Right Away Monday, page 27
Trish smooths out her top and starts to say something to me, but before she can get it out, that casting director woman comes and shouts out her name. Pomeroy, that’s right. I knew she had a real townie name. That casting director missus looks at me and smiles and says:
—Hello Clayton.
I takes it as a good sign, that she remembered me name. Trish jumps up and follows her down the corridor. All hands are sittin around mumblin their lines, so I wanders into the art gallery where I can be alone. I still got the lemonade with me and I’m startin to feel a bit flushed in the face, bit of a heartburn. Strong stuff. I glances at me script and says me line out loud a few times.
I wanders around the gallery and looks at all the different paintings. I coulda painted half of ’em meself. Couple of nice ones there though. One huge oil one called Sneaking Around that shows two pickup trucks in the dark meetin each other in some remote, wooded area. I likes that one. Reminds me of home. There’s another one called Anti-Christ that I’m after readin about in the paper earlier in the week. Some Catholic priest issued a statement about the depraved nature of the arts. It stirred up quite a bit of shit too, and I can see why. The painting shows an altar boy on his knees and a pair of some man’s black pants and shoes pressed dangerously close to him. You cant see the boy’s head, but it’s obviously level with the man’s crotch. There’s a set of rosary beads dangling from the man’s pocket and a big stained-glass window with a crucifixion scene in the background. Pretty obvious, what’s goin on there. If I had the money I’d buy it for Isadora. She’s always goin on about how she’s got no religion no more, how she useta feel “watched over” but that now, when she goes to say a prayer or whatever, that she dont feel no “presence” anymore. I argues with her that it’s all propaganda anyhow, all that Catholic shit. It’s all one big guilt trip, and that’s prob’ly all she’s feeling. And if she came clean with herself she’d prob’ly be relieved to admit she didnt really believe any of it in the first fuckin place. There’s nothing and no one watchin over us. There’s no fuckin God. If there was, you think he’d be lettin priests get away with all the shit they been gettin away with for so long? I dont fuckin think so, unless he’s some kinda perverted fuckhead himself, which would make a whole lot more sense, when you takes a good hard look at the world.
Trish walks out the door to the upstairs theatre with a big grin on her face. She hooks her finger into the breast pocket of me shirt and gives it a little tug when she’s passin by. It kinda takes me off balance a bit, where me foot is fucked, but I manages not to tumble.
—Break a leg Clayton!
—Yeah, I’d be good and fucked then wouldnt I?
—Oh my God. Sorry. I forgot.
—Ahhh, it’s nothing girl. Just tryna be funny.
—Where’s Izzy?
I thinks about that then, before I answers, I dont know why. Maybe you shouldnt speak right now. I loves Isadora and everything, I mean, I fuckin adores her, and I have no more intentions of fuckin her around, cause she’s been fucked around enough in her days, but it’s like I cant turn off that part of meself that wants to be on the hunt, like I have this need to keep me options open, just in case the shit hits the fan. Trish’s big old jugs. Forbidden fruit.
—I have no fuckin clue.
—Oh? Are you still together?
—Yeah. I s’pose.
—Well, I’ll see you then.
She sorta blows me a kiss and twirls around and disappears. I feels like shit and starts to panic and I wants to run after her and set her straight on me and Iz’s situation, that we’re fine and in love and un-fuckin-stoppable, that I’d never dream of hurtin her like that. Again. That it’d all been a big messy fuck-up in the first place. That night. And I mean, what if Trish was just settin me up, to see what I’d say? Never know with these artsy types. What if Isadora put her up to it? What if she already knows everything? Fuck.
The door busts open and that casting director missus sees me standin in the gallery.
—OK Clayton. You can come up now, if you’re ready.
I tosses me script into the garbage as I’m walkin up the steps behind her. She got on a little short skirt and I can see the thick blue veins on the backs of her legs. She prob’ly thinks I’m tryna get a gawk at ’er hole or something, which I kinda am.
—I’m Yolanda by the way.
I offers her me hand but she dont turn around, goes into the theatre without noticing. I gotta sign me name and leave me phone number and make note of the time. I leaves the number to the Hatchet and squeezes a little note into the margin that I mightnt be there but to leave a message. I turns around and Yolanda takes a Polaroid picture of me that leaves a big blue blotch in front of me eyes.
—You can stand in the centre there please Clayton.
She walks away, flappin the Polaroid in her hand behind her. I walks into the centre of the stage. It’s all I can do to cover up me limp. There’s a camera on a stand off to the side and a guy fiddlin with it. I nods at him but he dont nod back. The front row, where the audience usually sits, has about seven or eight people. Some’re talkin to each other and one’s talkin into a cell phone, takin notes. Yolanda presents me:
—This is Clayton Reeves, he’ll be reading for the role of—
—Reid.
—Excuse me?
—It’s Clayton Reid, not Reeves. You got me mixed up with Superman.
Nobody laughs. I feels like a stick of shit. Cold room. Yolanda clears her throat.
—Clayton will be reading for Ambulance Guy Number One. Clayton, this is Francis Crane, our director.
Francis fuckin Crane hey? Well fuck me. This is the guy who had Iz bouncin in his lap that night I walked into the Ship on acid. This is that same crowd who were gathered around him gigglin after his every word. Isadora’s comin bread and butter, if she gets the part she’s lookin for. And how far will she go to get it I wonder? How much lap dancing did she do on camera to get that call-back? Fuck me anyhow. Here I am. And I can tell neither one of ’em even remembers me. Fuck the lot of ’em.
I takes a step ahead and sticks out me hand and Crane just looks at it and nods at me. I feels like a much bigger stick of shit, one that’s startin to stink bad.
—Slate please.
—What?
—Slate.
—I’m sorry, I dont…
Yolanda comes to me rescue.
—Just look into the camera and say your name and the role you’re reading for.
I looks straight into the camera and does what she told me to do.
—And begin when you’re ready please.
I looks at Mr. Director, Francis Crane. He’s scribblin something into his notebook. He leans over to the girl sittin next to him and whispers something and she giggles. I clears me throat. Yolanda:
—Just begin when you’re ready Clayton.
I keeps starin at Crane. I’m fully prepared to stand here all day. Finally he looks up, sees that I’m waitin on him to be quiet, sits up right straight in his seat with his two hands flat on his legs and gives me a big exaggerated nod.
—Maybe you shouldnt talk right now.
As soon as I got the line out Crane starts whispering to the girl again. She’s tryin not to laugh out loud and her face is gettin red. Yolanda smiles at me.
—Could you try it with a little more urgency maybe? And it’s “speak.” Maybe you shouldnt speak right now.
—What? That’s…well what did I say?
—You said “talk.”
One fuckin line and I fucks it up, first go. Off to a grand start anyways.
Urgency, urgency.
—Maybe you shouldnt speak right now.
—OK, now, how about bringing it down a little, like perhaps the person you’re talking to could be a good friend that you care about?
I pictures poor old Nathan from the script, gettin wheeled away to the hospital with his face all bust up, after gettin struck down or shot or whatever. I imagines Isadora and then Val in the same situation. I thinks about me mother, all them years ago, her body broken in bits after rollin her truck twenty times just past the Ferryland graveyard. A lump comes to me throat. I takes a deep breath, lets the line bounce around in me head. I opens me mouth. The girl next to Francis Crane suddenly busts out laughin, then catches herself and walks outta the room as fast as she can. What the fuck is goin on here? Crane stands up and looks right at me.
—My apologies Christopher, please continue.
—It’s fuckin Clayton, alright? I aint Christopher fuckin Reeves.
He sits down then and looks around at his entourage and smirks. A nervous ripple goes through the row of bodies, everybody readjusting themselves in their seats and wipin their eyeglasses or reachin into the black leather bags at their feet. No one lets Crane meet their eye and I realizes that maybe nobody else in the room actually likes him. Yolanda dont miss a beat:
—OK Clayton, whenever you’re ready?
I looks straight at Francis fuckin Crane.
—Maybe you shouldnt speak right now.
Yolanda:
—And once more please? Maybe this time with a little more presence, and not so surly?
Surly? I’ll give ya fuckin surly. Buncha spoiled fuckin herbal-tea-swillin moneyed mutts. Holy sweet fuck. One goddamn line. Presence? I looked right into the camera for the last one.
—Maybe, you shouldnt speak right now.
Crane stands up and starts clappin his hands. I cant tell if he’s mockin me or not. The girl who’d been laughin comes back in with a cup of tea on a saucer and gives it to him.
—So tell me then, have you done much acting?
—Well I bartends. That takes a lot of bullshit.
—Yes, well, I see, but never any paid acting work?
He slurps at his tea and sort of waves his other hand in a circle to make me answer faster.
—No.
—I see. Well then, sir. Thank you very much.
Yolanda interrupts him.
—We’ve been having some people read for another role today too Clayton. Just a dry read, right off the page. Should we hear him read that one Frank?
Crane looks at my boots and then lets his eyes climb up my body till he’s taken in every inch of me. Fuckin creepy.
—No, no. Thank you Yolanda, I think we’ve seen all we need to see. Is there anything you’d like to add Clayton?
I can add the print of me fist to the back of your throat, subtract a few of them pearly-white store-bought teeth. Spindly, cunty-balled, soul-less wanker.
—No.
—Very well. Thank you for your time. We will be in touch.
I turns to go then, not the way I came up, but instead towards the EXIT that leads out to the wheelchair ramp, just to show the bastards that I knows me way around, that I’m on me own turf and coulda slain the works of ’em if I wanted to. Yolanda wont look up from some little beepy gadget she’s playin with. Then someone says:
—How did you hurt your foot, by the way?
—Stompin some fuckin arsehole’s head in.
I dont know why I said it, it just came out.
I walks out into the blinding sun and lights up a smoke. The sour stench of thawing dogshit on the wind. First true sign of spring in Newfoundland.
I realizes then that I still got the Mike’s Hard Lemonade in me hand. The whole time. Trish is sittin down on the bandstand above the steps that lead down to Duckworth. Waitin for me. There’s a Cold Shoulder poster on the ground near her foot, another one stapled to the beam near her head. Fuck.
She jumps up when she sees me comin.
—How did it go?
—Oh, pretty good. Not much to it.
She links her arm around mine and we walks down over the steps.
—Will we go for a drink then? Celebrate?
Isadora, home detoxing, sweatin her demons out and dyin to be havin a drink, not wantin to be alone and worried about God and money. I so wants to just shuffle on up the road and go flop down beside her and bury me face in her and maybe even have a good bawl for meself. I wonder would that be close enough for her, me bawlin in her arms.
But I’m more in the mood for a drink. I’ll have a couple and then grab a cab to Iz’s and crash. I starts to cross the road towards the Ship, but Trish pulls me back onto the sidewalk. I reaches out to balance meself and accidentally sets me hand on her big sturdy left breast. I feels the nipple, hard under the padding in her bra. She giggles.
—No. Let’s not do the Ship Clay. Let’s go somewhere new. I’m sick of all those seedy bars.
I just nods and sorta leans me weight against her and fills me lungs with the smell of her hair as we walks up the street.
I’m pretty fuckin sick of them seedy bars too.
26. Colder Shoulder
This raw, burnin lump of agony in me throat I just cant swallow through. Thick layer of scum across me tongue, the roof of me mouth. Me sinuses dry as a nun’s cunt. Water, I can hear it drippin somewhere. I needs it. Me left eye is a throbbin nuisance that will not open for me and I cant seem to straighten out me arm to reach it. I’m lyin on me back, alive still, on a concrete floor. There’s a thin blue vinyl mattress beside me, a ragged grey blanket draped across me boot. Something scuttles in the shadows behind the stainless-steel toilet. Two beady yellow eyes blinkin, watchin, waitin. The stench of piss, vomit, chicken grease, cigarettes, sweat, stale booze farts and maybe even dried-up jerk. Maybe blood. Me boots are too loose. The ceiling is a good fifteen feet away, circular, the concrete streaked with rust from the iron support beams. A steady dollop of cloudy condensation collects in the middle of the ceiling. A drop hits the floor right next to me and I realizes me hair is fuckin drenched. There’s a body in the far corner, huddled beneath the same kinda grey blanket I got, but with no mattress beneath. I’ll never stop shivering, never be warm again.
That dream, my mother, the day I kicked and screamed to go with her to the shop in Ferryland, the day she never came back from. Same dream again. Hard rain. I woulda been standin in the front seat of the rig. No seatbelts then. I’da never made it, woulda been tossed through the windshield. In the dream I’m tryna distract her somehow, tryna draw her away from lookin for her keys, delay her somehow by even a few seconds. I can never see her face, just an outline, a suggestion, a feeling. I yanks on her arm and clings to her legs but she dont seem to know I’m there. And in the dream I already knows, I knows what I aint supposed to know: that if she leaves now she’s never comin back. But if I cant communicate that to her, if I cant change her mind or slow down her departure somehow, then I needs to be there with her, I needs to go out with her. So she wont be alone when she breathes her last breath. My little boy’s whine as I’m clingin to her ankle I need to go now too! I cant stay here! I’ll get lost… The words flutter in midair before me and drifts like feathers to the floor. The last word, lost, rests on her shoulder for a second before she slips out the front door, her keys jangling in her coat pocket. I reaches out for the word with my soft, chubby little hand. It disappears before I can reach it.
Where in the fuck am I? How did this…fuck. Isadora.
Shit.
—How long do you think you’ll be?
—I dont know girl, couple of hours.
—Well what’s a couple? Two? Four?
—A couple, like two, maybe not even that long.
—I’m just…I’ve got this awful feeling.
—I’m only goin out to a club girl.
—But you hate those guys, you cant stand any of them.
—No I do not. I said we dont get on too well, that’s all.
—Well why would you want to go watch them play?
—I dont know, I’m curious.
—Can you please call me if you’re going to be late?
—I can.
—Promise?
—Of course.
—And dont drink?
—Well now Iz…
—Clayton please? Dont get drunk?
—I wont.
—Promise.
—Look girl…
—Clayton, we can have a good life you know…
—Yeah.
That’s the sorta stuff that’s come about since she’s been after me to move in with her. Like she cant take it that I dont say yes right away, and then suddenly she wants to know me every move, callin down to the bar twenty times a night when I’m on a shift. But I been kinda likin it too, this turnabout, how anxious she is for a definite answer. Sex comes a lot easier, that’s one thing, and no minor thing either. It’s like as soon as she has any doubts about where I’m standin and how I’m feelin, she drags me into the sack to try and get me back on track. Nothing wrong there. Only as soon as we’re done she gets talkin about us livin together and when I dont give in there’s the big old racket. Anyhow, no matter what answer I coulda given ’er, I knows it’d change everything. No more limbo sex, that’s for sure.
And I’ll hand it to ’er, she’s after gettin through the past few weeks without a drop of booze, not even a beer. But then of course I’m after findin meself stuck on the couch with her more often than not watchin a movie while the party rages on downtown. We’re after rentin a bunch of the Rocky movies now, and bawlin in the end of every one, even number three, the one with Hulk Hogan and Mr. T, and we all knows what a piece of shit that one is.
The Cold Shoulder was playin at the Green Room.
Keith, back from somewhere again, sold me six hits of acid in the alleyway beside the Hatchet. I ate one on the spot and pocketed the rest to sell. He was goin mad askin about Monica. No one’s laid eyes on her since she quit the bar, or since Silas gave her the boot, however you wants to look at it. Since the night she caused a fuckin riot and robbed the place blind, god love ’er. Things is changin fast around the Hatchet, no doubt. Buncha little delicate queens infesting the place since Mike took off. I drank a pint inside with Charlene, sold her a hit. Smell of sweat off her. Gave Brent a hit. He put it in his pocket and then ran out to the street to catch the Number 4 bus, bound for the top of Kenmount Road to some party I had no fuckin interest in goin to. And I left then, knowin full well, in me gut, that I’d be ten times better off amongst the Hatchet crowd. But amblin west on Water Street towards the Green Room I just built up me anger towards me old band and the Shore crowd, and then filed it away in me head for when I might need to use it. I’d shook off most of me limp by the time I was standin in the lineup to the Green Room.
