Crying for the Moon, page 12
Maureen, lost in thought, continued to stare right into Joyce’s eyes. Joyce owned her own business, a store, Boutique Artistique, the first head shop in St. John’s and the hippest place on the whole island. So cool that Maureen didn’t like to go in there; she always felt that Joyce and them could see right through her and knew she was still just a greaseball Corner Boy from Princess Street. For all the peace, love and groovy stuff she tried to get on with, at any moment the thin veneer of the Summer of Love could peel off and reveal the real Maureen. She’d never even dropped acid and had only started smoking hash regularly last year, on the same night she’d had her first piece of pizza—both of them burned the mouth off her. By the time the joint got to her, it was tiny. She sucked it in hard like she saw everybody else doing, and then “Jesus, OW!” she dropped the joint and yowled with pain, which just made everybody laugh until tears were streaming down their faces. A pizza parlour, Napoli’s Pizza, had just opened up the steps from the Black Swan, and when she took her very first bite of Italian food, she managed to burn her lips again on the nuclearly hot, gooey, delicious, stringy cheese that was hanging off her slice. Bo used to joke that the best Italian food in St. John’s was made by people who’d actually heard of Italy.
Joyce had everything in Boutique Artistique: shirts like they wore at Woodstock, those flat leather Jesus shoes, those big coats from Afghanistan with all that curly fur on the inside of the leather that stank of sheep and exotic places in the Middle East—people said that someone had been bitten by a snake hidden in the curly fur, but Maureen didn’t care, she wanted one anyway—and those rings that had chains that joined up to a bracelet on your wrist. Going into that store was like travelling to another country, and you could get high on the smell of patchouli, jasmine, dirt, sheep and some kind of poopy smell like that Hare Krishna incense. She’d gone to the store with Bo just after they’d started going out together. Joyce hadn’t seemed happy to see them.
“Joyce,” Bo said, “how’s it goin’?”
“Oh, it’s goin’. Have you seen Fluff lately, Bo?” Joyce asked.
“No, I haven’t, Joyce. I’ve been kinda busy lately,” Bo said, putting his arm around Maureen and drawing her close.
Joyce leaned across the counter, moving her face in right next to Bo.
“Fellas like you, Bo, fellas like you, they should be neutered.” Joyce smiled. “Oh yes, they should just round your kind up, bring you all into the veterinarians and have you all de-balled.”
Bo made a menacing move with his chin toward Joyce but she didn’t even blink. She just stood her ground, staring right back at him, and he was the one who had to do the back-down.
“Come on, let’s get the fuck out of this shithole,” he said, pulling Maureen out the door. Just before he left, he turned around, picked up a ceramic Buddha head, teal blue it was, and threw it with force and purpose at the full-length mirror. The head smashed to smithereens and the mirror broke into shards and crashed to the floor.
“Bo!” Maureen gasped. “What’d you do that for? Bo?”
Spittle was flying out of Bo’s mouth, and his feet and hands were moving around spasmodically. He was so angry, so agitated, just vicious. He was in a red rage and Maureen felt afraid, very afraid. But at the same time, a part of her believed she would be all right, that she’d be safe. Because, he loved her—didn’t he?
IN THE BLACK SWAN, JOYCE WAS TALKING TO FLUFF AND nodding in Maureen’s direction. Fluff got up from the table and walked toward Maureen. Oh fuck. What now?
“Hello, Maureen.”
“Hiya, Fluff,” Maureen said in a high and fake-y sort of voice.
“I just wanted to come over and say how sorry I am for your loss. I saw you at the wake the other day, but I never got a chance to talk to you.”
“Oh, thank you, Fluff. I . . . uh . . . I mean, we were, Bo and me were broken up so . . .”
“Oh, he never told me that.”
“Oh, well, it just happened. Tuesday, just before . . . When were you talkin’ to Bo?”
“He called on Tuesday afternoon.”
“Oh, we broke up Tuesday morning.”
“Funny he never said, though I didn’t get to talk to him that long. He had to go.”
“Where was he goin’?”
“Oh, someone was at the door, it was a meeting, or he was meeting someone. I’m not sure now. I didn’t know then that it was the last time I’d ever get to talk to Trevor.”
Fluff called Bo Trevor. She was the only one. Now here she was, standing in front of Maureen, dissolving into tears again. Maureen didn’t know what to do. She half-heartedly patted Fluff on the shoulder.
“You’re so strong, Maureen. How d’you do it?” Fluff said.
“Do it?”
“Keep going, I mean.”
“Oh, well, I think it’s what Bo would have wanted.” Was there a phrase book of bullshit remarks that she’d inadvertently swallowed since Bo’s death? Where did all this empty nonsense come from? She stood up, put her arm around Fluff and walked her back to her table of friends and comforters. Joyce thanked Maureen in that off-putting, direct way of hers.
“You seem to be holding up pretty good, Maureen.”
“Yea, well, Joyce, what else can you do?”
Maureen felt rather than heard the door open and Jack and Deucey Dunne come in. With a sense of relief, she turned away from Joyce and them and walked over to Deucey.
“Whaddya at, Deuce?”
“Not much, Maureen. Whadda you at?”
“Lookin’ for you.”
“Oh, yea?”
“Yea.”
Jack stepped up to Maureen, leaned in and said through gritted teeth, “Yea, and the cops came lookin’ for us too, right after the funeral yesterday.”
“Did they?”
“Did they?” Jack mocked her. “Yes, they did, Maureen.” He took a step in closer. “And why do you think the coppers came lookin’ for us?”
“I don’t know,” Maureen practically whispered.
“What? Speak up, Maureen. You don’t have no trouble speakin’ up when you’re talkin’ to the cops, have ya, rat?”
Suddenly, the club was quiet, the band having gone on break, and everybody heard Jack call out Maureen.
“I never said anything—”
“That’s not what the pigs were sayin’.”
“I just said that Bo had problems with lots of people, and like he had a problem, like, with Deucey.”
Deucey was standing back, just looking on. He looked deeply uncomfortable with the way the conversation was going. His eyes were darting back and forth like he was looking for a way to escape. He raised his hands in a this-got-nothing-to-do-with-me kind of gesture.
Jack moved even closer to Maureen. “Next time you’re talking to your piggy pals, Mo-reen”—he poked his short, stubby finger into Maureen’s chest with enough force to drive her back a step—“you leave me and Deucey out of it.”
Joyce was suddenly standing between Maureen and Jack.
“Back off, Jack. Leave her alone.”
“None of your business, Juice. This is between me and her.”
“Well,” said Juicy Joyce, “now it’s between you and her and me.”
The club was so quiet, Maureen could hear her heart beat. Jack gave Joyce one long look, grabbed Deucey by the arm, gave Maureen a final poke in the chest and walked out the door.
“Are you all right?” asked Joyce.
“Yea, yea,” said Maureen. She turned half pleadingly to Joyce. “I don’t know why I can’t keep my big mouth shut. It’s like as soon as I think it, I gotta say it.” Joyce caught Maureen’s eye. “All I said to the cops, Joyce, was that Bo was mad at—”
“Maureen, Maureen, you’re doin’ it again. Don’t be tellin’ everybody everything, okay?”
“All right, all right,” Maureen said and, with great effort, stopped talking. She stood there for an awkward moment and finally said, “How’s Carleen? Do you guys ever hear from her?”
Joyce’s face darkened.
“Is she still up in Montreal with that fella, Joyce?”
“No, no she’s not.”
“Oh, is she home?”
“She’s not home.” Joyce turned away.
Maureen just barely stopped herself from saying, “Well, where is she then?” Some word that Maureen could never remember was supposed to be the better part of valour. But you’re so far away from being whatever that word is, Maureen’s brain said to her, that you don’t even know that word.
“Discretion,” Maureen said. Out loud, she realized.
“What?” Joyce turned.
“Nothing, just a word.”
Joyce looked like she was going to say something, but instead started back to the table.
“Well, say hi to Carleen when you talk to her.”
Joyce didn’t answer. Maureen turned and sat back down at the bar. Well, I’m just gonna sit to myself here at the bar and not talk to anyone.
“Rita, can I have a whisky please? Oh, no, no, no, Rita, I won’t have a whisky. I’ll have a Glenfiddich.”
“Which is a whisky,” Rita said.
“Yea, but it’s a special whisky. And that’s what I want: a special whisky . . . a special double whisky.”
As soon as Maureen had a mouthful, she felt that wonderful I-don’t-give-a-fuck-about-anything-or-anyone feeling spread right through her, and with a thud, finally her heart fell out of her throat and back into the spot where it was supposed to be.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
AS MAUREEN SAT AT THE BAR OF THE BLACK SWAN, she thought that maybe she wouldn’t finish her second double whisky. Maybe she’d go back to the apartment and have a look around. Of course, the cops had probably gone over every bit of the apartment by now with a fine-tooth comb and would have it all roped off, too. But maybe she’d be able to spot something that they couldn’t. Yea, right. Because you’re so smart . . .
“Okay, okay, shut up!” Maureen said to her mind. Even if she was an idiot, she still wanted to go back to the apartment and have a poke. The cops must have Bo’s bank book and would have noticed the big deposits he’d made over the last couple of months. Why hadn’t the cops already known about DAFT? Were the boys paying them off? Oh Christ, paying off the cops. That probably only happened in the movies. She finished off the double whisky.
THE APARTMENT WASN’T ROPED OFF AND THE KEY STILL worked. Maureen crept in. It was pitch-black. The curtains were closed. She’d tie-dyed some cotton for the curtains and Bo’s mother had run them up on her machine when they’d first moved in together. Bo had made a rough table that folded back out of the way in the tiny kitchen, as well as a number of other improvements, and he pointed out that she’d done nothing. He seemed hurt by that, by her lack of involvement. So she made the curtains and he was pleased, and then he had his mother line them so they would block out all the light. With the curtains closed, the apartment was like a cave. There were no windows in the bedroom or the kitchen, and there was just one small frosted window in the bathroom. She could see now with hindsight that she did nothing with the apartment because she didn’t want to be in that apartment, but at the time, she didn’t know it. She couldn’t remember one good time they had there. Most of the time, she’d been angry—angry when she was drunk, depressed when she wasn’t.
Even at the very beginning, Maureen was already living like a person in a dream. Events moved on, and without thought, Maureen moved on with them. Sometimes when she didn’t get out of bed for days on end, time would disappear on her. Right in the middle of whatever she was doing, just putting on her boots say, she’d be staring down at her feet when she’d realize that she’d been staring at them for a long time, because every tiny detail of the boots was so familiar to her: the green laces, the gold stitching, the slewed toe.
Maureen took a chance and turned on the desk lamp, figuring that if she couldn’t see the street light, then the street probably couldn’t see her. She poked through the desk Bo had built, a little rough secretary made out of plywood, but found nothing new since the last time she’d gone searching. She tried not to look at the big brown bottle of chlordane in the corner of the living room or the Flit gun right next to it. She snapped on the light in the bedroom. It was covered in green and gold wallpaper—not just the walls, but also the ceiling. It looked like wrapping paper. The bedroom was like a big awful present that she and Bo had been trapped inside all that time. Gathering her courage, she stepped into the room and started searching through the wardrobe. There was Bo’s grey suit on a hanger, still shredded. The tiny manicure scissors she’d used wouldn’t cut through the shoulders, so the suit still hung. It frightened her to remember herself standing there at the closet, blankly cutting away at whatever piece of grey fabric would give in to the scissors. She remembered now how she’d stood there in that awful bedroom for hours destroying that suit. When she had done as much damage as she could, she had closed the wardrobe door, walked over to the bed and gotten quietly under the covers. It was after that, she supposed, that Bo had scrawled “Tiny Tits” across her two best bras.
Jesus, being back in the apartment was getting her nowhere and just making her feel even worse. The jockey club and the two double whiskies were giving her that too-much-but-not-enough-alcohol feeling: the headache, dry mouth. Maybe she’d go back to George’s and see if he had anything to drink, or maybe she’d just lie down right here. It was still half her apartment; she’d paid half the rent till the end of December. No, she wouldn’t get in that bed, the bed that Bo built. Maybe Bo had made her bed, but she didn’t have to keep lying in it. She’d just lie down on the floor—she was used to that anyway. Whenever he was mad at her, he wouldn’t let her lie in the bed. She would just put her head down here on the floor and rest her eyes.
SHE WOKE TO A NOISE AT THE APARTMENT DOOR. SHE COULD hear the door open very slowly. Fuck, I forgot to lock the door, Maureen thought. She heard footsteps. She held her breath. Maybe she could get in under the bed—no, it was a platform bed. She crept around to the other side, away from the bedroom door. She heard a big thump and a voice that sounded like Jack Dunne’s.
“Ow! Fuck!” the voice that sounded like Jack’s said.
“Shut up, Jacky,” said a voice she’d recognize anywhere: Fox Albert. “What are we looking for here?”
“I don’t know, b’y. Something, anything—receipts, invoices—anything that could compromise the business.”
“Jesus, Jacky. The cops got all of that by now, and please tell me that you are not stupid enough to have given out invoices and receipts pertaining to our other businesses, are you?”
“No, b’y. I just thought that prick mighta had something, or . . . Just shine the flashlight around the floor. Jesus, what a state of dirt. What—do Maureen never clean up?”
“Something tells me that Maureen is not exactly a star in the whole housekeeping department,” said Fox.
“Well, what department do she star in?” said Jacky, snickering.
“I wouldn’t say Maureen would shine in any department.”
You prick. Maureen thought back to the night in Montreal. You weren’t exactly a star yourself. She felt like sticking her fingers in her ears; she wasn’t sure she could bear hearing any more bad shit about herself right now.
“Except the Useless, Loaded Drunk, Falling Down and Startin’ Rackets Department,” Jack said. “Or the Sookin’ and Bawlin’ All Night Department,” he added.
“Nice legs, though. And tits.”
“Tiny, though.”
“Yea, nice though for all that,” said Fox.
“Jesus,” said Jacky. “Look at that! There it is: my chip. That’s where I lost it.”
“What?”
“My twenty-four-hour chip.”
“What are you talking about?”
“My Desire Chip, b’y, from AA. You get it for twenty-four hours of sobriety—the hardest twenty-four hours I ever fuckin’ put in.”
“What are you doin’?” Fox asked.
“I’m picking it up. I’m takin’ it. I must’ve dropped it on Tuesday.”
“You were here on Tuesday? The day Bo disappeared?”
“Yea. Just for a minute, though.”
“What were you doing?”
“I just needed to talk to him, after what happened with Deuce. I wanted to put the frightners on him. But just talk. But you know Bo . . . We had a few shoves at each other—he started it—and that’s when I lost my chip, I guess.”
“Jack?”
“Cool it, Fox. He was fine when I left him, b’y; hungover like a bastard but definitely breathing.”
“Jack, if you’re lying—are you crazy? Put that back right where you got it. The cops probably know exactly where that is, and if it’s gone, they’ll go lookin’ for it.”
“Jesus, my twenty-four-hour chip. It’s my lucky chip. I’ve been going cracked looking for it since Wednesday. I don’t even know if I can stay sober without it.”
“Don’t be stupid, Jacky. I didn’t even know that you were an alchy.”
“Oh, yea. Sober alchy. Sober almost four and a half years.”
“And you never told the rest of the boys?”
“Why should I?” said Jack.
“No secrets in the DAFT brotherhood—that whole thing. Remember that, Jack?”
“Bullshit. It’s an anonymous program, Fox.”
“Yea, and what other secrets are you keepin’, Jacky?”
“Me to know and you to find out.” Jack laughed.
“Yes,” said Fox. “And make no mistake about it, I will find out. You made me come back here for that? All the receipts and stuff, that was just bullshit?”
“I had to find it, b’y.”
“Well, now you’re going to have to put it back on the floor where you found it, and we’re gonna have to get the fuck out of here. Who knows you’re in AA?”
