Come back, she says. Rubs her hand on the sheet.
I take off my pants. Move under the covers. She pulls them up over our heads. Our breathing, hot in the tent. Dark.
She lifts her hand under the blanket. Opens a little space for us. My eyes adjust. See her outline coming out of the black. We are hooking up. That is what it’s called.
My grandmother made this blanket, she says, running her finger down the seam. She quilts. Can make one of these out of the scraps in the rag bin. Lived in the same farm house all her life.
Oh yeah? Where about?
In the county. Albuna. Know where that is?
The boy outside goes quiet. Never see his face. We sleep. Futon mattress on the floor. Broken clock radio blinking: 12:00, 12:00, 12:00. A night when nothing happens.
Since the beginning of time, Zinsser says. Every culture that has ever lived, everywhere in the world. Exclusively human. They cannot jump the species barrier or survive on other mammals. Pygmies and the medieval English embraced their medicinal properties. Made soup out of lice. Ate them sun-dried or roasted. The cure for jaundice, for eczema, for impotence. Young girls in Siberia collected their parasites and tossed them at potential suitors like confetti. A demonstration of fertility, proof of a warm body in a cold climate. Aztec peasants filled whole sacks, an entire village’s worth. Offered them up at the temple. What you have when you have nothing. The Chinese thought lice could predict the sex of unborn children. Something about the way it crawls down your stomach. And the Swedes. The Swedes at election time made all the mayoral candidates rest their beards on the kitchen table. Then they released one adult female and watched her climb into the chin of their leader for the next year. That is how you make a decision.
Winter. We live in Montreal. Blow-dried plastic on the windows. Three pairs of socks. The washing machine freezes solid in the back room. Our clothes encased in a block of ice. First Christmas with a baby. She is four months old and sick. Fever for two days. Don’t know what to do. Thermometer under her arm. Hold her down and wait for the beep. One hundred and two. One hundred and three. Something in her body not working right. Wrap her tight. Swaddle her the way they teach in the books. What to Expect When You’re Expecting. Not good enough. She shakes free. Sleeps in fits. Rolls hard against the crib railings. Reaches out with her arms. Opens and closes her small fists. Infant with a nightmare. Watch it pass through, but cannot make it go away. She dreams but can’t talk. The brain of a four-month-old. Try to imagine her seeing. The vague bad thing in her mind. How big? What does it look like tonight?
The drive home is ten hours in good conditions. Ten hours in the summer.
Let’s stay here, she says. Just the three of us. Christmas with ourselves. We need to start somewhere. The baby’s sick and nobody is sleeping right. They’ll understand.
You know we have to go, I say. You know that. Other people have plans. It’s been locked in for months. Christmas and the new baby. Everybody wants to see the baby.
She points at our kid.
Look at her, she says. She’s sick. Nobody wants to see a sick baby. Why can’t we stay just ourselves? This is it now. Can’t belong to two sets of people at the same time.
You know we have to go.
She shakes her head.
Tell me you know it’s going to suck. Tell me you know it’s going to suck. Tell me you understand that.
It’s going to suck. I’m sorry.
Okay then. Thank you. Settled. I just need to know that you know.
BAD PACKING. The folding playpen. Extra blankets. Cooler for breast milk. All the baby’s gear. Three suitcases. Shovel the car out of its spot. We are weighed down and riding low.
The baby throws up after only fifteen minutes. Stuck on the Decarie with no way off. Bumper to bumper. The smell. Hot milk vomit soaking through the car seat. Blowing snow. Whiteout conditions. Everyone trying to keep their tires inside the two black lines. Ten hours of driving on a good day. Need to make time in the daylight. Everything harder when it gets dark.
A brutal diarrhea in Belleville. Green splashing over the sides of a fold-down change table in the guy’s bathroom of the rest stop. Liquid shit blasts out of her diaper, runs all the way up her back to the neck. Poop in her hair. Lines of men waiting for the urinals, watching me.
Got your hands full there, buddy.
An entire outfit. White overalls and a long-sleeved shirt. Noah’s Ark. Osh Kosh b’Gosh. It all snaps open at the crotch. Probably worth fifty dollars in the store, but it can’t be saved. Even the socks. I go through my entire supply of wipes. Grit my teeth. Roll the whole mess into a ball and drive it into the garbage. Bring the baby back out in just her diaper and an undershirt. Pink boots pinched between my fingers. She is tucked inside my coat. Feel her wriggling in tight. Marsupial. Burrowing down against the cold.
WHAT HAPPENED? Where are her clothes?
Full-scale blowout. Had to ditch them. Completely saturated. No way to save that outfit.
But they’re brand new.
Believe me: they’re lost. Those are clothes she used to have.
Go back.
I threw them away. They’re in the garbage.
They’re a present. My mother gave those to us. We’ll clean them up. Go back.
No. Come on.
I’m going then.
The men’s john? They’re lined up twenty deep in there.
If you won’t go, I’m going to go.
PULL BACK on the stainless steel chute. Dig through the paper towels. Find the ball. Water running through the tiny denim legs. Green circling down the drain. Stuff the filth into a shopping bag. New layer of stench for the car.
We squirt cherry-flavoured Tylenol into her mouth with an eyedropper. Fresh pyjamas, fresh blankets. The heater kicks in. Engine hits its regular vibration. The baby falls into a deep, drug-induced car sleep.
Partial list of substances people have put on their heads to kill lice: rendered dog fat, glasses of human spit, mercury, arsenic, cedar oil, garlic paste and oregano, Ching-Hao, pyrethrum, ground poppies, borax, Vaseline, honey, frankincense, vinegar, bull semen, salt and pepper, mustard, mayonnaise, wormwood, cat urine, beet juice, tobacco, lard, kerosene, gasoline, turpentine, eucalyptus, snake venom.
Our son in the back seat. He has a booster, sits in the middle, between the girls. We wait in line at the drive-thru.
I ask the speaker: What does a Happy Meal come with?
Pay at the first window. At the second, a lady hands us bags of food, a tray of drinks.
He holds up his hands and says, I am free, right? I am free and I live in Dark Myth.
Not paying attention.
Yes, I say. That’s right. You’re free. That’s nice.
But his big sister shakes her head.
Not free, she says. Look at him, you big duh head.
I turn around. He is trying to make his thumb touch his pinky finger.
Not free, she says. He means three.
He is three. He is three and he lives in Dartmouth.
Oh, I say. Okay. I get that. Yes. Three and Dartmouth. That, too.
Line from Zinsser: “The louse – like man – has, for one reason or another, failed to develop the highly complex civilization of the bee or the ant.”
Seething quiet in the front seat almost all the way to Toronto. Her head against the window. Half her reflection looking back. I punch the seek button. Look for reliable radio signals to carry us through. Approach the city. Buildings rise and lanes crowd. Condos overlooking the 401. Backlit windows. A single guy watching a hockey game on a big screen TV. Bag of chips in his lap. Bottle of beer. Feet up on the coffee table. He sits in the sky as we pass.
Everybody on their way. Express and collector. Keep your distance. A two-car-length minimum. Exit for the 404, Exit for the 407. Don’t get trapped by the QEW. Don’t go to Hamilton. My right blinker. My right blinker again. The polite wave. Adjust to the pace. Small openings where someone will let you in. Tight margins. Sweat on th
e steering wheel.
Her hand comes gentle on my shoulder. Fingers pressing the back of my neck.
You’re doing great, she says. A single, real smile. Once we get through this section, we’ll be fine.
I touch her leg. Rub my hand against her jeans. Friction and warmth. The thin bone of her kneecap. Tendons holding it in place. We are moving over asphalt. 130 kilometers per hour. A used Toyota Tercel. More than 250,000 clicks on the odometer. Thin doors. Rust. All-season tires. No air bags. Baby-On-Board sign suction-cupped to the back window.
Guelph and Cambridge. Woodstock and London. Dark snow on the windshield. We run out of washer fluid and have to refill. A bottle of bright blue-40 glugging into the reservoir. Skull and crossbones. Symbols for explosion and corrosion. A phone number for poison control.
Then the long, long hypnotizing flat. Sleepy last sections. Chatham and Tilbury. Gas stations that were shut down five years ago. See the Bridge rising, the Renaissance Center like a mirage though we are still half an hour away.
We pull in three hours late. Tired, but home. The house is lit up. Christmas tree. Everyone waiting. My adult brothers and sisters, my parents. We move around each other in the living room. What we were and what we are.
The baby makes the rounds. First grandchild. New generation. Sleeps through her introduction.
Isn’t she big?
And all the hair she’s got.
The little fingernails. Look at the little fingernails.
Couldn’t I just eat her up?
My mother puts her hand on the baby’s cheek.
She feels very hot to me. Do you think she feels hot?
Yeah. She’s been sick. Pretty bad. A high fever for two or three days.
That’s not good, she says to me. You need to be very, very careful with them when they’re this small. Anything could have happened out there on the road.
My wife’s breathing. Out hard through her nose. She slumps in a chair. Closes her eyes.
Lice killed thirty million people after World War I. Typhus. Jails and slums and soldiers’ barracks. Fever and stiffening joints. The rash, raw coughing, fast fall into delirium. The word typhus comes from the Greek for fog. A mist settling in your brain. Poor people first, then anybody forced to live too close to anybody else. Impossible to contain. How does it spread? A mystery at first. Some see a curse or a plague. Punishment for something done wrong. Absolutely inescapable once it entered your house. The chain of events. Your sister’s dementia leading to your father’s fade. No small significances lost. The first moment you feel a little warmer than you did before. The first time you cough.
On TV. The same thing for weeks. So, so boring. A map of the world and a map of the country. Hot spots. Outbreaks. The global pandemic. Be afraid. A brand new bug. Unexpected mutation. Completely unforeseen. Only the elderly, people who lived through the Spanish Flu of 1917, will be able to fight it off. Antibodies they do not even know they have. The peak of the second wave. The approach of the third. Surgical masks and latex gloves. Vials of vaccine. Bad orders, expired shipments. The government, people say, the government. Ridiculous panic in the eyes of people who always, always panic. Protesters. Who will be saved? In what order? Teachers and firemen and front line workers. Who should get it first? Letters to the editor. A woman interviewed. She is hysterical. But I work with people, she says. I work with people. Adjuvanted and unAdjuvanted. Pregnant women and kids under five. People with underlying medical conditions. The twelve-year-old hockey player, the forty-two-year-old mountain climber. There was nothing wrong with them.
Our son says I don’t want to get shot. Don’t take me to the place where I get shot.
No, honey. Nobody is going to shoot you. Just a needle, a little pinch so you won’t get sick. They have stickers and orange juice. You get a sticker when it’s over.
A needle?
Yes, just a little pinch and that’s it.
I don’t want to get needled. Don’t take me to the place where I get needled.
INOCULATION.
If you get up early and wait in the line, I’ll bring the kids around at eight. That way they won’t have to stand out in the cold for hours.
You know this is nothing, right? Mass hysteria. TV makes them do it. In two weeks, just you watch, no one will care anymore. They’ll move on to the next thing. You know that, right?
Yes. All crazy. Yes. All crazy until one of them gets sick because we didn’t get them a dose of free vaccine from a free clinic. Then what is it?
Okay.
So you line up and I’ll bring them over at eight.
Good.
STAND IN THE DARK with the others. Young fathers with cellphones and the same idea. Teenage girls and their strollers. Minus ten and four hours to go. Limited options. A dozen Dora the Explorers sleeping on the sidewalk. Thermoses and donuts. Reliable grandparents picking up the slack, covering the bases. Lawn chairs and blankets. Half-conscious snow-suited toddlers. We are close enough. Front of the line. The door is there and it will open at eight.
A kid completely coated in the white goop from a cinnamon roll.
My thoughts. That stuff is going to jam your zipper, my friend. No way around it. His mom is pregnant. She looks at my jacket and my boots. Takes a deep, slow drag on her cigarette.
Your wife is going to come with the kids just before they open the doors, isn’t she?
Yeah, that’s what we’re thinking.
Thought so.
She sucks back the last heat from her cigarette. Flings the filter against the wall. Nods over to her son.
You watch him and hold my spot and I’ll bring you back a coffee.
No problem.
When she returns, we drink it down quietly. Feel the warm moving through. Talk about the price of diapers. Secondhand snowsuits. Value Village. They grow so fast. Three pairs of boots last winter, I swear to God. Stupid to get anything new.
My kids pull up at ten to eight. Clean faces and warm hats. Their snow pants have their names written on the tags.
A guy from the back comes forward.
No cutting, he says. Eyes empty and tired. He wants to enforce the lining up law.
I tell him I’ve been holding this spot since four in the morning. The cinnamon roll mom nods her head.
My wife looks in the other direction. Raises an eyebrow at me. Shrugs. The kids are quiet. This has nothing to do with them.
But the cinnamon roll lady won’t back down. Gets up in his face.
Right fucking here since right fucking four, she says. He held the places and I got the coffees. We’ve been here since the beginning.
I tell the guy to relax. This clinic is only for pregnant women and kids under five. The priority groups. Nobody else is getting anything. I’ve been holding this spot since four.
Tough, he says. Doesn’t matter. Back of the line. No cutting.
I am too cold for this. Sick of him already.
You don’t run this show, I say. This is our spot. I have been here since four and we’re not going anywhere.
He steps in close to me. Tight. Smell the stale Tim Horton’s on his breath. He whispers it in my ear.
Listen you little faggot, I got my own kid back there. She’s freezing and now your guys are cutting in.
I know what it looks like, but it’s not how it is.
It is how it is. No cutting.
The doors open and a nurse comes out, spots us instantly and understands. Must happen every morning. Ten times a day.
The guy tells her I’m trying to move my kids to the front.
I have been here since four.
She touches my arm and touches his arm at the same time. The voice is flat. No eye contact. Bureaucracy flows through her fluorescent bib. A performance of order no one can argue with.
There will be plenty for everyone, she says.
Lines that must come from a handbook.
Everyone will please return to their original spots. There will be plenty of vaccine. The staff of this c
linic understand this is a stressful period for all families. We thank you in advance for your patience.
Henry IV’s coronation in 1399. Most famous moment in the history of lice. The Archbishop, holding the crown in his hands, ready to set it on Henry’s head. The granting of supreme power. Sees them, hundreds of lice, moving in the King’s hair. Scared now to even touch him. Drops the crown and recoils. It nearly hits the floor. He backs away. Disgusted. Blessings extended from a distance. Lice in the palace, Henry spreads it through the entire court. Centuries of evasive tactics, but they cannot get away. Powdered wigs. Shaved heads underneath. Revolutions in hygiene. Zinsser tracks them all.
Dates and times printed out on small white cards. Where we need to be and when. Appointments and consultations. The doctors count our cells. Blood tests and urine tests. Semen samples. Vaginal discharge. What they tell us. There will never be kids. Impossible under these conditions. Levels bad on both sides. Figures that do not add up. Incompatible. A test we fail every month. Wait for it not to come, but the period arrives on time. Both know the expected day. She comes out of the bathroom. Closes the door. Shakes her head.
Twenty-six months of trying. More than two years. Like a wet fog, soaking through everything else. Folic acid supplements. Prenatal vitamins. No caffeine. The best odds diet. Cut down on the booze. Save yourself for when you are needed. A hidden calendar charts internal temperatures. Days with red X’s and green X’s. Ovulating. This is the window. Good cervical mucus is stretchy. Look at it, she says. A translucent elastic she pulls out of her body.
We go all the different ways. On the top and on the bottom. Pillow under the small of her back. Hands and knees. Standing up. Sitting down. Calculate angle and thrust. Deep and deep and deep. Hydraulics of life. Pressure and lubrication. Sweat dripping off the tip of my nose. Tears in her eyes. Salt water.
Desired outcomes. What we want is when we want it. No way to connect where we are and where we were. This is the opposite of everything we have ever done before. Sugar pills, place savers, in the circle dispenser. Click, click, click. Be sure to pull out. Blow your load. Days sprawling. Three years to finish the thesis. No rush. Smeared towels. Breakfast at three in the afternoon. Our first real bed, the mattress raised up off the ground. First place. Tall ceilings. Candles melting in the necks of wine bottles. Sticky cast off T-shirts. Summer humidity. Sun dresses and tank tops. Thin tan lines rolling over her shoulder. Freckles. Crusty Kleenex. A rubber swirling down the bowl. Ribbed for her pleasure. Random Wednesday afternoon. Lazy like you do not know.
Light Lifting Page 5
