“Terrible title. Too long.”
He tutted. “Quite the little critic, aren’t you?”
Critic. Smartarse. Rude obnoxious asshole.
My face must’ve looked weird ’cause he said, “I’m only teasing.”
“It’s a fine title,” I said. “Straight and to the point.”
“Let’s see if you think it’s a fine story as well.”
He began.
“One day, Wolverine, Kuekuatsheu, invited the ducks and a loon to a drum dance. When they showed up at the tent he suggested they close their eyes while they danced. After a while the loon opened one of his eyes and saw there weren’t as many ducks as there were before. He looked at Wolverine and saw him picking up the ducks and twisting their necks one by one. The loon shouted to the rest of the ducks, ‘Wolverine tricked us!’ They all ran away, but as the loon was escaping Wolverine grabbed his tail feathers and pulled them off. And that’s why the loon has no tail feathers.”
I tried biting my lip but it didn’t work. “New title. ‘Ducks Are Stupid.’ ”
He laughed. “That’s a bit harsh. Maybe ‘Ducks Are Gullible’ would be better.”
“Who told you that story?”
“An Elder.”
“Do you miss your community?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you leave?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Will you go back?”
“Some day.”
“What did those policemen say to you the other day?”
He paused. “The world can be an unfair place sometimes.”
“I know. I read Anne Frank, remember.”
“They called me a savage, Nishim. They asked me how much I had to drink and told me to stay out of trouble.”
I read a book about Che Guevara once. He said that anyone who trembled with indignation at injustice was a comrade of his. What Busker Boy said made me tremble a lot. I said, “We should start a revolution,” and Busker Boy laughed and said, “Who are you, Che Guevara?” I said, “No, but I’m his friend.”
We listened to a snowplow go down the street and up the other side. We listened to it plow the next road over, then the one after that. The noise it made got fainter and fainter, and when we couldn’t hear it at all I said, “Who’s Little Pocahontas?”
Busker Boy looked toward the window. “Another day. Not now.”
There was a collection of snow on the pane. It looked like lace. I said, “If it’s stormy tomorrow, will you tell me another story?”
“I’ll tell you one right now.”
We spent the morning together, him talking, me listening, icy pellets pinging the bedroom window. Outside it was winter, but inside it was summer, and his steady, quiet voice floated through the room like a warm breeze, and his words swirled like dandelion seeds, and when they landed on me it was with a light touch. He told more stories about Wolverine, but I wasn’t scared ’cause he said that if I ever met him, I’d be clever enough to outsmart him.
Chef knocked on our door at lunchtime. “Get up, you good-for-nothing layabouts. I’ve made a pot of split-pea soup.”
Busker Boy threw me my jeans. “I hope he made dumplings to go with it.”
I had to suck in to fasten my button. “Look,” I said, “they’re almost too small.”
The sight of it made his eyes water.
We busked a lot over the holidays. Every day he sang “Brown Eyed Girl” but changed brown to blue.
Once, in a box from the thrift shop, there was a sprinkler. I hooked it up and thought, Piece of junk, it doesn’t work, but then I saw a kink in the hose. After I untwisted it, streams of water danced in the wind.
I think I might’ve had a kink, deep inside me, and I think it got untwisted when Busker Boy changed brown to blue. ’Cause suddenly all the blood in my body was able to rush through my veins at top speed. Busker Boy was right. It was possible to be more alive.
—
Chef took me to the library on New Year’s Eve. I borrowed five books.
Night by Elie Wiesel
Cher: A Biography by J. Randy Taraborrelli
The Complete Galloping Gourmet Cookbook by Graham Kerr
The Lost Art of Profanity by Burges Johnson
Van Morrison: The Mystic’s Music by Howard A. Dewitt
When the lady checked in the biography she said, “Oooh, I love Cher.” I handed her my library card and said, “Do you know what Cher’s real name is?” but before I could tell her, Chef cut me off and said, “Bun O’Keefe,” and the lady said, “Really? That sounds like a Newfoundland name to me.”
Afterward, Chef said he was taking me to the Newfoundland Hotel for supper, just the two of us. The head chef came to our table and asked me how I liked my duck à l’orange. I said it had great depth of flavor ’cause saying it felt like a rumbly kitten would be weird. He told me that Chef was a culinary talent and wouldn’t be a dishwasher for long. Then he told Chef to get a real haircut, and I was going to say that, if anything, a Mohawk was more of a real hairstyle than most, but Chef just laughed so I did too.
When the dessert menu came Chef looked in his wallet and said, “What the hell. You only live once.” He ordered us crème brûlée and as we ate it he said, “What do you think?” and I said, “It tastes like a feeling but I don’t know which one.” He suggested melancholy, which surprised me and I said no, the complete opposite.
He asked me if I wanted to go to the top of Signal Hill. It was a long walk but I said yes ’cause my inhaler was in his pocket. Not that I’d need it. A couple of puffs in the morning and my breath was like the wind: easy, strong and free.
The whole city was lit up below us.
“Look,” I said. “The basilica. See the crosses?”
He lit up a skinny cigarette. “Let’s go to the ocean side.”
We sat on the wall and looked into the blackness. I couldn’t see the ocean but I could smell it. In the distance, a ship’s light. Chef said, “What’s it all about, Sally Lunn?” I said I didn’t know.
“Do you really not have any goals?” he asked.
“Not that I can think of.”
“I thought everyone had goals, even if it was just to get through the day.”
“That’s not a goal,” I said. “It’s an inevitability. Unless you’re hit by a car or something.”
He laughed. “Let’s head home.”
We took a cab as far as the park. Chef told me to stay close as we walked through the darkness but I wandered away from the path.
“Where you going, little Sally Lunn Bun?”
“I have a question.”
He followed me to a park bench. I pointed at a small brass plaque screwed to the back. “Who’s Jasper Hobbs?”
“How’d you know this was here?”
“I saw Chris sitting here once. It seemed like a nice spot so I came here one day, after I picked up the paper. The branches creak real loud but it’s not spooky, it’s more like a conversation.”
“A conversation?”
“Yeah. Like after I’d say something, the tree would respond.”
“You talked to the tree?”
“I had a Magic 8 Ball once and it always seemed to land on ‘Don’t count on it.’ The tree is much nicer.” I patted the bench. “Try it.”
He sat down. “What do I do?”
“Ask it a question.”
He looked up. “Will I become one of Canada’s top chefs?”
I linked my arm through his. “Now we wait.”
A few minutes later, a gust of wind and a long creak.
“Well?” he asked. “What did it say?”
“It said, ‘It is decidedly so.’ ”
He shook his head. “You’re cracked, do you know that?”
“Who’s Jasper Hobbs?”
“He was Chris’s boyfriend.”
“Boyfriend?”
Chef laughed. “Good God, Bun. Don’t tell me you didn’t know Chris was gay.”
“I never re
ally thought about it.”
“You know what being gay means though, right?”
“Yeah, I know. Once, on an episode of The Love Boat, Doc met up with an old fraternity brother named Buzz and Buzz introduced his boyfriend, Jim, as his cousin ’cause he was scared of Doc’s reaction. But when Doc learned the truth, he said he was happy that Buzz had found himself and was happy. If Chris ever tells me he’s gay, I’m going to say the same thing.”
“I’m sure Chris thinks you already know. I mean, it’s kind of obvious.”
“It is? Let’s see if the tree thinks so.”
I looked up to the shadowy branches and said the words clear and slow. “Is…Chris…gay?”
The creak was short and loud.
“Wow,” I said. “Signs point to yes.”
“Well, duh,” said Chef.
I rested my head on the bench. A single star twinkled in the distance. I read something once, about wishing on stars. I didn’t see the point.
“How did Jasper die?” I asked.
“That is Chris’s story to tell, not mine.”
“How come Chris never talks about him?”
“Some memories are painful to remember. Even good ones. It’s easier to push them to the back of your mind.”
“Do you have memories in the back of your mind?”
He pulled me to standing. “Don’t we all?”
Everyone was waiting for us at home. The coffee table was covered in snacks and we played games and sang songs and I didn’t need to turn on the TV and radio to make a party ’cause we had party hats on our heads and cardboard horns in our mouths and at the stroke of midnight everyone cheered. Cher grabbed Busker Boy—“Come here, handsome”—and kissed him on the lips. Busker Boy kissed her back and laughed. “I’ll never play for the other side you know,” and Cher said, “Don’t crush a girl’s dreams, not on New Year’s Eve.” Busker Boy sang “Auld Lang Syne,” which I knew was written by Robert Burns, who was Scottish, so I told everyone. Before bed I thanked Chef for the library and the Newfoundland Hotel, and he said, “You know what makes the Sally Lunn bun the tastiest bun of them all?” and I said, “What?” and he said, “It’s sweet, light and delicate,” then he sang, “Buy my nice Sally Lunn, The very best of Bunn, I think her the sweetest of any.” Then he kissed my forehead and said, “Happy New Year, Bun O’Keefe.”
—
The next day he was dead. Busker Boy found him in his room. The hotel had called to say he’d missed his shift. Chris had asked me to go wake him but Busker Boy said, “I’ll go.” Much later he said, over and over, “Thank God I went, thank God it was me that found him.”
The three of them sat in a row on the couch. People came and went, police, ambulance, men in suits. And the three of them just sat. In a row. On the couch.
Chef was dead.
I wondered if he’d ever borrowed my dream, smelled a rainbow.
Maybe he did. Maybe the scent wasn’t strong enough. Maybe he slid down the side and into a pile of mud.
I passed Busker Boy his guitar. He sang about someone who went to sleep hoping to never wake up. I hated it but when it was over I said, “Sing it again.”
I felt more alive again. But in a bad way.
Chris said, “Come here, ducky.”
I didn’t normally cry.
But I was only human.
And being human was hard.
Dragon Man came home. “I got the call.” He didn’t look at me this time. He just said, “What a waste. Too bloody young.” Then went upstairs.
It was the first day of 1987. And Chef was dead.
—
I asked why. No one had any answers.
There was no note, they said. No explanation.
But there was an envelope. Full of money. It was for Busker Boy.
“Pay the bastard off,” it said.
I asked Busker Boy what that meant.
“It means we’re getting out of here.”
“When?”
“As soon as I find us a home.”
I went to Chef’s room. There was a bookcase next to his bed. I pulled out a French cookery book. Cassoulet, ratatouille, bouillabaisse. Real food that my mouth would remember. If he’d stayed around to make it for me.
I didn’t blame him. He must have felt like Conrad in the book Ordinary People. Conrad said he was falling in a hole that was getting bigger and bigger. He ended up slitting his wrists. He didn’t do a good job, though, ’cause he lived.
—
We stayed up most of the night. All of us together. So I was surprised when Busker Boy was up early the next morning with his paper.
“Want me to read you something?”
“Chef died.”
“I know.”
“And you bought a paper?”
“I buy a paper every day.”
“You’re acting like everything’s normal and it’s not.”
“You need consistency. You need routine.”
“You don’t know what I bleepin’ need!”
I’d never screamed before. It hurt my throat.
“Fair enough. You tell me. What do you need?”
“I need Chef back!”
He put down his paper and stood up.
“Maybe,” he said, “what you need is space.”
Alone in the room, I stared at the crack on the wall. It looked like a lightning bolt, fine cracks branching out from a thicker one, downward like an upside-down tree.
I wondered, for half a second, how it would feel to be hit by lightning. But I already knew. I was hit by lightning when Busker Boy came out from Chef’s room. He’d had a pang. I could tell. And then, so did I. I’d never felt such pain.
I looked at the paper by my feet. He did know what I needed. I needed him to read me something.
But first, I clutched my pillow to my face and I sobbed. Then, I called for him.
“Read me something?”
He took my glasses off and passed me a tissue. I wiped my eyes. He wiped my glasses. When he passed them back he said, “We’ll need to get you a bigger pair soon.”
He sat at the end of the bed. “Now. Let’s see.”
The snap of the paper, his eyes scanning the articles, his weight at the bottom of the bed, all of it part of the routine, my routine, the routine I never knew I needed.
“Here’s a weird one. A three-hundred-pound woman died in a pile of garbage bags filled with junk. Huge house. A hoarder, apparently. The locals called the police when they hadn’t seen her walking the streets with her wagon of junk. They’re trying to locate her next of kin.”
It registered in half a second.
“That was my mother.”
He looked at me funny and said, “That’s not a very nice joke.”
“I don’t tell jokes.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying, that’s my mother.”
“What?”
“The big fat hoarder. She’s my mother. Was my mother.”
He moved up to the head of the bed. “Are you serious?”
“I don’t tell jokes and I don’t tell lies, either.”
“Are you okay?”
I felt perfectly fine. So I said so.
He held out the paper. “Want to read it?”
“No.”
“I can take you back, if you want.”
“No.”
“Is there anyone you’d like to contact?”
“No.”
“It says they’re looking for her next of kin.”
“I always thought that word was king,” I said. “You know, like in ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’?”
“Bun…”
“I expected it to rhyme. Good tidings we bring to you and your king.”
“Bun. This is serious.”
“Not really. I figured out it was kin eventually.”
Later, I heard him tell Cher and Big Eyes. “I think she’s in shock.”
But I wasn’t shocked. I wasn’t anything.
>
With Chef, I was sad and all its synonyms—unhappy, mournful, heartbroken, sorrowful.
Now. Nothing.
It was the second day of 1987. And my mother was dead.
—
All day, they kept looking at me. Waiting for something. They said, “Want to talk about it?” and I said, “About what?” They said, “She was your mother,” and I said, “Correct. She carried me in her womb for nine months.”
I stood in front of the landing mirror. Did I look like her? Did it matter? Would I get fat? Was hoarding hereditary? Busker Boy appeared behind me. He brought a hand up and I flinched, and his eyes got real soft and he said, “Nishim. I would never hit you, you know that.” One of the few things I knew for sure.
He combed my hair with his fingers. “Did she hit you?”
“No.”
He gathered every strand and wisp loosely at my neck. I closed my eyes.
“We are all here for you.”
“I know.”
After a few gentle twists and tugs a long braid hung between my shoulder blades.
—
I started remembering more and more things. Memories I never knew I had. Pushed to the back of my mind, like Chef said. But why now? It wasn’t any safer just ’cause she was gone.
I remembered too many boxes and bags in my bedroom. A complaint. A plea. An argument on the landing. Me with my facts about dust mites and molds and her with her don’t be a smartarse reply. Me, armed with an old Merck Manual. One speck of dust can contain 40,000 dust mites, which are major triggers of asthma. Me, with a bottle of Vicks. Take that for your cough and shut the hell up. Me, crossing a line. You’re the reason he left. Me, cowering under a raised hand, off-balance with fear, tumbling down the stairs. Thump. Thump. Thump.
It didn’t hurt then and it didn’t hurt now.
Nothing hurt now.
We went busking. It was one long off-key note.
When we got home Busker Boy said, “She hasn’t said a word.”
What did they want from me?
Chef’s death was easy. You love someone, they die, you grieve. That’s how it works on TV. But what if someone dies who you’re supposed to love but don’t? What then?
They told me I needed to be strong and I said, “You’ve got to be damn strong to be able to survive. These guys are not strong and they’re not weak. They are in between and they’re very fragile,” and Busker Boy said, “Reciting from a documentary won’t help, you know,” and I thought, What the hell do you know? It’s helped my whole life.
The Agony of Bun O'Keefe Page 8
