Dad Says He Saw You at the Mall (3 page)

~

I eat chocolate from a bag of chocolates Tutti and I bought and put on the couch beside me when I was sitting on the couch, trying to read my magazines. I have five magazines. Each magazine has an article on a certain subject, and I read them as the wind blows outside, and the waves crash on the beach. Some of the magazines have pictures. One of the pictures is a picture of a sunset over a lake.

~

The only one who has died so far in my life is my cat, Foufou. After she died, we put her in a Xerox box and drove up to my mom’s place in the country. We dug a hole. When Tutti wanted to put a cross on the grave, I took one of the shoelaces out of my work boots and used it to lash two sticks together. Then we threw dirt on the Xerox box and Tutti and I started to cry.

~

They have a waterfall here, with a wooden walkway going out over the water, so you can get a better look at the waterfall, but without causing the kind of erosion thousands of tourists a year tend to cause. Right after we looked at the waterfall, we went over to the store to get the chocolate bars.

~

Things ground into the carpet here include cigarette butts, just plain dirt, oil, wood chips, dead bugs, urine maybe, beer, possibly semen.

~

Dad meditates. He has been meditating for some time now. He says it brings him peace of mind. Lately he has been saying it also stops crime.

~

I may be wrong, but back then, at the time I was sixteen, I think maybe there was talk going on, talk amongst members of my family, and this talk made me think I was somehow central to something, but right now, looking back, I can’t think what.

~

Sometimes I will go out to the porch and just stand there wearing her sweater. I smell Eau de Lauren. I see dogs.

~

I felt there had to be somebody else. There had to be another person, some other person, in some capacity, perhaps at the bank, someone in some position of authority, who was going to be looking at Mom’s checkbook, and Mom was keeping this person in mind whenever she went to fill in that section of her checkbook where she kept track of the things she was spending money on.

What I think is, I think the way she wrote in that section of her checkbook, I think this handwriting of hers had something to do with the divorce. I am not saying I think Mom’s handwriting caused her to have a divorce, or her having a divorce caused her to write things down that way in that section of her checkbook. I am not saying that.

What I am saying is, I am saying I was six years old. I thought there might be somebody else.

~

People really don’t have any point to their life
, I thought. I saw some other people who seemed to have no point. Everyone was walking along slowly, not looking for anything to happen.
Nothing will happen
, they seemed to be saying. But then I saw a young fellow, in a trench coat, which hung open around the suit he was wearing. The fellow had black hair. He was smiling, laughing, talking to some girls.

I see
, I thought.
That fellow has some point. He wants to talk to those girls
. The girls were laughing and the fellow grew more and more animated. Then I went down into the subway.

~

I was driving. Just out for a drive one day. Driving along some road or another, stopping at stop signs without really noticing houses along the way, or vacant lots, or parks, or dogs. I turned a corner and looked in the rearview mirror and saw a woman I had never seen.

~

I might stand out here all night, and people will drive by, laughing at me, saying to each other, “Is that guy waiting for the local bus?”

H
IS
HAIR
was caught in the wind. The wind was making his hair into things his hair had never been. He thought he would just lean his head against the seat in front of him for a moment. He was riding the bus and the window was open and things were happening to his hair. He thought if he could just lean forward for a moment and put his head against the seat in front of him everything would be okay. Everything he had accomplished was coming out through his skin, as though his skin were stitched together loosely and everything was coming out.

~

Dad kept coming back down the gravel driveway in his boots. He came back like something big. When Mom moved us kids and herself into another place, Dad came back one more time. He stood at the end of the driveway of our new place with the snow getting on his shoulders. First just his shoulders. Then his hair. I was thinking,
He won’t come in. He won’t come in because he is too big. That man is too big for our new house
.

~

Some of us used to go there when we were teenagers. Most of the time we went to this other place, but sometimes we went there. And there was this other place downtown. They were always having this guy named Lorne Lofsky, who played the guitar. The place was called Somebody’s Spaghetti House. I can’t remember whose. You didn’t have to eat spaghetti.

~

The young lad with the red tie says, “I would rather not be here.”

The old man in the bowler cap says, “You’re here, aren’t you.”

~

I remember coming down Tunnel Mountain, hearing the girls’ laughter. And then later, being in a shop with them in Banff, hearing them talk about their life at home. I wanted to run.

~

It makes you think they have had their mouths in places their mouths should not have been. They are so busy trying to keep their lips down over their teeth and, at the same time, they are wanting to go ahead and smile. It makes you think there is something in there, in their mouth, that they do not want you to see.

What she did was, she sucked on each one, one at a time. She got one of them in her mouth, and she pulled it into her mouth, and then she ran her tongue over it and sucked on it and pushed it back out, and then she got the other one in there. It was like she was trying to tell me something.

Clearinghouse
is what she was saying, but it was her teeth I was looking at.
Clearinghouse
was in there in her mouth, but it was something else I was trying to see.

She gets me in her mouth and she starts going up and down and up and down, and I keep thinking I should stop her before something goes in her mouth she might not want to have in her mouth. I keep thinking I should tap her on the shoulder. I should tell her something might be getting in her mouth that maybe she thinks is something that should not be a thing that gets into a person’s mouth.

~

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,” I always say.

Or, “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven.”

Or just, “One, two, three, four.”

Or, “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.”

One time I said, “Two, four, six, eight, who do we appreciate?”

~

There were stretches of several days at a time when I never saw Tutti. I would call her from a donut shop when I was ahead on my run. She would ask me to pick something up. Butter or eggs or milk, and I would put these things in the fridge when I got home.

Sometimes a train would stop directly behind our building. This might happen at four o’clock in the morning. If it was summer, and the windows were open, I would wake up in a fright. No matter how many times this happened, it always felt as though the world was ending.

I understood what Roy meant when he claimed there was some advantage to be had in selling a house that was right next to the railroad tracks.

For seven years I drove a transit bus. Most mornings I had coffee with Roy. Every morning he talked about his house. For seven years he was working on the finishing touches – putting in baseboards, or painting the ceilings. He would do a job and then realize he had done it wrong. Then he would do it over again. He had never built a house before, he told me. He had no idea what he was doing. He was learning from his mistakes.

His intention was to finish the house to a certain point. He would not decorate. He would leave that for the people who bought the house. That would be a point in his favor. That and the railroad tracks. He would find a young couple, newly married, who wanted to decorate their own home, and who wanted to have railroad tracks nearby.

I think there are reasons for wanting to be near the railroad tracks. I think there are places a person can go just sitting by the window, watching the trains. And I think a newly married person might find a need to go to these places.

It has been years now since I drove a bus. I have a job in a library now. Every morning I come in and sit down at my computer terminal. I tap away at the keys. Sometimes I go to meetings. At five o’clock I go home. The other day Roy came to see me. He said he had heard I was working in a library and wanted to come and see how I was doing. I told him I was doing fine. Things were fine, I said. Tutti was fine. Sammy was fine. What else could I tell him?

Roy’s intention, at one time, had been to move up north. He said he wanted to buy a piece of property on a lake and retire up there. Maybe drive a local bus part-time. Maybe cut other people’s grass. Start a landscaping company. He was going to do this as soon as he sold his house.

~

The only time I looked back was one time last summer, just after baseball season. I have felt this sorry feeling ever since. I keep feeling for change in my pockets, and when there isn’t any, I reach inside my shirt and rub the hair on my belly.

I only looked back once, and a guy yells, “Turn back or we’ll blow your nuts off!”

He said,
we
, as if there were thousands of them.

What do I know? Maybe this whole goddam thing was a mistake. I keep getting this sinking feeling, but all I can do is rub my eyes and go on eating toast.

~

The lady who baby-sits comes out in pink and blue. She could keep on walking, become part of the sunset, never even knowing it was there.

~

One thing was, Tutti was walking slow. I couldn’t stay beside her, she was going so slow. She was driving me crazy, the way she was walking so slow. I tried slowing down until we were side by side, but it only made me madder. So I walked ten feet in front of her. That was okay. I don’t think she wanted me walking beside her anyway.

We got to the beach and she stood at the edge of the water with her shirt on. I went in and swam. I must have swam around for twenty minutes while she stood at the edge of the water with her shirt on.

After twenty minutes I said, “Let’s go.”

On the way home Tutti wore her white sunglasses that make her look like Elton John. I kept saying things. “Look at those horses.” “Look at those cows.” “Look at those pigs.” I even honked my horn at a bunch of cows. Usually this makes the cows look up and Tutti laughs. But today the cows just went on eating grass.

Tutti said, “Don’t honk your horn. Other cars will think you’re honking at them.”

The old lady in the car next to me was wearing those white gloves you see old ladies wear, with lace up to their elbows, and she was looking over at me.

~

Sammy wanted to watch some videos. I told him, “No way. We’re not watching any videos.”

Sometimes he’ll scream when you tell him he can’t watch videos. He’s too short to reach the VCR, so what he does is, he gets the videos and he puts them on top of the stereo. He pushes all the buttons on the stereo, and then he runs over to the couch and gets his blanket.

“Hurry, Daddy,” he calls. “You’re missing it.”

I come into the living room.

“Look, Daddy,” he says. He’s sitting on the floor with his blanket pushed up under his nose. He points at the TV. “It’s Tigger,” he says.

“Hi, Tigger,” I say.

“Hi, Daddy,” Sammy says.

~

At night, when she was in bed, she fell into caverns. These were not dreams she was having. She was falling into her own history, now and then resurfacing long enough to catch her breath.

~

“Three out of twenty people in this room will be dead in the next five years,” she said. “In five years, some of the people in this room will be dead.” She paused to gaze around the classroom, looking each of us directly in the eye. “Five years later, more of you will be dead.” Another pause. “Eventually, all of you will be dead.”

This was grade three. I was getting pretty nervous. I looked around the class to see how other people were taking this. Barton Smiley looked as though he was about to die right now, at his desk. He looked pale, as though he was going to faint. The kids at the back were tipping their chairs back, sniggering together and whispering things.

“Maybe you think I am going to be the first to go,” the teacher said. “But that is not necessarily the case.” She looked straight at the kids at the back. “Some of you will die horrible deaths,” she said. “Not all of you are going to die of natural causes. Some of you will be stricken down by disease. Some of you will die in traffic accidents. Some of you will break out in pustules that will cause you terrible pain and, eventually, kill you.”

I looked over at Barton Smiley. He was slumped down in his chair, his head tipped back, his mouth wide open. His eyes were closed. I looked around the room. The kids at the back were still sniggering. The teacher didn’t seem to notice Barton. I raised my hand.

“Yes, Mr. Sparling,” the teacher said.

“I think Barton is dead,” I said.

The teacher looked at Barton. She put her hand to her mouth. “Oh my,” she said. The kids at the back tipped their chairs upright and leaned forward in their desks.

“Barton,” the teacher called weakly. She came out from behind her desk.

“You killed Barton,” Wiley Pocock said. Everyone looked at Wiley.