Please stand by, p.5
Please Stand By, page 5
Ten in the morning and the blue sky spread hope over Pharmasave. The skies over Toronto never spread hope. They were more of a pressing encasement. She could feel claustrophobic outdoors in Toronto. Suzanne crossed the street outside her building. Home on one corner, Pharmasave on another corner, and Teddy’s, her favourite family restaurant, proximity and the absence of families its appeal, on the other. Her holy trinity.
It snowed overnight, fresh powder glittering on old snowbanks. Car exhaust rose in white plumes; the sidewalks and streets rang clear. She entered the pharmacy and observed a thread of snow whirling by her boots. She watched it dance. In winter all became vivid, God’s design laid bare. She had an ongoing relationship with God, one that she struggled with due to compulsive reading and eviscerating doubt. She stepped over the little snow swirl, not wanting to disturb it.
Pharmasave, unlike Home Depot, housed products and services essential to well-being. Drugs. Vitamins. All the other stuff, optional. Suzanne moseyed down an aisle toward the prescriptions counter, passing various remedies and bulbous contraptions. She gawked at them and shuddered, hoping she would never have a need for a rectal syringe. Opium constipates. She remembered the story of an eighteenth-century writer and his chronic opium use. Toward the end of his life he either vegetated in a narcotic daze or begged friends to give him enemas to relieve his packed intestines. Would Gordon give her an enema if she asked? Frank? Leslie or Pauline? No, save it for John and Jason, give them the privilege. She caught herself drifting into unsavoury territory.
Suzanne drummed on the prescriptions counter. Manny was busy instructing a customer about medication. Manny was like a loveable wisecracking bartender. He knew her. She felt valued and appreciated here. He cared about her. He gave her good advice, words to live by. Take NSAIDs with food. Take birth control pills before bed. Do not operate heavy machinery while on tranquillizers. Yes, he cared. He had finished with the customer.
“Yo, bartender!” she said.
Manny scowled. “What can I do for you today? And don’t call me a bartender.”
She produced a prescription from her jacket pocket. “I need drugs. It says so on this piece of paper.”
“It better not be written on a cocktail napkin, like last time.” He looked it over. “Ativan. Two milligrams?” He frowned at her. “Were you in a car accident?”
“Why do people always ask me if I was in a car accident?”
“This is strong stuff.”
“Well, I’ve had panic attacks lately. Dizziness. What’s new around here?”
He shook his head at the scrip. “Nothing much. Sabrina is still on maternity leave. She’ll be back soon.”
“Already? Has nine months gone by already? How about that.”
“Give me ten minutes.”
“Sure. So what else is new?”
Manny forced a smile and turned away from the counter. “Ten minutes,” he said with his back to her.
Once, on a slow day, Manny had talked at length about his life in the former Yugoslavia. You have no clue, he said to her. You were raised in this paradise. You were raised without hatred, without history. You don’t know from pogroms and ethnic cleansing. He grimaced when she kept getting the Serbs and Croats confused. No, she didn’t know, didn’t even know enough about Canada’s own history with indigenous peoples to offer a parallel of some kind. She felt humbled by the tragic stories only a countertop away. When Pierre Elliott Trudeau died some months earlier, Suzanne had rushed to Pharmasave to buy a newspaper. She fought back tears at the checkout counter as the coins fell from her hands. Trudeau was more than a touchstone of her youth, more than a great Prime Minister—he was one of Montreal’s true souls. Stifling a sob, she regarded the cashier. Guessing the South Asian woman was a new Canadian and eager to commiserate, Suzanne pointed at Trudeau’s picture.
“So sad,” Suzanne said. “The passing of Monsieur Trudeau.”
The cashier shrugged.
“Well, when you’re dead, you’re dead.”
A little stunned by the woman’s reply, Suzanne pressed on.
“Yes, he was a great Prime Minister, a citizen of the world.”
“Well, when your number’s up, that’s it.”
Disappointed by her remarks, Suzanne wiped away tears.
Crossing the street, clutching the newspaper, Suzanne had wondered what strife-ridden, war-torn hellhole the woman came from. What was the woman’s story? What had she seen in her life or have handed down to her that would make her so callous? Was human life for her a commodity with death an everyday reality rather than a remote glitch in the plans? It took a few days, but eventually Suzanne found the woman’s remarks very funny. Maybe she was a dyed-in-the-wool conservative and just hated Trudeau for the National Energy Program. This was Alberta, after all.
Now she glanced over at a blood pressure monitor and decided to kill some time checking hers. A panic attack had sent her to an emergency ward a couple of weeks earlier. While watching a violent, nonsensical movie at a downtown Cineplex, her feet had gone numb. After a few minutes the numbness had run up her legs, and her heart palpitated. Dolby THX sound shot around the theatre, gunfire ripping from every direction. Images cut from gun to explosion to bloodied people to fire. Her body in overdrive, she quietly left the cinema, hailed a cab and ever so calmly told the cab driver to get to a hospital in a hurry because she was having a heart attack. Panic attack, another hallmark of addiction, the pamphlets said. Oh well.
She slid into the seat, rolled up her sleeve and put her arm through the blood pressure mechanism. A cushioned strap slowly squeezed her arm, making her veins and arteries pulse. She watched with mild interest as the gauge flashed numbers. Suddenly, an image flared in her mind. Colin in the suicide cage. I’m ready now. Suzanne held her breath. Was he a virgin? The blood pressure reading beeped: 200 over 135.
“Miss Suzanne. Your prescription’s ready,” called Manny.
She stared at the blinking numbers. “Be right there. And don’t worry about putting it in a bag.”
CHAPTER 9—MANOEUVRE #2
She sat at a table in Earl’s, a western restaurant chain decorated with brightly coloured papier-mâché parrots perched throughout. Pauline had hesitated over the phone, but agreed to meet. She thought Pauline had been crying.
Suzanne browsed the menu and its deep-fried offerings. No reason to be nervous, she thought. You’re not on a date, if this is what it’s like to be on a date. Surfacing at the Home Depot while Colin worked, skulking around after dark until he finished—she didn’t consider that “dating.” A date consisted of awkward silences over mediocre food at a middling restaurant. Her eyes rested on a menu item: Fettuccini Alfredo with Shrimp and Red Peppers. She closed the menu and signalled for a waiter.
“Can I have a pint of beer, please. Anything on tap.”
“Will anyone be joining you?”
“Yes. Honest.”
After pacing in her apartment, Suzanne had worked up the nerve to call Pauline. She’d felt preposterous pacing the cramped space. It reminded her of two fish she had in childhood. The fish lived out their days in a tiny aquarium, a starter kit no one ever bothered to upgrade. All day, every day, the fat fish and the skinny fish glided and moped. For five years—a remarkable life span for variants of goldfish bought as an afterthought by a neglectful parent—the fat fish grew fatter and the skinny fish darted quicker. Some nights she’d lie on the top bunk and stare at the fish, their silent presence a cloudy comfort. The fat fish sat opaquely on the aquarium gravel as the skinny fish dashed. The image insinuated itself until it morphed over the years into an antipathy to marriage. Suzanne, the skinny fish, darted in her apartment, hands on head, panicking and realizing the need to do something. There would be no fat fish to blame for inaction.
A knit scarf dangled in her peripheral vision. She looked up to see Pauline standing over her. Suzanne cleared her throat and indicated the chair across from her.
“Hi, Pauline. How nice of you to come. Please have a seat.”
Suzanne cringed at her own formality. She couldn’t help herself at times, having ingested too much Masterpiece Theatre in her early years. She’d sit catatonic in front of the family TV, older brothers and sisters roaming the streets and parents drunk in bed. PBS on UHF was one of the only channels the family received. Appropriate that she should be shilling for public television, where she learned about class systems, boarding schools and unattainable privilege. “I say, old chap, pass the tartar sauce, pip pip, jolly good, what,” she’d say with an exaggerated British accent, amusing Jackie in grade school.
Pauline took a seat and placed her overstuffed bag on a chair. She removed her gloves and rubbed her hands together.
“Yeah. Cold, eh? What is it today, minus 21?” said Suzanne.
“It’s minus 18. Warming up.”
Pauline kept her coat on but removed her toque. Suzanne took a sip of beer and scrunched her toes. There would be no second beer, if she could help it.
“Have you ordered? The zucchini fingers are good,” said Pauline.
“Ah. Yes.”
“And the blooming onion.”
“Right.”
Pauline fingered her water glass. Suzanne looked up for some kind of divine inspiration. How to get the ball rolling?
Pauline ordered the spinach salad and Suzanne succumbed to her suggestion of zucchini fingers. Except for the wait staff and two other women dining, Pauline and Suzanne were alone. They avoided each other’s eyes. Suzanne would be the first to snap under the strained silence.
“Thanks for coming today, Pauline. I just thought that maybe we should talk.” Suzanne bit her lip and gnawed at it a while. “You know, this is awkward. The first time we’ve ever really chatted in what—”
“Three years,” Pauline said.
“How long have you worked at ABS?”
“I’ve been at ABS for fourteen years. Even wrote for Rooey in his heyday.”
“Rooey had a heyday?”
“You know his hair, the yellow tuft? I suggested it.”
Pauline sipped her water. She was an ABS lifer. Any dismantling of the system would likely kill her.
“Yeah, that Rooey. Boy. The kids love him,” said Suzanne.
Another uncomfortable lull.
“Look, uh, about the new regime at work. These people, they’re, they’re—”
“They’re from Toronto is what they are,” Pauline said.
Suzanne ignored the reflexive Toronto bashing. “Yeah. Now, things at membership have been okay. A grinding bore, sure, but okay. Do no harm. We have done no harm. We write scripts so that our fundraising host can ask viewers for donations. Not such a bad fate.”
“Hear hear!”
“Right.” Suzanne felt herself gearing up. “And now, now we’re being taken over by people who think in terms of profit margins and budget cutting. Not that that is such a bad thing, when you look at it from their point of view.” Desperation escalated. Suzanne felt defeated by her own ability to argue both sides of an issue, but continued.
“Look. They can’t get rid of us. They can’t just come in and tear down everything we’ve built all these years. They don’t care about public television. And now they’ve pitted us against each other, for their own amusement. Who does John Brady think he is, a Roman emperor?”
“Probably.”
“This won’t do. Let’s . . .” Suzanne forced the words. “Let’s fight back.”
Pauline reached for her bag. She pulled out some knitting needles and yarn. Suzanne didn’t understand Pauline’s fascination with knitting, but as far as nervous compulsions went, this one was harmless, much easier on the skin than obsessive hand washing.
“Fight back?” she said, resting the needles on the table, at the ready. “How?”
“By undermining that blockhead Jason. I don’t trust him. Or like him, for that matter. Call it instinct.”
Suzanne caught an image on a television over the bar. A CNN news story blared with a blond reporter doing a stand-up.
“See that guy?” Suzanne said, pointing at the television. “That’s who will represent ABS. Some fake blond-haired guy out to make a buck any way he can. That’s Jason.”
Pauline turned in her chair and looked at the television screen. “No, it’s not. That’s some man on CNN.”
Suzanne took a sip of beer. “Let’s make Jason look so bad the network will beg to bring back Lawrence. We have to prove that membership can’t be done on a shoestring.”
“But it is done on a shoestring.”
“It can’t be done on any more of a shoestring. We must convince them that we’re indispensable. They owe us more than shabby treatment and disrespect. Are you with me?”
Pauline picked at the spinach salad now in front of her. “You sound like Leslie.”
“Leslie is only in this for himself. Are you with me?”
Pauline twiddled a fork. “I suppose I am with you, in spirit. What are you going to do?”
Suzanne leaned in. “It’s what we’re going to do. I saw you crying at the meeting. I felt like crying, but I don’t know how to any more.”
“You saw that?”
“Yeah. It hurts being told you’re redundant.”
Pauline chewed her greens. Suzanne blotted the grease off her zucchini fingers. They ate pensively.
“So, what will we do?” asked Pauline.
“Let’s give Jason godawful scripts. Terrible. Full of lies. He won’t know the difference. He’s an idiot. Out of his depth.”
Pauline looked at Suzanne. “It’s embarrassing. You, having noticed me.”
“I didn’t notice so much as observe.”
“You almost cried, you know. When Frank told us there’d be no more coffee. Your hands were shaking.”
The two colleagues ate their lunch, the genesis of a bond forming.
CHAPTER 10—HAPPY NEW YEAR 2001
January in Edmonton. The Christmas holidays over and forgotten, the obligatory high spirits faked. She didn’t fly back east to see anyone. Jackie and Martin sent the annual Christmas clown figurine gift, a garish porcelain lump with a pearl finish. The clown reclined with head propped in hand as though reposing under a willow in a park. I am a relaxed clown. Xs for eyes. They had passed it back and forth to each other over the years. It was Suzanne’s turn to receive the clown. The Year of the Clown, 2001. Clown years were eventful years, the records proved. The last year she’d received the clown, bruises had started appearing on her legs. As amusing as she found exchanging the figurine, she feared what the clown would bring. Superstition started to play in her mind, a throwback to childhood days of kneeling in front of religious icons, praying for release. Out of perverse habit as a teenager she’d visit Mary Queen of the World Cathedral on what was Dorchester Street and sit transfixed by the votive candles glowing in front of different icons, prayers and petitions for health and peace, the faithful trying to slip in the back door by having Mary or Joseph intercede on their behalf. Jesus never struck Suzanne as the type who needed a referral first. God the Father she could see, but Jesus, that dreamy hobo? Such were the wonders of Catholicism and its elaborate rationalizations, her childhood religion still lying dormant, waiting to strike again. So she endowed the clown with powers it didn’t have and fretted needlessly at its arrival.
She received a few holiday cards from acquaintances in Toronto, PR types who had her on their mailing lists. She stayed in Edmonton, upset that the library shut down for a couple of days. Pauline asked her if she would be visiting family.
“I . . . well . . .”
Suzanne paused. What would she say, what could she say? That both parents were dead, bodies turned to stone by drink. That her six brothers and sisters, one dead, one in jail, and the rest tucked away in varying degrees of suburbia across the country, were strangers by choice and circumstance, having never truly bonded except for sharing gallows humour and the joyless duty of weekly church attendance as a family. Why bring it up? So many nights of seeing her siblings flee the sickening heartache of inebriated parents for the tribal comforts of the street, and her young self a petri dish of quivering impression, left alone to watch her mother mutter to herself at the kitchen table and see her father unconscious on the living room floor. Her futile attempts to reach them with her child’s love and the anguish of knowing that her parents were incapable of looking after their kids kept her still.
And in her parents’ place, attention and gifts from Mr. Audi, who made her stomach hurt. Some nights, scrunched in a tattered armchair in a forgotten corner of the old basement, listening to drunken arguments from upstairs, she wanted to sacrifice herself, to give her parents peace. Her adult self wanted Audi dead, but the ten-year-old under the layers of years wanted to reach for that moist hand, someone who gave her attention.
“I . . . have plans . . . Hey, what are you doing?”
She kept a low profile on New Year’s Eve. Wilma suggested she come along to the Nashville North for the Country Hoedown Countdown. “Just don’t go slamming into anybody,” she requested. Suzanne opted to stay in and watch an old war movie on ABS. She nursed a bottle of wine and lapsed into a comfortable self-pity.
Waking up New Year’s Day, grateful for feeling low-level dread instead of crippling remorse, she took a stroll around the Alberta Legislature grounds. Minus 16 with the sky streaked grey and pink; the stark wintry landscape uplifted her. These landscapes reminded her of Glenn Gould. He understood and celebrated the essence of the north. Sometimes she dreamed of strolling arm in arm with Mr. Gould, both wearing layers of tweed and wool, rejoicing in a frozen world. She fantasized about him sexually, the possibility of shedding those layers and the hidden warmth of skin and tender exploration, of sharing a bed. Not possible. Number one—his mind was consumed by music and morbid introspection; and number two—he was dead. Her ideal man.
