Right Away Monday, page 35
Yeah, yeah, mythic status achieved, priceless contributions, music being that worldwide language shit. Get on with it George.
Grace Val. Graciousness. Be patient.
Thirty fuckin years. Lucky it’s not posthumous. They’re lucky I even showed up, way I’m feelin tonight.
Calm now. Ten more minutes, tops. One song. Then home.
Oh look at the Toddler himself over there, stroking his statue like no one is watching. Dont glance over this way Dawe. Dont smile over at me like we’re in the same league or something. No friends in this…just gimme, just…
Val?
Fuckin…just cant catch my…alright, there it goes…
It’s alright to be nervous Reid, humbled.
Nervous? I’ve played every fuckin dive on the map, dined with royalty, played for my own father for Christ sakes. Sang for my father. Take more than this lot to make me break a sweat.
Heart is pounding though, just relax. Breathe. Nothing to it.
Nothing to it is right. Thirty years tryna put it…tryna lay it out for the world…to pick through and dismiss…dodging the landlord…bar tabs…
—…but by no means does the Lifetime Achievement imply that this man has reached the end of his career, but to say that he is an artist truly at the peak of his powers.
That’s fuckin right, that’s exactly…peak of my powers. Slay the lot of ’em next time…next…
Val?
It’s all dead ahead hey Massie girl, lifetime…
Val?
—Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to our very own Valentine Reid…
See? Hear that? Yeah that’s it, stand up and fuckin…you buncha…
Val? Are we…
—Look, that’s him.
—Give him room.
Give him room.—Is that him?
—Somebody call an ambulance…
33. Bury the Hatchet
There’s supposed to be a psychiatrist comin in to see me sometime this morning. I hope it’s a woman. Women doctors gets right in there with you, emotionally, and you usually gets a good bawl out of it. Plus a woman is more likely to prescribe something to take the edge off, when a man just figures it’s in your best interest to tough it out. Fuck that. I toughed it out and look where it fuckin got me.
They fitted a new cast on me arm this morning. I’ve been tryna move the tips of me fingers. Starin at ’em, tryna will ’em into doin what they’re supposed to do. No go. Me whole hand is useless. They had to do some serious stitchin, had to sew the ligaments back together and fit a little plastic tube in me vein that’s supposed to dissolve within a few days. It’s not painin all that much, but I been tryna look miserable and uncomfortable so’s they’ll gimme something, anything for the boredom, for the non-stop pangs of useless rage and embarrassment and anxiety. No go with that either.
—We found nine different types of drugs in your system Mr. Reid. What you need is a few days’ rest. And perhaps you need to rethink your lifestyle.
Yeah, perhaps.
At least they gives me something in the evenings to help me sleep, knocks me right out. Fuckin doctors. Go do a little sensitivity training will ya? I done a week in hospital when I first moved to Town. I was around nineteen. I was after gettin these pills for me foot and I brought the bottle to a party up on Gosling Street, where one half of the band use to live. Washed ’em all down with a flask of Screech. Wasted. I knows that dont sound so smart now, considering me present circumstances, but that’s how we hafta get by sometimes. When I woke up the morning after that party I was in the racks of pain, like I was after swallowing some kinda angry, inflatable creature with poisonous claws that just kept gettin bigger and bigger, gougin at me insides, tryna pop me ribs out. And it felt like I had to shit too, those same kinda cramps, only exaggerated a hundred times. I couldnt walk, could barely stand up. I called an ambulance and they brought me to St. Clare’s. I waited on a stretcher for about three years, dyin with the pain, beggin for a drink of water, which the nurses wouldnt give me, till finally this young fella had the good sense to hook me up to an IV and blast me veins full of Demerol and Gravol. That’s some wicked little cocktail. He gave me a glass of ice cubes too, God love ’im. Sent me home then, blitzed and not carin what was wrong with me in the first place. Woke up the next morning even worse. Called the ambulance again. This time they brought me to the Health Science. Doctor looked me over, saw the pain I was in and sent me home in a cab with a prescription for Atasol-fuckin-30, even after I told him it was pills and booze that fucked me up in the first place. Take two every four to six hours as required for pain. Well, they were useless for that kinda pain. I lay on the bed all night, tossin and turnin and tryna get comfortable. I’d come around long enough to take four or five pills, then drift off into a stupor again. Next morning the pills were all gone and me face and hands were swole up like balloons. But me face was hard as a rock and numbish, like when you’re stung by a wasp. I didnt recognize meself in the mirror. I was hideous lookin, like I’d put on seventy-five pounds in me sleep. No strength in me limbs either. Called the ambulance again, and when the doctors saw me this time, they got a room ready for me. They knew they were after fuckin up, see. They hooked me up to an IV then and fed me that wicked little Demerol cocktail every four hours for a week. I was in heaven. Dont ever send me home, please. Then one morning I woke up and there’s some doctor with a bunch of med students gathered around me bed. The curtain drawn. Little clipboards and lab coats. This doctor, who I’d never laid eyes on before, pokin at me guts and tellin me to breathe and askin if I feels pain here or there. They were all takin notes, ’cept a couple of’em kept whispering and makin faces behind the doctor’s back like they were in fuckin high school. He tests me reactions with a little rubber hammer, then tells me I’m free to go. He says:
—Lay off the Jockey Club son, you’ll be fine.
And they all giggled and walked on to the next bed. I was barely awake.
Sensitivity? Fuck.
All hands are after bein in to see me this past few days. Philip and Jane. Philip never said much and I could tell that Jane was after draggin him in to see me. Fuck him anyhow. Jane got all worked up though, about what an arsehole I was to go fuckin with me life like that, to go scarin everybody. Yeah, some fright they all got I’m sure. Who coulda seen it comin? I nodded at her. She gave me a slip of paper with Donna’s Fort McMurray address and phone number, said she’d be delighted to hear from me, that she’s worried sick about me. Jane says Donna is three months pregnant, shacked up with her ex again. I tried to react with a bit of enthusiasm but all that came out was a deep, raspy, malicious laugh. As soon as they left I balled the paper up and tossed it in the garbage. Donna.
That Clyde Whelan cunt was in with some foolish new missus hangin off his arm. She looked kinda Cuban and had this real spaced-out way about her. Right horny lookin too. She must be some fuckin horny to be clingin to Clyde the way she was.
Ahh fuck, I’m tryna be nice with people. It’s hard.
Brent hasnt shown his face yet, or Val. I aint expecting Val. I s’pose he’s out livin it up now anyhow, with his fuckin Lifetime Achievement money. Five grand or something like that. Think he’d throw a chunk of it my way.
Mike Quinn was here yesterday evening. Brought a basket of fruit with him and I laced into this huge five-point apple, stuffed as much of it into me mouth as could fit. I almost choked on it, juice runnin down me clean-shaved chin. Funny, what a few days off the booze can do for your appetite. The nurse told me that I had all kinds of vitamin deficiencies, so maybe it was just me system reacting to something it needed, something in the apple that I wasnt use to havin. I hadnt been eatin hardly atall towards the end, not even the burgers and subs from the Korean store across the street from the apartment. Fuck. The apartment.
I figured he was there to slaughter me. But he was half decent. He never tried talkin down to me about what I’d done with meself either. He more or less got on like he was just droppin in on me for a visit, like we were out at the bar or something. Speakin of which, he was right delighted to let me in on his latest streak of good fortune: that poor unfortunate Silas couldnt make his payments, that he’d never quite recovered after losin all that cash the first night he took over, and so the Hatchet had, as of the first of September, gone back into Mike’s name. I never let on that I’d already heard the whole story from Clyde. Mike, twenty-five thousand bucks ahead, due to Silas’s non-refundable down payment, and a full summer’s vacation out of it besides. He was some fuckin pleased with himself. I was kinda happy for him too. Or maybe I was just happy to see Silas get what he had comin, for bein such a greasy old closet whoremaster. Mike said the first thing he done on Monday morning was fire all them little queens that Silas had hired on. An awkward moment then. Maybe Mike thought I was expecting to be asked back on the job. Or maybe he felt obligated to offer me the job. I dont know. All I do know, now, is that there’s no fuckin way I’m ever goin back to work at the Hatchet. I dont care if he begs me. Dont know what I’ll do for money, but I’m never setting foot in through them doors again. Not even for a social one.
Mike leaned against the far wall with his big hands tucked behind his back, sizin up the sterile little room. Something on his fuckin mind, no doubt about that. I was just waitin for it, for the bomb.
—When are you getting out?
—Dont know. I gotta talk to a few doctors first. Psychiatrist. But dont mention that.
—No, no. Jesus no. Well I suppose there’s no rush getting your stuff out of the apartment then.
—No rush, no.
He took a step towards the bed with his two hands outstretched like he was clutchin at an invisible head, tryin not to crush it, the way you do when someone’s goin down on you. His hair was all sweaty and stuck to his forehead. He stopped himself from comin too close, like he didnt trust what he might do if he got within arm’s reach of me. He stepped back again.
—Listen Clayton, ahh…I had a look at the place. It’s…well it’s like a fuckin war zone. The toilet is broke in half. There’s a mound of ahhh…How…how do you expect me to deal with the likes of that?
I knew it. I fuckin well knew he was only here to power-trip about the apartment and the rent and all that shit. I just shrugged at him. I mean come on and kill me if you needs to Mike b’y. Easy enough target, hooked up to an IV in a fuckin hospital bed.
—I’ll figure something out Mike…
—What happened up there?
—Partying, shaggin around…
—Some fuckin party. I should, I should fuckin…Well, when they let you out you can drop by and do some cleaning up then.
—Very well.
But I knew as I was saying it that I was never setting foot in that apartment ever, ever again.
Mike zipped up his coat, a brown leather jacket that was way too tight around his gut. He picked up the basket of fruit that he’d brought in with him.
—Want anything else out of this? I got another visit to make.
Well how fuckin miserable is that? I picked out another apple.
—Anybody I knows?
—Who? Oh. Yeah, I dont know. You know the old girl Clara? She’s always on the go downtown?
—Yeah. Is she…
—She’s fine. Had a mild stroke the other night, couple of days after you came in.
—She a relative or something?
—Yes. No. Not really. She stays…she’s a tenant.
He left me then. It was goin on eight o’clock and I knew there’d be no more visitors. I almost wished he’d stayed a little longer.
Dr. Susan Miller. Closing in on fifty. Wicked shape though. Decent tan. I’d say she got a tidy little house around the bay somewhere. Wonder if she’s still married. It’s a safe bet to say she was, one time. That’s all a part of the dream. Livin high on the hog and lowering yourself to dealin with the sickness and accidents brought on by the vices of the lower classes. Scoot off to “the bay house” every chance you gets. Fill it with real art. Go fuck yourself missus. Think I’m gonna just spill me guts out to you, just like that, so’s you can sit around the table next week at some dinner party with your member of parliament and turn me into some anonymous statistic?
—So tell me Clayton, how did this happen?
Six months’ worth of self-abuse and a lifetime worth of self-loathing busts outta me in one loud primal howl, right from the very bottom of me guts. Tears almost squirtin outta me eyes onto the bedsheets around me, like the way a cartoon character cries. And I am a bit of a cartoon, aint I? This is all like some big joke. People starvin to death and bein shot down in their homes and buried in mass graves and little girls out there whose stepfathers are fuckin ’em on a regular basis, people with little children dyin of cancer. Monica rottin in the woods. Jim splattered across the windshield of his Jeep. Fuck. I should be grateful for what I got. I’d like to be, just cant see that far ahead yet.
How did this happen? Well girl, see it all started back in grade one with the nuns. No. Come on Reid. Get fuckin real.
She hands me a wad of tissue and I dabs at me eyes with it. I’d like to blow me nose but I cant in front of her. My nose-blowing is usually a messy affair, something no other human should hafta look at.
—Would you like to maybe sit over by the window in the sunlight? That might help your mood a little.
I shakes me head. I havent budged from this bed, only to piss and shit in the bathroom, since I checked in. Monday morning, when I came in, that dandy little nurse who I havent seen since, she told me to just think of it as a little break from me life, a little vacation. And that’s exactly what I’m gonna do, lie here in this bed and sleep when I’m tired and eat what food they puts in front of me and read their junky, crappy magazines and medical journals. That’s my idea of a vacation.
Dr. Miller takes out her clipboard and scans it with a thick silver pen. There’s something engraved on the pen but I cant make it out.
—So it says here Clayton that the wound is self-inflicted?
Where’s the blood coming from?
Everywhere. It’s everywhere.
Which fuckin wound would that be now missus? Aside from the obvious one, I s’pose. I stares at me hand again and tries to flex it.
—It’ll go back to normal Clayton. You’ll probably need some physio, but it will mend.
It better fuckin mend. It’s not easy wackin off with the other hand. There’s a lot more work involved. I had a go at it last night. Me door was open and I could see one of the nurses leant against the desk in the hallway, her pale pink uniform stretched right tight around her backside so’s I could see the outline of her big ole drawers. Me mouth was right pasty and I couldnt build up no saliva for lube, so I dragged me IV into the bathroom and lathered a bit of soap on meself. Time I got back in the bed I was after losing me hard-on and by the time I got it back up the cheap-ass soap was after dryin right out again. The bed was right squeaky too, so I had to find the right position to be able to get the proper rhythm up without makin too much racket. The nurse musta known, she musta heard me. She wasnt six feet away. I s’pose they’re use to that sorta thing though. It was so dry and I went at it so viciously, I wound up burnin meself, like a friction burn. That fuckin stings. There’s the start of a little scab on it now today. I minds this one time with Isadora, and I was after burnin meself in the same way, wackin off. She put her hand down me pants and I winced from the pain. Of course she wanted to see what was the matter then, and I hadda show it to her cause there’s no saying no to Lady Isadora. I told her I jammed it in me zipper. I wasnt thinkin though, cause it was the second time I used that excuse with her in as many weeks. She just looked at it, right close up like she was thinkin about painting a picture of it or something, and smiled and cocked her eyebrows at bit. I knows she knew. She fuckin knew. I dont masturbate. Why couldnt she just have come out and said, you know, it’s alright Clayton, you’re allowed to have a bit of fun with yourself, everybody does. Maybe we coulda moved on to some other level together. But no, always with the disappointment, the dismissal, the hint that I wasnt yet a man. Two parts boy.
Isadora. If I looks back over me days you know, I can honestly say that when I was at me most fucked up it’s always been over a woman. You’d think we’d learn? You’d assume the heart could remember all that pain and turmoil. You’d think I shoulda been able to just turn it off this summer, turn off that need, that want. Stop wanting Her. But the head and the heart dont always communicate so well I s’pose. They aint the best of friends. Because if there’s one thing I knows in me head it’s that that feeling, that sinkin bottomless dreadful misery that comes from gettin rejected, it cant kill you. You might feel like you’re gonna die, but you wont die. Unless you tries to do the job on yourself, like I did.
How did this happen? See Dr. Miller, Susan, me woman took off and I cracked up. Simple as that. I was absolutely number one, this here noggin was in shipshape before that though. Number fuckin one. That what you wants to hear?
—Clayton?
—What?
—Would you like me to come back later?
—Okay. That might be better.
How did this happen?
On Monday morning I climbed the fire escape to the roof. I drank five beer. I threw a bottle. It smashed on the steps that lead to Duckworth. I didnt find any pleasure in it. That’s a sign of depression, they says, not bein able to enjoy the little things that one time woulda gotten you right off. Brent wasnt around. Maybe that was it. Not the same when you’re on your own. It was over a week since I’d seen him last, strollin up Water Street with his hand on his new mobile phone, waitin to turn a corner so’s he could whip it out and dial the missus. What’s he like? I heard him on the radio then, a couple of days later. He was with two or three more who’d gotten selected to go overseas. Missus asked him what had gotten him interested in the program and he said he couldnt rightfully say, that he’s always been interested in Ireland and saw it as a great opportunity to “expand his horizons,” wherever he picked up that kinda faggy talk. Never even mentioned me name. I tried to feel good for him though, at least he’s gonna be straightened away for a while.
