Archibald Full Frontal, page 31
It had obviously been taken by an amateur, probably Carolina. In it, he is slightly off centre. He is sitting on the couch of his old apartment. His head is angled to the side, and he is mugging for the camera, a big, funny grin spread across his face. He is wearing an old flannel shirt, unbuttoned at the neck. His hazel eyes are crinkled at the corners, and there are tiny laugh lines etched on either side of his mouth. He is unshaven, and I can just make out the scar beneath his lip, caused by a run in with a coffee table corner as a toddler. It’s him, the details of him, just the way I remembered.
I flip it over for a second’s respite, and see, scrawled on the back, in Sam’s barely legible writing, “With Maggie ’96.” And then I realize that it had been me. I had been the one on the other side of the camera. I had been the photographer. I had caught him off guard one day and snapped the photo. It all came back. This was me looking at Sam. As I had seen him on a daily basis for over four years. As I would never see him again.
I stare at that face a long, long time. And then I weep. At the obscenity of a world without him in it, and in gratitude for having known him, in such a short time, so well. And when I can’t stand it one second longer, I take the photo and put it away.
Cowards and Idiots
One spring morning, I awake early, a loud gang of birds, as usual, chortling outside my window in a nearby evergreen. I happen to glance at the calendar, June 19. Three years exactly since Archibald’s death. I get up with the intent of making a pot of coffee, an essential for a teacher who is not a morning person, but instead find myself passing through the kitchen into the living room. I open the balcony doors and step outside.
The morning is cool, and the air is filled with the smell of flower nectar and downy earth. The neighbourhood is quiet, rows of neat houses and well-manicured lawns on a sloping hill. I stand for a second and then I know. It is time. Now or never. I take a deep breath, open my mouth and scream in my loudest voice, “WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!”
It comes out like a crazed war cry, an ear-shattering yowl that reaches above the rooftops and echoes through the streets, penetrating walls and invading the sweet dreams of more than a few people for whom it must have come as an unwelcome wake-up call. But for me, it is exhilarating. When I finally finish, I stand gasping, feeling as though I have used up every ounce of breath. I lean over for a minute, recovering. When I stand up again, my next door neighbour, a retired engineer, is standing on his balcony, peering at me with a disgruntled expression, his robe billowing, his little pug dog tucked under his arm. A newspaper boy on the sidewalk, his stack of newspapers at his feet, stares up at me with a mixture of shock and approval on his face. They seem to be my only witnesses. Archibald is nowhere in sight. I give them a quick wave, shrug as though this is a standard part of my morning ritual, and step inside.
I see my mother more frequently now and am pleased that she has relaxed into a new relationship. Archibald’s death, I think, has been, for her, a release from past mistakes. I have a job teaching and enjoy shocking my students with an occasional anecdote in Archibald-like fashion. Although I date occasionally, I haven’t been seriously drawn to anyone. I still compare all men to Sam, and they all fall flat. But I’ve grown to enjoy daily life again and all of the new patterns that go along with it. It isn’t perfect, far from it. But I like where I am, even if I have no idea where I am going. But do any of us?
One day, I find myself visiting the university bookstore. I haven’t been back since Sam’s death. It hasn’t changed all that much. I search through the familiar alcoves, fingers tracing shelves that are like old friends, until I come to what I am looking for. Archibald’s section. It is smaller than it had been before. Five books in stock, including his latest, the one about my exploits. I pull it out and flip through it, remembering the horror I had felt at being exposed. But it was, after all, only a story. Would he have understood the fact that I never finished it? That I needed to leave the story of myself, in any version, in progress? I smile. He would have understood my last act of rebellion.
“Maggie? Is that you?”
I turn, taken by surprise. In front of me is a familiar handsome man, tall, with a square jaw, and light hair. The extra wide shoulders were still the same. The glasses were new.
“Dan?” It came out as a question. I had heard his company had expanded and grown very successful, that he still lived out east. I hadn’t spoken to him since I had thrown him out of my house and life, although I had thought of him often. “Is it really you?”
“Maggie!” he says joyfully and before I know it, he squeezes me in a giant bear hug, which is so familiar that I have to smile. In fact, I find I can’t stop.
“It’s been so long. What? Almost three years.”
“Three and a half,” he says.
And he takes me for dinner, and afterwards we smoke a joint for old time’s sake on the roof of my house, overlooking the dark, restless ocean. He sits beside me and we enjoy an easy, companionable silence. And a feeling creeps up on me. His forearm presses against mine. My skin tingles pleasantly from the contact.
“Has there been anyone for you, since Sam?” he asks.
“No, not really,” I say. “How about you? Is there someone special?” I expected that there was a girlfriend or wife in Toronto. I noticed that he wasn’t wearing a ring, but that wasn’t necessarily conclusive.
“Nobody serious.”
“Sam was … he was … for me, just so…” I grasp. Consuming. Engulfing. Eclipsing. He had used the word once to describe my effect on him. But the truth was he had rubbed everything and everyone out. It had taken me so long to see the world without reference to him. Even after he had broken up with me, I had held on to him, in denial that I might see him again. I had said goodbye once, but had I finally let him go?
“I know,” he says and his face tells me he does. We understood each other. He had loved him, too. And Sam no longer felt like a liability between us; sharing Sam felt good. It felt like a bond.
“Do you remember the picture I painted of you on Halloween? In drag?”
He laughs. “How could I forget?”
“I still have that painting. I could never sell it,” I say. “Sometimes when I would get really down, I would take it out and look at it.”
“I looked pretty hilarious, if I remember correctly.”
“No, you looked like you — in a dress of course. It was a tribute to all of the qualities I admire.”
I look at him. And he looks over at me bashfully.
“I am sorry. I never said thank you,” I say.
“Thank you?” The light is fading quickly. “For?”
“For being there. All those times. You were always…” I search for the words I know I owe him. “In my memory you are heroic. Just like in the painting. Honest, strong, loyal.”
“Maggie. That means a lot. But I always admired you.”
“Me?” I am surprised. “What for?”
He averts his face. “For putting yourself out there. Painting things your way. For trying, but most of all for getting through it. All of that stuff. Your grandfather, his book, Sam loving you, leaving you, and then all of us.” He motions to a clump of wild daisies on the hillside. “The most beautiful flowers are the ones that grow, in droughts, in snow, that persevere. You sent me away. Most people would have used me up and thrown me out.”
“If memory serves correct, I did throw you out.”
“No. You told me the truth when it hurt the most. You were always a good friend. You never abused that.”
His words remind me of what I said to Sam, on that last Saskatchewan day, so long ago. I blink back tears.
“As for me. Heroic? I don’t think so.”
“Well, now I just have to add modest to the list.”
“No.” The firmness of his voice takes me aback. “I was never brave enough to be honest with you. I should have told you, told you years ago.”
“Dan? Told me what?” I wait for a bomb to drop, to be disappointed again. I wait for the skeletons to spill out of the closet and hit the floor.
“The reason I cared. The reason I spent so much time with you wasn’t because I was noble or being neighbourly; it was because I was in love with you. I tried to tell you so many times. But I never could.”
“Until now,” I say, feeling a whole bunch of pieces slide into place.
“Until now. Can you forgive me?”
“Forgive you? Forgive you? For being in love with me?” I can’t fight the warmth tugging at my insides, the thawing of feelings that had long been put on ice. My heart thunks so quickly, it speaks my next words for me. “For still being in love with me?”
“Still.” His hands are on mine, holding them. Had he been holding them all along?
“I will forgive you for being a coward if you will forgive me for being a complete idiot.”
“Idiot?” Now he laughs. A big booming sound that I haven’t heard since the old days.
“For not knowing. For not guessing,” And I had never guessed. I had scratched the surface here and there, seen glimpses, but I had not connected the dots, not really. “For being too caught up in my own head and for almost missing you.”
“I forgive you.”
I inch towards him, but a sudden dread of the unknown, unseen currents encircled me, charged through the air: fears, broken promises, shadows. There were so many uncertainties in life, so much willful ignorance and accidental wisdom gleaned in brief glimpses and forgotten seconds later, washed away in the opiate of our choice and the obliteration of sleep.
Each day was filled with loose ends and gnarled knots, complete with a beginning, middle and an end. The laws of attraction say love will touch each of us, caress us and burn us, heal old wounds, open new ones. Why sign up for this punishing cycle at all? We are all cowards and idiots at varying intervals. We can hide out in front of the TV, eat ourselves to death, kill ourselves at the office, screw our faces off, or take vows of absolution. But some collisions can’t be avoided; some occur so quickly we don’t know what hit us and others take place so slowly that we don’t feel the impact. Like electrons, we intersect and break apart, until something else holds us together, whether it be nuclear fusion, love alchemy, or basic endorphins. Science and metaphysics circle around themselves at a vertigo inducing rate, trying to dissect and explain. But surrendering to love takes a human emotion: trust. And this willingness to trust creates something even better: hope. Could I hazard hope? Could I trust one more time?
I slide my arms around his neck and kiss him. I close my eyes and open them, and Dan is still there. And only stars are left encircling us in the velvet blanket of darkness. And I know how the first stargazers felt, at once luminous and obscured by a cosmos of infinite possibilities.
“Did I tell you I met Archibald again?” he asks.
“Really?” I lift my head from his shoulder. “When?”
“It was just before I left for Toronto. I went back to the apartment building. I don’t know why, maybe to say goodbye. Anyway, he was sitting in the lobby, looking tired. I tried to walk past him, but he recognized me and called me over.”
“So, what happened?” I ask.
“He said, ‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’ I said, ‘I’m Dan, a friend of Maggie’s…’ He looked at me for a long time, almost as though he were reading my thoughts. And, finally, he said, ‘Well, in that case, big boy, why don’t you come up and see me some time?’”
I laugh. “Mae West was a favourite of his. He thought he had been her in a past life.”
“And then I went to Sam’s apartment. I couldn’t stop myself, I found myself outside his door. I had to see it again.”
I hadn’t been back since Sam had moved out. “What happened? Was someone else living there?”
“I knocked, and when no one answered, I turned the handle. I let myself in and it was empty, no trace of him. It was like he had never been there at all, except for the faded paint where the pictures had been. It was so small.”
“Yes.” I remember the first day he carried me in there, when I had just started working for Archibald and my back had given out. It was the size of a closet, but it was also an oasis, with its books and restful silence on that hot day. I wanted to be confined in that closet. It changed me, claimed me, and I have never forgotten it. In some ways I am still there.
Perhaps I always would be.
Out of the Closet
I stare up at the clouds that float and free fall in our midst, as the trees become sparse, and the clearing widens. We hike frequently. It is something we both enjoy, removing ourselves from the business of the world. We have been all over the local mountains. But we have never been here again. We have held off. Today, we finally make it to the waterfall. To me it is a sacred place, a place left in the past. Dan seems to understand this instinctively. He has never pressed me to return. I didn’t even know we were coming here until I parked the car at the bottom of the trail. I had the dream last week, of Sam and Archibald in the waterfall, and ever since then, I have heard their voices over and over: “It’s time. It’s time.”
The mountains surround us, green-blue and jagged, newly released from snow. And behind them, although I cannot see it, is the waterfall at the edge of a familiar, winding trail. I follow behind Dan, watching the backpack jostling rhythmically against his shoulders, keeping pace with him. We hike easily together, and everything between us is easy. I have been many kinds of happy, but during this past year with Dan, I have found this happy to be best of all. It is not dangerous, overwhelming, or elusive. It is like a well that I can draw from, again and again. I could ask, will it ever run out or grow bitter? But these are a pessimist’s questions, and I am not feeling pessimistic. Dan for his part seems to understand this. As we reach the waterfall, he slips off his backpack. He catches me with his eyes and offers a smile of understanding. He does not miss much. I never understood that about him. In fact, when it comes to him, I missed a great deal. I breathe in the mist and sun and a faded memory. He takes my hand and places a ring inside it. It is gold, and etched on the front is a tiny bird. I look at him.
“It’s a hummingbird,” he says. “Did I tell you I had a Cherokee great-grandfather?”
“No,” I answer. “I had no idea.”
“In their symbolism, the hummingbird means joy after sorrow.” He takes it from my palm and slips in on my third finger before I can respond. I remember how Sam once said timing is everything, and Dan’s timing is impeccable, I have to give him that.
“Joy after sorrow,” I repeat, holding my hand up.
“Emphasis on joy,” he adds. He takes my hand and kisses it. “Do you know what I’m asking?”
I swallow. “Forever seems like a long time.” I wonder if he hears me over the pounding waterfall.
“Maybe. But why don’t we find out?” He grins and shrugs in his boyish way.
“Can I think about it?” I ask.
“Yep. I’ll give you as long as it takes me to jump in and get back up here,” he says. “Unless you want to join me?”
He takes a step, and leaps off the embankment, gone. I do not look down after him. I hear the splash. I know he swims in a pool with his oldest, closest friend. I am alone with the rush of the waterfall, and the smell of wet rocks, of damp earth and wild flowers. I lean back against a boulder and close my eyes. I know now that I will not jump, not now. Maybe, not ever.
It has taken me all of this time to realize: I am not a jumper, not a cliff jumper, anyway. Does that make me a coward? Maybe. But I do not feel like a coward, and I do not feel afraid. I have leapt in my own way, in my own time. I do not need to face another fear, to feel the exhilaration of my body floating through the air, my limbs pulsing through the water.
I open my eyes, feeling the satisfying warmth of the sun on my face. A whisky jack sings in the distance, a song that is at once vibrant and ordinary, just a snatch of conversation I happen to hear. I know Dan will make his way back up the trail, that he will kneel beside me and kiss me, a few stray droplets of water showering me as he does. And I will give him my answer.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to incredible Daschel for inspiring me to “never give up and never surrender.” Thank you to Peter for reading and re-reading this book over 22 years. Thank you to Sarah for your impeccable taste and lovely British accent. Thank you to Kathryn Willms and the team at Iguana for getting the ball rolling. And thanks always to Vancouver, my home away from home, and to the Pink Palace, still standing and still unapologetically pink.
About the Author
Kasey grew up in Vancouver and received a BA in English at the University of British Columbia. Kasey currently resides with her husband Peter and son Dash in Toronto where she operates a yoga studio.
Goldstraw, Kasey, Archibald Full Frontal
