But not women like George. She was the best woman. And Iris, sure, sweet Iris was, is, well, John cannot think on Iris just now because that would fuck up his resolve. This is his come to Jesus moment. He is having it right now, today, in this kitchen, and he can’t let Iris interfere with his clarity of purpose.
Besides, she is young and will be fine and bounce back and, more importantly, is not his wife. His wife is the priority. He cannot lose his wife. Lose everything. Have to start over from nothing. From scratch for an itch. The punishment does not fit the crime. Why should John lose everything over a little bit of tail? No job. No house. No car. My fucking god, John is scaring himself just thinking in retrospect. He has been jeopardizing everything for a bit of extra pussy. Not that he thinks of Iris as extra pussy, not exactly, but fuck, what was he thinking?
He was perhaps thinking that he wouldn’t get caught.
Or that he would.
But this morning was too close. Thinking what George would have seen had she arrived just ten minutes earlier cuts along the quick of him. John gets weak in the legs picturing the picture he almost painted for his wife. He’ll stroke out at this rate. In an uncompromising position. John imagines himself dead, elbows deep in some forbidden pussy. And then abandoned because the woman could not even bring herself to call the ambulance. This is the alternative reality to the one he is living. Where George throws him out and Iris does away with him after realizing, finally, though he tells her all the time, that none of this is his.
It’s all George, he tells Iris. But she doesn’t listen to him, none of them do.
Iris says she believes in him because she does, because they always do.
John has got to learn to fuck in his own bed.
Or at least in his own house. Or on his own property. Or at least, just his own wife. Lord Jesus, John does not want to die somewhere seedy like a tramp. So he must give that kind of behaviour up now no matter how exciting it is. For self-preservation. Because seeing something like that would destroy George. And then: vengeance.
Women avenge themselves eventually.
Or at least the women John likes. He wonders if his penchant for spiteful women is sadistic. He courts the optically upright ones. George, so fierce and determined. Last night in the car, leaning back on her headrest, she had told him she was going to build a library. A library, she said. Like it was nothing. Like it was a greenhouse. Or a raised garden bed. This kind of feat, anything she could think of, seemingly a possibility. And he believes her, too. George can do anything. There is no one like her.
She told him about the beautiful libraries she had sat in on her trip and how it had filled her with such joy. The vaulted ceilings, the crown moulding, pillars and light. The rich hardwoods. She said it was such a clean feeling. The joy George feels surrounded by books is totally uncontaminated by the world. She found it refreshing. It made her feel new again, she said, and reached over to squeeze his knee as he navigated the slushy roads. And so he took her hand for a moment and raised it to his lips and kissed her fingers because he loves her.
John loves his wife.
He doesn’t know what he would do without her. She makes his life possible. He wouldn’t even know how to be in the world without her. When a love song comes on the radio, he thinks of her first. When he hears a funny joke, he wants to tell her so she’ll laugh. When he feels worried or angry or paranoid or unpopular, she is the only one who makes him feel secure in his mind. It is only George for John. It could only ever be George. She calms him. Makes him feel like where he is and where he should be are the same place. And he has never felt that before. And he wants to always feel that. Which horrifies him more because it means there is a real something to lose here. She is a real person to lose.
He is so glad to see her hair on the pillow in the morning.
He had not thought she would get in. He had thought her flight would be delayed. She had texted him from Halifax saying they had turned back. They had gone back to Nova Scotia. So John had gone out and had cut it close. He keeps cutting it closer.
Last night he had thought he was trapped with Iris. The plough had covered the back end of his car. And Iris was throwing a fit about the adoption. And he couldn’t think or leave because he couldn’t very well hear above her bleating or abandon his car there overnight. And then George texted.
Made it! Landed! Come collect me!
All the delayed flights landing, the airport full of people, St. John’s International in February, John in his panic had done the thing he had been able to avoid for the past eighteen months.
Where are you in the airport?
A text meant for his wife, sent to his girlfriend, who he knew was in her shabby apartment now crying and losing her mind. John had to turn his phone off before he found George by the luggage carousel. Iris was rapid-firing threats at him. Nineteen in the last three minutes. Jesus, she has fast hands. John cannot get over the agility of her sometimes. Even in the middle of her temper tantrum, them fingers of hers are lightning through his cell, he’s barely the time to react or absorb one before another appears. Slingshot. He did not even know people could text this fast. Teenagers maybe. But not grown women. Maybe it was all the painting. He should throw his jesus phone right in the harbour. It has only ever caused him grief. A lot of fun followed by a lot of grief.
Tell her, John.
Wandering around the airport, John felt his vision blurring, felt weight in his face, his cheeks full of anxiety. The gravity of what was befalling him was pulling his entire visage to the floor. These texts, these were bad texts.
Tell that woman the truth.
And he fired back that woman was his wife and begged Iris to wait, said he loved her, loved them both, needed more time, don’t do anything stupid. He appealed to her heart. He said he would never speak to her again. He would never forgive her. He said George was innocent. They had done this to her. They had hurt an innocent person. But Iris shot back rippling replies with warfare hate in them dexterous fingers.
You’re wasting time.
George had commented on his wet hair as she hugged him and ran her hand along the back of his head. He said it was snowing heavily outside when he left the house. Which was a lie.
The truth: fastest shower ever.
And to think he almost started to confess when she came into the kitchen just now with that glassy look on her face. John thought he would have to move away. Change his name. Start over. He thought about who he knew out west. He could grill a steak. But he had let her talk first. Waited her out like his father had taught him to do years ago, before the trimmings, before the screaming, before estrangement.
Don’t tell women nothing. Keep it to yourself, Johnny.
And John had held it in. He had busied himself with the soup, he had hurried around the kitchen popping food into his mouth, the rankest things within reach, to ward his wife off. It occurred to him her fury was a blessing. It would keep her from embracing him. A kiss would be out of the question, John thought, his stomach churning in response to rising self-disgust.
He would not kiss George with Iris on his face.
He resolved to push her back. He would shove his own wife as a kindness. There had to be a line. This was his. And he resented having to draw it.
What was she even doing here at this hour?
Jesus, women were unpredictable. Especially when angered. Angry women are like hungry dogs, they will lunge at anything. And George stalked him around the kitchen as he popped artichoke hearts into his mouth, letting a bit of the oil run down his chin while she yelled accusations and insults at him. Geor
ge hated artichoke hearts. She said they were not hearty at all.
Good grief, John, wipe your face. You’re gross.
And he had happily scrubbed his face in the sink with a bar of hand soap.
* * *
Iris hands Major David a lunch menu and attempts to rhyme off the specials.
Why are there dogs in the porch?
Sorry?
You’ve dogs in your porch, it is against regulations.
They’re the owner’s dogs.
I’m meeting the owner.
John?
George.
His . . . wife?
George Copperfield!
Oh, Big George?
Do you call your employer Big George?
Um, no sir, because —
There it is again, Major David thinks, that shitty sir.
Then I suggest you not call him that to me.
Yes sir.
Shitty sirs abound as she starts in on the specials. Major David is incensed. The level of disrespect is breathtaking.
There is a toasted fennel-lemon cake —
You can save your breath, honey.
Excuse me?
You’ll just have to say it all again when my party arrives.
Yes but you said —
Bring me a cup of coffee, will you? Or a beer.
What kind of beer?
Is it too early for a beer?
Sorry?
No, never mind. How would you know?
Umm . . .
Just bring me the coffee. Two milk, two sugar.
Of course. Right away, sir.
Major David knows she wouldn’t wipe her ass with that sir but he can’t prove it. He wishes he could prove it. He would have them fired for their fraudulent esteem.
He can barely swallow another bitchy sir.
But she’s already half across the floor, clipping away from him, right pleased with herself for being saucy as a . . . Major David’s mother used to finish that statement on the regular when he was a boy. There was even a time when he said it himself. He occasionally lets it slip now in certain company after a dram or ten of scotch.
But it makes Diane uncomfortable, and there are immigrants all about the place these days. Not just in the hospitals or over at the university either. Everywhere. Just walking down the street like they live here. Well, they do live here. But like they always lived here. Some of them are even white. You can’t tell where they’re from until they speak and then, bam, thick Russian accents. Where did all these Russians come from?
Well, Russia, Major David supposes. Or the Ukraine. The former Soviet Union somewhere.
But, but, what do they do for money, hey? Who do they hang out with? Other Russians? Are there so many that they have a social network here? This would certainly explain the mounting socialist movement. They’re anti-development, anti-business, anti-progress, anti-cooking, watermelons, the lot of them. Terrible waitress is a watermelon for sure. Major David would bet the house on it!
Or the cabin.
He would probably bet the cabin that she’s as green on the outside as she is red on the inside. Probably doesn’t eat meat. Not even cause she loves animals. No. Because of her thousands of never-ceasing opinions. Listening to a young woman’s opinion is like stepping on an anthill. Before you know it, opinions are surging up your leg toward your ball sack and there’s no set of paws big enough in the world to protect you from the insurgence. And skinny waitress is glaring at him now as she elaborately sweetens his coffee one slow spoonful at a time in full view of the dining room staff.
She probably fucks Russians. Looks like a pussy riot.
Major David smacks his palm down on his own leg at the thought. He wishes someone were here to share that with. He must remember to say it again later. Maybe to George if he arrives first. If they do a handshake deal before the Heritage crowd arrives, he definitely will. If they drink on it, without a doubt. George is exactly the kind of company he should be keeping anyway.
Major David should have friends like George Copperfield who would comprehend the complexities of modern humour while recognizing a joke about pussy riots.
Anyone can be creative. It only took him a couple minutes to come up with pussy riot. No one gave him a grant. Major David could probably write stand-up routines if the weddings don’t pick up. No one gets married these days but everyone needs a laugh. The waitress is not married. No ring anyway. Women like that don’t believe in marriage.
Even if she were the marrying type, she wouldn’t pay him to marry her.
One of her friends would get certified online and marry her to some barbershop owner.
Barbershop owner?
Major David’s sugar must be getting dangerously low. That skinny one should really bring him some bread or something while he waits. Perhaps they don’t serve bread here. He would have never agreed to eat here if George hadn’t insisted. Here he is now half starved with not even so much as a peanut to gnaw on.
Not that they would serve any peanut he would eat.
Everything is chipotle honey-roasted ginger garlic drizzled with kosher salt served with lime wedges he never knows what to squeeze over.
Major David can never tell what they are going to put in front of him in places like this.
Gluten-free oven-seared crackers to break your bridgework on, and a side of grey-beige middle eastern dip or spread or sauce or some such slop to soothe your wounded mouth after. That’s what the kids want.
Or better yet, to slosh something around in just oil. That’s the best one.
They serve grease in a little square dish. What a shill. The chef probably snickers from the kitchen as he watches everyone eat their raw unassembled food. Ingredients. It’s just ingredients until you put it together. Though they’ve a fancy name for everything. Serving you the parts of your hamburger is called deconstructing it. It’s a deconstruction burger site. Or something like that.
A pot of oil on the table with some vinegar in it is not restaurant food. He could do that himself. Pouring liquids into vessels and slicing things onto slabs may be the only two kitchen skills he has actually mastered.
He can barely disguise his disapproval when fellow diners order a charcuterie board.
The emperor wears no clothes is what Major David thinks. Meat and cheese on a piece of wood. Good grief. He could do that. Or Diane could for sure.
She loves that section of the grocery store. He practically has to drag her away from it. He tries to avoid the regular grocery store altogether. There is a pleasing and noticeable difference in savings when they buy all their food at Costco but Diane hates Costco. She says people behave like the unbelievable discounts will disappear and they will once again be forced to buy toilet paper at regular prices. Diane is certain there is no savings in fuel costs while idling in those lines. She squeaks this every time Major David discovers she has filled the gas tank at a local station. Then she is running off toward the bathroom.
Women and the bathroom.
* * *
Iris tried to hand wash the insides of her thighs but it didn’t help.
It just made her feel more yucky. The gold-gilt oversized mirror in The Hazel bathroom, while her idea, allowed her no space to escape the reflection of washing her genitalia with blue paper towel. She was grateful for the fibre quality and tried to wipe herself while looking away. But this room belongs to John too. Of course it does, he has fucked her everywhere. And for the first time, she wonders who else John has fucked in here.
Definitely George.
Of course he would have. When the
y first opened the restaurant, John’s appetites would have had him fuck his wife on every solid surface and even those that shook. And she can smell John on her now. The warm water seems to have had an adverse effect. So she pumps expensive partridgeberry-mint hand soap onto the wet wad and thinks that this will most definitely give her some kind of yeast infection. But Iris cannot give a fuck about a yeast infection right now.
She has to serve tables all night with her boyfriend’s wife.
It is much safer to smell of bog berries and nan gum than spend one more minute paranoid that George will smell John’s cum off of her battered crotch. She has marks all over where he has been nipping at her. It is territorial, like a dog putting grooves in a bone. And Iris has told him the little bites make her feel unloved. She has said to John outright that she doesn’t like the look of herself in a full-length mirror when she is a bruised peach. Though John finds this a turn-on.
You’re my little whore, he whispers from just behind her ear.
And she told him not to say or do that because she didn’t like either, but he did both anyway because John doesn’t listen to Iris.
Because John doesn’t listen to women.
She has been trapped at The Hazel since George came back with the spirits. George did not unload the spirits of course. That would mess up her outfit and wet them tidy whip-straight bangs down against her forehead into a limp kink. God forbid. No, instead George pulled up near the door and texted her employees to come and get it. Even Iris. This was her text. All hands, George had texted, even Iris.
So Iris went out into the slob snow to grab the boxes of booze in ballet flats. Now her feet hurt. But she can’t complain to anyone. The only person who could give her comfort is too busy fawning over his wife. Not that he would give her comfort. He would give her grief over her boots first. An opportunity to regain positioning. Fuck that. Iris would sooner hobble home.
Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club Page 13
