Fall (27 page)

She can’t stop laughing.

I think it’s notionally in the middle says the cabdriver.

What.

The river itself is the border between Ontario and Quebec but the actual dividing line, I think, is notionally in the middle of the river.

I see I say. What the fuck.

King George the Third determined that the river would be the border in 1791.

I’m so fuckin confused.

Interesting Fall says.

Night tastes wetter than day on that bag in the back of the throat.

What were you laughing at in the cab I say.

I don’t know she says. Honestly.

We’re hugging.

It’s hard to explain.

You were laughing at me.

I wasn’t. Not exactly she says.

Not exactly.

I think I was kind of laughing about how much I love you.

Hm I say.

I don’t know she says. I love you a lot, J.

We’re hugging.

This is a long fuckin line I say.

We’re here right at eleven. Everyone gets here at eleven.

I’m high.

I’m laughing.

She’s laughing.

Who knows.

She’s hot.

She’s cute.

She’s not. He’s big.

She’s cute.

She’s old.

Old’s good.

No it’s not.

That guy just bumped my shoulder and I’m not gonna turn around.

Let’s get a table she shouts!

It’s packed I shout!

We’ll probably ha to air!

I couldn’t hear that. Ok I shout!

I’m spilling my beer.

I feel like shouting but I don’t know what.

There’s some seats she shouts!

There’s four people I shout!

There’s room she shouts!

Ok I shout!

Two guys. Two girls laughing.

Can we sit here shouts Fall!

Sure shouts a guy!

Me and Fall and girls and guys, check check check check check check, we’re all ok, check check.

I know you shouts a guy!

Me I shout!

Yeah he shouts!

Where I shout!

We played you he shouts!

I’m sitting.

I’m at Glebe he shouts! Left wing!

Ok I shout! You guys beat us I shout!

You scored a beautiful goal he shouts!

We like each other.

I was just in the bathroom she shouts!

I know!

And these girls were putting eyeliner on some of their teeth! Blacking them out!

Why!

To make their teeth look ugly! I asked them! They said we want to make ourselves look ugly! When guys hit on them! When they ask them to dance, they smile and say Sure and their teeth look rotten!

That’s hilarious!

And the guys go away!

That’s hilarious!

I want you to ask them to dance she shouts!

That’s hilarious!

Wait she shouts!

She’s coming over.

She’s got her eyeliner.

Smile!

I’m smiling.

She’s blacking out my tooth.

Try not to taste it!

I taste it.

Tastes like sand!

Ok!

I’m smiling.

She’s laughing.

Where are they!

The blonde in the green over there!

Nice!

With the blonde in the black! Red purse!

Nice!

I’m not gonna dance with you if you can’t get them to dance!

You’re gonna dance! I’m gonna dance like a fuckin idiot!

We’ll see!

I’m walking.

I’m dancing.

I’m walking.

I’m trying not to smile.

Hey!

Hi!

I was over there! I saw you guys from over there! I like your purse!

Thanks! She flashes the teeth. Can’t smile yet. Can’t smile yet.

They’re both smiling.

It’s FUCKIN hilarious.

I’m smiling.

They see the tooth.

       H

                   H

H

H

H!

You stole our trick!

H!

                     H!

h.

My girlfriend won’t dance with me if I don’t get you two to dance!

Let’s dance says Green!

Hoo!

Never dance seriously.

Hoo!

Never.

Ever.

Dance.

Seriously.

Hoo!

They’re laughing and their teeth look so fuckin funny.

You’ve got three girls shouts Fall! You’ve got a rotten front tooth and three pretty girls!

Those two aren’t pretty! Look at their teeth!

Hoo!

My girlfriend and I are gonna hang out on the fire escape shouts Green!

It’s hot I shout!

I know!

Fall! Let’s hang out on the fire escape!

Ok!

We’re walking.

I’m sweating.

I’m dancing.

I’m walking.

It’s so fuckin crowded in here.

Green’s kind of flirty.

Green has a nice ass.

Black has a nice ass.

Fall’s ass is perfect I’ve seen it. Hey everyone. All you guys with your beer and no girls: I’ve seen that girl’s ass and it’s perfect.

Outside!

Whoo it’s cold says Black.

Green puts her arms around her.

We’re all standing close and other people are standing close and there’s a shoe in the door so we can all get back to the noise.

It’s quiet out here I say.

They’re laughing. Black and Green with their arms around each other and rottentooth laughs and they’re pretty.

I can’t take any of you seriously says Fall.

You should do it too says Green.

No way says Fall. I want guys to pick me up. I’m looking for a guy with nice teeth tonight.

I’m thinking about braces and the time I drooled on the dentist’s assistant and now I’m thinking about a nurse’s hand on my balls, cough cough, and red candy. I don’t want a hard-on.

We met a dental hygiene girl in line tonight I say.

That’s true says Fall.

She could clean us up.

That’s true.

That’s the job we should have says Black. No one could hit on us because they’d always have drills and . . . things in their mouth.

The dentist could hit on you I say.

We’re travel agents says Black.

She ignored me.

And everyone’s hitting on us all day. Guys come in and want to fly to New York and next thing you know they’re inviting us down to Barbados.

I’m kind of smiling.

Fall’s kind of smiling.

I think we don’t like Black. I think I don’t like girls who always talk about getting hit on.

I like Green’s eyes she’s looking at me.

Does Fall see her looking at me.

I’m thinking why do girls who don’t want to get hit on come to Chez Henri in pretty dresses and legs. Throats.

Smoke I say.

I hand them out.

I pass the lighter around because I do not light people’s cigarettes.

Music’s through the door and I’m dancing.

Julius likes dancing.

I’m smiling my tooth.

Green has a nice laugh.

She’s looking at me.

Is that a shooting star or an airplane says Black.

Black’s not so pretty she looks mean.

It has red lights on it says Fall.

Black looks at Fall.

I think they don’t like each other.

My name’s Julius I say.

Parvannie says Black.

Pardon.

P-A-R-V-A-N-E-H she says. It’s Persian. It means butterfly.

Butterfly.

Pretty says Fall.

I’m Julie says Green. It means girl from southern Ontario.

Pretty I say.

I’m thinking whatshername does not look like a butterfly.

I’m dancing a little like I wanna go back in. I’m showing the tooth.

I
KNOW
I didn’t hit her.

I know my feet were wet, so hers were deeper in the river. I know she kept backing away from me, but I couldn’t believe it.

I told her that there was no time left and she had to be herself. She kept lunging for her crutches and I felt they were a distraction from the issue. Lovers fight over objects that have nothing to do with love.

She said, “Let me go,” but I know I wasn’t holding her.

I felt logic and reason bursting through me like gusts of pepper. It makes no sense that you’re not with me.

“I don’t like you,” was all she could say.

I know she was alive when I left her and ran up the hill, and I never saw the scene as grave.

Life never walked through my door and smiled, never said there was so much more outside. I know there are many like me.

Someone went down there and helped her. Someone found her and that life we can never know was known.

My father took an interest when I said someone was missing from St. Ebury. “The son of the U.S. ambassador is involved?”

There was something caricaturish about my father. All the manners of the Canadian ambassador class: the anglophilia, the learned unflappability, the nose for rank and status. He pretended not to be surprised by anything, to be familiar with every conceivable outcome of all human behaviour; but he had the prurience of a common
journalist and could feed on gossip like a kitchen maid. He wanted every detail of Fall’s disappearance, and, naturally, I told him little.

He hosted a small party which I was forced to attend that Christmas. Everything in Australia was casual, which my father embraced with characteristic mendacity. I have met few more formal men in my life, but during those years in Australia my father, in certain company, was a back-slapping, glad-handing, shorts-wearing lover of mateship and Rugby League. We sat around the living room, I, my father, a handful of colleagues and acquaintances, and my father forced me to recount some of the drama of that term. He pronounced “drama” with a soupçon of local flavour.

I responded with sullen, adolescent brevity and we really didn’t discuss the matter much more. What I recall most vividly from that party was watching him listen to the story of one of his guests; he had a drink on his bare knee and was leaning back on the couch. I watched him, silently nodding, smiling, and so on, and I noticed that half of his scrotum was protruding through the leg of his shorts. I found it quite funny and was waiting for other people to see it, but my father noticed it himself during an inattentive nod. I watched the shock and embarrassment flash over his face, the hope that no one had seen. I watched him continue to pretend that he was listening to the story, and I could see so clearly how ashamed he was to reveal himself, how thoroughly he believed that a man so dignified couldn’t possibly possess that absurd, vulnerable walnut.

How much further from himself did my little father travel when he adjusted the leg of his shorts?

I took up boxing at the gym in Sydney. The heavy bag was my favourite: shifting weight with my fists, the slow dance, the leather’s dumb embrace. I didn’t fight anyone until I returned to St. Ebury, and that hardly qualified as boxing, but hitting the bag for those couple of weeks was the perfect antidote to reasoned meditation.

I ate a lot, avoided my parents, went to the beach. I read widely. My father had a good library.

And what is the role of books? What good did it do me to learn these words, to travel the ruts of other minds?

It allowed me to be perceived as calm and bookish. It meant my father felt certain of my future, that there would be these rooms in my later life.

And where do bullies come from?

The books give us truth and remedies, saying the bullies are the bullied, the bygone victims of what they are inflicting. We can root them out. Bullies were once downtrodden, they address insecurities through instilling them in others. We can cure them. They come from bully fathers. Women are rarely bullies. There is a solution in words.

Religion, psychology, philosophy, fiction: charlatan words pretending to capture a moment, to know the future, to exist beyond death. The more we weave patterns, the more we think we cover the body of life. Whenever holes appear we adjust the weave, add more words, pretend that our days are not doomed to unpredictability.

I want to believe in patterns.

Where do bullies come from? They come from the burn of blood in monkey hearts. They are flashes of teeth under hungry primordial moons. Bullies are older than words, and anger is more enduring. The things I did could not have been stopped, and words could never erase them.

Show me the perfect way to deal with life’s surprises. Show me how desire and hunger could possibly be ethical. Show me a library, and I’ll show you what concealed but couldn’t hold me.

T
HE MUSIC
’
S IN
my ribs and the table’s under my elbows.

That guy’s dancing like his joints need oiling.

Is he doing that on purpose I shout!

I think so shouts Fall!

Her smile’s getting blurry.

The table’s all ours.

Her smile’s not blurry if I focus.

I’m kind of fucked I shout!

Me too she shouts!

Wanna dance!

Not yet!

We’re watching.

It’s called a banquette she shouts!

We’re sitting on it.

She’s close and my hand’s on her hip and I feel like I own the place.

She’s looking at me.

I’m looking at that guy, that guy, that girl, that drink, that girl, that ass, that laugh, that arm, it’s big, those tits, that coaster.

I haven’t seen anyone we know she shouts!

No!

It’s so crowded!

I know!

Look at that guy!

The fat guy!

Yeah!

He’s pretty fat!

Does he remind you of anybody!

No!

No!

Who!

Your roommate!

Him!

Noel!

But he’s fat I shout!

I can totally see Noel looking like that in like twenty years!

No!

Thirty years!

No!

If he got fat!

Maybe!