The Geranium Girls (7 page)

When night begins to fall, Boyo removes the wiry grey wig from his head and places it on the dummy. In the dusky light of the bedroom he lifts the cotton dress over his head and places it, too, on the tall slender mannequin he took from a dumpster out behind the old Eaton’s store downtown. It isn’t stealing if it’s already garbage.

The dress is due for a wash, he realizes as he straightens the collar; he can smell himself on it. It is an unpleasant smell that he knows comes from the bad part inside him, the geranium part. He unbuttons the flowery dress and throws it across his bedroom into the hall.

There are no lights on upstairs; he moves about in the growing darkness. Turning back to the female figure, he runs his hands over the hips and the smooth part between the legs, nothing messy there to ruin it.

Suddenly a street lamp flickers on outside and shines its light on the face of Auntie Hort. He runs his fingers over his own art work on the front of the head. It had needed more of a face than the boring bumps and slopes that the mannequin manufacturers had come up with. It needed Auntie Cunt’s face.

He touches the eyebrows that are raised in a permanent look of surprise. And the wide-open black eyes that go along with them. Why the surprise all the time? What was so startling about the boring little life that they lived together? Was she surprised to see him rise from his bed on one more morning? Shocked that he made it home from school in one piece? Was it so amazing that he ate the food on his plate, cleaned up the dishes afterward and headed out to the garage, night after night after tedious night?

And what was so puzzling and wrong about a young boy wanting…no, needing, a glass of water? It was just one more way that she could deny him

No one on the planet could have been gladder of anything than he was of his Aunt Hortense’s death. He was just eighteen when it happened and he didn’t comprehend that her death, welcome as it was, cut his moorings out from under him. He was totally alone.

Any feeble attempts that he had made at friendship over the years had turned out badly.

Hort had discouraged friends, both male and female. She had none of her own and wouldn’t hear of Boyo bringing anyone home. “We don’t want people knowing our business,” she said.

There was Kenny Mathes two doors down. Kenny and he had managed some games of soldiers and catch for part of one summer, but Boyo stole one of Kenny’s Dinky toys and then lied, pretending the tiny dump truck was his own. Kenny grew tired of Boyo’s lies. When he heard him telling a new kid on the block that his own name was Kenny Mathes it freaked out the real Kenny so badly that he didn’t want to play with Boyo anymore.

And Mrs. Snider, across the back lane, caught Boyo snipping the whiskers off their cat, Peppie. She forbade her boys to play with him after that and spread it around the neighbourhood that he was bad.

Boyo had been looking for hair to glue on his doll, to glue on its private parts. The cat’s whiskers seemed a good idea. But after Mrs. Snider yelled at him and told his aunt on him, he settled for pulling his own eyebrows out and using them. What did you need eyebrows for, anyway?

It was after that that Hort threatened to give him away. She frightened him with words that conjured up the blackest, deepest hole he could imagine. The hole folded in on itself, over and over, till it was a size that he could swallow. So he did swallow and he held it down, along with his shame, his guilt, and his fear; along with burning rage and hot desire and all the tears he wasn’t allowed to shed. It lived dark and hard inside the slimy home provided by his tender gut.

Her death happened on its own, without his help. Her heart had been weak, he was told, after the autopsy. Still, she was young to suffer a heart attack, they said, just forty-eight. They were sorry; he wasn’t.

Even after all these years he is still glad. He’s thirty-four years old now and his gladness hasn’t wavered.

Hortense even looked surprised in death, he recalls now, until he managed to shut the eyes. Her head rested, face up on the wide flat rim of the bathtub.

He remembers what that felt like, touching her eyes.

The eyeballs themselves first, just to see what they felt like. It might be his only chance to do such a thing, or so he thought at the time. And then he touched the paper thin lids, cool by then. They wouldn’t stay closed.

He went out to the back alley and got two stones to weigh them down, to keep them from flipping open.

And then he phoned the funeral parlour. He figured since she was already dead there was no point wasting money on an ambulance. But the funeral parlour people didn’t see it that way. They told him he had to phone somebody other than them — like 911 — they even offered to do it for him, figuring he was upset, he supposed. He asked them then if he could drive the old lady over himself but they seemed aghast at that suggestion and assured him they wouldn’t receive her if he did.

He was tempted just to bury the old crow out in the yard with the bones of her stupid budgie birds. But he knew he’d be suspected of foul play if he did that. God, why did it have to be so complicated? Where was a good solid ice floe when you needed one?

The water in the bathtub was yellowish with her piss. Bits of cloudy shit muddied it further. He let the water out, putting on a rubber glove to do so, not wanting to touch the Hort soup that she had made.

He decided not to cover her up before the paramedics came; he wanted her exposed. With his rubber-gloved hand he adjusted one bony knee, spread her skinny legs ever so slightly to give her a disgustingly wanton air.

When everyone had left, he opened Birdie’s cage. She was the latest in a long line of budgies who had all been named Birdie. Boyo reached in and wrapped his hand around the green-hued bird. He took it outside to the back stoop along with Hort’s old meat cleaver. And under the bright July sun, with one swift motion, he took Birdie’s head off. Then he turned on the hose and cleaned up the mess he had made, flushing both parts of the budgie into the flower bed. It felt good, like a celebration.

Boyo fumbles in his closet now for a clean outfit for his mannequin. As he buttons up the dress a peppery geranium scent fills his nostrils, fills his whole head. He shivers.

When the mannequin is properly attired Boyo retrieves the soiled dress from the hall floor and places it in the clothes hamper in the bathroom. Then he goes downstairs and stretches out on the old maroon couch in the living room. He tries to fall asleep; it’s what he needs. Maybe in sleep he can get away from the blood-red geraniums and the tall women. This thing may be the end of me, he thinks, as he drifts off. Perhaps that isn’t so bad.

It was the final night of the Winnipeg Folk Festival in Birds Hill Park, northeast of the hot prairie city. Beryl sat in the last rays of the setting sun on a striped blue chair, the kind that lies right on the ground so you don’t sit too tall. It was thirty-two in the shade and even in her coolest dress, the one Dhani had complimented her on, she could feel the sweat drip down her sides.

She missed him, even though she hadn’t invited him to come along. She longed to see him again, to kiss him again. His lips were so soft. When she had phoned to say she was sorry for her behaviour at the drugstore, he apologized first and they ended up laughing. And when she told him about her lobelia, it worried him. He said it was something that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Then he suggested calling the police and she said she didn’t want to and they had ended up fighting again.

Her feelings for Dhani were so strong. She could remember hints of feeling this way before, but not with all the extras, both good and bad. It seemed complicated to her, but she recognized that that was partly due to the murder. It had a way of moving in and muddying up any clarity of vision she could get going.

Beryl wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and stood up with a sigh.

“I’m going to see about doing some drinking and smoking,” she said to the four people she had come with: Stan Socz, his wife Raylene, Stan and Raylene’s new neighbour, Yolanda Cramer, and a man named Wally Goately. A distant relative of Stan’s wife, Wally had recently insinuated himself into their lives.

Beryl had met Raylene before, at post office Christmas parties, but she didn’t know her well. And this was her first meeting with Yolanda. She was in a wheelchair and Beryl wondered if that was why Stan had invited her. It got you a good spot near the stage.

“I’ll come with you.” Wally leapt up and so did Stan.

Raylene glared at her husband. She obviously felt someone should stay with Yolanda.

Yolanda caught it. “You go too, Raylene. I’m perfectly happy where I am.”

“No. I think I’ll stay put for now. I want to see Oscar Lopez and I think he’s next.”

Raylene was a good person. And less twitchy than the three scruffy travellers heading west to the drinks tent. She and Stan had hired a babysitter for the night, for their young daughter, Ellie. Beryl hoped Raylene didn’t resent her going off with Stan or Stan going off with her or anything at all.

The first drink went down fast and Beryl ordered another. Once it was in her hands she leaned back against the picnic table and felt the rough wood under her thighs and the comfort of her good friend, Stan, beside her. She knew very little about Wally except his ridiculous last name, but if he belonged to Stan and Raylene, he was all right with her.

The tequila spread its magic to every dark corner of her body. It unclenched her heart and knocked down the barbed wire around her eyes, flattened it. It blew through her brain like a warm dry westerly, soaking up her mucky fears, clearing the way for light and space. She’d pay heavily for this, but Jesus Christ Almighty, it was worth it!

She asked Wally about his last name.

“Goately?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m afraid so.”

“I’ve never heard that name before.”

“And you’re not likely to again. At one time it was Golately. At least that’s what my aunt told me. A spelling error at immigration stuck, way back in 1848 or so. And the idiot ancestor let it go, didn’t bother to change it. And a succession of idiots ever since, including me, have also let it go.”

“Isn’t this great?” Stan said. He stretched his long legs out in front of him and stared at the women walking by. “Look at all the breasts. God, I love the folk festival.”

“I think my aunt was lying,” Wally went on. “And that our name was always Goately. As in goat. Because I come from goat herders or more likely people who behaved like goats or maybe even were goats themselves. My great-great-great-great grandfather was a goat.”

Beryl laughed out loud.

“What if Yolanda has to take a crap while she’s here?” Wally said out of the blue. “With her wheelchair and all.” He looked anxiously from Stan to Beryl; he was deadly serious.

Beryl stared at Wally with interest.

“Good question,” Stan said. “I checked that out with her before we came. She won’t have to, apparently. How exactly she knows this, I don’t know, but it’s not something we’re going to have to think about.”

“How can she know for sure?” Wally asked. “It’s a long haul till the end of the evening concert.”

“What did you say when you checked it out with her, Stan?” Beryl asked. “How did you word it?”

“I just said that the washroom facilities probably wouldn’t be all that easy for her to maneuvre and how did she feel about that and she said not to worry, that she wouldn’t have to make use of them. That was good enough for me.”

“She’s munching on Raylene’s fresh peas,” Wally said, “and on your cherries, Beryl. I wouldn’t be too surprised if they had some sort of effect.”

“Don’t worry, Wally.” Beryl patted his bony shoulder. “Even if she does have to have a dump later on, it’s nothing you’re going to have to be involved in directly.”

Wally didn’t look so sure. “What if it comes upon her when all you guys are off doing something and I’m the only one around?” he said. “What then?”

“Let’s smoke some dope.” Beryl stood up and stretched.

“Good idea!” Wally and Stan said in unison.

They bought more drinks and transferred them to their travelling mugs before heading out to a grassy area beyond some trees. There were fewer people around but there was a lot of space to keep them company.

The sun was barely down and the sky was fantastic in the west, too beautiful to be real. Beryl hoped it wasn’t the result of deadly toxins in the atmosphere. Summer sunsets had taken a turn for the other-worldly: this one was a shining kingdom in the sky. Or so it seemed to Beryl.

“Look at that sky,” she whispered.

She filled her pipe and fired it up, holding the hit deep in her lungs. She watched the hash burn as she handed the pipe to Stan. They sucked on it, the three of them, till they heard Jann Arden’s voice sailing over the countryside. Then they headed back and Beryl plopped herself down in a spot away from the congestion of the main stage crowd. It felt better back here.

“See!” Wally stared down at her with his hands on his hips. “See what I mean! It’ll be very easy for us to find ourselves in different places. I just know I’m gonna have to take her to the crapper.”

Beryl stood up. “Sorry, Wally. I wasn’t thinking.”

Stan shook his head. “Beryl should be allowed to sit back here if she wants to.”

“No, she shouldn’t,” Wally said, as they stepped their way back through the sea of tarps and blankets. “Not in these special circumstances.”

“Jesus, Wally,” Stan said. “The circumstances hardly qualify as special.”

“Yeah, they do.”

Beryl chuckled. She felt okay about being needed even if it was by a shamefully neurotic distant relative of a friend’s wife. Besides, it sometimes cheered her up to be in the company of someone more fucked up than herself.

Yolanda and Raylene were chatting and swatting their way through Jann Arden’s performance.

“I thought the skeeters were supposed to die when it gets this hot.” Raylene slathered herself with insect repellent.

“That’s just a prairie myth,” Yolanda said, “like it doesn’t snow when it gets really cold.”

Beryl looked at Yolanda’s ankles. They looked to be covered with ants. But it was getting dark and she couldn’t be sure that she wasn’t imagining it. It could be drug-related, she supposed.

“Do you want me to spray some of this stuff on your ankles, Yolanda? It looks like you’re being eaten alive…I think.”

Yolanda laughed. “Thanks, Beryl, but no. I can’t feel my ankles so it doesn’t really matter. One of the benefits of being paralyzed in certain areas.” She laughed again and Beryl smiled.

Jann Arden was talking about bowel movements. Beryl saw Wally looking at Yolanda out of the corner of his eye. He sat as far away from them as he could on a corner of the tarpaulin, long arms clutching his pointy knees, a tall man folded in three. Beryl sat down beside him and put her arm around him. God, he was skinny!

“Are you okay, Wally?”

“No, not really.” A painful smile flickered for a second. “I don’t think I like the folk festival. It’s too rustic for me.

“And I’m too close to other people.” He shrugged and Beryl let go of him, backed off a little.

Wally glanced over both shoulders. “I don’t like being too close. I keep thinking I’m gonna step on a baby or something.”

“Maybe you could lie back and try getting into the music,” Beryl suggested. “Forget about all these people for a while.”

She made a pillow for him from her backpack and Wally lay stiffly back against it.

“Thank you, Beryl,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry.”