The Glass Harmonica

by Russell Wangersky

  Sam Newhook hadn’t even spoken to her afterwards. Like it was somehow her fault or something. Like she was to blame.

  She’d seen him from a distance, half a block away, a couple of days after it happened, his face all ballooned out and coloured like a California plum. His eyes were blackened as if he were wearing a mask, but he’d hurried away from her and in through his front door, closing it quickly behind him. His house had since been bought by a couple who both worked at the same bank branch and who ticked rhythmically down the street every Saturday morning on his-and-hers, expensive-looking mountain bikes. His bike was bright orange, hers bright yellow, and both of them looked complete with helmets and spandex bicycling suits, black with rich blue stripes up the sides, like they belonged to the same cycling team and were just waiting to burst out and win their event. He always rode behind her, single file, as if he liked looking at her ass, or else, Jillian thought, she couldn’t be trusted to do anything right and he had to keep a constant eye on her.

  Jillian had never spoken to them, even though they took individual gloved hands off their handlebars and waved any time they passed someone they recognized from the neighbourhood.

  She had heard somewhere that Sam had changed jobs too, changed everything like he had just changed his shirt, or, lizard-like, had given up on his entire skin and just sloughed it off. She imagined it hanging in a closet somewhere, a glassy, clear sleeve that was the shape of his whole body, complete down to the silly, empty little pocket where his penis would have been when his skin was still attached. And she envied him his ability to shed his skin, if he actually did have it, wondering offhandedly if the problem was that her skin just went too deep for the same skill ever to work for her.

  She was still wondering about that when she turned the corner at the very end of McKay Street. She didn’t see the jogger with the short grey hair and the quick smile until he ran right into her, and with the force of the collision, they both fell.

  2

  McKay Street

  ROBERT PATTEN

  JUNE 30, 2006

  SIX MONTHS to the day after the accident, and the hospital switches me to “life skills.”

  It sounds a lot better than it actually is. What it really means is “Cope, buddy,” but they don’t come right out and say it that way.

  A different wing of the hospital, a different schedule, and I’m not outside with the same crowd anymore. And on the last day I’m there, I don’t even know I’m moving yet, and Evelyn looks over at me with that strange glassy look she’s had the whole time she’s been in here, that glassy look where her eyes seem to be looking right through you, and she says “Go, Vince” to me as clear as a bell. And then she mutters something about taking a chance when it’s offered, and then she’s asleep. She looks more like herself than ever when she’s sleeping.

  Then they take me in for a meeting with the doctor, and he tells me that they’re “not seeing the kind of progress” they’d like to see, and I’m not sure if they think I’m letting them down by not trying hard enough or if they’re the ones who have decided to give up. Either way, it’s like I’ve finally capped out on rehab, reached a point where any improvement is so slight that it’s just not worth their continued effort, so they’ve changed the channel and now I have to start getting used to working with the little I have.

  They’ve stopped with the parallel bars and started showing me how to wrestle a wheelchair up over the curb with no one there to help me, so I guess I know where I’m headed, no rocket science there. No one’s talking about me fighting my way back anymore—they’re not talking about rehabilitation, they’re talking mediation, and there’s a counsellor who comes in with a notebook and a serious level stare to ask me how I feel—or no, not how I feel, but “How do you really feel?”

  And what the fuck does he think the answer is going to be? Does he want “I’m at peace with myself ”? Does he actually expect me to say that, even though I’ll never again get a chance to do the things I love, and I lost them all without even knowing I was doing them for the last time?

  Right.

  For most of the day, “life skills” is stupid stuff like how many minutes it takes to boil an egg and how to reach the burner controls while you’re always sitting down, how to plan a healthy menu, the right place to call to register for a trip on the wheelchair bus, and, eventually, even how to drive.

  I like that part: how to drive. It’s different, sure, but a lot of it is just the same. Apparently, the government or the insurance company is going to buy me a van, and instead of climbing into the front door and just slamming it behind me, I’ll get to go through an incredible number of contortions to drag my way into the driver’s seat from the wheelchair lift, and then I’ll get to go on from there.

  I was still learning the mechanics of getting into a driver’s seat when they had an instructor come out to show me the new rig, to teach me the controls and show me where everything is. But it’s not going to be like driving. I mean, it’ll be just exactly like driving, except that it won’t be the whole thing.

  There’s not going to be any more stopping out near Avondale, no scrambling down the rough bank of gravel and stone to see just where it is the river goes. No casting to see if there are any quick trout around, the kind of trout that slash up through the surface real fast and strike hard as soon as something lands on the water. I always had my fishing rod in the rig; some light-fingers has taken off with it long ago, no doubt.

  It’s amazing where the rivers go, you know. Some of them follow surface fault lines in rock in lines as straight as a die, so you can draw them on the map with a ruler and follow them through the countryside without ever having to make a turn. Others meander, always toppling into the lowest ground, nosing around from here to there, sometimes wide and shallow, other times deep and fast, doubling back in oxbows and flat, stupid corners that make no sense at all. Some of them fill in evenly with weeds from both sides; others sprout pond lilies and duckweed; and still others run over great hidden topographies of silt and decayed wood, so that every single footstep you take across them is bound to be changing some creature’s entire universe permanently.

  One thing I never imagined is that I would end up missing the gravel and rock on the edge of the road, the garbage and broken-off car parts and empty cigarette packs that you have to step over to get wherever it is you’re really going. That I would actually miss all the crap that people throw out their car windows and then promptly forget.

  But I do.

  I imagine that even driving’s going to end up being something of a curse, not because of what it brings within reach, but because of everything it will so clearly put just out of reach. King Tantalus and all that.

  King Tantalus. That’s mythology I read in high school, when it didn’t really matter, when it didn’t really make sense, especially when absolutely everything in the world seemed like it was always within reach, as handy as an apple right there in front of me, on a low branch. You never think for a moment that someone’s just waiting to pull it all away.

  Don’t get me wrong: it will be wonderful to put some distance between myself and the Miller Centre, to get out on the highway with the windows down, even if I’m still going to need someone else’s help to do something as simple as taking off my pants. And learning about the van was less about learning to drive than it was about learning where everything was. Seriously, if you can drive a dirt bike, this van would be no trouble at all; the worst part would be that your feet wouldn’t have anything to do. But my feet don’t seem to mind that. They’re both off in their own little world. Bastards.

  The accelerator was a hand control, like the throttle on a motorcycle, and I’ve ridden enough of them. A big knob set in the steering wheel so I could turn it easily, even without the strength to hold on tight, and another hand control for the brake. Easy as pie: it wouldn’t be like the old days, holding the steering wheel with my knees while I lit my smoke or used both hands to twist open a stubborn bottle
of pop, but it’d do. I’d manage. Heck, there’s not much I can’t learn to manage. And there’s lots of room for sample boxes of potato chips in a van.

  They’ve given me a driving instructor. A driving instructor! For me, who’s never put less than 140,000 kilometres a year on the company rig, driving cars right into the ground because they just couldn’t take the sort of driving it takes to service a region as big as the ones I always had. And the driving instructor, some pimply youngster, says to me, “Just put it in drive and ease the throttle open, and we’ll head out and go around a few blocks while you get used to it.” Very much in charge, a kid not much older than some pairs of socks I have back at home.

  I tell him, flat out, “It’s not like I goddamned well don’t know how to drive or anything. I’ve been driving my whole goddamn life.”

  That shut him up, Mr. Driving Teacher, so that he’s just sitting there in the passenger seat, sitting and staring, like me, and waiting. Wondering if I’ve actually got the strength and interest to reach over and pop him one in the mouth. There in the lot, and we were still waiting, the engine running and the brake still on, and I know that out behind me the brake lights had to be staring bright ruby red, and the nurses in the lobby are probably craning out through the windows wondering just what it is we’re waiting for, anyway.

  They’re probably wondering and worrying why it is that we don’t beetle away with that hesitant start-stop gait of every new driver, thinking about how I’m going to mess up their routine because the schedule says I’m supposed to be safely out and on the road for one-and-a-half-hours-and-we-don’t-have-to-worry-about-Bob. One and a half hours when Robert can be someone else’s problem. Check mark in the small square box.

  And I bet the driving instructor is wondering exactly the same thing, wondering just how long we’re going to be sitting there before he finally has to open the door and get out, if for no other reason than to get the nurses to bundle me back out into the waiting chair because I’m being so unexpectedly difficult.

  The only difference is that I know exactly what it is I’m waiting for. The clock on the dash says 2:14, and the twin dots between the numbers flash on and off with every single second as it ticks away. And even though I can’t see him yet, I’m sure that somehow, over the noise of the engine, I can hear his feet coming, happy, carefree, stringy-muscled feet.

  Go ahead. Wave.

  Just wave, stringy man. Just wave at me. I dare you. And at the same time, I don’t have to dare you, because I’m certain you will wave. And I’ll be down the Miller Centre’s driveway flat out, the little knob cranked right over, and I’ll be moving faster than those stringy old legs can carry you as you do your best to run away.

  I’m sure you’ll be surprised.

  Because no one ever, ever, expects to meet their moose.

  188A

  McKay Street

  LIZ RHODES

  FEBRUARY 11, 2006

  MAY BE one day they’d have a house.

  Just a small place, Liz thought, no bigger than the apartment they already had, but a real house just the same.

  Maybe a place with two bedrooms and a real kitchen, instead of a narrow slot with a fridge and stove stuffed into it like peas in a pod. Maybe a washer and dryer that weren’t six blocks away at the laundromat. A living room with a long window looking out over the street—irises all along the front of the foundation, jumping up purple and tissue-thin for a few weeks every summer, and afterwards, even just the satisfying green swords of leaves, the kind of plants you have because you’re going to be settled somewhere for years.

  She thought about it absently, the tip of her finger running through the condensation on the side window of the car. February, and another night of delivering pizzas in the snow.

  Ronnie was at the top of a long flight of stairs, and there was a woman silhouetted in the door frame, giving him money for a pizza. The woman was probably looking at him and wondering what he was like, this guy who was all whipcord and tendon and long, lean muscle, wondering at the way he looked like a ball of barely restrained energy, the way he was bursting with here-you-go and let’s-get-started. Perhaps the woman was wondering what Ronnie would be like in bed, whether he’d be as good as he looked like he could be, Liz thought. And wouldn’t you like to know. She smiled.

  Maybe they could have a place with a backyard, maybe a big long backyard like some downtown houses had, long and unexpected and hidden from view, somewhere where she and Ron could have a dog. Not a big dog, and not one of those stupid purse-sized things either, she thought. A real dog with a wet black nose, the kind of dog that scratched at the back door when it wanted to go out in the yard and then turned and looked at you with big, round, sad eyes. The kind of house where you could actually have a couple of kids and then eventually just be happy being old.

  And she could do that with Ron, she thought. With just a bit of luck. Luck and care.

  But everything was just so complicated with Ron. Sure, he was tough, but he also could be more tender than anyone she’d ever met. Lying naked in their apartment, he’d trace his finger down the inside of her arm and it was like he was almost going to burst into tears, he was so happy with just that.

  And sure, he’d gotten into trouble before, but Liz knew she could change him. Just seeing him smile, the scar on his lip turning the smile into something far more self-conscious than an ordinary smile . . . she knew it would work, if they just caught a few breaks, if things just went their way a few times, just a few crucial times in a row.

  The car was cold and the windows were all fogging up again, new, fine condensation filling in the lines she’d made a few minutes before, the small drops filling in and dropping a curtain over everything outside. It made the world outside the car seem almost ominous, Liz thought, as if the houses were leaning in closer, their windows more black and staring, because of the way their edges were smeared. Funny. Nothing really changes, and at the same time, everything does.

  Soon Ronnie would be reaching across with his whole sleeve to wipe the windshield, and then he’d be rolling the window down to grab hold of the windshield wiper at the very top of its arc, lifting it off the glass and letting it slap back down to break off the clotted ice and snow. It was like clockwork, she thought, every stormy winter night the same thing, the car always full of the smell of soggy carpet and steam-wet cardboard from the pizza boxes, and every single night was going to go on being the same, even if the addresses were different. And then they were stopped again, Ronnie already out the door with the pizza in its insulated bag, the car idling rough so that it felt to Liz like it might just up and stop at any moment.

  Stop-go, stop-go, the snowy nights even worse, pell-mell forwards through the tunnel of the falling snowflakes, and she knew well the way the snow could hypnotize you, the way it could grab you if you stared right at it and let your eyes gently unfocus, letting the snow have its way with you.

  Next was 35 McKay Street, jumbo always, half pepperoni and extra cheese, the other half feta and tomatoes. And Liz knew all of that was for show, knew that 35 McKay would just end up eating the whole thing himself. Because there was never anyone else there.

  Ronnie was already pulling over to the curb, and Liz was thinking, why does a guy like that get to have a whole house to himself? A big house like that, and obviously only one guy in the whole place. He’s got to be in there all on his own, because who the hell would get hooked up with a guy like that anyway?

  She’d seen him before, knew he was the architect. He was a big, soft guy, carrying enough extra weight that his face seemed somehow indistinct, like a landscape where all the identifying parts had been softened by distance. She’d watched him from the car, full of front-seat judgment every time his door opened. He kept his hands out in front of him, too, busy, she thought, and she was sure that when he opened the door this time, he’d be doing it again. He always did. She’d noticed it before, noticed that it made him seem sort of old-womanly, those two white, pudgy hands worki
ng over each other as if they were trying to stay out of trouble. She almost laughed at a sudden thought—that maybe the hands were just unable to keep themselves from getting all worked up about pizza.

  It had already been a long night, she thought. Every night was a long night.

  It was the kind of business where you don’t even begin to make any money until it’s late, and the money you might make is all tied up in someone else’s hands, the worst part of it being that it was goodwill cash, late nights and booze bringing out the goodwill like absolutely nothing else. Some nights, everyone would tip. Other nights, no one.

  On good nights, Ronnie would be humming early, and it was like the world was absolutely perfect, like the moon was rolling out completely full every single time. On the bad ones, he’d be complaining about gas prices in the first hour, banging the dash with his fist for emphasis. Then someone would cut him off and he’d forget all about pizza, running right up against the other driver’s back bumper, headlights on high beam, sticking to the other car like glue, daring them to stop so that he could pile out of the car and try to haul them right out their side window, throwing fists before they even had a chance to ask him what his problem was.

  Liz hoped for a good night, hoped for the kind of night when everything went like clockwork, when the pizzas were ready and the customers were civilized and the night ended early with a pocketful of tips and a slow fall towards warm sleep just after three in the morning.

  And 35 McKay was right there in the door before they’d even stopped, like he’d been listening for their car the whole time. As if his entire fucking snowy world depended on a still-hot pizza in the back seat of a piece-of-shit delivery car.

  Huddled against the cold, up against the side door of the car with the vinyl hard and unyielding against the point of her shoulder, Liz thought about their apartment, imagined that she was in bed, listening to Ronnie snore, the shallow, simple breaths that she could listen to for hours. In and out, in and out, Liz not sleeping but perfectly content to be awake, every single thing in her world set in its perfect order, in its perfect place. And she thought about getting out of bed and taking the box out of the closet while Ronnie slept, about opening the lid and going over all the treasures, handling each one and remembering where it had come from and how it had ended up with her.