Rattled, Jim righted the beer bottle and retrieved the joint, thinking,
Crazy bitch
. Thinking,
Go to Alfie’s for a brew, let her cool off a bit.
At the door he said, “Can’t we talk about this?” and Sally said, “I’m all talked out, Jim. Just stay out of my face, okay? I don’t need anymore of your shit.”
He pulled on his coat, stepped onto the landing and the door slammed shut behind him, the bolt running home with a snap. He was partway down the stairs when the door opened again and he thought she’d apologize and let him back inside. But Sally flung something that hit him in the face...the burnt-wood Talisman he’d made for her in their teens, the leather thong looping around his ear.
The door slammed again and Jim sat on the steps, thumbing the smooth carving, trying to figure out where he could go. After a while he went outside into the vile January night, shivering in his threadbare coat before he’d walked a city block.
* * *
Jim paused to soothe his throat with a gulp of coffee, the brew chilled now, the group around him silent and attentive. He said, “Nobody wanted any part of me after that. I’d used up all my favors. I hung around the missions for a while, mooching what I could. Then I heard Sally’d had the baby.”
He remembered only vaguely the frosty night in February he decided to walk to the hospital from the Salvation Army mission downtown, a two hour trek through a brutal blizzard that all but paralyzed the city. By the time he got there his fingers and toes were frostbitten, and they had to admit him and amputate two of his toes and the tip of his baby finger. But not before he snuck onto the obstetrics ward to see his newborn daughter through the viewing window. He was puking drunk when he got there and within a matter of minutes security was on him, one big bastard putting him in an arm lock and almost ripping his shoulder out of the socket.
But he saw her, plump and healthy, peaceful in the first bassinet by the window, like it was meant to be, the name tag at the foot of the tiny bed saying TRISHA WEST. He remembered feeling stung that Sally had used her last name instead of his, and realized only now how insane that was.
He’d had just those few moments to see her, but a part of him still believed that she had seen him, too.
He said, “I tried to clean up my act after that. Got a job in a sub shop slinging sandwiches. Rented a room in a co-op. But Sally wouldn’t let me see our daughter, even after I told her I was clean and had a job, just like she’d always wanted. She said I was right, the kid wasn’t mine. Said she’d screwed every guy in the band a dozen times each and had no idea who the father was. I didn’t believe her; didn’t want to. I hung on for a while, hoping she’d change her mind. But a few months later I was wrecked again.”
Around the circle heads were nodding and Jim spoke for another twenty minutes, letting it all come, oddly pleased to be
feeling
again, even if it was only this forgotten breed of pain. And when the meeting ended and everyone stood to recite the Lord’s Prayer, he got the strangest feeling he was taller...but then he realized he was really just standing up straight for the first time in too long to remember.
* * *
Bobcat was listening to CHUM FM, tapping his foot to a Hendrix classic while he worked at his bench, the Rotties outside baying and yowling with each burst of the dental drill.
He was wearing his reading glasses now, squinting through an illuminated magnifier with a 16-diopter lens that gave him plenty of magnification but only a 0.5 inch focal length, making it difficult to keep the piece in focus. But it was coming along nicely, maybe his best work yet, like the fat fuck at the trading post was always telling him.
Bobcat was alone tonight, enjoying the quiet—except for those shithounds out there, raising hell every time he ran the drill.
After a few more minutes of buffing he decided the piece was finished, and he admired it through the lens, an intricate carving in miniature of a pair of wildcats flared up in battle. It had taken two large molars to get it done, glued together by the roots to get the limbs entangled.
“My, ain’t you the big bad boys. Big bad pussycats.”
He removed the piece from its clamp and set it on a jeweler’s felt with several others, each depicting a different species of wildcat. Most had already been turned into jewelry he would sell—earrings, charms, amulets—but Bobcat decided right away to add this new one to his trophy necklace as a centerpiece. It was just too damned fine to let go.
Using the magnifier, he glued a tiny gold lobster clasp to the head of the dominant cat, and when it dried, added the piece to the center of his necklace, setting it apart with a short length of nylon fishing line. Almost every time he went into the trading post Hank tried to buy the necklace from him, but there was no way he’d ever part with it. There were twenty-nine carvings on it, one from each of his donors so far, only three shy of a full set. The necklace was his pride and joy.
He admired the new addition in the mirror, liking the way the light caught the animals’ arched backs, then swiveled his chair to a chest of shallow drawers and slid the top one open. Inside were dozens of teeth, all neatly sorted and aligned.
Finding nothing that appealed to him, Bobcat ran the drawer shut and opened another, equally stocked with human dentition. When he saw one he liked, he mounted it under the magnifier. “Okay, kitty, I can see you already.”
He kicked on the pneumatic drill and bent to his work—
But those damned dogs started up again, some of them skirmishing now, driving him batshit crazy, and he swung the magnifier aside.
“Sons of
whores
.”
He grabbed his Maglite off the bench, then moved to the back door and threw a switch, bathing the yard in the noon glare of a cluster of Klieg arc lamps mounted on a power pole behind the kennel, startling the dogs and making them cower. Then he stalked into the moonless night, Sammy close on his heels. In the yard he picked up a rock and pelted it at the kennel, scoring a direct hit, one of the Rotties letting out a
yip
of pain.
“Shit factories,” Bobcat said and headed for the barn, the dogs even more agitated now. He moved quickly, wanting to get this done, his uneven path lit by the Kliegs.
In the barn he shifted the metal plate and shone the Maglite down the hole, seeing Julie’s naked form down there in a fetal curl on a dry platform she’d built for herself out of black earth. He thought,
Clever girl
, and slid an aluminum ladder down the hole, saying, “Watch yourself now, Blondie. Don’t wanna bump your noggin with this thing.” When the ladder was secure he said, “You come on up now, girl, don’t keep me waiting. We got to get you cleaned up and on your way. You’re about as useless as tits on a bull and I’m all out of lighter fluid.” He chuckled at his own wit. “Come on, now. Don’t make me come down there after you.”
At first he thought she was dead. Truth was, he’d forgotten about her for a while and hadn’t been throwing her any table scraps. Feeding those dogs cost an arm and a leg—and again Bobcat chuckled at his wit—and lately he’d been tossing his dinner scraps to Sammy, the mutt’s big Purina feed bag empty. It occurred to him that he’d have to take a run into town soon, grab some dog food and a few groceries. When he got busy with the work like this, the muse running him hard, sometimes weeks went by without him noticing. And when it was really going well, like the twin-molar beauty he’d just finished, well, he barely had the sense to get off the stool and go take a piss.
He said,
“Hey,”
and scuffed dirt into the hole with his boot. “Get your ass up.” Thinking that if she was dead he’d have to go down there and carry her up like he did the last one, before she started stinking to the high heaven.
Some of the dirt landed in the girl’s face and she stirred.
Relieved, Bobcat said, “Come on now, up you come. Get you shit, showered, shaved and straight the fuck out of here.” She was standing now, wobbling on her feet, and Bobcat aimed the flashbeam in her face. “Let’s go, Blondie. You’ve had your fun, now it’s time to go. Tell you what, if you’re polite, I’ll drive you out to the highway. And if you promise not to tell, I might even be persuaded to drop you at the bus station and give you some traveling money. How’s that sound?”
She had her arm up shading her eyes, but he saw her nod. He said, “So you promise not to tell?” and she nodded again. “Well, alright, then. Now up you come.”
It took her forever, but when she got close enough he grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her the rest of the way out, saying, “Jesus, girl, you’re about as light as a feather. Bobcat’s weight loss program. Results guaran
teed
.” He said, “Beats the hell outa Weight Watchers, don’t it?” and laughed. It was hard to stay angry when the work was going so well.
She was stumbling all over the place now, falling asleep on her feet. Resisting the urge to belt her, Bobcat pulled the tarp off his snow machine and draped it over her shoulders. He wasn’t in the mood for a battle—even in this kind of shape some of these toads could put up one hell of a fight once they saw what was coming—so he coddled her, steadied her as he led her out of the barn, telling her he was sorry things got so out of hand and she’d be sleeping in her own bed tonight, he promised.
He led her to the kennel in the glare of the Klieg lights, saying he had to make sure the gate was locked before he brought her into the house for a shower. The Rottweilers were losing their minds now, barking and brawling, and Bobcat unhooked the cattle prod from the latch post and raked it across the chain-link, the forked tip spewing sparks, and the dogs slunk into the shadows with their tails between their legs.
He opened the gate and flung the girl inside, her thin screams cut short as the dogs bore her down. He went back to the house and stood idle by the screen door for a while, switching the floodlights on and off, first catching glimpses of the brutal frenzy in the kennel, all dust and ribs and surging black dogs; then, in the deep country dark, aware only of the din of savage rending.
When he got bored he returned to his workbench, the new piece already gleaming in his mind.
––––––––
FOR THE BALANCE of that summer Trish worked in her aunt Sadie’s flower shop. She enjoyed the work and the money was great, her aunt paying her thirty bucks an hour cash-money plus a gas card for the Jetta.
Dean visited often, and once near the end of August Trish reciprocated, taking the forty minute drive to Toronto to join him for dinner and a show. She got a bit too tipsy on wine that night to risk the drive home, and Dean was the perfect gentleman, giving up his bed and spending the night on a ratty old couch in the living room. She came dangerously close that night to inviting him into bed with her—and felt a pang of disappointment when he didn’t take a shot at it himself—but she could see that he didn’t want to rush her. And once she sobered up, she was glad things had worked out the way they did. It occurred to her during the throes of the next morning’s hangover that she shouldn’t have been drinking in front of a recovering addict in the first place, and she apologized for it later. But Dean just laughed and told her that it was his problem, not hers, and that he wanted her to feel free to be herself whenever they were together. And later, during a hug that morphed into a slow dance on the kitchen floor, he told her that he loved her and that he always had. “And if you think there’s still a chance for us, Trish, I want you to be as sure as you can be before we take things any further.” Truth be told, he could have had her right then.
She was on the phone with her dad almost every day. She wanted to visit him at the Center, but he asked her to wait until he was feeling better, saying it embarrassed him to have her see him in such rough shape. Reluctantly, Trish agreed, contenting herself with their phone conversations and the regular news she got from Dean, who as his A.A. sponsor saw him several times a week.
In the middle of August she made a day trip to the University of Guelph for orientation and to purchase her textbooks, putting a massive hole in her bank account; but for the first time since receiving her letter of acceptance, the future finally felt real to her. She was on her way to becoming a veterinarian, the only thing she’d ever wanted to be. She hoped her dad would be proud of her.
* * *
For Jim, treatment was a blessing and a curse, each new day a taxing grind of classes and meetings and tormenting thirst. Nights were the worst, frantic using dreams and vivid hallucinations making restful sleep an impossibility.
But in spite of everything, little by little, he was coming back to life. Shaving and showering every day, wearing clean clothes, eating three squares. One day at a time, he was getting better.
He admired Dr. Langtree, and in an unexpected, father-son sort of way, found himself wanting to please the man. And whenever he felt like bolting to the nearest liquor store or bar, he remembered their first meeting and the doctor’s admission of his own triumph over addiction. Jim had gone into that office expecting to be preached at or bullied and had ended up looking the man square in the eye and returning his honesty. It was a neat goddam trick and it carried over into the A.A. meetings he attended every night, where he found himself actually becoming eager to share. And each time he did, he felt as if he’d shed another small part of some terrible burden he hadn’t even realized he’d been carrying. And although he was quick to recognize the benefits of the process, there were many nights he found himself reliving some pretty horrific shit, stuff that, until now, had been lost in a haze of alcohol and narcotics.
* * *
They met every night in the gymnasium, a rag-tag circle of lost souls with downcast eyes guzzling coffee, the majority of them present because they had to be—as a condition of parole or because some governing body had threatened to revoke their license to practice medicine or nursing or dentistry—and a much smaller number because they’d had the shit kicked out of them by their disease and were desperate to find a way out.