This All Happened Part 25

Coming and going, Max says.

Lydia: Is it more coming or going?

24 I'm with Max, Maisie, Una, Daphne, and Wilf singing We Three Kings in front of the dark fire station. Three garage doors ascend and yellow headlights wink under the edge of the doors, then beam out. There are five silhouettes with arms crossed standing in front of the trucks, legs splayed, theyre wearing gaiters. We sing and the fire-engine lights flick on silently and strobe red. The men walk towards us in their gaiters. We see their faces. They are grinning. The kids stretch up tiptoe and break from the carollers. They see that the firemen have candy. We follow. That was wonderful, one fireman says. We were just collecting for one of the men who's in hospital.

They show us the thick chrome pole. And three men slide down, bending knees to absorb the landing, and peel away. The kids scream at this. Theyre allowed to jump onto running boards and look in at dashes and tremendous gear shifts.

25 Lydia calls me early on Christmas morning. To say Tinker b.u.mbo is dead.

Lydia: He started to cough up blood and I took him to the vet and the vet gave him an injection.

She's crying on the phone.

Are you alone?

Mom and Dad are here.

Do you want me to come down?

I walk down. The harbour is covered in new snow, and the morning light is pink on the snow. The water is bright. The shipyard is quiet.

Tinker b.u.mbo is lying on his cushion. He looks asleep. Except he's not noisy enough.

Lydia's father says, We should bury him.

Lydia: Out in the woods.

She calls Max and Daphne and they come by with Eli, and Maisie comes too and we drive out together to the barrens on the highway. Lydia's father has put Tinker b.u.mbo in a canvas sack and laid him on a plastic sled. We tow him, single file, into a group of spruce trees beside the mouth of a pond.

Under a big spruce we push away the moss. And Lydia and I pry out a big rock with a crowbar. The rock separates from the frost.

I lay his blue blanket in the hole. Then lay him gently on it. He's cuddled into his position. Lydia covers him in moss, and I trim a few boughs and lay them over him.

We cover Tinker with the crystallized soil. The sun is soft on the water. There'll be grouse here soon enough.

Lydia's father says Lydia and I should come back in the summer and paint the rock for Tinker.

26 Last night I walked to three different parties. At three in the morning I'm at Maisie's. I am on the couch with Alex Fleming. I have Alex's hand cupped in mine. We are drinking beer Maisie found in a cupboard. Tonight Alex is taking care of me. We are all wounded in ways that require temporary solace.

I say to her, I'm blowing this popsicle stand. This entire city. I'm leaving it. I'm gonna drive my trusty Jethro to Heart's Desire and never come back.

Alex asks if I need company. I wouldnt be good company. You'd be a useless article. Precisely.

27 The snow comes when you arent looking. Snow as fresh as a new sinister avocado leaf.

I'm in my bedroom with the s.p.a.ce heater on blast. The Star of the Sea looks large. Alex, at midday, comes over for a cup of tea. She's wearing funky inner-city sneakers that look as fortified as skates. I'm still in my pajamas.

Alex: I can't stand people asking me what I'm up to.

Me: I've noticed people dont ask me that any more, because times are so hard. I have no job and I broke up with Lydia. I've given up on the novel. I'm drinking too much. They ask me where I'm at, that's all. They dont want to feel embarra.s.sed.

When she leaves I go back to bed. I look at the city through binoculars. The Christmas lights make me forlorn. I look in the window where Oliver lives, but he's not in. But later, when I call about the Heart's Desire house, he says he was there. On his back on the floor, keyboard on his stomach. He says I can go out there any time I want.

I am focused on the last saltbox house in St John's. Then down to Craig's house in the Battery. Every spring the neighbours paint the rocks in his backyard white.

28 I wake up with a clenched, sore jaw. I drive out to Heart's Desire because Christmas in town is driving me to fury. It's so cold. And I think of Bartlett's candle. So cold at the pole the flame could not melt the outside of the candle. Merely the wick and a narrow pool down the centre. I make a smoked-salmon pasta when the jannies come in. A barrel-chested fellow with a dress on, a crutch, and a large beige bra on over the dress. He's wearing a rubber Halloween mask and rubber boots and trigger mitts. A woman dressed as a man wiggles her behind, where a silver bauble dangles. A third f.a.n.n.y quietly sits himself down and lights up a smoke. He has a green towel over his face, and he parts the folds to smoke.

Me:You'll be wanting a drink of rum.

And the one with the crutch says, We'll settle for that.

I put out the rum and some gla.s.ses and mix one with Pepsi and another straight.

Me: Now how am I going to guess you?

The crutch says, with an ingressive voice, Oh, you'll never guess us.

There is a scratching at the door then, and a little dog wags in. It's Josh's dog.

Oh, now there's a clue.

The dog barks then wags at the crutch man. Oh, he's a nice dog.

I guess them but it's not Josh and his parents. It's Toby and his mother and father. They are sweltering under their garb. They say, Come out with us now.

How come you have Josh's dog?

Oh, the Harnums moved to Alberta.

I wrap a quilt around my waist. Toby's mother takes down a sheer curtain and I place the curtain over my head. I shove on a beanie and they say,Youre perfect. Grab your guitar and let's go down to the road.

We'll leave the dog in here.

We walk past Josh's house. The windows are boarded over. A For Sale sign below the mailbox. And then I notice a lot of the houses in Heart's are boarded over.

The guitar loses its tune in the cold. Toby raps on the screen door.

Any jannies in tonight?

And in we walk, banging our boots in the porch.

They take down a bottle of rum and some gla.s.ses and get the girls down to look at us, but the girls arent interested. They frown at us. And the missus holds under her arm a little c.o.c.ker spaniel that barks. She doesnt tell the dog to stop, and she doesnt take it away. Just points it at us, barking.

I play I Can't Help It If I'm Still in Love with You, in falsetto. And they all sing along. The guitar has warmed up again.

But they can't guess us, and they look interrupted, so we leave, and Toby wants me to continue down the sh.o.r.e.

I say, I'm heading home. No one knows me.

Sure, look at the length of you. Who else could you be? Well, they never twigged.

When I get back I remember Josh's dog. He spends the night, at the bottom of my bed. The only thing left of the Harnums.

29 I realize living in Heart's Desire is agony. When youre on your own, you can focus on your agony all day long. I decide to drive back to town and confront it. I shovel Lydia's front steps, salt her path. I make Egyptian lentil soup.

I've decided to attend Lydia's party.

She is making quiche and pear melba pies. There are ca.s.seroles of turkey soup. I've learned, from Lydia, to make pastry without touching it. Craig is arranging a bowl of marzipan apples. I notice he's put on weight and let his hair grow an inch. He has a softer look. His gla.s.ses are made of t.i.tanium, the hinge is one single wire bent and the temple pushed down through the coil.

Max, out of allegiance to me, says, Hey, Craig, nice gla.s.ses. They come in men's?

Craig: No. But I hear you do.

Craig has zippers on his front pockets. A quiet man.

Wilf is in a corner chanting to himself: Got to get through. January. Got to get through. February.

Pause.

Got to get through. January. Got to get through.

Craig corners me to confess a feeling for Lydia. So I pretend Lydia means nothing to me. That I highly recommend her.

He says, The human being can't live too long with uncertainty. It prefers failure to uncertainty.

Lydia says then, There are so many f.u.c.king mediocre artists in this country.

Then, to me: I suppose youre writing that down.

Max says to me, I can't believe how polite youre being. What, should I start throwing furniture?

Cause a scene, man. This is your moment to shine. Wilf comes over to me and says, So Tinker's gone, hey? Yes.

Max: He was a dog especially loved for doggy acts.

Wilf: He was a dog's dog.

Wilf has strong forearms. And a willingness to try on a woman's pillbox hat.

Boyd Coady's television is still in the living room.

30 I wake up alone and open the blinds to the city. The harbour is frozen shut. Iris and Helmut have flown to Miami to study a sailboat. I'm the kind of man who craves to be alone, but once alone, I crave company. It's as though I'd prefer to live in a tough situation than to live in a vacuum. I'm thinking that I have to learn to live alone, but what I really need to learn is how to live with someone else. Happiness seems impossible.

I sing the saddest songs I know, Hank Williams songs. I cook some eggs and brew a pot of tea. Tea is far better for a hangover. I can feel the corners of my mouth drooping in sadness, and I laugh at my sadness. I can examine and appreciate my own emotional torment. Luckily, I'm not a man p.r.o.ne to moroseness. If it were not for my buoyant const.i.tution I would slit my wrists in the bathtub. I would.

I have been reading writers who say, essentially, that we'll be food for worms soon enough, so make sure that what you are living you love. And it's true there was too much anguish and ruin with Lydia. And Lydia seems a far sight happier with that a.s.shole. He's not an a.s.shole. He's such a great guy he must be an a.s.shole. No one can be that perfect. I bet he has a hole in his heart. I bet Craig is emotionally cold. a.s.sholism is relative. It proves the theory of relativity.

I gotta leave this place. I gotta start over. I've used up everything here. I have to let the city go fallow.

31 It's the last party of the year and every one I love is in Max's house. The women are dancing in the kitchen. Wilf says, When women dance with women I get happy. I have to force myself to keep my eyes off Lydia and Craig. I ask her before midnight and she says yes she may be a little in love with Craig. Can she be in love with a chunky man with a little scar at his lip? Do I mind seeing her with him? I ask, Are you doing an Oliver Squires? and she says, Gabe. I never thought of Craig until it was over with you.

She has been going to his house to watch rented, subt.i.tled movies. She did not want to watch foreign movies with me. She claimed they were too hard to follow on a TV. But it's the man, not the film you watch, who makes the difference. She is willing to concentrate for Craig. Fair enough.

I stand by a window and realize that love is not constant. Though I love Max and Maisie very much. I would kill myself to save them. I would do the same for Una and Eli.

Maisie says if you take care of the moment then regret will not creep into your past.

But always there is, circling around us, a sense of unfulfilled grasping. A moment winks like a black locomotive, harnessed fire, sitting impatiently on its haunches, forever primed to lurch and devour. And I'm getting older. My feet hurt, a wrinkle in my earlobe. When you are out of love you become disappointed with the weight of your body. Baths are good.

I've decided to leave St John's. I will head west and look for a desolate, foreign place. All that can happen to me here has happened.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.

The author would like to thank the writers in the Burning Rock fiction group for advice on many of these journal entries. I thank Claire Wilkshire, Larry Mathews, Mary Lewis, Jennifer Barclay, and John Metcalf for reading versions of this work. Mary Lewis deserves special thanks for reminding me of the importance of brevity, clarity, heart, and story.

I thank Anne McDermid for finding a home for this work, and offer much appreciation to Martha Sharpe at Anansi for taking a risk on me. I hope Martha gets a good return on her risk.

Much of This All Happened was written and edited during time funded by the Cabot 500 Year of the Arts program. May you all visit Newfoundland.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

Michael Winter was born in England and grew up in Newfoundland. He has published two short-story collections, One Last Good Look and Creaking in Their Skins. He now divides his time between St John's and Toronto.

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER.

House of Anansi Press was founded in 1967 with a mandate to publish Canadian-auth.o.r.ed books, a mandate that continues to this day even as the list has branched out to include internationally acclaimed thinkers and writers. The press immediately gained attention for significant t.i.tles by notable writers such as Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, George Grant, and Northrop Frye. Since then, Anansi's commitment to finding, publishing and promoting challenging, excellent writing has won it tremendous acclaim and solid staying power. Today Anansi is Canada's pre-eminent independent press, and home to nationally and internationally bestselling and acclaimed authors such as Gil Adamson, Margaret Atwood, Ken Babstock, Peter Behrens, Rawi Hage, Misha Glenny, Jim Harrison, A. L. Kennedy, Pasha Malla, Lisa Moore, A. F. Moritz, Eric Siblin, Karen Solie, and Ronald Wright. Anansi is also proud to publish the award-winning nonfiction series The CBC Ma.s.sey Lectures. In 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011 Anansi was honoured by the Canadian Booksellers a.s.sociation as "Publisher of the Year."

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