Toni and I drank coffee and reminisced about two separate versions of Halifax. She remembered glory shared among black activists fighting against environmental racism and racial profiling by cops and teachers. I remembered boredom interspersed with bookshops, record stores and battles with Michelle.
“Funny how you guys never got along as kids,” she said.
“She was different then,” I said. “I was different too, I guess.”
“And now you’re here,” she said.
When Michelle got home from her group she always had some evening activity planned: beer and pool, a gelato run, Thai food. It wasn’t until the third Sunday at the pool hall that I realized what Michelle’s group was. I had assumed it was an extension of her tutoring gig but with a group of kids instead of one-on-one. On that Sunday at the pool hall Michelle downed two pints without a word before Toni asked what was wrong.
“Big debate tonight,” she said. “First of all, Leo’s symptoms are back and Lan recommended switching meds, and Leo says ‘no meds since ’99.’ Well the shit was seriously stirred with Lan, Jo and Sanjay giving it to Leo for dropping his meds, and nobody else saying anything.”
“Oh no,” Toni said.
“So I had to say something because Leo was just hanging his head saying nothing.”
“You told them you quit your meds,” Toni said.
“You quit your meds?” I blurted.
“Years ago,” Michelle said.
“Why?”
“Don’t need ‘em,” Michelle said. “I’m fine now, and that’s what I told Lan, Jo and Sanjay. The whole point of the group is that it keeps you conscious of the problem and that you aren’t alone, and that the problem is with wanting so badly to do irrational things. If you can beat that want, you win. Forget your fears, focus on the behaviour. Once you can do that you no longer need the meds.”
“What’d they say?” Toni asked.
“Lan said that the drugs make it easier, reduce the risk of falling off the wagon.”
“What are you, alcoholics?” Toni said.
Michelle shook her head and took a gulp from her third pint as the waitress delivered it. “I argued with them, three on one, the whole meeting, while Leo hung his head. And I know for a fact that Jeffrey and Peter stopped their meds ages ago but they said nothing. Fuck! This is why we need a doctor on hand, to be an expert mediator. A doctor could have testified that lots of OCD patients quit their meds once it’s under control.”
“I’m telling you, Mikki, you should quit that group,” Toni said. “The dynamic is poison.”
“Ironically,” Michelle said, “I need that group to keep me off my meds.”
“Are you sure it’s safe quitting your meds?” I asked.
Toni stared across the fake wood table at me and Michelle took a sip of her beer. “In fact,” Michelle said, “it’s safer than taking them, in the long run.”
“What about my friend Bumi?” I asked. “The meds don’t seem to be working for him. Maybe he should join a group like yours.”
Michelle nodded. “Knowing theoretically that you aren’t alone and being in a room with others like you is a world apart. As frustrating as they can be I need those people’s experiences to make sense of my own. Anyway, didn’t you say ‘Boom-O’ gets stuck when he reads?”
“Bumi. Yes, he does.”
“Then all the more that he could learn directly from other survivors, seeing as how he can’t read about them.”
THERE HAVE BEEN A FEW ECSTATIC MOMENTS OF GREAT URGENCY in my life when I stumbled on some treasure I didn’t know existed. Every one of them was snatched away by flawed individuals.
When I was four I discovered the speed of low-based tri-cyclic motion, hard plastic wheels over hot asphalt. I flung myself into our driveway full pedal on Max Ingram’s three-wheeler and crashed into my stiff-legged mother. “These damned things are dangerous,” she said. “Too low for drivers to see. I almost nailed a kid on one with the Ford last week.” She scooped me up in one arm and handed my marvellous contraption to my stepfather with the other. “Take it back,” she said.
In grade five I ran home from a Christmas party to show my parents how to moonwalk, a skill I’d just learned from Lisa Tanner. “You look like a possessed chicken,” my stepfather said. “Go pray.”
Lily’s Year of the Migrant Farm Worker had been filled with those kinds of moments, starting with my realization that Lily had a girlfriend. I’d orchestrated my own fall in proposing to Sarah and then getting myself an official promotion and raise to do the very work I hated, full-time.
When I called Bumi to share an exhilarating concept called the OCD Support Group it was Sarah who snatched glory from me. My deflation was enacted in two steps: first Bumi’s number was out of service. Then Sarah explained why.
“He went home,” she said.
“Home?”
“Indonesia home, to his family. Mark, you still there?”
IT WAS ONLY SARAH’S PROMPTING THAT GOT ME TO PUSH MY WAY back into Michelle’s life and overcome my fear of being rejected by her. I used my wealth of banked vacation time and was on a plane in weeks. Sarah wanted to come along but I told her I needed to get to know Michelle for myself first. But I also needed the time away from Sarah, from our life together. I dropped Sarah and paused work. Only Bumi remained in the air.
As I roamed the dampened west coast city streets and acquainted myself with a version of Michelle I’d either never known or forgotten existed, Dr. Biachari prescribed Bumi another anti-OCD drug, and Sarah followed my example and paid for the trial prescription. A few days later Bumi called the results miraculous.
“BUT HOW DID HE GET HOME?” I ASKED. “HE HAD NO MONEY AND still owed thousands to the Changs.”
“About thirty-three thousand,” Sarah said.
“You’re kidding,”
“It was a sign,” she said.
“How did he pay it?”
“My mom paid it.”
My deflation was complete.
SARAH PONDERED MY SUGGESTION TO SPONSOR YATY AND HER children for several days after my departure. In my absence she gave the house a thorough cleansing, put the tools and papers away, vacuumed their residual dust and washed the floors and the crud from the bathroom tiles.
When the house was clean a warm comfort replaced the dirt and clutter. She treated herself to a hot bath, Scotch on ice and the philosophy of a dead misogynist. Nietzsche’s neuroses melted in the steamy decadence of clean comfort. Sarah dropped her book to the floor, closed her eyes and thought of herself.
She was the progeny of a beloved community pillar who supported his family and still gave money to his favourite charities in Toronto. He was kind to every person he encountered except the members of his family. Sarah’s admiration for her father’s impeccable morality was daily reinforced by the praises of his colleagues, clients, friends and the many beneficiaries of his generous community service and philanthropy. The brilliant sheen of greatness caked and peeled away the day she saw the long-angled sharpness of his nude form pressed against his big-boobed secretary.
Her mother lived in a great man’s shadow. She slaved stingily over his finances, clothing, appointments, food, home and children, to keep these personal interferences into the greater good of the community to a minimum. She was his personal assistant cum business manager and these roles overshadowed more traditional wifely duties like companionship.
The great man never complained and contented himself with another source of love. Being a Senior Manager at home compensated for his junior partner status professionally. He never missed a chance to insult his wife, who could never manage his personal affairs and his image in the community perfectly enough.
“Your mother’s never worked a day in her life because of me,” he’d tell his children in a simultaneous boast
and backhanded put-down.
Only when Sarah read about reproductive labour did she have trouble reconciling her father’s assertion regarding her mother and her mother’s frenetic movement through a life of cooking, cleaning, organizing, sewing, knitting, baking, nursing, driving, shopping, cheque-signing and calculating. For the first time Sarah saw the hidden woman holding up the man. She understood the tired cliché. In the light of a feminist lens she saw her father for the vain user he was.
The woman behind the curtain became her new hero and stayed that way until the first time she hit Sarah. From then on it was all conflict and argument. Sarah couldn’t wait to leave.
Her university experience was exactly as promised: freedom and immense personal growth, experiments with sex, drugs and bulimia. More interesting than these pastimes was her new love: historical biographies. Figures like Joan of Arc, Gandhi and Mary Magdalene stood firm against the cold scrutiny of objectified historical research. Their flaws were inevitably uncovered and still they stood, perfect in their imperfection.
She met me soon after she graduated. I came across like some modern-day white Gandhi, stubbornly idealist and enigmatic. I hid behind universal truths written by greater spirits. She was starved for my brand of save-the-world junk, hungry for someone with uncompromising integrity who wasn’t forever bound to the pages of the past.
But time cruelly eroded my righteousness. I became more pragmatic Jinnah than idealist Gandhi. In a moment of confused desperation I offered Sarah a glimmer of old-fashioned promise in the form of a loophole: sponsoring Bumi’s family as economic immigrants, guaranteeing their independence from the Canadian government for ten years, while making no mention of their relation to Bumi, who officially was dead.
In the comfort of my clean absence, Sarah invited Lily and Julia for dinner and smothered them in her ample charm, engorging them with courses of delicacies and homemade abundance. They ate South American food in Eastern European quantities and drank a bottle and a half of my twelve-year-old Glenfiddich.
In a satisfaction-soaked buzz Sarah spilled the truth of my crush for Lily to the tremendous amusement of all three. Sarah also confessed her initial surprise at learning that Lily was gay. Lily was amused and Julia was perturbed. She lectured Sarah about stereotypes and the need for women to take part in each other’s liberation instead of tearing each other down.
Sarah changed the subject to Bumi.
“It’s a matter of paperwork,” Lily told her. “Lots of it. Bank statements, mortgage, loans, credit, SIN number, birth certificate, taxes, income statements—every piece of paper you and Mark have ever had and more. File them all and wait six to eighteen months until they ask for more information, and the same from Yaty and her children. Wait another six to eighteen months until one day, hopefully before Bumi goes home, a decision. And somehow you have to demonstrate some kind of relationship with Yaty so that Government doesn’t suspect a scam.”
Once her hangover faded Sarah called Bumi with this same information, just to see what he’d say, if it was even worth agonizing over. He quoted her the same Brodsky he had quoted me, said it was easier if he went home rather than uproot his family and put them through such a process for a patriarch they might not even remember.
“They remember you, Bumi,” Sarah said.
“When I go home, I make sure they never forget,” he said.
By the time Bumi told an RCMP officer that he was an illegal immigrant his hands had begun to heal and he was sleeping almost seven hours a night. He was so lucid and calm, yet enthusiastic, that the cop didn’t believe him. In fact, he had seen Bumi many times over the years, walking and cycling down Eglinton.
Bumi argued with the laughing officer for a quarter of an hour. Finally, the cop walked away, still thinking Bumi was joking. Bumi stood flabbergasted, watched the man’s gun and club swing at his hips, and listened to the swish of his nylon pants. He ran and caught up to the cop and slapped his face. That got him arrested. He spent two nights in jail while the authorities failed to find any records or identification for any Bumi, no surname.
Bumi received an official deportation notice a few days after his release. He had a week to leave. Although no one expressed any concern about Bumi’s complete lack of identity in any country, he felt that it might come up in Jakarta. His soon-to-be-former employers obliged Bumi’s request for an Indonesian passport and earned another five thousand dollars from Sarah’s mother for their efforts. As businesspeople they were happy to earn their money and interest back and then some, and finally be rid of their worst employee.
Bumi continued playing chess with Lady Juanita until the day the cops escorted him to the airport. His enjoyment of her presence increased dramatically on the new drug. He remained cognizant of her general filth, but his concerns were less intense. He was able to reason with and convince himself that no more than a quick rinse was needed after shaking her hand.
Before he was escorted away Bumi accepted a goodbye hug from Lady Juanita, who cried, convinced that Bumi would rot in a California jail.
“IT WAS ULTIMATELY EASIER, SAFER, AND POSSIBLY CHEAPER THAN sponsorship,” Sarah said.
“You could have fucking consulted me,” I said. I hung up before she could remind me that I hadn’t bothered to call during the three weeks I was away.
GABY WAS SURPRISED THE FIRST TIME I CALLED HER. IT WAS EARLY evening in Ottawa and she was already slurring her words a little. In the four years I had known her I had barely made more than small talk with her. She had no interest in my work and shared my own mother’s disdain for my anti-materialist tendencies and insistence on associating with society’s dregs. She wanted better for her daughter and it was now my job to provide it. To avoid clashes of vision and values I politely complimented her taste in fine collectables and rich cooking. Food and dishes were our common interests and beyond these the remainder of our conversations were logistical.
“Where is Sarah?”
“Pass the salt.”
“Four of spades.”
That kind of talk. In the silent tension of Gaby’s home I stood alert like small prey, ready to run or play dead as necessary. Usually I chose the latter.
When she answered the phone I could picture her half-finished bottle of general anaesthetic on the coffee table and the bile of every disappointment in my life spilled off my tongue. “Why did you do it?” I shouted.
“Do what? Is this Mark?”
“Why did you give all that money to Sarah? You never spend money unless it’s on yourself, or on Christmas presents to buy our love.”
“You ingrate!” she barked. “After all I do for you. Who do you think furnished that dirty little flat of yours? The one time my baby asks me for something for herself you dare question me. Just because you don’t want your precious little model to grow up.”
“She is grown up,” I said, suddenly unsure why I was mad at her. I hung up.
“I promised her I’d quit modelling,” Sarah said when I called her again. “She thinks the money is start-up for my business.”
THERE WERE OTHER THINGS SARAH CONSIDERED IN THE CLEAN comfort of my absence, especially after she had blown my sponsorship decoy into oblivion. She wondered why she depended so much on the elusive integrity of others. She wondered why she had remained in a profession for which she had long ago passed her financial need. She wondered if my poor example had trapped her in misery, if she had feared that her professional happiness would have put our relationship out of balance because of my professional misery. She wondered if the emergence of a little varicose around the ankles was a sign that she needed to take the risk, enact her scrupulous, meticulous, thorough, extremely well-researched business plan, or at least take it to the bank.
“I DON’T LIKE HOW THINGS ARE GOING WITH US, MARK,” SARAH said. “I’m sick of modelling, I’m sick of staring at the fucking business plan. My mother
hates that I model. She thinks it’s for sluts. I hate it too. It’s shallow. It’s objectifying.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“I am going to start my line of sweatshop-free clothing. I’m going to enact The Plan.”
“With what money?” I feared her failure with the residual fear of my mother, who spent her entire career with the same bank and somehow survived every amalgamation, hostile takeover, downsize, and subsequent high blood pressure, all for security, health coverage and a pension.
“I’ll use The Plan to get a bank loan,” Sarah said.
“What about your mother’s money?”
“What about it? It’s done. Isn’t it great that Bumi got to go home? We even got him a year’s worth of prescription.”
“He never said goodbye,” I said.
“We tried to call. Nobody ever answered.”
“You shouldn’t have done it without me, Sarah. He was my friend.”
“He’s my friend too,” she said.
“He was all I had anymore.”
“You still have me. And your sister.”
“My sister is an impostor,” I said. “Master of guile and disguise. I don’t know who the hell this woman is or what she did with the asshole who used to be my sister.” I couldn’t believe Bumi could take all that money from Sarah and just disappear from my life forever.
“I’m sorry,” Sarah said.
“Sarah,” I said. “I love you. But you shouldn’t have done what you did.”
AT THE BUS STATION MIKKI AMBUSHED ME WITH A BONE- crushing, wet-cheeked hug before I could express my regret at having not talked to her in five years and having barely seen her during the month I was there. She grabbed the back of my head and breathed irregularly into my ear for a chunk of eternity. “I really appreciate you coming here, Mark,” she said. “I really missed you.”
CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING IN THE POST-MODERN AGE, AS PROVEN by how easy it is not to recognize someone you’ve seen a hundred times before in a new place. From the back it was difficult to be sure, but the chin-down melancholy gait was familiar. “Abdul!” I shouted.
Drive-by Saviours Page 29
