TWO WORKS
BY SARAH EDDENDEN
IN ON
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Celinka and Murray get married in the spring. Lilacs and robin’s red breast and soggy March. Jennie stands up for her, Géraud for him. Celinka has flowers in her hair, white blossoms against thick black Asian tresses. The photo album from their wedding is two feet by one and a half feet, a tome of neatly decorated memories, an urbane occasion stained with muted pastels and the warmth of summer to come.
Murray’s speech is touched by a faraway land. Celinka loves the sound of his voice. He collects art books and she strokes the bindings of beautifully-bound editions, Man Ray, Degas, Klimt, Kandinsky, Miró, never pulls them out. On the handmade coffee table, arranged in a slight fan, his books on countries older than this one, more proud, sexier. Between two ceramic coasters.
These coasters, Celinka says, fucking rock.
Celinka went to art school for half a semester, designed jewellery a couple summers at the Ex, has worked as a bartender three years at a hip joint, surely you know of it, called Castro’s. That’s where she met Géraud, who took her to a party, where blue drinks were served in oversized martini glasses and water spouted from a small stone boy’s penis in the middle of a marble-coated room. It was Géraud who introduced her to Murray.
I like that you were wearing a turtleneck, she tells him the day after they get married. Your neck was real.
A real neck is good?, Murray wonders.
Celinka looks at him, as they walk arm in arm around the garden, fluffy overdone flakes falling from a slate grey sky.
Uh huh, she tells him.
He smiles and squeezes her shoulder.
He found her endearing that first night.
Do you like the statue?, he had asked her.
You mean the kid pissing?
Snow falls heavier.
When he visited her at the bar, she screamed, hugged him, bought him a drink, ordered his meal for him. Chicken.
The fish here isn’t good enough for a mangy whore.
Introduced him as her new Man Toy and announced she would make him make an honest women of her. Everyone laughed.
When he left, she slipped him a note:
I’m all yours.
Shit it’s fucking cold, Celinka says.
They leave the garden.
Sex is good. She always comes with Murray. He tells her that his father taught him one thing only: Always please a woman.
Where is your father now?, Celinka asks.
He left when I was nine and a half.
Perhaps, he has always thought, his mother was finished being pleased. He tells her so.
Celinka guffaws.
No such thing.
She quits her bartending job and makes house. He gets a full time job and buys a tie.
Why the tie?, Celinka asks when he comes home with it. Her face registers suspicion, doubt.
I have a nine to five job, he says.
Not really. Ten to quarter to seven.
Are they making you wear a tie?, she asks.
No.
She stares at him.
It won’t make my neck real?, he asks her.
Too real.
She takes it from him.
She makes him lunch the first few weeks. He opens his canvas bag and finds smoked salmon sandwiches, pita and red roasted pepper dip, last night’s fusilli, homemade oatmeal raisin cookies, yellow Delicious apples, notes that say I luv you or Last night, Bingo! or Move away from the screen, your sperm is precious.
He calls her every day at three.
I’m thinking about you, he’ll say.
I’m butt naked, she’ll tell him, dressed in her Caban track pants and crummy black t-shirt.
One night, over gourmet takeout pizza, she tells him she has a new job.
Assistant to a photographer.
Géraud.
Murray is pleased. He eats a hotdog from a street vendor that day, later goes to the bank and takes out thirty bucks, lunch for the rest of the week. Phones home and gets the machine.
Hi you’ve reached the happy happy home of Celinka and Murray. He’s the exotic one. I’ve got great tits. Leave a message and maybe we’ll let you in on our beautiful life.
She is right. She does have great tits.
The assistant to the photographer job lasts a week.
He’s an asshole, she says Friday night, over pints at the local English pub. He told me to sweep.
Maybe the floor needed to be clean.
If I wanted to be the housekeeper’s assistant, I would have found a housekeeper to be assistant to.
It’s not all glamour.
Why are we here?
Good beer.
Let’s go to Castro’s.
But you used to work there.
That’s the point.
Maybe Géraud will be there.
Her pouty Asian face falls into her dark ale.
The next week she calls Murray at work and tells him she has a job.
Assistant to a location scout.
Jennie.
She told me she thinks I’ll be great.
Murray nods, Sounds fine.
Did you hear what I just said?, she asks.
I nodded, Celinka.
It’s the phone, asshole.
Sounds fine.
It too lasts a week.
Jennie’s a cunt.
Murray makes veal and asparagus, opens a bottle of cabernet, sniffs at it.
Just pour, for Christ’s sake.
He does.
She told me not to smoke so much in the car, Celinka says as she lights up.
I thought Jennie smoked.
She gave up. Sanctimonious floozy.
She’s mad later, when the asparagus gives her gas cramps and she misses her favourite tv show.
The bad guys won, he tells her.
She paints the bedroom, arranges to have new curtains sewn for the bathroom and gets a cat from the Humane Society.
What do you think?, she asks him.
The black and white cat looks at him from its hiding place under the bed.
Is she scared?
What do I know?
The sound of his voice grates, she discovers. His emphasis is wrong.
Is it a boy?, he asks.
She stops.
I didn’t ask.
They eat Doritos on the floor and share the last beer from the fridge, lean back on the couch.
Dolph?, she suggests.
Oliver.
Laverne.
Gypsy.
Abraham.
Eleazar.
She calls it Stinky, after it finally uses its box. The vet tells them it is a she, or used to be, still is, mostly.
New job, she tells him the next Sunday.
Assistant to the buyer. Likes there’s only one.
For a store?, he wonders and asks.
For a commercial.
How’d you get it?
You know Romwyn.
No.
My good friend, Romwyn.
I’m happy for you.
He makes her lunch to take the next day, at midnight while she sleeps soundly in their bedroom. He wraps ham, lettuce and brie in a pita, baggies three Oreos, washes a Macintosh, writes a tiny note:
A bag of goodness for my goody.
She races out the next day, a flurry of dark hair and Shalimar. The brown-bagged lunch sits on the front table. Murray takes it into work with him. Reads the note and pretends it is from his endearing wife Larissa who does not say words like Cunt or Bingo!
Celinka tells him she has found her true vocation.
You are still enjoying Romwyn?
I absolutely love Romwyn. She’s my best friend in the whole world.
He runs himself a long bath.
She wonders but doesn’t ask what kind of man takes two hour baths.
They break up in the fall. Everything is dry.
It’s like, she says, I started forgetting who I was.
You’re Larissa, he thinks.
I belong to me, she states.
She peels off a piece of chapped bottom lip.
Are you mad?, she asks.
Does she want him to be?
He goes for a walk and buys a bottle of champagne. She is plucking out grey hairs when he returns. They toast their imminent separation.
What about Stinky?, he asks.
You can take him, she replies.
Then you take the coasters.
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MVP
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Dear Itchy:
Leafs won. Yu missed it. 13th Stanley Cup. Davie keon was MVP. You wer right. Miss you. Momma says you r in heven. Can you see hockey from there?
love and kisses Corr
If you’d only hung on for the third period.
OBIT:
JEROME ‘ITCHY’ KENNER.
OF A HEART ATTACK.
LEAVES BEHIND WIFE MARTHA AND DAUGHTER CORRINE.
HE WAS A TRUE LEAFS FAN.
Dear Itchy:
I never much liked hockey while you were here. Don’t think I didn’t see through your attempts to teach me poker, and buying Triple Yahtzee, trying to keep my mind off the fact that I hate hockey.
But ever since you left, it’s like if I miss a game, I’d be stomping on your memory.
My best friend Sheila (you met her that one time at the Y), she says hockey’s barbarous. Well, duh.
Itchy:
We got anew player today, defenceman. Wears number forty-five, Hank Korsmo. He’s just a kid. I think you’d like him. He pinches.
Dear Itchy:
Know what Sheila said the other day? She asked me,
“How are The Leaves doing?”
Can you believe it? Next time she’ll be somewhere someday and she’ll say that to someone, so I had to set her straight, tell her,
“You don’t make it proper plural, Sheila.”
So she told me I’m obsessive cause I never miss a game. She said that once before, when I gave her her nickname (SourGrapes) and I let her in on a couple of secrets, that even though our cat’s name is Fluff, I call him PukeBall behind Momma’s back, and that I named by boobs Mona and Lefty (I got boobs, Itchy!). Sheila called it my obsessive need to name things.
So I looked obsessive up in the thesaurus because I don’t have a dictionary and it says addictive fanatic compulsive. So I looked compulsive up and it says uncontrollable fanatic obsessive. I don’t know who I’m hurting, the cat doesn’t know PukeBall’s uncomplimentary and besides, seeing as how fanatic is the common thread and fan’s just short for fanatic, what’s wrong with being a fan?
Pinch (my nickname for Korsmo) is having a good season. So far, 16 assists, 5 goals, pile of blocked shots.
Dear Itchy:
Season over, we lost. Pyramid power fails. Eight years since they won the cup. Your Davie Keon shirt, I wear it every game, it’s wearing thin. I got a feeling you were some kind of good luck charm. So if God took you away so early, does that make him a Canadiens fan?
Dear Pinch (Hank):
I call you Pinch, because my daddy - who died back when I was little - said to me before he closed his eyes and just fell asleep right into a heart attack, was,
“Any good defence needs some fine pinching.”
The first thing I noticed about you was, you pinch. I told Itchy (that’s my daddy). He’d like you.
Can you send me an autographed picture?
Itchy:
Momma moved up north, into a trailer. She wanted me to go but seeing as how I still have another semester, I’m staying here. I have to clean out the house, pack stuff up, sell stuff come spring. Send half the money up to Momma and PukeBall (can you believe it? He’s still around - God doesn’t want Him). She’s going to take in sewing and try selling her famous banana bread. Town’s called Eldred, I call it El Dreado. She wants me to come up over Easter time, then lets it slip how it’s minus four but with the wind chill it’s really minus twenty four. Told her I’m giving up cold for lent.
My first night alone. Can’t sleep more than a half hour at a time. Hear things. Itchy snoring, Momma making her way to the washroom, PukeBall crying for food. Except I’m all alone.
Dear Itchy:
I never noticed how dark the night is before.
Dear Momma:
The house is sold. To some young couple with big plans to tear down the living room wall and “create an open-concept living space”. Got almost as much as we wanted, the cheque’s coming from the lawyer’s. Buy yourself something nice. Maybe one of those cat litter boxes with a lid.
I’m staying with Sheila for now, have been for a while.
Couldn’t stand it in the house any longer.
I’m sending you a box of things, stuff that seems important: marriage license, album, ring.
I keep Itchy’s scrapbook. Momma won’t have much use for ripped out pictures of Johnny Bower, articles on Punch Imlach .
There is an autographed picture of Davie Keon. I haven’t heard from Pinch.
Dear Pinch:
I sent you a letter almost a month ago now and never heard back. Just wanted an autographed picture. I’m starting a new job. I’ll hang you in my cubicle.
Sheila wants to know who the black and white guy is taped up to my wall. Is it Itchy?, she asks. I tell her not unless Itchy won the Conn Smythe trophy back in ‘67. She looks at me, waiting, like maybe he did and she isn’t so far off. When I tell her it’s Davie Keon, she thinks I mean the guy with the talk show and doesn’t he have a big space in between his teeth and did he get that space playing hockey, cause they all seem to lose their teeth, she says.
Itchy:
Sheila asked me today why I called you Itchy. It’s taken her this long. I told her it was your moustache, how it tickled when you kissed me good night. She says if she ever tried to call her dad Itchy, he’d freak. Point’s moot, when her dad’s Swedish and if he ever tried to grow a moustache, it’d just look like fuzz.
Sheila wants me to go on a double date with her boyfriend Hal and his friend Dennis. At first, I said no cause they wanted to see a movie on Saturday night. I said to Sheila, Hello, Hockey Night In Canada. So she came back and said, How about Sunday afternoon? So I just said no with no reason.
Never gone on a date. Never wanted to, all those silly magazines with lessons on how to flirt, keep a man, make him happy in bed, get him to marry you. Maybe I don’t want to get a man to marry me. Maybe I just want to watch the game.
My autographed picture of Pinch finally comes. I frame it and hang it where Davie Keon was. Slide Davie Keon back where he belongs in the scrapbook in my night table drawer in my new apartment.
Dear Itchy:
Sheila begged me to come watch her curling tournament, she’s skip, I show up and she’s worked it so I have no choice but to meet Dennis. He’s on the men’s team, him and Hal. They all march around in their zippered cardigans and turtlenecks. I hid in a chair and watched the tournament through the huge plate glass window and drank hot chocolate (remember you always made it with milk and mini marshmallows?).
Well, Dennis joins me eventually, all out of breath and victorious, and introduces himself. He smells like hotdogs and indoor ice rinks and his hair’s messy and his lips are chapped. He’s a photographer, works in one of those cheesy photography studios where they take pictures of dogs on velvet. He wants me to go with him to the art gallery, Itchy. I tell him I’ve never been to the art gallery. That I know nothing about art. He tells me that’s why people go to the art gallery. To learn.
I’m forced to say yes.
Come Wednesday, I realize there’s a seven o’clock game, I call Dennis and tell him I can’t go to the gallery. He asks me for tomorrow night instead, then. Clutch at the worn-out Davie Keon sweater and tell him not to call me, that I’ll call him. When he laughs, I hang up.
Dear Pinch:
Thank you for the autograph. You had a great game last night, I just wanted to tell you. Two goals. I think you deserved to be first star. I like that you decided to shave the goatee.
I wanted to tell you something about myself. My name is Corrine. I’m from just north of Toronto and I’ve been a Leaf fan all my life, or almost all my life. See, in the beginning, I didn’t click. It wasn’t till my father died that I saw what it was all about. I input data and I just moved into a place, I’m almost done the painting (don’t you hate painting or do you hire somebody to do it for you?). I saw the interview with Scott Oake the other night. You are very well spoken. The wink at the end, I pretended it was just for me.
Your number one fan.
I’m enclosing my address, in case you might like to tell me something (I don’t already know) about yourself.
Message from Dennis, this time asking me to the zoo. I erase his voice. Decide to go see Momma over Easter. Buy PukeBall a pillow of catnip and a sachet for Momma for her underwear drawer.
The trailer is crummy, buried in six feet of snow. Momma and I play the Northern Ontario versus Southern Ontario we-got-six-feet-of-snow-how-much-did-you-get? game. I lie and tell her eight.
Ham and potatoes and banana bread. Listen to the game on Momma’s transistor radio. PukeBall pukes up a total seven hairballs while I’m there, one on my pillow, don’t discover it till I’m going to bed.
Message from Dennis when I get home: Happy Easter.
Stupid. Easter’s not supposed to be happy. They kill Jesus, for Christ’s sake.
Itchy:
If you were here, you would say to Dennis, Leave my daughter alone. If you hadn’t left so long ago. You’d hate Momma’s trailer. She’s dating the town barber/fire chief.
I found her and Itchy’s wedding album squished down at the bottom of a cupboard, under phone books, coupons, tea towels and scraps of paper. Brought it home with me.
The barber/fire chief is a jerk. When I asked him what he thought The Leafs chances were, he said go search for a leaf this time of year, you’ll only find bare branches. Guffawed like he’d made some kind of joke and patted Momma’s knee. PukeBall upchucked in one of his Sorels.
Dear Momma:
Thank you for the Easter dinner. I’m glad to see you are healthy.
Maybe rethink this barber/fire chief thing. He looks like he might be a drinker.
Dennis just shows up at my door.
“Game’s on,” I tell him.
He brought a bottle of non-alcoholic wine. Says he doesn’t like to drink alone. I wonder why he bought it, then.
He watches the game with me, asks a bunch of questions, like What’s icing? and How come the goalie holds his arm up like that? and How come some of the guys in black- and-white striped shirts have orange arm bands on their arms and some don’t?
He says he likes my shirt, acts like he knows who Davie Keon is. Asks, Is he your favourite player? I tell him about Pinch, point out number forty-five. Tell him I’ve ordered his shirt, home, blue on white. I should be getting it any day now. Think, maybe now he’ll leave. He pours more wine.
Says I’m avoiding him.
I tell him I’m tired.
He asks me to the museum the Tuesday after next. Says I can’t say yes or no, I must “think on it”, like it’s something to sit down on and consider. After he’s gone, my apartment smells like ice rink.
Dear Pinch:
I have not heard from you. Congratulations on surpassing your record number of goals for a season. I am proud of you.
Maybe this year is our lucky year. I think about you constantly. Itchy will put in a good word with God (except I have it on high authority God’s routing for the Habs).
Happens the fourth game, The Leafs have lost the first three already to the Sabres. Second period, Pinch is tussling with a Sabre forward, he moves away to get a clear shot at the puck, the Sabre forward swings his stick, Pinch takes it in the face, he’s down. There is blood everywhere, the trainer and another Leaf take him off.
The Leafs lose and they’re gone for the season. Pinch is brought to the hospital.
It’s his right eye.
Dennis just shows up again the next day, says we have a date. I go to the museum with him. Look at old artifacts, wrapped mummies, jade and emeralds, stuffed birds and papier mache dinosaurs. He buys me an ice cream afterward. Tells me I’m quiet.
They think his retina’s detached.
Dennis asks if maybe I might like to see a movie on Friday. I say yes.
Dear Pinch:
My thoughts are with you. Maybe you can’t read this. Maybe your mother will read it to you.
You have to get better. I just got your shirt. That’s a good omen. If you weren’t supposed to play anymore, then maybe I wouldn’t have got your shirt, it would have got stuck in the mail or they would have screwed it up, sent me Sundin instead.
How’s the food?
I see a movie with Dennis. The next night he takes me out to dinner. We go to the fair with Sheila and Hal. Celebrate Canada Day at the city park with four hundred other people. We finally do go to the art gallery, the zoo, we go swimming at the beach, he shows off his studio, takes a picture of me with blue skies behind my head. Gives me a bottle of perfume for my birthday, we go for walks through forests of leaves turning colours.
It’s there he kisses me. Tongue darting down toward the back of my throat, I gag and push him away. He pulls back, apologizes, tries it again ten minutes later and I don’t gag.
Itchy’s watching, Pinch can’t see out of one eye. I push them both away. Stop writing. When I let Dennis touch Lefty the next weekend, lying on my couch, I turn red hot with embarrassment, he asks me if I’m okay. I nod. He touches Mona.
The day before the first game of the season, the announcement is made. Pinch’s retina is detached, he’s blind in one eye, he can’t play pro hockey. I see the article when I’m waiting for coffee in the coffee shop, mine and Dennis’s coffees. I stop to read it. Pinch’s devastated, twenty-nine and done. I leave without getting the coffee, Dennis calls me his absent-minded little damsel.
When he brings me home, I ask him in. He’s unzippering his cardigan, I’m taking my coat off, I don’t stop. T-shirt, jeans, socks, pink panties, white bra. Dennis watches, confused first, then groping. I bring him upstairs and we have sex, he comes in a matter of minutes. With the cardigan off, he does not smell like ice rink. I fall asleep. Next morning, when he asks if I want him to make coffee, I tell him to leave.
Dear Itchy:
New season, new beginning. The possibilities are endless.
I’m wearing Davie Keon again. Pinch is packed away with the framed picture of me with the blue skies behind me. I don’t feel like myself till the first goal.
Holee mackinaw.
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