I know you’re there.
Two seconds of nothing, then he turns.
I swear to fucking God.
Hard strike. Something rattles loose in the frame.
If there’s anybody else in there with you.
Bang.
His shoulder and a running start. Slamming himself against the door. Feel the give in the walls. Deep tremor moving through the house.
I’m coming in. I told you I’m sorry. There better not be anybody there.
The roommate shouts, I’m going to call the cops.
I move to get up, push the covers away. I am taller than I am now.
I’ll talk to him, I say. He needs to move on before the police show up and it gets ugly.
Pants and shoes. Fumbling for a shirt. Her hand on my arm pulling me back down. A shushing finger. Something extra, left over from another episode.
Stay, she whispers.
Come on. He’s just a drunk. He’ll move along.
She shakes her head.
What?
Nothing. Just stay and be quiet. He’ll give up.
Origins. A pretty girl in a bar. Notice her Clash T-shirt. Combat Rock. Probably second-hand. Thin and worn out. Almost see through. The way it follows her body. We walk out of the city snow and into the same place at the same time. That is it. Strangers. Open mic night at The Bridge. Cold swirl of white moving in the air behind us. See it again whenever the door is opened. Unwind our scarves. Pitchers of draft. Nothing to each other. Small talk. What is your middle name? Do you have any brothers or sisters? Where exactly do you come from? Band flyers taped to the walls in her room. A beaded curtain and candles. Starting off. How to do this the right way. Then the noise. A guy banging at the door. He is the entire past. The only person I have ever met who knows who you are.
Come back, she says. Rubs her hand on the sheet.
I take off my pants. Move under the covers. She pulls them up over our heads. Our breathing, hot in the tent. Dark.
She lifts her hand under the blanket. Opens a little space for us. My eyes adjust. See her outline coming out of the black. We are hooking up. That is what it’s called.
My grandmother made this blanket, she says, running her finger down the seam. She quilts. Can make one of these out of the scraps in the rag bin. Lived in the same farm house all her life.
Oh yeah? Where about?
In the county. Albuna. Know where that is?
The boy outside goes quiet. Never see his face. We sleep. Futon mattress on the floor. Broken clock radio blinking: 12:00, 12:00, 12:00. A night when nothing happens.
Since the beginning of time, Zinsser says. Every culture that has ever lived, everywhere in the world. Exclusively human. They cannot jump the species barrier or survive on other mammals. Pygmies and the medieval English embraced their medicinal properties. Made soup out of lice. Ate them sun-dried or roasted. The cure for jaundice, for eczema, for impotence. Young girls in Siberia collected their parasites and tossed them at potential suitors like confetti. A demonstration of fertility, proof of a warm body in a cold climate. Aztec peasants filled whole sacks, an entire village’s worth. Offered them up at the temple. What you have when you have nothing. The Chinese thought lice could predict the sex of unborn children. Something about the way it crawls down your stomach. And the Swedes. The Swedes at election time made all the mayoral candidates rest their beards on the kitchen table. Then they released one adult female and watched her climb into the chin of their leader for the next year. That is how you make a decision.
Winter. We live in Montreal. Blow-dried plastic on the windows. Three pairs of socks. The washing machine freezes solid in the back room. Our clothes encased in a block of ice. First Christmas with a baby. She is four months old and sick. Fever for two days. Don’t know what to do. Thermometer under her arm. Hold her down and wait for the beep. One hundred and two. One hundred and three. Something in her body not working right. Wrap her tight. Swaddle her the way they teach in the books. What to Expect When You’re Expecting. Not good enough. She shakes free. Sleeps in fits. Rolls hard against the crib railings. Reaches out with her arms. Opens and closes her small fists. Infant with a nightmare. Watch it pass through, but cannot make it go away. She dreams but can’t talk. The brain of a four-month-old. Try to imagine her seeing. The vague bad thing in her mind. How big? What does it look like tonight?
The drive home is ten hours in good conditions. Ten hours in the summer.
Let’s stay here, she says. Just the three of us. Christmas with ourselves. We need to start somewhere. The baby’s sick and nobody is sleeping right. They’ll understand.
You know we have to go, I say. You know that. Other people have plans. It’s been locked in for months. Christmas and the new baby. Everybody wants to see the baby.
She points at our kid.
Look at her, she says. She’s sick. Nobody wants to see a sick baby. Why can’t we stay just ourselves? This is it now. Can’t belong to two sets of people at the same time.
You know we have to go.
She shakes her head.
Tell me you know it’s going to suck. Tell me you know it’s going to suck. Tell me you understand that.
It’s going to suck. I’m sorry.
Okay then. Thank you. Settled. I just need to know that you know.
BAD PACKING. The folding playpen. Extra blankets. Cooler for breast milk. All the baby’s gear. Three suitcases. Shovel the car out of its spot. We are weighed down and riding low.
The baby throws up after only fifteen minutes. Stuck on the Decarie with no way off. Bumper to bumper. The smell. Hot milk vomit soaking through the car seat. Blowing snow. Whiteout conditions. Everyone trying to keep their tires inside the two black lines. Ten hours of driving on a good day. Need to make time in the daylight. Everything harder when it gets dark.
A brutal diarrhea in Belleville. Green splashing over the sides of a fold-down change table in the guy’s bathroom of the rest stop. Liquid shit blasts out of her diaper, runs all the way up her back to the neck. Poop in her hair. Lines of men waiting for the urinals, watching me.
Got your hands full there, buddy.
An entire outfit. White overalls and a long-sleeved shirt. Noah’s Ark. Osh Kosh b’Gosh. It all snaps open at the crotch. Probably worth fifty dollars in the store, but it can’t be saved. Even the socks. I go through my entire supply of wipes. Grit my teeth. Roll the whole mess into a ball and drive it into the garbage. Bring the baby back out in just her diaper and an undershirt. Pink boots pinched between my fingers. She is tucked inside my coat. Feel her wriggling in tight. Marsupial. Burrowing down against the cold.
WHAT HAPPENED? Where are her clothes?
Full-scale blowout. Had to ditch them. Completely saturated. No way to save that outfit.
But they’re brand new.
Believe me: they’re lost. Those are clothes she used to have.
Go back.
I threw them away. They’re in the garbage.
They’re a present. My mother gave those to us. We’ll clean them up. Go back.
No. Come on.
I’m going then.
The men’s john? They’re lined up twenty deep in there.
If you won’t go, I’m going to go.
PULL BACK on the stainless steel chute. Dig through the paper towels. Find the ball. Water running through the tiny denim legs. Green circling down the drain. Stuff the filth into a shopping bag. New layer of stench for the car.
We squirt cherry-flavoured Tylenol into her mouth with an eyedropper. Fresh pyjamas, fresh blankets. The heater kicks in. Engine hits its regular vibration. The baby falls into a deep, drug-induced car sleep.
Partial list of substances people have put on their heads to kill lice: rendered dog fat, glasses of human spit, mercury, arsenic, cedar oil, garlic paste and oregano, Ching-Hao, pyrethrum, ground poppies, borax, Vaseline, honey, frankincense, vinegar, bull semen, salt and pepper, mustard, mayonnaise, wormwood, cat urine, beet juice, tobacco, lard, kerosene, gasoline, turpentine, eucalyptus, snake venom.