Down to the Dirt Page 5

—The room. It closes in on us when I breathes in and blows up again when I breathes out. Look. Ya see it?

  —Your face is meltin’, Keith. There’s nothing masculine about it anymore. It’s like there’s a woman underneath your skin tryin’ to free herself.

  —Fuck off, ‘Tash. Can’t we just—

  —No, no. I don’t mean it like that. She’s kinda cute lookin’.

  Natasha leans in to kiss me but pulls away at the last second before our lips would have touched. I digs through her closet and comes out with the dress I was thinkin’ about. She unbuttons my jeans, pulls ’em down around my ankles. Hauls my shirt up over my head. I takes the dress and tries to step into it, losin’ my balance and fallin’ onto the floor.

  —You can’t do it that way, b’y! You gotta pull it down around yourself. And be gentle.

  I yanks the dress on over my head. I gets the first arm out through the sleeve alright, but when I tries the second one my elbow catches and there’s not enough room to straighten it out. I forces it, hearin’ the dress rip somewhere. I pretends not to notice.

  —Don’t be such a savage, Keith. That’s a hundred-dollar dress for frig sakes.

  —I’ll sew it. Calm down, girl. I’ll sew it.

  —No, come on. Take it off. You’re gonna have it ruined. That’s my only good dress. It don’t even fit you.

  It is a bit tight around the shoulders, but I don’t want to take it off. So light and soft against my legs. I hooks my finger in the belt-loop of her jeans, pulling her down onto the bed. We tries to kiss for a bit but our mouths have gotten so dry that our tongues meet like sandpaper. Out of the corner of my eye I catches something shuffle, bendin’ in on itself and vanishing when I tries to focus on it. Some devil in the room. I bolts up straight.

  —See that?

  —Keith, shut up. You just don’t want to kiss me.

  —No, I do. It’s just that our mouths are so dry and I’m so stoned. It’s disgusting.

  —Oh, now I’m disgusting, am I? Well you should see yourself in that dress.

  I unbuttons her jeans and slides my hand down into them.

  —I’m on my period.

  I pulls my hand away like her jeans are on fire.

  —How come you never told me earlier?

  —I don’t know. Never knew I had to make a big announcement. We’ve done it before sure.

  We have done it before. A long time ago.

  There was a time between us that if one had the flu, the other wanted it. Anything that’s in you, I wants. That’s when it felt real, like there was no one else on the planet. I could kiss her, deep, first thing in the morning, her breath sour and shitty and me not mindin’, knowin’ I tasted the same or worse. Now I can’t look at her in the morning ’cause morning breath has become somewhat of a window for attack. You comes to a point somewhere along the way where them things are no longer accepted, but pounced upon and used against you. Like fartin’. When we first met it seemed almost like a competition of who could let the biggest one go. We were that easy with one another. Now it’s just another bad smell in the room.

  My stomach turns at the thought of her menstrual blood for lubrication.

  All at once I feels like my bladder is gonna let go, like I’ve been needin’ to go now for hours and just never noticed. I jumps up out of bed and rushes upstairs to the toilet.

  —Keith? Sweetheart, where’re you going? I’m alright with it you know.

  Sweetheart.

  —I’m bustin’, girl. Am I allowed to have a goddamn piss or what?

  I expects some sort of nasty response to this but it don’t come. She’ll wait for me to apologize. But I won’t. I pisses and I can see the chemical from the mushrooms, or maybe what’s left of my soul, collecting on top of the water in the toilet. This is what I’ve amounted to. I brushes my teeth ’til my gums bleed.

  On my way out of the bathroom I almost trips over the cat. He’s sittin’ in the middle of the floor, starin’ off at nothing. He’s gotten a lot thinner, but he’s still a gorgeous little tom. Charcoal grey and shiny all over.

  —Hello, Puss-Cat.

  Puss-Cat don’t acknowledge me. I goes back downstairs.

  —We should get Puss an appointment with the vet. Or a psychiatrist. He’s weeks like that now.

  Natasha don’t acknowledge me either. She’s curled up in the corner of her bed, huggin’ her pillow. Asleep. Jesus, feels like I was only gone for a minute. But it’s possible that I zoned out for a while. It’s beyond me how anyone can get to sleep so easy when they’re fried on mushrooms.

  I spends the next couple of hours fadin’ in and out of consciousness, never knowin’, when it seems like I’m wakin’, if I’ve been asleep or not. Somewhere in the back of my mind a creature screams. I pictures it swingin’ around on scraps of stringy membrane, Tarzan fashion, back down deep in the creepy pockets of my brain. Now I remembers why I’ve sworn to never do mushrooms again. Comin’ down is too fuckin’ retarded.

  I watches Natasha sleep. I feels sad for us. We used to be so good for each other. It was loads of fun when we first got on the go. But I s’pose you can only pack so much into it all before the bottom falls out. Now it’s nothing short of a tug-a-war, and neither of us is strong enough to win or walk away. Weaknesses, fears once confided to the other are now preyed upon. It’s all about who can take the most pain, who suffers hardest in the face of the other’s suspected betrayals. Who can walk away but won’t, who can’t walk away but wants to. It’s a warped, miserable pattern of anger and resentment, fear and make-up sex. Always the prospect of this intense, needy make-up sex to reel you back in. Just when it feels like it’s over, like this is it, that there’s nothing left to give, our emotions drained, our heads and hearts about to explode with frustration, that’s when we wants each other the most.

  A damp patch of drool has collected on her pillow, her eyes fluttering beneath the closed lids. I tries to imagine bein’ with her in a few years’ time. Can’t see it. I doubts we’ll even squeeze another six months out of it. But I can’t imagine goin’ on without her either. I nuzzles into her, spoon fashion, and eventually, despite the screamin’ creatures in my head, I drifts off to sleep.

  What feels like ten years later I’m roused out of bed to the distinctive sound of Natasha blarin’ from the top of the stairs. Suffering Christ. At least I’m sure it’s not in my head this time.

  —Keith? Keith, come up quick. I think he’s dyin’!

  —What? Who’s fuckin’ dyin’? Where are ya?

  —In the bathroom! It’s the cat. Come up. Hurry up.

  Feelin’ so sluggish now, the mushrooms not quite worn off. Can’t believe I let her talk me into wearin’ this stupid fuckin’ dress. It didn’t even look that good on her. She keeps squelchin’ like a busted bullhorn from upstairs so I just grabs my jeans and hauls ’em on underneath the dress on my way up.

  I finds her sittin’ on the edge of the tub, a mingled look of disgust and horror on her face as she stares down at the cat, sprawled out on the floor, eyes rollin’ back into his head. His little silver chest laboriously risin’ and fallin’, losin’ momentum with each passin’ breath. Natasha drops a towel on a stinkin’ puddle of catshit. There’s a milky white froth dribbling from his mouth. Too late for a psychiatrist now, Puss.

  —Sweet Jesus.

  Natasha tries to stifle a low groan, her chin quivering. She loves this little cat. She’s struggling to hold back the tears, tellin’ me to do something, anything, before Becky gets home.

  —Fuck do you want me to do about it, girl?

  —Take him out back and kill him, Keith.

  —Take him out back and kill him? Christ sakes, ‘Tash, are you fuckin’ cracked?

  —Well drown him in the tub or something. I don’t know—

  —Drown a cat in the fuckin’ bathtub? Mind out now.

  —Well I don’t know, just…just get rid of him. He’s in pain.

  He is in pain. He’s suffering and don’t understand why
it’s so hard to breathe, why his legs don’t have the strength to hold his skimpy body up to walk.

  —Alright then. Alright. I s’pose I’ll take him out back. I gotta go change first.

  —No, Keith. Do it now. You have to do it now. Becky’s gonna be home soon. I was just talkin’ to her—

  —Well yes, I will but—

  —Do it fuckin’ now, Keith!

  She half-screams this last bit at me, a touch of hysteria in her voice. My mind is too fragile to go against her.

  So I scoops the poor little morsel into a white plastic bag. He howls something fierce to be touched. He’s gotten so frail you can actually feel your thumb and index finger meet by squeezin’ underneath his spine. No meat left on him at all. His bowels lets go again as I’m liftin’ him and Natasha makes a heave towards the toilet.

  Puss settles into the bag quite comfortably though, and I remembers how he used to love this when he was a kitten. Stick him in a plastic bag and swing him around ’til your arm got tired. Hang the bag on a doorknob and he’d go right to sleep in it. Claw his way out when he woke up. I wonder if he’s made the association himself, and if so, if it lessens his pain any.

  Out in the woods behind the house with a practically dead cat in a plastic bag, looking for the most civilized way to kill it. Drownin’ always sounds so lonely. I takes his head out of the bag and holds my hands around his throat. Holdin’ ’em there. One little twist and he’s gone, out of his misery. But I can’t. I couldn’t. He’s so small and his throat is warm and his eyes are open and under different circumstances they’d look, I don’t know, mischievous, maybe even predatory. He’s so small.

  I’m in no state for this shit. I stuffs him back down into the bag, lays him on the ground and paces around for a bit. I bounces around is more like it. Generations of windswept needles from the evergreens have made the ground spongy, yieldin’ readily to the pressure of my boots. How to do this the right way?

  Without thinkin’ I digs a large muck-covered rock out of the ground, lifts it up over my head and slams it down onto the cat’s face. But the ground beneath him is too soft, his head presses into it and the rock bounces back at me. He lets out a screech quite unlike any sound that ever comes from a cat; a high-pitched, piggish squeal he must have reserved all his life for the moment when someone should happen to slam a ten-pound boulder onto his face. Some new strength at the face of death gets his hind legs twitchin’ and scrawbin’ at the inside of the bag, howlin’ and savage.

  I can’t stop now.

  Can’t let him live like this.

  I slams the rock down onto his face again. His front legs reaches out of the bag and aimlessly latches onto the hem of my dress. Natasha’s good dress. He dangles there for a split second before the horror of it reaches my brain and I swings him off me, his claws shreddin’ into the fine fabric of the dress. Still only half out of the bag, he spins through the air and lands with a thud against a rotten tree stump. I goes over to him. Can’t look him in the eye as I pulls the bag back over his head. I looks up to the sky and blesses myself. Then, with all my strength, I laces the rock down on top of him. His eyeball pops out through the bag and he twitches for a bit. Nerves.

  Catshit on my forehead, splattered all over the inside of Tash’s dress. Blood under my fingernails. Fuck. I goes back to the house to clean up a bit and get a new plastic bag, a proper coffin. Natasha is watchin’ some talk show.

  —Is he dead, Keith?

  —Pretty much, I s’pose.

  I washes the dirt off my forehead, off my forearms, searches the cupboards for a bag.

  —How’d you do it then? You never tortured him, Keith?

  —Tortured him? No I never fuckin’ tortured him…I drowned him in a bucket. He never even knew what happened, girl. Any garbage bags?

  Natasha starts cryin’ again but I won’t hug her. Her pupils are still dilated. She’s still stoned. Compassion is pointless. I leaves her standin’ there in the middle of the kitchen, starin’ at her feet, tears streamin’ down her cheeks.

  When I makes it back out to the woods the cat is nowhere to be seen. The cat is gone, the old bag bloody and foul where I left him. This is impossible.

  —Here Puss. C’mon Puss-cat. Here Puss Puss Puss.

  Something rustles and fidgets over in the bushes to my left. I checks it out but it’s only an old strip of plastic tangled in a bush. I does a little search of the area, knowin’ that he can’t have gone far without something draggin’ him away. A cloud passes in front of sun, the woods goin’ dark, branches like fingers reachin’ out at me from the corners of my eye. I starts to get real spooked out, thinkin’ that maybe something in the woods is after takin’ the cat.

  I finally finds him staggering off into some shrubs a good twelve or fifteen feet from where he should have died. His eyeball is hangin’ out of his head and his skull is crushed and matted with blood. White stuff drippin’ from his ear. He topples over onto his side and meows with about the same level of urgency he uses to be let out of the house in the mornings. I goes back to get the rock but it’s coated with cat filth and my hands feels too clean from the wash. There must be some other way. I paces again, and when I goes back to him, so help me Christ, he’s purrin’. Lying there on his deathbed with his face bashed in, purrin’ away. Given the circumstances, it’s one of the creepiest sounds I’ve ever heard.

  So I stomps him into the ground with my boot. Stomp. But he won’t stop twitchin’…stomp…howlin’…stomp…scrawbin’…stomp…squirmin’. Tooth and nail he struggles on. I finally have to grind the heel of my boot into his neck until his head lets go from his body. Fuck. My boots coated with cat sludge. Natasha’s good dress ruined like she said it would be.

  I holds my breath and scoops him into the clean new bag. He’s a mess. A bloody, matted lump of fur and grizzle. I ties a knot into the top of the bag and slings it out over the tops of the trees down into the pit below.

  Nobody ever thought to give that cat a proper name. Just called him Puss.

  Natasha looks me up and down when I comes back into the house. She sees the state of the dress and we’re right back where we started.

  —Keith. My friggin’ dress. It’s ruined!

  —Well I told you I wanted to change it before I—

  —You saw how upset I was.

  —That’s why I didn’t go and change. You never gave me a chance.

  —I told you not to put it on!

  —It was your fuckin’ idea!

  Puss don’t come home that night. Or the next night. Nobody minds. Cats are busy creatures.

  A few days goes by and Becky starts in whinin’, out on the step ’til midnight calling Puss Puss Pusssssss.

  Stories about old Jack Reddigan skinnin’ cats with a straight razor.

  Myself and Natasha talkin’ of a move into St. John’s next year.

  —Maybe if we had our own place…

  Becky leavin’ a bowl of milk and some Whiskas out on the front step.

  A scratch at the door one evening.

  Becky opening the door to let clumsy old Muggins in.

  —Whatcha got in the bag, Mugs? Did you bring me home a present? Is it a present for Becky?

  Fuck.

  5. Games Well Played

  We’re down by two with fifteen minutes left in the third period. I glides in over the blue line with the puck. Keith’s in the clear on my left. I should pass. Makes perfect sense. He’d have a dandy shot on net. But I don’t. Can’t risk it. I fakes the pass and snaps a little bullet to the right hand corner. Goal! The sticks are up. My teammates gather round, slappin’ me on the back, pokin’ me in the arms. Goddamn. Feels good. We’re back in the game.

  Face-off. Once again we have to wait for Keith to get into position. I don’t know why he bothers. Sure he never looks at the puck. All he minds is checkin’ and slashin’ and hookin’ and fightin’. That’s it. He mopes around until he spots something or someone he don’t like and then he goes cracked.

 
Last week we finished up practice with a little scrimmage. Seeing how goalies gets their own separate practice time, the rule for a scrimmage is that you have to strike one of the posts with the puck in order to score. Not an easy thing to do. I have yet to score a goal in a scrimmage game. Anyhow, there’s Brad Ryan from down the Shore, hustlin’ up the ice, all alone with the puck. Keith comin’ up behind him. One thing I’ll give Keith is that he is a good strong skater. Don’t know where he gets his wind though, ‘cause he’s down under the bleachers before every game eatin’ cigarettes like candy. Brad crosses over the blue line with Keith just inches behind him. Keith hooks his stick around Brad’s ankle. But Brad skates through it and Keith goes down himself. Brad keeps on towards the open net. See, in a scrimmage it’s no sense takin’ a shot on net ‘cause your target is so much smaller and harder to judge. You’d have to be some shot. So Brad carries on, stops with the puck about a foot from the post. He shoots and misses. The puck goes in the net. He stands there tryin’ to dig it out, hopin’ for another shot while he still got time. The tip of his stick finds the puck and scoops it out. Just when he gets it back out front and takes aim at the post, Keith slams into him from behind. Now, Brad’s a big fella. On skates he stands about two feet above the crossbar. But he got no defence. He don’t expect it and sure who would? His neck hits the crossbar. Clothesline. He goes down, his left shoulder takin’ the full weight of his fall. He lies motionless in the net. The game stops and everyone gathers around to see if he’s alright. Rolly, that’s our coach, coaxes Brad to his feet again. We all bangs our sticks on the ice, whoopin’ and cheerin’ as Brad lumbers off to the dressing room. Keith cheers right along with the rest of us, then skates away, grinnin’ from ear to ear.

  Brad’s out for today’s game with a dislocated shoulder. He’s on the bench though, showin’ his support. If he had any sense he’d have the shit pounded out of Keith. If we weren’t all on the same team I’d probably kick the shit out of him. Maybe if he wasn’t my oldest friend. But it goes to show how much he cares for the game that he crosschecks one of our best players, his own teammate, during a fuckin’ scrimmage, a week before the championship game.