Читать книгу Planet Reese - Cordelia Strube - Страница 7

She insists that the limo drop Reese off first. He doesn’t argue, is determined never to argue with her again. Clara jumps out of the car and hugs his legs. “Why can’t you come home, Daddy? Please come home! Mummy, why can’t he come home?”

“Get in the car, Clara,” Roberta says. Her hair, usually restrained in a knot at the back of her head, has sprung loose.

“You’re famous, Daddy!” Clara says. “You’re going to be on TV! Junie says you’re a hero. She says if her baby’s a boy she’s going to name him after you.”

Roberta pries one of Clara’s hands off Reese’s legs. “We have to get home, muffin, school tomorrow.”

“Do you really think he was a terrorist, Daddy?” “I doubt it, sweetapple.”

“Terrorists bomb people.”

So does the president of the United States, Reese would like to say, but suspects that Roberta would perceive this as negative.

She straps Clara into the booster seat. “Nobody knows if he was a terrorist.”

“I hate terrorists,” Clara says.

“I’ll see you soon, sweetapple,” Reese says. “We’ll do something on the weekend.”

“I love you, Daddy.”

“I love you too, angel.”

Roberta closes the door. “Have you got everything?”

“I believe so,” Reese says. “If not, you can give it to me later.”

“What about your litho?”

“My what?”

“The Chagall.”

“Oh, right.”

Roberta digs around in the trunk and pulls out the rolled-up print.

“You don’t think it’s worth framing?” he asks.

“I wouldn’t,” she says. The exclusiveness of “I” is not encouraging, but then she touches his shoulder. “Look after yourself.”

“Have you got enough cash for the driver?”

“Yes,” she says, swinging open her door. “We’ll be in touch.”

He planned to comment on the vacation, say, “That went quite well” or “We should do that again sometime.” But Roberta’s door closes and they drive off and he is alone, with his bags and Chagall, outside the basement apartment. What did she mean by “We’ll be in touch”? Whenever someone says they’ll be in touch it means they will never be seen again. What did he do wrong this time? Was she angry that he’d used his media moment as a platform? When the compulsively smiling blonde TV reporter asked Reese how it felt to be a hero, he explained that he wasn’t a hero, that the real heroes in this world are the ones fighting the global free market.

“The global free market means free to the corporations,” he explained to the camera lenses. “Free to exploit without restraints or boundaries.” The blonde gripped her smile until the light went off. The people behind the lenses then shoved their cameras back into their bags and lit cigarettes.

He can’t wash the stench of the nose-haired man’s vomit off his hands. He tries dishwashing liquid, and laundry detergent, but still his fingers stink.

He lies on his futon on the floor and sniffs his daughter’s clothes, what she’s left behind: hairbands, scarves. One mitten he wears on his thumb. His son didn’t even say goodbye, despite the hug at Le Bistro. Reese looks at the photo of Derek and himself he has placed beside the futon. Reese is holding the boy at three on his lap. Derek has one hand on Reese’s cheek, pulling his father’s face down to kiss him. Roberta snapped the shot before the kiss, but Reese remembers the soft trust of Derek’s lips. Derek was his sun, a source of brightness and warmth. Now the boy has been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. The specialists blame his motor tics — blinking and throat clearing — on ADHD, as they call it. But it seemed to Reese that the motor tics lessened during the cruise. Hadn’t Derek been more open? Hadn’t there been a truce on all sides? Roberta didn’t once refer to Reese’s “idealistic efforts to save the planet” running them into a mire of debt. And Reese didn’t speak ill of Roberta, not that he ever would in front of the children. Although he has had some concerns regarding the art student. He has seen the art student’s car parked outside what was once his home — more than once. He can’t speak directly to his children about the art student, can’t say, “Is your mother balling a jerk in a Ford Festiva?” He asks casually if she’s been giving consultations and they reply “yes” because “we need the money.” Derek, blinking and twitching, says this with reproach, the implication being that his father cannot adequately provide.

For months Roberta has been doping Derek, even though Reese has stressed that the long-term effects of Ritalin are not known, that the boy is obviously stressed and in need of special attention. Derek accepts the mind-altering substances from his mother with complete trust, and when with Reese takes pride in remembering to take them himself. Reese watches helplessly as the child struggles to swallow the blue pills, which will vanquish whatever originality of thought remains in his brain.

He opens the only window in the basement apartment. It offers a view to the underside of a deck used by the above-ground tenants, who are singers and dancers. He can hear them now practising Mamma Mia! numbers, and probably guzzling light beer. He knows it will be hours before they bunny hop to the bedroom and perform God only knows what numbers in there.

What did Roberta mean by “Take care of yourself”? And why did she touch his shoulder? She looked sorry for him, as though he were a faithful dog who’d bit the mailman and must be put down.

Did she think he’d “lost it” with the nose-haired man? She told the mediator that he’d “lost it” when he smashed the car with the hyper-sensitive alarm system. Parked on the street outside their house, night after night it would go off due to racoons or squirrels or someone farting in passing until finally Reese got out the hammer. Apparently there were no witnesses. Neighbours had watched through blinds, relieved that someone was finally putting the animal out of its misery. Roberta, however, was unimpressed and has used the incident against him, has cited his “losing it” as a reason to keep his children from him.

He doesn’t trust the mediator, who takes copious notes during their meetings. Occasionally she’ll reprimand him with, “That’s not what you said.” Reese refrains from contradicting her though he knows she’s wrong. She is a cat-lover. Her washroom is decorated with cat wallpaper. Her toilet roll dispenser is a wooden cat holding out its paws.

If, in fact, Roberta and the art student in the Ford Festiva are getting it on, shouldn’t Reese reveal this to the mediator? Certainly the art student is a younger man with an artistic and therefore potentially irresponsible lifestyle — possibly a toker, or a crystal meth user. Even a man-hating judge could not deny that this would poorly influence the children. There is also the issue of the anti-depressants, although Reese suspects that many ex-wives take anti-depressants while retaining custody.

He is aware that — should she file for divorce — every passing day strengthens Roberta’s position and weakens his. Temporary custody has increased her single-parent experience. Without any custody, Reese cannot effectively contend for same. If his children are being “responsibly” supervised, the Internet has advised him, a judge will not arbitrarily remove the custodian in order to appoint a potentially superior one. To obtain a change, Reese would have to present evidence that Roberta is

unfit and that his children are being subjected to detrimental or dangerous conditions. For this reason it is crucial that the separation remain amicable. If she declares war, she will win.

Unless, of course, he can show proof of a dangerous liaison with the art student.

He can’t help admiring the husband in New Brunswick who went on an arson rampage to revenge his wife’s affair with the local fire chief, setting fire to three storage barns and two covered bridges. He has been found guilty on five counts of arson and vandalism. That the arsonist chose structures in which no life was sheltered endears him to Reese. Unlike the husband in B.C. whose revenge was to burn down his former house with his children in it, leaving his wife screaming in the arms of police. The husband sat in his Buick with the windows rolled up and watched his children burn.

Reese unrolls the Chagall. A red woman wearing a crown and blue shorts is lying upside down. A blue-green chicken is standing on her leg, a blue fish is floating above her, and a green horse is staring at her. There’s a sliver of a moon with an eye playing a violin. What’s it all mean?

He replays scenes, conversations, arguments. He remembers Roberta’s irritation when he responded to Clara’s questions with information about the dire condition of planet Earth.

“Shoving bad news at them isn’t going to improve their quality of life,” she’d informed him, dicing onions. “Do you want them to be depressives? They’re children.”

“How are they going to know if we don’t tell them?”

“They’re children, Reese.”

“They’re our future.”

She pointed the knife at him. “I don’t want them turning into you. I’m not going to let that happen.”

Prior to the separation, she’d become remote, no longer insisting that they have the occasional dinner out, sitting mutely at a table, fingering their wine glasses. He has always been comfortable with silence. She has not, gnawing words out of the air, questioning when there were no answers, joking when there were no laughs. As she began taking anti-depressants, there were fewer night fears and tears and he realized that he missed the sleepless nights, the silent closeness that they brought. Artificially freed of inner conflict, Roberta slept well on her side of the bed.

He rolls the litho back up and turns on the local news, watching the steel-haired anchor announce surging energy costs, increased taxes, rising homicides, then suddenly, after the car commercial, himself, muted. The steel-haired anchor speaks for him, calls him “a welcome vigilante in this age of terrorism.” A passport photo of the “suspected terrorist” is shown briefly. His name was Amir Kassam and he was a Canadian citizen. Surely the autopsy will reveal that he died from some pre-existing medical condition turned fatal due to intoxication and high altitudes. A man doesn’t die when tackled, it’s not as though Reese had him by the throat. Amir Kassam’s photo is replaced by slabs of butter, gobs of lard, buckets of bubbling oil while the steel-haired anchor delivers the latest news on fats. Reese gropes for the converter and surfs for Elena’s sci-fi show. Elena, his former grande passion, who died from some pre-existing, undetected medical condition twelve days ago. Elena, whom Reese might be able to forget were his marriage not in disrepair. With Elena’s passing he has gained control of their memories, can edit and revise to his satisfaction. Dead, Elena — unlike Roberta — understands, respects, loves, and desires Reese. He spots her spitting alien venom at a cringing human. Beneath her scales he admires her body, remembers its feel. Her name was Elena, but everyone but Reese called her Lainie. He’d breathed her night and day, and when she became pregnant he saw no reason for her not to have it. Elena saw many, and requested funds to terminate the pregnancy. He protested, sitting helpless in his bath while she sponged makeup off her face. “I’m too young for this,” she said. He went with her, sat motionless in the waiting room with the mothers and lovers of equally too-young girls.

It was never the same after that. His complete inability to fraternize with the right people began to irk her. She was ambitious, regularly going through her Rolodex, calling directors, producers, writers, and friends of directors, producers, writers to curry favour. When Reese suggested she walk the dogs of the directors, producers, writers, or the dogs of the friends of directors, producers, writers, she began to go to parties without him, and to stay out later. He continued to pine for her, munching Doritos on the bed, watching Cheers reruns. He’d wake in darkness and reach for her, distraught not to find her there. Then she would arrive, rumpled but still Elena, and he would want to hold her, unable to be angry with her, wanting only to possess her. She began to suffocate, as she put it. His attraction for her — his lack of pizzazz, his “groundedness” — became irritating, hindering, and she left on a plane. Now she’s dead. He finds this frightening because she still lives in his nerve centres. His lips can still feel the soft hairs on the back of her neck.

He pulled her bio off the Net, and an obituary written by someone called Kyrl Dendekker who claims to have known Lainie for years and who wrote that she was truly a renaissance woman — engaging, sensitive, spiritual, kind, funny, extremely intelligent, and enlightened. According to Kyrl she was an incredibly talented actress and a wonderful and inspiring friend, “a ray of light that has left us too soon.” What Reese wants to know is, did Dendekker do her? Photos are included with the bio: Lainie, bare shouldered, gazing at a parakeet perched on her finger, and Lainie as the alien. Reese keeps these pictures on his person. He does not know why. Except that Elena remembered him young.

Kyrl Dendekker has made his e-mail address available for anyone “who needs to talk about Lainie.”

What’s inexplicable is that she seems more present dead than alive. Because she could be anywhere, flying around watching Reese, observing what a fuck-up he’s made of his life. Alive, she was in California, remote in front of TV cameras. Alive, she was mortal and aging. Dead, she will be forever young.

The sci-fi show ends. Reese turns off the TV to hear his neigh-bours no longer practising Mamma Mia! numbers but bumping and grinding in the bedroom. When his children heard these noises and asked what was going on, Reese told them they were moving furniture.

Before they began singing and dancing they must have been frying hamburgers because his apartment stinks of scorched beef. It almost always smells of fried something: potatoes, bacon and eggs, grilled cheese. He lies on the futon. Even it smells of fried hamburgers. He must buy a proper bed, a brand-new odourless bed. He doesn’t think he’s ever slept on a bed that has never been slept on. The bed he shared with Roberta had been hers. All manner of men had slept on it before Reese. But it was a quality bed, she insisted, she’d paid a lot of money for it. He has never bought a brand-new bed because nothing saddens him so much as beds and mattresses put out for garbage pickup. Beds and mattresses full of lust lost and found, destined to be crammed into landfill sites. No, he believes in use and re-use. Sleep on the bed until it collapses beneath you. Roberta’s bed saw him come and go. Roberta’s bed is harbouring the art student in the Ford Festiva. Even the hamburger-smelling futon was pre-owned by a Greenpeace canvasser who changed her name to Tree when she left for Tibet.

He sniffs his fingers again. They still smell of vomit.