She cuddles into me and I can feel a laugh in her body. So did you kiss him?
Do you really want to know?
7 The story of my life with Lydia is the conflict of desire and being sated. Lydia is satisfied with me but dissatisfied with all other things. I’m the opposite. She appraises the world as a canvas to improve. I accept the canvas, am content to live within its confines. I dont think to upgrade the armchair or paint a room. I exist in a state of being, Lydia in a state of flux.
8 I’ve walked down to Ryan’s Plumbing with Lydia’s faucet. Mr Ryan is serving Boyd Coady, who has clear green cat’s eyes. They are in disagreement. Boyd says to me, Do you know anything about plumbing?
I say,You can’t be serious.
Mr Ryan dont know anything, Boyd says. He won’t be able to help you with that. Boyd points to my faucet spindle. I walk back to Lydia’s with the busted spindle.
The shadows of trees are more pronounced because of the new leaves.
Lydia is out weeding the back. Tinker Bumbo is barking at the backs of houses on Duckworth Street. He’s just standing there, barking at the sun. Barely notices me.
Two girls sit on the steps of a house next door.
There’s an electric chainsaw at work.
A gangly boy with thin wrists and sunglasses plays basketball in his paved driveway. Slow smack of the basketball. Thump of the net as the ball pushes through. Wind, warm, streaks of blue-and-white sky.
Lydia straightens. I kiss her on the cheekbone.
9 Lydia asks me what I’m thinking of. I say Wilf Jardine’s tattoo.
Wilf has a tattoo?
The one on his arm.
She says, When have you seen it?
Several times.
Funny, I havent seen it.
You have seen it.
Oh, yes, that tattoo. Usually I dont like tattoos, but Wilf’s is nice.
How did you forget he had a tattoo?
I dont think about Wilf.
You are, I say, much more into the here and now than I am.
Lydia: Youre caught up in introspection.
Do you think introspection and regret are connected? Are you regretting something?
I’m just following a train of thought.
Lydia: I dont think you’ll regret much.You think about the past, but youre not emotionally wrought by it. Youre pretty solid.
There was this man sunning himself today. He was sitting in his front door. His whole arm was a tattoo, down to the fingernails. In his late forties. It looked like he had a reptile sleeping on his chest.
10 We’re having a drink at Noel Wareham’s wake. Max said he witnessed what he calls his father’s chain-stoking. Inhaling, mouth open, eyes wide, then exhaling, fourteen hours of this. His liver crashed, they had him on morphine, looking at photos of his kids, saying goodbye to Max, but living five more days. Sixty-eight years old. How Max finds himself imitating the faces his father made. We go to the washroom to urinate and when we’re washing our hands, I watch Max make that chain-stoking gesture. Like a goldfish who has exhausted the water’s oxygen.
11 To know what someone looks like by what he says, how it’s said. Tone and diction. Dialogue can describe a character’s facial features.
When you hear basketballs dribbled and thrown at hoops, then you know the rain has ceased.