The End

(an extract from Fred and Me)

When we returned to the apartment an eerie silence haunted the rooms. It was the kind of stillness you feel in funeral homes. There was no noise from upstairs. Usually by noon there was a constant onslaught of heavy metal music from Claude’s stereo. Claude was also a big Andy Williams fan, especially Andy’s Christmas album, which Claude played constantly regardless of the season. Perhaps Claude and Mrs. Pergoti had gone to church, but I couldn’t help but imagine them upstairs, their ears pinned to the floor. Ann must still be in bed, I thought. I glanced at the kitchen clock. Eleven thirty. I hate digital clocks. You can’t see the second hand moving. Time does not ebb away, it smacks you around. Each minute comes out of nowhere, suddenly, like a sucker punch.

Outside the basement window, it was still snowing. Snow in October, it was going to he a long winter. I made myself a coffee and sat down at the kitchen table to read the Sunday Star. I gave Fred the Insight Section. There was an article concerning the Kennedy assassination that he wanted to read. I opened the paper and saw an advertisement promising to teach tall men how to dance. The weather was warm in Hiroshima. Dagwood screamed out of the funnies, Repent!” In the obituary column there was a reminder of the death of Charles De Gaulle, years earlier. And in the personals there was a small piece in Italic, Look out, David. She’s awake!

Ann entered the kitchen, her bathrobe wrapped tightly around her. The morning did not flatter Ann; her eyes were still heavy from sleep; her skin looked tight and washed out. There were bags under her eyes and her mouth was turned down like a bed that had not been slept in. You could see where the jowls of middle age would settle, and the lines around her neck were growing deeper. Ann hated growing older. Why do women have to age so much quicker than men? Why is nature so cruel to women?

Ann walked over to the counter and poured herself a coffee. Black.

“Hope I didn’t wake you,” I said.

There was no response. Ann took a spoon and stirred her coffee. Realizing that there was no need to stir black coffee, she put the spoon down quietly on the counter.

“I picked up some eggs on the way home,” I added.

Ann turned and looked at me. “You’re back,” she said, her voice cold and indifferent. She brought her coffee to the table and set it down, pulled out a chair and took a seat. The silence that followed was so tight the I felt that, at any moment, the quiet might burst into a cathartic rout of bodily noises. I was determined not to be the one to break the spell, but I failed.

“You want part of the paper?” I blurted out. “It was lovely up at the cottage, though Fred and I had a bit of an accident. Fell into the river. Off the end of the dock. Stupid really. Too much to drink. You might almost have believed that someone pushed us. The leaves are so beautiful at this time of year. No mosquitoes to speak of.”

I kept talking like this for some time, afraid to stop, afraid of what I might hear when suddenly Ann interrupted me.

“I want you to move out.”

My mouth fell open. I felt like one of those cartoon characters with their mouth open and their teeth crumbling, individually falling out. But in my case it was words and not teeth that were crumbling in my mouth. The newspaper that I had in my hand wilted like a flower, each page growing flaccid, folding over each other onto the table. The steam from my coffee fell back into my cup like rain. The lights in the room began to strobe. I wanted to shove my hand down my throat and pull my heart out through my teeth.

“What?” I managed to say without choking.

Ann turned to me, her face expressionless as she matter-of-factly read the news.

“I think you should find an apartment of your own.”

I slumped in my chair. Part of me began to fall apart, to crumble, to dissolve in disbelief and despair. At the same time a great storm of anger began to build up deep inside me. I could feel it rushing to the surface, pushing aside all other senses.

“What are you talking about?” I cried out, smashing the table with my fist.

“Don’t raise your voice to me, David. We will discuss this in a civilized manner or we will not talk at all. I think you should be on your own. It’s in everybody’s best interests.”

Ann sipped her coffee, the black steam rushing up and filling her eyes. She ran one of her long nails along the rim of the cup, reached over and turned on the radio. CBC. An old woman was discussing her tulip garden and the political agenda of her organization, Seniors for an Independent Ontario.

“You want me to find another apartment?” I articulated each word separately as if I were walking barefoot through a field of glass.

“Yes. That is correct.”

My hands sank into my hair, grabbing a batch and pulled. Breath from my lungs whistled out through my clenched teeth.

“I don’t understand,” I pleaded then erupted into a brief spasm of anger. “Jesus Christ, look at me when you’re talking!”

“I am,” Ann said, her eyes sad as a desert. “I’ve been taking a long look at you lately.” The look of sadness in Ann’s eyes turned suddenly to pity. “What is there to understand, David? I want this relationship terminated. It’s quite simple I want to pull the plug. We’ve been dead for a long time.”

I rose to my feet, stepped over to the refrigerator, smacked the door. Something inside fell off its shelf.

“Simple!” I cried. “Simple! You think this is all simple. Dead. You don’t just chuck a marriage out like it was the garbage. I don’t want to find another apartment.” I turned toward Ann. “I want to talk.”

Ann sipped her coffee. She did not immediately answer me, as if by her silence she was indicating that she was only humoring me by talking, that all was decided. If I’d had something in my hand, I would have struck her.

“It’s too late for talk, David. I don’t want you to live here anymore.”

“You don’t want?” I butted in.

“There’s an apartment.” Ann continued, her voice controlled, in monotone, tired. She spoke as if she were reciting a speech. “A house for rent on Church Street. You would have the main floor. I saw it advertised the other day in the Globe and Mail . I checked it out. It’s shabby, but with a little elbow grease, you could make it quite comfortable. I’ll lend you the money for the rent until you can find yourself a job.”

I slumped back into my chair, like a picture I’d once seen of a man in the electric chair. At any moment, I expected the straps to be tightened on my wrists and ankles. I sat there paralyzed. What was happening? Someone had just walked through the door and scooped out my insides leaving a shell behind in my chair. I looked down at Fred. He was still immersed in his article on the Kennedy’s. Words staggered like drunks out of my mouth.

“This is so… sudden.”

“It’s been coming for a long time,” Ann responded. “I tried to warn you long ago, but you were always off somewhere, dreaming your dreams. I’ll tell you straight, David. I can’t stand living with you anymore. Your touch makes my flesh crawl. Your presence in the same room makes me sick to my stomach.”

Ann put her cup down. She rose from the table and went over to the counter to drop a couple of slices of bread in the toaster.

“I’m starving,” she smiled, a sense of relief in her voice. The deed had been done.

“You’re my wife!”

“In name only.”

“Whose fault is that?”

Ann turned and looked at me. “You want to flip for it!”

My face sank into my hands.

“You don’t know me, David. You never have. You think this or that happened in the past but it’s a past you have constantly been reinventing. I’m a stranger in your life. Our life together might as well have been a series of one-night stands. I’ve just been another piece of furniture in your world. You never reached me David, never touched my soul. You live in a world by yourself. The rest of us are just your imaginary friends. What I don’t understand is why I let it go on for this long. Why did I settle for so little? My mother was right when she warned me about you. But, I wouldn’t listen. I thought that my ambition, my dreams would carry the two of us along. Maybe if you had been a success at something, things would have turned out differently. But, even success would not have bridged the chasm between us. Why talk about what might have been? You weren’t a success, were you David? The world does not wait for things to work out. It doesn’t operate like that. You either get on the train or you’re left behind. Oh, I don’t know if you can understand any of this, David. I barely understand it myself. For too long I’ve kept myself locked up in a closet with you. For too long, I have hidden myself from the real world. Now, I’ve seen the light. It’s not too late for me, David. I’m not that old. I can still make something out of my life. You’re not enough for me, David. I want more.”

I ran my fingers through some sugar on the table and pushed it over the edge.

“Are you going to continue to live here?” I asked.

The toast popped up. Fred looked up at me for a brief minute, stuck some cotton that he kept tucked under his flea collar, into his ear, than returned to his paper.

“Why should I leave? The place suits me.”

Ann buttered her toast. I had a sudden urge to remind her of her diet. Ann was always on a diet. I began to giggle. A frightened look passed fleetingly over Ann’s face as she returned to the table with the toast.

“Oh God!” I sighed, my face collapsing into sobs.

“You want a piece?” she offered.

“Are you going to live here alone?” I muttered through my tears.

“No,” she responded, biting into her toast.

There was a long period of silence. I tried to control my breathing. My heart was pounding. Ann continued to eat her toast and drink her coffee. I tried to lift my cup off the table. It wouldn’t budge. My mother’s eyes stared straight through me. There was an awful sound of screeching metal, metal broken and ripped apart. It was screaming out in pain, and I heard the gentle fall of rain, which turned out to be glass shattering. And my father walking through a ditch and into a woods. There was a billboard advertising a local motel. And a cow under a tree in the dark chewing its cud and long grass falling down from the wind escaping from my lungs.

“Who,” I asked swallowing each word, “are you going to live with?”

“Claude,” Ann replied, her mouth filled with toast.

“Claude! The guy is a moron.” I don’t know whether I was more upset by Anne s infidelity or her choice of mates. Jealousy, hurt pride, indignation, pretending to be hurt, being hurt. My emotions were in turmoil, out of control like a car on wet pavement around a hair-pin turn. I remembered the July on a beach near Summerside, Prince Edward Island. Ann got a cramp swimming and from the shore I heard her screams, her arms tossing in the waves. I wanted to run out and save her, but I couldn’t swim. What to do? My emotions were out of control. Ann’s life, my survival, both of us going down. Before I could decide, a young man in a California tan pulled her to safety.

“He’s a real man,” Ann bit back sharply, “not a jellyfish. He’s attentive. He may not he Einstein, but at least I know where his head is.”

“I love you, Ann.”

“Love! You don’t know what love is, David. What you love is convenience, someone paying your rent, someone making your decisions, someone picking up after you. Living with you, David, is like living with a corpse. Your body is there for me but nothing else. You’re crazy, David. Mentally unstable. Sick. I guess you always have been. When we were young, it was charming, even exciting. I could never guess what you might do or say. But… I’m getting older. I don’t want to live like a nun, worshipping some dead man’s thoughts. I want someone I can squeeze. I don’t know you, David. Can’t know you. You frighten me. Your madness is quite benign now, but how long will that last? You could go over the edge at any time. I can’t sleep, dreaming that I could wake up with your hands around my neck. I want some peace of mind. My doctor says I deserve it.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I cried. “I would never hurt you. How could you think such a thing? Who’s been putting ideas into your head? Your mother? Mrs. Pergoti? Your gynecologist?”

“You leave Mrs. Pergoti out of this. She’s been very kind to me. And I can have ideas of my own. Someone doesn’t have to plant them there.”

“But it’s a lie, Ann. I am not capable of violence, especially toward you. What is the real reason, Ann? Can you face that, Ann? Can you face the truth?”

“The truth!” Ann cried throwing her head back in a laugh. “How dare you talk to me about the truth? The truth isn’t some absolute floating around in time like a vaccine waiting to be discovered. David, your whole existence is a lie. You’re a coward, that’s what you are; afraid to face your past; afraid to face your responsibilities; afraid to see the world the way it really is and not the way you want to paint it. I’m sick of being a baby sitter. David, you’re not getting any younger; it’s time to start paying your rent.”

“I can change,” I pleaded. “Honest, Ann, I’ll be a new man. You won t recognize me. I’ll get a job, any kind of job. I’ll work as a carry out boy in a grocery store, as a teller in a bank, a

shipper in a warehouse. I’ll bear down. I’ll make something of myself.”

Ann shook her head. She didn’t have to. I knew it was too late, had known it for some time. I had seen it in her eyes and I knew I couldn’t change her mind, couldn’t change myself, couldn’t become what she wanted. Everything Ann said about me was true and that was what infuriated me. She was right.

“Claude is better in bed?” I blurted out, regretting the remark as soon it had left my lips. It was the response of an adolescent whose had his toy taken away. I didn’t want everything to degenerate into trash, into cheap theatrical blows that had no aim except to hurt each other. Ann smiled. She had never heard me lower myself before. Our fight had now entered her country and she held the higher ground.

“Could he be worse? I am no longer interested in necrophilia. Oh why do men always think that the bedrock of a relationship is their sexual prowess. If you’d had another woman, I could have dealt with that. But, I have to compete with all your goddam philosophic gibberish. Ever since you made a fool of yourself at the reading, I’ve come to the understanding that you’re not in control of your own thoughts. You’re drifting through life, David, dragging me behind you. God, David, why don’t you do us all a favor and drive that Beetle of yours over a cliff.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’d like me to drop off the face of the earth. That would settle everything for you.”

Ann was silent for a moment. “It would help,” she replied. Ann’s eyes were filled with fire. I had never seen so much hatred in anyone before. Where did it come from? Was I responsible?

“I’ve been trying to correct things, Ann. You know that. I’ve sought out professional counseling. I am changing, Ann. Couldn’t we give it another try?”

Tears welled up in Ann’s eyes. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“David, you’ve sucked out most of my life. I won’t let you have the rest.”

Without, saying another word, Ann got up from the table and retired to the bedroom. I looked down at Fred and then up at the basement window, the snow drifting up against the glass. I felt as if winter had arrived early to bury me. Upstairs the stereo was turned on, Andy Williams singing White Christmas. I wept into my hands. They filled up like small lakes. Images of Ann flashed before me; Ann on the first day we met, sitting like a statue in Dr. Cunningham’s class; Ann walking across the campus, the wind blowing her hair, her smile braced against the sky; Ann standing by the window of my room, her long hair rolling down her naked back and over her hips; Ann and I getting married and later that evening Ann kneeling over the toilet in her wedding dress, vomiting; Ann holding Fred in her lap and petting him; Ann and Mrs. Pergoti hanging clothes on the line in the backyard, our bed sheet being whipped by the wind; clouds gathering over a park by the lake and Ann standing on the beach, Fred at her feet tears rushing down her cheeks; Ann’s eyes on fire, looking at me for a last time and closing. The End. I slammed my fist on the table.

Fred looked up at me. He spoke.

“More and more I am convinced that Oswald was the lone assassin. All this conspiracy talk is a buffer against a more terrifying truth. There are no secret societies, no enemies in the dark, no struggle between good and evil for our souls, no bogey man under the bed. The streets are filled with madmen and there is a terrible emptiness in the world. God is not the creator; He is the agent of oblivion.”

“Oh, Fred!” I cried. “What am I going to do? What am I going to do about Ann? About Claude?”

“Buy a gun,” Fred responded, “and blow them both away.”