by Maggie Mortimer<\/p>\n
In the month\u2019s leading up to the name calling, Gladys took in clothes. Clothes too big to be worn, funeral clothes with typed name tags stitched in construction vests and flannels. Left in piles of rubbles and scraps. The smells alone, worthy of panic, took her away from the jabs and hooks of her accompanying job- a maid at a boxing center. Twice a week, and once month, the maid dusted and sold antiques and collectibles available on the second floor.<\/p>\n
The polished floors and rubber plants of the laundromat put a glean on the survivor\u2019s cuffs and waistlines. \u201cNew\u201d was something owned for in a past life. This year after soap and starch there weren\u2019t many earnings left to her eager face and notoriety. Taught she was, these skills initially by age four. The ironing like a strange patent from the space age, handed down from grocer to dentist to laboratory rat. Every clean garment, a delinquent\u2019s next free meal.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t hurry love\u201d, one of her favorite MOTOWN tunes, alive in the aisles. Her smile melting with the heat of a SONY WALKMAN. Between an unknown prickly plant and a fire escape Gladys lit a French cigarette. Borrowed from a friend the night before the stale air worked from apology to associate. So were the quiet hours of a working class whore.<\/p>\n
\u201cCherry Coke.\u201d \u201cTwo dollars.\u201d The same soap opera had run the course of Dalilah\u2019s inhabited life. The small dogs with sharp teeth, the owners still paying for Levis, the trust kids from the hoods. Today Daddy takes her shopping: 1 half-eaten burger, 2 prs. Of dust-eaten moths, and one long t-shirt\/nightie.\u201d Tomorrow I start at 5. So I\u2019ll turn the light on in the kitchen and leave your homework near the bed. Your mom will see ya in two weeks. Okay, Pussycat?\u201d \u201cUh, huh.\u201d, the moist reply.<\/p>\n
When the parents stopped fighting long enough Dee opened her hand, guiding her father to the next room for quiet time. He knew he had her. Like a trapeze artist he had thought of how to escape and keep the job at the same time. Dee\u2019s parents had been that burdensome. A long drive home, back to the county and they were both glad to open the truck doors to greener grass and fresher instincts. The crickets roamed the boulevard, the old maids borrowed cash. The night, a silent taker of episodic T.V. and kept childhood.<\/p>\n
Dee, now nine, had been eying a price tag for her camping Barbie dolls and plastic car and home appliances. The big lawn sale was a week away. Her dad Rooke, expected to pay for the daughter\u2019s visit, Deidra knew the funds from the sale were already spent. She took out her closed diary. It had gone from daily to weekly to chalkboard sayings and lude comments from teachers and bums and wanna-be\u2019s. She was keeping a diary day free for her visit with her mother. She was that unloved.<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay, Ralph. You have a good night. And put $ 16.50 on Sir Lancelot for me.\u201d Gladys, done with her bookkeeping looked down at her cracked toe nail painted a samurai silken from the dollar store. The boxing center had its regulars for the a.m. Star Hedley, lightweight and two unknowns. She had slept with all three. Over at the bosses\u2019 desk and behind a stereo console was a fading record book of hookers that had been there. Most of them mugshots of sunburned faces, and smudged make-up. Gladys gave a bit of extra care to this document. Unlike the daughter\u2019s diary it was full and organized. Like management.<\/p>\n
It made her yawn, the expensive air cleaner. She did it every few months. The strong smells of barbarism gone from the ring and the bags and the framed prints. She took a look at what was another locker room mix-up and thought CELEBRITY. There were two rounds of fights in four days. And the place didn\u2019t look half bad. Mollified, she strolled the aisles of the antique store like a newbie. All the terms art deco and renaissance were hefty price tags for the fight. If a statue sold would the virgin sheets lead to another marriage outside the ring? Tight quarters, it was. The owners, known to the dead end streets of Toronto, did not camouflage its earnings.<\/p>\n
On Yonge street in the brisk trade of bible thumpers and Nazi show horse, the hustlers made their name with five and dime trousers and spit from its native commentators. All this fervor she saved for fight night. She took bets, twenty a month. Half of her percent went to Deidre. So. Gladys brushed up to a Grecian urn, her salary way above the maids on nearby Carlton. The innocent guests with their Samsonite and Adidas climbed the Greyhounds like the skyscrapers in construction. They got in and out of the city with barely a job offer or a hit from the man. The time spent in motels fast and loose, one appointment booked next to library internet and a cold plate of spaghetti.<\/p>\n
At home, their treason paid for by bomb squads on the C.N.N., lost receipts of a midway. These circus people were permitted a life and crowd outside Gladys\u2019s environment. One of lower stats in the home run innings and impoverished bank lines. Inside sounds awoke the fledgling birds: Kaa, Kachee.Koo. The night shift engineers of the subway. The shuffled traffic of morning newspapers and weather reports: A stabbing right on Bloor. It\u2019s supposed to cool off by four. GRAFFITI hit-the fraud squad.<\/p>\n
The metro platforms colliding with mid-range pay hikes and hemlines, each fashionista a sight for an abandoned bookie:<\/p>\n
One woman sobs- he left. Before that he said the dinner was no good and that he had a cab waiting. Another man Consoles-At least you still live in your own home. Mean the police haven\u2019t moved in yet. And a couple celebrates- We got the ultrasound. Better than we thought. The heart and lungs are good. Thought we might go for lunch at Barney\u2019s. And so a fitful night of hand-me-downs and polarized showers brought the construction and humidity of a lost city to the urban dwellers. Sweat poured off the melons and ripe fruit of Chinatown, the sewers escaped with rental cars of the freeway, and the nighthawks with protected gaze watched the masses cheat and lie, as the nests expand with heat and exhaust from a long night\u2019s ride.<\/p>\n
The chaos hit terminal- Danforth, College, Museum. Each person and package determining the street, the parking, the exit…And right here at Wellesley and Church two gay men protesting a new H.I.V. drug trial, sat, loud with hatred for the passers-by. With the mild coughs, inherited sums of money and government pensions \u201cFree Men\u201d they shouted. \u201cWe are losing them to war.\u201d Each caption magnified by confused toddlers in diapers and pampered dogs back from the kennel. An old woman, hunched and sober, reaches to her wallet for a new 50, pats on her hand and says \u201cI watched you on the news. I saw you from my balcony this morning. You have the same red tie and I thought, I can join your fight a bit. My husband died but left me some money meant for the love of people. Examined and fought over. This yours- you\u2019ve earned it. I\u2019ll see you again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spoken words of the scalpers tickets gave nuance to the concert goers laneway. In righteous head gear and t-shirts, they stormed the pavement like hail on a rainy day. Tonight it was the Celtic thunder of a dead beat tribe fusion stampede(locals) as photographers tripped over familial phrasing, the more famous scurried along to the prized section and score. The loners, outwitted, packed their tiny mics and boot leg liquor into the misguided trail of a neon band shell.<\/p>\n
So, the summer held a purpose in T.O. Out of rage and luck, the travelers and immigrants took in black coffee at various outlets and laid upright in the noon day sun.<\/p>\n
Over the grease and broil of a breakfast hide-out Rooke signed out a library book. Not a harlequin or a dummy\u2019s guide to but an overdue encyclopedic volume of\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 knowledge. An imprint if you will. It had been at the back of the shop for two weeks and the corners of he and mother Sally\u2019s gossip for twice as long. Ever since he took Dee, his questions of belonging had lingered with hospital waiting rooms, corny soap opera love interests and returns on some old assets of his grandfather\u2019s. Was he expected to pay for her? He couldn\u2019t handle the mother. The trips alone were brutal. The expensive drinks-even the water cost money. And Deidre had her mom\u2019s taste, size and abstracts. By the time she reached twenty, there might be college and Europe, foreign magazines. Or worse, foreigners. She might not like Canadian men and money? It was all a civilized nightmare that God would have to watch over.<\/p>\n
\n
On the train, running the city, are the timed hushes of an affair, a bad joke about the boss. \u201cDo you like Canada? I mean you\u2019ve been here now for fifteen years\u2026 does your marriage, job make sense to you?”<\/p>\n
\u201cI miss India. The family. Always the larger community for a Hindu. We pray beside the nearest car, the further accident. We live on trust the multi-nationals rake while farming. People are arranged to meet and to marry. A ride like this-there are 90 strangers to a door. Here there are ten. They linger, they forget their wives and the grocery purchases the day before. Where I am from we grow things. We tire of the mega-burger diets and the fancy get-aways, my grandfather sits beside me as I type. We go to auctions together and spend as much time discussing my son\u2019s education as you in the west spend at church. Our culture exploded. We ate.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember a time when the C.N.E. was famous for a chicken that dunked basketballs. A freak show, tucked in the boardwalk. Now you don\u2019t honor both parents and you watch your kids rob you of the roller coaster, spite you over a dancing duck that won\u2019t sink. For me, I miss the philosophy of a crowd. People who knew a bit of Latin, recited Thomas Hardy, passed the bar with the man. Real taxes, real showroom. That\u2019s what I miss.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rattle. Chug a Starbucks. And roll. All seventy-eight passengers are now in the cosmic powers of the great outdoors. The solicited lanes and waterways that lead and retreat to the greater powers. At Simcoe elementary two small boys sigh over a red piece of fabric lost in the wind, their neighbor hangs the family laundry.<\/p>\n
And so our Gladys unloads her arms of the last bleached, starched garment. Two-fifty. For which she will pocket thirty-five. The time with her child was long ended. She felt the signs of puberty in her retainers and the shape of her nose midway down the spine. She grows mysterious. Deidre Rose Simon, the school classes, kind of funny and \u201cno mom you good first\u201d exactly three times. If only she could hold time like a new baby. The nurses in the hallway expressing the stats. She had a better time than she thought. The money went fast and with it more expensive thoughts. She saw a pair of boots in a store window that might fit her. Dee clears her throat,\u201d I thought I might try out for cheerleading next year. I saw the girls turning in the hall. It looked like fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYour Aunt Barbie was a natural acrobat. She went to the provincials twice. Ask your dad about that. The uniforms are expensive. You\u2019ll have to cut grass.\u201d As Gladys turned the wheel a hitchhiker appeared in the rear view, she, like her daughter was still welcome. The dirt road held up signs of disrepair like a protestors afterthought. Each K, one cycle closer to the daughter\u2019s teenage years.\u201d I know you\u2019ll do good in class.\u201d Deidre looked down, retarded,\u201d Keep your fingers crossed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n
The man in the suit and tie delivers three- and Dee fought to keep her head up. A heavy feeling followed her gut all the way to her bedsprings. She thought she had to poop. She looked down, and could see that god had delivered. Her Granma Heidi had given her a package a year ago. She briefly read the instructions and with beginner\u2019s luck peeled back a mini pad. The cramping was new. She made her way to the pantry for some fruit cocktail and called best friend Kate.\u201d It happened.\u201d Three hours later and 8 mini pads their conversation ended. About how they would both ware their hair for the dance and how a walk back from gym class wasn\u2019t so bad. In the stark break of a radio newscast she barely said hello to her father, turned on her mother\u2019s old console, and record, Dead Men\u2019s Curve.<\/p>\n
\u201cRed or white?\u201d White. \u201cThat\u2019s $3.50.\u201d Sales were pilin up at fight night. A few agents sniffin around. A lotta tough guys in the crowd with their babes and some ex-fighters. The first bout was the junior category, and it was a favorite and it was fast. Bets were on.\u00a0 Gladys, handling her weight in beer sales, tried to avoid looking and hearing from the centre of the ring. All of the sounds, of the punch, the breath, the grunts, the pain. The sweat and tired frame of the opponent. What she did like about the sport was not the aftermath. She was wanted upstairs. The antique store was open during break time like the concessions. She expected a few brisk hustles. This crowd went for flash. There were a few standing lamps, a large vase she needed to push. Jazz hung slow and easy over the back room deals. As the notes of B. Holiday lulled and spread out, so too, did the lightweight\u2019s jab contend.<\/p>\n
Two trendies look together as they cross sub-sections of genre and clothing sales at Queen West. Ilene, 50 and cousin Mary, 45 are late to get started. The rounds, which most of the time happen from 2-6, are now 4-6. They shared a breakfast brunch on the Horse\u2019s patio at 1. Two eggs with chili and dark ale. They have bin together since high school. Mary from small south western Ontario had developed learning difficulties in grades 7 and 8. At the time Uncle Fred, knowing these girls were close in age, suggested Mary move in with them. In the suburbs of T.O. the new girls struggled less with depression and body odor and what to say on a first date. The curiosity developed. By grade 10, and Ilene\u2019s years at college nightclubs personified living well. Most of the part-time pay went to appearance. Who to meet for a good conversation, what end of the park to hang out in, whose parents were les annoying. All the happy coincidence cost coin. Like mother\u2019s value their children. So they paid. These hard-earned habits were still with us.<\/p>\n
This time Mary had a garden party she would attend with a friend. While Ilene, with husband was hosting a dinner for four. They had exactly two hours to find the perfect outfit.<\/p>\n
The light crashed hard against Aaron\u2019s forehead. Skateboard in hand he was off to score drugs. The light said red and he darted between cars at Spadina and Queen<\/p>\n
His girlfriend (newly pregnant) was dating a man forty years older. Two more tricks and they could find a weekly. The man was not back yet. Aaron went to the front and side door again for the third time. BINGO. Cash.<\/p>\n
In the banker\u2019s rec room, they snorted loose and freak, each riding the panic button with craved punk. The blue seals (from Nfld.). He stared at a poster in the office-MAKE IT GO. A message on the environment? A soft kitten showed up in his lap and he almost burned it. He just ran through two-hundred. The owner was close to booting him out, he shoved some joints in his hip pocket and slammed the door.<\/p>\n
His cousin, Mary, asleep at the wheel had two more stops to make. Her friend Beth had prepared the hor d\u2019euvres, her niece Monica burned a C.D. and Ralph her ex was good for a hundred. In the low slumber of twinkling lights and garden lanterns the talk turned to sex. How average some encounters really are? You go to a parade or maybe sit on a bench at a park. The next time you\u2019re seeing each other. It\u2019s easy, easy to strike a conversation.<\/p>\n
\u2026at 3 a.m. it turned to more difficult, and with it restraining orders and locksmiths. That is how the landlord\u2019s friendship ended. Receipts ripped in half, a futon partially destroyed by violent petting. Mail no longer available to the occupant.<\/p>\n
\n
Meanwhile at Katy\u2019s on-line dating Rooke, the absent father filled a forty-dollar slot. Lucius was someone he knew in different ways. Once, she was a new bride in his new country of Canada. A heftier time nurse with magic potions (and just to show off0 a top fashion model with time to kill. Each one, a mean flash card at the psyche ward. Wow, did he love his own genitals. He put on so many masquerades: lost the shop talk and the extra roll in the pelvic area. Here he was the sandman with sleeper cells. And like the quiet Christian he was introduced to in family gatherings and Playboy centerfolds, he felt his own chastity leave. Images of Marilyn Munroe, Blondie, Farrah Fawcett\u2019s two piece followed him back home through isolated hubs of adulterated massage parlors and single bars.<\/p>\n
Smith\u2019s portrait studio was closed. For one hundred dollars the family was treated to a sitting fee and five identifiable poses. Richard Braemar, school teacher would return on a Wednesday with two small requests;<\/p>\n
Across the alleyway was a small caf\u00e9 with magazines for sale. Richard purchased The New York Times. He was a sucker for the crossword. His wife as well. They often walked their Spaniel and ended up here out of habit. Today he would pay a gambling debt alone, and enjoy the solo latte\u2019. His remarks skimmed the lines of a judge\u2019s rebuttal and a garbage strike. Subtle and distant the local color of the city, N.Y., had initiated his pastime.<\/p>\n
There sat a baby carriage in the long arm of the law. Squeezed between a cop car and a white van, the stroller oozed with a street crime. The mother, her hair matte with product, carried the production. She shouted into thin air, the baby\u2019s father\u2019s names. Three to be exact. Pulled her thongs in place and grabbed an awaiting taxi.<\/p>\n
Ten blocks down between a souvenir shop and a deli, the medical marijuana joint buzzed with activity. Two blind men and one junkie held out their hand. The store cat, moth ridden, tried to lean on the shoulder of an employee. \u201cOne more year and I\u2019ll sell. I\u2019ll never make it back here again.\u201d The green and white plant watered. The store closed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Maggie Mortimer In the month\u2019s leading up to the name calling, Gladys took in clothes. Clothes too big to be worn, funeral clothes with typed name tags stitched in construction vests and flannels. Left in piles of rubbles and scraps. The smells alone, worthy of panic, took her away from the jabs and hooks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1800,77],"tags":[1801,1123,1817],"class_list":["post-15928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-egophobia-86","category-english","tag-egophobia-86","tag-english","tag-maggie-mortimer"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6DakB-rubber","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15928"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15929,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15928\/revisions\/15929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}