Seeing Red (6 page)

—PART II—

INTO THE NADIR

ELEVEN

The audience has been lied to
. That's the first thought that flows through my mind as I wake. Lied to by books, television and movies, conditioned to believe that life and love can be explained in ninety minutes or less and that what happens here actually matters. It's all just smoke and mirrors. In the real world there is no studio audience, no third act resolution, no storybook ending. We were lied to again and again: by the sycophantic politicians who sold us out for campaign contributions; the advertisers who bombarded us with imagery designed to feed off our insecurities; the priests who told us to be kind to others while they were busy sodomizing children; the anti-drug campaigners who warned us that smoking marijuana would be fatal; the economists who predicted that globalization would lead us all to prosperity; and the school teachers who taught us to believe we could be anything we wanted to be. Liars. All of them.

I was too young to remember the fall of the Berlin Wall, but I know what it represented: an opportunity to remake the world, to get it right this time, with freedom, equality and justice for all. The Doomsday Clock was set at seventeen minutes to midnight. Seventeen! But we squandered that opportunity. In a few short years we became fat and complacent and let a small group of wealthy CEOs buy the politicians, ruin the planet and kill the middle class, and now they've pit us against each other to fight over the scraps. If you, like me, had any delusion that your existence on this earth would amount to more than just a hill of beans, imagine your dismay when you begin to realize you were wrong from the very start. The game is rigged. There are no goddamn beans. And we've all bought into the lie.

I'm lying naked on a mattress with my body only partially covered by a thin blue blanket. The balcony door is wide open and cold morning air is flowing into the room—I don't know why I opened it last night. My head aches and my throat is dry and I can only remember the evening in fragments. I'm not even sure if I paid my tab—they might still have my credit card at the cocktail bar. Melanie is nowhere to be found. Did she leave already? I hope she did. The last time I brought a girl home, she didn't leave until well into the afternoon. Just kept sleeping and snoring while I lay awake in bed staring at the ceiling. Eventually I had to wake her up and tell her I was going to be late for work. That was a lie. I went to the liquor store and bought a bottle of scotch and drank on my futon that day.

Suddenly I hear Melanie rustling in the bathroom, and a moment later she returns wearing the same black dress she wore the night before—albeit with her hair and make-up slightly askew. I squint my eyes, exhale, stretch out my arms and mumble, “Good morning.” How many times have I awoken to an awkward situation like this? I've been doing it for years and I never get any better at it. Never know what to do or what to say.

“Hey what's with all the medication in your bathroom?” she asks. “Are you alright?”

She opened the medicine cabinet. Great. I should really get a padlock for that. “Yeah, I'm fine. I just . . . I have trouble sleeping sometimes.”

“I see.”

“Do you want some breakfast? I can make you bacon and eggs or something?”

“No, that's okay. I'm allergic to eggs anyway.”

“Well, I probably have some Corn Flakes or Lucky Charms around here. . . . They've got those marshmallows and shit—”

“No, really, I'm fine. I should probably get going.”

For some reason I don't want her to leave. Not yet. Not because I'm afraid I'll miss her, but because I feel like I've done something wrong. “At least let me buy you breakfast? There's a good place down the street from here.”

She reluctantly accepts and I throw on some dirty clothes and we go.

It's ten o'clock in the morning and I'm sitting across from Melanie at a small table in a quiet diner. The radio in the background is barely audible over the sound of the wall clock and every tick of the second hand feels like an hour. Without alcohol, I realize, Melanie and I don't have anything in common and there's very little for us to talk about. I'm also unshaven, greasy-haired and probably smell like three different kinds of hard liquor.

Our food finally arrives and we start eating. She ordered pancakes, sausages and whole-wheat toast while I got a bowl of fruit and a glass of water because my stomach is too queasy to digest anything more substantial.

“How's the toast?” I ask her.

“It's good,” she says, chewing quietly. “It's good toast.”

“Hmm. That's good to hear.”

A few awkward seconds pass. I take a loud sip of water between mouthfuls and then glance down at her left hand and notice she's not wearing her wedding ring. She takes another small bite of toast and says, “So, that roommate you mentioned . . . he doesn't exist, right?”

“Who? Tornado?”

“Yeah.”

“No.”

“So that was all your stuff? All the trash? The bottles?”

“Uh huh.”

“I also noticed you had a class schedule on your fridge.”

“Hmm. That's a pretty astute observation.”

“You're still a student? You're not really a journalist?”

“No. Not yet, anyway. These days, it's kinda hard to, y'know, get your stuff out there and—”

“Are you always this full of shit?”

“Well . . .”

“And do you work? Or just drink all day?”

“I'm actually between jobs at the moment . . . but I do have somebody helping me with my résumé.”

The waitress comes by to refill my water.

“Really? You can't eat any eggs?” I ask.

“No.”

While chewing on a large piece of cantaloupe, I add, “You mean you've never had a
really
good omelette? With ham?”

“Oh God,” she gasps, dropping her fork onto the plate and covering her face in embarrassment. She's obviously upset. It's understandable: she cheated on her husband with a drunken, unemployed loser ten years younger than she is.

“Look, I'm sorry,” I say. “I don't even know what happened last night. Honestly, it seems like every day I wake up and I can't remember what I did the day before. It got so bad that, recently, I started writing everything down in a journal, just so I wouldn't forget. Basic things, y'know, like where I went, what I did, who I ran into, what we said to each other, where I—”

“Why are you telling me this?” she snaps.

I pause. “In a couple of days I probably won't remember you. At all. Your name, your face—it'll be like none of this ever happened.”

Melanie remains quiet with her eyes focused on her plate, leisurely stirring her food around in a circle while I keep talking.

“You can still patch things up with whats-his-name. You're great. He's a lucky guy. I'm sure he knows that.”

“I don't know what I'm gonna do,” she sighs. Reaching into her purse, she retrieves a twenty-dollar bill and places it on the tablecloth as she rises from her chair. “It's on me. Good luck with the job hunt, Ethan.”

Seconds later, Melanie leaves through the front door and I'm left staring at her empty chair. With a big chunk of melon in my mouth, I point at her plate with my fork and mumble, “Hey, you forgot your toast!”

TWELVE

It's around two o'clock in the afternoon and I'm still hungover. I don't even have the energy to shit, shower and shave. My bedroom is hot and sweltering with no air conditioning; there's nothing but a desk fan oscillating on the nightstand and the sunlight is seeping in through the blinds. Hungry, I throw on a pair of jeans and my blue dress shirt from last night and wander down the street to a pizza place on the corner. Inside, it's even hotter than my apartment and the worker behind the counter is sweating profusely: his forehead, his underarms, probably his crotch and his balls, everything. I guess they don't have air conditioning either. Or they've decided to forego it in an effort to save money. Times are tight. Hygienic concerns aside, I order a large pepperoni and ask him how long it'll take.

“I have to finish this other one first. . . so maybe fifteen, twenty minutes?” As opposed to waiting and melting to death, I tell him I'll come back when it's ready.

Avoiding the hustle of the main streets, I light myself a cigarette and decide on a stroll through the nearby residential area. Row upon row of uniform houses, each two storeys tall and made of brown brick. Most of the houses have a small wooden deck at the front, typically with a barbecue and a couple of chairs. Four sets of parents have congregated on one of the decks, talking and laughing while their children play on the front lawn, running around in circles and spraying each other with toy water guns.

The scene reminds me of the first time I met Rachael. We were really young—only twelve or thirteen—and one day after school some classmates and I walked to a friend's house where all the neighbourhood kids were having a water fight. We joined in, and within ten minutes I was completely drenched. Feeling thirsty, I asked my friend where I could get a drink and he pointed to the house next door. There was a patio at the back and I walked up the stairs and opened the sliding door and saw her sitting there in the kitchen, alone, nursing a small bruise on her ankle. Apparently she had tripped while dodging an airborne water balloon. I found some ice in the freezer and wrapped it up in a paper towel and gave it to her to apply to the wound. “Thanks,” she said. Then she told me her name was Rachael.

It wasn't long before we were calling each other on a daily basis. Ten-minute phone conversations turned into two-hour marathon sessions. Every Sunday she volunteered at a local children's hospital, and she once complained to me that she had no one to eat lunch with, so I told her I'd meet her in the cafeteria any time she wanted—even though the hospital was an hour's walk from my house and the weather was often cold, rainy and miserable. Still, I was true to my word. I would have taken any excuse to be with her. In many ways we were polar opposites: she was incredibly cheerful, bright, altruistic and always had something to say, whereas I was a shy, bitter, reclusive kid. Yet somehow we connected. Maybe because we could always make each other laugh, no matter how bad things got. I haven't met anybody like that since.

As I'm walking past the children, one of the girls—she can't be more than five—lowers her water gun and waves at me. I hide the cigarette behind my back because I don't want her to see me smoking and then I smile and wave back. Content, she turns around and rejoins the game. I continue down the street and I can hear one of the parents sternly reminding her to put her shoes on.

I wonder what it's like to be one of those parents, to wake up next to the same person every morning, driving around in a family-friendly mid-sized sedan and chasing after a bunch of kids who have infinitely more energy than you, worrying about whether they've eaten enough or washed their hands or remembered to put their shoes on. In a way I pity them because they must be sleep-deprived and mentally exhausted, never having a moment to themselves. But, deep down, I also envy them because their goal is simple: go to work and take care of the family. Nothing else matters. When you're single, the highs are higher and the lows are lower. There's less stability, no consistency, and every day is unpredictable: it could be amazing or it could be awful and either way you have to face it alone.

When the pizza is ready, I carry it to the side of the building and sit down on a pair of wooden steps. I'm absolutely starving. Opening the box, I rip into it as if I haven't eaten in days, burning the roof of my mouth in the process and breathing heavily between bites. Across the street I see a panhandler with a bushy grey beard and a dirty white shirt. He has an upside-down baseball cap placed in front of him and there are probably a few nickels and quarters inside. I figure I owe the homeless a favour after that altercation last night, so when the light changes, I cross the street and approach him.

“Hey I'm sorry, man, I don't have any change, but do you want some pizza?”

“Yeah!” he exclaims. He's more excited than I would have predicted. “Thank you. I'm starving.
And it's hot as hell out here.”

“I know.”

I slump down beside the panhandler with the box on my lap and we both eat a slice while staring out at the passing traffic. Row upon row of uniform cars moving in opposite directions. I can't make out any of the faces behind the windshields due to the reflected sunlight, so every car looks the same. An infinite number.

I think the hardest part of being homeless would be the boredom. No television, internet, movies or video games; entire days spent glancing at the passers-by and hoping they pity you enough to toss a few coins into your hat. I often see homeless men sleeping in the subway tunnels underneath a pile of heavy blankets and they're always by themselves. When I was eight years old, I ran away from home and decided I was going to live under a bridge. I packed a Game Boy, a change of batteries, a sleeping bag, a spoon, and several cans of Chef Boyardee Ravioli—I figured that would last me for at least three or four months. Within two hours I said “forget this” and went home to laze on the couch and watch cartoons again. I was so goddamn bored under that bridge.

Later, in high school, I would often skip an entire day of classes and drift along the streets from nine o'clock in the morning until three in the afternoon. The teachers all knew I was playing hooky, but they didn't care because I managed to score higher than the other students despite my poor attendance. And my attendance was very poor: I missed over two hundred classes in my senior year. Sometimes I just couldn't take it: another boring day at school surrounded by asshole teenagers. I had zits on my face, long hair and a lanky body I hadn't quite grown into, and the other kids made sure I knew about it daily. So I would sneak away to a library to read books or to an art gallery to look at black-and-white photographs or wander downtown to find an alleyway to sleep in. With little money my options were fairly limited. I felt like an outcast, cowering behind dumpsters and smoking Colt cigars while huddling beneath my winter jacket. I fantasized about becoming a famous rock star and writing a song about being poor and homeless like Kurt Cobain did with “Something in the Way.” I could play the guitar, but my technique was all mechanical; I had no natural talent as a musician and the lyrics I scribbled down were hackneyed and meaningless. Good musicians can wear their emotions on their sleeves, and I was never able to do that. In the end, it was just me outside in the cold with little more than a pipe dream to keep me warm.

Not surprisingly, that was about the time I started drinking. There was a store not far from where I lived where I'd buy beer whenever I had the cash. The old man behind the counter must've been severely near-sighted because he never asked me for ID. Or maybe he just took pity on me. From then on I always kept a few bottles of beer and liquor in my backpack and used them whenever I needed them. I drank behind gas stations, in empty parking lots, on playgrounds, in the backseat of cars, even in the school cafeteria on one occasion. I never want to be homeless. But the way things are going it's a definite possibility. I should be nice to these panhandlers—I might be begging alongside them someday.

The panhandler and I are sitting side by side on the pavement, still staring out at the passing traffic in silence while we chew and digest and breathe. As soon as he's finished eating, he asks, “Can I have another one?”

“Yeah, for sure.” I rip off a slice and hand it to him.

“Thanks. Don't worry. I won't take any more from you.”

“Are you sure? There's plenty to go around.”

“No, that's okay. You go on now. And as soon as I win the lotto, I'm gonna pay you back!”

On the walk home I take a short detour and find a park bench to lie on and look up at the sky. I'm relieved my stomach doesn't hurt anymore; it probably won't hurt again until tomorrow morning. It's an awful feeling, to be paralyzed by hunger. Every day, for the first few hours after waking, my stomach is so sore from the alcohol that the mere thought of food makes me nauseous. If I tried to eat, my body would immediately reject it, and at the same time it growls, it moans and it aches because it needs food. I have to starve myself because I'm physically
unable
to eat.

I've lost fifteen pounds since last year.