by John Brooke
Carolyn asks, “What about Gerry?”
“Gerry’s a pussy. I don’t have to answer to him for nothing.” Miko hates Gerry because Gerry took over his pick-up and delivery job — although Miko admits he can’t deal with the responsibility because of his habit. Miko doesn’t admit that his ma trusts Gerry more than Miko because Gerry doesn’t touch her product. Neither does Stan. “And anyway,” says Miko, “it’s me — I’m the one they want to send to someone. Or back to the clinic. ‘Why don’t you go back in the clinic, Miko?’ she and Pa tell me at least once a day. Drives me fucking nuts.”
“I’ll go if you go,” says Carolyn. “Clinic’s not so bad. At least not that I remember.”
Miko says, “You don’t remember nothing if you think the clinic’s not so bad.”
“I remember you can have a shower or even a bath pretty much whenever you want.”
“I always wanted to kill those assholes. Trying to run your life…”
Carolyn asks, “What about being happy, Miko?”
“Happy?” says Miko. “You want me to be happy?”
“That’s all I want.”
“So then take off your pants there.”
“Ah, Miko…”
“See this smile?”
“Yeah, yeah, sure I see it.”
But she undoes her belt. And his. He can dazzle her, that’s the problem. It scares her.
4.
Then Miko overloads Carolyn one night when she’s on his case about his ma.
The car’s the thing that brings it to a head. Miko’s always wishing he had a better car, like Gerry and Stan. Stan has the heavy-duty lemon yellow Viper that cost a lot of money. Gerry has one of those 4x4’s, black, with the smoked windows. Miko has only the rusty old Tercel, and at that point it isn’t even registered. He says, “It’s weak! It’s junk! Who would ever respect it?”
Carolyn doesn’t care. As long as the cops don’t stop them to inspect the brakes or something; to her, it’s just a car and it works and she’s determined to get it legal. Carolyn has big plans built around Miko’s car, but they’ll have to get it registered. For Toronto.
At first she’s thinking “holiday.” They could get maybe a week’s worth of product from Miko’s ma, and go. If they run out, she knows where to score in Toronto, that’s no problem. Because she’s thinking it would be good for both of them — Miko and his ma, but especially for Miko. Why not, if they bother each other so much? And it would be good for Carolyn too, she hopes.
He resists. “I heard Toronto’s full of wimps.”
“I’m not a wimp,” she tells him. She lived there three years; did some dancing at this place on Dundas Street, got to know all the black guys who live around there. One of them always had a line on decent crack or crystal. She wasn’t so junk-bound in Toronto. Junk in Toronto’s not so good as in Montreal and it costs more. But it’s there if you want it. She tells Miko, “Toronto’s not so bad.”
Miko asks, “What’s the matter with right here?”
Carolyn says, “Miko — come on! Think of the fun!” She’s tied off at that moment and ready to enjoy herself. She maybe comes across as a little impatient.
Miko nods in his moody way as he pops the bubble, takes her arm in his hand and slides the needle in. He says, “This is fun, no?”
“You know I love it, Miko. Yeah, that’s good…”
“This is some of the best shit in the city.”
“Mmm…” She’s watching it. Some don’t. Carolyn always does. “That’s good, Miko…that’s fine right there. Half for you, now…” A quarter-point is her ration. Gives her about a ten-hour turn-around, which is livable.
“This is the only place you need to be,” says Miko. He keeps pushing, slow and steady. And it’s like the first part of one of those rockets, with all that fire pushing out from under it. Whoosh!
“Miko!” He pushes past the quarter-point mark and it’s damn lucky she’s watching. Carolyn has seen a few forget to watch… She yanks herself away from him. The thing falls on the floor. He just watches her, like he wants to see what’ll happen. It takes ten or fifteen seconds. She can feel the extra and she’s scared. Then she’s gone — too out of it for anything.
That’s the first night they stay in Miko’s car through till dawn, and she wakes up in his arms.
Miko’s feeling bad about scaring her like that, so he takes her up to Jarry Street for bacon and eggs. And toast and jam. Home fries. And lots of good coffee. Carolyn hasn’t eaten a breakfast like that since before her mother’s kitchen got so horrible you didn’t want to eat anything there. It’s a summer morning and she has her eggs sunny side up. Sitting in the booth with Miko, squishing toast around in gloopy yolk, she knows they’ve made a major step forward in their love.
After eating, they drive back down to the house. Miko leaves her in the car and goes in for his morning ration and to change his clothes. He has the light in his eye because Carolyn’s OK and she forgives him. After almost punching out like that, the love gets so huge. She’s surprised. It must be something in her from her mother… But she’s shaking. So wet it’s ridiculous. She gives him money for her share and says, “Hurry up, Miko.”
He says, “Yeah,” and even kisses her. They both know they can hardly wait to make love.
But they have to wait because it will be even better when Miko gets back with the drugs.
Carolyn listens to the radio to help her body wait. She sings along with a song. Her mother used to sing. It might be after she chased a man away. Or when she was sitting there waiting for another one who’d never show up… Carolyn’s starting to think maybe she pushed Miko into it. She doesn’t have the patience her mother had. Or was her mother’s patience total hopelessness? After seven songs, or maybe eight, Carolyn gets out of the car and creeps up the porch stairs and tries to see through the door window. Gerry’s there. He’s standing guard. He makes a wave of his hand, waving her away like she’s some kind of bug. Then Gerry makes a move to open the door.
Carolyn backs away from the door. She yells, “Bitch!” Really loud.
She starts marching in front of the house. The way Gerry brushed her away like that was just so rude! And there’s something starting to crash around behind her eyes. You do too much, it wrecks your rhythm. The overload from the night before is screwing up her rhythm. She knew it would, but she was thinking she could handle it if Miko would just come back with hers… It’s like her nerves get wonky. It starts off in the back of her neck, stretching tighter and tighter till her head’s pulled back into her shoulders like a dog on a short leash. Then it starts to hurt the muscles in her arms; around her heart too. It’s not fun. Carolyn is in some pain — doesn’t notice that a cop car has stopped and two officers are approaching with their hands on their holsters, ready to put her down.
One cop says in French, “Down on the ground, madame.”
Carolyn says, “Quoi? Moi?” jumping around in front of him. Dangerous? She weighs about ninety pounds. When she tries to let them know this, the cop actually draws his gun.
“Down on the ground!”
Carolyn starts whining. “Oh, for God’s sake!”
But they can be such pricks. “DOWN-ON-THE-GROUND, calisse!”
Miko’s ma and Gerry are watching as a cop kicks Carolyn and Carolyn kicks him. Carolyn sees her there at the door. Then the other cop gets a solid boot in and Carolyn goes down. She rolls around and calls Miko’s ma everything she can think of. The cops haul her up and throw her in the back of their car. Carolyn sees her turn away like… Like what? Like Carolyn is just some junkie. Then she’s gone — back to her kitchen, back to Miko. Carolyn cries and screams till she blacks out.
She comes to at the station. She hadn’t been working and she isn’t carrying, so what can they do except try to help her? But they’ll never do that unless they can balance it with a charge. They have to let her go with a warning not to be seen in the neighbourhood.
No, sir. Oui, monsieur. Merci, monsieur — fu
ck off. Jesus Murphy! Always the same stupid deal.
She had called them. She is a cunt. Carolyn thinks, Well, I could match that, no problem, lady.
Carolyn goes home, cleans herself up. She has some beers with Last Days. She scores some not-great stuff to tide her over. She does not expect to hear from Miko. She knows Miko is locked up tighter than any cop could ever do it.
5.
She heads back up there three days later. It’s one of those drifting summer evenings when the warm wind makes the clocks stop. She buys a can of beer and sits in the park on Miko’s bench. It’s getting dark as she moseys up the lane and stands across the street. His bedroom window’s at the front, to the left of the door. The TV room’s to the right, where she sits with Miko’s pa. Carolyn can’t know who will see her first and doesn’t care. Either way, someone will come out and something will happen.
It’s Miko. Miko notices her there and sneaks out. How sad; the guy’s thirty-five but he’s sneaking out his window the way Carolyn did when she was fourteen. But once he’s out, he’s hers again. She shoves her tongue down his throat and her hips straight into his. Then they walk to the corner, get beer, and go back to the bench. They talk, they smooch, they drink and share some blow he’d managed to steal from the kitchen drawer. After a while it’s getting late and Carolyn and Miko are kissing under one of the poplar trees in the lane. She can see the house, dark now except for a light from the kitchen at the end of the hall. A couple of cabs drive up, a couple of girls with some money to spend knock, and Gerry appears at the door to let them in.
Carolyn blames it on the cocaine. Sure. It makes the night wind sound like a dreamy voice. Up in the sky the points of the stars look touchable. But the fact is, she wants to show Miko’s ma what’s what. And when Carolyn climbs over the fence into the yard of the retirement home, Miko follows.
And then they’re making love — right there on the lawn.
Carolyn doesn’t usually do things like that. She may not live right, but she has some sense of dignity somewhere down there at the bottom of everything. Her mother told her, “Keep your mess at home, Carolyn — nobody wants to see it.” She said that on the note she left, and no matter what Carolyn has done since, she always tries to make sure no one who doesn’t want to know about the bad part of her has to. But she and Miko are stronger than the thing that makes you want to be polite. They’re stronger than the white-haired neighbour who has his head clear out his bedroom window so he won’t miss a thing. No shame at all there!
And she knows they’re stronger than Miko’s ma.
Miko and Carolyn, locked together on the grass. “Do it, Miko! Do it to me, lover!”
Carolyn’s feeling there’s no way the bitch can ever get near them again.
He’s letting loose like he never can in the car. He rolls her over and they’re doing it doggy-style, and Carolyn is staring straight across at that door, daring her to look. Come on, lady, get out of your bed and look across the street and into my eyes! One cunt to another. “Ah Christ, Miko!”
Miko howls, then groans. There’s Gerry again at the door.
They sleep in the car again. In the morning he goes back in because he has to. This time Carolyn doesn’t bother waiting. They both know he won’t be out for a while and that she should lie low. He knows where to find her.
He shows up at her place two weeks later. It’s a Sunday, which is always her best day to make some money. Men get lonely on Sunday. But Miko shows up before lunch and that’s it for business. After they make love, Miko starts talking. His ma set Gerry on his trail but Miko lost him at a light near Parc Lafontaine. It’s getting serious.
Good, thinks Carolyn. Her mother used to tell her, “Carolyn, the fun part wouldn’t be fun if it went on forever. You have to try to make it real, darling.” Not that she ever could.
But Carolyn is not her mother. She feels that Miko and she should try.
It isn’t going to be easy, especially if Miko’s mama has Gerry watching. The first thing will be to get away from Montreal. She tells him, “We have to, Miko! And not just some holiday, either. If we’re going to do this, we have to do it all the way. No screwing around. She’s the problem. You have to get away from her.”
“She says I’m the problem.”
“Stop it, Miko. This is exactly what I’m talking about.”
“I don’t get what you’re talking about,” says Miko. “She’s my mother, for Christ’s sake.”
“Right, and she’ll never let you go.”
“This sucks.”
“Miko,” says Carolyn, “this is life. We can get whatever we need in Toronto. I’ll work. You can look out the window for all I care. We have to see if we can do it!”
Miko says, “You’re so stupid. You’re nuts!”
Then he leaves. Slams the door. She can hear him telling Marie-Thérèse across the hall to fuck herself as he goes stomping off. Oh, Miko…
Four days later he’s back. She tells him, “You’re an adult, Miko — you can do what you want.”
“If I ran away to Toronto, she’d die.”
“…what you need to do!”
He says, “Gerry’d come and find us. You’d die, count on it.”
“You said Gerry’s a pussy.”
“Yeah, but he follows orders.”
Carolyn and Miko go round in circles as the weather gets colder.
As the weather gets colder, the urge to move seems to sneak away.
Montreal can do that. You feel that icy wind creeping up and you know it’s going to be the worst thing in the world — standing on a corner trying to make a buck with it swirling up your ass, making your toes and fingers disappear. You know it’s coming and it scares you. Not a big-deal scare like a cop with a stick or some weird trick with a knife suddenly at your throat…it’s not like that. Winter in Montreal is this grey thing that gets inside and freezes you before it even arrives. You can’t make a move. You can only sit there and watch it come. Still, Carolyn keeps talking about it, holding it out there like a birthday on a calendar. She has to. Toronto.
She tells him, “I know Toronto, Miko. I can get us started.”
Miko keeps telling Carolyn how he’s been doing some errands for Stan and putting some cash together so he can get his car legal.
Carolyn says, “Good, Miko, step by step, let’s keep it going.”
Daring to hope that Miko can feel her trying to believe in him. In them.
But soon it’s snowing and they aren’t going anywhere at all.
6.
Miko talks about how his ma’s always cooking and during those winter days Carolyn sometimes pictures Miko’s ma cooking something good for Miko and herself, the both of them. Soup. Come in, children — we got beautiful soup! And Miko and Carolyn go dancing in. And maybe they have a baby… Carolyn would cook, but all she has is the hot plate, to make coffee or sometimes canned spaghetti. Her own mother turned her right off cooking — the way she always left such a godawful mess. But if she had a clean kitchen, Carolyn would cook for Miko. She really would.
Maybe in Toronto.
Outside Carolyn’s window the thing you mainly see is the belly of the bridge. Snow could be falling, making Montreal perfect, or it might be a bright sun disguising the bitter cold. For her, it’s concrete pylons disappearing up into dank crisscrossings of rusted steelwork. And hearing the thump, thump, thump of cars coming down onto the ramp. Sometimes she lies there with Miko on top of her, looking out, listening, waiting for spring.
That winter Miko and Last Days become friends. Carolyn believes maybe that could be a good thing. She has a feeling Miko has never had much fun with guys. Now it seems he’s almost happy when he and Last Days get going the way they do. And what’s worse: listening to two men talk about sex and death and destruction? Or sitting by yourself and thinking about it?
The snow in the Gaspé, when they plow it off to the side of the road, sometimes it piles up to the level of the street lights. It’s like prison walls. They li
ved on the second floor and once, after too many drinks, her mother took off her clothes and jumped off the balcony, right into it. About ten feet — but that’s not the point. Everything was always backing Carolyn’s mother into a corner, up against the railing, toward that oven door. Her half-sister Monique is still in Chandler. She even has a man who’s still there, and two children. Monique always says their mother killed herself because she couldn’t handle being by herself, because she didn’t like herself, because she needed men far more than she needed the other things that made men run away from her. Pretty messy. But Carolyn’s not her mom. No. But she can feel lots of her mom inside her, waiting there. So it’s nice that Last Days and Miko hit it off. They help fill the time — which is the space between Carolyn and her mom.
“Haven’t I seen you before?” Miko’s wary.
Last Days shrugs. “I get around.”
But Last Days likes Miko because Miko helps him figure out where Claudia lives. And Miko likes Last Days because Last Days brings out the thing in Miko that always wants to fight, the thing that lets him think he’s a different Miko. The very first time they drink together Last Days goes right at him, raging about his legs and politics and the weather…and his poor heart’s search for Claudia.
“I know a Claudia,” says Miko. “Stands around all white and weird talking about her trees.”
Last Days says, “But that’s her, man! She said she’s married to a tree.”
“Two of ’em.”
Last Days says, “I get off on crazy women. Eh, Carolyn — don’t I love the weirdos?”
Carolyn tells Miko, “Yeah, he does. He knows some wild ones, all right.”
“Oh yeah?” says Miko. “Like who?”
Last Days leans toward Miko as he cracks another can of Wildcat beer. His skin looks like it’s rotting, he has a scraggly beard like a dog that’s had its face in a puddle, there’s green stuff around his teeth, and his lips are always kind of pale blue. He tells Miko, “Like her.”
Meaning Carolyn.
Carolyn’s not sure why, but she blushes.
And for a moment Miko looks like he did the night he almost killed her with the overload.
