IT’S HARDER TO be lower on the social rung than morgue cleaner. You pull on your green shirt and pants, grab your mop and bucket, head downstairs for a quick joint with Smith against the ambient hum of the laundry machines and the smiling face of bug-eyed Mrs. Allarie, a saint for the workers, and then it’s limb-lugging time from the Operating Room, and the unlucky (or lucky) ones going for the big cover-up on their way to the cooler.
But, hospitals, you see, are filled with women — predigital women, sentient women — not #metoo, but #meneither. Who showed up to work looking like work was a lot safer than wherever they came from. The kind that save lives, or wipe grease or stand baking away in front of their ovens in subterranean kitchens, without anyone being any the wiser. We all end up seeing those women sooner or later, when it’s too late for us to make up for our past sins. And the only people who see these women day-in and day-out are those patients arriving for their last days and hours on this mortal coil, and then us, the men in green of St. Mary’s Catholic Hospital, the place of my birth, and the antechamber preceding the death of my father and no second chances, even if he was on the Board of Directors.
It also happens to be where my grandfather ended his days, although he preferred the Acid Room up the street at Hollywood Hospital, if you judge the length of his stay — a year and a half — a lot longer than Cary Grant, or Mark Vonnegut Jr., or anybody else with $600 to spare and ready to undergo the “cure” of the day, unless that is, you were a CIA agent.
The only men in the hospital — outside of Harder, with his kyphosis, and Auclair, who weighed in at under forty kilos, and Igor Julien, bald but for those three sweet pea hair curls draped on his butternut squash-skull, and scrubbedclean and starched Nazi escapee Bachman — were me, Smith and Philip. Philip the Dane, with his dense, innocent look and mincing lost orphan lisp that made women and the orderlies, old and young, coo; Smith with his conniving bad-boy DJ borderline smile; and me.
That left about two hundred women — nurses, cooks, tray-girls, cleaning staff, the dietary girls under the thumb of Miss de Haan who sang achterhoek ditties while driving the staff batty with her Dutch reformed maxims, the laundrywomen, the X-ray techs, the respiratory technologists. The two departments where oestrogen was bursting out of their barely buttoned uniforms was Dietary — the kitchens that had to crank out meals and snacks and drinks to everyone from the diabetics to the dying — and the laundry room, where the string of chutes emptied out piles of soiled clothing from the incontinent sick, and the hum of the machines, and the spin of the dryers, and the hardness of the older staff created a hybrid of oppression and defiance that drove the women’s temperatures through the roof. And, us just like a small cluster of hard-shelled bugs moving from eugenic orifice to hive to nesting ground to feed the collective need, the crustacean men in green, scuttling and skulking in the corridors, then dragging the mops and squeegees, or dragging the amputated limbs or dragging ourselves, or ducking into corners until we could find our way back to the lounge and prepare for our 2:30 exit for life on the river.
One of the dietary girls, a biker Smith knew from Chilliwack, was friendly, and he’d warned all of us off her. Something about her whipping city councillors and living with a monster named Thos who took pictures for blackmail purposes. Smith called her “the black widow,” and said she’d buried a couple of men in the backyard silo of her father, a pig farmer near Chilliwack. But there was another one, with a lazy smile and thick sandy hair to her shoulders, and a low-slung butt that moved nice and slow, with that country Abbotsford gait, a Mennonite girl named Louella who talked about nothing but horses, and who I’d caught looking my way in the cafeteria, so I took a shot. She was by herself checking the union bulletin board out in the hallway. Some guy dropped her off in the morning, but she looked sullen, shutting the door without looking back.
“Hey, Louella.”
“Say hey back,” she responded, smiling like she knew I’d say hi to her. She had that Valley Mennonite farm girl way of answering real slow, pronouncing every syllable as if she were opening a gate into her yard. Smith had told me, just keep saying her name, she loves that. Don’t ask me why.
“Smith told me you liked horses, Louella. That true?”
“Don’t like ‘em. Love ‘em.”
“I’m going to the track tomorrow night. You like the races, Louella?”
“Sure. Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“You think I’m deaf or something?”
“No.”
“Then, why do you keep saying my name? Havin’ trouble rememberin’ it?”
“Never mind.”
“I’ll tell you never. I never been to Exhibition Park racetrack.”
“Nine-race card. Got a trifactor race or two.”
She laughed.
“You can’t make shit with those crooks. It’s rigged.”
“I got a system.”
“Sure you do,” she said, again laughing. “All those geniuses got a system. Why wouldn’t you?”
“So, that’s a yes?”
“Course it’s a yes, cowboy. Long as you don’t call me Louella every three words.”
“Okay, Louella.”
Just like that. Next day, I picked her up after my shift, and we left for Hastings Park in my 400-four-barrel Grand Prix, what I called the “conversation stopper.” Girls loved that car, my family hated it. It opened up big possibilities, but it was a hell of a gas-eater.
“What’s a judge’s son doing driving a grease machine anyways?”
As an answer I just gassed it and let her feel the rude thrust of that engine. It was like the road was sucking us into space. That monster was the answer to all my problems on all fronts. It solved everything for the time being.
“Oh, this beast purrs, don’t it?” she said, and I could tell by that smile what the beast was doing for her, what it did for me, making me feel things again.
“This beast is a moral outrage not fit for the decent, Louella.”
“What’s a daddy’s boy like you know about horses?”
“This daddy knows shit about horses, and a fair bit about betting. That makes us a team.”
“Sure, you got a system, right?”
“You bet. You pick the bad horses, OK? Just the bad ones. And there’s lots of game horses at this racetrack. It’s run by crooks. That should even the odds.”
“You’re on, cowboy, let’s do it!”
Once up in the bleachers with a couple of sudsy lagers in plastic glasses, Louella checked the race card names I’d ticked off.
“Take Waikiki Willie off your list.”
“I thought so. What’s wrong?”
“His fekkin neck is gibbled, that’s what’s wrong. Willie’s ready for just about anything except running. But lookee here. See that Salmon Ella, she’s okay.”
“She hasn’t been trotted out yet.”
“Don’t care, I know her owner. She won’t let you down.”
So, I laid bets, backing Salmon Ella, Stud Squared and Humma-Humma on some straight ahead shows and wins, a quinella and the daily double. It was like walking into a Bukowski story. And now we were back in the Grand Prix, and Louella is pulling at my jeans right there in the parking lot. That afternoon came too easy. It was enjoyment on the instalment plan. Later she said:
“Oh, damn, you make me laugh and smile like I haven’t in a long time.”
This day felt like something new and different, like being let out on a daypass from the conventions of my past. I didn’t hate my father anymore for trying to stuff me in a box of conformity while he golfed, curled, played tennis with his pals, or served on his boards while I was hossing body parts.
“That’s good, real good.”
“Girl like me doesn’t deserve that kind of fun.”
“What are you on about? Everybody has to have fun.”
“Not me.”
“Why not you?”
“I hear it every day and every night. Heard it since the day I was born.”
Then she grew quiet, and started looking out the window as I drove along the 97 south towards the Valley.
“I shouldn’a done that,” she said to the air outside.
“Done what?”
She smiled.
“Maybe we should run away, you and me.”
“No, that’s a bad idea.”
Then, suddenly she became irate.
“What, you think somebody like me can just do this?”
“What do what?” I said stupidly.
“He is gonna kill me.”
“Who he?”
“Thos.”
“Thos? The Thos?”
“Insofar as Thos is Timmy’s bro, sure, that Thos.”
“And who’s this Timmy?”
“He’d be my husband.”
“That guy who drops you off in the morning.”
“One and the same.”
“You’re married to him?”
She turns her gaze back out the window, and I’m starting to get that this isn’t just pass go and collect your $200. More like you’ve read the Chance card, and it’s straight to jail.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me you’re married?”
“Don’t look at me like that. You just know you wouldn’a taken me to the races. Zero chance of that.”
“Just don’t say anything. Play it by ear.”
“Nothing! I’ll say!”
“It’s not like he’ll kill you.”
“No, he won’t prob’ly. Thos’ll beat me to an inch of my life, but he won’t kill me. He’s crazy, but he’s cunning too. He’ll want me to feel the pain.”
“Good. Sorry, what I mean is not good, but it’s a start.”
“He’ll kill you, though. Thos kills men, and he never gets caught. So, first he’s gonna know, and second, he’s gonna thrash me good, and third you’re as good as dead.”
“Shit. Shit!”
That triggered a funereal laugh.
“You know what Thos does, like one hundred per cent of the time to guys like you.”
“Excuse, me, guys like me?”
“The toilet bowl treatment ... sticks your head down a toilet. And holds there until ...”
“Until what?”
“Just until.”
The next day, I noticed Thos sitting in that canary-yellow Ford Fairlane convertible of his, with the push-button transmission, parked in the visitors’ section — Thos long and reedy, with a curved back, and mean as a reptile, and I could see he was holding something in his hand.
I walked towards the convertible, couldn’t take my eyes of that rhythmic metronome of his hand tapping something on his dashboard, his face ugly as a garter snake, sucking on a cigarette. When I was sure I’d entered his field of vision, I crossed myself and prayed: “Just get me through this, and I’m yours again. That’s a promise.” And, then, as if I’d just noticed him:
“Brother, may I share with you?”
He kicked the passenger side door open.
“In. Now.”
“Peace and may the Lord be with you, brother.”
I could now clearly see the billy club in his hand, and Thos with a voice like his nose was permanently plugged.
“Thuh fuck you doin’ with Timmy’s girl?”
“Louella has spoken to me of you, of your importance and of her suffering.”
“Yeah, what the fuck you talkin’ about?”
“Tell me, has her deaf cousin’s condition improved?”
“Who’d that be?”
“Ah. Louella has chosen to spare you pain. I’m not surprised. Not in the least.”
I noticed the billy club had stopped banging against the dashboard.
“You a goddam bible thumper?”
“Jesus needs no thumping, Thos. Our saviour is a selfpropelling thumper.”
Thos looked at me and spat in my face. A real goober. I didn’t move and allowed the spittle to run down my face.
“God be with you, Thos. And, listen to the wisdom of the girl.”
By my calculation, I’d bought about forty-eight hours. I dropped by the old man’s for a visit.
“Dad, I’ve been thinking about law school.”
“Good.”
“About how I’m not ready.”
“Son, no one is ready for law school. It’s a form of don’t take this word in the wrong spirit, but it’s a form of indoctrination. It teaches you a new way of thinking. And it’s invaluable.”
“Well, there’s more to it than that for me. I have to know what I’m using it for. And, I’ve got a plan.”
I could see the disappointment, and it cut deep. But there was no way I could explain Thos.
“Dad, remember the letter you wrote me when I was in Leuven? About the great political philosophers in Europe? Well, I’ve been accepted at the Sorbonne. In history.”
“Why didn’t you say so? Hurrah!”
I’ll say hurrah. Ten thousand clicks away from Thos the monster hurrah.
Smith lost his job, then went crazy a while after that. The mushrooms he engorged daily warped all his neural synapses. The Ponzi scheme he ran out of 4 North didn’t help his case either. Mrs. Allarie, bless her beautiful soul, eased Smith out of his job and he moved to his natural habitat — Riverview Mental Hospital, and a full slate of antipsychotics.
Since that time, a lot of people have wondered what strange elixir or spell had pulled me over to Paris. Except that it was one hundred per cent push. The reason I ended up at Paris IV-Sorbonne was lurking in his canary-yellow Ford Fairlane convertible, with no end of time on his hands, waiting to do the toilet bowl treatment, free of charge.
About a decade later, I was lunching with Guylaine Drolet, the founder of the Agence Code advertising agency, when she said I reminded her of The Big Lebowski, a film popular then, so I decided to check it out. The Big Lebowski opens with two strong-arm dudes sticking Lebowski’s head down a toilet bowl. That kind of brought me back to Thos. But, even going into exile at the Sorbonne didn’t change anything. There’s a rule about life. Either everything’s a coincidence or nothing’s a coincidence. Either there’s a law of karma or there’s not. Either way, sooner or later, I was going to get the toilet bowl treatment. I was starting to get toileto-phobic.