by Miriam Toews
What are they saying? said Logan.
Well…not much, I whispered.
Ask to speak to Min, he said.
I did, I said. I can’t right now.
Can you just tell me in a nutshell how she’s doing? I asked the woman. Thebes was wandering around the parking lot looking at the ground and occasionally bending down and picking things up.
Well, said the woman, there have been a few incidents and she’s—
What kind of incidents? I asked. Logan looked at me. It’s okay, it’s okay, I whispered to him.
She’s not adapting to the program the way we would have liked her to, said the woman.
Oh yeah? I said. So, what does that mean? She’s fine, I whispered to Logan. Stupidly gave him two thumbs way up.
Well, she’s somewhat hostile towards the nurses, said the woman. And her roommate. And her doctor. She refuses to speak. She won’t eat. She won’t get out of bed. Not for any reason.
Oh, that’s not…that’s unfortunate, I said. The woman agreed.
She’s good, she’s good, I said to Logan. Is she okay? I asked the woman.
The woman said yes, she’d been sedated and was resting. She couldn’t say much more than that but if I could call back, after rounds, she was sure the doctor could tell me more.
All right, okay, I said. I lowered my voice and asked the woman if Min had indicated any interest at all in seeing me or her kids.
Not that she knew of, said the woman. In fact, she said, one nurse had told her that Min had said she’d never had children.
Okay, I said. Can you just tell me exactly at what time I’d be able to speak to her doctor?
No, she couldn’t, she said, it varied, it depended on how many patients the doctor was seeing and how long it would take for him to see them. Et cetera, she added.
But ballpark, I said. I had developed a killer headache in the last five seconds. I put my hand on Logan’s shoulder. I felt like I was going to fall. I could hear Thebes singing something over by the Free Air. She was twirling around, fully inhabiting her weird zone, lit up by the sun and laughing.
You okay? said Logan.
Of course! I said.
I’m sorry, said the woman, I wish I could tell you more. Really, it would be best if you could call again later. Tell me your name again? In case I’m able to pass the message on to the patient…
Min! I said. I mean, no, Hattie! Hattie Troutman. I’m Min’s sister. What the fuck?
I hung up and smiled. Okay! I said. Everything’s fine. Gold. She’s busy.
She’s busy? said Logan. Doing what?
Oh, stuff…like, you know, I said. They have meals and then they have Group and then they have sessions and then…tests…They walk around too, don’t they? It’s nuts.
Well, he said, why’d you ask if she was okay?
I don’t know, I said. No, I do know. Because that’s obviously the big question, right? Is she okay? I mean, that’s what we want to know, right? That’s why we’re calling the hospital. I sat down on the pavement and leaned against the cinder-block wall of the gas station. I closed my eyes and tried to pray but all I could do was channel Bowie and think about how planet Earth was blue and there was nothing I could do.
What are you—Are you okay? asked Logan. He crouched down beside me.
Oh, yeah, I said. It’s just so hot…isn’t it?
When I came to I was stretched out in the supply room with a fan blasting cold air five inches from my face and Logan and Thebes sitting cross-legged on the concrete floor beside me, staring. I looked at the kids and smiled.
Wassup, player? said Thebes.
Thebes, said Logan. Jesus.
I showed Logan how to start the van with the screwdriver. If you get pulled over, tell them you’re sixteen, I said.
What do I do if they ask to see my driver’s licence? he said.
Oh, I don’t know, I said. Stall for time. Don’t get pulled over.
He’d drive to a town called Fruita and then we’d deke down to Moab. First of all he stopped at a grocery store and he and Thebes ran in and bought some cheese and salami and something she called shabu-shabu and bread and fruit and water and a bunch of jumbo-sized chocolate bars and fireworks and a stylin’ cover with flames on it for the steering wheel and a bottle of wine for me and a corkscrew.
I lay in the back seat of the van and listened to a family in the parking lot discussing our licence plate.
What the hell is that? said the guy.
It’s not what, it’s where, honey, said the woman. It’s a licence plate.
Yeah, said the guy, but what the hell does it say?
It says something like Anaconda, said the woman, or…
No, it doesn’t, it says…lemme see.
The guy slapped his hand on the back window and I sat up and opened the side door and said, It says Manitoba, okay? Manitoba.
Where the hell is that? said the guy. In California?
Yes, it is, I said.
Well, now, there you go, hon, mystery solved, said the woman.
When I opened up the bottle of wine, Thebes said whoa, you yanked that cork out of there like you were saving it from drowning. She got out her markers and drew a screaming face on the cork. She made me a sandwich and cut it into tiny triangles, bite-size. I lay on the back seat with my head in her lap and she tried to cheer me up. She made the rescued cork sing songs from Super Fly and she played games with me. Logan was driving with his mondo headphones on so his music wouldn’t bug me but mostly so he couldn’t hear Thebes.
Okay, said Thebes, who would you rather have as a boyfriend? Frankenstein or George Bush?
Frankenstein, I said.
Okay, who would you rather have as a boyfriend? Frankenstein or Freddie Krueger?
Frankenstein, I said.
Okay, who would you rather have as a boyfriend? Frankenstein or Peter Pumpkineater?
Peter Pumpkineater. No, wait, I said. Franken—
No, you already said Peter Pumpkineater, said Thebes. Who would you rather have as a boyfriend? Peter Pumpkineater or Snoop Dogg?
Snoop Dogg.
Okay, who would you rather have as a boyfriend? Snoop Dogg or Paul Martin?
We did that for a few minutes until I eventually ended up with the Lion King’s runty brother as my boyfriend.
The whole time I was thinking about Min. Well, I was also thinking about Marc and I was thinking about Cherkis, and I was thinking about what a world-class champion of fucked-up I was. One week ago I’d been a carefree bon vivant in the City of Lights ballin’ in the mad cheddar, as Thebes would say, and now I was passing out in gas stations and drinking wine out of the bottle with an imaginary animal for a boyfriend and a fifteen-year-old at the wheel. I didn’t know if we should turn around and go back home, head straight to the hospital, or crank it up a notch and haul ass to Twentynine Palms. Maybe drive all night. But in which direction?
Thebes and I fell asleep all tangled up while Logan careened like a rangy demon through the mountains with his Biggie blasting and the wind howling and semi drivers blaring their horns at him to get the hell away from them.
ten
WHEN I WOKE UP we were in a corner of the parking lot of a motel, parked under a dim streetlight covered in moths. Logan was slumped, asleep, over the wheel and Thebes was lying on the floor, also asleep, between the back and the front seats. I sat up carefully and silently and looked at them. The streetlight was buzzing but not very loudly and some moths were gently throwing themselves against the windshield of the van. Logan was snoring very, very quietly and still gripping the wheel with both hands. His music had stopped. His notebook was in his lap. I reached around to the front and picked it up and stared at it. Logan had used a fat Sharpie to write Hot Tears Is a Concept on the cover. I put it back in his lap.
Thebes looked a little confused while she slept, like she was trying to remember what the distance was between the sun and the earth or why it was, again, that she’d had to be born. She had a th
in moustache of sweat on her upper lip and her hair was plastered to her head. She had corked up my bottle of wine, and I meticulously uncorked it again and sat there sipping plonk and wondering what it would feel like to leave these two homies behind.
Hi, Hattie, whispered Thebes. Are you awake? Where are we?
Hey, I said. I don’t know. Moab, probably. You okay?
Rock solid, she said. She glanced at Logan draped over the wheel. Did he get shot?
No, I said. He’s sleeping.
She wiped her eyes and mouth with one filthy hand and patted my knee with the other one. Drinking alone? she said.
No, you’re here, I said.
I don’t count, she said. Want to hear my dream?
Yeah, I said. Tell me.
I dreamt that there was a thirteenth month, she said. And everybody knew about it except me. Like, it had been there all along, like all throughout time. A thirteenth month, and nobody had told me. And then I found out that even my birthday was in the thirteenth month, which was squeezed somewhere in between February and March. And this month, the thirteenth month, was called Shtetl. So, like, my birthday was Shtetl the Eighth.
Shtetl, I said.
Do you know what that is? she said. She was busy adjusting her holster.
No, I said, well, yeah, sort of. Like, a small town. I think it’s a Hebrew word, like Moab. Maybe that’s why you had the dream.
But I didn’t know that word before my dream, said Thebes.
We tried to wake Logan up but it was impossible. He wouldn’t budge.
Sure he hasn’t been capped? said Thebes.
Yeah, I said, you can hear him snoring, can’t you?
We decided to spend the night in the parking lot, in the van. We’d save some money, and the night was almost over anyway.
Cops came around at dawn, apparently—I didn’t notice, I was sleeping—and they asked Thebes what we were doing there and she said sleeping and they said we weren’t allowed to sleep there, it wasn’t a campground, and the motel front-desk person was suspicious, and Thebes said okay, we’d leave, except that her peeps were still asleep, one at the wheel, and so what was she supposed to do?
They said all right, that was fine, we could sleep for a while. Better that than another exhausted motorist on the highway. They didn’t ask to see Logan’s licence. As soon as I opened my eyes a crack, Thebes was in my face.
Popo says when Lo wakes up we’re outie, she said.
Thebes, I said. This talking thing? The way you talk, it’s—
No, no, she said, shhh, please don’t tell me how to talk. I have to do it this way, okay? I won’t always. She looked like she was about to cry again so I told her no, no, it was fine, she could talk however she wanted, it was stupid of me to have brought it up, we were good.
Logan woke up. He moaned and swore and stretched and then slumped over the wheel again. Smells like ass in here, he said. Thebes and I said good morning and asked him if he knew where we were.
Moab, he said. He got out of the van and walked way over to some trees to pee and stood with his back to us for a few minutes. When he got back he rifled around in his fake alligator suitcase and pulled out a stick of incense and lit it and waved it around the van, mostly in Thebes’s general direction. She whipped out one of her pistols and fired a few rounds at his head.
You die, hippie, she said.
We all agreed we’d drive around Moab, check out the sights, and have breakfast in a restaurant instead of eating soggy shabu-shabu sandwiches or whatever rotten fruit was bobbing around in the cooler. We ate at a dive, Logan’s choice, called King Solomon’s, in honour of Deborah Solomon, the love of his life. He’d bought a copy of The New York Times to see where she was at. I left the kids at the table to fight over the miniature jukebox and gawk at Moabites while I wandered around the restaurant in search of a pay phone and a machine that might sell Advil or Tylenol or morphine. I called the hospital and got a hold of the same woman, oh, harbinger of grim, at least I think it was the same woman, and asked if I could speak with Min. She said no, she was sorry, it wasn’t possible, the doctor hadn’t made his rounds, Min was in a locked-down recovery room, there had been some trouble that morning and, no, I couldn’t speak to her.
Yeah, but, what the fuck! I said, and immediately apologized. Silence on the other end. I’m sorry, I said. I’d like to know if she’s okay right now. And, also, what do you mean, trouble? I’m sorry, again.
She’s not in any immediate danger, said the woman. I thought about Superman, her certified intrepid roommate, and wondered where she’d got to, what nemesis she’d been busy battling, when Min had been in trouble.
Can you tell me what happened? I said.
You’re family? said the woman. I just need to confirm…
Yes, I said, my name’s Hattie Troutman. I’m her sister. I’ve been calling…
She disappeared for a short time, said the woman. She was gone for about an hour and a half.
Where’d she go? I asked.
Well, she said she was going out for a cigarette, and—
But she doesn’t smoke, I said.
Well, we didn’t know that, said the woman.
And I thought you just said she wasn’t getting out of bed at all, so how did she—?
Well, that’s true, she wasn’t, so we were all quite encouraged by the fact that she had decided to get up for some fresh air. Well, a cigarette.
And then she just walked away or…? I said.
Apparently, yes, she started walking towards the highway. The police picked her up and brought her back. But she is out of danger, like I said, added the woman.
Oh, Min, I thought. C’mon…c’mon!
If I was there, I said, at the hospital, would I be able to see her right now?
Honestly? said the woman.
Yeah! Yes, please!
The doctor has her on a range of meds, said the woman. We’re working…we’re trying to establish what it is she needs and what her body can tolerate. At this point if she were to have guests she’d probably not…She’s not coherent, she’s fairly agitated, she’s refusing to eat…she’s having difficulty remembering aspects of her life, her address, for instance, the names of her kids…I recall telling you earlier that at one point she insisted that she hadn’t had kids.
Oh, you know, I said, I don’t…Really? I actually can’t believe that. I looked at the kids way over on the other side of the restaurant. Thebes had taken all her filthy, sweaty hair and sculpted it upwards like a Smurf’s and stuck a Sharpie through it Pebbles Flintstone–style and even from that distance I could hear her say, Bro, what’s a Lynyrd Skynyrd? Logan’s head was on the table.
I know, said the woman, it’s difficult. It’s a stressful time for the family, but we have every reason to believe that Min will recover and very likely be back at home soon. Provided there’s someone there to help out, or perhaps home care…
Every reason to believe, I said. I wondered what those reasons were, if there was a master copy I could get my hands on, the holy grail, if I could get all those reasons to believe tattooed onto my body and anchored to my brain. Every reason to believe. Maybe there was one single reason to believe, if that, but every reason? I’d seen Min in and out of enough hospitals to know they were bluffing, the medical staff. They had to sound hopeful, for everybody’s sake, and I appreciated it, but I knew it wasn’t true.
I thanked the woman for the information. I asked her to pass hugs and kisses on to Min from Logan and Thebes. Logan and Thebes, I repeated. Those are her kids. I didn’t want to get off the phone with this woman because it meant going back to the table and being face to face with the forgotten ones. But the woman was angling for an exit and people were beginning to stare at Thebes and her Theban ways and I didn’t want someone calling her a retard again.
We drove around the town for a while. Thebes and I dropped Logan off at a basketball court and went to find a store where we could buy her some new clothes.
I want the
m to be all white, she said.
Noooooo, I said. That is not a good choice for you.
But she really wanted them so I caved and said she could buy whatever clothes she liked.
And when we see Cherkis, she said, he can tie-dye them if he wants.
So, hey, Thebie, I said, how do you feel, are you looking forward to meeting him? We were having this conversation in the store. She was trying on clothes and I was sitting on the floor outside the change room door.
She was and she wasn’t, she said, but wouldn’t or couldn’t elaborate other than to say she was trying to figure out the first thing that she would tell him.
I asked her if she wanted to rehearse it with me. She said no, she wanted it to sound fresh and spontaneous. Then she told me she had always harboured a secret desire to be an actress.
But, she said, I’m sort of depressed about it because I still don’t have an agent.
I didn’t know if she was serious or pretending to be a wannabe in L.A. commiserating with her friends at some audition. I didn’t know if I should laugh or not.
Maybe Cherkis has connections in California, she said.
Maybe, I said. You never know. She burst out of the change room, all in white, all Hi ho, Silver, away! God, you scared me, I said.
What do you think? she asked. She spun around and did a few jumping jacks. She teetered around like Chaplin, twirling an imaginary cane.
You just…I don’t know…You’re beautiful, though. Definitely. Wow!
Does it totally work? she asked.
Yeah! I said. What do you call that colour? Vanilla?
Eggshell, she said.
So we left the store with Thebes wearing a little white double-breasted suit jacket and trousers, shirt, vest and tie.
You look like Hervé Villechaize, or I don’t know…Tom Wolfe, I told her.
Who’s that? she said.
Writer guy, I said.
Brother to Virginia?
No.
Have you read her diaries? she asked.
No.
Min has, she said.
That didn’t surprise me. Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Anna Karenina…Min’s girl guide to the universe of pain. Her library of loss. She was well read.
