When I Was Young and In My Prime (18 page)

Takealookattheboxfolks whatsit got Norm
 

holdituphighthere flowered bedsheets bedsheetsand
 

ballsayarn that'sadandyboxfolks wouldyalookat

thecolours
inthatbox let'sstart'eratadollaronedollar

HEY'llyadbidwho'llyabiddollarabidnow

onebuckfolks andI'llthrowinthequiltingframehere

packagedeal onedollardollarabidwillyabidnow
 

c'monfolkswho'llgimmeonedollar dollarabid

overhereIhaveonedollarSOLD thankgodferthat

A documentary on the radio about land mines and undetonated cluster bombs and the proliferation of small firearms on the world market. At the moment in the Sudan an AK47 goes for the price of a chicken. Late November. Sun sets early, leaving the whole city feeling low. Or maybe I'm projecting.
 

I go to the No Frills and, when I'm ready to pay, choose the longest line so that I can watch the habits of the other customers. Volumes of information in short exchanges between parents and their small children over whether or not they will buy one of the chocolate bars displayed at each checkout like a test. Information about who's got the power and whether it's stable and what tactics they rely on to maintain it. I stand in line and try to pinpoint the juncture where principles lose their foundations and slip into tactics. All in a glimpse at the gates of heaven.
 

The checkout girls banter with one another over our heads as if we were cattle waiting to be processed. Mine is a large-eyed dimpled South Asian girl whose black braid is thicker than my wrist. She moves languidly, as if in another set of stimuli altogether. Her braid reclines against her spine as she bends over to unclog the conveyor belt. Around me families bicker in their mother tongues and buy in bulk. I tenderly memorize everyone's groceries. I love the man in front of me for buying only plum sauce and cat food and loading them into his Labatt's Blue duffle bag. He has a plan which involves plum sauce. He changes the kitty litter. He finds ways to keep his spirits up.

I walk out into the 5 pm darkness with my purchases, the plastic bags cutting into my palms as I navigate the sidewalks home. In the Sudan an AK47 goes for the price of a chicken. I keep thinking that if I'm going to eat chicken I should raise and kill and pluck and cook one all by myself someday, but I doubt it will ever happen—more likely, my conscience will continue to let itself be soothed by the thinking of virtuous thoughts.

The street lights are on. Like nightlights for children afraid of the dark. Such thoughtful, coddling city planners.
 

12
 
the canada goose
(branta canadensis)

The November after Grandpa sells his house, he is almost too depressed to speak. 150 km away I walk mornings by the lake, angling for a glimpse of water only, wanting no city anywhere, not even in periphery.

The Canada geese at the lakeshore in Toronto don't fly south anymore—they stay, all winter, for tossed crusts.

The Canada geese at the lakeshore in Toronto don't fly south anymore, don't get

hungry
 

anymore.

These days I've got to make sure I'm holding onto something steady all the time. It's not just falling anymore. It's like the ground is sucking you down. Ever since I sold the house. Even on solid ground it's nip and tuck keeping your balance these days.

Well. Whatever else can be said about me, I still put on my own socks by God. Takes me ten goddamn minutes for each one. But I do it. I have this way of fixing them, bunching them up you know. I have to sit in that low chair. The one that came from the Dowswell place. And when I first bend over I have to rest there like that for a while. Give my blood a chance to get used to the arrangement. Blood's getting to be awfully finicky these days. Dizzy all the time. Doc says it's either a something or other in the ear or a brain tumour. Well I guess I like a straightforward man. So. I'm booked in to have a whadyacallit. A CAT scan. In January. The new year as they say. See if my brain is still there. Or if it's altogether dissolved. Wouldn't be surprised. What was I saying? Oh yes, so once I get my blood
 
...
  
acclimatized you might say, I can start to work it on. Goddamn fingers puffy good for nothing. Look at the things. Tires a man out when he's got all this useless flesh to look after. Can't even pull on a goddamn pair of socks without starting to bleed under the skin. There, like that. Look at them. Goddamn useless. Rotting. Wish they'd just rot right off some days and have it over with. See the trick is getting it over the heel. Goddamn feet more swollen than the goddamn fingers. I tried to use the shoehorn once but it gave me a bastard of a bruise. Well. Doesn't matter. When I get the one sock on I take a rest. Lean back in the chair. And I sit there for a while with one sock on. I often think it'd make a funny picture. I mean if somebody came in on me then. Old geezer leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed and one sock on. And the sun not even up yet.
 

Anyhow. When my blood settles down I do it all over again. With the other foot.

Goddamn fingers. Sometimes I wonder why I bother. A man's got to wear socks though.
 

13
 
the cockatiel
(
nymphicus hollandicus
)

My cousin Clara's triplets have turned two and she can't look after Sven, her cockatiel, so Grandpa is nominated to take the thing—a companion for Sandy, his canary.
 

He walks slowly around the seniors' complex on his way to visit Grandma in extended care, and the bird perches on his shoulder all the while, picks crumbs from the side of his mouth, pulls at his earlobe, shits down his back. In the Home he becomes known as the birdman, a claim to fame (though people talk even less to him now, too busy cooing to the bird).
 

The social coordinator is taken with it all, devises a contest to rename the cockatiel.
 

Perky
 

is the winning entry, but Grandpa
 

calls him by no name,
 

coddles and curses him, chides him
 

if he hasn't sung a note by noon.

Clara took back her cockatiel because of how much Grandpa complained about it, but then he seemed so depressed that Uncle Nick figured he'd better do something about it and gave him a bird clock for his birthday. The best of the best—mail-ordered from the Audubon Society. Twelve different birds, each perching at their appointed hour complete with English and Latin names. But the best part is the calls. The most realistic of any of the bird clocks, Nick was told. At one o'clock the house wren conjectures a long, almost haphazard line of thought on into the minute. At three o'clock the black-capped chickadee is matter-of-fact and predictable. Grandpa says the robin song at seven o'clock is the very essence of the hour after a spring storm, the worms surfacing and plentiful. I have to take his word for it; I never arrive as early as seven, never stay as late as seven. The place smells too intimate—skin gone loose and rubbery, pots of ointment long past their expiry dates—and after a couple of hours I'm ready for fresh air.

At noon and at midnight the owl sounds. Sitting down for lunch right under the clock in his small apartment yesterday, Grandpa opened his mouth to the sound of the noon-owl and, for a brief moment, I thought the moan was coming from him. The clock marked several minutes before my limbs stopped tingling and I could lift my fork, join him in eating the dinner he'd prepared: chicken roasted with onions and anise seed.

On the way home, I try not to imagine the owl-call at midnight. Grandpa, alone in his small apartment, upright, trying to fall asleep in the easy chair, opening his mouth in the dark. Behind him, chicken bones everywhichway in the wastebasket under the sink.

 
Holy mother how that bloody call lasts.

When the one real bird that's left, the canary in the cage, begins to sing in his small apartment, Grandpa says,
Give 'er hell, Sandy.