Graeme Gibson - Communion

“No, I . . . couldn’t.”

“Sweetheart, you gotta wait and see.” The hand is cool, Felix sees it resting on his own, the delicate fingers, he knows the ferret face watching him, he relinquishes the gun. Fripp replaces it beside the seat: lighting two cigarettes, Felix gives one to him, he can’t look at him, they’re driving very fast, grey smoke is sucked out the window. “I thought it’d make them hot, sometimes it makes em hot, you know that baby?” Felix scratches inside his shirt, whatever they are they don’t seem to bite; inhaling he feels the sharp smoke in his chest, he senses vague pains, his fingers are in the armpit, his palm across the nipple, he presses roughly, he digs his fingers into the moist flesh and stares out the window to his right. What’s he saying? they’re driving very fast, his voice fills the cab but Felix doesn’t understand; past exit roads for Kitchener, then Preston, bland fields in tentative sunlight, Woodstock and London with Felix slouching, staring through the glass, falling each mile farther into himself: sideroads empty, occasional barns with homes in shadow and always the fields geometric on the land. Mile after mile. He can’t remember the first time it happened and can’t be sure it ever did. It might have been an early morning on the way to summer camp. It might have been. A field rising to bush, trees crowding from the sky’s edge and there, into the trees, an entrance leading away and he sees himself climbing the field in silence, sees a figure alone, only briefly pausing, then striding as best he can from sight. “Got my first one in Buffalo, he went down like a bag of shit, you know what I mean? Baby, you listening to me at all?” Felix turns, white eyes in a narrow face, he nods. “You never aim for the head, shit: the head’s too fucken small, you go for the gut, it’s full of stuff they need.” Both hands on the wheel, driving in the late afternoon, his voice is immense. “There’s just a little hole where it goes in, but it comes out the back like a fucken cannon.” They stare at each other, Felix has to look away: he sees a bird with ragged wings, poised above the fields, it drifts easily ahead of them, it’s rising as they pass: turning he watches it from the side window until it’s just a speck, until he can’t see it anymore.

Sometimes a stream then, a creek that leads from sight among the trees, and other times it’s just a suggestion, an opening image as he’s carried by. His body’s empty with the journey and he cannot speak. Would it have been different if he’d prepared the dog in some way? it might have been, if he’d taken it for walks maybe, gone north with it, given it a chance: he was precipitous, panic, it must have been panic, he didn’t think, he should have, he should have what? He could have killed it in the cage. Nothing is certain. How can he know? Cool on his forehead and dirty, the window between him and that figure in the field. In trains sometimes and cars. One day he will wake and discover that he isn’t sure whether it happened or not, it won’t matter; he’ll feel guilt, the familiar patterns, but the husky, what will it mean to him then? Driving past Chatham with night overtaking them: her eyes, luminous, did it happen in Ottawa? crying in somebody’s hall, is this true? in some obscure way he too is guilty, he wasn’t there. Past Chatham, on towards Windsor with the sky rising mountainous behind them, they’re driving against the earth. Mile after mile. His mind is full of images, rationalizations, with escape routes closing before he knows, all the familiar structures of guilt.

At some point they stop for coffee, they climb down from the cab, he remembers the body walking beside him, they don’t pause by the cash desk inside the door but go directly to a booth in the corner with Fripp waving, shouting recognition as they pass: there are introductions, a woman with purple nails, a man with a cigar, there are others, Felix doesn’t recall anything happening. He has the impression, he doesn’t know why, that they talk about him as if he’s somewhere else. Drinking coffee, eating and smoking.

Towards Windsor with the sky rising mountainous behind them, they’re driving against the earth. Mile after mile. It wasn’t his fault, he’d have done something, he’d have helped in some way. If he hadn’t fallen, if his body hadn’t betrayed him, it’s like a seizure, he doesn’t understand, like a fit of some kind, he doesn’t want to think about it. “Her name was Morag.” Fripp grins, he touches Felix on the knee. He could have killed it in the cage.

“You light me a smoke baby?” Startled by darkness in the cab, it’s almost night, the white teeth, his white eyes in shadow now, Felix looks away: with two cigarettes in his mouth he bends to the shifting flame, he inhales, he knows that Fripp is watching him. What is it? He gives him the cigarette and lights his own. “I really like you Felix Oswald, you know that?” Felix doesn’t understand. On both sides of the highway, bare branches rise from the darkening land, there are houses without lights, in the distance he can see towns, they’re coming to a city, to the river, soon they’ll be in Detroit.

The headlights from approaching traffic hurt his eyes: there are restaurants and motels by the road, he sees service stations with multi-coloured pennants reaching above the lights, low buildings in darkness; he’s never been here before, he stares through the glass and nothing is new; people stand by the road, there are traffic lights, everywhere there are cars, and then he sees the bridge, its mechanical shape crouching over the river.

They scarcely pause on the Canadian side, it’s unnerving, Felix doesn’t know if he should look back at Windsor, what would that accomplish? Conceivably he shouldn’t be doing this, he recognizes it might be a mistake, but he can’t be sure: the metallic river glistens beneath them, Fripp accelerates slowly to the hump of the bridge, talking all the time, and Felix discovers that he’s actually thinking of opening the door, of jumping onto the bridge and returning to the other side, it’s not too late. A yellow sky hangs over the city as they descend. Up river and close to the shore he notices fire, but there are gates, lights flashing ahead. Men in uniforms, they pull open the doors and motion him out, they do not speak to him, they’re joking with Fripp but Felix can’t hear what they’re saying, he wonders what would happen if he walked back up the bridge and went home, would they hurt him? Fripp comes around the truck, he’s laughing easily. There are flashing lights, the noise of engines. “They want to talk to you baby, it won’t take long.” Felix looks back up at the bridge against the night sky, they cross the pavement, they usher him through the waiting room with an American flag on the wall, there are five of them, including Fripp who carries the knapsack: they follow a narrow hall, there are closed doors on either side and heating pipes on the ceiling. They come to an alcove at the end. One of the men empties his knapsack on the floor and methodically begins to examine the contents. Felix doesn’t know what they’re looking for. It’s true he’s impressed by their thoroughness, but he doesn’t know how to react, he doesn’t know what to feel. Standing naked against a pile of cardboard cartons he watches them tapping the heels of his shoes, they run their fingers along the seams of his clothing, everything is meticulously searched, he stares in horror as his tube of toothpaste is squeezed into the wastebasket: he knows that Fripp is leaning against the door jamb with his arms crossed as one man examines the inside of his mouth, the fingers are like sausages and taste of soap; they turn him around and push him forward into a crouch, he’s held by the scruff of the neck, one of them stabs an investigating finger up his ass, he’s afraid he’s going to shit. He almost falls when they release him. Because they haven’t spoken to him, nobody has addressed a word to him, they’re laughing and talking among themselves, it’s unclear whether or not he can ask them what they were looking for, what they were doing to him. He gets back into his clothes without looking at them. Crouching he gathers his belongings together and stuffs them back into his knapsack.