Olive, Olive are you okay?
I’m great.
Who was that?
A friend from the bar.
A friend?
He broke my beer.
You don’t need any more beer.
I wanted to drink them.
Fuck sakes.
Now, I have no beer.
Come here.
Do you have beer?
I’m not giving you a beer.
Are you mad at me? Maybe he’s mad at me . . .
Come in the house.
I must have done something wrong.
You’re loaded.
You’re ugly.
Olive!
Iris!
It’s freezing.
I feel nothing.
Come in the fucking house now!
You’re not the boss of me!
I never said I was.
Who is the boss of me?
You are. Olive is the boss of Olive.
You said it would be better here.
I know.
It’s not.
No.
It wasn’t my fault . . .
I know.
Whose fault is it?
Iris reaches out to palm the bottoms of Olive’s feet.
She wonders whose fault it was then and whose fault it is now.
The soles recoil at the warm, wet touch of Iris’s sweaty mitten. Olive turns over to face Iris without uplifting herself. She doesn’t say good morning or even hello but instead tucks her knees in close to her chest, making room on the bench. Iris sits atop Olive’s feet. She feels the hot and cold shoot through her lining before bending to pull out her bootlaces. She mourns her red Sorels as they become slack around her ankles. She grieves the thick cream wool socks bought at a holiday fair. Both holding tightly memories of something that will soon cease.
Jo says it takes at least six weeks for new habits to form, which seems like a long time considering Iris hasn’t started yet. She wonders why everything must be so horrible as she slides Olive’s right foot out from under her bum. She pulls the still warm wool carefully over the foot, trying not to catch it on a toe. Iris has had cold feet before. She knows the misery of it. And Olive flinches but makes no noise or eye contact. She doesn’t acknowledge the gesture. And Iris doesn’t care as long as Olive keeps her toes. No one should lose pieces of themselves anymore. Iris is after sliding the second sock on when she hears real movement in the kitchen. She hurries along.
Sit up, Olive.
Olive follows instructions alarmingly well even when openly revolted. Iris convinces herself it is because Olive can forecast the boots will make her feet better but knows it is likely some other kind of worse thing. She slips Olive’s feet into the Sorels and begins to fasten her in.
I need some money.
I don’t have any money.
Ask for some.
He won’t give me any.
He will.
I cannot believe you let your feet get this cold.
It was an accident.
You know better than this.
Ouch, they’re too tight.
It’s just your feet waking up.
They’re too big.
You cannot go around in summer shoes.
I don’t have other shoes.
What happened to your boots?
Lost them.
Well, don’t lose these, they’re the only pair we have between us.
I don’t want your boots.
Just don’t give them away.
Whatever.
Or trade them for pills.
I don’t do that anymore!
Say you will give them back.
I’ll give them back.
Olive, seriously —
Jesus, fuck. I’ll give them back.
Olive swears repeatedly under her breath. She is so weak. Her feet burn. She wants the boots off. She wants to wrap her hands around her toes to take their temperature.
Iris.
Olive can see easy by the look on John’s face now that the scene in the entryway displeases him. He has stopped mid-approach, halfway between the front door and the kitchen, holding a mug of steaming something in one hand and a soup spoon in the other.
What are you doing?
What does it look like I’m doing?
Giving away your boots.
Yes.
If you give away your boots you’ll have no boots.
I’ll drive home, my car is outside.
Of course it is.
Not now, John.
I gave you —
I know.
Iris.
John.
Be reasonable.
You’re not supposed to be here.
Neither are you.
I’m just getting my cheque.
Iris.
Don’t.
And he puts the soup down on the bar where Olive is meant to sit. The stool closest to the door for a fast getaway in case anyone arrives unannounced. He pulls back the stool and motions toward it without shifting his gaze. They, all three, stand-off. The memory of the boots is irrelevant now. It doesn’t matter who walks out of here wearing them. The incision has been made. John and Iris could have a fake bicker about it but that would do little good. Besides, Iris isn’t the least bit interested in indulging him anymore. Doing so isn’t helping him anyway. It is harming him. Allowing him to meander through his life spewing confident superficial nonsense just encourages him to continue spewing confident superficial nonsense.
And, sure, she will admit to loving the sound of his voice no matter what cryptic bullshit is being spoken. Iris feels like she has won a prize in some accidental competition when John is in front of her. Even when they are like this, fully at odds and near implosion, she feels warmed at the sight of him. Iris wells up with grief when she considers the rest of it without him. Envisioning never knowing the movement of his days is too much for her, even though she knows it is what must happen.
Iris had just wanted to be near him, to live a quiet kind of life somewhere handy to his.
Sometimes, when she thinks of no longer knowing him, she regrets stepping outside for a cigarette with him that first time. Iris had been hired while John was away at Golden Plates. Sarah had been impressed by Iris’s friendly demeanour and knowledge of wine. Supposed knowledge of wine.
But everyone lies on their resumé.
It’s the only way to get a job in this town. That or know someone who can get you one. Iris knew no one. She had just gotten back from Toronto. She hadn’t really kept in touch with anyone from home besides Olive. Jo is, or was, her only real friend. And that took a lot of doing. Because being with others did not come naturally to Iris. She fakes it for money. Iris is a social tramp. Given the choice, she would not make idle chit-chat about bisque or debate the superiority of whole cream.
Sip your coffee. Snort your coke. Buy your cauliflower organic. Yada, yada, yada.
Iris knows she is getting paid to act kindly. She cannot even choose to be shy. The world is not ready-built for introverts.
There are great lists on the internet with tips for fabricating an outgoing nature. Being humorous will get you ahead. So Iris finely impersonates a confident well-adjusted human. Drinks. Goes home. And sleeps in her dress on the couch. It is all part of the persona she is projecting to keep the lights on.
She had no idea who John was. At first. The significance having been computed too late for Iris to change gears. She thought he was a cook. She thought he was single. She thought George was a ma
n. Because George is a man’s name!
This is why women should have more women friends, to ensure a thorough screening process.
Women could identify obstacles and warn Iris before her heart and pussy freeze out her brain. Her brain can get iced out of the control room in a matter of weeks depending on the frequency of contact. The manner of contact. That first time in the back alley he lit her smoke in his own mouth before handing it to her. The casual intimacy of it clocked.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tock.
The long drag of him made her no longer care about death. Some people just make you want to smoke. And there was nothing Jo could say after to persuade or prevent. She hadn’t even seriously tried. She had never seen Iris so happy.
And then so sad. Then happy. Then sad. Then happy. Then sad. Loops and loops.
* * *
John has retreated to the kitchen now.
Tuesday prep starts from scratch and the sous-chef has texted to say he has the flu. Party flu is more like it, John thinks, but he has no time to reprimand anyone today. Service is full. They’ve resos for deuces all through the room twice over. They will have to turn it out gracefully or pay the consequences. And John’s mind is buzzing, the top of him full of piss and vinegar over last night’s argument, and now the boots.
She is deliberating trying to ruin his life.
He searches the cold storage for available ingredients. He must deal with what remains of the weekend first and then go from there. The pork supplier will likely be late due to yesterday’s weather, which means he will have to sort that during lunch service. No doubt Damian will be late, too. John promises himself he will fire that guy when he is less short-staffed. And now he will have to convince Iris to work a double even though she is openly seething at him. He’s not sure how he is going to bring about a change in her. Fucking fuck. John wishes he could run away from home. Probably can’t do that when you’re forty. It’s likely against some law.
They’ve laws against everything.
Olive sits sipping the soup as Iris tears apart the other side of the bar while quietly cursing under her breath. Iris grows incensed before throwing up her hands. There are only two ways this can go now.
Where is my goddamn paycheque?
John will not respond while she uses this tone. It would be like rewarding a yapping puppy. He will wait until she calms down and they can have a civil conversation. He will keep peeling carrots to settle her. He knows pulling strips off in tight self-assured motions is a gesture Iris finds appealing. And he’s right.
Iris deeply approves of how he moves around his space so purposefully. She gets lost in watching him chop an onion. Just stands watching him do the thing as he had hoped to do. And that sharp pain preceding tears fires through her nostrils, up the centre of her face from her throat, perhaps originating farther down in her belly. Gaining momentum as it nears her eyes which she closes to regain composure. Sometimes seeing him as she has always seen him makes her forget the impossibility of it. Because she loves him and wants him to be well. Even now. Even still.
And the fact that these two notions cannot coexist is searing and incomprehensible. Her loving him and him being well don’t seem to get on at all. This brings about a great sorrow. John has taken her for granted. He was reckless with her heart. She had tried to protect them. She had tried to prevent. But he refused to listen. Or acknowledge that she was his person. In every way but name, she had been his person. And now they would get nothing but ruination.
Where’s my cheque?
Behind the bar.
No, it’s not.
Nan must have moved it.
Don’t call him that.
I’ll call him whatever I want.
I hate it when you talk like that.
I know.
So why do it?
Can’t help it.
That’s not a reason to do something.
I do it cause I like it.
Your reasons for doing things are bad reasons.
Iris —
It’s not even his name!
It’s his nickname!
You can’t just rename people.
Listen —
Don’t listen me.
Iris had warned, begged, pleaded, tried everything repeatedly and to no end.
I do not agree to this.
She had implored and declared the obvious repeatedly.
I do not like this.
But her words mean nothing to him.
I cannot live like this, John.
Your words are not important words, Jo would say to her in desperation.
There are no important words to John aside from his own.
And then Jo would say he is a predator. The worst kind of man. A faux-minist. A liar. He made Iris believe in a falsehood. Fooled her. Groomed her. Identified the want in her and pretend-extended this back, though slightly out of reach of Iris’s grasping hands. He kept her reaching and now she has been stretched beyond herself. No longer knowing her own mind.
Iris fits his pattern perfectly, Jo asserted whenever the conversation allowed her an opportunity to ladle out some tough love. Jo rhymed off the dispositions that made Iris an ideal candidate, hardly recognizing that one wouldn’t say these things to a stranger let alone your newly broken best friend.
Never loved you. Never cared. Used you. Will use another after you.
And Iris feels like a plastic doll enshrined under coloured cellophane in a box high up and much sought after until handed down, unwrapped and found disappointing. The anticipation of her movable parts proving far more enticing than any joy found in moving them.
Jo did not mean to make Iris feel cheap, inanimate and replaceable, though this talk of her meaning nothing often resulted in the same sad feeling. Iris felt totally disposable. But Jo would not, could not, relent. She needed to focus Iris on the hate in it, for everyone’s protection. Jo could not know that she had further traumatized her dear friend through her dogged effort to safeguard them until much later. Too much later.
You have just the right amount of damage to suit him, Iris. You are a bright open book.
Jo watched as John clearly read Iris’s tender parts surging beneath the tough sinewy bits, and this scared her the most. Jo thinks Iris is a victim of a manipulative sex pest.
That man is not fit to lick your boot bottoms!
She made Iris take a “how to spot a sociopath” quiz with her morning cry and coffee while Harry played with Lego in the adjacent dining room. John was charming. Intense. Spontaneous and highly intelligent. John was very smart.
Iris loved how smart he was. She loved other things less.
John is dominating. Must win win. At all costs. If you’re not with him, he’s against you. And quick to aggression. John will flare up at mere mention of rebuke. A whiff of contempt raises up them eyebrows. Iris knows all this and loves him still.
Perhaps this means she loves a sociopath.
Perhaps this means she is one.
No, Jo has said. Because here is what splits you apart. Jo believes John is incapable of genuine shame, guilt, grief or love, while Iris marinates in the mixture. He is self-serving in all things. And Iris is not. She has no such drive. John is a delusional phony with a sexy gift for turning people’s words inside out. He has riddled Iris so completely. Iris can’t remember who she is or was before him.
John could tell Iris she was a duck and Iris would throw herself in a pond.
So Jo reminds her of her human self. You are a happy person. You like other people. You want them to be well. You have never wa
tched this much television in your life. Turn that murder show off for fuck sakes. Take a walk. Read a book. Make a cup of tea. Or pick up your paintbrush, Iris, paint something, make something of your hurt. This is not you. You are not like this.
But Iris worries maybe she is like this, maybe this is what she is like now.
The last couple years have convinced Iris that she’s probably not a good woman. Not a wholly good woman. Maybe, possibly, a bad woman even. And Jo had said, stop that.
That is him. Not you. You are not that. Everyone knows the difference, and anyone who doesn’t is a fucking idiot. This will not make you happy, she had texted. He is not kind to you, she inboxed after midnight. Please stay away from him, she begged, standing forehead to forehead.
Jo is so mad. She is so friend-mad at him. She could kill John.
And it is true, Jo would kill him in her very own way if Iris would allow it.
Because Iris would crucify any man who treated Jo so appallingly.
Jo can see Iris deep beyond the treeline burying body parts in the woods. Hacking away at the frozen rocky earth with a Canadian Tire shovel stolen from a neighbour’s step. Iris would break all the laws for Jo. She would battle cat for her only remaining friend. Iris wanted all the world made safe for the woman who hand-delivered single servings of won ton soup to keep her alive when things became disordered.
During the start, when Iris was pursuing a better path, she had awoken in the night to find Jo in bed beside her eating a bag of cheezies in the dark. Jo had taken to sleeping next to Iris again, confiscating keys, hiding the phone. Jo would keep vigil. She would sleep anywhere and say anything to starve off this man. Jo had shushed her like she shushes Harry, go back to sleep, back to sleep now, Iris.
But only after inquiring softly: Did you take off your bra? You shouldn’t sleep in your bra, love. It’s bad for your back.
The next morning Iris had woken up alone thinking it had been a drunken junk food induced mental episode before reaching between the bed and the wall to find the empty cheezie bag. So yeah, Iris would dig the hole for any man alive that dared say a harsh word to Joanne. Everyone deserves a Joanne. All women should have a Jo to ensure survival, though she knows friends like this are also in short supply. Iris is so lucky to have her. Was so lucky to have her.
Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club Page 8
