Neither Roberta nor the child psychologist has returned his calls. The cat-obsessed mediator has left a clipped message explaining that it is out of her hands, that he should refer all his questions to Babb & Hodge.
Avril Leblanc appears in his mind, sucking on oranges. Forced to monitor callers who fail to meet the response goal of 5 percent, he’d listened in on her. He learned that she believes in meditation and being with what is. “Just be with it,” she advises potential donors who offer the usual excuses of financial hardship or previous commitments to other charities. “I gave so much to the tsunami,” they tell her. Provided with any kind of opening pertaining to stress-related issues, Avril Leblanc recommends herbal remedies and vitamin supplements. The potential donors do not pledge gifts but do thank her for calling. Serge Hollyduke continually trails Avril Leblanc and, at her suggestion, has begun to wear Birkenstocks.
Reese must sleep, try to sleep. He hears hums. He closes his window but still hears hums. Earlier, the transformer on the concrete pole outside the house was humming. Now it is reverberating through his futon. He tries to picture his children sleeping: Clara with one leg thrown across the bed as though running in dreams; Derek curled tightly into a fetal position. Reese tries to visualize their faces, the shapes of their heads, the curve of their necks. To his horror, the images are fading. He wraps the ponytail elastic around his finger and lies, wired, knowing that sleep will not visit him; that he must endure the hum; that life is full of tests which he has mostly failed; that he has come to expect defeat and that this in turn defeats him.
“Put the knife down,” Reese says to his mother. “He kicked me,” Betsy protests. “First of all he sends the ambulance away and then he kicks me.”
“How could I kick you if I can’t move my legs?”
Bernie fell off the toilet again. Betsy couldn’t contact Reese because he was in a meeting with the duck hunter/environmentalists. She called Med-merge, who lifted Bernie off the floor and offered to take him to the hospital.
“He hasn’t gone to the toilet for six days,” Betsy explains, “and he says there’s nothing wrong.”
“It’s happened before,” Bernard says. “It always rights itself.” Bruises have disfigured his face. There are blood as well as coffee stains down the front of his polo shirt, and dried blood and croissant crumbs caught in the white hairs on his thighs.
Betsy gesticulates with the knife. “Not for six days, Bernard. You haven’t been constipated for six days. Every twenty minutes he thinks he’s going to go and I have to listen to his grunts.”
“Six days is a long time, Dad. Mum, put the knife down.”
“I don’t feel safe with him, he’s crazy.”
“Off she goes,” Bernie says, “the drama queen.”
“Your face is pretty bruised, Dad. What did you do? Smash it into the tub?”
“Of course,” Betsy says, “that’s what he always does. You’ve got two black eyes, Bernard, and maybe a concussion.”
“In your dreams.”
“It might be a good idea to let somebody take a look at you, Dad, the cuts on your nose anyway.”
“The rat poison makes the bruising worse,” Bernie says.
“He means the blood thinners,” Betsy interprets. “He says they’re killing him like a rat.” Bernie went to medical school in 1948 and believes that any advances in medicine since then have been bogus.
“It wouldn’t hurt to have somebody take a look,” Reese persists.
“Nobody’s looking at anything.”
“Mum, put the knife down.”
“He’s afraid they’re going to put fingers up his bum,” Betsy clarifies. “I told him everybody has to have fingers up their bums some time. Would you rather be dead, Bernard, than have a professional’s finger up your bum?”
“Why don’t you mind your own business? I don’t go telling him your business, do I? There’s a few things I could tell him he wouldn’t be too happy about, should I tell him?”
“People do die from blocked bowels, Bernard, it’s a little different.”
“From smoking till they cut off your legs?”
“Can you guys stop,” Reese pleads, “just stop?”
They both look at him and ask, “What?”
“Arguing. It’s pointless. What’s the point? If he doesn’t want to go to the hospital, fine, that’s his right.”
“Easy for you to say, you don’t have to listen to him, every twenty minutes ...” She mimics Bernie’s grunts.
“Stay in your room and close the door,” Bernie advises.
“I brought you more Crispy Crunches,” Reese intervenes. “I’ve got to go. I have a dinner engagement.”
“A date?” Betsy asks, excitedly exchanging the knife for the Crispy Crunches. “Are you seeing somebody?”
“I’m still married, Mother.”
“Then how come we never see your family?” She follows him to the door. “You were never right for each other. Didn’t I always say she should have married a dentist? You’re too sensitive for her.”
“I’m still married to her, Mother.”
“Don’t get testy.” She smells of cigarettes. There are cigarette burns on her stretch pants.
One of the things that put Roberta off her mother-in-law was Betsy’s nostalgia for Reese’s old girlfriends. When Clara and Derek came to visit, she’d drag out the photo albums. “Now she was a nice girl,” she’d say, pointing to a snapshot of a girl she’d barely acknowledged when Reese had brought her home for dinner. Betsy appeared especially fond of a girl named Mitzi who was famous for blow jobs. In the photo, Mitzi is dressed as Princess Leia. “That girl never had a bad word to say about anybody,” Betsy would comment, stroking Princess Leia’s braids. Her point was that Roberta had many bad words to say about many people, in particular her mother-in-law.
Waiting at a light, the headline “Spousal Slayings on the Rise” in a newspaper box arrests him. Men, apparently, are killing their wives or ex-wives, accounting for 47 percent of all family-related homicides. What does killing the wife do for the men? Beyond the initial adrenalin rush from swinging the axe, what is left? Remorse? Prison rations and no access to their children? Can this be better than negotiating with Babb & Hodge?
He has been encouraged by the judge’s ruling in the case of the billionaire. He need pay only $50,316 U.S. a month in child support for his four-year-old daughter rather than the $490,000 U.S. requested by the mother. How is it possible to spend even $50,316 U.S. monthly? Does she own an airport and fly big jets? The judge called the billionaire’s wife’s request “incredible” and “grossly excessive.” Reese had hoped to hear such words coming from the meagre lips of the cat-obsessed mediator. Certainly, in Reese’s opinion, Roberta’s demands have been incredible and grossly excessive. Already the chains are upon him. It will be a life of penury. The only advantage has been that he’s been forced to ride his bike to save on transportation costs, which is better for the environment, providing badly needed exercise and daily neardeath experiences. Shying out of the way of opening car doors and right-turning vehicles reminds him that he must want to live, for, although he’s thought of suicide — as have, according to a recent poll, one in five Canadians — he would not act on it.
Avril Leblanc also rides a bicycle, with a dream catcher