Miriam Toews - A Complicated Kindness

Dialogue with school secretary regarding my fifty-dollar deposit for the French horn:

— They said I’d get the fifty bucks when I returned the instrument.

— We issue cheques upon graduation, taking into account overdue library books, things like that.

— What if I don’t graduate?

— Then I suppose you won’t get your deposit back.

— But what does one have to do with the other?

— I don’t know, but that’s our policy.

— But it doesn’t make any sense. Here’s the French horn so fifty bucks please.

— I’m sorry.

— Give it to me. Please?

— I can’t. I’m sorry.

— Please? I don’t understand. I got here. I walked…it shouldn’t…oh God, please?

— I can’t. Our policy is…

— I know, I know, but I need that money. I got here…you have no idea…of…just please?

— No, I’m sorry and I’d suggest you get to your first class. You’re already twenty minutes late.

— Oh sorry, I know, okay…sorry.

— You can leave that French horn, Nomi.

— No, I’m taking it.

— But the school policy is…

— No, no, that’s okay, I’m taking it.

— I’m afraid you’ll have to leave it here in the office.

— Don’t be afraid.

— Nomi!

— Shhhhh…

— Nomi!

I don’t remember much after that except that I picked some purple flowers in the ditch along the number twelve with the intention of trading them for drugs. When I woke up I was lying on my own couch. Except that my couch was in The Golden Comb’s trailer. I still had the flowers in my hand.

Should we put those in water, asked The Comb. I handed them to him and he walked over to the kitchen. He was wearing his Tiger Claw School of Kung Fu T-shirt. The trailer was pretty much one room with sections.

Do you mind if I ask you something? I said. Where’d you get this couch? The Comb told me he’d bought it off my dad in the middle of the night a few days ago. He was sitting on it in the front yard like at three or four in the morning with a suit and tie on like he was waiting for me or something, said The Comb.

I said yeah and nodded and then Eldon said barley sandwich? Old socks? And I said cool, thank you, Eldon. He said donesville and headed for the fridge.

The Comb sat in a La-Z-Boy folding laundry and nodding moodily to The Dark Side of the Moon. I said: I was gonna get the deposit on that thing and, like fifty bucks, for shit…and then, but they said no, so.

Oh yeah, said The Comb. So, no dough?

Kind of yeah, no, I said. I kind of got those…flowers there for…I picked them and…hoped. This is not a smooth transaction, I thought to myself. The Comb closed his eyes and grooved for a while. I looked over at the worn-out shiny part of the sofa cushion where my dad had put his head when he napped. Where he had dreamed away the darkness. Eldon came back with my beer and pretended to open it with his eye.

That’s so fu—…that’s…wow, I said, smiling up at him like he was Santa Claus. Then he sat down in a different La-Z-Boy chair and I drank my beer and tried to keep flies from landing on the opening of the bottle and stared at that part of the sofa that my dad had worn in with his head.

So! said The Comb, finally. What are we gonna do, Nomi? I smiled and shrugged and then Eldon came up with the idea of strip Scrabble but I said noooooo thanks.

Ordinary Scrabble? he asked.

I’m pretty bad with uh…words, I said. The Comb said that Eldon kept track of his scores and studied words every evening.

That’s freaky, I said and Eldon said why is that freaky, why is that freaky?

And The Comb said whoah, Silver, she means it’s interesting.

Then Eldon looked over at my French horn and said we could keep that in exchange, what’s it worth?

Nothing, I said. It’s really pretty useless. I rest on it sometimes. We all stared at it for a few seconds and then The Comb asked me how desperate I was.

Well quite severely so I guess, I said.

So we keep that baby, he said, and you go away happy. Happy? Eldon was firing up a shiny blue blowtorch and The Comb was stroking the lid of an old Sucrets tin.

Well? asked Eldon.

I was studying that word in my head, I said.

What word? he asked.

Happy, I said.

Are you mocking me? he asked. The Comb lifted his hand and glared at Eldon and said give it up, man.

You know how it is when you say a word over and over and over in your head? They looked at me. I put my hand on the sofa cushion and felt its warmth and worn-away feeling. I’ll just take my French horn now and go, I said. No offence or anything. I mean you guys are the best, thanks for the beer and sitting here inside, it’s so…round…and shady. Whew. I smiled and mimed like I was wiping sweat off my forehead. Bye guys, I said. Nice couch. And closed the screen door really, really softly.

I sat on the church steps and stared at the cars on Main Street. I got up and walked over to The Trampoline House for a few minutes of uninterrupted jumping. I sat in a wooden swing set in Travis’s backyard. My French horn was becoming intolerably heavy. I walked home down the highway, six inches away from the speeding semis carrying loads of doped-up livestock. When I got to my house I found my dad at the kitchen table looking at a pile of coupons that all advertised half-price fabric softener.

I guess whole stacks of papers that all say the same thing really interest you, eh? I said. He looked up and smiled and lifted his hand like a traffic cop.

How goes the battle? he asked. That was one of his favourite questions. I tilted my head and smiled grimly. Not yet time for the white flag I hope, he said.

Hell no, captain, I said. He didn’t like the word hell but he kind of liked the word captain although he probably associated it with the word mutiny.

They called, he said. You have your driver’s test tomorrow at six o’clock at the arena.

I’ll need the car then, I said. Don’t sell it.

What’s for supper? he asked. Things starting with J? K?

I went into the garage to get some stuff from the freezer but then remembered that the freezer was gone. There was a three-by-six-foot rectangle of clean garage floor where it had once been. I went back inside and sat down across from my dad and said: What are you doing?

He said, we don’t need such a large freezer. He blinked from behind the glass. His eyes were so green and pretty.

Dad, I said, do you even know what fabric softener is? He looked at his stack of coupons and sighed. We need…he didn’t finish. We sat together quietly staring at the coupons as if they were showing signs of coming out of a long coma.

Finally I said we should do something fun tonight and he said how about the Demolition Derby.

It was nice leaning up against the fence with him at the old fairgrounds watching cars smash the shit out of each other and then come back for more, smoke puffing out around their hoods and doors missing. My dad was the only person at the fairgrounds wearing a suit and tie, of course. During the intermission we walked over to the ditch by the highway to watch some boys do jumps with their mini-bikes. And we counted cars with American plates — twenty-seven. On their way to watch The Mouth read Revelations by candlelight in the fake church while the people of the real town sat in a field of dirt cheering on collisions.

Afterwards he let me practise my driving. I drove around and around the outskirts of town on Townline Road and Garson and back up the number twelve to Kokomo Road, like I was a real thorough or possibly forgetful dog marking my territory. My dad asked me what those fires were in the bushes off behind Suicide Hill and I told him: kids. Kids hanging out. Staying out of the wind, drinking beer, pairing off, and hoping to have a little fun before that endless swim-a-thon in the Lake of Fire. My dad asked me please not to schput —an old word meaning don’t make fun of eternal damnation and other religion-based themes.