Going Down Swinging (8 page)

Not long after you moved into this sty, Grace started up a friendship with Pearl, the little girl next door. She spent a lot of time there. In fact you thought she must have been hard up for friends seeing the two of them out there in Pearl’s backyard singing Pearls favourite,
Country Road Take Me Home
. When you know for a fact your kid hates that song. Or, Grace told you, they played
Rifleman
. God knows what that entailed; now and then you’d hear Pearl call Grace
Pa
.—And now Barrington has enlisted Pearl’s wingnut parents, who drink at least as much as you ever did, as informants—
And you know, it didn’t take a wink for them to tell me yes that your child has displayed questionable behaviour. For instance, one afternoon they saw her tie her cat around the middle with a skipping rope and proceed to swing the poor animal round and round in circles. Mrs. Hoffman, your little girl stood there half an hour or more just swinging and swinging until they thought surely the cat would throw up or die
.

Barrington calculates your face, decides you are not duly shocked. I c
an assure you, Mrs. Hoffman, cruelty to family pets is long past the first sign that all is not well
.

Piffle! What—does she think your kid was the first person to swing a cat? Where the hell does she think the expression came from? Children are curious and wicked, is that not common knowledge? Should’ve seen her at three—wait’ll she turns thirteen.

Your new social worker went on to say that they, the Child Protection, were fully aware of your alcoholism and she inquired as to when you’d discontinued treatment.
AA
, that is.
Not long ago
, you told her. You were going—just that you’d been sick lately, hadn’t been up to it, and then with Grace home for the summer, you wanted to spend as much time with her as possible.

Fish-eyes descended on you. Deadpan. I
see
and then
We can easily arrange someone through the
AA
Program to pick you up a few times a week and take you. Surely, Mrs. Hoffman, you’re aware that things cannot go on like this, you need help and Grace needs a structured supportive environment
.

Grace would have to be taken into care until you and the house straightened up.

Shaking; could feel your bones chattering in the skin.

Then she asked about The Father.
Is the father present?
And it was the one time you thought better of publicly running him into the ground. You nodded, stuttered,
Yes, I mean, we’re separated, but you can call him at work if you like
. And you thought,
Yeah, call him. If there’s one thing Danny knows how to do, it’s weasel people like you
. She cleared her throat and jotted some more, asking if it were possible for Grace to stay with him? Yes, yes, you told her, that would probably be fine—no idea where he was living these days. And you started rummaging for a phone number. If it wasn’t possible, she said, Grace could be put in temporary care. Foster fucking care. No. Uh uh. That much you said, not your kid,
She has family
. You said again how you’d just been ill, sick, the flu. She took a last glance and scribbled, said she could arrange a cleaning woman to come and give you a hand, then riddled thumb against fingertips, flicked crumbs off the arm of the couch. Looked as if she were flicking fleas.

You called him fast, frantic, soon as you got Barrington out the door, and the next thing you knew, Danny had sweet-talked them, shown up at some office in one of his lovely and respectable suits and cast a lovely and respectable light on the whole mess. He explained your problem—poor him, saddled with such a beast as the mother of his child—said he would set you up at a treatment facility, said his place was actually too small to accommodate Grace but his first wife, Gloria, with whom he’d remained close and who had actually become a good friend of the family, would be more than happy to care for Grace. She has a teenage son of her own in quite a nice house in a good residential area where there’d be kids Grace’s own age. Of course he wouldn’t’ve said it just that way, it would have been wrapped in his bashful doddering cadence, grammatical errors endearing in light of everything else.

And so that’s that. Gloria’s got Grace, under the advisement of Mrs. Barrington. For three days now, she’s had her. And you’re supposed to be in treatment, not wandering back and forth from the front room to the kitchen, pondering what to do next. The next move is getting out of this godforsaken town, before they take her and don’t give her back. This is temporary—Danny arranged it, this is definitely temporary. Just got to get your ass moving, get some cash together and am-scray.

Seemed like the last time Danny left, you weren’t so totally alone, his friends still came by once in a while to drink and shoot the breeze. But that was Vancouver. They were all you had, his friends from The Life; the card players and dealers, loan sharks, hustlers, and their girlfriends. There was even a hooker whose company you didn’t mind. Deirdra. She told stories that kept you amused for hours. Like the one about her masochist john, his wrists roped to a doorknob.
No matter how much I beg, don’t stop
. It made you laugh when she mocked square women:
Well at least I don’t give it away
. There was a group of them who hung around together, swapped stories and tied one on. You went to a birthday party for one, Penny or something—no, Patsy, her real name was Penny but she changed it to Patsy because she didn’t want to sound cheap. That was a night all right. Got laughing so much you couldn’t breathe. Turned out nobody remembered to pick up a cake for the birthday girl. And everyone was broke. The punchline came when the skinny blonde with all the boobs and hair (think her name was Molly) volunteered to turn a trick for cake money. She came back an hour later with a box full of angel food and all the girls gave ovations, stood up and hooted and cheered. Molly gave a floppy blonde bow.

Grace and Charlie didn’t know who they were, didn’t understand what they were talking about. You were only just beginning to understand their lingo yourself, that
ee-iz
language, mixed with bits of pig latin—they concealed so much in front of their own kids (and squares) it’d become second nature to them:
That f(ee-iz)uckin’ astard-bay wanted an ee-fray bl(ee-iz)ow j(ee-iz)ob
. Used to make you cringe—hated that expression. Then again Deirdra never claimed to be Sandra Dee and more than once she came to your rescue with a bottle of wine when you were so sick you couldn’t see straight.

And then when things got bad and you were broke and welfare wasn’t going to feed your kids, you thought,
At least I don’t give it away
.

You had. You’d given too much away. You’d fucked men whose names you couldn’t remember without so much as a phone number to show for it. What possible difference would it have made if you turned it into a more pleasurable experience? It just so happened your immediate pleasure was money. You needed the cash equivalent of a night on the town, that’s all. It wasn’t so bad. What was the difference? It’s your life and if you wanted to screw somebody and make a few bucks for your time and effort, who’s to tell you you were wrong? Attractive, intelligent, you knew a few tricks —you should’ve been showered with cash and prizes long before.

So you called her, called Deirdra and invited her over for a drink. Couldn’t do it alone. There was a right way to do this.

Deirdra brought wine and her expertise, along with her mouth. The first time you’d met, you thought you’d never heard such a foul mouth on a woman. She opened her purse when she sat and took out three Seconal. Thought you might need them.

That’s why. Now you remember. That’s what made Deirdra special. She gave a damn. And perhaps for the sake of comparison; you were afraid of who you’d become. But next to Deirdra, you were still clean, still an innocent, your confessions were commonplace.

Grace was outside playing. The house was quiet and your embarrassment echoed through the halls. Deirdra took it in stride. She was neither insulted nor enjoying your fall. Sympathetic but still matter-of-fact, she assuaged your fear. She knew some men, nice square johns she could fix you up with.

You told her how afraid you were, that you were glad she brought the pills, they’d help. You planned to get so drunk you’d be able to screw anyone. She cut you off, tough yet maternal.
For Chrissake don’t get drunk. Stay smart. Keep the upper hand
. She took a swig of wine. Her Southern accent used to come out when she drank. Hard to tell if it was an affectation or real, but it gave the impression she could hogtie any sumbitch who came her way without hardly breakin’ a sweat.
An’ get the money up front fer Chrissake or you’ll end up where you started; screwed ‘n broke. I’ll sendya some decent eggs but watch what yer doin’, don’t make a mark outa-yer-self. You squarejohn broads are so f(ee-iz)uckin’ naive sometimes, I’m tempted t’ take advantage myself. An when you got yer money—here, look here, put it in yer purse and go to the bathroom. See this
—she pulled up her skirt to show you the inside hem, her voice lowered in anticipation of a trade secret about to be released—
take out a couple stitches and stick it right in there. No sumbitch’s gonna find it there
. She smiled. You smiled. You started to feel brave.

You did it before, you can do it again.

You are standing on Jarvis in go-go boots—Yeah, go-go man, let’s go. Almost funny standing here up to your eyeballs in whores when you
are
one. Jesus, the colours, lotsa hot pink and jumpsuits. Gotta get yourself one of them, it’d be a perfect uniform, a jump-me-suit and go-go boats—boots, kee-he-he—Quit your giggling, no one wants a giggling whore, specially one who snorts. Whore shmore, whores galore. God, it’s spinning, your head is teetering shoulder-high, and dripping sky—Hey, you’re a poet and you didn’t know it; your feet show it, they’re Longfellows.

Good Lord, it’s wet out, summer-thick wet air, splattered all over the damn road, damn rain. How long have you been standing here?—hours and hours and what’s it, twenty to ten o’clock and you got here at when, ten o’clock? no, ten to nine-thirty. What’s that, an hour and …? No. Ten minutes? Jesus. Is it your Imagination or are the fattest, sluttiest-looking girls getting the most action? Frankly, that’s insulting.
Fool that I am, la-la-la la-l?-la
, can never remember the words to that thing. A hand taps your shoulder, pulls back. You turn and find a nervous guy in officey-looking clothes, not that old, maybe thirty-some—quit singing, you’re singing out loud, you’re going to scare him.

Uh hi, wh—uh, are you working?
He’s nervous as hell. Looks like a number guy, a whatchacallit, a count-it guy.

Sure as shootin!
(Sure as shootin’? Where did that come from? Sure ass, shoot in, sure. Shoot!) And he says he has a car, so off you go to his shiny big auto, wonder if that’s his name, Otto; he’s got glassers, looks like an otter, or um—what?—and he opens the car door. You sit and wait for him to come around his side. (Smells mouldy in here.) Seems like he hustled you in here more to get you out of sight than out of chivalry—careful now, don’t be seen in the open with prostitutes. Praw-sti-toot: cruddy word. Christ, it was his idea, he’s the one who wants you; what are you, a leper? Nope, you’re a leopard. Bet he’d wet himself if you growled right now.

He puts the car in drive. His glasses are lit up with store windows and street lights. He says,
So uh, actually, my apartment is not far from here, uh, so we could just go there and uh oh! how much are you, uh, that is to say, if I were to get a, for you to mm blow—me—a blow job, how much would that be?

How much? Money. Shit. For cryin’ out loud, you’re disorganized—I
need thirty bucks for my mortgage
.

He stops at a red light and nods and nods like one of those floaty-headed dogs on rear-dashboards. Floaty-headed dog. That’s him. Otto the Floaty-headed Dog.

Oop he’s right, his place is nearby, he says this is it, you’re right in front of his building.
We’s here!
Where’s here, gotta pay attention, get yourself in trouble if you don’t start paying attention. OK, everybody out. Door—where’s the handle? And you fumble yourself stupid until he leans across and pulls the handle. Good job you didn’t take another Seconal. This just takes the edge off; another one and you’d’ve been too out of it.

You get to the front door, he shuffles you inside, walks you through the lobby, down the hall, stuffs you in the door.

Not bad, sort of a cute little pad for such a square guy.
What do you do?

I’m a pharmacist
.

Really! Some of my best friends are pharmacists. Huh. Where do you work, which drugstore?

Downtown
.

Oh. So how do—

Would you like a drink?

Sure, whatever you got, wine, beer … so … Don’t suppose you’ve got anything in the house that you could part with—I have a bit of a nerve problem. Haven’t had time to get to my family doctor this week
.

Nerve problem?

Yes, I’m really nervy. Got anything to help me relax so I can sleep better?

You mean barbiturates?

Well yeah, I guess if you want to get down to brass tacks! haha
.

He looks disgruntled, or was that disdainful—something gave him the face he’s got on. He offers you a seat on the couch, hands you a glass of wine, sits down beside you, glass of something on-the-rocks in his bony mitt. Is he ignoring you? you have a regitimal leguest, legitimate—

So how long have you been doing this?
he wants to know.

Why?—is he only looking at experienced streetwalkers? You look at your watch.
Not long. I mean I’ve done it a couple times when I ran into fina—um (pwahh, lip’s got my tongue) uh, just money problems you know, and I have a little girl so I had to make sure she was fed properly. And it’s that way now too, I need it for her. It’s tough these days
.