Miriam Toews - A Boy of Good Breeding

“Exactly,” said Hosea. “Just like that. He has to stay in, to be the fire chief. He loves to put out fires. He has to put out fires. I’ll explain another time.”

Lorna raised her eyebrows and let her head fall to her chest, in a dramatic gesture of defeat and exhaustion. “Make me some coffee,” she said. “No wait … no caffeine …” She had her head resting on her arms, on the table.

Hosea thought of Caroline Russo, pregnant with Johnny’s baby, and dying in the fire while Johnny was passed out in the yard. He nodded his head and stroked Lorna’s hair. “He needs to put out fires,” he murmured softly. “He really does.” Hosea understood perfectly. “You see, Lorna, it’s like this,” he said. “Years ago … Lorna?” said Hosea. “Lorna?” Lorna made a purring sound but didn’t move. She loves me, thought Hosea. She will help me meet my father, and then she’ll have our baby. Carefully, he picked Lorna up from the kitchen chair and carried her to the bed. As he bent over to remove her socks he noticed they didn’t match. One was pink and fleecy and had a little ball on it that poked out from behind Lorna’s ankle like a spur, and the other one was a kneesock, plain and white. Hosea gently pulled the socks off Lorna’s wide feet and laid them over the back of the chair so she would find them when she woke up. He stared at Lorna’s bare feet for a minute or two. He considered lifting her T-shirt slightly just to see her stomach and to imagine the thumbnail-sized embryo that was inside it that he had helped to create — but instead he moved her hair away from her face and covered her up with the blanket. He went back to the kitchen table and sat down and stared outside at the sky. The colour of Knutie’s cigarette filters, he thought to himself. He saw the water tower sticking up into the orange sky and imagined the white horse racing round its bulbous top. If he could paint the water tower the colour the sky was right then, the colour of Knute’s filters, thought Hosea, then the water tower would become one with the sky and the white horse would look like it was flying through the air. At least at those times of the day when the sky was orange. Like right now, thought Hosea, looking at the time on his VCR. 5:20, it said. Well, that’s quite early, thought Hosea. But how else to achieve this effect? When the baby was grown up a bit, thought Hosea, he could choose the colour of sky he liked best and Hosea would find a paint to match, maybe dark blue or pink, and Hosea could pass on his flying horse to his son. Or his daughter. “Or my daughter,” said Hosea out loud, smiling. Now close your eyes, honey, and stand over here and look way up and when I say open your eyes you will see a horse flying. But, thought Hosea, for now it will be filter orange. I’ve got to get on it. I’m running out of time. Will I be guaranteed an orange sky and a flying horse when the Prime Minister is in town? Not necessarily, he thought. But you never know. Hosea banged his scarred palm against the side of the table but felt no pain. Hmph, he thought, it must come and go. He did it again and still nothing, not a twinge, not one jot of tenderness, no pain. Hosea walked over to the bedroom and took off his clothes and lay down next to Lorna. She opened her eyes for a second and put her arm over his chest and her head on his shoulder.

Dory had asked Tom’s Uncle Jack to pay him a visit. Uncle Jack lived in the States, just on the other side of the border in Fargo, North Dakota. He was a part-time magician and a full-time auctioneer and even when he wasn’t working he spoke really fast, in entire paragraphs, a hundred miles an hour, like the telling of his stories was a timed Olympic event. Tom loved the guy, and Dory was sure that if anyone could jar Tom from his depressive stupor, at least for a minute or two, it would be Uncle Jack.

All right, I’m here, but not for long, you son of a bitch, what gives? Lost your sea legs, Tom? You’re down, you’re not beat, not yet, listen to me, I had a cancer of the groin not once but twice, not a fuckin’ picnic, I’ll tell ya, though it hasn’t, I repeat, has not affected my performance, the girls’ll attest to that much, what are you smiling at, two weeks after the chemotherapy gets rid of that mess in my groin, my prostate explodes in my ass, hadda have it hoovered out through my backdoor, eh? eh? still smiling? I shit you not, my friend, it’s true, Doc told me not to ride my horse for four goddamn months, I was on her in a week, scuze me? Less than a week, that’s right, four days it was, but then, Jesus Christ, that shit for a horse falls on top of me, breaks fifteen of my ribs, that’s all, but what? four? five? still, my pelvis, my arms, both of ’em, and my goddamn tailbone — that’s when I quit smoking, in the hospital, too much damn work going down the hall, down the elevator, out the front doors. When you can’t smoke in a hospital — that’s where you really need one. I don’t know, I don’t know, what’s that? Nah, forget about it. I went to Vancouver to visit my daughter and her husband, find out the guy’s a woman, she never told me it was her husband, she said, never ever, she said, Partner, partner, I said partner, Dad, she says to me, partner, Tom? What is that? Partner! But never mind, last summer I hooked my eyeball with the end of a bungee cord, pierced the retina, the iris, the cornea, the works, the hook stuck in my eye socket like it was plugged into a wall, the bungee cord dangling there like this, and I’m thinking, though of course I’m in excruciating pain, excuse me, do I look like a source of power, my eye holds no electrical current, under fifty watts in this cash register at all times, please unplug this hook from my eye, somebody, and then wouldn’t you know it, the neighbour’s cat spies the cord dangling and makes a running leap for it, I can just see it out of my good eye, the one without a hook stuck in the middle of it, and I’m thinking, No way, don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t, but forget about it, he does it, and I’m thinking good-bye, right or left or whatever eye, depends of course on how you’re looking at it, good-bye it was nice seeing you or seeing with you as the case may be, because as soon as this damn cat, it’s a fat son of a bitch — looks like a small pony, makes contact with the bungee cord he’ll yank the entire eye unit out of its hole, and I’ll be Mr. One-Eye, Mr. Cyclops, the life of every boring party as I drop the glassy job they give me in the hospital into the punch bowl, and drag my foot around behind me, I’m thinking, you know, of how I can work this unfortunate loss of mine to my advantage when the damn thing falls right out onto the ground, the hook, that is, along with the cord, not my eye, the cat’s miffed and leaves, blood squirts from my eye, from the hole where until then the hook had been, blocking the blood from leaving, you know, like a knife in the back, you leave it in until you get to the hospital, so you don’t bleed to death, and so there I am, at emergency I didn’t have to wait, of course, nobody likes to sit in a waiting room next to some guy projectile bleeding from one eye and trying to read a magazine with his other, Doc slaps a patch over my pierced eye, the slimy tissue grows over the hole, leaving a faint scar, and everybody’s happy. Eh, Tom? Tom?

“Jesus Christ, man, a heart attack, not a death sentence…. Can you not look at me? I’m cracking a beer here and now I am pouring it — ahhhhhhh, good — down my throat. Cold, familiar beer. Want one? … Okay, I’ll drink it all myself. And when I’m done I’ll have fortified myself enough to give you a proper burial because this, this is not a life, pal. All I gotta do is get rid of this bed, pry away the carpet and the floorboards, not to mention the underlay and linoleum, then lower myself a few feet, jackhammer the concrete basement floor, drop you into the dirt, bed ‘n’ all, and you’re in your bloody grave, man, say a few Hail Marys, remember the laughs, hope it doesn’t happen to me anytime soon, and Uncle Jack bids a fond farewell to Tom McCloud, good-bye, Kid Fun, good-bye, my favourite nephew … good-bye. Jesus Christ.”