by John O'Neill
At home, Leonard established a simple routine, travelling a torpid triangle of three points: basement couch, living room couch, bedroom couch. Mostly, Leonard didn’t diverge from this configuration, except to eat or defecate. Sometimes to shower. And Ellis had disappeared, though there was evidence of his presence: fluctuations in the height of dishes in the sink, the number of empty cereal boxes on the counter, the wetness of towels in the bathroom. But Leonard never saw him. He thought that his nephew had perhaps found some renewed purpose, maybe even a job, though this seemed incomprehensible to Leonard, his own optimism blunted.
Leonard began to imagine, in response to Ellis’ absence, that his nephew lived inside the phone; that he’d disappeared into it, was residing behind the automatic words You have no new messages: words that Leonard dreaded, listened to, every time he came home from work. He had a nightmare in which he was shouting at Ellis in their dark kitchen. When Ellis walked into the light thrown by the open refrigerator, Leonard saw his nephew’s head had transformed into a white rotary phone. His nephew then stepped into the fridge, closed the door. The feeling that Ellis had become one with the phone and that he had moved to that strange land where voices float, purgatorial, was reinforced when, a week after his hospital night with Alison, the phone rang. Leonard let it ring three times, allowing himself to savour possibility, before pressing his face into its little curve.
It wasn’t Alison.
A familiar but unfamiliar voice said: “Is Ellis there?”
Leonard broke from his triangle, entered Ellis’ room, saw no lumps in the bedsheets, then searched the basement, the backyard.
“No, not here,” Leonard said. “Can I take a message?”
“No. I’ll try again later.”
“You’re better to leave a message. He’s never home. Sure you don’t want to leave a message?”
“No. He knows I’m trying to contact him. Have been for some time. Thanks.”
Whoever it was, a man, hung up. Leonard thought his statement – “have been for some time” – rather odd, since this was the first time any call had come in for Ellis. Leonard considered whether he’d forgotten some messages; after all, he’d been pre-occupied as of late, and the man’s voice did sound familiar. Then it occurred to Leonard why– the voice was almost exactly like Ellis’: gruff and deep, yet disconnected. Perhaps Ellis had taken to calling himself, to create the illusion that friends were attempting to contact him. Or, he was phoning himself to experience the happy surprise that he wasn’t at home, was engaged in some vital social activity. Perhaps Ellis was spending his evenings at the mall and believed that his home might still contain enough of himself to be able to carry on a conversation. Perhaps long, sluggish internment in his own place of residence had manufactured a second self, a shadow Ellis. Or he really had been absorbed into the phone, existed as a disembodied spirit inside it, and was trying to locate his body, his actual, tactile self. Leonard missed him. He wanted Ellis’ whole, disaffected person to make an appearance. Leonard needed to collapse with him again. He didn’t feel up to taking responsibility for his nephew’s absence, did not want to have to fill that void; didn’t want to eat an extra-large bowl of Alpha-Bits for dinner; didn’t want to go rent double the mindless DVDs. But the house seemed to breathe with that imperative. Its blankness called out for such distraction. The suburbs were drawing Leonard into it, into the television. And he had two places to fill.
9
TWO YELLOW LEAVES
“She was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease,” Mavis explained. “It’s a bowel condition. She’s lost weight. She’s always going for tests. Sometimes the pain is so bad, I can’t, we’re trying to be private about it. I might need to take some time. Everybody has their cross. Laura West, in my grade ten class, lost her parents last year to a drunk driver. Her older brother, remember, got expelled for spraying Toomey with a fire extinguisher. I would’ve done the same to that fraud, that fucker. You know. Shit happens. Life goes on.”
Leonard had never heard Mavis swear before. He followed her back to the art room but sheepishly, embarrassed at how he’d never asked her about her own problems, her own life, that he’d always let her attention flow toward him, and through, like a drain. As they walked, he tried to picture what her daughter looked like. But he could only come up with a miniature version of Mavis, though with a pinched martyr’s expression. He imagined one of those tacky 3-D pictures of the sorrowful Madonna, then a whole gallery of them, their eyes blinking in unison.
When he tried to offer Mavis solace, telling her that if there was anything that he could do, that he was embarrassed at describing his own problems when she had bigger ones, Mavis said impatiently: “I’m fine. Let’s not compare griefs. I’m sorry. Don’t worry about me. Please. Worry about yourself.”
“No need,” Leonard said.
He needed to tell Alison he’d be fine. That he understood her confusion, knew she needed time and space. She’d see his maturity and self-control, in matters of the heart you advance by retreating; but no, this wasn’t a further manipulation, the words needed to be said; she’d see his altruism, his consideration, his calm, his worldliness, his calm, his calm. But she needed to see it in person.
That day, after work, Leonard drove downtown. The Don Valley was brilliant with fall colours, the display heightened by all the rain that had been falling, off and on, for the past week. Leonard parked on Alison’s street, but far enough away that he wouldn’t be seen. He sat there for several minutes, feeling the wind gust. He thought about what he’d say to her, also calculating her reaction: “Hi Alison, I’m sorry to bother you, I just wanted you to know that I’m fine, everything is fine. I have no hard feelings, I want you to be happy in your life even if you need to move on. I’m a grown man, I want you to know that I’m strong and you don’t need to avoid me, I’m not expecting anything of you, my estrangement from my wife is my problem, you owe me nothing. I feel privileged for having known you and spending these last few weeks but I do think it best that, after today, you don’t try to contact me as I need to spend some time alone; not that you would try to contact me in any case, even after what I’ve been through, despite the fact that you, you little cunt, were the catalyst to the destruction of my marriage, and that I thought it actually meant something when you spread your legs for me, that you might have felt a tremor of love when you sat with me in that emergency ward. I’m sorry your dad’s a loser, a bum, but why should that come between us?”
Leonard took a breath, tried to get his bearings again, to return to the first half, the decent half, of his speech. It would be a performance. He stood in front of Alison’s door and rang the bell. Two yellow leaves had fastened to his shoes. The bottom of his trousers were wet and frayed. He knew his presence was a mistake. His shoes, his pants, told him that. When he saw the light above the door go on, he felt an awful weight: Frank Corvu’s head was inside him, pushing through his intestines, grinning, bulging, pop-eyed, red, chewing as it went. Leonard had something in common with Mavis’ daughter, for a moment understood her affliction. When the door handle turned, so did he, trying to appear more casual, in preparation for the casualness, reasonableness of what he’d say. It was Beverly who stood before him, in a dark blue Ryerson sweatshirt and yellow-checked sweatpants, her hair pushed up to one side. As usual, her eyes were wandering at the sides of her head. He stared at her white stockinged feet.
“Al isn’t here,” she said.
“Hi Beverly,” Leonard tried. “Sorry to bother you, really, but do you know when she might be home?”
“No.”
Leonard waited, hoping that Beverly might ask him in, might suggest that he wait for her. Or that she might propose some other strategy, tell him, for instance, where Alison was working that day or when he might return to see her. But she just stared at him, or at least her wandering eyes froze, the trajectory of each just missing Leonard’s face. He decided to interpret her inevitable off-kilter stare as hesitation, encouragement.
“You know where she’s working? Is she at Innis? Is she projecting?”
“I think you’re projecting,” Beverly said. She pulled on the door, reduced the opening. “Look, Leonard, she needs for you to leave her alone. She’s happy. It doesn’t help when you show up here. Let her call you, if she wants. Please don’t call anymore. This is what she wants.”
“Just wanted to let her know that everything’s fine, I’m fine, I wish her well. I wish her father well.”
Beverly looked confused. “Well, yeah, great then, hunky dory. See you later.”
The door shut, the lock clicked, the hall light died. He stood on the porch for several moments, then walked away, trying to approximate a normal stride, to control the wobble. Paused on the sidewalk, considered, continued a bit, walked down the little space between Alison’s fence and the neighbour’s, studied the corridor there. The ladder was gone. Looked at the faces of the thin houses, their shining windows against the dour afternoon, their expressions of warmth, stability. Decided that he never wanted to be inside again, that he’d take his place among the trees on the street, that things not essential to his bare survival could break off, blow away. He walked farther, planted his feet in the wet grass beside his car, lifted his arms, let the wind tug his sleeves. Got chilled, got inside, drove away from that street, for the, hear this, hear this, bitches, last time. Fuck you, one-way street, fuck you, city. He put his windshield wipers on, full tilt. Concentrated, fuck you, on their simplicity, the ease of their design and task, the sweep of fuck you rain across the glass. Smiled horribly when a brown leaf got caught in their motion, put a gap in the smooth wash.
10
RANK
When Leonard got home, there were three phone messages from his sister Ruth: each wondering where Ellis was, why wasn’t he returning her calls, what was he doing with himself, and warning them both that she was coming to visit tomorrow. That mother wasn’t doing so great, that Ruth was worried, had Leonard visited her lately?
Leonard erased the messages, went straight to Ellis’ room, knocked, pushed open the door on the usual mess, discovered that none of the lumps were his nephew. Yanked the quilt off the bed and was met with a rank smell. Found a half bottle of cologne, emptied it onto the bed, gathered all of the empty deodorant containers that cluttered the dresser and tossed them there, too. Found an old hydro bill among the dirty laundry and science-fiction pulp on the floor, scribbled on the back of it, tacked it to Ellis’ door: “Ellis are you alive? Asshole, phone your mother. I fumigated your disgusting DISGUSTING room. How can you live like this?”
Late that night, Leonard went out. Searched, discovered, brought home. It was remarkably easy, though he was being reckless. He wondered what his nephew might say to his new occupation. He didn’t care. The three bicycles gave the spare room the look and smell of a factory, wheels toward the ceiling as if he and his nephew had become indoor custodians of motion, that they were living in a sort of mill, the keepers of things that turn, uselessly.
At three a.m., Leonard awoke from a fitful sleep. He was aware of Ellis’ presence as his nephew stood by his bedroom door, presumably reading the nasty note. He heard sounds that suggested his nephew was leaving again; so, concerned he might be disproportionately upset over his uncle’s words, Leonard got up and went down the hall to the front entrance.
The kitchen light was on, side door open. Leonard waited in the kitchen, then went back to his room where he’d be able to see, through the sliding door, what Ellis was doing in the backyard. But when he pulled up the blind, he couldn’t spot him. He lay on his bed again. After ten minutes, he got up, looked out. He could now see, in light that spilled from the open back door of the garage, on the end of the little patio, his nephew on his knees, untangling wires that were connected to some cylindrical objects. Leonard watched, grew bored, climbed back into bed, let himself fall. Entered sleep accompanied by a pleasant Poe-like vision of Beverly, bound and suspended by wires, being lowered into malevolent machinery, a snake pit of churning bicycle chains.
Awakened by birdsong. He sat up, could see a slice of blue dawn on the horizon. But there was something else, a new glow on the grass, the backyard like a landing strip: Ellis had set lawn lights all around the rectangle and in three rows down the middle, the long grass divided into four alley-like sections. Leonard wondered if his nephew had completed this task as part of a pact with space aliens, that he was aiding and abetting a War of the Worlds. Or Ellis had been building a modest spaceship in the garage (decorated with ‘Van art’ no doubt, like the airbrushed Amazon in the living room), and was now prepared to take flight from the airport of his Scarborough backyard. He thought of his nephew’s science fiction books, that each might contain the coded instructions for the building of spacecraft, that Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov were really aliens themselves, employed to soften human consciousness to the possibility of alternate lifestyles, alien life forms. Perhaps, Ellis was an alien: stranger in a strange world.
Leonard remembered the note he’d left for Ellis, its meanness. Perhaps his nephew’s decoration of the backyard, the nocturnal untangling, the excessive rows of lights, were in response to his words: Ellis are you alive?
Mavis was absent from work that day. When Leonard stopped by her room for some solace, he found a large woman seated at her desk, wearing an elaborate flower arrangement in the bun of her hair, with a wooden pin that looked like a tree branch. A flower pattern, blinding yellow, dominated her dress. Her clothing, and her beatific, slightly sweaty smile, suggested she’d just wandered in, contented and spent, from some Hungarian spring festival, from frolicking round a Maypole; and this despite the fact that the students in her charge were hurling globs of paint at one another, one boy lying face down on one of the tables, swimming through a river of red and blue. Leonard assumed that Mavis was with her daughter, holding her hand next to a hospital bed, both of them drawing strength from one another in the narcotic glare. Alison holding Leonard’s hand.
11
CLIPPED WINGS AND
BIRD HEADS
In Scarborough, rain and wind lived unrestricted, picked up speed and lashed ruthlessly against cars and unlucky pedestrians. No buildings, tall houses or other architectural features for shelter. Weather gathered force along wide avenues and in strip-mall parking lots. The suburbs seemed to have its own weather system coming from the bluffs, and its own fog machine. Today there was winter in the October air. That morning, Leonard had scraped a thin layer of frost off the car windows.
October had settled into the nursing home. Beside the receptionist’s counter in a huge vase were bunches of brown and yellow dried flowers, alongside cobs of multicoloured Indian corn. Orange ribbons hung from the ceiling and cardboard pumpkin faces were scotch-taped to the green walls. A Happy Hallowe’en banner was taped above the elevator, the words flowing from the broomstick of a traditional green-faced, carbuncled witch with flowing black hair. Three cardboard skeletons danced on the walls of the elevator, which seemed in bad taste given the context. In fact, as the elevator doors opened, an old man shuffled off, whose own very real skeleton was testing the elasticity of his flesh. In this place, pumpkins and witches were harmless and fun, but images of scarecrows and skeletons and ghosts disturbed, cruel cartoons of the inevitable future. Of course, most of the residents never made that connection. The cardboard figures reminded them of Hallowe’ens past. Even this seemed a bitter conjuring.
Leonard needed a nap. Emerging from the elevator, he regarded a woman in a wheelchair with a sort of fatuous envy. He went to the third floor common room. It was dinnertime and the place would be filled with figures slumped in chairs before trays of mostly untouched food. They were birdlike women with scrawny feet, beaks, clipped wings and bird heads. But the room was empty save for the lone figure of the potato-head woman Leonard remembered from his last visit. She spotted him, lifted her body from its collapse, stabbed a paltry arm toward him and began to speak. Leonard ha
d the impression of a geriatric doll that had been wound up, but whose internal mechanism had rusted.
Leonard’s mother was in her room, propped up awkwardly against her headboard, a sheet pulled to her neck. Her arms were above the sheet and she was staring, mouth open, as if she was about to address someone. Leonard paused in the doorway; a chill touched his neck, finger of a ghost. When he stepped forward, his mother’s head turned, but her eyes looked past him.
