Miriam Toews - The Flying Troutmans

One Christmas I called him up in Tokyo. Min had told me that he was living there then, with another woman. I just wanted to ask him how he was doing and to tell him that the kids were fine, he didn’t have to worry. He seemed pretty happy to hear from me and he asked some questions about the kids, like how were they doing at school, did they have friends, were they healthy, were they happy? Did Logan ever talk about him? Thebes was too young to remember him. I told him yeah, oh yeah, all that stuff, they’re really good. I asked him how he was doing and he said he was all right, wanted to quit drinking quite so much, but all right. He didn’t ask me how Min was, probably because it was too hard to hear the truth, and I didn’t tell him, because it was also really hard to tell the truth.

Thebes wanted to hang with Freak and play with the dog, so Adam and I went into the house and wandered around looking at things and being awkward with each other, saying things like, you’re so great, no you are, no you are, and then he suggested that I sit down with him on the couch and look at Freak’s crazy photo album of burned-out cars. When I reached out to smooth the wrinkled plastic covering one of the shots, he put his hand on mine and then some time passed and he was kissing me and I was melting into the couch and moving my hands around on his back and through his tangled hair and then I stopped and reminded him that he had a girlfriend and he said well, yeah, kind of, but about a month ago he’d experimented with quitting smoking pot and during that time, and it was a rough three weeks, he’d realized how stupid she was.

Hey, c’mon, I said, that’s not a nice thing to say, she likes you, and he said that didn’t really prove anything but she was…whatever, anyway, we didn’t need to stop, did we?

Hey, I said, why don’t you say some sexy things to me in Sango or whatever that language is that you speak. I told him it’d be great because I wouldn’t understand what I was missing and life was so much easier that way. He said something interesting-sounding and oblique and I smiled and nodded. He really wanted me to know what he had said but I begged him not to translate. We messed around sweetly and clumsily on Freak’s grimy couch until Thebes crashed through the front door.

Bonjourno! she said.

We flew to opposite ends of the couch like kids and grinned at her like morons.

Hey, sweet crib, she said. What’s shakin’, homies? Rajbeer was with her. And then Freak and Logan walked in, Freak had apparently convinced him that the dog was harmless, and then he went to the fridge and got everyone, except Thebes, a beer and told us the van was running like a top, cheers, wicked.

More difficult goodbyes. Adam asked for my phone number and I told him I didn’t really have one right then. I didn’t actually have a home, either, I told him.

Well, you’re at home in the universe, he said.

Which universe? I said. I asked him for his number and he said it was disconnected.

Freak said I could call his place and leave a message for Adam if I felt like it and I wrote down his number on the back of a lottery ticket that had let him down months ago. Then Freak asked Thebes if she wanted to keep Lucille because Lucille needed love, and Logan and I put our hands up like stop, stop, stop, but it was way too late.

We were headed down the 40 West towards our final destination. Thebes was filthy all over again but who cares, she was alive, and Logan’s cast was getting soggy and soft and fraying at the ends and I was aching with love or maybe something shallower and deeper at the same time for Adam, another guy I’d never see again in my life, and Rajbeer had eaten all the food Adam had made us and reeked like hell and wouldn’t stop barking at the dying boy on the dash and we were all a little pissed off and sad and worried and silent. Except that, in spite of all that, I was also feeling kind of okay because I thought, I was pretty sure, I knew what I had to do and what I wanted to do.

You didn’t call Min, said Logan.

And there was that. I was the world’s worst guardian of children. I was like the neighbourhood cat lady, but with kids. They were filthy, broken and eating themselves and soon they’d feed on my old corpse. I had told them I’d phone their mother — after a really bad night of running away and being abandoned and cutting wrists, all they wanted was to talk to their mom — but instead I’d used that time to fool around with a disenfranchised American pothead.

Well, no, actually, I tried, I said. But I couldn’t get through.

You did not, said Logan. Gimme a break.

I put in a CD and Logan took it out again and replaced it with one of his. It’s my turn, he said. I’ve been keeping track. This is going out to Junkie. That was his name for Lucille/Rajbeer/The Beef. He cranked the volume on “Atomic Dog.” Do you like George Clinton? he asked me.

Yeah, I do, I said. He told me he was thinking of starting a band when he got home and calling it The Missed Appointments.

Good name, I said. Do you play an instrument? He said he could play a few chords on the guitar, nothing much.

Hey, said Thebes, did you write this? She was talking to Logan, waving a green piece of construction paper around. It turned out he’d played Poetry Class with her after all and had written a poem while he was in the van hiding out from the dog.

Can I read it out loud? she asked him.

No, he said. Give me that. He tried to grab it but she yanked it away. Fuck off, Thebes, he said. Give it to me. She started to read. He swore and disappeared into his hoodie.

Bury 22 footers (in your eye)

Run the floor

Elevate, finish the deuce

Move the feet, lock it down

Box out

Rise up

Start the break

Hard dribble, pull up (on your head).

Forearm to the chest

Finish with the left

Hard pick, knock you off your feet.

Box out

Rise up

Put back

Shake your head

Jab step, release (in your face)

Get low (put a body on ’em)

Board with one hand

Dribble, spin, fade

It’s a beautiful thing.

It’s a basketball poem! said Thebes.

Give me that, said Logan. Please? He grabbed it from her and tore it up, and then opened the window and threw out the pieces.

Why did you do that? I said. That was a good poem.

Whatever, said Logan.

The rain had started again and it was foggy. I’d forgotten to ask Freak if he could fix the windshield wiper.

We should try to tie the shirt around the thing again, I said.

I can do it, said Logan.

I pulled over and Logan grabbed the T-shirt and got out of the van. Stay in here, Thebes, it’s raining, I said.

I took a plastic bag out of the back and joined Logan outside. I asked him to put the bag over his cast so it wouldn’t get wet and decompose but he said it would be okay, it wasn’t raining that hard. It sure was foggy, though. I told Logan that I had really liked his poem and that he shouldn’t have thrown it away. He didn’t say anything. He was trying hard to wrap the T-shirt around the wiper blade so that it wouldn’t fly off.

You know? I said. He was quiet. Hey, I said. What…are you crying?

He ignored me and kept working on the wiper. The T-shirt wouldn’t stop slipping off the blade and semis were spraying water all over us as they passed and the earth shook every time. Logan stopped fiddling around with the wiper and turned to look at me.

This is so messed up, he said. He was crying.

I put my arms around him and told him things would be okay, we’d figure it out, Min would get better, but he just shook his head and said he didn’t know. Thebes was looking at us through the window.