Corked (6 page)

We finished our water and as we exited the breakfast room, I crammed five packages of toasts into my pockets.

“Don't crush them, Tootsie!”

Wrenching my eyelids up as far as they would go, I rolled my eyeballs at him in a sweeping, slow-motion rainbow arc. I skittered down the hall and around the corner, pretending I was being pursued by the authorities. I could tap dance us out of this funk. When I stopped and rounded the corner to see if he was following me, to see if he was laughing at my joke, I instead saw him leaning his shoulder on the hallway's ornate cream-and-yellow wallpaper, eyes closed and heaving breath.

At the checkout desk, my father caused a thunderstorm. I caught the odd word, mostly coming from my dad, as he was the unit who was raising his voice. He was leaning over the desk in a predatory manner, eyes fixed on the hapless front-desk clerk, who was very clearly wishing himself dead at that particular moment. The clerk's posture indicated some godly hand had ripped out four or five of his vertebrae. I heard rumblings in French, then “[French swear word] CHICKEN!…[more French swear words], AUDACIOUSNESS OF THE ROOM SERVICE WAITER!”…[some hand-on-desk slamming], “MOSQUITOES!!” I skulked around the concierge desk.
Does he think this expended energy is worth it?

It's no help that I, on the other hand, live in fear that my mistreatment of a waiter, or a salesclerk, or a taxi driver, will automatically result in that person being declared the Master of the Known Universe by some cruel (but fair) cabal and I will spend the rest of my days being fed a diet of garbage slurry and mashed-up Madagascar cockroaches, naked, while being cattle-prodded by zombie-ghosts with melting faces in bloody army attire.

My deficit of balls and spine was especially clear a while back after I had purchased a plug-in vibrator from an upscale Toronto sex shop. One November night, I climbed into bed, sans Matthew. I reached over for my electric equivalent, propped up my knees under the comforter, and flicked the switch. Immediately there was a searing heat, an incandescent blast, and a muffled popping sound. Leaping out of bed, I threw the vibrator across the room, threw off the blanket and used a pillow to snuff out the little orange-tinged burn holes in the fitted sheet, which were spreading like islands at low tide. Save for a small singe on my upper thigh, my parts were intact, including those identifying me as a woman.

On the Internet, I found an e-mail address for the head of the crisis-management team of the vibrator company and sent him a note, explaining the tragic demise of my apparatus, my sheets, my comforter, and my leg. My intent was not litigious. I just figured they should know, lest it happened again. Instead of kicking off the letter in a tone that corresponded with my level of trauma (righteous indignation, drunken rage, manic distress), the first words I typed out were:

Dear Sir
,

I apologize for bothering you with such a ridiculous claim, but
…

After much hemming and
ehmming
and protestations of “Oh no, I couldn't possibly…,” the manager forced me to accept a $2,000 cash settlement. I used it to pay off my Visa bill, and to buy a modest new vibrator that operated on double-A batteries. I didn't deserve $2,000 for a story that ended up being a great joke to tell at baby showers. Now I fear I will suffer karmic retribution for accepting the money. I believe in karma only when it's bound to work against me. As far as I'm concerned, my karmic account has always, always been in the red, or at least since February 2001.

A copy of the bill appeared on the mottled gray-and-white marble of the checkout counter. I watched my father sign it with a victorious flourish, his face comically stony. He jabbed the pen down at the end of his signature—a huffy punctuation that said, “It is unwise to fuck with me, my friend.” As I collected our bags, I noticed most of the staff—the other desk agents, the bellhops, one valet—were stealing glances at my father, at one another, and at me. Suddenly, I became
so
engrossed in gathering all the luggage, as though I were, in fact, my dad's
aide-de-camp
and not a blood relation.

He strode toward me, grinning.

“Let's go. Heheh.”

“What?” I asked, averting my eyes from his like a good Sherpa.

“They gave us free breakfast,” he said. He was delighted with himself.

“Victory for the Borels,” I said somberly.

“Don't start with me,” he said.

“I'm not starting with you. It's fine. I don't think your behavior is necessary sometimes.”

“The chicken was not cooked. It was not cooked in the middle. It was pink.”

“I know. I saw it, but there's a way of saying it without being a total assho—.” I stopped myself. My father doesn't like it when I call him names like “asshole.” He thinks it is disagreeable.

“I'm trying to help with the service. I am doing them a favor.”

“By yelling at them about mosquitoes during mosquito season?”

“Hotels should have screens on the windows. Look at your eye, Tootsie!”

“Fine.” Moderately satisfied with his violent benevolence, I dragged the luggage out to the parking lot.
The content of his complaint is correct, but the form is not
. To decompress, I threw everything into the trunk, quickly, messily, as though I were playing a psychotic game of Tetris. All the items smashed against one another and filled the back of the car.

Hours ago, I had woken up missing Matthew. I'd wanted to smell his scent. He always chose the cleanest fragrances to put all over his body. His shampoo and deodorant and pH levels married flawlessly, causing him to emit classy fragrances from his hair and flesh. Speed Stick and the lightest perspiration. When we embraced, my head fit right into the nook where his gorgeously defined shoulder met his graceful collarbone. I loved this and would breathe him in like a junkie when he brought me in for a hug. Much of our relationship revolved around commiseration, and I wondered if all the existential complaining I did was really just an excuse to bury my face safely in his armpit to smell that smell.

But Matthew punched walls. He was depressed in the same way I was depressed after my accident. The difference between us was that he was never as adept at finding the joke, and his depression seemed perennial. He didn't laugh easily at his own sadness, at the big gag that was life. So when he'd get too drunk, he'd run away from me and go on a punching rampage. Four months before this wine trip, I'd organized a dinner party at my house. Matthew had received a bad haircut that day and felt poorly about himself as a result. He could have participated in the conversations around the table, in the fetching and pouring of the wine I carefully selected, in the serving and taking away of the plates, but he was too self-conscious, too dejected. His hair became the awkward symbol of everything else that was wrong—his basement apartment, his relationships with his other friends, his insecurities about not holding a university degree and working a menial job at CBC, pushing around metal carts full of technical equipment and booking radio studios in England for the national correspondents. He eventually left, in the middle of my party, without saying goodbye. He just walked out my front door.

In the kitchen, I was topping off sundaes with crushed candied pecans and ground-up espresso beans. When I made my entrance into my dining room, proudly holding the platter of desserts, he had disappeared. I had noticed, but no one else had, and so the party continued. I faked my way through the enjoyment of my sundae, the late bottle of vintage Port, the absurd drunken conversation about how our lives would be different if there were tigers on the loose in the city. The following day, Matthew and I met for a late-afternoon meal of sandwiches, and I saw that his right fist was swollen and scabby on the knuckles. I said, “Matty, what the…?” and he said, “Uh, right. Yes. This. I left your place and put my hand through a shed in one of the alleys behind your house, on my way home.” I wanted to tell him how hurt and embarrassed I'd been. How humiliating and sad it was for my boyfriend to get up and leave in the middle of a dinner party. But he was bleeding. His hand was the size of a cantaloupe, splintery and torn up, so I lined up my finger with the bridge of his nose and stroked that. Then I stroked his bruised hand until my doomed love for him returned.

I will not miss Matthew. I will drive the car to Alsace
. And so I drove. We drove in silence. My father asked for the stolen toasts. I pulled the crumpled packages out of the various pockets of my army pants and asked him if he was feeling any better—better enough for our tastings. He chewed thoughtfully. He took a few more bites. This caused him to liven up for a little while. He finally nodded and said, “I think so. I think it will be fine.” Relieved, I sang the opening bars to “La Mer,” by Charles Trenet. He wiped the crumbs off his shirt and joined me. We didn't know any of the words beyond “
La mer
…,” so we filled in the rest of the words with swooning babble. “
La mer…da da da daaaaa…da da…da da da da…da da da DA da da da DAAAAAAA da da da da da da…da da daaaaaa…da
.” We drove for several hours, taking a wrong turn and looping back, stopping every now and again for water, for anti-nausea pills for him and antihistamines for me. The houses on the side of the road began looking more German, as if they were made of gingerbread. Town names went from two syllables to seven syllables.

“Tootsie, pull over, please,” he said.

I took my eyes off the road for one second and noticed the skin tone of my father's face. It was similar to that of wet Silly Putty.

“Oh, fuck.”

I skidded the car to a halt on the road's pebbly shoulder; he threw open the door and sprayed vomit all over the ferns.

I think seeing your own dad vomit is worse than seeing him cry.

As he was heaving, I resisted the urge to reach out and pat the back of his neck. No one likes to be touched in mid-purge. His back contracted spasmodically, then he went slack, hanging his head between his knees. Every trace of small-child anger dissolved. I thought of him at the bottom of the cellar stairs—so helpless. My little crumpled human croissant, breathing softly, in and out.

Suddenly, he ducked back into the car, clapped his hands twice on the dashboard,
paf paf
, and said, “
Allez-hop!
”, which is French for “Let's get the hell out of here!”

Claude Monet had painted the dusk outside the windshield, done up in chunks of the more effeminate Crayola colors—periwinkle blue and rose and torch red and orchid. Sprawling out in front of us, it was an arresting scene. My eyes were bleary from six hours of watching asphalt and horizon. Road signs slurred by, green and white.

“Okay, Dad, we need to focus.”

“The place is called Hotel Arnold. In Itterswiller,” he stated robotically.

“Have you seen a sign for Itterswiller?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

“Look on the map.”

“It's not on the map.”

“Um…”

“I have other directions,” he offered.

“Perfect.”

“Did we pass Barr?”

“I don't know.”

“Take a left.”

I turned.

“Now what?” I clamped my teeth together. The anger crept back inside me.

“Look for the sign for Andlau.”

“I can't see anything. You're supposed to be looking, remember? You're the navigator.”

“Tootsie, it's too dark. I am sick.”

“Well, I don't have night vision, you know. And I know you're sick. I'm sorry that you're sick, but I have to keep my eyes on the road. I mean, my eye. I can't even see out of the other eye. You don't even care, do you? About my eye?”

“Don't talk to me like that. I am your father. I do care about your eye.”

“I KNOW YOU ARE MY FATHER. I wasn't talking to you like anything. I just need you to find the sign.” I was losing my patience again. I couldn't be expected to carry all the bags and hold all the buckets all the time.

“Opppppss!” My dad has hybridized “oops” and “
hop!
” It's his way of saying, “You just screwed up.”

“Did I just screw up?” I asked.

“You passed the exit for Andlau.”

“Thanks. Great. Do you want me to turn the car around?” I snapped.

“Do whatever you want.”

“YOU CAN'T TELL ME I'M WRONG THEN TELL ME WHAT TO DO THEN SHUT DOWN WHEN I ASK YOU FOR HELP.” His eyes pointed straight up, as though he were trying to locate his eyebrows. He said nothing.

I made a brisk, graceless three-point turn, almost backing into a vineyard. They were all around us, the vines. They looked like gnarled old wooden hands clawing out of the brittle grass, ready to grab small children.

“There's a sign for Andlau.”

“That's good, right?”

“Yes. Take two.” He said “Take two” like “That's the game,” with many extra As. “
Taaaaaake
two!”

“Tell me what I'm supposed to do next, so I don't screw it up again.”

“
Au rond-point, prendre la deuxième sortie D35
.” He was reading directions from the back of the itinerary.

“So I'll see the sign for the D35 at the next roundabout.”

“This is the plan.”

Tentatively, my foot hovered over the accelerator. I curved around the roundabout in short, slow bursts, waiting for my father to yell out the next direction. He would yell, “Ah!” My shoulders were in a stress shrug of anticipation.