Creeps (6 page)

Wayne doesn't know, so he stays quiet and turns back to Marjorie's. Miss Flynn's voice behind him then, saying, “There's an ambulance, so it's probably not good. Hope it's not the young one.”

Marjorie's front door swings open revealing two paramedics and they're pushing a gurney and someone's on it. Marjorie? He moves closer. Stops. No, her mother. Strapped down. Why?

“Who is it?” Miss Flynn wants to know. “The girl?”

Marjorie's mother starts shouting and cursing and trying to break free from her restraints.

“Thank God,” Miss Flynn says, “I thought it was the young one.”

The paramedics wheel Marjorie's mom to the rear of the ambulance. The shorter and balder one shouts, “On the count of three,” so they count and lift and then hoist Marjorie's mother into the back like an old refrigerator. Then the one who'd suggested counting hops in the back with her, while his partner goes and gets in the driver's side.

“What's wrong with her, do you think?” Miss Flynn says.

Commotion from the Galbraiths' place, Wayne notices. Mr. Galbraith has dropped the ice cream and is getting an earful from his wife. Their youngest is crying and their oldest is shouting something while pointing to her phone.

Then Marjorie's in the doorway and she steps out onto the porch and she's got her hand over her mouth. A woman cop's beside her, hat in one hand and a little notebook in the other, k.d. lang haircut and fit looking. The officer puts her hat back on and closes her notebook and says something, which makes Marjorie run back inside.

“First her father, now this,” Miss Flynn says.

The cop waits on the porch and stares at the sky and her breath is like steam from a kettle.

Everyone's pressed against the window at the Galbraiths' now and it's a wonder they haven't burst through the glass. Flattened faces and palms and Mr. Galbraith's belly button and stomach and nipples and someone should really tell him to put on a shirt.

Marjorie comes back out and she's got her jacket and she zips it up and closes the door and follows the cop to the back of the ambulance and the shorter and balder paramedic offers his hand and helps her inside. The cop closes the door and
walks back to her cruiser and gets in and Wayne notices her talking into a handheld radio.

The ambulance backs out of the driveway and takes off up the street, its lights going but no sound, and then the police car is pulling out and following it and soon they've rounded the corner and are gone and it's suddenly so quiet that Wayne thinks he might be all alone in the world, but then Miss Flynn reminds him he isn't by saying, “Not all there, that woman.”

Wayne turns around.

“Ever since her husband died.” Miss Flynn's cigarette is nearly burned down to the butt, so she flicks it into the snow and says, “Some people never get over things.”

No one in the window of the Galbraiths' now, save for handprints and the outline of Mr. Galbraith's gut.

“Divorce is like death, they say,” goes Miss Flynn. Then, “Not for me. I was relieved.”

Now he's shovelling without any memory of having started and he's thinking about what Miss Flynn said about some people never getting over things. After some time he hears her say,

“Got a bone to pick with you.”

He stops and looks at her.

“Do you know what this cost?”

“Oh, sorry. You look good, Miss Flynn.”

“Well, the swelling hasn't completely gone down yet, but it's nice of you to say all the same. Foolishness I'm sure, at my age, but what odds. It makes me feel better, doesn't it?”

Wayne looks back up the street towards Marjorie's place, at the drawn curtains and all the lights out, and wonders if anyone ever lived there at all. When he turns back around, Miss Flynn is gone, as is the light on her porch. Then there's a voice and it's his father's saying, “That's all you've done?” And, “Should have done it myself.” The door slamming and that silence again and this time Wayne's
sure
of it: he
is
alone in the world.

Dear Marjorie,

Is your mom going to live? I hope so or you'll be an orphan. Do you have relatives you can stay with till you're eighteen?

Did you see me gawking? Dad said it's nobody's business but Mom said, What, we're supposed to pretend the woman wasn't taken away in front of the whole street?

Here's me wanting to be taller and braver and more popular and I bet all you want is for your mom to be okay— Oh, hold on a sec someone's knocking on my door—

 

“Still awake?” his mother says.

“Yeah.”

The door opens and his mother pokes her head in. “You asked me to let you know if they came back and they have.”

“You sure?”

“Arm in arm up the porch steps, although I think it was more the young one making sure her mother didn't fall.” His mom pauses. “Since when did you care about them up the road?”

Wayne looks away. “I'm helping Mr. Rollie direct and Marjorie's one of our lead actors, so what would we do without her?”

“I see. Well, they're back, so no need to worry.”

“Okay.”

Quiet.

“What were you writing?”

Wayne lays his palm over the page. “Nothing.”

“Okay. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

His mother leaves and Wayne listens to her fading-away footsteps and her opening another door and then the silence. He takes his hand away from the page and writes:

Mom just told me that your mom's all right and I can't tell you how relieved I am! Probably not as relieved as you though, eh? What happened anyway?
She's not sick, is she? Hope it's not cancer or anything because Mom says that cancer is everywhere and even the young ones are dropping like flies. Anyway I'm glad she's back and that you can go on living up the street.

Oh, by the way, I was meaning to say that Mr. Rollie asked me to be assistant director. He says I can tell people how to say their lines if they're not saying them right and I can help him with the script and things. Not too sure what I think about it 'cause I only wanted a part and what do I know about directing? But Mr. Rollie seems to think I can do it. He says I'm a leader only I don't know it yet (ha ha ha)!!! Don't know about that! I said I'd do it because it might be nice to be a part of something. Is that why you're doing it?

You might find this weird but I write these letters to say to people what I don't have the courage to say in real life. I've been doing it for a long while now and I've filled tons of notebooks. I suppose if anyone ever read what I've written I'd have to leave town.

I should go to bed now but I'll just say that sometimes I feel like there's no sense in anything. Do you?

Your friend who feels like there's no sense in anything,
Wayne Pumphrey

TEN

Marjorie finishes her monologue and turns to Les Faulkner, but Les can't seem to remember what comes next. In the script he's supposed to go to Marjorie's character, Bonita, and kiss her cheek and wrap his arms around her, but it's like he's lost the capacity to move. Those sitting on the other side of the room look frozen, too. Wax figurines. Sharon's got a Snickers in her mouth, but she's not chewing; Paul Stool is actually sitting up with nothing over his crotch (cured at last); Julie Snow is on her knees about to apply a fresh coat of watermelon lipstick; and Shane and Jason have stopped drawing tits and vaginas and dicks on their scripts.

Mr. Rollie slides forward in his chair and wipes his eyes beneath his glasses and swallows and looks at the wall clock and tells everyone that that's enough for today and we can go home.

The cast needs a moment more to remember how to blink, breathe, stand up and put one foot in front of the other, swing their arms, and finally exit through the double doors.

Mr. Rollie calls Marjorie back.

She comes over and takes her place in front of the long table. Odd socks and too-short jeans and electrical tape over the toe of one sneaker. Bangs in her eyes and she's chewing on her cheek and her legs are crossed at the ankles like she needs to pee.

Mr. Rollie takes off his glasses and sets them on the table and looks at Marjorie. “Just wanted to say you were exceptional just now, Miss Pope.”

Marjorie doesn't say anything.

“Mr. Faulkner was a little thrown, but at least now he'll know he can't coast along as usual.” Mr. Rollie pokes Wayne in the shoulder. “What did you think, Mr. Pumphrey?”

Wayne lays down his Razor Point extra-fine pen. “Awfully good.”

Mr. Rollie nods. “Wasn't it?”

Wayne turns to Marjorie. “Better than the Hollywood crowd even.”

Mr. Rollie offers Marjorie a chair but Marjorie won't sit. He twirls his pinky ring for ages and then says, “I don't see how we
couldn't
make the provincials now. They won't know what to make of you in St. John's.”

Marjorie slips her hands into her back pockets. Stares at something on the floor.

“All this time,” Mr. Rollie says, “passing you in the corridors, having you in my English classes. Last year you were so quiet I forgot you were even there. And now
this
.”

“Awfully good,” Wayne says again.

“Where does it come from, Miss Pope, your mother's or your father's side?”

Marjorie looks up and then down at the floor again and Wayne feels something seep from the room.

Mr. Rollie shifts in his chair and says, “I'm sorry, Miss Pope, I shouldn't have asked—”

“Certainly not my mother's,” Marjorie says. “She freezes up talking to the bank teller. So I guess my dad's side. He was real into music, especially Radiohead, and he loved movies and even tried to write a screenplay.”

A long silence.

“Your guidance counsellor will hate me,” Mr. Rollie says at last, resting his chin on cupped hands, “but I think it's your calling.”

Wayne writes “calling” down in his notebook.

“For me it's to teach English and drama and direct school plays. Mr. Inkwell's destiny is to be principal, and old Mr. Ricketts is there to make sure the heat works in winter and that we have
lights to do our work without straining our eyes.” Mr. Rollie picks his glasses up and chews on one of the ears. “Some people have trouble finding their calling. Others not so much. What's important is to never stop searching.” He sits back and stares at the ceiling and for a moment seems lost, but then he sits forward again and puts his glasses on and smiles with his teeth that are almost like baby ones and says, “You both ought to be going now, it's nearly suppertime.”

Marjorie says goodbye and leaves while Wayne collects his things.

“The chivalrous thing would be to walk with her,” says Mr. Rollie, “it being dark and everything.”

“I would, except she walks so fast. Always a step ahead.”

Mr. Rollie rests a hand on Wayne's shoulder and says, “Then you'd better catch up, hadn't you?”

ELEVEN

Wayne bends over and offers his outstretched hand to Marjorie, but she doesn't take it.

“I'm not an invalid, Wayne Pumphrey,” she says, getting back to her feet.

“It's those sneakers,” Wayne says.

Marjorie brushes the snow off her backside.

“You need boots.”

“Gonna buy them for me, Wayne Pumphrey?”

He doesn't say anything.

Marjorie starts walking again.

He tries to keep up. After a while he goes, “How can you walk so fast?”

Nothing for a moment, then her saying, “I pretend Mom's behind me.”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

For a long time they walk and say nothing, their footsteps crunching beneath them. Clouds for breath.

Then Wayne says, “Five o'clock and it's already dark.”

Marjorie mumbles something and Wayne doesn't catch it so he asks her to say it again and she goes, “I said, it never gets warm here.”

“What do you expect for January.”

“January … April …
every
month. It snowed in July last year.”

“Did it?”

“It's like living in the North Pole.”

They continue on, Wayne stealing glances at the northern lights and the millions of stars and the quarter moon.

The sound of a skidoo in the distance.

A dog barks.

“Mr. Rollie cried,” Wayne says finally. “During your monologue.”

Marjorie just keeps going.

“Sharon, too, I think. Or else she was choking on her Snickers.”

Marjorie puts her hands in her pockets and tucks her chin downwards and walks even faster.

“Paul Stool lost his hard-on—not that I was looking or anything, but sometimes it's impossible not to.”

“No girl wants to hear that, Wayne Pumphrey … even if it
is
Paul Stool.”

“No, it was a compliment, you were so good you took his mind off it.”