each other since the night of her debut at the Classical Joint. She and Cyril took Della for a drink after one visit, and watching Yvonne console Della it struck Cyril that maybe she was missing her calling and that she too should have gone into nursing. Later, Yvonne said how impressed she was at Della’s dignity through it all.
Cyril visited one evening before his drawing class. No one else was there and Paul was asleep. Maybe it was the drugs, but he looked more peaceful than Cyril had ever seen him, his head angled as if to look out the window at the treetops. Taking out his sketchbook, Cyril did some drawings.
“Aren’t I supposed to take my clothes off?” Paul’s eyes were open.
Cyril dropped his pencil.
“Lemme see.”
He held the sketches up.
Paul said nothing for a long time. Then with wonder in his voice he said, “Jeez, I sure look better’n I feel.” He then shocked Cyril by asking if he could have them.
“Okay.”
Paul held the drawings in his hands and studied them as though memorizing the face of a long lost relative. For the next week the dialysis machine kept him alive, but it was no match for his will, for he descended doggedly, as though by choice, with a distinct air of triumph, into a coma and stayed there until he died.
At the funeral his mother, Steve, and Chuckie refused to look at Cyril much less speak to him. Only Della was civil.
Over the following months Cyril and Yvonne drifted apart. He called one night and, getting no answer, he drove down to the Classical Joint. It was late, nearly eleven. Standing outside he peered through the window and saw her on stage. He paid his two dollars and went in. He had to admit that her singing had improved. She was on key and less mannered, though there were still a few smirks and rolled eyes from the audience. Looking around for a chair Cyril spotted Della. He was about to join her when the set ended and Della leapt up and applauded longer and louder and more enthusiastically than anyone else. Yvonne went straight to her and they embraced.
Paul’s death didn’t mean Cyril never saw him again. In fact he began seeing him all too much. One night he appeared squatting like a gargoyle at the end of Cyril’s bed, sucking so fiercely at a cigarette that his eyes glowed like a stoked furnace. Another night he woke from a vision of Paul duct taping barbells to his legs and pushing him off a pier, the bubbling grey water rushing up past his face while the weights dragged him down. Night after night such scenarios recurred until eventually Cyril couldn’t sleep at all. It was as if Paul was waiting inside his head. The family was there too, his mother and his father and Steve and Chuckie watching with barbed wire expressions. Sleeping pills made it worse, functioning like a straitjacket that kept him helplessly at the whim of his tormenters. He paced and he drank and soon his neighbours complained about his heavy tread. The manager warned him, so Cyril started taking marathon walks around the city. More than once he was accosted by muggers, perverts, and madmen lurching from bushes. He resumed pacing indoors and the complaints also resumed. He bought a rug to muffle his footsteps but the complaints continued because by then he was moaning out loud and begging them to leave him alone.
Eventually the police arrived. Drunk, distraught, Cyril resisted, had to be restrained, and was hustled out in handcuffs. A cop put his hand on his head and, as if shoving him under water, plunged him into the back of the squad car. He spent the night in jail, was advised to seek counselling, and was back home by noon where he discovered an eviction notice waiting under his door. It was all down on record, all down in a file, right there alongside the weapons charge for having pointed that pistol at those three guys in his cab.
PART FOUR — 1995
In Which Cyril Discovers Fire
ONE
CYRIL DREAMED OF Connie smoking a cigarette in long luxurious puffs that left red lipstick on the filter. Her black bangs hung to her black eyebrows, she wore a black turtleneck sweater, black Levis, black kung fu slippers. At her elbow was a cup of black coffee, the cup white with a black cat stamped on it. They were in a jazz club. She nodded to the mutter and thump of the upright bass and watched the black saxophonist bend his knees and lean back clenching his body as though to inflate the room through the bell of the glittering brass instrument. The storming music collided with the lounging cigarette smoke: the music laughing and the smoke sullen at having been disturbed in its slumber. Sleepy people bobbed their heads. Cups and cigarettes rose and fell with mechanical regularity while the bass player, a big black man with pitted cheeks and a goatee, cursed the white guitarist. “Play something!” he shouted. The guitarist cringed. “Play something!” repeated the bassist. The guitarist sweated and his eyes rolled like a panicked cow. People in the audience laughed. Each table had a candle burning in a red glass bowl making Cyril think of a pagan cave. The guitarist finally burst into a flame that flared then vanished. No one seemed to notice. Connie leaned close and blew smoke into Cyril’s mouth and he inhaled it deep into his chest and then exhaled it back into her waiting lips. She smiled and stood on the table and began to whirl like a dervish. Faster and faster she whirled, creating a wind that caught Cyril up like Dorothy and Toto and landed them outside in an alley. The club door whacked open and the bass player threw a man out. The man flapped off like a pigeon into the night. The bass player glared at Connie and Cyril and said, “Broadway Credit Clothiers—fifty short paces west of Main,” then went back inside.
He woke to light outlining the curtains like a rectangular halo. The clock read 5:01 AM. Rolling onto his stomach he shoved his face into his pillow and tried going back to sleep. He wanted to rejoin the dream but it had disappeared downstream into the darkness like a raft on a river. But there was another dream. This one involved his mother and a different raft: a ghoul extending a gnarly hand for a fare to transport Cyril’s mother to the far shore where fires burned and people writhed and chains snaked in the smouldering dirt.