Shelby (13 page)

“What?”

“Are you okay?”

“Sure.”

“Your poor face. What were you trying to prove, Shel?”

“I was fighting for freedom, Lucy—yours, mine.”

“Fighting? That would mean
two
people threw punches.”

“I never saw it coming. Is there a mirror around?”

Lucy took a compact out of her purse and clicked it open. My face was ghastly, yellow and red, eyes badly swollen.

“Your nose is broken,” she said.

“I look like a pizza.”

“That's one brave pizza.”

“I don't understand it,” I said. “It's totally against my character. I was incessantly beat up in grade school. Not once did I fight back.”

“I guess when it really matters, you're there.”

“You think so?”

“I think you should let me handle it next time.”

“Next time,” I said, “I won't stop until the job is complete.” I threw a few punches upwards into the air and we both laughed. Lucy lightly kissed my swollen cheek.

“Thanks, Shel.”

“Anytime,” I said, throwing a few more.

After two days of being nursed under the watchful eye of dear Lucy, I returned to my own abode with my ruptured face. Eric was still in California so I had the apartment to myself. I watched copious amounts of T.V., indulged in milk shakes and painkillers, received frequent calls from Lucy and read ten to twelve hours a day. Such meditative solitude—as Thoreau must have experienced at Walden Pond or even Hitler in his lonely jail cell—caused an outpouring of inspiration that peaked while I was perched on the toilet and reading in
The Province
newspaper about yet another massacre in a McDonald's restaurant. In pen just above the towel rack, I scribbled:
Let me feel and love and defend the needy and the hurting, O Punishing God, Holy Creator of the Modern-Day Guilt Trip, or I, too, may open fire in a fast food restaurant
.

Perhaps two weeks into convalescence, my brother Derek called to inform me that he and Kristine had separated on a trial basis. I was deeply saddened and yet somewhat immobilised by his lack of emotion—it was as if he'd phoned to tell me she had gone to the mall to buy Cheezies.

“Are you okay about it?” I asked.

“Yeah … Shel, gotta go … the game's back on.”

“Game?”

“The Lions and Blue Bombers. Overtime. I'll talk to you soon, okay? Shit, I'm sorry. How have you been doing?”

“Okay.”

“Great, bye-bye.” Click.

A half hour of deep reflection later it came to me. Derek's call was a plea for comfort and advice; the hockey game merely a Jungian type mask used to cover up what appeared to be a sign of weakness in our male dominated—or patriarchal, as Lucy would call it—society. Can a man not reach out for help? Yes, he can—especially if he's
my
brother! After all, when he selected me to be best man at his wedding, despite my being but fifteen tender years of age, I thereby accepted the responsibility of standing by him during troubled times. What a wonderful day it was, too, before God and family and all of the friends he didn't choose. Trisha Blaisdell was the maid of honour—a half-foot and seven years my senior. On the second dance, a waltz, she insisted on jiving. Back and forth I swayed in a cloud of pubescent glory, her breasts bulging before me. She smelled like the perfume centre at Sears; and when I caught a peek at the shaving rash on her underarm it threw me into sexual spasm.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Derek, it's Shel again.”

“Did you see that field goal, man? Lui! Lui!—”

“Hide no longer, Derek. I vowed to be your best man and, damn it, I will be.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Do you love her?”

“What?”

“Don't give me what, you dodo brain. Do you love Kristine or not?”

“Of course I love her.”

“Well then talk to her! Express what you're feeling. Let her know what you think of her. In all honesty, it's hard to figure you out sometimes.”

“Bullshit.”

“I'm going to let you in on a secret.”

“Are you
cry
ing?”

“No! I'm just filled with the spirit! I've quit school.”

“What?”

“That's right. School.”

“Do Mom and Dad know?”

“No. And don't tell them, either.”

“Jesus Murphy, man! Why the—”

“That's not the secret, Derek! Everywhere writers are allegorizing the plight of the twenty-somethings. That's you. That's me. We're lazy! We're without cause! Without direction! Silent. Gasping. Generation X, they call us.”

“I can't believe you quit school.”

“I'll tell you what that X stands for.
Ex
hausted.
Tired. Sick
… of having
those
people tell you and me what it takes to be important in this world. To be relevant. To contribute. Don't they see? We don't want
their
life! We want
truth
! I for one am not ashamed to pick God over a new Toyota!”

“What's got into you?”

“We are not lost, dammit, and don't let anyone tell you we are! Check it out! Hark, I hear a noise afoot! We are rising up in silent unison! ‘Truth!' cried the hippies until their words were garbled by barrels and barrels of bodily fluids and a consciousness of crystalized chemicals. Alas, their movement was blocked. But we are back with their cry, minus the sex, minus the drugs!”

“That's enough! What's going on?”

“Don't you see? It's not a sin to
not
want Swedish furniture. Derek, my brother, my
brethren
, those before us have stretched the elastic band of existence. Honesty, compassion and courage are all that remains. But it has to start from within.”

“Shel?”

“Talk to her.”

“Shel?”

“Let her know what you're feeling! If you—”

“Shel-”

“—love her—”

“Shel—”

“—you
have
to tell her.”

“Shel?”

“For the cause.”

“
Shelby
?”

“Yes?”

“Okay.”

And in the passing of a few more sentences, Derek confessed he didn't know if they were still in love. He also went on to detail some of the turbulence they'd gone through over the last two years. I hadn't a clue their relationship had unravelled so. I offered unconditional support and told him I loved him. The last thing he said was, “I'm going to take your advice.” It was a proud moment.

Perhaps an hour after speaking with Derek, Eric called saying he was back in town, boozing it up at the The Rose and Thorn Pub and in need of an ear. I took mine straight there. Upon arrival, however, he was far more interested in the fact that I had sacrificed my face for the honour of a woman.

“I'm proud of you, man, big time. Seriously—and a little disappointed you didn't land any blows.”

“Like I said, verbal jabs to the cerebral cortex. One, two—”

“That ain't the same, man. Look at your mug! Let me take him out.”

“No. It's over. My point was made. Violence merely begets violence.”

“Y'sure?”

“Certain. Thank you. I want to know what's bothering you.”

“I'll do it for you.”

“Eric … he's
mammoth
.”

“Size, shmize.”

“Tell me about your trip.”

Eric paused, rubbing his fist in his hand. “Okay … so … the riots broke in L.A.… we headed straight north to Reno to avoid being conspicuously white—even though Robbie's black. We get away. Great, we figure, we're safe. Then my old man loses $1,100 playing black jack and winds up drinking himself into an American hospital where he hallucinates for four stinkin' days without medical insurance. Final tab: $8,202.”

“Good God.”

“That ain't half of it, Shel. Me and Robbie take his wallet so the people at the hospital won't find out he's Canadian, right? We tell them we found him outside Circus Circus and they buy it because he's so much older than us. So then the cops get involved and I swear to God I had the runs for three days from wacked out nerves, man. Look at me.” He lifts up his hand. It's shaky. “Meanwhile the old man's seeing mauve giraffes with big balls in his sleep. So in a panic two days ago, knowing we haven't got any cash for the bills, we tell the nurse there we're going to take the old guy out for a stroll around the grounds. Bingo, we throw him in the convertible and hightail it all the way home—17 hours—Dad, a crying, blubbering fool in the back seat. I tell you, Shel, crossing that border I have never shaken so much. But once we're in Canada we're safe, right? Wrong. I've been followed since last night.”

“Really?”

“No. My Dad met a woman in Tuscon and he's still there. Robbie and I hung out in Vegas, dried up our savings, booted it here over a three-day stretch and got home last night. I stayed at his house last night and I've been here since noon today … drinking.”

“So that was all lies about your father?”

“Yup,” he said without smiling. His head dropped.

“What's wrong?”

Eric sniffed and took a drag of his cigarette. “Remember that record company I told you about in Toronto?”

“I think so.”

“I phoned them this morning and the ass wipe said they'd made a mistake with the demo tapes.”

“Really?”

“No.”

“Quit doing that!”

Eric looked up at me. Again no smile. His hand was shaking. “I got laid in Walla Walla,” he said.

“What?”

“I'm meeting Loretta at ten o'clock tonight and I had sex with a woman in Walla Walla forty-eight hours ago. How am I gonna look her in the eyes?”

“Did you use a prophylactic?”

“I've got to tell her. That's the only thing I can do. It's the stupid 90s, man. Fuck I'm a dildo. Ten years ago you could do this kinda shit, hate yourself and not tell your lover.” Eric took a long, nervous drag on his cigarette. “I was really starting to like Loretta,” he said.

“Is that why you did it, Eric? Were you getting scared?”

“I've got to tell her.”

“I understand, Eric. Lucy got scared, too.”

“I have to tell her.”

“Even if she despises you afterwards, I'll admire you for being honest. And I think you're a good person. You've been good to me.”

“I'm going to spill it to her,” he said. “I gotta.” He shook his head and took a drag on his cigarette. He was visibly shaky. “You know what's weird, Shel? I spent a month in Southern Cal and Vegas and Reno acting like a friggin' Chinese monk. And driving home I was proud, man, figuring I was out from temptation. I'd passed the test, you know? Next thing I knew I met a woman in a Walla Walla laundromat and then she said we could stay at her house for the night and we drank two bottles of wine and ate bad Chinese food, Robbie fell asleep on the couch and I ended up horfin' her like a damn highschooler.” The waitress came with two beers and removed the three glasses that were already on the table. Eric reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. It was empty.

“It's on me.”

“You're a prince,” he said, “and if you change your mind about Frank …” We drank and talked for several more hours. The evening ended up costing me about seventy-five dollars; twenty-five for the beers, five for the cab home because I was too intoxicated to drive, and forty-five to pick up my car the next morning. It was impounded for being left in a
NO PARKING ZONE: 7 A.M. to 9 A.M
. For the record, later that night Eric confessed to Loretta his infidelity in Walla Walla. She dumped him on sight.

“What would you have told him to do?” I asked Gran on the phone the following day.

“The best he can,” she said.

“That's what he did. He reached within the depths of his conscience and told Loretta the truth. Now look at him.”

“There's a price to be paid for experience, Doll. But the good thing is once you've paid that price, it's something you can use forever.”

I sniffed and thought about my own lack of fulfillment. “Okay, I've got one for you, Gran. What's the key to a happy life?”

“That's an easy one, Shel,” she said. “Enjoy it.”

Other than the collapse of my car's transmission causing a severe dent in the two thousand dollar cheque, the next two or three weeks rolled along uneventfully. I spent most of my time indoors, still recuperating from facial disfigurement. I was again masturbating in excess; identifying career confusion, self-hatred, a lack of physical outlets and the excessive absorption of literature as the root causes. I'd been reading Shakespeare (
Othello
) and Blake (his biography,
A New Kind Of Man
), miscellaneous Jung and Sartre (Lucy's), all four
Gospels, Acts
and, most ominously,
Revelations
. If that text is accurate in its prophesying the signs foreshadowing Christ's return, I figured He should arrive in about forty-five minutes. Wouldn't that be something? Interestingly, in reference to the Hebrew Scriptures, I calculated that it would take 720 feet of rainfall a day for 40 consecutive days and nights to push Noah's Ark above Everest—earth's mightiest peak. The largest 24 hour rainfall on record, however, is a mere 7′2″ on some island in the Indian Ocean. Furthermore, it would seem unlikely that a boat 450 feet long and three stories high could carry eight humans, 4,000 mammals (half rodents, a quarter bats), 8,600 birds, 2,400 amphibians, 6,000 reptiles, 1,000,000 insects and ample food all multiplied by a number somewhere between one (some animals are hermaphroditic, humans are accounted for and food doesn't multiply—except in Eric's fridge) and seven (some animals are unclean). Still, it remains unclear if uncovering these facts lessens the credibility of the
Four Horsemen
.