Graeme Gibson - Communion

The dog is in the car. He discovers it when he opens the back door to replace the cage. The interior light goes on and there it is. Cowering on the floor, it stares at him from the corner of its eye. He doesn’t understand, why is it in the car? He says “You’ll have to get out of there,” he speaks formally: “get out now, out!” It stares at him. He crouches by the open door, he smells wet fur, leaning over the seat until he’s level with its breath. “If you don’t screw off they’ll get you, please go, they’ll take you to the university, they’ll cut you open, they’ll put wires and everything into your head.” It doesn’t understand. “Don’t you understand? they’re waiting to zap you, they’ll fry your goddamn brain.” Its breathing is light and rushed, how can he expect it to understand, what is there to understand? He’s come this far on his own.

Very calm, without emotion, he walks around to the other side of the car, he opens the door and returns to the cage. There’s nothing to be said. He must simply force the animal from the car, close the doors and drive away. He can’t use the wicker cage as a prod; the space between the seats is too narrow, he must think of something else. All possibilities exist at the same time, in space like a tapestry: he can dismantle the cage and try to straighten one of the supports, he can find part of a fence, he can roll the spare wheel, there’s enough room, he can kick at the dog, push it out with his snowboots, it’s too bad he doesn’t have a ski-pole, the dog will resist, the fences in this part of the country are ideal, a tire iron or the jack, the spare wheel.

He’s unwilling to hit the animal; he could injure it; unless everything else fails; he leans on the red metal jack, it presses cruelly into the sinews, bone and muscle, the whimpering grows in strength. They are both without anger. Felix bending into the car, forcing methodically, he doesn’t think, he has no sensation, the husky resists. It’s only a matter of time, it can’t win. Felix knows that. The only question is how much, what kind of pain will he have to inflict before the animal capitulates?

Even when it’s finally on the road he can’t slam the door because, as he pushes its head out with the jack, it sticks a leg back in, he taps the leg carefully until it’s withdrawn, only to find another one, or the head again. He’s cold, his mouth tastes awful: he’d like to be in the city. It goes on and on. The dog breathing intently, whining in its chest, Felix pulling the door shut; why is he doing this? Eventually he succeeds. The husky is outside, it stands on its hind legs and paws at the window, he can hear it: he closes the other door and climbs into the front seat. He sits with his hands on the steering wheel, he doesn’t know how long he sits with his hands on the steering wheel. He’s trembling. The dog is at his window now, its paws scrabbling desperately, it barks suddenly, an abrupt explosive sound, it frightens him: it’s the first time he has heard it bark. He gathers saliva, trying to cleanse his mouth, he lights a cigarette and starts the car. The dog barks again, it falls away from the window as he accelerates, the rear wheels slide as he gathers speed, it runs beside him, the night is immense, he doesn’t know the road in this direction, he doesn’t know where it leads.

He’s driving faster than he should, he mustn’t go off the road, he mustn’t get stuck, the husky’s loping behind him. This isn’t the way it was supposed to be.

If, when he reaches the floor of the ravine, he turns right instead of left, if he climbs the small hill to the road and descends across highways to the railway tracks, he’s in the Don Valley. It must have been beautiful before the war. The river meanders as a river should. He can see sepia figures with parasols, gentle men with shiny boots, they drift silently beneath great black trees with rough bark, but the trees are dead now and the water is foul. In the guts of the bridge above him a subway train rattles to Bloor Street. It’s almost spring, the wind is cool: dirty water swells powerfully to the lake, eddies, whirlpools convulse to the surface and vanish. Felix crouches at the edge, on a sandbank, with a mountain of filthy snow and salt on the other side. Clearly pressed into the wet sand there are the tracks of animals, exquisite icons, he doesn’t know what they are, he touches them with his finger. He doesn’t know what they mean. He stands. There are trees, obviously different kinds of trees. He stares at them. They have names, he doesn’t know their names: they are different from each other and unique, some have rough bark, others are smooth, some are tall and slender, others burst greedily from the earth, and birds, he hears their separate voices; following the edge of the river he startles a flock of hundreds, they spring from dead weeds stuck in the snow. All about him there are signs, strange birds chase each other on an empty sky, he threads through husks of summer plants, their pods open and dry like insects. He does not want them to touch him. The snow is melting, the river grows. Even here, all around him, there are animals, they watch him pass. He doesn’t know.

He knows that he has loved her but no longer understands what it means. Standing by the window. Laughter and applause from the front room. He stares at the garage: it’s dusk, he will go for a walk. There is music now from the television, it makes him angry: in front of the set, her legs tucked beneath her on the sofa, the delicate perfume of her body, he needs her, needs to lie down with her, they cannot do that. Why can’t they? Heavy shadows at the end of the garden, the catalpa black against the sky. He goes for another drink, she turns her face to him, he’s aware of her face, he doesn’t respond, he goes into the kitchen. He should have looked at her, he should have touched her. “Do you want a drink?”

“I . . . I don’t think so.”

Sitting in an office on the seventh floor, at some point in his life, staring where his reflection should be in the window, he becomes aware, imperceptibly, of a large bird flying towards him, he can’t believe it, he waits for it to slow down, to wheel away from him, but it doesn’t, it intends to imbed itself in his chest, fiercely he sees its eyes, the yellow beak as it explodes against the glass.

Is that someone on the garage? he’s sure it wasn’t there before: a shape of some kind, a form, almost like someone lying up there observing him, but that’s unlikely. He takes a mouthful of whiskey and tries to determine if someone is watching as she comes to stand behind him, she puts her arms around him, a hand inside his shirt against his belly, she rests her body against him. Is she crying? He turns to her. It isn’t any good, he doesn’t know what to feel, it makes him sad to know he has nothing to say. It’s night now. A train crosses the bridge as she speaks: “I’m sorry.” Her mouth remains parted, she doesn’t expect an answer.

“So am I.” He touches her face with the tips of his fingers, lightly brushing her forehead, her cheekbones, he is particularly uncertain because the watcher is waiting to see what they will do next. With his hand at the back of her neck he pulls her against him. It is merely awkward, at first, but it quickly becomes embarrassing: she steps away and returns to the other room. He returns to the window. Perhaps if he turned off the light and crouched by the window he would see a wiry silhouette rise to stand beside the tree.

In front of him a car bursts over the hill, driving fast it appears instantaneously, it blinds him, he swerves to the roadside: its horn blares once and then it’s gone. Felix struggles to keep the car moving through drifted snow, he’s sliding in deeper, he stops the car and puts it into reverse, he accelerates, it begins to move, the wheels are spinning, his hands are clenched, he throws it into drive, then reverse, rocking his body with the car he makes it back onto the crown of the road. He lights a cigarette and smokes without moving. There’s a gentle wind now; the sky is full of stars. If he doesn’t come to a concession road soon he’s going to have to turn around and drive out the way he came in. Where is the husky? possibly it has left the road, it had been right behind him. He searches carefully but there’s no sign of it. He gets out of the car to pee, his body doesn’t work very well, it’s as if it doesn’t understand, all his muscles are contracted so that he has difficulty in straightening himself, it occurs to him that very old men must feel like this. Fumbling beneath his coat to find his fly he hears it, he knows it’s the dog, he knows it’s been hurt, it’s gone mad, it’s been injured: his feet on the frozen road, he’s supporting himself with both hands along the car so he doesn’t fall, it’s having a fit, a noise, a strangling, the sound of his feet, the wind, peering ahead he sees it crushed beside the road, it struggles in small circles, it flops from side to side like a fish. Standing over it he tries to understand. Bone protrudes from its side and the snow is black with its blood. He doesn’t understand, he can’t stand the noise! kill it to stop the noise, he doesn’t know how to kill it, he falls as he tries to turn away, his knees bang stupidly against his chest, he’s bleeding from the mouth, he doesn’t feel the snow against his face. He doesn’t see the husky die.