Lemon (29 page)

‘I'm sorry.'

‘Why don't you look where you're going?'

‘I was running.'

‘Evidently.' He speaks clearly, like he's educated.

I help him stuff the bags in the cart. They smell of piss and mildew. I look around. No sign of my pursuer. The homeless guy starts spraying Lysol into a can of Coke.

‘Can't drink it straight?' I ask him.

‘You try it.'

‘Why don't you go to a shelter?'

‘They want you in by nine.'

‘Is that so bad?'

‘When's Mommy want
you
home?'

‘I don't have a mommy.'

‘Aren't you lucky.'

‘Where's yours?'

‘Pushing up daisies.'

‘So I guess you don't miss her.'

‘She made grand martinis.'

All of a sudden Treeboy trots up, breathless. ‘Lemon …' he begins.

‘What are you doing here?' I demand.

‘Looking for you.'

‘Was it you chasing me?'

‘Trying to catch up.'

‘Why don't you leave her alone?' the homeless guy says. ‘Can't you see she wants to be left
alone?
'

‘He's right,' I say, cramming in the last of his bags. He shoves his cart down the street to get away from us riff-raff. ‘Please come home,' Vaughn says.

‘It's not your home, where do you get this idea it's your home?'

‘I didn't say it was my home.'

‘You said “home.” You didn't say “come back to Drew's,” you said “home.” What the fuck are you doing there anyway? Don't you have your own home? Your own mother? It's sick the way you're hanging around. It's fucking perverted.' I start walking, telling myself I'm lucky it was only Treeboy tailing me, lost without his forest. Although I wouldn't have minded dying a hideous, sexually deviant death. Because then Rossi would have heard about it.

‘Why do you think it's perverted?' he asks. I don't even look at him, just hear him panting behind me. My lungs are fully recovered, pink and steaming.

‘It's obvious that you two have a bit of a thing going,' I say.

‘What thing?'

‘Oh please.'

‘We're friends.'

‘Right.'

‘She needs
help right now.'

‘She needs to get laid. She's not happy unless she's got some dickhead taking her water-skiing or something.'

‘Really? Hunh. So you think I should take her water-skiing?'

The homeless man looks over his shoulder then accelerates, trying to widen the gap between us.

‘Drew's house is that way,' Treeboy says, grabbing my arm, which gives me an excuse to go at him. I jab him under the jaw, swat the side of his head. When he tries to shield himself with his arms, I kick his shins and jab my boot into the top of his foot. He yelps. I have to admit, it feels great, inflicting damage. I leave him in pain. ‘Get a job,' I tell him.

27

I
smear butter on my mini baguette. Don't know how much longer I can loiter before they figure out I'm sleeping here. Shouldn't drink any more coffee. Can feel myself ticking, thinking about those short people 1,800 years ago in Thailand who had huge cerebral cortexes, which meant they were way smarter than we are. They didn't start wars or destroy ecosystems and were only four feet tall. A volcano wiped them out. Why them? Why wipe out peaceful people with huge cortexes?

A small-cortexed codger wearing a fedora over his toque keeps glancing up from a tabloid to check me out. The headline on the tabloid says, ‘Who's Had a Full-Body Makeover?'

I read in
National Geographic
about Africans killing Africans. Hutus ranting on loudspeakers about what cockroaches Tutsis were. Which is how every genocide gets going, I guess. The more aggressive side mouths off about what scum, filth, lying, cheating, degenerates the weaker side is, and how these loathsome, despicable vermin are to blame for all the shit that goes down, and that if we go out and machete them, our problems will be over. We're about due for a genocide in North America, although it's hard to say who's going to slaughter whom. The boys showing up for school killings are all breeds. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that committing mass murder would lose its attraction if it wasn't the fastest road to fame. The shooters just look like regular dweebs hoping someone will be nice to them. You have to wonder if, before the rampage, somebody
had
been nice to them, invited them out for a cup of joe or something, the massacres might not have happened. Pretty sad how they have to talk themselves into it, dress up like action heroes and post their psycho rantings. Although I guess once you taste contempt, it's pretty easy to make the jump to murder. It's something in our angry-primate wiring. All it takes is a little circuit change. And desperation. I guess we just aren't desperate enough yet in old Amérique du Nord for a full-scale genocide. Once the oil runs out maybe the religious right will round us up and get some systematic killing going, convert the non-believers into biofuel to keep their guzzlers running.

I'll forget about Bradley eventually. You get better at knowing you'll get over stuff as you get older. All those people standing around during genocides, they know they'll get over it if they just look the other way while their neighbours are being exterminated. Just like I'll get over the fact that I sat around sucking on pretzels while Rossi got raped.

A three-hundred-pound lady in an oversized tank top and leggings squeezes into a chair a couple of tables over. She's clutching a croissant and a book. I try to read the title because I always check out what people are reading. It's usually
Chicken Soup for the Soul
books or
How to Become a Positive Thinker
or something. She puts the book down to butter her croissant. It's
Pride and Prejudice
. She's reading about Lizzie pining for old Darcy, wondering what the hell happened to her Mr. Darcy and how she got so freakin' fat.

At least Kadylak's getting better, off the ventilator and all that.

I'm definitely hyper because my witchy hands have shredded my paper cup into bits. I didn't even roll up the rim to win. I dig around for the bits of rim, find one with the tip of the big yellow arrow and roll it up.
Play again
, it says.

Usually when I sit in trees I listen to bird and squirrel sounds, rustling leaves and all that. But it's night and they're sleeping and all I hear is cars and humans. I'm hoping Drew's noticed I'm missing and is regretting all the shitty things she's ever said to me. More likely Vaughn's consoling her, cooking up slop and finding her G-spot.

I feel around in my backpack for my mother/daughter scrapbook and tuck in the story about the mother wrongly convicted of killing her baby due to some inept pathologist. Her older kid was taken away by the Children's Aid Society. Eventually his foster parents wanted to adopt him. His real mother had to concede that, since she wasn't allowed to have him, he'd have a better future with the adoptive parents. Otherwise he'd be passed around in foster care, which would lead him straight to a jail cell. So even though it nearly killed her to give him up, his real mother did. She wasn't allowed to see him until he was eighteen. But they could write to each other and send pictures and all that. Well, he couldn't forget her, and was writing to her all the time about how much he missed her, and remembering little things they did together and asking her if she could remember them. It tore her up every time she read one of his letters because she remembered every little thing, but she didn't know if she should encourage him to miss her or if she should try to help him forget her. Now she can see him again, hold him again, tell him she remembers everything. I hope it works out; probably won't, though. He'll be taking drugs to fill the gaping holes inside him. She'll freak about what's happened to her boy and start zoning out on antidepressants, fondling his old letters.

Staying out all night is harder than it looks in movies. Time drags. Plus I'm getting cold. I hang around outside Zippy's for about an hour. There's no light in her windows. Not sure if it's worth the hassle. I could never trust her to keep a secret, she'll probably flip out and phone Damian. He'll haul my ass to the police station, or Drew's, which would be even worse.

Moments like this it's best to think about somebody worse off than yourself. That African girl who got her hands cut off, for example. Boy soldiers figure people without hands can't mark ballots. One of them held a gun to her head while the other two held her arms down. The girl crawled to a village and eventually some agency hooked her up with Canadians who wanted to help her. She lives here now and goes to school with kids who can't figure out the hand thing, like how that could happen. The girl says she has moments when she forgives the boy soldiers, which I can't figure out. She assumes her family has been killed, but has somehow managed to get a B average and is planning a career in office administration. How do you type with no hands? Meanwhile us Americanos are taking antidepressants because kissing ass to keep our twelve-hour-day jobs gets depressing. Not to mention knowing we could be replaced by an even better ass-kisser who'll work fourteen-hour days. Can't see them hiring an African with no hands though. Maybe for about five minutes for the photo op.

I buzz Zippy's, a man answers. It's the ape man from Marty Millionaire. I scram.

She picks up on the first ring.

‘I need somewhere to sleep,' I tell her.

‘Where are you? I'll send a cab.'

Her house is narrow and antiseptic with abstract art on the walls.

‘Can I make you some tea or coffee? Would you like some juice?'

‘I'm hungry, actually,' I say, staring at the art to avoid staring at her.

‘What can I get you? Bread and cheese? Some fruit? I could scramble some eggs.'

‘Bread and cheese is fine.' Her place is open concept, meaning there's no place to hide. While she messes around in the kitchen, I scan for family photos. There are none, probably because they'd clutter the designer look. The furniture is metallic and leather, angular. A child could never live here. A child would skewer herself on the furniture.

Constance puts the food on the cleared dining room table. At Drew's these days, tables are never cleared.
They breed paper and dirty cups.

She sits across from me. Without the hat I can see her hairline, which, of course, is exactly like mine. She has bed-head, her mouse-coloured hair stands out in tufts. So much for my mouse hair turning an actual colour someday.

‘Do you work?' I ask.

‘Not anymore. I'm on permanent disability.'

‘Why?'

‘Fibromyalgia.'

‘What's that?'

‘A muscle disease. It's not fatal but very disabling.'

‘You don't look disabled.'

‘I have chronic pain, and tire very easily.' She keeps tugging on the chain around her neck.

‘Is it genetic?'

‘I don't think so.'

‘What did you do before?'

‘I worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.'

‘A government job. Must have been nice. Big cheques, big benefits.'

She lays out napkins. ‘It had its moments.'

‘So I guess us taxpayers are subsidizing your disability.'

She slices a tomato. It bleeds all over the plate.

‘So why didn't you abort?' I ask.

‘I thought I'd be able to manage.'

‘What happened?'

She sips her tea, nervously, of course, wrapping her witchy fingers around the cup. ‘I kept you for months. You cried incessantly. I thought I was losing my mind. I suspect it was post-partum depression, although they didn't call it that then. I probably should have sought counselling. But I had my thesis to defend.' She tugs at the chain around her neck again. ‘It just wasn't working.'

‘Isn't it great chucking stuff when it just
isn't working?
Like why bother to try and fix it. Get rid of it. Computers, babies … ' ‘You have every right to be angry.'

I shove bread and cheese in my mouth and chew for about an hour, waiting for her to continue.

‘You're probably wondering why I've contacted you after all these years,' she says, ripping a slice of bread into little bits. ‘I just felt … it was time.'

‘For what?'

‘To make peace with my past. You can't run forever.'

What a crock. ‘You were lonely and happened to notice you'd totally fucked up your life. You're hoping I'll make it better for you.'

‘I don't think that's fair.'

‘Did you give me a name?'

‘Of course. Cecily.'

‘You've got to be kidding me.'

‘What's wrong with Cecily?'

‘Did you stash me in a handbag?'

‘I don't think you should make light of this. It wasn't easy for me.'

‘Me neither.'

Stalemate. She nibbles on one of her bits of bread.

‘Cecily Charity,' she adds.

Cecily Charity Ramsbottom. Now there's a reason not to live. I wolf down tomato slices, waiting for her to weep and plead for forgiveness. She starts shredding one of the napkins.

‘Why don't you have any photos of anybody?' I ask.

‘How do you mean?'

‘Your parents or anybody.'

‘Oh. I've never been close to my parents and my sister is … my sister is mentally ill.'

‘She's locked up?'

‘They don't lock them up anymore. I'm not sure where she is.'

‘Homeless.'

‘That's a possibility.'

I start buttering more bread, might as well stuff myself before she discovers I'm not the long-lost daughter of her dreams and boots me out. ‘So,' I say, ‘you go spying on the daughter you ditched, but you don't give a buzzard's ass about your sister who's probably licking cat food out of a can somewhere. Is it genetic?'