Part 9 (1/2)

She's working late, I say.

I s.h.i.+ft from first to second and accidentally touch her knee. Alex's knee doesnt flinch.

21 I tell Lydia of Alex's idea. Of taking pictures of men, concentrating, as they play pool. As part of the pa.s.sion exhibit.

I'm speaking into the pillow. I've decided I have to tell her this.

You crop the photo so you dont know theyre shooting pool. Youre left with the concentration.

Lydia: Concentration brings a peculiar look to the face.

Me: A lot of my memories of my father are in acts of concentration.

It's like lovemaking.

Well. That's not what I think of when I think of my father. I think Alex telling you this is a bit like lovemaking.

It's intimate. But it's art.

22 I rent Raging Bull. I'm walking along Gower Street at 10 p.m. Three kids, fifteen years old, start yelling.

Beat the f.u.c.king s.h.i.+t out of ya!

A dirty s...o...b..ll hits a light pole ahead of me. I cross the street, pa.s.s them. Another s...o...b..ll whizzes by my head. I stop and stick the video in my jeans. Turn. I point to one of them.

He says, Are you giving me the finger?

They wonder if I speak English, because I havent spoken. One walks close, yelling like a mongrel, and I grab him at the collar, take him down and feel like smacking him. I have a knee to his chest. I'm surprised I've managed to catch him, like swatting a fly with one hand. The other two scream. Four more boys run up, bigger shapes. Some as tall as me. I back off and I see they have hockey sticks. But theyre in silhouette. I decide to boot it out of there. And they, of course, run after me. Running is a bad idea, I realize. Running obliges them to catch me. I turn to see about three eighteen-year-old boys with the younger pack behind them. They doggedly run after me along Gower. I run past Lydia's (they'll just beat out the windows) and jog up Garrison Hill. They are shouting for me to hold up. I continue west along Harvey Road. And make a stand under a streetlight by the Big R. If I'm going to be beaten up it will be in the light, the police station just across the road. They surround me, catching their breath, bent over, hands on knees.

We just want to know, the biggest boy says, what happened.

I tell them, my throat burning for air: Throwing s...o...b..a.l.l.s, verbal threats, I live in the neighbourhood. I took one down. Big boy: That's okay. We'll take care of things.

I say, Youre a good feller.

They walk back. My throat raw from the run, exhausted. I can barely laugh at my own panic. The adrenaline still hot in my skin. I walk down Long's Hill, past Gower Street United, and wait in the shadows. The boys are slow returning, as if changing their minds. They pick at potholes with the hockey sticks. I walk briskly to Lydia's, but her door's locked. I dont have a G.o.dd.a.m.n key. She's on the phone. She stretches the phone cord into the porch to open the door, and I rush past her. I drink water in the bathroom and try to tell her what happened. She says, You should have pounded them.

But they were fifteen years old.

So what?

They'd have me up on charges.

What would a judge say if they did?

Lydia.

What?

23 When she says, Goodnight, Gabe, I say, Goodnight, babe. I say, You hardly ever call me Gabriel. She says you hardly ever call me Lydia.

That's not true.

It is true.Youre always calling me babe.

On the phone I call you Lydia.

Once. I remember hearing it on the answering machine when I got home. My name and it struck me how you hardly ever say it.

I think about this argument. That I dont like to sway opinion. When something sounds untrue but Lydia believes it, I find it hard to convince her otherwise. I would be a bad lawyer. I regret that she feels it, and I will usually try only once to describe my side of things. If she still holds to her opinion, I'm loathe to object.

24 I nose the green lobster into the boiling water. His tail flexes, full of bewilderment. A claw taps the side of the pot. It takes about ninety seconds for him to resign himself, for his sh.e.l.l to turn orange.

A dip made of melted b.u.t.ter, lemon, garlic, and parsley. I spread the leaves of a newspaper over Lydia's dinner table. Lydia wonders which of her boyfriends hammered the claws. Was it Earl? He'd go to the tool chest and get a hammer.

At this very table.

Corn, I say, is the lobster of the vegetable family.

Lydia: Now that sort of statement. That's where you lose me.

I think about this. Why did I make that p.r.o.nouncement, which feels true to me. Theyre both large, I say. A solid colour. You boil them alive and theyre seasonal. You eat only a select part of the whole body. And pepper's important.

Lydia accepts this. She reads me a quote from Salinger, about images and how G.o.d will understand if there's confusion or misuse of images. Youre better off not getting wrapped up in the small stuff of right and wrong.

25 In the morning I tell Lydia it's time to get up. No, not yet, she says. Then the doorbell. She has forgotten that Maisie and Daphne are coming for yoga. Stay in bed, she says.

I wake again and there's no sound. And I get up. Downstairs this note. Gabe, dont leave.

It's nearly io a.m. when Lydia returns. And sits with me. Sometimes when she's alone she thinks of her past lives and starts to feel sad. She tells me how Earl never cried. Nothing in life is tender, Earl would tell Lydia when she was crying. He didnt see the point in crying.

We lie down for a few minutes. She's made me a little sad, but I've cheered her up by consoling her. Then the phone. And Lydia has to go. She'll call me when she's through. I'm glad you cry, she says.

As I walk home I spot a wry cat leaping to my fence. He's after a grosbeak. He's as orange as a kipper.

26 Max says he was driving in from Arnold's Cove, where his father lives. Just past Whitbourne something hard landed on his truck hood. Then a leg smashed through his winds.h.i.+eld.

You hit a moose?

Max: No. It fell out of the sky.

He found the head by the side of the road. There was a full quarter torn from the hip that landed in the back of the truck. He drove back to Monty's Restaurant and called the cops. The cops told him what happened. A transport truck heading west hit the moose. The moose flew off its spoiler, twirled in the air, torn to bits, and landed on Max's truck heading east.

Max is dressing the quarter of moose that landed in the truck bed. Nothing wrong with a bit of tenderized spring moose.

27 Upstairs reading a fas.h.i.+on magazine. Lydia licking her finger to turn the pages, commenting on the looks of the stars.