The Little Dog's Day
Her Mommy Dearest hid, screwed down in an urn, in her new blue suitcase. Had the funeral people sieved out the nasty bits and pieces, the evil surprises, the hard lumps? Like good environmentally friendly Nazis, do they recycle the goodies: gold for jewelry, bone for fertilizer, steel for cars, etc.? Mommy Dearest—an American—had asked Isabel—a Canadian—to scatter her remains on the waters of the Erie Canal.
Mommy had loved poetry, man oh man she just loved it. She placed cutsie-bound books all over the place, convenient for a fast shot of verse with a capital V whenever she felt the need. Rupert Brooke was her favourite.
If I should die think only this of me…
I try very hard not to think of you.
She was so strong;
But death was stronger.
To business. Twenty people toiled in the poetry group in this writer's conference. Nineteen participants and the leader, Bill Wittenberg.
Not possible! Evelyn! As soon as she saw Evelyn, she knew that no one else in the group existed. The woman was the image of Mommy: from the white, carefully dressed, close-permed hair to the winged glasses; from the lipstick-curled mouth to the bright green eyeshadow; from the way she butted her chin out when she was about to talk, to the way she bent her head down when she was thinking. She was stamped as a true reproduction. And the words…even her words were the same words her double would have used. She moved her lips as if someone had glued her lips to her teeth. Eyes rolled to heaven and hands fluttered like white doves waiting to transform into the Holy Ghost. Yes, this was the beginning of the great haunt. The stupid name was even too much. Eve, the one in the urn. This one, Evelyn. A surfeit of Eves! Adam would have had a ball. Ribs floated from cages, littering sidewalks. Bones. Dry bones sang songs of evil in purple light.
Finger with finger wreathes…
This haunting was going to get worse, she knew it. All the Eves had Brooke on their side and she had no one.
The unheard invisible lovely dead
Lie with us in this place,
Evelyn tells everyone that she runs a bird sanctuary in the Corning area. Birds are her life.
About her poetry she says, "It's like this…I, let me see…things just swell up and…overflow, but I can't think of ways of saying them. I'm confused. That's why I write poetry." Isabel thinks she should have taken a poetry laxative. Make it all shit out.
They learned that she had buried her fifteen-year-old son ten years ago. She mentioned quite casually that she had lost another son, twelve years ago, at ten years of age. Two children lost? Some kind of careless mislaying? Hens lay eggs. Women bear children.
Isabel has two sons, now grown men. They are alive and in that, she is lucky.
For the kin of you will surely do
Their duty by the dead.
Bill Wittenberg carried three hundred pounds of fiftyish manhood. Spoke with…she thought…a Brooklyn accent…she thought affected. Of course she knew his poetry, liked it, and that was why she was attending his workshop. He, the Mamma Duck ordering ducklings around, someone always tucked under his ample wing.
I bear you, a light burden, to the shrouded sands,
The waters of the Erie Canal run long and deep. Oh, Mommy, I don't think I can trust you to that water. You are an owl, and with your pointed ears and rotating eyes you can see in the silent dark, you can hear the most private of private whispers. Like the bogeyman, you can hear my thoughts.
Two days goose-stepped along in intervals of poems, meals, walks, conversations, videos of interviews of poets, etc.
Mommy sat, throned as the Queen of the Castle and you, Daddy, for the time you slicked around the castle, were no more than the under-footman. Nothing but a sperm seeding her womb. You paid for nothing, Daddy. You cultivated your useful memory, your slick and easy ability to forget anything you decided to forget. You up and packed and got on with your life with Number Two. You knew all about the men who floated near, hovered over, oscillated above, my mother. Sure. You also knew that those floating bodies did more than float near your ex-wife. At nine it was good, oh so satisfying to have the nicotine-stained fingers finding things that weren't even there. Remember, Daddy! Remember! Remember! Why did you do nothing? Why didn't you believe me when I told you what was happening?
Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead!
Yes, after dinner I must do the deed.
Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond;
But was there anything Beyond?
Spring-cleaning time, cliche time, roll on for empty words, watch this vertical hold. Or is it horizontal hold?
To put off the evil hour, she walked the path beside the canal with Wittenberg. The purpose of the expedition was to find a spot suitable for the drowning. His lips twitched into a smile when she told him about her guilty secret in the can, as if he had expected there to be something odd about this Canadian. She scanned the banks surreptitiously.
"You getting what you want out of the workshops?"
"Yes. Sure. Great time."
"Good work. You have a strong voice. Great images. You work hard at creating a finished poem."
It's painful when someone is being truly nice to her; her skin hurts and she shrinks into a tiny mammal. The subject had to be changed immediately. "It's all in the lock gates, isn't it, the whole life of canals?"
"A bit like the dead. Have to keep them well-oiled. Keep them in order or they don't work any more." He spoke to himself.
"The gears, the cogs, the pulleys—all of them useless, nothing but scrap metal now. They were once loved, yes, cared for. That's it! Loved, like lucky children, someone nurtured them. Now they're neglected, left to rot."
"You're right…." Yes, he was right. Something almost physically clicked into place. What was he talking about? Oil? Come on…she's going mad. The headlines would be: CANADIAN WOMAN GOES MAD ON THE BANKS OF THE ERIE CANAL. "Machines only do what you make them do. A bit like a poem. The whole thing moves as one: these I have loved."
He laughed. "Sounds like the beginning of a poem."
"Been done…Brooke…you know it, of course. I love machinery in the same way I love a poem when it works. As one, as one whole."
"You're quite a strange lady. Notice the way you keep staring at the Bird Lady. As if you could kill her. She is…a bit…precious…but…you stare."
"Sorry." Should she tell him about the haunting? None of his business.
He touched her arm gently. "She came last year. Works hard. Not much imagination but…how should I say? Tries. And kind. Donates one place for our scholarship in memory of her children."
"You're making me feel guilty. Think I have to tell you. Gutless me. I wasn't going to tell anyone…but I think I have to." She told him about the haunting. He laughed. Laughed too much. It wasn't funny and even if it was, it wasn't that funny. She was tempted to push him into the damned canal.
Finally, he controlled himself. "You see…she's the image of my mother too. When she first came, I was really shaken up when I saw her. Thought she had been sent to try me. Then it wore off. In a funny…strange way…it led me to my mother. Saw that the haunting was in me all the time, not in her—not in Evelyn."
The haunting couldn't be all in her. Couldn't be.
As they walked in step, he would stop every so often, glance at her and laugh again. "Amazing. Just amazing. No wonder you kept staring at her."
They studied the next lock. "Wish I could see them moving," he said as he stroked the rusted beam. "I went on a boating holiday along the Thames with wife number one. Hated the boats but loved the locks. Loved the way the water moved up and down like magic."
"Me too, hated the Thames but loved the locks. Perhaps it's something associated with poetry? This magic? Even these, though dead, have magic, don't they?"
He mumbled his agreement. Asked her about her background.
"Mom—the ghost—was from Charlottesville, Virginia, and settled in Toronto. Dad was from Scotland. Spent the first seven years of my life in Scotland and then moved to Toronto. Been there ever since."
"Miss the sea?"
"Sure, at times I miss the sea. Who wouldn't miss the sea living in Ontario? Yes…it's in the waves. The waves as they break were my waves, they are my tides, the moon as…."
"It's been done," he said.
Innocent. "Is that right?"
"Arnold. Dover Beach."
"Oh, yes." Don't admit to a thing. She kicked a stone along the path. Ducks everywhere with families in varying sizes—tiny balls of fluff to arrogant Donalds sure in their territory.
"I can't write about the sea without it sounding really soppy. Think I would have liked it if she had asked me to scatter her on the Atlantic. Yes, that would have been kind of poetic."
She got to breakfast early. Bird Woman was usually the first down for coffee and indeed there she was sipping her coffee ever so delicately. Isabel put down her books and the plastic bag containing Mom.
"How are things?" she said.
A shrug.
Isabel fetched coffee and a muffin. "I need to have a chat with you."
The eyebrows went up.
"It's like this, you see. I mean…I really enjoyed your bird poetry. You like birds and that's evident."
"Love, not like."
"Sorry. Whatever. My mother used to like birds, no, love birds. She lived for birds."
"Yes?" She frowned.
"Yes." Deep breath. "She loved birds and she asked me to scatter her ashes on the Erie Canal. I would have had to make a special trip if it wasn't for this conference, and I …she asked me to do it and I guess I have to do it, don't I?"
"Whatever you feel is right. I can't have an opinion about it."
"Your coffee's finished." She stood. "I'll get you more."
She shook her head. "No. Too much caffeine isn't good for me."
"The decaf's ready."
She placed two cups of decaf on the table. "It's like this…I wondered if…if you would come with me during lunch and…. "
"Yes?"
"I guess, sort of hold my hand. That's all."
"Why me?"
"Um…perhaps you noticed me looking at you sort of funny at times, sort of…."
"Very rudely at times, I thought."
"I'm really sorry. It had nothing to do with you."
"So why so rude?"
"You are the image, the image of my mother. If anyone saw you and her as she was twenty years ago, they would say you were clones, not twins. Even the name is too much."
"What do you mean by that?" Her lips tight, her eyes cold.
It's not going to happen again. No, it's not going to happen again.
"I said, 'What do you mean that the name's too much?'"
"Sorry. I was dreaming. Her name was Eve. Yours is Evelyn. See what I mean?"
"Isn't that funny?"
"I was angry at first. Some kind of sick joke of God's."
"And she was called Eve?"
She patted the can holding her mother. "Eve's right here."
"And she liked birds?"
"Loved birds. Please?"
"Please what?" She polished her glasses the same way her Mom used to.
"Please come with me."
"What do you need me for?"
"I don't know. It just seems…how should I say. Appropriate. Yes, appropriate." She smiled. "I'll buy you lunch at Georgios. They say it's fantastic Italian food."
The woman smiled back. Her eyes disappeared, just as the ghost's used to. Isabel wanted to show her teeth and snarl but forced herself to smile, smile, smile.
"Sure. What's the big deal? I have the time. I can come with you to scatter my double's ashes."
Noon hummed so still, not a ripple disturbed the surface of the canal. She thanked some god for the stillness.
They followed a path to an old iron bridge. Isabel walked onto the middle of the bridge and looked down at the green water. She watched Evelyn out of the corner of her eye. Evelyn was being ever so tactful, glancing up and down the canal as if searching for ghost barges. The greenish water moved slowly under the bridge. Take the urn. Screw the top off. Turn away from it. Slide it through the railings. Tip it upside down in one. A cloud of grey dust floated down to the water. Nothing happened. A gulf did not open to take her into hell. Flames did not lick up from the surface of the water. Nothing. What is this ridiculous woman doing, with the tears streaming down her face? No big deal.
Evelyn was beside her and took her hand. "See, it wasn't so bad, was it?" She drew a fine silk handkerchief from under the cuff of her blouse and wiped Isabel's eyes. "Your mascara's a mess." They stood face to face.
She gulped. "Gee…thanks."
"A mother's death is difficult. Mine died only five years ago. I still miss her."
"Yes, difficult. Difficult."
"Do I still play the part of your mother?"
She shook her head. This woman was not Mommy. Mommy wouldn't have known how to wipe her eyes with a silk handkerchief. She sniffed like a child. "I think it's lunchtime."
"I guess it is. I'm starving. During lunch you can tell me about all the ways I replicate your mother."
"Now that I really think about it, the resemblance is totally superficial." She blew her nose in the silk handkerchief.
She said, "'When the blood-red sun had gone burning down….The little dog died when he'd had his day.'"
"What was that?"
"Oh, just a couple of lines from Brooke. She loved him. I hated him…how could anyone hate a poet as innocuous as Brooke?"
"I've always loved him."
"That right? Isn't that funny? I guess he has a lot of good if you get into him. Really get into him. Like that line, 'And the worst friend and enemy is but Death'. It's that one word, but, that does it."
"You're right. Yes, the one word makes the line. Never thought of that. A clever line."
"Yes, a clever line."
Copyright 2006 by Jennifer Footman
