On the Shores of Darkness, There is Light

by Cordelia Strube

  “Do you need anything from the store, Mr. Tumicelli?” Harriet asks.

  “I could use some Pepto-Bismol. My stomach’s acting up.”

  “You’ll never guess who I ran into the other day,” Mr. Shotlander says.

  “I give up.” Mr. Tumicelli responds to most questions with “I give up” because he has emphysema and talking requires too much oxygen.

  “Remember that louse with the Kraut car you fixed up? He lived in 504 with a Puerto Rican chica he was always screaming at. Finally she took off and he couldn’t pay the rent so he got evicted. I figured he’d be dead in an alley over a drug deal but oh no, he’s living two blocks over with some other piece of ass who doesn’t know any better. How do you like that? I thought I’d seen the last of that sack of shit.”

  “Tut tut.” Mr. Chubak sucks on his straw.

  “Must be something in his pants we don’t know about,” Mr. Shotlander says. Mrs. Chipchase collects her knitting. “Sorry, Esther. I forgot you were there, you’re so quiet.”

  “You never forget anything, Mr. Shotlander. Harriet, dear, can you help me with the elevator?” Harriet presses the button and when it arrives, holds the doors open until Mrs. Chipchase can push in her walker.

  “Oh don’t go, Esther,” Mr. Shotlander pleads, and Harriet feels sorry for him, so visible is his yearning for Esther’s approval.

  Mrs. Chipchase gives Harriet a toonie and whispers, “For the Life Savers. Keep the change. Bless you, you sweet girl.”

  After the elevator doors close there is a weighty silence before Mr. Shotlander says, “I can’t believe that sack of shit is living two blocks over.”

  Mr. Chubak tosses his empty juice box into the wastebasket. “It just goes to show. There’s ten people in the world and the rest is ghosts and mirrors.”

  What a good name for a painting, Harriet thinks. She can put the wiry woman with mauve lipstick from the Starbucks in it, and make her half python.

  “That sack of shit had tracks up both arms,” Mr. Shotlander says. “I was sure he’d be dead by now. I used to hear him beating the daylights out of her and her screaming like nobody’s business. Twice I called the cops but she wouldn’t press charges, she was too scared of the bastard.”

  “Each to his own hell.” Mr. Zilberschmuck pulls a cigarillo from his suit pocket and heads out for a smoke.

  Mr. Chubak starts to peel an orange. “It’s a battleground.”

  “You can say that again,” Mr. Tumicelli wheezes.

  “What a world,” Mr. Shotlander concludes.

  Nine

  Harriet uses Mr. Hung’s phone to call her mother because she doesn’t want Gennedy listening. Lynne sounds as though she has no idea why Harriet is calling her. “What is it, bunny, is something wrong?”

  “No, I just wanted to talk to you.”

  “Did Gennedy get you a pizza?”

  “He did.”

  “He thought he’d take you to a movie this afternoon.”

  “I’m going out with Darcy.”

  “Who’s Darcy?”

  “The new girl in the building. Her dad’s taking us.”

  “Do we know her dad?”

  “He took me and Darcy to Canada’s Wonderland in his Mack truck, remember? His name’s Buck. Sometimes he parks out back. He’s really nice.”

  “Okay, well, if it’s all right with Gennedy.”

  “Why does it have to be all right with Gennedy? Why can’t it be all right with you?”

  “Bunny, he knows more about what’s going on over there than I do. I’m . . . I’m kind of tuned out right now. If he’s met Chuck, and he’s okay with it, than that’s fine by me. What happened with your dad?”

  “Nothing.”

  “It didn’t go so well, huh?”

  “Not really.”

  “He’s an asshole. And don’t get me started on that sterile so-called intellectual.”

  “I don’t understand why she wants a baby.”

  “That makes two of us.” Harriet and Lynne always bond over the awfulness of Uma.

  “How’s Irwin?”

  “Fighting hard, as usual.”

  “When are you coming home?”

  “Soon. But I really need you to make an effort to get along with Gennedy. He didn’t ask for any of this.”

  Lynne always excuses Gennedy by saying he didn’t ask for any of this, as though anybody asks for the shit that happens. The fact that Gennedy gets to live rent-free doesn’t enter into the equation, or that Irwin was already sick when they shacked up. It’s always what a good man Gennedy is because he sticks around.

  “I didn’t either,” Harriet says.

  “What, baby?”

  “I didn’t ask for any of this either.” She waits for her mother to call her selfish, self-absorbed and egocentric. In the background the hospital whirrs.

  “A little girl died here today,” her mother says. “Septic shock. My lord, it happened so fast.”

  Harriet can hear sharp intakes of breath, meaning Lynne’s trying not to cry. “What’s septic shock?”

  “It’s when an infection spreads and gets into the blood and the body can’t fight it.”

  “That won’t happen to Irwin.”

  “I don’t know what will happen to Irwin. That’s what’s so hard. 24/7 I don’t know what will happen to my baby boy.”

  “None of us knows what will happen to us.”

  “You’re right, Mizz Harriet. So you’re okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “At least you’re getting a break from Irwin surveillance.”

  Without the shackle of Irwin, Harriet has moments of feeling utterly lost, empty-handed and guilty.

  “Oh, bunny, the doctor’s here, I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  Mr. Hung gently takes the phone from Harriet and hands her a slightly squashed Caramilk bar.

  “Thank you.” She unwraps it carefully, saving the gold paper for mixed media.

  Outside, boys play street hockey while Irwin fights hard—as usual—and a little girl dies of septic shock. None of it makes any sense. “There was a snake on Mrs. Butts’ toilet.”

  “What kind of snake?”

  “A python. A five-footer.”

  “Good for Chinese food.”

  “Do Chinese really eat chicken feet?”

  “Dim sum. Very good. I take you one day.”

  “That’s okay.” Harriet breaks off a square of the Caramilk bar and puts it on her tongue, letting the chocolate melt. “Do you think I lack compassion?”

  “Why you ask?”

  “My mother’s boyfriend and my father’s girlfriend say I lack compassion.” She looked it up: a feeling of distress and pity for the suffering or misfortune of another.

  “People say things. Don’t react, it give them power.”

  Harriet puts another square of chocolate on her tongue.

  Mr. Hung starts unloading the milk crates. “Egyptian man call himself strongest man in world and lock himself in steel cage with lion.”

  “Why?”

  “To boost tourism in Egypt. Everybody want to see man fight lion in steel cage.”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “Egyptian has big plan to boost tourism. He pull airplane with his teeth, pull airplane with his hair and be run over by airplane. In between he fight lions.”

  “Does he kill the lions?”

  “So far only one steel-cage fight happen. Hundreds of people wait for fight to start. Egyptian spend twenty minutes in cage. Lion do nothing. Egyptian declare victory.”

  “How is it a victory if the lion didn’t do anything?”

  “Egyptian say he fight dogs too, most ferocious breeds. He punch and kick them. He has fighting style he call ‘life or death.’ He teach children how to chew glass and pull c
ar with teeth. He say he jump from ten-storey building and hang himself many times.”

  “Maybe he’s nuts.”

  “He don’t care what people say. In his mind he strongest man in world.” Mr. Hung stacks the empty milk crates. “In your mind be strongest girl in world. Don’t care what people say.”

  On the subway, Buck stares at pretty girls. When the train rolls above ground, Darcy checks her cell to see if her BFF from her old neighbourhood will meet them at the Eaton Centre. Her dismay at the lack of texts from former friends causes her to slouch and pick at her split ends. “It’s not like I moved to China. I bet that Caitlin whore’s dissing me.” Whenever Darcy needs someone to blame for her friends’ disloyalty, she blames that Caitlin whore, whose parents are dentists and buy her Lululemon outfits. Caitlin had a party and invited everybody except Darcy, and gave everybody Lululemon headbands that cost twelve bucks each.

  Aware that she is Darcy’s stand-in friend, Harriet tries hard not to disappoint, so rare is it that she gets invited anywhere. She’s not wild about the Eaton Centre—it’s just another mall—but she enjoys looking at the goose sculptures suspended in the atrium, and the granite fountain that spurts water like a whale.

  “Fucking whore,” Darcy says re: her BFF who hasn’t texted back.

  Buck nudges her. “Is that nice?”

  “Why do you call them whores?” Harriet asks. “Do you know what a whore is?”

  “It’s a slut, duh.”

  “No it’s not. It’s a prostitute.”

  “Which is a slut.”

  “No it’s not. Prostitution is a profession. The world’s oldest. Lots of women do it to avoid starving to death.” Mr. Chubak’s niece in Winnipeg got laid off and went into the world’s oldest profession. According to Mr. Chubak she hated herself so much for being a prostitute she started taking drugs. When she got VD her regular johns dropped her. She tried working the streets but her toes froze and she had to have two amputated. She swallowed all her painkillers at once and died. Mr. Chubak believes drugs should be legalized and writes regularly to the Prime Minister about it.

  “Oh my god why are you so hung up about the exact definitions of things, I mean, who gives a fuck?”

  “Whores do. If I was a whore I wouldn’t want every slutty girl named after me.”

  “Okay, fine, so what am I supposed to call them?”

  “Sacks of shit.”

  “That sounds derpy.”

  “Mr. Shotlander says it all the time. Try it.”

  Darcy sighs histrionically then says, “Sack of shit.”

  “It’s got a certain ring to it,” Buck concedes.

  They join the crowd cramming into the Apple Store to fondle the latest technology. Harriet watches a pear-shaped, mustard-haired man leaning over a laptop. His shoulders angle straight down from his neck, making it look as though he has no shoulders. Every few minutes he reaches back and scratches his butt. Harriet thinks he’d be an excellent subject for There’s Just Ten People in the World and the Rest Is Ghosts and Mirrors.

  A laptop becomes available and Darcy lunges for it to play Plants Vs. Zombies. After that she plays Neopets, feeding her cyber dog and trying different doggy jackets and booties on him. Beside them two people who look almost identical in big glasses and cargo pants huddle around another laptop. “I think I’m uptight,” the woman says. One side of her hair is considerably shorter than the other.

  “Why would you say that?” the man asks.

  “We did a questionnaire at work to assess how we cope with stress and I scored really badly. It said uptight people suck at managing stress.”

  The man searches something on the laptop for several minutes before saying, “I disagree. I think you manage stress very well.” They both look uptight to Harriet. The man meanders away from the laptop and the woman follows. Harriet hops over to it and searches YouTube for the crazy chicken lady who plays the ukulele, singing like a chicken. Next she finds the lady in Churchill, Manitoba, tossing boiling water from a cup into the freezing air. “This is how cold it is,” the lady says as the water turns to icy snow in midair. This looks like so much fun to Harriet.

  Darcy puts a tiara on her cyber doggy. “H, I can’t believe you’re not on Facebook. I would, like, die without Facebook.”

  Harriet did join Facebook, hoping it would make her less lonely but it made her lonelier because few people accepted her friend requests, and the ones that did didn’t really know her. They just blabbed about themselves and the boring stuff they did, and posted selfies and photos of themselves with friends doing boring stuff, like smiling at parties or holding their pets. Harriet couldn’t think of anything to post that wasn’t equally boring. She knew if she revealed who she really was they would unfriend her in seconds. So she deleted her account.

  “Goils, check this out.” Buck shows them a clip of a fat man he calls the greatest actor of all time. “That’s him in The Godfather.”

  The greatest actor of all time says, “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.”

  “He put cotton balls in his mouth to make his cheeks stick out like that,” Buck explains.

  “Craptastic,” Darcy says.

  “I’m serious. That’s how he got the part. He had to audition for the part because everybody wrote him off when he got fat. So he shows up for the screen test with his cheeks puffed out. He won an Oscar. A fucking epic comeback.”

  “Buck’s planning a death metal comeback,” Darcy says.

  “I never left, girlfriend.”

  In Lululemon Darcy fondles a Sparkle Scuba Hoodie that costs $108. “Caitlin-the-sack-of-shit has one of these in pink.”

  “What’s supposed to sparkle about it?” Harriet asks. “It just looks like any other hoodie.”

  Beside them, a scarily thin woman inspects a Live Healthy Wrap while talking on her phone. “What you have to accept is humans are egotistical. We’re different from animals.”

  “Swag,” Darcy says. “This one’s got holes in the sleeves for your thumbs.”

  “Why do you want holes in the sleeves for your thumbs?”

  Darcy checks the price. “A hundred and twenty-eight bucks.”

  “A steal.” Buck winks at an approaching salesgirl.

  “Can I help you guys with anything?”

  “I believe my daughter’s looking for pants, isn’t that right, Dee?”

  “Perfect,” the salesgirl says, hooking hair behind her ears. “Let’s talk pants.” She surveys Darcy’s generous waist, butt and thighs. “Were you looking for a tight fit or something more relaxed?”

  Darcy, demonstrating a bashfulness Harriet hasn’t seen before, says meekly, “My friend Caitlin has the Wunder Under Pant and they look really cool.”

  “Perfect. The thing is, the Wunder Under Pants are a Second Skin fit.” The salesgirl wrinkles her nose. “Like, really tight. You might want to try something a little more relaxed.”

  “What about Groove Pants?”

  The salesgirl, in what looks like Second Skin fit pants, taps an index finger against her chin. “Perfect. The thing is Groove Pants are also a slim fit. Like, you might want to go for more coverage. What about the drawstring Relaxed Fit? They’re totally awesome, and soooo comfortable.” She pulls out grey shapeless pants.

  “Forget it,” Darcy says and plods out of the store. Harriet follows while Buck flirts with the salesgirl.

  “I don’t think any of those pants are worth a hundred bucks,” Harriet says.

  “That’s because you dress like shit. Do you even have another pair of jeans?”

  “Goils,” Buck calls after them, “are we ready for Sugar Mountain?”

  The red dye in the candy apple pushes Harriet into an altered state where everything is amplified and transformed into changing shapes, shadows and colours. After Mr. Shotlander had his hernia operation, the narcotics
made him see the Mexican army. “The dang Mexicans were attacking me. There was me bandaged in my bed and Mexicans coming at me through the window with sabres.” Harriet isn’t hallucinating, exactly, but fake plants seem larger, as though they might be hiding Mexicans. This doesn’t scare her. She’s ready for a fight. “Try me,” she growls to a fern.

  Darcy rifles through the merchandise at Ardene. “Check out this bling.” She tries on some chunky rings and thick plastic bangles. “Swag.”

  The mall air conditioning is making Harriet shiver. “I don’t wear jewellery.”

  “You don’t say. How ’bout a tank top, two for ten bucks? We could each buy one. What colour do you want?” Harriet never wears tank tops, prefers to hide behind baggy T-shirts. “I want the pink,” Darcy says. “Get something different. I don’t want us looking like twins, yo.”

  “Why do you say yo at the ends of sentences?”

  “Because it’s coolio, hoolio.” She holds a pale blue tank top against Harriet who understands that if she hopes to continue to be invited places with Buck and Dee, she had better make a purchase. But she’s been saving up for a tube of Cadmium Red Deep. It costs $24.99 and is crucial for the gouged tongues and bleeding wounds in her paintings.

  “You go, girl. Try it on.” Dee pushes her into a changeroom. The mirror is wide and full length, providing an excellent opportunity to practice Michael Jackson moves. Harriet turns sideways and practices her moonwalk then tries some knee bouncing and swinging.

  Darcy bangs on the wall dividing the changerooms. “What are you doing in there?”

  “Nothing.”

  “How’s it looking, yo?”

  Harriet pulls the tank top over her head. The pale blueness of it makes her think of Irwin’s eyes, and how he went temporarily blind because they had to give him so much oxygen. Lynne was screaming and grabbing her forehead and wouldn’t sit down. Harriet was afraid to move in case Lynne started screaming at her.