The City Still Breathing (10 page)

Elwy can see the back of the other man's head nodding, nodding being the only thing needed of him. The waitress plunks the drinks in front of the men. The twinkly-eye man smiles at her with one corner of his mouth. ‘Hey, Martha, any naked frozen men come in here looking for a cup of coffee? Maybe a burger?'

‘No.' She keeps on smiling, but now it's a different kind, like the smile Elwy's mom gave him when she told him about his dad's heart explosion. ‘Not today.'

The short man grabs the twinkly-eye man's sleeve and hisses something as the waitress walks off.

‘What? Just joking. Hell of a thing. You go to sign us in, I take a piss and when we open it up, nothin.' He drains half his bottle in one gulp. ‘I dunno. Maybe we left the van unlocked or something. Maybe somebody was walking by. Maybe … ' He drains the rest. ‘I tell ya, they want to find this guy they should dredge up Ramsey. That guy, whatsis name, you remember that guy? Dumped that body out there a few years back. And they found that girl out by Moonlight, just floatin there. That housewife too, husband dropped her in the crick. Almost all water runs down to Ramsey, underground or whatever. Maybe he'll end up there too. They should dredge it before it starts to freeze up. Hell of a thing.'

Elwy is down at Ramsey Lake almost every day in the summer. His mom sits in a beach chair and reads while he and Emilia swim at the beach down by the amphitheatre. Elwy pictures zombies floating in the water, hair brushing up against him like the slimy weeds he hates.

‘C'mon.' Emilia out of the booth and zipping up his jacket for him, helping to pull on his mitts.

‘We going home?'

‘Nope.' Toque down over his eyes so he has to tilt his head back to see. ‘We're going to the lake.'

‘But it's too cold to swim and what about the zombies?'

‘C'mon.' Dragging him by the hand to the door, the waitress giving them one last big fake grin like her big fake hair and back at the booth the twinkly-eye man says it again, ‘Hell of a thing,' like it's the worst curse of all.

At the mouth of the underpass, Elwy plops down on the top step, puts on his best sulk and refuses to budge no matter how many vegetables Emilia cusses at him. He waits until she runs out of vegetables and has started into fruits and nuts.

‘Why do we got to find it?'

‘Because.'

‘Because why?'

‘Just because, you cashew.'

‘Because is not a reason.'

‘Because maybe there's a reward or something or maybe they'll put us on the news at 6 p.m. My dad always watches the news at 6 p.m.'

‘But I don't wanna find it.'

‘Quit being such a baby.'

‘I'm not a baby.'

‘Yes you are. So go home, you big baby, I'll find it on my own.'

‘Don't call me a baby.'

‘Baby baby baby.'

‘But you're not supposed to go to the lake alone because you can't swim.'

‘I'm not swimming – it's snowing out, you stupid flaxseed.'

Emilia stomps down the stairs and turns the corner into the tunnel. Elwy waits, his bum getting cold, no longer sulking because there's no one to see. The scuffle of feet on sidewalk and Elwy turns to find a man passing by, big shoulders stooped in a stained green work jacket like the one Emilia's dad wears. His nose is all black and red and there's tissue coming out of his nostrils. He trips, loses something – a shoe – but keeps on walking.

‘Hey!' Elwy grabbing the shoe, a slipper, and chasing after. ‘Hey!' He catches up to the tissue-nose man, him loping even with just one slipper and Elwy running along beside him shaking the slipper in the tissue-nose man's face. ‘Hey.'

The tissue-nose man stops, looks at the slipper like Elwy's mom looked at him that time he pooped in the tub by accident. Elwy's not sure if he's made the tissue-nose man mad and for a minute he thinks he's going to get yelled at. Getting yelled at's the number one thing that makes Elwy cry and he feels his eyes itching just thinking about it. But the tissue-nose man doesn't yell. He takes the slipper and puts it back on his foot. And stands there. Elwy thinks he's going to ask the where're-your-parents question, but he doesn't. He just stands and stares. Elwy tries to whistle and thinks about walking away but walking away without saying something would be rude, like not giving grandma a kiss before you leave even though her face tastes like makeup.

Then it hits him. ‘Whoa.' The tissue-nose man's face on a card in Emilia's dad's album. ‘You're like Wayne Gretzky, aren't you?'

The tissue-nose man gets a look, his eyes all scrunched up, and his top lip rolls up to show his teeth, but it's not a smile. He's said something bad. Like when Grandma threatens him with the wooden spoon bad. This guy doesn't like Wayne Gretzky. He doesn't think he's Great or anything. Elwy's never been hit before, except by Emilia, but that doesn't count because she wasn't an adult, but if he was ever gonna be hit it'd be now.

Then he sees he's wrong. Wayne Gretzky makes the tissue-nose man sad. Really, really sad. Like when his mom talks about his dad sad.

‘My dad died.' He doesn't know why he's said it. Maybe because it's the most honest thing in the world he can think of. ‘His heart exploded.' The tissue-nose man doesn't say anything, he just keeps staring, and Elwy thinks he might be staring at his pink snowpants. ‘They're not mine, they're Emilia's.' The tissue-nose man doesn't say anything again. ‘She can't swim and if she falls in she might drown.' The tissue-nose man still doesn't say anything. ‘I should go. I don't want her to die, dying is no good for anything.'

But there's still only staring and it hits Elwy – the grey face, bags under the eyes, the red stuff running from his nose to his mouth. A zombie. Right here, right out of the movies. First there'd be groaning and then cold fingers reaching and then
crunch crunch
go his brains. All he can do is close his eyes and plug his ears and blow through his lips.

When he opens his eyes, the tissue-nose man is walking off down the street. Just like that. Not a zombie – still alive. Like he'd been paused like a movie at a good part when you go pee and when you get back you hit play again and it keeps going like you never went pee or anything.

Before the tissue-nose man turns the corner, he kicks the slipper off again, and Elwy notices for the first time. They're pink. Just like his snowpants.

Then he hears a
squeaksqueak
and a cart rolls around the corner, a shadowy thing pushing it, and Elwy yells for Emilia, chasing her into the tunnel.

He catches up to her on the hillside over the park. The lake asleep, snow disappearing into it like it never mattered to anybody. ‘I'm sorry for calling you a baby,' she says.

All the trees big and black against all that collecting white. Elwy doesn't like trees at night because they look like giants. ‘Can I have some hot chocolate now?'

‘No.'

The padlock on the canoe club's gone frosty, but Emilia holds it in between her hands and blows into it for a bit. This time the key turns. Emilia has copies of all her dad's keys. She learned by the fifth time he passed out in the car and she found him in the garage the next morning. She had to break the window with a fry pan to wake him up for work.

They slip into the old wooden shack, Emilia pulling the cord on the light bulb, throwing shadows all over the place.

Elwy only has to whine a little bit to get Emilia to put her life jacket on, her little head poking out of all that orange like a Ring Pop, and within fifteen minutes they're in the water. Emilia in the back steering, of course.

She takes them out away from the canoe club and with every few strokes Elwy looks over his shoulder at the shack getting smaller and smaller on the shore. Now a grey dot, now a grey speck, now a grey gone.

‘Where're we going, Em?'

‘To the deepest part of the lake.'

‘Why?'

‘Cause that's where the underwater currents are, that's where it'll come out.'

‘But how'll we find it if it's on the bottom?'

‘Dead bodies float in cold water, El. Everybody knows that.'

Elwy remembers a movie his mom didn't know he watched late one night about underwater Nazi zombies. Zombies can live underwater because they don't breathe. Zombies could be anywhere.

‘Stop ghost whistling and paddle. You're making us go in circles.'

Elwy paddles a couple more times, grunting with each stroke, and looks around. The snow is drawn in like a curtain and he can't see the shore in any direction. It's like being in the middle of one of those snow globes in that box in the basement labelled
Christmas
. That box that Elwy and his dad used to open every December first. That box was all closed up and double taped like the coffin at the funeral all closed up because Elwy's mom said no one wants to look at somebody like that. It was like going up to stare in the windows of a house when nobody's home. Nothing to see but a whole lot of empty.

‘You ever seen a dead body before, Em?'

‘Brutus brought a busted-up chipmunk in through my window once. It just lay there breathing for a while and then it died.'

‘What'd it look like?'

‘Like a chipmunk.'

‘No, what'd it look like when it was dead?'

‘It didn't look like anything.'

Something comes toward them, or they're coming toward something, big and even darker than all the darkness around them. It's a body, for sure, Elwy can make out the head and the feet. It's the body of a giant, like those trees in the park, a sleeping giant with a mouth open and hungry. Some little noise comes running up his throat and then Emilia behind him says, ‘Elwy, watch out, we're gonna hit that island.'

His heart inching its way back inside him while he pushes up against the rock with his paddle, slowing them down. They paddle around the shore to a low point and Emilia steers them, grinding, up on the sand. ‘Here.'

Out of the canoe, they climb on hands and knees up a hump of rock, Elwy landing in a heap at the top, panting little clouds. It's a small island with a couple of trees and it doesn't look like a giant at all, it's more like a turtle. They're on the mound of the shell and it slopes down to a long, low neck.

‘You see anything?' Emilia standing beside him with one hand over her eyes, scanning the water like those pictures of pirate captains looking for booty. ‘
Any
thing?'

Elwy sees rock, a few trees and lots and lots of water.

‘No, you radish, like a body.'

‘Can we have the hot chocolate now, Em?'

‘In a bit. Let's look around some more.'

‘Why here?' Elwy throws a rock in the water. ‘It's just a stupid island.'

‘It's a good home base. You can see all over. We'll be able to spot it when it surfaces.'

‘What if it doesn't?'

‘It will.'

‘Then what?'

‘Then we'll bring it back and everything's gonna be great, you'll see.'

Elwy follows Emilia down the rocky mound. They push through a couple of birch trees and climb out along the neck of the turtle, standing on its head. There are names spray-painted and scratched all over the rocks here. Many boys and girls loving many other boys and girls forever. Elwy wonders how you can love forever if you can't live forever.

They crawl on their stomachs to the edge where someone has sprayed
diving rock
in big letters, and right below that enter the void and right below that
Slim loves Francie
. They peer over the edge into the black water. Elwy thinks about the chicken fingers and plum sauce he didn't have.

‘Can we please have the hot chocolate now?'

‘Not yet.'

‘Why and don't just say because.'

‘Because.' Emilia rolls on her side to look at him. ‘There isn't any.'

‘But you promised.'

‘I didn't promise.'

‘Saying is promising.'

‘There was none in the cupboard, okay? We ran out. Dad said it's not an
essential
.'

‘I'm tired and cold and hungry for chicken fingers and I need to pee and my mom's gonna kill me if we ever get home and I didn't even get any hot chocolate and you promised.' Elwy rolls onto his back with a big huff. ‘We're never gonna find this stupid body.'

‘Don't say that.'

‘Well, we won't.'

‘But I got to.'

He turns his head to look at her. ‘There isn't any stupid reward anyway, so why do we gotta find it?'

‘I just got to.'

‘Is it because your mom doesn't make you dinner anymore because she left with the Other Man or because your dad doesn't love you?'

Emilia's face gets all scrunched up like he's just been really mean, the meanest ever, and Elwy didn't mean to be mean, he was only asking. She doesn't say anything, just gives him that look and then rolls away, her back moving in and out with her breath. Emilia doesn't cry, but if she did cry she'd be crying right now. Elwy wants to stop her back from moving in and out so much, but he doesn't know what to say or do.