Fog

Outside was, like, soupy.

No. That’s not it. Not really.

Outside was like if you were in a cloud, but moving with it, right? ’Cause clouds usually blow with the wind. No, they scoot and scuttle. Clouds deserve cute words, don’t they? Hey, don’t clouds always seem to go one way? I mean I’m just thinking about that now. You watch those nature shows, ever? Maybe it isn’t even on those shows. Is it? But where you see those time-lapse—time lapsed?—images of the, like, the whole globe, and a the clouds all twist and swirl and mash together. Not like in a tornadoee way.

Oh my God, what am I even talking about?

It was foggy outside. That’s what it was. Had been for maybe a week already.

Wait, I know. Did you see those pictures from that warehouse in Maryland or whatever that had acres of spider webs? It was all over the Internet right before that—the Internet—all ended. At least it ended for most of us.

The fog was like those spiderwebs.

Or like the thickest fog you’ve ever seen.

Beautiful really. But really eerie.

We had a fire going, which meant we had to have a window or something open somewhere. That was Paula who thought of that. She was always really smart and careful about stuff like making sure we could always breathe. She opened one of the big, you know, garage doors that would have been for deliveries. If you went near it you could see the fog get sucked in and swirl around before it disappeared. It was weird to see it moving, because outside it was so immobile. Still, I hated that it was coming in and one night I dreamed that our warehouse had been overwhelmed by the fog, even though, well— I don’t know why fog doesn’t come inside. It must come inside sometimes in some places.

I was sitting on my wooden chair, which I could tell—I knew—that Aaron was, like, very eager to throw in the fire, but it was my favourite because it totally reminded me of one that my dad used to use, but I really didn’t feel like that was, you know, cool to say to these guys as far as giving a reason why I did not want it used as fuel.

Eric came back with some apples from our orchard. From the orchard. “Can’t see a fucking thing out there.”

“Wish I knew when it was going to stop— When the sun was coming back out,” Paula said. She had a collection of plants she’d stolen or she’d dug up and potted in stolen terracotta. Every day she fussed around them, watering them when they needed it, touching them, dusting them. She was standing beside them. “This could be very very— Could be trouble.”

The apples Eric had with him, the apples he’d brought back, were pretty good. Not eat them raw good, but still. I cut the bad bits out. The worms and stuff. Are they worms? We call them worms. They must be larva. Sometimes you wish you still had the Internet. Or knew someone you could ask.

Paula brought me a pot to put the good bits of apple in. She pulled out her knife too and we sliced the apples together, our thumbs the only cutting board we needed for our dulled pocket blades.

A few months ago, Aaron sharpened Paula’s while she slept and when she started slicing apples, the knife sliced through her easily. “We’re just lucky that didn’t— That could have been a lot worse, Aaron,” Paula said once the bleeding was under control.

Aaron was mad since they’d stopped sleeping together.

“You could at least be grateful. Like a thank you, maybe.”

“I don’t need it so sharp.”

“Not for apples, no, but what if some creep tries something?”

Paula shook her head. “I don’t need— I can take care of myself.”

That was a few months ago.

Back at the time I’m trying to tell you about, I was telling you about, back at that time a few months after the knife thing, Eric was sitting by the fire. The way he stared at it was like maybe he was trying to burn the fog from out of his mind. He shook his head before he came up to Paula and me chopping. “Is Aaron off fucking around with Joyce?” There was a small stone, or maybe a piece of floor loosened from one of its many cracks, lying at Eric’s feet. He kicked it and it bounced with a muted clacking off towards our beds—

The Nest is what Aaron called it, still called it even though he left it the first night he brought Joyce back here.

At first the whole Aaron leaving the Nest thing was hard on Paula, who, like, really actually suffered a lot because of Aaron, which was, simply, because she loved him, but that didn’t really fully explain the suffering bit. For that you’d need to really get inside her head and maybe even his head, but I think it was like, that maybe Aaron was a little abusive the way he talked to her and withheld hugs and stuff. Or the way he loudly talked about how it was her, actually, who had stopped fucking him. We didn’t have the Internet, like I said already, and the library had been pillaged, most of its materials probably burned, so we didn’t even bother to go there to look for stuff anymore and so even if they still had resources about abuse in relationships, even if they hadn’t been stolen to be read or burned, I hadn’t gone to look for them because why bother anymore? We never went there.

But I was talking about Aaron and Joyce, whose name was Joyce even though she was from the local Reserve and even though Aaron kept pressing her for her real name, like how could that be her real name, shouldn’t her real name be, like, more nature based?

I was talking about Aaron and Joyce leaving the Nest and how it bugged Paula at first, but now it seemed to bother Eric the most because Eric seemed to be having feelings for Joyce, who seemed to be feeling things back. Good things. Because Joyce seemed also to be feeling things about Aaron, too, but they weren’t good. Like how she flinched around him. Like how she tensed right up when she was trying to talk to us and Aaron would inevitably interrupt.

Like how she had a fresh bruise, or one we could see anyway.

We went back to the fire and we hung the pot up over it for the apples to cook. Nobody talked but nobody left to look at the fog or to wait for Aaron and Joyce to drive back up in the car. In Aaron’s car.

“I don’t know what Aaron’s— I think Aaron expects too much of Joyce,” Paula said.

“Like she knows every fucking thing that Indians knew, or know, or whatever,” Eric said.

I know that not every reserve is even on or near where the people forced onto that reserve are even from originally. Still, I don’t know about whether that was true for Joyce’s Nation and I can’t look it up. I didn’t want to ask her where she’s from because, I mean, think how that would sound, think how that would have sounded before things started to break down, never mind after all the vigilante problems we had around here.

I also didn’t ask her because speaking isn’t my thing.

“She hasn’t given us one useful thing,” Aaron said to us the other night while Joyce peed outside. We had stopped using the toilet in the warehouse because even though the water ran the pressure was so bad it just wasn’t worth it, so Joyce was, like, far away.

“Isn’t she now— She’s our friend,” Paula said.

“You can’t eat friendship,” Aaron said.

“We ate my fucking dog,” Eric said.

Cannibalism had been practiced in the Americas, I think. I mean, that’s true isn’t it? And I don’t mean by Native people. I had an uncle who was in a band called The Donner Party. The changes because of the fog, to the light, I think, they had us all acting really nervous. Maybe something in our lizard brain? Isn’t that what it’s called?

“Doesn’t Joyce— Did you ask Joyce about the fish in the river?”

“We don’t even trust the water from that river,” Aaron said.

We collected rain in a rusting barrel that had held something industrial back before this was our home. Eric thinks maybe some sort of oil. Petroleum product was how he put it. I like the word petroleum. But any water that we had to get from the river, Aaron made us boil then we would put a piece of burnt wood in it. Burned wood. Aaron’s parents had been sorta rich and he remembered them buying charcoal twigs imported from Japan to purify their drinking water.

“Those fish are all falling apart, like the scales can’t wait until the fucking fish are dead to rot right off them,” Eric said.

“Aren’t they— I think they’re spawning,” Paula said.

“Kay, but does Joyce know about them?” Eric asked.

“Do I know about what?” Joyce asked as she walked back towards the fire.

“The fish in the river,” Eric said.

Aaron shot him a look.

“Those big old ones. They are so nasty,” Joyce said. “They’re like, I don’t know. My mom left a cucumber in the fridge too long once and I went to pick it up and it fell apart. The plastic around it held it together, but there was this milky juice all over the fridge shelf and the cucumber was moldy.”

“Don’t rotten— Cucumbers smell so . . . so unfortunate when they go off,” Paula said.

“They’re fucking nasty,” Eric said.

“You ready to go to bed?” Aaron asked Joyce.

“I guess so,” Joyce said. She smiled at us. “I just love talking to you guys.” Joyce smiled at me, then smiled at Paula and Eric in turn. “It reminds me of my friends on the Res. There’s still a few of them left, too. You should come visit us sometime.”

“Let’s go,” Aaron said.

“Are you going back to the Reserve? I mean eventually?” Eric asked.

Aaron said, “Come on,” so fast that we could hear Joyce say, “Sure. Eventually,” even though they both started at the same time and Aaron made himself much louder.

That was from a night a few days before. Joyce and Aaron went to bed after that.

Aaron’s engine interrupted the sounds of the fire and the bubbling of our applesauce. The murk outside burned eerily from Aaron’s headlights, which he insisted on using even though Eric and Paula both told him that they didn’t think you were supposed to have them on in fog.

He came in alone. “Fuck your applesauce,” he said. “I don’t want applesauce for the rest of my fucking life.” He smiled like he was hurting somewhere. “Come here.”

Nobody asked where Joyce was until we were out by the car. Then it was Eric who said something.

“She’s not coming back,” Aaron said. He opened the trunk and it was filled with meat all wrapped in plastic. Dried meat. We hadn’t seen meat, hadn’t seen much food other than apples, in a long time. We’d talked about how if we were still alive that maybe some other large mammals were still out there, too. Like deer or moose. Maybe bears and wolves and coyotes. Some people still had dogs.

“Where’s this from?” Eric asked.

Paula and I looked at each other and I knew that Paula was thinking the same thing as me, that maybe this was Joyce in the trunk. The edible parts.

“Joyce’s aunty gave it to me.”

“Why would she do that?” Eric asked.

“If you had food, you wouldn’t— I can’t— Would we really share food if we had it?” Paula asked.

“Some people believe in generosity,” Aaron said. “Like it’s some higher principle.”

I was staring at the meat and feeling a little sick, actually.

Paula had one of those burps that you hold in because you think there might be something solid along with it, but then you let out when you are sure that it’s just air.

“Here,” Aaron said, putting a piece of dried meat, neatly shrink-wrapped, into Eric’s arms.

We ate so well that night. Despite our fear and revulsion. Only Aaron didn’t have his meat with applesauce too. Still, we ended up leaving most of the mush we’d made earlier.

Eric was totally energized after. Like the meat gave him super powers. He started talking really quickly about Repo Man, some old L.A. punk rock movie. “Remember,” he said, even though none of us had seen it, “Remember the alien in the trunk and how when they see it that one fucking guy is like, ‘Let’s go do some crimes.’”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Aaron said. “As a sentence I mean.”

“That’s what’s so funny,” Eric said.

“I guess it isn’t a realist— I mean, why’s there an alien in the trunk?” Paula asked.

“’Cause it’s a movie,” Eric said.

“I’m still stuck on that stupid sentence,” Aaron said.

The boys ended up play fighting. Or maybe it was real fighting.

Paula and I cleaned up. At one point, Paula, who was normally super hard working and efficient, she stopped in the middle of throwing some garbage into the fire. She was holding a sticker that had been placed on the meat. I came up beside her. The boys were over in the Nest. Eric had thrown a blanket over Aaron and was straddling it to keep Aaron pinned and Aaron was thrashing to get free. Paula pointed to an address on the package. “I think that’s on the Reserve,” she said.

I nodded.

“Don’t you think— I mean, maybe we could go,” Paula said.

I knew Aaron wouldn’t like it. And I knew we’d need Aaron’s car. Plus the map Aaron kept under his pillow when he slept. “We have to bring Eric,” I said.

“I wouldn’t— We will,” Paula said.

My heart was beating quickly. I wanted to ask when we were going to go, I wanted to ask which one of us would drive, I wanted to ask Paula if she knew that, ‘If we go we won’t be able to come back here,’ at least I didn’t think so. I asked, “Do you think we’ll see Joyce?”

“I— We’ll see.”

Toronto, March 2016

Emoji sequence: visual artist, Katie Bond Pretti

Story: Lee Sheppard

Still New, Part II

Note: As the title suggests, this story is a continuation of “Still New, Part I.”

Levi was on his best behaviour. He asked all sorts of questions about Jill, he made funny jokes, he offered to run to the store and get stuff to make dinner. Once Levi had left, Robin asked Jill, “Is this okay?” though he couldn’t change anything if it wasn’t.

Jill laughed, remembering something Levi had said, presumably. “I’m starting to understand why you like him so much.” Jill rolled up her sleeves and started washing the piles of other people’s dishes in the sink and on the counter. Robin reluctantly dried.

Not only did Levi come back with the makings of a beautiful vegetarian pasta, he’d bought a big bottle of red wine and a six pack of Anchor Steam beer. He explained that when he was living in a San Francisco punk squat Anchor Steam was their beer of choice. Jill asked Levi questions about the squat while she chopped an onion, three cloves of garlic, twelve garden tomatoes. Robin got out pots and mixing bowls and listened, interested in the stories but also feeling peripheral to the conversation. At some point, Levi got warm enough to take off his sweater. At some point, Jill noticed the stick and poke torpedo tattoo on Levi’s upper arm and said how she’d always wanted a stick and poke tattoo.

“You still have India ink?” Levi asked Robin.

“Uh, do you want one right now?” Robin asked Jill.

She was smiling, considering it.

“No pressure,” Levi said.

Which seemed to confirm something for Jill, or reassure her. “Yeah. Okay.” She giggled.

Robin went to his room, which still smelled of him and Jill, and found, crammed into a gap between an old IKEA shelf and the wall, his toolbox full of art supplies. In his high school art class, the India ink was kept in baby jars and half the time when you actually managed to get one of the jars open the ink had turned into black sludge or a block of powder that Ms. Aaron would then add water to in an attempt to return the medium to its original consistency. Robin shook the jar, hoping for it to rattle. It swished. He went to the basement bathroom to open the jar above the sink. Of course, he should be happy that Levi and Jill were hitting it off. What else? Shouldn’t it be that simple?

Did people really decide to get tattoos that fast?

Robin’s roommate, Stephen, opened his bedroom door and walked, rubbing his eyes, towards the bathroom. Robin tried to twist the top off the India ink. Upstairs, Jill laughed. Leaning against the hallway wall outside the open door, Stephen said, “She’s still here, eh? Jill, right?”

“Yeah. Levi, too. We’re making dinner. You want some?” Robin ran the warm water, turned the jar upside down and put it under the faucet.

“Nah. I’m meeting Louisa.”

“Cool.” Blackened water dripped into the sink dying the dried toothpaste and soap scum. Robin tried again to twist the lid free, but the jar slipped in his hands. “I can’t get this fucking thing,” Robin said.

“Want me to give it a try?”

“I don’t actually want it open.”

“Whatever you say.” Stephen yawned as Robin squeezed past him, the bottle dripping grey water onto his cupped hand.

Levi saw the pool of inky water in Robin’s palm. “Paper towels?”

“A dishcloth’s fine,” Robin said.

“It’ll stain,” Levi said.

“I don’t care.”

Levi handed him a dishcloth, then took the jar from him and opened it easily. He evaluated the ink’s consistency by slowly tipping the jar this way and that. “Perfect.” Levi rubbed the jar rim with his finger, removing the black crust from the lid’s grooves. Jill was stripped down to her tank top now, leaning against the counter in front of the microwave Stephen’s father had given them. She was sipping wine and looking at her forearms. “I’ve always wanted a little black bomb.”

Robin nodded and pressed his lower lip up into his upper lip thinking it made him look thoughtful, but stopped himself when it felt like frowning. He wondered at the phrase, Always wanted, wondered what, if anything, he had always wanted.

“I think, like, midway on my forearm.”

Levi was stirring the sauce when he winced and said, “I’ll also need a needle and thread.”

Robin turned to go back downstairs.

“I don’t need it now,” Levi said.

“You’ve got everything under control up here?”

“Can I get you a drink?”

“I’m good.”

Robin’s sewing kit wasn’t immediately visible in the big junk drawer in the center of his desk. He’d moved the desk from his childhood home to his first apartment then to this apartment without once dumping out or sorting through the stuff in any of the drawers, and so it occurred to Robin, as he started noisily running his hand through the junk, that he was stirring years of accumulated odds and ends. The noise was lovely and Robin was enjoying himself until the pad of his right finger found the sharp end of his grandfather’s RCAF wings. It felt like someone had poured a big old Gatorade tub of ice-cold regret over his shoulders. Robin slammed the drawer and sat on his bed with his finger in his mouth.

Robin heard her feet on the stairs, but figured it was Stephen going up. Jill knocked at the door. “Are you okay?” She was holding a bottle of beer in one hand and her wine glass in the other.

“I just stabbed myself on a pin. I can’t find my sewing kit.”

Jill held out the beer. “Levi thought you might like this.”

“Just put it on the desk. Thanks.”

She set the bottle down, sat beside Robin and kissed him on the cheek. “Come on.” Robin half turned his head towards her. She tried to get her tongue in his mouth. He waited until she stopped then waited a breath more before he stood up and reopened his junk drawer. “It should be in here.”

Stephen walked by the open door of Robin’s room, his clothes in his arms and a towel wrapped around waist. “Steve. Have you seen my sewing kit?” Robin asked more to open the room up, so that it included people other than just he and Jill.

“Shit, sorry. Yeah.”

“Actually?”

Stephen returned holding out the small pouch, his other hand hanging onto the towel’s knot.

Robin stood to grab the pouch. “Thanks.”

Jill stood too. “Oh my God, I— ” She looked down at her left forearm.

“You what?”

“I can’t wait,” she said. She put her arms around his neck and tried to look into his eyes. She stood on her tiptoes and tried to pull him down to her. “For the tattoo or to fuck you later.”

Robin gave a single nod and fought back his smile.

Jill bit his shoulder.

“Ouch,” Robin said.

“You’re so hot.”

Robin handed her the sewing kit and sat back down on his bed. “I’ll be up in a minute.” He checked his finger. The injury was disappointingly mild. “I gotta grab a Band-Aid.”

“Want me to bring your beer up?”

“Uh,” Robin shrugged. “Sure.”

His Lorazepam was in the same dusty wicker basket as the Band-Aids. He put the bottle in his pocket.

Dinner was delicious. Levi knew something was wrong anyway, but when Robin didn’t have a second helping, Levi asked his friend, “Is everything alright?” In that context it sounded like maybe a joke about how much Robin usually ate, so Robin played it that way. He stood up and patted his stomach, “I know, right? Maybe I’m getting sick.” No one laughed. Robin and Levi did the dishes together. When Jill went to the bathroom, Levi told Robin, “I don’t need to do it, you know. I can make up some excuse.”

“You mean the tattoo?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s fine. It’s good.”

“You sure?” Levi leaned over to try and make eye contact.

Robin met his eyes, then quickly looked down at the dish he was drying. “Admiring my beautiful eyes?”

“They’re not bad.”

“The way everybody’s always trying to gaze into them.”

Levi laughed.

Robin bared his teeth.

Jill came out of the bathroom.

Levi asked Robin if he had any rags or, better, some old towels. He did. They were the first round of hand-me-down towels he’d ever received from his mother who seemed always to be finding newer, fluffier towels that she just couldn’t resist purchasing and which pushed the coarsest of her fluffy towels out of her linen cupboard and into Robin’s apartment. “These are too nice,” Levi said when Robin handed him the pile.

“Have you felt my new towels?”

“But these aren’t rags.”

“You can have them when we’re done, provided they aren’t covered in carbon and gore.”

“I hope there isn’t gore,” Jill said.

“They’re just to protect the couch,” Levi explained, “but they’re nicer than the upholstery.”

“But easier to replace,” Robin reasoned. He spread out the towels. Levi helped.

Using rubbing alcohol Robin fetched from his dusty wicker medicine basket, Jill cleaned the area on the inside of her forearm that she wanted Levi to tattoo. Levi burned the tip of one of Robin’s sewing needles, then wound a thread around the needle so that it would hold some ink and he wouldn’t have to return to the well after each poke. Robin moved an easy chair from the corner to where he figured Levi would want to sit, then left it there when Levi said he would prefer something less comfortable. Robin fetched his wooden desk chair from downstairs. Before returning the easy chair to its home in the corner, Robin swept up the jackrabbit dust bunnies he’d uncovered and discovered a die hiding in the dust bunny warren. He picked the die up and dropped into his pocket, where it struck the Lorazepam bottle and reminded him of his planned escape route.

Levi carefully created a sketch of the bomb he proposed to draw. Jill loved it, she said, but she wanted Robin to look at it, probably, Robin realized later, because she was past the point of objectivity, but so was Robin only for different reasons.

Jill’s energy was mesmerizing. She seemed more upright, somehow. Sparks were flying off her teeth. She was moving faster, but it looked like the correct speed, like everybody else was moving too slowly and it took Jill’s excitement to help Robin see it. And that observation, maybe, was what kept Robin from taking the pills that so slowed him down, what made him sit and watch as his best friend held his new girlfriend’s arm and drove an ink-coated sewing needle into her again and again, the two of them, Levi and Jill, lock-focused on a tiny patch of her skin. Again and again Robin rolled the die on the floor in front of the easy chair, not noticing what numbers came up, just enjoying the sound and the distraction. When Stephen came upstairs to get a glass of water and to leave, he said, “I thought you guys were playing a game up here. Hi Levi. What are you doing?”

Levi looked at Jill then at Robin and gave each a second to answer Stephen’s question before Levi decided it was okay for him to tell Stephen, “I’m giving Jill a stick and poke tattoo.”

Stephen took a few steps closer, but kept a distance meant to be respectful and craned over Levi and Jill to see. “That’s cool.” He turned with his dirty cup. “Whoa, who did the dishes?”

“Jill,” Robin said. “And Levi.”

Levi was too focused on his work to say, And Robin, like he normally would have. Which was right, Robin figured.

Stephen left his cup beside the sink before putting on his Converse and coat. He stood in the doorway and said, “Well.”

“It was nice to meet you, Stephen,” Jill said, her smile reminding Robin of the baby-faced sun on that fucked up kids’ show.

“Yeah, nice to meet you, too. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

Jill looked at Robin, still smiling like that sun. “I hope so.”

Robin rolled the die again.

“Have a good night,” Stephen said. He closed the door and the remote control resting on the PlayStation rattled.

Robin rolled the die.

“We should play a game after,” Jill suggested.

Levi squinted to see the time on the microwave. “What time is it, Robin?” Really, he was asking if he should stay.

“Uh, eight-thirty.”

“I’ve got an early start tomorrow,” Levi said. “I’m working on Anita’s film.”

“Cool,” Robin said.

Jill asked who Anita was and Levi and Robin explained that she was the one person in their film production class, a class they’d been in for three years now, that was certain to make a career in the industry. The conversation dried up quickly in the heat of Levi’s focus and Jill’s excitement and pain.

Robin got up for a drink, his body feeling like a flat, grey photocopy and tingling like there were ants crawling on him. He shook his head and rolled his shoulders. The beer Levi had sent downstairs for him was sitting on the corner of the counter. He drank it as quickly as he could, its warmth making it feel like oatmeal in Robin’s mouth. Once his eyes had finished watering, he got a cold one from the fridge. “Can I get anyone anything?”

Levi and Jill both just wanted water. It made Robin angry. He realized that he had only slept, like, four hours or something in the last—the water ran as he did the math—the last close to thirty-six hours.

At Levi’s request, Robin set one glass of water down beside Levi’s chair. Jill took a big, thirsty sip then set the cup by her feet. Robin returned to the easy chair and held the still cold beer against his chest until his hand started to numb. He reached out and was able, without improving his posture, to put the bottle on top of the VCR. He closed his eyes.

When Jill woke him, it was over. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Robin said, sitting up.

Levi walked into the living room from downstairs. “I put the chair back. The towels are folded up on the chair.”

Robin blinked heavily.

“I didn’t know where to put the ink so I left it on your desk. And I washed the needle.”

“What do you think,” Jill said, presenting her arm.

It was a sloppy, pointillist bomb, the black ink already a little blue on Jill’s angry skin. Levi had done a great job with the shading, giving an illusion of volume. “It’s good.”

“I love it,” Jill said.

“It’s small enough that you could always cover it later.” Levi was being modest.

“No way.”

They covered it with gauze Levi found at the bottom of Robin’s wicker medicine basket. Jill and Levi hugged, Jill energetically thanking Levi. As he hugged Robin, Levi said quietly, “Have a good night.”

Robin tried to say, “Thanks,” but was interrupted by a yawn.

In his bedroom, Robin lay down on top of his covers. When he felt Jill tug at his belt, Robin opened his eyes. As she pulled his pants down, her grin shifted into some more focused look. To Robin’s surprise, his body responded to her immediately.

They were like new people.

After they finished, they both finished, Jill lay against Robin’s shoulder and thanked him and kissed him on the cheek and thanked him again before they each fell asleep.

Toronto, Jan 2016

Emoji sequence: Reuben McLaughlin, brilliant writer, editor and friend; publisher of Pilot

Story: Lee Sheppard, other publisher of Pilot