Graeme Gibson

Communion

For

Selena,

Jake L. and Peter C.

Introduction

For thinkers putting together a philosophical outlook to guide the Green Revolution, Graeme Gibson asks the fundamental question: how can we clean up our global campsite without destroying the planet further? Even when introducing species to restored habitats, we must rely on technology, thereby distancing our humanity from Earth and consolidating us in the role of her manager. This is an arresting question for a former council member of World Wildlife Fund Canada to ask — but Gibson is also a novelist, and even more startling is the alternative he explores in Communion. The alternative is to dream ourselves into the spirit society we have hitherto called “wilderness” in a way that leads to our own dignity as earthlings. Yet this visionary impulse is immediately betrayed by technology, leaving in the case of Communion five impotent dreamers trying to survive as shamans.

Who in this book of interwoven vignettes is the protagonist, the one who suffers our agony for us? Is it the part-time veterinary assistant who tries to return a husky to the wild? Is it the dog with its once wild nature reduced to a flickering dream behind its eyes? The assistant identifies with this domestication of instinct, being pulled out of his own fetal dreaming every morning by a woman who asserts the material world on his senses, materia as mater. His only recourse is to paw the statues of grieving nymphs in a cemetery whose Stygian waters contaminate the nearby ravine. Is the protagonist an individual curled up around himself on a basement floor, so paranoid with fantasies of children and guns he is barely able to “rise onto all fours”? Another paralyzed dreamer, “he misses nothing even though his face is turned inward to the wall” (Gibson’s protagonists aren’t objective people so much as spirits inhabiting bodies, or trying to get back to them through sexuality). Is it a voyeur who sends his spirit out nightly through the walls of houses in search of a woman’s touch? Or is the protagonist a normal, if brooding, individual shuttling across the ravine between the sorrow of a wife and the morose delight of a mistress, both asking: “Why am I always attracted to empty men?”

Or is the protagonist of Communion the ravine, a strip of wilderness extending into the heart and loins of a city, filling the people who live on its edges with the “uncertainty and dread” of a dark existential choice?

To readers of literature, this book is one of the finest experiences of polyphonic storytelling this side of the Sirens episode in Ulysses. Polyphony denotes a composition in which multiple voices or instruments pursue their melodies independently, each keeping its ear on the others, none of them dominating the whole it helps to create. As such, Communion is a literary string quartet — a decided alternative to the symphonic megaproject called the novel and to its political equivalent, the hegemony imposed in the name of social harmony. As an ornithologist, Gibson is tuned to the natural polyphony of the forest, where songs pass through each other or respond in duets and sudden choruses, and he offers brief glimpses of this primal. But the book seems to leap back in time beyond Romanticism to shamanic myth with its narrative polyphony of human, animals, and spirits sharing the same stage without a master-script. Communion is an enactment of bodies as the visible arcs of spirits, trying to recover an earthly paradise in the density of time and space.

Sean Kane

February 2013

Space is always between us

and time is inserted in us like a disease.

Barbusse

Why does she come each morning like this? A ritual perhaps, but not for him: he’s happy enough beneath the covers, arms against his body, hands together at his throat.

Christ knows he doesn’t need it! with knees pulled up under his chin for protection, the body curled around its own belly like this, anyone can see he doesn’t need it. Yet here she comes with cigarettes, matches and the white plastic holder . . .

Why?

Deliberately from the door to the chair beside his face and sitting, staring impassive as he sleeps. She hears her spring morning at the open window. She hears birds in the eaves and she hears the trees, a car door slam. She hears the starter before the engine catches, then she listens to hear acceleration to the corner; tipping her ear slightly, she squints her eyes after the diminishing sound. It doesn’t take long. And then there’s only the city and the imperceptible sound of his body’s sleep.

She rises, she puts the cigarettes, the matches and the holder beside his pillow and, bracing her feet on the floor, her knees against the bed, she takes a deep breath and tries to wrestle him onto his back. He resists. She tries harder. He curls in upon himself like an armadillo, but grunting and clutching, sweating now and heaving, she begins to gain the advantage: he’s weakening, one of his arms comes loose: vainly he struggles to re-enclose himself but the circle’s broken . . . it’s just a matter of time. She hears a high-pitched whimpering in his throat, and knowing the muscles that strain in his chest, the burrowing face, she pauses. Clever. With left hand on his right wrist, elbow against his belly and into his hip, and her right arm under his shoulders, she seems to give in to him. Very clever. His body, surprised at this unexpected freedom, relaxes (will it never learn?), the whimpering dies . . . and at this instant, so beautifully timed, she surges to her feet and grunting flips him onto his back.

Things proceed as usual.

Felix open on his back, he breathes the end of sleep . . .

Cigarette in her mouth, she rests. It’s getting harder all the time, she isn’t getting one bit younger: once it was strength alone that did it, she walked in at seven and simply rolled him over. But those days are gone now: more and more she has to rely on the advantage that comes with experience. But then he’s more stubborn too . . .

She lights a cigarette and slips it into the holder. There are birds outside and trees that press about the house: the sun is shining, rather pale at this hour, but shining nevertheless as she leans forward to brush her finger lightly at the corner of his mouth. He shivers, he searches blindly with a sucking noise, his face is pained, is drawn in lines as his mouth searches suck suck. Such an anxious face!

By resting her elbow at his side she keeps the holder steady; her arm along his chest, she bends and reaches, pinching the nostrils to stop him breathing through his nose. It’s the only way. Otherwise he simply puffs, breathing sleepily all the while, and the smoke scarcely passes his lips, hardly gets into his mouth, let alone into his lungs where it’s needed, where it does the most good. The effect is immediate. The tip glows more brightly, it fades to greyness, then it glows again, it fairly crackles! Miniature forms collapse upon themselves as he exhales. But the rhythm’s still uneven, it’s not bad, a beginning, but uneven . . .

Sometimes the smoke goes down the wrong way, gets into the gullet or whatever and he’s overcome, he’s doubled up and blue with the lack of air. It was frightening at first, she used to think he was actually going to die, but since he never did she’s learned to put up with unexpected things from time to time. One morning last winter he wouldn’t open his mouth to take the cigarette. Even when she held his nose shut tight he wouldn’t open up . . . his body heaved, convulsed as if to make sure there was no way, and then he just lay there turning greyer and greyer until a purple ring appeared about his mouth. Terrible, as if he didn’t care, he was so calm, he didn’t move and she panicked. It was the spreading private bruise, that blackening beneath the skin, she couldn’t look away, she could only stare . . . and growing certain that he’d finally win, she lost her head completely. She savagely pinched at his nose, twisting the holder she tried to pry his body open at the mouth, she pleaded and coaxed, she cursed him, she promised intolerable things but he wouldn’t hear, he’d simply stopped breathing. And he wouldn’t have started again, she’s sure of that, if she hadn’t reached between his legs and gathered his genitals in her hand. She gave a tentative pull . . . unconvincing . . . so she squeezed, violently she twisted until he bellowed, he gasped, he started to breathe . . . and before he could close again she’d pushed the mouthpiece in and won!

That was an unusual morning; but the question of tempo is automatic. The problem is to press firmly and rhythmically on his chest while keeping the nostrils closed and holding the cigarette in his mouth at the same time. None of these things can be neglected for a moment. For example, if she doesn’t maintain a constant pattern of pressure on his chest, then she’ll never regulate his breathing . . . however, if in concentrating on this she forgets the nostrils, if air seeps into his head in any way except through the mouth, then he’ll simply breathe without smoking at all. Finally, even if she manages both, but doesn’t keep the cigarette holder firmly in his mouth, if she lets go even for an instant, then his jaws part, his lips slacken, open like an old man’s, and the cigarette falls onto the pillow and rolls down to where the throat meets his shoulder.

Perhaps it sounds more difficult than it is, and it’s true that at first she’d longed for another hand, two extra fingers even, just to snip the nostrils shut. She’d begun to wonder, to plan even, to see if perhaps there was some sort of equipment, a machine . . . A clothespin, for example, placed carefully on the nose, it seemed an excellent idea, almost like two extra fingers, perhaps the clothespin would do. But he was offended, he’d groaned and thrashed about, his arm had swept up and thrown the clothespin against the wall.

That had been a disappointment. Leaning to enclose his nose securely in the crotch of her thumb and index finger, her hand extending down so the tip of that same thumb and finger can steady the holder in his mouth; she remembers the sense of failure. Yet at the same time she’d never fully despaired, never seriously, and that’s something after all; not once has she really considered giving up . . . What’s more, her perseverance ultimately produced the technique she’s using now and it works well too: her right hand, placed as it is, successfully looks after the nose and the mouth (both of them) and leaves her left hand free to lean upon his chest, impose this healthy rhythm on his breath.

Leaning her weight, pressing and counting, “a thousand and one” with grey smoke issuing from his mouth . . . briefly she holds . . . then “a thousand and two”, withdrawing she sees the fire as his lungs are filled. And so it goes. She fights him resolutely, pressing again (“a thousand and one”), she feels the slobber from his mouth, she pauses . . . and withdraws.

The next cigarette is ready in her mouth as, poised, she forces his lungs empty, and then with amazing speed her left hand grabs the holder and brings the glowing butt to light the new one; at the same time, her thumb and index finger have pinched his mouth shut and that’s important, so he can’t breathe and break the cycle. Ashes fly as she ejects the butt into the ashtray, exchanges the empty holder for the cigarette in her mouth, firmly inserts the latter into the former and, letting go of his lips, jams the holder back into his mouth. He gasps, she lurches to maintain the interrupted tempo, “a thousand and one” and they’ve hardly missed a stroke . . .

It’s going very smoothly this morning.

Soon she stops the regulating pressure, stops the counting and relaxes somewhat back on the chair: she smiles, an imperceptible smile on her large face and hears again the birds, a car in the street, the day outside and sees the lines about his eyes, his mouth in rhythm now and knows the worst is over, that soon he’ll be awake.

Keys, in hand and ready, cautious he leans his face to the glass and peers inside: it looks clear enough but he can’t be sure, it’s nowhere to be seen and that’s ominous; it’s not on the counter by the cash register, nor crouched as it is some mornings on the door leading to the back rooms. Where is it then? Methodically he searches as best he can; because of the relative darkness inside, the street’s reflection on the glass and so forth, it isn’t easy . . . he concentrates though, shading the glass he stares into gloomy corners, he even crouches to improve the angle; kneeling on the sidewalk, he tries to see if it’s above the door. It doesn’t seem to be but he can’t be sure so turning the key, carefully bracing his shoulder he inches the door open . . . pausing to listen . . . but he can’t hear it. All the usual sounds, the morning sounds: snuffling and groaning, breathing and sighing, all this and more; the brush of bodies, and madness of the talking birds, the chains and the scampering claws in metal wheels. But no Sammy, where is he? Door open a bit more until there’s almost enough room to sneak through, it’s looking good. Pausing to listen, then whipping it open and lunging inside, slamming the door just as he drops with a shriek from the transom, a chattering howl, the cunning bugger was there all the time! Pounding his fists on the door too late, face of a woodcut devil, then leaping to the counter he turns to stare; his angry shrunken face for a moment, and then he’s gone.

Felix trembling inside because of the shock. Even though he was expecting some such assault, even though he’s been through it, or something like it, morning after morning now, ever since taking the job, he still finds the shrieking accusation, the wizened face, the snarl profoundly disturbing, far too personal in fact. As if it’s his fault, when he’s only the employee, nothing more than an employee and yet every morning the stupid bugger comes at him like this, pinches up its nasty face in rage, charges about like a madman and rushes off into the other room.

Glancing to see that the cage is open, that the monkey will be able to get in alright, he picks up several supermarket bags and strides into the back room. Along the length of the room there are three aisles between the cages, and in these cages (depending on their size, whether they’re on the first or second level) there are dogs and cats, a raccoon or two, a skunk, sometimes tangled creatures that he doesn’t quite recognize, and in the corner of the room, in the highest cage, there’s an owl.

Now, with Felix pausing inside the door, with Sammy’s violent anger, all the animals that can stand are on their feet, they press against the wire or cower back, they snarl or howl, they chatter and moan amongst themselves as he starts down the aisle. The monkey’s hiding somewhere, but that’s alright, he knows! Felix blows into the bag, squeezing the mouth shut as he draws another breath, blowing again with the paper stretching, the wrinkles vanishing as it fills with air. Down one aisle like this and up the next with still no sign of Sammy, he must be somewhere poised, but he hears alright and soon he’ll make his move. Relentless pursuit in the growing excitement of caged animals and blowing out he turns the third corner, at the end of the second aisle, and then the fourth, the last and sees him, yes! he shouts, Ho-Hoh! And rubs the bag against his chest in warning, the monkey screams up onto the cages out of sight and scrabbles away as Felix smashes his hand against the bag. Mercifully it works, on the first try too, it explodes and more than fifty animals panic.

Blowing mightily on the second bag, Felix moves to cut Sammy off at the door because it won’t do to let him out there yet, he’s not ready, he’s not desperate enough for his cage, he might think so, he might even get into it but he won’t appreciate it. Not yet. He’ll complain all morning.

Dogs cringe away from his legs and howl as he passes. He rustles the paper while gathering air for another blow, preparing himself; not a motion wasted or a moment lost, momentum is the watchword here, for Sammy thinks he’s hiding but Felix sees him, yes he does, he sees him over there beside the owl and creeping up behind him bursts the bag! It retreats in growing confusion and fear, he follows with the third bag in his hand, the monkey bounds for the door and still he follows, he’s gasping now, he’s dizzy with Sammy retreating as the bag begins to stretch, retreating from the room and into his cage. Very good. But Felix won’t relent, not yet; he stalks to the door to make sure, he pauses, he rubs the bag against his chest and Sammy whimpers; very good, there’s no need to break it now, no need at all. He can walk to the cage and say “Hello Sammy”, he can reach inside and stroke the skeletal body, he can say “Morning baby”. Scratching under the chin, seeing skull beneath the hair and stroking its head: “Do you want some breakfast Sammy? that’s what you want, you want some breakfast.”

By the ceiling a window, a small window with iron bars on the outside. The television is in the corner of the room. Blue light on his hands. No sound. Light on his trouser legs. He has eaten because it is evening, because it is almost night. Soon he’ll leave the room, he’ll walk to the stairs, he’ll mount them to the landing at the side door, and with only the slightest hesitation, he’ll slip out into the alley.

Very soon now. He drinks from a bottle, he smokes: blue light on his hands. What will they be doing tonight? What will he see them doing?

He moves with unfamiliar grace, his feet make no sound. Vaguely swaying lights above as he descends to the floor of the ravine. He avoids the white road, he slides through underbrush, a path along the edge, he walks beside the road because sometimes there are others, there are cars without lights, there are figures, shadows in the corner of his eye.

And tonight there is a car, he knows where to look, he sees it, heart’s rhythm and muscles tightening, mouth parting, he pauses: leaves shiver about him, a light evening breeze on his face. He stares at the motionless hulk of the car. He can almost smell it.

From halfway up the side of the ravine, above it, he begins by throwing pebbles, a handful of them, and then another, they rattle through leaves and branches on their way. He hears them hit the car, clattering as they rebound into the dark. He can’t see, but he can imagine their shock; that pleases him. Will loverboy play the hero? will hotpants jump out on the attack? He hopes so. Grinning excitedly, holding the brick in his left hand he hopes so, he can hardly contain himself, he stoops for another handful of pebbles and at that moment the engine starts. The car backs onto the white road, he transfers the brick to his right hand, he lobs it like a grenade . . .

Very close now, creeping closer, he pauses: leaves shiver about him, a light evening breeze on his face. He stares at the motionless hulk of the car. He can almost smell it.

The brush of bodies. They groan perhaps, breathing and sighing, the noise of their bodies: even closer to the glinting metal, if he reached out now, they don’t know he’s here, so close to them, teeth bared, eyes white, he could reach right in the window, he could put his hands on them gently like this . . . He straightens, he rises from the brush, he sees them, he reaches, fingers extended, staring he reaches in, he sees her long white legs convulse like spastic arms.

His mind is full of images, rationalizations, half-formed words, with escape routes closing before he knows, all the familiar structures of guilt: instinctively he stops before the dog, the husky, and drops to his knees in front of its cage. Withdrawn as usual against the inner wall, unmoving, it watches him with cloudy eyes as he bends closer.

The sun shines or it doesn’t, it’s winter sometimes and sometimes it isn’t: the body struggles from sleep, dresses itself according to the season, eats and comes unwilling into the world’s routine. But then, unexpectedly, there’s a moment when he senses he could fall right out of it all, out of the whole thing, and his bony face contracts, it falls in upon itself like blood.

Riding sometimes in trains, in cars; resting against the glass, falling each mile further into himself: dry roads empty, occasional barns with homes in shadow and always the coloured fields, the geometric fences on the land. Mile after mile. He can’t remember the first time it happened and can’t be sure it ever did. It might have been an early morning on the way to summer camp. It might have been. A field rising to bush, trees crowding from the sky’s edge and there, into the trees, an entrance leading away and he sees himself climbing the field in silence, sees a boyish figure alone, pausing, then striding as best he can from sight.

Gaunt white body unmoving, but it’s still alive, and that’s something: dull eyes, they watch him rising, watch him straightening to stand and there’s tension somewhere, an accusing stink and shallow breath. And then he hears the others: snuffling and groaning, breathing and sighing, all this and more; the brush of bodies, and madness of the talking birds, the chains and the scampering claws in metal wheels as he starts his methodical search. Down the first aisle and up the second, peering into cages, poking a ruler at empty bodies and it’s easy to tell the dead ones for limbs have stiffened, their eyes are unresponsive. He hits them as hard as he likes and they don’t move. Sometimes he’s mistaken of course, sometimes they’re sleeping or sick, they lurch from the ruler and then he leans to soothe and reassure, he apologizes and when the animal is calm again he goes to the next cage. It’s not a hard job. Whenever he’s sure, he leaves the cage door open as a sign and by the time he’s finished this morning there are five of them, five bodies to collect, wrap and stuff into green garbage bags. Fortunately none of them are very big. Big animals are difficult to handle, a leg or two is always in the way, the bag isn’t big enough, and they certainly don’t fit into the garbage cans. But that’s not a problem today. A couple of lap dogs, a cat and two mongrel puppies; they hardly take any time at all.

Bell ringing in the shop. He’s here: jaunty steps and whistling, things clatter as Peter Walters appears in the door. “Oswald. This place stinks.” Into the room, glancing here and peering there. “The cages aren’t cleaned, look!’ Grimacing “Ugh. No wonder.” Bright blue eyes. “What have you been doing? Good grief man, it’s . . . It’s almost ten o’clock. Why you should . . . how do you expect . . . oh no . . . Oswald, you know better than that! Come here.” Over to the cupboard, opening the door and pointing. “Come here and look. Those cages should be clean by now.” Pink nail healthy, white where it grows beyond the quick. “Nine forty-five, you see . . . that’s quarter to ten. These animals should be coming in from the yard, the cages should be sparkling and you’ve hardly started.” Staring from Felix to his lousy schedule, then closing the door again. “That’s the trouble with you Oswald, that’s the trouble alright . . . And I say this in all seriousness, in kindness, I hope you know that because, well, because I like you. Yes. I do, I like you Oswald. Don’t ask me why. But I do.” Cigarette into the mouth. Flick goes the lighter. He stands in clean shoes, smoking. He actually admits to liking Felix Oswald.

Sometimes a stream then, a creek that leads from sight among the trees, and other times it’s just a suggestion, an opening image as he’s carried by. His body’s empty with the journey and he cannot speak.

Cool on his forehead and dirty, the window between him and that figure in the field. It happens often. In trains sometimes and cars, resting passive against the glass, falling with each mile further into himself.

“I hope you know that because, well because I like you. Yes. I do, I like you Oswald. Don’t ask me why. But I do.” Cigarette into the mouth. Flick goes the lighter. “And I think I can help you get more out of life.” He stands in clean shoes, smoking. And what’s all this pigshit about liking anyway? Likelike means nothing from him! what’s he willing to do, will he . . . “Let’s sit down Felix.” Will he produce the bottle and this time a second glass? Pouring, and Felix reaching, lifting it to his mouth. “You’re doing a fine job here.” The world going by in the street. His smile’s not so bad now, not so exclusive. And maybe he really does like him, for at some point he leans, he appears to be human, he leans and asks: “What do you really want Felix?”

“I’d like to die.”

“These are sick animals, Felix, sick and it shows in the quality of the stool. Have you ever thought of that? Diseased shit Oswald, the cages are, the cages . . . ” With tears in his voice he looks at his watch. “At almost ten in the morning my cages are full of diseased shit! That’s the problem alright and there’s no excuse. No. Absolutely none.” He pauses and Felix perceives the trouble with that face. He might have been bothered by it before but he doesn’t remember. Now the problem is obvious: it looks like the topographical map of uninteresting land. Everything is too small for the size of his head, too crowded there in the middle of his face. “I don’t know what you do with your time, daydreaming, moping about.”

Even if he did say, who are you Felix? what do you really want? it would be a lie, an intimate lie so that Felix might not notice at first.

“That dog for example, the husky. You spend far too much time with that animal, you really do.” He fills a certain space here in the room, he talks. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing because it won’t get better you know, there’s nothing we can do.” Felix shifts uneasily; he isn’t needed for this talk, he doesn’t want to hear it again. “Not a dietary problem, not nitrogen trichloride, that’s fairly clear.” Scratching at his ear, finger poking in to wriggle thoughtfully. “There’s been a dramatic, as you may or may not know, a dramatic decline in the incidence of hysteria due to dietary factors.” Pausing. “And it’s certainly not parasites, no, not parasites. Not in this case.” The smile has permanently returned and his voice is precise. “So it must be genetic, eh? An hereditary taint, derived from one or other parent.” Felix doesn’t believe this, not for a moment. “Yes. And that means . . . ” In fact he starts, eyes rolling as if to speak, to contradict, his chest heaves painfully, his hands convulse against his thighs. “That means there’s nothing medical science can do.” And still the words don’t come. “Particularly when the patient experiences epileptiform fits like this one does.” It’s always the same.

That blue light on his hands, on his legs. The stairs, that door, the alley. Why does he do it? He moves with empty grace, his feet make no sound, he slides through underbrush, a path along the edge, he walks beside the road because sometimes there are others . . .

He stops under the railway bridge. He’s almost there, he’ll smoke a cigarette. Then he’ll cross the stream and climb to the pavement, the lights, their house. What will they be doing? what will he see them doing tonight? He hears water rushing against the concrete support, it stinks of the cemetery half-a-mile ahead: seeping among the graves it gathers in pools, he remembers the pools, it overflows and fed by the city becomes a stream that smells of bodies.

By the garage, excited because nobody knows he’s here, pressing himself into its shadow with leaves resting on his shoulders. There are lights in the apartment but nobody appears in the windows. Music from a radio, perhaps a record player, is playing somewhere. He doesn’t recognize the song. Noise from the traffic on Yonge Street, soothing, like the sea, although he has never heard the sea, or wind rushing across the land, some land, somewhere . . . Resting his face against the brick, he’s breathing easily because he’s in no hurry. In a minute he’ll climb onto the garage roof, using the fence and one limb of the tree, he’ll wriggle forward and lie unseen to watch them . . .

Walters, hands in his pockets poking at his balls, feeling himself stiffen delightfully as another woman turns from his smile, is confident that Felix is really trying to re-establish himself in his employer’s esteem. And that’s a nice thought. But perhaps. Sudden excitedly, he cannot breathe, for in a purple sweater, coming across the street are the biggest boobs, oh Christ he’s ever seen! His hands are fiendish in his crotch, his smile is a hardware store. He retreats behind the counter as she pauses, will she come in? He can’t believe, he won’t . . . The sun shines only on this woman’s hair, her enormous breasts. Will she come in? He can barely look at her. Will she? He leans to offer his most urbane smile. She’s irresolute. Desperately he smiles, he grins. But even that doesn’t do it. True she does acknowledge him, and that’s hopeful. A nod, a gentle inclination of her head, yes, an imperceptible widening of the eye, he’s sure of that. He saw it. But still he won’t allow himself to believe she’ll actually turn the necessary forty-five degrees to her right, step on her plump legs to his door, open it and, and bring them in . . . it’s all too much to hope, too much. He catches his breath as she shifts, she seems about to . . . Which way? Small teeth gnaw on his lower lip. Come in, come in, he commands in silence. Come in! She’s making a decision. She glances on up the street, her breast swells. His morning begins to fail. And then at her watch. Hot kisses on her wrist and up her arm, his hands on her shoulders, hers in his pockets, she’s turning, she’s yes! To her right on her plump legs, thighs in his doorway. Opening. What does she want? Her breasts envelop, his stomach’s sinking as he smiles and smiles. The door closes behind her . . . she prepares to speak, to open her mouth. He can’t stand it any longer. She’s going to speak! He presses himself against the counter, he closes his eyes, he opens his eyes. Her reaching mouth is just for him, her huge and naked breasts for Peter Walters . . . what does she want?

“I want a dog.”

Oh Christ I’m yours!

Felix crouching before the dog. Surely it’s getting better. Now, because all the cages are clean and Walters is out there talking to someone, he has time to smoke a cigarette. Surely it’s getting better. Hunkering down, his feet flat on the floor, his thighs tight against his calves, his long arms hugging his legs, he stares and smokes.

Felix smoking and wondering if he should open the cage, reach in and scratch his fingers between the yellow eyes, grab the hair at its powerful neck in such a way that the animal would know it had a friend. Maybe it’s too soon for that.

Teetering forward, watching the eyes, appraising: important to see if it’s safe. It could take his arm off; he knows that. Still, it is getting better. Every day it’s more alive, almost responsive. At first there was nothing in those eyes, not a thing: no shadows, no light, just yellow diminishing without depth. Then one morning, several days ago, Felix saw something shiver inside the pupil, it was like something opening, something flashing deep beneath the surface. It happened very quickly. Most people would have missed it completely. Indeed it might not have happened for anyone else; it may well have happened because of him. Felix hardly dares to think about it, hardly dares to hope.

Perhaps this is the right moment. Perhaps some gesture, reaching in and scratching with his fingers between the yellow eyes, or grabbing the coarse hair at its neck, perhaps some trust, some intimacy of this kind is called for now, at this very moment. It’s hard to tell.

Certainly the voice alone isn’t enough, it never is: Felix can coo incessantly, nurse with words, he can lean lower and lower until his face is on the floor, even with the dog’s, his body sprawling in the aisle; but all the loving sounds that Felix has uttered in the past thirty minutes have not, and can never unlock the mesh door, have not and never can give the animal what it needs.

And so he reaches up to unlock the door. Does it tighten as he reaches, touches the bolt? What will it do, it seems calm. It stares at his hand. The metal is cool on his fingers. He pauses a moment. His long body in the aisle, his head resting on the linoleum, he does not move: his arm is raised as in a salute. His fingers are cool on the metal. What will it do, is it smiling at him? It appears that the dog is smiling at him. He slides the upper bolt and the mouth opens imperceptibly, the lips are drawing back in a smile. Still its head rests on the floor of the cage, his head in the aisle. It watches his falling hand to the lower bolt and the eyes seem blank again, from far inside a sound begins, a cry. Perhaps it doesn’t understand. It occurs to Felix that he should have raised himself from the floor before opening the bolts, before the dog, realizing something new, something unexpected was happening, began this terrible noise . . .

What to do? The stiffening body, that cry, the bristles jagged on its spine, he doesn’t know what to do! He lies with his hand on the second bolt and imagines rising to his feet, crouching to slide it open, opening the door. And the dog explodes, hurling its eighty pounds against him, bursting from the cage with snarling froth and pain, the noise! the terrible noise and pain . . . That’s a real possibility. And yet. He’s loth to stop now when he’d been so sure: it had seemed exactly the right time, the dog expectant, responsive, waiting his hand, the perfect moment, the gesture, the friendship . . . It seems too bad. Really too bad. It stares intently at his hand which rests uncertain still on the bolt. The sound in its chest is like an electric motor. Felix doesn’t know what to think, he doesn’t know what to do and since there’s no easy way out, he stops thinking. It nearly always works. His mind is empty, his eyes are closed. Time passes. It becomes clear that he isn’t going to undo the second bolt. It always happens. He opens his eyes. The room is the same as he rises to his feet. His voice has begun to soothe, placate again as he reaches for the upper bolt; he’s hardly aware of the dog. His mind is empty. There’s a vague regret, of course, a sadness, but he’s used to that.

He stands with his fingers on the lock and if he thinks at all, he finds it difficult to believe he ever really intended to stick his arm in there. The morning has made him sleepy. Bright sun on the windows and the room is uncomfortably warm. He wonders, for a moment, what he’s doing here. Irresolute in the distinct and separate noises all around him, he wonders what he’s doing in this airless room with cages in tiers, with shuffling animal bodies and the heat . . .

“Why yes, of course I can help you.” She knows alright, that’s clear enough: she sees, she must, his eagerness and imperceptibly she’s smiling. “I’d be delighted hah, no trouble at all.”

“After work.” She stands on both feet, her legs slightly apart, balancing evenly on both feet, she leans toward him. Are you sure it’s . . . ”

Jesus “Yes, I’d be . . . ”

“About what time?”

“Five.”

“Five-thirty?”

“Certainly.” It’s already after work, they’re returning from the kennels.

“It’s very kind of you doctor.” She’s called him doctor! “It’s hard, you know. When you don’t know the city.” She doesn’t know the city, doctor I don’t know the city! He stares intently at her face. Steady. Steady. Returning from the kennels, or even better, they decide to have a drink and then another. Is she married? There isn’t a ring, but she looks married. Her face watching him, she’s new in the city: her eyes knowing him, he hopes she’s married. A drink in some nice bar then, her breasts heavy on the table as she leans for a light and before long it’s too late, the kennels are closed. She wants it as much as he does, that’s pretty obvious, he can tell: her breathing’s shallow and more rapid . . .

“I’m sorry,” smiling. “What’s your name? I don’t know your name.”

“Anderson.” Does she pause, or it his imagination; is she evasive? He’d like that. “Mary Anderson.” And smiling brilliantly, is that sweat on her lip? Married, a bit of danger, he’d like that. “I’m sorry, I should have . . . ” Her eyes, more calculating into his.

“Oh no, that’s.” It’s sweat, he finds it irresistible, she’s sweating. “I’m Peter Walters.” That’s very nice.

“Hello Peter Walters.”

“Hello Mary.” He eases off the counter, no need for that, and his day expands with sweat on her lip, her breasts, his mouth, hands, his . . . No dinner, no. He passes quickly over a supper of some kind, candlelight, very nice with wine, but why not drop by my place for a nightcap? Why not? A smoke, he searches in his pocket. They’re by the ashtray. “Would you like a cigarette?”

Thanks. Reaching. Reaching “Thanks,” she’s in his bed. A wildcat. Her fingers touch his hand as she inhales, she agrees to everything, maybe she’d. He’s always wanted a . . . Fantastic! No question of that lingering touch: steadying his hand, on his face more like it, his eyes, now tracing intrigued the line of his mouth and he can try it, yes, she’s not like the others.

Poking into his bellybutton, scraping index fingernail up his thigh and the certainty that she won’t be horrified, afraid, it’s right up her alley, fills his head with blood, it glints in his eyes . . . His legs are like rubber, he can hardly get out of the room to put it on.

Peter Walters on his hands and knees, fiercely lustful, a dog, a wolf, he pauses to sniff and growl at the bedroom door. It’s cunningly designed. A canine mask covers his head but leaves his mouth, his own fangs free: dog skins have been tailored to fit over his shoulders and along his back to the bushy tail. Surprisingly white underneath, blue-veined at the belly, he’s naked from mouth to thighs.

A flesh-coloured strap buckled under his chin, another across his chest, two more between his legs, hold everything in place; sleeves to the wrist for his arms, to the knee for his legs, are secured by elastic. It’s beautifully made, it never slips or binds: the straps at his thighs tend to chafe in hot weather, but only because he’s plumper now.

There’s a piece of wire in the tail (he thought of that himself), stiffly it rises behind him, jerking from side to side as he crawls towards her. He snarls. She understands immediately, she understands! She moans. His small red penis rises like a finger as she moans. He howls, she whimpers. Raising his face in gratitude, his muzzle to the ceiling, he howls and howls! With burning eyes she watches him pad to the bed, she whimpers more excitedly, she rises on all fours, she . . .

Chaos in the room behind. Good God, turning to the door “Excuse me”, what in hell? A madhouse, they’ve all . . .

“What’s that?” Her eyes, oh doctor . . .

“Just a.” The husky, the fucking . . . “Excuse me.” Smiling professional, grimly smiling. “Just a minute, it’s just.” And Peter Walters through the door to restore order. “Don’t go away.” Darting his head back, her breasts, smiling “Don’t go away.” And then between cages with animals launching themselves against their doors, swelling and spitting, it’s a madhouse, a crazy ark because of that goddamn dog and Oswald. What’s he done to it? staring, muttering privately. What if she leaves? hardly a glance for Oswald standing and it’s another fit of course. A bad one by the look of it. Totally hysteric, and that’s enough, it’ll have to go: the dog is completely out of control. Horribly contorted it screams, howls, and Walters decides to make the phone call. There’s no curing it, and they might even pay extra for a specimen as strong as this. The great white body crashes repeatedly against the cage as he watches: the whole tier shudders, but the bugger should collapse anytime now. Really stupid, a frenzy of stupidity, what brings it on? Growing weaker, it stiffens brutally, the foam at its mouth is red with blood, it falls jerking to the floor, it shakes, and flutters, and then lies still . . .

As its silence spreads Walters hears a sound unlike the others, a rattling mechanical noise and it’s coming from right beside him. Curious he turns to Felix Oswald, sees the chattering teeth, the eyes, and is suddenly, Oswald! “Oswald” for chrissakes, “Felix are you alright?” Reaching for the arm, touching, feeling the tension and soothing, “What’s the matter Felix?” with his voice and hand, “You’ll be alright, you’ll be . . . ” Felix stares for a moment at Peter Walters and then begins to cry.

He comes to the street and into the sun. It’s two blocks to the subway station, and today there’s no sign of a bus. His long legs carry him unthinking. Automatically he adjusts his stride so that his left foot hits the lines on the sidewalk. He’s particularly anxious to get there and even with his coat open, flapping about his legs, he begins to sweat, it’s because of the effort, the sweater, his winter coat, the sun . . .

When he bursts onto the platform his body is damp. He can feel the heart alive in his chest: he senses vague pains, he reaches under his sweater, inside his shirt so his fingers are in the armpit, his palm across the nipple, and he presses roughly, he digs his fingers into the moist flesh and leans to stare down the track. There’s only an hour for lunch. No sign of the train, not yet. But there are children chasing among themselves: they appear to be spitting at each other; they make exaggerated hawking sounds in their throats, they rush about noisily, bumping into men and women who, in turn, push back at the children, their mouths opening and closing as they reprimand them. Several have left briefcases on the platform now, so they can run about more freely. One little boy, standing by himself, appears to be crying. Felix watches them and sees that they spit like children with the fronts of their mouths, their lips, and their spittle is frothy and inconsequential. There are many travellers waiting, so he hasn’t just missed a train. He finds that reassuring. At the same time in their frenzy the children may not see that briefcase by the edge, one of them, looking back over its shoulder as it flees could very easily trip over it and fall onto the tracks. And the train is coming. It could easily happen. He hears it to his left, but the children don’t. They continue to chase each other, laughing shrilly: one little girl, perhaps because of her long hair, is being pursued by several boys at once; she darts this way and that in her attempts to elude them. The train hurtles into the station, he can see where the spittle gleams in her hair.

Standing by the window perhaps. Vaguely aware of the garages at the end of the garden, the catalpa, the sound of a commuter train on the bridge. Not really. Pretending . . .

Everything dirty, seedy from winter. His hands have no strength. His fingers are trembling. He turns from the window and sees himself reflected in the mirror: he crosses the room to his reflection, he can almost count the hairs in his beard.

On the subway, not sitting, standing in the corner so that he touches no one, nobody can accidentally brush against him with their bodies because of a sudden stop, or even, as can happen, because the cars sway as they rush from station to station.

Davisville, past the cemetery, into the tunnel and then St. Clair. Felix on his feet before the train has stopped, even before they’ve entered the station: he’s first to the door and out, he races up the stairs, through the turnstile and into the street. He sprints across St. Clair and heads north on Yonge. Time is passing. He darts among window shoppers in the sun. Although his body seems awkward, his passage uncontrolled, he threads among them expertly, he never contacts, never touches or is touched: it’s almost as if he wasn’t there at all.

She’s there though, that woman again, perhaps still leaning at the corner. Enveloped in a huge scarf, she pulls it about her head and shoulders: she watches from the other side of the street. Nobody has ever spoken to her, no one has followed her home…

Felix walking more freely because the shops are behind him and there are few people near the Church. Some old men, that’s all: crouching on benches they examine their hands, their bodies in the sun.

The journey is interminable. He’s only now at the gate, it takes him forever to pass the office and he has to follow the drive for thirty yards up the hill before it curves to the left. Felix leaves it here, he continues straight ahead, he walks on the graves, their headstones cut with names, beloved father, strange names lost in memory.

At the crest of the hill he barely pauses, he knows his route; this is where the ravine begins. There are no graves here, no trees: a shallow valley from the north to the south, it tumbles to dead elms, underbrush at the cemetery’s southern edge; and there the stream, foul smelling, issues from the ground. He reaches the bottom, running to maintain balance, and crosses quickly.

Often he has walked here almost for pleasure. One summer afternoon he watched a ground hog there, yes there, he could see the mound if he’d only look. But he does not look. And to his left a pile of broken monuments. Fragments of a wing, a face: the scattered headstones, chunks of marble as he passes. Earth sticks to his boots as he climbs to rejoin the road: ice clings in the roots of trees. He’s out of breath, he slides, his heart is pounding, but he’s almost there.

Mausoleums through the trees above him, he knows them: he’s stared through barred windows in metal doors at luminous angels and virgins, at wreaths, at ivy frozen in the glass. He’s tasted chemical smells that once were Eatons, Wycliffes, men and women, their children: he’s seen them stacked in the light of memorial windows.

The gross man in the hockey sweater is leaning on a shovel and smoking. He’s incredibly fat and standing very still. Yellow mud from the hole adheres to his feet, they appear enormous, as if wrapped in dirty blankets. He’s looking the other way and doesn’t see Felix: or if he has seen him, he makes no sign. Perhaps he pointedly turned away, perhaps he doesn’t want to acknowledge Felix Oswald for some reason known only to himself. People can be like that. For example, even though Felix has seen the man before, it’s impossible to mistake him because of his immense size, he must weigh three hundred pounds, even though he has seen him with his shovel, his blue construction helmet, in all seasons and at all times of the day, and even though the man has seen Felix, neither of them has given any indication that the other exists. Despite this and for some time now, Felix has wanted to speak to him, to walk up to him and say “Excuse me” or “Good day sir.” It would be pleasant to smoke a cigarette with him, perhaps he has a bottle of wine in his suitcase and they would sit on the steps of a mausoleum, talking or perhaps not talking, perhaps just eating their sandwiches, smiling occasionally, passing the wine back and forth and if everything worked out, Felix might introduce him to the stone ladies.

And there they are. He begins to run. Twin sisters, he’s sure they’re twins and they’re waiting for him. Sitting at either end of the stone bench, each resting a cheek against the back, staring at each other, they wait: their outside arms are raised, identically, with the inside wrist against the forehead, the elbows up and back, lifting their breasts. They watch each other. They reach with their other arms, their opening hands along the stone and will never touch. They’re so beautiful. He pauses before them, he glances from one to the other as if for a sign, from profile to profile. They’re bigger than he is, probably six and a half feet if they stood up: they’ve got good tough bodies naked to the waist. He knows their breasts, the muscles of their bellies, the strong thighs under the stone draperies gathered about them as they sit.

Very close to them now, he pauses: still looking from one to the other he comes to sit between them on the bench, right in the middle. That’s important. One day at the beginning he measured the full length of the bench. It’s fourteen feet long. Then he found the exact centre by walking seven feet from the end: with a whitewashed rock from the flower bed, making certain he was unobserved, he scratched his mark into the stone. It’s still there. And he’s come to sit precisely on it, every lunch hour for months.

Felix sitting with a buttock on either side of the exact centre of the bench; reaching into the bag for his lunch. Perhaps they don’t care: he can’t believe that. Biting into a meat sandwich, he knows it’s important that when he first arrives, he sits in the dead centre like this. He mustn’t show any preference until he’s finished eating. In the same way, they continue staring through him, at each other, as if he wasn’t there. Methodically he eats. He chews his food well and washes down the wads of bread and meat with orange juice. Afterwards, when he’s finished, when they’ve got this stasis to support them, he can, and usually does nestle up close to either one or the other: he can spend all his time talking to one of them, with nothing more than mere courtesy for the other, and sometimes not even that; sometimes he becomes so preoccupied with one, with the intimacy they have, the excitement, that he ignores her sister completely, and still there’s no awkwardness. Even when he leans to circle a nipple with his mouth, or when he fondles the breasts, the belly, rubs his hands longingly over her thighs, even when he kneels on the bench beside her and takes the stone face in both his hands and covers it with kisses, poking his tongue in at the mouth, her eyes, licking her jaw greedily to the ear, even with all this, there’s never a hint of jealousy. It’s worked out very well.

The limousine, black and official, the sun glinting from its polished surface, slips through the trees before he sees it: next, and close behind, comes the hearse. They make no sound and Felix, eating his apple, is at first unaware of them. When he does look down, when he sees them, more cars have come over the hill, big rented cars with important mourners, and the procession, in slow motion, glides among the headstones. For a moment he believes they’ll go to their left, follow the road that swings away to his right and into the cemetery’s heart. But they don’t, they take the other fork. One after the other. In complete silence: they pass from right to left in front of him. He can hear them now, can see faces looking at that young man sitting between two stone figures on a memorial bench eating an apple.

The first car stops at the public mausoleum, then the others, the line contracts: figures clamber from the black limousines at the front and he suddenly remembers the chapel, sort of a chapel inside, a vacant-smelling room, like a courtroom, with pews and an altar for the body. He understands. Behind the screens on either side run halls, four to the north and four to the south, high-ceilinged halls, their only light from frosted windows at the end; he’s walked them often, he’s read the names, peered into cells at plastic wreaths, at mouldering flowers, he’s breathed the dead air and stared at corpses filed in drawers to the roof.

Voices suddenly, doors slamming and Felix averts his eyes as people, singly and in groups, march from their cars: soberly dressed, they straggle to the steps, to the hearse brilliant in the sun ahead of them. There are children too; in little hats and ties, with tiny purses and polished shoes, they trot beside the adults, their pinched faces acknowledge him as they go.

A terrible commotion from ahead! Violent cries indistinct with distance . . . there’s shouting near the coffin, it’s at the door now: scuffling feet of mourners at the rear, sensing drama they quicken their pace, literally dragging their children to the bottom steps, the edge of the crowd; impatient they struggle and crane to discover the source of all this shouting, these accusations. Felix is drawn unwillingly. Leaving his friends, they understand, he approaches the crowd: it surges on the mausoleum’s steps, something violent is happening at the door, the crowd convulses. Everyone strains to see. Felix can’t be sure but apparently two people, at least two people, although others are taking sides, two women, he thinks, are at the centre, they’re shouting hysterically, he can’t make out what they’re saying, he can’t even be sure that the two of them are opponents, perhaps they’re taking on everyone else, perhaps there’s more than one centre to this. Apart from it all, hands down by his side, he watches. A child, a little girl in blue velvet and patent leather shoes, a tiny child with brass buttons and long hair, growing tired of the crowd because she can’t see anything, or maybe she’s not bored at all, maybe she’s afraid for even Felix is uncertain, yes, something violent is building, she’s probably afraid, she wanders away from her mother in the direction of Felix. He can’t know if she sees him or whether it’s only chance. The sun shines in her hair, the wet earth sticks to her shoes as she comes. Her mother, greedy to see, clawing into the crowd, hasn’t missed her yet. Felix is transfixed. Turning he sees his friends, the one staring past her sister into his face, and behind them, the gravedigger in his hockey sweater standing by a blue tree. He’s left his shovel somewhere and watches the scene intently. The crowd still boils about the coffin, the voices still shout with more and more of them protesting. The child is crying piteously. She totters aimlessly among the ornamental bushes, the naked hedges by the road. Felix doesn’t know what to do. He should do something. Should he try to find the mother? It would be better if he tried to console the child; but how do you do that? Stories and songs, you tell them stories, dandle them on your knee . . . Felix remembers stories, a long time ago, there was someone, a man, a woman, it doesn’t matter now, perhaps it was a maid, a housekeeper, someone told him stories and that’s the important thing. He remembers liking them; now, because her cheeks are smeared with tears, with dirt from her little hands, he remembers a lap, a heart beating inside someone else’s body; he remembers a voice, or is this all imagination, has he made it all up? a voice telling him of wolves with glittering eyes, they encircle the campfire of a traveller far from home, in winter, an especially deep winter so that food is scarce everywhere and the wolves, desperate with hunger, shift closer as the fire dies: shuddering awake he sees their shadows nearly on him, he can smell their bodies! frantically he throws wood on the coals, sparks fly in the towering night, he shouts but they’ve grown accustomed to his noise and fear him no longer. He has only the fire.

It’s a good story, but it would only work if he knew the child, if they had time, only if she trusted him. Watching the blue velvet jacket, seeing her uncertain body, Felix realizes you can’t force the kind of intimacy necessary for a good story, certainly not with this sad long-haired little girl. He’ll have to think of something else.

Perhaps a trick of some kind would divert her. Years ago there was a person who could eat light bulbs. Felix thinks he’s in New York now. And once he’d seen a man sterilize the point of a safety pin in the flame of his lighter, grasp some of the loose flesh at his throat, just above the Adam’s apple, and push it through. Kids would love that, he’s sure they would, he’d cheer her up alright, if only he could do something like that . . .

It’s definitely too late to turn away now. She’s so close, the dejection in the fall of her shoulders, the despair, yes it’s almost despair he sees in her face, she’s so obviously in pain that he can’t ignore her. The gravedigger, still standing by the evergreen, must see, must know: so there’s no turning away. She’s less than twenty feet from him when her mother calls, she’s finally noticed, the shrill voice carries clearly, and if she continues in the same way she’ll pass within a couple of yards of him. She doesn’t hear her mother and she doesn’t appear to have noticed Felix, or if at some point she did see him, perhaps for some reason she actually set off in his direction at the beginning, it’s fairly clear she doesn’t see him now. He understands that. Partially concealed by her hair, her eyes are empty. She doesn’t respond to her mother, although the woman is rapidly gaining ground on her. It’s a big woman and obviously very upset, worried about her baby, she runs awkwardly, and although the voice is clear and strong, he can’t make out the words. Felix takes a half step, he says: “Your mother. Little girl your mother.” How best to continue? “Your mommy’s calling you.” The only response, and he’s not sure of this either, is an imperceptible quickening of her pace. Surely she must hear the familiar voice calling her name, surely that’s what she wants? But weeping she continues toward him, so Felix takes another step. “Little girl” he says again. He’s getting involved despite himself: he raises an arm, his right arm, he points at the woman who’s stopped shouting now, is slowing down, has stopped calling the child’s name because she’s out of breath, her face is swollen, red, her eyes harsh with unaccustomed effort. But the child will not be warned. Felix has tried, he’s pointed, he didn’t turn away, he’s even spoken to her. It’s not his fault the woman is closing in, is reaching, it’s not his fault the child reacts too late: she dodges, tries to slip away, to free herself from the hand on her blue velvet shoulder, accusing voice, voice and the sudden blow, in the face, she hits the child with her open hand, she hits again, he hears the dead sound of flesh on flesh.

“It’s always the same, out the side door into the alley, it must be dark, or almost dark, he’s wearing running shoes and goes directly to the park, into the ravine, he walks in the bushes beside the road until he comes to stand under the railway bridge . . .

He’s done this before. Listening at the back door. Nobody’s home, there are lights but nobody’s home, he’s sure of that: listening to the empty house, entering, he’s done it many times. Trembling violently he closes the door, he walks through the kitchen and along the hall to their bedroom, his sneakers make tiny kissing noises on the hardwood. Everything is clean, the rooms are clean, they smell of furniture polish, soap, perfumes and powders, wax, there are fresh-cut flowers by the piano and a bowl of fruit on a stand near the bedroom window.

She’s taller than the average woman and full-bodied, nevertheless he looks absurd; even after choosing the fullest, most shapeless clothes from her cupboard he still looks absurd. Usually he settles for skirts and sweaters, but this evening he tries on the purple and black terrycloth muu-muu. He undresses quickly, exchanges his underwear for hers, padding the brassiere with his socks, one in each cup . . .

Exciting as it is, it frightens him: standing in her brassiere, her pale blue nylon panties, seeing himself grotesquely reflected in her full-length mirror, he knows how vulnerable he is. What if they should come back, how could he possibly escape if they came back? He darts to the window, his body deep into the mirror, then back to the hall, in order to make sure they’re not returning because he knows they’d laugh at him, regardless of their initial shock, maybe even fear, they’d pity him soon, they’d laugh and laugh, they’d tell their friends . . .

Past the fat man, among the monuments, the line of mausoleums, the brow of the hill, scattering earth as he charges into the ravine, Felix struggles up the other side to the road, gasping for breath, sweating but he can’t slow down, there isn’t time; through the gate, blindly on to Yonge Street. Fighting his body, straining for his second wind because it’s come to him, Jesus Christ! he can’t believe he didn’t see it immediately, hasn’t known it all along, he prays he’s not too late. It’s obvious Walters will call the bastard, maybe he already has, perhaps the vivisectionist . . .

Exhausted, his body’s hurting him now, resisting him, but he won’t give in. The dog has been taken, it’s too late but he can’t stop. Too much is happening. He runs through lunchtime crowds and he has no idea of how he’ll save it, what he’ll do tomorrow, whether there’s anything he can do. Even if he put his mind to it, even if he did concentrate fully, examine the problem realistically from all its various points of view, he’d find no answer.

Seized in a red fist, struggling she looked into his eyes.

He trots into the subway station, back through the turnstile, and on to the platform. It’s best not to think at all. The train arrives at the same time as Felix: that’s a sign, an omen, it means he’s being given a chance. Now if there’s a good bus connection at Eglinton, if the same thing happens there, he’ll come to Walters with, not with assurance exactly, not with confidence; with something like grace. Harmony. He hopes so.

Occasionally, not often because he isn’t a stubborn man, not a man of principle, he’ll remain standing on some spot, a particular square, until the doors open directly in front of him, so he can walk right in. Once it took seven trains, but he wasn’t going anywhere, just out to the end of the line, so the time didn’t matter.

It isn’t that he hadn’t wanted to act, certainly he wasn’t indifferent: he’d tried to warn her, he’s sure of that; he’d stepped towards her, he’d spoken, he’d pointed with his right arm, what else could he have done? but she hadn’t noticed him, why don’t people notice him? Perhaps the tears blurred her vision, perhaps she was blind! It makes a difference. That’s why she couldn’t be warned, she was blind. It’s not his fault.

Why didn’t she hear him? He spoke, he said “Little girl”, he’s certain he did. She could have heard him even if she was blind. And she looked at him. There’s no denying that she looked at him. He can’t forget that look.

How could he have known the crazy woman was going to beat her? You don’t expect that kind of thing: Christ no, not a physical attack, who’s prepared for that?

Out of breath from running in the earth, her face admittedly ugly, coarse from exertion, but not brutal, not even angry: distracted, almost automatic, her voice muttering something or other without emphasis, without anger, as she struck the child back and forth across the head.

Stop it! he’d tried, it frightens him to remember stop it! for chrissakes she’s crazy, what if she kills her? But the words wouldn’t come. Trapped inside his body, he stared out through his eyes, he couldn’t move, he couldn’t speak . . .

… Fiercely lustful, a dog, a wolf, he pauses to sniff and growl at the bedroom door . . . he crawls towards her. He snarls. She understands immediately, she understands! She moans. His small red penis rises like a finger as she moans. He howls, she whimpers. Raising his face in gratitude, his muzzle to the ceiling, he howls; revealing his opening mouth, his soft underbelly, he howls and howls! With burning eyes she watches him pad to the bed, she whimpers more excitedly, she rises on all fours, she . . .

But first he must undress her, that’s essential: she has to be naked for everything to work. A few drinks somewhere and then back to his place, he’s got it all clear in his mind. Lots of laughs, but they both know he’s just priming the pump. Because she wants it alright, he can see that, Christ the way she looks! she’s horny as a toad, he pours the drinks and joins her on the sofa.

It doesn’t have to be in the bedroom.

The sun is hot on the shop window; women pass by in both directions, some of them cross the street, but Walters doesn’t need them today.

With burning eyes she watches him pad to the bed, she whimpers more excitedly, she rises on all fours, she shudders as he snarls, those full breasts quiver as she lifts her head, her face, exposing her throat, the stretching tendons . . . impatient she strains, rolling her eyes, baring her teeth she waits his approach . . .

Right away, even before tasting the drink, she buries her face where his neck joins the shoulder. Her hair smells of sweat. He puts his right hand on her left breast. They’re bigger than he thought! his hand can’t contain it all, it bulges away like a balloon full of milk, he’s overwhelmed.

Automatically he kisses her eyes, his sucking lips down the length of her nose: her mouth is small, it opens for his tongue, her teeth are pointed. He undoes her dress, slips his hand inside her brassiere and pinches the nipple. Her brown eyes watch him. He kisses them shut.

He’d swear the breast is growing in his hand. It lolls uncontrollably on her chest and the nipple’s like a walnut. Kissing her chin, then her throat, he undoes the remaining buttons down the front of her dress. There are seven in all: they’re not too small and she moves helpfully under his hands and mouth, he doesn’t have too much trouble.

She smells like roast beef.

She lifts her hips so he can remove the dress. She lowers them. Receptive she manipulates him, she’s not impatient like some, not embarrassed, she grabs her tits, he bites her belly. Fantastic!

But his heart isn’t in it, it’s true, he doesn’t know why at first, he tries to concentrate . . . the costume is cunningly designed. A canine mask covers his head . . . dog skins well tailored to fit, his back, the jerking tail, blue-veined at the belly, he’s naked from mouth to thighs.

She does everything he wants.

… fiercely lustful, a dog, a wolf, he pauses to sniff and growl . . .

But she has to be naked, they both have to be naked. It won’t work if he skips the preliminaries, Walters knows that, better than anyone else he knows just how tenuous the scene is. So he re-devotes himself. He tries to slow everything down.

There’s the question of her underwear. A half-slip, what colour? babyblue, the same as her brassiere and a garter belt, that’s inescapable, a bit old-fashioned perhaps, but very nice with rosettes, tiny pink and white rosettes: he sticks his tongue in her belly-button and the slip comes off easily. Intently he nibbles, licks the white flesh of her thighs, down her legs as he slowly removes the left stocking. He does the same for the right one. She seems to like it. She rolls her head from side to side with little sounds and her arms flop about. After the garter belt, he tries to remove her pants with his teeth, but she starts to giggle, that’s fatal, so he stops, pretends it was a joke . . .

It’s almost time!

Naked she reaches. All he has to do is get out of his own clothes as provocatively as possible, she’s watching him, do what’s necessary to maintain, intensify the mood, perhaps take her into the bedroom yes, or should he do that before he undresses? yes.

And then he can . . .

How many times is this? It’s never been so good, the expectation, Christ the longing as if it’s never been done before, this is the first time! he kisses her here and there, squeezes a little, chews on her breast, her mouth, takes a big swallow of his drink, he lifts her from the couch, it’s never been so good, he carries, he can hardly stand it, he’s light on his feet, her mouth is alive in his flesh . . .

Peter Walters on his hands and knees, fiercely lustful, a dog, a wolf, he pauses to sniff and growl at the bedroom door. She stares incredulous. Small hand to her mouth, what’s that! she’s starting to laugh, a spluttering giggle, the laughter exploding, her nude body convulsive on his bed. He growls. She isn’t supposed to do that! Her breasts jiggling with uncontrollable laughter. He raises his mournful face, baring his fangs he rolls his eyes . . . She’s supposed to . . .

Perhaps if he frightened her.

Baring his fangs, his cruel mouth in a snarl, he strains towards her, he desperately snarls from deep in his chest, but it doesn’t work. On the contrary. She collapses again, writhes helplessly, her laughter bounces off the walls. She’s not supposed to do this at all. He howls piteously, cringes and tries to meet her eyes, he rubs himself against the door, he whimpers while she watches him intently. She manages to speak: “A puppy dog” she says, her face suffused, “How sweet, an itsy-bitsy puppy dog.” She stares. “Oh Christ!” she cries and unable to continue, throws herself back on the bed.

He pants and snuffles uncertainly. He’s afraid, he doesn’t understand: perhaps she doesn’t like him after all; he pads towards her, pausing often to watch and listen. Because of the mask, but more because of the terrible shock he can’t see that Mary Anderson is almost hysterical. He’s aware only of her hip, the powerful buttocks as he crawls closer, sniffing, cautiously closer because the laughter’s stopped, she doesn’t seem to be, her body quiet, he hopes she doesn’t start again, she isn’t laughing anymore: she’s not supposed to respond like that, his head is boiling, she shouldn’t have done that. He’s at the edge of the bed and she still doesn’t move. Her white ass looms invitingly large. He feels more secure because her breathing is agitated, she’s clearly excited, she wants it alright, there’s no doubt about that, she wants it! He puts his front paws on the bed and whimpers seductively. The laughter was a mistake, these things happen: he should have prepared her better, given more warning. He’s willing to forgive her.

Fiercely lustful, a dog, a wolf, he pauses to sniff and growl at the bedroom door . . . he crawls towards her. He snarls. She understands immediately, she understands! She moans. His small red penis rises like a finger as she moans. He howls, she whimpers. Raising his face in gratitude, his muzzle to the ceiling, he howls; revealing his opening mouth, his soft underbelly, he howls and howls! With burning eyes she watches him pad to the bed, she whimpers excitedly, she rises on all fours, she shudders as he snarls, those full breasts quiver as she lifts her head, her face, exposing her throat, the stretching tendons . . . impatient she strains, rolling her eyes, baring her teeth, he leaps to the bed, she bounds away. He follows. She snaps playfully at his flank. He growls in his chest: she’s trembling as he circles close, sniffs the gentle flesh of her buttocks, smells the ripe earth, tastes . . .

“FUCK OFF YOU PERVERT!”

Frightened and turning, grabbing the coverlet about her, she’s staring at Peter Walters in his dog suit. His chest and front paws are along the bed; the rest of him still crouches on the floor.

He doesn’t understand. She isn’t supposed to react like this, she mustn’t! she’s supposed to, he was so sure with burning eyes she watched him pad . . . And she laughed! Surging blood inside, this snarl, it twists his mouth and viciously . . .

She screams as he leaps, she tries to escape, he drives for the throat, she twists, she fights, and is helpless.

Soft white victim, her fat legs kick the air: too terrified to cry out now, she groans, she begs forgiveness, mercy from the beast, she promises much . . .

But it’s too late. His paws on her face, he hears nothing but her heart; he forces past her arms and bites deep into her throat, tears flesh, tastes dark blood pumping between his jaws.

Just because the dog, clearly exhausted, drained, just because it’s sleeping in its cage, relaxed now, secure, it doesn’t mean that Walters hasn’t phoned, Felix knows this: it doesn’t mean that everything hasn’t been arranged. He isn’t fooled for a minute.

Standing in the aisle, the dog completely unaware of him, Felix realizes that he must act. That’s obvious. He can’t ignore it. He doesn’t know what to do.

He can’t just open the cage, the back door, the gate to the lane and shoo it out into the city. He can’t do that because there’s no guarantee the dog would go, and even if it did, even if he chased it out with a broom, a shovel, nothing good would happen to it. It would be hit by a car; or the police would be alerted, somebody would report seeing a great white husky, perhaps mistake him for a wolf and the hunt would be on. They’d recapture him immediately, certainly before he got to the ravine. The dog would have one of its seizures, the police mistaking it for a rabid animal would shoot it to death.

And even if it does, by some unlikely chance, survive the traffic, even if it manages to elude the police, the Humane Society, even if it finds its way to the ravines, what will happen to it then?

Nothing good.

Early in the winter, before Christmas he remembers, a timber wolf came down the Don Valley Parkway right into the city, almost to the Lakeshore before it was recognized and killed. How did it get so far? Did nobody see it, or did they just glance from their cars and mistake it for somebody’s dog? There’s no way of knowing. The newspapers said it was very young, a pup really, that might help to explain it, they said it was starving, you could count the ribs on its skinny carcass. A policeman shot it with his service revolver.

So what can he do?

He can’t hide it in the cemetery, the fat man would know immediately, and even if he didn’t want to, even if his sympathies were with the two of them, the young man and his dog, and that’s improbable, he’d still have to report the presence of a white husky among the graves. And that would be the end of it; people don’t like that sort of thing.

Felix hears a kind of cry, the animal shudders but it doesn’t waken: one of its paws trembles and then is still. The belly rises and falls agitatedly as the cry, a thin vulnerable sound, continues . . .

What does it dream?

He’d like to take it back to the woods. That appears to be the natural course of action: it would be the best thing. Driving north as far as the roads go, if he had a car, past towns and villages, back into winter until somewhere, in a clearing perhaps, by the edge of the bush he releases it. That’s the best thing, the natural thing: it pleases him, seeing it slip from the car, pausing to smell the air curiously, defensively, then breaking into the tireless searching run of wild dogs, the wolf . . .

That’s all very well, but whatever he’s going to do he has to hurry. Walters has surely phoned, he probably phoned as soon as the woman left. If he did, and if the dog’s going to be saved, then it has to be done right now.

Through some opening, a stream perhaps, where does it lead? running shadowy among evergreens, beneath the sky: running some hidden path, instinctive . . .

It’s winter. The stream bed is frozen, the sky is empty: Felix stands by the road, his body’s breath billowing into the air. The dog is gone. He watched it trot easily to the forest’s edge, he saw it pause at the entrance, it turned to stare briefly back to where he watched from beside the car, and then it was gone.

Shadowy running among evergreens heaped with snow, instinctive running with Felix trembling on the road. It’s cold but he doesn’t feel it, he isn’t aware of the wind: he hears only the brittle earth resisting spring.

Without noise, meanwhile, unravelling above them is the vapour trail of a jet, Felix doesn’t see it for a long time. He’s staring at the darkening forest as if expecting the dog again: it doesn’t come and it won’t, he knows that. But still he stares, he hears the uncertain silence of dying winter, the hollow pressure of the land and is suddenly cold. Returning quickly to the car he sees, pink on the evening sky, the tattered remnants of an aircraft’s flight.

Driving south, his headlights dashing from heavy trees on either side, perhaps the radio’s playing, he concludes it was American. They’re everywhere. Loaded with hydrogen bombs they fly hour by hour, year after year; they don’t go anywhere, they don’t do anything.

Peter Walters smiling, leaning in the doorway. “You can’t deny it’s the first time you’ve taken a short lunch hour.” His smile as he rubs his right palm on the outside of his thigh. “If you don’t mind me saying so, it’s the first time you haven’t taken a long lunch hour. Ha!” Felix aware, there’s nothing novel about this: he’s surprised however that Walters closes his eyes, what’s the matter with him? he’s never done that before. He sees the plump hand up and down the pant leg, up and down intently: the eyes remain closed.

“It’s the dog” he tries. “I wanted . . . ”

“I know!” Walters alert suddenly, watching. “You don’t have to tell me anything Oswald. I know your concern for that dog. I think you’re crazy, but there you are.” Coming into the room. “That’s not what we’re talking about though. We’re talking about you rushing out of here every noon hour. Right on the button. That’s what we’re talking about.” Walking towards Felix, arm outstretched, pointing. What does he want? one foot and then the other, his body swaying heavily as he comes. “Rushing off to wherever it is you go. Ha! don’t think I haven’t noticed, it’s as plain as the nose on your face.” Intimate, his white teeth, what does he want from Felix, why is he reaching? “Anybody with any sense can see it Oswald.” Taking the left bicep of Felix Oswald in his right hand, squeezing significantly, leaning to say: “And I think it’s great!” breathing his sweet breath and squeezing. “A man needs his nookey.” Guiding Felix into the office, turning, presenting this grin. “Isn’t that right Oswald? every man needs a bit of nookey now and then.” Felix standing in the office, his employer pinching the inside of his arm, what’s going on? he has to know about the dog, and besides this hand on his arm, the voice. He hasn’t any choice. “It’s only natural.”

“Oh yes” what? “I think so.”

“Tell me about her.” Going behind his desk.

“What?”

“Is she good?”

“What do you mean?”

“GODDAMMIT OSWALD!” his arm crashing on the desk. Terrible sound. It frightens Felix because it, crashing sound like that, it’s unexpected. “Tell me the truth.” He stares at his employer. Something struggles in his cheek, he can feel it bumping on the edge of his cheekbone. He wonders if Walters can see it. “I can read you like a book, you know that Oswald, you don’t fool me one little bit, so don’t think you do.” His sleeve is dangerously close to the little glass. Felix sees the sleeve moving near the glass and considers, briefly, should he tell the prick he might spill the drink, he’s going to spill the drink, the way he’s moving his arm, the way the arm is moving, it’s quite possible it will hit the glass, it will probably knock it over, it’s surprising he hasn’t knocked it over already. Liquid in the glass vibrates. The desk top is white. Felix sees an amber shadow with its core of light on the white surface. The muscle continues to jump in his face. Walters continues to talk, his voice concluding things, there’s nothing new in all of this, he’s not asking questions or anything, Felix can tell that, there’s no need to answer, he’s not soliciting advice, he’s not revealing anything either. All Felix has to do is acquiesce.

Sleeping breath against her shoulder, the perfume of her body: silent first light, perhaps curtains swaying, he slides from her bed, he stands naked in the morning air; seeing familiar objects about the house in the gathering light, he smokes a cigarette. Houses in silhouette, the trees; fences, squat bushes at the edge of the ravine, and air from the window drifting against his belly, encircling his thighs. He licks the palm of his hand, absently he smoothes at his belly, he rubs wetly among the gathering hair, his body’s still, he licks again, tasting the earth smell of sex, he smoothes his thighs, the air is cool where his hands have traced, the morning at his body, he smokes in silence. Only the rustle of fingers on his own flesh, the sound of her body as she moves: he throws his cigarette out the window and at that moment sees two men dismantling a car, he hears the dull clang of metal on concrete. They work methodically, but very quickly, they’re obviously experts, perhaps they’re pit mechanics from Mosport. Not long ago he would have been appalled, frightened too, he would have shouted, phoned somebody, maybe even scrambled into his trousers and run barefoot into the lane to confront them; but this morning it doesn’t matter.

He turns to her. She’s pulled the covers over her head. Suddenly the distance between them, his body and hers, the space is intolerable: he knows he must leave before the child wakes, but he gets back into bed and holds her, half-waking she receives him, he says her name, her breath is in his mouth, their bodies wrestle in slow motion, they slide through the air like fish.

A band of sunshine bright on the window sill. Felix realizes there are people in cars who pass each other in the street and he remembers the afternoon last summer when he watched the groundhog. It hadn’t done very much. On the contrary it seemed merely to be looking for something, its blunt body crossing and re-crossing the area around its home; it had stopped now and then to rise on its hind quarters and watch him nervously. He hadn’t moved. Eventually it scuttled into its hole, without finding whatever it had been looking for, or at least not obviously, then it must have turned around for the head re-emerged, just the head, it was almost indistinguishable from the earth, and it lay like that for a long time blinking against the sun. After a while Felix continued his walk. He sees the sky, a washed-out blue, the sky still looks cold although the sun is shining. He had been close enough to see the colour of its eyes. It amused him to think of it burrowing among the graves.

“Felix” he says hollowly. Waiting.

“Yes?” politely.

“Her old man’s away during the day, is that it?”

“No, no it’s not that.”

“And you sneak around there for a bit of nookey, eh? every day you . . . ”

“No, it’s, no . . . I”

“C’mon Oswald.” His face demanding. “Don’t lie to me Felix.”

“She’s pretty good.”

“Aah!” sighs Peter Walters. “That’s better.” Smiling he leans with his elbows on the desk again. Felix finds it something of a relief. The sleeve moving near the glass, the amber shadow with its core of light, the white surface. “And I’m right aren’t I? she’s married.” Felix nods. Walters shifts his chair closer to the desk, he pours two more drinks, he wiggles his buttocks, settling into the chair, he smiles. “Good for you Oswald.” Sipping his drink this time, he says “Good for you.” He raises his face, he’s ready for the next admission.

Now, and this is more difficult, going to her again, knowing the hair shrouding her face, knowing she waits for him: almost unrecognizable towards the afternoon sun, his feet ring on the frozen road, trees are scattered up both sides of the ravine, their long shadows blue on the snow; this morning he saw a hawk, he’s almost certain it was a hawk, it floated from sight behind him as he left her.

It’s so easy.

Her long body in his arms, strands of her hair in his mouth as he climbs on to the breast of the hill. Paved roads. Children playing in the alley. The house and she’s waiting for him, reading the paper at her kitchen table, she’ll turn as he comes in the door, light from the window in her hair, on her cheek . . .

Behind him, under the railway bridge, the lean woman with two greyhounds: pausing at the edge to catch his breath, looking down through tangled branches he sees the searching dogs, he stares into her face, she’s stopped walking, she seems to return his look, he raises his arm as a sign but she doesn’t respond.

“C’mon Oswald, please! c’mon . . . ” nodding pointedly towards the other room, but Felix doesn’t understand, what’s he doing that for? Then he remembers the dog. “Just between men eh? just between ourselves.” That’s what it’s all about. “C’mon, don’t be bashful, Christ I can tell you things! like that broad who was here this morning, you saw her. Have you ever seen tits like that before? Fantastic! Right? Well I’m . . . ” Inadvertently they stare at each other. “You know . . . ” Studiously examining the plump hand in sunlight, Felix nods, suggesting that he does. “I’ll bet she screws like a mink.” Felix nods again. Cars fill the street, he can hear them. The sun is brilliant on the desk. “Well? For chrissakes Oswald, go on!”

It was unwilling to leave. They stood facing the forest’s edge, Felix and the husky: trees black between snow and the sky, their breath like smoke as he crouches, he leans his face against its skull, he talks. Contracting with the cold, the car cracks mechanically but he doesn’t hear, he hears his voice, he feels the road beneath his knees, a muscular throat and shoulders under coarse hair, he hears the animal’s heart, the thawing earth.

Felix stands by the road as it trots uncertainly to the entrance, seeing it pause, it stares over its shoulder but he can’t see the eyes. Then it’s gone, a white body against the trees before it vanishes. The snow’s surface is broken in an arc between him and the trees, it fills with shadow as he watches: the night is immense, he’s cold as he returns to the car. Running among evergreens a dog, a wolf at the other end of that track, the searching run of wild dogs . . .

He’s opening the car door when she speaks: a woman at the edge of a field near the shell of a building, an abandoned school house that he hadn’t noticed, perhaps it’s a deconsecrated church. The wall behind her has crumbled away, the roof has gone, the windows are empty and snow drifts high on the inner walls. Where has she come from? Her silhouette is completely without detail, although it appears she’s wearing a parka with the hood up. She speaks again. She turns and starts back along the side road, she doesn’t acknowledge his voice but he follows her anyway. The wind is gusting stronger, the footing treacherous. He can barely see the tip of the ruin now, to his left, above a snow bank, he leans into the wind, trying to catch up he begins to run, almost in slow motion, it’s difficult, there are ruts, tracks of cars beneath drifted snow, he slides grotesquely, she turns and smiles, he’s close enough to see her smile, to hear her laugh, she veers from the road, scrambles over the fence, he follows her into the field, the moon is bright, they struggle thigh deep and fall, and rise, they’re laughing like children as he grabs her, she reaches, pulls him down, her mouth is cool, there’s snow melting on her cheek.

The sound of their boots on the road: his arm over her shoulders, her body walks at his side. Wild clouds blow around the moon. They walk into the shadow of the building and a distant farm dog begins to bark; they can’t help hearing its thin, insistent voice as they descend to the car, they pause to listen on the road, holding each other they stand in the towering night.

“You’re some kind of fucking pervert, that’s what you are.” Methodically emptying his glass with Felix staring at him. “I know where you go, I’ve followed you . . . ” This can’t be happening, it mustn’t happen. Walters pouring whiskey into the shot glasses. Felix feels the muscle jumping in his face; amber shadows on the desk, cars pass each other in the street. All he can do is wait. “There isn’t any woman is there!”

“She’s pretty good . . . ”

“C’mon Oswald, don’t give me any more of that bull. I’ve followed you, I know where you go.” Felix continues to stare at Peter Walters who is shaking his head now, puffing his cheeks and forcing air from his mouth. “I mean Jesus! trying to stick it in a statue’s ear, I never came across that before . . . you’re one of your actual Kraft-Ebbing maniacs . . .

“I said she’s pretty good!” Both of them startled. They stare at each other across the white desk. Eventually Walters, is it insensitivity or bravado? tries to ignore what has happened. He clears his throat, but it’s too late.

“I’ve followed you,” his voice lacks conviction. “I know where you go, you go to the graveyard.”

“Listen you sonofabitch! you believe me, alright?” Felix standing. Walters collapsing. It’s superb. The mouth open, the eyes have lost their focus as he struggles to reassert himself:

“Trying to stick it in a statue’s ear, I never came across that before. Sucking on a stone boob for chrissakes, Oswald you’re a . . . ”

“Woofwoof.”

“Oh.” An expiration scarcely heard, a mouthful of air from his lungs as his body opens, that’s all: sweat bursting from his forehead as he turns away.

“Woofwoof WOOF!”

“C’mon Oswald, please! c’mon . . . ” It delights Felix to see the fat hands trembling. “Christ I can tell you things! There’s no need to bring that up, no need . . . ” He tries to straighten himself in his chair. “Like that broad who was here this morning, you saw her. Have you ever seen tits like that before? Fantastic! Right? Well I’m . . . ‘’ Felix pours himself another shot: fat hands opaque in sunlight, the voice appealing now, almost begging, it was so easy! why couldn’t he have done it earlier? “You know,” hopefully. Felix nods, suggesting that he does. “I’ll bet she screws like a mink . . . ” Sipping his whiskey, grinning uncontrollably, Felix nods again. Woofwoof. He puts his glass on the desk and lurches to the window to contain his elation: he can do what he wants, it’s incredible! he knows what he can do . . .

“I’m seeing her tonight Peter and I wondered.” Staring at himself reflected in a window across the alley. “I’d like to borrow your car.”

Because there’s so little time to think he walks up to the cage, explains briefly to the dog what he’s going to do, why he’s going to do it, and then opens the door: it surprises him that the animal doesn’t move, it hardly acknowledges him or the open door, it lies with only a sliver of light in its eyes.

He speaks to it but it doesn’t respond. He coaxes, even pleads: finally he commands, he shouts harshly and rattles the door; that doesn’t work either. He’s bewildered. Leaving the cage door ajar Felix goes into the office, sits down in the chair and pours himself a small glass of whiskey. What must he do now? Stupid fucking dog. He tries to compose himself, to relinquish everything not related directly to the problem, to open himself in such a way that the solution, there must be a solution, the solution will become obvious. Certainly he mustn’t allow himself to think. His heart beats painfully with unfamiliar excitement because it appears something is going to happen, he can’t recall anything to match the possibility of his triumph. Walters’ hands rubbing aimlessly between plump thighs.

He drinks from the little glass and notes that the whiskey has lost its bite: he goes to the window, opens it from the top, and methodically breathes cold air in through his nose. He must become blank, an empty organism, but it saw him, he’s sure of that, it knows the door is open so why doesn’t it respond? It’s probably afraid. Staring at empty yards, at fences, dirty windows, feeling the cold air in his nose and throat, he discovers that it’s afraid. He isn’t surprised. His hands have no strength. As he lights a cigarette he sees that his fingers are trembling. Felix Oswald smoking by a particular open window: he senses vague pains, he reaches under his sweater, inside his shirt so his fingers are in the armpit, his palm across the nipple, and he presses roughly . . .

Clearly he must acknowledge the animal’s fear, he must reassure it with everything at his disposal: he must talk gently, explain that they’re going to drive north to a field by an empty road, an opening in the bush, a frozen stream perhaps; he must reach in, scratch with his fingers between the yellow eyes, grab the coarse hair at its neck. Outside in the yard a black and white tomcat stares into a small tree full of sparrows. Felix hears their idiot voices: he remembers, there are wicker travelling cages in the front of the shop and probably a blanket in the cupboard . . .

He doesn’t stop under the bridge or even pause at the top of the hill, he hardly notices the foul stream, he walks on the sidewalk to her door and because the light is on, he rings her bell. He’s never done it before.

He hardly knows her, this is the first time he’s been in her apartment, he’s drinking her scotch, smoking her cigarettes: sitting across from her, pale eyes, she doesn’t move, he believes she stops him when he tries to leave, listening to her records and telling her incredible things about himself, telling her: “Once upon a time when I was much younger, it was in Ottawa I think, it must have been in Ottawa and everything was so much simpler, I had a parrot, a green and yellow parrot with scarlet on its shoulders. His name was Harold. He could bark like two dogs at the same time but he refused to talk, he screamed and whistled and barked incessantly, they go crazy you know; he was a gross and vicious bird: everything he ate turned to shit immediately so I gave him to the zoo . . . ” Does he tell her of the pain he senses in the raw meat and membranes of his chest? Why is he telling her this, has he actually said it? “I’ve never encountered a situation in my own life where I could have behaved differently, everything that has happened, or not happened to me, because of me, all of it has been inescapable.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I believe it.”

“That isn’t good enough.” They listen to the music. “I believe all kinds of things but I don’t let them make any difference . . . Why do you make everything so difficult for yourself?”

Getting up from the chair, asking her: “May I touch you? I have to touch you,” kneeling in front of her, taking her face in his hands, she watches him: the muscles along her jaw are tense, her light eyes do not give him anything. He kisses her forehead. Her hands, resting along her thighs, do not move. Returning to the chair, that’s all he wanted, that’s all he wants . . .

No it isn’t.

She says “I was at a party Saturday night, maybe fifteen . . . all old friends except for a few of us, we were strangers, almost strangers. It’s weird. I was really horny, I’d have gone with anybody, I mean it, man or woman, it couldn’t have mattered less . . . Still she doesn’t move. There’s a scratch on the record: they hear its predictable tick, and then . . . tick . . . and then . . . The muscles in her body tense under his hands. He wonders if maybe he does make things difficult for himself, he’d like to believe that; it would suggest there was another way . . . She says: “I was at a party Saturday night, maybe fifteen . . . all old friends except for a few of us, we were strangers, almost strangers. It’s weird.” There are fresh cut flowers by the piano. Everything is clean, the room is clean, it smells of wax. “All of us together in this guy’s house and the basic emotion was hatred, all of us felt it one way or another. There wasn’t any reason, it just happened. Like, it could have been, you know, friendship . . . nostalgia, but it was hatred.” They look at each other and he is uncomfortable.

“But why not? It’s just as human.” Her hand moves to push back strands of her hair: the white face is strangely delicate. What is it that he wants from her? “Everybody tried to be nice because they knew, we explained and apologized, backed away from scenes . . . ”

“I need to lie down with you,” to hold somebody.

“Just a minute . . . No matter how we tried it had to break out somewhere.” He goes to stand by the window. Shadows at the end of her garden, the sound of a train on the bridge. Everything is dirty, seedy from winter. His hands have no strength. Her voice is matter-of-fact: “I don’t know why I did it . . . when he said goodnight I hit him across the mouth with my hand . . . why would I do that? I didn’t know him, I hadn’t even spoken to him . . . ” He turns from the window, raises his hand as if he has something to say and discovers that he doesn’t. He stops in mid-gesture. Immediately it’s clear that she’s seen him, she expects him to continue, she waits . . . “Why would I do that?”

He left early to beat the traffic but it didn’t work, he’s never seen so many cars: caked with salt and dirt they creep, wait . . . As he approaches the expressway traffic thins out, they begin to move faster, Felix cuts from one lane to the other, he curses stupid drivers, air bursts at the windows and the husky shifts in its cage unhappily: he switches on the wipers because transports, speeding cars hurl dirty water on his windshield, his hands are sweating, he holds the wheel lightly and doesn’t think.

North on the airport road. The animal’s body curling in on itself behind him. It whimpers as if dreaming. Small factories on either side of the road and ugly subdivisions. Indian Line to highway 50. He turns on the radio. Across from the race track a tree full of starlings, thousands of them crowded in its spiky branches, their mottled bodies ragged in the wind. He can hear them as he passes.

Into the Humber River valley at Bolton, rising north-west to Palgrave where the snow begins again, west on 9 to Ballycroy, villages year after year in drifted snow: a woman in Palgrave raped and murdered in her bedroom, within months another, in another town and her eight-year-old daughter heard it. He turns on his lights and smokes another cigarette.

Orangeville, then north through Camilla with the pale headlights of approaching cars, Primrose, Horning’s Mills, driving back into winter, the sky grows pale, then dark between metallic clouds and the horizon. Farms are farther apart now, their front doors sealed for winter and trees crowd to the highway’s edge; the beams of his headlights thicken with blowing snow. The dog hasn’t made a sound for over an hour. He’ll turn from the highway, he’ll drive on concession roads to a place he knows, past an empty farmhouse with one apple tree, he’s been in the house, he’s heard her snowboots on the stairs, heard their voices echoing through its rooms . . .

The highway has been rising imperceptibly from the lakeshore, he doesn’t know how far, perhaps a thousand feet, so that after he leaves it the road lurches unpredictably into ravines, hills swell beneath him, he knows the land drops sharply to Georgian Bay just beyond a particular clearing by a heavy stand of evergreens. He turns halfway to the dog, he speaks to it. There’s no response, at least he doesn’t hear anything and it’s too dark to see: he begins to talk, he explains, encourages, rhythmically the wipers thump, he’s driving automatically, he knows what he’s doing, he’s soothing the dog, he’s turning left, in a little while he’ll turn right again: he passes houses without lights clustered at crossroads. The hills become longer, steeper, until he reaches the plateau: the wind is blowing from west to east across the road, they pass the farm, he can’t tell if it’s still empty, it hasn’t mattered for a long time, he hardly looks at it. He continues past the shell of a building, an abandoned schoolhouse, perhaps it’s a deconsecrated church. One wall has crumbled away, the roof has gone, the windows are empty and snow drifts high on the inner walls. He stops the car and turns off the engine. He zips the coat tightly under his chin, he pulls his woollen hat down over his ears, puts on his leather mitts and gets out. The wind abates. Fine particles of snow lift from the edge of drifts above the road, they powder his cheeks as he stands, but even that ceases; an immense stillness engulfs him, pale stars emerge in the evening sky, the field shimmers between them and the trees. Eventually he walks around the car and opens the door.

The husky is unwilling to come out of its cage. Felix understands that, the animal’s confused, disoriented by the drive, it needs to be reassured. Dragging the cage, manoeuvring it out the door isn’t easy, but he manages: short of breath, almost impatient, he explains everything: when the cage is out he lowers it to the road and undoes the wicker door. The dog doesn’t move. Perhaps it’s dead, that’s unlikely. Maybe it’s sick. He gets down on his knees to peer inside but it’s too dark, he can’t see a thing. He’s suddenly afraid to put his hand in and he doesn’t have a flashlight; he straightens and leans against the car. If he upended the cage he could shake the son-of-a-bitch out onto the road. That’s a possibility: at least it’s something he might be able to do. Standing against the car he closes his eyes; the dog should appreciate, at least understand that its freedom is being restored, it should, no matter how cautiously, he recognizes that suspicion is natural and therefore desirable, it should at least poke its fucking head out of the cage, it should see what Felix has done, is doing . . .

Maybe he’s expecting too much too soon: opening his eyes he avoids looking at the cage, perhaps it needs a little time, he stares emptily into the sky. Insubstantial clouds. Time passes. He waits with his face upturned until his neck begins to hurt. Then he slowly tilts his face forward, lowering his gaze, the sky is endless, the tops of trees against the stars, their brute mass without detail and then the field, the snowbank and the cage. But no dog. Trying to contain increasing vertigo, Felix hunches to the ground, his voice is desperate, begging . . .

Dragging the cage beside the car. The footing is treacherous, there are ruts, tracks of cars beneath drifted snow, he slides grotesquely but he doesn’t fall, he’s pulling the cage to a spot directly in front of the car, about thirty feet along the road. It’s one thing to do. He goes to the car, turns on the headlights and returns in their glare with his shadow huge and broken on the snow. He crouches to open the cage again, he shifts to avoid the shadow, he doesn’t know what to expect: the white body curls away from him. The head is buried in a corner. He speaks to it purposefully, he demands obedience, is rewarded by a sound, he’s sure there was a sound, he orders it from the cage, it appears the dog is trying to move, there’s tension in its limbs, Felix commands more forcefully, he snarls it lurches trying to turn, it falls, he hears the warning rattle in its throat, can see the gathering spasms . . .

Why does it terrify him?

He scrabbles to his feet, he runs to the car and slams the door. He begins to cough, his chest explodes, his mouth fills with vomit, he opens the door and spits onto the road, he’s choked with rolling spasms in his chest and throat, the contents of his stomach burst from his mouth and nose. Perhaps he’s dying. It happens like this, explosions, treachery inside his head, everything silent, a spike of ice in his chest, the body’s puke dribbling from its nose . . .

He gets out of the car to wash his face in the snow. Kneeling at the edge of the road he rubs until his skin hurts, then he dries it with his knitted hat: he bends to rinse his mouth, it takes more snow than he thought because it melts to almost nothing; he forces his head back, exposes his throat and gargles ineffectually. Spitting thick saliva beside his knee he reaches along his gums with his tongue for chunks of vomit. He spits again. Fresh snow in his mouth and his teeth begin to ache with the cold, he gargles again and spits. His knees are cold, his face is stinging but he doesn’t get up. The snowbank, from where he kneels, rises to meet the sky and since the car is behind him nothing but the stars has any form. They do not move. There are no clouds . . . for an instant there is no distance between objects, no objects, a consciousness, only an idea . . . gradually the impression of the icy night on his eyes, a noise in the distance, his knees melting the snow beneath him, the car cracks mechanically, contracting with the cold but that’s not it. He stands. He has the uneasy sense that something has happened, an emphasis has shifted in some way, nothing is certain: the trees, the sky remain the same, the field’s unchanged. It doesn’t make any sense. Supporting himself against the car he returns to its open door. A light breeze on his cheek, the whine of an engine carried from the highway: it sounds like a truck, he hears the farm dog. Shutting the door, he walks to the cage in the middle of the road and as he expected it’s empty: running easily among the trees, the tireless run of wild dogs, the wolf. He knows it’s too late, but he stares at the shadowy trees, searches the edge of the woods as if for a sign. There isn’t one of course; the landscape contains nothing, it might as well not be there . . .

The dog is in the car. He discovers it when he opens the back door to replace the cage. The interior light goes on and there it is. Cowering on the floor, it stares at him from the corner of its eye. He doesn’t understand, why is it in the car? He says “You’ll have to get out of there,” he speaks formally: “get out now, out!” It stares at him. He crouches by the open door, he smells wet fur, leaning over the seat until he’s level with its breath. “If you don’t screw off they’ll get you, please go, they’ll take you to the university, they’ll cut you open, they’ll put wires and everything into your head.” It doesn’t understand. “Don’t you understand? they’re waiting to zap you, they’ll fry your goddamn brain.” Its breathing is light and rushed, how can he expect it to understand, what is there to understand? He’s come this far on his own.

Very calm, without emotion, he walks around to the other side of the car, he opens the door and returns to the cage. There’s nothing to be said. He must simply force the animal from the car, close the doors and drive away. He can’t use the wicker cage as a prod; the space between the seats is too narrow, he must think of something else. All possibilities exist at the same time, in space like a tapestry: he can dismantle the cage and try to straighten one of the supports, he can find part of a fence, he can roll the spare wheel, there’s enough room, he can kick at the dog, push it out with his snowboots, it’s too bad he doesn’t have a ski-pole, the dog will resist, the fences in this part of the country are ideal, a tire iron or the jack, the spare wheel.

He’s unwilling to hit the animal; he could injure it; unless everything else fails; he leans on the red metal jack, it presses cruelly into the sinews, bone and muscle, the whimpering grows in strength. They are both without anger. Felix bending into the car, forcing methodically, he doesn’t think, he has no sensation, the husky resists. It’s only a matter of time, it can’t win. Felix knows that. The only question is how much, what kind of pain will he have to inflict before the animal capitulates?

Even when it’s finally on the road he can’t slam the door because, as he pushes its head out with the jack, it sticks a leg back in, he taps the leg carefully until it’s withdrawn, only to find another one, or the head again. He’s cold, his mouth tastes awful: he’d like to be in the city. It goes on and on. The dog breathing intently, whining in its chest, Felix pulling the door shut; why is he doing this? Eventually he succeeds. The husky is outside, it stands on its hind legs and paws at the window, he can hear it: he closes the other door and climbs into the front seat. He sits with his hands on the steering wheel, he doesn’t know how long he sits with his hands on the steering wheel. He’s trembling. The dog is at his window now, its paws scrabbling desperately, it barks suddenly, an abrupt explosive sound, it frightens him: it’s the first time he has heard it bark. He gathers saliva, trying to cleanse his mouth, he lights a cigarette and starts the car. The dog barks again, it falls away from the window as he accelerates, the rear wheels slide as he gathers speed, it runs beside him, the night is immense, he doesn’t know the road in this direction, he doesn’t know where it leads.

He’s driving faster than he should, he mustn’t go off the road, he mustn’t get stuck, the husky’s loping behind him. This isn’t the way it was supposed to be.

If, when he reaches the floor of the ravine, he turns right instead of left, if he climbs the small hill to the road and descends across highways to the railway tracks, he’s in the Don Valley. It must have been beautiful before the war. The river meanders as a river should. He can see sepia figures with parasols, gentle men with shiny boots, they drift silently beneath great black trees with rough bark, but the trees are dead now and the water is foul. In the guts of the bridge above him a subway train rattles to Bloor Street. It’s almost spring, the wind is cool: dirty water swells powerfully to the lake, eddies, whirlpools convulse to the surface and vanish. Felix crouches at the edge, on a sandbank, with a mountain of filthy snow and salt on the other side. Clearly pressed into the wet sand there are the tracks of animals, exquisite icons, he doesn’t know what they are, he touches them with his finger. He doesn’t know what they mean. He stands. There are trees, obviously different kinds of trees. He stares at them. They have names, he doesn’t know their names: they are different from each other and unique, some have rough bark, others are smooth, some are tall and slender, others burst greedily from the earth, and birds, he hears their separate voices; following the edge of the river he startles a flock of hundreds, they spring from dead weeds stuck in the snow. All about him there are signs, strange birds chase each other on an empty sky, he threads through husks of summer plants, their pods open and dry like insects. He does not want them to touch him. The snow is melting, the river grows. Even here, all around him, there are animals, they watch him pass. He doesn’t know.

He knows that he has loved her but no longer understands what it means. Standing by the window. Laughter and applause from the front room. He stares at the garage: it’s dusk, he will go for a walk. There is music now from the television, it makes him angry: in front of the set, her legs tucked beneath her on the sofa, the delicate perfume of her body, he needs her, needs to lie down with her, they cannot do that. Why can’t they? Heavy shadows at the end of the garden, the catalpa black against the sky. He goes for another drink, she turns her face to him, he’s aware of her face, he doesn’t respond, he goes into the kitchen. He should have looked at her, he should have touched her. “Do you want a drink?”

“I . . . I don’t think so.”

Sitting in an office on the seventh floor, at some point in his life, staring where his reflection should be in the window, he becomes aware, imperceptibly, of a large bird flying towards him, he can’t believe it, he waits for it to slow down, to wheel away from him, but it doesn’t, it intends to imbed itself in his chest, fiercely he sees its eyes, the yellow beak as it explodes against the glass.

Is that someone on the garage? he’s sure it wasn’t there before: a shape of some kind, a form, almost like someone lying up there observing him, but that’s unlikely. He takes a mouthful of whiskey and tries to determine if someone is watching as she comes to stand behind him, she puts her arms around him, a hand inside his shirt against his belly, she rests her body against him. Is she crying? He turns to her. It isn’t any good, he doesn’t know what to feel, it makes him sad to know he has nothing to say. It’s night now. A train crosses the bridge as she speaks: “I’m sorry.” Her mouth remains parted, she doesn’t expect an answer.

“So am I.” He touches her face with the tips of his fingers, lightly brushing her forehead, her cheekbones, he is particularly uncertain because the watcher is waiting to see what they will do next. With his hand at the back of her neck he pulls her against him. It is merely awkward, at first, but it quickly becomes embarrassing: she steps away and returns to the other room. He returns to the window. Perhaps if he turned off the light and crouched by the window he would see a wiry silhouette rise to stand beside the tree.

In front of him a car bursts over the hill, driving fast it appears instantaneously, it blinds him, he swerves to the roadside: its horn blares once and then it’s gone. Felix struggles to keep the car moving through drifted snow, he’s sliding in deeper, he stops the car and puts it into reverse, he accelerates, it begins to move, the wheels are spinning, his hands are clenched, he throws it into drive, then reverse, rocking his body with the car he makes it back onto the crown of the road. He lights a cigarette and smokes without moving. There’s a gentle wind now; the sky is full of stars. If he doesn’t come to a concession road soon he’s going to have to turn around and drive out the way he came in. Where is the husky? possibly it has left the road, it had been right behind him. He searches carefully but there’s no sign of it. He gets out of the car to pee, his body doesn’t work very well, it’s as if it doesn’t understand, all his muscles are contracted so that he has difficulty in straightening himself, it occurs to him that very old men must feel like this. Fumbling beneath his coat to find his fly he hears it, he knows it’s the dog, he knows it’s been hurt, it’s gone mad, it’s been injured: his feet on the frozen road, he’s supporting himself with both hands along the car so he doesn’t fall, it’s having a fit, a noise, a strangling, the sound of his feet, the wind, peering ahead he sees it crushed beside the road, it struggles in small circles, it flops from side to side like a fish. Standing over it he tries to understand. Bone protrudes from its side and the snow is black with its blood. He doesn’t understand, he can’t stand the noise! kill it to stop the noise, he doesn’t know how to kill it, he falls as he tries to turn away, his knees bang stupidly against his chest, he’s bleeding from the mouth, he doesn’t feel the snow against his face. He doesn’t see the husky die.

Ritson awakens. It’s predictable enough. This afternoon, like every afternoon at the same time, the need to urinate wakens him. Since he’s not yet prepared to wet himself, he can resist the pressure but he can’t ignore it. So he wakes up. Manoeuvring onto his back, he opens his eyes. There is no light, not a glimmer, he’d be astounded if there were. Lying on a mattress, in a windowless cubicle, not a cell, in the deepest corner of his basement, he acknowledges there is light in the city, but it never penetrates this far beneath the street.

On his back in the dark, it’s like sleep but his eyes are open, the empty house above him, so many rooms, the furniture covered with sheets to protect it, he remembers a woman, she must have done that before she left. Or has he always been alone? He remembers many women, and children, some of them had children in their arms, they prepared meals of soup and sandwiches for children coming home from school. It doesn’t matter. He must get up, the pressure on his bladder insists, he closes his eyes, he opens them again. Children skating on a river, their red toques brilliant in the sun. Their voices come to him in the wind. It’s possible he played a musical instrument of some kind, a violin perhaps, some instrument that he could carry with him.

He’s convinced, not without reason, that he’s appreciably weaker, his body less effective. The pain is no more intense, indeed it may have diminished, but that’s neither here nor there; pain has come and gone with the brute regularity of the tides for as long as he can remember. Inevitable; but it has no more bearing on his true state than the beating of his heart, for example, or the alternate expansion and contraction of the lungs inside his chest. But when he attempts to stand he can see that the process of disintegration in his body has continued while he slept, it may even have accelerated. His spine doesn’t bend easily, it’s as though the individual vertebrae cling to each other and even with help from his arms, the muscles in his belly are incapable of pulling him into a sitting position. He rolls onto his side, drawing his knees up to his chest, levering with his arms, he flops onto his belly, he struggles to raise his trunk from the mattress, to rise onto all fours, his arms are too weak, he collapses, his face bangs rudely against the cellar floor. It’s probably like this every day, soon the strength will return, he lies motionless with one arm beneath him, his face is pressed against the cement.

If he doesn’t manage to get up soon he’ll have to pee here in his bed and he’s never done that before, at least he can’t believe he has. He has vomited, that’s fairly certain, he’s clawed himself from sleep, his throat and lungs choked with half-digested food, and in the past, dreaming of boys and girls, a hayride perhaps, young limbs entwining him, their voices, hands, the smell of the hay, their bodies, he’s woken with hands between his legs, the unfamiliar noise of ecstasy. If it happened, it was a long time ago.

Manoeuvring onto his back, he opens his eyes. On his back in the dark, it’s like sleep, the empty house above him, so many rooms, the furniture covered with sheets to protect it, he remembers a woman, she must have done that before she left. Or has he always been alone? He remembers many women, and children, some of them had children in their arms, they prepared meals of soup and sandwiches for children coming home from school. It doesn’t matter. He must get up, the pressure on his bladder insists, he closes his eyes, he opens them again. Children skating on a river, their red toques brilliant in the sun. Their voices come to him in the wind.

Felix stops by the car, he’s afraid, he turns to look at the corpse. Even if he did kill it, it doesn’t matter: beneath stars, the dead of winter, no harmonies, there’s nothing known, nothing not known; he’s trembling against the car, the occasional naked tree, the brittle earth, he doesn’t tremble because of the fear, not even because of the cold.

What does he have to do?

Deathly cold, shaken by uncontrollable tremors, he drives back down along the road they entered. Snowbanks on either side, he accelerates beneath the sky. It was dead when he revived, beside him, nestled against him, its great body against him: he had stumbled away from the black snow, he had paused . . . Descending to the lake he turns to the right, the heater is beginning to thrust warm air into the car, it isn’t enough. He failed. He doesn’t understand. The road rises and falls with the land, he passes houses without lights clustered at crossroads.

Leaving by the side door, into the alley, it’s dark, he’s wearing running shoes and goes directly to the park, then into the ravine, he moves with empty grace, through underbrush, a path beside the road because sometimes there are others . . .

Under the railway bridge, he smokes a cigarette: cupping it secretively in his hand, he hunches down with his back against the concrete column. He listens to the stream rushing over rocks and garbage. It stinks of the graveyard. There was a boy who lived under a bridge, maybe even this bridge, there are lots of places to hide, he grew up under it in the middle of the city and nobody knew he was there. He’d come out at night to forage for food like the raccoons. He would have gone to the country, it might have been different in the country, but he didn’t know it was there. During the day he’d cling unmoving among the supports high above the ravine and watch strangers walking dogs, he was afraid of the dogs, he saw boys and girls playing together, riding their bicycles; occasionally there would be lovers lying together in the long grass, he’d see them, their private urgency and after they’d gone he’d descend to where their bodies had crushed the grass and lying on his belly, with a long freight rattling over the bridge above him, he’d weep. He knows how the rabbits move nervously at dawn and where the groundhogs live, he’s seen them killed by dogs.

At night, when there’s no longer the noise of traffic on Yonge Street, with winos sleeping heavily in the bushes, he emerges from the ravine, he must eat and knows which houses are likely to be open and where there are no dogs. He’s motionless by the catalpa, he’s watching, listening, then he vaults the fence and moves quickly to the back door and slips inside. He’s selective by instinct and rather than have them miss anything, begin to watch for him, he’ll visit three or four houses, taking a little from each. He drinks from the milk bottle, there’s cold meat in a drawer beneath the freezer, he takes some fruit, several slices of bread, he puts it all in his pockets, picks up a tomato, takes another mouthful of milk and starts for the back door . . .

Excited because nobody knows he’s here, there are lights in the apartment window, but he can’t see anybody inside. Music is playing somewhere, he doesn’t recognize the song: noise from the traffic on Yonge Street is curiously soothing, like the sea. Using the fence and the tree, Fripp climbs onto the garage roof, he wriggles forward on his belly, excited because nobody knows he’s here, he presses himself flat on the gravelled surface. A bearded man appears in the window, it’s the husband, he stands looking out with a drink in his hand. There is a bed behind him, a doorway with light in it; the music has stopped. Night air is moving imperceptibly against his face as she appears in the doorway, the woman walking up behind him, she puts her arms around him, he doesn’t move, her hand is inside his shirt. If they speak he cannot hear them, if there are sounds in the apartment, he doesn’t know: they remain motionless, he imagines their breath, the rustle of clothing as he eventually turns to her. He takes her in his arms. She turns from him, he reaches after her, she stops to look at him from the doorway, his arm is still extended, she steps forward and sits on the bed, she’s reflected in a mirror on the wall, she lies with her face in her hands, the man walks to stand over her, he touches her as if he’d never seen her before. She doesn’t move. He touches her shoulder and still she doesn’t move, he’s saying something to her; she presses her face even more tightly into her hands. The man comes to the window. He empties his glass and lights a cigarette, he stands smoking, staring out at the end of the garden. Without turning his head he says something, the woman raises her face to stare at him, her long hair over her face like a mask: it isn’t any good, the man turns, the woman stands, pulls her dress up her body and over her head, she is naked except for bikini pants and her back is crisscrossed with lacerations as if she has frequently been whipped. He sees her reflected in the mirror, she is standing very still, her body is white and soft even from this distance, her breasts are heavy. He does not know what is happening, the expectation is like panic. She bends to the bed, she kneels on it, she stretches herself face down along it, the man comes to crouch over her, he leans to put his mouth on her wounds, they look like decorations in her flesh, his tongue traces them dutifully, there’s no passion, they don’t appear to be moving at all. Her eyes are closed.

Now, and this is more difficult, going to her again, knowing the hair shrouding her face, knowing she waits for him: there are trees scattered up each side of the ravine, this morning he saw a hawk, he’s almost certain it was a hawk, it soared on ragged wings.

Her long body in his arms, strands of her hair in his mouth as he climbs out of the ravine, he vaults the fence by the garage, she’s waiting for him, she’ll turn as he comes in the door, light from the window in her hair, on her cheek.

A bottle of chilled white wine, it’s a ritual, either of them might have bought it: they’re listening to her records. Bright on the wicker placemats, the afternoon sun is still warm; the wine glass focuses a shimmering patch of light on the table by his hand. She reaches across the light to touch him. He goes around the table, he kneels before her, he burrows his face into her lap, his hands under her skirt grope for her thighs, her buttocks spreading as she sits: her hands are in his hair, she traces the muscles from his neck into his shoulders. They do not speak. She’s watching him. He loves her, he raises his face, she kisses him, her mouth is full of wine, he drinks: she reaches for her glass, her eyes are moist, pressing her mouth to his she dribbles wine, warmed by her body, into him; he loves her, his tongue is swollen against her teeth, she resists, she rejects and receives him; with mouths bruising together they re-explore familiar innocence. The floor is beginning to hurt his knees. His hands are at her hips, his thumbs pressing into her belly, his fingers stretching towards her buttocks, he levers himself from the floor, it’s only briefly awkward, she stands with him, they embrace, her long body in his arms; then taking the bottle of wine, what’s left of it, they go into the bedroom.

It’s so easy.

Her long body in his arms, strands of her hair in his mouth, still gentle they undress each other, a shaft of fading sunlight across his body and hers, he spills wine on her breasts, her belly, and drinks; laughing she presses him onto his back, her fingers, mouth and teeth at random on his body. With her again, for the first time again, he understands.

“You make me beautiful.”

Her long body in his arms, strands of her hair in his mouth, the urgent sounds of their bodies, passion growing like fear or anger, they clutch and bite in desperation, it breaks, they’re tumbling together into loneliness and awe.

On her street for the first time in daylight, he walks past her house, there’s no sign of her: a stark tree on the lawn, the windows are clean, there are bright curtains; he stops as if to light a cigarette. He doesn’t know her name.

He will tell her, he’ll say: “I’ve never encountered a situation in my own life where I could have behaved differently, everything that has happened, or not happened to me, because of me, all of it has been inescapable.” She watches him. Does she understand? her hands are curled in her lap, he’s drinking her scotch, smoking her cigarettes: sitting across from her, pale eyes, she doesn’t move, he believes she stopped him when he tried to leave, listening to her records.

He will say: “I’ve never encountered a situation, in the lives of my friends, when they made any kind of choice, when they could have done anything other than what they did do. Choice” he will say, “describes what might have been.”

“That’s a useless idea.”

“I believe it.”

“That isn’t good enough.” They listen to the music, she doesn’t understand. “I believe all kinds of things but I don’t let them make any difference . . . I hardly know you . . . Why do you make everything so difficult for yourself?”

Her street in daylight, he walks to her door: a stark tree on the lawn, the windows are clean, there are bright curtains, everything is clean; it’s the kind of apartment that will have fresh cut flowers, it will smell of wax, of furniture polish. He steps into the vestibule, her name is printed beneath her doorbell. Urquhart. Mr. and Mrs. D. Urquhart, he rings the bell. He’s forgotten his role, what he was going to say, she’ll know, she’ll cry out, protesting . . .

She’s taller than he thought, her hair is almost black, she looks at him impersonally, her black hair over her shoulders. “Yes?” Her voice is clear and open, he cannot meet her eyes, surely she suspects . . . “May I help you?” He must answer, he hears his voice:

“Are there any, do you have any odd jobs, you know . . . work around the house?” He manages to glance into her face, he doesn’t know where that idea came from, certainly she’ll refuse him. “Please . . . I’ll do anything . . . ” Calculating, she stares at him easily, there is sunlight in the room behind her, the flesh in the opening of her shirt is white, his mouth and throat, even his teeth are dry, he’s seen her breasts, they’re even bigger than he thought, she must know, surely she suspects, she’s opening the door! it never happens this easily, is she alone? he listens intently, but there’s no sound from the apartment behind her. She’s alone and she’s opening the door, she’s stepping backwards . . .

“Come in. I’m sure there’s something.” Trembling violently he closes the door, he follows her in the hall, her hair comes right down to her ass, his sneakers make tiny kissing noises on the hardwood. Everything is clean, the rooms are clean, they smell of furniture polish, soap, perfumes and powders, wax, there are fresh cut flowers by the piano and a bowl of fruit on an ornate stand by the window. There is an enormous black brassiere drying on a radiator in the bathroom.

Several women at a table by the window, they’re laughing richly. They appraise him in the doorway, it’s disconcerting. The table is covered with open beer bottles: she leaves him to drink from her glass, he watches the life in her throat as she swallows. “He wonders if there’s anything he can do around the house.” Dragging deeply on her cigarette, their buoyant voices overlap; it’s as if she’s devouring the smoke.

“Well he should begin with a beer.”

“For strength.”

“He says he’ll do anything.” Langorous, they’re superbly flushed with drink, their bare arms and throats in sunlight; they confidently reach and drink, they cross their thighs and stretch. He can only grin foolishly and take a beer. They watch him drinking.

“What do you do best?” She speaks to him from a chair beside the stove, he doesn’t know what to say. Her hair is short, curled about her ears and her smile is gently mocking. There are pearls around her neck, they rest on her small bosom and for some incredible reason he is able to say:

“I don’t know.”

“There must be something.” Although they’re observing him in such a way that he knows they must have some understanding amongst themselves, it’s almost a plot, certainly some prearranged agreement, and although the nature of his response is obviously very important, it will certainly determine how they are going to deal with him, despite all this they aren’t hostile, they aren’t baiting him, on the contrary, encouragement emanates from them like perspiration, like the odour of their bodies. It makes it possible for him to continue.

“Well. There is one thing, I guess . . . ”

“What is it?”

“Well.” They wait patiently, he really must try, he doesn’t want to disappoint them. Sun shining on the brown bottles, the women, small green plants, the whole scene in sunlight, there is dust and smoke in the air; Urquhart reaches to the ashtray, her black hair covers her face, she isn’t wearing a brassiere, she taps her cigarette and straightens, she flounces her hair back from her face, he hears a bird outside, he knows what he will say: “When the time comes, when it’s absolutely essential, I can walk from here to there.” He raises his arm and points, he sees his hand in the room. “To the back door there.”

It is Urquhart who says: “Not everybody knows that.” They prepare a chair for him between her and the woman with the pearls. He sits in it. His bottle is empty so they give him another. He notices that the blond girl, obviously the youngest of them, she isn’t much more than twenty, she only has one arm; the sleeve of her black sweater has been removed and the arm hole cleverly mended. She’s very pretty by the window, she smiles at him and the smile remains: she watches him drinking and talking.

Later, when she is naked, her breasts marbled with miniature blue veins, he sees that the shoulder curves smoothly, uninterrupted into her side, there’s no sign she ever had an arm. He stands in front of her, he cups his hand where her arm should begin, her body is cool, her eyes are closed, she puts her hand on his and speaks his name.

Urquhart has taken the necklace, they’re not pearls at all, they’re tropical seeds of some kind strung on elastic, she puts it over his head and bending her face close to his, her arms are around him, her hair, she grins wickedly . . . No she doesn’t, she rests her face wearily against his throat. He is standing by the sink. She returns to her chair. There is a silence and then she says: “I don’t know. I’m overwhelmed with a sense of exhaustion. It happens every time, I’m sitting with a man and I suddenly realize, there’s nothing here for me, he doesn’t know who he is, the poor bastard’s hardly alive . . . ” He goes to stand by the window. Shadows at the end of her garden, the sound of a train on the bridge. Everything is dirty, seedy from winter. His hands have no strength. Her voice is matter-of-fact: “Why am I always attracted to empty men?” They sway with her words like branches. “Impotent men, not necessarily sexually, it’s a question of manhood.” He turns from the window, raises his hand as if he has something to say and discovers that he doesn’t. He stops in mid-gesture. Immediately it’s clear that she’s seen him, she expects him to continue, she almost shouts: “It’s not me you know, it’s not us!” Her dark mouth remains slightly parted as she waits, he can see her teeth. It’s not that she’s angry, on the contrary; the one-armed girl is weeping without noise as she lights a cigarette. He understands, he wishes there was something he could say. He can’t think of anything. “What in hell’s happening to you guys?” A yellow cat appears in the window behind her; standing on its hind legs it scratches on the glass to get in.

The icy road against his face, he doesn’t know where he is at first, he can’t remember: he feels the coarse hair of its cold body in his arms, he’s deathly cold against the earth. He finds it almost impossible to move, he doesn’t know why he should try to get up. It isn’t painful. He’s been dreaming, there are voices, is he dreaming still? Lying on his side with the husky in his arms he can see the shell of a building beside the road, an abandoned schoolhouse, perhaps it’s a deconsecrated church: a wall has crumbled away, the roof has gone, the windows are empty. The easiest thing would be to sleep again, he doesn’t know why he struggles to get up, but he does, he wrestles free of its stiff body and the pain begins, he’s on all fours, his body’s possessed with systematic shudders that almost cast him to the ground. Felix on his knees, sobbing, he can hear his noise, he gathers himself, he rises to sway above the dog, the snow is black . . .

By the ceiling a window, a small window with iron bars on the outside. The television is in the corner of the room. Blue light on his hands. No sound. Light on his trouser legs. He has eaten because it is evening, because it is almost night. Soon he’ll leave the room, he’ll walk to the stairs, he’ll mount them to the landing at the side door, and with only the slightest hesitation, he’ll step out into the alley.

Very soon now. He drinks from a bottle, he smokes: blue light on his hands. What will they be doing tonight? What will he see them doing? He crosses the room because there are dark figures swooping back and forth across the screen, he turns up the sound; the crowd roars with excitement as the players dash from one end of the rink to the other. The Leafs and New York. He takes a mouthful of beer and settles into his chair. He knows each Toronto player by the way they move. At the end of the first period, Leafs leading, he goes to the refrigerator and opens two bottles of beer: returning with them to his chair he’s vaguely aware that he isn’t going out, it’s getting late, he’s certainly missing something, what are they doing? He flicks from channel to channel until he finds a baseball game, he doesn’t like baseball but it will do. He’ll go out later. After the hockey game. He’ll move with grace, his feet make no sound: swaying lights as he descends into the ravine, he avoids the road, he slides through underbrush, a path along the edge.

He’s sitting by the telephone. He’s dialing her number: he doesn’t feel anything. He stops dialing her number. He goes to the baseball game and turns off the sound; he returns to the telephone, sometimes her husband answers and that’s good too, sometimes nobody answers. His hands are trembling, there is no strength. All sounds are separate and hugely magnified. Cars in the street, the noise of his body: although the clock is on the other wall, it sounds as if it’s pressed against his ear. Her phone begins to ring, it rings again, her voice, she answers his call, he starts to talk, she hears him, his tongue is swollen, his mouth is full of meat.

The camera follows the players to their dugout until the commercial starts. He estimates that ten minutes have passed, he switches back to the hockey game: the players are returning to the ice. He takes a mouthful of cold beer and watches them skate gracefully about the rink, the referee blows his whistle and the second period begins. He settles expectantly into his chair. The room is dark except for shifting light from the game, blue light on his hands, on his legs as he drinks. Sometimes there are a lot of small figures scooting up the ice, then from another angle there are two or three, they fill the screen, they crash together against the boards, they either slide apart as if it didn’t happen, or they strike out automatically, they drop their sticks and gloves, they grapple together and fall again, the crowd roars and there’s a commercial. He drinks the last of his second beer as the period ends without a score. Several women appear on the screen, they’re rubbing themselves against a bum-faced man who’s extolling a car; his voice is American: the women are rubbing themselves against the car now, they lie along the hood or lean against a fender with their mouths open greedily, they stare into the camera. He goes into the bathroom and masturbates. On the way back he gets two more beers from the refrigerator, he’s just in time for the final period.

Soon he’ll leave the room, he’ll walk to the stairs, he’ll mount them to the landing at the side door, and with only the slightest hesitation, he’ll step out into the alley; it’s always the same, sneaking out the side door into the alley, it must be dark, he’s wearing running shoes and goes directly to the park, into the ravine, he walks in the bushes beside the road because sometimes there are others, a car perhaps, but not tonight. He doesn’t stop under the railway bridge or even pause at the top of the hill, he hardly notices the foul stream, he goes directly to the catalpa and climbs the fence. He’s done this before. Listening at the back door, there’s a light in the hall, but they are sleeping, he’s sure of that: listening carefully, entering, he’s done it many times. Trembling violently he closes the door, he walks through the kitchen and along the hall to their bedroom, his sneakers make tiny kissing noises on the hardwood. Everything is clean, the rooms are clean, they smell of furniture polish, soap, perfumes and powders, wax, it is dark, but there are flowers by the piano. The bedroom door is open. He waits with his shadow on the wall; he must be certain they’re asleep. He can hear them. The house creaks meaninglessly. He doesn’t know how long he stands listening to them through the open door, it doesn’t matter. One of them, it’s her, she’s lying naked in her bed, she rolls over, she sighs, he recognizes the sound, he leans against the doorframe. The smell of her body, her breath faintly stale with cigarettes. His gigantic shadow precedes him into the room, he makes no sound, it’s as if he isn’t there: ecstatic because they don’t know he’s standing at the foot of their bed, he stares at them, they don’t know he’s staring down at them like this. From the corner of his eye he sees himself in the mirror on the open cupboard door. Curtains sway in the moving air. She’s lying on her side, her face pressed against his shoulder. The noise of a machine cleaning the street; the sound of its revolving brushes as he comes to stand by her head. Then just the sound of an engine as it turns the corner. Bending he places his lips gently at the corner of her mouth. He feels her sleeping breath, her mouth is dry. He draws back from her as she stirs, he mustn’t move, he hardly breathes as she shifts onto her back: sighing again, she moistens her lips with her tongue, he wonders if she’s dreaming. Muscles contract in her face, he’d like to know what she’s dreaming, does she dream of the bearded man sleeping on his belly beside her? Does she dream of her lover? She’s smiling in her sleep, her eyes are in shadow, perhaps they’re open! perhaps she’s looking at him, she’s smiling at him, her arms emerge from beneath the covers to enfold him, she draws him to her, her mouth opens against his, she arches her long body, his hands are in her black hair, he holds her delicate skull in his hands. No, it doesn’t happen like that. She’d be afraid, if she opened her eyes and saw Fripp leaning over her like this she’d cry out, she’d be terrified. It’s not possible that she’d reach with her white arms and draw him to her body. Anyway the man would hear them, he’d waken without them realizing it and although there’s a chance that their lust would excite him, that he’d encourage them with sly caresses, obscene exhortations, perhaps he’d even join them, but that’s unlikely, there’d undoubtedly be a scene, maybe a violent one. He watches her sleeping face, her body beneath the sheet. Her black hair is on the pillow and on her shoulder. He’s seen her breasts, the black brassiere, they’re bigger than he thought, he reaches to touch her, he doesn’t touch her. He’s crouching beside their bed, he doesn’t know what to do.

“Memories are like bad dreams.” Ritson’s voice, it doesn’t sound like a voice, he hears it in the dark. “They torment me so. That’s why I live in a cellar, it must be: I am lonely, but I am away from it all. That must be the reason. I have had to get used to it, it has not come easily. How could it? It is not man’s nature to live like an animal.” Perhaps he has said this before. If only he could get up, he doesn’t want to wet himself. Did he get up yesterday? it seems to him that he did, but it’s possible that he has deteriorated to such an extent, and in such a way, that he hasn’t noticed; and it’s the not noticing, after all, that’s the measure of real and significant deterioration, perhaps it has gone so far that he didn’t get up yesterday, that he won’t be able to get up today. “A basement is not an ideal place to die.” That voice again, his voice. At the same time he doesn’t appear to smell of stale urine, that would suggest he’d been on his feet yesterday. But not necessarily. It could just as easily mean that he’s subsided to the point where he doesn’t have to pee every day, that the pressure he now experiences is a reservoir of urine that’s been collecting for several days. The body’s organs do decay in this way, its processes do break down, there’s no question of that. It isn’t surprising. There was a time when he was able to pee as many as fifteen times in a single day, the urine rushed from him in torrents. But that’s history too, and there’s no reason to hope that it will be possible every day, any more than it was possible, say eighteen months ago, to believe he could then continue to pee more than seven times a week.

If he allows himself, he’ll pursue this sort of speculation forever, he’ll exhaust every combination of possibilities, and even though it’s challenging for the mind, even though it could prove to be more or less diverting, it has nothing to do with him lying here, on his back, his body undeniably weaker than he has ever known it to be. A cellar is not an ideal place to die. He rolls onto his side, drawing his knees up to his chest, levering with his arms, he flops onto his belly, he struggles to raise his trunk from the mattress, to rise onto all fours, his arms are too weak, he collapses, his face bangs rudely against the cellar floor. It’s probably like this every day, soon the strength will return, he lies motionless with one arm beneath him, his face is pressed against the cement.

“Memories are like bad dreams.” Ritson’s voice, it doesn’t sound like a voice, he hears it in the dark. “They torment me so. That’s why I live in a cellar, it must be: I am lonely.” There’s a woman, a fine-looking woman, wide-hipped and full-breasted: she’s shrouding the furniture, her arms are naked, she shakes white sheets, they billow over the stuffed chairs, they settle noiselessly on the sofa. A purposeful young woman, she doesn’t look more than thirty-five; he isn’t confident that he knows who she is. Who is she? Bending she adjusts the sheets, she tucks them under the legs of the furniture. She brushes hair from her brow and sighs. He doesn’t understand why she’s doing this, why doesn’t she acknowledge him? it’s as if he isn’t in the room. She pulls the blinds down, one by one, she draws the curtains and then, still without looking in his direction, she goes into the other room, he can hear her, he finds himself in the doorway. Because in this room, too, the blinds are down, because the curtains are drawn, he cannot see her. Where is she? alone into the room he knows she will not see him. He hears an unrecognizable sound from the corner of the room, a slight repetitive sound, he opens the cupboard, she’s in the cupboard, her feet no longer touch the floor: her face, although contorted, is brutally serene; her tongue is swollen, it lolls from between her teeth, he sees that she’s bitten it, there’s blood in her mouth, it’s boiling onto her chin: bulging from their sockets, her eyes stare hugely over his shoulder into the room. The noise is caused by her fist; compusively, as if counting time, she’s tapping the cupboard wall with her fist. He’s appalled by the calm in that body beneath her blackening face; all the energy of death is in her face as her body rotates imperceptibly.

Manoeuvring onto his back, he opens his eyes. On his back in the dark, it’s like sleep, the empty house above him, so many rooms, he remembers the woman, she must have done that before she left. Or has he always been alone? He remembers many women, and children, some of them had children in their arms, they prepared meals of soup and sandwiches for children coming home from school. It doesn’t matter. He must get up, the pressure on his bladder insists, he closes his eyes, he opens them again. Children skating on a river, their red toques brilliant in the sun. Their voices come to him in the wind.

Leaving by the side door, into the alley, it’s dark, he’s wearing running shoes and goes directly to the park, then left into the ravine, he moves with empty grace, through the underbrush, a path beside the road because sometimes there are others, there are cars without lights, there are figures, shadows in the corner of his eye.

And tonight there is a car, he knows where to look, he sees it, heart’s rhythm and muscles tightening, his mouth parting, he pauses: leaves shiver about him, a light evening breeze on his face. He stares at the motionless hulk of the car. He can almost smell it. Circling up the side of the ravine so they won’t see him; he wonders if they’re screwing. He hopes so. Pausing to stare down at them he thinks of hurling a brick or something, bouncing it off the roof. He stands grinning in the dark. There’s no sound from the car. The wind has gone, he hears traffic somewhere above him; he’d never do a thing like that, he knows it’d scare the shit out of them, they’d probably never make it again. He stands without moving: there are animals, he hears them in the dead leaves, the night sky is full of bats and owls. He no longer cares why they have no place to go, why they have to come here, inviting almost certain detection by the police who patrol the ravine with search-lights on their yellow cars. It doesn’t matter, it’s true the car is there, it might as well be empty. He doesn’t understand how he could have been tempted to crawl closer to the glinting metal body, the brush of bodies perhaps? He knows how pathetic that is. They groan, breathing and sighing, the noise of their bodies, he sees them, they don’t know he’s here, so close to them, teeth bared, eyes white, he reaches, fingers extended, staring he reaches into the car, he sees her legs convulse like arms. What does he want from them, any of them? He doesn’t know who they are. He doesn’t feel anything. They’re there, he’s seen the glow from at least two cigarettes and smoke drifting from the driver’s open window. He can’t make any sense of it, he can’t even remember why he’s standing above them in the dark, deathly still, as if remembering something he’s never experienced.

He’s almost there, he’ll cross the stream, it’s always the same. He smokes a cigarette under the railway bridge: cupping it secretively in his hand, he leans against a concrete column. Water rushes over rocks and garbage, it stinks of the cemetery. Crushing the butt beneath his shoe, he listens intently for any noise that will betray the other, the watcher; he hears only cascading water, the predictable sounds of night and the city above him. Secure that he’s not observed, he crosses the stream, he scrambles directly to the entrance and with some difficulty slides the metal cover until there’s an opening big enough for him to slip through. Because it’s cramped inside, in fact there’s scarcely enough room for his crouching body, it’s hard to push the cover back into place. He has to brace himself against one wall, it’s not so much the weight, it’s the angle: it doesn’t matter how often he does it, how carefully he tries to remember the position that’s given him the angle, he has to rediscover it every time. Tonight, for some reason, he falls into it very quickly, it hardly takes him any time at all and although he’s not a superstitious man, he accepts it as an omen.

He twists to enter the conduit at his feet: it’s an almost perfect circle; at the beginning he’d thought it was a pipe, but it isn’t, it’s made of brick. Because it’s narrow, he’s perfected a slithering crawl that transports him, efficiently enough, up the incline to where it widens at the foot of their garden. But it fatigues him. He lies on his belly listening to his heart. It’s remarkably dry and there are dead leaves on the floor of the tunnel. Catching his breath, he discovers that he’s grinning in the pitch black; the sound of his heart does not frighten him. The garage, the catalpa are above him somewhere and the house is straight ahead: from here it’s wide enough for him to scrabble on his hands and knees to the foundation, it’s easy.

Once inside the walls, however, he must be careful. He inches from the basement to the ground floor and peers through tiny holes into the kitchen. The light on the table, reflected in the window, glows in an empty room heavy with shadow: the counters have been wiped clean, a dish cloth hangs from the faucet, and although it’s clear they’ve finished with this room for the night, he waits briefly to be sure. He’s seen too much in here, he’s seen them together, and alone, he’s watched them, Urquhart and her man, their child, as they eat: some nights he’s watched the two of them drinking with friends until the kitchen table’s covered with bottles and the room is stale with smoke. Infrequently they sing. More often they listen to sentimental music and talk defensively of friends, of ugly marriages and failure: Urquhart usually retires first, but there was an evening when her husband went first and Urquhart was left with a man he hadn’t seen before, an intense and animated man who’d apparently returned from some distant place, it had been difficult to hear because of the music. Can he be sure it actually happened? it’s impossible to know. Urquhart and her lover leaning together from opposite sides of the table, she talking uncontrollably, he can’t hear what she’s saying, the man holding both her hands in his, occasionally he reaches, he brushes the hair from her face, and once, she imprisons his hand against her shoulder with her mouth.

He moves easily, without noise, between their walls, he’s accustomed to it now: he’s observed them night after night and sometimes, usually on weekends, he’s remained all day in the structure of the house, moving from room to room collecting the minutiae of their lives. They don’t know he exists, containing their bodies’ history like a mirror. He tries to understand, it’s as if he doesn’t exist.

The child is asleep in its room, he can barely discern its body stretched out beneath a blow-up of the Beatles. One night he saw Urquhart and her man give the child a toy, it looked like a model gas station, perhaps it was an ocean liner. The child was asleep and after the baby sitter left they woke it up because they couldn’t wait until morning. Whatever it was had batteries because miniature lights glowed magically in the dark room and the child threw its arms about their necks, he could hear the excited voice, he watched them standing intimately above the child as it stared in wonderment.

Fumbling beneath his coat to find his fly he hears it, he knows it’s the dog, he knows it’s been hurt, it’s gone mad, it’s been injured: his feet on the frozen road, he’s supporting himself with both hands, the sound of his feet, the wind, its body crushed and struggling, white bone in its side, kill it to stop the noise! he can hear it, broken, the snow is black, he doesn’t understand, the noise, he tries to turn away, he falls . . .

He’s driving back down along the road they entered. Snowbanks on either side, he accelerates beneath the sky. It was dead when he revived, beside him, nestled against him, he’d been dreaming, he remembers a valley full of lilacs in summer rain, mauve and purple at the bottom of an eroded hill, he descends with difficulty because it’s steep, yellow mud sticks to his boots: there’s a stream at the bottom, he arrives at the bottom, the smell of lilacs bursting on him, the long grasses bend down behind him in a path.

In front of the set, her legs tucked beneath her on the sofa, Urquhart’s sitting in the noise of laughter and applause. Her husband comes in from the bedroom with an empty glass in his hand. There’s music now from the television. She looks at him, he doesn’t respond, he goes into the kitchen. She buries her face in her hands. His voice, when he calls from the other room, is matter-of-fact: “Do you want a drink?”

“I . . . I don’t think so.” She hesitates, she springs to her feet and shuts the television off. When the husband, ice ringing in his glass, passes through again, she’s standing with her back against the white wall, splay-fingered hands pressed against it at her sides. In order to get where he’ll be able to see into the livingroom, bedroom and bathroom with a minimum of movement, he’ll have to creep within two inches of her, he’s never been this close; she’s still there, he’s hardly moving now, does he imagine it, or can he smell the delicate perfume of her body? there’s a sudden movement, it’s happening! her hands bang against the wall, he hears her speak, he stares in time to see her march into the bedroom. Afraid that he’ll miss something, he scuttles to the corner, along to the bathroom and around it, and then, with practised agility, into the bedroom wall. They’re standing together at the window; on the other side of the window it is night. They’re reflected in the glass. Urquhart is behind her man, her arms are around him, her body rests against his body. Is she crying? The man turns to her uncertainly. A train is crossing the bridge as she speaks: “I’m sorry.”

“So am I.” He touches her face with the tips of his fingers, he brushes her forehead, her cheekbones, he slides his hand to the back of her neck and pulls her close to him, she rests her face wearily in his throat. She disengages herself and sits on the bed, he returns to the window. He leans against a supporting beam and waits. The room is almost dark and they are unwilling to move.

She speaks his name, she says “I don’t know anymore. I’m overwhelmed with a sense of exhaustion.” She talks in the shadows. The words are unrelated to her voice. “It happens every time. Like at the party . . . I was really horny. I’d have gone with anybody, I mean it, man or woman, it couldn’t have mattered less . . . ” Still she doesn’t move; the man, does he hear her? he’s standing with his reflection. “Maybe fifteen people . . . all old friends except for a few of us, we were strangers, almost strangers. It’s weird.” Her hand moves to push back strands of her hair: the white face is strangely delicate. “All of us in this guy’s house and the basic emotion was hatred, you must have felt it, you knew too . . . There wasn’t any reason, it just happened. Like, it could have been, you know, friendship . . . nostalgia, but it was hatred.”

“I’ve never encountered a situation in my own life where I could have behaved differently, everything that has happened, or not happened to me, because of me, all of it has been inescapable.”

“Just a minute . . . No matter how we tried, it had to break out somewhere.” The man comes to stand beside the bed. He speaks inaudibly and still she’s unresponsive, he speaks again. Her voice is matter-of-fact: “I don’t know why I did it . . . when he said goodnight I hit him across the mouth with my hand . . . why would I do that? I didn’t know him, I hadn’t even spoken to him . . . ” The man crouches before her: their shadows blend without detail, their two bodies separate, automatically their voices overlap, he’s seen this before, he strains to hear what the man is saying but he cannot hear. Urquhart stretches to the lamp on the bedside table, she turns it on: she stares intently into his upturned face and her voice silences him. “Why am I always attracted to empty men?” He lowers his bearded face to her lap, his hands are moving beneath her skirt. A train is crossing the bridge. How long do they remain like this? his hands groping at her thighs, his voice muffled by her body and she watching them in the mirror, she almost shouts: “It’s not me you know, it’s not us!” Her dark mouth remains slightly parted as she waits, he can see her teeth. A yellow cat appears in the doorway to his left, it leaps onto the bed and as it curls about itself on the pillow it reveals swollen dugs. Urquhart stretches her head back, staring emptily at her reflection, she runs her fingers through her hair. “What in hell’s happening to you guys?” On his knees the man rocks back so that his buttocks rest on his heels, he stares into her face and takes his hands from her body. Peering through rough plaster, he watches Urquhart light a cigarette; she’s impatient, even angry: “Will you get up for Chrissakes!” She lurches to her feet and goes into the bathroom.

In order to see into the bathroom he has to edge back, about six feet, to the corner and then to the mirror, he makes no noise. She’s brushing her hair. He sees black stubble in her armpit, he watches her tricep flexing beneath painfully white skin; she tilts her head, the hair falls free of her shoulder, her dark mouth is parted, he stares into her empty eyes. She leans her head to the left, she reaches to brush the other side, her breasts shift heavily, they’re marbled with miniature blue veins, she’s holding her lower lip between her teeth and now her eyes are closed. Abruptly she throws her trunk forward, her tumbling hair, a curtain between him and her body, she brushes and brushes. He hears the brush in her hair; he’s close enough to see, just before she straightens, the white scalp at her crown. There’s a tap on the door. Turning she shakes her hair into place, she unlocks the door and takes the drink. The man is just visible beyond her, he seems to be pressing against the door, his face is very close to hers: his mouth opens and closes as he speaks, her body prevents him from entering and still he’s talking while she resists, she manages to close the door, she latches it, her voice is very calm: “I’ll be out in a minute.” She returns to the mirror as if nothing has happened; as she drinks, her left hand absently fondles a breast. In a minute she’ll leave and the man will enter, it’s always the same: standing at the bedroom window, smoking and staring into the garden, he’s waiting until she opens the door. He’ll come into the bathroom and after putting his underpants in the laundry basket, he’ll pee noisily and with obvious satisfaction: then he fills the basin with hot water. He washes himself meticulously and always in the same order. First his hands, his arms to the elbow and then, standing on a towel, he soaps his armpits and, leaning over the basin, rinses them thoroughly: next, his crotch and between his buttocks with water dribbling down his thighs; when he’s finished that, he empties the basin and dries himself. It never varies. Bending close to the watcher in the mirror, their eyes are less than a foot apart, squeezing blackheads from his nose and forehead, brushing dandruff from his beard, he refills the basin, he scrubs his face and neck until the skin is red. Urquhart puts her glass beside the basin, she removes her brassiere and examines each breast as if searching for something, then she vigorously brushes her teeth. She spits into the basin and he’s startled to see the blood in her saliva. He concludes it’s from her gums.

That blue light on his hands, on his legs. The stairs, that door, the alley. Why does he do it? He moves with empty grace, his feet make no sound, he slides through under-brush, a path along the edge, he walks beside the road because sometimes there are others . . .

He stops under the railway bridge. He’s almost there, he’ll smoke a cigarette. Then he’ll cross the stream and climb to the pavement, the lights, their house. What will they be doing? what will he see them doing tonight? He hears water rushing against the concrete support, it stinks of the cemetery half-a-mile ahead: seeping among the graves it gathers in pools, he remembers the pools, it overflows and fed by the city becomes a stream that smells of bodies.

By the garage, excited because nobody knows he’s here, pressing himself into its shadow with catalpa leaves resting on his shoulders. There are lights in the apartment but nobody appears in the windows. Music from a radio, perhaps a record player, is playing somewhere. He doesn’t recognize the song. Noise from the traffic on Yonge Street is curiously soothing, like the sea, although he’s never heard the sea, or wind rushing across the land, some land, somewhere . . . Resting his face against the brick, he’s breathing easily because he’s in no hurry. In a minute he’ll climb onto the garage roof, using the fence and one limb of the catalpa tree, he’ll wriggle forward and lie unseen to watch them . . .

Fumbling beneath his coat to find his fly he hears it, he knows it’s the dog, he knows it’s been hurt, it’s gone mad, it’s been injured: his feet on the frozen road, he’s supporting himself with both hands, the sound of his feet, the wind, its body crushed and struggling, white bone in its side, kill it to stop the noise! he can hear it, broken, the snow is black, he doesn’t understand, the noise, he tries to turn away, he falls . . .

He’s driving back down along the road they entered. Snowbanks on either side, he accelerates beneath the sky. It was dead when he revived, beside him, nestled against him, he’d been dreaming, he remembers a valley full of lilacs in summer rain, mauve and purple at the bottom of an eroded hill, he descends with difficulty because it’s steep, yellow mud sticks to his boots: there’s a stream at the bottom, he arrives at the bottom, the smell of lilacs bursting on him, the long grasses bend down behind him in a path.

He’s driving back down the road they entered, descending to the lake; he turns to the right, the heater is beginning to thrust warm air into the car, it isn’t enough. He’s icy to the core, his fingers are swollen and painful, his mouth is bruised: he almost welcomes the pain. He drives with one hand gingerly on the wheel, the other is pressed into his armpit beneath his clothing. He’s failed. He doesn’t understand. Why didn’t he do something, why didn’t? strangling there, the sound of his feet, why didn’t he kill it? with the jack handle, he could have, that’s something he could have done, he could have killed it in Toronto. The road rises and falls with the land, there are no cars, he passes houses without lights clustered at crossroads.

Driving south from winter, through Primrose, south to Camilla and still the highway’s empty, his hands still hurt, driving into Orangeville, turning left at the lights: stopping at the outskirts he turns on his wipers, with difficulty he climbs out of the car, he throws snow on the windshield to clean it, another handful, his body is bruised and stiff, he gets back in. He lights a cigarette. His hands are throbbing. He turns on the radio and sits smoking without hearing the voice. Then, forcing the butt out the no-draft, he accelerates onto the crown of the road.

Through Ballycroy on 9 with music on the radio, driving at night with fields of snow on either side. He believes he did this often as a boy. Driving in a sealed car, a winter night, smoking alone and listening to the radio, climbing into the Laurentian shield, driving for hours and sometimes with others, in the back seat perhaps, with a girl, taut bodied and sighing, their mouths dry, surely it happened to him as well, it must have: sharing Molson’s from a quart bottle, the taste of it in their mouths, young bodies, hands at his face, his belly inside his shirt, how can he know for sure? protesting mile after mile, I must get home, it’s late, oh please! reluctant thighs and hungry faces in the light of passing cars. And then, one night for the first time, it must have happened, a damp hand between his legs, such a long time ago, the noise of their breathing in the swaying car, the radio, he remembers a small hard nipple between his teeth.

The signal’s stronger as he turns south again: radio voices sing of peace, of love and snowbanks collapse upon themselves as he drives into Palgrave, its houses isolated along the road. A woman raped and murdered in her bedroom. He’s driving out of winter, away from the snow: black fields and the highway glistens in his lights. He’s very tired. He doesn’t think about the dog, not now, perhaps never. He’ll leave the car for Walters, that’s all. Music in a closed car driving very fast, he discovers it’s over: he’ll never work for that man again, the prick, Felix would have done something, he’d have helped the dog in some way. If he hadn’t fallen, if his body hadn’t betrayed him, it’s like a seizure, he doesn’t understand, like a fit of some kind, he doesn’t want to think about it. The inside of his mouth is dark and bruised, his fingers are like sausages. Radio voices sing of peace, of love. There was a girl with brown legs, he remembers her name: a young girl with blue underwear, they lay on the livingroom floor. She went away, he doesn’t know why she went away. Blond hair and gentle mouth, she lived with him for a week one summer and then returned to California. Music from the hi-fi, she danced in her bare feet, her lithe body and her laughter; she never answered his letters, she wouldn’t say anything on the telephone. He knows where she lives. Finally she sent him her picture. She must have had her reasons. Is it because they talked about love? he’s convinced they talked about love, they lay together on the livingroom floor: did she talk about her love for him then? It’s the usual thing to do. Her name, he recalls, is Morag.

Ritson’s convinced, not without reason, that he’s appreciably weaker, his body less effective: when he attempts to stand he can see that the process of disintegration has continued while he slept, there’s even reason to believe that it has accelerated. His spine doesn’t bend easily and even with help from his arms, the muscles in his belly are incapable of pulling him into a sitting position. He rolls onto his side, drawing his knees up to his chest, levering with his arms, he flops onto his belly, he struggles to raise his trunk from the mattress, the problem is to get to his hands and knees, it’s here that he’s most likely to fail: it hasn’t always been like this, he persists, he refuses to falter, there was an instant when he doubted himself, at the start, it appeared certain he’d collapse but he held on, he braced himself and won. The rest is comparatively easy. He’ll crawl to the chair and pull himself erect.

It’s a tiny room, a windowless cubicle, not a cell, in the deepest corner of his basement, he acknowledges there is light in the city, waning afternoon light, but it never penetrates this far beneath the street: the basement, honeycombed with cells and passages, has been in darkness as long as he can remember. As confident as a blind man, he crawls to the wooden chair by the door, he puts both hands on the seat and climbs to his feet. After asserting his balance he leans against the wall for support, he reaches with his arms, he stretches his body towards the ceiling with muscles and sinews protesting, he gulps air vigorously into his lungs, he holds it as long as he can and then exhales. He repeats the process until he’s trembling and dizzy. When his head clears he sits on the chair, he slips his feet into his boots, laces them to the top and ties them with a double bow.

It’s always the same, the need to urinate wakes him: he’s lying on his back in the dark, it’s like sleep but his eyes are open, the empty house above him: inescapably the prospect of rolling onto his belly, of forcing his body to its feet, fills him with uncertainty and dread. He has tried to understand. Perhaps he’s afraid of failure. There was a time, Ritson believes there was a time when this explanation convinced him, it’s all-encompassing, that’s attractive, and even more important, it’s simple: unfortunately he’s concluded that if he was afraid of failure, then he wouldn’t involve himself, he wouldn’t even try, there must be another explanation. It has occurred to him he’s afraid of what he’ll find outside the house. Without any doubt, he’s convinced there’s sound reasoning here: the shattered windows, bodies in the street he’s seen it all, men prowling like animals; he remembers, surely he wasn’t dreaming? he remembers tanks, whole blocks united in flame, the sky insanely red and soldiers with guns and clubs. But what has it got to do with Ritson? if the cause for dread lies outside, then it’s unlikely he’d go out as eagerly as he does. There’s very little need, his requirements are modest and virtually everything necessary for life has been stored here in the basement; despite this, as soon as it’s dark he slips out of the house without fear, at least without specific fears, he’s expectant certainly, even defensive, but that’s endemic. Life demands caution. Clearly then, or at least it seems so to him, there’s no obvious cause for his uncertainty and dread. And that raises the possibility he’s been approaching the problem from the wrong angle; perhaps he doesn’t understand the nature of his experience here in the dark each afternoon, on his mattress, struggling from sleep, the empty house above him. Perhaps he’s mistaken, and it isn’t uncertainty or dread that he feels, perhaps it’s frustration in response to inertia. It’s possible. If that’s the case, however, what is it that drives him to overcome the inertia? there has to be something.

If he allows himself he’ll pursue this sort of speculation forever, he’ll exhaust every combination of possibilities, and even though it’s challenging for the mind, even though it could prove to be more or less diverting, it has nothing to do with lying here, on his back, his body undeniably weaker than he has ever known it to be. A cellar is not an ideal place to die. He rolls onto his side, drawing his knees up to his chest, levering with his arms, he flops onto his belly, he struggles to raise his trunk from the mattress, to rise onto all fours, his arms are too weak, he collapses, his face bangs rudely against the cellar floor. It’s probably like this every day, soon the strength will return, he lies motionless with arm beneath him, his face is pressed against the cement.

Why does she come each morning like this? A ritual perhaps, but not for him: Christ knows he doesn’t need it! with knees pulled up under his chin for protection, the body curled around its own belly, it’s obvious he doesn’t need it. Yet here she comes with cigarettes, matches and the white plastic holder . . .

Deliberately from the door to the chair beside his face and sitting, staring impassive as he sleeps. She hears her morning at the open window. She hears birds in the eaves and she hears the trees.

She rises, she puts the cigarettes, the matches and the holder beside the pillow and, bracing her feet on the floor, her knees against the bed, she takes a deep breath and tries to wrestle him onto his back. He resists. She tries harder. He curls in upon himself like an armadillo, but grunting and clutching, sweating now and heaving, she begins to gain the advantage: he’s weakening, one of his arms comes loose! vainly he struggles to re-enclose himself but the circle’s broken . . . it’s just a matter of time. She hears a whimpering in his throat and pauses. Clever. With left hand on his right wrist, elbow against his belly and into his hip, and her right arm under his shoulders, she seems to give in to him. Very clever. His body, surprised at this unexpected freedom, relaxes, the whimpering dies . . . and at this instant, so beautifully timed, she surges to her feet and flips him onto his back.

Things proceed as usual.

Felix open on his back, he breathes the end of sleep.

Cigarette in her mouth, she rests. It’s getting harder all the time. Once it was strength alone that did it, she walked in at seven and simply rolled him over. But those days are gone now: more and more she has to rely on the advantage that comes with experience.

She lights a cigarette and slips it into the holder. There are birds outside and trees that press about the house: the sun is shining, rather pale at this hour, but shining nevertheless as she leans forward to brush her finger lightly at the corner of his mouth. He shivers, he searches blindly with a sucking noise, his face is pained, is drawn in lines as his mouth searches suck suck. Such an anxious face!

By resting her elbow at his side she keeps the holder steady; her arm along his chest, she bends and reaches, pinching the nostrils to stop him breathing through his nose. The effect is immediate, obvious. The cigarette glows more brightly, it fades to greyness, then it glows again, it fairly crackles! Miniature forms collapse upon themselves as he exhales. She leans her weight, pressing and counting, “a thousand and one” with smoke issuing from his mouth . . . briefly she holds . . . then “a thousand and two”, withdrawing she sees the fire as his lungs are filled. And so it goes. She fights him resolutely, pressing again (“a thousand and one”), she feels the slobber from his mouth, she pauses . . . and withdraws.

The next cigarette is ready in her mouth as, poised, she forces his lungs empty, and then with amazing speed her left hand grabs the holder and brings the glowing butt to light the new one; at the same time, her thumb and index finger have pinched his mouth shut so he can’t breathe and break the cycle. Ashes fly as she ejects the butt into the ashtray, exchanges the empty holder for the cigarette in her mouth, firmly inserts the latter into the former and, letting go of his lips, jams the holder back into his mouth. He gasps, she lurches to maintain the interrupted tempo, “a thousand and one” and they’ve hardly missed a stroke . . .

It’s going very smoothly this morning.

Soon she stops the regulating pressure, stops the counting and relaxes somewhat back on the chair: she smiles, an imperceptible smile on her large face and hears again the birds, a car in the street, the day outside and sees the lines about his eyes, his mouth in rhythm now and knows the worst is over, that soon he’ll be awake.

When he reaches the floor of the ravine he turns right and climbs the small hill to the road, he crosses and descends to the railway tracks: Felix on the tracks in the Don Valley. A hundred yards from him, across a field, the river meanders beneath trees with rough bark, he knows somehow they’re trees from dream: he crouches smoking, vacantly he stares across the river to the parkway choked with cars, to the apartments above them bleak against the sky. Raucous birds wheel about his head. He can hear their wings. Although it’s early, the sun is hot: cars labour to work on raised arterial roads and high in the guts of the bridge a subway rattles to Bloor Street. He waits to see if he’ll cross the field to the river, or turn to his left along the tracks. The birds swoop angrily closer. He inhales, feeling the smoke sharp in his chest; without noise, unravelling above him is the vapour trail of a jet.

It’s not that he misses the job, he’s sure of that, time passes painlessly enough without it: for days now, it must be, perhaps weeks, he’s emerged from the house at his usual time, but instead of walking to the subway he’s come into the park, down into the ravine, he’s turned right, climbed the small hill to the road and descended into the Don Valley. What is it? Wandering in spring’s incredible violence, fearful with birds tumbling wildly to the ground, the headlong pursuit of squirrels among branches and out of sight, Felix, he doesn’t recall when he first became aware of it, how it was brought to his attention, perhaps it’s only just now become clear to him, Felix is impotent with dread.

Felix smoking a cigarette, leaning against a concrete pillar, staring out into torrential rain, it’s almost vertical now, it covers the highway with miniature explosions as cars with pale headlights crawl past him, drivers hunched and intense, they don’t appear to see him or his sign saying CALIFORNIA, and if some do, they don’t acknowledge him. The thunder has drifted overhead in its journey from the west. Lightning flashes sporadically, and the air is full of water. He’s beginning to feel uncertain. He crouches to rest his legs, bracing his back against the pillar he listens to the wheels of a transport braking on the overpass above him. He watches it descending into view, he gets automatically to his feet, he holds up his sign, he smiles hopefully, he sticks out his thumb, perhaps if the driver sees him smiling, perhaps he’ll stop, he sees the shuddering, hears air brakes as it drifts by him, huge wheels protesting as the driver steers onto the shoulder of the highway. Felix running with his knapsack in the pouring rain, into the exhaust, beside the gleaming trailer to its cab, the door is opening for him, he hoists himself up the step and scrambles, dragging his bag with him, he slams the door. The truck does not move. Brushing wet hair from his eyes, clearing rain from his face so he can see, Felix is startled by the voice: “That’s a bitch of a day baby.” An echoing bass voice, it fills the cab.

“Yeah, I’m . . . thanks . . . ” Brown eyes appraise him from a ferret face, what’s he waiting for? the mouth opens in a thin smile, Felix is disconcerted, he averts his gaze: the man’s white eyes staring at him, his face resting on the steering wheel. Rain hammers on the cab, the wipers thump back and forth. “I’m going all the way to California.” He wonders why the man doesn’t drive on, but he doesn’t, he just sits there with his delicate hands like paws on the wheel, he’s gazing at Felix, it’s as if he’s expecting something, Felix doesn’t know what to do. “I know a girl there, she lives in San Mateo county.” Cars and trucks pass them in the rain. The floor is littered with sandwich crusts and paper. “Her name is Morag.” There’s a movement to his left, he looks, the driver is nodding his head. “I met her one summer and then she went away.”

“I could tell right away you weren’t a chick, you know that baby?” Felix hears the voice, a resonant, engulfing voice. “Chicks wouldn’t be out here alone.” He leans finally to stare back along the 401 in his mirror, he shifts into low and begins to accelerate. “Once I picked up a coupla, hippie chicks, you know. Most times there’re guys with them but not those two. Shit.” Wipers thump as the engine strains to gain momentum. “Real jailbait, the two of them, little tits and long hair . . . but nothen, fuck-all happened.” Reaching down beside the seat, his hand re-appears: “I even showed them this BANGBANG! I said.” He presses a pistol against Felix’s cheek, he’s chuckling, the metal’s cold, he holds the accelerator to the floor with rain beating on the windows, the floor is littered with sandwich crusts and papers. “I told em about all the guys I killed, I thought maybe it’d make em hot, you know what I mean?” Felix nods, the muzzle bumps against his cheekbone. “All I did was scare the shit out of em.” He laughs and Felix tries to smile, he wonders if he can grab the gun in time.

“Is that . . . ” Blurred by rain on the windshield, headlights from oncoming cars; he tries to speak.

“You mean is it loaded?” Felix nods. “Fucken right baby.” Laughing explosively, the muzzle bumps against his cheekbone; blurred by rain on the windshield, headlights from oncoming cars hurtle out of sight. The pistol is removed. Felix looks, he doesn’t want to accept the proffered gun, he doesn’t know how to refuse its compact weight, he discovers his hands are sweating. “Women are funny chicks.” He’s driving with both hands on the wheel again, he turns to Felix, his voice like stereo, he grins: “Were you scared sweetheart?” Felix doesn’t respond, he doesn’t know what to say, the stench in the cab is beginning to nauseate him. He opens the window. The rain abates, they’re driving fast in light traffic, they’re approaching the airport road, Indian Line north to highway 50, for an instant he believes they’re going to turn, he struggles to protest, he opens his mouth but the words won’t come, his body’s drenched with sweat, they do not turn, they continue accelerating westwards. “My name’s Fripp.” Felix can’t reconcile the strength of the voice with this wiry man, the laughter. “What’s yours?” He can’t be sure, but he believes there are insects crawling up his legs, he swats at his calf. The floor is littered with garbage.

“Felix Oswald.” He sits with the automatic pistol, it’s got a wooden handle: he raises his arm, extends it from the shoulder, he’s aiming at a car in front of them, his index finger along the trigger guard.

“A buddy of mine beat me to one outside Kingston. Shit.” It seems so small, a toy car scooting along the highway, he finds it hard to keep his arm still in the swaying truck, he curls his finger around the trigger. “Shit. I saw her as I was coming into the restaurant there, a big blond cunt with her thumb stuck out, just like that! before I had a chance this buddy of mine stopped for her, he was just pulling out, the lucky bastard.” Felix, his arm extended from the shoulder, he braces himself, squinting he aims at the toy car with his finger on the trigger. “I saw him later, I said ah, how far’d that blond cunt go? all the way, he said, all the fucken way.” He’s driving with both hands on the wheel, he turns to Felix, his voice is like stereo. “Maybe she wouldn’t of done it for me. Some women are funny that way, you know what I mean? they’ll do it for some guys but not for others . . . ”

Felix sits with the automatic pistol, it’s got a wooden handle: he raises his arm, extends it from the shoulder, he’s aiming at a car in front of them, his index finger along the trigger guard, it seems so small, a toy scooting along the highway, he finds it hard to keep his arm still in the swaying truck, he curls his finger around the trigger, this is the way it’s done, you squeeze the whole hand like this, very gently . . . Fripp is watching him, Felix returns his gaze and smiles, he lowers his arm until the gun is resting on his thigh and the man begins to laugh. His hands are delicate on the steering wheel, he’s watching Felix with sharp white eyes and laughing richly. “Baby you should of seen your face.” He reaches to take the gun, his hand is cool, Felix sees it on his own. “You should try it some time, you know what I mean?” They’re driving fast in light traffic; the fields on either side are flat and green. He’s sure there are insects, bugs, he feels them scuttling inside his clothes. “You should try it.”

“No, I . . . couldn’t.”

“Baby you should of seen your face.”

As confident as a blind man, he crawls to the wooden chair by the door, he puts both hands on the seat and climbs to his feet. After asserting his balance he leans against the wall for support, he reaches with his arms, he stretches his body towards the ceiling with muscles and sinews protesting, he gulps air vigorously into his lungs, he holds it as long as he can and then exhales; he repeats the process until he’s trembling and dizzy. When his head clears he sits on the chair, he slips his feet into his boots, laces them to the top and ties them with a double bow.

As confident as a blind man, Ritson steps into the narrow hall, it’s only a passageway, his shoulders brush each side as he shuffles past the stairs, he turns right and then left, into the toilet. He’s surrounded by rooms, cubicles in the dark. Standing in the noise of his piss, feeling it flow through the flesh in his hand, he responds predictably and for the first time today, he accepts that it has begun again: he’ll climb from his basement to the ground floor, he’ll eat a certain amount of food and when it’s undeniably night, he’ll go out into the streets. He’ll keep to the alleys and sidestreets, he prefers back alleys, laneways tortuous among foundation walls of factories, warehouses, he walks slowly and with difficulty and despite the pain, he’s learned to make no noise, he misses nothing even though his face, whenever possible, is turned inward to the wall, his fingers trail reassuringly along their uneven surfaces, he listens defensively, he hears others, the feral strangers, he crouches motionless in the dark, it’s as if he’s invisible, he can see the struggling shapes, he hears the scuffling feet, the brutal gasping breath, the sudden blows and kicks, then moans in the dark and sometimes cries: Ritson crouching with the gun in one hand, the other lightly on the wall behind him, he waits until it’s over, until they’ve risen from the body and, brushing at their clothes, return into the shadows.

It’s not clear in what way he knows this, but Ritson believes there was a time when he could venture out of his house during the daylight hours, there must have been. Memories are like bad dreams. Leaning into the stink of his urine, he flushes the toilet and leaves the room. He can’t imagine that he came to this city at night, he hasn’t always lived in the basement, there was a time, there must have been. “Memories are like bad dreams.” Ritson’s voice, it doesn’t sound like a voice, he hears it in the dark. “They torment me so. That’s why I live in a cellar, it must be: I am lonely, but I am away from it all. That must be the reason. I have had to get used to it, it has not come easily. How could it? It is not man’s nature to live like an animal.” Perhaps he has said this before. Does he remember or does he dream? Cedar boughs, he knows what they smell like; a child, children of different ages. It doesn’t mean anything. Nothing happens for the first time. He urinates, flushes the toilet, comes to the stairs and climbs out of the basement; it’s like the beating of his heart, for example, or the alternate expansion and contraction of the lungs inside his chest.

Ritson with the gun in one hand, the other lightly on the wall behind him, he sees others, the feral strangers, he crouches unmoving in the dark, his hands are sweating, he raises his arm, extends it from the shoulder, his index finger along the trigger guard, it’s as if he’s invisible, he can see the struggling shapes, he can hear them, they don’t know he’s here, so close to them, teeth white, eyes staring, he could almost reach out and touch them, he curls his finger around the trigger, he squeezes, the first one doesn’t hear the explosions, he fires methodically, he never misses, they’re dead before the impact throws their bodies to the ground.

As confident as a blind man, Ritson steps into the narrow hall, it’s only a passageway, his shoulders brush each side as he shuffles past the stairs. He’s surrounded by rooms, cubicles in the dark. Standing in the noise of his piss, feeling it flow through the flesh in his hand, he accepts that it has begun again: he’ll climb from his basement to the ground floor, he’ll eat a certain amount of food and when it’s undeniably night, he’ll go out into the streets. He’ll keep to the alleys and sidestreets, he prefers back alleys, laneways tortuous among foundation walls. He’s able to cross narrow streets, resting his hands lightly on the wall behind him, making certain he’s unobserved he closes his eyes, he launches himself into a desperate run, he knows how vulnerable he is, what if they see him? reaching for the wall on the other side, he makes it if it’s not too far, he clutches at the buildings, the substance of the city, he’s terrified of open spaces, the sky: occasionally he loses his nerve, perhaps he’s confused and changes direction, it can happen, the wall isn’t there, he panics, lurching with closed eyes, stretching his arms, searching, he hears his voice, he falls to his knees, he presses his hands, his face against the earth, he doesn’t know how it happens, he doesn’t know what to do, he crawls blindly . . .

Felix returns his gaze and smiles, he lowers his arm until the gun is resting on his thigh and the man begins to laugh. His hands are delicate on the steering wheel, he’s watching Felix with sharp brown eyes and laughing richly. “Baby you should of seen your face.” He reaches to take the gun, his hand is cool, Felix sees it on his own. “You should try it some time, you know what I mean?” They’re driving fast in light traffic; the fields on either side are flat and green. He’s sure there are insects, bugs, he feels them scuttling inside his clothes. “You should try it.”

“No, I . . . couldn’t.”

“Sweetheart, you gotta wait and see.” The hand is cool, Felix sees it resting on his own, the delicate fingers, he knows the ferret face watching him, he relinquishes the gun. Fripp replaces it beside the seat: lighting two cigarettes, Felix gives one to him, he can’t look at him, they’re driving very fast, grey smoke is sucked out the window. “I thought it’d make them hot, sometimes it makes em hot, you know that baby?” Felix scratches inside his shirt, whatever they are they don’t seem to bite; inhaling he feels the sharp smoke in his chest, he senses vague pains, his fingers are in the armpit, his palm across the nipple, he presses roughly, he digs his fingers into the moist flesh and stares out the window to his right. What’s he saying? they’re driving very fast, his voice fills the cab but Felix doesn’t understand; past exit roads for Kitchener, then Preston, bland fields in tentative sunlight, Woodstock and London with Felix slouching, staring through the glass, falling each mile farther into himself: sideroads empty, occasional barns with homes in shadow and always the fields geometric on the land. Mile after mile. He can’t remember the first time it happened and can’t be sure it ever did. It might have been an early morning on the way to summer camp. It might have been. A field rising to bush, trees crowding from the sky’s edge and there, into the trees, an entrance leading away and he sees himself climbing the field in silence, sees a figure alone, only briefly pausing, then striding as best he can from sight. “Got my first one in Buffalo, he went down like a bag of shit, you know what I mean? Baby, you listening to me at all?” Felix turns, white eyes in a narrow face, he nods. “You never aim for the head, shit: the head’s too fucken small, you go for the gut, it’s full of stuff they need.” Both hands on the wheel, driving in the late afternoon, his voice is immense. “There’s just a little hole where it goes in, but it comes out the back like a fucken cannon.” They stare at each other, Felix has to look away: he sees a bird with ragged wings, poised above the fields, it drifts easily ahead of them, it’s rising as they pass: turning he watches it from the side window until it’s just a speck, until he can’t see it anymore.

Sometimes a stream then, a creek that leads from sight among the trees, and other times it’s just a suggestion, an opening image as he’s carried by. His body’s empty with the journey and he cannot speak. Would it have been different if he’d prepared the dog in some way? it might have been, if he’d taken it for walks maybe, gone north with it, given it a chance: he was precipitous, panic, it must have been panic, he didn’t think, he should have, he should have what? He could have killed it in the cage. Nothing is certain. How can he know? Cool on his forehead and dirty, the window between him and that figure in the field. In trains sometimes and cars. One day he will wake and discover that he isn’t sure whether it happened or not, it won’t matter; he’ll feel guilt, the familiar patterns, but the husky, what will it mean to him then? Driving past Chatham with night overtaking them: her eyes, luminous, did it happen in Ottawa? crying in somebody’s hall, is this true? in some obscure way he too is guilty, he wasn’t there. Past Chatham, on towards Windsor with the sky rising mountainous behind them, they’re driving against the earth. Mile after mile. His mind is full of images, rationalizations, with escape routes closing before he knows, all the familiar structures of guilt.

At some point they stop for coffee, they climb down from the cab, he remembers the body walking beside him, they don’t pause by the cash desk inside the door but go directly to a booth in the corner with Fripp waving, shouting recognition as they pass: there are introductions, a woman with purple nails, a man with a cigar, there are others, Felix doesn’t recall anything happening. He has the impression, he doesn’t know why, that they talk about him as if he’s somewhere else. Drinking coffee, eating and smoking.

Towards Windsor with the sky rising mountainous behind them, they’re driving against the earth. Mile after mile. It wasn’t his fault, he’d have done something, he’d have helped in some way. If he hadn’t fallen, if his body hadn’t betrayed him, it’s like a seizure, he doesn’t understand, like a fit of some kind, he doesn’t want to think about it. “Her name was Morag.” Fripp grins, he touches Felix on the knee. He could have killed it in the cage.

“You light me a smoke baby?” Startled by darkness in the cab, it’s almost night, the white teeth, his white eyes in shadow now, Felix looks away: with two cigarettes in his mouth he bends to the shifting flame, he inhales, he knows that Fripp is watching him. What is it? He gives him the cigarette and lights his own. “I really like you Felix Oswald, you know that?” Felix doesn’t understand. On both sides of the highway, bare branches rise from the darkening land, there are houses without lights, in the distance he can see towns, they’re coming to a city, to the river, soon they’ll be in Detroit.

The headlights from approaching traffic hurt his eyes: there are restaurants and motels by the road, he sees service stations with multi-coloured pennants reaching above the lights, low buildings in darkness; he’s never been here before, he stares through the glass and nothing is new; people stand by the road, there are traffic lights, everywhere there are cars, and then he sees the bridge, its mechanical shape crouching over the river.

They scarcely pause on the Canadian side, it’s unnerving, Felix doesn’t know if he should look back at Windsor, what would that accomplish? Conceivably he shouldn’t be doing this, he recognizes it might be a mistake, but he can’t be sure: the metallic river glistens beneath them, Fripp accelerates slowly to the hump of the bridge, talking all the time, and Felix discovers that he’s actually thinking of opening the door, of jumping onto the bridge and returning to the other side, it’s not too late. A yellow sky hangs over the city as they descend. Up river and close to the shore he notices fire, but there are gates, lights flashing ahead. Men in uniforms, they pull open the doors and motion him out, they do not speak to him, they’re joking with Fripp but Felix can’t hear what they’re saying, he wonders what would happen if he walked back up the bridge and went home, would they hurt him? Fripp comes around the truck, he’s laughing easily. There are flashing lights, the noise of engines. “They want to talk to you baby, it won’t take long.” Felix looks back up at the bridge against the night sky, they cross the pavement, they usher him through the waiting room with an American flag on the wall, there are five of them, including Fripp who carries the knapsack: they follow a narrow hall, there are closed doors on either side and heating pipes on the ceiling. They come to an alcove at the end. One of the men empties his knapsack on the floor and methodically begins to examine the contents. Felix doesn’t know what they’re looking for. It’s true he’s impressed by their thoroughness, but he doesn’t know how to react, he doesn’t know what to feel. Standing naked against a pile of cardboard cartons he watches them tapping the heels of his shoes, they run their fingers along the seams of his clothing, everything is meticulously searched, he stares in horror as his tube of toothpaste is squeezed into the wastebasket: he knows that Fripp is leaning against the door jamb with his arms crossed as one man examines the inside of his mouth, the fingers are like sausages and taste of soap; they turn him around and push him forward into a crouch, he’s held by the scruff of the neck, one of them stabs an investigating finger up his ass, he’s afraid he’s going to shit. He almost falls when they release him. Because they haven’t spoken to him, nobody has addressed a word to him, they’re laughing and talking among themselves, it’s unclear whether or not he can ask them what they were looking for, what they were doing to him. He gets back into his clothes without looking at them. Crouching he gathers his belongings together and stuffs them back into his knapsack.

Felix climbs back into the truck. He lights a cigarette, his mouth is bruised. Inhaling he stares through the windshield, the cigarette glows, it fades to greyness, then it glows again, miniature forms collapse upon themselves as he exhales. He’d like to hammer on the window with his fists, but he’s afraid: he stares into the dark. When he inhales, the light illuminates his face, he sees himself reflected in the glass. He looks away.

Fripp scrambles noisily into the truck, shouting farewells he slams the door, the great engine catches and they begin to move. Briefly Felix sees figures motionless in the headlights and then the streets are deserted. Something struggles in his cheek, he can feel it bumping on the edge of his cheekbone as they drive, his hands have no strength, he throws his cigarette out the window as Fripp brakes the truck at a red light. They sit in silence. The muscle continues to jump in his cheek. “Hey baby.” The sudden voice, he sniffs his middle finger, he thrusts it under Felix’s nose. “You wanna smell something, you recognize that?” The cab is full of laughter, it’s like stereo. The light has turned green, they don’t move. Fripp’s white teeth in a ferret face, he’s staring at Felix, his face is resting on the steering wheel. “Jesus Christ I’d like to fuck you!” Fripp reaches beside the seat, Felix is sure he did, he throws open the door and leaps to the road, that voice, what is it saying? running beside the gleaming trailer, through the exhaust, he hears noises behind him, he throws himself into an alleyway . . .

He doesn’t know how long he’s been walking, it doesn’t matter, eventually he’ll find the bridge, in the morning he’ll find the bridge. He keeps to the alleys and sidestreets, back alleys, laneways tortuous among foundation walls of factories, warehouses, he moves with unfamiliar grace, his feet make no sound because sometimes there are others, he can hear them, in the rubble of a vacant lot, crumbling houses on the other side, he can see them, beneath a yellow sky, they look like children, they’re running excitedly about some object on the ground, he strains to see, it’s a man, he’s crawling blindly, they’re taunting him, Felix doesn’t know what to do, they’re lighting matches, “Stop it!” He shouts and rushes into the open, they scatter with cries of alarm, one of them falls, a twelve-year-old, Felix grabs it by the shoulder, what are they doing? Felix with both hands at the throat of a struggling child, he stares blankly into its face. He doesn’t understand. The old man crawls whimpering towards a wall, Felix smells the gasoline as he passes, the child is jumping wildly, kicking in his hands: Felix Oswald, the muscle convulsing in his cheek, they were going to burn him, he can smell the gasoline, where are the others? Felix staring violently into the darkness, the old man’s almost to the wall, he can hear the gasping breath, the child has stopped fighting, Felix is hardly aware of him: a yellow sky presses down on the shells of buildings, their boarded windows, it settles on the vacant lot, the small body is limp in his hands, he has to support it, he stares into bulging eyes, the black contorted face, it’s dead! a small body collapsing at his feet, the yellow sky. Standing over it he tries to understand. The swollen tongue, it lolls from between its teeth with blood boiling onto the chin, he doesn’t understand, he falls as he tries to turn away, his knees bang stupidly against his chest, he’s bleeding from the mouth, he doesn’t feel the garbage against his face. He doesn’t see the tentative figures emerging from shadows, they circle closer, cautious, like dogs, they douse his shuddering body from pop bottles, with gasoline, one of them lights a match and Felix Oswald bursts into flame.

Ritson with the gun in one hand, the other lightly on the wall behind him, they almost got him, he crouches in the dark, his hands are sweating, the stink of gasoline has cleared his head, he raises his arm, extends it from the shoulder, his index finger along the trigger guard, it’s as if he’s invisible, he can see them clearly in the light of flames leaping from the body of a man, he can hear terrible cries, they don’t know he’s here, so close to them, teeth bared, eyes white, he curls his finger around the trigger, he squeezes, the first one doesn’t hear the explosions, he fires methodically as they scatter, he never misses, they’re dead before the impact throws their bodies to the ground.

Content

Graeme Gibson
Communion

Introduction