The Garneau Block

by Todd Babiak

  They reached the top of the small hill on the south side of the bridge and stopped at the red light. Helen waved the handkerchief. “What’s it for?”

  “To blow your nose.”

  “I’ll get it all gross.”

  “You can have the handkerchief. It’s my gift to you. Just please blow your nose, Helen.”

  The green walk symbol appeared and they started toward Garneau. Candlelight shone up on the faces of attractive couples and parties of four inside the High Level Diner, eating salmon and tiny steamed gourds. A gust of wind came up out of the valley and dislodged several leaves from a nearby aspen tree. Helen stopped in the wind and blew her nose for a while. As she did, Raymond leaned against a bicycle rack and hoped that somewhere, perhaps Egypt, a genius was inventing that time machine he wanted.

  “I should tell you, Helen, what you did tonight was temporary.”

  Finished with the handkerchief, Helen stuffed it into the pocket of her ski jacket. “What d’ya mean?”

  “I mean I don’t have a choice in the matter. When a man only has the past, when his future is a most certain disaster, he has to be honest with himself. Ask the bus driver to stop and get off.”

  “Dr. Terletsky, I don’t even have my grade twelve, but I think I’m way smarter than you.”

  “All recent evidence suggests you’re right about that.”

  Raymond led Helen through the parking lot across the street from the diner and into the Garneau Block. They passed through the tall mountain ash trees and shrubbery that hid the alley from the block, and Helen stopped. She turned to Raymond and back to the five houses in the crescent. “Hey. This is the place where that guy got shot.” Helen pointed at 10 Garneau. “That’s the house. It was on the TV. He held his wife and daughter hostage for a while, right?”

  Raymond nodded.

  “I remember watching and thinking, geez, what a scumbag. Then when they shot him…what was his name?”

  “Benjamin Perlitz.”

  “Then when they shot him I figured, hey, come on. Did you really have to kill the guy?”

  A silence ensued.

  “Benjamin Perlitz. Why do people do stuff like that?”

  Raymond thought for a moment and said, “Because they have nothing left. Their hearts are broken. I guess Benjamin Perlitz didn’t have the guts to jump off the High Level Bridge either.”

  “That’s not guts, Dr. Terletsky.”

  Since he was on the verge of sleeping on his feet, and since the muscles in the front of his neck hurt when he talked, Raymond conceded the point. He stepped toward his home across the street from 10 Garneau and said, “This one’s mine.”

  Helen followed him, and moved in close as they passed in front of the Perlitz house. “You can feel the blood in the air, can’t you?”

  “Well, actually…” Raymond started, but he was interrupted by the sound of his front door opening. Shirley Wong stood on the front porch, with a velour housecoat wrapped around the dress she had worn to the Let’s Fix It meeting. Raymond waved at her. “Hi, honey.”

  “A new friend already? That didn’t take long.”

  Helen smiled. “You must be Shirley. When we were still on the bridge he told me about you. I’m Helen Radowitz and I saved his life.”

  “You aren’t sleeping here, Raymond.”

  “It’s my house.”

  “You aren’t sleeping here.”

  “The couch?”

  Helen took a couple of steps away from Raymond. “Now I get it,” she said.

  “You don’t get anything, Helen.” He turned back to Shirley. “Technically, I didn’t cheat on you.”

  By the time Raymond had finished the word cheat, Shirley had already slammed the door.

  “That’s why you were gonna jump.”

  “Yes.” Raymond began considering the cheapest hotels in Old Strathcona when another door opened behind them.

  David Weiss called out. “Professor!”

  “Hello, David.”

  “Abby’s making up the spare bed for you, but I don’t think she’ll be keen on your companion.”

  Raymond and Helen started across the street, with Helen taking a wide route around 10 Garneau. “I’m Helen Radowitz and I saved his life.”

  “Thank you, David. I know Abby probably isn’t all that thrilled with me.”

  “No one is all that thrilled with you. But friends are friends.”

  Helen shook her head. “You see, Dr. Terletsky? You have friends.”

  “I guess I do. Thanks very much, David. I’ll make this up to you.”

  “Just don’t bawl all night if you can help it.”

  “Can Helen wait inside while we call her a cab?”

  “Oh, I don’t need a cab.”

  “Helen, I insist.”

  “It’d be fifteen bucks. Just give me the fifteen bucks and I’ll walk.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Raymond took out his wallet and gave Helen a twenty-dollar bill. She gave him a quick hug and started out of the block. The cool wind messed his hair. Slowly he walked across the Weisses’ lawn, with a glance back at his house. Shirley Wong stood in the picture window. Raymond lifted his arm to wave at his wife, and she walked out of the living room and turned off the light.

  43

  the queen of the night

  For a few months during university, Madison had dated a vegan. One night they rented a documentary about veal production, wherein baby cows are taken from their mothers two days after their birth and shut into crates. Madison was already tired of the vegan by the time they rented the documentary–he had a ponytail and he was curiously indifferent to matters of the flesh–so she sided with the farmers.

  Ten years later, Madison sat in her parents’ dining room and chewed the same piece of veal cutlet for five minutes while Abby clapped her hands. Abby was going to be a grandmother. Finally a grandmother. “It’s a girl, I just know it. Do you feel that too, darling? You must. You absolutely must.”

  Madison could not respond. It was the calf, mooing on its way to slaughter amid the mother cow’s great bellows of mourning.

  “Darling?”

  “Sorry.” Madison lifted her IKEA napkin and spit the well-chewed hunk of veal into it. “I’m not…I don’t know.”

  “You’re not feeling it?”

  “I’m not feeling it.”

  Abby turned to David. “That’s because she’s still early along. Right?”

  “You bet.” David sipped his beer and ran his hand through the tuft of white hair on Garith’s head. The disruptive quality of Madison’s news had allowed this breach in protocol. Most nights, Abby didn’t allow Garith to be on David’s lap during dinner.

  Madison exhaled, and both Garith and David took note. “Not hungry, kid?”

  “Nope.”

  Abby laughed. “You can be so hungry it feels like your stomach is eating itself. Then you get some food in front of you and you can’t touch it. Am I right? Am I right?”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  A loud flourish arose from the spare bedroom, and died again. Abby sighed. “That poor, mixed-up man.”

  David motioned toward the spare room with his thumb. “The ol’ professor’s been listening to The Magic Flute on repeat.”

  “He says he wants to get back in touch with reason, truth, and virtue.” Abby took a bite of veal. “Oh, honey, that’s marvellous. You cooked it perfectly.”

  David put his head on Abby’s shoulder for a moment. “Thanks, sweets.”

  “What else does he want again, David?”

  “He wants something called mythic power.”

  Madison walked into the living room. She flopped on the couch, hungry and not-hungry. Her new feelings for Rajinder Chana, stirred by the strange spectacle of her parents in love, the swimming baby inside her, and the Queen of the Night aria in the spare bedroom, made her feel cloistered. She closed her eyes and imagined herself bursting out of the house and into the neighbourhood,
the city, the province, the country, the western hemisphere.

  Wishes and dry heaves blown against all the fences in the world.

  Garith hopped off David’s lap and scurried across the hardwood floor to Madison. He jumped up on her chest and licked her face.

  “There’s only one bedroom downstairs, David,” said Abby. “That just won’t do.”

  “What do you mean it won’t do?”

  “I mean, since Madison’s partner abandoned her…”

  “He wasn’t my partner!”

  “What shall I call him?”

  “Jean-something.”

  “Sons of bitches.” David sliced the air with his knife. “Filthy separatists.”

  Abby paused for a moment. “Since Jean-something abandoned her, we’re going to act as grandparents and as a father.”

  “Please, Mom. Never say that again.”

  “But Maddy, you’re underemployed and alone. Even if the university doesn’t plow over the block, the basement suite only gets sunlight for an hour or two a day. The little darling will end up with rickets.”

  David pushed his chair back and took the three plates into the kitchen. “I’ll load the dishwasher.”

  For years, Abby had been telling Madison there is no good time to have children. Just have a kid, and adjust. Now that she was pregnant, Madison saw that the adjustments were going to be more annoying and more expensive with each new aspect of her mother’s involvement.

  She lifted Garith up off her chest and started to the door.

  “You’re not going downstairs already?”

  “No, I just need a bit of air. I’ll take the dog out.”

  Abby met her in front of the door for a hug. “Isn’t this spectacular?”

  “It sure is, Mom.”

  “From now on, only organic food for you. You’ll need a daily dose of Omega-3 fatty acids. Are you taking multi-vitamins? And we’ll have to buy you one of those pregnant yoga DVDs. Yoga and Pilates, maybe some salsa dancing. We can do it together, up here. Oh, and you can have the Civic. I’ll get myself a Toyota Prius. How long have I wanted a hybrid?”

  “Mom–”

  “Look at your big boobs. They look wonderful. What a dope I am, for not noticing sooner.” Abby squeezed her daughter’s breasts and lifted her shirt. She bent down and shoved an ear into her daughter’s stomach. Abby listened and then spoke. “Hello in there! You little inchworm. I could take a fork and eat you up. Hellooo.”

  Without a word, Madison wriggled away from Abby’s grasp and slipped on a pair of her father’s rubber boots. She opened the big door and Garith began to yip and hop in anticipation.

  “Take my down vest. Don’t get a chill.”

  Madison took the down vest and hurried out the screen door. The dog bounded across the front porch and down the steps, delighting in his freedom. Behind Madison and Garith, standing in the doorway, Abby waved.

  “I’m the proudest mother in Alberta!”

  Madison hurried away from the Weiss household, past 10 Garneau toward the university. As usual, the students in the walk-ups were drinking Pilsner and Hard Lemonade on their balconies. They listened to rap music and insulted one another’s private parts. Garith pranced down the sidewalk, and in and out of bushes and hedgerows. The threat of rain buzzed in the air.

  After a short walk along Saskatchewan Drive, Madison returned to the block. The lights were on in 13 Garneau, but Rajinder Chana was not visible. Garith bounced around on the front lawn of 10 Garneau, which had grown to a ticklish length.

  Madison walked toward the sound of a woman singing, “Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha huh,” repetitively. The spare room window was open so The Magic Flute leaked out into the block. Madison didn’t mean to spy but she could see the professor, by dim orange lamplight, kneeling over a large book as if in prayer.

  44

  self-concern

  Three teenage sisters wandered through the Rabbit Warren, arguing quietly over the right gift for their mother. Shirley Wong looked up from the front page of the sports section to watch them. The youngest girl was nervous, washing her hands without water and making too many suggestions–lavender bath salts? Moses doll? Smelly candles? Finally the oldest sister, wearing jeans so low-cut that the veins along her pelvic bones were visible, whispered, “Shut it, shut it. Oh and please shut it.”

  Shirley stepped out from behind the counter and smiled at the sisters. “Can I help you in any way?”

  “No,” said the oldest. “We’re just looking.”

  “For a friend? A relative?”

  The youngest sister, her dry hand-washing less deliberate now, stepped away from the other two and said, “Our mom.”

  “Is it her birthday?”

  The youngest turned to the other two, who looked away. One of them sighed and mumbled something. “Well,” said the youngest girl, perhaps thirteen, “she’s sick and we just want to get her something. We thought flowers but they’ll just die and we didn’t want to, like…”

  For a moment, Shirley watched the quiet interplay between the sisters. She understood their mother didn’t have a cold or the flu.

  “Well,” said Shirley, to the youngest. “I have a few things your mother might like.”

  The other two reluctantly joined Shirley and their little sister in front of a display in the back of the store. Instead of selling something, Shirley wanted to take the girls into her arms and squeeze the worry out of them.

  “A woman I know carves these from solid blocks of wood.” Shirley ran her fingers along the smooth backs of several small sculptures. “She only speaks Chinese even though she’s lived in Edmonton for thirty years.”

  “They’re pretty,” said the youngest girl.

  Among them was a butterfly, a crab, and a crane. Shirley took each off the shelf but the oldest daughter seemed most interested in the cicada. She reached for the sculpture and cradled it. After a moment, Shirley said, “The cicada represents immortality.”

  “Immortality?” said the youngest.

  “Yes,” said the oldest, to cut off the conversation. She turned it over and looked at the price. “It’s nice, thank you, but kind of expensive for us.”

  “How much do we have?” said the youngest.

  The oldest sighed and they congregated at the counter to pool their money. Between them, they had $37.86. The cicada, before tax, was $45. Shirley’s cost was $35 so she took the money and wrapped the little wooden sculpture. The youngest and oldest smelled candles while the middle sister leaned forward on the counter. “Our mom has bowel cancer.”

  Shirley whispered so the oldest sister wouldn’t hear. “I’m terribly sorry.”

  “We’ve known for a while that she’d get really sick but now she is and it’s, um…”

  Shirley stopped wrapping for a moment and put a hand on the girl’s wrist. “Your mom is very lucky to have such lovely and thoughtful daughters.”

  The middle sister bit down hard and looked at the floor.

  “How old are you?”

  “Fifteen.”

  “What grade is that?”

  “Ten.”

  Shirley finished wrapping the cicada and passed it across the counter to the middle sister, who said thank you and hurried out the store. The other two girls turned to Shirley, thanked her, and followed their sister on to Whyte Avenue. When they realized the middle sister was crying, they put their arms around her and guided her around the corner. Shirley watched them go, and sat behind the counter again.

  Since Raymond confessed that he was a sexual deviant, Shirley hadn’t been feeling too sprightly. But it was immoral to be so self-concerned when mothers were dying of bowel cancer. She thought of Katie Perlitz, who had watched her own father bleed to death.

  Shirley forced herself to smile, and then laugh: she imagined Raymond, her donkey of a husband, asking his masseuse if she might, you know, perhaps, in a perfect world, er, well, harrumph. The yearning to beat him over the head with a spatula came and went like hunger pains. Someday s
oon, she would speak to him about why he had not been satisfied with her. It would be a dreadfully humiliating conversation and she hoped, somehow, it would be unnecessary. For now, to avoid thinking about this conversation, there was merchandise to order, a store to keep tidy, and two newspapers under the counter.

  Deep in the sports section was a small story about a new team in the Alberta Junior Hockey League, the Edmonton Jesters. Their season was just about to begin and three of the players, from small towns in the north and south, needed to be billeted. At the bottom of the article was a phone number. Before Shirley had much time to think about it, she was speaking to the wife of the team’s general manager.

  “You sure you’re interested in that sorta thing?” said the woman. “Seventeen year-olds can be…”

  “Maybe you could bring them by for a coffee?”

  “Coffee.” The woman coughed. “Since the story was in the paper, we’ve had a few calls. One boy’s already found a place. How many bedrooms you got?”

  “Two downstairs. My kids lived down there, when they were home.”

  “I can bring the boys by tomorrow night, Mrs. Wong, if you’re free.”

  “Ms.”

  45

  best friends unto the end of time

  Rajinder Chana hooked his iPod to a couple of speakers and placed them at the corner of the front porch. “What would you like to hear?”

  “Something sophisticated, my good man, and in English please.” Jonas sipped his beer. Since he had became Rajinder’s new best friend, Jonas had graduated from Pilsner to Grolsch. Inspired by Rajinder’s tendency to wear suits for virtually every occasion, even to drink beer on the porch of an evening, Jonas had also taken to shirts and ties.

  Earlier in the kitchen, while eating leftover snacks from the Let’s Fix It meeting, Jonas had spied a tube or two of decent Scotch in Rajinder’s cupboard, which had cheered him. “The sun is going down, so keep that in mind. We’d also like the music to complement the sounds of lawnmowers and the professor crying in the Weisses’ spare bedroom.”

  “Is he really crying?” Rajinder sounded worried.

  “I don’t know.”

  A moody art-rock song began playing from the small speakers. “Is this all right?”