The City Still Breathing. Matthew Heiti
behind them in a big oily ribbon, the tape clattering on the pavement. Francie laughing. Just Married.
Slim swings the car around behind Wembley Public, stopping in the trees down near the metal bridge over the creek. So far past talking, the three of them just watch the water, a shopping cart upended in the middle, brown foam pooling around it.
Slim pulls the vial out of his jacket and spills three blue microdots into his hand. He drops one and passes one back to Heck. The last one to Francie, her holding the blue tab like a bug she might squish. Placing it on her tongue. Dropping this little bit of colour down her throat, down inside her. A little blue into all that grey, like the food colouring her mom used for cake icing. Sometimes a little drop is all it takes. The blue’s falling into her and outside the snow is just starting to fall.
Before five minutes have passed, Heck’s already rubbing his face. ‘It stinks back here.’
Slim snorts. ‘Because you fuckin blew chunks back there.’
‘It really stinks.’ Heck’s struggling out of his jacket. ‘And it’s hot, like a sauna.’ Then he’s out the door, rolling around on the gravel.
Francie pulls her legs up on the seat, chin on knees. ‘I don’t wanna be dicked around, Slim.’
‘I’m not dicking you around.’
‘You’re lying – ’
‘I’m not – ’
‘ – or you’re not telling me something, whatever, I don’t even give a shit, I just want to get down south.’
‘What’s the big deal? Toronto’s nothin special.’
‘It’s better than here. There’s so much to do there.’
‘There’s stuff here too.’
‘Like what – hanging out at the arcade? What’s up with you, I thought you hated it here too.’
He shrugs. ‘It’s okay.’
‘It’s not okay – it sucks! I want to do things, I want to be something, and this town is dead. It’s dead. You can’t be a photographer here.’
‘Who says I can be a photographer anywhere?’
‘Your stuff is so cool, Slim. The way you take people – it’s so fuckin cool. Nobody’s cool like that.’
‘It’s kids’ stuff. I’m done with it.’
‘Why’re you saying that?’ The blue is spreading through her, syruping over the grey, tinting everything. ‘You don’t mean it.’
‘Photography – art, whatever – it’s not real, Francie.’
‘But what about school?’
‘Fuck it.’
‘You said it’s one of the best in the country.’
‘Well, I was wrong. It’s stupid. I’ll get a real job.’
‘Where?’
‘Wherever. Maybe you should think about it too.’
‘I don’t wanna be a fuckin waitress, Slim.’
‘My mom’s a waitress.’
‘Yeah and you hate her.’
‘I’m just saying maybe it’s time you gave up this fantasy, Francie.’
‘Shut up.’ Flakes of blue coming down, everywhere they hit, the grey going blue, the ground the trees the hood of the car, a world of blue. ‘Just tell me.’ But Slim’s face goes even greyer, becomes an iceberg. ‘Are we going or not?’
And he opens his mouth, so wide his skull might crack, and out comes the grey of the word No, all that grey spilling across his seat toward her and she swings the door open, falling back onto the dirt on her ass, the world rolling underneath her like dad’s sailboat on the lake in the summer, stumbling across the deck, scattering stones down into the water, her a stone, Slim’s words scattering her, sending her forward over the edge of the boat, and she’s falling down down down into the lake the creek the water down into Slim’s mouth she’s drowning in all that grey drowning in the pit of this town today tomorrow next all the nexts of Francie’s days on this planet, one grey mess, and then she catches herself. Her hands on the railing. The cold of the metal. Something solid under her feet. The bridge. The creek below her.
Her hands around the railing blue. The bridge blue. Her insides the blue world. She’s colder than she’s ever been, so far beyond cold she misses the plain numb of grey.
Something slides around her, someone holding her – no, a jacket – Slim’s jean jacket around her, the warmth of his body whispering around inside, but even this warmth just another kind of cold. She pulls it tight around her anyway.
‘Dear Mr. Slider.’ Slim leaning on the railing beside her. He’s got that envelope from the diner and a white sheet of paper in his hand, reading. ‘Thank you for your application and portfolio but we regret to inform you … ’ And then he just keeps reading that part over and over again, we regret to inform you, we regret to inform you, saying it as he crumples the paper up in a ball and drops it down into the creek, regret, regret, regret.
‘Francie. I’ll still drive you down, okay? I’ll come back here and work, just for a bit and then I’ll come down. Then we’ll do everything, go to that Mexican place, whatever.’
But all she can hear is regret, regret, regret. ‘Liar.’
‘A few months tops, I promise.’
‘Liar.’
Because it’s easier. And he might be right next to her, but he’s still all grey and she’s over here in a galaxy of blue. Right next to each other but so far away.
Then Heck’s between them, his shirt off, big hairy belly flopping around and he’s still sweating.
‘Okay, I’m ready, Slim.’
‘For what?’
‘C’mon, man, don’t fuck around. You gotta show us.’
Francie remembers something about this, a million years back at the diner. ‘Show us what?’
‘Regret, regret, regret.’ Slim’s singing it, wandering back to the car, Heck and Francie trailing him, following the music of regret, Slim prancing ahead doing his Jethro Tull impersonation with an imaginary flute, the pied piper of regret.
He leads them around the back of the Dart, and there the three of them stand, staring down at the trunk. The look on Slim like some bad magician about to do his big trick. It was like that TV show she watched with her mom where they were opening a sealed tomb for the first time – all the excitement of what was inside, and then bullshit.
Slim puts the key in the trunk, a twist, and the whole thing comes open. All the grey of the world coming out. Francie watches it pour out of the trunk, onto the ground, staining all the blue back to grey.
Heck pukes immediately, like his stomach was on standby. At first Francie can only think it’s a joke, like this pale naked man is going to jump out of the trunk yelling surprise. But she takes one look at Slim, one look at his forehead, smooth and dead, to know that everything is fucked. Nobody talks for a while, only Heck gagging.
‘Who is it?’
‘I dunno.’
‘What happened to him?’
‘I dunno.’
Older than them, but maybe not too much, brownish hair, not too tall. Lips drawn back, almost like a smile, and something dark around the throat, like another smile. This is the first dead thing Francie has ever seen in all her days on this planet, and it’s not even really that bad. With the big poplars swinging back and forth above them, the water in the creek going by, it’s almost peaceful.