Alligator - Lisa Moore [39]
She was practically naked, Beverly, and very muscular, David said. She had dropped the pill into his beer and he guzzled it down.
Too muscular, if you know what I mean, he said. Beverly could hear, in the background, the wheels of luggage rumbling over tiles, airport announcements. The blade of the mower hit a rock, a bright dangerous clank. She had no idea what he meant.
Too muscular for a woman, David said after a long pause.
You gave me a start, Beverly said. She closed her eyes and saw him falling off the cliff in Ireland.
It’s already winter in Toronto, David said.
Maybe you need a good meal, Beverly said.
Everything is white.
Get yourself some juice, she said.
I’m just looking out a big window, he said.
It makes me wonder, David.
They have those guys on the runway. I love those guys. All suited up. They’re so alone out there, waving those beacons. They are the unsung heroes.
I’m left wondering.
I have to get something to drink, I’m parched, he said. Whatever it was in his drink had changed him and he couldn’t wait to get back and hold her, because he saw now that his life was nothing without her.
She was stirring linguine noodles and the steam covered the window, obscuring the garden, and the boy pushed the mower past a flare of condensation on the glass and walked out the other side, his red jacket seeming even brighter than before. She told David she loved him too. She remembers saying that. Or she has the impression she said it. She left him with the general impression.
Whatever had happened, she’d given the impression she was willing to push through it. She’d made that clear she’s pretty sure.
There was no call from Halifax. The aneurysm had struck — if that is what aneurysms do, for some reason the word brought to mind a clock tower swathed in fog, a clutch of pigeons rising in the air, desolation, and the final hour — around four in the afternoon. The storm had hit St. John’s around the same time, everything shut down in a few hours, her lawn mower almost buried. David had been coming through the revolving door of a shopping mall. He had a drugstore bag in his hand that contained dental floss and medicated bandages for planter warts. In the pocket of his suit she’d found a restaurant bill. He’d had two draft beer and a cheeseburger at The Keg, bought a New Yorker, which was open to a story by Arthur Miller.
VALENTIN
VALENTIN WALKED DOWN the road to the Robin Hood Bay dump until he came to the fence. Beside the fence was a small shack with a single window and the door was locked. Valentin eased the frame of the door gently with a file he’d brought in his backpack and the nails squeaked but he was able to lift the frame without splintering the wood and he jiggled the door handle until the lock gave.
There was a scarred wooden desk with a brown plastic tray on which there was a teacup on a saucer and a squeezed teabag sitting beside the cup. A kettle, a glass dish of sugar packets, and coffee whitener were sitting on a miniature fridge in the corner. The electrical panel that controlled the fence was over the fridge, and Valentin threw the switch and heard the noise of the fence die away. Then he heard the gulls in the distance. A ring of keys was hanging by the electrical panel, and he assumed one of the keys would open the padlock on the gate.
When he touched the fence his peripheral vision turned black and closed in like the shutter on a camera closing, almost instantly, until there was only a point of light and that was also extinguished and he found himself on the ground and the back of his head had hit a rock.
He lay on his back for several minutes tingling all over and aching deeply in his bones. On the side of the road were several flatbeds with stacks of flattened cars, rusty crinkled sheets of metal hanging out between the brightly coloured, smashed hoods like lettuce in a sandwich.
The blue of the sky was so blue it hurt his eyes and the gulls