Poison Shy Read online

  My father had met my mother while rewiring her parents’ two-bedroom home in London, Ontario. He was twenty-five at the time, she eighteen. According to the story I was told as a child, my father was down on his hands and knees in the upstairs hallway, examining a faulty outlet, when my mother came out of her bedroom in her nightgown without her glasses on. She was near-blind without them. On her way to the bathroom, she stumbled over my father and nearly broke her back. She said she fell in love with him in that instant, but I know that’s just a simplification of things, the way the stories of our lives get pared down over time into these condensed and delusive versions of the truth.

  Did the story of my parents’ meeting influence my desire for Melanie in any way? It’s possible. If so it was unconscious. It’s funny how our parents can manoeuvre us into disastrous scenarios without even trying — sometimes without even being alive.

  I’m not so naïve as to think my parents didn’t have problems before I grew old enough to start noticing them. My mother was a religious fanatic and my father was a hedonistic drunk. Problems were inevitable. The sad thing is that these kinds of inexplicable unions are all too common, born of the clichéd notion that opposites attract. Maybe they do, but truisms are rarely conducive to happiness.

  There was no watershed moment at which our family orb shattered into bits. It was more like a gradual splintering, each argument adding new chips and cracks with the force of a foot stomp.

  The night of my tenth birthday stands out as one of the more damaging blows. My father hadn’t been home for five consecutive days. I was afraid to ask my mother where he was because I didn’t want my question to seem like a reminder or an accusation. She was doing a good job of pretending everything was normal, so I just went along with it.

  I was in my bedroom playing video games when she came and stood in the doorway.

  “Do you want me to take you to the mall?” she asked.

  I paused my game and looked at her. There was violence stirring in her eyes. They seemed to quiver in their sockets. It was the first time I felt unsafe in her presence. I learned at a young age that my parents weren’t the steady, reliable safeguards I’d once imagined them to be. Instead they were frail, selfish, and vengeful — just like everyone else.

  “Okay,” I said, only because I didn’t want to make matters worse.

  While we shopped, my mother scanned the board games and stuffed animals like they were relics from another universe, touching them delicately with her fingers as though they might crumble into powder. She responded to everything I said with a vacant “Hmm?”

  I showed her an expensive action figure I wanted. She’d refused to buy it for me a number of times before because it came with a small plastic rifle that shot real pellets. This time, she agreed to buy it without a fuss.

  “I’m putting this on your father’s credit card,” she said while we were standing in line. I had no idea why she would tell me that. I didn’t know what credit cards were for.

  When we arrived back home, my father’s car was in the driveway. I thought my mother would be relieved, but she muttered “Fucking asshole” as we went up the walk. It made me want to stay outside, but for some reason I didn’t.

  My father sat with his legs crossed at the kitchen table, a cigarette clenched between his teeth in the centre of his mouth. He seemed different to me somehow, as if my memories of him from before his disappearance were of another man with the same face. He reached down into the plastic bag at his feet and pulled out the same action figure my mother had just bought me.

  I looked at my mother for some indication of what to do.

  “Go to your room, Brandon, okay? Mommy and Daddy need to talk.”

  I went to leave, but my father had other ideas.

  “Don’t go anygoddamnwhere.” He exhaled two tusks of smoke. “What’s the matter? You don’t like your toy?”

  “Brandon.” My mother’s voice. “Go to your room.”

  I didn’t move.

  My father got down onto one knee in front of me. He rested his elbow on his thigh and leaned forward. There was a circular burn mark on his forearm. He smelled like a bucket of old rain. He reached out, put his hand on my shoulder, and squeezed. “Happy birthday, little man.”

  I’m not sure how it happened — I didn’t even feel it happen — but as he knelt there in front of me, breathing smoke in my face, I pissed my pants.

  The next thing I remember is my mother leading me upstairs to the bathroom.

  “Why don’t you have a hot bath?” she said, shaking. “I’ll have to wash those pants.”

  I stood in the doorway and watched her go back downstairs. When the yelling started I bolted inside the bathroom, locked the door behind me, and sat in the tub with the shower curtain drawn. Both of them were shouting over each other. I didn’t hear the words, only wails and growls, raging human voices in combat. Fists pounding tabletops, dishes smashing. Feet thumping across the floor.

  I crept out later and heard my mother cry, “No, Jack, no! Please no!” I had this image of my father breaking off my mother’s limbs one by one with his bare hands, then tossing them into a pile at his feet.

  I sat nervously at the top of the stairs. My father stomped toward the front door, holding a bloodstained dishtowel to his head. My mother darted after him and clawed the sleeve of his shirt, tearing it at the shoulder.

  “Jack, please!”

  He swatted her away with the bloody rag. There was a dark, pulpy gash above his ear. He swung the front door open and walked across the lawn to his car. My mother grasped at him with her fingernails, screaming his name, hysterical.

  I don’t remember coming down the stairs, but I must have. I watched them from the front doorway. I hated what I saw but couldn’t look away.

  My father got into his car and slammed the door, missing my mother’s hand by inches. He started the engine and peeled out of the driveway. My mother ran barefoot onto the road after him. I thought my father would drive off and leave her alone in the middle of the road to scream into the dusk. Instead he let the car idle and revved the engine, his face a dark blur behind the tinted window. My mother grabbed the door handle and tugged on it frantically, using her full body weight in a series of violent jerks. She looked like someone being electrocuted.

  Even as my father started pulling away she wouldn’t let go. Her bare feet slapped on the pavement as she ran alongside the moving vehicle. The car picked up speed. My mother’s legs flailed wildly. When she finally let go of the handle, she tumbled forward, scraping her knees, hands, and face on the road.

  One of our neighbours had come out of his house. He approached my mother and helped her to her feet. Her face was scratched up but her eyes were calm. She dismissed her helper with a wave of her hand. I looked around at the faces in the windows on our street. They were all focused on my mother as she walked numbly back to our house, the corners of her mouth twisting into a smile.

  In my whisky-soaked sleep I had a dream I was sitting in a fishing boat on a lake of black water. The sky was orange and smeared with sharp red clouds. Everything was still until something splashed behind me. I turned and saw Melanie treading water about twenty feet from my boat. She appeared to be naked. I stared at the pattern of freckles on her shoulders and collarbone that led down between her breasts. She lowered her head to the lake and slurped a mouthful of water until her cheeks were full, then spouted it in my direction.

  “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. T
he 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.

  3

  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.”