Miriam Toews - A Complicated Kindness

I wished so badly that he had taken the time to measure the letters out and sketch them on with pencil first. I thought to myself that there really were so many simple ways we could make ourselves look less like idiots. I counted the number of times Bert drove past me. Twenty-three times. I suppose that if Bert were looking for me he would have found me by now. The only real conversation Bert and I ever had was an argument and I forget what it was. All I remember about it is Bert saying end of story. End of Story. And how it left me speechless and depressed. But that’s because endings are my weakness and I hate them and mistrust anybody who knows when they occur.

When I was twelve Bert picked me up outside the Sunset and let me drive around some country roads. When I told him I had to go home he asked me why and I said my parents would be worried. He told me he didn’t have any parents. He did have parents but they’d been shot out of town in a cannon. He lived with his grandma. His grandpa lived in a little garden shed in the backyard and had his food brought to him in a margarine container. He’d been thrown out of the church a long time ago for being sick. Although the elders don’t think alcoholism is a disease so it wasn’t presented that way to the congregation.

That’s sad, I said. No parents. And he laughed and said I’ve got something else and then he held up his cigarette in one hand and his bottle of Old Stock in the other hand and said: Mom. And Dad. When he dropped me off my own parents were playing badminton in the front yard. My mom was wearing white canvas Keds that she’d got in the States, and pedal pushers. And my dad was in his suit, of course. They waved to Bert and I told him to hide his mom and dad or I’d never get to go driving with him again. It turns out I never did go driving with him again anyway because he started dating a wild French girl from Marchand. They’re still together. Usually she drives up and down Main Street with him in his Red Phantom. She sits right beside him, practically on top of him, and smokes du Mauriers, one after another, lap after lap, night after night. She’s really hard-looking. She doesn’t smile much. Bert acts goofy a lot and she’ll shove him away by pushing one hand against his chest. She has Fancy Ass jeans with bolts along the sides. Sometimes Bert will park the Phantom in the Tomboy parking lot, under the light, and play music loudly and the two of them will sit on the hood of the car like the kids in Thunder Road.

I once had a dream that Bert and Brass Knuckle Girl (I don’t know where that name came from but her real name was too hard for repressed Teutonic types like us to pronounce and we of course enjoyed distilling individuals down to what we thought was their core essence) were sitting there in the Tomboy spotlight and they started to dance old-style, like Fred and Ginger. Bert said sweetly: Brass Knuckle Girl, will you dance with me? And she said Bert, you know I’d love to. And then Bert took one deep drag off her du Maurier and flicked it, swirling, onto the dark asphalt outside of the spotlight, and they slid off the hood of the car, hand in hand, and waltzed around all over the parking lot and one by one people were coming to watch them and everyone started to cry because they were so beautiful and doomed. After twenty minutes or so of dancing they bowed to the audience, which applauded politely, and then drove off in the Red Phantom, which halfway down Main Street lifted right up off the ground and soared off into the blackness. Since I had that dream I heard through the grapevine that Bert and Brass Knuckle Girl like to have candlelit dinners together on top of silos and that they’ve signed a suicide pact so that one won’t have to live without the other. I wondered if it was signed in blood and where they keep it and how long they’ve agreed to live before dying. If they have a prerequisite number of laps they need to make around Main Street before jetting.

I also wondered how Travis’s version of “Fire and Rain” was going and what I would say the next time he played it for me. He’d picked me up on Main Street and told me I looked kind of like Federico Fellini’s wife and I said who’s that and he said I wouldn’t know her and I asked him oh, from Raiders of the Lost Ark ? And he said that was funny and I asked him if he wanted to sign a suicide pact and he said that was insane and I said nothing but I did notice that he had some ketchup or something on his cheek which I thought I would try to ignore while focusing some more on things to say between songs.

I spent way too much time thinking about what I’d say in between songs. I could say trippy or choice or deadly or wordy or hey, nervy . I could say naked. But no more wow, crazy. I’d heard about a girl taking a boy’s hand and putting it on her heart so he could feel it racing. That’s not bad, I thought. But what would I say if Travis didn’t get it. That’s my heart? Beating? Fast?

It didn’t really matter because mostly he was interested in running around naked in fields. I could do that. All it required afterwards was lying on the ground and staring silently at the sky and I appreciated activities that in the end required silence. The one time I attempted to speak, out of politeness, Travis put his hand on my stomach and said don’t talk, let’s synchronize our breathing. In. Out. Easy, Nomi, there, yeah. I felt like I was being tested for pneumonia. I wondered if a boulder were to be dropped on us from a height of one hundred feet how many seconds we’d have to roll out of the way.

I must have fallen asleep thinking about it because when I woke up Travis was sitting in the truck and I was wet. I walked over to his window and tapped on it. He rolled it down a crack.

You left me lying naked out in the rain? I asked.

I couldn’t move you, he said.

Or wake me up? I asked. He said there was lightning and the truck was the safest place. I put my clothes on and climbed in next to him.

Oooh, you’re wet, he said, so I moved back over to stare out the window. I told him his version of “Fire and Rain” was destroying my soul. Except not out loud.

Do you know, I told him, that when it rains, or threatens to rain, even cows and horses bunch together to protect one another from the elements.

Really, he said.

Yes, I said. Look over there. We stared at a thick clump of horses in the field across the road.

When I got home my dad was on the roof. Feel safe up there, I asked. He shook his head. He was crouching and looking at something.

I put my fist around my mouth like a bullhorn and said please come down from the roof. I repeat, come down from the roof now. My dad stood up. Little lightning bolts seemed to radiate from his head. He looked like the less angry, less commanding brother of Moses coming down from Mount whatever. I asked him what he was doing and he pointed to the eavestrough and said cleaning this stuff out. I said okay, don’t fall. I went to my room and looked out the window. I wondered if my dad had intentionally waited for an electrical storm to strike before going up on the roof to do some cleaning. Giant chunks of crud were dropping to the ground. I could have stuck my hand out the window and caught them.

My sister’s leftover Valium from her wisdom teeth being removed were still in the cupboard above the stove. I took two and my Sweet Caps and left for Abe’s Hill to stare at the lights of the city.

The neighbour kid was playing in her yard as I walked by and I did what I always do. I spun her for a long time until we both fell over. I told her she should go inside because it was dark and she asked why, which I thought stood out nicely from all the questions I’d ever been asked. She had a green shiny purse hanging from her shoulder.