The City Still Breathing

by Matthew Heiti

  ‘Fuck it. Listen, Francie – ’ He reaches into his jacket pocket and comes out with a crumpled envelope, and his eyes are no window, but she can see he’s going to say something real and true for the first time in forever. But then he looks past her and the envelope disappears back into a pocket.

  ‘Hey hey hey!’ This moment broken by Heck sliding into the booth next to her, already munching away on a slice of bacon he’s grabbed from the tabletop. ‘So today’s the big day or what?’

  ‘Where the hell’d you come from?’

  Heck pulls at his long hair with bacon-fatted hands, making sure it’s smooth down his shoulders, then picks at his bangs. ‘Mom dropped me off.’ He takes a sip from Francie’s mug, looks at her over the edge. ‘Jeepers, why’re you still wearing your jammies?’

  Francie pulls her mug away, the handle all coated with grease. ‘How’d you know we were here?’

  ‘Slim called me.’ Something bangs under the table and Heck grabs his knee. ‘Ow, fuck, I mean I saw Slim’s car. What the hell’d you kick me with – steel toes?’

  Slim flashes his new boots.

  ‘Where’d you get those?’

  ‘Yeah, where’d you get those, Slim?’

  ‘Kicked some guy’s ass last night and took em.’

  ‘Whoa! Didja?’

  ‘Liar,’ Francie says.

  ‘Didja, Slim?’

  Slim just leans back and smiles all mysteriously.

  ‘Didja go all Macho Man on him?’ Heck starts thrashing around, flexing his biceps. ‘Like, ooh yeah!’

  ‘Shut up, Heck.’

  ‘Flying elbow drop!’

  ‘Heck.’ Francie cutting in. ‘What’re you doin here anyway?’

  ‘Well, I just wanted to say goodbye. Or whatever … ’ He trails off, giving a look around like he’s making sure no one’s listening, then coming back to Slim. ‘So where is it?’

  ‘Shut up, Heck.’

  ‘Where’s what?’

  ‘Oh shit, you didn’t tell – ’

  ‘Shut up, Heck.’

  ‘Tell me what?’

  ‘Oops.’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Yeah, nothing.’

  ‘Sounds like something.’

  ‘No it’s nothing. Totally nothing. We’re not talking about anything.’

  ‘Shut up, Heck.’

  Then there’s silence and sitting, Slim looking out the window, Heck at the floor and Francie at everyone, trying to figure out what she should be getting ready to be angry about. Slim sucks his teeth and slides out of the booth. ‘Let’s book.’

  Heck stuffs the last of the bacon in his mouth, a piece of toast, one more sip of coffee, and then he’s out the door after Slim. Francie stuck with the bill.

  She focuses on the window – the grey bungalows and grey sky and a few grey snowflakes snaking the grey pavement and grey morning oozing into grey afternoon – everything a grey paste moving by, helping her block out all that silence coming from Slim. Heck chattering away in the back seat, something about a movie he saw at the Odeon, like anyone gives a shit.

  All that grey it’s a wonder the city doesn’t just puke it all up. A big wave right down Highway 69, the Dart riding the front of it all the way to Toronto. All of it giving over to the colour of Yonge Street, the spinning neon of Sam the Record Man, the grey in her sucked out just like that. But instead Slim has them going against it, right back into the ruined heart of the city, back downtown. She cracks her window, lights a menthol and lets the smoke trail out with all the rest of it.

  When Slim parks at the end of Durham, she lets him ask twice, ‘You coming?’ Her still staring out the window, not saying boo. In the reflection, Slim’s forehead set like when his mom talks to him, and she knows she could bitch at him from now until Christmas but it’d just be a waste of good bitching. She lets him get out without asking a third time because her silence is the only weapon she’s got against all that forehead.

  Heck halfway out the back seat, head flicking between Slim going and Francie staying. ‘You guys.’ He laughs, one forced note he swallows before it’s done. He plays with the zipper on his ski vest, ahems a few times and then, ‘You got any quarters? I gotta play some Rygar.’

  ‘What’s goin on, Heck?’

  ‘What? With what? Nothin.’

  She angles the rear-view so she can see his face. ‘What’s up with him?’

  He squirms around in the back seat. ‘I’ll just get some quarters inside.’

  After he’s gone she looks back out the window, Christ the King down at the end of the street, a bit of pale sun coming through, lighting up the big stained-glass rose window in the tower. The first colour she’s seen all day.

  She changes in the back seat, jeans and her favourite purple Vuarnet sweatshirt, and she’s still trying to dig the underwear out of her ass when she gets to the sign, that big monkey grinning down on all the traffic passing by. Top Hat Amusements.

  Inside it’s all lights and noise – pinball machines and pool tables and arcades and all the other shit she grew out of ages ago. Kids in outfits so lame it’d make you sick, things they were wearing down south like last year. Kids skipping class to go to the arcade, while their parents skip work to go to Elm Town Square or Towers or god knows where, just to get away from something. Each other maybe.

  Francie makes for the back where the old ones hang out, past Heck shouting, ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ at some cabinet, passing Feldman leaning against a pillar keeping an eye out, and there’s Slim lounging at the Moon Patrol tabletop, across from Duncan, who’s plucking at his green mohawk. They’re just finishing up, Dunc sliding a small vial across and Slim sliding a few bills back.

  Before Slim spots her, she ducks into the photo booth, sits on the ripped leather cushion in all that beaver panel. Her fingers find the cool disc of a quarter in her pocket and she thinks, like what the fuck, and drops it down the slot. The machine purrs and then Francie hears Slim’s chair slide back and then Dunc’s raspy voice.

  ‘Slim, thought you should know – Milly’s comin in from ­Spanish.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘He’s looking for his brother.’

  ‘Okay, so?’

  ‘Disappeared a few days ago, just walked straight off the farm, and y’know Lemmy’s a fuckin retard, so Milly figures he mighta got himself froze to death.’

  ‘Bummer.’

  ‘Yeah, so anyway, word is cops found some dead kid out on 17 last night.’

  ‘Lemmy?’

  ‘Dunno, but Milly thinks maybe, so he’s comin to make sure. He fuckin loves that kid, practically raised him.’

  ‘That’s a bummer.’

  ‘Yeah. Anyway, I’m just sayin cause the word is the cops lost the body.’

  A shutter click, a flash, and Francie’s world is a white sheet.

  ‘So maybe someone took it or somethin. That’s what’s goin around anyway – that someone took it.’

  Click, flash.

  A groan from Slim. ‘Fuckin Heck.’

  Click, flash.

  ‘Yeah, well, anyway, thought you should know. It’s gonna look pretty bad for whoever stole that body. Milly sure loved that kid.’

  Click, flash. She rubs her eyes. Trying to brush the white spots out.

  A clunk and a strip spits out of the machine. Slim walks past the booth, heading back into the mass of brats. Francie grabs the strip, four white squares fading in, and stuffs it into her pocket, slides out of the booth. Dunc leaning over the tabletop, his face lit up by the game like he’s telling a ghost story and maybe he is. He flashes her some teeth. ‘Hey, Francine.’

  She gives him the finger and heads for the door, dragging Heck away from his game yelling, ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ the whole way.

  Back in the car she doesn’t bother with the window anymore, she stares straight at Slim. Even Heck shuts up when he feels the air go sour, or he’s still sulking about his stupid arcade game. Slim keeps giving her sideways glances and his forehead’s softened up.
Then they turn off Regent and she finally loses it.

  ‘Where the fuck are we going?’

  ‘Just hold on.’

  ‘I’m not gonna fuckin hold on. We’re supposed to be halfway to Toronto but instead we been driving all over the city and I wanna know what the fuck for!’

  ‘Just one last stop, Francie.’

  ‘I swear to god, Slim, if we’re not on that highway – I swear to fuckin god.’

  ‘I’ll get you there, don’t worry, babe.’ And it’s got to be real bad, because pet names make Slim barf. As some kind of peace offering, he jams the tape back in the eight-track. The vocals kicking in, and I’m stuck here two years too long, and Francie thinks ain’t that the fuckin truth of it. In the summer this was a love song and now it’s a song about this day and yesterday and all the days before. Stuck, stuck, stuck. And then Bernard’s voice gets all crunched up as the deck mangles the tape. Francie wrenching it loose.

  ‘You’re gonna wreck it, Francie!’ Slim trying to grab the tape from her, but she rolls down her window and tosses it. ‘Fuckin psycho!’ He pounds the wheel.

  Heck forces one of his stupid pig laughs from the back seat.

  ‘You guys.’

  In the mirror, she watches the magnetic tape unspooling behind them in a big oily ribbon, the tape clattering on the pavement. Francie laughing. Just Married.

  Slim swings the car around behind Wembley Public, stopping in the trees down near the metal bridge over the creek. So far past talking, the three of them just watch the water, a shopping cart upended in the middle, brown foam pooling around it.

  Slim pulls the vial out of his jacket and spills three blue microdots into his hand. He drops one and passes one back to Heck. The last one to Francie, her holding the blue tab like a bug she might squish. Placing it on her tongue. Dropping this little bit of colour down her throat, down inside her. A little blue into all that grey, like the food colouring her mom used for cake icing. Sometimes a little drop is all it takes. The blue’s falling into her and outside the snow is just starting to fall.

  Before five minutes have passed, Heck’s already rubbing his face. ‘It stinks back here.’

  Slim snorts. ‘Because you fuckin blew chunks back there.’

  ‘It really stinks.’ Heck’s struggling out of his jacket. ‘And it’s hot, like a sauna.’ Then he’s out the door, rolling around on the gravel.

  Francie pulls her legs up on the seat, chin on knees. ‘I don’t wanna be dicked around, Slim.’

  ‘I’m not dicking you around.’

  ‘You’re lying – ’

  ‘I’m not – ’

  ‘ – or you’re not telling me something, whatever, I don’t even give a shit, I just want to get down south.’

  ‘What’s the big deal? Toronto’s nothin special.’

  ‘It’s better than here. There’s so much to do there.’

  ‘There’s stuff here too.’

  ‘Like what – hanging out at the arcade? What’s up with you, I thought you hated it here too.’

  He shrugs. ‘It’s okay.’

  ‘It’s not okay – it sucks! I want to do things, I want to be something, and this town is dead. It’s dead. You can’t be a photographer here.’

  ‘Who says I can be a photographer anywhere?’

  ‘Your stuff is so cool, Slim. The way you take people – it’s so fuckin cool. Nobody’s cool like that.’

  ‘It’s kids’ stuff. I’m done with it.’

  ‘Why’re you saying that?’ The blue is spreading through her, syruping over the grey, tinting everything. ‘You don’t mean it.’

  ‘Photography – art, whatever – it’s not real, Francie.’

  ‘But what about school?’

  ‘Fuck it.’

  ‘You said it’s one of the best in the country.’

  ‘Well, I was wrong. It’s stupid. I’ll get a real job.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Wherever. Maybe you should think about it too.’

  ‘I don’t wanna be a fuckin waitress, Slim.’

  ‘My mom’s a waitress.’

  ‘Yeah and you hate her.’

  ‘I’m just saying maybe it’s time you gave up this fantasy, Francie.’

  ‘Shut up.’ Flakes of blue coming down, everywhere they hit, the grey going blue, the ground the trees the hood of the car, a world of blue. ‘Just tell me.’ But Slim’s face goes even greyer, becomes an iceberg. ‘Are we going or not?’

  And he opens his mouth, so wide his skull might crack, and out comes the grey of the word No, all that grey spilling across his seat toward her and she swings the door open, falling back onto the dirt on her ass, the world rolling underneath her like dad’s sailboat on the lake in the summer, stumbling across the deck, scattering stones down into the water, her a stone, Slim’s words scattering her, sending her forward over the edge of the boat, and she’s falling down down down into the lake the creek the water down into Slim’s mouth she’s drowning in all that grey drowning in the pit of this town today tomorrow next all the nexts of Francie’s days on this planet, one grey mess, and then she catches herself. Her hands on the railing. The cold of the metal. Something solid under her feet. The bridge. The creek below her.

  Her hands around the railing blue. The bridge blue. Her insides the blue world. She’s colder than she’s ever been, so far beyond cold she misses the plain numb of grey.

  Something slides around her, someone holding her – no, a jacket – Slim’s jean jacket around her, the warmth of his body whispering around inside, but even this warmth just another kind of cold. She pulls it tight around her anyway.

  ‘Dear Mr. Slider.’ Slim leaning on the railing beside her. He’s got that envelope from the diner and a white sheet of paper in his hand, reading. ‘Thank you for your application and portfolio but we regret to inform you … ’ And then he just keeps reading that part over and over again, we regret to inform you, we regret to inform you, saying it as he crumples the paper up in a ball and drops it down into the creek, regret, regret, regret.

  ‘Francie. I’ll still drive you down, okay? I’ll come back here and work, just for a bit and then I’ll come down. Then we’ll do everything, go to that Mexican place, whatever.’

  But all she can hear is regret, regret, regret. ‘Liar.’

  ‘A few months tops, I promise.’

  ‘Liar.’

  Because it’s easier. And he might be right next to her, but he’s still all grey and she’s over here in a galaxy of blue. Right next to each other but so far away.

  Then Heck’s between them, his shirt off, big hairy belly flopping around and he’s still sweating.

  ‘Okay, I’m ready, Slim.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘C’mon, man, don’t fuck around. You gotta show us.’

  Francie remembers something about this, a million years back at the diner. ‘Show us what?’

  ‘Regret, regret, regret.’ Slim’s singing it, wandering back to the car, Heck and Francie trailing him, following the music of regret, Slim prancing ahead doing his Jethro Tull impersonation with an imaginary flute, the pied piper of regret.

  He leads them around the back of the Dart, and there the three of them stand, staring down at the trunk. The look on Slim like some bad magician about to do his big trick. It was like that TV show she watched with her mom where they were opening a sealed tomb for the first time – all the excitement of what was inside, and then bullshit.

  Slim puts the key in the trunk, a twist, and the whole thing comes open. All the grey of the world coming out. Francie watches it pour out of the trunk, onto the ground, staining all the blue back to grey.

  Heck pukes immediately, like his stomach was on standby. At first Francie can only think it’s a joke, like this pale naked man is going to jump out of the trunk yelling surprise. But she takes one look at Slim, one look at his forehead, smooth and dead, to know that everything is fucked. Nobody talks for a while, only Heck gagging.

  ‘Who is it?’
>
  ‘I dunno.’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘I dunno.’

  Older than them, but maybe not too much, brownish hair, not too tall. Lips drawn back, almost like a smile, and something dark around the throat, like another smile. This is the first dead thing Francie has ever seen in all her days on this planet, and it’s not even really that bad. With the big poplars swinging back and forth above them, the water in the creek going by, it’s almost peaceful. Almost like the four of them are just hanging out here together.

  ‘I was just drivin around, comin back from the pawn shop, and there was the van pullin into the station, lights goin, and so I drive up, see what’s happening. Pull up right alongside the thing, nobody inside, nobody around. So I get out, go around to the back and the doors are open and there it is.’

  ‘And so you took it?’

  ‘No, I swear to fuck, Francie, I was there lookin at it and then I was pullin into your driveway.’

  ‘So what – it just appeared in your trunk?’

  ‘I don’t fuckin know. I mean I guess I put it there, but it’s like I blacked out. I got that letter yesterday and it’s like my brain just shut off. I mean who the fuck am I? I was up all night, got in this fight, sold the cameras and there it was – this fuckin dead guy, right in front of me. And I thought fuck it. I’ll stay here, I’ll go back to sellin weed or popcorn like fuckin Normando or whatever, it doesn’t fuckin matter, because I’m not gonna do covers for National Geographic or art shows. I’ll never get outta here. I’m just gonna end up in the back of a fuckin van. No name. Nothing.’

  Slim sits on the ground next to Heck, who is holding his head between his legs. ‘Aw, jinkies.’ Heck spits. ‘I thought it’d be cool. This isn’t cool. He’s dead, man. He’s really dead.’

  Francie stares right into the dead man’s eyes. Just one of those faces, like they say about serial killers – could be anybody. Might’ve passed him in the mall, or sat next to him on the bus. Now none of that’s there, nothing in the eyes. Like when she’d wake Slim up in his cabin, that brief moment when he hadn’t returned from sleep. His brain would be reeling his soul in and for a second he’d be no one.

  She says, ‘So is this Milly’s brother?’