Creeps (7 page)

She nearly slips again, but manages to stay upright.

“And I meant what I said too about you being better than the Hollywood crowd.”

She says nothing. Turns left onto Lakeside Drive. He follows and, after a while, says, “You're better than Angelina Jolie.”

She stops and turns around.

He stops too.

“I know my own way home,” she says.

“The chivalrous thing would be to walk you.”

For a moment they stand staring at each other, then Marjorie says, “Saw you gawking the other night, by the way. Gawk, gawk, gawk, that's all anyone around here is good for.”

“I didn't mean to.” Wayne pauses. “She okay?”

Marjorie looks away. “She'll know to cut the beef in smaller chunks from now on.”

“What?”

She stares back at him. Slips her hands into her back pockets again. “For the stew, I mean. Piece lodged in her throat. Did the Heimlich thingy, but it didn't work. The hospital's only five minutes away, but it still took the ambulance forever.”

“Oh.”

She heads off again and he follows again.

A man passes pulling a child on a toboggan.

Sometime later Wayne hears faraway laughter, so he turns and, through a front window, sees people gathered around a kitchen table playing cards and drinking from tumblers and pointing and holding their stomachs. Through another window in another house Wayne notices a woman sitting alone by firelight: long hair and her feet on an ottoman, her toes extended—like a ballerina—towards the flame. Up ahead, a cat scoots across the road, finding refuge beneath a parked SUV. Music somewhere: guitars and mandolins. A harmonica? A cloud, or is it iron ore dust drifting in front of the moon?

At the intersection of Balsam and Oak, Marjorie stops.

Wayne comes up beside her.

No one talks for ages.

Marjorie fixes her gaze on the tiny bungalow with the closed drapes on the corner. At last she says, “Sometimes I hate going in.”

“Why?”

“None of your business
why
… I just
do
.”

He pauses. “I hate going home sometimes, too.”

“Pfft.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Silence.

Wayne says, “Mom threatens to leave all the time.”

“Oh yeah? Does she sit in front of the curtains all day and night in her bathrobe and not eat and not brush her teeth?”

“No. But she does pack her suitcase a lot. Even
goes
sometimes.”

Marjorie looks at him.

“She comes back, though,” Wayne says.

Marjorie goes to speak, but stops herself. Walks towards her house and pauses at the lip of her driveway. “No need to walk me to the door, Wayne Pumphrey.”

Wayne peers towards the front window and sees fingers parting the drapes, then a sliver of forehead. Half an eye. He looks back at Marjorie. She shouts in the direction of the window. “You can let go of the drapes now, Mom!
God!
”

The fingers disappear and the curtains flutter, then go still.

“Wish
she'd
pack a suitcase,” Marjorie says.

Quiet for a while. Then the faint sound of a train's whistle. After it's gone, Marjorie says, “Ever wish you could hop on it?”

“Hmm?”

“The train? Ever wish you could hop on it and get the hell outta here?”

Wayne looks past her shoulder as if the train might be right behind her, then focuses back on Marjorie. “No, but I've imagined other ways.”

“Oh yeah?”

“A hang glider or a hot air balloon or something. Once I had a dream that I could fly, so I flew to a place with sand and a beach and palm trees and the bluest ocean I had ever seen. I was tanned and taller and said just the right things and everyone seemed happy spending time with me. Then I woke up and my sister, Wanda, was there and I thought I might claw her eyes out.”

Marjorie nods and goes to say something but decides not to. Her mother's in the window again, except more of her: a shoulder, a whole eye, some nose, mouth … ear. Marjorie turns back to Wayne. “Go on home now.”

“Okay. See you tomorrow.” He starts to go, but her voice stops him.

“She used to take care of Dad but now she can't take care of herself so what am
I
supposed to do?”

Wayne doesn't know what to say.

It starts to snow.

“Never mind … just thinking out loud. Go home.”

Wayne stays where he is.

“Go home, I said.”

Wayne turns around and walks down the street
and when he's in his own driveway he looks back and Marjorie's still standing where he left her and the streetlight's making her glow but he doesn't dare gawk because that's all anyone around here is good for.

TWELVE

His father is sitting at the kitchen table holding a bag of frozen corn against his face when Wayne walks in. He points at the cast-iron frying pan near his feet and says, “Struck me with it, she did.”

Footsteps in the hall. A door opening and then slamming.

“She's packing her bags,” his father says. “What's new?”

Wayne notices the nearly seared-shut eyes and drooping brows and the way he's listing, as if aboard a boat. His dad takes the corn away, exposing a huge welt. Moans while working his jaw. Puts the bag back. “Two Jesus beer and this is what I get.”

The sound of music, then Wanda appears, her iPod stuck in the waist of her track pants. Christina Aguilera sings something about being beautiful no matter what they say while Wanda goes to the
fridge and grabs a Diet Coke and pulls back the tab and swigs. Scrunches up her face because the pop's burning and then says, “She might actually get out the door this time.”

His dad grunts. “And go where?”

No one says anything.

“She's got nowhere.”

A door suddenly opens, followed by: “Son of a bitch!” The same door slams.

“Am I?” his father shouts. “That what I am—
ouch!
” He holds his cheek for a moment and then says, “Who hit who, for Jesus' sake?” He looks at Wayne and Wanda. “Could have blinded me.”

His mother's voice again. Muffled. Must be in the closet yanking clothes from hangers, Wayne thinks. “Youngsters!” she says. “Come here so I can talk to you!”

“Go on,” his father says. “See what the loony wants.”

Wayne goes to his parents' bedroom and opens the door and sticks his head in. His mother is sitting in the middle of the floor with her face in her hands. A filled suitcase lies open on the bed. She lifts her head. “Where is he?”

“Sitting at the table.”

“Should have hit him harder. Drunk bastard.”

She wipes her eyes. “Coming with me?”

Wayne steps into the room. “Where?”

“Anywhere that's not here.”

Wanda comes in and sits down on the bed and says, “His cheek's purple,” then takes a sip of her Coke.

“Hope he dies.”

“Mom.”

“Well what's he good for, Wanda?”

Wanda doesn't say.

“Always taking his side, you are.” Their mother gets up and goes over to the bed and zips up the suitcase and grips the handle and lifts and says, “You two coming?”

Silence.

“Or you can stay with Him and what kind of life will that be?”

Wanda looks over at Wayne, then back at their mother. “But you'll come back.”

“No—”

“We'll pack and then you'll change your mind—”

“Not this time. This is for real.”

Silence.

The sound of something breaking, then his dad's faraway voice: “Two Jesus beer!” and “Could have blinded me!”

“I oughtta stay,” Wanda says then. “So he doesn't burn down the house.”

“Suit yourself,” his mother says. She looks at Wayne.

He thinks of his notebooks filled with letters underneath clothes in his dresser, beneath his mattress, stuffed in boxes on the top shelf of his closet. How long to pack them all? he wonders. What about his clothes and books and whatever else he might need? Besides, Wanda's right: she'll come back. She always does.

His mother turns and leaves the room and walks down the hall towards the kitchen and Wayne follows and considers the possibility that, this time, she
won't
come back, so who'll make the dumplings and molasses tarts and sweeten his tea just the way he likes it and make sure her husband brings home his cheque and that Wanda doesn't listen to Nickelback at the table or drink more than three Diet Cokes a day and tell him he's handsome and that, one day, he'll have more friends than he'll know what to do with?

Now his mother's in the kitchen and Wanda and he are beside her and she stops in front of their dad and says, “I need a ride.”

His father takes the corn away, his cheek swollen to twice its normal size. “See what you did?” He squeezes his eyes from the pain and when he opens them they're wet.

“Did you hear me?” she says.

“A ride? I can barely see out of my Jesus eye.”

“Just need a foot and a hand to drive,” their mother says. “Or I'll call a cab—

“Wayne, call me a taxi.” She turns back to her husband. “What? What's so goddamned funny?”

“Nothing. Wayne, put ‘Working Man' on for your mom—”

“No, you drunk bastard.”

“Drunk?”

“Rita MacNeil is not going to fix it this time.”

“Two Jesus beer—”

“I'll never set foot in this house again—”

“I'm more sober than you are.”

“More sober than I am—just listen to him, youngsters—”

“No call to hit me in the face—”

“Shoulda aimed for the temple—”

“Why didn't ya—”

“Don't know—the frying pan is heavy.”

Silence all of a sudden.

His dad sets the corn on the table and then runs his fingers over his cheek as one would over a smooth stone while his mom goes into the foyer (followed by Wayne) and gets into her coat and boots. Wanda grabs another Diet Coke and then goes into the foyer, too.

Finally, his father says, “Come back in, Ruth.”

“Frig off, you. I'm heading to the train station now, aren't I?”

“No trains tonight.”

“Then I'll go to Dot's and leave in the morning.”

His dad curses. “I'm sure that's just what Dot and Frank want—you barging in with a packed suitcase and a snotty nose. They've got little ones, Ruth.”

“Dot and me are friends.”

“Not for long, if you go over there.”

His mother hesitates for a moment, then zips up her coat and says to Wayne, “Did you call a taxi?”

Wayne goes to do it, but his mother's voice stops him. “No, never mind, I'll walk. Walk'll do me good.”

“It's freezing,” says his father.

“No one's talking to you,” his mom says. She ties her laces and picks up her suitcase and gives Wayne and Wanda a look and says, “I'm fed up,” then pushes open the door and leaves.

No one says anything.

Wayne goes over and stands on his tiptoes and watches her through the window in the door. She's standing in the middle of the street looking up and then down the road. She starts off in one direction, but then changes course and goes the other way. Then she stops again and sets down her suitcase and puts her hands in her pockets.

“What's she doing?” Wanda says.

“She coming back?” says his father.

Wayne doesn't answer either question, just watches his mother take her hands out of her
pockets and wipe her nose and pick her suitcase back up and then start walking again, except faster, the top of her leaning forward as if through a gale. After a moment there's no sight of her, so Wayne turns away from the window and sees that Wanda has gone and his father is trying to light a cigarette.

“Better make this quick before she comes back,” his dad says. He puts the Zippo to his ear and shakes it and tries again but it still won't light, so he takes the smoke out of his mouth and places it behind his ear, then leans against the wall to stay upright. After a while, he says, “She'll be back.”

Wayne nods.

His father makes to go, then stops. “There's supper in the oven. Fish sticks and French fries. Supposed to have corn, but I used it on my face.”

Wayne nods again.

His dad gets as far as the kitchen when Wayne's voice stops him.

“What?” his father says.

“I said maybe you ought to cut back.”

“Cut back?”

“Mom mightn't pack so much then.”

His father doesn't speak for ages. Then, at last, he says, “Tomorrow. I'll cut back tomorrow.” He turns and leaves and Wayne goes back to looking out the window in the door and soon hears something
drop in the kitchen, followed by curses and then something else dropping and then silence.

Dear Dad,

Even though you probably deserved that bruise I can't help but blame Mom. And when you knock over the garbage can when you're trying to park the car I blame the bartender at Herb's Hideaway who never seems to KNOW when you've had ENOUGH. When you throw an ornament and it smashes I blame whoever made the stupid thing in the first place, it breaking as easy as that. When you call in sick for work I blame the iron ore company for those awful twelve-hour shifts and when your curses filter into the street I blame the house for its thin walls and when you're holding on to the toilet I blame the leftovers that must have gone bad and when you lie and say you didn't touch a Jesus drop I blame Mom for not believing you and when you miss your seat I blame the chair and when you can't get in because it's late and you've lost your keys I blame the chain they're attached to and when you can't remember where you put that twenty dollars I blame Wanda because she's always rooting around for money and when you're staring out the window and shaking your head I blame the rain
and when you're sick to death of walking in the bloody door I blame all of us for being here and when you and me are silent at the breakfast table I blame myself for not having anything to say.