Kicking Tomorrow (32 page)

Music provides some solace. In stereo, especially, zinging through the core of the pulp of his brain, scrambling under his scalp and over the top of his skull, seething through all the porous bones in his face. He closes his eyes and pictures his synapses flashing. He grimaces a lot to express what he feels. When a guitar solo goes
WAH
, he makes his eyebrows shoot up; when it goes
NEEAUW
, he curls his lips; when it goes
DIDDLYDIDDLY
he flicks his tongue like a snake. And when he opens his eyes, there is Mom in her dressing-gown and slippers, watching him with worry all over her face.

She tucks him in bed and kisses him goodnight again, but he still can’t sleep. He goes to the bathroom. The towels on the rack are a blazing radioactive red. The water from the tap is thick as plastic. The noise in his ears is like the boiler room of the
USS
Enterprise
. What’s the point. He just wants to die.

He was finally extinguished by five, and slept till noon. When he awoke he was zombied out. His limbs were as soft as cooked vegetables. He was sore, as if water-filled blisters were on his feelings. He couldn’t wait to call Ivy. When he did, she picked the phone up herself.

“Hello,” she said flatly.

“Hi,” he said, affecting the game jollity of a clown warming up a crowd that wants its money’s worth. “What’s up?”

“You woke me up, that’s what,” Ivy said. “Family’s out. I was just taking a nap.”

His spirits sank instantly. Why a nap? Had she been out
all
night? Did he sense resentment in her voice? “Gee, I’m sorry,” he said. “I was just feeling real
up
, you know, real positive, and also wanted to apologize for being a baby last night. Sometimes, well as you said, I get a bit jealous. I’m getting a handle on it,
though. I’ve thought a lot about your theory.” In fact Robbie didn’t feel that his behaviour merited an apology at all, or that her theory was worth shit – she was the one who should be sorry. She was selfish and obtuse. He was pathetic to have relapsed into this state of helplessness with her – he knew it – and worse to be wheedling a response this way, but it would be worth it to him if she would only exhibit some kindness in return.

She said, “That’s nice.”

“Ahh, you’re not irritated, are you?”

“No, why should I be?… but look, you obviously called in such a fever, it’s as if you expected me not to call you.”

“No, no – I was just – so, uh.” Real casual now. “What did you get around to doing last night? It fun?”

Ivy didn’t answer at first. Robbie heard the strike of a match and the flare of sulphur. Then she said, “Yeah, great fun, as a matter of fact. I’m pretty tired, so.”

“So you wanna get some winks. I can call you later if –”

“No, I think we better get this out in the open right away.”

“Ahh… what do you mean?” His voice cracking like puberty all over again.

“I didn’t go home after we said goodnight. I went to a party with Olly.”

“Yes,” Robbie said. “I know. I mean I called. I was sorry you weren’t there. I wanted to send you a kiss on the phone. Happy New Year, by the way.” These words, limp and forlorn, not at all as crisp or flounced as they’re supposed to be.

“That’s nice. So I stayed pretty late. Wait till you hear. I partied with Keef.”

“Oh wow did you that’s far out.” Robbie’s whirling head.

“He showed me this little watering can he has that used to belong to Anastasia Romanov. He keeps myrrh in it to sprinkle the smelly carpets of his hotel rooms.”

“Oh, boy,” Robbie said, emptily.

“And, well. I don’t know how to put this to you any more kindly, but I… I spent the night with him.”

“Oh, wow.” Robbie said, smiling like a goof – a ventriloquist’s dummy staring blindly into the lights. His wooden words now. “Did you have a great talk and everything?”

“No-o, not really. God, what am I saying. Not at all. You know me. He’s completely vacuous. It was nothing. We just had sex and did Olly’s cocaine. In Keef’s hotel room. We watched a lot of
TV
. Nothing for you to worry about. Understand?
OK
?”

“Yeah,” Robbie said blandly, trembly. “OK. Look, maybe you wanna get back to sleep. See soon,
K
?”

“If you want.”

“If I want?”

“Well, I’d like to,” Ivy said tenderly. The cunt. “So – it’s up to you. Keef says you’re a nice guy. He didn’t mean to be rude, it’s just that since the Bones are the loudest band in the world he’s virtually deaf. You were mumbling, he had a hard time reading your lips.”

There weren’t too many options. The bitter disappointment lay solid, unsublimated, undigested, in the pit of his stomach. It would never go away. Living the rest of his life with the knowledge of her infidelity was unthinkable. The pain, the shame. He pictured her nudely nakedly naked in Keef’s bed, in his hotel room with the
TV
on. He pictured her very vagina, unfurling. He forced himself to think of it, the way you punish a dog by sticking its nose in its own shit and then swatting it.

He didn’t really hate her; it wasn’t her fault he couldn’t manage the simplest things in life. So now he’d just spare her and everyone else the boredom of being with him. Look at him, skulking through the house, catatonic, with a long stupid face.
Gather Ye Rosebuds –
in the dull winter light, the glass was the colour of dried petals. On the terrace below his bedroom window
the newly fallen snow gusted about. And this house all full of the smell of some thick, savoury New Year’s dish Mom’s making. He paced his room. Sat on the bed. Beat off, numbly, and wiped up after himself.

Love will be convulsive or not at all, isn’t that what Ivy said? What’s the worth of it, arrested halfway? But she still thought he was a little wimp, a bumbler. Now he’d have to do something to show her he was capable of going all the way. It was so clear to him now: they say adolescence is the best time of your life, but if that’s true, what shit-ass misery was in store for him in
adult
life? Forget it. He wasn’t going to stick around for
that
bogus set-up. Better to burn out, he resolved, than fade away. They call suicide a cowardly escape, but what do They know? When They blab on about responsibility, maturity, consideration for others, getting real, what do They know about the suicider’s state of mind? Robbie felt a gush of relief when he realized what he had decided for himself; the release of all the binding, sensible emotion was like moisture evaporating off his body. Now, for once in his life, he was going to do something for himself and nobody else.

“Just going to see a friend,” he announced at the kitchen door, and his voice resonated dead in his ears.

At the pharmacy he asked for the biggest bottle of pills they had.

“Pills?” the pharmacist repeated.

“Yeah. For my Dad, eh. Too much partying, ha, ha.”

“You want Aspirin. Over there on the open counter.”

“Yeah, but I was thinking more like codeine phosphate with like, butalbital. D’you have that?”

The pharmacist dipped his head and looked over his bifocals. “You need a doctor’s prescription for that, my boy.”

“Right,” Robbie said, “I knew that.” He was shifting now, from foot to foot. What else was there? Demerol, Percodan, Darvon. If he said too much, would the guy get suspicious, or
would he then believe Dad really had sent him? He ran through the list in his mind, all the ones he knew with acetaminophen or codeine – Phenaphen, Tylenol, Proval, Alorain, PAC, Bufferin, Empirin – did they need prescriptions, or what? He was confused now, he just couldn’t think. His resolve was wavering. Fuck, at this point, he’d take anything.

He felt pretty stupid out in the street again, with a bottle of 222S in his hands, but what choice did he have? He bought a beer at a dépanneur and sat high on a snow-covered bench in Westmount Park to wash a handful down. Five, ten, another handful, fifteen. It was hard getting them down his throat – they were dry and sticking and made his mouth sting, and the beer made him burp and bring them back up.

After twenty, he was starting to scare himself. Was he serious about this? What was the point? He hadn’t left a note or a will, he realized. Well, Ivy would know the score. And would she ever be sorry. But how about Miriam and Barnabus, would they understand? Would they take it personally? Maybe they’d take it more personally than Ivy would. Another handful now, twenty-five, and another gulp of brew.

The park is buzzing now, the snow seeming to jump off the ground like a huge white trampoline, and his stomach’s raw. He pours more pills into his mouth, directly from the bottle this time, but there isn’t enough beer left to wash them down. The bitterness is unbearable. His tongue throbs. He spits out in the snow. Now he’s starting to weep. He’s afraid of what he’s done, and yet he’s ashamed to have stopped halfway; he’s ashamed by his behaviour thus far, but he just can’t face the future any more bravely.

He looks around him, at the naked trees, the indifferent traffic across the park, the Kiosk locked up and icicled over. The clap of a hockey puck on the boards of a municipal rink. He tries another mouthful, scooping up snow, now, and chewing it, too. It’s useless. Spits again, and shivers violently.

Taking an aimless walk downtown, his ears begin to whistle and his legs turn to rubber. It’s not at all like the amused and jellied stroll you get with shrooms; now he just feels queasy and weak. He might throw up, although that would be a relief. Stops at McDonald’s and buys three Big Macs with large fries – something to make him really vomit. But it doesn’t work. Down in the toilet he tries to gag himself with a finger, but he can’t manage it that way, either. Back in the street, he bumps into pedestrians bracing themselves against the winter wind.

And suddenly someone perfumy is clutching him and shouting in his face.

“Hey wow!
Bob –
Bob, isn’t that your name? We met at the club, right? I can’t believe my
eyes
, you’re just the person! I was just thinking, Why do men always have the hots for really
BITCHY
distant women? I mean, mystery is never all it’s cracked up to be. What is it? Oh dear… hey, you look
awful
. Should I take you to a hospital?”

At the Montreal Central, the nurses were utterly indifferent to his plight, and the doctor treated him with rough disdain. He felt puny. In a small voice, embarrassed not to have a more serious complaint, he said, “I took too many pills.”

“Pills? What kind? How many?”

See? No sympathy at all. And then, he’s forced to wait for over an hour in the waiting room, Rosie chin-wagging the whole time about her Xmas Tits for Tots Strip-a-Thon in a very loud voice: “I get forlorn just
thinking
about it, Bob. We got a photo in the
paper
, all the proud girls in their
G-strings
, did you see it? Us propping up a giant blowup of the cheque, for $14,000, imagine, fourteen thousand dollars, and Scrooge Central here won’t take it because they say it’s dirty money! The
nerve!”

All those pills are actually giving him a crushing headache now; his ears are screaming like there’s a
TV
off the air with the
volume up, right inside his head. He tries to keep pace with Rosie, saying anything, just to stay conscious.

“Maybe you should spend the money to start a union. Like you talked about once.” It hurts to move his jaw – it feels bolted on too tight. “You were right, it is gross where you work, makes me mad… what? Why are you looking at me funny?”

“Cos it sounds like – like you
care
. I think. I mean no one ever gives a shit about
us.”

“Um, I… sure, why not?”

“I
like
you, I’ve decided. You’re
together
. Not half as out of it as you look. I don’t mean to be rude. It’s just great that in a way we’re both such
losers
. You know, I tried to stick my head in the oven once – just last week! – but I couldn’t go through with it cos I got claustrophobic.”

Finally he’s admitted, undressed, and laid in bed. A nurse stabs a needle in each of his wrists and tapes them there. He watches, vaguely pleased that it looks so dramatic – one tube for plasma, another for some kind of serum. It’s weird – his veins are swelling up like inner tubes.

An hour later, he’s growing concerned, however; no one’s spoken a single word to him, and now the serum bottle has quietly emptied out. The liquid’s a third down the tube. He’s afraid that air will get in his veins. Maybe he’ll die, which now he most assuredly does not want to do. But he doesn’t want to make a fuss, he’s probably being silly, so he lies still and hopes for the best.

Rosie pulls back the curtain and peeks in. Just in time. She sees the tube and shrieks. That brings two nurses in. One tsks and quickly switches the bottle of serum for a fresh one, while the other whisks Rosie out and returns to prepare some instruments in a kidney-shaped aluminum dish. A doctor arrives. The first nurse hands him a length of rubber tubing she’s coated with Vaseline. He holds it up, and the nurse with the tray fixes a funnel to the end. Robbie watches and wonders. Then the doctor
shoves the free end of the tube up his nose.
Chrissake!
He didn’t expect this. The tube slithers up around his sinuses and then descends, like it’s alive, down the back of his throat. He gags, his throat closing on the tube.

“Just relax,” the doctor says, impatiently. He’s got more important, more
deserving
patients, elsewhere.

Robbie looks at him through a veil of tears, tries to allow the tube passage.

“Breathe through your mouth, that’s it. Easy.”

When the end of it has passed the involuntary swallowing muscles in Robbie’s throat, the first nurse produces a big plastic bottle of what looks like grey poster paint, and the second nurse places the dish beneath his chin. The doctor holds the funnel up high, and the nurse pours the paint in. “Just liquid charcoal. Go with it. Don’t resist now.”

Robbie nods stupidly as he feels the cold, thick stuff ooze through his nostril and esophagus and into his stomach. This is what drowning must be like; the stomach filling up like a cool balloon. He wants to upchuck. Is he supposed to? No one said. Go with it, what does that mean? He doesn’t want to throw up in front of these people – it seems like an indecent thing to do – but he soon finds he has no choice. With the tube still snaking inside him, he brings up a tidal wave of grey bile that washes all over the bedsheets and the nurses’ uniforms, everywhere, in fact, except in the dish. The second nurse gingerly places it lower on his chest.