Communion

by Graeme Gibson

  It’s not clear in what way he knows this, but Ritson believes there was a time when he could venture out of his house during the daylight hours, there must have been. Memories are like bad dreams. Leaning into the stink of his urine, he flushes the toilet and leaves the room. He can’t imagine that he came to this city at night, he hasn’t always lived in the basement, there was a time, there must have been. “Memories are like bad dreams.” Ritson’s voice, it doesn’t sound like a voice, he hears it in the dark. “They torment me so. That’s why I live in a cellar, it must be: I am lonely, but I am away from it all. That must be the reason. I have had to get used to it, it has not come easily. How could it? It is not man’s nature to live like an animal.” Perhaps he has said this before. Does he remember or does he dream? Cedar boughs, he knows what they smell like; a child, children of different ages. It doesn’t mean anything. Nothing happens for the first time. He urinates, flushes the toilet, comes to the stairs and climbs out of the basement; it’s like the beating of his heart, for example, or the alternate expansion and contraction of the lungs inside his chest.

  Ritson with the gun in one hand, the other lightly on the wall behind him, he sees others, the feral strangers, he crouches unmoving in the dark, his hands are sweating, he raises his arm, extends it from the shoulder, his index finger along the trigger guard, it’s as if he’s invisible, he can see the struggling shapes, he can hear them, they don’t know he’s here, so close to them, teeth white, eyes staring, he could almost reach out and touch them, he curls his finger around the trigger, he squeezes, the first one doesn’t hear the explosions, he fires methodically, he never misses, they’re dead before the impact throws their bodies to the ground.

  As confident as a blind man, Ritson steps into the narrow hall, it’s only a passageway, his shoulders brush each side as he shuffles past the stairs. He’s surrounded by rooms, cubicles in the dark. Standing in the noise of his piss, feeling it flow through the flesh in his hand, he accepts that it has begun again: he’ll climb from his basement to the ground floor, he’ll eat a certain amount of food and when it’s undeniably night, he’ll go out into the streets. He’ll keep to the alleys and sidestreets, he prefers back alleys, laneways tortuous among foundation walls. He’s able to cross narrow streets, resting his hands lightly on the wall behind him, making certain he’s unobserved he closes his eyes, he launches himself into a desperate run, he knows how vulnerable he is, what if they see him? reaching for the wall on the other side, he makes it if it’s not too far, he clutches at the buildings, the substance of the city, he’s terrified of open spaces, the sky: occasionally he loses his nerve, perhaps he’s confused and changes direction, it can happen, the wall isn’t there, he panics, lurching with closed eyes, stretching his arms, searching, he hears his voice, he falls to his knees, he presses his hands, his face against the earth, he doesn’t know how it happens, he doesn’t know what to do, he crawls blindly . . .

  Felix returns his gaze and smiles, he lowers his arm until the gun is resting on his thigh and the man begins to laugh. His hands are delicate on the steering wheel, he’s watching Felix with sharp brown eyes and laughing richly. “Baby you should of seen your face.” He reaches to take the gun, his hand is cool, Felix sees it on his own. “You should try it some time, you know what I mean?” They’re driving fast in light traffic; the fields on either side are flat and green. He’s sure there are insects, bugs, he feels them scuttling inside his clothes. “You should try it.”

  “No, I . . . couldn’t.”

  “Sweetheart, you gotta wait and see.” The hand is cool, Felix sees it resting on his own, the delicate fingers, he knows the ferret face watching him, he relinquishes the gun. Fripp replaces it beside the seat: lighting two cigarettes, Felix gives one to him, he can’t look at him, they’re driving very fast, grey smoke is sucked out the window. “I thought it’d make them hot, sometimes it makes em hot, you know that baby?” Felix scratches inside his shirt, whatever they are they don’t seem to bite; inhaling he feels the sharp smoke in his chest, he senses vague pains, his fingers are in the armpit, his palm across the nipple, he presses roughly, he digs his fingers into the moist flesh and stares out the window to his right. What’s he saying? they’re driving very fast, his voice fills the cab but Felix doesn’t understand; past exit roads for Kitchener, then Preston, bland fields in tentative sunlight, Woodstock and London with Felix slouching, staring through the glass, falling each mile farther into himself: sideroads empty, occasional barns with homes in shadow and always the fields geometric on the land. Mile after mile. He can’t remember the first time it happened and can’t be sure it ever did. It might have been an early morning on the way to summer camp. It might have been. A field rising to bush, trees crowding from the sky’s edge and there, into the trees, an entrance leading away and he sees himself climbing the field in silence, sees a figure alone, only briefly pausing, then striding as best he can from sight. “Got my first one in Buffalo, he went down like a bag of shit, you know what I mean? Baby, you listening to me at all?” Felix turns, white eyes in a narrow face, he nods. “You never aim for the head, shit: the head’s too fucken small, you go for the gut, it’s full of stuff they need.” Both hands on the wheel, driving in the late afternoon, his voice is immense. “There’s just a little hole where it goes in, but it comes out the back like a fucken cannon.” They stare at each other, Felix has to look away: he sees a bird with ragged wings, poised above the fields, it drifts easily ahead of them, it’s rising as they pass: turning he watches it from the side window until it’s just a speck, until he can’t see it anymore.

  Sometimes a stream then, a creek that leads from sight among the trees, and other times it’s just a suggestion, an opening image as he’s carried by. His body’s empty with the journey and he cannot speak. Would it have been different if he’d prepared the dog in some way? it might have been, if he’d taken it for walks maybe, gone north with it, given it a chance: he was precipitous, panic, it must have been panic, he didn’t think, he should have, he should have what? He could have killed it in the cage. Nothing is certain. How can he know? Cool on his forehead and dirty, the window between him and that figure in the field. In trains sometimes and cars. One day he will wake and discover that he isn’t sure whether it happened or not, it won’t matter; he’ll feel guilt, the familiar patterns, but the husky, what will it mean to him then? Driving past Chatham with night overtaking them: her eyes, luminous, did it happen in Ottawa? crying in somebody’s hall, is this true? in some obscure way he too is guilty, he wasn’t there. Past Chatham, on towards Windsor with the sky rising mountainous behind them, they’re driving against the earth. Mile after mile. His mind is full of images, rationalizations, with escape routes closing before he knows, all the familiar structures of guilt.

  At some point they stop for coffee, they climb down from the cab, he remembers the body walking beside him, they don’t pause by the cash desk inside the door but go directly to a booth in the corner with Fripp waving, shouting recognition as they pass: there are introductions, a woman with purple nails, a man with a cigar, there are others, Felix doesn’t recall anything happening. He has the impression, he doesn’t know why, that they talk about him as if he’s somewhere else. Drinking coffee, eating and smoking.

  Towards Windsor with the sky rising mountainous behind them, they’re driving against the earth. Mile after mile. It wasn’t his fault, he’d have done something, he’d have helped in some way. If he hadn’t fallen, if his body hadn’t betrayed him, it’s like a seizure, he doesn’t understand, like a fit of some kind, he doesn’t want to think about it. “Her name was Morag.” Fripp grins, he touches Felix on the knee. He could have killed it in the cage.

  “You light me a smoke baby?” Startled by darkness in the cab, it’s almost night, the white teeth, his white eyes in shadow now, Felix looks away: with two cigarettes in his mouth he bends to the shifting flame, he inhales, he knows that Fripp is watching him. What is it?
He gives him the cigarette and lights his own. “I really like you Felix Oswald, you know that?” Felix doesn’t understand. On both sides of the highway, bare branches rise from the darkening land, there are houses without lights, in the distance he can see towns, they’re coming to a city, to the river, soon they’ll be in Detroit.

  The headlights from approaching traffic hurt his eyes: there are restaurants and motels by the road, he sees service stations with multi-coloured pennants reaching above the lights, low buildings in darkness; he’s never been here before, he stares through the glass and nothing is new; people stand by the road, there are traffic lights, everywhere there are cars, and then he sees the bridge, its mechanical shape crouching over the river.

  They scarcely pause on the Canadian side, it’s unnerving, Felix doesn’t know if he should look back at Windsor, what would that accomplish? Conceivably he shouldn’t be doing this, he recognizes it might be a mistake, but he can’t be sure: the metallic river glistens beneath them, Fripp accelerates slowly to the hump of the bridge, talking all the time, and Felix discovers that he’s actually thinking of opening the door, of jumping onto the bridge and returning to the other side, it’s not too late. A yellow sky hangs over the city as they descend. Up river and close to the shore he notices fire, but there are gates, lights flashing ahead. Men in uniforms, they pull open the doors and motion him out, they do not speak to him, they’re joking with Fripp but Felix can’t hear what they’re saying, he wonders what would happen if he walked back up the bridge and went home, would they hurt him? Fripp comes around the truck, he’s laughing easily. There are flashing lights, the noise of engines. “They want to talk to you baby, it won’t take long.” Felix looks back up at the bridge against the night sky, they cross the pavement, they usher him through the waiting room with an American flag on the wall, there are five of them, including Fripp who carries the knapsack: they follow a narrow hall, there are closed doors on either side and heating pipes on the ceiling. They come to an alcove at the end. One of the men empties his knapsack on the floor and methodically begins to examine the contents. Felix doesn’t know what they’re looking for. It’s true he’s impressed by their thoroughness, but he doesn’t know how to react, he doesn’t know what to feel. Standing naked against a pile of cardboard cartons he watches them tapping the heels of his shoes, they run their fingers along the seams of his clothing, everything is meticulously searched, he stares in horror as his tube of toothpaste is squeezed into the wastebasket: he knows that Fripp is leaning against the door jamb with his arms crossed as one man examines the inside of his mouth, the fingers are like sausages and taste of soap; they turn him around and push him forward into a crouch, he’s held by the scruff of the neck, one of them stabs an investigating finger up his ass, he’s afraid he’s going to shit. He almost falls when they release him. Because they haven’t spoken to him, nobody has addressed a word to him, they’re laughing and talking among themselves, it’s unclear whether or not he can ask them what they were looking for, what they were doing to him. He gets back into his clothes without looking at them. Crouching he gathers his belongings together and stuffs them back into his knapsack.

  Felix climbs back into the truck. He lights a cigarette, his mouth is bruised. Inhaling he stares through the windshield, the cigarette glows, it fades to greyness, then it glows again, miniature forms collapse upon themselves as he exhales. He’d like to hammer on the window with his fists, but he’s afraid: he stares into the dark. When he inhales, the light illuminates his face, he sees himself reflected in the glass. He looks away.

  Fripp scrambles noisily into the truck, shouting farewells he slams the door, the great engine catches and they begin to move. Briefly Felix sees figures motionless in the headlights and then the streets are deserted. Something struggles in his cheek, he can feel it bumping on the edge of his cheekbone as they drive, his hands have no strength, he throws his cigarette out the window as Fripp brakes the truck at a red light. They sit in silence. The muscle continues to jump in his cheek. “Hey baby.” The sudden voice, he sniffs his middle finger, he thrusts it under Felix’s nose. “You wanna smell something, you recognize that?” The cab is full of laughter, it’s like stereo. The light has turned green, they don’t move. Fripp’s white teeth in a ferret face, he’s staring at Felix, his face is resting on the steering wheel. “Jesus Christ I’d like to fuck you!” Fripp reaches beside the seat, Felix is sure he did, he throws open the door and leaps to the road, that voice, what is it saying? running beside the gleaming trailer, through the exhaust, he hears noises behind him, he throws himself into an alleyway . . .

  He doesn’t know how long he’s been walking, it doesn’t matter, eventually he’ll find the bridge, in the morning he’ll find the bridge. He keeps to the alleys and sidestreets, back alleys, laneways tortuous among foundation walls of factories, warehouses, he moves with unfamiliar grace, his feet make no sound because sometimes there are others, he can hear them, in the rubble of a vacant lot, crumbling houses on the other side, he can see them, beneath a yellow sky, they look like children, they’re running excitedly about some object on the ground, he strains to see, it’s a man, he’s crawling blindly, they’re taunting him, Felix doesn’t know what to do, they’re lighting matches, “Stop it!” He shouts and rushes into the open, they scatter with cries of alarm, one of them falls, a twelve-year-old, Felix grabs it by the shoulder, what are they doing? Felix with both hands at the throat of a struggling child, he stares blankly into its face. He doesn’t understand. The old man crawls whimpering towards a wall, Felix smells the gasoline as he passes, the child is jumping wildly, kicking in his hands: Felix Oswald, the muscle convulsing in his cheek, they were going to burn him, he can smell the gasoline, where are the others? Felix staring violently into the darkness, the old man’s almost to the wall, he can hear the gasping breath, the child has stopped fighting, Felix is hardly aware of him: a yellow sky presses down on the shells of buildings, their boarded windows, it settles on the vacant lot, the small body is limp in his hands, he has to support it, he stares into bulging eyes, the black contorted face, it’s dead! a small body collapsing at his feet, the yellow sky. Standing over it he tries to understand. The swollen tongue, it lolls from between its teeth with blood boiling onto the chin, he doesn’t understand, he falls as he tries to turn away, his knees bang stupidly against his chest, he’s bleeding from the mouth, he doesn’t feel the garbage against his face. He doesn’t see the tentative figures emerging from shadows, they circle closer, cautious, like dogs, they douse his shuddering body from pop bottles, with gasoline, one of them lights a match and Felix Oswald bursts into flame.

  Ritson with the gun in one hand, the other lightly on the wall behind him, they almost got him, he crouches in the dark, his hands are sweating, the stink of gasoline has cleared his head, he raises his arm, extends it from the shoulder, his index finger along the trigger guard, it’s as if he’s invisible, he can see them clearly in the light of flames leaping from the body of a man, he can hear terrible cries, they don’t know he’s here, so close to them, teeth bared, eyes white, he curls his finger around the trigger, he squeezes, the first one doesn’t hear the explosions, he fires methodically as they scatter, he never misses, they’re dead before the impact throws their bodies to the ground.

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