Johnathon shook his head. “I can get a degree any time.”
Dillon just cocked an eyebrow and waited.
Johnathon cleared his throat. “I want to do something maybe meaningful. I don’t need the kind of crap that goes on around here. The guys at the office are either procuring objects or girls any way they can.” He shifted, his face red again. “Present company excepted, of course.”
Dillon felt a heaviness. He said, “So you’re just going to drop out and head for Africa? For a woman, no less? You’re a ding-dong, you know that?”
“Lena is the first person I’ve ever met who is totally selfless. She makes me feel . . . like I owe her something.” Dillon shook his head. Wow. Here was a guy who easily managed his small part of the departmental processes, not because he was happy doing it, but because he had an escape plan. An escape with a near angel who didn’t need to drink or strip or argue.
Once, in a boozy stupor, he had mentioned to Tiffany that he was afraid of becoming the scum that forms — a vague metaphor for concerns he couldn’t quite fathom. Tiffany had tried to focus on him with her booze-bleary eyes and told him to suck it up and stop being an infant.
The server arrived with his next pint. He seized the glass and drank.
Johnathon asked, “Do you believe in fate?”
“Not particularly,” Dillon replied, “But don’t tell me.” He touched his forehead with his fingertips and closed his eyes, “It was fated for you to meet Lena and then set off on some African adventure.”
Johnathon shook his head. “I had a dream. And that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Without the clowns.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“Why don’t you come with us?”
Dillon snorted. “Are you kidding? You sound like Martin Luther King. ‘I had a dream.’”
“The missions always need people. And they don’t have to be Christian. I’m not.”
“Why the hell would I want to go to Ethiopia?”
“Because you’re sick of the ‘mindless morons’ you deal with everyday? Including Tiffany and that girl from Accounting, Darla, Deedee?”
“Deirdre. And what’s your insane dream got to do with me?”
“In it, you seemed very, very unhappy. You were on a wide, thorny plain, staring into an overcast horizon.”
Dillon shook his head and drained his glass.
Johnathon said, “Anyway, I think you drink too much.”
That crossed the line. Dillon clenched his jaw. “Well, Friar John-oh-thon, thanks for your concern.” He stood up. “My drinking is none of your business. And keep me out of your idiot schemes. Dreams. Whatever the hell. I gotta blast.”
“They’re taking volunteers until early September,” Johnathon said.
On his way home, the night was calm and cool. He was furious with that pretentious cock. And what about Lena? What was her real motive? She hated his guts. Didn’t she?
Dillon didn’t despise his job. It was something he was good at. The salary was acceptable, about ten percent higher than the industry average for purchasing positions. He enjoyed talking on the telephone with the workers at the mine site. He liked dealing with outside vendors.
He stared at the flashing message-waiting indicator on his telephone. Why would someone dream about him, never mind consider his wellbeing? If he dared ask anyone in his current circle — miner, vendor, co-worker — they would undoubtedly be waiting for the Buck-type joke, the punchline, so they could snigger and . . .
He sighed and reached for the phone.
There was a voice message from Deirdre in Accounting. “Oh, mygawd, Dillon. I’m so sorry I haven’t called you lately. I just couldn’t find the energy. I have some news. I’d love to go for drinks, get caught up and, you know, whatever. Let’s cut out a half hour early and get that back table at The Cavern. I’ve got something to ask you, too. I think I totally need a change.”
This relationship, if you could call it that, was off again, on again, and they hadn’t seen each other for a couple of weeks. She might be a distraction. He called her back and ended up leaving a message on her voicemail saying her plan worked for him.
Deirdre was late. The din in the bar increased while people filtered in after work. The Cavern’s dark, hardwood floor was polished to a shine but the equally dark, exposed support beams and pillars and the brown brickwork gave the whole bar an oppressive feel. The subdued lighting, probably to hide the crappy brickwork, added a dinge factor and the black marble of the long counter did nothing to brighten the place.
But the drinks were cheap. He was well into his third pint when she finally rolled in; he watched her head directly to the bar. She had an ample and well-proportioned body, but the really attractive thing about her was her waist-length auburn hair. She ordered her drink and then turned and gave him a finger wave. Waiting for her drink, she twirled her hair. It was annoying, her tendency to twirl her ringlets in the fingers of her left hand.
She slid into the booth across from him and gently set down her Paralyzer. She clunked her purse, a purple and mauve shoulder bag with long straps, in the middle of the table.
He recoiled and snatched his glass, saving it from a tumble.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said. “Some receivables didn’t balance. To the order of nine cents, no less. The boss wouldn’t let us leave until he got his reconciliation. It probably cost 900 dollars to find the stupid inverted cents entry that caused the difference in the first place. Nine cents! Just write it off, I say, but who listens to me? I hate that place.”
“Yep,” Dillon replied. “How’s life in general?”
“Oh, mygawd. That’s exactly why I called you. I need someone to talk to. This crappy life so sucks. I can’t even begin. My gawd, he’s taken up with a nineteen-year-old. Like, how sleazy can you get? Some newb little chicky he found when he was coaching community association basketball. Barely out of high school. I hope he gets the clap. And oh, my, gawd, you know what he says? He says, ‘It’s nothing personal.’ He says he needs to live before he can be tied down with marriage and kids. So I spilled my drink in his lap and I said I hope his pecker falls off. But I got it together and you were there for me when I needed you. You’ve come to my rescue.” Elbows on the table, she rested her chin on her interlaced fingers.
“Well, Deeds,” he said, while she smiled coyly at the familiarization of her name, “Tough news. I’m sorry to hear it.”
“Don’t be. All the self-help books say we have to make the best of adversity, which is what I wanted to talk to you about. We should try and be selfless. I am. And I think you and I should do something radical. Totally for the selfless part of ourselves before we finally settle down. Something they’ll talk about for years to come.”
“A suicide pact?”
Deirdre’s braying laugh was so loud some patrons were looking over at her. “You’re hilarious.” She let her hair go, dabbed at her eyes with a napkin, careful not to smear her mascara. “Seriously, I think we should run away to some exotic, unexpected location, you know, just for the long weekend?”
“How about Ethiopia?”
Furrowing her eyebrows, she shook her head once. “Do they have all-inclusives there?”
“Not exactly.” He drained his pint and waved his glass at the server.
Deirdre shook her head. “Wait a minute.” Her fingers twisted deeper into her curls. Her acrylic nails, purple and adorned with little black flowers, disappeared from view. “Isn’t there, like, pirates in Ethiopia? And, mygawd, isn’t it one of those places where women can’t wear bikinis?”
He didn’t bother to tell her there were no pirates because Ethiopia is landlocked. Instead he said, “Someone suggested I should try a new job there for a while.”
“Ewww.” Her finger gyrations slowed as her head leaned over and rested on her hand.
Dillon was thinking about Johnathon’s proposition. Johnathon and Lena and him, all together.
Deirdre stared vacantly until her eyes g
rew wide, as if at that perfect tropical, all-inclusive paradise. “Oh, my, gawd. I get you. You’re pulling one of those silly Buck jokes, aren’t you? Stop it right now. That’s not even a little bit funny.”
He laughed without humour. “Hey, you caught me.” He wondered where his next drink was.
He was mired.
But if he was mired at that moment, Deirdre looked adrift and rudderless, a soul lost, out of sight of the coast of the Horn of Africa.
He said, “So, what places do you have in mind?”
“Well, now that you ask.” Deirdre wiggled her eyebrows and pulled a stack of internet printouts on office paper from her purse. While pints and Paralyzers flowed she presented a plethora of getaways and he listened.
They left at closing time and he pushed Deirdre into the back seat of the first cab, and said, “I need some time alone.”
“I thought you were coming over?”
“Not tonight.” He slammed the cab’s back door.
Staggering home, putting one foot in front of the other, trying not to trip on weeds growing through the sidewalk cracks, his mind remained completely blank.
He finally managed to unlock the door of his downtown condo and stumbled inside, leaning at the entrance until the spinning slowed. The message waiting indicator was flashing ‘2’. Dali’s Temptation of St. Anthony, the only thing on any of the walls, loomed above the answering machine.
He walked a reasonably straight line to the machine and pressed the play messages button. Johnathon said he and Lena had talked to their church pastor and they were holding a place for him in their upcoming mission. Before he could absorb an iota of Johnathon’s words the next message chimed.
“Dillon. This is Tiffany. I want you to know that I don’t blame you for our split and I don’t hold a grudge, even though it is all essentially your fault, but . . . ” His bladder protested and he rushed to the bathroom. “ . . . too much smothering. Too much for me anyway. Perhaps a lesser woman . . . ” He proceeded to brush his teeth, went back to the hallway and put his shoes and jacket in their places in the front closet while Tiffany’s voice droned on, slurring occasionally, “ . . . we agree our pensions won’t be touched by the other person but when I think of the costs over the years, I really think I got the short end given that Saskatchewan marital law states that after a year of living together everything is a 50-50 split, and I know I make more money than you, but you shirked on daily living expenses and I’ve calculated you owe me . . . ”
Maybe he should subscribe to voicemail so he can simply delete messages without having to listen to them all the way through. He pressed the delete button twice, eliminating both messages, then eased onto his black leather couch.
He thought briefly of channel surfing on his 42” flat screen TV, just to unwind a bit, but instead tossed the remote out of reach on one of the two matching leather armchairs, reached for the cardigan he kept on the back of the couch, covered himself, and passed out.
He sat up, fully dressed and checked his watch. Standing, he felt reasonably rested. Making his way to the bathroom, he wondered how much booze it would take before he started to suffer from hangovers — or maybe if he quit now he’d suffer withdrawal? That rested feeling only lasted until he finished urinating, then his conscious mind powered up. He felt like he was standing in the lowest level of the potash mine. A lump throbbed in his lower abdomen in all that heavy darkness. He hung his head and leaned against the wall above the toilet. He massaged his forehead.
Standing up straight, he was hit with a sudden resolve. He simply went with the impulse and made two telephone calls.
One was to his manager’s voicemail to say he wasn’t coming into the office. The second was to make an emergency appointment at a twenty-four-hour clinic.
The doctor on call there wrote a note prescribing, at his suggestion, three weeks off and some heavy antacid drugs. He also strongly suggested that Dillon stop drinking.
Scanning the doctor’s note on his scanner/printer, he attached it to an email to his manager and, after another phone call to him, a three-week medical leave was agreed to.
Johnathon would cover for the duration of the absence. By the time Dillon returned to work, Jonathon’s work term and Lena’s summer job would be finished.
Dillon did not believe he had a drinking problem. To prove it, he spent his entire absence avoiding all alcohol. This included wine with meals. He simply made up his mind not to drink, and he whiled away the hours cleaning and re-cleaning his austere and spotless home. He reorganized the kitchenette until nothing sat on the countertop; all small appliances, including the coffeemaker, grinder, mixer, sat behind closed cupboard doors with the plastic containers of flour, ground coffee, sugar.
He drank warm water with lemon or cups of fresh coffee to satisfy any urge to drink. The only time he ventured out was to buy groceries. Otherwise, he watched movies or TV series online, and never turned on the television other than to watch the news. He checked his email daily but deleted all messages unread.
He tried not to think of the office, Deirdre, Johnathon, Lena, or Ethiopia. He rejected the thought of the upcoming mission each time it emerged from the dark mineshaft. There was simply too much to leave behind. He couldn’t even entertain the possibility.
He ignored a number of phone calls from Tiffany. He played messages with the answering machine’s volume turned down and deleted them immediately.
He began deleting numbers from his telephone’s directory and call list, including the pastor’s and Johnathon’s.
On Dillon’s first Monday back at work, Johnathon and Lena were gone; they would be in preparation for their mission to Ethiopia; they were to leave the following Friday.
A new girl, blonde, with heavy black mascara, and a body type that reminded him too much of Tiffany, sat at Lena’s desk. He walked past her with a cursory “Good Morning,” and headed to the break room for a cup of coffee before starting work.
He set his cup in its usual spot. A plain white envelope was almost completely tucked under his keyboard. It was addressed to Dillon in Johnathon’s handwriting. He tore it open and found a single white sheet with names and telephone numbers: Johnathon’s, the Pastor’s, and Lena’s, all handwritten. He stared at the sheet a moment, then rubbed his index finger over Lena’s name, slightly smearing the ink.
Pursing his lips, he folded the page in half and ripped it four times. Balling the paper shreds together, he threw the wad into the garbage can.
He powered up his computer and stirred his coffee. He’d done it — dry for three weeks. Perhaps a treat — a celebration — was now in order? He’d head to The Cavern after work for sure. He set the stir stick across the rim of his cup and signed into the Procurement Request system.
Buck plopped down in a guest chair. “So, whaddja do on holidays there, pally? Thanks for not letting your buddies know what was coming down, by the way.” He slurped coffee from his overflowing thermal mug.
“Watched movies. Cleaned the apartment. Told Tiffany to fuck off. And now I’m all ready for my brand new life.”
“Geez, Dial-on, you’re a machine, but you still need to get laid.”
“What do you want, Buck?”
“Drinks after work? But if you’re going to be all pissy, well. . . . ” Buck trailed off and slurped again.
“Now look who’s pissy. Of course I’m going for drinks.”
Buck hesitated a moment and said, “So, have you heard about Deirdre?”
Dillon crossed his arms and leaned back. He waited for Buck to continue.
Buck blew on the lid of his cup and didn’t say anything.
“Heard what?” Dillon finally snapped.
Buck took another long, loud slurp. “It’s a sad, sad loss to all us healthy, red-blooded men here.”
Dillon thought of his suicide pact joke and what a horrible turn such a thing could take. “What’s your point, Buck?”
“Now don’t make that face, pally.” Buck slurped again. “She ha
uled that gorgeous ass off to Cancun. She gave two-week’s notice and got an accounting job at some swanky five-star hotel. They gave her a suite — right on the beach, no less. The girl’s gonna have a tough life down there. I sure hope she doesn’t suffer too much.”
“You’re kidding me, right? This is another joke. It has to be.”
“Try her number. She won’t be answering that phone no more. She quit and moved away.” Buck’s cup hovered in front of his lips. “To Mexico no less.”
Dillon put his hand on the telephone’s handset. “I suppose there’s worse places to live.”
“Yeah, like Ethiopia.”
Dillon felt his face flame. A hole burned through his stomach. He couldn’t remember everything from that night, and that truly scared him.
Buck lowered his cup, exposing a twisted smirk, and burst out with a roaring Bwa-ha-ha-ha. “She told me all about your Ethiopia vacation joke and how you ditched her. You must’ve been like a baby monkey playing with his dink.” Buck pointed at Dillon with his mug. “But what’s really funny is you falling for that Cancun story. ‘Oh, my gawd,’ Deirdre can barely talk English, let alone Mexican. You can be such a moron.”
Buck looked at his watch and jumped up. “Well, gotta go pally. They hired a new temp-schlub to replace that Lena chick. I gotta go break in the new meat. Great body on that one. Later.”
So this workday starts the same as all the others. If he goes drinking after work it will end the same. He really is the scum floating on his coffee.
Leaning over, he picks the ripped and crumpled page from the garbage and begins to smooth out the pieces.
Godsend
THERE WAS SOMETHING I NEEDED to remember. It wasn’t work, I was already there staring at my bloodshot, bruised-looking eyes in the washroom mirror. I’d even made it on time because I had crashed at my friend Darryl’s apartment, a ten-minute walk away. My clothes were a bit wrinkled but I’d been at work in worse shape before. Darryl even let me use his extra toothbrush. So what was it I had to do?
Thorn-Field Page 13
