Man Descending (10 page)

“They’re watching us,” he said, staring past me at an empty car parked in the bright street.

Frightened, I closed my book and asked who was watching us.

“The relief people,” he said tiredly. “They think I’ve got money hidden somewhere. They’re watching me, trying to catch me with it. The joke’s on them. I got no money.” He made a quick, furtive gesture that drew attention to his almost naked body, as if it were proof of his poverty.

“Nobody is watching us. That car’s empty.”

“Don’t take sides with them,” he said, staring through the screen. I thought someone from one of the houses across the street might see him like that, practically naked.

“The neighbours’ll see,” I said, turning my head to avoid looking at him.

“See what?” he asked, surprised.

“You standing like that. Naked almost.”

“There’s nothing they can do. A man’s home is his castle. That’s what the English say, isn’t it?”

And he went away laughing.

Going down the hallway, drawing close to his door that always stood ajar, what did I hope? To see him dressed, his trousers rolled up to mid-calf to avoid smudging his cuffs, whistling under his breath, shining his shoes? Everything as it was before? Yes. I hoped that. If I had been younger then and still believed that frogs were turned into princes with a kiss, I might even have believed it could happen. But I didn’t believe. I only hoped. Every time I approached his door (and that was many times a day, too many), I felt the queasy excitement of hope.

It was always the same. I would look in and see him lying on the tufted pink bedspread, naked or nearly so, gasping for breath in the heat. And I always thought of a whale stranded on a beach because he was such a big man. He claimed he slept all day because of the heat, but he only pretended to. He could feel me watching him and his eyes would open. He would tell me to go away, or bring him a glass of water; or, because his paranoia was growing more marked, ask me to see if they were still in the street. I would go to the window and tell him, yes, they were. Nothing else satisfied him. If I said they weren’t, his jaw would shift from side to side unsteadily and his eyes would prick with tears. Then he imagined more subtle and intricate conspiracies.

I would ask him how he felt.

“Hot,” he’d say, “I’m always hot. Can’t hardly breathe. Damn country,” and turn on his side away from me.

My mother was worried about money. There was none left. She asked me what to do. She believed women shouldn’t make decisions.

“You’ll have to go to the town office and apply for relief,” I told her.

“No, no,” she’d say, shaking her head. “I couldn’t go behind his back. I couldn’t do that. He’ll go himself when he feels better. He’ll snap out of it. It takes a little time.”

In the evening my father would finally dress and come downstairs and eat something. When it got dark he’d go out into the yard and sit on the swing he’d hung from a limb of our Manitoba maple years before, when I was a little boy. My mother and I would sit and watch him from the verandah. I felt obligated to sit with her. Every night as he settled himself onto the swing she would say the same thing. “He’s too big. It’ll never hold him. He’ll break his back.” But the swing held him up and the darkness hid him from the eyes of his enemies, and I like to think that made him happy, for a time.

He’d light a cigarette before he began to swing, and then we’d watch its glowing tip move back and forth in the darkness like a beacon. He’d flick it away when it was smoked, burning a red arc in the night, showering sparks briefly, like a comet. And then he’d light another and another, and we’d watch them glow and swing in the night.

My mother would lean over to me and say confidentially, “He’s thinking it all out. It’ll come to him, what to do.”

I never knew whether she was trying to reassure me or herself. At last my mother would get to her feet and call to him, telling him she was going up to bed. He never answered. I waited a little longer, believing that watching him I kept him safe in the night. But I always gave up before he did and went to bed too.

The second week of September I returned to school. Small differences are keenly felt. For the first time there was no new sweater, or unsharpened pencils, or new fountain pen whose nib hadn’t spread under my heavy writing hand. The school was the same school I had gone to for eight years, but that day I climbed the stairs to the second floor that housed the high school. Up there the wind moaned more persistently than I remembered it had below, and intermittently it threw handfuls of dirt and dust from the schoolyard against the windows with a gritty rattle.

Our teacher, Mrs. MacDonald, introduced herself to us, though she needed no introduction since everyone knew who she was – she had taught there for over ten years. We were given our texts and it cheered me a little to see I would have no trouble with Latin after my summer’s work. Then we were given a form on which we wrote a lot of useless information. When I came to the space which asked for Racial Origin I paused, and then, out of loyalty to my father, numbly wrote in “Canadian.”

After that we were told we could leave. I put my texts away in a locker for the first time – we had had none in public school – but somehow it felt strange going home from school empty-handed. So I stopped at the library door and went in. There was no school librarian and only a few shelves of books, seldom touched. The room smelled of dry paper and heat. I wandered around aimlessly, taking books down, opening them, and putting them back. That is, until I happened on Caesar’s
The Gallic Wars
. It was a small, thick book that nestled comfortably in the hand. I opened it and saw that the left-hand pages were printed in Latin and the right-hand pages were a corresponding English translation. I carried it away with me, dreaming of more than proficiency in Latin.

When I got home my mother was standing on the front step, peering anxiously up and down the street.

“Have you seen your father?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “Why?”

She began to cry. “I told him all the money was gone. I asked him if I could apply for relief. He said he’d go himself and have it out with them. Stand on his rights. He took everything with him. His citizenship papers, baptismal certificate, old passport, bank book, everything. I said, ‘Everyone knows you. There’s no need.’ But he said he needed proof. Of what? He’ll cause a scandal. He’s been gone for an hour.”

We went into the house and sat in the living-room. “I’m a foolish woman,” she said. She got up and hugged me awkwardly. “He’ll be all right.”

We sat a long time listening for his footsteps. At last we heard someone come up the walk. My mother got up and said, “There he is.” But there was a knock at the door.

I heard them talking at the door. The man said, “Edith, you better come with me. George is in some trouble.”

My mother asked what trouble.

“You just better come. He gave the town clerk a poke. The constable and doctor have him now. The doctor wants to talk to you about signing some papers.”

“I’m not signing any papers,” my mother said.

“You’d better come, Edith.”

She came into the living-room and said to me, “I’m going to get your father.”

I didn’t believe her for a minute. She put her coat on and went out.

She didn’t bring him home. They took him to an asylum. It was a shameful word then, asylum. But I see it in a different light now. It seems the proper word now, suggesting as it does refuge, a place to hide.

I’m not sure why all this happened to him. Perhaps there is no reason anyone can put their finger on, although I have my ideas.

But I needed a reason then. I needed a reason that would lend him a little dignity, or rather, lend me a little dignity; for I was ashamed of him out of my own weakness. I needed him to be strong, or at least tragic. I didn’t know that most people are neither.

When you clutch at straws, anything will do. I read my answer out of Caesar’s
The Gallic Wars
, the fat little book I had carried home. In the beginning of Book I he writes, “Of all people the Belgae are the most courageous.…” I read on, sharing Caesar’s admiration for a people who would not submit but chose to fight and see glory in their wounds. I misread it all, and bent it until I was satisfied. I reasoned the way I had to, for my sake, for my father’s. What was he but a man dishonoured by faceless foes? His instincts could not help but prevail, and like his ancestors, in the end, on that one day, what could he do but make the shadows real, and fight to be free of them?

Drummer

Y
OU’D THINK
my old man was the Pope’s nephew or something if you’d seen how wild he went when he learned I’d been sneaking off Sundays to Faith Baptist Church. Instead of going to eleven o’clock Mass like he figured I was.

Which is kind of funny. Because although Mom is solid R.C. – eight o’clock Mass and saying a rosary at the drop of a hat – nobody ever accused Pop of being a religious fanatic by no means. He goes to confession regular like an oil change, every five thousand miles, or Easter, whichever comes first.

Take the Knights of Columbus. He wouldn’t join those guys for no money. Whenever Mom starts in on him about enlisting he just answers back that he can’t afford the outlay on armour and where’d we keep a horse? Which is his idea of a joke. So it isn’t exactly as if he was St. Joan of Arc himself to go criticizing me.

And Pop wouldn’t have been none the wiser if it wasn’t for my older brother Gene, the prick. Don’t think I don’t know who told. But I can’t expect nothing different from that horse’s ass.

So, as I was saying, my old man didn’t exactly take it all in stride. “Baptists!
Baptists!
I’m having your head examined. Do you hear me? I’m having it
examined!
Just keep it up and see if I don’t, you crazy little pecker. They roll in the aisles. Baptists, for chrissakes!”

“I been three times already and nobody rolled in an aisle once.”

“Three times?
Three times?
Now it all comes out. Three, eh?” He actually hits himself in the forehead with the heel of his palm. Twice. “Jesus Christ Almighty, I’m blessed with a son like this? What’s the matter with you? Why can’t you ever do something I can understand?”

“Like wrecking cars?” This is a swift kick in the old fun sack. Pop’s just getting over Gene’s totalling off the first new car he’s bought in eight years. A 1966 Chevy Impala.

“Shut your smart mouth. Don’t go dragging your brother into this. Anyway, what he done to the car was
accidental
. But not you. Oh no, you marched into that collection of religious screwballs, holy belly-floppers, and linoleum-beaters under your own steam.
On purpose
. For God’s sake, Billy, that’s no religion that – it’s
exercise
. Stay away from them Baptists.”

“Can’t,” I says to him.

“Can’t?
Can’t?
Why the hell not?”

“Matter of principle.”

They teach us that in school, matters of principle. I swear it’s a plot to get us all slaughtered the day they graduate us out the door. It’s their revenge, see? Here we are reading books in literature class about some banana who’s only got one oar in the water to start with, and then he pops it out worrying about principles. Like that Hamlet, or what’s his name in
A Tale of Two Cities
. Ever notice how many of those guys are alive at the end of those books they teach us from?

“I’ll principle you,” says the old man.

The only teacher who maybe believes all that crock of stale horseshit about principles is Miss Clark, who’s fresh out of wherever they bake Social Studies teachers. She’s got principles on the brain. For one thing, old Clarkie has pretty nearly wallpapered her room with pictures of that Negro, Martin Luther King, and some character who’s modelling the latest in Wabasso sheets and looks like maybe he’d kill for a hamburger – Gandhi is his name – and that hairy old fart Tolstoy, who wrote the books you need a front-end loader to lift. From what Clarkie tells us, I gather they’re what you call nonviolent shit-disturbers.

Me too. Being a smart-ass runs in the Simpson family. It’s what you call hereditary, like a disease. That’s why all of a sudden, before I even
think
for chrissakes, I hear myself lecturing the old man in this fruity voice that’s a halfway decent imitation of old Clarkie, and I am using the exact words which I’ve heard her say myself.

“Come, come, surely by this day and age everybody has progressed to the point where we can all agree on the necessity of freedom of worship. If we can’t agree on anything else, at least we can agree on that.”

I got news for her. My old man don’t agree to no such thing. He up and bangs me one to the side of the head. A backhander special. You see, nobody in our house is allowed an opinion until they’re twenty-one.

Of course, I could holler Religious Persecution. Not that it would do any good. But it’s something I happen to know quite a bit about, seeing as Religious Persecution was my assignment in Social Studies that time we studied Man’s Inhumanity to Man. The idea was to write a two-thousand-word report proving how everybody has been a shit to everybody else through the ages, and where did it ever get them? This is supposed to improve us somehow, I guess.

Anyway, as usual anything good went fast. Powbrowski got A. Hitler, Keller put dibs on Ivan the Terrible, Langly asked for Genghis Khan. By the time old Clarkie got around to me there was just a bunch of crap left like No Votes For Women. So I asked, please, could I do a project on Mr. Keeler? Keeler is the dim-witted bat’s fart who’s principal of our school.

For being rude, Miss Clark took away my “privilege” of picking and said I had to do Religious Persecution. Everybody was avoiding that one like the plague.

Actually, I found Religious Persecution quite interesting. It’s got principles too, number one being that whatever you’re doing to some poor son of a bitch – roasting his chestnuts over an open fire, or stretching his pant-leg from a 29-incher to a 36-incher on the rack – why, you’re doing it for his own good. So he’ll start thinking right. Which is more or less what my old man was saying when he told me I can’t go out of the house on Sundays any more. He says to me, “You aren’t setting a foot outside of that door [he actually points at it] of a Sunday until you come to your senses and quit with all the Baptist bullshit.”

Not that that’s any heavy-duty torture. What he don’t know is that these Baptists have something called Prayer, Praise and Healing on Wednesday nights. My old man hasn’t locked me up Wednesday nights yet by no means.

I figure if my old man wants somebody to blame for me becoming a Baptist he ought to take a peek in my older brother Gene’s direction. He started it.

Which sounds awful funny if you know anything about Gene. Because if Gene was smart enough to have ever thought about it, he’d come out pretty strong against religion, since it’s generally opposed to most things he’s in favour of.

Still, nobody thinks the worse of my brother for doing what he likes to do. They make a lot of excuses for you in a dinky mining town that’s the arsehole of the world if you bat .456 and score ninety-eight goals in a thirty-five-game season. Shit, last year they passed the hat around to all the big shots on the recreation board and collected the dough for one of Gene’s liquor fines and give it to him on the q.t.

But I’m trying to explain my brother. If I had to sum him up I’d probably just say he’s the kind of guy doesn’t have to dance. What I mean is, you take your average, normal female: they slobber to dance. The guys that stand around leaning against walls are as popular to them as syphilis. You don’t dance, you’re a pathetic dope – even the ugly ones despise you.

But not Gene. He don’t dance and they all cream. You explain it. Do they figure he’s too superior to be bothered? Because it’s not true. I’m his brother and I know. The dink just can’t dance. That simple. But if I mention this little fact to anybody, they look at me like I been playing out in the sun too long. Everybody around here figures Mr. Wonderful could split the fucking atom with a hammer and a chisel if he put his mind to it.

Well, almost everybody. There’s a born doubter in every crowd. Ernie Powers is one of these. He’s the kind of stupid fuck who’s sure they rig the Stanley Cup and the Oscars and nobody even went up in space. Everything is a hoax to him. Yet he believes professional wrestling is on the up and up. You wonder – was he dropped on his head, or what? Otherwise you got to have a plan to grow up that ignorant.

So it was just like Einstein to bet Gene ten dollars he couldn’t take out Nancy Williams. He did that while we were eating a plate of chips and gravy together in the Rite Spot and listening to Gene going on about who’s been getting the benefit of his poking lately. Powers, who is a very jealous person because he’s going steady with his right hand, says, oh yeah sure, maybe her, but he’d bet ten bucks somebody like Nancy Williams in 11
B
wouldn’t even go out with Gene.

“Get serious,” says my brother when he hears that. He considers himself irresistible to the opposite sex.

“Ten bucks. She’s strictly off-limits even to you, Mr. Dreamboat. It’s all going to waste. That great little gunga-poochy-snuggy-bum, that great matched set. Us guys in 11
B
, you know what we call them? The Untouchables. Like on
TV.”

“What a fucking sad bunch. Untouchables for you guys, maybe. If any of you queers saw a real live piece of pelt you’d throw your hat over it and run.”

“Talk’s cheap,” says Ernie, real offended. “You don’t know nothing about her. My sister says Miss High-and-Mighty didn’t go out for cheerleading because the outfits was
too revealing
. My sister says Nancy Williams belongs to some religion doesn’t allow her to dance. Me, I saw her pray over a hard-boiled egg for about a half-hour before she ate it in the school lunch-room. Right out where anybody could see, she prayed. No way somebody like that is going to go out with you, Simpson. If she does I’ll eat my shorts.”

“Start looking for the ten bucks, shitface, and skip dinner, because I’m taking Nancy Williams to the Christmas Dance,” my brother answers him right back. Was Gene all of a sudden hostile or was he hostile? I overheard our hockey coach say one time that my brother Gene’s the kind of guy rises to a challenge. The man’s got a point. I lived with Gene my whole life, which is sixteen years now, and I ought to know. Unless he gets mad he’s useless as tits on a boar.

You better believe Gene was mad. He called her up right away from the pay phone in the Rite Spot. It was a toss-up as to which of those two jerks was the most entertaining. Powers kept saying, “There’s no way she’ll go out with him. No way.” And every time he thought of parting with a ten-spot, a look came over his face like he just pinched a nut or something. The guy’s so christly tight he squeaks when he walks. He was sharing
my
chips and gravy, if you know what I mean?

And then there was Gene. I must say I’ve always enjoyed watching him operate. I mean, even on the telephone he looks so sincere I could just puke. It’s not unconscious by no means. My brother explained to me once what his trick is. To look that way you got to think that way is his motto. “What I do, Billy,” he told me once, “is make myself believe, really believe, say … well, that an H-bomb went off, or that some kind of disease which only attacks women wiped out every female on the face of the earth but the one I’m talking to. That makes her the last piece of tail on the face of the earth, Billy! It’s just natural then to be extra nice.” Even though he’s my brother, I swear to God he had to been left on our doorstep.

Of course, you can’t argue with success. As soon as Gene hung up and smiled, Powers knew he was diddled. Once. But my brother don’t show much mercy. Twice was coming. Nancy Williams had a cousin staying with her for Christmas vacation. She wondered if maybe Gene could get this cousin a date? When Powers heard that, he pretty nearly went off in his pants. Nobody’ll go out with him. He’s fat and he sweats and he never brushes his teeth, there’s stuff grows on them looks like the crap that floats on top of a slough. Even the really desperate girls figure no date is less damaging to their reputations than a date with Powers. You got to hold the line somewhere is how they look at it.

So Ernie’s big yap cost him fifteen dollars. He blew that month’s baby bonus (which his old lady gives him because he promises to finish school) and part of his allowance. The other five bucks is what he had to pay when Gene sold him Nancy Williams’ cousin. It damn near killed him.

All right. Maybe I ought to’ve said something when Gene marched fat Ernie over to the Bank of Montreal to make a withdrawal on this account Powers has had since he was seven and started saving for a bike. He never got around to getting the bike because he couldn’t bring himself to ever see that balance go down. Which is typical.

Already then I knew Ernie wasn’t taking the cousin to no Christmas Dance. I’d heard once too often from that moron how Whipper Billy Watson would hang a licking on Cassius Clay, or how all the baseball owners get together in the spring to decide which team will win the World Series in the fall. He might learn to keep his hole shut for once.

The thing is
I’d
made up my mind to take the cousin. For nothing. It just so happens that, Gene being mad, he’d kind of forgot he’s not allowed to touch the old man’s vehicle. Seeing as he tied a chrome granny knot around a telephone pole with the last one.

Gene didn’t realize it yet but he wasn’t going nowhere unless I drove. And I was going to drive because I’d happened to notice Nancy Williams around. She seemed like a very nice person who maybe had what Miss Clark says are principles. I suspected that if that was true, Gene for once was going to strike out, and no way was I going to miss
that
. Fuck, I’d have killed to see that. No exaggeration.

On the night of the Christmas Dance it’s snowing like a bitch. Not that it’s cold for December, mind you, but snowing. Sticky, sloppy stuff that almost qualifies for sleet, coming down like crazy. I had to put the windshield wipers on. In December yet.

Nancy Williams lives on the edge of town way hell and gone, in new company housing. The mine manager is the dick who named it Green Meadows. What a joke. Nobody lives there seen a blade of grass yet nor pavement neither. They call it Gumboot Flats because if it’s not frozen it’s mud. No street-lights neither. It took me a fuck of a long time to find her house in the dark. When I did I shut off the motor and me and Gene just sat.