Miriam Toews - A Complicated Kindness

I used almost the entire length of the driveway to write my favourite quote in chalk. LIFE BEING WHAT IT IS, ONE DREAMS OF REVENGE. It’s by Gauguin.

My neighbour came out to look at it. She’s an unhappy housewife with the flattest ass I’ve ever seen. Swaths of fabric allocated for a person’s butt billow emptily around hers like a sail. She walked slowly up the driveway, reading out loud in a voice like a little kid just learning how to. Then she said Go Gwin, eh? I said Gauguin. She asked me how I would feel living in a house with all primary colours. I said I didn’t know. She said seriously, how would you feel, so I said not great I guess. Then she folded her arms and looked at me and said: It. Sucks. Bag. Really, I asked. That bad? Hey, she said, where’re you from? Crazyville? I smiled and nodded. What do you call those colours, she asked me. She was pointing at our house. My mother called them salmon and sky, I said. Tash called them flesh and vein. She hated them. Well, said my neighbour, what do you call them? I looked at my house and shrugged. I don’t know, I said. I’ve never thought about it. She left and I surveyed my chalk work. I realized I enjoyed the sound of my favourite quote more than anything.

I never dreamed of revenge.

I sat on the driveway pushing tar into the cracks until I was in a shadow I couldn’t move out of. I walked to Abe’s Hill, the big pile of dirt on the edge of town named after the mayor, and smoked a Sweet Cap and watched the dusk move in and the lights come on in the faraway city. The magical kingdom.

The lights of the city came on, slowly at first, and then faster, like they were giving in, like the people in charge of turning on the lights were thinking all right already, it’s dark, let’s just get this night over with.

When I got home I found a book on my crate next to my bed. It was The Screwtape Letters. My dad had written something inside it. For Nomi, that it may inspire, love Dad. I thought: Letters from Satan?

My dad’s favourite writers were C.S. Lewis and W.B. Yeats. He said they were deft wordsmiths. He once told me he enjoyed the sensation of being pulled along by the mysterious fullness of initials. I whispered thanks Dad and then stared at my Christina’s World poster.

I lay on my bed thinking about Travis, about his large-pored green hands and his favourite combinations and the way he always reminded me to signal when I turned. Nomi, he said, you just need to wake up to the fact that other people need to know where you’re going. But there’s nobody behind me, I told him. And he said, reassuringly, that someday there may be.

I put on Tash’s Keith Jarrett record and watched the needle wobble around and around, six inches from my head. I liked the way he moaned when he played the piano. I decided to like anybody who would allow their moans to be taped and distributed to the world. I wanted the world to hear my moans, I thought. And then realized that I would have to also learn how to play an instrument brilliantly. Wake up to the fact, I said out loud. I don’t know why. I wondered if it was possible to donate my body to science before I was actually dead. I wondered if a disease were to be named after me what the symptoms would be.

You are a pathological liar, Travis told me. Like that guy in that movie, remember?

I am not, I said.

But your mom, he said. With your dad? I mean, quote me if I’m wrong, but…you think there was chemistry there?

I think I would know, I said.

Or you just tell yourself, said Travis.

Like, are you a shrink or something, I asked him.

No, but I mean I’m just saying. He blew smoke rings.

Well, I said, you’re full of shit. He shrugged.

You’d know, he said.

Oh slay me, I answered.

We were sitting in the truck outside The Golden Comb’s trailer. Travis took my hand and put it in his lap. Feel that? he asked. Obviously, I said, my hand is on it. It’s not a wooden hand.

You’re a pathological liar, he said, but you’re also very literal. Spooky, he said.

I just don’t like it when you’re suddenly telling me about my own life, I told him.

I’m not, he said, it’s just that your dad always reminds me of that boy, you know? The one with his finger in the dike. Like standing there forever saving the town, like a hero, but kind of not, sort of goofy.

So, I said, you’re telling me that I’m a liar and my dad’s a moron and you’re coming on to me at the same time?

No, I’m not saying that you’re a liar and your dad’s a moron. I’m talking about the human condition.

Oh, I said, well, the human condition. That’s nice. Little Menno boy in a bubble suddenly becomes freaking Balzac or someone. Look at this, Travis, we’re in a fucking field in the middle of nowhere. There is no human condition here.

Okay, said Travis, okay. He told me I needed to relax.

The Golden Comb came out of his trailer and walked over to my side of the truck. What’s up, he asked.

Waiting for my man, I said. He leaned in through my window and smiled. I looked at his hands. He had once had a job at the killing plant and had learned how to catch four chickens in each hand by sticking their legs into the spaces between his fingers. He could dislodge their brains from their brain stems with one quick violent shake of his hand and throw them on the conveyor belt so they landed neatly in a row, all eight of them. He’d always had a crush on Tash.

Looks like the weather’s shaping up, said The Comb. I nodded. Looks like Mr. Green’s back in town, he said.

Excellent, I said, and handed him the money. He took his pick out of his back pocket and jabbed at his blond Afro. Travis rested his head against the steering wheel.

Looks like Mr. Brown may be joining Mr. Gre—

Fuck, man, said Travis. Give her the shit.

You simmer, douche bag, said The Comb. He looked to the left and to the right and then craned his neck for a look over his shoulder.

We’re in a field, I said. How many more people would I have to tell that to, I wondered. Who do you think you’re looking for, I asked him. The FBI? Normally I didn’t sass The Comb, he was our only hope, our Mayo Clinic, but the whole scene was ticking me off.

The Comb spit and tossed a Baggie through the open window and into my lap. Seen your sister yet, he asked.

I’ll let you know, I said.

I’m waiting, he said, and grabbed his crotch.

I’ll let you know, I said again, hoping to sound more agreeable. This sounds so Hollywood, but the truth is this: You don’t annoy The Golden Comb. He was a rare example of a person who lived freely in our town completely outside the structure of the church and who didn’t care and who didn’t leave. He was so far removed from any responsibility or guilt or any of that stuff that he and Eldon, another complete reject, could pretty much do whatever they wanted in their scuzzy little trailer out in the bush. I guess it didn’t hurt that The Comb had managed first to identify an overwhelming need in this community and then, secondly, to single-handedly go about filling it. Menno Simons himself would have had to congratulate the guy for self-preservation. They even shared the same obsession with escaping from the world, only The Comb made a huge amount of money from his.

Being seasick at sea is not the same as being homesick at home. I sat in the vacant lot across from Darnell’s Bakery writing profound things on the sidewalk with my piece of chalk and watching Bert drive his Red Phantom up and down Main Street. He had a jean jacket with the sleeves cut off and he’d taken a Jiffy Marker and written LED ZEPPEL on the back of it and then under that the remaining two letters.