Hardly Working (12 page)

“Well, now. Let me think. The city just cleaned out the civic fountains and wanted to donate all the spare change to us. At first we were going to say no, but then we thought, heck, it's all money. Usually we wouldn't take coins, but there are heaps and heaps of them and they're all really slimy from being in the water so long. How about we get these babes here to wash and count them all for us?”

“Lisa, you are a genius.”

“I figure they're allergic to work. Probably thought this would be a nice little holiday away from their regular job. So I thought I'd get Roly to oversee the Helium Sisters when he gets back. I sent him out to get some donuts for coffee break.”

“Hope he doesn't run off with the petty cash.”

“Oh, he would never do that. He's very…uh…nice…”

“Nice?”

“And reliable. It really surprised me. Phlegmatic.”

“Well, just as long as the phlegm stays where it belongs.”

“He's not like other street people,” Lisa insisted. “Really, he's not. You should talk to him sometime, Dinah.”

“Oh, I will.”
Not.

A few minutes later, Lisa had the two girls set up. Their arms were deep in basins of soapy water as they sloshed and complained. “This is so not hot…like…whatever. Can we go now?”

 

I was stretched out on the leather couch and Thomas, with his longish curly salt-and-pepper hair and beard, his patchy corduroys and pipe tobacco scents, was breathing and puffing smoke not far from my ear.

“I saw him, Thomas. I saw my father.”

“Yes? This is great news, Dinah.”

“I don't know. He's a tango teacher. He has a place. A dance studio, I guess you could call it… Los Tangueros. It's in the middle of nowhere. And he has a…companion. It's a bit…”

“Yes?”

“Awful. It's awful.”

“Why?”

“It's just not what I expected. Who I expected my father to be.”

“Have you spoken to him?”

“I told him I was interested in tango lessons. I had to say something.”

“But you haven't told him you're his daughter?”

“I'm not ready.”

“Fair enough.”

“It was such a shock.”

“Yes?”

“I was expecting somebody more…more…like us. Like
my mother. A scientist. An intellectual. And not foreign. And there's something else.”

“What?”

“He wears two-toned shoes. I mean, I don't know if he wears them all the time, but he definitely wears them for the big dance nights.”

Thomas laughed. “Dinah, sometimes you surprise me.”

“Oops, sorry, Thomas. You wear two-tone shoes too. I might have known.”

“People are often attracted to their opposites. And you don't know the man.”

“I don't know if I want to.”

“That would be a hasty judgment. You know, Dinah, the idea of tango lessons isn't such a bad one.”

“For who? For me?”

“Who else are we talking about here?”

“You're joking. It was just something to say on the spur of the moment. I needed an excuse.”

“You know, Dinah, there is something about tango lessons….”

“Yes?”

“Tango lessons might help you learn how to follow a man.”

I turned and stared at Thomas. For the first time since the start of my sessions with him, I was speechless.

Saturday

The weather on Halloween night was warm and almost clear. There was a pumpkin-colored moon veiled over by a lacy scrim of milky cloud. We had lucked out because according to all the weather forecasts for that day, it should have been pouring rain.

Joey and I had canvassed the entire neighborhood, passing out information and invitations in English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Punjabi, Tagalog and Vietnam
ese, Somali, Farsi, Kurdish, and Arabic. We had our permits, barriers and tables and although the curfew was supposed to be nine o'clock, we had been able to get an extension to eleven. Joey and I did the rest with mild doses of You-Scratch-My-Back-I'll-Scratch-Yours and my GWI fund-raising connections. We even managed to get some free food supplied by the Pataran Café on the ground floor of our building. In a way, they owed me the favor for constantly permeating my place with the smell of curry.

That night, for my costume, I settled on the classic simple plastic hatchet through the head with plenty of dripping blood, and Night of the Living Dead clothes. Joey had been working on his costume all day and just before the party started, emerged as Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man.

Cleo and Simon, dressed as a pair of mummies, were at the sound equipment that night, playing DJ, constantly touching…well, as much as one could with all those bandages in the way.

“So, Simon,” I said to my old friend. “You're still around. I thought you were off to that rock in Australia.”

“Ayer's Rock?”

“Yeah.”

“Thought I'd hang out a while longer.”

“Where've you parked your stuff?”

“Cleo's, babe.” His navy-blue eyes glittered. I needn't have asked. I already knew. Simon took the road of least resistance whenever he wasn't hitched to a rock face or the outside of a high-rise.

The neighbors were arriving en masse. Witches, Jedi knights, generic ghouls, Buffy-style vampires, and hobbits all brought plates of cookies, snacks, drinks. Our permit didn't allow for alcohol but people were drinking anyway.

There was no sign of my gay goat-loving Satanist neighbor and Joey kept reminding me of the fact. “Big night at
the cemetery,” he whispered into my ear in his Elephant Mannish voice.

Then Jake, Lisa and Ida arrived, dressed as three of the Beatles from the cover of the Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts album. Just after them came Ash. Her face was locked in a deep pout and her thick glasses made the whole effect worse. She was wearing a flame-orange sari embroidered with thousands of tiny white beads in flower and leaf shapes. A hundred silver bangles tinkled on her wrists.

“Aishwarya. That's quite the outfit,” I said.

“It was my mother's idea,” she said, looking completely peeved. “I made a big mistake and mentioned Ian Trutch to my mother…he is coming tonight, isn't he?”

“Don't know.”

“Oh.” Her whole being sagged.

“Come with me,” I said. “This neighborhood might have a few ‘suitable boys.'”

I grabbed her by the arm and together we made the rounds, introducing ourselves to all the neighbors who'd turned out so far. I left Ash chatting with a family from New Delhi and went to check on supplies.

Everything was in place. I just had one last trip to make to get the final box of plastic cups and plates. I hurried down the side path and around to the steps leading up to my apartment.

And then I spotted it.

At first it was just a creamy beige shadow, caught between the street and house light. It came to me as I stood, rigid, frozen with fear at the bottom of the path. Goat. It must have caught the scent of my neighbor's goat and now there it was, five houses away down the alley, watching me from between some shrubs when it made its first streaking steps in my direction. With the adrenaline smell of sheer terror in my nostrils, I instinctively recalled all those things that had been drilled into me as a child. I grabbed what was nearest to me,
the lid of a garbage can, and a rock, and started to bang the lid with all my might, while talking to, no, screaming at, my predator.

I babbled and stammered and shouted and hooted, anything I could do to create a loud, constant stream of sound. “Go away, shoo, scat, get out of here, you big old cat. Vamoose, go back to where you came from. It's going to be trouble if you stay here in town. I ought to know. There's no cougar food around here so scat…and stop…stop looking at me like that…”

He was stalking me, slowly zigzagging back and forth across the alley with those gliding haunches, moving closer to me as I stumbled backward, banging and crashing and yelling to save my life. I reached my back steps and began to start up them banging faster and faster. By now the cougar was only a house away. I seemed to have developed telescopic vision because every whisker was visible, every tooth, the glint in the big hungry cat's eyes, as he glided closer on those haunches and prepared to sink those teeth into my thighs.

Now I was banging the garbage can lid against the support post at the top of the steps and with the other hand, digging into my pocket for my keys. I tried to push the keys into the lock with one hand behind my back, maintaining eye contact with the cougar, but it was impossible. Not being able to see what I was doing and with my hand trembling so hard, I kept scraping at the metal of the lock with no success. The cougar continued to make a wide slow zigzag all the way to the bottom of my stairs.

I bashed furiously with the garbage can lid at the post and porch rail, slamming the lid down with both hands to make as much noise as possible, and I probably would have tried to slam it over the cougar's head if he got close enough. He placed one paw on the bottom step, then the second step, then the third. My heart banged into my throat when the cat leapt up, snarled fiercely, and then whiplashed his big
body backward into the air. My world veiled over as if someone had suddenly thrown icing sugar in my eyes and then everything went dark.

M
y gay goat-loving Satanist neighbor was kneeling over me. His face was knotted up with worry. As I opened my eyes, the frown fell away and he nodded very slowly, his mouth relaxing into a smile.

My first thought was to yell out, “Stop the sacrifice. You guys have it all wrong. Whoever told you I was a virgin was lying. Penelope. Get Penelope.” But then I realized that my neighbor wasn't tricked out at all. No requisite black cowl and face mask. No upside-down crucifixes. No evil acolytes lurking and chanting in the background.

“You're a lucky girl,” he said.

“I'm alive. I
am
alive, aren't I?”

“Sure you are.”

Everything was aching. Slowly I said, “Am I all here? No parts missing? It hurts. I don't want to look. What if it's phantom limb pain?”

My neighbor was still grinning. “I got him before he
made dinner of you. You didn't lose your head. Good for you.”

“Noise. You're supposed to make noise if a cougar stalks you. You're supposed to make yourself big and loud and mean if a cougar stalks you.”

“Something you don't expect to happen in residential Vancouver,” he said.

“Where is he? The cat, I mean?”

“Having a little nap.”

I was about to pull myself into sitting position when my neighbor eased me down again, saying, “Take it slowly.” He shifted positions so that now he was holding my head in his lap. Gently, he began to feel my head. “Just the cut but no other contusions.”

“What?”

“You have a nasty cut along here.” He traced the air above my cheekbone. I was about to touch it but he said, “No, don't. We'll disinfect. Might need a couple of stitches. Check you over properly. You must have hit the side of your face when you fell. You'll probably feel a bit achy in a few minutes.”

“The cougar…”

“Down there. A fine specimen of felis concolor,” said my neighbor.

He pointed to the pathway at the bottom of my back steps.

It was an impressive animal. Tawny and muscular, completely conked out but not looking so bad for all its big-city adventures. Then I looked at my neighbor again. Beside him on the porch floor was a big rifle. He picked it up. “Don't get much call to use this around here. Mostly for large animal sedatives. Rhino, lion, zoo animals usually. Good thing I heard you banging and shouting. Saw him just in time to grab the rifle and aim. If you'd run, there's a real possibility that he might have attacked you.”

I felt woozy all over again. “Don't tell me. I don't feel so good.” I lay back down and held my stomach.

My neighbor laughed and then stopped himself. I looked up at his face. He had the most amazing irises. They were grayish-green around the outer ring, giving way to pure amber at the center. I couldn't stop staring at them. Then I noticed how much he was smiling. I wanted him to cut it out. It was unnerving and totally seductive.

“My name's Jonathan, by the way. Jonathan Ballam. Everybody calls me Jon though. We've been dancing partners on the old path there for a few days now and we still don't know each other's name. That's not so good.”

“Dinah,” I said. “Dinah Nichols.” I stuck up my hand for him to shake. He gave it a small squeeze. “What would you be doing with big animal tranquillizers anyway? You work at the zoo?”

“Sometimes. I'm a vet. Large animals. Though I often get called upon for small animal emergencies.”

Cats. Goats.

I started to laugh the kind of laugh that rises up when your nerves are shot and you've lost all control. It must have seemed that his being a vet was the funniest thing in the world.

Jon said, “Well that was fast. They're already here.”

Somebody had called all the forces they could think of. There were the city police, the fire department, the Feds, a wildlife officer, somebody from the Parks Board and a regular ambulance and all of them were arguing about who got to deal with the cougar.

The small crowd had now blossomed into a big gathering. Everyone had come around back to get a look at the cougar including Cleo, Simon, Joey and Lisa. And there I was, a near wild animal victim and I was guffawing my head off. While Lisa and Ida harangued and harassed the various
forces telling them to be gentle with “poor kitty,” Joey and Cleo rushed up the steps to me.

“Hey, you guys,” I managed to say between howls, “this is our neighbor, Jonathan Ballam. He's a vet. A veterinarian.” And that was all I could get out before a new bout of hysteria set me off again.

Jon ordered somebody to get him a handful of clean paper napkins. He pressed them to the cut on my cheekbone, then said, “Hold this and don't let go. I can't tell the real blood from the fake. Are you feeling well enough to walk to my place? We've really got to do something about that cut. You could go with the ambulance but you'd probably have to wait in Emergency all night. Halloween.”

I shook my head.

“Can you stand up? Okay, let me just have a few words with these guys then we'll deal with it.” Jonathan went to talk to them. He came back and said that in the end it was decided that the ambulance would transport the animal to a “holding facility” and the Parks Board would deal with getting it back to the wilds.

He asked me again, “Okay, feel like walking to my place, Dinah?”

I nodded. Although it must have looked as though I were walking myself, my knees felt like jelly and Jon took most of my weight as we made our way down the back steps toward his place. Everything hurt.

“We'll fix that cheek up and then Kevin has a few things that will help the ache.”

“Kevin?”

“Kev's a sales rep for a company that makes homeopathic remedies.”

The perfect names for a gay couple, I thought. Jonathan and Kevin.

I raised my eyebrows.

Jon laughed, “It's quite safe. You'll see.”

“Ah…okay.”

He opened the back door and called out into the beige kitchen, “Kev?”

“In here,” came a voice.

The smaller darker man appeared in the doorway.

“Kev, this is our neighbor, Dinah. We have a little emergency. Think she'll need about three stitches.” He quickly lifted the napkins to give Kevin a peek then put them back in place.

“Oh, ooo, yes, that's a real conversation piece. I'm envious. You don't often get to have a nice dramatic gash along your cheekbone. Here, come with me, Dinah.” There was excitement in his tone as though a long-awaited guest had finally arrived. Perhaps I hadn't been the only person spying on my neighbors. Perhaps the spying was mutual.

“She's just taken on a cougar,” said Jon.

“Good Lord.” Kevin's eyes opened wide. “You're all in one piece. That's your only injury, I hope.”

“I got to her just in time. Heard her yelling and screaming on her back porch. She was showing him up. He's got a dose of sedative that'll keep him snoozing into tomorrow. Now. We need some of your magic potions. What do you suggest?”

“Some Arnica to start with. I'll get it,” said Kevin.

Jon led me into the wheat and wood-colored living room and eased me down onto his big brown leather couch, a couch I'd fantasized about so much that it was familiar, just like coming home. “I'll be back in a sec. Just gotta get my bag. Hold on to those napkins.”

After a few minutes, Kevin came back into the room with some bottles and tubes in one hand, and a mug balanced in the other hand. He held it up under my nose. “Now drink some of this. I know it smells like stewed seaweed but it has all kinds of wonderful natural calming ingredients.”

“Not too calming. I want to get back to the party.”

“Go on. You'll feel wonderful afterward.”

“It does smell like stewed seaweed.” I took a sip. “It
tastes
like stewed seaweed, too.”

Jon reappeared with an enormous old-fashioned black leather medical bag. Really handy if you happened to be delivering a calf or foal, I thought, but what about human beings? He grinned at me, then slopped a powerful-smelling disinfectant onto a piece of cotton and dabbed carefully at the cut. Then he prepared a syringe and held it up expectantly.

I howled, “Hey, that thing's big. I'm not an elephant.”

“Sorry. I have nothing smaller. But don't worry. I've had lots of practice. On oranges.” He grinned malevolently and waved the instrument of torture back and forth a few times.

I huddled away from him, deeper into the couch.

“Just kidding. Trust me.”

Cleo would have said I was out of my mind, allowing a vet to sew up my face but I wasn't Cleo so I let him go to it. He was very delicate and precise and I barely felt a thing. When he'd finished stitching, he cut a piece of pristine white bandage from an industrial-size roll and applied it. I sank into the couch with relief.

“There. You see? That wasn't so bad, was it?”

“No. Thank you…thank you…for saving my life.”

He laughed. “My pleasure. Usually when I save somebody's life, I ask that they become my personal slave, but I'm willing to lighten up with you, okay? No starch in the shirts.”

“Yes, master.” I put my palms together and bowed my head in his direction.

“You know,” said Jon, touching the bandage on my cheekbone again, as if admiring his masterwork, “Treating a person makes a nice change from treating goats.”

“Interesting house pets, your goats…” I said.

“They're not my goats. They were brought to me. Somebody found them on a boulevard in South Van along with a few black cats in cardboard boxes. Half-starved, dehy
drated. We figure it's some kind of devil-worship cult that got cold feet and changed their minds about slaughtering animals. Idiots.”

“Ah,” I said. The seaweed was already starting to take effect. “That's pretty funny, I mean, it's interesting. What's in that stuff you gave me, Kevin?”

“Feeling relaxed, are you?” Kevin grinned.

I was feeling more than relaxed. I was feeling so good I wanted to attack all the men in the room regardless of the fact they only liked men.

“I threw in some eye of newt for good measure,” said Kevin.

“Aha, I thought so,” I said.

“So what were you saying, Dinah?” asked Jon.

“What was I saying? Oh, yeah. That it was sort of interesting about your being a veterinarian.”

“You think so?”

“I grew up with…animals.”

“Ah. Some people get a glazed-over look in their eye when I tell them what I do. But I don't mind being a social outcast. Really.” He grinned.

I said, “I don't mean that our animals were pets. I mean that I was one of them. I was them and they were me. I thought I was a pony for a whole year. That was one of the best periods of my life.”

He chuckled. “It's not unusual.”

“It's not?”

“Nope.”

“So tell me now, Jon. Where are you from?”

“Right here.”

“So how come you have that little southern twang?”

“Did my training in the States, a while in Texas for cattle and horses and later on, in San Diego. I did some more training with the zoo there. Then Kevin was moving back up here from San Francisco and asked me to come back up here, too.”

Kevin nodded. “I needed to come home.”

Jon gave Kevin a compassionate look. “Things were getting pretty serious down there.”

“In more ways than one.” Kevin looked as though he were about to burst into tears.

I really had to wonder what was going on with the two of them, but I didn't want to ask.

Jon said, “And we figured it was time to breathe some of this northern air again.”

“Are you glad now that you made the move?” I asked.

Jon leapt right in. “Oh yeah. I'm loving it here.”

Kevin shrugged and said, “Me, too.” He didn't sound at all convincing.

Jon put his hand on mine. “So. Now. How're you feeling, Dinah? Do you feel well enough to get back to the party?”

“Could you go ahead of me? Just in case there are any more cougars?”

“Will do,” said Jon.

Going back outside, propped between Jon and Kevin, I was thrilled that the ice had finally been broken. Two more gay friends plus Joey meant triple the fun. I hoped Joey wouldn't be jealous now that I had these new friends. It would have been small of him. After all, Jonathan Ballam
had
just saved my life.

 

Although I was drinking wine, I couldn't get drunk. My life was suddenly a series of bright, wonderful colors and sensations. I'd never felt so alive. Then Cleo and Simon put on some music that sounded Turkish or Greek and I did this strange ring-around-the-rosy dance with Jonathan and Kevin, the three of us with our arms around each other's shoulders and kicking up our legs in unison, improvising a dance, and then everybody else joined in and I thought, Gee, I bet the Tsadziki Pervert would really enjoy this, it's sort of Greek. I even felt a kind of goodwill toward him, the poor bastard.

The night had turned into a celebration.

In the end, I think I must have danced with everyone, the entire block and all the extra friends and relatives there, every single man, woman, husband, wife and child. I was so happy to be alive, to be in the Big Now, because I swear, just as that cat was coming at me—and I could hear his breath, and see the shape of his teeth, the saliva glistening around his maw, just before I blacked out—my life, my thirty years of life, and all that I hadn't done with it, flashed before me like a promising but unfinished movie.

Sunday

Almost the entire morning was spent in bed, nursing my hangover and laughing out loud by myself, savoring the delicious sensation of just being on the earth. When I finally tore back the sheet, the sun was streaming through my windows, and the light dancing on my walls seemed like a gift especially designed for me. My coffee tasted intensely coffee-ish. I could feel myself attached, one well-connected cell in the greater organism of a perfect world, and it all worked the way it should. This was a new chapter. I could feel it.