If she’s too good to be true,
don’t worry she’ ll tear a strip off of you,
don’t forget the past,
there’s nothing built to last.
It’s smoke and mirrors and a bit of booze
And in the end you’re going to lose
what you’re made of
when you find your love.
Love’s a bitch. He made it upbeat, gave it a bit of drive, so it sounded almost playful. The session drummer, rolling a joint on the other side of the glass, waiting to lay his drum track down under Evan’s ghost vocals, said after the take: “Shit, I’m living that, man. How did you know?”
They brought in a kick-ass electric guitar player and with the zoned out drummer the tune found its groove. The musicians and the love-damaged drummer embraced it. “You got a hit,” he said. Annie told him she didn’t like it. Repeatedly.
“You didn’t deserve that money you made on the last project,” she said over what had been a pleasant 5 à 7 in a bar downtown. He had helped her edit the book, find an art director, worked with the distributor, made the travel arrangements, negotiated some free rooms, wrote the synopsis for the distributor, worked with the publicist. “You made too much. I should’ve got it. You made it instead of me.”
They had a business together but it seemed he wasn’t supposed to make any money.
“I took $10,000 less than we agreed upon going in,” he said. He was trying to control the rage that was quickly building “Why do you have to ruin everything?”
“That should’ve been my money,” she said, throwing back her wine.
He paid the bill and they walked toward the escalator to the parking garage but he kept walking. For the first time, Evan said: “I hate you. I fucking hate you.”
It just came out. More startling to him was the fact that it was true. He loved her. But he hated her. He left her there and kept on walking. He didn’t know if she had car keys or cash, but he didn’t care. He kept going and didn’t look back.
Maybe this was just the normal shit one took in a marriage. Maybe everyone was getting a daily strip torn off them, and that’s what true love was about. Maybe he was too sensitive.
His songs were getting darker. Love songs like Forever had given way to cynicism. The resentments, like snow, were piling up at the door. And he kept on shovelling.
He was on the long porch facing the mountain at Stan’s house in the Laurentiens, basking in the sun, him and the cat watching the blue jays bounce from tree to tree. There was a stream down below and they could hear it splash over the rocks. It was idyllic. Annie didn’t want to come, she had too much work to do. Evan was relieved.
“Resentments you might be able to get over,” Stan said. “Shit, everyone resents everyone sooner or later for something or other. It passes. Usually. It’s contempt. Once you feel contempt for your wife, it’s over. You feeling contemptuous?”
“Not yet,” Evan said.
“You’re a better man than me.”
He was making small talk about the perennial disappointment that was the Toronto Maple Leafs in the little boardroom of the 9th floor across a polished wood table with his boss, the invisible man who was supposedly publisher of the magazine he edited for a broadcasting conglomerate. A man he had met only once. He had a hundred dollar haircut and a tight dress shirt that enhanced his wellfed belly. His previous boss had been fired a couple of years ago. It was a late morning meeting so that the veep could beat the traffic back to Toronto. Evan knew what was coming.
When the appropriate amount of politesse had run its course, the veep slipped a termination notice across the desk. Evan was extinguished immediately. No severance pay. He had been there 18 years but the company was cutting back. They were moving his job to Toronto. The corporation had record revenue of $400 million that fiscal year, but the shareholders needed more.
He came home and Annie appeared at the top of the stairs.
“I’ve been fired,” he said.
“It’ll be okay,” she said, then went back to work. Her computer screen would keep her anxiety in check and as for his anxiety, well, it was every man for himself.
His first call was to a lawyer who took the case and fired off a letter threatening suit.
Later, he wrote or called everyone he knew in the business, sent queries to all the magazine publishers in the city, all universities and colleges and shot craps. Nobody replied. The newspaper and magazine offices were killing fields. Nobody was hiring; they were laying waste. His inbox was deluged with notes from people who had written for him expressing shock and dismay and sympathy.
He indulged himself in a period of mourning by stocking up on Sopranos DVDs and watching them non-stop for a couple of weeks. He had to hand it to Tony. He was a psychopath but his enemies were dispatched and rough justice was meted out. A working-class slob who took no shit.
He sat down and did what he always did when life was getting to him. He wrote about it. Life without the job he had had for almost two decades was a blow; his inbox was not engulfed everyday, the phone rang hardly at all, he didn’t have to think of story ideas 24 hours a day and he no longer had the dozens of people he spoke to regularly to get the magazine out. He had too much time to think, developed a junk food jones and started to worry a lot. He had RRSPs he could dip into and a credit line and credit cards.
“We’ll have to stop going to restaurants,” Annie said.
He wrote a story about floundering in the unemployed quagmire of over 50 and sent it to the Citizen in Ottawa and they bought it within the hour and thanked him for it. He started writing for them regularly. Then he started writing for the Toronto Star and then a bit for the Gazette. On the weekend his play was closing they had to add more seats to accommodate the overflow; he had stories in three papers and his new CD was being mixed. Evan thought life was pretty good but Annie’s moods grew darker. She dismissed the play, it was poorly cast, poorly lit, had too many sets, badly directed, and as for it being popular, well, what did audiences know about theatre?
He started baking, cooking more, found a pair of second hand skates and took to the rink at 8 a.m. when the kids were off to school and, with a top-of-the-line stick that Annie bought him for his birthday, started chasing a puck like a dog after a ball. It was a macho point of pride that he go regardless of how cold it was. After he went to the gym and did weights. He had to keep moving and doing or, he feared, he might turn to stone. He began rehearsals for a new play and worked on finding a distributor for the book on Spain Annie and he were planning. He was writing outlines and trying to find financing. Research for the project fell to him, she had “too much work to do.” Financing fell to him, contracts fell to him — it was Evan’s job. Corporate paper and lawyers and accountants fell to him. Post office and photocopies and clerical tasks were his. She was too busy. To balk was to invite tantrums. Then abuse. Then threats. It was easier just to do. Often from the country.
Annie was supportive for a time. But the creaky foundation she had built her security upon was starting to crumble. Evan was not bringing in a paycheque. And Evan was to blame.
“You’re not looking hard enough,” she’d say.
“You’re not worried enough.”
“Who have you applied to today?”
“You want me to give you a daily report?”
“Yes, I want to know.” She was serious.
The requisite panic was setting in. This was not a problem that was going to be handled together. This was his misfortune to deal with and, as far as she was concerned, he wasn’t dealing with it to her satisfaction.
She started screaming at him that she couldn’t live like this, though he couldn’t figure out what “like this” meant.
“I’m paying my share of the expenses, we’re running the car and we’re eating,” Evan said. “What is the problem?”
“We never have any money and you’re just sitting around. Why can’t you get a job at Telefilm or SODEC?” She was shouting.<
br />
He went to her and reached out to put her arms around her, her prescription to calm the skid. But as soon as he touched her she began to punch at him with her little fists.
“Leave me alone, don’t touch me,” she screamed as she pummelled his chest.
“Annie, calm down!” He might as well have been talking to a hurricane.
“Leave me alone,” she yelled, tromping up the stairs. “You better get a job or this is over.”
Evan was always on the treadmill, getting nowhere, writing, rewriting, writing scripts on spec, writing songs in between bouts on the computer, writing newspaper stories, sending pitches for stories, book proposals, trying to find teaching gigs, rehearsing for shows. He was at the computer at 7 a.m. He was cashing in RRSPs and the bills were being paid and he was holding up his half of the tent but it wasn’t enough. She was consumed with worry and pissed that he wasn’t similarly consumed. As far as she was concerned, he was having too good a time.
“I’m performing, rehearsing, selling newspaper stories and having plays done,” he said one night. “I’m enjoying my life.”
“How can you say that?” she raged. “You’re not making any money. How we going to live?” This time instead of punching him, she stormed out of the room. Enjoying life was a hanging offence. He thought maybe it was time to hit the motel room, shove a hundred dollars up his nose. But he demurred. Self destruction no longer seemed an appropriate response to Annie’s attacks. He had a show coming up. Instead he phoned Stan.
“You got a spare room for a couple of days? I need a break.”
“Come on up, dinner’s at seven. You can have the big room downstairs with the French doors as long as you like.” He packed a bag and left, didn’t say goodbye.
The great digital revolution meant everything he did added little to his wallet. Newspapers paid shit, the theatre paid shit, the music paid shit and his savings were tied up in the house. He was shackled to her and had no escape route. It was time to cash in the house. Annie was also broke and earning less every year and he saw the committed feminist was now depending on him to save her. Travel books were getting nailed by the Internet like every other medium. Interest rates were bound to go up but housing prices were still climbing. Selling at their age and taking a breath seemed the logical thing to do, but to suggest that to Annie was akin to suggesting she stop drinking or running or chugging her twice-a-day fibre blend.
He sent her newspaper pieces about cashing in, he mentioned friends their age who were cashing in, he pointed out predictions that the housing bubble of high prices was going to burst.
“I’m not selling the house,” she said. “I’m not selling it.”
To Evan this was a small, old house in a noisy, crowded overpriced part of town. But to Annie, this was her nest, her fortress, her kingdom, the one thing she could count on. It was cluttered and small for two, but perfect for one and he imagined the resentment was building again that he was taking up space in her castle but not making enough money to assuage her fears over losing it.
How did the feminist become the traditional woman depending on a man for survival? Or demanding a man make sure they survive? Where was this in the feminist handbook? Was there a chapter that said when a woman can no longer afford the icon of her independence, she insist the man pay for half of it, whether he likes the place or not and whether he can or not and then browbeat him if he won’t comply. It must’ve been under the same chapter as folding the underwear of the man you love.
He had been poor before. His ex-wife and he had gone through a bout of unemployment and lived on $5 a day. They turned it into a game. How to survive on stews and cheap pork and rice and beans with noodle soups in Chinatown as their treat.
She was now living in France. Evan Skyped her at 3 a.m. She was just getting up.
“I never told you properly, but you were always there for me, for my son, for us,” he said. “I should’ve told you more often how great you were and no matter the problem you stood by me. I could always count on you. You should know that. You were young but tough as nails and I never appreciated that until now. I’ll always love you, you know that?”
She started to cry. “You were always there for me. You put up with a kid who knew nothing and you looked after me and saved my life by taking me to the hospital when I had pneumonia and was too stupid to know how sick I was. I don’t know how you put up with me.”
There were tears in his eyes now, Annie asleep upstairs, this woman thousands of miles away just starting her day. No, he never appreciated what he had had until now. If it was her in the bed upstairs and not Annie she would have told him every day not to worry; that things would happen, that they would pull through. It would never have occurred to her to stick pins in him.
“Do you remember the oil stain on the wall of the bedroom from your rear end?”
She started to giggle. “And I remember everything you were doing to me as I left that stain there. Don’t go there. I don’t have a man in my life and my electric toothbrush has no batteries.”
Not long after, he found their wedding ring, a small band of white gold and slipped it on his pinkie.
“She wants me to get a job at McDonald’s,” he told the therapist.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I can’t pay you for these sessions.”
“I’d rather you come and not pay then not come ‘cause you can’t pay,” she said.
“I can’t do that. You’re a professional.”
“It’s not a big deal. Not the first time I’ve done it for people. If you need to talk, I’m here.”
“We need to sell the house. It’s worth a fortune and we can’t afford it anymore. But she won’t do it.”
“Change for her is extremely difficult. The house is her security blanket even though it’s a constant source of worry and resentment toward you that you can’t ensure that she can keep it.”
“She’s a feminist. It’s what she trumpets. Why would she depend on me to save her house?”
“Because she has no one else to turn to and the fact you can’t save the house, makes it your fault. If she can’t control things, then she has to blame someone. And her neurosis makes you the culprit.”
“I’m always the culprit.”
“You know that. I know you love each other, but you have to decide how much you’re willing to put up with or even why you’ve put up with her this far. We’ve established that she’s not well and will not change. Now you have to figure out why you tolerate her poisonous anxiety. She can’t help herself. She could modify a bit but, in the end, she’s not well. What’s your excuse?”
“I guess that’s why I’m here.”
“You want me to stop playing music?”
“No.”
“You want me to stop working in the theatre?”
“No.”
“You want me to stop writing for the papers?”
“No.”
“You want me to stop working on the book projects we do together?”
“No.”
“So how can I do all that and work at a job, if I could get a job, which I can’t.”
She thought he could get a job as a bureaucrat working for the government. He rubbed his face. If he did it hard enough maybe it would all go away. He pictured himself in a cheap suit and tie going to work nine to five, something he had never done, give up everything he loved, all to pacify Annie’s fears. He loved her, he thought, but not that much.
“Get a job with a newspaper,” she said.
“Have you noticed, Annie, they’re buying people out of newspaper jobs, laying people off, closing papers? What world are you living in?” He tossed the rest of his dinner in the garbage, left her at the table. He went into the office and picked up the guitar.
There was no logic during these times. She could say “I love you,” ten times a day. But rationality and love disappeared as soon as she imagined her security threatened. The house was her icon of feminist success and independenc
e. She told no one that the house was bought thanks to the largesse of an inheritance from her beleaguered mother. Evan wondered if these were delusions or just white lies? The delusions were like the white noise of the radio or the fan, it kept the truth at bay. The house became the new obsession and compulsion. It had to be saved. And the fact he owned part of it was a swelling irritation, like an infected cyst smouldering beneath her flesh. The house renovations and the accompanying increase in her debt load were suddenly his fault, too. He had paid cash for the reno, she had borrowed and rolled the debt into the mortgage which he was paying.
“It was your idea to move in, your idea to renovate the house and get an architect and a contractor,” she screamed. “I never would’ve done it.”
He started to point out that it was her architect and contractor and he wasn’t even allowed to hang a picture, how the hell could he be responsible for the renovations? But then he realized he was wasting his … everything.
“I envy you, you know that? I envy your delusions,” he told her. “You can convince yourself of anything. The delusions became reality and you never have to deal with the gruesome truth of who you are. You’re not mentally ill, it’s the therapist. The taxes you don’t really owe, it’s the accountant’s fault, the book is falling apart not because you’re not working on it but because it was my idea and I’m not working enough or whatever you convince yourself of today. And somehow the debt you’re overloaded with, that’s my fault, too. Every fuck up is the failure of someone else. I wish I could be like you, not be responsible for anything, always someone to blame.”
“I’m not like that,” she yelled back at him. “I’m not sick.”
“Of course not, Annie. You remind me of Rihanna’s mother. Demented but happy ‘cause she doesn’t realize she’s living on Pluto. And thinks every weed is beautiful, and every day is summer. It’s a fantasy but she’s happy in it. Your fantasy is that if you could control everything and everybody, life would be perfect. So when it turns out fucked up, it must be someone else’s fault. You’re way over your head in debt, so it must be my fault …”
The Alcoholic's Daughter Page 10
