A groove had settled into a dirt brown and rotten green plaid pattern of a La-Z-Boy that had lived up to its name. In the last two months, no one bothered to return it to its upright position. Across from it was a sweating television set, aligned and centered for the perfect view. The nasty colour of the recliner would have served as a stark contrast to the white walls if they hadn’t been stained by accidental beer spills. Behind the recliner, on the pale ale-coloured wall, and reflecting the TV transmission, was a dusty mirror covered in fingerprints. The mirror was ready to shatter but remained intact.
The missing reflection could have been a history buff or the host of a cancelled documentary series. He could’ve been a slam poet, a boy in the orchard, or an amateur kite-maker, feeling sky-high after sex. He could have been the Emperor of Oranges. He could have been anything he wanted him to be. Despite the endless possibilities, he ended up being nothing. He didn’t even exist. He was nothing for the same reason a pen was now a weak paperweight sitting on top of indistinct sheets of paper, each waiting to be defined.
Noah never wrote him. He hadn’t even lifted a pen in two months.
Pen and paper had always been a cathartic outlet. Lately, television had been his only source of comfort. News, commercials, sitcoms and movies all made his eyes water—good, bad, trivial. A man surviving a building fire. Another in hospital after a car veered off the road. The autopsy of a third man with a stab wound from a butterfly knife revealing that he had died from food poisoning. Tropicana bringing sun to the Canadian Arctic. The semi-immortal Richard Alpert desperately looking for a way to die on ABC’s Lost. He watched it all. The only thing that would make Noah switch channels was any news of the recent epidemic of pedestrian fatalities. They reminded him of the nightmare from four years ago. If only he had called after her, instead of letting her go. Sarah would’ve stepped off the curb a few minutes later.
****
No matter what time of day, arms would spring out of unopened bottles of beer, begging to be picked up. Beside Noah’s recliner were finished Keiths and Mooseheads, perfectly lined up and perfectly content to be empty. This was the most he had accomplished in the last two months—straight rows of alternating brown and green bottles that matched his chair. All of his dedication and precision was suddenly undone by the ring of his phone. Most days, he would test callers’ patience against their persistence. Today, his phone had sprouted arms, too, and Noah had a maternal compulsion to shove everything else out of the way and pick it up.
“Hello?” Noah answered.
“What are you doing with your life?” asked a deep voice.
Noah hung up.
The phone rang again. Noah let it go and, beside his dial radio, the answering machine began—
“C’mon, Noah, pick up. You’re obviously there … I was thinking of starting my own wake-up call service. Creepy, no? Who wouldn’t get up after hearing that first thing in the morning? Um, yeah, anyway, I was just wondering what you were up to today. You oughta take a break from that book or whatever you’re writing and come out. We’re hitting up Avenue tonight. Come with. None of us has seen you in awhile—Hey, you know what, I’m coming over right now, whether you like or not. See you in five minutes. Later.”
The voice was Martin’s. The winding of the tape came to an abrupt stop, followed by two beeps that signalled a new message. Noah was hypnotized by the tiny flashing light on the answering machine until the doorbell startled him into movement.
Empty boxes, plastic bags and unidentifiable clothing surrounded the front door. Martin had to kick clear a path to the living room when he entered.
“Geez, Noah. Look at all these bottles.”
“Yeah,” Noah called out from his kitchen.
Martin jumped backwards onto the loveseat by the window, from which Noah and Sarah used to watch their Wonderfalls DVDs together. It was strangely clean in the grungy living room.
“What exactly have you been doing these past few months?”
“Nothing really.”
Noah was peering intently into his fridge, finding it as empty as the bottles beside his La-Z-Boy. His stomach moaned, having been left off the list of Things that Are Empty. He noticed the size of his enlarged gut.
“Not even writing that—”
“Hey! Are you hungry?”
Noah had wasted two months. Kaufman’s List was expecting a short story in two weeks.
“Oh, yeah. That’s why I came over. I’m meeting Jeeves around the corner for lunch. Figured I’d drag you along.”
“Cool. Lemme, um, just grab my jacket.”
There was itch in his throat that begged to be rubbed.
“Wow. You look so different, man,” said Martin, “Sweet beard.”
****
Jeeves was already at Bendale Restaurant, waiting. His friends named him after the retired character from Ask.com. He always seemed to have answers. Did he mind the nickname? Noah could tell that Jeeves was glad he didn’t need to explain that the J was pronounced like an H—his real name was Joven. What Noah used to admire about him was how he made life seem easy. He was quick on his feet—always on time, if not early, and for a person whose first language wasn’t English, he answered even the most difficult questions without hesitation or stuttering. He might have been just a quiet butcher in Kensington Market with an unassuming smile. Without doubt, Noah understood that Jeeves was a poet, whether or not he had ever written a word of poetry. Noah’s brain craved what Jeeves had—this ability to make effortless answers, knowing already in a snap exactly who, what, where, when, why, and how. In Noah’s two months of lounging about while trying to forget the recently resurfaced memory of the accident, he was waiting for his first short story to appear in its entirety. It wasn’t until that moment that Noah thought he could finally start writing. Perhaps Jeeves’ incredible skill would rub off on Noah.
Bendale hadn’t changed since Noah was a kid, with the exception of their prices. Back then, two dollars bought fries and gravy in a medium-sized Chinese takeout container. Today, fifty cents more would afford fries and gravy in a smaller, cheaper box that turned soggy from the heat and fell apart before he had a chance to finish. The banner outside was the same crushed dandelion yellow text on sickly green. This was the first time in thirteen years Noah had set foot in the narrow neighbourhood restaurant. Jeeves was sitting in a booth in the far back.
Before they had even taken their seats, Martin and Jeeves seemed to already be in a full conversation. Probably about one of the thousand trips they said they would take but hadn’t yet. Noah was too distracted by the diner’s condition to take notes. The familiar gumball machine, four feet tall, stood by the entrance, polished clean. The poster of Archie sharing a milkshake with both Betty and Veronica hung on the wall, untarnished and showing no wear. The green marble-imitation tabletops remained spotless and free of scuffs. Bendale was just as he remembered it in eighth grade. The booth seats and the bar stools were still upholstered in the same orange faux leather plastic that stuck to bare legs on sweaty summer days. While they ate breakfast for lunch, Noah’s legs uncomfortably clung to the seat beneath.
“—ven. Six. Five,” said Martin.
Jeeves continued—
“Four. Three. Two. O—“
“Why are you guys counting down?” asked Noah, finally aware.
“To get your attention! We’ve been saying your name!”
“You’ve been completely zoned out since we got here. Is everything alright?” asked Jeeves.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“We haven’t seen you in forever. Working hard on those short stories of yours? You know, I don’t think I’ve ever read any of them.”
Noah’s legs were drenched with imaginary sweat.
“Yep. Hey, look, I’ll catch you guys later. I forgot I had something to do, and I still need to shower.”
“You should def’ do that, man. I thought that smell was just your apartment, but it followed us here. Avenue, tonight?” asked Martin.
“Yeah, yeah. See you guys there.”
On the way out, he noticed a mother with her son sitting in the next booth and overheard—
“Whoa, slow down, Nolan. You’ll choke, if you keep eating that fast.”
****
Climbing into the shower, Noah tangled himself in a musty air. A thick film had formed on the walls. The light swipe of a finger along the tiles gathered the grimy residue on his fingertip. Noah’s solution was to let the hot water run while he considered trimming his hair and shaving his beard. Both had grown longer than the scraggly Zach Galifianakis’ when he hosted SNL a few weeks ago. His beard had grown in full, a sight he had never seen before. A small trim wouldn’t do harm. When he brought the scissors to his hair, the fog had already swallowed his reflection.
Two thorough body scrubs didn’t suffice. Noah soaped and rinsed himself a third and then a fourth time. He wasn’t sure what to use on his beard—soap or shampoo? Hair was hair. He shampooed and rinsed his head and beard four times, too. He hadn’t been in the shower long when Noah noticed his fingers. In that short time, his weak and tired skin had dropped its shield, surrendering all its oils in exchange for a pruny appearance. A phenomenon Noah thought was only possible in a long bath, he was entranced by its texture until the hot water ran out, and discomfort forced him out of the shower. By then, he had forgotten about trimming his hair or beard. A shower and a comb through was enough.
****
Martin and Jeeves could be found at clubs on a weekly basis. Tonight was Noah’s first time at Avenue. Going to a club was never how he’d imagine spending a Friday night. When he was with Sarah, there was no need to dance closely with other sweaty strangers. Initially, he thought he’d join them just to grab some drinks. Dancing might actually do his muscles some good after the past two months. New experiences were eye-opening too, were they not? His arms were determined to stay up all night, his feet ready to trample whatever was on the floor.
Avenue wasn’t what he expected. Each person had a square foot to move. The room was dimly lit to hide its true grungy nature. The crowd made him feel claustrophobic. Noah stayed by the wall, where all the seats and tables were, drinking a tasteless Labatt and watching the mass move frantically within its contained space. For Spectator Noah, the show was unmoving, the padded seats were uncompromising, and the bottles of beer were armless and unwelcoming. Was this really where all twenty-something-year-old humans were going every weekend? In the washroom, Noah splashed his face with cold water. The mirror free of condensation, he made out dark circles beneath his eyes. It was time to leave. Martin and Jeeves wouldn’t miss him.
****
The train ride was quiet. Bus service had retired for the night. Noah walked home briskly from the station. He could have held his thumb out. An unusually high number of cars were out on the road for the early hour of 2 o’clock. He knew the halfway mark on his trek was a deer crossing sign on the bridge. When he approached this point, he recalled the voice of the mother from the diner—
“Whoa, slow down, Nolan.”
Noah stopped in his tracks when he put his chin up. The sight shocked him still and he feigned a hallucination. A deer had been standing beside the yellow deer crossing sign, staring at its destination across the street and waiting patiently.
Afraid of startling the deer, he took a seat on the sidewalk. His desire to be home dissolved. His patience multiplied by millions. Noah would stay in this one place until the deer had finally crossed. He watched the deer sniff the inconspicuous ground for fresh green grass as they both waited for the road to clear both ways.
Noah wondered whether the passing drivers could see what he could. He imagined one driver as awestruck as he was. He’d slam his brakes, distracted by the image in his rear-view mirror of a tranquil animal on the side of a busy road, and then fly out his windshield, having not fastened his seatbelt. This is where Noah’s story would begin—a man in mid-flight, transcending his earlier urgent and preoccupied state. Just sitting still on the concrete ground, Noah never had felt more at ease.
