My hands were crushing my cheeks. I stared at my feet lumps under my fading blue comforter. I gulped water and wiped a premature tear. I put on music, looking at the back cover of a tired hand-me-down Playboy. I slid it under my bed. I felt sick, like a cold had colonized in my throat. I had just heard half a garbled answering machine message from an accountant and feared the worst. My gut reaction was the house would be sold and that we were broke. Holly poked her head into my room as a thousand unknowns pinballed around inside.
"Just doing some more laundry."
I didn’t look up.
"What’s wrong?"
"You think Dad’s OK? I mean, do you think we’re going to be OK?"
"What do you mean?"
I drew my knees into my chest. "Like, are we going to have to sell the house?"
"I don’t think we’re going to sell the house anytime soon," Holly said, shaking out a pillowcase.
"Sometimes I want to live in the park."
Holly spun around on my bare bedroom floor, hands full of balled socks.
She sat on my bed. She put her feet in the freshly dried laundry.
"Remember when we ran away?"
"Yeah. Those were the days. I think of that, about sleeping in the park and having lots of blankets. Not having to spend money."
"Come on, park boy; let’s go watch something upstairs. Get out of your dungeon for a bit."
I heard the electric tingle of the heater that ran along the southern wall of my room and the churning dryer. Grabbing an empty mug, I headed to the surface. The kitchen sink had the remnants of someone’s chicken pot pie, all soggy flakes with floating peas in a gross sink swamp. I turned on the tap and unclogged the drain, running my hands under the clean current. A half-empty glass of fruit punch also sat in the sink’s bog. As the stream poured through and I loosened the obstructions near the plug, I watched the runs of blood red trickle weak and pink in the glass, becoming near invisible in the stream.
"Shit!"
"What happened?"
"Just the water; it’s hot." I shook my hands, noticing Holly take something from the refrigerator. "I’ll be right there," I said.
I joined Holly on the couch. She was flipping through the channels.
"Hol, it’s so weird, Dad working for Andrew’s dad’s company, the funeral parlour."
"Yeah, I guess."
"Like how many funeral homes are there in this city anyway?"
"Dunno, not that many, I guess," Holly said, folding a faded yellow T-shirt and placing it gently in the pink laundry basket. "Why?"
"Never mind."
"Speaking of that, you, ah, seen my Nirvana yellow happy-face tee?"
"Huh? No idea where your shirt is. I haven’t seen it, but Mom might have put it in my drawer."
The house smelled like a hostile chemical warzone; a dense sick-cat smell that hung like invisible fungus. The musk of death perfumes, elixirs, and an invisible powder that I imagined the funeral men swallowed in Styrofoam cups each morning instead of staff room coffee—a disgusting drink that would keep them solemn, calm and respectful around the continuous barrage of stiffs they had to carry, drain, manicure, deliver and hoist.
"Oh, Dad’s dentist called this afternoon, can you tell him, in case I’m not here? I think he’s sleeping upstairs," Holly said.
"Just write it down. Hey, Deadman, call your teeth master. Love, Repo Man," I said.
"Dad bought all these new undertaker clothes like special pants and a jacket and ties," Holly said. "He did a fashion show for me last night."
"Rigor Mortis Man fashion show. Maybe he takes the teeth of the dead and has them..."
"Nate, that’s so gross!"
Digging in the couch, I found half a cherry-bomb dud under a cushion. Once, playing with Andrew, one had gone off in my hand and felt like a knife had been jammed in and out of my palm for several minutes.
I poked Holly’s toes.
"Quit it."
For the last few weekends, Saturdays were the same predictable scene: me calling Andrew, and his brother or father being polite as they informed me he was out playing squash or driving around the city in his new car.
"My roommate drives me nuts; she is so fucking loud when she eats apples. Sounds like bones breaking in her mouth."
"Gross."
"I love her, but just didn’t know she ate food like a prehistoric monster."
When she wasn’t looking I had hit PLAY on the remote. The VCR began to cue up an image in a netherworld of previously recorded and recorded-over material. As it cleared up completely, it revealed four tanned men inside a ring, ricocheting into one another. The announcer’s starchy voice explained the action: "Once again, here, the pendulum has shifted and is now in favour of the champions..."
"Let’s watch Die Hard," Holly said. "Not this, please."
I hit EJECT.
*
The phone rang. It was Andrew.
The night’s detour took the form of an early evening drive to the parking lot of the CNIB, where we fumbled in the cold. We didn’t discuss the hockey game, our family’s grim activities or school assignments. We took turns in the dark, pumping and sucking like we had done dozens of times like we were on a nature program like this was how it all went. My eyes were half-cocked and watching the dark road for any passers-by or cars or cyclists, elderly couples strolling towards the crest of Bayview Avenue and the cemetery that lined the long stretch like ancient gray teeth hidden under the cold Leaside moonlight.
"I’m freezing."
"Hold on," Andrew said, cranking the heat, his fly lowered, shirt dangling over his public hair and shadowed girth. After the low-lit fondling, he dropped me off at home.
*
The ham was carved, served and the dishwasher digested the memory with a long wet hum. A dry apple crumble was lapped up with vanilla ice cream. Mom and I toiled in the aftermath.
Holly had her backpack at the door; she was all ready and waiting to be driven to the subway.
"I wish Grammy coulda come. So stupid she has to be in that place, eating toothpaste for dinner," Holly snapped. Mom turned to me, eyeing the open dishwasher.
"Did you get all the dishes from your room?"
"Yes. There were twenty-five different cups and plates."
"I’m going to bring Grammy some ham tomorrow," Mom said. "And some dessert, so don’t eat it all."
Holly was all agitated, hand tapping out a treble on the dinning-room table.
"Why don’t you just have the guard bring it to Grammy’s cell instead? They stopped feeding her or something? Do they make her do the dishes in between her gerbil-wheel exercises? It’s like a sweatshop for the undead there. I feel horrible every time I go. It’s so gross, I—"
"Don’t play woe-is-me all the time," Mom snapped.
"I just don’t like that place; it’s depressing as hell!" Holly shouted.
"Quit feeling sorry for yourself. It’s important to visit. To remember—"
"I’m just glad we didn’t run into any of Grammy’s gang members."
"What are you talking about?"
"Those toughs who roughed up your donut the last time," Holly said.
"Oh, be quiet."
"Yeah, we don’t want to get mugged in the elevator," I said, shaking my head in melodramatic nuisance.
Last week, Mom had returned from visiting Grammy visibly upset. I consoled her as best I could, unable to comprehend the showdown she claimed had taken place. While visiting in the dining room area, a resident who was sitting at their table had put her cigarette out in Mom’s éclair, causing Mom to weep when relaying the incident to me with all the emotion of a grieving astronaut’s wife.
I thought it was the funniest thing I’d ever heard: a skeletal hand stubbing out a lit cigarette in Mom’s unsuspecting dessert, on instant replay, like a crime re-enactment or anti-smoking ad created just for the immediate family.
Dad was on the couch reading the newspaper. I decided to do my homework at the living-roo
m table, a few feet from his traditional couch spot. The discussion about Grammy had ended, and now an independent study was on the agenda as Sadie walked by demanding a catnip fix.
"WOULD YOU JUST TELL ME, FOR GOD’S SAKE?" Mom bellowed, tea towel in hand.
"I TOLD YOU: 8:40!" Holly shouted from upstairs.
In Technicolor brilliance, history was about to be made. As I read my history text, I noticed the house’s slowed-down vibe growing into this pink afterglow. How it began: Mom slapped some raw beef into patties, a monthly or weekly ritual depending on the price of beef. She started slapping them together from a big mixing bowl, adding eggs and breadcrumbs. The meat’s noise created a loud rhythmic spank.
Sipping his coffee, shuffling newsprint and clearing his throat in boorish symphony, Dad gauged the living room’s turbulence. He started making disapproving sounds with his teeth and tongue. At first I thought it was something he was reading, but I could tell he was staring towards the kitchen. The slapping continued.
Dad put down his newspaper blinders and, waiting now for a good series of meat slaps, he pounced, as if on cue, on the seventh or eighth consistent meat slap, from his sofa spot, said with surround-sound: "DIANE PUT YOUR PANTS BACK ON!" then laughed maniacally, proud of his zinger. Newspaper rustle, silence from the kitchen. Dad kept laughing.
I felt a jolt of disgust. Mom answered, half choking on something, water perhaps, "What?"
The air was still in the house; my stomach tightened as I looked over at Dad, the living room now turning into a gauze of orange.
Dad stopped his thunderous laugh track cold to add, "Sounds like you are spanking yourself in there."
My face flushed, insides a bit off-balance, I turned my head and glared at Dad, disgusted by his unmitigated crudeness, his insane delivery of perverse hatred of all things normal and sane. When he caught my gaze I delivered my own bolt of living-room terror: "You know, you’re a real asshole."
Dad’s face paused, caught in the 60-watt accent.
"I beg your pardon?" I beg your pardon? was Dad’s most classic catch phrase, from which I coined what I felt was a massively catchy retort, "Yeah, you better beg," fostering the conflict into a certified, plaque-like permanence.
It happened so naturally: Dad rose from the pink sofa, walked the twenty feet towards the dining room table where I sat, took off his belt, undid his pants, turned around and mooned me, spreading his cheeks to show his actual asshole.
Catching a single frame of his anus, I quickly looked away.
"That’s an asshole!" Dad said, his back to me, holding his cheeks open for a few more seconds, the pose frozen in time like a prehistoric exhibit roped off for all to witness.
At midnight, Holly called long distance from Kingston to let us know she was safe at home, and Mom said, "Call me on Wednesday...I just made hamburger patties for the week, I can mail you a care package or something...no, I won’t mail you hamburgers! OK, good night."
As I fell asleep I imagined myself in the throes of wrestling supremacy. My current foes in 1992 were Alex and Andrew, the new duo of squash games and long drives throughout the city buying batteries or whatever the hell electronic equipment Andrew needed to tweak his greedy universe. At first I didn’t mind Alex; he even played hockey with Andrew and I a couple of times in my driveway, and we did a video project together for English. But then, both of them just sort of vanished... As I tried to fall asleep, I jostled for position, fingers putting pressure on their trapezes, counter arm-bar with illegal hair-pull: Alex’s greasy face sliding off my knuckles, my fists hitting the canvas, the other hand pulled out from under skull like a magic tablecloth. Tripped up, they fall down, and I leap on top of them, shake both their skulls with hands into the mat. Jump up: land the knee across the left jaw. The skull feels it on all sides, from all angles. Flashbulbs went off in a storm of preservatives.
The next morning at school, I couldn’t wait to tell Andrew about all the action through the distracting clink noises of our lockers opening and closing. I was relaying the showdown with as much suspense as possible.
"It was so fucked up."
"So what happened?"
"I called him an asshole ’cos he was making some gross joke about my mom spanking herself, and he gets up off the couch, undoes his belt buckle, turns around, pulls down his pants and underwear, spreads his ass cheeks and shows me his asshole!"
"Are you serious?" Andrew said, eyes lit up pinball style.
"Yeah, he just mooned me, showed me his butt hole."
"Oh my God! That’s hilarious!" Andrew beamed. "And disgusting!"
"I know," I laughed, eating the remains of a bran muffin I found in my locker.
"Your family is nuts."
"How was your Easter?" I asked, with a bedeviled smirk fit for a sitcom prince. On the inside, I felt ashamed, and a large bolt of panic tore through me.
Andrew shrugged. "Just had dinner, whatever. My family didn’t expose themselves to me," he said, yuk-yuking and shaking his head side to side.
"Well, you know, everyone celebrates holidays differently," I said, adjusting my backpack and wiping some muffin crumbs off on my light-blue pants.
8 )
World In Motion
August 1992
Over the weekend, bored out of our minds, Holly and I filmed the inside of our boring house and threw a bunch of dirty towels down the stairs, drowned the backyard and made muddy rivers and documented the whole thing to show Mom. We cleaned up the towels but the muddy grooves were still pronounced in various depressions throughout the garden. When Mom got home and saw what we had done (both on video and in person), she flipped out and shouted down to me from the kitchen, my camera capturing it all during yet another bedroom press conference: ‘I’M GOING TO RUIN YOUR LIFE, KID, BECAUSE YOU RUINED MINE!"
Despite getting my driver’s licence at summer school, applying for a job at Jumbo Video and listening to a lot of Doors music, the summer was an uneventful loner fest.
As the summer dissipated, I was logging more and more silent hours under the watchful robotic eye of my camcorder. I imagined Andrew’s silver Camaro sharking through the neighbourhood. It would only be a matter of time before we’d meet again. School was weeks away, our last year of high school.
I kept my unhealthy fantasy warfare workload set on high; between Andrew and my father, I had my work cut out for me delivering taunt videos for my growing infestations and insecurities:
And as for you, David, you and your evil moustache that contains all your powers, well, the way its colour has become diluted with beer suds and those embalming bleaches you groom it with, yeah, well, you can’t keep that sick thing on your face much longer! The same fire you breathe, you shall burn by! You are in the danger zone! [I caressed some of the tools in the workshop.]
One day we will be freed, like when Jesus returned from the video store. Oh yes, David, on that day, with your still-alive moustache in my hand, ready to be glued to the cross, vengeance shall be my Valentine! Ohhhh Yeeeeaaaahhhh!
I walked towards the camera and hit STOP.
As for Andrew, since we had stalled over the summer and not really hung out, I figured I’d challenge him to a showdown, just to see, between friends, who was the better man.
On a whim, I called him up to see what he was doing.
"You get your schedule yet?"
"No," I said, coiling the phone cord around my fingers. "I can’t remember what I signed up for."
"What’d you do this weekend?"
"Wrote a play about my Dad’s moustache," I said, trying not to laugh too loudly or get all hyper and hyena.
"What? You’re insane."
"I’m joking. But I hate it. Mostly because he slurps from it, like it’s a wet paint brush. And I think it’s possessed by Satan."
"Anyway," Andrew said, changing the subject, "you doing anything?"
The husky scent of ground-beef remainder percolated in the kitchen, where the phone hung on a wall, imprisoned.
&nbs
p; "Not really," I said.
"Can you get the car?"
"Doubt it," I said, wishing that I could take the car, drive Andrew around and listen to a mixed tape I’d been working on. Husky ground-beef particles were soaking in the sink with fluorescent liquid soap. I dangled from the phone cord, exasperated, clinging to the door frame.
"But don’t you have your licence now?"
"That doesn’t mean much around here," I said, staring blankly into the living room.
"Is your dad at work?" Andrew asked.
"Nope; on call," I said, looking at Dad sitting comatose with a newspaper shield. "I’ll call you back when my life changes."
"Cool," Andrew said, now unable to control his laughter. "Later."
I sensed this final year of school would determine everything between Andrew and me, and in my guts I feared the worst. He had this air to him, as if to say to me, somewhere in the halls at school: So, that’s what you’re wearing, that’s what you like, that’s what you’re going to think about all year.
9 )
Everything’s Gone Green
Friday, September 18th, 1992
In the couch cushions, I found a sheet of lined paper with what I concluded were Pearl Jam song lyrics written in Holly’s loopy handwriting, something about having a beautiful life and being a part of the sky. I folded it up and put it in my pocket. This year would be different: I had promised myself that I would not lose, that I would win at something.
I had a strong desire to be popular and not wind up alone each and every Friday and Saturday night, tiptoeing around my parents. I wanted to be seen.
Earlier in the day, I left a note for Andrew inside his locker. Yesterday, it had been announced that the student-council elections would be taking place soon and that a nomination meeting would be held on Friday—today—after school. I was convinced that Andrew and I should run. All we had to do was show up to the meeting and sign up.
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