The City Still Breathing (4 page)

‘Why're you saying that?' The blue is spreading through her, syruping over the grey, tinting everything. ‘You don't mean it.'

‘Photography – art, whatever – it's not
real
, Francie.'

‘But what about school?'

‘Fuck it.'

‘You said it's one of the best in the country.'

‘Well, I was wrong. It's stupid. I'll get a real job.'

‘Where?'

‘Wherever. Maybe you should think about it too.'

‘I don't wanna be a fuckin waitress, Slim.'

‘My mom's a waitress.'

‘Yeah and you hate her.'

‘I'm just saying maybe it's time you gave up this fantasy, Francie.'

‘Shut up.' Flakes of blue coming down, everywhere they hit, the grey going blue, the ground the trees the hood of the car, a world of blue. ‘Just tell me.' But Slim's face goes even greyer, becomes an iceberg. ‘Are we going or not?'

And he opens his mouth, so wide his skull might crack, and out comes the grey of the word
No
, all that grey spilling across his seat toward her and she swings the door open, falling back onto the dirt on her ass, the world rolling underneath her like dad's sailboat on the lake in the summer, stumbling across the deck, scattering stones down into the water, her a stone, Slim's words scattering her, sending her forward over the edge of the boat, and she's falling down down down into the lake the creek the water down into Slim's mouth she's drowning in all that grey drowning in the pit of this town today tomorrow next all the nexts of Francie's days on this planet, one grey mess, and then she catches herself. Her hands on the railing. The cold of the metal. Something solid under her feet. The bridge. The creek below her.

Her hands around the railing blue. The bridge blue. Her insides the blue world. She's colder than she's ever been, so far beyond cold she misses the plain numb of grey.

Something slides around her, someone holding her – no, a jacket – Slim's jean jacket around her, the warmth of his body whispering around inside, but even this warmth just another kind of cold. She pulls it tight around her anyway.

‘Dear Mr. Slider.' Slim leaning on the railing beside her. He's got that envelope from the diner and a white sheet of paper in his hand, reading. ‘Thank you for your application and portfolio but we regret to inform you … ' And then he just keeps reading that part over and over again,
we regret to inform you, we regret to inform you
, saying it as he crumples the paper up in a ball and drops it down into the creek, regret, regret, regret.

‘Francie. I'll still drive you down, okay? I'll come back here and work, just for a bit and then I'll come down. Then we'll do everything, go to that Mexican place, whatever.'

But all she can hear is
regret, regret, regret
. ‘Liar.'

‘A few months tops, I promise.'

‘Liar.'

Because it's easier. And he might be right next to her, but he's still all grey and she's over here in a galaxy of blue. Right next to each other but so far away.

Then Heck's between them, his shirt off, big hairy belly flopping around and he's still sweating.

‘Okay, I'm ready, Slim.'

‘For what?'

‘C'mon, man, don't fuck around. You gotta show us.'

Francie remembers something about this, a million years back at the diner. ‘Show us what?'

‘Regret, regret, regret.' Slim's singing it, wandering back to the car, Heck and Francie trailing him, following the music of regret, Slim prancing ahead doing his Jethro Tull impersonation with an imaginary flute, the pied piper of regret.

He leads them around the back of the Dart, and there the three of them stand, staring down at the trunk. The look on Slim like some bad magician about to do his big trick. It was like that
TV
show she watched with her mom where they were opening a sealed tomb for the first time – all the excitement of what was inside, and then bullshit.

Slim puts the key in the trunk, a twist, and the whole thing comes open. All the grey of the world coming out. Francie watches it pour out of the trunk, onto the ground, staining all the blue back to grey.

Heck pukes immediately, like his stomach was on standby. At first Francie can only think it's a joke, like this pale naked man is going to jump out of the trunk yelling surprise. But she takes one look at Slim, one look at his forehead, smooth and dead, to know that everything is fucked. Nobody talks for a while, only Heck gagging.

‘Who is it?'

‘I dunno.'

‘What happened to him?'

‘I dunno.'

Older than them, but maybe not too much, brownish hair, not too tall. Lips drawn back, almost like a smile, and something dark around the throat, like another smile. This is the first dead thing Francie has ever seen in all her days on this planet, and it's not even really that bad. With the big poplars swinging back and forth above them, the water in the creek going by, it's almost peaceful. Almost like the four of them are just hanging out here together.

‘I was just drivin around, comin back from the pawn shop, and there was the van pullin into the station, lights goin, and so I drive up, see what's happening. Pull up right alongside the thing, nobody inside, nobody around. So I get out, go around to the back and the doors are open and there it is.'

‘And so you took it?'

‘No, I swear to fuck, Francie, I was there lookin at it and then I was pullin into your driveway.'

‘So what – it just appeared in your trunk?'

‘I don't fuckin know. I mean I guess I put it there, but it's like I blacked out. I got that letter yesterday and it's like my brain just shut off. I mean who the fuck am I? I was up all night, got in this fight, sold the cameras and there it was – this fuckin dead guy, right in front of me. And I thought fuck it. I'll stay here, I'll go back to sellin weed or popcorn like fuckin Normando or whatever, it doesn't fuckin matter, because I'm not gonna do covers for
National Geographic
or art shows. I'll never get outta here. I'm just gonna end up in the back of a fuckin van. No name. Nothing.'

Slim sits on the ground next to Heck, who is holding his head between his legs. ‘Aw, jinkies.' Heck spits. ‘I thought it'd be cool. This isn't cool. He's dead, man. He's really dead.'

Francie stares right into the dead man's eyes. Just one of those faces, like they say about serial killers – could be anybody. Might've passed him in the mall, or sat next to him on the bus. Now none of that's there, nothing in the eyes. Like when she'd wake Slim up in his cabin, that brief moment when he hadn't returned from sleep. His brain would be reeling his soul in and for a second he'd be no one.

She says, ‘So is this Milly's brother?'

‘What?'

‘At Top Hat, Dunc said – is this Lemmy?'

Slim groans and turns his head to look in the trunk. ‘Maybe.'

‘You never met him?'

‘Milly had him out at that old farmhouse. Oh fuck.' He hugs himself, shivering in his T-shirt. ‘What do we do with it?'

‘The fuck should I know?'

‘Please, Francie.' Hands knit together like he's begging or praying. ‘Just tell me what to do.'

She sits down on the dirt, all three of them lined up against the fender. ‘You give him back to the cops.'

‘Fuck that – you crazy?'

‘Give him to Milly then.'

‘You are crazy. Jyrki fuckin Myllarinen – you know what he … his own fuckin parents – you have any idea what he'd do to me?'

‘It's his brother.'

‘We don't know that. Anyway, thanks to this asshole,' he slaps Heck, ‘he's gonna think I stole the fuckin body. I'm fucked. And if I show up with some dead guy that isn't his brother, I'm fucked anyway.'

‘So what then?'

‘We'll split.'

‘What?'

‘The car's already packed. We'll head for Toronto.'

‘I'm not going to Toronto with a dead body in the fuckin trunk, Slim!'

‘Fuck!' He jumps to his feet and kicks the fender. Then kicks it again. And again. Then he kicks Heck, who rolls away. Slim moves away, kicking trees, kicking rocks, kicking anything in his way.

Francie stands and walks down the slope to the creek. Slim let the grey out of that trunk and it was grey again, grey everywhere, only worse this time because it had sunk its teeth in and wouldn't let go now. But looking down, her hands are still blue, and closing her eyes she can feel a shard in her heart pumping blue through her veins.

This is the picture she'd like of herself – blue Francie. Not like her magazines. Pictures and pictures and pictures of beautiful people in beautiful clothes in beautiful places. That's why a lot of people do it, she guesses – to live in that state of beauty. But everything is ugly. It's just about being seen. More than Dad peering over his paper to say
Good morning
, or Mom pretending to care when she says
How was your day, honey
, or your friends looking straight through you to see only what you can give them. It would just be nice to be seen, all of her, like Slim used to see her through his camera. But that dead look on that dead body is the dead look you get everywhere. The dead look even on Slim's face these days. It's only a matter of time before someone else drags you down. Blue Francie slowly becoming grey Francie.

Splash!
A body hits the water and Francie looks up to the bridge to see Slim at the railing. Looking back to the water to see the body pop to the surface.

‘What the fuck're you doing?'

‘Getting rid of it!' Slim looking all pleased, like he's solved a problem, not ruined everything.

It's floating away, and she's following along the bank, pushing through the bushes, branches clawing at her face and hair, trying to keep it in sight. Slim yelling something stupid and pointless behind her. The body just going all peaceful, carried along by the creek. The path curves away and the brush is getting so thick she's going to lose it, so she steps into the water. She expects it to be needle cold, but she can't feel anything. She wades out into the middle of the creek, waist deep, so close she could touch it.

But then it's by and she's missed her chance. On it goes heading for the culvert where the creek runs under the road. The black mouth opening to swallow the body. Francie's voice shouting blue words, ‘I can see you! I can see you!'

Slim's arms around her, pulling her back, Francie still fighting, trying to keep seeing. Both of them finally falling back on the shore. Slim crying. Francie just lying there, feeling the weight of each snowflake. Flake by flake covering them up, maybe even burying them.

She stands, brushes the snow off. Slim reaches for her. ‘I'm ready. We can go. Let's go now.'

‘No.' Because you can't pin your dreams on other people, like some kind of game of pin-the-tail-on-whatever. ‘No.' Because she was that close, like the body floating by, close enough to touch, to see, and Slim and her, they both missed their chance. ‘No.' Because way off over the trees, it almost looks like there's a little crack in the sky, a bit of blue starting to show.

And as she walks away, she looks for her smokes and finds the photo strip in her pocket. The four little squares of her still white, still waiting to be found.

4

N
ormando sits in one of those damned little gowns on the edge of the gurney, bare-ass except for his black socks. Bart sitting over there rubbing his chin and flipping through the charts. Normando staring out the window at the snow falling, first of the year. People clucking around out there – digging the winter clothes out, buying shovels, stringing up the tinsel, tossing salt all over the damned place – like they forget the first snow always melts. Same damned thing every year.

Bart finally lowers the paperwork and looks him in the eyes.

‘It's spreading.'

Normando nods, already knowing this, feeling it inside these past few weeks, slow like peanut butter on bread.

‘We said that was probably going to be the case, but now that we know.' He raises his eyebrows, letting that hang. ‘Have you told Pat yet?'

‘No.'

‘She should know.'

He goes to a drawer and opens it, shuffling through more papers, coming back and shoving something at him. ‘Take a look at these, then we'll have you back in for a chat. All right?'

‘Right, Doc.'

The door half cocked, Bart turns back. ‘You still running that cart around downtown?'

‘Every damned day.'

‘Well, good. Good to get some fresh air.' Bart waves his folder as he leaves, giving him one of those encouraging grins you save for the walking dead. ‘Lots of options, Norm.'

The door closing and him left with a handful of pamphlets. A pamphlet for every day of the damned year left.