The Skin Beneath

by Nairne Holtz

  When Sam left her apartment to get the rental car, she noticed a package in her mailbox, a plastic bag containing a book and a kaleidoscope, which Sam took out. Her fingers tightened around the tube and she felt herself flush. How dare Romey return Sam’s gift? Except—it wasn’t Sam’s gift. The tube was a different colour, a two-tone swirl of mulberry and lime. She held the kaleidoscope to her eye, twisting the end to make the corners of the five-pointed star collapse into itself. The psychedelic colours were familiar; Sam flipped the kaleidoscope upside down and found her name written in blue marker in her own childish handwriting. Chloe had stolen, then abandoned, the toy their father had purchased for Sam, and now Romey was giving it back. Sam dug the second item out of the bag—a thick, greasy paperback biography of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen. A Post-it was stuck to the top of the book: “Chloe left these behind. I found them the other day. Romey.” The note wasn’t even signed love. Sam turned the Post-it over with foolish hope, but there was just a ridge of tacky paper lined with lint and fuzz, no further message, no indication Romey was feeling as miserable as Sam. She chucked the bag and its contents into her knapsack.

  Sam had locked away her capacity to love until Romey, the safe-cracker, jacked Sam open. Now Romey is trying to leave Sam. “I want space” generally means “I don’t have the inner resources to dump you, but give me time to line up a distraction, and I’ll do it.” Sam hopes Romey will be less predictable but doubts it. Thank God, Sam is going away; if she stayed in Montreal, she wouldn’t be able to keep herself from showing up at Romey’s door. The trip to Detroit has become a diversion from the present rather than a visit to Chloe’s past. Searching for a beat to pump through her head, Sam twists the radio dial around and around. She can’t find any music. Instead the news comes on. Where the hell is Francis? Sam is about to get out of the car and bang on his door when she spots him scurrying towards her, holding the ventriloquist’s dummy upside down, the feet grasped between his thumb and forefinger and held away from his body as if the dummy stinks. In his other hand, Francis is carrying a hard plastic beige suitcase. Sam rolls down her window and pokes her head out.

  “Open the trunk.” Francis is panting so hard it takes Sam a few seconds to understand him. Sweat gleams on his forehead.

  Sam checks the area around the steering wheel to see if there’s an automatic button to pop the trunk.

  “There’s isn’t time for that,” Francis says.

  Sam boosts an eyebrow but does as he asks—gets out of the car and opens the trunk using her keys. He sets his suitcase on the ground and tosses the dummy into the trunk, shutting it with a thud. When he steps aside, Sam re-opens the trunk and examines the doll Francis flung so ruthlessly one knee is bent backwards. Sam straightens out the dummy’s leg and notices the name “Jimmy” sewn onto the front pocket of his checkered shirt. Sam swivels around to face Francis. “What are you planning to do to Jimmy?”

  Putting his arms akimbo, Francis gives Sam a fierce look. “I’ll have you know this is the first time in my life I’ve ever stolen someone else’s property. I know it’s a sin, but that man just doesn’t know the effect his doll has had on me for the six years he’s eked out his living in front of my apartment.”

  Sam scowls. “You can’t snatch Jimmy.” She scoops Jimmy out of the trunk and into her arms.

  Francis returns the frown. “The Disney generation, you can anthropomorphize anything. It wasn’t a kidnapping I had in mind but, rather, murder. Now if you’ll just hop into the car, turn right at the next light, we’ll reach one of the city dumps. There’s a small fee for dumping your trash into a giant pit, but I’ll be happy to pay it.”

  “There’s no fucking way.” Sam clutches Jimmy to her chest. “Besides, I’m not letting you destroy that poor homeless man’s livelihood.”

  Francis rolls his eyes. “Bleeding-heart liberal. Well, kidnapping is another option. I could leave a ransom note offering Mr. Horn the safe return of Jimmy if he promises to live in front of another apartment building.”

  “Forget it.” Sam stomps back to the front of the building and sets Jimmy on the pavement, folding his plastic arms into his lap. There is a histrionic element to the drama with Francis, as if they are playing roles, and he knows Sam won’t let him carry out his threats.

  When Sam gets back to the car, the trunk is shut, and Francis is sitting in the front with his eyes closed and his head sloped onto the headrest. He has changed the radio station, and classical music soars forth. Without opening his eyes, he informs Sam they will be meeting Amanda in fifteen minutes.

  Sam lowers the volume on the music. “Who’s Amanda and why are we meeting her?”

  “You know Amanda, you met her at the anarchist bookstore. She put us in touch. She’s coming with us. I tried calling you, but you’re never home. If you’re not home much, you know you should really invest in a cellphone. Anyway, Amanda can share the driving with you and give you some money towards gas. And she might be able to help you find this Bernie fellow. She’s Iibrairie Alternative’s resident expert on right-wing groups.”

  Amanda was a weirdo Sam never thought she would see again. “Why can’t you help me?”

  “Because I don’t feel like tagging along with you to meet libertarian wackos who view the development of Federal Reserve banks by President Roosevelt and the revocation of the gold standard as disasters that have led to America’s subjugation to the Illuminati.”

  “Who exactly are the Illuminati?” Sam knows they are part of the conspiracy theory lore, but no one ever seems to produce any names.

  “They’re an alleged cabal of conniving Rhodes scholars and international bankers who are often described as being Jewish, which is not a fact but rather anti-Semitic fantasy. Supposedly, the Illuminati are responsible for multiple, nefarious plots—everything from killing Princess Di to starting the Gulf War. If you want to know more, you can ask Amanda.”

  Sam turns onto the highway, which is now glutted with solo commuters jockeying for position. A driver of a Mercedes does a U-turn and nearly takes out a bag lady and her shopping cart. Driving in Montreal is a race of fear Sam takes as a personal challenge. She sighs. “Where are we picking up your friend?”

  As Sam drives by Toronto she feels nostalgic, even though she is with strangers: Amanda, who sits beside Sam drinking a thermos of organic, fair trade coffee, and Francis, who is napping in the back, his breath a steady yo-yo. The white noise of highway traffic puts him to sleep.

  Just after Chloe got her driver’s licence, she took Sam west on this highway. They went on a little road trip to the Western Fair, where they ate fresh-made donuts, rings of batter bobbing and browning in oil, then flipped into a tray of sugar. They dared each other to go on the Zipper, where they tumbled and flopped like laundry in a dryer. But, for Sam, the biggest thrill was watching men and women toss rings and darts, and boys woo girls with fluorescent-coloured toy animals. Sam sensed and envied the players’ desire rippling beneath the games. Then she won at Whac-a-Mole. Being a winner felt terrific, much better than the prize itself of a giant koala bear, which she immediately handed to Chloe with the same nonchalant shrug as the teenage boys streaming by.

  “Are we going to have a proper meal soon?” Amanda stashes a map above the glove compartment, blocking a corner of the windshield. She has been munching on apples and granola bars, which evidently aren’t sufficient. Since they are still an hour from the border, Sam suggests pulling into a McDonald’s.

  “I’m a vegetarian.” Amanda replies petulantly.

  Soon she will be asking Sam how many more miles it will be before they get to Detroit. “Me too. McDonald’s has veggie burgers now.”

  Amanda sniffs. “So what? They put food additives and sugar in everything. Plus I’m sure the soybeans they use are genetically modified.” Even though the air conditioner is on, she opens the window. A gust of wind sweeps in, bearing the rank smell of manure. They are surrounded by farms on their second or third crop rotation. Sam wrinkles her nose,
and Amanda rolls the window back up with a sigh. She has already informed Sam the hydrofluorocarbon gas in air conditioners contributes to global warming.

  “If the food is mass-produced and isn’t au naturel, Amanda thinks it’s suspect. And she calls me paranoid,” Francis speaks for the first time in hours.

  “Everyone’s paranoid. Our fears just find different hosts,” Amanda says.

  Francis pokes his head between the front seats. “Speaking of paranoid, do you think you two could fix yourselves up when we cross the border? Sam, you need to put on a shirt that hides your tattoos, and Amanda, your facial piercing has to go. I’m afraid, however, that I can’t do much about my skin.” In the rear-view mirror Sam sees an expression of mischief in his eyes.

  “How come you have so many tattoos?” Amanda asks, dragging the tip of a finger along Sam’s forearm, mapping out a black and white tattoo of a chick with a fauxhawk riding a skateboard. It must be the air conditioning that makes Sam shiver, makes goosebumps pop up on her skin.

  “I like them,” Sam replies, keeping her eyes on the road. Like Romey’s dancing, Sam’s tattoos are a way of saying “fuck you” and “pay attention to me.” Except this explanation leaves her lust out of the equation. Once she got a tattoo, she wanted another, the same way a crack addict wants another hit of the pipe. Before she moved to Montreal, she was getting a sleeve.

  They reach the border at the end of the afternoon. In a gas station bathroom just outside of Windsor Sam puts on a white shirt that belongs to Francis, while Amanda removes her eyebrow piercing with the aid of the mirror on the visor. A black star tattoo bursts from Sam’s knee, but she doesn’t think the border guards will check her lower body.

  At the American border a black woman growls at them from a protective glass shield: “Citizenship?” The woman is wearing a green and brown uniform, a duet of the military and fast food franchises.

  Before either Francis or Sam has a chance to speak, Amanda says, “I’m American.” A slender arm slides past Sam’s chest, thrusting a passport into the outstretched hand of the woman in the booth. Francis and Sam hand over their Canadian passports, but the woman barely gives them a glance. Instead, she thumbs through Amanda’s document, then gives all of their documents back to Sam, who notices Amanda’s passport is stamped with one country after another: Belize, Mexico, Colombia, Hungary, and the United Kingdom. After the border guard asks a few more questions about where they are going and how long they are staying, they are whisked through. Given how often Amanda travels, Sam is surprised they have no problems. The word “American” must be her secret password, her Masonic handshake. Being white, blonde, and pretty probably also helps propel her through the world. But Francis has another theory.

  “Did you see the way Amanda got us across the border? She’s a spy working for the American government. It’s encoded on her passport.”

  “Ha, ha,” Amanda says.

  “Her parents are Americans who moved to Ottawa. Who would move to boring old Ottawa after living in Boston? Her father attended an American Ivy League university but went to work for the Canadian government.” In the rear-view mirror Sam sees Francis emphasize the word “government” by lifting his fingers and making quotation marks in the air. He continues, “They were supposedly hippies but they never did drugs. They got involved in the peace movement. In other words, they infiltrated the peace movement. Amanda’s followed in their shadow so to speak. Is it really credible that a multilingual graduate in psychology from McGill University would choose to work part-time for a non-profit organization? Then there are her jaunts to foreign lands. Clearly, she’s on assignment.”

  Amanda looks up from the map. “Sam, take the next exit.” She doesn’t offer an explanation for her travels, but Sam fills in the blank: trust-fund baby. Amanda has the self-assurance verging on arrogance that comes from wealthy parents and a good education.

  As Buffalo is quite close to Toronto, Sam has visited that city a few times, but this is her first time in Detroit, home of techno, Motown, and the automobile. She has heard the city never recovered from the race riots of the ‘60s, but the balkanization of Detroit still shocks her as she makes her way through rush-hour traffic. The corporate culture is close to the border, beside the river. Steel skyscrapers rise over streets where men in three-piece suits power-walk with their earpieces extended, a secret service legion in better clothes. A few blocks further on, prosperity ends. Sam drives by dark, empty factories and storefronts boarded up with plywood. Victorian mansions with cornices and turrets are missing their doors and windows. They have been stripped the way hubcaps are taken from an old car, except here the valuables are being purloined by delinquent yuppy renovators. Every street has a vacant lot: a ravel of weeds and smashed-up concrete. Billboards advertise condominiums and the second coming of Christ. Sam wonders if the religious messages are intended to reassure the few pedestrians, who are mostly black and down-and-out. You can’t afford a condominium, but that’s okay because eventually you’ll inherit the earth. She coasts along one street after another, keeping an eye out for a bank machine to get money in American dollars, but there are only cheque-cashing businesses. When an automatic teller is finally spotted, they all get out only to discover the machine is busted.

  The quest for American currency is abandoned, and Sam drives to the home of Francis’s friends, Ray, who runs a small left-wing bookstore similar to the anarchist bookstore in Montreal, and his wife, Elena, who is an administrative assistant at Wayne State University. They live in a two-storey wooden house not far from downtown. Ray is sitting on the steps outside his house. He is white but wears his hair in long grey dreadlocks, which give him the appearance of a small, thick-branched tree. As Sam is getting out of the car, Ray stands up to introduce himself to her and Amanda. Sam sticks her hand out and Ray offers her a metal clamp to shake. Sam squeezes it. Feeling awkward, she stares at the ground.

  Ray doesn’t seem to notice Sam’s embarrassment. He’s too busy showing them the marks on the driveway where a car was firebombed. With obvious amusement, he tells them the former owner of the house was a drug dealer now doing time in a federal pen. The dealer’s rivals blew up his car just before he was arrested. Ray and Elena bought the house at a city auction a year ago for almost nothing.

  Inside the house, Elena is placing dishes of food on a harvest table scored with grooves. Younger than her husband, Elena is handsome and serious looking with long hair in a braid. She calls to her son in Spanish. A boy of about six is sitting in the living room, watching television, but the sound of his mother’s voice launches him into the kitchen where he sets the table. Sam peers around their place. It has a comfortable ambience. There are shelves and shelves of books, cotton rugs and pillows in primary colours, and a forest of plants in clay pots. When she sits down to eat, she feels a gentle pressure on her feet. Under the table, she spies an orange cat slinking away. Over a bean lasagne and a salad with avocados, Ray and Francis discuss politics while Amanda and Elena chatter in Spanish. Sam entertains the kid by pretending to drive over his dinner with a Hot Wheels car left on the table. This makes her a big hit, leading Elena to cast indulgent smiles in Sam’s direction.

  After dinner Elena puts her son to bed while the guests bring in their stuff from the car. Francis gets the livingroom couch while Sam and Amanda are sharing a cot in an upstairs room. When Sam and Amanda finish unpacking, they troop out to a cement patio in the back, where they find Ray and Francis sitting on rusty lawn chairs, drinking bottles of beer corked with lime wedges. Ray is also smoking, which, he explains, he’s not allowed to do in the house. In the sky the sun is an orange fireball with a crown of white light and appears as manufactured as the rest of Motor City. Sam thinks, perhaps the sun will become obsolete. Maybe the way we pollute the environment is a form of planned obsolescence.

  Amanda paces around the yard, extricating empty chip bags and gum wrappers from the untrimmed grass, amassing them into a small heap. Ray and Francis chat about ECHELON, w
hich Sam learns is a way for the American government to eavesdrop on everyone. ECHELON is a vast global electronic dragnet that uses statistical techniques known as data mining to check for threatening patterns among everyday transactions.

  Ray blows a sloppy smoke ring. “Every single person I’ve met who used to work for the government, who has been part of a black operation, is on disability. They all have chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia.”

  Amanda stops what she’s doing to join the conversation. “Anyone who was part of a covert operation would never admit it. You’ve just met people who are mentally ill, who are suffering from chemical imbalances or have emotional problems. That’s what makes them fatigued and delusional.”

  Francis prods his lime slice below the stem of his beer bottle. “Don’t you think your explanation is a bit pat? People with Gulf War syndrome also suffer from chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia.”

  Amanda replies, “On the contrary, your military vets confirm my theory. Did you know there’s research that shows similar clusters of symptoms have afflicted veterans of previous armed conflicts?”

  Ray says, “Don’t forget contactees. They’re often sick as well.” He flicks his cigarette butt onto the cement with a provocative grin at Amanda. Ignoring him, she stoops to retrieve the butt. Ray likes to stir the pot, and Amanda has a coltishness that reminds Sam of Romey, except it isn’t sexuality Amanda exudes but something else Sam can’t put her finger on. She asks Ray what contactees are.

  It is Francis who answers her. “They’re people who believe they have been abducted by otherworldly visitors. If they’re men, they believe marauders from another solar system have anally probed them; if they’re women, they think aliens have abducted them in order to remove their uterus to initiate them against their will into an ongoing intergalactic, interspecies breeding project.”