The Memory Artists - Jeffrey Moore [51]
JJ closed his eyes, made the sign of the cross, then continued on his way towards the bathroom. After rooting around in a jungle of products beneath the sink, and pausing to toss rancid items into an already full garbage pail, he found what he was seeking: an aerosol can of lemonscented Lysol. He pushed the nozzle. And pushed again. A few drops of liquid oozed out. What else is in here? Let’s see … a bottle of Aqua Velva with dust embedded in the oily glass, unused since his father’s last shave, and a vial of Fleur de la Passion by Duverné, the preferred scent of his mother. He went back into the living room where he sprinkled each of these onto the rug.
To wash off the scents from his hands he returned to the bathroom, which was fitted with equipment that seemed to have been salvaged from a 1950s restaurant. There was a urinal, a sink with faucets of the watersaving design, a rotary dispenser filled with pink granulated powder, and a hand dryer with these instructions:
SHAKE EXCESS WATER FROM HANDS.
PUSH KNOB. STOPS AUTOMATICALLY.
RUB HANDS LIGHTLY AND RAPIDLY.
TURN LOUVRE UPWARD TO DRY FACE.
At least this is what it had once said. Some of the words had been scratched off with a coin or knife:
SHAKE
KNOB.
RUB LIGHTLY AND RAPIDLY.
TURN UPWARD TO FACE.
JJ chuckled as he blow-dried his hands. This still cracks me up, he thought. But is it a tad schoolboyish? Should I remove it, or spray-paint over it, before the guests arrive? No, it’s fine for now, I’ll do it tomorrow. He went to his bedroom, his hands slightly damp. A faded and threadbare patchwork quilt made by his mother was staple-gunned to the window frame, and the wallpaper—winged bear cubs with bows and arrows— was only half-installed, interrupted when his ex-girlfriend said her pregnancy was a false alarm. Film posters of his father’s, including Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot and The Nutty Professor, with yellowed Scotch-tape marks across the corners, were tacked to the wall. I’d better clean up the place, he thought. Do a complete overhaul.
With an old baby buggy, his own, JJ carted out plastic submarines, water guns, teddy bears, board games, joke books, and made a motley mound outside. He carried out items from his clothes closet, including his father’s perma-press pants and naphthalene-smelling cardigans. He paused to look through a shoe box of old letters: form-letter job rejections, angry threats from collection agencies, bills from Hydro-Québec and Gaz Métropolitain, a sheaf of parking tickets, letters from lawyers acting on behalf of Mount Royal Cemetery. In a plastic case was a Rowntree Cherry Blossom box, discarded by a girl named Solange. He first saw Solange coming out of the Villa Maria School for Girls, in a pleated skirt and jacket of subdued crimson, and he had tried to glimpse her leaving school every afternoon till the end of the year, nine months in all. His love for twelve-year-old Solange was like Dante’s for Beatrice. He got within twelve feet of her twice, exchanged a nod once, and thought about her for the rest of his life.
The memory faded, but only slightly, when he met his first girlfriend. She was a Greek girl he encountered at a summer camp for underprivileged kids, where they both worked as counsellors. In the same shoe box were three letters from her. “My dearest JJ,” one began. “I love you more than yesterday, and less than tomorrow …”
JJ cleared away pots of dead flowers and threw them, pots and all, onto the