“I couldn’t,” he said, his mouth near the dirt. Eyelashes covered in dust. “I couldn’t do it.” Then he pulled his hand away, and he rolled, tucked his arms and legs inward, chin to his chest, fingers knotted over the base of his skull. Inside that mound, Warren could hear moaning, crying. He noticed his father’s heel, a stretched hole in the sock, edges curling and ragged.
“No, Dad, no, no, you can.” Fingers formed into fists. “You can. You listen to me, Mister. You can do anything you want. Like you always say to me. Whatever you dream, Dad. You can do it.”
“I don’t dream,” he cried. “I am lost. I am lost. I am lost.” Even though his words faded, Warren could hear his father continue to repeat them over and over again.
Warren threw his backpack down, thoughts of his math grade disintegrated, and he climbed onto the back of the sinewy turtle with the soft plaid shirt. With his full weight, he tried to push his father’s frame into the earth. Like a seed pressed into the safety and warmth of soil. But no matter how widely he stretched his legs and arms and fingers and neck, he was not big enough to cover him. To even make a single dent.
“Mom.” He waited. She was seated on the bench beside the table, facing the tiny box on the countertop. “Mom! Dad is. Something ha —”
“Not now, Warren. Can’t you see I’m busy? My show is on.”
[43]
In the spring of that year, shortly after the snow melted and the ground thawed, there was a great lightning storm. Streaks of brilliant yellow tore through the darkness, illuminated the sky. Thunder boomed, rattling the house. From the small window of my bedroom, I watched the show.
Life was quieter now, even though it took a while. Two months after my aunt was out of the picture, Larva started coming around again, fixing this or that. Tightening a doorknob. Replacing a flapper in the toilet. Plastering a hairline crack in the drywall. I had not expected it, did not understand it, and chided myself for not anticipating his presence. Or my mother’s reaction. The warbling sound of her appreciation annoyed me. I despised it, in fact. Her feminine neediness. “Oh, thank you so, so much, Harvey.” I hated how she took her pink pills, sometimes two of them, and slept, only rising when Larva was due to arrive. And Larva, cracking his knuckles, popping the bones in his neck, acting like he was a holy man with a cheap hammer.
Did he think he could just move on to my mother? Did she think she could just move on to him? Humming around each other like a pair of slutty wasps.
Just what were those idiots planning?
That little interaction became number one on my list of “Things to Quash.” Of course, I had many creative ideas, but as I have previously explained, sometimes a simple approach is the best. As soon as the loser was through the door, I started speaking in raised tones about my benevolent aunt, the tragedy of their joint loss. I reminded both Larva and my mother over and over again what might have been. Truly heartfelt reminders. “She would have been how pregnant now?” “How big would the baby have been at this point?” “Did you ever find out if it was a girl?” I would tilt my head, blink, whisper, “She was so very special, my aunt.” Vomit. “I bet they miss you, Uncle Lar — um, you know. Mother. Wherever they are.” I identified the pain in their twisting faces, and tried my best to conjure a tear. “At least they’re together, right?” Palms clasped. “I hope they are at peace.”
A basic experiment in Guilt 101.
“It won’t take long,” I heard her whine on the phone shortly after the dishwasher started leaking again. “I can’t fix it myself. I just can’t.” A pause. “It’s too expensive to call someone out here for every little thing, you know that, Harv.” Then a disgusting purr, “You did such an amazing job last time. Besides, I thought you liked helping out.” Finally, “Everything is so overwhelming. I have no one. Absolutely no one.”
You have me.
That night, after my mother had fallen asleep, I repaired the dishwasher. The electrical panel was unlabelled, so I cut the power to the entire house. With a flashlight, I removed the screws fixing the dishwasher to the countertop, and slid it out. The issue was obvious — the drain hose had come loose. Again. I dried it, stuck it on as far as I could, and re-clamped it. Then pushed the appliance back in place, replaced the screws. Two minutes of effort, when it would have taken Larva all afternoon, several beers, lots of grunts, wipes of his sweaty forehead. His hand shoved into the pocket of his trackpants, scratching his crotch. The asshole.
In the morning, my mother was amazed that the machine had fixed itself. “Magic. Like elves came in the night. Too bad they didn’t clean the kitchen while they were at it.”
After that last embarrassing conversation with my mother, dear Larva never came back. And then it was just my mother and me, two distinct wheels on the same rusty bicycle. Quiet, and to be honest, a little boring. We developed a routine. We spoke only when necessary, which was fine by me. I went to school and she watched the television. We ate at the same table, mostly sandwiches and instant soups and milky tea. On weekends, she scrubbed the bathroom and I did the laundry. She vacuumed, as I could not tolerate the sound of the machine. When snow fell, we shovelled the driveway side by side. When spring arrived, she planted pansies and I edged the yard. I would not say those times were nice. But they were decent enough.
At that moment, there was a loud, wet crack outside. I sat up in bed, looked out my window just as the street lights were shutting down. All the houses went dark, and the blackness swallowed everything. A second flash, and the tree in my neighbour’s yard was illuminated, every branching finger white against the sky. For several minutes, I saw sparks in the street. Deep inside my neighbour’s home, a light flicked on (the momentary glow of a flashlight?), then dimmed again. Everything was dark.
I did not want to think about my tree. What if lightning had struck it? Surely with spring arriving, it was just waking up. Stretching. Yawning. Wiping rheum from its eyes. Not a pleasant welcome back into the world. Maybe only the very tips of it were singed. Like a haircut. A branch-cut. I fell asleep full of an odd and uncomfortable tension in my chest.
Early the following morning, I awoke to a terrible noise. A disgusting revving sound that made me feel sick. Metal eating away at wood. When I peered out my window, I saw a row of pickup trucks, men in orange suits and helmets, chainsaws raised and coming down. They had crawled up into my Mighty Oak and with each bite of metal, branches crashed to the ground. Like carpenter ants, those men were dismantling my tree, dragging it away, loading parts into trucks, shoving smaller branches through a mulching feeder. Others were working on a downed power line. Wires snapped. No longer sparking.
I witnessed the entire death. Bit by bit, my tree came down. Down to its stump, a weeping yellow round on the ground.
I pushed my face into my pillowcase, and cried.
[44]
Heart pounding, his eyes popped open. He was alone, in his living room, lying on the couch in near darkness. The cushion underneath his cheek was wet, and he could feel the moistness all the way up to his ear. There was a weight on his chest, and he lifted his head, saw the curl of Stephen’s back, a single paw lifted and bent in the air.
Warren sat up on the couch, and Stephen slid off his lap, then jumped onto the carpet. Even without the cat, the weight inside his chest remained. He had not meant to fall asleep, but he was exhausted. There was no one to talk to. No one who might listen. Beth was long gone, and he knew she was likely crouched in an alleyway somewhere, jittery and high. Nora was working an evening shift at the deli counter until closing, then taking part in some sort of inventory. Even though he had offered to help with the counting, she shook her head, “We are fine, we are perfectly fine.” They had more than enough staff to look after it. Though he wondered if she did not want him there.
For a second, he thought about calling Sarie. Asking her what he should do. How does a person change the choices he made, even though they seemed so
compelling at the time? He had gripped those thoughts so tightly, and now how could he turn stone back into sand? Should he ask for more details about his mother? Knowing was better than not knowing, was it not? Warren was confused, but before he could talk himself out of it, he got up, went to the phone. Dialled her number. All the digits adding up to sixty-one.
“Hello —”
“Hi, Sarie. It’s me, W —”
“— you have reached —”
The answering machine’s tone sounded, and he slipped the phone into its cradle.
As he walked toward the bathroom, he glanced out a crack between the front curtains, noticed the blanket of darkness. There was something odd about it, as though it were too intense for a neighbourhood. The lamp at the end of his driveway was not working. He leaned forward, lifted the curtain, saw the street light was also out. All of the homes were darkened. Against the night sky, he could barely make out their edges.
Then he saw the tiniest flicker, like a spark, in the middle of the pavement. He opened his mouth, blinked. Within seconds, one flicker turned into two, and two into four. Four into eight, and eight into sixteen. His mind continued counting, exponential growth. The dabbles of light slowly spread over the street, onto the sidewalk, up onto his lawn. Candles. Held in gloved hands. Inside the dim light, he saw dozens of people materializing in front of his home, side by side, humming or singing, he could not tell which one. They moved about, surrounding his little brick bungalow, the shape of the lights shifting and swaying, and he was unable to accurately count how many people were there, how many candles.
Warren did not turn on a lamp, but moved from window to window, watching the crowd, the flickering lights floating toward his house. Voices growing louder. A rivulet of light crept around the side, and he heard the clasp on the gate shaking, straining. A man shouted, “Fuck that!” Metal clanged, wood smacking against wood. He tiptoed into the kitchen, and Warren saw the brightness seeping into the blackness of his backyard. Neighbours moving onto the deck, across the lawn, circling the tree.
A vigil. They were holding a vigil for Amanda.
Candle held to the glass, a face appeared in the window just behind his table, and Warren lowered his skinny frame into the corner beside the fridge.
A fist knocking at the back door. A second candle in the window. Another face. Hand to the forehead, peering in.
More knocking. Pounding. Door shaking. Voice pushed into the doorframe. “Come out, Botts,” it hissed. “Come out here.”
Heart throbbing in his throat, Warren opened the cupboard to his left, groped behind the toaster with a shaking hand. It was still there. A surprise, considering how Beth had scoured the entire house. Tugging out the label-less bottle, he unscrewed the cheap plastic cap. The smell was sharp, pure, like a chemical he might have used to clean his lab.
Even before the colourless liquid touched his lips, he winced, ready for the pain. It burned his tongue, his throat, his esophagus. He could count on one hand the number of times he had done this, and as he did so, finger by finger, he swallowed, and swallowed, and swallowed.
When he opened the back door and stepped out, Warren could not see the men’s eyes. The children and women, yes, but the men wore ball caps pulled down over their foreheads. In the wavering candlelight, he saw chins and thick necks and flannel collars. He saw glowing open mouths. Wilkes was there, his fat fingers pressing deeply into Warren’s chest. Pushing him. Words hovering around him, currents underwater. “Not so big now, are you, Botts?” “No,” he mumbled. “I’m not so big.”
He sensed a dream was continuing. He was not a man in a backyard full of angry strangers, but a child. A boy. Eleven years old. Moving among the cluster of unfamiliar mourners after his father’s funeral, black pants and shirts, the air stale, drained of life. Several were singing a hymn about going home. A woman was crying. Children were squealing. Some of them clutched stuffed animals in mittened fists. He could not hear or see Beth. She had run out the back door of their farmhouse, across the field. No one had bothered to chase her. In the darkness, Warren saw the owner of Feed ’n Seed. A handful of men who worked the fields surrounding the home where he had grown up. His math teacher, clapping him on the back. The janitor. The overweight gym teacher who always frowned at Warren, a gangly failure who tripped over his own feet. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Botts?”
A child yelped, “Ow, watch it,” and Warren detected the sharp scent of singed hair.
He pressed his glasses into his face, and with socked feet, walked across the crowded deck of his rental home. Took several steps, and moved onto the grass. Icy water instantly absorbed through the cotton, soaked his soles. People everywhere. Dark coats, odour of fried dinner, of cigarette smoke, icy breath, wax burning, paper cups burning, wool burning. Someone sniffed. Wept. On his cheek, he felt the spray from a watery sneeze.
Was he walking? Or floating above, moving through. All he had to do was relax the muscles and breathe. These were mourners. Weren’t they his father’s mourners?
And yes, he was a boy, his heart overflowing with guilt.
“We know,” someone yelled at him. “We know what you did.”
And Warren nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said. He wanted to curl into a ball and cry. He wanted to see Beth, so she might give him a tiny peppermint candy from her doctor’s bag. Scribble him a prescription for numbness. A second candy to dissolve reality. As he walked toward the tree, every distorted face stared at him. The responsibility on his shoulders was overwhelming. So much he had to try and do. At only eleven years old. Now he had to be a man. Look after a house and a garden. Attend school. Find ways to make money and pay for things. Cans of soup and light bulbs and rubber boots for Beth. She needed them.
Once he reached the tree, he ran his hands over the bark, traced the carved diamond with his finger. A girl moved toward him, and he squinted at her. “Hello, Mr. Botts.” It was Evie. “Go inside. You shouldn’t be out here.” There was too much movement, the ground buckling. “I don’t know,” he mumbled, hugging the tree. “There’s nothing inside.” “There’s nothing out here, either, Mr. Botts.” His backyard was full of stars, and some were swirling, some were hovering. Their movements were not logical, and he could not predict their orbits.
“Look at him.”
“Wasted.”
“We don’t need the disturbance.”
An elbow struck Warren in the stomach. Shock of pain registering inside his head, a shot of white light. Another star. Relief, it was. He understood the neural pathway, messages firing back and forth between his abdominal wall and his brain. Something tangible, workable. Something healable. A smack on his shoulder, and his arm flew forward, making him twist. Wilkes, his neighbour, pressed his face into Warren’s, smell of yeast on his breath. Then a crack to his shin, and his leg bent, knee dropped down onto soggy grass. The side of his face slid against the trunk of the tree.
Looking up, he saw Detective Reed, and he wondered how she could be there. So out of place. Shakily, he pointed toward the house. There were sandwiches in there, he wanted to say. On plates. And jelly casseroles. And cookies. Someone is making tea right now. In a tarnished silver thing that has a levered spout at the bottom.
“Go ahead,” he said, and knelt down. “Get something.”
Somewhere inside his gauzy thoughts was his last conversation with Detective Reed. A phone call that morning. She should not have tried to contact him. He should not have answered.
“Your father died when you were a boy.”
Warren held the receiver away from his ear. Her voice a scratch on metal.
“By hanging.”
“He —”
“He hanged himself in the basement of your home. Is that accurate?”
“No,” he replied, staring at a mug balanced on the edge of the sink. “That is not accurate. He did not die in the basement of our home.”
&
nbsp; “So, my information is incorrect?”
Warren stepped toward the sink, tapped the mug. It clattered onto the other dishes. There was no way he could explain. His father was a hollow man, an empty form, and he had died years before his son even knew him, for reasons his son would never know. Whatever it was that kept him alive, whatever strength Warren had given him, it eventually faded into nothing. “You are the only reason I stay,” his father had said nearly every single day. At some point, Warren was no longer enough. It was his fault. Not his mother’s. Warren had been unable to admit it, but he had stopped doing whatever it was he was supposed to do. Being whatever he needed to be.
Another flash of light. Hard pain in the back of his head.
“That’s enough, that’s enough.” Two wide hands digging into his armpits. “Come on, Botts. You don’t belong here.”
“My house,” he slurred.
“We’re going to take a little drive.”
“Uhhh.”
“Hell to pay, Botts, if you puke on my mats.”
[45]
Something strange happened to my mother.
I cannot quite pinpoint the date, but it was sometime during mid-spring. More and more often she was awake in the evenings. The water glass she kept in her bathroom was brought to the kitchen sink; the bottle of pink pills placed in a drawer. She cut her hair, and took on a part-time job. She even went to a cosmetics party, whatever that might be, and returned home doused in cheap perfumes, painted like a whore, but happy nevertheless.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked, as I stood in the doorway of her bedroom, watching her pull on a pair of pale blue terrycloth gym pants.
“Nothing’s wrong with me. I’m just —”
“Just acting freaky.”
“Freaky?” She turned toward me, and tried to look me in the eye. I stared at the gaudy colour of her pants. “Just what do you prefer?”
The Substitute Page 24
