qn, d&&&&&&&&P ;P d&b d&&P ;P d' d' d' d&; d' ;P ;&,e&q, .c&&q, ;P`&; ;P .c&&q, ,c&&q, d' dP~ `b ;P' `& d' `&; d';P' `& ;P' `d ;P ;P ;P dB&&&&P ;P `&;;P dB&&&&P d P d&&P d' d' d' &, , d' `&d' &, , &, .,d' d&&P &&& &&& `&&&P' d&&P `P `&&&P' `&&&P , ,e&&&q,a ,nP' d' ;P' `d' "' d&&&P d' " ,c&&q, q&,e&q,e&q, q&P q&,e&q, ;P' ,c&&q, q&,e&q q&,e&q, ;P ;P' `d dP~ `B~ `b dP dP~ `b d' ;P' `& dP~ `P dP `b d' , d P ;P ;P ;P ;P ;P ;P ;P dB&&&&P ;P ;P ;P &, .,d' &, .,d' d' d' d' d' d' d' d' , &, , d' d' d' `Y&&&P' `&&&P' &&b ;P d&P &&b &&b d&P `&P' `&&&P' &&b &&b d&P odO$Obo.$Obo.$Obo.$Obo.$Obo.$Obo.odO$|$Obo.odO$.odO$.odO$.odO$.odO$.odO$Obo t h e n e o - c o m i n t e r n e l e c t r o n i c m a g z i n e I n s t a l l m e n t N u m b e r 2 9 3 .WE ARE THE 5th INTERNATIONAL .February 11th, 2008 .Editor: BMC .Writers: .BMC odO$Obo.$Obo.$Obo.$Obo.$Obo.$Obo.odO$|$Obo.odO$.odO $.odO$.odO$.odO$.odO$Obo ";P' Featured in this installment: `$ ;P Bagger--BMC (with Tapmo) d' ;P d'. .,;::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::;,"*,; EDITOR'S NOTE It is 2008, and there is time for tenth anniversary of the Neo-Comintern haunting my dreams with visions of Saskatoon, birthplace, eternal curse where we all lived and wrote where for years we bagged the city's groceries wishing we'd never been born in Saskatoon, city of night rendering epic representations of past lives, to publish in other past lives. All this proves is that it's not over, & will never be. odO$Obo.$Obo.$Obo.$Obo.$Obo.$Obo.odO$|$Obo.odO$.odO$.odO$.odO$.odO$.odO$Obo ";P' BAGGER d' by BMC (with Tapmo) ;P d'. .,;::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::;,"*,; Winter 1. Saskatoon has the coldest winters in the world. Walking from Nadine's to the bus stop, I lift my scarf and spit at the sidewalk. It freezes instantly. I've only been out here for two minutes and my skin is already stinging. Cars zoom by the bus stop—warm drivers, singing along with their radios. I watch them through the tiny slit between my scarf and toque. I take my hand out of my pocket and flip open my hunter's mitt. I grab my smokes, disposable lighter, and stick a cigarette between my chapped lips. My toes are numb. I lift my scarf again and it starts to go numb too. I need to light this before I freeze to death. The fluid is too cold to light. I slip the plastic inside my mitt, pull it back out, cup it in both hands, and breathe on it. I flick it--the smallest blue flame I've ever seen. My cigarette half lights up, extinguishing the fire. It is commonly known that lighting a cigarette on a freezing winter morning is the only way to summon a city bus. And the other thing about lighting it is you have to really want it--which I do, since I'm trying to calm down for my big job interview. The cherry is fully lit now, and it goes down like ice. Just as it's getting good, the number seven bus comes around the corner. 2. The first thing I see when I enter the store is the checkout stands. I walk up to a middle-aged blonde in a black and white uniform whose nametag reads "Mary." "Excuse me, can you tell me if the manager is around?" She whispers under her breath. "Shish kebob!" Her voice soars out over the intercom: "Ron, customer service on lane six." "I'm not a customer. I'm here for an interview." "Shish!" She turns back to me. "Just head back to the staff room. Right past the produce department." A large man is there, smoking a cigarette and looking at half a sandwich. "Umm, hi," I say. "I'm here for the interview. For the job interview." He motions for me to sit down across from him on a flimsy wooden bench. "All right, let's make this short. Are you a company man?" I have no idea what he's talking about. He recognizes this by the expression on my face. "We're not just looking for anybody here at OK Economy. No goof-offs, no clock-watchers. We provide food for people. We even send deliveries right out to people's houses, did you know that?" I shake my head. "Do you think you have the chips for this?" I look at his plate. "Huh?" "Every job is a bet," he says wisely. "You bet and I bet. Do you have the chips for it?" "That doesn't make sense--" "Let's up the ante: are you Catholic?" "What?" He repeats, "Are you Catholic?" "Well, I was baptized--" "Okay. That's good enough, for now. Just let me finish this sandwich and we'll fill out some forms and get you into a new apron." He puts out his cigarette and bites into the sandwich. "I hate tuna," he says with his mouth full. Another bite. Crumbs fall onto his gut. "Jesus Christ this bread is so dry." He looks at me out of the corner of his eye. "Hey, you know what? Can you get me a glass of water to wash this down with?" I get the water. I get my apron. And like that, I am no longer an unemployed bum. 3. I am officially known as a "courtesy clerk." I am unofficially known as a "bagger." My duties include bagging groceries, cleaning the store, and keeping an eye out for shoplifters. I work from six to twenty hours per week and get paid $5.65 per hour--a rate that is guaranteed to rise as I gain seniority. I love my uniform, and the cardboard bailer in the back room. I throw an empty box into the compactor and watch it crushed by the magnificent press. Even with nothing in the bailer, I press the button just to witness the authoritative action. If robots could vote, this machine would be in the House of Commons. Irving has become my first friend at the store. He is about forty, has the red nose of a drunkard, and is the produce manager. He is also the shop steward. If I ever have a grievance against management, he'll help me out. "I love your job, Irving." "I've been here for twenty years, and I don't get sick of it. This isn't one of those jobs you take home with you." I look in the union book to find out what top wage is for produce clerks. Twenty dollars an hour times forty hours per week--that's a good job. "So how do I get promoted to produce?" "Well, it says in the book that if there's ever an opening, they have to offer the job to the baggers before hiring someone off the street." So I don't have to do anything! I can see myself at forty, Irving-like, polishing apples on my apron. "Hey Irving--Ron eats tuna sandwiches even though he hates them." "Mary says he's trying to go on a diet ever since some of the baggers started calling him 'Round' behind his back." For some reason I laugh at this, even though I know it is not actually funny. 4. Irving is a good person to know when it comes to matters of produce and union. He is also good to know when it's time to send out deliveries. Every day we send out ten to twenty deliveries. On really cold days, we do as many as thirty. The orders come from all over the city, and the baggers are in charge of them. When an order for delivery is received, Mary pages me over the intercom. I sprint to the front of the store, dodging and jumping every object in my way. She gives me the cart, and I wheel it into the back room. I transfer all of the groceries into boxes. At five p.m., professional couriers come and pick up the boxes. I am especially fond of Harry the courier. We have a secret arrangement whereby I let him take all the deliveries for people who are known tippers. The most important thing about deliveries is this: the boxes. I usually have to find them as I need them. The grocery clerks are helpful, setting the best boxes aside for me. But sometimes there are no boxes, and that's when Irving is good to know. "I need boxes, man. I need a box fix." Irving always provides. He's got Chiquita Banana boxes, the sturdiest damned things you've ever seen in your life. Thick cardboard, perfect for bottles and cans. And apple and pear boxes from B.C. Growers. Very attractive, excellent for things that are bulky but not heavy. Once I get my fix, let the deliveries pour in—I am standing waist-deep in boxes, ready for anything. Irving says it's not a job you take home with you. I guess I'll feel like that too, someday. But sometimes, as I'm falling asleep beside Nadine, I start to think about boxes--where they come from, who has filled them up, and all of the things securely held within. 5. Catching a bus isn't so bad is when you're already downtown. The busses park at the bus mall while drivers smoke cigarettes, so it's easy to hop on down here, sometimes without paying. One bus driver seems to be driving on my route about half of the time. He's in his late-30s, and has a handlebar moustache. Nadine and I used to speculate that this driver's name was "Eddie," even though neither of us have ever exchanged names with him. I usually exchange a "how's it going" with him, and we give each other one-sentence updates of our lives. Since I've started working at OK Economy, we're on the same level, connecting in some more-profound way. I take the seat closest to the front. "How's it going?" I ask. "Oh, pretty good. The roads have been real slippery. Lots of busses getting into accidents." "Whoa. That must be stressful." "Nah. I'm used to it. What's new with you?" "Great, couldn't be better. The grocery store's treating me good. My boss is fat. I'm looking forward to the end of winter." "You and me both." See how close Eddie and I have become? Good thing Nadine isn't here or I'd have to comfort her: she hates busses now. Whee! The bus slips all around the streets, the back tires bumping curbs on ninety-degree turns. Everyone jerks around in their seats and Eddie snickers to himself. I snicker too. Spring 1. Now I'm able to contribute a lot more money to Nadine. Part of her welfare is issued directly to the landlord, so there's no need for me to help out with that. But when it comes to food and smokes, I can finally put in some money around here. As I wheel a Safeway cart through narrow aisles of under-stocked shelves, I pick out all of the things Nadine and I like to eat. Bread, beans, ramen noodles, Kraft Dinner, ketchup, pop, microwave dinners, hamburger helper, sardines, and cheap chicken cutlets. An entire carton of Players Light for us to chain-smoke together. I wrap full grocery bags around my wrists and slug them home, moving slowly so as not to let them tear. The snow has mostly melted, leaving by sloppy brown mulch puddles along the sidewalks. I walk straight through these little bogs as though they don't exist. Nadine's apartment is lackluster and stained dirty, but it is not in any way infested with parasites. "Nadine? You here?" Of course she is. I'm just being polite. "Hey, you were supposed to be here three hours ago. What happened?" "Oh, I just wanted to pick up some groceries!" "For three hours? I don't understand how buying groceries could take you three hours." "Hey, look what else I got--smokes!" "Yay!" Nadine unwraps the carton, pulls out first pack, tears out the little slip of foil, and grabs a cigarette. How does she know which bag to search in? I grab one too, pausing to smell the fresh aroma of a new pack. We smoke cigarettes all night, giggling and telling stories. We eat chicken cutlets with ketchup and I think hey, this is kinda the good life here. We have a fresh pack and each other, so what else do we need? 2. She prepares Kraft Dinner with the mastery of a professional chef. Not needing the instructions, she casts the box directly into the garbage can. Amazing! I have no idea how she does it. A few minutes later she hands me a bowl of orange pasta, scent of powered cheddar drifting through the room. As I am about to grab it, she says, "Rule number eight. No showing up late." Then she hands it over. The KD smells so good, tastes so good. 3. Sometimes I feel that working at OK Economy is like having a family. Ron is, by default, the dad. He makes a lot of rules and I try to avoid him whenever possible. The clerks are like brothers. I see them every day, and we never talk to each other or hang out. Irving is like my cool uncle. He's always got good advice like, "Don't take any crap from the boss." He's always got cool presents for me too, which come in the form of boxes. "Hey Irving, got any boxes for me today?" "I sure do. Grapefruits and apples. I've also got myself this beautiful A-grade turkey!" "A very fine bird indeed." I don't even know the significance of an A-grade, but I'm willing to egg Irving on. "So what's the special occasion?" "Easter Sunday. Ever heard of it?" "Hmm. Never done it. Maybe someday. Sounds nice." "Never been to Easter dinner? I wish I could invite you to mine. My wife makes great cranberry sauce." "Are you serious, Irving? Okay, I'll come." 4. When Irving opens the door, I am surprised to see how domestically comfortable he is. His kitchen has stained oak hardwood floors. The cabinets are all brand new. The fridge even has an ice maker. Irving's wife is looking into the stove, probably basting something. We dine with him, his wife, and their children. He introduces them by name, but I don't really pay attention. Over supper, Irving and I make awkward attempts at conversation until it becomes clear that we share nothing in common except for work. And so the conversation keeps coming back to that. "So, Irving, here's a question for you: where do you get pear boxes, usually?" "It's B.C. Growers, you know that," he mutters sharply. "Now do we use Priority for couriers?" I say interestingly, buttering something on my plate. Irving nods, chewing potatoes. The kids leave the table as soon as they're done eating. Nadine isn't contributing at all, and Irving's wife is looking at my plate disgustedly. Irving pours wine. Nadine drinks deeply. I see that my mouth is moving: "So, one more thing about boxes--" Nadine laughs loudly at nothing I can apprehend. "What's funny?" I say, braced for dinner party wit. It is at this point that I recognize that Nadine is drunk. "You buttered your," she bursts out snickering again, "cranberry sauce!" Irving's wife storms out of the room, humiliated. 5. Since Nadine's agoraphobia has worsened, our dates have become somewhat less adventurous. Tonight we're walking down Idylwyld. "Where are we going?" she asks. I don't make her close her eyes or anything. We're going to one of our favourite places. All of our favourite places are within walking distance of her apartment. I say, "Remember our second date?" "Yeah." We arrive at 7-11, and walk in like we own the place. Here she is at home, walking to the Slurpee machine and grabbing the biggest cup. Nadine says that when pouring a Slurpee, it must be done in a particular way. Fill the cup 98% full with Coke slush. Then, fill the last 2% with something sweet. When you've drunk half of the slush, the second half all tastes like whatever went on top. Any more or less than 2% and you're screwed. Never do this. Be warned: 2% looks different in every kind of Slurpee cup. Adjust your measurements accordingly. I love watching her operate this machine. She does it with such precision, elegance, art. What's she going to put on top? Bubblegum slush--it makes perfect sense. She can do anything here. She grabs a tray of nachos, takes it to the counter, and demands extra jalapeno cheese sauce. "Don't skimp," she warns. Right now she looks like a regular girl. I pay for the slush and nachos. She thanks me like it's our second date. We eat, loitering on the front step of 7-11, like our second date. When we get home, we make love at the same rhythm we did on our second date. 6. Here's a funny thing: I don't think I've communicated with a single female since I've started dating Nadine. I mean, there was a brief window of time where I was still allowed to hang out with the girls that I was friends with before we met, but that window quickly slammed shut on my fingers. These days, all I get paid for is to hang out with girls. OK Economy is great like that. And another thing: almost all of the cashiers at the grocery store are attractive. Most of the cashiers are in their teens or early twenties. It's better than being in high school—these girls are women, really--older, more experienced, stripped of social pretense by their black and white uniforms, their minimum-wage paycheques. Girls who never would have talked to me in the hallway now tell me how much they like collecting elephants. Mary is kind of old, but interesting. Sometimes she tells me about a new word she's learned, like obsequious. The next day, she'll try to use it in a sentence: "You aren't being obsequious today, are you?" Or, more likely, "Have an obsequious day!" She also likes to use the word shish kebab as a substitute for shit, and I think this may be the dumbest thing I've heard in my entire life. I also think she has a son close to my age. This girl named Courtney poses a mystery to me, or at least a mild intrigue. During brief moments when we look directly at one another, I feel flustered. I don't really know anything else about her. I think she might live on Spadina, and likes to walk home along the river path. I've said that the employees at the grocery store were like a family to me. Well, I can't think of any allegory for the cashiers. They definitely don't feel like sisters--not in any moral sense. I stand next to them, make small talk, and inhale perfume. My hand-eye coordination is incredible. I am precise and fast. Zing! I fill bags of groceries with skill and style enough to impress any cashier. I pack the groceries in firmly and tightly, all wedged in perfect. I look up from time to time to see whose attention I'm getting. When the store gets busy, Ron works the till. He almost always wants me to bag his groceries, perhaps because he likes me, and maybe because he's not as fast as the other cashiers. "Hustle," he whispers. Bagging his own groceries might help him lose a few pounds--that's a joke somebody made. You never know. Anyway, Nadine doesn't know anything about what the cashiers look like, and it's not really important either. They're just regular girls and I enjoy communicating with them. It's been two years since I talked to a girl other than Nadine. 7. My relationship with Nadine is really solid. She gets excited sometimes when I come home. A few minutes ago, she visited me at work. She reached into her backpack and pulled out a Swanson Hungry-Man microwave dinner. Turkey. Doesn't she know that we sell microwave dinners at the grocery store? Her intentions were good. At that moment, as I was taking it from her, Mary spotted me. I tried to hide the Swanson, but it was too late. She'd already seen too much. From that moment on, everyone would know what kind of food I eat, just like Ron. There was no use in pretense at this point. I guided Nadine to the exit and told her that I'd see her at home. As soon as she'd left, Ron came rushing up to me. He asked, "Was that your girlfriend with the microwave dinner? What's her name?" "Nadine." "Nice rack. All right." I'm standing in the break room, contemplating the microwave dinner that Nadine brought for me. The potatoes represent OK Economy. The starch keeps me structured, upright, on track. The beans are green, like the money I make, all in twenties. The meat represents my relationship with Nadine. There are two white slices and one brown. The brown piece represents all the bad things in our relationship. The two white pieces represent our past and out future. I bet Round could never get a girl like Nadine. By the way, the whole ‘Round' thing has officially stopped since Round found a round of ham at the checkout with a picture of his face on it. Round blew up in front of everyone. It was really great. In defense of his outburst Ron said: "Skip the bag boy has conspired against this store, this company, and the food service industry of our entire nation!" I chuckle to myself thinking about it. This Skip must be great. I can't stop thinking of the microwave dinner as a metaphor for my life. The cranberry sauce is me getting to work with so many hot cashiers. Summer 1. Today is Seniors' Day, and all the staff is here. I am scheduled for an eight-hour shift, and so is Skip: head bagger, head troublemaker. He could have been promoted long ago, but he's decided to stay a bagger for life, demanding that he only ever be scheduled for Saturday shifts and Seniors' Day. "Hey Microwave, or should I call you Mr. Swanson?" I knew it. Even something as innocuous as a microwave dinner has now made me the object of gossip and ridicule. I can only wonder what would have happened if I'd been caught with the chicken cutlets. Skip would probably have accosted me wearing a full chicken costume, pecking with his beak and scraping with his talons. Near the produce section, there is a table set up with cookies and coffee. Skip eats fistfuls of cookies and invites me to do the same. I'm hungry, so I accept his invitation. While I'm at it, I wash it all down with a couple of cups of coffee and extra sugar. Later, some guy in a trench coat shits in aisle seven and it's up to Skip to decide which bagger cleans it up. He doesn't pick me, but instead chooses Travis. I feel that Skip's decision not to thrust me into a steaming pile of feces is a sort of olive branch regarding the microwave dinner remark. In the shipping bay, there are sixty carts full of groceries that need to be boxed as deliveries, and we don't have a single box. Irving says he's out. As I go to check the bakery, I make a crack to Irving about all the deliveries. He hasn't been as nice to me since the Easter dinner. "I guess there are a lot of customers whose bodies have become old and obsolete, disallowing them the privilege of owning driver's licenses." "Good one," he says. The bakery has a few boxes, but that's all I can find. "Grab two empty shopping carts," Skip says. "I'll show you how to handle this." We wait in the break room, staking out the produce cooler until Irving wanders off for a moment. "Okay. Go. Now." We storm in and ransack the whole thing, dumping all of Irving's apples, oranges, grapefruit, lemons, and pears into shopping carts. We work quickly and sloppily, paying no regard to the amount of work that he's going to have to put into sorting it out later. I feel strangely liberated by this action as Skip and I escape to the shipping bay, toting dozens of boxes. After the store shuts down, Skip leads the baggers in a fruit fight. Bananas and tomatoes smash against every surface. With five of us on duty, it only takes a few extra minutes to clean it all up. 2. Bagging groceries is beginning to show a lot of potential, not just as a career, but also as a lifestyle. Rule number three: no more hanging out with "those guys." This rule was created when Nadine and her grandfather came to pick me up from Chad's house one afternoon. As I staggered to the truck, I fell down unconscious and puking. Since the imposition of rule number three, I have been limited to hanging out with Nadine's friends and their boyfriends. This has not been very exciting for me, as they are all a bunch of boring dimwits with potential futures as mechanics and couriers. No, I would rather hang out with someone a bit more exciting. 3. By my request, Ron has allowed me to work the occasional Saturday with Skip. The store on Saturday is unlike any version of the store I have seen before. The aisles look the same, the tills look the same, but something is different—there are no customers. "Most people don't even know the store is open on weekends," Skip explains, "therefore maximizing our goof-off potential. Grab a mop and meet me in the break room." When I get there, Skip is holding a broom. He drags it limply across the floor with one hand, concentrating on the cigarette in his other hand. When he is done, I do the same thing with the mop. That kills the first half hour of the day. We celebrate this accomplishment by grabbing the most expensive sandwiches we can find in the deli. Mine is pastrami on a cheese bun. "Wolf it quickly, in case any of the other staff walk by. But savour, too." This is the best meal I've had in months. After finishing them, we slam back two cans of warm pop at top speed, belching loudly afterward. During these breaks we have a lot of talks—about the management, about the cashiers, about Greek mythology. Ron is about to crack under his diet regimen, Janine's filing a sexual harassment charge against one of the grocery clerks, and Dionysus has castrated Agdestis, whose outpour of blood has given seed to the first pomegranate plant. "By the way," Skip says, "I was just bugging you about the microwave dinner. I eat microwave dinners. Who doesn't?" He offers me a Player's Special Blend and we smoke to friendship. "Did you hear about Ares and Aphrodite?" 4. For the record, here are a few of the infractions that Skip has committed in my presence: -Filling entire grocery bags with food and sneaking them out through the shipping bay door. -Masturbating into a large urn of coffee. -Writing "cunt" beside Mary's name on the timesheet. -Tossing one fully-functional, brand-new shopping cart into the trash compactor. -Whispering lewd sentiments into Courtney's ear. The last one is the strangest to me. Skip is so careless when he talks to her, as though he doesn't respect her at all. He speaks nonchalantly about a variety of erotic sensations, and at these remarks she actually seems to be amused. He stands behind her at the till and says, "How 'bout letting me pack your slamhole?" 5. While Nadine stirs KD at the stove, I move in behind her and say, "How 'bout letting me pack your slamhole?" 6. "Nadine. Are you ready now?" "I'm feeling kind of full. I think I ate too much KD." "Maybe we should go out for a walk, maybe pick up a Slurpee?" "I don't think I feel like it." The first time I had sex with Nadine, she cried. This was not done specifically to ruin my experience, although it did very well do so. Her supposed purpose in weeping after our intercourse was to express her disbelief regarding my virginity. If I had not had sex before, how was I so knowledgeable? I could only guess that it was a combination of luck and pornographic research. I believe it is some or all of these factors that makes her unable to reciprocate my desire tonight. Our display of partnership tonight consists of chain-smoking cigarettes and depositing butts in a Player's Light tobacco tin made of real metal. We've never discussed it in words, but I believe we share a common goal of filling it with cotton and fiberglass filters, then sealing it and throwing it into the river. When we're run out of tobacco and money, we pick old butts out of the tin and roll the remaining bits of tobacco into Zig Zag papers. This is how our relationship evolves. 7. We're in the middle of a break when Ron's voice echoes over the intercom system: "Skip, wrap on lane four." Skip puts out his cigarette. "Man, what the fuck does that fat fuck want?" "Yeah." I nod. Then I think of a good one: "Yeah! Maybe he wants some tuna. Ha! He's like a whale!" Courtney walks in. It all makes sense. She's on her break, Ron has to fill in for her, he's indignant that he has to work cash, and so he's called Skip up front to share his shame. Now Courtney and I are in the break room alone. "Hi Courtney." "Hey." I try to think of something else to say. Maybe she'll say something to me. Maybe not. Skip walks back into the door. "Man," he says. "I'd like to whip that motherfucker in the face with a bull's pizzle." Courtney starts laughing, more delighted than I've ever seen her. I resent Skip for being able to do that, because I simply can't. I feign detachment, like it's not really that funny. I walk over to the toaster, which no one ever uses, but they don't notice because Skip has gone on to describe the ancient tradition of making a whip from a bull's penis. I try to crack a joke that will surprise them in its originality and because I so quickly moved on to something else I found funny. "Man! This toaster," I pause for effect, "never gets used!" Skip stops talking and Courtney stops listening to him for a second. "It's not even plugged in!" I say, holding up the cord, grinning. Apparently both the penis and the whip are referred to as a pizzle, which Skip speculates would make for a number of humorous misunderstandings. I wish I could laugh wholeheartedly, but I know he is only telling these jokes for Courtney's sake. I light a cigarette and withhold my attention from both of them. I'm not sure if anybody notices. There are no clear signs either way. 8. I placed an order at the engraving shop a few weeks ago, and it's finally done: my very own customized Zippo lighter. It's plain stainless steel, except for an engraving on one side that reads: SUPER BAGGER EXTRAORDINAIRE. I flick it open and closed by snapping my fingers. It might just be a fantasy, but when Skip is around I do truly feel like a super bagger. I could commit to a job like this forever just for twelve dollars an hour and the opportunity to be friends with Skip. 9. Ron asks me why I'm late. I look at my watch, which shows a different time from that on the store clock, and I know it's happened again. I don't even try to explain it. I just apologize and tell him it won't happen again. "It had better not," Ron says. "I know how you Saturday guys are, and I don't want you jacking off on the job, thinking you can break any rule you want." "Jacking off?" I say incredulously. Then I realize I've appropriated Skip's wit and courage. "Of course Ron, of course Ron." "All right. Now go put your apron on. There's a bunch of deliveries waiting back there for you. Hustle, hustle." As I hustle past the meat section, I notice something strange: a man with a shopping cart full of bagged goods. A cart full of bagged groceries should be outside, not inside. I stop and watch for a few minutes. A scrawny balding guy in his late twenties has somehow acquired a cart and several dozen grocery bags. He picks prime cuts off of the shelf: porterhouse, sirloin, filet mignon, and stuffs them into the grocery bags in his cart. As far as I know, he's got to be packing at least eight hundred dollars in beef. I casually walk over to Ron and tell him what I've seen. He tells me, "When the guy tries to leave with the cart we'll swarm him, yank him into the back room, and call the cops." All the clerks are in position and ready to grab him at the front. Instead, he runs his cart straight through lane 3 and breaks for the side door. The only person in his way is Mary. As the shoplifter runs past, she steps out to speak to him, when the guy thrusts his arm out to knock her to the ground. We are preparing ourselves to witness the worst. Mary sidesteps the guy, yanks him along with his own momentum, and knees him in the ribs. She says "Somebody call the cops before this creep comes to." The rest of the day is no different from usual. Later, in the break room, Mary says "Shish kebob." Tears run like shoplifters from the grocery stores of her eyes. "My son is such a stupid shit head." 10. The new schedules are up and Skip isn't on them. When I asked Ron what's going on, he takes me aside—not like a man, but like a child. "I caught that fucker stealing. I was watching him. I'm watching you too. You're one pussy hair away from being fired. Just remember that." I suppose I'd taken a shining to Skip, but he was not an asset of unlimited value. He is like Cronos, and I am Zeus. Now that he is gone, I will inherit his kingdom and his powers. My Zippo lighter gleams, even in the darkness of my pocket. The engraved words have never been truer. Fall 1. I often show up late for things. I've tried all kinds of watches and clocks, but I can't prevent myself from traveling through time. Sometimes hours pass by without my knowledge, and then my watch shows a different time than every other clock in the world. This occurs so often that Nadine has instituted a new rule regarding my lateness (Rule #8). The punishment is not dire, and I would rather suffer it than try explaining things to her. Occasionally, time moves the other way, slowing to a crawl. Nights of anguish feel like months, and these make me very old. Luckily, the two different kinds of time travel balance each other out. There's also the backflash. This is the only other kind of time travel I can imagine. I've never experienced it, but I'm sure I will eventually, finding myself repeatedly jumping back to the beginning of a drawn-out argument with Nadine or perpetually stationed at a bus stop on the coldest day of winter. 2. Since Skip's firing, Ron has become militaristic. He no longer allows the baggers any sort of independence, requiring them to check in with him after each task. This sort of effort on his part is also a burden and pain to him. Ron says over the intercom, "Wrap on lane four." I run to four, where he's working till. He sneers at me. There are hardly any customers in line. I bag groceries for a few minutes, and he says, "Go bleach the meat room." There are still milk cartons to be dumped, but those can wait. I head to the meat room with some rubber gloves, bleach, a scrub brush, and a squeegee. I bleach all the tables and cutting boards, knives and cutting boards. Next, I disassemble the Hobart meat saw, blade and wheels, scrub every piece down. I have to go slowly on the 12-foot loop of band saw blade, since it's jagged and scary. As I get the brush into the nooks of every saw tooth, I turn the loop in different angles making the whole thing wriggle erratically around on the floor. "Wrap on lane four!" the intercom screams. I twitch, blade shimmering in my hands. "Deliveries," Ron says. "Send out the deliveries!" I've been at the job for long enough now that I'm getting nearly eight bucks an hour, and Ron could replace me with a newly-hired bagger for $5.35. He knows this and I know this. I send out the deliveries. Couriers appear at the shipping bay, load up, and then disappear. 3. I come home with a case of beer to get drunk with Nadine and forget about work. The girl has beer in her blood. She carries that alcoholism gene like a princess carries a scepter. Now, the important thing about buying beer with Nadine is this: it must be done without forewarning. If I go to the liquor store by myself, I can pick up Molson Canadian, or Labatt's Light, or Kokanee, or anything. If she's involved, it's Budweiser. Only ever Budweiser. I've never asked her why she has this compulsion, but I imagine she picked it up from some guy she had sex with before me. So I hit the store alone and get a two-four of Canadian. "Hey Nadine, look what I got!" I rattle the box with both hands, making the bottles clink around. "You're late. You're late, you're late. Why?" "Shut up and drink." Somehow that got from the inside of my head to the outside without my say so. It murmured out like a smoke from a tail pipe. I hate her for not understanding. 4. It was primarily due to the time travel that I ended up dropping out of high school for good. I couldn't make it to class on time, and when I did show up I'd be too old and exhausted. I'd been a dropout for a long time when I met Nadine. I was riding around with Chad, and we decided to stop at Petro Canada for a pack of smokes. When we went in to pay, there she was, disinterested in her job, gazing off into the air. For some reason, maybe because I was high, it was important, I had to speak. "So, you work at Petro-Canada. How is that? How do you like working at a gas station?" "It's boring…but it gives me plenty of time to think." "And what do you think about?" "Oh, I don't know--everything, I guess." "I like to think about everything too. I guess we have something in common. Hey, do you think you would like to give me your phone number?" And just like that, I had something. I didn't care about tomorrow, or the next day, or anything else from the beginning of time to the end. A couple of nights later, we went out to a movie. The night after that, we had our second date at 7-11. Then we moved in together. 5. Mary's voice comes on the intercom: "Thank you for shopping at OK Economy. We are about to close. Please bring your purchases to the front. Thank you." Ron summons me to the office. "I need to get out of here early today. I want everything done in ten minutes. All right? Get out there and don't dog it! Hustle!" I hate when he says hustle. I know he can't fire me, but he can cut my hours, and he can do other things too. I sprint to the meat room, douse the counter, and rub bleach around. I throw the knives into hot water and leave them soaking. I tear the casing off the meat saw and douse it down. Now to take the saw blade off—no, fuck it—I'll just clean it while it's on the saw. The blade is wrapped tight on two huge wheels. If I spin it with my finger, I can just hold a brush against the flat of the blade as it revolves. Yes, spinning, very good. I turn the wheel, which moves with surprising ease. Faster and faster, scrubbing jagged teeth, a brisk grinding chill. My finger slips, it feels like a pinch, but I know better. Ground beef is my flesh. Blood pours mahogany. I manage to stagger to the break room and lie down on a bench. I clutch the finger with my other hand, now painted bright red. As I am about to faint, Courtney strolls into the room. "Oh my god!" she gasps. "Are you okay?" "Cut myself on the saw. Need stitches." "Okay. Okay. I know what to do. I have first aid training. Wash, gauze. Okay. Just relax. Hold still. I can do this." She rouses me to my feet and washes my finger in the sink. I struggle to stay on my feet. "You're in shock," she says. "Your arteries are expanding. You're going to be okay." My knees knock against the sink. "Here. Put your arm around me." My body is entirely numb, devoid of sensation, but I can feel her warm shoulder against my blood-drenched fist. "There. All cleaned up. Now sit down here, and I'll wrap you up." She braces me with an arm across my back and leads me to the bench. I keep my arm around her as she works on my finger, slumping my head forward a bit, catching the scent of her hair and neck. As I do this, she looks up to me, her face inches from mine. I can almost taste her breath as she says, "Your lips are turning blue." The next time I open my eyes I'm sitting alone in the back of a cab heading for St. Paul's Hospital. 6. Nineteen stitches have remade my finger. While I heal, I'm on two weeks of worker's comp. This gives me a bit of freedom, but unfortunately I'm only getting compensated for six hours per week. This wouldn't be so bad if I had enough money to do something with that time other than sit around, watching TV, hanging out with Nadine 24 hours a day. Our relationship is getting pretty itchy, and it doesn't take a lot to start a fight. I'm worried about what might happen if the cigarettes run out. 7. "Nadine, I just remembered something." "What's that?" "You know our second date?" That night, when Nadine taught me how to mix Slurpee, when we ate nachos and cheese on the front step of 7-11, was the same night she cried, when she wept after we had sex. How can I ever think of our most perfect date now as anything other than the first night her trust faltered? How things were ending even as they began? 8. When I come back it feels like I'm the new guy again. I tell Ron that I need to stay on light duties until I get the splint off. He agrees, knowing that I could file a grievance for having injured myself while performing duties that are only supposed to be done by trained meat cutters. On my way out of the office, I walk past the cashiers. "Hey--Courtney!" I wave wildly with my splinted finger. I try to think of something cool to say, but it comes out wrong. She smiles and continues to scan groceries. I head off to the back room. I've missed wearing my apron. Also, I think I've lost my lighter. Winter 1. Ron asks, "How would you like a promotion?" "Produce department?" I ask. He laughs like I'm a moron. "You ever play poker, kid?" "No," "No," he says, as if he can answer for me. "You haven't. You've got no poker face." He moves in, becomes confidential, conspiratorial: "It's written all over your face that you want Irving's job." I just look at him. He decides to drop it: "No, not produce. Grocery. Stocking shelves." He tells me that the job is eight hours per week. I've been getting twenty bagging since the stitches came out. "That's the other thing," he says. "I'm cutting baggers' hours. We're getting rid of deliveries, so the new head bagger will be lucky to pick up six a week. The rest will be getting three or four." He's got a good plan to keep everyone from getting enough seniority for a raise. Stock is no different: three guys working eight hours instead of one guy with a decent part-time job. "Yeah Ron, I guess I'll take it." "By the way, Irving's a friend of mine." I know this is a bald lie. Irving sneers at Round every chance he gets. "Old friend," Ron goes on. "Vying for his job? Not all right. Frankly, I'd never invite you over to poker night." I spend the rest of the day trying to think of an up-side to the promotion. By the end of the day, I've come up with two. The first is that I get a thirty cent raise. The second is that when I tell people what I do for a living, they won't think I'm saying "beggar." For some reason it really hurt my feelings that Ron would never invite me over for poker. 2. The blinds are closed. Nadine is sitting on the couch, watching TV. "Hey Nadine, I got a promotion, but get this--" "You're late again. Are you fucking someone?" "What? No!" "BULL SHIT!" She jumps up and throws the lamp against the wall. Now the TV is the only thing lighting the room. I decide to taunt her rather than give in to her childish emotions. "You feel better now?" She puts her shoes on, grabs her jacket, and slams the apartment door. Nadine must want me to follow her, but I know better. This is her apartment. She'll come back when she's calmed down. I throw the fragments of lamp into a Safeway bag. Then I vacuum up all the little ceramic shards. When I wake up, Nadine is in the other room again, watching TV. The blinds are open. 3. Now that I'm stocking shelves, I'll never have to mop a floor or dump a garbage can again. When boxes are empty, I throw them in the cardboard baler. I stash some of them in the shipping bay. I need to keep four or five around, for when I get the courage to move my stuff from Nadine's. Nice and sturdy boxes. 4. I am stocking frozen foods. My hands are cold. I've taken two caffeine pills and a can of Coke, in order to boost that precious piece count. I'm hyper, spastic. My fingers are trembling and I have no idea what's going on around me, no idea what context I have for maintaining my existence at this store. I stock bullshit mixed vegetables, bullshit fries, bullshit brussels sprouts, and chicken pot pies. The microwave dinners--the microwave dinners. I gaze down at a full box of Swanson Hungry Man. Turkey. I yank one out of the box, storm into the break room, punch the plastic cover with holes and stick it in the microwave for eight minutes. I rip the plastic off and I stab the food with a fork, trying to figure out what the fuck my life has turned into. The potatoes are a white blob, frozen solid in the middle. My state of being after stocking the freezer on caffeine pills. The potatoes aren't even real. They're re-hydrated powder and butter-colored dye. The dye is my mind, only for show, useless to me as a grocery clerk. The meat is my self-slaughter, my heartless boss who dines on the finest foods, the underpaid labor I've put into this store, and the fatness forces him to diet. The cranberry sauce is everything that I enjoy in life: being a grocery bagger, having friends, talking to cashiers on their break. I guess I can just scrape that into the garbage. I don't know what the beans stand for and I don't even care. 5. I walk into Nadine's house and slam the door behind me. I'm more than four hours late. I stomp into the kitchen with my boots on and grab a box of Hamburger Helper. Nadine opens the bedroom door and walks toward me. I turn the burner on and dump the noodles in. "What rule did I break this time, Nadine?" "It doesn't matter." "Since when does anything not matter to you?" "Calm down." "Don't tell me to calm down, Nadine! You don't know the first thing about what I'm going through." I try to shake the caffeine out of my nervous system, rattling the Hamburger Helper on the stove. "You're just looking for a reason to get mad." "Oh yeah!" I laugh, suddenly bitterly happy. "I'm looking all around the room. Can I find a reason? I don't know. Oh, wait, here's one." I point my finger in the air as though I'm teaching a child to count. "My girlfriend is a shiftless, lazy, ambitionless loser who sits around the house all day waiting for me, just to tell me that I'm late and every other stupid rule I've broken." "That's not fair . . ." "She never has sex with me, she cried the first time we had sex, she's scared to take a bus or go anywhere by herself, she brings half-melted microwave dinners to the grocery store, and, oh yeah, one more thing," I'm really getting into it now, "she's put on about fifteen pounds since we started dating." She starts crying, and sputters, "Why are you taking this out on me? I don't understand." "Will you ever understand?" I say, exasperated. "It's a little thing called reality. I've had enough of this." As I'm making my way to the door she intercepts me, puts her arms around me. "Don't go," she whispers. "Please." She's not looking at me, and this gives me the courage not to care. "Get the fuck out of my way," I say, pushing her aside. Nadine collapses against the wall, sobbing like suffocation. The cat in the hallway runs away at the bang of Nadine's body hitting drywall. 6. The sun comes and goes like headlights over the rise, fast like lightning in the sky. 7. the scent of my profession ron's asshole misting the air with tuna sandwich perfume loaf of bread, stick of butter girl who stands across from me i would like to do you boxes open, empty my fist a broken blade what is my piece count where is my box cutter? overloaded palettes tumble like anything i cut myself with sunlight, eyes tugged from sockets cigarette butts in slurpee cups a huge pumpkin, warm silhouette knife, the concentration of your lip long pale hand on orange skin you standing across from me i would like to do you 8. I enter with a bouquet of dandelions. I'm on time for once, and I know it. "Nadine? I'm ready now. Let's talk this through." No response. I look through the bedroom, living room, kitchen. Nothing. There is nothing left here. She has taken it all. On the kitchen counter there is a note. I'm gone Don't try to find me Don't worry, I'll send your stuff Spring 1. I've blown my pitiful savings account on first and last month's rent in a cheap downtown bachelor suite, fully furnished. I once thought that it was impossible to get a place for cheaper than Nadine's unless it was either unsafe or infested. I was right. The floor of my apartment is covered in obsolete shag carpeting that's never been vacuumed. I will never walk on it without shoes for fear of stepping on broken glass of stabbing myself on a dirty syringe. Oh shish kebab! I would mutter as the Hepatitis C sauntered through my body. I will never sleep in this bed if not fully-clothed. I still don't have any of my stuff here, since Nadine stole all of it. I'm worried about her and wonder where she is. I also wonder how she's planning to return my stuff when she has no idea where I live. 2. I get four channels: as long as I'm not too picky, I have something to watch all day and all night, using up my spare time as cheaply as possible. CBC French. At 1 a.m., there is a brief flash of nudity. In the day I like to watch Friends, especially since I don't have any friends of my own. At six and eleven, I watch the news. I find out what fancy parties rich people are going to, and I imagine that I'm at these parties, escorted by the cast of Friends. Paid Ads. In the latest hours of the night, this is my favourite thing on TV. If I was rich I'd fill mansions with kitchen gadgets, the most useless gadgets ever made. The banana holder, the pizza cutter, the banana cutter, the banana holder holder . . . Static. The black/white chaos makes me feel strangely intoxicated. The aerial is broken. Maybe the dial isn't tuned right. When I can't get out of bed, there is only a black screen. When the power goes out, the world is far away. 3. I've tried making Kraft Dinner on my own several times now, but I can't make it work. I follow the instructions perfectly every time, but it's always wrong. Sometimes it's undercooked, but mostly the problem is that I use too much milk. The next time I make Kraft Dinner, it seems like I should remember there was too much last time, and solve the problem by using less. It does sound like a good plan, but I always forget it, dumping batch after batch of Kraft Dinner down the toilet. Maybe it's my kitchenette stove. Or maybe it's my measuring cup, the amount of salt I put in the water, or the test pattern on my TV. Why am I doing this? Why this, of all things, when Nadine is out there somewhere, making perfect Kraft Dinner for God knows who. 4. My whole body aches at work. I am addicted to caffeine and have been taking pills at least once an hour. I need to talk to a real human being, so I move my body to the tills at the front of the store. Courtney is there, scanning cans. "Hi there," I say. I know I'm not a bagger anymore, but I start packing groceries for her. "Are you okay?" she asks. "You look pretty sick." "I don't know. I think I made a mistake taking this new job. I miss bagging groceries. I can pick up three soup cans in each hand." I try doing this as I say it, but two fall on the floor. One gets dented. "Sorry," I say to the customer. "I'll go and get you another one." I bring the can back, put it in a bag, and stand there stupidly. "I believe you can pick up three cans," Courtney says. Ron walks past and taps me on the shoulder. "Come with me," he says. "I know she's hot—I hired her for a reason—but chatting up the pussy isn't your job. Now go out there and get an acceptable piece count for once. Hustle." 5. When I finally come down from my caffeine high, I am dehydrated, dry heaving from withdrawal. Although I'm too sick to drink water, it's the only way to flush the chemicals out. I try to sleep, but since my heart rate and nervous system can't calm down, my dreams become indistinguishable from reality. 6. Second date. We go to the 7-11 for Slurpees and nachos. We make love for the first time. Immediately afterward, she faces away from me and starts to cry. "What is it, Nadine?" She doesn't respond. I place my hand on her back, reassuringly. "Are you okay?" "It's just . . ." "Yeah?" ". . . just . . . I think I'm falling in love, and it scares me." I kiss her shoulder. "Good. Let's always be honest about how we feel." She turns toward me and smiles. "I think that sounds like a good rule." "You're right, it does." I kiss her lips. 7. By the way, I've finally gotten used to walking barefoot on the carpet. This ought to be the ultimate symbol of hitting rock bottom, but I've still got one more step to go. I'm a hundred dollars short on my next rent payment, which is due in exactly one week. Summer 1. I have been lying in bed for hours. I would sleep, but there comes a point where consciousness is unavoidable. I stare off through the dark, waiting for dawn. Why dawn? Because there's nothing better, and I have to look forward to something. When I run out of mucous, I scrape my fingernail against the membrane until it goes raw. I stuff my bloody nostril with tissue and go dizzy, feeling the lightest touch of euphoria. Sometimes a good nosebleed helps me transcend my loneliness. I am lying in bed, inside a box, with my fingernail touching membrane. I'm not surprised when I realize from the sound of traffic that it's already noon in the outside world. 2. I open boxes, scrambling to put groceries on shelves fast enough. I can't move my hands. I scoop armfuls of Corn Flakes, push them on, shoving them to the back, repeating the motion, making good time, like a piston in a socket, like it's all I can do. One box left. I'm out of shelf space. One last box, trying to shelve it, the boxes won't move. I can feel my piece count going down--feel it as a bodily sensation, like how it feels when you spend your last two dollars on a losing scratch card. The telephone rings. I'm not ready for this, it must finally be Nadine. "Hello?" I've fallen behind in time. I'm listening to a dial tone. The hands have moved on all the clocks. I'm strangling a family-sized box of Corn Flakes. I hate every box in the world. 3. My apartment, I realize, is a box. The whole thing is one stark room, paneled in brown. The carpet is brown. The sky through my window is black. I am trying to masturbate, but can't get an erection. While watching test patterns one night, I picked up a dictionary and started randomly looking for interesting words. My eye came across "parasite: an organism living in or on another and benefiting at the expense of the other." I thought, then, of how I started out--a parasite in my mother's womb. Festering, sucking nutrients, siphoning off her energy and giving nothing back. I thought of how it all began: a mistake between a reprehensible young girl and a loathsome brute. The idea of the two mating is biologically obscene. Upon the discovery of a physically conquerable woman, the man feels an irresistible urge to pollute her body, spitting larvae from his throbbing penis. The woman will allow this prick to penetrate and infest her healthy body if--and only if--she can convince herself that this act is something other than loathsome and repugnant. All sorts of thin facades are invented, from courting rituals to the conceit of true love. This pretense of sexual legitimacy is t ransparent--romance is ornate rape--semen a toxin that I hate as much as myself. I deserve to die, to never ejaculate again. And still, I am trying to arouse myself to erection because the girl in this paid advertisement is doing leg lifts as beautiful as any light pattern I have ever watched through a small glass screen. 4. Next week's timesheet has been posted and I'm only scheduled for one four-hour shift. I bang the door to Ron's office. "Yeah?" he asks. "What's up?" "Ron, what's the deal with the timesheet? I have like no hours! I need the money, Ron. How am I supposed to pay my Goddamned rent, or eat?" Ron smiles. "Hmm. I don't know! Get another job, I guess." "You dirty prick. Suck my cock, you . . . fat . . . fuck." Ron's smile just gets bigger. "You want a reprimand for insubordination? Sure. You've got it." "I'm filing a grievance, Ron. You can't get away with cutting my hours." "Why don't you talk to the shop steward? Maybe you can cry about it over Easter supper." I just stare at him. I am so angry I can't think of anything to say. "People used to call you Round." 5. My stomach is empty. I rifle through the cupboards, and they're all empty. Every drawer, empty. The fridge, empty. The freezer, empty. They've been this way for a long time, but I feel compelled to check anyway. I flip the lid on the garbage can and see boxes and wrappers, some of them from months ago. I dump it all out in the middle of the room and begin to sort through it. I find nothing of interest but a moldy old microwave dinner tray like the one Nadine once brought me. I hold the thing up to the light, marveling at how rotten and empty it is. 6. I spot a suspicious-looking drifter walking into the bathroom aisle and decide to follow him. His skin is like clothing and his lips are blue. I turn the corner in time to see him push a bottle of hairspray up the sleeve of his plaid button-up. He notices me standing between him and the end of the aisle, probably between him and some tremor-ending dream. He looks into my eyes, and I nod my head at him, suggesting yes, I did see him steal the bottle. He's trying to figure out if he should nonchalantly put it back on the s helf, turn and run, or lower his shoulder and rush right through me. It's totally unnecessary, though. I don't care anymore. "Take it," I sigh, leaving him momentarily stunned. Then he just walks out, dinner up his sleeve. I face the hairspray shelf so it looks like it's never been touched. 7. It is the evening of my twentieth birthday. I just finished my one shift of the week, and I'm at the Black Duck, celebrating twenty years by drinking my paycheque. If I'm lucky, the whole thing might buy me enough beer so I can feel it. I've got a fresh pack and I'm chain smoking. I glance across the room to see what's going on at the other tables, but then I decide it doesn't really matter. I crush out my smoke, light a new one, and watch the surface of the varnished oak table like it's a test pattern. "Hi. What are you doing?" It's Courtney--she's in her work clothes, at the Black Duck, talking to me. "Hey--hi! Courtney! What are you doing here? Do you want to sit down?" "I just thought I'd stop in for a pint before heading home. And sure, why not?" 8. Courtney is sitting across from me, chain-smoking my cigarettes. I'd never really imagined this before, sitting at the same table with her, drinking, sharing something. "So what are you doing here, then?" she asks. "Oh, I just thought I'd come out for a drink. It's my birthday. Pretty pathetic, huh?" "No, it's not pathetic . . . it's just . . . okay, yeah, I've got to admit, that's pretty pathetic." "But so what?" she adds. "You're pathetic. So what? Who isn't pathetic? Look around you and find one non-pathetic person in this whole fucking place." "Yeah, I guess so . . ." We order another drink, and now we're telling OK Economy anecdotes. I bring up that time when Mary beat the meat thief, and Courtney says, "Did you know she has a black belt in Tai Chi? Boy, did she ever shish kebob that guy!" I tell her that Ron cut my hours back, and she starts getting mad. "That guy's such a loser. Did you know that I'm filing a sexual harassment charge against him? A couple of weeks ago he came up to me and said I had a nice rack! Irving was standing right there and witnessed the whole thing." Ron seems so distant to me right now, I can't even bring myself to be angry about him. I tell her about how I used to be friends with Irving, and how difficult it's been for me to communicate with him after making such an ass out of myself during Easter dinner. "Speaking of which," she says, "are you still in touch with Skip?" "No. We never spoke after he got fired. I think he was probably ashamed after he got caught stealing." "Yeah, he was upset about that for quite a while afterward. We tried dating for a couple of months. I have no idea how to respond to this statement. The thought of Skip with her makes me feel disappointed and heartsick. I nod at her statement and pretend to smile. "It didn't work out," she says. The smile comes from inside now. "It was pretty disappointing to find out he didn't have a serious side. Everything was a joke to him, and so nothing great came of it except for a few weeks of incredible sex. Did I just see you cringe?" "No. Yeah," I sigh. "I wish I could be as good at getting along with people as Skip." My hands motion to her: she is the person I mean. "That's silly of you. What's the difference, anyway?" her off-handedness is brilliant. My desire to be like Skip feels light enough to drop. "That's true," I say, surprised that I mean it. 9. When we've gotten the bill and paid for our drinks, we head outside and bid each other farewell at the front door. "Goodnight," I say. "Goodnight to you too." The words are drawn out, they ring, the summer air holds them there. We are still looking at each other, not moving at all. My heart is beating. "Can I walk you home?" I blurt. "Yes I would love that," she gasps, quick as blood. 10. It's the most beautiful night Saskatoon has ever seen. We walk down Spadina, right along the river, and . . . it does not seem like Saskatoon. The sky is not quite black, the water is not blue. Everything is infused with an antique grey. "So how's your finger?" she asks. "My finger? Oh. Oh! My finger! It's great now, thanks to you." "Good. So how much do you remember about that incident?" "Just enough? I don't know. Not much." "Do you remember putting your arm around me?" I blush under the temperate air. "Yes." We say nothing until silence needs filling. "I never got the blood stain out of that shoulder." "Oh? I'm sorry. If I'd have known, I would have offered to buy you a new one." "I kept the shirt anyway. Don't know why. What's the last thing you remember happening before you passed out?" "You were looking at me and my lips were blue." "Do you know what happened after that?" Her hand is on my shoulder. "What?" "You kissed me. Like this." I am imagining a red flower in fast forward. You see this on TV: the footage is sped up so that days are hoisted, raised and exhausted in seconds. The flower puckers, pummeled and battered beautifully by wind and weather. The pleasure of this kiss is not diminished by my stepping outside of the moment to realize that I want it to go on forever. In fact, this knowledge only tempers the delight, makes it deeper and richer. "I don't remember that at all," I say, embarrassed. I don't, but the repetition of the first kiss, the one in the store, is felt. The first kiss ever, the last kiss ever. This is a kiss, this is The Kiss. And she is suddenly roguish, knowing, taking my chin in her hand and looking at my eyes. "It was gross," she says mock child-like, now embracing innocence. "Your lips?" she says, then it's a song, "Your lips / were blue," and as she says it her blue eyes bloom. 10. "So how much do you remember about that incident?" "Just enough? I don't know. Not much." I don't know why we have to come back to this topic. Is this our only memory? What will we talk about after this, the next time we meet? "Do you remember putting your arm around me?" Courtney asks, utterly in the moment. I decide to use my poker face, fake it. Fuck Ron's opinion of my poker face. "Yes," I say, hoping my somberness comes off as lover's piety. Hopefully she'll drop this. "I never got the blood stain out of that shoulder," she says. It just pains me to think about it. That beautiful moment is gone, just like this one will soon be. No matter how good something is, it will be relinquished, taken away by some unseen hand, while another hand thrusts us toward something else, something worse. Memory is like a glass case that keeps us close but far from the thing that we want. "Do you know what happened after that?" Courtney says, putting her hand on me. 10. "Do you remember putting your arm around me?" "Yes." "You were looking at me and my lips were blue." "Do you know what happened after that?" 10. "Do you know what happened after that?" Everything. Nothing. We went on through our days, reacting with as much sensitivity to Ron's barks, to Skip's antics, to fucking stop signs as we did to that kiss. The kiss meant more to our bodies, that bulge and strain under the slightest touch, than to our souls. I try to answer with no emotion in my voice, because I know if there is any, it will be bitterness. "What?" 10. "You kissed me. Like this." odO$Obo.$Obo.$Obo.$Obo.$Obo.$Obo.odO$|$Obo.odO$.odO$.odO$.odO$.odO$.odO$Obo ___________________________________________________ |THE COMINTERN IS AVAILIABLE ON THE FOLLOWING BBS'S | |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| | BRING ON THE NIGHT (306) 373-4218 | | CLUB PARADISE (306) 978-2542 | | THE GATEWAY THROUGH TIME (306) 373-9778 | |___________________________________________________| | Website at: http://members.home.com/comintern | | Email BMC at: thebmc@home.com | |___________________________________________________| odO$Obo.$Obo.$Obo.$Obo.$Obo.$Obo.odO$|$Obo.odO$.odO$.odO$.odO$.odO$.odO$Obo Copyright 2008 by The Neo-Comintern #293-02/11/08 All content is property of The Neo-Comintern. You may redistribute this document, although no fee can be charged and the content must not be altered or modified in any way. Unauthorized use of any part of this document is prohibited. All rights reserved. Made in Canada.