WordSlut

Same Old (edit 1)

Vertical rows of green and red numbers flash from the screen.
“Whatever you do, don’t leave this chair,” he says, sliding his desk chair back so he has enough room between the chair and desk to raise his frame.
“What if I need to go to the bathroom?”
“Call me,” he says. He says there’s a casino on Steeles West where patrons stay glued to their seats, day and night, opening to closing time.  I ask “so what do they do when they need to take a piss?” “Wear diapers,” he says and I say, “Yeah right, well, no way am I wearing Depends.” Of course he thinks everyone a price and he’s right.

Garth has figured out this scheme; if the trade goes seven points above or seven points below, we cash out. Whether we go long or short, that’s the rule. Lately he has this thing for currencies. We’re paper trading, playing the Canadian dollar which is at sixty-five cents. We watch the trades real time on the Bridge Information System. Garth says just about everyone has a platform going, but this one, this Bridge one is the best going. I want to know what happens if our computer crashes or if the broker has too many lines going. And also, what about sex? “Money is better than sex,” he says, so I lay out this picture of fucking in front of the green and red lights and coming on the green.  “Could work,” he says, so I crawl under the desk, slide up his old gray shorts that need a wash only I don’t care since I’m crazy about the smell of his cock, and nuzzle my way in.

The truth is I’m growing kind of partial to this trading shit, peering intently at the screen and like a sportscaster calling out the plays to Garth, who decides to take out three contracts on the Deutch mark. I’m watching the screen and yelling out on those seven points, and it’s really cool. And then the world stops. Well, it doesn’t stop but it’s moving so slowly that Garth is getting restless. The market’s got her legs crossed and won’t give him one more point. When he asks me what he should do, should he stay or get out, I say, “I don’t know, it’s your thing.” I look around the room, at this Gossamer house I never liked all that much, it being so close to the house on Bluffwood Drive, and this address, this drafty four-bedroom place in the suburbs, suddenly becomes dear to me.

And then the market collapses. I know this because Garth’s one seeing eye grows big, he gasps, once, his mouth opens, and he freezes. He’s like a third-rate actor registering shock. The market has walked out on him and he doesn’t know why. He closes the account, the door of this office room, walks downstairs, out the front door, and drives off into the night.

All I know is Garth’s scam-stash was one-hundred thousand, the rent is three-thousand two hundred even though we sneered at Stephen with his three-thousand seven hundred chunk for his Teddington house, our year is almost up, and we have enough for two more months—rent, food, first and last.  I circle ads, create one- to five-star lists, call, cross out, the cover of one notebook ripping from its coiled spine, replaced by a yellow steno pad. When I hooked up with Garth, I took the deepest breath I could and dove underwater into an artist’s heaven. At first I was astonished, but now with water pressing in, I gulp for air and breathe in water instead.
   
I can’t breathe. Although she says she’ll see me. Today she sits in a loose brown checked flannel dress, the chapel window’s cerulean blue washing her face and folded hands. Fresh-faced missionaries standing in small quiet groups outside the chapel doors hand out glossy Missionaries for Africa pamphlets.
   
Caroline hooks her arm through mine. “My foster mother is visiting me today,” she tells the nurse who smiles and raises her eyebrows at me. We communicate in small gestures, pleased one-syllable sounds, and tentative phrases. “Where shall we go today?” I ask. She likes the shimmering red jello in the cafeteria, also the sealed ribbed plastic cups of apple juice. Cheesies thrill her. We walk along arm-in-arm down one hallway, up an escalator, and down another hallway with gleaming floors. I nod and smile at nurses and patients and occasionally return a wave. A stray sob escapes my lips.
   
In the foyer of the main building, we pass an oversize portrait of the Whitby Health Center. Below a primary-blue sky sits a modern glass and beige brick facility centered in a horizontal span of spring grass and flanked by a ridge of evergreens. In the background lies a varnished motionless lake. Caroline and I tour the span of grass above the shoreline. We are surrounded by Canada geese. I guide her past old and fresh bird droppings. There are rocks at the cliff edge and I worry about letting go of her hand. We stop and look out at the water. “Look at the horizon, honey,” I say, passing my hand through her hair which the wind has caught and blown across her eyes. I rotate my body in the direction of that line separating water and sky so she will turn with me and I think maybe she hears me, maybe she is watching that space Lisa defined for me when she was four, possibly five. We were in a car, the red Firebird after the Caravan had been repossessed, the sun glowing low in the sky and talk turned to horizons and country.

“I miss the country,” I said.
 “All you have to do is look at the horizon.”
I think I was quiet, then. “The country,” she said, “is where the horizon and the sky touch.”

That day Caroline and I breathed in Lisa’s country as we did many times over the next twenty-one months, together and solo. Of course, I’m not sure whether her eyes stayed still and sharp enough to see a country where she might breathe and fill herself with clean air, but I’m hoping she caught a glance.

Sometimes I wonder what I learned in those trying times. I learned about freedom, I guess—that I was and she wasn’t, and that when she was and if, I would never forget the time she wasn’t. I would never forget, Jew that I am. I used to closet myself in the bathroom when she stood spewing words. “I need some time,” I’d say. And she’d vomit incomplete sentences outside the door as she rattled the handle. I should have been better I say out loud and cloak myself with warm phrases. I pile them on, but I’m never warm.

When I was a Builder (edit 1, literary erotica, memoir)

           

I live my life in five buildings: the Gossamer house, The Promenade, Whitby Mental Health Center, Dalemount Public School, and Strictly Fitness Gym. I carry my gym bag. My muscles I wear. I don’t give a damn what clothes cover them, as long as the muscles shine through. My muscles take me through life, propping me upright, and standing in for me when words claw and catch in my throat.
Sometimes I get pissed off when I train: I’m getting ready for my two-hundred and twenty-five pound deads, and this little chick in pink and gray is gabbing to her friend—“and then he says—and I say—and like who does he think he is!” Things like that piss me off.
“Listen,” I say. “Could you do your talking somewhere else? This is a heavy weight if you haven’t noticed. And I’m not in the mood to injure myself.”
They sashay off, elbowing each other and giggling.

I’ve got my knee wraps tight, crisscrossed over the knee once, twice, three times and then tucked under, my favorite belt from my training days at Golds on Eglinton and Victoria Park pulled tight. I’m warmed up—a quarter each side for ten reps, stretch my quads and hams, maybe  lower back, maybe not; one plate each side for six to eight; a plate and a quarter for four, unwrapping and stretching. Then I set up two plates a side, two-twenty five which isn’t bad. Fuck I’ve seen mediocre builders showing off with two plates. I like to train beside those guys. Sometimes I correct their form. “You’re rounding your back,” I say. “Your back’s too low, forty-five degrees is all.” “You’re leaning back at the finish. Don’t lean back.” I’ll even stop my own training to guide them through the form, start to finish. It’s just the way I am. Later I complain to Garth. “Did they ask you?” he says. “No,” I say. He makes me laugh.

Of course I’ve been injured—rotator cuff when I was just a rookie, showing off at Gold’s and smacking forty-fives on my bench; a pulled hamstring at Gold’s in Ajax when my peroxide blonde sous-coach was teaching me to do the splits, standing me against the wall and lifting my first my right, then my left leg higher and higher until I could touch my toe to the wall—the sort of flexibility that came to me on Nina Street as I racked my legs over my head until my upper and lower body were sandwiched against each other so Garth could ram away the way he liked and which I appreciated in spirit, until the pounding became too prolonged and insistent. Still, I thought I was cool and once he told me as I lay cooing at his cock, “I have to tell you this is the greatest sex I’ve ever had. Ever.” I asked him how many females he’d had and it wasn’t much, but still I was flattered since he knew hookers from his bouncing days and women have always confided in him. And he had his porn business which didn’t make him the cash he’d hoped for and which he dropped before we moved to the Overbrooke house where he returned to his first love, stocks and bonds, options and futures.

Once Garth fouled up on a spot on my eighth rep of a barbell preacher curl and I pulled a bicep tendon which more than six months to heal and even after eighteen months still didn’t feel quite right. In our second year of training, I was about to do a one rep max of two sixty-five—I was standing in front of the squat cage beside the Smith machine after repping out on two-twenty-five around six o’clock when all the builders were out.

“I going heavier,” I grinned, throwing off my belt and unraveling my knee wraps.
“Sure,” Garth said. “How much?”
“A quarter each side?”
“Why not?” he said.
I slipped off the collar on both sides, snagged two quarters from the squat rack, and added one on one side of the bar while Garth did the other side. It’s like that. You work together.
“Getting a drink,” I said. I like to walk across the gym to the fountain before doing a tough set. The stride is purposeful and thoughtful, like a doctor before an operation. If I see a builder I know, I nod. I don’t chat and pass the time of day. Mostly I walk straight. My mind is clear. The walking does the work. Garth knows to be quiet.

First I wrap my knees. Then I tighten my old training belt still with me since John and our Gold days. Slinging the straps of my wrist wraps around the bar, I roll my wrists until the material cuts hard into my skin and force my thumbs around and over the straps. I set my feet shoulder width a part, and squat down, not in a squat though—my ass sticks out, back at a clean forty-five, shoulders over the bar, bar touching my shins as I stare ahead, checking myself out in the mirror. I breathe in. Three times I breathe in and out. Then I close my eyes. Garth waits. Beneath my lids I’m swearing "fuck what a weight, no angel cake this goddamn weight, two sixty-five is fucking concrete." but I’m holding on and with these glutes, hams, quads, back, all, I’m on my way, standing, standing, standing. And up.

“Wait,” I say, unraveling the wraps.
“C’mon Janice.”
“Hey I’m lifting, you’re not.”
He says it’s only two plates and a quarter each side. He does five. I tell him, “You weigh, what, four-twenty? And I’m weighing in at one-fifty-five these days. I wasn’t ready, that’s all.”
“Don’t freak yourself out. It’s not such a big deal. What you even wearing your belt for?”
I swing around. “What!”
“You heard me. I never wore a belt or wraps.”
“That’s you,” I say, because he’s like some comic book anti-hero, Spawn maybe or Venom, names I never came across until I met Garth my cold defender who loves me enough to assume I can lift two and a quarter on each side without a belt.
 “Hey, you’re stronger than most of the guys here.”   
“Yeah, squats and deads sure, and leg press,” I say, remembering the week before on the forty-five degree leg press, warming up and adding on —“lay on another plate, man”—until I was pressing eight plates a side and not those prissy reps in the shallow end either.
“Anyway, I’ve been wearing my belt and wraps since the beginning. No fucking way am I taking off this belt.”
“It’s your call,” he says and turns away. I hate when he does that. I don’t know who is watching. Building is like a small town; everyone knows everyone else’s business. Right now there’s one circle with only two builders in it, and Garth is about cut through its perimeter with his massive arm and walk away.
“I’m keeping my knee wraps on,” I say as I fling off my belt.
“I said it’s your call.”

I get back into position, plant my feet, and wrap the straps tight, tight, shoulders over, ass out, set my Tyroleans again, look straight ahead. Breathe. I’m alone in this world with the air hanging heavy and thick around me. I pull and nothing happens.
“Shit,” I say.
“You pulled. Just stand up.”
John used to say that—stand up bitch. Just fucking stand up.

I smile to myself. I can do that, stand up that is and fucking too, although not at the same time. And I do. My ass does what it was trained for, hams and quads following suit, legs straightening, two-third straight, three-quarters, abs and lower back signing on, while inside, a training belt surfaces, wrapping around my innards like a mighty clinging vine, and I’m thinking hey man, I’m a living belt. And even though the thick band stretches, circles, then like a viper constricts, I continue my upright climb.
“Good one!” Garth says when I’m finally upright. “Three-hundred and sixty-five pounds!”
“Yah,” I say. “Listen, could you clean this up for me?” I’m whispering. Not that I mean to, it’s just that’s how it is. There’s no pain, but I’m scared as a stunt man on the wing of a plane in a loop and going down. “I gotta get out of here.”
“Janice?” he says, standing in front of me and blocking my way.
“I’ll meet you in the car and would you hurry up?” I say, talking low and serious. “I’m outta here,” I say. And I am. I should have known. Like at the Indian house, the day when I walked out, the weather complying with its clear Payne’s gray—I should have known but I forgot because I wanted something too badly or I needed something, and he happened to be there. That’s how it was. He just happened to be there. I did the rest, without a belt, lifting and life, both.

But the thing is I love him. I mean I was sitting on the toilet in the Indian Road house bleeding out these words: “Please god, give me passion in my life.” And so I have my Garth. You know that old Nina Simone song—“say he ain’t much for the looking sake, he’s crazy and no count as he can be, he’s got the kind of love for me.” And now I’m lying in bed and the pills are wearing off and I’m crying, holding myself in a fetal position, first one side then the other, and on my stomach, crumpled over on the toilet with my head in my hands, rocking back and forth and becoming more god-fearing by the moment, whining out old blues songs, baby please come home, when the automatic garage door rumbles like an underground subway, and I snap into bed, reining in my breathing as I swing into my fetal roll.

He thinks he can move without sound, but I hear him climbing the stairs. I listen for his breathing and feel the thickness of his shadow as he stands, looking down over me. A low vibration swells through the tunnel of my throat and I fling it at him.
“I thought you’d be sleeping,” he says, “the pills are supposed to last four hours and I’m here with ten minutes to spare.”
“Not everything’s on schedule, you know.”
“You look old.”
“Thanks,” I say, hoping I look ancient for him. Because it had hurt like the extremes of all seasons—a winter blizzard, a rain torrent in summer, an autumn bullying wind, relentless spring rain causing the earth to expand and crack as it makes way for new roots in spring. Then he gave me these pills and went into his Queen Street night.

“Talon is sleeping and the pills will hold you for the next four hours,” he’d said and made off.  It’s true I was curled up, the pills like a cross guarding me from the searing across my belly and back and battered ribs. I kept my breath above the waves. I was afraid of being dragged under. Gradually I allowed myself to unravel and the waves to coat my body, and I breathed into them. For the longest while I lay there with the waves lapping at me, until an undertow caught me unawares and I called out for Garth. But he was on his Queen Street route, surveying the presence and reduced number of Queen Street hookers and checking out the state of the world from his corner in Tim Horton’s.

Extreme Self-Care

 “Do something for yourself. It’s called extreme self-care.” I glanced at the name tag pinned to the nurse’s mauve cardigan. They smile when you remember their names; it creates a bond. “Draw a hot bath, set up some candles and close the lights. It doesn’t sound like much, I know. Oh, and lavender— it’s magical.” I told her I would try. “Really, you’d be surprised,” she said, so as soon as I got in the door, I threw down my gym bag, rushed up the curving stairwell to the ensuite, and locked the door. Mother fucker! As if a hot bath and candles could ease this pain. And then I laugh out loud because I am a mother fucking and the word, mother fucker, is always a full-thrill one to me. I take in my reflection in the mirror with its show lights around the top and sides, remove my clothes bottom to top, lifting my arms to pull off my jersey, and catch myself as I sway backward. Then I spread out Garth’s black bath towel so it lies flat and even on the white tile floor. Contrast pleases me. I squeeze my eyes shut to stop the replaying of frames I’ve just witnessed, tighten my legs, and point my toes which I always do when I want to come.

The elevator bell pings. Doors slide open, giving way to a triple glass wall and at the right side, a single door; I press the metal buzzer.
“May I help you?”
“It’s Janice, Caroline’s mom—here to see my daughter?”
“Oh yes, hello Janice, nice to see you today,” the voice oozing melodic at Whitby Mental Health Center. Whitby Mental Health Center, sure not about mental health, not on this level. Fuck!  I say out loud, grabbing onto my cool voice like a lifeline.

“They call this the dungeon—this is the end when you land up in here,” the acne-scarred social worker had said, and at night as I rested my head on his belly, Garth said “what an idiot to say that to you” in the disdainful, summarizing way of his that always soothes me.

A tall bean man with oversize black glasses sliding down his nose, jumps wild and giddy, happy-spittle drooling, strait jacket hugging him tight, kicking screaming dancing with his feet. Under his sweat pants which hang around his hips, he’s wearing diapers. I search through my purse, unzipping one compartment and then another.

 “Come on down!” Contestant screaming, hands flying to face—spinning the wheel, “Where will it land?” the silver-haired TV host says. The wheel spins round and round. A nurse in her hospital pale blues and white orthopedics pads down the corridor, rooms on the right side and left, doors closed. This is where the wheel lands. A patient with black uncombed hair strolls over and turning to me, her arms taut by her sides, fingers spread like webbed feet, says “So you like this show?” Another contestant cranks the Barker wheel. Without looking at me, the woman lifts her arm toward the TV and slams it sideways, hitting my cheek and knocking off my prescription variable lenses that turn dark grey on a sunny day. Today the glass is clear and uncompromising. Two orderlies in white materialize even as I gasp and step back.

“Are you OK? Any harm done? Your glasses? She sometimes strikes out like that. Best not to stand beside her.” I assure them I’m fine. They advance to each side of the patient whose name is also Janice. “Shall we go to your room for a while?” the clean-cut orderly says. “Will she be alright?” I say. “I’m fine really. I didn’t know not to stand so close; it’s my fault. I can wait outside. She was just excited from watching a suspenseful point in the show. I’ll wait outside.”

The feeling’s gone. On my bathroom floor where I lie and come four, maybe five times, two when I’m rushed. Not gigantic comes. Beeps. But beeps add up. Take away the pause between each and you’ve got a prolonged Appalachian range. I give myself twenty more seconds. Twenty seconds is no problem, done it in ten many times before. Nada. I trace my mouth, my fingers smelling of tuna and pussy. I arch my head back which I always love, the arching, and I think of Garth, how I used to curve upward when I lay under him although he never lay on me full weight, held himself just slightly off with his forearms on the bed, which I never knew in our early days, I thought I was strong enough to withstand his four-hundred-and-some pounds. Oh god, I can’t do this. I lean over the sink, my tits hanging separate and sad. I look into my eyes. Munch’s “Scream” eyes, scooped out. Dead eyes. I step back, my shoulders and arms hanging, head down and slow motion I cave in.

She would not see me. The nurse put her arm on my shoulder, “She doesn’t want to see you. Maybe tomorrow, it’s an adjustment, you know.”
“I heard her screaming.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She said her mother’s dead and I’m an imposter. She said—”

And then I weep, apologize, and weep some more. The nurse tells me there is a washroom down the hallway beside the elevator, to buzz before I leave and she’ll come out for the key. “Go wash your face. Take a moment, breathe.” She unlocks the glass door. I’m on the outside. She points. The hallway is quiet. I work the key which has to stay in the lock while I turn the handle, keeping the key in place. On the other side of the door are numbered instructions on how to disinfect your hands and a plastic bottle with disinfectant written on it. Everything stands out. I’m in a movie, possibly a documentary.

It’s not that I’m deficient in my coming. It’s that I’m always rushed. When Caroline frayed my nerves, I’d seek out the bathroom floor, her voice, soaring and persistent on the other side. Sometimes I sought refuge from Abie. The bathroom floor helped me remember who I was. Masturbating has always been my extreme self-care. I took the hot bath although I didn’t have lavender and I didn’t have any candles. The water turned cold and lost its clearness, but I turned on the hot until the water threatened to spill over, so I let some out before adding more. A gray grime had settled in at the upper water level, but still I remained. I refilled the tub three times. Then I got out.