Seeing Red (2 page)

THREE

Later that day, I find myself sitting alone in a doctor's office at the walk-in clinic waiting for him or her to enter the room. The walls are pure white and covered in the usual motif: diagrams of the circulatory system, anti-smoking ads with black lungs and rotten teeth, cartoon germs professing the dangers of not washing your hands. I leisurely scan the room to see if there's anything worth stealing. Not that I would—it's just a game to pass the time. Aside from a jar full of cotton swabs and some rubbing alcohol, it looks like slim pickings. Maybe there's something in the desk drawer? Probably not. These walk-in clinics are usually pretty cheap.

A few minutes pass before a grey-haired man wearing a long white coat suddenly comes in through the door. He sits at a small chair at a small desk and gives me the requisite small talk before asking, “So, Mr. Reid, what can I do for you today?” I'm not sure where to begin. How do you describe it? It would take hours to fully explain my condition.

“Lately, I've been getting these blackouts,” I tell him. “Memory lapses.”

“Uh huh. And when do these lapses occur?” he asks me with his head held down, leisurely writing into an open folder.

“Well, it's like last night. I drank no more than I usually do, and yet I can't remember a single thing. After a certain point it all cuts out.”

“Uh huh. And how much do you typically drink in one night?”

“It depends. I know I had some gin. . . .”

“Anything else?”

“Maybe a little scotch, too.”

“And then you blacked out?”

“No, that was before I left the apartment.”

“Okay, so where did you go?”

“I drove to this bar somewhere on Queen Street and drank there for a few hours. Then I met this girl and she invited me to a rooftop party. I found the receipt in my back pocket, so I know I had about twelve drinks, two shots of whiskey, some . . . chicken wings. . . .”

Now I have his attention. He closes the folder and leans toward me. “This is a typical night for you?”

“Yeah. It's never been a problem before.”

“How long have you been drinking like this?”

“Since I was seventeen.”

“How often?”

“Almost every day.”

“And how old are you now?”

“Twenty-four.”

He nods and stares down at the floor before continuing: “Well, severe amnesia can occur when there's a deficiency of Vitamin B
1
in the brain caused by excessive alcohol consumption. We had a guy in here one time who had what's called ‘Korsakoff's Syndrome.' He couldn't remember a thing. You wouldn't be at that stage yet. You're far too young. I think it's more likely that your body is simply getting older, wearing down. It can't process as much as it used to.”

“Isn't there anything I can do? I mean, sometimes I run into people on the street and they recognize me and talk to me, like they know everything about me, but I have absolutely
no
idea
who they are. Or I wake up and there's blood on my hands. One time, I got out of bed and the furniture in my apartment had been completely rearranged. Badly, too. No feng shui involved whatsoever—”

I could go on, but he stops me. “Let's take a look at you.” I move from the chair to the exam table and he does a full body checkup: first the ears, then the throat and the eyes. Spends a lot of time on the eyes. “No signs of jaundice,” he explains. Then he stops for a moment while examining my face. “When did you break your nose?”

“Huh?”

“You have a slightly deviated septum.”

“Oh. Probably from getting punched in the face. Can they fix that?”

“No, not without surgery. And that's movie star stuff. I wouldn't recommend it unless it's obstructing your breathing.”

My shirt comes off and the stethoscope comes out. I lie down on the table and he listens to my heart, my lungs and my abdomen while telling me to breathe in and out several times. Satisfied, he puts the stethoscope away. “You seem fine. Healthy as a horse.”

“I do take a lot of vitamins.”

“Hmm. It doesn't seem like there's anything
physically
wrong with you, at least not at this point. We'll have to do a blood test to see if there's any cirrhosis of the liver. In the meantime, the only thing I can recommend is that you abstain from alcohol for a little while. Perhaps look into counseling.”

Granted, there are some things in my life I'd rather forget, but the notion of completely losing control on a nightly basis is a tad unnerving. I was hoping for a prescription, a pill, something that would allow me to maintain my current lifestyle without the blackouts. Drink less? That's his answer? Get fucking real. And counseling? I don't have the time or the patience to lie on a couch and field questions from some old prick who doesn't know what it's like. Maybe I should just buy some Vitamin B
1
and see if that helps.

“If the problem persists, make an appointment and we'll do some more testing. But I should warn you: if you keep drinking like this, your body is eventually going to break down. Not only your brain, but your liver, your kidneys, everything.”

“How long do I have?” I ask cryptically.

He pauses and stares at me blankly. “If you don't stop? I'd say another twenty, thirty years.”

“
Fuck
,” I whisper.

“Why don't you try taking a week off and see how you feel?”

The doctor flashes me a phony smile and pats me on the shoulder as he hands me a business card. He tells me to call him if I run into any trouble and says he'll recommend a good counselor for me to talk to. That's the problem with these walk-in clinics: sure, they're free and you don't have to make an appointment, but they offer only band-aid solutions. The doctor and I talk a little more about my anxiety attacks and frequent chest pains and he suggests I stop eating red meat because the cows are pumped full of hormones. Then he writes me a prescription for an anti-anxiety drug, one I've tried before. It didn't work. He explains the proper dosage and side effects and I thank him and then leave the clinic, crumpling up the prescription and tossing it into the trash on my way out.

Later, after a brief trip to the liquor store, I'm standing in front of my apartment door in a hallway with a crooked ceiling and stained blue carpeting. Inside, the place is a mess: empty beer and liquor bottles line the floor alongside a tower of discarded pizza boxes and overflowing garbage bags. There are dirty dishes in the sink, clothes strewn all over the furniture and burnt-out light bulbs that need to be replaced. Still no pictures or paintings on the walls. I take off my shoes and my shirt and walk into the bathroom and open the cabinet behind the mirror. On the shelf sit several vitamin supplements, cough medicines and little orange bottles with white lids filled with prescription drugs. I go through each bottle and pour pills into the palm of my right hand until there's a large pile. Then I run the cold water and pop the capsules into my mouth and drink from the stream and swallow. Vitamins A, C, D, E, calcium, magnesium and zinc to keep my body functioning. I also take glutamine and probiotics because my gut is no doubt damaged from all the alcohol.

I want to take a long nap. The last bottle on the bottom shelf contains extra strength melatonin. I place three circular pills in my mouth and let them dissolve beneath my tongue. They taste like breath mints. Stumbling out of the bathroom, I draw the window shades to prevent the light from getting in, then remove the rest of my clothes and collapse into bed, not to wake again until the early evening. With melatonin, my dreams are more vivid, more real, and I dream that I'm younger, surrounded by family, and that the world is still small.

FOUR

City life is hard on the knees. The streets are laden with jagged pavement and concrete. You rely on the subway: a shaky train that wobbles and sways while your legs twist like screws, grinding the cartilage in your joints. It squeals along the track and stops and starts and you depart the car but it's not over yet: a mad rush leaves alongside you, each person shuffling to the exit like they're escaping a fire, and they push and squeeze together as they march up several flights of rigid stairs to the streets above. It's nothing like Ezra Pound described. There are no goddamn petals. I've only lived here for a year, but with every step there's a sharp, stinging pain between my kneecap and femur bone. Luckily, there's a pill for that: glucosamine is said to take the pain away in as little as six weeks. I take two daily with meals.

Tonight, however, the southbound train ride en route to Doc's apartment is relatively stress-free. Several passengers get off at Bloor Station and I actually manage to find a seat. To my left, two people are hunched over with their heads held down, gazing at their cellphones and clicking and reading and typing text messages with both hands. Always texting. The sheep love to text. I heard in London they actually had to cover lampposts in foam padding because too many idiots, immersed in gadgetry, were walking straight into them. To my right, two friends are standing side by side, one wearing a long dark coat and staring at the Blackberry in his hand and the other dressed head to toe in Reebok athletic attire and leaning against a pole while spouting off a one-way conversation. I can't help but overhear him say, “So, I've started to play basketball more
intensely
. For exercise, y'know? But, my left knee, it's like, kinda broken. So, it's normally okay, but it starts to hurt if I walk for a long period of time. Or if I play basketball
intensely
. Or if I dance.”

People say stupid, asinine shit like this all the time. In every coffee shop, in every convenience store, on every street corner, you hear snippets of it. In the city, you're surrounded by it: a constant reminder that my generation is sleepwalking through life, gorging on reality TV and vacantly watching silly cats on YouTube with our eyes permanently fixated on little rectangular screens. We play it safe, avoid conflict, end our relationships via text message because we're afraid of phone calls and we brush our teeth before going to the dentist and then lie about how often we floss just so we don't get scolded. We communicate with each other in monosyllabic grunts and moans and chuckle like troglodytes all while steering clear of any debate or meaningful conversation. None of us read or vote or protest or give a shit about anything that actually matters. Everything we do—it's all so meaningless.

Our generation doesn't even have a proper name. I've heard them call us Generation Y, Echo Boomers, Millennials, but the name never sticks. Why? Because no single name can define us. We aren't unified by
anything
. Our taste in music, entertainment, politics, it's all over the map, so it's hard to find any common ground. We have no shared identity, no causes to rally behind, no sense of community, and as a result it's easy to feel disconnected. Alienated. Completely lost in the shuffle.

My eyes gradually wander upward to the subway map: an illustration of yellow, green and blue intersecting lines set against a black background. There's a short purple line, too, but nobody cares about that one. Kiping Station to the left, McCowan Station to the right. A yellow line for Yonge and a green line for Bloor. The blue line leads into Scarborough, the east side of Toronto. I've only been there once. Now, whenever I look at it, I think of Rachael Burke.

A long time ago, when I was eighteen, I rode the train into Union Station and met her there, somewhere inside the colossal main hall. She was wearing a fluffy pink sweater—I remember it clearly—and when she spotted me her face lit up and she ran across the hall and jumped into my arms. She told me she had gotten lost in the station and had to ask a transit employee for directions and he chaperoned her there. Then she smiled and waved to him as we walked downstairs. I told her I was happy to see her again. At the time, she was living in Scarborough, so we rode the subway across the entire blue line back to her place. We laughed and caught up and I recited stories about my new job delivering Chinese food to rich people by the lakeshore and she told me about her classes at UTSC and the pet rabbit she wanted to buy. I haven't been on the blue line since that day. Hard to believe it was almost seven years ago.

The train comes to a halt and I arduously march up the stairs until my knees are killing me. Thankfully, Doc lives only a short walk away from Dundas Station. His place is a palace compared to mine, with large windows, an open-concept kitchen and fresh IKEA furniture, all paid for by his well-to-do parents. His father works as a defence contractor, designing and selling warships for the military or something like that. I've never gotten a straight answer out of him. Whatever he does, it must pay well. Doc knows that one day he'll inherit his father's money, which affords him the opportunity to waste time taking random business courses with little concern for the future. I wish I had that same golden parachute waiting for me, but alas, I don't.

A stranger kindly holds the security door open for me as I walk into the lobby. I nod at the concierge who recognizes me and then ride the elevator up to the fifth floor. The door is unlocked, so I enter unannounced. Doc is sprawled out on a leather couch with his feet resting on a coffee table, watching baseball on TV while clutching a can of Budweiser. I drop a paper bag full of liquor onto the black granite countertop and help myself to some ice in the fridge and then pour a scotch on the rocks before lazing on the other side of the couch.

“Hey,” he says.

“What's up.”

“The Jays are losing to Boston. Three-nothing.”

“Fuck.”

“I know.”

“Ah, baseball's a flakey game.”

“This is true.”

“No sign of the others?”

“They said they'll be here in, like, an hour.”

“Cool.”

The game cuts to a commercial break, and advertisements for sneakers, luxury sedans and Old Spice deodorant flash across the screen.

“So, any luck with the job hunt?” he asks.

“I didn't really look this week. Nobody's called me back either.”

“You should've just stayed at that call centre.”

“No way. I couldn't. That place was soul-destroying.”

I recently quit my job at a telecommunications firm where I earned minimum wage providing technical support for people having trouble with their cellphones. The calls came in from Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia and Texas, so I was yelled at by angry rednecks all day long. That was my job. For every call, you'd have to repeat the same company-approved introduction, closing statement, and let the customer know that
we appreciate their business
at some point in the conversation. If you failed to do so, a supervisor would immediately appear over your shoulder to scold you. They also forced us to act sympathetic, to tell the customer how frustrated we were by their problem and how we would do everything in our power to fix it. It was all so rehearsed, so fake. And mind-numbing. I looked around at the people who had been working at that same job for ten years without a promotion and wondered how they did it. Their eyes seemed glazed over; like veterans of war, they had that blank, thousand-yard stare. I probably would've blown my brains out within the first eight months.

“But yeah,” I continue, “I thought I'd find another job by now.”

“Nah, you won't find shit because your résumé sucks ass.”

“It's not that
bad! I mean, I don't have a lot of experience, but how the hell am I supposed to get any if no one's gonna hire me?”

“You should take a look at mine. It's on the desktop.” With his eyes still focused on the game, he lifts his arm and lazily flails his wrist toward the computer on the far side of the room. I grudgingly get up from the couch and take a seat at the black IKEA computer desk. The deep space-themed screensaver stops when I move the mouse and the password prompt pops up.

“What's your password?”

“Huh?”

“Password!”

“Knifetits.”

I think I misheard him. “What?”

“KNIFETITS!” he yells. “All one word.”

I type it in and press
Enter
and it works. Windows takes over a minute to load and then I see a file on the desktop called “Big Resume.” I open it up and print it off and bring a paper copy back to the couch. The first thing I notice is the header: his name, Jeffrey Dockett, is not only written in an elaborate, serpentine font, but it's also underlined and accounts for nearly a third of the page. Everything else is written in capital ­letters.

“It says here you speak French?”

“Bonjour, allo, salut, motherfucker.”

“And under a subheading called
Strengths
, you wrote: ‘I'm a real live wire who plays hard and fast with the rules and can't get out of his own way.'”

“Yeah! They want people who take initiative.”

“And this is how you got hired at Starbucks?”

Doc has been working at Starbucks for the past two months—at his parents' insistence. While they pay his rent, tuition, phone, cable and car insurance bills, they demand he earn his own disposable income. Doc refers to this income as
burn money
and he spends it as soon as he makes it. We all do. Nobody can afford to save these days.

“Yeah, man!” he says. “They love me there.”

“Well, I don't know why they'd ever hire you.” Then I hold up his résumé and shake it in front of him. “This is a real piece of shit.”

“Ah, land of the blind.”

“What?”

“‘In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.' Ever heard that?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Some people think it's about being disabled, or a cyclops or some shit, but it's not. It's about
mediocrity
. It means: you don't have to be
good
, you just have to be better than those
around
you. It's like with school. You don't have to get a hundred percent on every test, you just have to score higher than the other people in your class, which usually isn't all that hard. If everybody around you is blind, then all you need is one eye open. Not two.”

“Okay, but how does that apply here?”

Doc shrugs his shoulders. “I'm not the most qualified person in the world, but I'm still better than all those other assholes who applied that week.” Then he belches and cracks open another can of Budweiser and slurps the froth as it rises over the tab. “Plus, I'm willing to work the morning shift.”

“How do you like being a barista, by the way?”

“Don't call it that. Sounds girly.”

“What do you call it then?”

He considers for a moment. “I'm a
coffee man
.”

“Okay, how do you like being a ‘coffee man'?”

“Ah, a job's a job. Tomorrow's my last shift until Wednesday. Heading up to the cottage on Sunday. Should be good.”

“Don't you have to work at, like, five o'clock in the morning some days? I don't know how you do that.”

He shrugs his shoulders again. “A job's a job.”