Had a gloriously unusual dream last night. I stood in the middle of a field just outside Saskatoon. I was naked. I looked at my feet but they didn’t hurt. My feet and hands grew more and more rigid and hooked. My skin glowed green and hardened to the consistency of a clam shell. My elbows acquired spines, teeth. I giggled as I bent them. My spine curved and sprouted sharp green wings. I kept giggling. I started making spitting noises, which spurred me into spitting laughter. My body stretched upwards and outwards; my joints made crackling sounds. I grew a hundred feet tall and became a giant praying mantis. I crouched and then exploded upwards, leaping a kilometre in a single bound. The power thrilled me. I landed on the highway and, out of elation, kicked over a semi. I swiped a Hummer out of my way. I jaunted through downtown Saskatoon and with my astonishingly telescopic eyes could see all the way to Toronto, where it was equally sunny and boisterous. People clapped for me in the street, even as I stomped on them. I guffawed in my spitting mantis way. I loved their admiration.
Windy this morning. High-pitched and whiny. Like the third string of a girl’s choir. When I woke up I rolled over and felt like I left a blotch of skin on the sheet. A pressure sore. Just above my keister. Stayed in the same spot for too long.
Not the first time I’ve had one in that spot. It hurts. I feel it as I brush against my chair: a dragging squeak, like when you rub your hand over plastic. Needed ointment rubbed into it. I have to keep adjusting in my chair throughout the day.
I loathe summers. They make me feel aimless. I have lots of work to do—papers to write, grants to apply for, classes to plan—but without the in-session bustle of the university, it’s difficult to conjure motivation. It’s easier to work when you’re surrounded by others working, and none of the other residents work.
Maggie gives me shit for living here. Well, not shit; guilt. She says I don’t have to. She was here the other day, a Timmy’s cup in her hand, sitting on my bed. I don’t like visiting out in the open, with the other residents watching.
Maggie. Fifty-three years old, divorced, works for the federal government. A year ago, she cropped her hair and dyed it red, and now it squats limply above her brow, like a rooster’s wattle. She always looks uncomfortable, her eyes swinging to and fro, her neck muscles jammed. When she wears pantsuits, she appears too official; when she wears hoodies, she looks like she’s forcing herself to be casual, like she hopes her clothes will dictate her mood. For her, self-consciousness seems to be a way of life, borne out of an insecurity that seems to have no source. She was confident and independent when we were younger; if I ever galled her, she harangued me with the rigid efficiency of a Chinese private school teacher. Now, our relationship floats on a wobbly current of guilt and antagonism. At best, we annoy each other; at worst, we privately nurse jagged outrages.
You’re a smart man, Maggie said. Surely you feel you don’t have to stay here. You’re not like them. I frowned. She asked me if I want to try living with her for a month or two. She lives in a small house with her son, Randal, a fifteen-year-old boy who aspires to be a pharmacist. A pharmacist, for god’s sakes. I told Maggie no. She dipped her head in that manner she has. Pouting without the lip. I don’t understand, she said. Sorry, I said. She looked at my curved feet. Are you in pain? Not really. I lifted my leg and scratched my calf. Can you even stand anymore? No. It hurts like hell when I do.
Maggie tilted her head. I felt the conversation veering toward physiotherapy, so I said I had work to do and escorted her out. Old Scratch scrunched his V-shaped face into a vile grimace as we passed him in the living room. Maggie saw him and, as she went out the door, asked me to think about living with her and Randal. I closed the door after her and turned to Old Scratch. Never get collagen, I told him. Your scowl is just perfect.
There are eleven residents in total; I hang around two or three of them. One of them is Old Scratch, and that’s simply because he doesn’t bullshit. I know he’s suspicious because I’m an academic, a thinker, and therefore I don’t belong in a home where people do little or nothing for themselves. It’s possible he hates me, which is strangely comforting. When he plays horseshoes in the modified pit on the grounds, I wheel up and watch. Plickety-plickety-plickety. He clenches the shoe too tight and often throws wide of the peg. He’s a competitive bastard and goes berserk when he misses. When he yells at me, his voice drags over some sort of mucousy concoction of phlegm, turpentine, and Fireball whiskey. Fuck off, he’ll say to me, glaring at the baseball cards jammed in my wheels. I’m just watching. You’re fuckin me up. Go home. This is my home, Old Scratch. Stop callin me that, you skinny twit. It’s just a nickname, a term of endearment. Go the fuck home. He’ll lift a horseshoe like he means to throw it at me. One of the staff will step in. Dr. Ripley, maybe it’s best you go inside. I pout a little and turn my chair. We’ll duel again, Old Scratch! Eeeeeegh! I glance back and he’s wheezing. The staff member scolds us both. As I go back inside, I realize that he seldom sees his family and spends his precious breath yelling at me. It’s an honour of sorts.
Reginald’s another resident whose company I enjoy. I call him Jeeves, after the P.G. Wodehouse character. While most of the other residents have run-of-the-mill disabilities—dementia, M.S., Alzheimer’s and the like—he has a unique condition, something called Korsakoff’s syndrome. His memory’s been permanently damaged by alcoholism. Nobody will tell me the exact cause, but his dense eyes and the constellations of gin blossoms on his face make it pretty obvious. To fill in the gaps, he makes up false memories. It’s endlessly entertaining. When I feel like it, I help him create memories. I’ll roll up to him and say, Jeeves, you remember you were telling me about when you worked for Trudeau? How many girls did he have while you were there? You get any on the side? Or, Jeeves, how many lions did you kill when you went hunting in Africa? Gertrude gives me shit for this. Leave him alone, Doctor. He’s using his imagination. It’s better than just leaving him vacuous in front of the TV. He has an extraordinary imagination. He could tell me what it smelled like in Africa. The grass was so dry it rattled in the wind, he said, like plastic almost. We saw giraffes first thing in the morning, a mother and her calf. (I looked it up online and saw that a giraffe baby is indeed called a calf.) He told me about the guide who drove him through the terrain and what the lion looked like when he shot it. I saw his eyes, he said. Two big globes. It was hot outside. No global warming or nothing then. Just pure heat. I stood up from my spot on the ground and walked over. He was still alive and I wanted to get closer. I came over the grass and saw his mane. His mane was all fluffy, no blood on it. His flank was a mess. I saw his ribs. He was huge. Four hundred pounds. He kinda rolled his giant head and blinked at me. Jeeves mimicked the movements he described, tilting his head and staring into space. I’ll never forget the sound he made, he said. Not as long as I live. I don’t know how to describe it but I haven’t heard a sound like that since. Jeeves shook his head. When was this. Nineteen-seventy-three. Before I got married. That lion’s eyes, two dark globes. They looked as big as my fist. I wanted to cup them in my hand. Jeeves started to cry. I left him alone, awed by the power of his imagination. He’d make the perfect actor.
Pressure sore’s acting up. Need to lie down.