Dead Flowers Read online

  The next day, Marcelo awoke after Larissa had gone out. He made himself a cup of tea and took a walk around the neighbourhood. He walked to a nearby restaurant where he had thought of applying for work, but by the time he reached the place he’d already lost interest in the idea. It was cold out, so he turned back home.

  That afternoon, he looked into the option of attending a trade school. Part of him wanted to get something going beyond restaurant work and simple labour jobs. He thought he wouldn’t mind working with wood down the road, but he couldn’t find any suitable courses. Ultimately, he wasn’t sure if he was keen. Marcelo didn’t like to look at the big picture. It was hard for him to imagine ever wanting to choose a single career. There was a part of him still that wanted to keep working at a dead-end job, to work for another couple of years without any ambition, and to enjoy the time as it slipped away.

  Marcelo’s mother called to say hello, and he made the mistake of sharing his confusion with her. She only reminded him of all the barriers that lay ahead in life for a person who doesn’t pursue financial security early on.

  You’re getting older, his mother said.

  Marcelo looked at the five-dollar bill the lady had given him. He briefly considered going out to buy a lottery ticket with the money, thinking it would be a strangely appropriate bill to expend in order to win ten thousand dollars. But really, he knew it wasn’t any more likely to buy a winning lottery ticket than another bill, regardless of the circumstances by which he’d acquired it. He decided to spend it the same as he would any money, and he put it in his wallet.

  Later, his friend Dave called.

  What did you do today? Dave asked.

  Well, Marcelo said, Larissa was talking about doing her master’s last night and she was worrying about life which got me worrying too. So I’ve been sitting here looking for jobs and researching schools, but I feel like I really have no interest in any of it.

  Sounds like you could use a drink, said Dave.

  That night, Marcelo and Dave had dinner together. Dave cooked a simple pasta. They shared a bottle of wine as they ate. Afterward, they decided to go out for beers and shoot some pool.

  It was a Thursday night and the bar they chose wasn’t busy. Still, they had to wait some time for the pool table, but they were happy enough just sitting and drinking their beers. When they finally did get a table, they played a game against two French-Canadians. One was old and drunk, the other young and drunk with a black eye and a row of broken teeth. Both were awfully drunk to be playing pool.

  Soon enough, Marcelo and Dave were drunk as well. They smoked some of Dave’s cigarettes outside the bar. They talked about books and the night wore on. The small crowd inside the bar thinned out. The only waitress in the place sang karaoke when she wasn’t serving drinks. And before leaving, without even having noticed, Marcelo used the five-dollar bill crammed in his wallet to pay for yet another round.

  About Franklin

  1.

  The first time I ever met Franklin was when he came to the apartment one night. He came over to see Annie of course, who was my roommate, also my best friend and the only person I really thought I cared about. She and I shared this little place near the university with two bedrooms, a small balcony and a piano in the living room. The piano was an object of luxury, an instrument neither of us knew how to play. Annie, because she had never learned, and although I had taken lessons as a girl, I had forgotten everything.

  That night started the same as any other. Annie and I were in her bedroom. She was sitting on the bed while I was lying on the floor. Lately we’d been spending practically every night of the week this way, just passing the time, doing nothing of any consequence—sometimes reading poetry aloud from magazines, or talking, drawing, taking pictures, or making little works of art. We were always in Annie’s bedroom because there was a warmth to the place. It was like a manifestation of her personality. Annie’s room had a charming, cozy, sedate atmosphere. I remember it retrospectively as if it were lit in a rose-coloured light. But as I was saying, we were doing almost nothing that night when all of a sudden we heard a noise at the window. It was a small but definitive sound, as if of something sporadically hitting the glass. Annie went to investigate. She stuck her head out the window and I heard her speak to someone. She explained it was Franklin, standing below.

  I try to remember when the first time was that Annie spoke to me about Franklin. It must have been something said in passing, something practically whispered, some insignificant detail thrown into an unremarkable anecdote. Then over a course of days, of maybe weeks, his name must have come up again, but always in a casual way. Always: Oh and of course Franklin was there. Or: I bumped into Franklin on my way out the door. Or still: Then Franklin sneezed so loud that people ten rows ahead of us turned around to see. It was all very subtle, very under the radar. Though, if you asked Annie, I’m sure she’d remember it differently. Probably she would tell you that I was always distracted, forgetful, that I never could grasp all the details of this, nor of anything else for that matter. Still the impression remains, that when I finally realized she was seeing this boy, that she and he had become involved, I was left with a feeling that Annie had been, for some reason, keeping me in the dark. Finally, I asked her once and for all who this Franklin guy was, but she only rolled her eyes.

  Now here was Franklin standing three storeys down in the parking lot, throwing pebbles up into the night. But why pebbles? I wanted to ask. After all, wasn’t there a working intercom? Was he trying to be romantic?

  Looking back I can say that the answer is no, Franklin wasn’t trying to be anything. I didn’t know it yet, but Franklin did a lot of things differently, and it was not because he wanted to appear different, not because he tried to be different. Sometimes you have to wonder about a person, how would they behave if they could be left alone. I mean, if they could be utterly, completely alone, what would they do with themselves? And how would they do what they did? I think that in such a case, Franklin would do things more or less as he had always done. He would stand in front of empty buildings throwing pebbles up at bedroom windows belonging to no one.

  Annie went downstairs to let Franklin into the building. I went into the kitchen to fill a glass with water from the tap. I had a vague feeling of apprehension, and I didn’t know whether it was nervousness about the fact that soon I’d be meeting someone, or whether I was in some way upset about a stranger’s intrusion into our night. Maybe I was only bewildered, because after all it still felt strange to me that Annie could be dating someone. I had simply never considered her as a romantic or a sexual being. She was so friendly and had so many friends. She was always making friends with people everywhere she went. Honestly, I thought it had to be awkward to have sex with anyone, and Annie seemed only too natural, too comfortable with nearly everyone she met.

  I heard them come in the door. I was on my way down the hall when Franklin and I crossed paths. He hardly acknowledged me. It was as if we were in a hotel, each on our way to our separate rooms. And the hall was only dimly lit, so I didn’t get a good look at him. I could see that he was older than Annie and me by at least a few years. He was thin, not very tall, and had a mop of dark, curly hair. He wore a ragged, knitted sweater which billowed unbuttoned away from his body, so to avoid running into him I found myself practically pressed up against the wall. I almost spilled my water, in fact. Then Annie came gliding in after him. Without a word she guided Franklin into her bedroom and closed the door. I was left standing for a moment in the hall. I thought I could hear them laughing, but what did I know? Maybe they were crying, I thought. Or maybe they were fucking already.

  After a while I went into my own room. I was supposed to be studying for a mid-term exam I would write in the morning anyway. The exam was for a literary survey course called, “An Introduction to the Novel.” I went to my desk and sat with the novel we had been reading most recently, A Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. Beyond holding the
book though, I didn’t really know what to do with it. I didn’t know how to study properly. I opened the book, turned a few pages, then somehow an hour went by, and when Annie came into the room she found me running my finger over the surface of the water in my drinking glass. She knocked at the door, even though it was open, and told me that she and Franklin were going for a walk.

  Do you want to come along? she asked.

  Maybe, I said. Where are you going?

  She told me they were going to take a walk to the end of the street and get high. Of course I wanted to go, but I’d also promised myself that I’d try not to smoke anything tonight. If I wasn’t going to be studying, the very least I could do was to try to keep a clear head for the morning. Back then I was a real pushover when it came to smoking pot. If somebody offered it to me, I couldn’t refuse, not once the thought had entered my head. Sometimes if I only caught the scent of it, say as I was walking on my way to a class—and it could be the middle of the afternoon, but if there was a hint of marijuana in the air—it made me want to drop everything, to drop off the face of the Earth and get thoroughly, miserably, blissfully stoned. Because for me the high was all in the smell. The high was in the taste of it on my mouth. I told Annie that yes, I wanted to come.

  I was introduced to Franklin at the door. He was surprisingly formal about it. As he shook my hand—and I think he even made a slight bow—he said, Charlie. It’s really great to meet you. Annie’s told me so many things.

  I thought I ought to say something equally kind, but I didn’t know what. After a moment, my hand still in his, I blurted out, Franklin. It’s really great to meet you too. Annie’s told me so many things.

  Annie snorted. Oh jeez, she said.

  We left the apartment and passed quietly down the carpeted hallways, but it was only once we had left the building I realized that Franklin wasn’t wearing shoes. At first I thought maybe he’d forgotten them, either upstairs or at home, so I asked. Franklin chuckled and told me that he hadn’t forgotten them.

  Annie said, Franklin isn’t wearing shoes, as if that was any kind of explanation.

  Is it because you’re trying to toughen up the soles of your feet? I asked.

  Actually, there is no real reason, Franklin said. I stopped wearing shoes about a month ago just to see what it would be like, and I’m not wearing them now because I want to see how long this will go on. I suppose in a way I’m waiting for something to tell me when to stop.

  Or to tell you when to start, I said.

  Franklin chuckled again. Yeah, he said, that’s right.

  We slowly made our way down the street to where it dead-ended into a cluster of trees. It was only March, but it had been unseasonably warm recently, and some of the buds on those branches had already burst. It was a dark night, and while walking we didn’t say anything more, only every so often Franklin quietly cooed, sounding just like a pigeon.

  After smoking we spent a while talking. We talked about Franklin, about Annie, about the two of them together. Franklin asked me about myself. He wanted to know what I was studying, and did I like it, and if not, where did my interests lie. I don’t remember how it came about, but I think at some point we talked about the poet Pablo Neruda. Had I ever read any Neruda? And what did I think of his works? I remember Annie had one of his books, a slender volume of his poetry. So when I think about Pablo Neruda today, I think about Annie’s hands. I think about her hands holding onto that book, her little hands, and then about her little feet, and I think of how in some ways she always was so small and delicate. When I think about Annie today, I think here is someone who deserves to be loved. When I think about Pablo Neruda I see only anger and a hard masculinity. I see a brutal aggressivity lurking there beneath his most sensitive lines. When I think about Pablo Neruda, I think here is the spirit of something willing to beat a woman into the dust. But then what did I know? And what was important? Standing there at the end of the street, what mattered was that we were getting along. Of course, Annie was thrilled to see her new boyfriend and her best friend hitting it off. Franklin mentioned that he’d be leaving soon to go travelling through Europe. Annie was hoping to join him there sometime later in the spring. Franklin said I shouldn’t expect to see him again since he would be leaving so soon. And thanks to a streetlight, I had managed to get a good look at his face. He had a high brow, clever eyes and a slightly hooked nose. He had the features of a hawk, I thought. And actually, that’s one way to think of him—as a hawk who coos like a pigeon, or as a man who doesn’t wear shoes. And I mean that figuratively, whether or not he really is wearing shoes.

  Two weeks later Franklin was gone and although I knew it didn’t make sense, I felt as if he’d left me behind. I was sad to see him go, but it was something more than that. It didn’t often happen that I met someone I could relate with as easily as I related with him. Franklin was unique, and I had felt a kind of chemistry between us, so it was sad to see him slip away, headed in another direction, headed off and out of my life. As for Annie, who in this situation really had been left behind, if she was hurt, she didn’t show it. She was just her usually kind, effusive self.

  One night she dragged me to a party hosted by one of Franklin’s friends. As it happened, most of Franklin’s friends had by now become Annie’s friends as well. The party was at a girl named Julia’s house. Actually, it was at her parents’ house which was in one of those wealthy, labyrinthine-like neighbourhoods built against the shore. So many of Franklin’s friends seemed still to be living with their parents, I’d noticed. I thought it must be because they had grown up in this city, unlike Annie and I who were strangers here and still sometimes felt lost.

  On the night of the party we rode our bicycles down those long and winding roads. We circled traffic roundabouts, passing under massive cedar trees. It was incomprehensible to me that Annie should know where we were going, but she led the way and I followed. It was an easy ride downhill all the way toward the sea, and after twenty minutes, we arrived at the house.

  We parked our bikes against the garage and walked around the side of the house. In the backyard there were a dozen people or so, some standing over a barbecue, some smoking cigarettes in the dark. I thought it must be a new moon since I could hardly see anyone’s face. Only an errant feature here or there displayed, such as a pair of lips or half a nose glimpsed in the cherry-glow of a cigarette. Annie and I tried mingling. We joined into conversations. But all the while it was as if people were speaking in a foreign tongue. We felt disoriented, overwhelmed, and by the time we finally made it into the house, we didn’t know who we’d been talking to or what had been said, so we worried we had been somehow compromised. It was as if we had suffered a memory lapse, as if we had given something away without keeping track of what it was and of who it had been given to. Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered if we hadn’t already smoked so much pot, but as it was, we thought we needed safety so we found the kitchen and made a kind of mental fortress there. What I mean is that we set up camp. The kitchen was bright and clean. We took out the bottle of wine we’d brought and planted it like a flag on the granite counter. Then we took turns drinking, swigging straight out of the bottle. We found that the more we drank, the better we felt, and soon we were feeling so good we had even started laughing at ourselves. That’s how Julia found us, standing in the kitchen and laughing. She seemed delighted to have found us at all.

  I’m so glad you came, she said and gave Annie a hug. Then she turned to me and introduced herself. She gave me a hug too saying, It’s really great to meet you.

  Julia, it’s so great to meet you too. Annie’s told me so many things.

  Julia smiled, but she looked confused.

  Annie said, Pay no attention to her. She’s drunk and stoned.

  I smiled and shrugged.

  Julia laughed. Then she turned more deliberately to Annie. I didn’t see you come in, she said. Oh, and I love your sweater, by the way. Did you get that second hand?

  Here she laid her
own hand onto Annie’s sleeve as if she hadn’t ever felt knitwear before, and the next thing I knew, they were talking at length about a person I’d never met. I left them and wandered off to inspect another part of the house.

  It was obvious Julia’s family had money. Their house was large and tidy—well taken care of, but in an impersonal way. I spent some time on the staircase looking at her family photographs. Then I went into the bathroom and opened the cupboards to see what was hidden inside.

  I heard music coming from the living room. In there I saw that all the furniture had been pushed against the wall, and in the middle of the room people were dancing, some singly, others in pairs. I felt embarrassed to have stumbled into this scene, but I couldn’t turn around and leave. It was like I was being watched. And was I being watched, I wondered. I made my way deeper into the room, skirting the dance floor and finding a place on the couch. It wasn’t long before a boy sat next to me. At first he offered me a gin drink, which I accepted, but then we couldn’t find any glasses. Instead, he let me pull on his flask, which was something I had only ever seen done in movies. I told him as much, and he took it as a compliment. We spent the next twenty minutes talking, and although the boy kept saying he wanted to know all about me, he talked mostly of himself. He had nothing very interesting to say. He kept insisting he had never heard of Franklin Turner, and I kept insisting he had.

  It’s likely that you wouldn’t remember him. Probably to most people he isn’t remarkable, I said.

  By now the boy seemed to be losing interest, but he asked me if I wanted to dance.

  I told him I didn’t know how, but he said, It’s easy, I can show you. All you have to do is move your body.

  I told him I didn’t want to learn, that my head was already full of so many different things, and that to learn anything at this point would mean I’d need to sacrifice something else.

  Are you being serious? he asked