Miriam Toews - A Complicated Kindness

What? I said. What?

Eden, he said.

What the hell is Eden? I whispered. I’d started whispering for some reason. It’s that place, you know, on the other side of the river, a few miles from here… was he being cryptic?

Eden, I said. She’s gone to Eden? He nodded.

I’m not sure, he said, but I think her parents gave Dr. Hunter permission to…He touched his head with all ten of his fingers and said zzzzzzz.

I don’t know what you’re…I said.

Shock therapy, he said. So she can judge things better, like…better judgment. I don’t know, he added. All I know is she went to Eden, that mental institute out…somewhere west of here. He had to go swab a patch of corridor.

I walked back towards the front door of the hospital and a nurse behind the counter asked me if there was something she could help me with. I walked up to the counter and whispered that I thought I was dying and she asked me how old I was and I said sixteen and she said that was silly, I was as healthy as an ox.

Is there nothing you can do? I’d asked. I remember attempting to roll a joint right there in the hospital, trying to get my stupid papers out of the cardboard thing and not being able to. I kept tearing them, one by one, going shit, shit, shit.

What seems to be the problem she asked me and I said it seems my face is the problem. I get these face aches. I get so aahhhh…I just want to, you know, rip my head off, or just, shit, shit, shit, like fuckin’ annihilate…everything. I don’t know. I mean, not annihilate but…These papers are driving me…ohhh. I mean I wonder if some kind of painkiller, like Aspirin, or morphine, or…surgery. I don’t know. An X-ray. But I think I’m gonna die, you know? Did you hear me? I feel that way. I feel halfway there.

You’re sixteen, she said, that’s a wonderful time in a girl’s life. Go home and make yourself a cup of tea and try to relax.

Yeah? I said.

Yes, she said, just lie down on your bed and close your eyes.

But I do so much of that and it doesn’t…okay I will, I said. If I still have a bed. The furniture keeps. Can I…I pointed at some files behind her head. Do you have sample kits or you know…sample…no? Okay, you said tea, right? And lying down, closing my eyes. Sorry, but did you just say the world is my oyster? She nodded. Okay, thank you. I’m sorry for bothering you so late at night and stuff, you don’t have any matches on you, do you? Mine keep…I think…it’s pretty windy outside now, isn’t it? I mean, do you know where Eden is?

She shook her head and began to type something.

So then I went to the blue field and sat in the dark watching the car lighter pop out about a hundred times and holding it close to my hands for warmth. I slept…that long sleep I was talking about…and woke up on a cruise ship.

But before that, before the hospital and the field, sometime, I set a truck on fire in the parking lot of the Kyro Motor Inn, parked hastily outside room number six. They must have found a sitter for the Cabbage Patch doll. It was just a tiny corner of a rolled-up carpet sticking out of the end of the truck, but it went poof, fireball, really fast.

I drove off and picked up a Mountain Dew and rolling papers at the Mac’s and Gloria asked me what I was still doing in town. I’m…I don’t know, I said.

I thought you were leaving for the city, she said.

I am, I said. I mean I can’t really.

But I thought you’d already gone. You came and said goodbye, right?

Yeah, but…I just…I wanted this, I said, pointing at the can of pop. So…thanks. I’m sorry for saying goodbye and not leaving. She said it was okay.

Did you cut your hair for the summer? she asked.

Yeah, I said. I mean no. But I like it, she said. I said thanks and just stood there with my head tilted way over so it was almost resting on my shoulder as though my shoulder was somebody else’s shoulder or should have been.

What were those rules again? I asked her.

No hugging and no picking flowers, she said. Yeaaaahhhhh, I said. I wanted to hang out with her until her shift was over and then we’d go back to her rec room and feed the fish and listen to some records and trade clothes and watch TV. But another customer came in and I slowly swivelled around to stare at him like he had no fucking business walking into that store and then Gloria had to find some mayonnaise for him so I eventually straightened my head and walked out.

I walked all the way to my grandma’s old house and knocked on the door. I didn’t know what I would say to whoever opened it. I thought of: Hello, I’m sorry to bother you. But that might have left an awkward and ambiguous silence if I had nothing further prepared. Nobody answered my knock so I opened the door and went inside and up the stairs to the little bedroom with the slanted ceiling that had belonged to Trudie when she was a kid. There was a messy bed in it and a wooden crate and a yellow dresser and a bookshelf with what seemed like a thousand Hardy Boys books. Little piles of clothes on the floor. A few posters of hockey players and one of Jesus.

I lay down on the floor and closed my eyes and tried to imagine Trudie dreaming of musicals in the city. I saw her flying through the air, catapulted from my cousin’s motorcycle, Tash and me screaming in the grass.

My hand accidentally grazed the small flannel pant leg of a pair of pyjamas. What is my problem, I whispered. I got up to leave and noticed a small class picture on the boy’s bookshelf. I wondered which one he was, if I could find clothing in his bedroom that would match his outfit in the photo, and then I saw Ray, standing proud and tall, smiling, at the end of the back row. Mr. Nickel, Grade Six Teacher. The kid beside him was looking up at him with a sidelong glance and laughing. No doubt Ray had made a cheesy crack seconds before the shutterbug had snapped the shot. For a minute I stared at the picture and considered taking it with me.

I took the cornfield path behind the cemetery to The Golden Comb’s place because I thought there’d be a chance I would get lost. I passed a wooden sign that said SLOW: HORSE CROSSING and for a second I thought hey Travis would like that for his room. And then I thought oh, right. And suddenly it seemed that the very best experience the world had to offer me was in Travis’s room, lying face down on the cool concrete, listening to him play “Fire and Rain” or anything at all on his guitar, maybe lifting my head slightly, smiling, saying wow, crazy. Or maybe not saying anything, just taking his hand and putting it on my heart, and he would know everything there was to know about me.

The Comb opened his screen door. Eldon was in the living room playing air guitar with The Kinks and I smiled and held out my hands.

I’m broke, I said. The Comb nodded slowly and asked me why I was there then.

I don’t know, I said. He gave me one of his cigarettes and I handed him my can of Mountain Dew. He said it was okay, I could keep it. I sat down on the floor by his front door and held the can against my cheek.

Tired? asked The Comb.

No, no…I said.

Watch out, he said. Your hair’s gonna…I moved the cigarette away from my head and nodded.

Thank you, I said. My favourite song was starting but Eldon took it off and put on The Commodores and started slow-dancing with himself. The Comb sat down beside me on the floor.

Hi, I said. You like sitting too? He said yeah and then he kissed my shoulder really softly and I put my head back and closed my eyes. Don’t cry, he said. C’mon now, don’t cry. He kissed me some more and while he was doing that he took something out of his pocket and put it in mine and then he stood up and held out his hand and I took it and he put my cigarette into a plant and we went into his bedroom and closed the door.