by Steve Weiner
‘There are floodlights.’
We rented four black fishing poles and walked to a white fence that arched over a sluice gate. We sat on the Windsor’s white garden chairs in our raincoats, huddled in the warmth of our liquor. Georgian Bay was a vaguely perceived heaving of black, cold mass beyond the causeway. We fished. Our father went inside to buy gin. I told Ignace to be an Iroquois.
‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s dark.’
‘Go down the bridge.’
‘I’ll fall in.’
‘I’ll punch you,’ I warned.
‘OW!’
‘I’ll do to you what Colonel Canale did to me!’
Ignace ran down the dark. I heard him on the slick rocks. Then I didn’t hear him. I waited about two minutes and yelled the Iroquois cry.
‘Kaioueeeeeeeeee!’
There was no answer.
‘Jean!’ my father asked, ducking back into the floodlights with two bottles of gin. ‘Where the hell is Ignace?’
I didn’t see him. My father came up the white bridge and slapped me.
‘WHERE IS HE?’
‘I don’t know, Papa.’
My mother ran over the bridge, pointing into the luminescence.
‘HIS SHOE!’
Ignace’s shoe bobbed like a dead trout. My father punched me across the side of the head.
‘You cow – you’re supposed to watch him!’
The hotel ground crew thrashed into the reeds. Ignace’s black fishing pole jerked up against the pylons.
‘Ignace!’ I yelled.
Boats lowered from the docks. Police launched into the bay. My mother found his white sock tangled in black fishing wire.
‘IGNACE!’ she screamed.
My father beat me up. With both fists he split my lip and knocked my right eye shut. He was so furious he went blind.
‘IGNACE!’ I yelled. ‘IGNAAAAAAAAAACE!!!’
My father hit me so hard I fell unconscious. I woke on hands and knees in wet grass.
‘IGNAAAAAAAAACEl!!’
Ignace drowned under a white boat that had capsized years ago. The bay patrol winched him up. Reeds fell out of his open mouth. Water poured from his sides. He glared at a black hole in the night clouds.
I was cheated.
Ten
I went insane.
It was early February and sleet howled off the lake. Fields were buried in darkness and crows flew over Poniatowski’s farm, lighting on stubble. I walked past a retarded boy on a blue leash on La Poudre Road, Daniel Fenner, who drooled and swatted invisible flies. On the bluffs the prison was hung with icicles. La forêt was lost in heavy clouds.
Far away a freighter hung motionless, out of the United States, in a rain harsh and stinging.
A Polish alkaline worker gave me a ride. As he sang in Polish his rosary danced on the mirror. A picture of the Black Madonna flashed on his dashboard. The septum of his nose had been eaten away and he talked with a metal device against his throat. I could smell the inside of his face.
‘Where you going?’ he asked.
‘Away.’
‘Why?’
‘To be cured.’
‘Of what?’
‘Of what, he asks.’
The Pole drove down to the lake. Pulp logs were covered in white-caps. Chains banged at the docks. The smoke of field fires stung our faces. We grew insular, the Pole and I, moody and silent. He adjusted his saints on his visor. It was a world unto ourselves, Catholic, overheated, damp. He let me out at Coldwell.
‘Dziękuje,’ I said.
‘Pederasta.’
A man walked by, shouting at garbage in the snow.
The Slate Islands rose on my left. Fog covered a hospital, and shadows of owls flew by. On Hays Lake pines dripped with melting sleet. I walked to Pays Plat Bay. Ships dissolved in the frigid haze. I followed a path of ragged slag until night fell. Smokestacks were silhouetted in pink clouds. Frost sparkled on logs that bumped in black swells, pink reflections, ice, turning over like dead turtles. I sang:
‘Madam, je reviens de guerre, tout doux
Madam, je reviens de guerre, tout doux
Qu’on m’apporte ici du vin blanc
Que le marin boive en passant, tout doux.’
But there was no white wine, no sweet sailor, passing by.
My throat was sore. I couldn’t spit and a fever came. St Ignace Island rose to view, then Simpson Island and Simpson Channel. Factories rolled over, up from the lake. I reached Cooper Point and climbed into an abandoned DeSoto, but I couldn’t sleep. I went into the Nipigon Café.
The Nipigon Café was decorated with posters of the salt pillars of Cappadocia. The owner was a hunchbacked woman who made grilled cheese sandwiches even when nobody ordered them. Factory workers held white mugs in knobby fists and squinted out the plate-glass window. Gulls hung over the factories where white smoke curved on the earth.
The waitress gave me coffee and eggs.
‘But I didn’t order – ’
‘Are you running away?’ she asked.
‘I’m going to be cured.’
‘Of what?’
‘Of certain … things …’
A man followed me outside. He chased me down Lake Street. I threw a beer bottle and it smashed against a brick wall. He picked shards, one by one, from his neck.
‘Homosexual!’ he yelled.
* * *
I visited the museum of orphans.
The museum was a two-storey building with a double wood staircase which had belonged to the Brethren of Superior, a commune of fishermen. Now the Salvation Army donated broken toys. The exhibits were dusty, under dim red lights. Nobody else was in the museum. Dioramas showed miniatures of orphans who picked hops in Ontario, girls who carried cigarette trays in Ottawa. Bellhops saluted in a Prince Edward Island villa. I put in a nickel in a slot. A panorama of Canada sang, arms moving.
‘We are the orphans of Canada
From the provinces we come
To build the empire shore to shore
Dawn to setting sun.
‘O Canada, o Canada,
Our hearts belong to thee.’
In the corner was a black metal box full of firespark wheels, Red Ryder ukuleles, a pink and green parasol, a chipped tea set, black rubber spiders, corn husk flowers, a Chinese lantern, peppermint hearts, a Beatrix Potter ceramic house, a sailor doll in navy blue. There were valentines, Mr Potato Head, flip-books, red crayons, broken linocuts, a turntable. By the stairs was a canister full of braces, crutches, shoulder alignment screws, finger splints, thumb-knuckle wires, elevated shoes, scissors, surgical trays, hearing-aid, orthopaedic straps.
Under the clock was a wooden box full of penny loafers, sandals, Mary Jane pumps, saddle shoes, ballet slippers, Dr Martin shoes, Oxfords, rubber shoes machine-punched to look like stitching, arch supports, black waders. There were spectacles on a shelf, astigmatic lenses, tortoise-shell frames, half-frames, chipped lenses, shimmering light. Penny-tossing machines lined the wall: the lion and the Christian, customer and Negro bootblack, woodsman and squirrel.
On raised plywood sheets upstairs were model orphanages made of white cardboard. There was an E-wing plan, linear, and a circular orphanage. There was also a plate of orphans’ meals: lacquered oatmeal, potatoes, bread, coffee, and a collection of sports equipment: metal bar, black ball, rope. On the stairs was a photograph of twenty-one orphan couples married in one ceremony.
The white mist rubbed the Brethren’s windows. I saw a finger scrawl:
I was cheated.
I crossed the Black Sturgeon and the 49th parallel. The United States smelled like stink cabbage. I was sick and felt hot and rubbery. The Kaministikwia Delta of Minnesota was half frozen, half flooded. The red sun and the clouds piled lavender over a flat-topped mountain that blocked the horizon. I collapsed in the delta and woke in an asylum.
‘You slept a hell of a long time.’
A boy sat on the edge of my bed. He had a large face with blond down. Hi
s eyes glittered. ‘An awful long time,’ he said.
He stroked me with hands that were not hands but wormlike, boneless fingers growing straight out of his wrists. The fingers were soft and warm as pink rubber tubes. He curled and uncurled them. His blue eyes grew hard.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. ‘Don’t like them?’
‘Just startled, that’s all.’
He crossed and twisted his fingers like soggy breadsticks. He kept staring at me.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
‘Jean-Michel Verhaeren.’
‘Shit name.’
‘I’m Canadian.’
‘Me too,’ he said. ‘I’m from Canada.’
‘Great country, Canada.’
‘Well, you’re not in Canada now.’
He looked around the room. A painting of a sea captain darkened in the purple of the corner sun. I heard adults crying, footsteps running.
‘What kind of hospital is this?’ I asked.
‘Why did you come here?’ he asked.
‘To be cured.’
‘Of what?’
‘Of… things …’
‘I’ll bet you’re homosexual,’ he said.
I drew the covers over my head. He yanked the covers down.
‘It’s written all over your face,’ he said.
‘Leave me alone.’
‘How old are you?’ he asked.
‘Twelve.’
‘You ain’t been crucified.’
‘Crucified?’
He pulled down his trousers and pointed.
‘I been crucified. See?’
He pulled up his pants and went to the window and leaned out. I smelled the sleet melting to rain, the black mud of the delta. He rolled a cigarette with that peculiar dexterity.
‘That’s what makes the difference,’ he said. ‘Being crucified.’
He wandered back to my bed.
‘Spaghetti hands, they call me,’ he said. ‘They put my fingers in wooden boxes with copper wires. They take off the bindings at night but the blood never is right. The fingers are worse than ever. But I don’t mind.’
He gave me his cigarette. He lighted it by snapping those fingers. The tobacco tasted sweet and dark.
‘Truth is,’ he said, ‘I have strength in these fingers. Just because they look like nightcrawlers don’t mean there’s no strength. It’s just that there ain’t no bone. It’s like the snakes that grow in the ponds. Or maybe there’s a bitty skeleton inside. Want to feel?’
‘No.’
‘Sometimes I feel something leathery inside. Maybe it’s the ligaments. I don’t know a ligament from a tendon. Do you? But I can break a chicken’s neck same as any man.’
‘Why are you here?’ I asked.
‘As if you didn’t know.’
‘I don’t know.’
The cripple smoked a long time. He laughed. He squinted because of the heat of the smoke.
‘I’ll bet you killed somebody,’ he said. Or will.’
‘It was an accident.’
‘It has to do with bodies,’ he said.
‘What? Whose? What are you talking about?’
‘Bodies.’
‘But they’re different,’ I said.
‘Are they?’
I waited. The cripple stared out the window.
‘I once left my body,’ he said.
The Cripple
‘I was an orphan.
‘I grew up in Queen City, Saskatchewan. I lived in public housing behind a tavern, with an old woman who cleaned the baths and toilets. I slept in the coal-bin and stayed in the public housing even when the old woman died and the flat was empty.
‘I had no clothes. I wore the dresses of the old woman. I slept on her rotted mattress during the day and at night scavenged Queen City. It was a gateway to Saskatchewan and plenty of hunters left lots of bottles. All night there were fights, and even gunshots. I collected rags and rats. One day a hunter told me that my mother was alive in Minnesota. I got men’s clothes and left Queen City.
‘I walked by night. I would sit on the cold marshes with a nail and pick out the snails and eat them. I carried pepper in my pocket and I lived on that, too. I caught frogs and ate the soft parts and the bark of fallen logs. I was skin and bones. The earth started coming to me like a broken cinema with parts missing. Suddenly I would be in the lumber stacks, or by a river, or in a field, and I didn’t remember getting there.
‘I lived in the woods and came into town to steal. There was a turkey farm and I ate the cast-offs. I hated it. I couldn’t digest anything. I used to get a penny’s worth of cow udder from a farmer and it was dreadful, like a piece of sponge that wouldn’t break apart in my mouth.
‘There was a terrible flood that spring. Gas stoves and refrigerators floated past overturned garages. The funeral parlours were packed. The water was so cold my fingers got wriggly. That’s where it happened, in the United States, in Minnesota, on the Kaministikwia Delta. For miles the shore was bright with trails of jelly fish popping on the mud. Cartilege lay on the ponds. I ate it, too. Buckthorn with berries washed into the pools. I sucked it. A skate sparkled in the moonlight. I chewed it.
‘One night I heard a lake perch as it sucked air on the mud:
‘“Where is your mother?”
‘You see, I was very sick. I heard animals talk. Even now, I hear you, but see a donkey. I found some crow garlic and ate it. I ate stink cabbage. I couldn’t keep anything down. After a while I threw up whether I ate or not. I camped for a week by a charred log deep in the delta. One night I suddenly woke. A tramp squatted by my log. He had made his dinner, and now he unrolled his bedroll near me. He lay down and began snoring, so I went to sleep, too. I woke a little later. He was up, staring at my hands.
‘“What’s the matter?” I asked.
‘“Who put worms on your hands?”
‘I tucked my hands inside my coat.
‘“Nothing’s wrong with my hands.”
‘He came over, jerked my hands out of my pockets. He spit on them and finally went back to his bedroll. Later I woke again. He had crawled out of his bedroll and was looking at my hands again. I sat up.
‘“Don’t be frightened,” he said breathing hard.
‘I crabbed backward.
‘“Why are you frightened?” he asked.
‘“Shut up.”
‘“You’re alone.”
‘“Leave me alone.”
‘I went backward but I banged against the log. His face was deep red. I never seen a man’s face so red, like a turkey’s wattle. He slipped a hand under my overcoat.
‘“Please – “
‘I ran out into the delta. He chased me over the mud.
“‘I need love – “ he bawled.
‘I hit him with my sand shovel. He sagged. He began to mess with my hair. I hit him again. He tried to mouth me, but he lost consciousness. I hit him harder and harder. I hit him in the bloody face until it went soft. He grabbed me around the knees.
‘“-love-!”
‘I hit him again with the shovel. I cleaned his brains off. Somewhere far away a freight train echoed over the delta, the most lonesome sound on earth. I saw the black creeping out from behind the body, the black that wraps us all.
‘I woke in this asylum, same as you. Orderlies cut my hair, bathed me. The orderlies rubbed my fingers. They used steel pipettes to suck synovial fluid, but the bone never grew back. You’re beginning to understand, aren’t you, to learn the meaning of loss?
‘Dr Robinson put a hand on my shoulder. Light glowed around his face. He had the most handsome face I ever seen, the only man I ever let touch me. We walked down a corridor and he showed me the ward. Pairs of eyes glistened from beds, like rabbits, just been born. I became frightened so he took me outside. Old men were silhouetted by the walls, slow-moving, humpbacked. I cried and they took me to Dr Robinson’s room to sleep.
‘“My poor schizophrenic,” he said.
‘An ho
ur later a slit opened in the wall. Two boys in nightshirts ran in, giggling and limping. They saw me, stopped, and pointed at my hands.
‘“FINGERS!”
‘They ran back into the darkness. The wall closed. Orphans danced in the corridor. Their legs were twisted up. Some had no arms. Their teeth stuck out like white stones. Men in wheelchairs carried pigs’ bladders. Nobody could stop the hallucinations. Dr Robinson tried all kinds of drugs. But I knew nobody would get out of the delta. Not you, not me, not Dr Robinson.
‘Sometimes the walls sparkled with a strange beauty. Look! A red flare! Somebody must be dying.
‘Mount McKay blocks the stars. I once saw a black fox run by, on fire, its head backward. Labourers, grown men, real men, the kind of man I could have been, watched from the balcony.
‘“Ach mein Orphelin, wo bleibst du am Abend?
Wie kannst du schlaf’, wie kannst du schlaf’
Wenn ich so kranke bin?”
‘No. How could I sleep, so sick?
‘One night I went deeper into the clinic. It’s the world’s longest asylum, you know. It goes from Queen City to Minneapolis. The air became hot. I could hardly breathe. I passed orderlies with walkie-talkies and patients unreeling balls of string to find their way back. Overhead the ceiling dripped.
‘“Mamma …?”
‘I took a flashlight off a shelf and went looking. I was so frustrated I punched a hole into a room. Dolls sang on balconies. I was very, very sick.
‘“Mamma …?”
‘I went into the operating theatre.
‘“Mamma …?”
‘I went past the stirrups, straps and surgical curtains. I walked and walked. I must have walked thirteen miles. ‘“Mamma!”
‘“I’m here – ”
‘I recognized her voice. I ran into the next chamber. I saw wrecks bandaged and oozing fluids, all the diseased of this foul earth. My heart pounded so hard I nearly blacked out. I pushed the last curtain. I didn’t see nothing. Just cotton sheets folded on shelves.
‘“Don’t you recognize your mother?”
‘I turned. In the centre of the floor was a pedestal and on it was a mound of flesh with a hole in it. ‘“I am your mother.”
‘“No!”
‘She told me my name.
