The Waterproof Bible (15 page)

Aby shut off the motor but remained inside the car, keeping her finger on the far end of the crack. When her hand started cramping, Aby stretched her fingers in front of her face and massaged the webbing between them. She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. Moments later, she became convinced that she was being watched. Opening her eyes, she saw her mother staring through the driver’s side window. Aby smiled, but her smile was not returned.

Margaret did not blink, and her face revealed no emotion of any kind. “I’m not going back,” Margaret said.

Aby rolled down her window.

“I’m not going back,” Margaret repeated.

“That’s not why I’m here.”

“Are you still Aquatic?”

“Let’s not start there,” Aby said, but Margaret had already turned and was walking away from the car.

Aby opened the car door. She had some difficulty getting out of the driver’s seat, but bolstered by her recent success with walking and running, she didn’t fear
the uneven ground. She put all her weight on her left foot, and then, hoping to at least appear casual, she took a step. She did not fall. She took another, then another. When she looked up to see her mother’s reaction, an apple struck her firmly on the chest.

Waving her arms to remain upright, Aby looked in the direction the apple had come from and saw her mother standing on the porch of the Prairie Embassy Hotel. There was a second apple in her hand and a basket of them at her feet. “I will not go back!” Margaret yelled. She aimed, and threw.

Aby ducked the second apple, but the third hit her squarely on her forehead, knocking her off balance. The fourth apple grazed Aby’s nose as she fell backwards. As she tried to get to her feet, apples struck her shoulders, and others landed inches from her head. On her hands and knees, Aby crawled to the white Honda Civic. Apples hit the hood of the car, producing metallic thuds. Two apples struck the windshield as she got in and closed the door. Sitting behind the wheel, Aby watched an apple strike the exact centre of the windshield, causing the crack to reach the top left corner.

Lewis stood up and then sat back down on the bench. Quickly, without giving himself time to lose his nerve, he stood up again and walked across the street. He took his hands out of his pockets, opened the door of Ear Candy Records and stepped inside. The brown carpet needed vacuuming. A thin man wearing a green T-shirt and black jeans stood behind the counter, reading a magazine. He had the same hairstyle Lewis had had before his haircut in Winnipeg.

Lewis stood in front of the New Releases section, searching for a CD. It wasn’t there. He walked to the bins and flipped through the I’s from first to last. It wasn’t there, either. Putting his hands back in his pockets, Lewis reluctantly walked to the front counter, where the clerk continued reading.

“Um,” Lewis said. “There’s a record I can’t seem to find.”

“Yeah?” the clerk said. He put his index finger on the place where he’d been reading and scratched his scruffy beard.

“The Impostors?”

The clerk looked at Lewis. Lewis watched for signs of recognition, but none appeared: a haircut and a change of clothes had been all he’d needed as a disguise. This made Lewis feel both very safe and very sad.

The clerk gave a tiny, dismissive laugh, then lifted his finger and returned to his magazine. “Try the mall,” he said, flipping the page.

“Excuse me?”

“We don’t have it.”

“You sound proud.”

“I am.”

“Why?”

The clerk looked up, closed his magazine and folded his hands on top of it. He leaned slightly forward. “Because it’s not really music,” he said. “It’s product.”

“It’s in the top five!”

“Exactly.”

“All over the world.”

“Hey, listen. I don’t want to come off as a snob,” the clerk said, raising his hands open-palmed in the air. “You can listen to whatever you want. But I mean, that band’s a one-hit wonder, and it’s already over. If you want some pop music, that’s fine, that’s great, but why don’t you try some Abba? Or the Beach Boys? Maybe the Cars? Greatest hits, anyway. Really, I can show you some great stuff.”

“Can you show a little more respect?”

“Hey, wait, I mean—”

“You know she’s dead?”

“Yeah, I heard that. Weird, eh?”

“You should be sorry,” Lewis yelled. “You should be very, very sorry!”

Lewis was suddenly unable to stop yelling. Every part of his body seemed to be yelling. His fists were yelling, his ears were yelling. His feet yelled at the floor as he walked across it, pushed the door open and left.

Lewis would never have met his wife if he hadn’t let his sister cut his hair during Christmas break of grade twelve. As with most siblings, Lewis’s relationship with his sister had involved a strange mixture of envy, hostility and loyalty. But when Joanne moved to Vancouver to take a job cutting hair at a friend’s salon, Lewis was surprised to discover that he missed her. He was even more surprised to learn that Joanne missed him too. When she came home for the holidays, they stayed up together, drinking rum and eggnog and watching the Christmas specials they’d formerly squabbled in front of. Nostalgia seeped into everything, and on Christmas Eve, after their parents had gone to bed, Joanne asked if she could cut his hair.

Lewis didn’t see how he could say no. Joanne tied a towel around his neck as he sat on a chair in the kitchen. She did not ask how he wanted his hair to be cut, she simply started. Bits of hair fell between the towel and his skin, and because of this Lewis would associate an itchy neck with transformation for the rest of his life.

She would not let him see the work in progress. Finally, with a great flourish, she removed the towel. Lewis ran upstairs. He locked the bathroom door. He closed his eyes. He moved in front of the mirror, took a very deep breath and, very slowly, opened his eyes. Joanne had cut his hair in a style Lewis would never have selected for himself. It was fashionable and hip. It was everything he wasn’t and everything he wanted to be. He ran downstairs and told her, without the irony that seasoned so many of their conversations, that it was the
best Christmas present he’d ever had. Which was good, as it was the only one Joanne had for him.

The following Monday, the hostility Lewis received from the boys at school was more than compensated for by the attention he got from the girls. Donna Walter, who had previously ignored him completely even though her locker was right next to his, spent the time between third and fourth period talking to him. When the bell rang, she didn’t move, so Lewis didn’t either. The hallway filled with students. Donna continued to look at him. He continued to lean against his locker. The hallway emptied, and the bell for fourth period rang.

“Don’t you have class?” she asked.

“Sheet-Metal Welding.”

Donna took two steps backwards, turned and walked away. Lewis waited and was rewarded when Donna looked over her shoulder four steps later, smiling. Lewis returned her smile, briefly, then began walking to Sheet-Metal Welding. Compared with his first successful flirtation, being five minutes late for shop class didn’t seem like a big deal. The only downside was that, by the time he arrived, everyone already had a partner and the only empty seat was next to Lisa Reynolds.

Lisa Reynolds was unpopular. Her hair was black, shoulder-length and lank at a time when everyone else’s was short, shiny and blond. She wore T-shirts for bands that only fathers had heard of. She seemed to smile all the time, and her teeth had gaps and were crooked. She didn’t carry books, binders or a pencil case, but any time a teacher asked her a question she knew the answer, and this, above all else, made her uncool. But even worse than
any of those transgressions was that Lisa Reynolds took shop. In a school of close to a thousand students, she was the only girl who did so.

Lewis sat down beside her. Lisa waited for him to introduce himself. She waited in vain. No words passed between them. The end of the period was nearing when Lisa said the only thing that could possibly have made Lewis give her his full attention. She was not flattering him. She was not being manipulative. She simply said exactly what was on her mind, as was her habit.

“We should start a band,” she said. “You could be the lead singer.”

Throughout the rest of the semester, very little sheet-metal welding got done. Lewis and Lisa used fourth period to fabricate their band instead. They didn’t buy instruments or take music lessons. Instead, they concentrated on what the band’s name would be and what they would look like onstage. From January 7 to January 10 they both liked the name The Stranger Things. The Stranger Things was envisioned as a large band, with an all-male horn section wearing identical brown tuxedos with baby blue ruffled shirts. There would be female backup singers dressed in tight knee-length skirts and white silk blouses. They’d play soul music, but there would also be two synthesizer players with new-wave haircuts to give the band a contemporary edge.

Then Lisa spent a Sunday afternoon skimming her sister Rebecca’s Greek Mythology textbook, and the band’s name was changed to Myth of Sisyphus. In this band, Lisa would stand mid-stage in a blue spotlight, singing nonsensical lyrics. Three cello players dressed in formal wear would play to her right. Lewis would wander
across the stage, playing different musical instruments, such as guitar, banjo, xylophone and toy piano.

The following week they became Unwashed Teen Punk Band, soon shortened to Teen Punk Band. This marked a significant and irreversible evolution. As a punk band, they would not require musical talent—they had invented a band they could actually form. Although the name changed daily, the band remained a punk band for the next seven weeks. By the middle of February, they were on the verge of buying guitars when Lisa admitted that she didn’t really want to be in a punk band. Lewis conceded that he had no desire to be in one either. Neither really felt that angry.

For seventeen days their band had no name. The dream began to fade, and Lisa and Lewis felt themselves drifting apart. Forming a band was downgraded from goal to aspiration to idea. Then Lisa purchased a Casio keyboard from a second-hand shop for seventeen dollars. By repeatedly complimenting him on his voice, she persuaded Lewis that this was all they needed.

They rehearsed in Lisa’s basement for three weeks. Since they couldn’t read music or play by ear, Lewis and Lisa decided to write a song instead of learning someone else’s. They called it “Sounds Like Something Forever.” It featured a very simple keyboard melody, and the lyrics, written by Lisa, told the story of best friends who discover true love in each other. On the last day of school before March break, at the final assembly Battle of the Bands, Lewis and Lisa performed their first gig.

They waited stage left as Threats of Youth, which Lisa and Lewis agreed was a fantastic name, finished to wild applause. Lewis and Lisa walked onstage. Lisa
carried her Casio under her arm. Lewis had only his voice and his haircut. Lisa plugged in. Lewis looked at his feet, and they began to play.

Lewis was never able to remember details about the performance. He couldn’t remember how he sang, although he assumed poorly. He couldn’t remember how well Lisa played, although he believed badly, considering her instrument was a Casio keyboard. But what was clear in his mind was how, just after the second chorus and as the bridge began, he’d dared to look up, out into the audience, and was instantly transformed. All his life Lewis had felt alienated, separated and removed. During the performance, these feelings remained, but onstage the usual dynamic was inverted. He wasn’t being cast out but elevated. He didn’t feel rejected but acclaimed. He never wanted it to end.

There was little applause. They did not win the competition. But two days later they decided to move to Halifax and study at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. It was a decision that seemed to arrive premade with the course calendar and application forms. Neither Lisa nor Lewis had been to the east coast of Canada. They’d never lived away from their parents. They still hadn’t kissed. But they both applied and were accepted, and neither questioned this.