Everything Is So Political (20 page)

“Maybe not.”

The worst kind of betrayal.

* * *

She stands at the extreme western shore of the Pacific and looks out on nothing, only sea and horizon. No block of mountains and no stand of trees to stop the view; the openness, the freedom, the world going on forever.

“It's the same there,” he had said: “The way the wind waves through an ocean of wheat—of barley, canola—just like the sea.”

And in the distance, she knew, there was more grass. More oats, more sky; the line of the horizon going on and on forever.

She takes the prairie photo from her pocket and turns it over, sees his careful script denoting the name of the town and the date. The handwriting pricking a memory of his awkward penmanship, fingers humped like spiders' legs and shoulders hunched in concentration. She remembers hanging her chin over his shoulder, nosing the smell of his neck as he focused on steering the pen. His scent like fresh-cut fir in spring.

And she remembers his bony chest, the soft hair on hard ribs, so different from her own fleshiness there. She feels again the cup of his warm testicles in her palm, the soft velvet of his swollen penis and the memory stirs across her skin like the wind across the ocean, across the prairies, and she is gone into the landmarks of her life.

Until an ocean breeze lifts her hair and she turns west to the sea, to the island across the strait with its blue mountains and green trees.

She thinks she will die here.

The Amber Light

Bretton Loney

T
he cold sends my testicles retreating into my body to find warmth. A cold that stiffens nipples, blanches skin, and makes feet leaden. Deathly and unrelenting. My elbows and heels are rubbed raw. As if I fell off a bike and skidded along cracked pavement.

After minutes, hours, maybe more, I manage to move my left hand. Two fingers dangle over the side and feel the pull of gravity. I must be lying down, suspended above the ground. I could be two inches in the air or twenty feet, I can't tell. Where am I?

Milky whiteness pours over me again. Takes the edge off my fear. I fall into an ocean of darkness. I dream of the cold. Walking home on tingling feet after skating all day on a pond. Splashing into Lake Ontario after a hot, sticky afternoon. Shoveling snow in the teeth of a storm.

Out of the chill of my dreams comes the warmth of a hand on my forearm. I smile and remember canvassing door-to-door one election on a crisp afternoon. Shaking the hand of a pregnant housewife fresh from washing dishes in her kitchen sink. Warm and moist, radiating life.

The warm touch is gone, replaced by a damp clamminess.

“Look at this old fuck, Miguel. He was smiling for Christ's sake. I haven't seen that before. Should I touch him again?”

The voice sounds like it's coming from another room.

“Lee, we don't have time to play around. There's an amber light flashing. We have more to worry about than some guy whose meds aren't right.”

Later that day or maybe that week a hand strokes my forehead like my mother did to put me to sleep when I was a boy. Only this large hand wears a latex glove. I hear a hyena's laugh. It frightens me as a bump in the night frightens a child.

“Miguel, fifty bucks says this fucker here, Number 2050, smiles within thirty fuckin' seconds of me touching him.”

“Quit yakking about Number 2050 all the time. I know it's boring on this shift, Lee, but don't get caught messin' with clients. The company doesn't like it. It isn't good for business.”

I hear the two men at regular intervals, slowly walking toward me, and just as slowly away. The tread of rubber-soled shoes. Lee cussing up a storm. Miguel's voice of reason.

Every once in a while, the one called Lee stops beside me and strokes my arm or forehead. Afterward, I hear his disgusting laugh. I want to say something but don't have the strength to open my mouth or eyelids. Can't lift a finger. In this empty cold I yearn to feel the warm touch of another human being. Even of this revolting man.

After hundreds of fitful dreams, I open my eyes for the first time. I don't have the energy to sit up or move my head but I can see. Straight up. It's as if I opened my eyes in a big pitcher of milk. White on white. Wisps of mist float above my bed. There might be a white ceiling high above. I'm not sure.

The diffused light gives the mist texture and ragged edges but there are no shadows and no colour. An albino landscape without a hint of beige or pale blue to break the monotony.

Being able to see makes me more afraid. It's one thing to be lost when you have only your ears to play tricks on you. It's another when your eyes can't make sense of it all. The last thing I remember is having dinner with my youngest daughter to celebrate my eighty-third birthday. Cindy is the only one of my girls who talks to me. I'm a political icon to the rest of the province but to my girls I'm a failure.

I was looking out the window toward Lake Ontario when I folded in on myself like cheap patio furniture and banged my head on the table. And now I'm here, wherever the hell here is.

Hours, days, weeks later I wake up and turn my head a little. I'm lying on a narrow hospital bed, intravenous tubes taped to my hands. Wearing a white johnny shirt with Number 2050 embroidered on my left breast in black lettering followed by my full Christian name. A tube snakes its way underneath my johnny shirt, between my legs. I know why.

To the left of me, between the wisps of fog, I make out a small bed. Someone covered in a thin, white sheet, possibly a woman. To my right, a fat man weighs down another bed. I can't see either face and have no voice to call out. For the twentieth time I wonder where I am. Some new hospital? A hi-tech isolation ward after catching some exotic disease?

Or worse, beyond care. A devout Catholic, I don't want to entertain those thoughts. I start to feel clear-headed when the hazy whiteness sweeps over me again, from top to bottom. Dream piled upon dream. Some good, some bad. Some horrible. Some I can control, some not. The sound of a man's cough wakes me.

“Lee, you shouldn't come in sick. You know the rules. If somethin' starts spreading around in here our butts are on the line.”

A cough, followed by another.

“Picked it up from one of the girlfriend's kids. You know I can't fuckin' afford to miss a couple of days without pay so screw their rules.”

I want to talk with Lee and Miguel. Connect with other human beings. But can they be trusted? In the back of my chilled mind I remember hearing them talk about my sedation and know it isn't voluntary. Besides, I'm not certain I'd be able to do anything more than look them in the eye and blink out H-E-L-P in Morse code.

I'm more helpless than my new great grandson who can at least babble with delight and flash his sky blue eyes. My throat feels scoured by steel wool. I can move the ring finger of my left hand and my head from side to side but that's it.

The pair of them squeak along the floor toward my bed and pause for a second. Lee acknowledges me with a tap on the foot and an “evening fucker.” They continue on their way. I open my eyes to see the men, dressed in matching white pants, coats and hair nets, swallowed by the fog. Lee mumbles some complaint or other. Miguel's frustrated response.

I feel more lucid. Stronger. I can turn my neck back and forth. See the fat man on one side and the woman on the other. Twitch my left hand, my right. Ball them into fists. Wiggle my left foot. The right is useless. Might be able to lift my head, maybe even sit up. It comes slowly off the pillow.

My arms stretch out to push me up onto red, itchy elbows. Flooded by nausea, my stomach does a loop de loop and I retch. Nearly topple off the bed before grabbing the sides with each hand. An amber light attached to the bed begins to flash. It might attract the attention of Lee and Miguel or someone like them. I have to get my stomach under control.

My double vision clears. I look to my left and see the white silhouette of the woman. In the chalky haze I can make out someone lying in a bed behind her and maybe others on both sides of her. I can't see any farther. On my right, the fat man has neighbours on each side of him, and one, possibly two behind him. Exhausted, I slump back onto my bed. My eyes focus on a logo painted high above on the ceiling.

Rogers Centre.

Mary, Mother of God. I know where I am. My daughters have condemned me to purgatory:
TwiLite Inc.'s
perpetual care facility. It was a sports stadium when I was a boy. Now it's one of the warehouses for the virtually dead. My former colleagues in the Christian Conservative government have made it illegal to take anyone off life support.

I feel betrayed. Like my daughters felt the night they caught me cheating on their mother after a political rally.

“Mierda.” Miguel emerges from the fog to see me conscious and sitting up on the bed, tears streaming down my face.

“Christ, Miguel, what are we gonna do?” Lee says as he rushes to the bed. “This isn't supposed to happen. We better fuckin' handle it or we'll be out the door.”

“Sorry, Number 2050, but you can't recover.
TwiLite
guarantees it. Otherwise whose family would go along with this?” Miguel gestures with a sweep of his arm.

The fog lifts for an instant. The entire green turf of the Rogers Centre is covered by row upon row of beds.

“Lee, get the meds. A couple of needles and Number 2050 won't wake up again. The things I do for this company.”

A gold crucifix dangles from Miguel's neck. The last thing I see as my eyelids close.

“It's okay, my friend, time to sleep,” Miguel whispers.

He gently strokes my forehead before he clicks off the amber light.

From the Lookout There Are Trees

Matthew R. Loney

T
he power is out for the fifth night in a row now, the moon still half-hidden beneath gnarls of black gas—truck exhaust blown upward. Beyond the deck of the guesthouse, the indigo shadow of a satellite dish swivels towards that glowing moon like a giant phototropic leaf anchored to the building's roof. Behind it, the golden stupa in the centre of Kalaw suddenly illuminates; the monks must have ignited the generators. The chugging thrust of combustion echoes out over the town as dogs with clicking paws sniff the pavement, foraging for food on the street below. My stomach growls, mixing with the engine whirr: All creatures wanting to eat tonight, that's the scavenger in us. So I grab a vest and cap, pick burrs from my bootlaces caught from yesterday's trek to the lookout, lock the door to my room, and head out into the blackened street.

Nighttime village. Kalaw. The foothills of the Himalayas.

* * *

The bus grinds to a halt under a flank of fluorescent lights. The driver's naked voice shouts back to us, all sleep-quieted and still. The aisle lights flicker on and we creak open like moist shells from our bundles of sleep. Passing through Naypyidaw means government checkpoints, the army's paranoia manifested as a constant pain-in-the-ass. I search for my sandals kicked off in the grit beneath the seat, grab my jacket, and yawn with the woken others. Off the bus into the roadside ledges of Burma.

Heavy-eyed passengers shuffle through the midnight hut, the patrolmen inspecting identity cards and flash-lighting faces.

–
Foreigner! Hello foreigner—
a lone soldier gestures me away from the queue to the road—
You come here. Yes, come here, foreigner!

His rifle cuts a shadow across his cheek.

–
Where is your passport?

–Here. Canadian.

–
You travel only one, foreigner?

–Yes, alone.

–
Alone…Alone. You have no friends.

–I have friends.

–
But they don't come with you.

–
No. Not to Myanmar.

Over the guard's shoulder the empty highway stretches to Naypyidaw blazing like a spot-lit inferno. Clean black asphalt, five deserted lanes in either direction, proper curbed and grass-lined. The army has their own private road network so they don't have to drive with the masses. Same reason they won't allow monks to speak with foreigners at the Shwedagon. Coward paranoid bullshit.

–
You go to Mandalay?

–Kalaw.

–
Kalaw for trekking?

–
Yes. For trekking.

–
How you like it, here in Myanmar.

–
It's fine.

He hands me back my passport.

–
Why your friends not come with you.

–They stayed in Thailand.

–
Thailand, no good. See? You come in Myanmar.

–Myanmar's not perfect.

–
Not perfect, no. Go that way, your bus. Foreigner, good-bye.

Back in my seat, a pock-faced soldier paces down the aisle sniffing for contraband and stowaways. Out the window beside the patrol hut more soldiers wrapped in blankets and knitted hats sit smoking cheroots and shuffling sticks into their smoldering fires. A rash of embers pops into the air. During nights like these, awoken in the roadside gap, the in-between of destinations where the fields stretch out into fathomless black and the men wear all the weary lines their faces can bear, I ask myself where on earth I am and why in the world I brought myself here. I always find myself forgetting.

The bus revs its engine and soon we're rumbling down the decrepit two-laned highway again. In the distance, the lights of Naypyidaw stretch out across the fields. Even at three a.m. everything is lit like daytime. Across the aisle, two British guys have put on their sweatshirts and contorted their bodies into some sleep-bearable position. The air-conditioning has everyone huddled into themselves but no one wants to say to the driver we're damn near freezing. I tuck my knees up to my chest as that pit of hunger suddenly expands into a cavern of empty. Can't do anything about it now. Not until a rest stop at least. Thirteen hours north from Yangon to Kalaw.

* * *

The headlights of cargo trucks shoot through the chilly night in beams that curdle the retina closed when stared at directly. The street dog beside me peers through the darkness, snout forward. Even that lagging hound so tiresomely using his stomach to slink through the black.

On the sidewalk a generator throbs in front of the small roadside restaurant. A fluorescent bulb dangles above the stove where a man ladles oil into a rusty pan, then the sizzle of onions. I ate at this place already for lunch but the fried rice is the best I've found so far. The tables look out onto the street and through the back window you can see the golden stupa when it's lit. I saw one of the British guys from the bus standing on the deck of the guesthouse when I left my room. Him staring out at the darkened town and that gigantic satellite dish like he'd been pondering something dark and severe. Maybe he was thinking of where to go next, since that's always what we're wondering. Where next. So happy to be nomads.

Plumes of steam from some wilted greens hit the cooking man in the face as the owner looks up from the bar. His face brightens and says—
You back already? Already today you eat here.

–Hungry again.

–
Sit, sit. Okay. Same table you want?

–Doesn't matter.

–
Again you eat fried rice?

–Sure—and then—Electricity's off again. Every night now, isn't it.

–
Every night, sure. Every night. Sometime it stay on, but…you know. Not now. Maybe later.

–I'll have a beer too.

–
One beer…

The restaurant owner is a young Burmese guy who somehow got his hands on a pair of worn Levi's and a black motorcycle jacket so he looks like an Asian James Dean. His wife sits at the corner table with the baby on her lap. She wipes the surfaces, brings the bill or a cigarette when the meal's finished but usually just sits there playing with the kid or staring out at the golden stupa.

I say to him—Maybe it'll come back on.

–
Football game is tonight. They give us electricity for that. The army always gives electricity for football.

Out on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant the two British guys from the guesthouse appear. One with dark shaggy hair coming down over his forehead, the other blonde, taller, with the most angular face I've ever seen, like carved by a torrent of mathematics.

The owner says to me—
Please wait, please. Two more foreigners
—and then goes to the door to seat them.

Foreigner. Foreigner. Come here, foreigner.
Trespassing in that territory not your own; the riverbanks of lawless Burma, endless fields of slave-grown rice and knowledge of those vast hidden valleys of opium tucked away behind the mountain range, down roads no foreigner has the permit to travel.

* * *

The vapour of my exhale coats the flashlight's beam, the temperature dropped close to zero but don't have the sweaters for it. I took the blankets off the empty bed and doubled them on top of my own. I'd frozen my balls off in the air-con bus from Yangon too. Everyone was bundled in caps and jacket-layers, glad for the respite from the heat but I'd been just aching to roast. The tropics are for sweating out your toxins. They seep out your pores and turn into a scum you scrape off and rinse down the drain. But here the altitude is higher, Kalaw settled on the brink of the mountain chain before edging down to the Shan plateau: Himalayan foothills scuffing the Indo-Chinese peninsula.

Booted footsteps across the porch to the room next door: A Spanish couple returned from trekking today, come back from dinner and begun to play music from some iPod speakers. I hear them unpacking and repacking, their minutes of comfortable, familiar silence through the wall and then the guy's sudden off-tune singing; the girl joins in a quarter-pitch higher.

My flashlight fades to a sickly yellow. I knock it hard against my book cover, it flashes brighter then weakens to the same jaundiced ray. The Spanish couple goes silent and I imagine them in the beginning strokes of a passionate kiss. The room is perfectly quiet as the flashlight drizzles its last fading beams into black. Cold and dark, huddled under these blankets alone: the ache of the solo traveler settling on top of me like some nighttime nausea—some cage I stare out of like a bus window onto the passing river valleys. The weight of solitary transport, the desolation of a second pair of eyes not there. I'd convinced myself it was better this way. Complete freedom without the bother, without the worry of someone else's stomach growling for food, their legs tiring from the pace, plus all the portals traveling alone would open. But now in the freezing ache of this dark, I feel like a remnant—lost and unmatchable. Behind the wall, the Spanish couple attempts to fuck quietly.

* * *

The owner seats the British guys at a table next to mine in the centre of the room. They order beers and when he comes back I order a cigarette.

–
Sure, sure. One cigarette.

–The Londons are fine—I say—I'll take one of those.

–
One London…

The guy with the angular face looks over as the owner brings me the smoke.

–You ordered just one?

–Yes—I say—You can do that here. Have a London though. The local brand will knock you out.

–I've smoked them before.

The other guy says—You're at the same guesthouse as us.

–I think so.

–Did you trek today?

–Yesterday.

–Alone?

–No, with a guide from the guesthouse.

–Up to the lookout?

–Yes.

–You're quite high at that point.

–Yes. The view is incredible.

–We're going to Inle tomorrow. Have you been?

–Everyone goes to Inle. I've heard Hsipaw is quieter.

–We've been there too. On the way in, a week ago.

–How long have you been here?—I ask.

The brown-haired guy answers—This is our third week in Burma. We came in from China.

–I didn't think you could do that.

–We teach English in Baoshan, just across the border.

–The Burmese have terrible pronunciation.

–Chinese are worse. Their tongues get lost in their own mouths, don't they, Jake.

Then the angular guy leans back in his chair—We get cheated so often because we're foreigners. That's how it goes though. I don't mind it so much, but Seth always takes it personally.

–I don't really—the guy Seth says.

–I was followed in Yangon—I say to them—I'd rather be cheated than followed.

–But the Chinese will cheat you to your face.

–They think we can afford it. That's why.

–We were on the same bus as from Yangon, weren't we—the other one says.

–Yes. I saw you. We took the same truck to the bus station too. Everyone goes the same direction through here. It's hard to find a place to be alone—I stub the cigarette in the dish.

–Jake didn't think you spoke English.

The owner arrives at my table—
One fried rice…

* * *

The bus grumbles slowly along the side of the mountain, hovering in that insomnial space between first and second gear. Black plants coated with dust shake as we pass. Drifts of four a.m. cloud catch the headlights as we climb into cooler air, further into Burma, further north into Shan State where the opium grows. Why am I here? Why can't I sleep, and why always alone? The shaggy palm huts built right up against the road are coated in the same dust as the plants. They shroud some huddled family against the roadside chill. The guys across the aisle attempting to sleep too. Keep seeing their heads nod then jerk back to awake when the angle bumps off. I think they're British but can't tell. I'll see them around the town or some village monastery tomorrow. That's how it works—the same travelers following the same well-worn paths. I lay my head against the cold pane of the rattling window and watch the anonymous huts pass, full of dozing babies, mothers, fathers, brothers gone missing for years and years.

Then along the ditch, blurred human shapes begin to flash by the periphery of my sleep-starved eyes. A line of them, spaced evenly like telephone poles but couldn't be: Men and women—their hands bound with chains, heads bowed, feet apart and ankles shackled. Their skins are dusted with the blow of the passing cargo trucks,
longyis
dirt-stained and torn. Dozens of them lining the roadside like totems, a forest of deliberately planted trees.