SCENE 14:

Thrown off the Wagon

Autumn 1968

Loddy became even more consumed by food. Boxes of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese lined her pantry shelves again, and the weight she had worked so hard to lose returned with a vengeance. Alma called and there was that familiar incomprehensible frenzy of distress punctuated with calls to the Lord: “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” Bettina had a relapse and was back in hospital. Loddy downed four chocolate donuts and hurried to her sister’s bedside.

“Well, I guess this is one way of getting out of telling Maw you want to be a poet. Like, kind of drastic, don’t you think?”

No response from the bed; only the beep from the heart monitor and the occasional disquieting cry from the room across the hall. Loddy held a vigil for an hour, hypnotized by the chest of the emaciated doll, its rise and fall, and when she twisted round to leave, Alma, in a fit of nerves, burst into the room. Smart and dapper in her Sunday best, she was a study in the comfort and practicality of knitwear — coat, dress, matching cloche, gloves and scarf, a vision in two-ply wool, the colour beige.

“Like, I think the more Alma goes crazy, the faster she knits,” Loddy had once confided to Ulu.

She hadn’t seen Alma since June when the three had gathered in front of the television with trays of salami on rye, pickles on the side, and a jar of prepared mustard to watch Pierre Elliot Trudeau become the 15th Prime Minister of Canada. Loddy had accompanied Dewey the previous day, Saint-Jean Baptiste, to capture the parade on film. An ocean of giant fleur-de-lis flags flooded Dorchester Blvd. and chants of “Québec Libre” became a rallying call again. Rioters turned the celebration into a rainstorm of bottles and rocks directed at Trudeau who stoically remained in the grandstand defying his security. Loddy, in a show of trust, followed Dewey as they threaded their way into the mob.

“He’s not leaving, Dewey. Shit. He’s going to get killed just like Robert Kennedy. I just know it.”

“Got to admire the guy’s guts,” Dewey said as he pointed his lens at the viewing stand.

The following day, Trudeau won the election. Alma thanked the Lord by lighting a votive candle at the shrine of the Blessed Virgin Mary at her parish church, Our Lady Gate of Dawn.

The rest of the summer for Loddy was an eating marathon of ice cream and pizzas and some rare work at The Garage Theatre. Samuel now mostly rented out the theatre to amateur drama groups, or for corporate and family affairs. She broke down and registered with a temp agency as a typist to supplement her meagre income while ignoring Fury’s insistent phone calls.

On this day, Loddy had planned a day-trip with Ulu and Dewey to the fruit orchards in Hemmingford. It was a yearly event, one of life’s joyous moments in her otherwise vacuous existence. The air, rich with the heady sprays of cider and plump crunchy apples, always had a hypnotic, almost meditative effect. Ladders, solid and square, leaned against tree trunks; crooked branches, heavy with produce, bowed towards the earth as though ducking in anticipation of the next storm. Loddy didn’t ask much from life, and grabbed pieces of heaven wherever she could. Today, heaven would have to wait. Alma had called.

“She go up the stairs and then fell. How she hurt herself so bad, Loddy?” Alma said, greeting her outside Bettina’s hospital room.

“The doctor said she had a minor stroke but she’ll be okay.”

“What? She too young.”

“Maw, she fooled us again. She lost too much weight and damaged her heart.”

“Her heart?”

“Good you’re here, Maw. You don’t need me.”

“Where you go? Loddy! Where you go?”

She was already at the elevators, and Alma, a muffle of desperate words. The door slid shut just in time.

xxx

Loddy wandered along Pine Avenue, past the Ernest Cormier house with its Art Deco architecture, past the old mansions, now refurbished rooming houses for students and young professionals, past the high-rise where Percy lived. She could have dropped by as the invitation always stood, but she didn’t want any consolation from a friend. If Loddy could settle anywhere in Montreal, it would be on this street, in the proximity of the mountain, with a view of the city below. Maybe one day, she thought. Right now something sweet and rich with calories would suffice.

“Black Forest Cake. Make it a double,” she told the waitress at Dunn’s as though she were ordering martinis.

Two giant slices presented themselves. She tore into the first as though she had just returned from a Hindu fast in the Himalayas, but force-fed the second. It occurred to her that’s what farmers do to their pigs to fatten them up for market. Loddy rolled herself out of Dunn’s, drunk on whipped cream, chocolate curls and cherries and continued her gluttonous journey towards St. Lawrence Boulevard, crossing that invisible divide that defined cultures, and shuffled into the Montreal Pool Room. She figured the walk alone had burned enough calories to warrant a hot dog, aka steamie, and fries, real potatoes soaked in oil and dribbling in kosher salt. Vinegar and ketchup seeped through the brown paper bag and enhanced the flavour even more. As a child, Alma had brought her to the Main every Saturday to purchase European products, Baltic bread or Polish kielbasa. Every Christmas, they shopped for fabric and other non-perishable goods for shipment to Alma’s sister and her family in Lithuania.

Loddy’s last stop was Verdun, Woodland’s restaurant, and there she ordered two medium all-dressed pizzas to go, then took the bus to Alma’s. She wanted to die. Like Bettina, food was her weapon of choice.

xxx

Winter 1968

The scene: a New Year’s Eve party at Samuel and Marvel’s apartment on Park Avenue. The end of a terrible year when the world witnessed too much violence, too many political assassinations, protests against the war in Vietnam, student riots, civil rights marches, terrorists, and killings. Loddy’s theory was that for every bad year, the following one would be better; a semblance of hope as one year collapsed into a new one. This time, she wasn’t sure.

Since the fire and Bettina’s relapse, she had become a recluse, cloistering herself like a nun in her basement flat, befriending the cockroaches, consuming boxes of macaroni and cheese drowned in ketchup while the TV distracted her in a derby of daytime soaps. She ventured out for the odd secretarial assignment the temp agency threw her way and, on occasion, she assisted Rita at the box office. She had quit Marvel’s dance classes and was again back to square one. She didn’t care.

“Loddy, sweetie, I’m so disappointed in you. You were doing so well.” Marvel had tried to provoke a return to class; instead, in defiance, Loddy absent-mindedly piled on more food and regained all the weight she had lost.

She had also received an invitation to the New Year’s Eve bash, but had debated its merits. Her plan was to usher in 1969 with a bottle of Sparkling Duck, and a large pepperoni pizza, while watching the ball drop at midnight in Times Square. Dewey and Ulu failed to convince her to go with them.

“Like, I’ll let you guys know, okay?”

Worried, they had checked on Loddy as they headed to the party and found her sloshed on the floor among empty pizza boxes and ice cream containers. Ulu tidied her up and dressed her in an embroidered scarlet caftan à la Cass Elliot, the only clean garment in her closet.

“I’ll come, okay, okay,” she said as they drove off in a taxi. “But don’t ask me to be sociable.”

xxx

Loddy curled up in an armchair near the kitchen, a glass of wine in one hand and a red stripe candy cane in the other. She held it between her fingers like a cigarette and, from time to time, she would dip it into the goblet as though it were a plastic straw, stir the wine and suck on its alcoholic sweetness. The room was a snuff box of incense, exotic perfumes, after shave, and other dubious fumes co-mingling with tobacco smoke. An orderly display of reefers in crystal candy bowls like so many toothpicks begged to be smoked.

Samuel and Marvel were renowned for their open house New Year’s Eve parties, always inviting an eclectic mix of Montrealers — drag queens, authors, dancers, musicians, actors, artists, businessmen, furriers, clothing manufacturers from Chabanel Street, and they never sent away any stranger who might wander in from the street. After all, it was the season to be merry and benevolent.

Stanley and Aretha, dressed in tuxedoes, resembled the Bobbsie twins on their way to the Academy Awards; Percy and his date, one of his drama students, reclined on a chaise lounge in an intellectual fornication of minds; Danny made an appearance with a new model on his arm, this time a male companion.

“He’s finally come out of the closet,” Stanley announced to the partygoers amid a tinkling of champagne glasses, begging for a kiss between the newly formed couple.

Over the years, Marvel and Samuel had set up a Christmas tradition exchanging toys with each other to make up for their deprived childhoods. Some of the guests played with the presents — a hoola hoop, a slinky, Barbie doll, yo-yo, hot wheels and a train set that encircled the tree.

Jacob tinkled on the piano as guests gathered in groups to sing holiday songs, a scene from It’s a Wonderful Life, a photo op. A few minutes into White Christmas and Marvel was bored enough to switch on some taped music. The cacophony gave Loddy a major headache and she was about to leave when Percy got in the way.

“Ho, there. You’re looking gloomy girl for the last day of the year.”

“There was nothing good about this year. Glad it’s over.”

“Well, cheer up Loddy-Dah. I bring thee tidings of great joy for 1969.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Loosen up there. Samuel’s giving me three one-act plays for my directorial debut and I want you to be in one of them.”

“Like, really.”

“Lookie, if you don’t believe me, ask Samuel.”

“Any lines for me?” Loddy deadpanned with a now familiar cynicism.

“Nope, but ...”

“Yeah, thought so. Shall I bring along my tambourine, then?”

“Loddy, you didn’t let me finish. No lines but it’s all reacting on your part and that’s the hardest thing to do. A two-character deal. A Canadian play. You’ll be fabulous, girl.”

“Like, tell me about it tomorrow when you’re sober. I’m going. Excuse me.”

She had made a U-turn in the direction of the bedroom to gather her coat when she saw Fury in the foyer. He had just come in from winter, snow melting, dripping from his hair, jacket, gloves and boots. She bolted for the bedroom, hoping he hadn’t seen her. When she flicked on the lights, she was startled to find a man and woman, strangers to Loddy, wrapped only in nakedness, asleep on top of the coats on the bed. She was rummaging for her poncho when she felt a presence behind her.

“Should let them sleep. Rodin would have loved their pose.”

She spun around.

“Fury, I was just leaving.” Like a magician on The Ed Sullivan Show swiping a tablecloth without upsetting the dinnerware, she jerked her poncho from under the two sleeping beauties and lurched towards the door. But he stopped her and dimmed the bedroom light.

“Oh, but you can’t go, it’s almost midnight.”

Before she could protest, her words were drowned out by the deafening countdown to the New Year, a fresh start like a new diet every Monday.

“10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1. Happy New Year!”

“Let’s get this year right,” someone shouted, followed by a chorus of celebratory hollers.

Marvel increased the volume on the record player. Everybody gave themselves permission to smooch with nearby friends and strangers, blow on noisemakers or whistles, puncture balloons until eardrums burst, and dance until their feet burned in agony. After all, it was a fresh untarnished year, a clean slate, another chance to get it right. Fury linked his arm around Loddy’s thick waist. With a tenderness bordering on innocence, he teased his lips against hers and then, full out with sudden abandon, deep and sensual.

“Rubens’ Model. Got you now.” Fury replayed the scene, this time without any preamble.

When he released her, Loddy appeared stupefied. Someone showered the room with confetti and it swirled around them as though they had just won the jackpot. She laughed and jumped, up and down, up and down, like a circus clown on a pogo stick, giddy with the absurdity of the situation, a continuous skip until she began to hyperventilate and fainted from the excitement. This time Fury was there to catch her.