Spring comes.
You want to ride your bike, but maybe if you don’t, then Daddy will come home and Mommy will get out of bed in the mornings and this time nobody will shout or throw hot cups of coffee at each other.
You walk to kindergarten and hope, every day, to come back to a house with both Mommy and Daddy in it.
Then Mommy notices you not riding the bike.
“We could have used that money,” she says. “We can’t just go buying bikes that we don’t ride. We’ll end up in the poor house.”
“Is that where Daddy went?”
“I told you not to mention his name.”
“Sorry, Mom.”
She will never understand why you’re not riding the bike, and if she did it would only make her cry, so the next day you get on it and ride down the block. As soon as you’re out of sight, you get off. You hope Daddy will understand that you had to ride it, just a little bit, and will still come back. He doesn’t.
In June, Grandma and Grandpa come to visit. You tell Grandma about Daddy being gone and Mommy sick and crying every day.
“I know, sweetheart,” Grandma says, and pats your shoulder. “But it will all be okay, you’ll see.”
You don’t think so. In case she doesn’t know, you tell her about Santa too.
Grandma looks at you, very serious, and tells you about God, who is like Santa, only without the presents and the red suit.
“He gives more important presents,” Grandma says, “like listening to your problems and helping you out when things are hard.”
You’re not sure about this, but you start talking to God sometimes. You ask Him to stop Mommy crying and eventually she does, only now she’s grumpy instead and has to go to work and comes home after your bedtime. You realize you liked it better before, because even if she was crying, at least she was home.
You also talk to God about Daddy coming back and you practice being small so you won’t bother him when he does. Grandma promised that God would answer your prayers, but when you turn six and Christmas comes again with no Daddy, you start to doubt.
Then one day in February, like a miracle, he’s back.
Only he smells funny and you have to visit him in an ugly place downtown. And he hardly ever smiles, and doesn’t talk, except to ask you why you don’t eat very much and why you’re such a quiet little thing. He doesn’t realize that you understand about money and you understand about mess and noise. You don’t need much and you can be very small and quiet. You hardly ride the bike and you’ve never asked Santa for anything else.
You sit next to him on his stinky couch every other weekend while he watches television and smokes cigarettes.
You’re not so sure you like the daddy God sent back and you’re not so sure you like the way He has been answering your prayers in general.
***
I leave Erik sprawled and vulnerable, and steal away into the pre-dawn light.
I’ve never liked seeing him asleep, never wanted to wake up with him, share breakfast, read the newspaper together or whatever it is that people do.
Erik and I are too intense, too different, and the things we have in common are the wrong things. We should never have spoken, never have touched, much less the rest of it.
On my way back across town I ask the taxi to stop so I can get myself a large black coffee.
At home, I stand under the shower and scrub him from my skin. I stay until I am pruny, but I will never be clean.
I am disgusting, pathetic, and weak. But what else is new? I wash my angst down the drain and turn the water off.
In the bedroom, I put on my customary uniform: pants, T-shirt, and cardigan, all black. Every item of clothing I own is black, navy or beige. Everything coordinates with everything else in my closet and each day I put on the next pair of pants in the row, the top T-shirt on the pile, and so on. Simple.
In the kitchen I make more coffee, force down a granola bar, and then walk out the kitchen door to my back-porch-turned-studio. I put on my smock, mix my colors, and sit down to work.
It’s 6 a.m. I start work every day at 6 a.m. If I haven’t slept because I was surfing the net, out late with Bernadette, or getting my brains fucked out by an emotionally damaged computer hacker, tough shit.
Up.
Showered.
Dressed.
Caffeinated.
Working.
Period.
The east-facing windows bring the morning light in threads. Later it will be so bright I will turn my easel backward.
I face the work before me and sigh. I would love to feel I am changing the world. I would love to think my work transfixed people, changed their perceptions of reality, moved them to tears, heroic action…any action.
It might have, once. In the early years of art college, I painted to express the depths of my soul. I wanted to be Frida Kahlo, with maybe a little Jackson Pollock thrown in. I painted like it mattered, like I could create something unique. People who knew about these things thought I had a Future.
Now I paint to soothe. I paint to banish the very emotions I used to channel because somewhere during my final two years, I got jaded and stopped believing—in art, love, happily-ever-after...and mostly in myself. All those feelings became too much for me; they began to burn me up. And so, here I am—far from Frida, or any other kind of greatness.
But I make a living. I crank out circles and squares, colorful geometrics that people buy to match their furniture, shapes with a logic that quiets my mind. Someone might be kind enough to call my paintings “Zen” and they might be moved to change the position of their couch, but that’s all.
By 4 p.m. I have finished the piece. Sapphire circles intertwine with smaller yellow and purple circles, all floating above a forest of sharp, triangular shapes.
I look at it with the satisfaction that it’s finished, but no other feeling, no opinion on whether or not it’s “good.” Done is what it is. I’ll call Sal to pick it up, and never think about it again.
“Five done, and it’s only mid-October,” I say to Sal’s voice mail. “Whatever else, you’ve got to admit I’m fast!”
There’s a message from Bernadette saying she’s coming over at 5:30. She never asks, just informs me, but she’s one of my few links to the outside world, so I don’t mind. As it is, I have my groceries and my art supplies delivered and payment from Sal comes via direct deposit, so I can hole myself up for weeks if I so desire.
“Do you think you might be agoraphobic?” Bernadette asked me once.
I shrugged, looked away.
“Honestly, do you ever go out when I’m not with you?”
“Sometimes,” I said.
“Like when?”
“I don’t know. Like...when I run out of toothpaste. And I go to Dad’s sometimes.”
“That doesn’t count,” Bernadette said. “I’m talking about going out, on purpose, to do things. Social things.”
“I’m social enough.”
“Right.”
“Bee, I’m fine.”
“If you say so.”
Of course, she was right. Not that I’m agoraphobic, but something is wrong with me. Something is wrong and it’s not getting better.
A trip outside, to the world beyond my front door, is fraught with peril for me, especially if I’m alone.
First, I don’t like crowds. Too many colors, too many smells and noises, too much being jostled, poked, looked at. Too many potential lunatics who might be carrying knives, guns, anthrax, who might have little girls locked in their basements, or be carrying the next SARS or avian flu virus.
Whenever I leave the house by myself, my mind assaults me with images of disaster. I see myself falling into manholes, being crushed by a falling building, tripping on concrete stairs, tumbling down. I imagine the doors of vans opening as I walk by and stocking-capped thieves or kidnappers grabbing me, hauling me inside. The van is soundproof and they torture me with pins and matches and don’t even ask for ransom—not that anyone would pay it.
I have a car, but I hate driving it. I just know I could lose control and mow down someone’s cat or dog, or worse, their child. Or I might crash into a telephone pole because the brakes have failed, have been cut. Arms broken, fingers mangled, lungs collapsed, death imminent.
And then there’s skin cancer, an expanding freckle caught too late, one week to live. Bug bites, malaria, smog, second-hand smoke, rabid raccoons, tainted beef.
And then, always, always, the tape plays where I step out in front of a car, a truck, the—
Oh, please not the streetcar.
Yes, the streetcar.
The streetcar going too fast, can’t stop in time, my legs frozen, body seized up, the thunk of metal on flesh, the trajectory of the body, airborne, the sickening sound of a skull cracked open, the smell of blood, the sight of it mixing with oil on the street, with hair, fragments of—
Stopstopstop!
But I see it all. I imagine it all, and know that it is possible. These things happen every day and they could happen to me. The proof is there, in my own life and on the news, which I probably shouldn’t watch.
I watch the news and read three newspapers online daily, and my fears expand outward, touching the people I love, tearing them away in senseless, violent tragedies while I stand, helpless, and watch.
It makes for a tense life.
I did look into agoraphobia. I called a hotline, spoke to a counselor. I agreed to join an agoraphobic support group she was starting, with fifteen others who had similar issues.
They offered to send someone to pick me up for the first meeting, but I declined. On a good day I can drive myself places, on a moderate-to-bad one I prefer a taxi.
I was the only one who showed up.
“I don’t think you’re agoraphobic,” the counselor said, and looked at the circle of empty chairs. “I guess there was a flaw in my plan.”
“Maybe. So, uh, what do you think is wrong with me?”
“An anxiety disorder of some kind,” she said. “But I’m not qualified to diagnose you. You should see a therapist.”
I went to see a therapist.
“Ego problem,” he said.
“What?”
“You think the world revolves around you, that you’ve been singled out for something special by God.”
“But—”
“Polluted animus,” he said. “You need to come twice a week, and I’ll try to clear you.”
“Sorry?”
“We’ll regress you and then do separation therapy.”
“Um...”
“I sense resistance, I sense confusion. Believe me, that’s the animus,” he said.
Right.
“Polluted,” he said.
Huh.
My giant ego, polluted animus and I went home and never came back.
***
Bernadette rings my doorbell at precisely 5:30. I open the door and she comes in and looks hard at me. She often looks at me like this, presumably making sure I haven’t flaked out, started drinking, lost my mind, etc.
“Have I grown an extra set of ears?”
“Funny,” she says. “How are you?”
“Fine.”
“Good,” she says, and then breezes past me into the front room. “We’re going out.”
Out. I haven’t been anywhere except to Erik’s in over two weeks. He should not be my only reason for contact with the outside world. It will be good for me to go out. That’s what I tell myself, anyway.
I grimace at Bernadette, which she correctly interprets as a “yes.”
“Get dressed,” she says.
“I am dressed.”
She gives my outfit a disparaging once-over.
“Right, I forgot, you’re Banana Republic’s answer to Goth.”
“You’re looking lovely,” I say.
Bernadette is looking lovely, actually, if you discount the bright green furry vest thing she has on. It looks like a psychedelic rat has landed on her chest and died there. Her wavy red bob has been tortured straight, and the rest of her ensemble—lace-up boots, tights, and a short dress—are all in a shade of periwinkle that makes her dark blue eyes seem purple.
Dress, make-up, and knee-high combat boots...uh oh.
“Bee?” I raise an eyebrow.
“I’m over it,” she says.
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
“Can’t pine forever.”
“I hope not,” I say. “It only lasted three weeks.”
“It was an intense three weeks,” she says.
“Sure. So what’s the plan?”
“We need to stop by the Struggles for Justice and Dignity fundraiser and then—”
“Oh no!” I say. “That sounds a lot like the Peace, Justice and Vegetables group.”
“No, no. This is Struggles for Justice and Dignity—no peace, no vegetables, totally different gang.”
“But...”
“This group is nice.”
“Yes, but—”
“And nobody will chuck tomatoes at you,” she says.
“Promise?” I ask. I rub my collarbone and recall being whacked by a juicy beefsteak.
“You should never have admitted to eating that hamburger,” Bernadette says, and starts to giggle. “You were really asking for it.”
“Hey, I thought those people were about tolerance.”
Bee snorts with laughter.
“Thanks for the support!” I say.
“Any time.” she says. “Oh, can you sign something?”
She whips a petition out of her purse and hands it to me. I peruse the page, making sure I agree with the cause, and am not committing myself to painting banners for the Left-Wing Used Book Sale or jogging for European Mobility Week like I did last year. Support the Toronto Humane Society, it says.
“Hard to argue with that,” I say, and sign my name.
Bernadette’s activism is an inspiration, but sometimes I wish she’d narrow her focus. I sign petitions, write letters to my member of parliament, and donate as much money as I can afford, but some of these organizations are seriously whacked. On top of that, my tolerance for rallies, fundraisers, and the singing of folk songs is nonexistent.
Bernadette is saving the world.
I can barely save myself.
“I promise we won’t stay long,” she says. She knows I dislike crowds. She doesn’t know they make me want to crawl out of my skin. “You can even stay in the car while I pop in.”
In the car alone or stuck in a crowd. Great options.
“I promise I’ll be, like, two seconds.”
I breathe. “Okay.” I’ll be fine. I’ll be with Bernadette.
“And then I’m buying you dinner, and don’t tell me you’ve eaten, because you never do.”
“I do so.”
“Whatever you say, Bones.”
I wince. I hate that nickname. It’s not my fault I’ve always been skinny, and it’s been years since I was that skinny.
In the bathroom, I pull my long, black hair into a ponytail, do a quick check to make sure I don’t have paint on my face and consider myself ready.
I find Bernadette in the studio, looking at my finished painting.
“What?” I say. “You don’t like it?”
“It’s fine,” she says. “It’s good.”
I shrug. “As long as Sal likes it.”
“And what if he doesn’t?” she says. “You get cut off?”
“Of course not, we have a deal.”
“What if I wanted to buy a piece from you?”
“You’d have to buy it from him. You know that.”
“Humph,” she says. “I don’t like it, the guy owns you.”
“Not me, just the work.”
She shakes her head and walks out of the studio.
“Forget it,” she says. “Let’s get going.”
“Okay.”
We get our shoes on and leave the house.
“Ready?” Bernadette says when she sees me standing at the door, not moving.
I give myself a shake and reach for the doorknob. “Ready.”
“Where are we having dinner?” I ask in the driveway.
“I thought we’d start with a cocktail at G-spot, go for dinner at Byzantium, and then see.”
I groan. “That’s not dinner, that’s bar hopping.”
“Don’t worry, it’ll be fun.”
I sigh. Just what I need, another tour of the bars of Toronto in search of a soul mate for Bernadette.