Pile of Bones

by Bailey Cunningham

  “We can have a barbecue,” Andrew said. “If you give me the spare key, I’ll go pick up bratwurst and smokies. And buns, I’m assuming, unless you happen to have those.”

  He sounded slightly eager to leave. Carl didn’t blame him. The apartment wasn’t big enough to hold their collective neuroses.

  “Buns too,” he said. “The keys are in the junk drawer.”

  Andrew opened the drawer. “You’ve got about a hundred bucks in change here.”

  “I know. It’s where I keep my bus fare.”

  “Can I take some? My wallet’s still in that tree.”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  He grabbed a reusable bag and left, closing the door behind him.

  “Want some tea?” Carl asked. “I’ve got a sampler.”

  Shelby didn’t reply. She waited a moment, until they both heard the sound of the building’s front door as it banged closed. Then she looked at Carl.

  “What did you do?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Something’s happened between the two of you. Andrew’s being weirder than usual, and you look guilty as shit.”

  “He’s the one who just ran out of here. Doesn’t that seem like guilty behavior?”

  “Carl.”

  “It wasn’t even me. It was Babieca.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Nothing!”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Look, I’m not taking the blame for this. He made a choice. You may think he’s a wide-eyed innocent, but he knew what he was doing.”

  Her eyes widened. “Holy shit.”

  “I didn’t mean for it to happen. We were alone in this room—well, not alone, there was actually a fox under the bed—”

  “And it just sort of happened?” She shook her head. “You could have had anyone at that party, and you chose Roldan.”

  “Babieca chose him.”

  “You both did.”

  He wanted to leave the apartment, to escape from the realization that she was right, but Andrew had the keys. The thought almost made him laugh.

  “Whatever happened,” he said, “it’s done. We’re both adults. We’ll figure it out.”

  “No. You’ll figure it out, because this sort of shit doesn’t matter to you. In a week, you’ll forget that this ever happened. But Andrew’s going to think about it for the rest of his life, because that’s what he does.”

  “You must really think I’m an asshole.”

  “It’s not a theory, Carl.”

  “Oh really? Do you remember the time when you tried to sleep with me?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He smiled. “How convenient that you’ve blocked it out. We were at the bar. All night, you’d been making eyes at this cute girl. But you couldn’t talk to her, just like you couldn’t talk to Ingrid that day at the library. She left with someone else, and after that, you were on a mission. You started doing Jager shots.”

  Shelby put her head in her hands. “I remember now. Stop describing it.”

  “You came up to me,” he continued, “and you said—”

  “Please stop—”

  “—that I had a—what was it again?”

  She sighed. “A cute assonance.”

  “That’s right. You wanted to go home with me.”

  “I was blackout drunk. In the morning, I woke up on the bathroom floor, wearing nothing but my pajama top.”

  “All I’m saying is that we nearly hooked up.”

  “It never would have happened.”

  “Why? Because you’re such a great lesbian? Unless I’m mistaken, you’ve hooked up with more guys than girls.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “As an undergrad. I didn’t know what I wanted then.”

  “You weren’t some adorable first-year that night. You were a grad student with an actual teaching job, still making the same murky decisions as before. You wanted that girl, but you chose me, because you thought it would be easy.”

  “I chose you because you have girlish hips.”

  “Whatever. Look, you’re right. It wasn’t the same thing. Babieca wasn’t drunk, and Roldan didn’t just let it happen. They—we—wanted it.”

  “And now?”

  “How am I supposed to know that? We’ve barely been home for twenty minutes. The guy who’s wearing my clothes and buying us hot dogs—he isn’t Roldan. If something happened here, between us, it would be completely separate.”

  “Have you ever—” Shelby made a vague gesture. “I mean, was there a time when you looked at him, and thought, you know…maybe?”

  Carl didn’t reply, and they fell silent after that. Eventually, he heard footsteps on the stairs. The front door opened, and Andrew came in.

  “I took the liberty of buying some pre-barbecue snacks,” he said. “With the contents of this bag, and all that money in your junk drawer, we should be set.”

  “Great.” Carl stood. “I’ll go fire up the coals.”

  He grabbed the franks and stepped onto the balcony, closing the door. This was to keep out smoke, but he also felt better with the layer of glass between them. Shelby’s critique had hit too close to home. She was only trying to protect Andrew, but the suspicion in her eyes made him feel like a boy with a fistful of candy, shifting awkwardly in the middle of a grocery store. She hadn’t even considered the fact that he might get hurt. Andrew was the one in trouble, which made him—what? A thoughtless dick? A predator? Priming the barbecue, he peeked through the glass and saw that they were both talking. Shelby looked calm and focused, as if she were explaining the plot of a film. Andrew wasn’t saying nearly as much.

  He scored the smokies with a knife, then laid them down and closed the lid. The cheese-filled ones would be murder on the grill, but for some reason, he didn’t mind the repetitive act of scraping. It was one of the few chores he actually enjoyed, because he could watch his neighbors while doing it. He’d been working on their backstories for a while, crafting narratives for every other balcony. When they saw him scraping the barbecue, they would inevitably nod and smile. The act seemed necessary and somehow masculine. Grilling suggested that you had company over, not that you were a shut-in who loved the taste of smoky food. They probably imagined him to be a friendly, well-adjusted guy, the type that you’d see confidently striding toward the automotive department at Canadian Tire. They didn’t suspect the truth.

  There was an old roach in the ashtray. It had one haul left in it, maybe one and a half. Carl lit it, then sat down in the lawn chair. The smoke was harsh, but he’d been expecting that, so he coughed only a little. The lighter burned his fingers before he could snatch them away. He stubbed out what was left of the roach, a tiny black nubbin that disintegrated when it touched the side of the ashtray. He needed to call his mother. She was at a conference in Valencia, something called Poesía Ecléctica that had required, in her own words, “a charming poet who could act as a bookend.” It gave her the chance to workshop new poems and fleece hotels for everything that they were worth.

  He couldn’t imagine being so productive. He’d been making bluff charges at his thesis for a year now, avoiding it by any means possible. Byzantine ephemera had once filled him with desire. Browsing fibulae, rock crystal chess pieces, and brass mirrors had felt nearly pornographic as he sat in a dusty corner of the library, flipping through the oversize art books. Now his lack of an argument filled him with vague nausea. The people in his cohort were always inviting him out for drinks, but they exhausted him with their enthusiasm and talk of library fellowships. He couldn’t even see a limited-term position in his future. There were about five jobs in History that appeared every year, and they would go to fresh ABD candidates from ivy league schools. He would end up working at Chapters, or worse, the Coles in Northgate Mall, bitterly stocking the self-help section.

  Carl had chosen history because it never failed to excite him. The details were intoxicating. He could lose a whole weekend to watching YouTube videos about the construction of Welsh ca
stles. The ancient world fascinated him because it was so uncomfortably close to modernity, driven by the same violent conflicts and explosions of literary genius. People had thought differently about pain. It was something that you lived with. Herbal concoctions might put you into an altered state, but the pain didn’t leave. A Roman patient might stare at a divine image, or a phrase in Latin, engraved on the handle of an iron spatula used to elevate her shattered bone. She wasn’t sedated. A bit of datura, the profile of Asclepius carved on a sweat-slick handle, these were all that comforted her.

  The sliding door opened. Andrew stepped onto the balcony.

  Carl saluted him. It made sense at the time. There was nowhere else for him to stand, so he leaned against the balcony. Those cargo shorts were something else. Carl looked down at his feet, to see if they matched Roldan’s. He’d put on a pair of socks. They were a little too white, and their ragged stitching made Carl think that he’d bought them from the grocery store. It was a strangely desperate act of modesty.

  “Shelby wanted to know if you have any more plates.”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “There are only three, unless that big yellow thing is actually a plate.”

  “No. It’s a busted lazy Susan that I got from Dollarama.”

  “That was my suspicion.”

  “You can still put things on it, but it won’t turn.”

  “So…essentially, Susan’s dead.”

  Carl laughed. “Don’t tell the colander. They had a thing.”

  Andrew leaned over the balcony. “It’s weird. My place has way more light than yours, but no balcony. Shelby’s place has the greatest floors, but no washing machine. If we combined them all, we’d have one fully functioning space.”

  “Are you saying that you’d like to move in?”

  “Only if all three of the apartments were connected. We could do Ewok bridges, pedways, even zip lines. Then we could advertise our home as an attraction.”

  “GradLand.” Carl smiled. “Where the library never closes, and everyone’s water bottle is filled with high-test coffee.”

  “We could sell journal subscriptions and mini doughnuts. It could really fly.”

  “The power of our neuroses would eliminate the need for electricity.”

  “It might be fun.”

  “Not during comps.”

  “I meant moving in.” Andrew tapped his fingers against the balcony’s rim. “The three of us could rent a house.”

  “Renting a house in this city is like searching for pirate treasure. The vacancy rate is something like half a percent. Where would we find this house?”

  “There are lots of places even closer to the park. We could cut down our transit time if we found something near the Lakeview strip mall.”

  “You’ve actually thought about this.”

  Andrew shrugged. “We’d save on rent. We’re always shuttling between apartments, picking each other up. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy the ritual. But if we lived together, we could coordinate activities.”

  “What activities? All we do is mark papers, drink, and visit the park.”

  “It’s always seemed like a lot.”

  “I think I prefer living alone.”

  “Me too,” Andrew said. “But when I’m with you and Shelby, I feel like it’s possible to be solitary without being alone. You don’t stress me out, like most people.”

  His tone was slightly flat, but the words rang with honesty. Carl didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know if he felt the same way, or if he was even capable of sharing a space with two other people. The idea of Shelby organizing his kitchen was troubling, and he didn’t want to pool his DVDs with Andrew. He needed more than 33 percent of the fridge. He didn’t know if this was selfishness, or just human nature. Something convinced him that he would get stuck with the basement suite, while the others gloried in their sunny bedrooms.

  “I do like the part about Ewok bridges,” Carl admitted.

  “If we’re going to implement those, we’ll need a more complicated lease.” He looked down at the red awning, which resembled a giant tongue lit from below. “I like paperwork, though. All those riders and concealed clauses. They make civilization possible.”

  Carl stood up. Two steps brought him within inches of Andrew. He stared at his friend’s back, uncertain of what to do. Then he leaned into his body, lightly, resting his chin on Andrew’s shoulder. Neither said anything. They stayed that way, considering the other balconies, until the sizzle of cheese announced that supper was ready.

  They ate at the small kitchen table, which Shelby had cleared off to the best of her ability, using pages from Verb as place mats. Andrew didn’t bring up the shared house again. Neither did they discuss what had happened to them a few hours ago. For once, Anfractus felt distant, some holiday destination that they’d visited months ago. Nobody wanted to mention it, so they spread ketchup in silence and crunched on their toasted buns. If they really had lived together, perhaps every meal would have been like this, approaching what departments referred to as collegiality. When the meal was over, Andrew did the dishes, while Shelby began organizing Carl’s library books into a single pile. She seemed to do it unconsciously, as if this were her version of tidying. Carl watched them both working to clean up his mess.

  He turned on the radio, just for some background noise. —a Plains University student is recovering in hospital after another vicious animal attack in Wascana Park. Animal control has redoubled their efforts to locate the coyotes, and visitors to the park are advised to stay in groups, especially at night—

  Shelby turned off the radio.

  “I was listening to that.”

  “You’ll only get him started.”

  Andrew was still in the kitchen, wiping down the counters.

  “Maybe he’s got a point.”

  “It’s impossible, Carl.”

  “Last night, you killed a monster by rolling a die. I wouldn’t be so quick to judge what’s impossible, and what isn’t.”

  “Fine. It’s illogical.”

  “Didn’t you barely pass your logic course?”

  Her expression darkened. “I still might contest that grade.”

  The intercom buzzed. The speaker didn’t work, so there was no way to know who was actually at the door. Usually, it was a neighbor’s Thai food, or a member of the Sask Party. Carl pressed the button and turned to Shelby.

  “That pile is useful,” he said, “but you can stop there. I’ve got a system.”

  “What would you call it? Entropy?”

  Before he could answer, there was a knock at the door. Carl crossed the living room, prepared to direct someone downstairs. But when he undid the chain and opened the door, it wasn’t a delivery person or someone with a clipboard standing in the hallway. It was Ingrid. She wore yellow-tinted sunglasses, but he still recognized her from the library. She was holding the hand of a small boy, probably about four years old, who shifted with nervous energy. He wore a fedora and a clip-on tie. He was holding a battered kite.

  “Hi there,” she said. This was pronounced in a soothing tone, as if she were talking to the child and not to a stranger in his midtwenties. “This is weird. I understand. We don’t actually know each other. But he needs to use the bathroom.”

  “Oh.” Carl still wasn’t sure of exactly what was happening. “Um—sure. Come in. It’s down the hall.”

  “Go on,” she told the boy gently. “This nice man is saying that you can use his toilet. I’ll hold your kite. Remember to flush.”

  He tottered inside, then headed for the bathroom. Carl watched as the kid overshot it, wandering into his bedroom instead. Then he reappeared and found the correct room. Shelby and Andrew had frozen in the middle of their tasks and were both staring at Ingrid. She took her sunglasses off but said nothing.

  “Did a little boy just go into your bathroom?” Shelby asked Carl.

  “That’s my son, Neil,” Ingrid said.

  Carl expected her to add some
thing. That’s my son, Neil, and we’re actually here for a perfectly logical reason. That’s my son, Neil, and we buzzed you at random, hoping that a kind Samaritan would let him in to pee. No explanation followed, though. Ingrid stared at the floor. A moment later, the toilet flushed, and Neil emerged. He ran into the living room and seized Ingrid’s hand.

  “Mama, his tub smells.”

  “Why were you smelling the bathtub?”

  Neil had no answer for this. He adjusted his fedora.

  “Nice tie,” Carl said.

  “Clip-on tie,” Neil corrected.

  “Right. Nice clip-on tie.”

  “My father gave it to me. He gave me his bones, and Laser Bird, and this.” He held out the kite for all of them to see. “Mine kite is a victim.”

  Carl didn’t quite know how to parse this. Andrew seemed to understand immediately, though. He walked over to Neil and extended his hand.

  “You must be Leonard Cohen. It’s very nice to meet you.”

  Neil took his hand politely. “Please call me Mr. Leonard Cohen.”

  “I’d just like to say,” Ingrid added, “that this is not my fault. I haven’t been forcing him to read Canadian poetry. He adopted the persona—”

  “It is not a person-a!”

  “Of course it’s not. I’m sorry. Would you like to play Angry Birds?”

  “Mama! Mr. Leonard Cohen does not play Angry Birds. He sings Hallelujah.”

  “How about Lego?”

  “Okay.”

  Ingrid withdrew a plastic container full of Lego from her purse. “Try to keep the pieces together, love.”

  He emptied the Lego onto Carl’s floor and began making something that involved a lot of clear plastic pieces.

  “Is it okay if I sit down?” Ingrid asked.

  “Sure.” Carl gestured to the couch. “We just finished supper, but there’s a smokie wrapped up in the fridge, if you’re hungry.”

  “That would be amazing.”

  He hadn’t expected her to say yes. “Right. I’ll grab it.”

  “There aren’t any buns left,” Andrew said.

  “That’s fine,” Ingrid replied. “I’ll eat it naked. He’s had supper, but I’ve just been eating pita slices and carrots all day.”

  Carl wasn’t sure what to do with the frank, so he laid it by itself on a plate. It looked small and ridiculous. He gave the plate to Ingrid, along with a knife and fork, and for the next minute they watched in silence as she dissected her dinner. When she was finished, Carl put the plate in the sink. Neil was completely engrossed in the Lego. To an outsider, the scene would have looked quaint—four adults gathered around a small boy fitting brightly colored blocks together. But Carl was unable to shake his confusion. What was Ingrid doing here? Why had she brought her son, who also appeared to be a famous Canadian poet?