Part 6 (1/2)

I'm just trying to get us both started. If you want to workif youre resenting not having worked yesterday then let's get at it.

She says, Are you upset that we're not hanging out? I say, Not upset, just disappointed.

It's a little fuse of anger that Lydia focuses on time spent with me as the thing to cut back on in order to get her work done and I'm trying to cut through the lingering and so she resents it.

Okay then, I'll see you.

And I leave, both of us angry.

Lydia will often say, What's wrong, baby? and when I tell her what's wrong, involving her in blame a little, she'll accept it for a minute, be sorry, then retaliate. She'll become defensive. If she could absorb it and leave it, without feeling that she has to defend. That she's in the right. It's as if she holds a club behind her back, asks what's the matter, and when I tell her, agrees, then gives me a quick dash on the head.

11 It's a sunny day and I'm thirty-four. When youre sad, events take on symbolic importance. Sadness connotes lacking, a want for something. Lydia brings over a Gabriel doll she's made for my birthday and I cry laughing. The black leather coat and stuffed body, st.i.tched face. A rose corsage blooming, not that I wear a rose, but it's indicative of my joy at least what used to be my happiness. And it strikes me that this image is no longer who I am. Somehow, other emotions not my own have crept in. I'm no longer a romantic figure. I have grown wise. The clothesline is frozen in a shaded bank of snow. I have decided to settle my student loan. I phone the loans officer, Fabian Durdle. It's my birthday. He says, Do you think that'll impress Ottawa?

I get a bank draft for nine thousand dollars, and fifteen hundred in cash. I grab an elevator and knock on Fabian Durdle's office door.

That's half what you owe.

The rest, I say, is outrageous interest.

He calls Ottawa. Fabian is nodding in a bored way into the phone and then pauses.

Yes, he says. Gabriel English is here in front of me. With ten-five on the table. He says take it or he'll go bankrupt. Fabian puts the phone down.

Sign here.

Theyre taking it?

He nods.

I say, I'd like a witness, as it's a lot of cash.

Fabian: Gabriel, youve got to trust people more often.

But he's been dealing with me for ten years, and knows my idiosyncrasies. In fact, I know he respects them. No, I dont know that. But he is the perfect man for this job. Fabian Durdle holds no grudges. He calls in a secretary. As we're waiting Fabian studies the bank draft. He's not familiar with bank drafts.

He says, I'll have to call your bank to verify this.

As he's tapping the number I say, Fabian, youve got to trust people more often.

Touche, he says.

And now I owe a penny to no one. Nor do I own a penny.

Ah, details.

12 Lydia is working on her script. She wants me to read the scenes and see if it flows.

I've been avoiding Jethro, trying to walk. I see a woman in a wheelchair in the melting road up against the sidewalk curb. I say, Do you need a hand? And she yells out, straining her neck around me to a tailor's shop, Kevin, I wants you now!

I'm wearing a pair of linen pants that I bought at the Sally Ann two days ago and dropped the cuffs an inch and they flop with a lazy southern wind over the rim of my cranberry leather shoes. They are quite out of place for March. On Mom's advice I've had my shoes resoled at Modern Shoe Hospital. When I look down what I see are the pants and the shoes and I feel very lavish.

Lydia's door is locked and I have no key, which I resent but am silent about. Lydia has my key. She keeps meaning to get around to it, but she hasnt.

I'm surprised when Wilf opens the door. He says, in Lydia's voice: It's me, transformed into Wilf's body!

He tries to kiss me.

Bonus, I say.

13 I call Max. Want to see a movie? When?

In fifteen minutes.

Pause. Let me check with Daphne.

Pause.

Okay!

I pick him up and he chuckles on Elizabeth Avenue. He slaps his thighs.

He looks out his window, enjoying this.

So what's the big delight?

Daphne's pregnant.

Max.

It's a good thing. She's moving in.

Youre a fast worker.

I'm a potent man. And speaking of which, your a.s.s will be on display next month. Alex is giving me a wall.

The movie has one good image: a peeled, steaming eel wriggling on a set of tongs. Then we drive to Burger King. This reminds me, Max says, of twenty years ago.

I say, You have to go back twenty years to be reminded? Of this particular moment, yes.

We watch the girl serving us lean towards the milkshake station, one hand on the waxy cup and the other pressing the chunky white b.u.t.ton. She holds the cup near her waist and she looks down, and she is looking down past her own body, at the work.

She shovels fries into cardboard pockets. The golden yellow lights of the fry stations on her forearms and hands. She's wearing white shoes. I used to work at Burger King. I used to date girls like this.

We drive to a bar that has chessboards. A drawn-out win for Max. Then I drive him home. He has filled my tank with a credit card. He had tipped the card out his half-open window. Make it twenty bucks, he'd said.

The whole night Max is revelling in his luck, his night out, my a.s.s, his child-to-be.

14 I train my binoculars on the southside hills. On the shadows and snow-capped mansard roof windows. The detail. I tell this to Lydia, about using the binoculars as a device in painting.

I watch a crow on a pole. It looks around until its beak is hidden. Its furtive eye flas.h.i.+ng grey, a pure grey I would never see with my naked eye. So binoculars make colour appear. A claw clamped on the edge of the pole's top rim. As the crow lifts it plunges to the left, raising its breast slightly to the side to catch wind. It caws three times and lunges from the shoulders, swooping as it caws. I can hear the caw through the window.