by Colin McAdam
“Corn?”
“No thanks.”
“Ketchup?”
“Please.”
And you try waking up to Kathleen, her back toward you and her hips just so. And you think she’s finally liking it and wishing you a warm good morning, when she wakes up and slaps you away.
It was intended as a surprise, a sort of wedding vow in early middle age. I don’t know. I wanted another Jerry; the more Jerries the better, I thought sometimes—or ideally another Kathleen. But also, certainly, I didn’t want another kid. I didn’t know the Jerry I had. And Kathleen was like that, too—back and forth—although she was more extreme. Mostly she didn’t much like kids, but some nights after a laughing time with Edgar she would go up and look at Jerry with me and say with a little shake in her voice, “We should have had more. We should have had six.” Unfortunately that was after the fact.
Clamps, is what they used. They didn’t snip anything. They slapped a clamp on me—a new thing at the time. I respected that. Faith in their trade. The clamp could be removed and I could feel pity on past generations who only knew the knife.
I took a little time off work. Told Kathleen I had to go to Toronto for a union meeting so it would all be a surprise for her. Don’t worry: I accepted an anaesthetic as general as the dark and woke up with a painful memory of something I couldn’t remember. It was nothing at the time really, just a slightly uneasy feeling that someone visited my body while I was away and left without cleaning up. I never took advantage of the clamp business, the option to have it removed.
I came home and kissed Kathleen, deep, and I said, “Don’t worry . . .”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t worry . . .”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t worry . . .”
I was on top of her on the couch and I realized I couldn’t do anything. I was half a cripple, really, afraid of the pain, couldn’t make anything stir even though my head was full of wildness.
“Jerry pissed in his bed while you were gone,” she said. “He’s seven years old,” she said. “He doesn’t like me. He’s always doing these things and you’re not around, at your bloody union meetings, so I’ve got to give him . . . I’ve got to teach him.”
“I wasn’t at a union meeting.”
“Where were you?”
“Hospital.”
“Hospital?”
“So we could make love.”
“Eh?”
“They tied me up, fixed me, slapped a clamp on me.”
“Who did?”
“I wanted it. We’re . . . we’re not close.”
“You’re flipping lying on top of me. Do you mean you got snipped?”
“Clamped. They can take it off.”
“Who can?”
“I wanted it.”
“Jesus, Jerry. You could have . . . ya might have warned me. Now you can’t . . . we can’t . . .”
“We can.”
“But we can’t have . . . what about Jerry? He’ll want a friend, a brother or something.”
“Will he?”
“Of course he will. We were going to have more Jerries.”
“What?”
“I want a house full of kids.”
“When?”
“Now.”
“You never said that! You never said you wanted a house full of kids.”
“Well, I feckin well do, Jerry. I might.”
“But we can . . .”
“Yeah, we can fuck. Big deal, Jerry. What’s the point in fucking if we can’t have kids?”
“What?!”
“What do you mean they clamped you?”
“They clamped me. They didn’t cut anything.”
“So they can take the clamp off?”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck, Jerry. Go get yer flippin clamp taken off.”
“I’m a bit sore.”
“What am I asking for here, Jerry? Just a bit of independence.”
“Having more kids doesn’t make you independent.”
“You clamping yerself for me does not make me independent. Yiz have clamped me, is what you’ve clamped.”
“That’s clever, Kathleen.”
“Don’t you fuckin mock me!”
“Well, whose stitches are these, if you’re the one who’s clamped?”
“Oh, don’t . . . I do not want to see that right now. That is the last thing I want to look at right now, Jerry. Put that away and have some decency. They’ve gone and shaved you like a queer.”
“What?”
“So what do we do now? We just happily go on fucking?”
“What do you mean ‘go on’?”
“Quit being smart with me, Jerry. You’re not looking too smart with that ting you just showed me, so stop being flippin smart. Jesus, Jerry, I’m in shock!”
“Mummy?”
“What do you want now? I’m talking to your father.”
“Hey, Jerry. How’s it goin?”
“Good.”
“Talk to your father some other time. I’m talking to him now. I told him about your accident in bed, and he is not impressed, Jerry, so you’d better go away . . . Jesus, Jerry, I’m in shock.”
I myself hadn’t expected to be in shock, the operation having been smooth and the feeling of anticipation sweet. It’s funny to think of shock now, after so many years of having that clamp in me. Nothing shocking, just plain silly. I feel like one of those Christmas puddings with a poisonous old coin inside.
“WATCH ME, JERRY, make sure I don’t hit my head with this hammer.”
“That’s funny Cooper.”
“It is funny. He was a fuhuhcking idiot.”
“I saw his wife the other day She was too drunk to see me.”
“I don’t want to hear your sad little stories, boss man. Fuck off.”
“EDGAR’S COMING to dinner.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“I’ve got to work tonight.”
“Well, I invited him and bought all the food.”
“OK. Maybe I’ll be home in time for dessert.”
“Edgar doesn’t eat dessert.”
“Then there will be more for me.”
“I didn’t buy dessert.”
“Well, I’m sure you’ll make him a nice dinner.”
“Flippin right. It’s what I do.”
IF YOU WERE UP on that hill where I drove you the other day, you know, the one we looked . . . yeah. If you were up there at night years ago and looked down at the land you would have seen as much activity as if it was midday. So many men doing shifts. It was hard to get peace anywhere. I drove up on top of the hill sometimes to get away, see how it was going from above. All I could see was headlights. The workers left their motors running and their headlights on, shining in every direction like swords. I thought it was a stupid waste of money but that’s neither here nor there.
I was up on that hill looking down one night trying to get a bit of peace when I got my first sensation that something was wrong. Something in my life was wrong, and something right there was wrong. I thought for a minute that someone was behind me and the more I thought that, the more I was convinced that it was Espolito. I never looked behind, I just became more convinced. I didn’t hear anything move, or feel anything—but I knew that Espolito was behind me, about to breathe some drunken ghost’s riddle on the back of my neck. I waited for him, waited for him. “What do you have to say?” I started whispering. “What do you have to say?”
That’s a fuckin riot. I was whispering to myself.
I never looked behind me. I must have wanted to live a little ghost story. “What do you have to say?”
I wish I had turned around. That’s my problem right there: I never looked. I let this feeling take over me. There’s something wrong, there’s definitely something wrong.
I didn’t know whether to go home or not—whether there was something wrong at home, or in me, or just behind me. I walked bac
kward to my car. Seriously, I walked backward to my car, got in, and drove home as fast as I could, and along the way I became certain that there was something wrong at home. She’s gone again, she’s gone again, she’s gone again.
I burst through the front door, ran up the stairs shouting, “Kathleen! Kathleen!,” threw open the bedroom door, and sure enough, no Kathleen. I checked the study, Jerry’s room, the spare room, and I couldn’t find her. She was gone again.
So I go to the kitchen, grab a beer and start feeling sorry for myself. I go into the living room, flop on the couch and “Aaaah! Feckin hell!” I sat right on Kathleen’s stomach.
WHAT I DID KNOW for certain was that there was a conspiracy against, me. I had thought it was funny, weird, that Kathleen seemed to think that Jerry and I were conspiring against her, but now I started to feel the same way about her, and that the conspiracy was bigger, that it started with little Jerry and went all the way up to the Federal Government. Basically, everyone had agreed to walk away from me when I approached.
Let’s say I would need to talk to Edgar. I would go to his site office, go up to the door, and just as I would go in, I would turn and see him walking away toward his truck, always just out of earshot—“Edgar! Edgar, buddy, over here!”—always just ten meters away He wasn’t out of earshot, that’s what I realized. “Edgar!”
And Kathleen: same thing. She was out of the house earlier than me often enough. Sometimes I would forget to tell her something over breakfast, if we were eating together, and she would always run away from me while I was running after her to tell her. As soon as I would call her she would start running to her truck. And she would slam the door of her truck in perfect time with me shouting “Kath!” It was important sometimes too, like once she forgot her barrel of butter and I ran out onto the driveway carrying it, and again her door shouted “Kath!” She would have to drive by later to pick up the butter, but the conspiracy seemed to dictate that driving back would be better than turning around to listen to me.
And Jerry: same. I was home on a Sunday once and I wanted to see what he was up to. I looked into his room and called him, but he was down at the other end of the hall walking away into the study, where I had been. So I called him, “Jer!,” and walked back to the study. Sure enough, no Jerry, he was walking down the hall again, heading downstairs. “Jer!” No answer. No recognition. And there was another time—I don’t know whether I’m making this up or not because I actually have no recollection of teaching him how to ride a bike—he was riding his bike down the street and I was running after him to let him know about dinner. “Jer! Jer! Mummy says be home at five: Jer! Jer!” And he rode farther and farther away from me.
That may have been a dream, that one.
It was happening all the time. Everyone was doing it. Even that Schutz goof. I called him about fifty times one month to find something out and he never returned the calls. I threw such a stupid amount of money at that guy.
But this minor conspiracy had me bothered. I said, “Jesus, Edgar, I have been trying to find you for a week.”
“Where have you been looking, buddy?”
“Here! Every time I come to this office, you’re walking to your truck.”
“Well, it’s all heating up isn’t it, buddy?”
“Well, that’s right. That’s what I’ve been trying to let you know.”
“Well, I know. Shit. I’m as busy as you are. It’s going. It’s moving.”
“Yeah, but the Government.”
“What?”
“The Government.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“What’s that, buddy?”
“I haven’t heard from my contact there for a coon’s age.”
“Right.”
“Well, what’s that all about?”
“I don’t know, buddy. He’s your contact.”
“Exactly. I don’t know what’s going on.”
“Well, it’s all going on. I’ve got thirty frames up. Phase one is on its way.”
“Right. Same here. My phase one is definitely on its way. What’s going on? I’ve called the guy fifty times, and then you’re . . . I was having trouble catching up with you.”
“OK. I’m seeing you tonight, aren’t I?”
“Where?”
“Your place.”
“Again?”
“Yeah. I guess I’ve been coming over a lot.”
“No, I didn’t mean that. But you were over there . . . I didn’t mean . . . you were there last week, weren’t you?”
“I didn’t know you weren’t going to be there.”
“No, I’m glad you went. We’ll talk business, won’t we? We should catch up.”
“Yeah. Everything all right?”
“Yeah. Yeah. A bit overworked.”
“Tell me about it,” he said.
“It’s all going on,” I said.
“That it is,” he said.
I WAS UP on the hill trying to get a bit of peace again, and once again that Espolito Ghost of Something Wrong crept up on the neck. Fuck off, is what I whispered this time, but the feeling was undeniable and I still didn’t want to turn around. So I raced home and this time the feeling was right. It was midnight and the house was empty. No Kathleen. No Jerry Espolito on my neck.
I grabbed a beer and fell asleep on the couch and when I woke up at dawn there were footsteps upstairs. I didn’t care how much I felt sorry about Espolito dying: if he was still alive I was going to give him a fatal poke in the jaw because he was scaring the hair off me. The footsteps were in our bedroom. I knew it couldn’t be Kathleen because I would have heard her come in with Jerry, plus her and Jerry’s coats weren’t in the hall.
I grabbed one of my boots by the door so I could kick the ghost’s face with my hand, and I went upstairs slowly. I did make sure I was awake and thinking clearly. Trust me.
I couldn’t hear a sound from the bedroom once I was up there so I checked the other rooms first. Jerry’s bed had not been touched. Typewriter and calculator were still in the study. No more noise.
I went into the bedroom and there, lying on the bed, was a skinny black weirdo in a cape.
I flicked on the light and screamed with my boot in the air as a fist, but Kathleen barely stirred: She was out cold, passed out in her coat.
I was able to wake her up eventually, a couple of hours later, but she wasn’t very friendly. I was wondering where Jerry was.
“He’s over there, ya feckin eejit.”
“Where?”
“Edgar’s.”
“What’s he doing at Edgar’s?”
“Let me sleep.”
I drove over to Edgar’s wondering what was going on. Edgar answered the door and Jerry was behind him playing with a toy airplane.
“Hey, Jerry, there you are,” says Edgar.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, there you are. We’ve been waiting for you all night.”
“Where?”
“Here.”
“I was at home. Kathleen and Jerry had disappeared, just gone. All night.”
“Come in.”
“They were gone all night, and then Kathleen turns up at home and scares the shit out of me. Hey, Jerry.”
“Hey, Dad.”
“How’s it goin?”
“Good.”
“He’s got his airplane there.”
“So what’s going on?”
“Well, I thought you were supposed to come over last night. Over here. And we called your place all night until around midnight or so. And Jerry here, he was all tired so it seemed best that he just crashed. See, I . . . Kathleen and I had drunk a bit, we were pretty looped, so we couldn’t really get her home. I didn’t know she left, actually.”
“She’s at home.”
“Right.”
“So, you’ve been looking after Jerry?”
“He doesn’t need much, do ya, buddy?”
“I had break
fast,” says Jerry.
“I dropped a couple of Pop Tarts in the toaster. I don’t have much else.”
“Well, thanks, Edgar.”
“No, it was . . . I laid on quite a spread last night. I’m sorry you missed it.”
“I didn’t know, I honestly had no idea we were invited over.”
“I had steak, Dad.”
“Did you, buddy?”
“He had a steak as big as a cat.”
“Did you, buddy? Good boy. Lucky boy. I’m starving.”
“You want a Pop Tart, Jer?”
“Yeah, all right. Please. Sorry, Edgar.”
“No, man. Have a Pop Tart.”
WHEN I DROVE HOME from Edgar’s with Jerry I asked him if he would like to build a house, you know, not a real one but a small one out of plaster on the floor at home. He was a hundred percent agreeable.
We instinctively tiptoed into the house from the garage. There didn’t seem to be any noise from upstairs so I opened the door for Jerry and followed him down to the basement.
I had fixed the basement up as a sort of distraction until I could build us the self-cleaning house, so it was really quite nice down there—couple of workbenches, a television, no carpet.
“Now, of course, Jerry, the basic principle behind plastering is that you can’t have a wall without a frame, and a frame is nothing unless it becomes a wall. Right?
“What we’re going to do here is ignore that basic principle.”
We heard a noise above, a creaking, and we were both quiet for a second.
“We’re going to ignore that basic principle because I think we should go ahead and get our hands dirty, and it’s a pain in the ass to build a small frame, right?”
“Right.”
“Furthermore, Jerry, and I mean this seriously, plastering as you and I know it is a dying trade. Nowadays people—and, sure, I’ll have to admit, I do it occasionally myself—people use plasterboard; and the only art of the trowel that remains is in smoothing the mud over edges and studs, and occasionally smoothing over errors in the boards. And by mud, I mean compound, don’t I, buddy?”
“That’s right.”
“So we’re just going to make some plaster, dip our hands in it and make an impossible house. What do you think?”
“Can I make my own?”
“Is Daddy getting bald and fat?”
“You bet.”
“You bet you can, big guy. I’ll make one and you make one.”
