Hopeful Monsters Page 6

  He was groggy with sleep, but he now he’s wide awake. Sitting up. Looks down at his chest, his two engorged breasts. He looks at my face. Then back at his breasts.

  “Oh my god,” he moans.

  “It’s okay,” I nurture him. “Don’t worry. Everything is fine. Just do what comes naturally.”

  A sudden look of shock slams into his face and he reaches, panicked, with his hands to touch himself between his legs. When he feels himself intact, his eyes flit with relief only to be permanently replaced with bewilderment.

  I smile. Beam in the dim glow of light. Turn on to my side and sleep sweetly, soundly.

  Drift

  Her okā-san was trying. Her mother tried hard until they hit a blizzard just past Banff.

  “It’s difficult to see, isn’t it? Ha-ha,” her mother laughed weakly.

  “It’s not bad,” Megumi muttered. “I’ve driven lots worse.”

  “Your otō-san says that it’s good to have someone’s tail-lights in front so you can follow them, ha-ha.”

  Yah, right off a cliff, Megumi thought. She didn’t say anything, but turned up the volume on her Tank Girl soundtrack.

  “What’s this kind of music? Did you bring anything else?”

  “It’s from a movie. I brought some enka and Okinawa folk songs for you.”

  “Oh? No classical?” Hisako reached for a Kleenex so she could twist it instead of clutching the door handle. “Do you let the children listen to this kind of music? She sounds like a chicken being strangled, ha-ha.”

  Megumi sniffed.

  “I wonder if the children will be alright with Barney. He’s so nice to watch them for you.”

  “They’re his kids too. He’s not watching them for me. He’s watching them for himself.” Megumi clicked her high beams at an asshole who hadn’t dimmed his own.

  “You’re so ill-tempered. But you always were ill-tempered,” Hisako said, sighing almost nostalgically. “Barney is very patient. He’s very nice. But Barney, ha-ha. What a name for a grown man, ha-ha.”

  “Will you stop that?”

  “Stop what?” her mother asked.

  “Laughing that fake ‘ha-ha’! It’s not like you’re really laughing. You think you can say anything and then, ‘ha-ha,’ after it and it will be okay!”

  “You always get so mad no matter what I say. I won’t say anything at all!” Hisako turned stiffly to stare out the chilled pane of glass.

  Shit. Megumi had loved the song and now all that would run through her head was “chicken being strangled.” Ha-ha.

  God!

  And hadn’t any of the other drivers on the stinkin’ highway seen snow before? What was wrong with them? It was Canada, for god’s sake. The Rockies.

  Three semi-trailers and an out-of-season camper crept in front of Megumi and she clenched the steering wheel, shoved her shoulders forward, and willed them to step on it. A good straight stretch. Megumi tromped on the accelerator and roared past the camper and hurled toward the first semi-truck.

  Her mother screamed.

  They stopped, fifteen kilometres later, in Golden.

  “How are YA!” Megumi’s father shouted after he accepted the collect call. She didn’t know why he had to shout every time he got on the phone. Maybe it was an immigrant thing. Then again, maybe he was going deaf.

  “We’re in Golden,” Megumi said sourly.

  “Ha! Ha! HAAAA! I TOLD your okā-san you wouldn’t get any farther than Revelstoke toNIGHT.”

  “We’ve had a fight already.”

  “See why we don’t travel together anyMORE?!” her otō-san shouted.

  “That’s pathetic. Why don’t you get a divorce, then, if you can’t even stand to travel together?”

  “I LOVE my HUNNY!”

  God! Megumi rolled her eyes and handed the phone to her mom.

  Hisako smiled and turned her back. “She just gets so angry. . . .”

  Megumi could hear her father’s tinny shout from the other side of her mother’s head. “DON’T tell her HOW TO DRIVE! She HATES THAT THE MOST!”

  “You hate that the most, ha-ha,” Hisako laughed.

  Megumi rolled her eyes. Flopped back on to the floral cover of the double bed she’d have to share with her mom.

  “I love you too, Hunny,” her okā-san smiled. Hisako hung up the phone, then passed it to her daughter.

  “Aren’t you going to call Barney and the children?”

  “The kids are asleep already. I’ll call tomorrow.”

  “Well, you could call Barney. . . .”

  “Mom! I told you! We’re SEPARATED! The last thing he wants is to TALK TO ME ON THE PHONE!”

  “STOP YELLING AT ME!” Hisako shouted.

  The wailing pitch of a newborn baby squalling awake and angry came from the other side of the wall. Megumi and her mom looked guiltily at each other.

  “Sorry,” they both muttered.

  “Ha-ha,” Hisako breathed.

  The late-night Denny’s 24-hour breakfast was a congealed ball of lard in Megumi’s gut. She turned onto her side and burped hash browns. A couple of sour, grainy chunks rose up, but she swallowed them back down. Her okā-san had her butt sticking out of the side of the thin bed-cover. Thank god, Megumi thought. And burped again. Megumi knew that her mother was still awake, because she kept on farting. The clock radio glowed red. 2:47 AM. God. She should have made her sister come too, so that someone else could drive. How would she ever make it, the ferry to catch then that winding road with not enough sleep? Her mom screaming the whole way. What was she thinking?

  “No fucking way I’m going to the mountains. It’s cold. No fucking way I’m going to a slimy hot spring. Naked! Off a logging road! Don’t you remember Deliverance?” Her sister lit another cigarette and blew stink into Megumi’s face.

  “It’s perfectly safe. I’ve been there eight times. People who go there are into nature. The most they do is smoke dope. You can wear a swimsuit, you know.”

  “Why’re you bothering to take her anywhere? I can’t stand travelling with her. Especially when she does that passive aggressive shit.”

  “It’s not all her fault the way she is.”

  “You’re such a suck,” her sister said. Waved her smoke. “No fucking way I’m going.”

  Megumi sighed. Hisako farted. 2:49 AM.

  There was a thump. Then another. Thump. Thump. Bump. Bump. Thump bump. “Ah. Ah. Oh. Oh. Oh. Ah. Ah. Ahhhhh. AHHHHH. Ah.”

  “Oh dear,” Hisako breathed.

  Megumi giggled.

  “They’re having congress. And the baby’s sleeping in the same room. . . .” Hisako whispered.

  “Imagine,” Megumi snorted.

  “It might affect the child’s psychological development. It might grow up to be over-sexed or, you know, strange. . . .”

  “What are you implying?” Megumi prickled.

  “Nothing! I’m saying, it’s just wrong. Having congress in the same room with an innocent baby!”

  “Okā-san, remember how my crib was in you and dad’s room until I was three?”

  “Yes. . . .”

  “I saw you and dad doing it!”

  “No! That’s untrue!”

  “I remember it clearly. I remember you piling on top of each other and pushing.”

  “Stop it!” Hisako shrieked.

  Megumi laughed. “I thought you were wrestling.”

  Hisako sucked in her breath. “Then it’s our fault that you – you’re with that woman!”

  Megumi breathed deep and exhaled slowly. “Okā-san, being a lesbian –”

  “DON’T SAY THAT WORD!”

  “Okā-san –”

  “NO!”

  “Alright. We don’t have to talk about anything.” Megumi curled tight around her middle. And sleep didn’t come for many hours.

  After a brief tussle over the motel bill, they hit the road without breakfast. They stopped in Revelstoke for the ferry schedule and a stretch. Megumi ordered some coffee and Hisako bought pumpkin
seeds.

  “You shouldn’t use that fake sugar,” her mother warned. “It makes you lose your faculties when you’re older. Or causes brain cancer or something. Ha-ha.”

  “I know it’s unhealthy,” Megumi sighed. “But I like my coffee really sweet and I don’t want to get any fatter.”

  “Your father thinks your sister went to fat because of the Pill, ha-ha.”

  “She’s not fat. But it’s true, the Pill affects your body in all sorts of ways. I mean, it causes your body to think it’s pregnant, for god’s sake.”

  They climbed back into their car, Hisako cracking pumpkin seeds and putting the husks in a Kleenex.

  “Are you on the Pill?” she asked.

  “Ummmm,” Megumi glanced at her mother. Wondering what planet she came from. Or which biology class she missed. “I don’t really need to be on it.”

  Silence.

  Then crack, cracking of pumpkin seeds.

  Megumi flicked a look again. Her okā-san’s lips were pinched. There were bags beneath her eyes.

  “You don’t have to stay awake for me,” Megumi said gently. “You can go to sleep. I’m not tired. And I promise not to pass anyone.”

  “I don’t want to sleep,” Hisako said, smiling. “I haven’t had a holiday for a long time.”

  Luckily, they made the ferry on the hour and they boarded a mostly empty deck. They left the car to watch the shore slip away from the boat. The snow hung heavy and damp, unlike the prairie dry they were used to, and Megumi shuddered in her jacket. Her okā-san spread her arms out sideways and spun circles like she was in The Sound of Music. Megumi blushed, nervously looking at the other parked vehicles. But they were only locals, sleeping the twenty-minute ride like commuters on a subway. Only tourists got out of their cars. Hisako was trying to catch snowflakes on her tongue so Megumi trudged to the other side of the ferry and peered over the railing. The entire lake was covered in a thin skin of ice, the prow tearing through the white like it was a piece of canvas. Dark little cracks appeared on the surface and spread away across the expanse, zig-zagging fractures so far and fast away from the boat that Megumi’s eyes couldn’t follow.

  “It’s so quiet!” Hisako yelled over the throbbing roar of the engine.

  “What?”

  “It’s so peaceful. Let me take your picture.”

  “Okā-san, this is boring. There’s nothing here. It would make a boring picture.”

  “It’s not for you, it’s for me! Smile!”

  Megumi showed teeth for her mother, then jerked her head toward the middle of the deck. “You’d better go to the washroom while you can. It’s heated and there won’t be another for a long time.”

  Her mother ran to the toilet, anxious about missing the disembarkation. Megumi shook her head and grinned.

  Megumi had no idea where the turn-off for the correct logging road was and didn’t want to show it. And so much snow! It was heavy and wet and in huge heaping drifts. The last time she was here, it was in the fall and now, under the canopy of white, everything looked different.

  “Ummm, I think I’ll turn around. We might have passed the road I’m looking for.”

  “I thought you said you knew where you’re going!”

  “I do! It’s just hard to tell. I know I’ll be able to recognize the road going back.” Megumi smiled.

  “We could go somewhere else. . . .”

  “No! I promised you I’d take you to these hot springs. It’s so beautiful. There’s pine trees all around and the hot water bubbles from an overhang of rock. The snow is so cold and the water just steams so hot around you. It’s almost like magic. And you feel so alive and fresh when you come out. Like everything is washed away. There’s a public one close to here, but it’s like a swimming pool. This natural one is special, I want you to feel it too.”

  “It sounds nice,” Hisako said weakly.

  Megumi drove for another twenty minutes before she found a place she could turn around. Then they drove back the way they came.

  “There! I knew it! That’s the road!”

  “There’s no road. That’s just snow. And there’s nowhere to park!”

  “I brought a shovel!” Megumi beamed. She could almost smell the earthy sulfur bubbling from the rocks. Could hardly wait to sink into the steamy depths.

  Megumi hopped out of the van and started furiously shovelling a space on the side of the road. Her okā-san peered out of the passenger window. Nibbling anxiously on pumpkin seeds. Megumi puffed, sweat trickling into her eyes, she shucked her toque and put her back into the shovel.

  God! The snow was heavier than shit. But it wasn’t going to stop her. She shovelled and pitched and heaved a spot just big enough to parallel park her car. Then gathered drinking water, towels, camera, and food, and stuffed it all in the backpack. Grinning the whole time. She pulled on a baseball cap and turned to her mom.

  “Ready?”

  Her okā-san looked tentatively up the snow-filled logging road. Up hill. There were old skidoo tracks and no sign of people.

  “Yes,” she said faintly. “How far did you say it was?”

  “Oh, about a fifteen-minute walk!” Megumi waved like it would be a piece of cake.

  “Let’s go, then.” Determined. Hisako pulled her toque down almost to her eyebrows and locked the car door.

  Megumi walked in front. The snow was wet, so when she stepped, her foot sunk to about mid-shin, then stopped because of a crust of older snow beneath. Megumi tramped down the wet for her okā-san so she could follow more easily behind her.

  “Isn’t it beautiful!” Megumi gushed. Aspens mingled with the dark bark of the pines and firs, and their limbs were as green as bamboo. Big fat silent flakes of lacy snow drifted down. And the silence in the forest rang in their ears like glass bells.

  “Huh, huh,” her mother puffed. “Very pretty.”

  Megumi turned around to look at her. She could still see the car. Their footsteps stained the snow a turquoise blue.

  “You’re really out of shape. You need to get more exercise, you know,” Megumi said encouragingly. She trudged on. “Beautiful,” she exclaimed to herself. “Amazing –”

  “Wah!”

  It sounded like someone being punched in the chest.

  Megumi spun around.

  Her okā-san was face-first in the snow. Her one leg, plunged thigh-deep, had broken through the crust and the forward motion had pitched her down like a sack of rice. Her mother pushed her torso up and white clung to her face. Megumi snickered.

  “Tasukete!” her mother wailed.

  Megumi trudged back and grabbed her okā-san’s hand and heaved. Brushed her off like she would her own children.

  “Don’t stomp so hard,” Megumi scolded, then started walking up the hill again. “The crust won’t hold if you stomp so – Wah!”

  Megumi’s face was cold wet in packed snow and not half as pretty as when it was falling in flakes from the sky. She could hear her mother laughing. She pushed herself up, amazed that the snow was that deep, her leg pushed down so far that her crotch rested on the surface.

  “Help me up!”

  “Shhhhh!” Hisako suspiciously panned her gaze across the forest. “Listen!”

  “What!”

  “Shuh!”

  Silence.

  Then, a light, slithering, hissing sound.

  Megumi swung her head toward the source, saw a small stream of snow sliding off a bough and on to the logging road.

  “It’s our voices,” Hisako whispered theatrically. “It’s happened before. The sound of our voices is making the snow fall off the trees.”

  Silence.

  “It’s just coincidence!” Megumi said in a normal voice.

  Sarasarasarasara.

  “See! I told you!”

  “Maybe so,” Megumi agreed, crawling out of her leg trap, “but there’s no need to whisper.”

  “That’s how avalanches start! They start small and grow big like a tidal wave!”

  “
Okā-san, it’s perfectly safe. Come on, we’re wasting time.”

  The road dipped down, climbed, then swung up and around. Hisako huffed and puffed. Nervously watched snow trickling off the trees like they were dripping acid. Megumi noticed the numbered markers on the trees. Marker Two. Did they mark kilometres? Wasn’t the hot spring around Marker Seven? Megumi bit her lip. She could hear her mother puffing like a small engine. And it didn’t help that sometimes they broke through the snow and floundered like cattle. Megumi trudged faster and her mother, slower. When Megumi looked back, her okāsan was leaning against a tree, hand clasped to her chest.

  “It’s been longer than fifteen minutes. Huh, huh. You said it was a fifteen-minute walk to the springs! Huh, huh, huh. We’ve been walking for over half an hour!”

  “Let’s take a break!” Megumi yelled cheerfully. More snow slid off trees and hissed all around them. Hisako looked bitterly at her daughter and held a forefinger to her lips. Megumi waited for her mother to catch up, then gave her the water. Hisako gulped greedily until Megumi pulled the bottle away.

  “You’ll get a stomach ache.”

  “I’ve been thinking. We should have brought a chicken.”

  “What?”

  “Well, the bears are asleep now.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “But there are mountain cats. They don’t sleep.”

  “Lynx are shy. They don’t like people.”

  “No!” Hisako hissed. “The big ones. The lions!”

  “Oh. Cougars.”

  Hisako slowly looked all around, like uttering the word would invoke them.

  “We should have brought a chicken. That way, we can throw them something while we’re running away.”

  “Okā-san,” Megumi sighed, “we’re not going to be attacked by cougars.”

  “You have young children,” Hisako muttered, almost to herself. “You can’t die, but I guess my children are grown, it wouldn’t be so bad. . . .”

  “Shut up!” Megumi started trudging again. The snow falling a little heavier.

  The road was straight for some time and Megumi stepped up her pace. Marker Four! After a while, she couldn’t hear her okā-san’s panting breath, so she turned around. Her mother was a good five hundred metres behind. Standing in the middle of the logging road. Both arms dangling. Megumi sighed. And walked back.