Bow Grip (21 page)

“Thanks a lot for the home-cooked meal, Kelly. I had a fun time with you and Raylene. I really dig her, she’s a sweet kid. You’re doing a great job, you know, all on your own and all.”

“I wish someone would tell her evil grandmother that. She showed up here today without even calling, like fucking Mother Theresa with a bad perm, made us go to Wal-Mart with her to buy us a bunch of crap, like cereal and juice and stuff we haven’t even run out of yet and making little hints that I can’t afford to feed my own kid or whatever.”

“Maybe that’s just her way of trying to be supportive.”
“She looked at my hair and said if I couldn’t afford a haircut, I should just tell her and she’d pay for it. I spent the afternoon trying not to drill her in the head when she wasn’t looking. On account of she’s really the only family Raylene has. Her daddy could give two fucks about her. Haven’t heard from him since he left, not once, plus he probably won’t live to turn thirty, the rate he’s going.”

“The crystal meth,” I said, nodding down at the concrete.

“Hector blabbed to you about that? I told you that guy knows too much about everything. He drags it out of people.”

“He was only telling me how much he thought of you, all on your own with the two jobs and the kid and everything.”

“Yeah, like I’m some kind of novelty item. Like I’m the only single mom in town. Look around, I always tell him, we’re all over this neighbourhood. Only two of the kids in Raylene’s daycare have daddies that live in the same house as them.” Kelly took a long drag and squinted her eyes against the curl of smoke that blew back at her.

“Hector came around so much when we first got here I thought he was some kind of pervert, until I figured out he was gay, and just trying to be nice to everyone so he could write their life story into his book.”

“You ever talk to him about the gay thing at all?”

“He doesn’t call it gay. Hector says we all have a bit of gay in us, so it doesn’t need its own word, or some such thing. Lenny, on the other hand, says a cocksucker is a cocksucker is all a faggot to him.”

“What do you think?”

“I couldn’t give a flying fuck, to tell you the truth. I had
sex with a girl one time, this chick that Tony and I picked up at his cousin’s wedding. I drank too much lemon gin and barely remember anything, but Tony said we had a great time, her and I and him. Whatever, no big deal. We had to drive her back to Edmonton in the morning because we slept in and she missed her ride back home. What the fuck do I know? She seemed cool about it all, real respectful, not acting like she owned him the next day or anything. That would have pissed me off. Hector ever try anything with you?”

“Nope. Never. Not even close.”

“Didn’t think he would. You don’t look like the type, anyways. Your fingers are too big.”

“How do you know that?”

“Not small, like, not short, but skinny. Skinny and long. Slender. Slim.” Kelly made a stretching motion, starting from the fingertips of her other hand.

“Is that a scientific fact? Did they do a study on it?”

“Just a theory I have, something I’ve noticed. Check out Hector’s next visitor. Long skinny fingers on him, I guaranfuckingtee you. See for yourself.”

“What about lesbians, what do their fingers look like?”

Kelly laughed out loud. “Well, with them you gotta consider the footwear. The warehouse at work is riddled with them. Workboots, or Dayton’s, or hikers. Nine times out of ten. And belt buckles. The butchier ones, that is. The more girlie types, sometimes you can’t even tell. I met some at our Christmas party, I would never have known without the workboot ones hanging around lighting their cigarettes and stuff.”

“You seem to know quite a bit about gay people.”

“I work in retail.” Kelly reached over and pinched my
lighter from between my thumb and forefinger, lit another one of Hector’s cigarettes.

We sat there and smoked in the quiet, that city kind of quiet, a little bit of traffic in the background, like a radio, and the rise and fall of sirens, so often you don’t really hear them after a while. I was learning to like city quiet, since it did have its own version of still, its own nature sounds.

“Joseph?” She raised the end of my name in a question.

“Yeah?”

“There’s something I want to tell you, I been thinking about it all day, in the back of my mind, but I don’t want you to take it the wrong way.”

“I’m listening.”

“Well, first off I want to tell you that I think you’re a totally super nice person, and Raylene, she just thinks you’re the cat’s ass, and we both like hanging out with you a lot, don’t get me wrong.”

Kelly paused, like she was nervous to say what was coming next.

“And I think you’re pretty cute and all, and I don’t even mind that you’re … quite a bit older than me. But I’ve been thinking it all over, and I just thought I should tell you that I’m not looking to get involved with anyone right now, I just think that I need to keep focused on work and school, and I’m not available for any kind of relationship.”

She flicked her ash again, and glanced at me sideways to see if I was still listening. I was.

“So I just thought I should let you know, you know, where I’m at with things, before you got your hopes up or anything, or spend your money on us for nothing. Raylene is going to be choked up about it. She wants us to get married,
so she can carry the ring on a pillow. I don’t know where she gets that from. Off the TV, I guess. Tony never gave me a ring. Mostly he just laid around in his underwear screaming at us to keep the noise down. It’s no wonder she thinks you’re Prince Charming. She’s only ever seen you wearing pants. Kinda pathetic, if you think about it too much. Anyways, just thought I’d let you down easy, right at the beginning, like.”

“I appreciate you being so honest with me, Kelly.”

“I hope you won’t let this affect our friendship.”

“Course not. I’m really glad you cleared that up.” Kelly let out a long breath, put out her smoke, clapped her hands together to warm them up. “I should probably have a bath and get to bed. I’m opening tomorrow.”

“I thought you had Mondays off?”

“Overtime. Plus once I’ve got five hundred hours I get part of my medical and dental covered by work. Raylene needs a retainer from sucking on her thumb. Night, Joseph.”

At first it looked like she was going to move to hug me, and then she changed trajectory in mid-air and shook my hand, pressing it between both of her cold ones.

“You want the rest of your beers to take home with you? Or a cooler?”

I told her she should keep them in her little fridge, for the next time I came for a visit.

H
ector’s truck was back, tucked into its usual spot, its engine knocking and clicking into the dark as it cooled down. I could hear jazz music thrumming faintly from his side of the wall as I let myself into my room. The message side of the wall as I let myself into my room. The message light on the telephone flashed in the dark.

I took off my boots, stashed my cello in the closet, and called Lenny.

“Message for room 119, where did I put it? Oh yeah. Please call Cecelia if you get back before eleven tonight.”

I thanked him and hung up. It was just after ten.

Cecelia picked up after four rings, just as I was rehearsing what I was going to say to her voice mail.

“Hello?”

Just that one word from her, and my stomach rolled over onto itself.

“Uh, hello, Joseph here. Joseph Cooper.”

She laughed, and the knot in my tongue started to come untied.

“Hi there, Joseph. I was hoping it was you.”

“I was hoping it was you, too. I mean, I was hoping you were home. I was going to call you earlier, but then I wasn’t sure how soon was too soon, and so then I didn’t, and then it got later, and I didn’t know how late was too late, so anyways, it’s good you called me. What I mean is, it’s good. I’m glad you called.” So much for being smooth, I thought.

“Joseph. Chill out. You’re going to hyperventilate. It’s just me.”

“Chill. Right. Okay.” She waited for me to say something that made more sense. I didn’t.

“Joseph? You still there?”

“Me? Yeah. Right here. Sorry. I’m just, well I’m not so good on the phone. Never have been. Especially when I’m nervous. I’m better in person. I think. At least, I hope I am.” My voice trailed off, and then another overripe silence hung between us for a bit.

Finally, Cecelia cleared her throat. “Then maybe you should just come over here.”

“I was hoping you would say that. I mean, not that I assumed that you would.…”

“Joseph. Shut up and put your boots on. I’ll see you in a minute.”

I was trying to think of something else to say, but then I heard a click, and the dial tone hummed into my ear.

I started up my truck exactly fourteen minutes later, my hair still wet. The stitches in my head were itching, and my T-shirt was stuck to my back because I hadn’t dried off enough before jumping into my last clean change of clothes.

The roads sparkled with frozen dew. Hardly any traffic all the way over, just me and the odd taxi, our exhaust pipes trailing fat clouds of white smoke into the night.

I knocked softly on her door with one knuckle, and she opened it right away, wearing an old army sweater and faded jeans. Somehow even more beautiful than I remembered. She pulled me inside by one elbow, and I felt my skin stretch and tingle where she touched me. I followed her as she padded down the hall into the living room, her feet bare, trailing a faint trace of perfume behind her.

She motioned for me to sit down on the couch, and
grabbed an ashtray from the top of the stereo and placed it on the coffee table. She sank into the couch next to me with a sigh. I shifted my butt a little to close up the space between us. She leaned in and kissed me, her lips soft and a bit cold at first. Left a faint taste of cherry lip balm behind when she sat back and smiled at me.

I looked around the room feeling I had just woken up. Patted my pockets to find the familiar square of my cigarettes. Took one out, but didn’t light it.

“Cecelia, I need to talk to you about something, before we … well, I have something I need to tell you.”

She sighed, then reached out and pinched the cigarette from my fingers and put it in her mouth. I lit it for her, and she took a long drag and passed it back to me, waving one hand in front of her face to keep the smoke out of her eyes.

“Is this the part where you tell me you’re not interested in a relationship, that you just want it to be casual? Or is this the part where you ask me if I’m seeing anybody else, or if I do this kind of thing all the time?”

“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about Jim.”

“My brother?”

I nodded. I offered her another drag but she didn’t want one, so I crushed the butt out in the ashtray.

“I told you when we first met that I was looking for your brother because he left his car with me. But that was only partly true. I didn’t lie, I just didn’t tell you everything.”

Cecelia looked at me, said nothing.

“So maybe this is nobody’s business but Jim’s, and maybe I should just keep my mouth shut, I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure the right thing to do is tell you the whole story. I didn’t come here because your brother left a used car behind.
I came here because he dumped something way bigger than that on me. I mean, I don’t think he meant to, but that’s what he did.”

She still didn’t say anything, so I kept going.

“So. I’m only going on circumstantial evidence here, but when I went out to Jim’s place to have a look at the car right after it broke down, well, there was a chunk of hose and some duct tape in the trunk, and the whole inside was covered in soot. And, well, I’m no detective or anything, but it looked to me like he was trying to … well, it looked to me like it was a damn good thing the car broke down when it did. So maybe a smarter guy would’ve just stayed out of it, but I couldn’t. Couldn’t not do anything. So here I am. I thought you should know. Maybe you could, you know, talk to him or something? I don’t know what I thought I was going to do. I barely know the guy. But I couldn’t let him just disappear, right? And then spend the rest of my life wondering what else I should have done.”

Cecelia’s eyes got shiny, but she blinked back the tears.

“You really are a good guy, aren’t you? I guess I should have told you a few things last night, too. But I didn’t realize … I didn’t think you needed to know. You said you didn’t really know Jim, and I didn’t realize it happened in the car.”

“He told you?”

She nodded. “He spared me the details. Showed up here last week, dumped his stuff, and then checked himself into the psych ward. He’ll be there for a while yet, and then he’s going to take it from there. Maybe move into my basement for a while, just to have some family around. That seemed to work last time.”

“He’s done this before?”

“Last time it was pills. About a year after the accident. He never got over it, losing Elaine and Eliza. Not that anyone ever would. But it just crushed him. He was a paramedic. Did you know that?”

I shook my head, fished the half cigarette out of the ashtray and lit it, wishing I had a beer.

“The coroner said they were both killed instantly so it’s not like there was anything James could have done to save them. One of the cops who was there told me that they found James just sitting on the guardrail, staring into space. Blood all over him. Isaac was still in his car seat, screaming blue murder. The cop said they couldn’t get James to say a word, could barely get him to move. That was seven years ago, and he’s still pretty much like he was that first night. Barely moving.”

Cecelia stopped talking for a minute, and we shared the rest of my smoke in sad silence.

“You look very handsome tonight Joseph,” she said at last, changing the subject. “Can I get you anything? A beer, maybe?”