This All Happened(43)

            I had her, for a moment. When she didnt know my body. Starlings are walking through a grassy hill, eating insects. Green is the garbage of gardens. They are sloughing off green.

            17 At Coleman’s grocery store. The distorted women, freakshow faces, warped eyebrows, blotchy complexions about four of them, their tiny husbands pushing carts. A pregnant woman with groceries. She comes out with the bags and there’s a man in the passenger seat, waiting, staring at the glovebox, defeated, with a nine-year-old in the back, and the pregnant woman, struggling into the door, forces her belly behind the wheel, pained, drives.

            Thin legs on the women, big torsos, and their pushed-in, beaten faces, receding chins, thin hair crimped artificially. Then calling taxis, paying with Government of Newfoundland blue cheques that require MCP and SIN and theyre worth $301.50 and theyre buying cases of Pepsi, Spaghettios, tins of vienna sausages, cold pre-fried barbecue wings, I can barely write this as it’s all so cliche.

            18 It’s 3 a.m. and Wilf Jardine will not leave Lydia’s party. We have to con him. Trouble is, he is used to this game and is wily, wary of deception. He cranks up the music another decibel. I tell him that he has to go now. That I’ll go with him. We can go down to the Spur, I say.

            Wilf faces me, drunk and wincing. He is drinking shine, panty remover, he calls it. There is a yellow stain on his lapel. It makes the tweed in his coat look like sandwich spread. I’ll go to the Spur, he says. But not with you.

            He turns to Lydia.

            Lydia: I’ll go with you, Wilf.

            That’s better, he says. No offence, Gabe.

            I call a cab and we wait in the porch. Silent.

            We get in the cab and head to the Spur. Halfway down he changes his mind.

            Wilf: I want to go home.

            He rolls down his window and yells at some Filipino sailors.

            Naw, let’s keep her rolling.

            We end up at the Spur and Alex is there and I sit with Alex while Lydia takes care of Wilf at the bar. I have my hand around Alex. Craig Regular comes over to talk to Wilf and Lydia, and he makes Lydia’s head bend back in laughter.

            Alex says, Wilf Jardine has written one good song. When you hear that song, you know Wilf is worth it.

            Alex believes if you pray for someone and that person doesnt know youre praying for them, the prayer can still work. She reads fantasy novels set in utopian times. All this I find unattractive.

            Wilf, she says, wants only visitors who need his help. You ever been in his house? He owns no plants.

            Craig Regular is buying Wilf and Lydia a drink.

            You want a drink, Alex?

            19 Something in me makes me run at night.

            I was exhausted, back from a dinner party at Maisie’s new place. I walked through the mist and the darkness and the quiet of Sunday night. I like returning home slowly, to end the night with a known destination.

            Lydia’s right: Maisie looks good since leaving Oliver. She hitchhiked across the island to see her sister. One man who picked her up asked math questions like: Say you have one brick . . . Another kept stopping into museums and said, Oh, I’ve got a better one of those at home in the garage. There was a tire leak and the first guy tried to figure out an equation that would predict the rate of deflation.

            20 I call Mom as it’s her birthday. She said, Your dad came in to the kitchen, bent his knees a little, put his hands on my shoulders, and sang Happy Birthday.

            I say, Youre now twice my age.

            She hadnt realized I was this old.