Miriam Toews - Summer of My Amazing Luck

The woman looked at her watch and said, “You’re late.”

I glanced at the big caged clock on the wall. “It’s not even 10:20. I’ll have to sit and wait for ages, anyway,” I said. “I’m sorry I’m late,” I added, suddenly feeling like an eight-year-old kid.

“I don’t need attitude from people like you.” The woman’s head quivered while she spoke.

Attitude! Hadn’t I just apologized? “Hey, we’re here to worry about my needs, not yours, hey hey,” I muttered, feeling like a moron, like a failed stand-up comedian. I was only trying to be funny, even friendly, but our senses of humour weren’t gelling right then.

“The yellow line,” she hissed. This time her head bobbed and her jaw clenched and two white spots appeared on her cheeks.

I followed the yellow line, past the bulletproof glass shielding the cashiers, into the holding area. I thought of the white-capped mountains of Colorado and sunshine and the open highway. Sitting in the holding area, I overheard two guys speaking in French. Then their names were called by a man in a suit. I overheard bits of their conversation. They were applying for emergency money.

“… fuckin’ wet here, had to sleep in the truck … broke down in Kenora … had to use our gas money for repairs …”

“Alright. Your names are Jean—”

“We’re trying to get to Vancouver … work there … we’re from New Brunswick.”

The dole worker in the suit told them to come with him. Then he said, “Oh, I’ll take one of you at a time.”

Poor guys.

“Ah merde …” One of the guys said something to the other in French. The dole worker stopped him and said, “No consulting. This way, please.”

If their stories were exactly the same they’d be made to do lumpy labour, maybe lugging dead cows around a slaughterhouse or filling up potholes, maybe something to do with the flood, for a day or two, stay at the Sally Ann until they had enough gas money to get the hell out of Winnipeg.

The woman next to me had on mustard-coloured stretch pants and a tank top that read “Life’s a Bitch and Then You Die.” She jerked her head at the two guys and said, “Bullshitters.”

I didn’t say anything. Nobody wants to be associated with any of the other welfare bums in the building. This is one of the harder parts of the job of being on the dole. It requires complete denial. You must be still and patient.

Eventually Podborczintski called me into his little office. I noticed he had a new piece of art on his wall. It was a crayon drawing of a boat and a box and a tree and looked like it must have been done by his grandchild. He looked old enough to have grandchildren. I’m sure he could positively identify the father of each one, too.

We did our usual dole chat. No, I hadn’t found out who Dill’s father was. No, I hadn’t made any money in any way since my last appointment. No, I hadn’t received any gifts of money from my family. The only shocking thing about the meeting happened at the end. Podborczintski told me he was sorry about my mother dying. He told me he was trying his best to help unfortunate people like me. He had a daughter himself and would be devastated if ever she had to turn to social assistance to support her children. He said he wished he could be the father to all these poor children, to show them love, a future, a male role model that they so desperately need. I didn’t know what to do, so I tried to change the subject.

“That’s a nice picture you got. By the way.”

“What? Oh, that. Yes, yes, isn’t it beautiful? You see, that right there illustrates the potential these children have to turn the ugly reality of their lives into something beautiful. Lucy, I hope you recognize that your child, despite his random arrival in a world of poverty and absent fathers, knows that he is special, that he is loved, and capable of making change, of creating beauty from the mess around him.”

“Oh, yes.” I shifted around in my chair. “Are we done?” I asked him.

“Oh, yes, yes. Wait. I’ll have to schedule a home visit. I’ll be dropping in sometime in the next couple of weeks. Home visits are a necessary component of my job. They are put in place to allow for a more precise assessment of the client’s needs and to ensure that nothing — well … I imagine you know the routine.” Suddenly Podborczintski seemed awfully tired.

He smiled and stared off toward his window. If Podborczintski was planning a home visit I’d have to be home and not traipsing around in Colorado with five children and a crazy woman looking for a fire-eating street performer. It was a problem.

I cleared my throat and asked, “Can’t we make a specific time for the appointment? I’m not always at home, I’m outside a lot. Because I have lung problems and the rain is very good for them. You see.”

“I’m sorry, Lucy, but the nature of home visits is such that they allow for a random, unplanned visit. We need to know that there is no, how shall I say …”

I nodded quickly. Podborczintski was sparing me the details, and I was sparing him the embarrassment of reciting them.

He quickly added, “Also, we need a look at the floor plan of your apartment to verify that you have, indeed, two bedrooms and so on.”

“Right. OK,” I said.

You know that expression gulping air. That’s what I did when I got out of the dole building. Really, I stood on the street and gulped air. God, life could get complicated.

Before I got back to Half-a-Life, it had started to rain. Sing Dylan was outside with a shovel, trying to dig what looked like a sloped ditch away from his basement window. This time Sarah wasn’t helping him. I asked Sing Dylan where she was, and he told me she had gone to apply for a part-time job at the carnival that was coming to town. To prove to her social worker that she was productive and deserved to get her son back, she had to apply for a certain number of jobs per day. He pronounced it carney val , with a rolled r , so at first I didn’t get it.

When I got upstairs to Lish’s apartment I noticed it was really quiet, and Lish’s apartment is rarely quiet, not even at night, especially not at night. I knocked on the door. Nothing. I checked and it was open. It was dark in the hallway, so I groped around for the light switch. The light came on and there they were: Lish, Hope, Maya (home from school for lunch), Alba, Letitia and Dill all dead, slaughtered, with streaks of red food colouring coming from their mouths and their eyeballs bulging grotesquely, unblinking. I found out later that Dill had fallen asleep on the floor, and his habit of sleeping with his eyes half open had inspired the girls to mount this production. Lish had-been forced to go along with it for added effect. Her hair looked great splayed out over the kitchen linoleum. Funny, yeah, but murder has never sat well with me. So my initial gasp was really authentic and the girls were tickled pink.

Anyway, Lish got up and told me we were going to a party that night, come hell or high water. We were stepping out. Teresa had offered to babysit, so “youse guys can get pissed for a change,” and had even offered me a dress to wear for the evening. The party was at the home of a friend of a friend of another friend of one of Lish’s nighttime paramours. Apparently it was some kind of film wrap-up thing and Graham Greene might even show up. Teresa told me that in exchange for babysitting I had to ask someone about the chances of her getting hired as a flagger on any upcoming shoot.

Teresa took Dill and the girls an hour before we were actually leaving because, she told us, the time spent getting ready, preparing, dressing, preening and talking about getting laid is the best part of any party, really. The actual party is usually a bore, and odds are you don’t get laid.