Broke City Page 4

  Christine’s mother filled the glass coffee percolator with water and measured coffee into the metal hat on the glass tube inside. The coffee smelled good and the dark liquid began travelling up and through the glass tube. Christine heard her father in the bathroom shaving. The quick back and forth splash of the razor in the sink as he rinsed the shaving foam off the blade.

  When her father came to the breakfast table he was dressed in his good shirt and trousers. His face was smooth and shiny and his hair was combed. “How are my girls?” he said to Christine and her sister. “Happy Christmas Eve, Dad!” Christine said. “When are we going to the dinner?”

  “Later this afternoon. Not too early . . . not too late,” and he laughed.

  Christine’s mother unhooked a green Melmac cup from inside the cupboard and put it on the table in front of her father. She filled it with coffee and the steam rose like a ghost.

  ‒ Thank you kindly, he said in a loud, cheerful voice. He put three teaspoons of sugar in the cup and poured in evaporated milk from a tin that had two open triangles on opposite sides of the lid. He slurped as he drank from the cup.

  ‒ Bah. You didn’t rinse the soap out of the cup! Are you trying to poison me?

  ‒ What are you talking about? I rinse the dishes ’til they squeak!

  ‒ I taste soap.

  ‒ You’re imagining it. She took a sip of black coffee in her cup. Tastes fine to me. Christine’s father got up and poured the coffee down the sink.

  ‒ I’ll get my own coffee. At least I know what’s in it.

  ‒ What are you putting on such a show for in front of the kids?

  ‒ You guys know Daddy’s just joking around, don’t you?

  ‒ Are you trying to poison Dad? Christine asked her mother.

  ‒ Don’t be so silly. ’Course not. Your Dad’s imagining things again.

  ‒ Again? Hm. Her mother lit a cigarette.

  ‒ Boy, you sure look dressed up today. How come you don’t hide at the beer parlour and come home pissed when we go to your-side-of-the-family for Christmas?

  Her father laughed in a low, mean way and smirked as he brought his cigarette to his mouth. He screwed up his face at her mother as he inhaled.

  ‒ I don’t drink any more . . . but I don’t drink any less. He laughed. Christine’s mother wasn’t laughing.

  ‒ If you think you’re putting on a good show for your mother, don’t bother. She knows exactly what you do. She just pretends everything’s fine.

  ‒ And just exactly what do I do? Huh? What do I do?

  ‒ I’m not arguing with you.

  ‒ You think you’re so smart. You tell me, what do I do?

  ‒ Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Let’s just go and pretend everything’s okay, at least for your mother.

  Christine decided she would pretend too. She would pretend she couldn’t hear her parents. It made her feel better, like everything was going to be okay in the end. She looked at her sister who had stopped eating her cream of wheat to stare at her parents and made a silly face. Her sister smiled and Christine mouthed a “Happy Christmas Eve . . . ”

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  They didn’t have far to drive to her grandparents’ place. They lived too far to walk, especially in winter, at night, but her father’s-side-of-the-family lived in the same part of the city: North East.

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  They parked in front of the house and Christine could see the windows of her grandparents’ basement suite were covered in a layer of frost too. Why did the windows in her house and her grandparents’ house seem always to be the only windows covered with ice in the winter? Nobody could see in and nobody could see out. The Christmas lights framing the shape of the window were only watery colours, blurred and diffuse as if they actually were under water. Green and red and blue.

  Bright little fish trapped under ice. No one looking in would be able to tell there was a family in the basement suite of the house. They were invisible and having an invisible Christmas Eve. Invisible happiness. Something was behind the ice and Christine didn’t know what could be hibernating in that hidden basement suite.

  The sidewalk was scattered with gravel and her heavy boots made a scraping sound in the quiet night. Christine looked up and wondered why the windows on the main floor of the house her grandparents rented were clear and bright. Another family rented the main floor. She could see their Christmas tree in the window high above her as she and her family walked toward the stairway leading down to the basement of the house where her grandparents lived. The main floor family’s Christmas tree had lights that blinked on and off and made the silver tinsel hanging perfectly from every pine branch shine.

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  When the family that lived upstairs walked the floor squeaked. Christine could hear the rhythm of their steps heels-toes-one-two-three-one-two-three. Pause.

  Maybe they were dancing up there. But she never heard any music and, really, Christine didn’t think they were the dancing types. She had watched out the window from below ground level and seen the various family members coming or going up or down the front concrete stairs holding on to the black wrought iron railings then along the front walk: the mother and father and their two daughters were unsmiling trudgers. The oldest daughter looked nice though. She kept her head up when she walked and had pretty clothes. She wore high heels. Where did the main floor family all go when they left the place above her grandparents? Once, Christine and her grandmother had seen the oldest daughter at Northgate Mall when it was new and her grandmother had said “Hello.” The daughter was all dressed up. She was wearing a matching pink skirt and jacket and her hair was all backcombed. She smiled when she said “Hello” back to Christine’s grandmother. It was a strange kind of surprise to see this daughter out in the green city. This daughter now seemed part of the world of taking the bus to go shopping and spend money on things you don’t really need — just for the odd treat every now and then. That day Christine’s grandmother had bought her pink elephant popcorn with a prize in the box. That whole day was pink. So, when they ran into the oldest daughter that day her outfit seemed to match the very air Christine was breathing.

  Here was a person who was part of another life living alongside hers. She was not just hearing the daughter as part of the anonymous soft thumping overhead when she visited her grandmother she was right here with her in this world. When the people living upstairs ran the Mixmaster, the TV set danced in time to the electric current being used. But there wouldn’t be TV on tonight anyway. The TV wasn’t turned on for Christmas Eve.

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  Christine stood in the doorway and imagined they had jumped into an aquarium. She had watched the fish swim around in the big tank in her school library. A box of water. Warm bubbling water. The fish were so colourful and their fins billowed in the water. They were like the fish: swimming in cigarette smoke thickening in the basement suite, mouths opening and closing to talk, to eat, to exhale cigarette smoke, to yawn. The Christmas tree in the corner was like the little green pine tree in the corner of the aquarium. It was as if Christine and her family were all swimming around the tree as her father closed the door to the basement. Her grandmother popped her head around the corner from the tiny kitchen.

  ‒ You’re here then.

  Christine’s mother took their coats and piled them on her arms before hanging them over the coats already hanging on mismatched metal hooks by the door.

  Everyone would be allowed to open one present after supper was finished and all the dishes were done. No presents before the dishes were done. Don’t start. Don’t even ask. The roaster could be abandoned to soak, but only the roaster because the turkey skin always stuck to the bottom. After supper, Christine’s grandmother would open her present wearing the red-trimmed apron that had pictures of kitchen utensils on it. When her dad and uncles sat back in the chairs with tooth picks in their mouths and all the tattered paper was balled up and thrown on the floor it was lik
e the little rainbow-coloured stones on the bottom of the aquarium.

  ‒ How long will supper be? her father shouted toward the kitchen.

  Her aunt made herself a drink of rum and coke. Two ice cubes in a beautiful glass that changed from white to gold. Lines of cold bubbles racing to the top of the glass. She smoked Rothman’s cigarettes with the blue and silver package. The smell of rum and coke meant movie star to Christine and when her aunt put the cigarette in the locomotive ashtray Christine had bought her grandmother (she didn’t smoke but it made a nice decoration when everyone else’s cigarette smoke came out of the top) there was a ring of red lipstick on the filter.

  ‒ Thanks for the invitation, don’t mind if I do, her father said as he made a rum and coke for himself in a glass much bigger than her aunt’s.

  ‒ You could at least wait until you’ve eaten, Christine’s mother said to him under her breath.

  ‒ Just getting into the Christmas spirit. Her father was smiling anyway.

  Then her aunt and uncle stood in the kitchen doorway and sang “O Tanenbaum” as a surprise for her grandparents on her father’s side. To Christine, is sounded like “snick snack Bisto.” She guessed it had something to do with Christmas Eve gravy. She didn’t ask what it really meant. It was like everyone was under some . . . kind . . . of . . . spell. Everyone was quiet. Everyone was being happy.

  ‒ Come to the table, her grandmother said, looking as if Christmas was a serious concern.

  They shuffled around in the tiny kitchen, a mish-mash of tables covered by two table cloths with Christmas trees on them and then sat and shuffled some more on chrome and folding chairs. Christine’s sister sat on an empty wooden mandarin orange box. Everything was boxes and squares. Green and brown tiles on the floor. Dark brown cupboards with little square handles.

  A square wooden table and two card tables set up and added to the ends left and right. Boxes on the shelf above the white gas stove: spice tins, a box of cream of tartar, baking soda, Bisto. The story of the food they were eating could be read from left to right on that kitchen shelf. On the table, there was barely any room for the plates and knives and forks because her grandmother had set down so much food. Steam rose from heaping mismatched bowls and plates: mashed potatoes, cabbage rolls, perogies, peas, sausage, turkey, stuffing, homemade sauerkraut and pork hocks, pickles, and a duck Christine’s grandfather had shot himself. Her grandmother had gutted and plucked it and cooked it. Christine didn’t like the look of the meat on the plate.

  ‒ Will I like it? she asked her grandfather.

  ‒ It’ll put hair on your chest.

  She definitely wasn’t eating any duck. Her grandmother was hovering over the table and waving her arms.

  ‒ Pass the bowls this direction, clockwise, clockwise, or someone’s going to miss something!

  ‒ Sit down and eat, Mom! Christine’s father said.

  In that moment, Christine imagined her father as a once-upon-a-time little boy, always calling her grandmother “Mom” and, maybe, even crying. But everyone was laughing and dishing up their plates, so, maybe it was only her who was feeling sad, sad, that a lot of time had passed and people would all get old one day. People wouldn’t matter as much. The bowls went around the table. Christine sat beside her aunt watching her red painted fingernails as she cut her food and then brought the fork to her lipstick-red mouth. She tried to mimic her actions, her manners. The way she held her fork with a straight finger anchoring the top, the way she only moved her knife in short, back-and-forth motions, not like a hacksaw cutting a 2×4. Christine’s aunt handed her the small platter of duck.

  ‒ Got it? she said as Christine slid her hand under the platter and used the serving fork to put two small pieces of meat on her own plate. Christine let go and her aunt passed the platter to her uncle.

  Christine had never tasted duck before. She cut a tiny piece and put it in her mouth, making sure she didn’t bite the tines of the fork, just the meat. She didn’t like the duck at all. It tasted the way she imagined the water it swam in might taste, maybe it was supposed to taste like that.

  Christine kept on chewing and looking around the table: her grandmother was sitting beside her grandfather now, her sister was perched on a telephone book on the wooden box on the chair beside her mother, her aunt and uncle concentrated on their plates. Now all of them were swimming on top of the aquarium, like that duck must have done before her grandfather shot it, feeling the wind and the sunshine and knowing that there was a world that existed under the surface of the water, where things moved and lived and died.

  ‒ Jesus Christ! her father yelled and pulled a piece of food out of his mouth, wiping his finger on the side of his plate.

  ‒ There’s still some shot in this goddamn duck! He made spitting motions with his mouth and pushed his chair from the table with a scraping sound.

  ‒ Jesus Christ! Is everyone trying to poison me? He wiped his mouth and stomped out of the kitchen.

  ‒ Her mother and grandmother: What’s wrong? What’s the matter?

  Christine pushed her chair from the table.

  ‒ Sit down, her mother said.

  ‒ I’m going with Dad.

  She ran to the front door.

  ‒ Dad, can I come with you?

  ‒ No, stay inside. I’m just going for a walk.

  ‒ But, I want to come with you. I can keep you company? What’s wrong?

  Christine’s coat had fallen off the hook and onto the floor. She picked it up and grabbed the mittens that had been packed inside one of the sleeves. She slammed her feet into her boots and ran after her father.

  ‒ Can I come with you? Please, Dad?

  ‒ I don’t care then, come if you want.

  ‒ Christine, get back in here! her mother shouted.

  ‒ I’m going for a walk with Dad . . . and she slammed the frozen, frosted door and all of them inside became invisible.

  The air was a knife. The zipper on her coat wasn’t closed. The night reached for her neck, for her ears . . .

  Christine ran to keep up with her father. Her coat flapped in the wind and her mittens weren’t tucked completely into the cuffs of her jacket. The wind cut like tight strings around her wrists. Her skirt bunched underneath the jacket and her favourite white tights with the tiny circles that made tiny diamonds were wrapping the winter around her legs.

  Her father had the collar of his long tweed coat turned up and he puffed on the cigarette in his mouth. His hair was still its shiny black, with a Brylcreem swirl on his forehead. He had shaved. Today was special, Christine still thought that. He had his hands shoved into the pockets of his coat. Christine had wished he would hold her hand so she could keep up with him better, but he looked straight ahead. She wondered if she had failed in some way at something. She didn’t know what to say to him.

  ‒ Do you believe in Santa, Dad? I do.

  She was running to keep up and her breath was puffing out into the dark cold.

  ‒ I think it’s important to believe in something. Can I walk with you Dad?

  ‒ I just want to get some fresh air. Go back to the house.

  But he had set out with no hat and his tweed dress coat was unbuttoned against the cold. He had his collar up. He stopped, cupped his hands and lit a cigarette. The red flame of the match lit his face and Christine thought it was like a halo. He held the cigarette between his lips puffing in and out without having to touch the cigarette. His hands were in his pockets and his shoulders hunched. Christine struggled to keep up with him. Her mother called her. Brittle sound into the still winter night. She kept running beside her father and every time she pulled her hood up over her head, it fell back off, bouncing as she ran. The white vapour of her words were ghosts.

  ‒ Do you believe in Jesus, Dad? That’s what Christmas is about, right Dad?

  But he said nothing. It was as if she weren’t even there. She was invisible now. Her father wasn’t seeing her at all. Where was he? She thought, he does not belong here in t
his time, in this place. Her father seemed another person entirely. Someone she didn’t know. For a moment, she didn’t recognize him, had never really seen him before. Who was this man?

  She ran to keep up with her father, this ghost, as they travelled down the street with the wire-fenced barbed-wire railway yards in sight. The wind sock was straight out like someone was tipping their hat. A clown. She hated clowns. They weren’t funny. The night was inky black, and the stars were everywhere. You could see every star in the galaxy, the universe, and Christine knew it would take until she died to count them all.

  IV

  Christine dreams:

  A heart-shaped potato. Two broken eggs on the floor each with a double-yolk. A teabag without tea.

  A five-leaf clover. A red rose. Small plates go on top of larger plates not on top of bowls. Here are some stories: a pile of letters, a rolled-up newspaper, strangers singing Christmas carols, snow. Sounds like you made that up. Inside a church with rich, dark, wood, and green-patterned carpet. Upstairs to watch a singer rehearse. Downstairs to sit in an empty pew that changes to a chair. Then an old house all alone in a field at the end of a long driveway. At the beginning of the driveway are tall pine trees. Looking from a low angle they seem huge. The house is not a good feeling. Someone who is her but not her is crying.

  The green cotton uniform her aunt used to wear for Phys Ed class was folded in Christine’s drawer. Her aunt had hated Phys Ed as much as she’d hated the uniform, so she’d given it to her. The uniform had buttons down the front, a belt that buttoned in the front and a pocket. It had short sleeves and gathered short legs that her aunt said were like bloomers. Christine thought the uniform was the closest she could get to high school fashion.

  She envisioned high school as a place where teenagers stood around lockers, had lunch in the cafeteria and went on dates. They also would drive around in cars and go to the A&W where teenaged girls roller skated out to your car and attached the tray with your food to your rolled down window. Once you got to be a teenager, she thought, your hair would be beautiful, your clothes would be beautiful and you would have lots of happy friends. You would be smiling and happy too.