I decided violence was the way forward.
With as much subtlety as possible, I put a big smile on my face and simultaneously crashed down on Isobel’s cranberry-painted toes. It was my most assertive act ever. Izzy stifled a screech and backed away gracefully, understanding the code.
At last, there he was . . . in front of me . . . alone in all his curly-haired glory.
He looked strangely smaller, subdued, and tired; this was him offstage. But he was so familiar to me. I ran through all the things I wanted to say to him in my head, how I loved him madly, how in “You Me and the Weather” I know exactly what he meant, how we could have a great time together, how . . . But what could I say that was any different from the fifteen hundred girls behind me?
“Is, is, is that episcopal purple you’re wearing?”
He leaned forward and giggle-whispered, “Actually, I think it’s more of a penis purple.”
Oof—I didn’t know how to respond to penis talk! I didn’t have anything rehearsed so I did the only thing that came to mind.
I got down on one knee, and, offering him a bagel (which was the only thing in my bag resembling a ring), I said: “Hawksley Workman, you don’t know me yet, but I’ve got a confession to make. I feel that you would soon realize how I am your listener, the one who gets everything you are saying . . . This obviously isn’t the time to get into it. But do you think you might like to marry me?”
He laughed.
A gorgeous, kind laugh that ended with a smile. It warmed my heart and deflated the whole situation. He cleared his throat and said, “Oh, honeysuckle, that’s a charming offer . . . Come here . . . I need to tell you a secret.”
I crawled over and leaned close to him. He smelled like leather, sweat, and honey.
“I’m pretty much very married already and I’m mad about her. I’m sorry,” he said as he kissed my cheek. I got to my feet. Then he gestured to come closer again. I approached. As I leaned toward him for the second time, it dawned on me: he looked a hell of a lot like Sullivan. The hair, the sultry eyes, the full lips. Weird that I hadn’t noticed that before.
“Nice snapdragon!” he said to me, winking.
I walked away with Isobel limping along beside me. She threw her arm around me in solidarity. “Chin up, mon p’tit coeur. You might not think so right now, but that was a magnifique thing you just did there. And the bagel thing, pure brilliance! No one would have guessed what you said to him.”
“Come on, that was the most teeny-boppy thing I’ve ever done, Iz. This beats it all. I was crawling, for fucksakes . . .” I pulled out the snapdragon from my hair.
“No, trust me on this. You were very brave. You took a risk you knew would probably result in a crash and you went for it! Besides, he’s not that cute close up. He kind of looks like Sullivan. Did you notice his bald patch?”
“It’s hardly a bald patch, just a mild thinning in the clearing. How are your toes?”
“Let’s not speak of it. It’s a shame you wear those clunky boots, not just from a fashion perspective, the stomp factor is high—sweet Jesus!”
“Sorry.” I didn’t feel that sorry.
“Shush! Now let’s go shopping at the merch table. A nice concert T-shirt might make it all better.”
We made our way past the still-long line of girls anticipating their Hawksley blessings. I think Isobel knew she’d been offside when she’d quasi-flirted with Hawksley, so she wasn’t angry about my toe-stomping outburst. But when I noticed the blood creeping up her toe I felt bad.
“Isobel, stop walking, we need to fix that.”
“Mon Dieu, it’s bleeding! It’s fine, I’m fine, I’ll rest it in the car. We’ll get a little ice and it’ll be healed tout de suite.” She gimped along cheerfully.
The guilt added to my general feeling of self-loathing. I needed redemption. I wanted to go home and sleep for a week and then get up and start again, put it all behind me. There was no more anticipation left to fire me up, just thousands of kilometres west to be travelled.
We stopped at the merch table. Previously I’d always avoided these tables, somehow feeling holier-than-thou and not wanting regular fan merchandise because I was much much more than a fan. Those pretensions were long gone.
I fondled the T-shirts and CDs and book of poems that I already owned and then I stumbled on a miniature Hawksley statue with a bit on the bottom that you could peel off and stick to the dashboard of your car! I grabbed two, one for my mantelpiece at home. It was liberating not being proud and too good for this stuff.
Choosing stuff at the table made me think of choosing in general and how I chose this infatuation. I chose to use delusion to get over Sullivan. And my fan worship wasn’t much different than my love worship I’d felt for Sullivan.
Isobel chose a pair of thong panties, which she could wear because she was tall and skinny. I tried not to think of it as blasphemy; Hawksley on her crotch. Then I saw a shadow on the table of a giant fried-egg shape. I turned around.
In full bright red Royal Canadian Mountain Police regalia stood a determined and boiling-looking man. THE GUY FROM THE REAR-VIEW MIRROR!
Oh crap, now we were going to get arrested.
“Young ladies, do you own a pink-coloured Volkswagen Beetle?”
“Uh . . . maybe,” I said, imagining horrible fines for the foul fumes it had emitted across the country or for parking badly in Montreal, or maybe we’d trashed our hotel room more than I realized back in Wawa, or, worst-case scenario, for hitting something and not realizing it? Or maybe VISA had called him?
“Take me, officer. Annie has a future, she got much better marks in university than me and is super kind and has great potential as a future singer/songwriter guitarist or DJ! Take me to jail if you have to, let her go free!” I was touched by Isobel’s sincerity. DJ, could I be a DJ?
“Hey, take it easy, I’m not a real RCMP! I’m wearing a bow tie! You guys must have watched way too much Due South; I’m just a singer in a band who dress like Mounties. RCMP don’t actually dress like this on regular duty. You’ve maybe seen a few of us around? I was on the highway too and saw you girls a couple of times.”
“Officer, I have a minor toe injury,” Isobel said as she lifted her tanned leg up for him to see the wound. I think she might have flashed him a bit of panty and a whole lot of thigh. Bless her.
“Oh crumbs, that looks terrible! How’d it happen?”
“Well, c’est ridicule, but I actually stepped on myself, moi même. It’s these high heels!”
“You know, you don’t even need to wear high heels, miss. I mean, gosh, you’re very tall as it is. You might intimidate people if you tower over their heads. I bet if I didn’t have this hat on, I’d even be shorter than you.”
I couldn’t believe it, even this quaint RCMP guy was falling for her! It never ended. Surely the guy could see through the ditzy chick routine? Maybe he didn’t want to see through it.
He took us to his car where he had a first-aid kit. He had her drape her leg over the seat so he could clean and dress her wound. He also managed, she told me later, to give her a sneaky little foot rub.
“Bye bye, officer!” Isobel said as we walked away.
“You know, I’ve never dated a cop before!”
“Isobel, come on, don’t be obscene. Let’s Get Pimmed!”
It was time for a Pimm’s session. We were going to stay overnight at a hostel. Drinking myself to oblivion on a funny old-fashioned English drink loaded with a bunch of cucumbers and fruit was my plan.
side b, track 1
“Terrified of telephones and shopping malls, and knives,
and drowning in the pools of other lives.
Rely a bit too heavily on alcohol and irony.
Get clobbered on by courtesy,
in love with love,
and lousy poetry.
And I’m leaning on a broken fence
between Past and Present tense . . .”
“Aside,” The Weakerthans
Day 9
Somewhere on the TransCan headed back west
I felt lower than a snake’s belly, and we had almost five thousand kilometres to go before I could collapse on my couch, where I planned on spending the rest of my twenties as a failed romantic. The smell of gasoline and exhaust was blowing in through the back window, nauseating me, but it was too hot to have the window shut.
I was tired. Sleep was the only interesting thing left. And so I gave in to it, I surrendered under the weight of it. Cramped on the backseat, I felt resoundingly purposeless. I couldn’t even make this whole quest funny. I couldn’t hear myself retelling it—like I did with most of my debacles—it was too embarrassing.
I was having problems motivating myself to sit up, to open my eyes. My foot itched, but it seemed like too far away to scratch. My body was on strike. My head was roaring with a loud drone that drowned out even the oncoming traffic. My appetite was gone. Light hurt my eyes. My body ached from sleeping any which way. Any energy I had left, I used to preserve sleep mode. I felt guilt over Isobel doing all the driving, especially with her gimpy foot, but my guilt was buried under the obese weights of lethargy and apathy.
The next time I tried to wake up, I failed again. I didn’t know what town we were in, what province, or how Isobel could drive all this time by herself. I worried I had become narcoleptic. Another affliction for the list. I couldn’t think of anything to look forward to, except my couch. The present was only about shuffling from one area of discomfort to another.
By nightfall, I couldn’t stay in sleep mode any longer, unless I wanted to pee myself. But I was so drugged by Morpheus that I confused vinyl with porcelain.
The wet woke me up.
I sat up quickly and got a head-rush that made me gasp. I hadn’t wet myself since kindergarten. My left jean leg was soaked down the back.
“Hey, Annie, you’re up! How are you?”
“I just spilled my water, all over my lap, down my pants. Jesus, what a klutz I am! Do you mind stopping at the next nice gas station so I can change everything?” Hoping desperately she wouldn’t smell anything.
“Do you have any water left?”
“No, sorry, it’s all on my leg!” I worried a bit because I didn’t have a bottle as evidence.
“I could use a stretch myself. I think there might be a Husky coming up.”
It was annoying having one leg wet and sticky. I feared the car would start smelling; I cranked the window open wider. But as the road kept passing by and I got used to the feeling of a wet leg, I started to think that maybe it didn’t matter after all. Maybe I could just keep on sleeping. Isobel hummed along to Elvis Costello.
Eventually we stopped at a Tim Hortons. Isobel went to pick a selection of doughnut holes, a twenty-five pack, and a coffee, double double. I took my spare jeans to the toilet and awkwardly did a mock shower in the sink. I dried myself off with the scratchy paper towels and put fresh jeans on. The peed-on pair I stuffed in the garbage can. Under the fluorescent lights I took a long look in the mirror. I looked like someone headed for the undertakers; plastic-bag white skin, sunken eyes, grey lips. I had puffy eyelids, car upholstery impressions on my cheek. I confirmed also that there was a boil growing to the left of my nose, just under the surface. It throbbed. Soon Mount Vesuvius would appear on my face. I didn’t even bother putting on lipstick.
Hangovers are one thing, but road-trip hangovers coupled with depression and an attack of the uglies are lethal. I probably took too many Tylenols the night before, so now my heart was palpitating and my mouth was pasty and my internal organs were seasick.
The only truly good thing about the heaviness of depression was that I was almost too lethargic to be panicked. Which was kind of relaxing. We got back in the car. It looked like Isobel was chain-eating the mini-doughnuts. She had a white powder moustache, some chocolate sprinkles on her cheek, and a smile on her face. As I had freakishly lost my incredible appetite, she seemed to have gained a huge sudden gusto for food.
“Next hitchhiker we see, we grab if they have a licence, Iz.”
“Why?”
“I don’t feel up for driving. Think I might have the flu. We need a hand.”
Isobel looked at me like I was scary, which made me feel scared for me. A new person would help the dynamic. I could feel bleakness taking me away. What was I doing with my life? My forehead felt heavy. Isobel put Elvis C. back on, I asked her to turn it off; it hurt the boil.
“You have never asked me for no music before, the whole time we’ve been friends. Ça va?”
“Ya, I’m just real tired. Don’t worry.” I was worried plenty for both of us.
The dark thoughts blew around like a whirlwind of autumn leaves caught in a windstorm in a dead-end alley. I fixated on the idea that without Iz, I was alone. I had my parents and my loved ones, but ultimately I was alone, with no purpose. The last thing I saw before I fell back asleep was some man driving beside us in a black BMW with one hand on the wheel and an index finger planted up his nose. Picking away and staring at the tarmac ahead.
I heard voices as I woke up in Ontario somewhere. I didn’t know if we’d stopped for the night or just kept going. Groggy-eyed, needing to pee again and scared to have another accident, I sluggishly opened my eyes. The effort of it all made me more miserable. I looked out the window and begrudgingly admired the rolling hills and valleys. I had a prairie person’s envy of hills. I came out of my fog to realize there was a new person in the driver’s seat. He had a red bandanna on his head, tied pirate-style, and lots of big wooden beads around his neck. I rubbed my eyes and fought the urge to just keep sleeping and avoid having to make small talk.
“Hey, Annie, how do you like him so far? I found him at a 7-Eleven Slurpee machine in the middle of the night just outside of Sault Ste. Marie. Do you want some orange Slurpee? I got it for you.”
He threw one arm behind to shake my hand. “I’m Jack. How’s it going?”
I shook his hand and took the Slurpee Iz passed back. I liked his blue eyes. He was tanned, relaxed. He was our age or maybe a couple of years older. He had a rainbow-coloured tie-dyed T-shirt on and green shorts. He was a hippie; he had yin and yang earrings. He said he was from Edmonton originally but was living in Vancouver. He offered me a barley, tofu, and corn concoction from a Tupperware container in his pack, so very West-Coasty. The Slurpee was lovely and refreshing.
“So . . . um . . . I hope you’re not like . . . the OTHERS!” Jack joked, with his eyes deliberately bugged way out for dramatic effect.
He spoke our language! He was quoting Fear and Loathing; he was an instant friend. And now that I’d determined we were safe with him, I didn’t mean to be unsocial, but I felt another nap coming on. Sleep was my mercy. I closed my eyes again and tried a new neck position for the next session—I really didn’t need another neck kink. Luckily the bladder alert had been a false alarm. And maybe if I kept sleeping the boil would recede.
“Is she ill or something? How much sleep does she need?” I vaguely heard Jack asking Isobel.
“She’s got some serious malaise, you know how it goes . . . Things are not going so well right now, and sleep is her drug.”
I was annoyed that she was giving me away. But I knew I probably would have told him myself. I was rolling into dreamland anyway. The last thing I heard was Jack saying, “I know just what she needs. A good hut. To detox her spirit.”
“Are you some kind of medicine doctor?” Isobel flirted.
“No, I’m serious. I can see in her eyes, she needs some healing.” He had a raspy voice. Like dry firewood.
She was a good judge of hitchhikers, that Isobel.
I woke up again and it was evening, I wondered if we were in Manitoba because Neil Young was playing again. Jack was driving, and Isobel was explaining to Jack why The Unbearable Lightness of Being was a seminal film: “It positively reinvigorated the stocking industry. Women all over the world, and men, realized the garter belt must come back in vogue. And don’t
forget what it did for the bowler hat haberdasheries!”
“Where are we?”
“Near Kenora, do you remember Kenora? We’re thinking of trying to find a camping spot near a lake. Jack’s got a plan for your recovery.”
“What’s that? What recovery, I’m fine . . . I’m just catching up on sleep from that night I missed.” It was annoying being a perpetual victim, even if I cultivated it myself. It made me cranky having her always superior.
“What you need is some water therapy. Some steam to liven up your senses,” said Jack.
“Like a hut?” I said.
“Ya, that’s right. Wait a minute . . . you’re not from that tribe of E-towners who get naked in winter and climb into saunas in your backyard?” Jack asked.
“Do you know Steamhouse Joe?”
“Of course, how ’bout Hot Stone Harry?”
“Uh huh.”
We figured out the many ways our circles collided. He probably had met Sullivan too, but I didn’t bring it up. I liked Jack’s energy. He came across like a plain, good-time guy. Sure enough when it was his turn to pick the tunes, he rifled through my cassettes and pulled out Marley’s Legend.
Isobel handed me some Ringolos, our last pack. I put one of each of my fingers and chomped away, feeling a bit lighter, a bit less weighted by the black dog. The familiar reggae bass soothed me. My appetite was coming back. I knew it was bad news that a guy’s attention could trigger an upswing, but at that point anything that could poke a hole in the fog was a mercy.
We stopped for some supplies, then found a campsite at a place called Raven’s Creek. Jack made a good strong fire, and we all drank some beers. We decided against hut that night because of our late start. By the end of the evening, Isobel had gone to bed, but I was so comfortable with Jack that I was telling him my problems. He was giving me one of the best foot rubs of my life.
“You’re just going through one of those times in life, floating a bit between old wounds and new fears and that existential shit we all get lost in at some point. When you wonder what the hell is the point. We’re born alone, we die alone. And we’ve got this life, and what the heck do we do with it, man? I know, Annie, I know . . .”
Cadillac Couches Page 16
