by Grant Buday
Yet Mrs Lee had once explained how Balmoral was the name of the Royal Family’s castle in Scotland. And the Army & Navy store. Mrs Lee said there were Army & Navy stores all over the British Commonwealth, in Hong Kong, Colombo, Calcutta, Mombasa, Cairo.
When Horst thought of the Army & Navy on Hastings, he thought of the time he worked there as a store detective.
ROMANCE
Horst watched a woman go into the change room with three pairs of Levi 516s and come out with two. She was cool. She did everything slowly. She folded the jeans and returned them to the shelf. She didn’t beeline to the door. She browsed her way to it. Horst watched.
He trailed her, trying not to stare. The rest of the store faded away. It was like following her down a tunnel. He watched his own right hand reach up and grip the shoulder of her jean jacket.
He guided her back into the store, past Ranjini who was on cash. Ranjini recoiled, gathering her vermilion sari about her fat hips, as if the girl were contagious. Ranjini smelled of rancid onions.
In the back room, Horst sat her down and poured the dregs of the coffee into a stained mug. He sat on the edge of his desk. He hated this part.
“Fuck,” the girl said. She leaned her head against the wall.
Horst studied her. Her eyes were shut. She could be fifteen or thirty. He couldn’t tell. She didn’t look like a junkie. He watched the coffee cup held at an angle on her thigh. It slopped over each time she sniffed. Horst followed the curve of her thigh down inside to her crotch. She was still wearing the 516s underneath. He could tell. It’d feel tight. Snug. He remem-bered wearing two pairs of pants to school in winter as a kid, how all day you couldn’t forget your crotch.
“Hey man,” the girl said.
Horst’s eyes jumped to hers. She’d caught him staring.
She glanced toward the door. “I can’t get caught again.” She swallowed thickly, put the coffee on the desk, and looked at him. “I’ll suck you off,” she said.
Horst could see a fingernail clipping in her lank black hair.
She glanced around again.
Horst glanced around too.
She put her hand on his thigh.
He watched the hand, and felt his pants tighten.
She slid her hand to his groin.
Horst jumped up, but she held on and with her other hand reached for his zipper.
Ranjini would’ve called Surjit, the manager, and Surjit would’ve called the cops. The cops could be in the store right now. Trembling, Horst stood in the doorway, waiting for them.
When Horst got home he smelled the gin he’d spilled on the carpet that morning. The coathangers jangled like chimes when he hung up his jacket. In the kitchen, he opened the fridge: margarine. He opened the freezer: frozen solid. He opened the fridge’s bottom drawer. It was stuffed with plastic bags. He opened the cupboard and stared at the jugs of distilled water he kept in case of emergency. He found a tin of pineapple rings. He walked about the house drinking the juice from the can and picking out the fruit with his fingers. When he was half done, he poured gin into the can. He thought of the shoplifter. One of the cops had known her name: Heidi. Horst couldn’t believe it: Heidi. When the cops had come in, Surjit had been with them, and they’d all watched the woman take off the jeans to return them. She hadn’t been wearing any underpants.
Horst poured more gin into the can of pineapple. Heidi. He knew the worst she’d get was ten days and some sessions at the Elizabeth Fry Society. Then she’d be back. He’d keep his eyes open. This time he’d be ready. He’d invite her out for a drink.
HORST KNEW HEhad to move on. Either that or suffocate. He thought again of getting a different apartment. One that didn’t face an alley. One where the seams between the squares of lino weren’t so dirt-swollen they looked like infected cuts. One with better light so he could grow a wider variety of plants. But a better place meant more money. More important, it meant breaking his link with the past, with Corinne. They’d lived here together.
He recalled her first visit. The look on her face when she stepped into his private jungle. As if she’d entered a secret grove. All evening they watched shadows elongate across the walls and commented on the elegant shapes. Horst said it was like bird watching. And Corinne knew exactly what he meant.
But Corinne left. People did that. It happened. It happened to Horst’s neighbour, Werner Rugg.
“It’s like this,” Werner told Horst. “You got a corpse hanging between your legs. And the deal is, you got to find the woman whose coffin’s got your name on it.”
Werner had snagged Horst in the hall.
“Lorraine’s coffin’s got my name on it. But she’s trying to deny it. She left me, man, she left me. Yet you know what?”
Horst shook his head.
“Monday. She wants to see me Monday nights! Saturday she’s out with some guy drives a Volvo, so I get stuck with Monday. Monday Night Man!” Werner’s eyes were round and blunt as bottle caps and he was breathing fast.
Monday Night Man. Horst knew all about that.
SAW-BLADE
SKY
Horst knows he shouldn’t, but he opens the door anyway.
Werner — drunk. He jerks his thumb back over his shoulder at his apartment down the hall. “Got tired of sitting in my box.”
Horst sees Werner’s on one of those drunks where Horst doesn’t know if the guy’s going to hug him or slug him.
“So,” says Horst. “What’s up?”
“My box, man.” Werner’s pharmaceutical focus travels up the wall. “You know what I’m saying?”
Horst nods. He knows exactly what Werner’s saying.
Werner squints past Horst into his place. “Anything to drink in there?”
Horst leans into the doorframe, blocking Werner’s view. “Shit no. I’m dry.”
Horst’s head races, thinking up excuses. It’s Saturday night and he doesn’t want to get stuck with Werner dumping his crap-cart of bitterness on him. Shit, thinks Horst, I should never answer my door.
“Fucking Lorraine, man. Took all that wine I made.”
“All those big jugs?”
“Doesn’t realize I love her.”
“Where’s she living?”
“Where’s she living? There, man.” Werner jerks his thumb to the right, which is west. “Living with the Volvos.” Werner means the West Side of Vancouver, west of Main. Lorraine dumped Werner last year. It was inevitable, but the capper was him accusing her of ripping off his car and selling it on him. A rusted-out Impala that sat for a year in the alley out back next to Horst’s Pacer. Lorraine and Werner argued for days over it.
Horst avoids Werner’s eyes, recalling the incident.
The car disappeared all right, but it wasn’t Lorraine — it was Horst. He called a scrap-metal dealer and got it hauled away. It would’ve sat out there forever.
Horst misses Lorraine. They had some good talks. Then she picked up Werner, like a disease. After that when Horst knocked on Lorraine’s door, instead of her swinging it open and inviting him in, the door stayed shut. Werner’d be standing behind it, all paranoid, saying: “Who’s there?”
“Horst.”
“Who?”
“Horst. From down the hall.”
“Oh. Oh yeah man. Whataya want?”
“Lorraine there?”
“She’s busy.”
Well, now Werner was at Horst’s door.
“Kind of caught me at a bad time,” says Horst.
Werner stares with his nicotine eyes. He’s forty-five, has long black hair, a face shaved blue, and a little jaw, like he’s been clenching it so tight so long it’s shrunk. Then he’s nodding, like he’s got Horst’s number. “Okay man. I hear you.” And he’s travelling back down the hall to his place, shaking his head at Horst like — What an asshole.
Horst shuts the door. “Fuck.” He goes into the bathroom to listen. Werner’s got his TV on and he’s making sarcastic noises at it. He’s lonely. Horst thinks — Maybe I shoul
d invite him in after all? And in fact he does have half a bottle of red. But shit … if I share it with Werner I’ll never get to sleep … Horst sits on the edge of the bathtub. He can’t believe he’s feeling guilty. Werner’s never given him the time of day: Christ, thinks Horst, that bastard wouldn’t piss on me if I was on fire! And Horst knows if he lets him in once he’ll show up regularly. He might even want to use the toilet. Besides, if he lets Werner in he’ll see the plant stand Horst pinched from the basement. It was Lorraine’s. She wasn’t using it. Hell, it was broken. Horst saw Werner chase Lorraine into the alley with that plant stand and break it across her back. Fortunately, Lorraine’s three times Werner’s size. She just turned around and flattened him. Fifty-year-old ex-junkie scam artist. She liked that. It was exciting. She told Horst so. Yet if Werner recognizes the plant stand, who knows, he might go off the deep end and shoot him. Lorraine said Werner’s got a gun. Well, a sort of gun, a flare gun. Stole it from a boat. Still, it would burn a good hole in me, thinks Horst. What a way to go, done in by Werner Rugg. Like dying of rat bite.
Horst wonders if Werner knows he slept with Lorraine. Maybe all this time he’s been next door there brooding ugly revenge, thinking of ways to torture Horst for having made it with his woman. Though of course it wasn’t like that. Horst and Corinne had been fighting and she was saying fuck this and walked out. Horst paced around then knocked on Lorraine’s door. It was a Saturday night and Werner was doing weekends in jail on a possession charge. Lorraine kind of liked that Werner was doing time. It gave her life an edge. Made her feel inner city. She was very much into being the hip momma. So she welcomed Horst. She had a bottle of red and they got drunk. It was the hugging that got it going. Lorraine was into this New Age hugging and it went from there into some old-time fucking. Horst remembers the bed had black sheets and smelled of cigarettes and b.o. Lorraine was the biggest woman he’d ever done it with. Not fat, but massive. Felt like he was humping a chesterfield, and when she got on top of him — Christ! — it was like he was trapped under a mattress. He spent the night though, and they did it again in the morning. Corinne was sitting at the kitchen table when he stepped in stinking of sex and cigarettes. Six months later they were divorced.
The morning after Werner knocked, Horst peeks through the blinds and watches him peg sheets on the clothesline.
Horst nearly drops his coffee. And not just because he’s never seen Werner do laundry before, but because Horst recognizes the sheets. Two sheets and two pillow cases, a set. When Werner’s gone, Horst steps outside. Fuck … These are mine, thinks Horst. They are … They belonged to me and Corinne. The sheets are a deep blue with moons and clouds and a kind of night-on-the-desert look. Werner’s got my sheets, thinks Horst. And if that’s not ugly enough, he’s slept on them. Werner’s probably jerked off or fucked some slut on them … Horst steps back, appalled. Horst and Corinne got the sheets as a wedding present. And now Werner’s got them. Werner, who’s probably infested with lice.
Horst is halfway around the house to Werner’s suite when he halts.
Number one: Werner’s got that gun.
Number two: maybe he’s simply got sheets with the same pattern. Is it possible?
Horst dials Moose Jaw. Sunday morning the rates are reduced. He’s got to talk to Corinne and get this straight.
Gary answers. Horst tightens the cloth over the mouthpiece.
“Is Corinne there?”
“Who’s calling?”
Horst stammers.
“That you Horst?”
He pulls the cloth away. “Yeah.”
“Well fuck you.”
“I gotta talk to her.”
“Talk to yourself.”
“Gary!”
“She’s busy.”
“What kind of sheets you got?”
“Why are you such an asshole? She’s eight months’ pregnant. What the fuck you mean, sheets?”
Horst’s voice falls. “… Eight months?”
“Eight. You got a message I’ll pass it along. That’s as close as you’re getting.”
“The pattern. Just tell me the pattern.”
“White sheets, Horst, we got white flannel sheets. Now go back to bed and sleep it off.”
Horst heads down to the beer and wine store at the Waldorf.
If Corinne didn’t take the sheets, thinks Horst, then she must have left them down here in the basement, which is where Werner found them. Werner’s always prowling through the boxes left by people no one, not even Leo Buljan, the landlord, remembers. People from the sixties and even the fifties. Maybe further. Horst sets his wine bottle on a trunk and looks around. It’s musty and dank and the rough cedar planks supporting the main floor are only inches from Horst’s head. In a corner lies a gutted mattress, paint cans, a roll of carpet that stinks like a sack. Horst spots Corinne’s wicker picnic basket … A couple of rolls of wrapping paper stick out. Images of Christmases past pump tears to his eyes. He reaches for the bottle, realizing he should’ve got two.
The bells ring for five o’clock mass up the street. Drunk, Horst recalls how a couple of weeks ago, he was walking over to the track in the evening, and as he was passing the church he saw an old lady slowly climbing the steps with a cane. She was wearing her best clothes. Horst smelled her face powder from the sidewalk. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He nearly turned around and went into the church himself. But he knows what it looks like inside — he and Corinne got married there. He kept going. He bet heavy that night.
Horst watches those sheets float on the October breeze. Hell, he thinks, I’m taking them back. If Werner comes knocking, say — I don’t know. Why would I take your sheets, man? What the fuck can Werner say to that? Horst finishes the last inch of wine, listens for sounds from Werner’s suite, then steps onto the porch and takes them. He strips his bed then remakes it. Then he sits, and slides his palm slowly over the surface … He remembers that time in Alberta, near Red Deer, way out in the middle of nowhere, all rock and dirt and flat land. The car broke down and he and Corinne were arguing. As usual, Horst was losing. Even when he was right he managed to lose arguments. They argued until they were exhausted. Horst remembers thinking how bleak Alberta was. Tumbleweeds snagged in barbed wire, coulees full of baked red dirt. What a fucking hole. They used up all the windshield cleaning fluid in one day. The car was crusted. They sat out there under a sky the colour of a rusty saw-blade, the pebbly prairie wind nicking the windows and the gusts rocking the car. That’s where it ended. That’s where Corinne said she’d had it.
She’d stared straight ahead: “I hate Vancouver. I hate the rain. The mountains make me claustrophobic. The sea stinks like a sewer.” She’d turned to him.
“So what’s it going to be?”
Horst had avoided her eyes and said nothing, which pissed her off even more. As usual, by doing nothing, he was forcing her to make all the moves.
“Well?”
Horst had shrugged. He was relieved and crushed at the same time.
Horst pulls the sheets up and pins them back onto the line. He stares out at the blue-black sky. The sun’s gone, leaving blood-red clouds above the rooftops. He hears the popping of fire crackers. In two weeks it’ll be Hallowe’en. Then everyone’ll be knocking at his door, expecting something.
WERNER RUGG PAINTEDhouses for a living. Maybe it was the paint fumes, but lately Werner was getting stranger. Saturday night was the worst. First of all, he barked like a dog at his TV. Then he went in and out of his apartment. He stepped outside, stepped back in, a minute later went out again. Back and forth, in and out. He went in and out twenty times in an hour. Horst counted. Werner knocked on doors. He knocked on Leo’s door. Leo was usually drunk and passed out so didn’t answer. Then Werner tried Horst’s door. Werner knocked, listened, knocked again. Horst sat inside as quiet as possible. Werner went into the basement, rooted through the boxes, and talked to himself. Some Saturday nights Werner had visitors. Werner welcomed them in his lithium-smooth voic
e. Yet an hour later he’d drive everyone out the door, screaming what mutt-fuckers they all were.
A WELCOME
PLAGUE
Horst hears feet stumbling about in Werner’s place next door, then the sound of slapping. A woman’s voice shouts: “MAKE IT HURT!”
Horst groans. He hears another slap. Two bodies bump so hard the picture on his TV screen jumps.
Horst goes naked into his bathroom and stands listening. Water suddenly gushes on next door in Werner’s tub.
“Get him in! All the way!”
Horst leans closer to the wall. Fuck … They’re drowning someone … Maybe they’re drowning Werner … Horst feel a flicker of hope at the thought. He doesn’t hate Werner, but he’d like to get rid of him and have some quiet elderly couple move in. Horst wonders what to do. It really would be great to get a better neighbour. A kick against the wall bangs open Horst’s medicine cabinet door. He leaps back.
Horst hauls on his jeans. He doesn’t feel safe naked. And he doesn’t know whether to run down the alley and hide, or go over and knock. He peeks into the hall. Then he tiptoes down and taps Werner’s door.
That woman’s voice barks: “Yeah?”
“What’s goin’ on?”
“Who’re you?”
“Neighbour”
“The fuck you want?”
“Where’s Werner?”
“Takin’ a bath.”
“He all right?”
“Call him tomorrow.”
“What was all that noise?”
“Nothin’.”
“I’m calling the cops.” He listens. He hears whispering.
The chain drops off and the door opens. A small blonde woman stands there. She’s slender and pretty. Horst hadn’t expected that.
