September 9
Another fight with Jayson.
He wants me to do a breakfast television show tomorrow, at 6 a.m. It’s a total waste. People who watch television at 6 a.m. don’t go to the movies, because either they are senile and stuck in a home, or because they have to go to bed at 5 p.m. to get up for 5 a.m.
It’s a total waste of time. I mean, maybe I’d do it for Good Morning America or Today, but Canadian breakfast television? Why don’t we just set up a webcam in my room and beam pictures of me to Yakistan, or wherever? It would amount to the same at the box office.
So, I said no. I am allowed to say no.
Jayson freaked, really freaked. He screamed crazy stuff at me like, “I know more about you than you know,” and, “I’m the reason you’re here.” Over and over. I walked into the bathroom and shut the door. So he stood there, right outside the bathroom door, close enough to hear me piss, and I think he was crying!!!
I came out after, like, twenty minutes (because I was bored and that bathroom is beyond ugly), and he was standing by the window, perfectly still. Calm as a sunflower, like my grandmother used to say.
“What have you got to wear if it rains?” he says. What a psycho.
I sent him to get me some new makeup, which I do not need, to get rid of him. I think I’ll “forget” to pay him back.
I hope you can get Google Maps in Canada. I have to find out where Leslie Spit is (I know, eewww, gross name).
Azrael says it’s the most private place in Toronto — a beach with trails and tall grass and flowers and, I guess, the ocean.
That tells me two things: One, he is from here, which is too bad because I hate long-distance relationships, and two, he is not interested in publicity, he doesn’t want to be Mr. South.
He just wants to meet me, like a person, the way people are supposed to meet — without some Jayson or whoever in the middle, some fixer or arranger or scout or manager or protector.
I am so bored with being protected. It’s not natural.
I mean, if I can’t figure out who my friends are on my own, how am I going to make it to, like, twenty-five?
I’ll get eaten alive.
Midnight shift
by Raywat Deonandan
University of Toronto
Over here,” Meera said, taking Yanni by the hand and dragging him down a freshly mopped corridor.
It stank of ammonia, an antiseptic nasal assault that held a warped erotic appeal for some among the stethoscope and lab coat set. Meera drew Yanni’s mouth to hers and tasted his youth, inhaling his masculine scents and flavors.
“Slow down,” Yanni whispered. “And be quiet. Someone will hear!”
“Wimp,” Meera chastized, running her dark hands under Yanni’s loosened shirt. “There are only two nurses on this floor, and they’re both at the station.” Yanni still hesitated. “Besides,” Meera continued, “maybe you want to get caught?” She grinned in her devilish way and pinched his nipple, pushing Yanni against the sterile white wall.
He was yielding to her touch, soft clay beneath her willful hands. Meera pressed him against the sign that read, 2nd Floor, Rheumatology. The irony was not lost on her, as they strived to express an act of guileless youth in a place of broken agedness. The odors of imposed sterility, the colors of bureaucratic lifelessness and joyless dull lights — these were tokens of a philosophy that pushed aside the ardor of youth, the mystic charms of sex, and dirty, musical physicality. It was as if she and Yanni were consecrating the lifeless drywall with their hot, staccato breaths, all the time mildly aware of the clicking heels of the midnight nursing shift a hallway away, and of the almost imperceptible groans of the elderly patients swimming in their beds, wracked by dreams impossible for naïve, young medical residents to comprehend.
They clutched each other in that particularly desperate way, with each muscle seemingly both shocked and delighted that it had been recruited to such a pleasant purpose, and melted into the slow rhythm of human intimacy. The barren hospital corridor seemed less foreboding now that their eyes became accustomed to the darkness. At the end of the hall, a small window was open, letting in dull sounds from University Avenue below: a rushing stream of honking taxis, whooshing motorcycles, traffic lights hooting and chirping for the blind, and the chatter of the occasional passersby.
“Come on,” Yanni said, spinning from the wall and dragging Meera by her stethoscope. He pulled her into one of the empty patient rooms and onto a bed. The tightly tucked hospital sheets were a cliché, one that made them both chuckle as they gave up trying to get under them. Then they heard a noise.
“Who’s there?” It was a man’s voice, weak and desperate.
Yanni sprung to his feet, letting his open shirt fall back into place. “I’m Dr. Rostoff. This is Dr. Rai. Who are you?” Meera clicked on the room light, revealing an elderly man in the room’s secondary bed. “This room is supposed to be empty.”
“Manoj Persaud,” the man said, looking pleadingly at Meera, perhaps finding solace in a face as brown as his own. Yanni snatched the man’s chart, flipping through the long paper sheets with guilty annoyance.
Yanni frowned. “Meera, he’s supposed to be in the Latner Centre.” He whispered: “Palliative care.”
“I know I dyin’,” Manoj Persaud said weakly in a slight Caribbean accent. “Na need fo’ whisper.” He pulled himself to a sitting position on the bed, revealing striped pajamas and furry pink slippers with bunny ears. Meera smiled at the sight. “One a dem volunteer give dem to me,” Persaud said, gesturing to the slippers. “When I dead, you can tek ’em.”
Meera sat next to the strange man and started with the usual doctor routine: the pulse check, the penlight in the pupils, an examination of the mouth and tongue. Persaud pushed her away. “What you doin’, child?” He coughed blackishly. “I said I dyin’. You go find somethin’ new fo’ kill me faster?”
Yanni dropped the file onto the bed and sighed. “Mr. Persaud, you are eighty-eight years old and suffering from several very serious medical conditions. I don’t know how you got to this floor or this room, but we have to get you back to the Latner Centre right away. They can take care of you better. We just don’t have the facilities...”
“Boy,” Persaud coughed, “I come down here because he comin’ for me. He go get me sometime soon, but he cyaan do it now. Na now. He got fo’ wait till me ready. I got fo’ hide, just fo’ tonight. Just until me can tell somebody m’story.”
“Who?” Meera implored, stroking the old man’s face and feeling cold, wet fatigue. “Who’s coming for you?”
Persaud’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped. He leaned forward and beckoned her closer. The room seemed to darken then, with the hum of the old ceiling fan fading into the ether, and a taste of slightly stale honey upon the air. “Yahhhm,” Persaud said, in all solemnity. “Yahhhm come fo’ me.”
Yanni frowned, but Meera motioned him back. “Yama,” she explained. “The Hindu god of death.”
“Yes, Mr. Persaud,” Yanni said. “I’m sorry, but death is coming. For all of us. For you sooner, though. I’m sorry. Which is why it’s important—”
“Shut up, boy,” Persaud said sharply to Yanni, then turned to Meera, cupping her heart-shaped face in his spotted hands. “You undahstand, right? Yahhhm come fo’ me, fo’ tek m’soul. And dat’s all right, child. Dat’s all right. Is okay. But na now! Na right now! Not before me can tell you why Yahhhm come fo’ me personally.”