Interference (20 page)

“I don't know,” Michael says. “I think the women work too.” Michael mentions that he's been on that street, that sometimes he goes into the backyards and checks things out, and no one is ever home. He doesn't know what makes him tell the little man this — it's something to be ashamed of, not something to brag about — but he feels like talking after all this beer, he feels like sharing some part of his life. Telling this man about the things he does feels dangerous and makes him feel alive.

“Did I tell you that I occasionally take a train and then a bus and then I walk past their house at night. I sneak into their backyard. My parents. My brother is gone now. I don't know where. My mother and father watch TV alone in the living room. I walk past the house in my old city and I think of those fridge magnets holding up my art. My work proudly displayed and I know that they have no idea how famous I've become. How much I sell my work for. The guys in the boarding house. The doctor and dentist over in the next town, the mayor even. Everyone loves my work. My images. And my pamphlets, they educate. They educate people about the kids.”

Michael doesn't know what to say.

“Now that I've told you my story,” the man swings his legs back and forth under the stool, “you have to tell me yours. How, my good friend, did you get a face like that?”

There is sudden silence. At least Michael hears it that way. In fact, only the bartender stops wiping and looks at the little man, but it seems to Michael that the whole bar shuts down. Even the TV is quiet. It seems as if everyone has turned towards Michael, waiting for the answer.

“I mean, really. A face like yours. There has to be a story behind it. Right? Am I right?”

“My story?”

“Uh huh.”

“My face?”

The bartender looks at Michael. Michael looks right back at him. The bartender looks away.

And it's not as if Michael doesn't want to tell the whole sordid story about his face, about his father and his drinking, the steel snow shovel.

But suddenly the room feels so close and sticky, so hot and cold at the same time, so loud and quiet, that he pushes back his bar stool, jumps off and stumbles towards the door.

“Hey,” the bartender shouts. “You need to pay me.”

Michael shuffles back to the bar.

“Don't leave,” the man says. “Don't leave now. We were just starting to have fun.”

Michael pays his bill, turns from the little man, from the bartender, and heads out into the night. He pulls his jacket around him. Shivers. It's raining slightly.

“The world isn't anything like you think it'll be,” Michael's mother is fond of saying. “It's always a disappointment, no matter how you look at it.” She should know. Look what she got for a son. Look what she got for a husband. “Roll with the punches,” she says. “Take it in stride.”

Michael rounds the corner, rain falling, covering his face, soaking his shoes. The worries, fears, the life he's led. For what? A snow shovel. A drunk man. An accident. Because that's all it was. An accident. It could've happened to anyone. And Michael wishes it were more than that, he wishes his story was as terrifying as his face. He wishes that his tale had impact and punch. A lesson. Instead, he is back there again, standing behind his father, ten years old, a cold evening. His father brings the metal shovel up, ready to dig down again into the soft snow, and he stumbles slightly from the drink. Michael has crept up, ready to scare his father, ready to dump snow on the man's hatless head. But the shovel comes down behind his father and there is nothing more Michael remembers about the evening. He doesn't remember the blood. He doesn't remember his father screaming, the ambulance, the police.

“Up and left us because he couldn't take the guilt, Michael,” Michael's mother says. “Not your fault.”

But it is Michael's fault. Because if his face didn't look like this then his father wouldn't be constantly reminded of that evening, of that sharp snow shovel.

“At least he sends us money,” Michael's mother says. “That's something.”

Thirty-three years old. Twenty-three years of this now, to be exact. Plodding through life with this face, this accident, this failure. His father gone. His mother lonely.

“Hey, behind you.” The little man is running up towards Michael. He is shorter than Michael figured now that he sees him standing. “Wait up. Breathe. Breathe.” The man takes deep breaths as he says this. “Listen,” he says. “We all have our burdens to bear. We all have those things in our lives that tell our stories, that make us who we are. Phew, I'm panting. I can't get my breath. Pant pant. Ha ha. But it behooves me to tell you, my kind sir, that your burden is no deeper than most. In fact, my burden goes all the way to China. Ha ha.” Here the little man leans into Michael's frame, bends double, smacks his hand on his knees and laughs. He points down to the ground. “All the way to China. In fact, all I've ever been is myself and they are telling me that I myself am not all right? Is something wrong with me when all I am is myself?”

Michael shrugs off the man's hand and continues walking away. “You're drunk.”

“And I'll sell you that burden,” the man shouts as Michael walks on. “I'll sell it to you. You're a grown man. You'll want it. Women don't want it. They push me away. Shove me away. But you'll want it for a price. I know you will. Wait.”

Michael says, “You are crazy.”

The man says, “I might be. In fact, Manny says I'm fucking crazy. Oh dear. Maybe I am. I'm not sure. I've heard that word used before when it comes to talking about me. But I like my room, my hot plate, my microwave, my laptop and my printer. I like my suits. My life. I like my life. I want nothing to change. Sometimes I think about my mother and father. I want to know what happened to my brother. I love the kids, the children. I do them no harm.”

Michael doesn't stop.

“Wait for me.”

Michael turns on to Edgewood Street. Before he realizes it he is standing in front of the basketball net across from the house he raked the leaves at last fall. Tom's house. Becky's house. He stands under the net and he looks at the house there, raised a bit on a hill, empty of leaves, one small patch of snow left over, melting quickly in the rain, and he sees something move in the upstairs front window. The curtains are closed but Michael can see a finger poking out between the blinds. And then a face. The girl. Becky. Looking out at him. Michael draws his coat tightly around his frame and moves back, out from under the street light.

Up the street, slowly, comes the little man. “Oh, I'm out of breath,” he says. “Pant pant.”

“You said that before.”

“Wheeze? Wheeze?”

The girl pops her head back inside her room. The blinds close shut when she takes her finger out.

“You might want to leave me alone,” Michael says. He is still looking up at the window, searching for the girl's face. The little man says nothing. Michael feels sober now, as if he hadn't had a single beer, as if he hadn't even gone into the bar after work and met this strange person. In fact, if the little man wasn't there in front of him right now Michael would think that, perhaps, he'd just gotten off work and was heading home to have dinner with his mother. But there he is, bothering Michael. Right there in front of him. “I'm not feeling very generous right now.”

“Oh my,” the man says.

“You might want to keep your distance.”

The little man backs up, his hands up as if he's being arrested.

“You've hurt my feelings. You've made me want to cry,” he says. “Oh my. It hurts. Tears tears.”

“Shhhhh.” Michael walks quickly down the street, in the direction of his mother and his own home, which is over the railroad tracks and at the end of a busy intersection. The farther away from the little man Michael walks the less he can hear him and the better he feels. It's almost as if the little man is filling himself up with all of Michael's evils, Michael's fears and insecurities and unhappiness. It's as if his gradually louder, but also diminishing voice is giving Michael's feelings the release they need. Michael doesn't have to do anything but walk away from it all. Go home to his poor old mother, to his attic room, to his job at the Suds'N Such, to his beers at Barney's. This bizarre little man in the mud brown suit, with his deep burdens that he is unable to sell, with his craziness, has somehow diminished all that Michael carries within him. All the mixed-up feelings. All the remorse. Michael has left the man now, he can't hear him whining anymore, and he is walking away.

This scar on his face, Michael thinks, may not be as deep as he thinks it is.

Suddenly Michael stops. He thinks of that girl, Becky, in her window peeking out. He thinks of the little man in the brown suit and how, when they were talking in the bar, he told the little man about going into the backyards, he told the little man about how he snoops and watches. Knock knock, the beginning of a joke that's not really funny. Michael turns. Waits. What did the man mean about the children? Then he begins walking back, back towards the man, towards Becky, towards the backyards that he haunts, past a stray dog who lumbers by him in the rain, back to where he was coming from.

Build-Your-Bear™

Your way is the right way . . .

Come Build, Come Play, Come Love.

Your Bear.

Dear Ms. Patricia Birk,

I am writing to apologize for my threatening letters regarding your bear-building business, “The Bear Company.” I was not made aware of your situation when I began writing to you. My informants make sure I know about any competing business, but they don't always give me the full details. I had no idea you were sewing out of your house and that your yearly income was so low.

I'm wondering if you'll forgive me for upsetting you.

I'm also wondering if you think there is any way we can work together to help each other? Occasionally we get orders for birthday parties, bears made-to-order. A mother might want twenty or so Little Mermaid Bears, for example, for her child's party loot bags, and she might not want to come into our store in the mall and make her own — she might not have enough time in her busy day, rushing around doing errands and having tea with other mothers. Maybe there is a way we can commission you to do these kinds of orders?

Please let me know how you feel about this, Ms. Birk, and, again, I apologize for my mis-information. I'm so glad you took the time to write to me. Please ignore any further letters from my lawyers. Sometimes it takes months before they realize I've called off the dogs — ha ha.

Sincerely,

Maisy Crank

CEO and Head Bear of Build-Your-Bear™

Madison, Wisconsin

Dear Dad,

How is it possible that you don't remember the circus freak postcards? He had a whole album full of them. I'm not imagining this. I'm sure of it. I'd like to know what you did with them.

Love, Tom

Dear Tom,

He was a disturbed man at the end. Son, please do not mention this again.

On another note: when are you coming to visit? Your mother wants to know if it's that wife of yours who doesn't want to come down to Florida. If so, can you come with Becky on your own when her school is out for summer break?

Sincerely,

Dad

15

Maria was bending down, purple robe held tight, reaching for the newspaper, when it happened. The paper, wrapped in a pinkish plastic bag slightly damp from the morning rain, tossed on her front porch every day by Trish's son, Charlie, who lives across the street and who couldn't throw straight to save his life, fell from the untied bag and landed in a puddle. And right before it happened she was thinking, Today is the day. She was thinking, Today is the day and she was bending towards the paper and then the dog bolted out of the house and she bent just a bit further to try to reach for his collar and then it happened and she thought, Today isn't the day. And she thought, Damn it. She thought, Why does everything always happen to me? She laughed a little, her barkish laugh. One quick, painful one. She tried to call out for the dog but he was long gone.

Some of this is what Maria tells Tom when he comes home from work.

“I was bending. Just bending down.”

“Uh huh.” Tom has his head buried in the refrigerator. Maria can only see his long legs, clad in khaki. She can see his brown shoes, which he forgot to take off at the door. From her position she can see the wet tracks he has made, barely visible footprints, slightly muddy. “Don't we have any beer? Did you drink the last beer?”

“I bent over, the paper fell, and here I am.”

“Here you are,” Tom says.

“You forgot to take your shoes off.”

Tom looks down, then up again at the fridge. He finds the beer at the back of the refrigerator, behind the pickles and the sour cream — sour cream that is, Tom thinks, definitely more than sour now, how long has it been in here? He twists open the beer and takes a deep swallow. Then he opens the sour cream container and sees all the green mould. He studies it for a minute and then puts the lid back on and, without thinking, places the container back in the fridge. He turns to look down at his wife.

Maria is lying on the kitchen floor. Watching him.

“There are bits of food down here, Tom,” she says. “You wouldn't even believe it unless you were lying here. I thought I was so clean, but there is food everywhere. Crumbs. And hair. And dust. Mostly crumbs. I've been picking it up all day but I have nowhere to put it so I drop it again.”

“Don't let Becky lie on the floor then.” Tom smiles. He is rifling through the mail. A few letters. Bills. A magazine about cottages.

Maria smiles.

“Have you taken anything?”

“Robaxacet,” Maria says. “In fact, truth be told —”

“Truth be told?” Tom laughs.

“I'm a little high on it.” Maria giggles, slightly.

“Hence lying on the floor?”

“Hence?” Another giggle. Gone is her barkish laugh.

Tom reaches down and takes the newspaper from the floor and tries to open it. The pages have stuck together. Everything looks melted. Sports, News, Life, Arts and Entertainment, Wheels, all combined into one big gluey mess. Dry, though. It has been sitting here all day. Whole sections of the world crammed together.

“I'm cold,” Maria says. “I've been in this robe all day. I haven't been able to move.”

“You should have called me.”

“I thought about that but what could you have done? I just need to be still. Remember the last time? Just lying still is the only cure.”

Tom shrugs. He glances down at Maria, in her purple robe, the belt cinched tight around her tiny waist, and he says, “Where's Becky?”

“Rachel's.” Maria nods in the general direction of the phone. “She left a message on the answering machine. I guess she thought I wasn't home from work yet so she went to Rachel's after school.”

“Ah.” Tom settles on the stool behind the counter with his beer and his mail and his stuck-together newspaper. “No dinner then, I guess?”

Maria sighs. “You'll have to make it.” She stares up at the ceiling. She now fully understands the saying “stiff as a board.” She is cold. She is high on muscle relaxants. She wants to fall asleep.

“Where's Dog?” Tom says. He looks up. Looks around. “I haven't seen him since I've been home.”

Becky cries, “I can't believe you lost Dog.” She hasn't stopped crying dramatically since she returned from Rachel's. She's been flinging her arms around and the flinging heightens the drama. Every so often she mentions the issue from school, the bullying problem, every so often she shouts, “You are always trying to hurt me.” Maria thinks she's a blur of colour and light. The sun has almost set. Maria is still on the floor in the kitchen. Tom has ordered pizza and they have eaten it sitting down with Maria on the floor, handing her slices one at a time. She has a straw for her milk. Tom offered to carry her to the bedroom but Maria feels that if she moves her back will split in two. She will break.

“I really have to pee,” Maria says. “I managed to pee at lunchtime, but I had to pull myself there. I'm afraid to go, though.” Maria looks at her pizza slice. “Maybe after I eat you can drag me there?”

“Well,” Tom says. What else should he say? He isn't sure. “Okay.”

“You can put a rug under me, like I do when I move furniture. And pull me there. Slide me.” Maria smiles.

“Mom, what about Dog?”

Maria thinks they really should have named the dog. They call him “Dog” or “Dogster.” They talk about The Dog. They couldn't agree on a name. He is old now, eight, and he's never had a name. They thought it was cute and original not to name him. But now it only makes Maria sad.

“After we eat we'll go out and look for him,” Tom says through a mouthful. “After I drag your mother to the bathroom by her hair.” He smiles a little but no one thinks he is funny.

Maria has an idea in the fog of the pain killers. “Maybe he's in the backyard. Maybe he came back and is outside waiting for us to let him in?”

Becky stands up from the towel she was sitting on to keep clean, washes her hands in the kitchen sink and then walks to the back door, opens it and yells, “Dog” out into the evening. “Where are you, Dog? Come home, Dog.”

Maria doesn't tell them about Dayton. She doesn't tell them how Dayton saw her from across the street, saw Maria, her robe open, her body hanging out there for all to see, almost falling, stiffening up and leaning forward, clutching her back, screeching in pain, she doesn't tell them how Dayton came across the street quickly and steadied Maria before she fell. She helped Maria into the kitchen, stretched her out on the kitchen floor, straightened her robe and tied it tight around her waist. She said, “I have to get Carrie. Just a minute. I'll be right back,” and she ran off out the front door and across the street and found her young daughter somewhere in her house and then came back. When she came back she was carrying the baby on her hip and she had her purse over one shoulder. She had Maria's newspaper as well. The baby was fiddling with the strap of Dayton's purse and cooing.

“Oh dear,” Maria said, “We don't even really know each other that well and here you see me half-naked lying on my kitchen floor.”

“Neighbours,” Dayton laughed. “That's what we're for.” Carrie burbled a bit.

The women nodded at each other. Maria nodded at Carrie. She swore the baby nodded back. Everyone was calm and quiet. Everything was silent as if there was nothing odd about this at all.

Tom helps Maria get comfortable. He helps her to the bathroom by dragging her there. She struggles as he lifts her to standing, and after she pees he helps her back down to the floor. He slides her back to the kitchen where the floor tiles are heated. He has turned them on now and Maria feels the heat in her back. “Why didn't you remember that earlier?” Maria says. Tom shrugs and brings her blankets and pillows.

About time, she thinks. He's been home from work for more than an hour. He plumps the pillow and tries to roll some blankets under her for comfort but it hurts too much and so he just lays them over her and tucks her in a bit. He gives her another Robaxacet and some water with a straw.

“Are you sure you don't want me to carry you upstairs?”

“I think I want to just lie here,” Maria says. “It really hurts to move. Maybe later you can help me get on the couch in the TV room. The floor feels nice on my back now with the heat on.”

Becky is pacing beside her mother.

“Don't step on me,” Maria says lightly, as if it's a joke, but she really means it. Becky is getting close, back and forth, back and forth, her tread heavy.

“Hurry up, Dad.” She won't look at Maria.

“You'd think, Becky, that you actually liked Dog,” Maria says. Tom glances at her. “I mean you're always complaining about him shedding and his dirty paws and the way he smells.”

“I love Dog,” Becky shouts, staring straight down at her mother, her feet inches from Maria's head. “You let him go and you didn't do anything about it. I love him. You always do this kind of thing. You're always hurting me.”

“I didn't let him go on purpose.”

“But you could have phoned Dad. You could have phoned him at work and he could have come home and looked for Dog.”

Tom says, “She has a point. Why didn't you call me?”

Maria sighs. “I'm stuck here. I don't know.”

“But you got to the bathroom. You said you got to the bathroom once.”

“That was an emergency.”

“And the dog isn't?” Becky is crying now. “Sometimes I hate you.”

“Teenagers,” Maria says and Tom looks at her but quickly looks away. “What? I'm the one who's hurt here. It really hurts to move. You guys don't know. You've never had back problems. Every little movement —”

“We'll find him, Beck. Don't you worry.”

Becky puts her coat on, stamps awfully close to her mother, and heads out the door behind her father. Maria can hear them calling “Dog” up and down the street. Another reason they should have named him. How will he know that he's the dog they want?

Maria isn't certain why she didn't think to call Tom. Well, she is certain, actually. She didn't call Tom because she had forgotten that Dog got out. Dayton distracted her and, for the day, Maria actually forgot she had a dog. Because he doesn't have a name, Maria thinks now, he doesn't exist?

“For god's sake, try harder,” Maria tells herself. But it comes out, “Fer gut sake, dry hearter,” because the Robaxacet is starting to work. That's another reason she didn't call Tom. The Robaxacet. Lovely, melty, liquidy pill.

Dayton moved from California last fall, which made Maria both envious and sad. Maria would like to go to California someday. In fact, she never goes anywhere. She'd like to get out of this town once in a while. It really doesn't matter where. Dayton said there was a complicated husband, a bitter breakup — Maria isn't sure now if she mentioned a divorce. Little Carrie has no father anymore. That's all there was to it. Something about moving here to get away from it all. To get away from him.

One thing Dayton did mention that stuck hard in Maria's head, that made her see red — Dayton has been playing hockey in that league with Trish. This fact made Maria horribly envious and sad. Mostly envious. Why didn't Trish didn't ask her to play? They've known each other for years. Maria was not quite sure why she hadn't been asked. It made no sense. According to Dayton, Trish's daughter, Rachel, has babysat Carrie when they play hockey — this fact made Maria the most envious and sad. Becky and Rachel are the same age but Becky is much more mature. The thought of that little twerp Rachel babysitting anyone's child made Maria uncomfortable — more uncomfortable than she already was, lying on the floor in her bathrobe.

“But don't you think she's too young?” Maria asked.

“I'm just down the street at the arena,” Dayton said. “She can always call me.”

“Do you carry your cell phone when you play hockey? When you're actually out on the ice? I mean, what if something happens when you're out on the ice?”

Dayton looked at Carrie, looked at Maria and said, “No. I guess I don't. But Carrie is asleep when I play hockey. I didn't really think —”

“Well, it's none of my business, but that Rachel girl can be a real handful.”

“She seems lovely,” Dayton said, “but I don't really know her like you do. And, besides, I sometimes use an older girl, Caroline.”

“Oh, I could tell you things about Rachel. She plays with Becky and she's quite bossy, quite controlling. She does things sometimes that make me so mad. Sometimes she steals things from our house. Our food. She comes over and eats all our food and puts the empty containers back in the fridge or in the cupboard —” Maria stopped talking and blushed. She realized that she sounded shrill. It was just that Rachel and her mother, Trish, well, it was just — Maria wasn't asked to play hockey. That's the crux of it. Why wasn't she asked?

So Maria felt left out of everything, lonely. Even with Dayton there beside her she felt lonelier than she'd ever felt in her entire life. And, lately, Maria has been feeling very lonely. Tom is distracted at work. Becky hasn't liked her since that incident with the school and the lying kids who bullied her. That's why she threw her back out. Stress.

Maria has been so angry lately. Every time she thinks of anything she sees red. The world sucks. The people around her suck. Everything sucks. But then, after that red-hot anger disappears, Maria feels nothing at all. She has no opinion and doesn't care. It's one way or the other — hate or indifference. There is no in-between. Maria finds it exhausting. She wonders often if this is peri-menopause. Maybe that's what it is. Hormonal fluctuations.

Dayton was sitting on the floor near Maria. She leaned her back against the wall. Carrie was sitting on her lap, looking at Maria, sucking her thumb, her baby fist pressed hard against her nose. She is a cute baby, Maria thought at the time. A sweet-looking thing.