“Well, handsome,” Amiya says while jotting some notes on the sheet on her clipboard, “you’re becoming strong. You have worked very hard. Soon we will have to free you into the world again.”
I nod (I can do that now), and say, “Thanks, Amiya. I love you.” It comes out sounding something like “Tanks, A-mah-ah. I wov oo.”
When I started learning to speak again, Amiya joked that I had to practice telling her that I loved her. It’s nothing inappropriate — Amiya is older than my mother, and has seven children of her own. She’s like the big, cuddly aunt I never had.
“Do you feel strong enough to do another set?” she asks.
Although every muscle in my body aches and trembles, I nod yes.
Amiya wraps the ends of the blue elastics around my wrists, and says, “What’s our mantra, Philip?”
Other than the P sounding slightly like an F, my reconstructed mouth can say this phrase better than any other: “No pain, no gain.”
After Amiya comes Dr. Rasfalian-Mapletree, the Speech Therapist. She jokes that once I can say her last name ten times quickly, her work will be done. She lets me call her Rachel for now. It still comes out sounding more like “Way-chell,” but I am getting better with my Rs.
We begin by exercising my speaking muscles.
“Smile, kiss, smile, kiss, smile, kiss,” she says, and I do it over and over again, until the muscles around my mouth ache. Now I know how campaigning politicians and new brides must feel.
Dr. Rasfalian-Mapletree crosses one shapely, nylon-sheathed leg over the other, smoothes the skirt of her trim-fitting professional’s suit, then pushes her fashionable glasses back up her nose with her slender fingers. She does this every minute or so, since her nose isn’t much more than a pointed bump on her face, like a Disney cartoon girl.
“The rain in Spain flows mainly on the plain,” she says, like she’s speaking along to a ticking metronome.
I repeat: “Da wain ids Pain fwows mainny aw da pwain.”
“Good!” she says. “Better every day. You’ve been doing your exercises, haven’t you?”
I nod.
“Say it!”
“Yess. I ‘ave.”
“Good. Good. This week I want you to concentrate particularly on the tongue and lip exercises for the letters L and H,” she says, somehow making perfect enunciation completely sexy, “and I want you to put some extra effort into practicing the compounds ST and CR, and the blends CH, TH, and SH.”
Of course I will put in the extra effort. Everything since the accident has taken extra effort. It has been a full-time job just retraining myself to do all of the things most six-year-olds take for granted, like chewing, swallowing, using a pencil, holding cups and utensils without dropping them on the floor.
“Now, one more time,” Dr. Rasfalian-Mapletree says, “The rain in Spain flows mainly on the plain.”
I love her as much as I love Amiya, although for rather different reasons. At the end of our session, she says, “I’ve got another book for you,” and she hands me The Metamorphosis and Other Stories, by the Czech writer Franz Kafka.
“Szank-you” I say. Talking with my new face feels like running a marathon in somebody else’s unlaced work boots.
“You’re welcome,” she says, then adds, “You could exercise by mouthing the words as you read.”
I watch her legs as she leaves the room, then I raise the back of my hospital bed and read Kafka for a while; Dr. Rasfalian-Mapletree is the sort of woman who could hand me any book, and I would read it. She has been the star of several vivid, pleasant dreams. Smile, kiss, smile, kiss.
Kafka’s stark style matches the grey sky outside the window. “May I kiss you then?” he writes. “On this miserable paper? I might as well open the window and kiss the night air.” When my face is numb from mouthing Kafka’s translated words, I put the book aside and watch the snowflakes float past the frosted window pane, lit like falling campfire sparks by the orange streetlights in the hospital parking lot.
Bob the PCA wakes me when he arrives with my dinner on a tray. Bob used to spoon-feed me like a baby bird, but now I can do it myself. I hardly ever drop the spoon anymore.
There is a chocolate cupcake on my tray, with white frosting, and a single candle plunged into the centre. Today must be December twenty-first. The Winter Solstice. The official first day of winter. My nineteenth birthday. How did he know? I didn’t realize it myself. I’ve lost track of time.
“Your mother sends her love and regrets,” Bob says. “She was on her way here, but had to turn back because of the snow.”
“Izz okay,” I say, “shoon ah weel go vishit her myshelf.”
There is something new on the bedside table, placed between Michael’s pocket watch, my jackknife, and the photo of Adeline: the 1983 silver dollar that the old mayor gave Dennis when he turned thirteen. He must have left it while I was sleeping.
After I’ve finished eating my cupcake, I lie back on my hospital bed and hook my hands and feet under the rails, flexing my muscles against the cold metal.
Every day, my muscles get a little bit stronger.
Pull, pull, pull, rest.
Every day, my face hurts a bit less and heals a little bit more.
Smile, kiss, smile, kiss.
Every day, my new voice becomes clearer, more confident.
The rain in Spain flows mainly on the plain.
As the snowflakes flutter past the window beside my bed, I flex my muscles until they sting, and then I flex them some more.
Very soon I will be able to walk, talk, eat, drink, and do everything else that other normal human beings do, and then they will set me free among them. Very soon I will leave this place with the important things in my pockets: Dennis’ dollar, Michael’s watch, Adeline’s photograph and the old mayor’s jackknife. Very soon I will walk back out into the world.
Spring, 2008
Pretty Boy
I was allowed out of my hospital room a few months ago to move in with Dennis, but I’ve been obliged to return every other day for my physio exercises, speech therapy, and minor adjustments to my facial reconstructions. Now I stand at the hospital’s front desk, with a pen held tightly in my rehabilitated right hand. I sign my name in bold, rolling script: Philip Skyler. My signature looks different than it did before.
This place has been the centre of my life for two years. Two birthdays. Two Christmases. Two New Year’s. Eight seasons. Twenty-four months. It feels like it’s been a lot longer than that.
Just one more signature, and I am a free man.
I turn to face the people who helped me through it all, my surrogate hospital family. They look at me like they are expecting a valedictory address. Maybe this is what my high school graduation ceremony would have felt like.
“You’re a real success story, kid,” Dr. Chin says, gripping my hand. “Take care of that face. It’s my greatest work, my Mona Lisa, my Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.”
Right after my accident, Dr. Chin requested photos of what I looked like before. He took one look at my Van der Woude Syndrome face, and said, “No, no, no. I can’t rebuild your face like that.”
“Can’t,” I asked him, “or won’t?”
“Can’t and won’t,” he said. “I’m not sure I can actually reconstruct the bridge of your nose or your jaw like that, and I won’t try it, anyway. My reputation as a plastic surgeon would be ruined. So, I’ll run some computer simulations, based on your own cranial structure, and the facial features of your parents and siblings, to see what your face should have looked like.”
For a long time I resisted. I had told Adeline that I would never get my face changed. But since Dr. Chin steadfastly refused to make me Monkeyface again, eventually I gave in, and I handed Dr. Chin the photo of the male’s face from the sculpture of The Lovers in Mount Pleasant Cemetery. Adeline had once said, “The beautiful man is what your soul looks like to me.”
So, I’m leaving the hospital with my original big brown eyes and me
ss of dark hair, but the rest of my face is new and different, like I’ve traded in an old jalopy for a new Ferrari. I now look a bit like each of my brothers, a bit like my mother, a bit like the old mayor, and a bit like a sculpture of a guy who reminded Adeline of a 1940s Hollywood Movie Star. It’s not a bad blend.
Dr. Chin finally releases my hand from his confident grip. “I should put your face on my calling card,” he says.
Bob the PCA also shakes my hand and says, “The world’s your oyster, kid.” Then he says, “Aw, what the hell,” and he hugs me, his palms slapping against my back like wings flapping.
Amiya embraces me like I’m a soldier son about to head off to a faraway war. She says nothing, just sniffles a few times. I tell her, “I’ll miss you, too, Amiya.”
Dr. Rasfalian-Mapletree slides her arms around me. It’s the first time I’ve been this close to her. Her hair smells like mint leaves and rose petals; my new nose lets so much more through than the previous cartilage-free version did. “Thanks, Rachel,” I say. “For everything.”
“That voice of yours is going to melt their hearts,” she says.
“This voice of yours,” I say back to her.
“Philip,” she says, “you can go anywhere from here. And you should.”
I thank each of them once more for all they’ve done, and then I walk out onto University Avenue. The leg muscles that Amiya helped rebuild flex beneath me, and there is a tight feeling in the stomach that Bob the PCA once fed. I hold Dr. Chin’s chin up high. I will carry them with me always. I smile at the world, saying “Good afternoon” to people I pass on the sidewalk, feeling Dr. Rasfalian-Mapletree’s speech therapy on my lips and tongue.
On King Street I stop at the Beer Bistro for Steak Frites and a few fine beverages. When I haven’t been at the hospital, I’ve spent much of the past few months here; Dennis still uses his apartment to film new “sequences” for his website, and I haven’t been eager to witness that again. I savour the hoppy bitterness of a Czech Pilsner, then the roasty malt body of an English ale. By twilight, I’m into the sweet, complex flavour of a Belgian Trappist Ale, more grateful than ever that my sense of taste has survived intact.
I wander back to the apartment, swaying slightly, taking a long, ambling route, looking up at the older buildings of stone and brick, up farther at the sharp-edged towers of silvery glass, then straight up at the cottony clouds that reflect the nighttime light of the city. Cutting through a little park just to smell the new spring grass and the freshly turned earth, I roll up my shirt sleeves, let the cool evening air prickle my skin.
I will never take another sensation for granted.
In the morning, after breakfast with Dennis, I meet up with Landon and Arty at this great subterranean pub called C’est What, just up the street from Arty’s gallery. Arty tells me that I’m “a gorgeous boy.”
After a couple pints of excellent micro-brewed beer, I cross the street and meet Adeline at The Hot House Café for lunch. By the time we leave to retrace the walk we took together two years ago, I’m in a similarly intoxicated state.
On University Avenue, we pass Gumby Goes to Heaven. This time when we turn up Queen Street, Adeline allows me to lead her into the Eaton Centre, where she helps me pick out some new clothes.
“You need a new look to go with your new face,” she says.
I leave looking something like a well-traveled young professor: grey sports jacket, conservatively striped oxford shirt, city-guy jeans. Two similar outfits are in the bag.
“You look so good,” Adeline raves, as she watches our reflections in mirrored glass. “We look so good. We look like somebodies. Who in Faireville would ever believe it?”
“I guess I’ll find out soon,” I say.
“You don’t have to go back there, you know.”
“Yes, I do. I need to see my family. I need to see Michael.”
“Well, you don’t have to stay there. You can go anywhere from here,” Adeline says, echoing Dr. Rasfalian-Mapletree’s words. “Faireville is the last place I’d go to begin my life again.”
“You’re never going back?”
“Never.”
“Not even to visit?”
“Not for anything. Faireville is behind me. The world is ahead of me.”
Time is running short, so we hail a cab on Yonge Street and jump out at Mount Pleasant Cemetery to revisit the tomb of Captain Fluke, Adeline’s angel with the star in her hair, and the sculpture of The Lovers. There are still no dates of death engraved on the base of the monument.
“Thanks for giving me some of your face,” I whisper to the male figure.
“Huh?” Adeline says. “What did you say?”
“Nothing,” I tell her. “Just talking to myself.”
We emerge from the cemetery to enjoy an early dinner at Riz, the Asian restaurant where we dined together two years ago. The brushed aluminum and baby-blue façade has been replaced with subtle white marble, and the interior is all-white, too. I order the same things as I did before; each mouthful tastes twice as good as the first time. I marvel again at how much a fully functioning sense of smell adds to the experience of dining.
“You won’t be eating anything like this in Faireville,” Adeline says. “You won’t be doing anything, either. Try not to die of malnutrition or boredom.”
“I’ll try.”
My train will be leaving soon, so we hail another cab, and as we rush along the Bayview Extension and along the streets of the downtown core, I say goodbye to all of the things that Adeline loves, and a few of the things that I have grown to love on my own: The Bloor Street Viaduct. The Luminous Veil. The TTC. Yonge Street. Union Station. The CN Tower. Mount Pleasant. The Flatiron Building. The Hot House. Riz. The Beer Bistro. Gumby Goes to Heaven. C’est What. Dr. Chin. Amiya. Bob the PCA. Dr. Rachel Rasfalian-Mapletree.
We stand in the Great Hall of Union Station for a moment. It’s as busy as the first time I came to Toronto, if not more so; it’s early evening, and the workaholic Bay Streeters are commuting home.
“Can you believe it?” Adeline says.
“I know. I love the architecture of this place.”
“No, I’m talking about her,” Adeline says, pointing to a woman scurrying across the floor with an armful of file folders, tugging a Pullman suitcase with her free hand. “I mean, brown shoes with a black dress? Please.”
I look back up at the tiled, vaulted ceiling, then at the names of places that run around the middle of the wall: FREDERICTON · QUEBEC · MONTREAL · HAMILTON · WINDSOR · SAULT ST. MARIE · SUDBURY · FORT-WILLIAM · REGINA · MOOSE JAW · CALGARY . . .
“Notice that Faireville isn’t up there?” Adeline says.
“I’ll come back soon,” I reassure her.
She studies the marble tile floor beneath her fashionable high-heeled shoes. Her legs are lean and muscular, their contours highlighted by the sheen of her nylons and the skirt that hovers several inches above her knees. While I was in the hospital, Adeline put in a lot of time on the treadmill and the Stairmaster.
“I guess there’s really no right time to tell you this,” she says.
“What?”
“I tried to bring it up earlier, but I just couldn’t do it.”
“What?”
“In a couple of weeks I won’t be here. I’m taking a year off from school to travel. My father is sending me on a European tour. He says that travel is the best education. And, frankly, I’m getting a bit bored with Toronto.”
I don’t know what to say.
“Hey,” she says, brightening. “Why don’t you come with me? What better way to start you new life? Two beautiful people exploring all the beautiful places in the world!”
“I can’t,” is all I can say.
“Why not? The world is big! Life is big! Come share it with me!”
“I need to see my family. I need to see Michael.”
“So,” Adeline says, “go see them for a couple of weeks. Then meet me back here, and we’ll fly away tog
ether. Say you’ll at least think about it.”
“I’ll think about it.”
She kisses me on both cheeks, like fashionable city girls do, and scampers out of Union Station and into the great big world.
I buy my ticket for the last train heading south. As soon as I’ve settled into my window seat, the train lurches forward, and my world begins to shrink.
Everyone gets off at Gasberg or before, and I’m the only person on the car for the rest of the trip. The sun set a few stops ago, and I am lulled by the darkness and the clunk-clunk-clunk of the rails beneath the train. Street lamps and the headlights and tail lights of cars cut through the darkness outside the window. The train slows as it passes the little bow-roofed shacks where most of my 8-C classmates used to live.
Welcome to
FAIREVILLE
Population 2061
“The Cradle That Rocked the Natural Gas Industry”
Faireville on a Thursday night may not be the destination of choice for savvy railroad tourists, but it’s nice to know that my hometown is still rockin’ the natural gas industry.
Population 2061. A lot more people have left Faireville than have settled here in the past two years. This makes me think of Adeline in the city. I miss her already.
I turn my head to read the back of the sign:
Come on back to
FAIREVILLE
“Where you’re only a stranger once!”
Beyond the reflection of the face I still barely recognize as my own, the town sign shrinks into the darkness. I had promised myself that once I escaped Faireville, I would never “come on back.” Yet here I am again.
The train screeches to a stop beside the little wooden shack next to a farmer’s field. Faireville Station. I am the only passenger to disembark.
A dilapidated, hubcap-free Chevrolet sedan sits alone in the small parking lot beside the tracks, its headlights on, engine sputtering. The top-light strapped to the roof tells me that the car is serving the last few hundred kilometres of its life as a TAXI. The driver’s tattooed arm reaches out through the open window, his finger flicks the butt of a cigarette onto the parking lot gravel, and then he sticks his head out and hollers to me, “Where to, buddy?”
The Monkeyface Chronicles Page 23
