Monstrous Affections (21 page)

Of course, no one else would view it that way. Grandmother was
the family’s legendary victim. Everyone had heard the story of how
Grandfather had seduced her when she was young and beautiful,
then cast her off with the birth of Michael’s father and uncle. The
years spent raising them had taken that youth and beauty. He had
done more, in fact: disowned the family, disappeared from view.
But never mind that — the family’s umbrage was entirely directed to
Grandfather’s shabby treatment of Grandmother.

Listening to the family stories, one would think Grandmother
had been left in some gutter with nothing but the clothes on her
back and a bent walking stick, not in a comfortable Etobicoke
bungalow, with the mortgage paid and two grown sons to dote on
her every need.

No, Grandmother had a power to her, a gravity, just as much as
Grandfather had the will to defy that gravity. Eventually, the will
was not enough — Grandfather would have been ground-bound, as
he liked to say, after a few more years with Grandmother.

He’s understood that intimately, from the first night he decided
to leave Suzanne. They had been married for just three years — and
as marriages went, he supposed theirs was a good one. But as he
lay in bed with her, feeling the Earth impaling him on bedsprings
sharp as nails, he knew it could never last. Not, he thought, if he
ever meant to fly like Grandfather.

Flight, Michael was beginning to realize, was essential to his
survival. When his Grandfather had refused to take him in the air
that afternoon at Uncle Evan’s old place, he had merely been hurt;
but as the years accreted on his back — along with more hurts and
disappointments, slights and insults and injuries — he began to realize
his desire to fly was more than a desire. It was a need, bone-deep and
compelling, like nothing else he’d ever felt. Once he’d defeated gravity,
Michael was sure, nothing else could weigh him down.

“Michael!” Grandmother called from upstairs. “I found it!”

“I’m coming, Grandmother! For Heaven’s sake, don’t strain
yourself!” he called, and started up the stairs. He was puffing when
he reached the top.

Grandmother was sitting at the kitchen table, an array of
envelopes and letters spread in front of her, cigarette smouldering
in a brown-stained glass ashtray, a sky the colour of an old bruise
framed in the window behind her. She held a small brown envelope
close to her breast. She was wearing thick reading glasses, and
her magnified eyes looked almost comically worried, or perhaps
surprised.

Michael pulled out a chair and sat across from Grandmother,
smiled at her. He extended a hand across the table, and Grandmother
smiled back, her dentures white and perfect in the midst of her age-sagged face. Still holding the envelope close to her, she took his
hand in hers and gave it an affectionate squeeze. Gritting his teeth,
Michael squeezed back.

“I haven’t seen or spoken with your grandfather in years, you
know,” she said.

“I know,” said Michael.

“It was . . .” she squeezed harder, and enormous tears appeared
behind the lenses of her glasses. “. . . it was very painful between us.
You cannot know, dearest Michael. The things one must do. Your
Suzanne is such a lovely girl, and you . . . you are such a
good
boy. You
are both so terribly lucky.”

“Yes,” he said. Grandmother’s hand was thick and dry, and its grip
was formidable. If it had been around his throat, Michael thought
crazily, that would have been the end of it . . .

“Lucky,” he said. “The address, Grandmother?”

Grandmother’s eyes blinked enormously behind the glass. “Is
something wrong, dear? You don’t look well.” She let go of his hand,
and it flopped to the tabletop.

“I’m sorry,” said Michael. He flexed his fingers. Although they
appeared normal, they felt swollen, massive. “I’m just a little
anxious, I guess.”

“To see your Grandfather,” said Grandmother. “Of course you
are. Well I can certainly help you with that.”

They sat silent for a moment, regarding each other — warily,
waiting for the other to move first. Michael felt himself beginning
to squirm.

“May I — ?” he finally said, and extended his hand again, eyes on
the letter.

Grandmother didn’t move. “There is a condition,” she said.

“Yes?”

The envelope crinkled as her hand tightened around it. The flesh
of her neck trembled like a rooster’s and her eyes widened to fill the
lenses of her glasses. A weight shifted badly in Michael’s belly as she
opened her mouth to speak.

“You must go to visit him immediately,” she said, “and you must
bring me with you.”

Although Grandmother’s tone seemed to preclude argument,
Michael attempted it anyway. He told her a meeting now would be
painful — after all, the two of them hadn’t parted on the friendliest
of terms, had they? He pointed out that he, Michael, hadn’t seen
Grandfather for many years — and he was uncertain enough
as to how the meeting would go in any event. Couldn’t he visit
Grandfather once on his own, and then perhaps broker a meeting
between Grandmother and her ex-husband for a second visit? Or
perhaps he could convey a message?

“Michael,” Grandmother said quietly, “I’m afraid I don’t have
time to wait for a second visit. Also, I’m afraid I don’t care to risk,
if you don’t mind my saying, your good will on this matter. My
condition must stand. I would like to make this trip as early as
possible. Immediately.”

Michael almost laughed at that — the world was crushing him,
and he had planned on setting out the following morning. Now,
with the added weight of Grandmother’s condition on his shoulders,
the pull of the Earth was so unbearable, he’d probably leave as soon
as he got the address.

“Are you well enough to travel?” he finally asked.

“Wipe that smirk off your face.” Grandmother’s eyes narrowed
and her mouth became an angry line. Michael felt his face flush — he
hadn’t realized he
had
been smirking. “Of course I’m well enough,”
she said. “I’ll get my coat.”

She stood easily, pushed the chair back underneath the kitchen
table, and hurried off to the closet.

Some days, Michael felt the Earth knew of his plans to escape it, and
reached up with an extra hand to hold him ever more firmly. It had
been bad the day he left Suzanne — ironic, because that was the very
act he suspected might liberate him utterly, not yank him closer to
the ground he had begun to despise. Now that he was so close — to
Grandfather, to his secret — it felt as though the Earth was actually
pushing him down, driving him into itself like he was a stake.

God, he just needed some time alone with the old man!
Simplification, isolation, was not enough — there was something
else the old man knew, and Michael needed to know it too.

He remembered the day Uncle Evan shot his movie, the day he
saw the miracle of his Grandfather’s flight. His father, genial sadist
that he was, had built him up for it, on their way over to Evan’s:
Grandfather’s a miracle worker, Mikey — just like
Jesus.
Maybe if you
ask him nicely, he’ll work a miracle for you!
He remembered his mother
trying to shush his father.
That’s not why we’re going; don’t get Mikey’s
hopes up
, she said, and to Michael:
Grandfather’s not like Jesus
.

As it turned out, Grandfather showed up almost four hours late,
and Michael was the only child there — so of course the waiting had
made him crazy. It had in fact made everyone crazy. Michael’s father
drank too much, and wound up spending what seemed like an hour
sick in the bathroom, and his mother paced, feigning interest in Uncle
Evan’s movie camera, which he loaded film into, in a black cloth bag; or
the notebook. It was filled with crabbed handwriting, mathematical
equations, and an array of charts and diagrams Evan had assembled,
to
try
and
explain
the
phenomenon
of
Grandfather’s
seemingly
miraculous flights. She flipped through the book with Aunt Nancy, then
called Michael over and made him go through it too, and finally shut it
and put her fingers to her eye-sockets and shooed Michael away.

We’ll work it out
, said Aunt Nancy, resting her hand on his mother’s
shoulder.
Once we’ve got it on film, we’ll work out what’s happening . . .
Make it right
. From the bathroom, Michael heard a retching sound
and the toilet flushing, and his father’s drunken cursing that
everyone in the living room strove to ignore. Michael had finally
asked to be excused, and went outside to watch for Grandfather’s
car, from the sweet quiet of his uncle’s garden.

The car finally arrived, and Michael watched as his parents and
aunt and uncle hurried outside to meet him. Uncle Evan opened the
driver’s door — which was opposite Michael — and at first Michael
thought he was helping Grandfather out. But he wasn’t; an enormous,
round arm reached out and grabbed his arm, and that was followed
by thick, hunched shoulders topped by a head plastered with black,
sweaty hair. There was some fumbling below the roof of the car
that Michael couldn’t see, and finally the immense woman started
toward the house, borne by two canes and dwarfing even Michael’s
father, who Michael thought was the biggest man in the world. The
woman, Michael realized, was his Grandmother — whom he had not
seen since he was very small.

Grandfather emerged next. He was wearing a neatly pressed suit,
and he straightened it as he stood next to the car. He glanced briefly to
the house, where the family were all occupied herding Grandmother
through the side door, glanced at the sky, and skipped — actually
skipped
— over to the garden, where Michael sat. He thrust his hands
into his trouser pockets, and looked again at the sky.

Michael waved at him.
Hello, Grandfather
, he said. He waved
again.
Grandfather, it’s me!
Finally, when the old man still didn’t
respond, Michael reached out and grabbed the fabric of his pant-leg,
and pulled.

There was a crunch, and Michael jumped back as Grandfather’s
feet came back into contact with the ground. It was true! Grandfather
could fly — he was flying just then, even if it was only an inch above
the ground! Michael looked up at the old man with awe. He
was
like
Jesus!

At the tug, Grandfather did look down, and his eyes, furious
points of black, met with Michael’s. His lips pulled back from his
teeth, in a snarl.
How dare you!
he snapped, and raised his hand, as
if to cuff his grandson.

The hand lowered again, however, as Uncle Evan shouted hello,
and strode over, camera in hand, to begin.

We’re ready to go
, said Uncle Evan, and Grandfather straightened,
pulled his suit flat.
I don’t know why I agreed to this
, he grumbled.
You’re not going to send this to the television, are you
?

Don’t worry, Dad — this is just for the family
, Uncle Evan said.

Grandfather nodded, grudgingly satisfied.
Where shall I stand?
he
asked, and glared at Michael again.

Michael trembled, and felt as though he was going to cry.

Later, Michael did cry. Michael’s mother held him, glaring at
Grandfather’s back as he skipped back to the car, his flight finished
and his corpulent wife re-installed in the driver’s seat, to bear him
home.

You’re ground-bound, boy
, Grandfather had said when he landed,
and Michael had asked him if he could fly too.

Oh yes, Michael had cried that day.
Ground-bound
, Grandfather
had called him, and he had been right — about him, Grandmother,
about the whole pathetic family. They were all bound to the Earth;
gravity hooked their flesh and winched it, inch by inch, year by year
into the ground.

All of them, that was, but Grandfather.

Grandfather knew how to remove the hooks, free himself from
the tyranny of Earth. He wouldn’t tell Mikey the boy. But he would
sure as hell tell Michael the man.

“We must take the Highway 400,” said Grandmother as Michael
started the car. She wouldn’t give him the address — she insisted,
rather, on giving directions from the passenger seat, so Michael
might better concentrate on the road. Michael backed the car out
of the driveway.

“Will you tell me where we are going?” he asked. “At least
generally? It helps me to know.”

Grandmother put a fresh cigarette in her mouth and fumbled
with her lighter.

“Generally?” She chortled. “Generally, we’re going to see your
Grandfather.”

The car filled with Grandmother’s rancid lung-smoke. Michael
tightened his hands on the steering wheel, and thought, not for the
first time, about putting them around Grandmother’s throat.

It seemed as though the drive took a day, the traffic was so heavy
and the conversation so sparse. In fact, it was just barely over an
hour before they reached the appropriate exit and Grandmother
told him to leave the highway here.

“You know your way,” said Michael as they waited at the stoplight.
It was snowing now — vector lines of white crossed the beams of his
headlights, and little eddies swirled close to the asphalt. Now that
they were stopped, Michael cracked open his window and savoured
the fresh, clean air. “You must have been out here before,” he said.

“I used to drive here quite frequently, as a matter of fact.”
Grandmother regarded him, cigarette pinched between two fingers.
Her skin was yellow in the dull instrument lights. “You will turn
left,” she said. “Then I must concentrate on the landmarks — the
next turn is difficult to find.”

“I don’t know what landmarks there are around here,” said
Michael. Ahead of them was nothing but November-bare fields, and
town lights making a sickly aurora on a flat horizon.

“The light’s green,” she said. “Turn left.”