The Journey Prize Stories 27 (25 page)

Mei checks the mirror again. She pinches her cheeks to bring back the colour. She bites her lips. As Mei straightens her T-shirt she passes her hands over the stowaway in her stomach.
It embodies all the stolen kisses she’s shared with S. in Hype’s cramped storeroom, pressed tight against each other to avoid knocking the silver-pink rows of shampoo bottles from their shelves. All the plans S. and she conjured in their night walks along the churning dark harbour, fantasies of exploring western China by rail, watching the northern lights dance in the Yukon. He could teach the baby things he’s tried to educate Mei about: Frisbee, blue cheese, ice-skating. In Montreal, there are even some good art schools to look into.

A knock on the door. Mother’s voice calls her name. “What are you doing in there? Hurry up. The ceremony’s about to begin.” The door jiggles, and then Mother is inside the bathroom. Mei curses herself for forgetting to lock it.

“What’s this smell? What’s happened?” Mother’s nose is wrinkled in judgment, her head tilted back to smell better.

Braced for the reprimand, Mei keeps her face turned to the mirror. “I’m sorry. It’s nothing. Maybe food poisoning.”

“Poisoning? Now?” Hastily, Mother rubs her hands together to warm them, closes her eyes to concentrate. She puts one palm on Mei’s stomach, another supporting her back. Energy courses between the two palms, spreading warmth up and down Mei’s body. In the mirror, Mei is surprised to find that over the years she has become the taller of the two, the burr of her hair almost a foot above Mother’s sooty perm.

“It can’t be food poisoning. Your stomach is warm.” Mother’s eyes search Mei’s in the mirror. Silence hangs between them like a bridge, neither of them finding the words to cross it.

“Well, I feel better now,” Mei says. “Thanks.”

Mother pushes Mei out the door. “Hurry up, we’ll miss the announcement of Stinker’s name.”

They stand next to each other at the back of the noisy, laughter-filled living room, shoulders almost touching. Cousin’s banker husband holds Little Stinker, who stares unblinking at the fan of people around him. Radiant, Cousin stands behind her husband, arms around his waist. With a flash of scissors, Big Aunt lops off a lock of Baby’s thick hair and holds it in the air like a winning raffle ticket. The relatives all cheer and clap.

“Long life!”

“Great happiness!”

When Little Stinker’s true name is announced, Mei glances over at Mother, and catches the wide smile on her face. Mei has grown up trying to capture these unprotected smiles, nestling them in her memory before the animated joy dies out of Mother’s eyes. She leans over to her mother.

“I have something to tell you,” Mei says.

Mother turns and meets her eyes, still laughing and clapping.

It is just a moment, but their shared silence is all Mei needs to let in the possibilities. She could quit smoking. She could keep the baby boots. She could go downstairs in a minute and say, “Martin, would you like to come up and meet my family?”

I
was lying in bed, running a low-grade stress-induced fever, copying passages into my notebook from Heidegger’s
Being and Time
, when someone knocked at my door. A tall woman with pale skin stood there with a baby stuffed into a Snugli on her front. Her hair hung down in a thick brown braid that reached her waist, and she wore a pair of baggy jeans, a grey wool Stanfield, and thick-soled worn hiking boots. I recognized her as the woman who had moved into the unit next to mine a few months back. There were six of these units in a row, sharing one long, leaky roof, each with a small yard separated from the others by a rotting wooden fence. The baby’s arms were squeezed into the sling against his body and his face was covered in a bright red crusty rash.

Hi. Is Darryl home? she said.

I said, No.

A few nights before, after I got off shift, I had come home and found Darryl lying on the couch, smoking a joint. I took off my shoes and threw my clothes into the washing machine.
I am a philosophy student-slash-server. He is an artist-slash-server and was my boyfriend for four years. He painted large female nudes in oil and hoped to get noticed one day.

Busy? Darryl asked.

Slammed, I said. If I wash my shirt now, do you think you can iron it for me in the morning? I really, really need to sleep in.

Darryl said, Vivian? Listen up.

He had two things to tell me. One, that his art was the most important thing in his life. And two, more important even than his art, he might be gay. I laughed. I said, Oh great, I’m thirty-three years old, ready to start my life, and I’m stuck with a boyfriend who is having a heterosexual meltdown.

Being gay is one thing. Not being gay is another thing. But not knowing, well, that’s something else.

I told him, Do me a favour, go sort yourself out somewhere else.

The next morning he moved up the mountain to his parents’ condo in Whistler, to paint, wait on tables, snowboard, and sort himself out somewhere else.

I didn’t mention any of this to the woman on my doorstep, who introduced herself as Deb and said she had come to return a stamp she had borrowed from Darryl.

She put her hand in her pocket and kept it there. After a moment I said, Anyway, I’m Vivian, nice to finally meet you.

She smiled and said, And this is Caro.

Caro and I made eye contact.

Hi Caro, I said. Caro farted.

Oh, he’s having a poo, Deb said.

I started thinking about the root of
ontological
and the root
of
ontical
and wondering how long I could let Darryl suffer before I phoned and invited him back. Thing was, I was writing a paper on Heidegger’s Dasein for my Ph.D. and having Darryl gone was actually a blessing. I had a lot more time to concentrate, and the deadline for this preliminary paper was coming up quickly. I was desperate to nail a unique perspective, something that hadn’t been done before, and it was starting to look like everything had been done before.

Not to mention I was on shift at the Copper House six nights this week.

Deb said her husband, Johnny Rain, was having a caffeine withdrawal fit and could she borrow some coffee. She told me she had met Johnny in Campbell River a couple years before; she was fresh off the fishing boat and he was getting headshots done. Now they were married. With a kid. She told me her husband was the guy in the latest beer commercial and asked me if I’d ever seen it. I told her I didn’t have a TV.

She said, He’s the guy at the bar who’s drinking the wrong beer.

I remembered then that I’d seen the commercial during an après-ski up at the mountain last season with Darryl. In the commercial, Johnny Rain is standing at the bar, holding his beer in the air in a beckoning way, his hair combed down flat, gelled and parted neatly on the side. He looks good but dorky, and when the beautiful blonde walks by, giving him a look, we see that she is actually looking at the man behind him.

I dumped a half-cup of coffee beans into the grinder and pulsed them. The baby jerked.

Drip or French press, I yelled.

Deb yelled, Drip.

I handed her a baggie of freshly ground coffee, and the baby curled his tongue out of his mouth, then pulled it back.

Little boy? I asked. I tried not to notice the raging war zone on his face.

Yep, all boy, Deb said.
Caro
means “dear” in Spanish.

As in expensive? I asked.

That too, she said.

You’re not Spanish, I guessed.

Actually, I’m a Newfoundlander, Deb said.

The expensive baby was staring at my hair, which I was absentmindedly twirling.

He loves blondes, Deb said.

I stopped twirling.

Your baby, I said. Ummm, it looks like his arms are trapped.

Yeah I know, she said. I’ve got his sleeves pinned to his sleeper so he doesn’t scratch.

Oh. Cute kid, I said.

Yeah, you should see his little pecker. He’s gonna be quite the lady-killer.

When I phoned Darryl later at his parents’ condo, a guy answered and I hung up. When I phoned back, there was no answer.

Everyone is the other, and no one is himself.… And only that which is unmeaning can be absurd
.

The next day Deb phoned. It’s on! It’s on!

She was talking about the beer commercial. I told her again I had no TV.

Being-alone is a deficient mode of being-with, its possibility is a proof of the latter
.

I put Heidegger down. I couldn’t concentrate. Out in front
of the units was a communal play area, a few benches, shrubs, a swing set, a slide. As far as I knew, Caro was the only child in the development.

Once I’d looked out and seen Johnny lounging on the bench with his shirt off, leaning back with his arms behind his head, soaking up the sun. The baby was tied into a swing, moving back and forth, a ridiculous grin on his face. Deb was licking Johnny’s armpit. Sometimes we could hear them yelling. Asshole, bitch. They really had the hots for each other.

Deb later told me that Johnny insisted that they put Caro in the teepee when they were fighting or loving or doing both. The teepee took up their entire yard. She told me that when she was pregnant she used to lie down in the teepee and listen to Bob Dylan.

I was deep into
One’s state-of-mind is therefore based on thrownness
when Deb knocked on the door again.

She had Caro on her hip and his face was buried in her hair, which was braid-free and hanging loose like a wild animal’s, almost to her waist. Caro was biting it and twisting it and generally smothering himself in its tangles, sucking at it as if it held the answers to all the questions of life.

Deb: Sorry, sorry to bother you again. I lost my hairbrush. Do you have one? Johnny usually brushes it for me, but he’s gone for an audition.

Johnny was trying to break into the film scene. So far he had landed the one commercial. When he wasn’t acting, he was window washing. I handed her the brush.

Me: Is Johnny Rain his real name or stage name?

Deb: Real name. He’s Native. Can’t you tell?

Me: I wasn’t sure, I thought he might be Greek or Hawaiian or something. Squamish Nation?

Deb: Yeah. Three-fifths.

Me: Three-fifths? How can he be three-fifths?

Deb: What are you, the fraction police?

Then she shifted gears. Vivian, do you think he’s hot?

Me: Well, he’s pretty hot. I mean, not my kind of hot, but I can see where Caro gets his looks.

Deb: Oh, really? Well, just so you know, Caro is not his baby.

Me: You kidding me? He’s a carbon copy of him.

Deb: Look. If I say he’s not Johnny’s baby, then he’s not Johnny’s baby.

Then she said: It’s just that, my first kid, I lost him. Me and Iggy just come in from eight days of trolling Seymour Narrows, fighting like cats and dogs and the worst haul we’d had in three years and the weather just sick and Isaac had this nasty diarrhea the whole time and I was bitchin’ about the bilge pump and he was bitchin’ about the dirty Pampers and throwing them overboard and I smacked him and said he was polluting the harbour and he said I don’t need this shit and he picked up Isaac—he was two years old—and got back in the boat and headed north to the Charlottes and I ain’t seen him since. Which would have been just right except he took my baby. So I figured out then that the only way to make sure I never lose another is to keep certain factoids to myself. Like who’s your daddy, eh? Who’s your daddy, Caro? It drives Johnny nuts, but that’s the way it is.

Then Deb said, Would you mind brushing it for me?

I began brushing Deb’s hair. Starting at the bottom, pulling the tangles. Her hair was stubborn, electric and snarled.

Deb: Don’t get the wrong idea, but when Johnny does it, it really turns us on.

Johnny came round the next day to use the phone and sat Caro on the front doorstep. I asked him how Caro was doing.

Johnny: Little better today. I got him smeared up with Vaseline. Deborah’s decided not to take him to work anymore, she thinks he’s allergic to dog hair.

Two weeks earlier Deb had landed a job at Pet Fabulous in the mall, shearing and brushing dogs while Caro played with a doggie toy in an empty crate.

Caro’s face looked like a slice of watermelon, glistening with petroleum jelly. He lit up when Darryl’s cat jumped off the couch and pranced up to him. You could tell that Caro really, really, really wanted to touch the cat but he was in his usual straitjacket. His struggle was fruitless and unnerving. He kept crashing over on his side as he reached with his head. Darryl and I had talked about having kids, but we weren’t ready. Caro rubbed his bruised forehead on Johnny’s pant leg. Outside it was raining like a bastard. In three hours I had to be at work. I had seven days and four thousand words to go. I glanced at my notes.
Anxiety brings Dasein face to face with its own-most being thrown
.

Johnny said there wasn’t much window washing now that it was turning cold, and he never got a callback on the Cialis audition. He was holding an apple up to Caro’s mouth, letting Caro gnaw away on it. We talked about the strata fees and the roof.

Then he goes, Hey, can I borrow a skirt?

Oh man, I thought, not him too.

He scowled, I mean for Deb. It’s our first anniversary and she’s got shit for clothes and I want to take her out someplace nice.

The only thing I had that might remotely fit was a stretchy teal blue knit. She was at least thirty pounds heavier than me. Maybe more. I sighed and handed it over.

As they were leaving, Johnny was intoning Skwxwú7mesh-ulh at Caro, encouraging him to repeat it. Ain’t this kid something, he said.

I had time for one more chapter.
Dasein is never simply what it presently is, but is “existentially that which it is not yet.”

When the day came, I should have expected that the restaurant they would pick to celebrate in would be mine. They had married on Halloween and this anniversary night the place was packed and half the diners were in costume. My hair was sprayed gold and radiated out in huge rays around my head. I was the Tiger-Sun. I scrambled to find them a table and a high chair.