Poison Shy (3 page)

“Hey,” I said, reaching for the oars in my boat. “Wait!”

She turned and started swimming away, moving through the water at dolphin speed. It was then that I saw her sparkling green mermaid's tail, the same colour as her eyes.

“Wait!” I said again.

She was far away now. There was no hope of catching her. I set down the oars and just watched her. A shark lunged out of the water. Its protruding jaw resembled a rusty metal bear trap. The shark sank its teeth into Melanie's torso, ripping her in half. Blood and scales exploded in all directions. Clumps of flesh and cracked bone landed centimetres from my boat.

I woke to my telephone ringing. I squinted at my alarm clock. 6:31 a.m. I wormed out of bed and checked the call display. It was Chad. He probably wanted to brag about the sex he'd had, or was about to have, or was in the middle of having, with whatever her name was.

I yanked the phone cord out of the socket and went back to my sweaty sheets.

After a few hours of half-sleep I plugged the phone back in and called in sick.

It was a Friday, and Fridays were always busy in the pest control business. The weekend provided an excuse for people to get out of town while their homes were being filled with poison. I plugged my nose with a clothespin and hacked violently into the receiver as I fed my boss a story of fever and cold sweats. I'm not sure he bought it, but it didn't matter. I couldn't handle a day of sweeping up insect and rat carcasses after the night I'd had.

I made a pot of coffee and drank it black, sipping on it mechanically as I watched the morning news. Apparently the citizens of Frayne were getting fed up with people driving up from Toronto to dump their garbage, due to a sanitary workers' strike in the city. I thought of the rats and the maggots, all that disease. It made me glad I didn't work in Toronto. The next story involved a local politician who was suspected of having ties to a prostitution ring. I thought about Suzie and her bruised legs, and wondered if I should get tested for STDs. God knows how many men she'd been with — hundreds, maybe thousands of scabby johns.

I dug my fingertips deep into my eye sockets. “Fuck me,” I moaned.

Just then my phone rang. It was Chad again. This time I picked up.

“You took off so suddenly last night,” he blurted. “What the fuck? Anyway, you missed one hell of a night! Farah's the coolest chick ever.”

I grumbled.

“What's the matter, B-Dawg? You hungover? Did you sneak off last night with that redhead?”

I held my finger against my temple like a gun. “No.”

“Some other broad, huh? That's cool. Anyway, the reason I'm calling is to tell you that Farah and I made plans again for tonight. Is it okay if you and I take the night off? I was going to leave a message 'cause I thought you'd be at work. You must've had more fun last night than I thought!”

I cleared my throat. “Listen, Chad. I've got a massive headache. I need to get off the phone. But you and Farah have fun tonight, okay?”

“Oh, we will. Don't worry about that! We've had plenty of fun already, if you know what I mean. She's got an ass on her the size of Brazil! I'm talkin' . . . just, wow! And she's a sweet girl, too. Smart, funny, soft-spoken. Only thing is, her old man's a cop. I better be careful with this one, eh?” He laughed. “Anyway, take care of that headache, dude, all right?”

I hung up the phone feeling worse than before. I wanted to get out of my apartment and thought about visiting my mother, but I needed to calm my own nerves before subjecting myself to hers. I decided to go for a walk. I filled my thermos with the rest of the whisky and a splash of ginger ale, grabbed an orange, and set out for nowhere in particular.

It was warm for late October, though a bit grey. I walked through the parkette down the block, past a huddle of dog owners. Their beasts scampered about, barking and pawing and inhaling each other's assholes, revelling in their daily tease of freedom. I lurched past them like a homeless vampire. A Jack Russell terrier approached me and yapped, wagging its nub of a tail like a disapproving finger. I belched at it and carried on.

I wandered eastward into the nicer part of town, a suburban oasis in the middle of a concrete wasteland. White picket fences, immaculate lawns, fake plastic window shutters, that whole fairy tale. I could only imagine the domestic nightmares concealed behind those wholesome facades. Childhood memories began to stir. I swallowed some whisky and wound my way back downtown to Dormant Street.

I was riding a nice buzz but I needed to go to the bathroom. I looked around for a pub or fast food joint where I could pee anonymously without having to be a customer. There was a scuzzy-looking place across the street called Burgers. It would do. I slipped past a table of drug addicts, playing checkers in the corner, and ducked into a door marked
Gentlemen
.

It was one of the most decrepit public toilets I've ever seen. Against the stucco wall was a single urinal that no longer had a bottom. It looked like it had been smashed with a cinder block. There was a puddle of urine on the floor amidst the broken ceramic debris. I leaped over the pond of piss, entered the only stall that wasn't sealed shut with duct tape, and flushed the reeking heap of filth and cigarette butts that lingered in the bowl.

“Lord,” I muttered as I unzipped my fly.

Holding my breath, I perused the graffiti scribbled above the toilet.

Looking 4 a hoodsuck? Athletic twink wants to swallow your cock!

Meet here October 15, 8:30 p.m. SHARP

I checked my watch in a brief moment of panic. It was only 3:41 p.m. I exhaled and felt the shiver up my spine subside as I finished my business.

I'd seen that date marked somewhere else recently. It came to me as I washed my hands: Melanie had an essay due on the fifteenth. She'd marked it on her
Playboy
calendar. She seemed like the kind of student who'd throw a half-assed paper together at the last minute in a caffeinated frenzy. I imagined her typing it at the library, naked and winking at her voyeuristic schoolmates. The thought gave me a hard-on. I tucked it under the elastic waistband of my boxer shorts and walked out into the grey late afternoon.

Hungover, I scoured the outskirts of campus for a girl I didn't know, spurred on by whisky and the male instinct to hunt, even to stalk. I peered through the window of every coffee shop, pub, and Internet café I passed. I was blind to the judgmental gaze of the student body, only one thing on my mind.

By the time I arrived at the campus library I'd been walking for close to an hour. The temperature was starting to drop. I sat down on a concrete bench outside and blew on my hands. A man in glasses and a sweater vest hurried past me, clutching a briefcase to his chest, and ran up the steps to the library doors. As he reached for the handle, the door swung open in front of him, and out burst Darcy Sands in an old leather jacket. They slammed into each other. Sweater Vest dropped his briefcase, the buckles popped open, and a flurry of papers spilled all over the steps.

“I'm so sorry!” Sweater Vest said. He bent down to gather his things.

“Watch where you're going!” Darcy spat. “Fuck!”

I pulled some change out of my pocket and pretended to count it, hiding my face from view. Darcy zoomed past me playing air-drums. I didn't know whether to follow him or to see if Melanie was inside the library. I opted for the latter.

And there she was, right in the front, hunched over a laptop at a cubicle next to the info desk.

I could tell it was her from the back. She was wearing a thin white tank top and low-rise jeans, exposing masses of freckles on her shoulders, arms, and lower back. She turned around to look at the clock on the wall behind her and didn't notice me.

I sat down at a nearby study table and took the orange out of my pocket. My heart was beating in my throat, my fingertips. I peeled the orange and stared at her, placing the bits of rind in a little pile. She ran a hand through her hair and sighed. I watched her every movement like a camouflaged predator. My nerves were somehow both numb and broiling — I felt stiff and robotic, yet ready to pounce. Who did I think I was? I felt like a criminal, uncomfortable in my own lust-hungry skin. For all I knew, she'd turn around, see me, and scream. The campus police would swarm into the library and swoop down on me, tasers and truncheons in hand.

“Excuse me, sir?” said a voice from behind.

They've caught me, I thought, sniffed me out. I turned and readied myself to be escorted off the premises.

A middle-aged little person in a blue and white dress stood in front of me like something out of
The Wizard of Oz
. There was a badge pinned to her chest that read
Ask me for assistance
. “There's no food allowed in the Information Commons,” she said.

“I'm sorry. I didn't realize.”

“There's a lounge upstairs where eating is permitted.”

“Great.” I stood up. Melanie had turned around. She was looking straight at me and squinting, as though trying to remember where she recognized me from.

I dropped my orange on the floor. She laughed. My insides withered. I picked up the orange and scrambled upstairs to the lounge. Why didn't I just leave? I had no reason to be there. I'd been patrolling the campus in search of some other guy's girlfriend, and now that I'd found her, what did I expect?

I sat down on one of the cold pleather couches and picked carpet fibres off my orange. There was a sign on the wall that read
Thank you for keeping the library clean
.

When Melanie came up the stairs I was in the middle of scraping a small hair off my tongue.

“Hey,” she said and sat down on the couch across from me. She placed her folded laptop beside her and pulled a brown paper bag out of her backpack.

“Hey.”

“I saw you get in trouble downstairs, and it reminded me I haven't eaten a thing all day. Stupid essay.”

I smiled and nodded like the biggest fucking numbskull on the planet.

She took out a sandwich. “I know you from somewhere. Are you in my art history seminar? I haven't been to that class in forever. Prof smells like cat litter.”

I cleared my throat. “No, actually, I'm not a student here.” I stuffed another dusty piece of orange in my mouth and stared at the carpet.

“I think I saw some lint on that orange slice.”

I had just swallowed it. “Oh.”

She bit into her sandwich. It smelled like tuna. With her mouth full, she said, “Okay, really. Where do I know you from?”

Was her memory that bad, or was I as forgettable as a face in a waiting room? I already knew the answer. I realized it didn't matter what I said. I was nobody to her. Strangely, the thought helped me relax.

“You don't remember? My colleague and I are responsible for ridding your apartment of vermin. Bedbugs, I believe.” I cringed at the sound of my own voice, the affected tone of self-importance.

“Oh,
yeah.
I knew I recognized you.”

“So is everything okay, or . . . ?”

“Totally. It was mostly my roommate's bed that was the problem but it's all good now. I haven't had a bite since.” She pulled up the leg of her jeans to show me the proof.

I pondered her use of the word
roommate
.

“What are you doing at the library?” she asked. “You weren't stalking me, were you?”

I swallowed the wad in my throat. “I came to get a book, actually.”

“Oh yeah? With whose student card, Mr. Exterminator?”

She was teasing me. And she'd caught me in a lie. It was incredibly sexy.

“Believe it or not, I was planning on stealing it,” I said. “What's it to the university? An insurance write-off, that's what. If they even notice it's gone.”

She gave me a sly look. “Very true.”

“Any recommendations?”

“Nope. Books are for nerds and grannies. I only read what I have to for school, and usually not even then.”

There was something tomboyish and vulgar about her. She sat with her legs spread apart, smacking away on her sandwich. There were crumbs all over her lap and she wasn't wearing a bra.

“Listen,” she said. “If you really want to steal a book, be my guest. I won't tell. But if you don't feel like being a criminal I'll let you use my student card. It's the least I can do for a bug-murdering hero like you.”

“Really?”

“For sure. What's your name, anyway?”

“Brandon Galloway.”

“I like Mr. Exterminator better. I'm Melanie. And I'm not telling you my last name because you're a stranger.”

“Fair enough.”

She took one last bite of her tuna and stood up. “Go get a book and come find me when you're done. I have to finish this fucking essay. And no naughty books, perv.”

I watched her go back downstairs, tossed the remains of my fuzzy orange into a wastebasket, and headed for the stacks.

It was impossible to make sense of the way the books were arranged. I was used to the public library with its boldfaced headings:
HISTORY
,
PSYCHOLOGY
,
FICTION
. Here I found myself stonewalled in section PR35766.6B. There were books on literary theory, psychoanalysis, and semiotics, with a few first-hand accounts of the Korean War thrown in for good measure, probably by someone as lost as I was.

No wonder academics have trouble functioning in the real world. My father used to say that the university was nothing more than a glorified dating service, a means of social networking for those who couldn't get a date in high school. In turn, the students with blue-collar destinies could enter the workforce while their so-called smarter peers were herded up and sent away to write meaningless theoretical papers and cultivate their sense of moral superiority.

I watched the passing tide of people for a few minutes. A group of students gathered in front of a laptop and howled with laughter at a clip of a chimp sticking its finger up its ass and sniffing it. A couple who looked like they might have been twins sucked each other's faces behind a book trolley. A guy in a football jersey promised his friend top marks as he photocopied the stolen answers to their Sociology exam. A pink-haired hipster unzipped his fly and stuck his hand in his pants while perusing a volume of Renaissance art. A bearded professor scribbled something onto the forearm of a giggling blonde. Maybe my father was right.

I did my best to ignore these tableaux and headed back downstairs, abandoning my search for a book. Something told me that choosing nothing would impress Melanie more.

I found her planted in front of her laptop, leaning forward as she typed, her low-rise jeans exposing the pinched curve of her butt crack.

I crept up behind her. “Working hard?”

“Holy shit, you scared me!”

“Sorry.”