‘We should get Jack something nice for his birthday,’ she said.
‘Buy him dirt.’
‘You can’t get somebody dirt. I’ll get him a satellite radio.’
‘Okay, don’t listen to me. If you get him something expensive, he’ll get embarrassed. It’ll go in a closet, never used, because “it’s too nice”. Buy him orchid pots or vermiculite or some such thing, and he’ll act like you bought him diamonds.’
Rose, the assistant manager, pulled up in her truck. She was a heavy-set woman with ropes of ash for dreads. She took the coffee I handed her. I always picked up a coffee for Rose. Sarah gave her sugar packets and a stirrer. She sat heavily and ripped open the sugars one by one to dump them in.
‘What’s up?’ I asked.
‘Peggy’s quit.’
Sarah and I both showed our surprise and disappointment.
Rose went on to say that head office wanted to be more involved with the day-to-day operations. She didn’t know anything more. Peggy hadn’t said goodbye and the guy from head office started today.
‘You ready to go in?’ Rose asked.
I nodded. I kissed Sarah goodbye and told her I finished at six today. We went inside and Sarah went to her car.
‘Hello, everyone. Dean James. James Dean. But reversed.’
One of the stock guys whispered, ‘We got ourselves a real live corporate asshole here.’
Reverse James Dean talked in company-speak and management jargon sweetened with hippy let’s-all-be-groovy sentiments. He laid it on thick with the girls.
After the meeting, we gathered in the break room.
‘The t-shirt and jeans are just to try and fit in. At night, he draws the curtains, turns off the lights and puts on his old pinstripe suit and silk tie from his MBA days,’ I said.
‘I bet he starts growing a ponytail,’ one of the cashiers said.
A few days later, Reverse James Dean stopped me on the way to the bathroom.
He was looking at my wheelchair when he asked if I needed anything.
‘A raise.’
‘We’re looking into that. I mean for your special abilities?’
‘I’m a cripple, not a superhero. No, I’m fine. Thank you.’
‘Okay.’ He tapped my small front wheel with his foot. ‘My door’s always open.’
That night we had a birthday dinner for Jack at our place. His cake was a jelly donut with a candle in it. He beamed when Sarah came out of the kitchen singing ‘Happy Birthday’. He blew out the candle and cut it into quarters.
‘I don’t want you two wasting money buying me crap I don’t need.’
‘Hush, old man. Open your present,’ Sarah said.
Jack opened the box. ‘Perlite! Vermiculite!’
‘I didn’t know which one to buy,’ she said.
‘I need them both. Thank you.’
I managed to avoid Reverse James Dean for about a week until I was told he wanted to see me in his office.
Everyone working the register had a trick where you passed the item across the scanner but made sure it didn’t scan. It was something you did for co-workers, an unofficial employee discount. I had scanned-but-didn’t a bottle of wine for one of the girls from the deli.
‘Company policy says stealing is grounds for immediate dismissal.’
‘Stealing?’
‘You didn’t charge Suzy for a bottle of wine. I hear you’re a good member of The Store’s team. You need to understand the seriousness of the situation, but I don’t want to have to fire you. This is going to be a written warning.’
I finished my shift and took the bus home. Sarah was supposed to pick me up. She called me but I didn’t answer. She texted.
Where are you?
sorry jumped on bus.
bad day at work
everything okay?
yes
you want me to come over?
no
you’re a jerk.
Yes
Jack was in his recliner reading an orchid catalogue when I told him what had happened at the store with Reverse James Dean. He shrugged and said I should have been fired.
‘Whose side are you on?’
‘You stole. What do you expect?’
‘It’s not really stealing.’
‘It is.’
‘What’s wrong? You’ve been acting funny lately.’
‘Telling you to stop being stupid isn’t being funny. It’s boring.’
‘Okay. Okay. Seriously, what’s wrong? You look like you’re in pain.’
‘The doctor put me on some new medication. I’m going back tomorrow.’
‘What’s going on, Jack?’
Jack looked at me with worry. I wasn’t hiding my panic well, but I knew I had to if Jack was going to tell me anything.
‘Nothing’s going on. Just old person stuff. What about getting me an ice tea?’
‘This is your bullshit macho real men don’t get sick—’ I took his glass.
‘All right already. It’s fine.’
I yelled from the kitchen as I refilled his tea from the fridge. ‘You’re lying. If you’re going to the doctor that means it’s serious.’ I returned, handing him his tea. ‘Have you seen Mister Shakey?’
‘After I brushed him this morning, I let him out,’ he said, taking a drink and picking his catalogue back up.
‘Will you help me look for him?’
‘Nope.’
I went outside to look for the cat. I wandered around, calling his name. I was a few houses down when I heard Jack shouting. He was at the side of the house motioning me to come fast.
‘Where is he?’ I asked as Jack fell behind and helped push my chair through the thick grass.
Mister Shakey was a large, square-headed animal. A dust-grey beast not far removed from his wildcat ancestors, but beneath the rose bush, lying on his side, he was a child’s lost plush toy. I pressed myself into the thorns, bending to reach, but only managed to brush my hands across the poor creature’s ribs. His eyes were wide, staring forward while he snapped at unseen flies. Pink foam flecked the corner of his mouth. The front paws paddled as if swimming and the back legs stretched out rigid.
I manoeuvred the chair to bend sideways. Jack held a branch of thorns that was digging into my forehead. Beaded red lines of scratches ran up my arms. A thorn jabbed my cheek. I still couldn’t reach him.
‘Pick him up!’ I shouted at Jack.
‘Jarred, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Let the seizure pass first.’
I winced at each wave of seizure that wracked the small furry body. A growl fell from the snapping mouth and twisting head. The front paws stretched forward. He went limp.
‘Get him. Get him!’
Jack laid the animal in my lap. The cat lifted his head and settled it against my knee. I rubbed under the jaw and he lifted his muzzle. A weak purr vibrated under my fingers.
‘Hold him. I’ll push,’ Jack said.
Inside the house, Jack phoned the vet to tell them that we were on our way. My fingertips felt the tiny heart thump unevenly. The small lungs pushed out a wheezing breath. The left front paw stretched forward. I held it, rubbing the pads, willing the cat not to have another fit. A paw shot forward again. The milky claws stretched from their sheaths. He drew a big breath. My cat sighed long and slow. The purr shuddered to a halt.
‘Hang up,’ I said. ‘Hang up the fucking phone! He’s dead.’
I didn’t stop when Jack called after me. I headed for the forest. There was a time I was more comfortable amongst the trees and night sky than I was in my own home. By the first line of trees the sand was too thick, and the exposed roots were too difficult. With every awkward push, my cat’s limp body slid from my lap as if liquid.
I set the body down next to the nearest tree. I scooted onto the ground. With my bare hands and a stick, I dug. My fingernails turned to black crescents. I attacked the hole, chewed at the grit that flew up. I dragged myself around. My heels drew a twin trail behind me u
ntil I found another stick and bashed away at the hole with the body of my dead cat nearby. After a foot, the roots had grown too thick and stubborn to rip away. My knuckles were a mush of torn skin stuffed with soil and blood. I was sweating and sore from the effort.
I brushed the dirt off Mister Shakey. I tried to clear a clump from his eye but my dirty fingers made it worse. I held his body to my chest and wept.
I laid him in the hole.
46
I was twenty-five. In less than a year, I would be in a wheelchair and Melissa would be dead. I was living in Chicago. I was drunk, and this woman’s teeth were too small. As she continued to yell, they became the bared fangs of a small dog, something yippy with dripping eyes and greasy hair discoloured at the chin. Her mouth had too much gum as well. Pink and obscene.
I smacked the pizza out of her hand for no good reason. It wasn’t until it hit the ground that I realised what I had done.
Like everyone else, awed, I followed the graceful spin of the cheese and pepperoni toward the bar’s band-sticker insulted ceiling. Its return to earth began a fraction of a moment after leaving a greasy kiss on a glossy show poster, a perfect pizza triangle outline of reddish yellow grease. After which, it sped toward the beer-stinking cement to land with the fleshy slap of a suicide.
‘You cocksucker. Why did you do that? Why did you do that?’
‘Cocksucker,’ her boyfriend repeated and pulled back to deliver a punch.
I kicked the back of his heel and shoved him to join the fate of her pizza. I waited to see if he’d get up when pain exploded at the back of my head. I turned around and caught another blow in my temple. An instant headache gripped me. Blood slicked down my face, blinding one eye. The pizzaless girl with the tiny doggy teeth had taken off one of her high heels and was trying to pulp my head. I grabbed the shoe from her and backed up, fingering the bloody wound on my scalp. She tried to follow, comically lurching with one bare foot and one high heel. She leaned down, eyes and curses fixed on me, taking off the other shoe and arming herself again.
I handed the shoe to the bouncer on my way out. He looked at my bloodied face then inside the bar.
‘Someone’s off her meds in there,’ I said and left.
I finished the night at a friend’s bar and woke up in one of the booths. This could have described any other morning-after in one of the dozen towns I had lived in since I had run away. That morning I was supposed to pick up my ex-girlfriend for an appointment at Planned Parenthood. She was waiting outside her apartment when I pulled up. I got out to open the car door for her. I kissed her cheek. Her smile disappeared. She looked concerned and tentatively touched the bloodied ‘D’ marking my temple. She pulled at my collar.
‘Your blood?’
I nodded.
‘Remind me again. How were you the one who broke up with me?’
‘I told you that was a mistake.’
‘Definitely not.’
‘We don’t have to do this.’
‘You are joking, right?’
‘No. We can figure this out. I’ll—’
‘You need to stop right now. Just drive.’ She got into the car and stared forward. She was fighting not to cry and it stabbed at my conscience. ‘Jarred, I am so serious right now. It’s hard enough. Stop.’
‘Okay, okay.’
We drove in silence until I couldn’t bear it. I had to figure out a way to explain myself. To tell her I was worth a chance, but I knew she was right and that was worse of all.
‘The last time I saw my mom alive I was coming home from school. I was barely eleven. Their bedroom door was ajar. Dad was giving her a bed bath. A bucket of soapy water was on a chair beside them. He would dip a washcloth into the water and wring it and wash her.’
She turned toward me. I saw her confused look smooth away as she listened.
‘“Is that warm enough?” he said. I remember that exactly. I can hear it in his voice just now and I haven’t talked to him in, shit, eight or nine years. “Is that warm enough?” and he put the washcloth on her cheek. She nodded. He scrubbed her neck and made a show of washing behind her ears.’
I mimicked the motion.
‘She lifted her arms like a kid and he washed them, holding her at the wrist. It was such a delicate thing. He would dip the washcloth, wring it out and wash her. Over and over. I watched, completely entranced. They cooed and talked to each other the whole time. I don’t remember or couldn’t hear what they were saying. Then she rolled over on her side. He adjusted the towel beneath her and washed her back, following her shoulder blades and spine with the washcloth.’
I traced the motions in the air.
‘She was watching him over her shoulder, always grinning. She was a beautiful woman, my mom. I remember he said something, she laughed and he patted her butt.’
I tapped the steering wheel.
‘He scrubbed her feet last. After he was done. He put the cloth in the bucket and when he asked her “How was that?” she smiled a smile I’ve never seen anywhere else. That look she gave him was something beyond love. Adoration? I don’t know the word. I don’t know if there is a word.’
I shook my head.
‘When she died, I was kind of left to raise myself. I hated him for falling apart but now I think how could anyone continue once you’ve been loved like that? Once you’ve seen someone look at you like she did.’
She was crying now. I knew I should have shut up, but I didn’t. I had never told anyone that story.
‘My punishment for intruding on that moment is to know that I will never be good enough, for long enough, to deserve another human to smile at me like that.’
I pulled into the Planned Parenthood office past two bored-looking protesters with posters of a gloved hand holding a tiny arm and skull with red and black gore in the background. Choose Life, their posters said.
I didn’t get to finish the story. She jumped out of the car and ran into the building. I didn’t say the last thing I saw. After Mom smiled that smile, Jack leaned over to put his face against her feet. She wiggled her toes to brush his lips. He kissed the big toe on each foot. I remember that most vividly.
47
After burying Mister Shakey I went back to the house. Jack was bringing a glass of water to a middle-aged man with a moustache. He looked familiar, but I didn’t know why.
‘Thanks,’ the man said. ‘I’m sorry for giving you such a hard time. When Pauline got sick, she didn’t have insurance. I got so angry at everything.’
‘It’s all right. You don’t have to explain yourself. You had a job to do.’
‘Wait a minute.’ I knew who he was.
‘Jarred,’ Jack warned.
‘You’re the collection agent. You complete asshole.’ I turned on Jack. ‘The collection agent? What the fuck is he doing in this house? He should be under it.’ I smacked the glass of water so it spilled into the man’s lap.
‘Jarred!’
‘Get out of here. Are you really crying? You’re a parasite. Get out.’
The man fled, apologising the whole time.
Jack snapped, ‘His wife died.’
‘You’re here to save everyone, aren’t you? The one-car garage buddha.’
‘Go to your room, you child.’
‘Where were you when I needed saving?’
‘It’s everyone else’s fault, isn’t it? I’m done with that, Jarred.’
I screamed.
Jack watched me, tears in his eyes, until I exhausted myself.
‘Jack, I don’t know what to do.’
‘Nobody does.’ He grabbed hold of me and we hugged.
48
We found each other behind the dumpsters of a propane distribution company and underneath the building’s only window, framing the ceiling and the blue-rinse crown of an elderly woman at her desk as she made sure America’s propane needs were satisfied. My roommate had dropped me off on the South Side at a nearby crossover and drove off in my car with a toot of the horn. I had trade
d the car for the rent I still owed him. The truth was I had to leave Chicago.
There were five of us, probably too many. Four crusty girls of varying degrees of mental ill-health and burnout. Thank god none of them had dogs. The matriarch was a diesel-sooted Mrs. Santa Claus in BO-stinking blackbut rosy-cheeked with blue-eyed kindness. She knew what she was doing, but the others were dangerous with romance and inexperience. They were on their way to Nevada where a friend had a trailer somewhere, they weren’t sure, in the emptiness off Highway 80. Their plans were vague and pointless, and although I could still appreciate why that was a good thing, it bored me. I was tired of needles and the need. Tired of the ‘dude’- and ‘nigger’-inflected pointless chitchat about stupid yuppies, being free, the bulls, the hotshots, cracking squats, scams, scores, fuck America, the cool, the suck, bands and drugs. I wanted the girls to be scared, and the hours waiting, getting eaten alive by fire ants and sadistic horseflies, I made sure were filled with me and Mrs. Claus trading war stories.
I had scars to show, but it was Mrs. Claus who lifted her shirt to reveal the puckered skin of a stab wound on her breast while casually recounting being raped.
A boy of sixteen walked up to us as if we had arranged to meet him. He sat down next to the girl with a blast of black mossy hair and started talking to her. Now we were six and definitely too many. One of these kids would get us busted; that was inevitable.
Dirty Mrs. Claus pointed out our train arriving. The best part began. We ran for it, slinging backpacks, helping each other up, and that perfect moment when your feet leave the ground and you fly. From the first time with Melissa to this last time I caught a train, it was a victory.
We settled in and the humidity inside the boxcar immediately soaked our clothes in sweat. One of the girls poured water onto her head, but Mrs. Claus wisely admonished her to conserve it. The bounce and shake of the car was the worst I had ever felt. Every tooth in my head ached. The wind coming through the open door only stirred the smell of rotten pigeon shit and the stink of us. After a couple of hours, the girl with mossy hair screamed and screamed until Mrs. Claus held her.
The Coward Page 20
