Alice, I Think

by Susan Juby

  Finn came over to our house for coffee and said in this defeated way that he didn’t think it was going to work out with Reginald. I could have told him that. As my dad said at the time, it usually doesn’t last with the terminally ill. After his confession Finn heaved a big sigh. Then another one.

  “I don’t know, you know? What am I going to do?”

  Dad tried to get Finn to talk about what was wrong.

  “Oh my God. I can’t say it. I just can’t. It’s too bad. Oh, all right. I hate him.”

  He clapped his hand over his mouth for a moment as if to stifle his revelations.

  “It’s just that, you know, he’s not well and everything. What kind of a monster am I?”

  Dad reassured Finn that he was just expressing his feelings and told him it would do him good to get it off his chest. Of course, Dad loved it. He loves gossip, and the sicker the stories, the better he likes them.

  So Finn got into it. He said that Reginald was a Pollyanna. I guess that Reginald, being sick and all, was a health nut. Personally, I don’t think he could have been all that healthy, psychologically at least, if dating Finn in the last days of his life seemed like a good option.

  Apparently Reginald did a lot of talking about positive energy and eating right, the sort of stuff that bores Finn to death. When the two of them went out hiking, Reginald wanted to walk the whole way, as opposed to stopping after five minutes to sit and have cocktails out of a thermos until the rest of the party came back, which is how Finn likes to hike.

  The dying Reginald, with all his positive thoughts and healthy actions, was pretty much killing Finn. Reginald hardly drank at all, except for a civilized glass of wine with dinner, and during his visit he made sure that they ate vegetables with their meals and fruit for breakfast. After a couple of weeks Finn was really starting to hate him.

  Not long after he confessed his dislike of his houseguest to my dad, Finn brought Reginald over to visit. Normally Finn is pretty energetic, or at least he keeps up his end of the conversation with nasty comments and snide remarks between drinks. But around Reginald he was mute and lumpish.

  Reginald was a stereotypical gay man. There’s no way around it, even though I’m opposed to the whole stereotyping thing. He was tall, clean-cut, handsome, well-spoken, and charming. He looked incredibly healthy. Not Finn, though. He was pale and shaking. I think all the clean living was putting him into some kind of physical crisis. Every time Reginald made some remark, usually something nice or interesting or whatever, Finn tried to rally and say something negative, but it was no use. Reginald stayed positive and happy. Finally, Finn just rolled his eyes like a sick cow whenever Reginald spoke.

  They decided to go golfing after their visit and Finn hired me to caddy, even though I don’t know anything about golf. I think he was afraid to be alone with Reginald. When we got to the course, Reginald refused to take a cart. Finn asked him how he expected a fifty-pound child to carry both their bags. After two holes Finn pretended that he’d forgotten something in the clubhouse and said he had to go get it. He never came back. So I had to carry his golf bag around the whole course as I followed after Reginald. It’s a good thing Reginald is almost a champion golfer. If we’d gone at the rate we were when Finn was playing, it would have taken all day to get around. Anyway, by the end of the game, even though Reginald was so nice and talented and dying and everything, I knew what Finn was talking about. Reginald was a Pollyanna. I admire Finn’s advanced hiding and shirking techniques, actually. After Reginald’s visit, I vowed to use them in my own romantic life, if I ever get one. Not long after the golf game Finn told Reginald that it was over, and Reginald went back to Prince George.

  Finn’s not even the most pathetic of my father’s poker buddies. Marcus is also here for poker night. My mother doesn’t like him because he goes out with younger women. Much younger women. He’s around forty and is usually dating some girl who is around twenty. I’m not sure how he gets the girls to go out with him—he’s not good-looking, or rich, or talented or anything like that. But he is the owner of the only taxicab in town, which is something, I guess.

  Maybe the girls who go out with Marcus are just in it for the ride. Whenever he comes over for poker night, he gets calls from the girlfriend of the moment, demanding that he come and pick her up from the cabaret or gravel-pit party or wherever. They always end up having these shrill conversations where you can hear her voice squawking out of the receiver and him whining back at her. Then Marcus has to make up an excuse to the rest of the geniuses and go pick up his much younger girlfriend.

  I personally think Mom has it backward about just who is being exploited in Marcus’s relationships. The girls he goes out with cost him a fortune in lost business. It’s almost impossible to get a cab because Marcus is always out chauffeuring his latest hot little number around while she shops. If you ask me, transit in this town would be greatly improved if Marcus got older taste in women, especially since Smithers doesn’t have a bus or anything.

  Kelly is the fourth player tonight. He’s very quiet and cries a lot, especially when he drinks. Dad says he’s sensitive. Apparently Kelly’s so sensitive, he has held only one job in his adult life. He helped out at the video store for a while but got so undone by the dramas he played in the store that it was disturbing to the customers. They were just coming in for the new releases, or the latest World Wrestling Federation match or whatever, and ended up having to stay and comfort Kelly through the last half of Terms of Endearment or Ordinary People. Needless to say, the video store job didn’t work out. Kelly doesn’t ever have a girlfriend of his own, but he admires Marcus and seems to live vicariously through him, which is sort of terrifying and sad when you think about it.

  So that’s my Dad’s Mensa group. Because they hardly make any money, they don’t have a lot to bet with. Sometimes someone new, someone with an income, joins them. If the new guy has the poor judgment to raise the stakes so they have to match him, the geniuses go into this injured-silence routine, leaving the new guy with no idea what he did wrong. They hardly ever ask anyone new.

  Anyway, they’re all in the kitchen giggling like girls and making a lot of noise, and I can’t concentrate on my book or the incredibly grim stylings of Bauhaus. I don’t really have anything else to concentrate on. I’m underwhelmed by the bustle of life. Talk about paralysis from information overload, only I guess in my case it’s backward—paralysis from lack of stimulation and living in this dumb town. My apathy is all I have left, really. I read in Spin magazine recently that negativity and irony and cynicism are out. I’m here to say that that particular trend has not made it to my house yet. Maybe I’ll go watch the geniuses nickel-and-dime each other to death.

  September 7

  No. 3. Learn to drive a car. Check! Almost dance. Check!

  Last night was awesome! The Mensa players all got drunk, and I drove them and MacGregor to the Annual Princess Diana Memorial Service at Driftwood Hall. I now know how to drive a car! I have been to a large Smithers party. I could almost be considered worldly at this point.

  Driftwood Hall is about twenty miles outside of town. It’s the sort of place where the Rotary and hockey clubs hold dances and people drink till they drop. It’s very Smithers.

  I can’t believe my dad let me drive. I don’t think he can believe he did either. He didn’t even know driving was one of my major Life Goals! Sometimes you just can’t stop progress. Mom was out at some hippie thing, so she wasn’t there to get in the way. Finn convinced everyone that since Diana’s death was one of the most important cultural events in our lifetime, it was our duty to remember it by going to the service. Besides, they had already dropped the whole fifty cents they brought to the poker game and were bored.

  I’m not sure how Finn convinced Dad to let me drive everyone to Driftwood in Marcus’s cab. Of course, MacGregor and I were the only sober ones, and I am taller than MacGregor.

  Even though Finn was all for me driving, he pulled out a lot of used hockey
gear—helmets and shoulder pads and everything—and made everyone put it on before getting in the car. I thought that showed a real lack of faith. Plus I had trouble seeing, because my helmet was too big and kept slipping over my eyes. So with four hulking, padded, and helmeted drunken men and one boy wearing what looked like a full-length dress styled like a hockey jersey, I lurched off for my first drive in the ancient Lincoln Continental. It was pretty stressful, what with Finn giving me orders, Dad being fatherly and supportive, Kelly weeping, and Marcus insisting that I leave the “available” light on in case we found a fare. Marcus kept reminding me to say “Ten-four, old buddy” into his CB radio, which wasn’t even attached to a dispatch or anything. Only someone as committed to life experience as me could learn to drive under such conditions. I have to admit that although I could have handled it on my own, I was grateful to have MacGregor along for the ride. He was the only one paying enough attention to tell me how things worked. I had to concentrate so hard that I barely even thought about the fact that my first drive was to a place where we would be honoring the memory of someone who died in a horrible car crash. Finn brought it up a few times, but everyone ignored him.

  I had the brakes and the lights figured out by the end of the driveway with only minor assistance from MacGregor. By Main Street I had the heat on high and the hazard lights working. By the highway I had discovered low gear, the windshield wipers, and the button that made the left rear window go down. We were off.

  “Great, honey,” said my father. To the geniuses, “You see? I told you she was bright.” And back to me, “I’m very proud of you. And you’ll be sure and not mention this to your mother?”

  “Just pick up that receiver and say ‘Ten-four, good buddy’ … or is it old buddy? Hell, I can never remember. Never mind. Are you sure the light is lit? … Anyway, she put two hundred Ks on this car in the last two weeks. And not a penny in fares. Why does a twenty-year-old girl have to drive everywhere she goes? You’d think she would want to walk once in a while. You know, to keep her figure and all….”

  Finn complained, “Good God, it’s hot in here! Was that the turnoff? Kelly, stop blubbering and fasten your seat belt. We’re going like a bat out of hell. Turn! Turn! God, this must have been exactly how Di and Dodi felt in their last moments….”

  I got it up to 50 kilometers an hour on one straight stretch and probably could have gone faster, but MacGregor said that was probably about the right speed. Dad was very proud until he fell asleep.

  There were about six or seven cars in the parking lot when we finally got to the hall. In full protective hockey gear we struggled out of the car, sweating profusely. There were a few cheap bouquets of wilted carnations sitting at the entrance. Driftwood Hall is a squat building with double doors on all four sides, probably designed for line dancers who have to be sick at a moment’s notice. The crummy little bouquets looked small and sad sitting there in squalid heaps. They sent Kelly into a fit of grief. He was so out of control that Marcus and Finn had to hold him up and escort him in.

  We couldn’t wake up Dad, so we left him in the car. He’s not as serious a drinker as the rest of the geniuses because he has a habit of passing out early. It’s a blessing, really. MacGregor and I followed Finn and the others at what I hoped was enough distance that no one would think we were with them. I have enough problems without being associated with the geniuses in a social sense.

  A VCR and big-screen TV were hooked up at the far end of the hall. A few tight knots of people huddled at some folding tables set up in front of the screen. The video had started, and the funeral procession was moving through the weeping crowd. The commentator was making dead-on observations like “The emotions are obviously running high here today,” and “That woman in the crowd there seems to be crying quite a bit.” Apparently there would be no service at the Memorial Service, just a TV rerun of Diana’s funeral.

  Everyone was really paying attention to the screen and being very serious. A cheap pink candle burned on every table. The room itself looked about the same as when we went to my mother’s friend’s wedding last year, only this time there was no goat with flowers on its head wandering around. A bar at the back of the hall was staffed by a guy wearing a Royal Order of Elks fez. Every so often one of the mourners made a quick run to the bar.

  Once Finn and Marcus had helped the hysterical Kelly into a seat close to the TV, they made their way to the bar, historic cultural moment taking a backseat to their need for refreshment. They attracted some hostile stares from the angry-looking types sitting at a table quite close to the TV, who looked like they were probably religious. They weren’t drinking and wore a lot of pastel colors. I heard them muttering when we came in, and they turned around and glared every time someone got up to go to the bar.

  I sat with MacGregor and Kelly, who was sniffling and wiping his nose on the sleeve of his hockey jersey. Our table was covered with a pile of helmets and assorted protective gear. I could see Finn leaning against the plywood opening of the bar, a jockstrap over his jeans and a neck brace cinched under his chin. Marcus wandered distractedly around in stained shoulder and shin pads looking for a phone to call his girlfriend.

  So far the funeral rerun was mostly just the hearse driving through the crowd, but the announcer said they were getting close to Westminster Abbey or wherever it was they were burying the princess. Finally the hearse got to the church. Just then people started to pour into the hall. I guess the people who’d been at a nearby bush party decided it was getting cold, so they moved to the Princess Diana Memorial. The angry religious people were beside themselves. They moved in closer to the TV screen and turned up the volume. Meanwhile some bush-party refugee backed his pickup truck up to one of the hall doors and put his stereo speakers in the back so they pointed inside.

  Marcus’s girlfriend arrived with a few of her friends. As soon as she saw Marcus, they started arguing. She yelled at him for following her and accused him of not letting her have her own life. He apologized and asked if she needed a ride anywhere. She told him she wanted to sit with her friends and he should let her have her space. Marcus came and sat down with us. Then I saw Jack and Kevin arrive, white-booted girlfriends in tow. It was pretty tense, even after I realized that Linda wasn’t with them.

  Somebody turned up AC/DC on the truck stereo so we couldn’t hear the memorial video at all. There was some friendly tussling between a cowboy hat–wearing country music fan and a heavy metal fan over what music to play. The religious people were by now totally outraged, and they turned up the volume so high that the TV started to shake. I lost sight of Jack and Kevin and breathed a deep sigh of relief.

  Four very drunk women in sawdust-covered lumber jackets sat down around me and MacGregor. One of them tried to kiss MacGregor, saying he reminded her of her little brother. She was distracted by her friend, who was taking bets on whether I was from “the city.” It was looking like I was from the city for a while. “Oh come on, Lorna, look at her hair! That’s Vancouver hair! Five bucks and a beer says that’s Vancouver hair!” But her friend pointed out that the hair might be Vancouver, but “What about the hockey jersey, eh? That’s Smithers if I ever seen it.”

  The betting was interrupted when the debate over Garth Brooks versus AC/DC turned violent. The country fan was dragged out of the truck, which he was sneaking into in an effort to change the tape. He and the heavy metal guy started rolling around on the floor, and the lumber-jacket women, who apparently were on leave from a forestry service crew and had something to prove, saw their chance and jumped in.

  Then Elton John came on TV to do his Marilyn Monroe song, which was beautiful and everything, but I figure that with Diana’s wardrobe, she should probably have gotten her own song, not just one with the words changed a bit. I guess that’s one of the bad things about dying suddenly. Nobody has time to come up with something good for your funeral. If I had a lot of money, like Diana did, I would have had someone write my funeral song in advance, to make sure I had my own.
Your funeral is a pretty important event. You want your own song or at least your favorite song at the last party you are ever going to have.

  Anyway, when Elton started the song, it was drowned out by all the grunting from the fighting music fans and lumber-jacket women, and the religious people yelling for quiet, and the excited people in the lineup at the bar who thought they were crashing a wedding. Suddenly the din was split by the loudest yell I have ever heard. Kelly screamed, “Shut up!” at the top of his lungs. He had genuinely loved Diana, and he just couldn’t take the disrespectful behavior anymore. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at Kelly. And then, unbelievably, everybody, even the stupidest and drunkest people, went quiet and started to listen to Elton John sing about “England’s Rose.” Somebody went and turned off “Give the Dog a Bone” on the truck stereo. The scream woke my dad, who was still sleeping outside in the car, and he wandered into the hall to listen. Everyone stopped and listened; the Elks guy stopped serving beer. It was quite a moment.

  Dad put his hand on my shoulder. The crowd standing outside Westminster Abbey was completely undone, sobbing openly. The crowd in Driftwood Hall sobbed too as the last strains of the song came from the TV. The religious people even hugged the drunken, weepy Kelly after it was all over and said, “God bless.”

  Garth Brooks replaced AC/DC on the stereo. “We already heard some. You go for it, man,” were the touching words from the head banger to the country fan. Marcus’s girlfriend finally went to sit on his knee. Before I knew it, everybody was dancing to Garth Brooks. Finn grabbed me and MacGregor and added us to the end of a line dance, which was just basically a conga line, because most of the people were too drunk to do more than kick their legs out to the side like they had a mouse up their pantleg and then stagger backward.