Sweet Life
- Title Page
- Book & Copyright Information
- Dedication
- Quotation
- Section 1: A Far Away Roar
- Sweet Life
- That Buchanan Woman
- Mrs. Kravitz's Mood
- Impact
- Doves
- Section 2: Indistinct Shapes
- The Bells of San Martino
- The Virgin in the Grotto
- Paradise Hotel
- The Marble Nymph
- Section 3: The Illusion of Grace
- What You Should Know
- Suspension
- Glass Garden
- The Madwoman Upstairs
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
©Linda Biasotto, 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll-free to 1-800-893-5777.
This collection is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents
are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Edited by Sandra Birdsell
Designed by Tania Craan
Typeset by Susan Buck
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Biasotto, Linda, 1952-, author
Sweet life / Linda Biasotto.
Short stories.
Issued also in electronic format.
ISBN 978-1-55050-578-8 (pbk.).--ISBN 978-1-55050-579-5 (pdf).--
ISBN 978-1-55050-797-3 (html).--ISBN 978-1-55050-798-0 (mobi)
I. Title.
PS8603.I22S94 2014 C813'.6 C2014-900257-2
C2014-900258-0
Available in Canada from Coteau Books
2517 Victoria Avenue
Regina, Saskatchewan
Canada S4P 0T2
Coteau Books gratefully acknowledges the financial support of its publishing program by: the Saskatchewan Arts Board, The Canada Council for the Arts,
the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Gov
ernment of Saskatchewan through the Creative Industry Growth and Sustainability program of the Ministry of Parks, Culture and Sport.
In memory of
Ryan Biasotto
&
Lydia Senger
Then I turned my thoughts to consider...madness and folly.
– Ecclesiastes 2:13
A
Faraway
Roar
Swe
et Life
If you think I’m going to pass myself off
as some kind of nice guy, you’re wrong. I did call the ambulance for my buddy, Greg, and ride with him to the hospital and answer questions best I could. But after I called Kayla and she showed up, I expected her to deal with the situation.
The situation.
A bad one for Greg and not looking good for me, either. I pretty much burned my bridges the morning before, walking out on another of Mom’s lectures, which I admit was rude. I’m not out to hurt her. But her hotshot husband, Dale? He can make me nuts in about four seconds. He’s a teacher, but he’s not
my
teacher.
It was mainly because of him I decided to move in with Greg, who was after me to share rent ever since his last roomie took off. I finally make the move and what happens next day? Greg gets sick.
So while I’m in the emergency waiting room, I think about it and decide to stay in his apartment until he gets out of the hospital. But if Greg isn’t coming back as
Greg
, then no way I’m sticking around. See what I mean about not being a nice guy?
But where else can I crash? Most of the guys I know are in the same lack of housing situation, floating between joints and grabbing meals when they can. Sleep outside? Well, okay, it’s summer and I know some places, but I’m total chickenshit about that deal.
Greg likes to remind me I have a sweet life. My own place in the basement, a bathroom, TV, cellphone and allowance. But when I dropped out of high school, Dale stole the TV and phone. Cancelled my allowance, too. Mom feels guilty about it, though, and slips me money.
“He’s not mean, Jude. He’s trying to teach you a lesson.”
Whatever. But I show him. Oil my synapses with a steady stream of beer, stay out all night and sleep all day. What
I
call a sweet life. Keeps me from seeing too much of Dale’s ugly mug, a mug my mom happens to love, but there’s no accounting for tastes.
After all, she did marry my old man, Alvin Stuart, whose last name you don’t need to know. You can find it in back issues
of newspapers and newscasts. Call him Alvin Stuart Black Sheep. That was him until a heart attack did me and the world a favour by dropping him in the prison shower.
Here’s my joke on that one: Time did him while he was doing time. He was only forty, but what the hell; we’ve all got to go sometime.
My name’s Jude Allan. Old man named me Judas Alvin, but soon as the long arm of the law tossed him into jail, I got my mom to legally change my name. Yeah, the old man was a Bible-thumper.
One night when I’m ten, I’m asleep and next thing I know, he’s sitting on my bed. Has his fat hand on my leg and his face
in mine and I’m smelling whiskey. I about piss myself.
“The sins of the fathers, the sins of the fathers. Your father’s
eaten sour grapes, boy. Are your teeth on edge?” And he laughs his nasty laugh. When he gets up and leaves, I can’t believe he hasn’t pinched my face or squeezed the life out of my leg.
His moods sent me running for the basement. The TV was down there, and I could watch it all day without anyone looking for me. Guess my mom figured if I was out of sight then I was out of mind. Or what passed for my old man’s mind.
There was this place under the basement stairs where Mom kept potatoes and onions and stuff in boxes. A room with a door. I’d hide in there with the light off. Other kids were scared of the dark and spiders, but I preferred the dark. And any creepy-crawly was a thing of beauty compared to my old man.
He didn’t bother looking for me downstairs. After time alone and staring into nothing, everything slowed down for me. My heart, my breath, my thinking. When you can’t see what’s real, you begin to see what’s unreal. It was a lot of fun seeing what wasn’t there, my mind running off on journeys and me tagging along.
So now I’m sitting in the waiting room at the hospital and I don’t know what’s going on with Greg and in walks Kayla. Of course she’s got on a tight skirt and sandals with big heels, the kind short girls like to wear. She drops into the chair I saved for her and she smells like fried fish. Doesn’t bother to say
Hi, thanks for calling, Jude, and good job taking care of my boyfriend.
No, what she does is open her giant purse, take out a mirror, put on lipstick and pat her purple hair. (She calls it magenta.) “My mascara’s melting. I got here fast as I could, but I was down to three bucks, so I took the bus.” And then she looks at me.
“Greg’s not – he isn’t – ?”
“No.” Why can’t she keep her voice down?
“Sheesh, the way you look, I thought I was going to have to find a new boyfriend.”
Yeah, a real joker. First time I met Kayla, I knew she wasn’t Greg’s type. A missionary, and not happy unless she’s saving a guy from himself. I told Greg he was whipped, but he wouldn’t buy it, got all defensive and didn’t talk to me for a week. Never, but never, attack your buddy’s girl, because he won’t thank you, even if you’re right on.
In the waiting room, I’m about to launch myself out of the chair when Kayla orders me to tell her what happened. Apparently it was too noisy at the fish-and-chip joint for her to hear.
I’m a patient guy, so I tell her again. “When I wake up, I go to the bathroom and Greg’s door is closed.”
“What time was this?”
“About four, I guess. On my way back I duck into the kitchen, check if there’s a cold one left and there is. So I knock on the bedroom door and say, ‘Hey, you want to share the last beer?’ No answer. I figure what the shit, did he go out? And I go in and there’s Greg sitting on his mattress and he’s wearing nothing but his birthday suit. And he yells, ‘Close the door before you let the angels out.’ And I say, ‘Ha-ha.’ But he’s weirded out and swinging his arms for me to shut the door, and I do because now I’m scared and looking around. I say, ‘What angels, man?’ and he freezes. Doesn’t move an eyelash. And when the paramedics come, they say maybe catatonic.”
“Longest speech I ever heard you make and it’s clear as mud.” Kayla gets up, plunks her purse onto her chair and commands
me
to watch it.
Off she goes, her fat ass swinging like two pups fighting under a pillow. So now I’m a purse watcher, which takes the cake. And desperate for a drink. A cold Sleeman. Don’t ask me why the beer has to be Sleeman, it just does. But it only takes a few minutes for Kayla to stomp back into the room and nab her purse.
“Nurse wouldn’t tell me anything because I’m not family. Look, I said, he ran away from his family so now his friends are his family, but all the snooty bitch kept saying was they need his health card. Knowing Greg, he could’ve traded it for a pack of smokes.”
Doesn’t she care that every single person in the room is staring?
I’m outside, across the parking lot and waiting for the corner light to change before she even turns around in that waiting room. I look down at ants crawling in and out of a paper cup when I hear this voice practically in my armpit.
“Got a plane to catch?”
No way. Sure enough, Kayla’s looking up at me like something’s hilarious.
The light changes and my army boots barely touch pavement. I’m a launched missile, a rocket headed for the planet Your Anus. I don’t care my black shirt’s stuck to my back. Don’t notice when I cross the tracks until I pass yards filled with dead cars and weeds and brats and mean dogs tied to ropes. And when I see the alley, I head for it. Open a certain back gate and stop because I can’t believe it. There’s Greg’s stalker girlfriend, coming right at me.
Got the gate shut and I’m up the cracked walk to the house, my pocket knife open. Boom, I’m down on my knees at the window, got that open and up and I’m sliding my legs in when she says, “Break and enter?” And I can’t do a thing because I’m already inside, dropping to the floor. She’ll go away, right? No such luck. The crazy chick tosses down her purse and jumps in after. Her skirt rides up and it’s a good thing for her there’s hardly any light or I would’ve had a clear view.