Archibald Full Frontal, page 7
It is a full house that night, a testament to Marcell’s popularity. There are at least five friends of Archibald’s I have never met before, in addition to the regulars. Rita shows up in a particularly slinky black catsuit and all but smooshes Marcell against her breasts. If he had been a child, she would have been arrested for molestation. His balding head is covered all over with lipstick smears. Grace, a bleach blonde fifty-something flight attendant who sublets an apartment six months of the year, sits on the other side of him and watches Rita’s every move disapprovingly. Leo solicits his advice on his latest biography. Zoltan, as usual, doesn’t say much but observes. The Deliahs hang on his every word. Archibald is in charming host mode. Marcell, for his part, is gracious and subdued, but he’s becoming more and more animated as he drinks. And boy can he drink.
I sit, perched on the edge of the loveseat, unwillingly drawn in. Apparently, Marcell published two successful novels in his early twenties and now writes articles for publications when he isn’t picking fruit or seducing barmaids.
“Are you working on anything new?” Leo asks, swaying. The Jack Daniels is running low.
“No, no, it is rat turds, everything I write, every last word.” Marcell waves his hand dismissively. Mi Tie is curled up in his lap purring loudly. “I write for my breakfast and dinner. That is all.”
“Well, we all do that, don’t we?” Leo asked, a hurt note in his voice.
“No, no, my friend, I did not mean to say that you … It’s just that we only have so many original stories,” Marcell stammers drunkenly. “And mine are used up. Fini.”
“And because I write about other people, I’m unoriginal?” Leo asks.
“Oh, Leo, stop being such an oversized baby and don’t take everything personally,” Archibald cuts in impatiently. “So tell us more about Whitehorse.”
“Well,” says Marcell, growing reflective, eyes faraway. “The landscape is dry and endless, like a desert before there were deserts. And at first it seems barren, without life, you know, like … wrinkled skin. The winter is an endless, coal-black night. And the cold gets inside you.” He presses at his stomach with a tiny fist. “But then the spring comes, and the flowers open on the tundra, small wiry flowers, purples and whites in every shade. Alive for a short time. And it is like being on the most beautiful alien planet. You can forget many things there,” he says.
Everyone grows silent, listening, imagining Marcell’s version of the place.
Archibald observes him, the ice in his eyes a thawed, tepid blue.
Grace sighs. “Will you go back?”
He shrugs and smiles wistfully. “Je ne sais pas, cherie. I go where the wind blows me.”
I am sent out to buy some snacks at whatever store I can find open. It is after one. The night hints at rain and colder days to come. When I get back to the apartment a half-hour later, hefting every kind of snack food I can find, it is abandoned. Not a single person in sight. It looks like the place had been suddenly vacated. The apartment is in chaos, cluttered with debris from the party. Half-filled glasses and plates cover the tabletops and counters. Ashtrays brim with cigarette butts. I suppose they have all gone out to a bar or some other nightspot, an old favourite haunt of Marcell’s, no doubt. Mi Tie gives me a disappointed glance from her corner of the couch. I sit down beside her, feeling oddly left out.
Marcell turns out to be a strange house guest. He continually leaves piles of clothes throughout the house, which I refuse to pick up and have to climb over. Maria collects them and washes and irons them lovingly. He spends his mornings slowly poring over the paper and afternoons with Archibald either in his office or elsewhere. During the day he is usually quietly friendly, but after a few drinks, he become Party Marcell. He spends the evenings socializing, often accompanied by Archibald, and usually arrives home dead drunk.
I can tolerate Marcell in small doses, but after a few weeks I am starting to become resentful. He is always in my space. If I want to use the typewriter, he is using it. He drinks my juice and eats my crackers. He picks flowers off the deck and makes oddly hideous arrangements, which Archibald never seems to notice. He leaves them outside my door. “For you, belle Maggie,” he says with his lopsided grin. “For putting up with me.”
He makes endless long-distance calls, which he bills to Archibald. When I point this out, Archibald waves his hand impatiently. “Let him do as he likes,” he says. And that, in fact, seems to be everyone’s attitude towards Marcell. It is like he has returned from the dead and now is above reproach, adored by all. Even Sam likes him. They sit together after card games and talk philosophy. Marcell, quick-witted and self-possessed, rarely loses his lucidity even after a dozen drinks. Not surprisingly, he is a particular admirer of the Existentialists.
And yet, I have to admit, there is a kindness to Marcell, a generosity of spirit that is hard to shut out. “Ah, Maggie,” he remarked to me one day as I sat writing letters for Archibald and he pondered a book of poetry. “I am an unlucky bastard.”
I hesitated and looked up from my work. “What makes you so unlucky?” I asked. My head ached. Archibald wouldn’t just let me send out a form letter to his admirers. I had to write each one individually. Give it a personal touch.
“Just born that way, I think. I am always running away from disaster,” he said. “But it always seems to be waiting … just around de corner.” I shrugged and looked back at my work, unimpressed.
He was holding a book of Keats poems I recognized from Archibald’s shelf. He began reciting, eyes closed as if in a trance:
I saw pale kings, and princes too,
Pale warriors, death pale were they all;
They cried—“La belle dame sans merci
Hath thee in thrall!”
I saw their starv’d lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here
On the cold hill’s side.
If he was trying to make a point, it was definitely lost on me.
“Love has no mercy. It can leave you in ruins.” He turned the book through his worn hands. “La belle dame sans merci … And I am one such ruin. That’s all.”
“I believe you,” I said. Perhaps, I mused, what I liked least about Marcell was his honesty, his hopeless honesty. It was as though he had looked straight into the heart of despair, and the wounds of his experiences were like so many icicles piercing his flesh. He scared me. I was not ready for an education in pain. I sat in silence but couldn’t help staring after him long after he found his way to the kitchen to pour his first drink of the day.
A few weeks later, he packed up most of his clothes and moved on to stay with the next set of friends. He left the volume of poetry for me on my desk as a reminder, of what I wasn’t sure. I returned it to Archibald’s shelves where it belonged. I saw him at the apartment from time to time, but it would be a long while before I found out the truth about Marcell.
The Witching Hour
I wait outside his room, number 2277.
“Don’t forget your knowledge vs. experience term paper outlines are due on Monday,” I hear him call to the crowded classroom.
Students spill out of the room, shoulders stooping under backpacks and the burden of their unknown career paths. I open the door and peer inside. A queue of about ten students, all girls, stand around him, shifting from foot to foot impatiently, as he erases notes from the board. Why does every guy I know have a gaggle of admirers? He spots me and waves. Every girl turns and eyes me suspiciously. I back away uneasily.
He turns to the group, innocently attentive. “Who’s next?”
After, we sit on the patio of a campus café. I’m drinking my second cup of coffee. Sam is slouched in his chair, sipping a Coke, looking tired but satisfied, like someone who enjoys his work.
“So how goes the sixteenth century?” he asks.
“So far, it’s pretty boring,” I admit. “I mean, what’s the sixteenth century without Shakespeare? Apparently Shakespeare gets a course all to himself. Who knew?”
“You should have taken philosophy,” he jokes.
“I should have taken art. A painting class or something.”
“Well, why didn’t you?”
I change the subject. “So, it looks like you have ’em lining up for autographs in there.”
“I don’t know. Half of them seem to be daydreaming through class, which I just don’t get. It’s a really interesting subject.”
“Knowledge vs. experience? I’ll bet most of them are looking to gain a little more in the experience department,” I quip.
He blushes and shifts in his seat. “By the way, what happened to you the night of the fireworks? You went for food and disappeared.” He zips his fleece jacket against the bitter autumn wind. The sun has slipped behind two thick lead-coloured clouds. They hover above us and seem to eat the light out of the sky.
“The punch went to my head, so I left early. How did everything turn out?” I drum my fingers against my coffee cup, a nervous habit.
“Not bad, as far as pyrotechnics go.” He glances down at his watch. “Hey, I was going to catch a flick later. There’s an Ingmar Bergman festival on at the Ridge, want to come?”
I climb on the back of his Harley. He hands me the spare helmet that he keeps just in case. He’s always offering rides to stranded friends. The streets are slick from an earlier afternoon rain, the air musky with the smell of rotting leaves and fading summer. Autumn always fills me with nostalgia. I feel the warmth of Sam’s back against the cold day; his muscles move and strain as he handles the bike. Its long chrome frame manoeuvres beneath us, all confident ease, huge wheels purring as it picks up speed, the worn leather seat already familiar. Sam drives like someone who enjoys rousing the elements. Wind, rain, and leaves blow by us as we weave between cars. I feel like we could defy gravity, like we could traverse the eye of a hurricane and come out the other side.
We share a tub of stale popcorn and sprawl in the theatre’s lumpy, threadbare seats. I wipe my oily fingers on my jeans and lean back. I close my eyes. Swedish is a strange, musical language.
I dream of the wind weaving through tall rows of sun-crinkled, papery flowers and of the wind chimes that hung on our deck when I was a child. Tiny bells whose music fell like droplets of rain and rippled through my window, an omen, if you believe in that kind of stuff. They woke me that night, the night he left. The evenings were just beginning to get cold then, to nip at your skin if you stayed out late without a sweater. Mom had sat at the table waiting for him, her expression growing paler, more severe by the hour. She had ordered pizza but wouldn’t touch any. I ate two pieces, picking off the green peppers.
When he finally came home, it was late. After eleven. I heard him moving around, the house shifting, low voices, and then I waited: for the familiarity of slamming doors, of raised voices. But there was nothing. Just the eeriness of the wind chimes. And then he was standing in my doorway. I knew he was there without looking. I recognized his smell. Cigarette smoke, aftershave, and the linseed oil he used on the piano he played most days. I kept my eyes closed. Face to the wall. I knew something unusual was going on, but I wouldn’t let him see my face. See my fear. And then he was gone. And I lay awake listening, waiting for him to return. It would be years before I would see him again. Sometimes, I imagine how he must have looked standing there: nervous, sad, a little bit impatient, but mostly relieved. Yes, I think it must have been a relief for him to finally leave.
Something is pressing into my arm. I open my eyes. From the darkness, Sam nudges my shoulder. The credits are rolling on the screen. “How did you like the movie?” he wisecracks.
“It was riveting,” I say, hiding my embarrassment.
Back at the ranch, Archibald is watching a late-night movie in the dimmed apartment. Dressed in a robe and fluffy slippers, he is in the process of polishing off a large piece of Dutch chocolate cake. I help myself to a piece and sit down. The phone rings.
“Answer that,” Archibald grumbles. “It’s been ringing all day.”
“Archibald Weeks’s residence.” I put my hand over the receiver. “It’s Maria Spell, from Gardening Corner.”
“I’m not here,” he says dismissively.
“Where are you?” I whisper.
“I’m getting a bikini wax.”
“He is out for the evening,” I say into the phone.
“He needs to get in contact with me as soon as possible. He has missed his deadline, again!” comes Maria’s unhappy voice.
“I will let him know as soon as he gets in,” I answer, my voice chipper.
“How is the garden troll?” Archibald asks after I hang up.
“Pissed. She wants you to fax over your pages ASAP. Where are they? I’ll send them now.” I swallow a mouthful of cake.
“That is impossible. I have nothing to contribute on ‘Wild and Wacky Garden Art.’ It is beneath me. I already expressed that in no uncertain terms. If she chose not to hear me, then it is not my problem.”
“It’s your column.”
“That is exactly what I told that moustachioed, Mary Jane–wearing, overbearing excuse for an editor,” he continues, scratching Mi Tie under the chin. “In fact, I have already composed my resignation letter. You can type it up and ‘fax’ that over to her hideousness, Mary Queen of Pots. Off with her head!”
Archibald returns his attention to the movie. “Nice date?” he asks innocently.
“How did you…?” I begin, taken off guard, and then stop short. I am not, for once, going to let him get my goat.
“I have my sources.” He feeds a cake crumb to Mi Tie. “Have you two finally done it?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Sexual intercourse, of course. Coitus. Shagging. Just plain screwing. Take your pick.”
“Archibald!”
“Oh, come on.” He glances at me levelly and raises a bushy white brow. “That boy has got an erection for you a mile long.”
“And you would know,” I say, managing to recover myself. “I fell asleep. It was an Ingmar Bergman movie. And it was not a date.” I pick up my cake to take to bed.
“It’s only a matter of time, my dear,” he says. “You and Sam. You cannot pick who you love or who loves you.”
Not more riddles. “I thought you said he was lusting after me, not that he loved me.”
“He’s a heterosexual for Christ’s sake. It’s the same thing. You lot are not exactly complex.”
“And what about homosexuals?” I challenge.
He sighs. “Complex, my dear. Extremely complex. But we aren’t the worst.”
“Who are the worst? Don’t tell me … women,” I say, dismissingly.
“No, no. Bisexuals, of course.”
“What?”
“Watch out for them. They are like femme fatales from the nineties. Predators, every last one of them.” Evidently, he had been burned by a bi lover. Or did he think I liked girls?
“If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you were a hopeless romantic,” I quip.
“No, I’m something worse … a romantic with hope.” He sighs like Scarlett O’Hara in her last close-up in Gone with the Wind. Who had it been this time? His dentist? A waiter? He fell in love at least once a week when he wasn’t railing against it.
“For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known — cities of men …
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!” he chants. “Tennyson understood. If only we had met … Our love would have been inspirational.”
I increase the pace to my room. “I don’t think he lacked inspiration.”
“Experience teaches us all eventually. Even you,” he calls ruefully.
I shut the door firmly on his proselytizing.
“Oh, fuck a duck with a side of bugger,” says Archibald as he flips through his mail one October afternoon. We’re standing in the apartment lobby waiting for the elevator after a visit to the doctor. He had claimed his hip was acting up, but I suspected he just had a crush on the doctor. “Yet another invitation to a charity ball. Bor-ing.”
“What is so wrong with a charity ball?” I ask.
The elevator doors open and we step inside. I am about to make a glib comment about being the belle of the ball when I realize we are not alone. Michael, who must be coming up from the garage below, leans against a side wall. I look away and back again and suppress the urge to cough. He looks from me to Archibald and automatically takes a step back. He seems uncomfortable, like a man waiting for a prostate exam. Archibald stops short, his face momentarily blank, then all its customary pinkness drains until he is the colour of his best white linen tablecloth. He blows air through his teeth, as if collecting himself. He straightens up and grows at least an extra two inches. Like a cobra, he looks puffed and ready to strike.
“How are you, Archibald?” Michael smiles weakly.
“Michael,” Archibald says curtly, icicles in his voice, eyebrow arched so high I think it will snap off. The doors shut behind him. The temperature in the elevator is falling rapidly. I stand off to the side and rub absently at the goose pimples rising on my arms. “I thought you were out of town.”
“Well, I’m back,” Michael says, suddenly revived, flashing his 120-watt grin.
“So, I see.” Archibald looks away. “I was sorry to hear about the difficulties with your latest.”
“Pardon?” Michael asks.
“Your latest book. A little bird told me it’s not quite up to the last. It must be an immense challenge coming up with new ideas when you’re so … limited.”
Michael laughs tightly. “I heard you’ve moved on to writing gardening flyers. How highbrow. I’ll bet it’s very original stuff.”
I inhale sharply. Had I told him about the gardening column?
“If you must know, I am working on a volume of poems. All of them very original.”
