Perhaps he would have hung something in the living room. Oil on canvas.
Or, even, in the bedroom. Oil on linen.
John could have unknowingly owned pieces of her had he never seen her lean hard, palms pressing down upon the sink, to lift herself onto the balls of her feet while peering from a kitchen window. He could have begun and ended every day never having known the tiny tilt of her when she was consumed by a fast-forming idea. The slight cant of her hips when the secret thought arrived fully assembled and made contact with her resting body.
He could have retained some semblance of settled had he not witnessed feelings shake themselves shiver-like through her sharp parts.
You can’t remember memories that you don’t have.
You can’t forget them, either.
* * *
Calv should have never put Donna’s fucking name on the house.
Amanda told him not to so he told her to mind her own jesus business. It showed Donna he loved her, didn’t it? Was romantic or whatever. But Amanda says romanticism is for the emotionally crippled, sexually confused and teenagers.
Fucking sister always got to be right about everything.
He thinks this as he tiptoes around he’s own bedroom looking for a pair of matching socks. Thank god Donna sleeps late. She don’t hear him bump his heel off the footboard or the hushed swears escaping his mouth as he digs through the sock drawer. You would think she could roll his socks together. That’s not asking a lot. Tuck one in the other. His mother irons underwear for fuck sakes. Not Donna. She just shoves everything into the drawer all the once and stray like. It feels reflective of her general demeanour toward him. Right haphazard and half-assed, quick to be done. Donna has yelled come or die at Calv in the middle of screwing.
He still came mind you.
Calv’s buddy never put his misses on the house papers and got to keep the works when she left him. Told the courts she was his tenant. Calv should have done that too. Perhaps he’d have something to leverage for rolled together socks and a blow job if he’d have thought of it. Jesus. Can’t even admit to anyone he’s fucked now either.
She’ll have everything you owns, know every move you makes, that’s what Amanda said.
Calv hates it when Amanda is right. Hates it.
But that don’t make her wrong. And there’s no end to Donna’s demands now. Last night she was tormenting about some yoga trip. Said them parts he loves pawing after don’t magically stay tight like that.
She also said Calv can get the fuck on if he plans on going back to the poorhouse.
She’ll find a new man. And Calv knows she’s as good as her word, too. That’s how he got her himself. If Barry Coates had to of kept he’s job offshore, she’d be shacked up with him still, but Barry went in the first round of layoffs. He’s own fault really for bouncing around between companies. Offshore. Alberta. Offshore. School. Sure, Barry never even bought a truck. What kind of young feller don’t buy himself a truck when he’s making the biggest kind of money like that?
Roger had a new one every second year. Never waited for the lease to be up. Go on to the dealership as soon as he was ashore and have another truck. That one time, in he’s dirty coveralls, saying he’s money was as good as the next feller’s.
A shared hatred of Roger is the only thing Donna and Amanda got in common.
The pair of them would like to see Roger in the ground.
Amanda allows that he fingered her against her will one time in to he’s cabin when she was only fourteen. She told everyone at school that Roger sexually assaulted her. She claims that Calvin’s inability to even acknowledge this happened is further assaulting her. Which is revolting cause she’s he’s sister. Worse than that, he’s twin sister. Ugh. And yes yes, he loves her, loves her more than any other human living or dead, but why she got to go saying Roger violated her.
That’s the word she used when she told the English teacher from town.
Roger was after violating her when she was passed out drunk on the bunk. She said Deana Carter was playing. She said he hauled her snow pants down. She said she never took off her snow boots. She said he pushed her feet off the bunk cause he’s mother would be mad if she got all the bedclothes wet and full of birch sap. She said that she was too sick to talk. That she threw up in a bread pan on the floor. Amanda said she stared into the blue plastic bread pan, into the remnants of her guts, kiwi coolers and BBQ, while Roger told her how much he always liked her.
And she said no, she said his name, and then no. No. Roger. No. Don’t.
She could hear everyone racing ski-doos across the lake. Could remember thinking that Roger must have stayed behind especially for her cause racing ski-doos loaded drunk was his most favourite thing to be at. And she remembers thinking that he was going to pop her cherry right there in that bunk with a piece of wiener stuck to her face, and then on Monday everyone would call her a slut before homeroom. Amanda said the only reason he stopped is cause she peed on his hand. All the talk was that she got piss loaded drunk but Amanda pissed on Roger so he would stop.
It was all she could think to do.
That’s what she told Calv, and he wishes she never told him stuff like that. He wishes she was the same as everyone else. But Amanda reads too many books. Watches too many documentaries. She’s right dramatic. Making a big deal out of getting fingered.
By Christ, Calv can’t even think about how many times he’s hand been somewhere he wouldn’t sure it was supposed to be. No one knew what they were at. They were only young sure.
Amanda never could take a joke. This other time Roger gave her a wedgie and tore the pants off her in the hallway. Grabbed her by the ass pockets and hauled her right off her legs. It was right alongside the girls’ room. She could have went in there and changed into her gym clothes. No one needed to know, not really. But did Amanda do that? Course not. Stormed off down to the principal’s office then holding her pants together.
Look what Roger Squires did to me!
She could have said she was on the rag and thrown the pants out. But that would have been too easy.
Easy for who, Calvin?
That’s what Amanda would scream. And Calv knows she’d disown him if she ever found out what he was after getting caught into. She forever threatens to. It’s like her favourite thing to say.
That’s it, I’m done being your sister. You’re a lost cause. Un-fucking-salvageable you are.
She guns her messages home to make sure Calv don’t miss a single second of being shredded by her home-cut buckshot. She’d make some fine moose hunter if she still ate meat. Eats a bit of turkey at Christmas so she don’t hurt Nan’s feelings.
But do she try to spare her brother? No sir. Would sooner fire her hateful words at him in rapid succession. And nothing presses harder on her trigger than him going around with Roger. But what the fuck is Calv supposed to do? He can’t not go.
Calv grabs up his buzzing cellphone. Roger is after sending a swarm of pussy gifs.
Coming? I’m coming. You coming?
Sometimes Calv thinks Roger got the emotional maturity of a baby cow.
A small bovine. Livestock in the middle of development. Something he accidentally seen on a Netflix factory farm program when he last fell asleep at his sister’s.
He can’t unsee that now, and it leaves him feeling right spoilt and conflicted.
Calv can’t say no to hanging out with Roger but he can’t feel good about saying yes either.
He peeps out the curtains and spots Roger drumming away on the steering wheel. He got the music up
loud enough that Calv can hear it in the porch. The anxiety this creates makes Calv clear jump into his boots, almost sending himself head first into the closet door before catching himself on the door jamb.
And Roger got that Yamaha ski-doo jacket on again.
Lord thundering Jesus, Calv thinks it’s a good thing Donna can’t see it. She says Roger is worst than them digital billboards. Blinding. And Calv knows there’s something to what she says. He used to wish Roger would just wear something normal.
This was back when he still cared if they stayed friends.
* * *
George wishes she had not answered the phone.
She almost never answers unknown numbers. As a rule. She thought it might be the social worker so she picked it up. It wasn’t, and now her day is ruined.
Why do they even have a landline? They’re young, or at least, youthful. They’ve cellphones. And the internet. George would have happily entered middle age not knowing John was capable of this. Instead, here she is walking the dogs to The Hazel in a right huff.
John had left a note, he needed the car early for a supply run. His car was out of gas.
And for sure he has not done the run yet, she will have to do that, too.
Iris better have the liquor list ready. If she doesn’t, George will call and wake her up. She is almost definitely sleeping. Iris sleeps in all the time. George wishes she knew how to sleep in. But she doesn’t. Or more so, she can’t. She has so many things to do. She wakes up at six and feels behind by nine, is totally overwhelmed by noon, and falls asleep with a book on her face before ten. This is best case scenario if she starts the day in North America. Things are even more hectic and tiresome if she’s on a recruitment tour. George has priorities.
She is not so fancy-free as to stay in bed half the day sleeping off a hangover.
Her whole staff was trapped in some recovery loop. She would replace them with robots if it were up to her. Tidy, polite, moderate Japanese robots. Pay for themselves in a year, maybe less when you factor in spillage which is not even spillage. George has never once seen Ben spill a drop of draught or mix up a wrong drink order. He conducts himself with more competence than the rest of the serving staff combined. Which makes a fuck ton of sense considering George hired him, and Sarah hired the rest of these delinquents before fucking off to Korea.
Sarah didn’t even respond to George’s last email about the Thanksgiving decorations.
They were meant to be in a plastic container somewhere. A green storage tub full of wicker root vegetables. John said ask Sarah, like she was still sitting in the dining room drinking a cup of coffee. George wished she had gotten a chance to say goodbye. Or at least conduct an exit interview. She never did find the decorations.
George can’t have Asian robots.
Customers want sweet undergrads with large chests and a hint of accent. Not too much, not straight from the Southern Shore or, heaven forbid, another one from the Northern Peninsula. Iris corrects George each time she forgets to say Great but George is pretty sure there is nothing Great about it. She would not have hired Iris. She is much too much of everything. Her feelings show right on her face. But the customers love her.
She’s . . . authentic.
George is forced to accommodate her lying in for the sake of simple drawls and saucy drags. Linguistic laziness seeps into every inch of her core personality. She probably steals toilet paper from the restaurant. George knows none of them buy food anymore. Staff dinner, John calls it. They argue about this. George explains he does not need to make such a production out of feeding the staff. But John insists that it is important they taste the food and wine they are serving.
You cannot fake some things.
John thinks it is a bodily reaction. Uncontrollable. Impulsive. John wants diners to read pleasure on their faces when they talk about his food. He wants them to light up.
And George wants John to be happy so she lets it go. George lets things go.
He was weird when he picked her up from the airport last night.
She dismissed it because of the late hour, her own jet lag and the storm. But he was weird. Which makes perfect sense now considering what he has been hiding.
That man of hers is a sucker for punishment. If there are two ways, and one way is obviously the wrong way, John will pick that way every time. He is physically averse to the right way. He cannot see beyond the next step. His whole family is like that. Living in the reckless spot of time they exist in. Beholden to the island yet ready to swim ashore at a moment’s notice. They make George anxious. She has to coax John’s father into taking his coat off on the rare occasions he visits. John’s mother insisting on wearing shoes in the house.
In case it burns down, she explained to her new daughter-in-law the first time.
Stunned, George ventured clarification. In case the house burns down?
John’s mother lived her life in anticipation of walking over burnt-out broken glass in her naked feet. George had attempted to reason with her. Their home, which the elder John had commented was more house than two people needed, had smoke detectors that were wired to the grid.
I got no faith left in the grid.
Her mother-in-law’s life was revolving cold load pickup. People dying in their beds after cooking in the garage. Sheets pinned up in the doorways. Dogs, cats and babies all hampered in the one room. Half froze and bawling. Each story told more morbid and desperate.
These visits, thankfully, were not often. And rarely announced.
When given adequate prep time, John became agitated to a point of intolerability. Each day leading up to his parents’ arrival would see his miserable pacing increase. The long list of past offences tossed out with unnerving contempt. John had been wronged, and he could not forgive the trespasses against him. Instead, he echoed it like an ancient bugler, setting off an internal battle cry each day until he faced the enemy who wore the same determined, wronged look upon the same intense face.
We don’t all got a woman with money you know, Johnny!
Everything came back to having a woman with money.
Poor man/rich woman dichotomy being the barb to end all barbs before voices shot through the house and the front door was fired off the frame as John’s father retreated to the camper for his evening’s rage, knowing well enough the walls were merely covered cardboard.
The whole neighbourhood can hear him, John, George would plead.
The unsightly travel trailer embarrassing the entire street. Prowler indeed.
John’s parents lived like immigrants. George did not understand them at all. Their inability to commit to even a dinnertime was mystifying. Maybe all baymen are like that. George doesn’t know many of them beyond those she has met through John.
Which she realizes now are not many. A few men he skates with on Sunday nights, the couple they sometimes nod at while walking the dogs in Bowring Park. Not many. Sparse pickings.
George also realizes walking to The Hazel is a blessing. She needs the air more than the dogs. Air and an opportunity to simmer down before she sees John. She feels close to adequate now and is only halfway there. Forty more minutes will allow her to come up with a creative solution. Or a trap.
She will catch him in it. She will lay snares all about the place. She will make key chains with his severed bits for better luck next time. And as reminder to him that he properly stepped in it. She will hobble him for jeopardizing their family. And if he continues to deny it, she will use his own knives to skin him alive. This is George’s current working plan. She will tweak it as she goes.
&n
bsp; George is nothing if not adaptable. She is perfectly suited for this kind of thing.
* * *
Iris is so tired she can hardly lug herself down the last hill.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger is bullshit.
Iris is convinced this kind of psychological drivel was spoon-fed to her as child to make her shitty parents feel less shitty. It did not make her stronger. It made her more likely to develop autoimmune diseases and cancer. What doesn’t kill her now will kill her later.
It will cross her wires, and Iris is already wrong wired.
Jo has assured her that this can be undone. She has patiently explained that modern neuroscience confirms the brain’s plasticity. You just need one constant person to always care.
And to sleep soundly.
But Iris has never slept soundly. She is a blanket thrasher. She is a pillow crusher. She mines the backside of her brain for clues when she should be sleeping. Iris is nightly running internal damage-control analysis. She lies awake mapping out ways to stop lying awake.
She remembers doing so since childhood. Her parents pretending little Iris was a heavy sleeper when little Iris was not.
What are you doing up?
I can’t sleep.
Yes you can.
I’m hungry.
You’re not though.
I need some water.
Remember the story about the boy who cried wolf.
But I’m not a boy crying about wolfs —
Wolves.
My belly hurts.
Iris, go back to bed before Dad gets mad.
Mom —
Iris, get back in the jesus bed before I puts you back in it!
So she never told them she was awake much. Instead, she willed herself to be a better sleeper. The best everything. Exceptional. Her debt accumulated at conception in the back seat of some car would have to be repaid.
Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club Page 3
