Night in the World, page 7
“First off, it’s great to see an interest in moths for a change, as opposed to butterflies,” Brimer says. He tents his fingers on the table. “I was hoping you’d include an urban area, somewhere in the GTA for example. I think it would be interesting to compare findings and would help give your research an added tie-in, for example to inform conservation efforts, green-space planning. It’s important to be thinking along these lines in this field.” He looks at her intently for a moment. “Who is your audience, beyond scientists? Since it’s our job, really, to inform decision-makers — or at least, try to.” He grins again. “But this focus is still fine, absolutely.” Hands relax. “And I think with some rethinking, you can improve site selection to capture more interesting data. For example your choice of locations seems fairly random within each bioregion, there’s no discussion of what led you to choose each site.”
What led Gabe was a road map. She looked at where she’d be staying during her fieldwork — a fishing cabin owned by friends of friends, farmers on the south side of Rice Lake — and where she could reasonably drive on the days of trapping and counting. Her project has to have six sites, three in each region, the traps set on rotations throughout the spring and summer. She hopes gas costs will be offset by the rent she’s barely paying.
“I was really thinking about places I could get to, public lands where leaving the trap wouldn’t be a problem, road access, that kind of thing,” she says.
“Pragmatics, I get it. Necessary. Still, you might consider an ecologically rich area versus an area that’s seen more disturbance, for example. Maximize the contrast of sites.”
“Yes, that’s a good idea.”
There’s discussion of the various site features Gabe might consider, then lively speculation about other factors her study might track: moon luminescence, temperature, wind speed. Ochoa-Rodriguez, who’s been researching the impact of climate change on insect populations, describes how he’s used traps mounted on towers to study insect life within and above the forest canopy. Brimer and Hegyi are sharing stories about field trips, study strategies, and Gabe thinks about the University of Toronto library, the fourth largest in North America, where she found entire books on the moths of regions that would fit into southern Ontario — Moths of the Maltese Islands, Moths of Madagascar, Moths of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight — yet not one book about the moths of any Canadian province. Her project should be so simple.
“Well, perhaps these are possibilities for another time,” Hegyi says, to Gabe’s great relief. “You’ve heard our suggestions about reviewing the sites, making some changes if possible. We can move on, I think?” The men nod. At a glance from Hegyi, Brimer chimes in again.
“The main issue really is your collection method,” he says. “I can appreciate completely why you’d want to avoid collecting when possible, we never want to if it’s not required. But I just don’t see this idea of yours working. Even if you’ve got extremely keen skills, almost nobody in this field can ID all the species all of the time, on the spot. It would also take you a great deal of time. Then you’ve lost your evidence.”
“It’s also impossible not to lose moths when you’re opening and shutting the traps,” Ochoa-Rodriguez adds.
“Not many, though. And I’m actually used to IDing on the fly.”
“And you can probably do that for many of these moths,” Hegyi says, “but we find it difficult to imagine that you won’t compromise your research if you don’t collect.”
Gabe’s face must say something, for no one else speaks. After Hegyi flagged live counts as a possible issue, Gabe revised her project proposal to include a few paragraphs explaining that this method was chosen because of species decline, so as not impact certain fragile populations. She hoped this would satisfy the committee.
“I’m uncomfortable with that,” she says after a moment. “I’d like to find an alternative.”
Brimer shrugs. “I don’t see what.”
“Well . . . there must be something.”
Ochoa-Rodriguez leans forward. He has a serious, gentle face that Gabe instinctively likes. “One of the approaches that I find helpful,” he says, “is to use freezing for the species you can’t identify, but only those. That way you don’t have to alter your trap, you count all the moths you can ID at the time and jar those you decide need to be collected, based on ambiguity of IDing them correctly.”
“Or the massive time and energy,” Brimer interjects. “But that’s possible, I suppose. Still doesn’t deal with the lid problem, so you still lose your evidence with all that opening and closing.”
“But you do minimize the impact on the populations.”
Brimer scoffs. “A few nights’ collecting in a season doesn’t make any difference! There’s no proof of such impacts at all.”
Is that true? She’d not researched that, actually; the argument against collecting had seemed so self-evident to her.
“This whole issue of collecting can ignite such anxiety.” That grin again, his hands raised and fisted. “When in terms of real impact, it’s almost completely peripheral to graver concerns — like habitat loss.” His eyes strike hers, then dart to Ochoa-Rodriguez.
“That’s true,” the other man says. “But it’s an alternative.”
“So, would this be an acceptable option, Richard?”
Brimer shrugs again. “Not really.” He glances at Gabe, the others. “But I can probably deal with it. I’ll bow to the wisdom of the committee.”
Gabe looks at Hegyi, who as her supervisor is really the deciding vote. She ponders a moment, then nods. “I think if you feel strongly about this, Gabe, we can accept this option.”
The hour allotted to the meeting is almost up. Thanks to Ochoa-Rodriguez’s negotiating on her behalf, the kill jar has been moved off the table, group decimation downsized to death by freezing for the unlucky oddballs who fall into her traps. Gabe herself feels frozen by what just happened.
Hegyi thanks everyone for coming. Brimer nods and says he looks forward to Gabe’s revisions. Ochoa-Rodriguez has turned away; the moment of solidarity she felt with him passed. The meeting ends on a cordial if cooler note. Mustering her manners, Gabe respectfully offers thanks and takes her cue to go.
ON ST. GEORGE STREET, the main thoroughfare on campus, Gabe joins a queue of students in front of the street canteens. The food sold from these trucks is mostly salty, greasy, empty calories boxed in wasteful containers, but she has no will to care. She’s hungry, lonely, confused and depressed. The food calls to her like a favourite blanket.
Holding the warm container, she veers without a plan past the flank of Robarts Library and away from campus, across Spadina Avenue and into a neighbourhood of narrow, Victorian-era houses on quiet, warren-like streets. The day’s sunny and cold but not frigid, the snow on the sidewalks firm — an excellent day for walking, which she’s fallen out of doing ever since she first met with Hegyi and the term ramped up. Although the MSc degree requires her to take only one course, she enrolled in two, thinking she’d still have plenty of time for research and her own dedicated learning. She didn’t factor in the two jobs, guest lectures and seminars she’s expected to attend, and the sheer scale of the learning curve itself. Toss in the Peterborough–Toronto commute, seventy-five minutes on a good day (which most aren’t). Visits to the lake have ceased.
A parkette tucked between houses offers bench seating. Now that she’s away from campus, it’s pleasant just to hold the container on her lap. Across from her stands a mountain ash, which is actually a rowan tree. Orange berries cling to a few of its branches, left by the birds; a chickadee will find a meal here. At the summer moth nights she hosted for guests in Kejimkujik Park, not part of her job at Parks Canada but something she took on, she loved to see the wonder and joy on people’s faces. Often it was hard won, moths being small and subtle, after all, and not inclined to show up or perform on cue. But with patience they always did: flying out of the seemingly empty darkness to whir and flit about the lights by the hundreds, touching down on the sheet like acrobats posing so she could share their charming names, point to their shocking colours and shapes and patterns. Where did they come from? a child would always ask. Right here, Gabe would say. All around. This is night in our world: full of dream-spun colour and life.
The sure celebrities of any evening were Saturniidae, the Giant Silk Moths. Promethea, Rosy Maple, Io, Cecropia, Buck, Pine Imperial, Luna, and Polyphemus . . .
Polyphemus was the first moth she herself loved. On hot midsummer nights when she and Jenn were children, her family would gather in the backyard until late. You could legally light fires in the city back then, roast marshmallows, watch stars. She was always enchanted by the moths that flew to their porch lights, always scampered after them, and one night her father pinned a white cotton sheet to the clothesline and lit it with a black light bulb clamped to a tripod. It was an invitation, and Polyphemus arrived. Alongside the other moths, flies and strange miniature creatures that crawled or perched on the sheet, Polyphemus was as our Sun to the stars. It didn’t even look like an insect, for it had fur.
She drew as close as she dared, looking to her father for assurance, trying not to squeal with excitement. If a cinnamon-coloured teddy bear sprouted wings — magical wings — that might describe Polyphemus. Velvety, rippled and banded, the wings stood wider than her outstretched hand. But most astonishing of all were the markings, for on each forewing sat a tiny, transparent circle: a window. How could that be? And what lay on the other side? Was it a different world, like Alice found? Her father touched the wings carefully and they fanned open. Oh! Two great eyes peered back, their irises lemon-yellow, their lids twilight blue. Fairy eyes. Owl eyes. Eyes made to see in darkness, watching her.
Gabe sighs. Things were going to be straightforward, she thought, back when she applied to the program. But what had she expected, enrolling in a scientific degree? She liked the committee members, really; they were just trying to steer her so her efforts would matter. She feels an innate admiration for anyone who devotes their life to insects, the perceived pests of the natural world; it’s like helping criminals or the incurably insane. And of course one should aim for accuracy in research.
Perhaps if she studies her index cards hard enough, the freezing will be minimal.
Alternatives? No savings, no rich parents, no real funding, no job, no more apartment.
This is the road ahead, Gabe, the only road. Knuckle down and buckle up. She opens the container and stares at the glistening mess.
• THE RIVER •
7
WAITING TO PICK UP Gwynn from school, Justin listens, as he often does, to a pair of women talking. It’s crowded out front here, so they stand close to his vehicle on the sidewalk; he can hear every word. The conversation’s pretty inane, sure, but that’s not what makes his skin crawl. It’s their pitch, the way they speak — that awful Mommy Voice he hears everywhere: a strained and shrill inflection, like the speakers are cinched into undersized pantsuits. It’s so unattractive and so freaking sad. These women are being asphyxiated, but do they know it?
After Gwynn was born, Naomi stepped into one of these suits. He didn’t ask her to; he expects responsibility, not self-repression. Yet she seems to feel it’s as necessary and inevitable as wearing a three-piece on Bay Street, and nothing he says makes a difference.
The Mom Suit: this attire is less formalized than its business counterpart, though it comes with as many rules and regulations. A stiffness has crept over Naomi, and all that breathing and stretching in Pilates and meditation hasn’t softened it — in fact, it’s getting worse. Tighter. Harder. Not the hardness of strength, but brittleness.
The new Naomi has all these sensitivities. She’s always stressed, and takes offence. Is it the toxic mommy blogs she reads? Has he been overindulgent, too compromising, and fed a growing neurosis? Or has he failed to be present or understanding in the right ways?
The change in Naomi has crept over their family. A husk has grown up around them. On the inside there’s life, but it’s so wound up! So often when they’re together he feels like he’s trying to loosen the receptacle without shattering it. Nuclear family indeed.
The women he’s been listening to have ended their conversation and parted. Justin checks his phone. A text from Kurt: the thumbs-up icon. He’ll have to hit the bank before going to Ace.
So he’s been doing coke. He’s not proud of that, and it won’t last. But for now, coke supplemented with a little crystal here and there is helping him cope. And he’s discovered how much he’s been doing just that: coping. Not living. Not thriving. Just edging through the days, a soldier hoping to make it back to the ditch without explosions, losses. What amazes him more and more is how he’s managed to live this way for this long. The toleration.
Naomi’s left town again. It’s part of her “program” to do these retreats, so she claims. To go away. And this time he just thought — fine. He’s losing patience with her wall of cool. And with the depth of her non-starter approach, too, her daunted dithering when it comes to getting back on the horse — working again. His cautious suggestion that extra income would be timely, given the precarity of Leverage, made her practically twitch.
Long ago he told her she could always count on him, and to that he will hold. But it seems to him now that he’s the one being held.
* * *
“THAT ONE. The streaky blonde.”
He follows Kurt’s gaze. Blonde heads abound, and they’re all streaky.
“There. Making the porn face. The lips!”
“Ah.”
The woman in question is managing to combine a pout with a smile. Her breathing seems off. He’s reminded of a small-mouthed bass, actually . . . and the word bimbo. A seventies concept too tame for these times, however, almost sentimental.
“She looks stuffed,” he says.
“It takes practice. Look around.”
“A Socially Transmitted Disease?”
“Supposed to invite cock, I think, but it makes me afraid.”
At Kurt’s signal they move through the crowd, ploughing toward the bar. Who are these people? That buttery blonde on the stool there, easily sixty, looks like a pale dumpling squished into leather pants and jacket. She’s like the matriarchal model for younger, salonified replicants scattered about the club. The male patrons are mostly black-haired. Indian, Persian, Asian and unknown, wearing jackets with loosened ties, like they’ve been on the prowl since work or worked late — the price of living in a sky box.
They wedge open a place against the bar. Kurt baits his hand with a fifty.
Sheppard and Yonge: along the crest of a ridge, condominium towers serried above the roaring 401. As they ascended the exit ramp earlier, passing beneath them to merge with local traffic, Justin felt his personality diminish, weakened by this collectivist zone. Arriving at a plaza somewhere. The club between a dry cleaners and pet food chain, people lined up outside, instincts with wallets.
The Kid — Sherwin — parked them out back so they could do a bump. Then they were lions. They didn’t have to stand in line.
“Bimbo?” Kurt muses. “That word’s made a comeback. Been ‘reclaimed.’” He laughs at Justin’s face.
“I guess nothing is too low in these times,” Justin says. “I never went for that type myself, except this stripper once. And she wasn’t really one, she just had to play one for work.” Kurt’s too young to get that joke. “She was cool, and bimbos were never cool. That’s why I never understood the appeal.”
“What was she like?”
“Smart and fun. A fun person.” Justin smiles. “She was from the Sault, but I met her in Montreal when I was on the road with Juvenile Luck. Then she showed up to a gig here one night at the El — the Mocambo — with a girlfriend. They’d taken the bus down for it. I think she was really hoping to fuck the singer, but that was a long line. We ended up getting busted by a bouncer in the bathroom.”
Grinning, Kurt clinks Justin’s glass with his own. A cool pebbled tumbler with a satisfying weight and twenty-two-year single-malt within. They lean back, watch the crowd. The coke sets him on a throne. The cover band, like a live jukebox, plays a stream of classics to keep the energy steady. Leelee and her friend have been swallowed on the dance floor.
“You know what’s really weird about that night? That was the night I first met my wife. She’d come to the same gig.” Hoping to fuck the singer too, he’s always thought, though Naomi denied it.
Oh, Patty Lowes — where is she now? Stunning girl: glittering eyes, beautiful skin, black hair you could keep warm in. Bold enough to leave the Sault, but for where? Hull? St. Catharines? Probably got married once or twice, has a couple of kids, works to pay the bank like everybody else and is bored out of her fucking tree.
Prince is right: you’re better to go crazy.
Kurt leads them to a banquette occupied only by coats, which he shoves aside. Two men at the next table are ripping up chicken wings. The coke gives him a ravenous feeling but not for food; his hollow stomach buoys him, he needs only air and these amber drops to moisten his tongue. It’s wonderful.
A dark-skinned guy wearing a houndstooth jacket and heavy, Geek-vintage-style glasses slides in beside Kurt, emanating blandness. Their Man, Justin assumes.
What happened to Naomi? What happened to the woman who yanked off her panties in his car on their third date, when he’d been assuming he was just dropping her off at home? Their first years together were so free-spirited. Naomi wasn’t looking for marriage and neither was he. And then he realized he needed her, would be a fool to lose her. She accepted everything he offered: living together, marriage, a child.
There was a time when she said he was her hero: it was he who made her grow up and realize there was more to life; it was he who’d enabled so much for her. She didn’t say “hero” jokingly, either. She was serious.
