What is Left When Everything is Gone (21)
To the Start of Time
This is the 21st and final instalment of What is Left When Everything is Gone.
I am very grateful to anyone who has read this far.
To the Start of Time
•
David.
I am in bed asleep but I am awake now. My dad is standing in the light from the hall and he has his hands on his knees. He says again, David, and I show him I am awake.
He says, Your mother has left us.
I wander upstairs. There are people in the house. I go up to see her body. She is there in the bed but she has been emptied out. It is not like sleeping.
She is gone, and here is only her body, which is dead. She can never speak or look again. She is gone. I can not forget this, because it is everything.
•
My dad is saying, She just let out a sigh, then she was gone. She was gone, no pain.
Deane did not get up. Ralph is sitting on the sofa. A little kid without a mom.
What must he be thinking?
Aunty Willow is trying to keep busy, making tea.
A young woman in a track suit goes up to the room with a kit to wash the body.
Who is she?
•
I am putting on clothes to go for a walk. I just pulled the heavy jacket up over my shoulders. Two big men in scarves are carrying my mother down the stairs in a chair like a puppet king. She is under a blanket, even her head. I rush down to my room and stand here breathing in blackness for a long time to hear their van drive away.
I am asking myself, What is a moment? Some moments hold more weight than a thousand years, this here and now all around you. I am standing in a place, how you always have to be in a place. It is like a new me is coiling out of this moment, becoming a me that will always spring out of this moment, forever.
Why am I inside of all of time?
None of this is who I am. This isn’t me. How many times can you be sorry for everything you’ve done and still say that you are you? I don’t know but not me anymore.
I am walking through the night. The streetlights light hoar-frosted branches from within like chandeliers. The lonely click of my heels in the smoky cold. My hands are deep in my pockets.
I keep seeing her blue eyes looking out at me from another life, a life like mine, being alive.
I feel those blue eyes carry me into a life that is inverse of life.
Just as I dreamed, here is the true, and all of it, in one shining piece; in my body and in all the world, and I am choking on tears. I never wished to learn this way. Anything but this.
So this is God: this white purity after everything is gone. Not some terrible arbiter: just the level blanket more snow keeps falling into, reconciling all in white, until at last we are one.
I want to write this down somewhere, because I know I am forgetting. I know I will forget before tomorrow, but I get it here and now, meandering through these moon base avenues, through all that is frozen and holy, holy, holy.
•
None of this is me.
None of this matters.
I still remember that much.
•
The world is the same, but different. I am walking to school down alleyways. Aunty Willow told me I shouldn’t go to school the morning after my mother died, but I couldn’t bear the thought of hanging around the house with all the church ladies and Holy Joes running in and out with their sad faces and, Oh we’re so, so sorry. Pity vultures I called them, and my dad really didn’t like that.
These people have been trying to help. They loved your mother.
I sit through all the useless classes and don’t tell anyone my mom died last night. I know they will find out, but I am shy about being a celebrity, the kid whose mom died last night. Also, I will seem more stoic if I say nothing.
At football we scrimmage and I am defensive end again. I crash through the line. Little Scott Thompson is about to throw the ball so I jump and stretch my arms to block it, and coming down I make sure to just flatten him. He is winded and he can’t get up. One coach is praising me, and the other is trying to help Scott Thompson up.
Kat and Lamb are waiting for me after practice. They are scolding me, why didn’t I say anything? They are so beautiful.
Lamb drives me home. We don’t talk much. When she parks in front of my house, she gives me a peck on the cheek. I know it is pity and it doesn’t mean anything. I always thought I would do anything for one kiss on the cheek from her but it doesn’t mean anything anymore. I get out of her car and walk across the dusk-purpled snow to the dark house hidden behind pine trees, with all its windows peering out.
•
Alex and me are sitting at the baseball diamond. It is dark all around us. He is saying grownup things about my mom dying. I am saying nothing, just sitting here in all my newfound quiet.
He is saying that he couldn’t bear to think of his mom dying, and he doesn’t understand how I can be just sitting here, and not bawling my eyes out. He says he would only be able to bear it if he thought his mom would be waiting for him in heaven.
I say, I don’t believe in any of that. When you are dead, you are dead. So long, it’s been a nice story. I don’t believe anything, to be honest, except that nothing is real, that this is all just a dream.
Alex is shaking his head now, looking down. He is saying, you are cold, Cotter, like a snake.
Everyone has to be nice to me for a while. For a few days anyway, maybe a month, and then it will all be forgotten.
•
The guidance counsellor is a smooth, juicy guy with curly yellow hair, and he is giving the award for best lineman. It’s stupid anyway because we didn’t even win a game, and our best lineman, Alex, broke his leg at the start of the season.
Mr Devlin is saying, you probably think he’s just a big idiot, but there is actually a lot going on in his head, and I can tell I am going to get the award, and so can Vic, because he’s hanging his head a bit and shaking it as if this is unfair; but I think I am better than him, and the unnecessary roughness penalties were part of my game plan.
Devlin said that about me not being dumb because I was in his office with Kathleen, and I got him to show me my results for the aptitude tests we did in primary school. I was in the 98th percentile for abstract reasoning, verbal reasoning, and spatial relations. I showed Kathleen these and said, so you see, I’m not stupid, and she was laughing at me, I don’t know why.
I am walking up to take the award. It is just a little piece of wood with my name, David Cotter, above the words, Best Lineman. There is a Griffin above this. I am walking back to my chair where I am sitting with Kathleen. I can tell Vic is miffed. He probably thinks they gave me the trophy because of my mom. I don’t care. It is the only thing I ever won.
•
I am sitting in the basement with Deane and Dan. Deane is telling me the story, and Dan is confirming what he says. They went to the dance at Manning last night, but before they went in they finished a bottle of Captain Morgan’s and had a bunch of hoots. Deane was stumbling around with his Bob Geldof slouch, and when the principal tried to kick him out, he kept telling him to go fuck himself. Now he is suspended for the rest of the week.
•
Deane is a total head now. He has a feather earring in one ear, a Geddy Lee haircut, and a tiger-stripe muscle shirt. He even wears a choker, like Alex used to in junior high. He has a girlfriend now and he is taking her downstairs to his room. She is a super sexy Vietnamese girl. Dresses like a little head with tasseled suede jacket, tight jeans on her smooth ass, and little stripper boots.
•
Connie is one of the head chicks I met through Tilsty. She is in my bedroom with me now. She is always laughing and when she laughs her eyes disappear in happy creases. She has a perfect face like a little doll, and when she’s not laughing but looking at you, her eyes are like sunflowers. She lives in Shaganappi Village near Tilsty, and she also only has a mom.
She is blowing smoke at the minifigs on my river and hill table. I set up a scene for her to blow her smoke into, with stones and moss and a party of orcs. She rubs the ashes into the thigh of her faded blue jeans. Again, she blows out coiling dragon’s breath.
She is laughing now at Pune’s bossy meow. We are a little bit stoned. She is saying she never heard a cat sound like that. We’re trying to be quiet but she sure likes to laugh. She comments on how big our house is, and how we have everything.
I tell her that’s not how life works.
The way she is watching Pune, you can tell she is a merciful person. I showed her my poems about my mom, and they must make her feel merciful for me.
I want to hold her, but she says I am too good for her.
I ask her, What do you mean, because I don’t know what she’s talking about.
She says I never even swear.
She’s right. I don’t know why I never swear.
I don’t want her to think I’m pissed off she wouldn’t let me hug her, so I tell her about the time I woke up in Pune’s body, between my own legs.
She is laughing, saying, Wow. Her blue eyes are watching mine, inviting me to keep talking.
I say, I’ll tell you my theory, Connie. I think everyone is the same person really, but we are in different lives and different bodies, locked in our own life stories. But if you strip all of the details of your life away, and I strip all the details of my life away, we are the same person. Just this single consciousness that is watching the world into being. Do you even get me a bit?
She is giggling, and she says, You sure are good at bullshitting. You’re still not getting in my pants though.
I can smell her shampoo, her makeup or whatever. She is another person in her life.
•
Deane is in my room. I am lying on the bed and he is standing by the table with river and hills. He is really down about something. Little Tia isn’t coming around anymore. He doesn’t want to say something and then he asks, Were you ever not able to do it with a girl?
I can’t believe he is saying this to me. I could so easily say something crushing now.
I don’t tell him that I’ve never even done it before. Tilsty’s friend, Sherry Markham, doesn’t count because I was too sad with her down in my room to even get hard because she is so poor and only has a mom.
So poor not only as in she has no money. I mean poor in every way, like she couldn’t protect herself, and then you couldn’t feel sexy for a girl that makes your heart droop in sadness. Anyway, I was thinking so much, I just gave up.
I say to Deane, of course, everyone has that problem the first time, even though I know a guy like Alex never would. It’s just so much pressure the first time that a guy is sometimes too nervous to get in the right mood.
It’s not a thing, I say, don’t think about it.
He doesn’t stick around. He goes back to his room. He is reading Piers Anthony and the I Qing.
I feel a warmth in my heart I barely recognise.
•
She is here, like always, but something is wrong. I just don’t know what it is. We are having a cup of tea in the kitchen, but is it the kitchen? I don’t know. Or is it a bus, why would it be in a bus? I don’t know. She is my mother and I am looking in her face. It is her face. We are both sad because we are starting to realise that she is not supposed to be here, and she is starting to fade away before we have a chance to talk about it and say goodbye, she is gone again. We know it has to be this way, but it’s so sad again.
•
For English we have Roberta Reece. She likes me and says I look like her brother. She said I totalIy got it about The Hunger Artist, and I was the only one who could figure out the symbol of the wall in Sartre’s short story. It’s not like in Pink Floyd where society builds a wall around you to isolate you. It is the actual wall between life and death, how there is no window or door to look through. It is just a total wall and living people can never know what is beyond that wall.
I am writing a story for her class. There is an old man about sixty years old who was a very bad person, but now he is good. He lives in a happy castle. Even though he is a good person now, he can’t forgive himself for what he was before, so he keeps writing about what a bad person he was. He feels sorry for what he did to so many people, but the main person he can’t forgive himself for is his beautiful wife, whose body is in the living room like a white statue, as if only sleeping.
•
I am getting out of here. I am going to the sea. I want to see a long beach with waves at the end, big waves. I haven’t told anyone except Pete that I’m going, and he will keep my job for me until I get back. I don’t know how long that will be.
I didn’t say bye to anyone else, except little Branny. I set down most of my mug of tea for her. I just didn’t feel like drinking it. I started to laugh at her but that got me crying, so I was standing there laughing and crying at the same time. It felt kind of good.
I am at Tilsty’s place now. He is coming with. He is just putting some things in a bag. We are going to sleep in the Olds, me stretched out in the front and him in the back. It is a straight road, the Trans-Canada, through Banff and then through the mountains to Vancouver. We shouldn’t get lost. We have a map with us anyway, and Tilsty is good at figuring stuff out.
We are driving past Paskapoo now, facing the mountains in front of us. Their white tops become orange and their bodies black as the sun sinks behind. I have a phial of weed oil and it should get us through the whole adventure.
•
I got too high. We are driving through the mountains in the dark. Snow is falling and the headlights are scattered in the snowflakes so I can see nothing beyond them. Before it got so dark, I saw cliffs going up into black on my right, and cliffs falling down into nothingness on my left. Now I am holding my chin almost down to the dash, squinting my eyes above the steering wheel to see past the snowflakes in my headlights. There is a line of big trucks behind me. I can see their lights in my rearview. Some of them are honking.
I pull over at a gas station, and have a hoot because I am too fucking stoned. Someone raps at the glass of my window with a key. I am shocked and I roll down the window because it is a cop.
He asks, Why ya drivin’ so slow there, buddy?
I say, I’m just really tired.
He says, Maybe you better get a nap then, eh.
I say, You’re right officer, that’s just what I was gonna do, all reasonable.
He nods and walks back to his car. Tilsty gets into the back and we have our first sleep of the adventure.
•
It is dark when we come down into Vancouver. Tilsty has the map open, guiding me to Stanley Park, where we can get out and at long last have a look at the sea. We are walking through the park. I am listening for the low roar that I remember the waves should make, but I hear nothing but people laughing. Tilsty is standing beside me and we are looking out at slow black water stretching long and flat like a lake. We are puzzled.
Tilsty suggests we need to be on Vancouver Island for waves, because maybe this is a harbour, so we have to keep going and we will not stop until we see beach and crashing waves. We get the last ferry across to the island. We are out of the car, standing on the deck, looking at the water which is flat and black, with more like undulations than waves stretching coloured lights. We drive with the dash light on and Tilsty consults the map to get us to Parksville.
We get out of the car into the black night. No subdued sound of roaring. We stumble down to the lapping water because there are big slippy stones. Beyond them just more flat water undulating long and slow. Standing on the slippy stones, we agree that the island is sheltering us from the sea and the waves. We get back in the car and have another few hoots, then even though it is 1 a.m. on the second day of our adventure we keep driving.
It is easy with Tilsty using the map beside me. We will cross the island highway through Port Alberni, then go between Tofino and Ucluelet to get to Long Beach. As we come down onto the bridge into Port Alberni, the car begins to clunk, and it slows right down. I manage to find a garage in Port Alberni but it is closed by now, so I park in a neighbourhood, in front of some house, and we sleep here.
•
We are stuck in Port Alberni. Tilsty had to steal a jar of peanut butter. We are eating this with plastic spoons in the car now. We have changed places because the steering wheel is starting to kill me, so he is in the front and I am in the back.
Maybe that’s best, because I don’t have to look at his face when we are talking about something embarrassing to me. I asked him why he thinks I can never get a girlfriend, because it is something that always puzzles me.
First, of course, he has to tell me that it is no problem for him to get a girlfriend. Then he starts about how girls like bad guys, which everyone already knows.
I say, But surely I am bad enough, and he mentions how I don’t like to swear, which he doesn’t like to either, because he can say things in an intelligent way. He’s a very droll guy.
He is suggesting now that it might be down to the width of my jaw. He measures his jaw with his fingers and then holds them to mine and we agree that there is not a lot of difference, but he is still saying that he has a big jaw and that is why women find him attractive. This guy. He’s hilarious.
•
The car is really starting to stink. There is a mechanic who can fix it, but it costs more money than I brought. I had to call my dad, and he was all, Where the hell are you? I’ve been worried sick, so I told him about my adventure and my quest for the waves. He was even laughing a little and he said he will wire me money.
I also called Pete at the arcade. I could hear Digdug going while I talked to him. I was looking at mountains that you could imagine a black dragon coiling between. He will wire me some money too.
The Cotter Kid, he kept saying, as though it was the old story that I was always getting myself in trouble. He kept laughing when I told him I was with Tilsty.
Tilsty! Dave Tilston?
I just checked with the bank and the money hasn’t come through yet. They are closing now. I hope the money is there tomorrow because if not we will have to wait until after the weekend. We still have half a jar of peanut butter for dinner and maybe tomorrow, but I mean fuck.
•
We are coming down the mountains. The other side is craggy wilderness, wet and primordial.
All that has waited unseen, we bring into being.
I say, Whoa, Tilsty. Can you see it?
The sea, veiled in spindrift, is moving in ranks beyond the treetops.
•
It is late afternoon. Tilsty and I are walking through sand dunes in bare feet toward the sea and I can hear its distant roar. Tilsty is carrying my ghetto blaster up on his shoulder. It is playing my mom’s James Galway tape. He is dressed like a love child, and is turning in circles as we walk onto the flat beach, toward the roaring waves.
We are both crying. There are seabirds above calling out long sorrow and it is all so beautiful, like back at the beginning again before anything ever happened; a perfect, clean new world to start over in.
I am wading in, but Tilsty won’t follow. He is standing behind watching me as the sun goes down in front of us, and the waves pull at my body, toppling me over, and then pulling me out as if to sea, and I am tired now, but I am strong, and I fight my way back to shore, pushing with my legs against the riptide sucking me out, and then all salty in my nose, mouth and eyes, I jump with a wave coming in, surf my body back onto the glimmering sand, that is absorbing the sea in shining rings around me, where I lie panting, looking up at the sky. I can hear those flutes again as Tilsty walks over to where I lie gasping on the sand, watching seabirds move between the low grey ceiling of cloud and me, calling out their long, sad rememberings forever.
•