Dead Flowers Read online

  The sun went down and the chill set in, then there were people talking about wanting to start a fire in the living room. Someone said, I don’t think the fireplace works. Someone else started gathering sticks from the yard. Someone thought to open a window, as the grate was being packed full of kindling and paper. Finally, word went around the room that the birthday boy wanted to leave. There wouldn’t be time for any fire. Miller wanted to move everyone to a bar. But what bar? Not just any. Miller wanted to see a woman take her clothes off and dance.

  Soon we were all packed into cars, heading to some club with a depressingly large parking lot. It was already late by the time we arrived, so there was only one woman left to dance. She was sexy though, and wasted no time getting out of her clothes. She didn’t look unhappy, either. She looked like she believed in the good of her body, as if she wanted to share it, though that couldn’t be true. We were crowded around the stage, the only people in the room, the party of us now dwindled to fifteen, maybe ten.

  After the club, there was nothing more to do since it was now so late and the bars downtown would be closed. Somebody suggested we return to the house. For my part, I thought of going home. I thought of climbing up the stairs into Ayleen’s room, of undressing myself, falling into her bed. Too drunk to get to sleep, I thought I’d probably wind up touching myself, if I could even get hard.

  And in that moment, such a mess of imagery crashed into my psyche—of all the things I had imagined these past few days, now mingling with the body of the dancer. Somehow over everything, the thought of my own nudity soiling our bed was too much for me, somehow proof and a symbol of irreparable sin. Better to go on, I thought.

  So as the last stragglers entered a car headed back to Miller’s house, I squeezed into the back seat, trying to make myself small and inconspicuous. I didn’t leave his place until everyone else had either gone or fallen sleep. Miller himself was the first to retire, slipping into unconsciousness on the couch with a glass of Antiguan rum in his hand. A woman named Chelsea then talked for maybe an hour about China, about the rise of the East, about the trade deficit, about Falun Gong and smog over the cities of Beijing, Tianjin, Shandong, Henan.

  When I did go, I forgot all about my bicycle. I left it leaning against the side of the house and set off on foot. I was tired and I was angry. In those days, I’d sometimes get angry for no discernable reason. Once I even tried to throw a rock through a storefront window, just because I was angry, walking by myself at night.

  I had nothing against the store, nor the window. I’d just been walking around with a big rock in my hand, carrying it through the city streets, all the while waiting until I’d gathered up enough nerve to try and break something. Because I was angry, I just wanted to see something broken. And so, I threw the rock like a discus into the tall and likely tempered sheet of glass. Luckily, it didn’t break. The rock hit the glass, made a noise like thunder, and I ran off down the street.

  Where did this anger originate? I don’t know. It would come on suddenly like the sting of a wasp. Luckily, I was always alone when it happened. Always alone and usually drunk and walking around at night. Maybe it was simply because I was drunk and alone, because it was late and I had a long way to go. Or maybe it came on because I was just twenty or twenty-one years old, and already felt sick and cheated by life. Maybe it was because I felt I had very little control over what life would become.

  One thing was certain—it would never get any better than this. I was young and it was summer and I didn’t have a job. School was easy and paid for. And on top of everything else, there was this beautiful, charming young woman who allowed me to stay with her, to live in her room and to share her bed for only the cost of love. So I was basically just waiting for things to get worse, and I thought that there was no way I could stop it. It seems petty now, juvenile, but maybe that’s what made me feel so angry back then.

  That night I had a long way to walk. At one point I heard an argument that sounded as if it would break into violence as I approached. There was a group of men up ahead on the opposite side of the street. Maybe two, maybe more, seemed ready to fight. I checked to see if there were any cars coming, but the road was empty so I crossed. I wanted to walk right into the fray. Maybe I’ll get accosted, I thought. The chance of this appealed to me. Maybe I’ll even get punched. Likely it’d do me some good.

  But by the time I reached them, the argument had died out. The men were quiet and let me pass without any hassle. I felt ridiculous for having wanted to be harmed. What was this about, this mood I had been nurturing?

  I started thinking about Ayleen—the manner in which I had made use of her, and the idea of her during the past few days. It all seemed ridiculous now. This twisted fantasy I had endeavoured to build, her infidelity—that wasn’t her. That was just me trying to fuck with myself. But to what purpose? I wondered. What did I gain out of trying to torture myself?

  Just then, to the side of the road, I noticed a garden full of pointed green shrubs that looked just like pineapple tops. Growing out of each of these pineapple tops was a vertical bough totally covered in white-coloured, bell-shaped flowers. I know now that those were yucca plants and yucca flowers, but back then I didn’t know anything. I was simply enamoured—because by now the sky was growing purple, and those flowers were so startlingly bright.

  I decided in an instant to forgive myself those past few days, and not only that, but to forgive all other failings I’d been carrying. Whatever negativity was in me, I was going to let it go. I was going to break off one of these boughs and I was going to carry it home and give it to Ayleen. She’d be coming back the next day from her trip. I stepped into the garden, reached into one of those plants, and snapped its bough off near the ground. The thing was as long as my arm, a whole shock of white flowers, and I carried it the rest of the way home.

  Near to where we lived, across the street in fact, was an elementary school. With the direction I had followed that night, it made sense for me to take a shortcut through the schoolyard. There was a hole in the fence at the far end of the field that let out right across from our gate.

  As I was rounding the corner of the school building, I saw movement to my left and turned to look. I saw what seemed to be a woman bending over the body of a man on the ground. The man was on his back and appeared to be unconscious. The woman, or maybe she was a girl—she looked small next to the man—was busy lifting up his legs and trying to drag him. There were some bushes growing in a planter box next to the entrance of the school, and it looked like she was going to try to hide him there. I saw all of this in single glance, and then I looked away and kept walking.

  All summer I had noticed a small homeless population at the school. It was a short walk here from downtown, so I supposed it made a decent place to crash and spend the night. There were plenty of corners, shadows, nooks, and there was cover, too, in case it ever rained. But it didn’t rain that summer, and people had been sleeping more or less in the open all around the building. It was a good place to sleep, but also seemed a decent spot to shoot up.

  When I saw the man lying on the ground, I figured he’d had an overdose. And I guessed the girl had got scared and was now trying to make him disappear. I didn’t think the man was dead. In fact, I thought I might save the man’s life if I only kept walking. The girl was going to leave, I thought, and then I would double back to check on him. I only had to keep my eyes averted, and not let on to the girl that I had noticed her.

  My plan failed in a number of ways. First, I couldn’t keep my eyes averted. The next time I glanced at the scene, the girl had spotted me. Of course she’d spotted me. I was carrying a bough of bright white flowers half the size of my body, aloft in the air. By then she’d got the man into the bushes. She’d left him and was walking toward me.

  I thought about dropping to my belly. We were still far enough apart, and enough darkness remained of the night perhaps to cover me. But I was too nervous, or the gesture seemed dramatic. Instead I kep
t on walking. I kept moving forward and didn’t look back.

  I was halfway across the field when I finally gathered the nerve to turn around. The girl was gone, having probably taken a different exit through another part of the fence.

  At that point I went back to check on the man. He was clearly dead. His neck had been cut. The ground over which he’d been dragged was covered in blood. Because the girl had been pulling him from the ankles, his shirt had ridden up from his body to cover his face. I didn’t touch him. I didn’t get close to him. There was no point. There was nothing I could do.

  Later, I’d been taken to the police station. They had me waiting around for a detective to come in for the morning shift. I sat in an interrogation room. I tried to sleep but couldn’t. All I wanted was a pillow and a blanket. Instead someone gave me cold coffee and a muffin. I was interviewed by Detective Emerald Tucker. He was grey-haired, round and not unkind. He asked if he could tape our conversation.

  I want you to tell me what you did last night, said Detective Tucker. Start with the evening. Proceed chronologically and tell me everything you can remember. Don’t worry if it seems like there’s no connection between what you have to say and the event you witnessed. Take your time. Lead into the morning, and only then tell me what you witnessed at the school.

  I told him about the birthday party, about Miller having turned twenty-two. I told him about the bottle of wine and the beer I’d had to drink, about the club and the girl who had danced across the stage. I told him it had been sad to witness her dancing, though it hadn’t been sad at the time. Now it seems sad, I told him. Then I tried to recount all of what Chelsea had said about China as the tape recorder rolled on.

  Detective Tucker listened closely, as if the key to solving this crime might somehow lay within the scattered bulk of these details. When it came to describing my walk home, I told him about the men who had been arguing, on the verge of fighting, and he didn’t seem surprised to hear that I’d wanted to get beaten up. But when I talked about the flowers, he became curious. What happened to those flowers, he wanted to know.

  I hadn’t thought about it. I must have dropped them on the floor when I got home.

  That was when you dialled 911? he asked. You live alone?

  I live with my girlfriend, I said, and a cat.

  Where was she?

  My girlfriend? She’s out of town.

  And how long have you two been together?

  About a year, I said. Or no—two years.

  Detective Tucker paused and studied me a moment. Did anything else happen before you reached the school? Did you run into anyone else? he asked.

  I told him how I had shared a cigarette with a fellow who was high on mushrooms.

  Were you high on anything last night?

  No, I said. Not me—the other guy. I was sitting down to take a break from walking when he went by and I asked him if he had a cigarette he could spare. He said he didn’t have one to spare, but that we could share one. I said okay, so then he stopped and we smoked and chatted for a minute.

  The fellow told me he was going to his friend’s place, that there were three naked women just hanging out at his friend’s apartment, and that actually come to think of it, he didn’t have time to be standing around smoking cigarettes and chatting with me. After that he took off in a hurry down the street.

  The last question the detective asked was whether or not I had killed that man.

  No, I said. Then I said it again in a different way, just to be certain I hadn’t misspoken.

  He said, Understand that I have to ask you this question, but why should I believe you?

  After the interview, the police took my clothes and my shoes and entered them into evidence. They gave me a polyester suit to wear, much like a vacuum-cleaner bag with a zipper up the front. Detective Tucker drove me home in his personal car. As we pulled away from the station he asked if I’d mind if he lit a cigarette.

  My wife doesn’t know that I smoke, he said. But I’ve been smoking every day for nearly twenty years. I only ever do it with the windows down, and I only ever do it before lunch.

  More or less, that’s the end of the story. There is more I could say, but it rambles outward from this point. One time I witnessed a murder, but I didn’t see anything I hadn’t already seen. I mean, it was the same basic material as what makes up this life, only rearranged, temporary laid out differently for the sake of creating some shock and awe. I didn’t witness the death of a man, because I didn’t know the man, and so to me he wasn’t real. I didn’t see the hand that dealt the blow. I didn’t see the blade that cut the skin. Once again though, I fear that I’m not telling it right. I should stick to things that can be explained.

  Ayleen was to come home later that day. I waited for her and couldn’t sleep. I wanted to break for her, to fall apart and weep into her arms when she arrived because when I got back to our room, I really was reeling and was in a kind of shock. I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted Ayleen. I wanted her to come and make everything right. So much had been wrong and I thought it would do us both good if I could only fall apart for her, if I could just collapse and be a mess for her the moment she came in through the door.

  But the waiting was long. I couldn’t hold out. I couldn’t stand to be alone that day, so I rented a pile of movies. By the time Ayleen walked into the room I had already watched three dumb movies back to back. I had ordered a pizza and felt sick. I was tired and distracted, so I didn’t collapse, but I told her what happened.

  And later that evening, already forgetting and blurring the truth, I told her again.

  On Gordon Head

  Elly hated flying, but there was something about flying west. That feeling of having been up since the world was dark, of having boarded a plane, of having been in the air for what seemed already like the bulk of a day only to land and find it was hardly noon. That the sun was full and bright when she felt it should be setting. Flying west always made her feel buoyed for the day and estranged, the way she thought a sleepwalker would.

  Elly took a bus downtown and transferred, headed for the university. As the bus pulled up at a stop in front of the Student Union Building, she saw Sam on a bench with a paperback. He was wearing sunglasses, jeans and a black T-shirt. The sunglasses, she thought, were too big for his face.

  She tried to sneak up on him, but Sam was so eager he kept looking up from his book. He spotted her, and his mouth spread into a wide, involuntary grin.

  They hugged and she told him, Your legs are shaking.

  That’s because I’m nervous, said Sam.

  You’re nervous? Really?

  They kissed.

  On separating, Elly asked, What are you reading?

  I wasn’t really reading. I was waiting for you.

  Oh, well that’s sweet, she said, but looking over his shoulder anyway she saw that the book was by Anaïs Nin. A slim novella lying flat on a narrow, wooden bench.

  They caught a cab to the house where Elly had rented a room. She had rented it sight-unseen, had found the ad online, and had spoken to a guy named Jim over the phone one day. The situation was less than perfect, but being as it was so hard to find a place near campus this time of year, Elly had been willing to accept anything.

  The cab took them into a neighbourhood sloped, falling toward the shore. The trees overhead loomed larger here, their branches reaching over the road.

  Elly sat with her legs crossed, leaning back and trying not to smile. Sam was beaming though, looking at her from across the back seat. He even reached out to touch her on the knee, as if to be assured that this wasn’t a dream.

  The house was white and overgrown with moss. It seemed that the front of it hardly got any sun. Elly’s room would be in the basement, but now with the help of Sam she lugged her suitcases up the front steps. She rang the bell and a big black dog came barking from out of the living room. She heard a voice say, Don’t mind him, and then saw someone rise from the couch.

  Jim opened
the door and introduced himself. He held the dog by its collar, but only to prevent it from running out. Once Elly and Sam were inside, he let go. The dog rubbed its face excitedly against their legs and wagged its tail.

  This is Banjo, said Jim. He’s friendly. And then speaking to the dog said, C’mon boy. Leave it, leave them alone.

  Jim had the look of a child who had grown up too fast. His body was sort of shapeless, undefined, but his face looked tired. Ushering them into the living room and taking his place on the couch again, Jim explained that Elly had chosen an excellent day to arrive.

  Just last night, he said, we had to evict a guy out of the basement, because he lost his mind and tried to kill my dog, all because Banjo got into his room and ate a couple granola bars. The guy had chased the dog around the house, said Jim, with a hunting knife. We had to call the cops, and we only finally got him out of here at four in the morning.

  Jim showed them Elly’s room. It was a space downstairs with grey carpet, white walls and a window facing the front. As soon as they were alone again, Sam approached.

  Not here, Elly said. It’s too dusty and weird.

  Well, where should we go? asked Sam.

  I don’t know. We have nowhere to go.

  After dropping her luggage, Elly and Sam set off on foot to explore the neighbourhood. Neither of them had ever lived in this area, although they’d been here for parties before. In their memories it was always winter here, always wet and dark. It was always late and they were lost on a kind of fool’s errand trying to find their way out.

  It was the end of the summer though, and the sun was full and bright as they walked away from Elly’s house. Veering into a lane at the end of her street, they soon found themselves at the mouth of a trail. The trail brought them onto the ocean, but instead of on a beach, they found themselves standing over a low bank of cliffs with long grass and shrubs growing out of the rock. The cliffs were rounded, as if the rock itself was caught in a motion of falling, bending forward, slipping its head beneath the waves.