Blasted (28 page)

By the time I reached my favourite sweet-and-sour-soup place I was ravenous – the bowl of champions for $2.99 full of meat and tofu and vegetables, and weird discs of edible substance coloured in stripes of white, pink and green like the national flag of Newfoundland, when there
was
a national flag of Newfoundland. Eating the hot, spicy soup in the heat made sweat drip off me, and afterward I drifted through the crowds, enjoying my full belly and determined not to think about my future, or lack thereof, for at least half an hour. I wandered by store windows, pretending I could buy something.

One store lured me with bright glass and stone figures arrayed in the sun. I walked in, past rows of vases populated by strange birds and drug-huge lilies limned with gold; past little gods in yellow satin boxes, beneath scarlet tassels and painted paper umbrellas scented with shellac. Toward the back was a huge jade construction which, it took me a moment to perceive, was a clock. Twelve feet tall and almost as wide, it was a replica of a temple or a city perhaps. Dragon guardians coiled on the walls, and flags froze in grass green ripples from the highest points. A little lion-dog sat voracious and forlorn outside the walls, looking up at the impossible heights. No people. There was a glass screen in front of the clock, although not, for some reason, around the sides, and my hand crept around to caress the lion-dog. Then I saw a hand-lettered sign taped across the glass: “YOU BROKEN YOU PAY.”

I leaned my forehead to the glass, feeling the sweat stick me there, not seeing the clock because its outlines and reflections flickered in the glass so near my eyes; my tears blurred all together in an interlacing of light.

But it's just a sign, just a sign for the clock. I took a step back, squinted at my reflection, then went cold. My reflection wasn't me at all: motionless and tall and beautiful. Two braids flowed black over her shoulders, her eyes dark pools. I thought my heart had stopped beating, then it was hammering so fast it seemed one continuous tremendous
beat.
Then I saw my own face, eyes round and staring, mouth dropped open, and realized that Shanawdithit,
Shanawdithit,
stood behind me. In my hour of need, she'd come. I looked again, and it was Blue.

“
Blue
!” I shrieked and whirled around. He did a double take, then shrieked back at me.

“
Ruby
!” We both burst out laughing and embraced, he held me out at arm's length to look at me and then hugged me again. “You're
back
! Why haven't you called me, you ungrateful bitch? What in God's name happened to your
skin
?”

He was definitely not Shanawdithit. “It's called acne, shut up.”

“How was your visit?”

Everyone in the store was staring at our noise. I took his arm. “Come on, let's get out of here.” I steered him through the shelves of stuff and out the door.

“Well, I'm glad to see your fingers are all still there.”

“What?”

“We were beginning to think you'd run afoul of the Newfoundland mafia and they'd broken your hands, eh?” I stared up at him in blank incomprehension. “Or else you would have made use of your phone and
called
,” he clarified as to a child.

“You could have called
me
.”

We walked arm in arm in the sun toward some art gallery he was going to, trading stories of the last few weeks in our lives. I stayed on the surface, making him laugh at my tale of the funeral and the unfortunate minister's mistake with Gramma's name. I was surprised by how happy I was to see him. I interrupted his saga of his latest romantic entanglement with some guy named Gil by suddenly and uncharacteristically hugging him right there on the street. He looked down at me, a little mystified. “What was that for?”

“For being you,” I said, thinking, I'll
never
tell him about Shanawdithit, it's way too embarrassing. “So, Blue,” we continued our stroll, “I have a problem.”

“News flash.”

“And my
problem
,” I went on, raising my voice, “is my fridge.”

“Your fridge. The girl comes back from Newfoundland, practically a penniless orphan, and her problem is her
fridge
. What? Doesn't like the colour of the appliance? Would prefer something in brushed steel, perhaps?”

“Shut up. It…” I tried and failed. “It smells.”

“It smells.”

“Like all bejeezus.”

Blue seemed suitably struck by this and we walked in silence for a while, jostled by the crowds. “I want to move it,” I continued, “out, onto my deck. Or to a dump. I don't need it, I'm beyond fridges. Most of the world's population lives without them, why can't I? No, don't interrupt,” I cut him off. “What I need is help shifting it out of my kitchen. You know of any strong young fags who'd help me out? I'll supply the gas masks.”

“I don't know about any strong young
fags
,” he said, looking at me sideways, “but I'm sure your
friends
would be happy to help. Have you thought of cleaning it, O Domestic One?”

“No, no, you don't understand. I saw
spores
.”

I walked him to the art gallery, and at the door lingered talking until I'd made him late for his meeting. Hurriedly I asked how my bike was, feeling rotten because I knew I'd never be able to pay his friend for storing her. Hell, at this point I wouldn't even be able to afford to run her.

“I think she likes the garage; you just leave her there until you need her.” He kissed me and started to run up the stairs, then turned back.

“Tomorrow night – can you come over for dinner?”

“Uh… let me check my busy schedule… yes, I think I could make that.”

“Good. I'll come and pick you up at your place, around six – I'm over in that neck of the woods then anyway. That way you can't disappear on me. See you tomorrow. At six.” He waved and vanished through the doors of the building.

I turned and wandered back up Spadina toward my apartment. My life was going to go on, whether I wanted it to or not. I felt an unreasonable surge of anger toward Blue – for being so tactful and understanding – he knew damn well I didn't have any money and I'd lost another job, that was why he was inviting me to dinner, and he'd bought that plane ticket for me with Brendan, goddamn it, had I no privacy? Didn't
anyone
think I could look after myself?

By the time I got home I was so far sunk in my ruinous mood that I forgot to be careful. I was getting my keys out when all the hair on my body stood up in premonition. I turned around. The creature crouched by Earl's door, eyes flashing in the lightless gloom. A sound, an ice-dagger of hate, bubbled in the back of its throat. I fumbled with the keys, keeping my eyes locked with the animal's. It shifted its feet. I got the right key, I got it in the lock, I turned the key, the cat launched through the air. I smashed through my door and whirled to slam it shut. The cat's body smacked into the closing door with a satisfying
thud
and a yowl of frustrated, murderous outrage.

“Ha, ha ha
ha
!” I shouted meanly. Earl's door hissed open. The cat gave out a pathetic “mew.”

“What's going on?” he said, trying to sound gruff.

“Your goddamn cat's a killer, that's what,” I said through my closed door.

“Did Ruby hurt the kitty? Puss puss, puss…”

The cat mewed again, padding into Earl's apartment.

“I tell you, it tried to kill me. It
went
for me.”

“You're sick,” said Earl.

Great. Even Earl thinks I'm sick.

Then my cell rang. I leapt like Earl's cat.

“Yeah?”

“Ruby Jones? This is Jim Lawless.”

Oh. Jim. And my ruinous exit from his restaurant. “Hi,” I said. “I don't suppose you're calling to offer me the coveted Waitress of the Year Award?”

“I'm
calling
to inform you that I intend to begin instiga… instigating legal proceedings against you,” he stumbled, “with regards to certain property damages and assaults suffered by myself and my son on the night of…”

“What took you so long?”

“Listen. I'm doing you a favour.”

“Well, spare yourself.”

“This is a serious situation. You blow this conversation, and I'm going ahead. You sweeten up, and this whole thing can stop here.”

“Yeah, sure. You fired me without just cause, without due warning or whatever.”

“And your attitude just shows where you come from, that's all.”

“You probably got The Slug acting as your lawyer.”

“You little bitch, I'll have you in court so fast.”

“I've heard that one before!” I screeched into the phone, and snapped it closed, trembling. I
had
smashed up his bar pretty bad; the booze alone probably ran into hundreds of dollars.

My phone went off again. I opened it and shouted, “
Look
, cocksucker, you leave me alone!”

There was a startled silence on the other end. Then a man, not Jim, said in a deep voice, “Ruby?”

I smacked my head with my hand. “Brendan! Shit, I'm sorry, I thought you were… someone else.”

“Well, I should hope so.” His voice brimmed with amusement.

“
Man.
”

“Blue told me you're back.”

“News travels fast.”

We spoke a little, but Brendan hates phones so I kept it brief. He was so literate and erudite that he often made me feel a bit stupid; with him I played the man-on-the-street, we had this semi-acknowledged arrangement that I was his source for The Real, exacerbated by the fact that in the past I had worked for him as a model. For the most part, in our friendship we pretended that my character was a fixed, unchanging, unreflected-upon quantity, and a reliable source of amusement. So, I complained of my fridge. I began to feel like it was the best thing that had ever happened to me, it provided so much narrative material.

“It's taking over my life,” I said. “Jim calls threatening me with legal proceedings, and I can't even take
that
seriously. As long as the fridge is in my life, nothing else has reality for me.”

“
What
did you say about Jim?”

“Nothing, nothing, it's all unreal.” I waved my hand in the air like a queen, even though Brendan couldn't see me.

“Are you sure you're entirely all right?”

“Brendan. You know better than to ask a girl that kind of question.”

Later that evening as I sat in solitary splendour in my bare-assed front room, I heard the door at the bottom of the steps bang open. Voices and giggles, swiftly hushed, and footsteps ascending. Some shoving, swear words, and then a deep voice commanding, “Silence, you rabble!” The footsteps shuffled and thudded outside my door, came to a standstill. Then three knocks, portentous and hollow.

“Open, open and meet thy fate, Ruby Jones,” said a woman, and then giggling spoiled it.

There, weaving unsteadily and waving wine bottles, stood a troop of my insane friends – Judith in front, earrings the size of small planets orbiting her perfect ears, brandishing a bottle of Mr. Clean; her sweetheart Tad just behind her with a ridiculous grin on his face; Brendan with his back to me and his arms raised like a maestro; Blue leaning gracefully and disdainfully drunk against the stair rail; and a shaggy bear of a man in a tug-of-war over a case of beer with Steve.

Brendan turned and focused his bright eyes upon me. He staggered forward a little.

“We have come…” he began, slurring magnificently, “we have come, with, with implements of cleaning, and, and…”

“Beer!” shouted the shaggy bear, waving his arms; then he overbalanced and crashed down the staircase. Steve crowed with triumph – the beer remained in his grasp. Before I could move, the bear sprang to his feet below. “I'm okay.”

“Who the hell is that?” I asked.

“Jason,” said Blue, a world of suffering in his voice.

“Jason!” shouted Jason from the bottom of the stairs. “I am
Jason
!”

“Are you all right?” I said. “When did you get back?” Jason was an ex of mine. “And when did you grow that awful
beard
?”

“Are you going to let us in or not?” demanded Blue.

I flung my door wide, relieving Steve of one of the beers as he went by. “Evidently I have some catching up to do,” I pointed out, with the haughty superiority of a sober person amidst a bunch of lushes.

“We,” he said as he passed through my door, “have successfully run the gauntlet. Earl: zero, friends of Ruby: one!”

“Shhh!” I said. He crushed me and lifted me off the ground. “Okay, okay, you're real big and strong! Put me down, Steve!” He dumped me on the floor. “Jesus, man, your arms are as big as my waist. Stop pumping iron! Your neck is bigger than your head!”

Jason barreled into me. “Did you get my post card?” he asked into my hair.

“Post card?”

“From the slopes in B.C.” He sounded hurt. “I sent you a post card.”

“Oh, lah-di-dah. And when did you manage to tear yourself away from the bevies of ski bunnies?”

“Why haven't you been answering your phone?” Blue asked.

“My phone? It never went off,” I said, fumbling for the cell in my pocket. I had just determined that the battery was dead when shrieks of torment came from the kitchen. “Oh, dear
God
!” Judith cried, then Tad came staggering from the back with his hand over his nose, followed by his uncle.

“It's
fantastic
,” Brendan said. “I've never seen such colour!”

“Oh, Christ, you
opened
it. Is Judith okay?”

“Judith? Judith, darling, answer me!” Tad called, reeling back into the kitchen. We followed, Brendan muttering, “Fantastic! Simply fantastic!”

Judith met us at the door to the room, her arms extended and her head thrown back. “It is going to be all right,” she said.