An Interlude on a Cold Rainy Day

Last weekend Ack, the ex-husband/best friend, and I were heading back from lunch when he noticed there was barely any gas in the car. He loves playing the Czech martyr, a little character he lobs up when he feels strong enough to poke fun of his mother. He noticed a cube van slowly passing us on the right.

Ack: Meh! You might as well jump in the back of that van. It'll probably get you home sooner. We're just going to run out of gas and you'll have to push.

I was considering the leap, Matrix fashion.

We made it to the gas station. He still frequents the old gas station which was a stone's throw away from the threshold of the last house we shared together. A long-time employee pumps his gas. He is an older gent, Hungarian in descent; grey, weathered, a tad weary; Snap-on tools jacket ever fashioned.

I used to buy cigarettes from this gas station once upon a time. I don't go there to buy cigarettes anymore. It's a little of out of the way now. But the long-time employee still remembers me. I had always been kind to him. In turn, he always tried to give me a little treat; an expression of his kindness.

When I was 6 years old I used to go to the market with my mother. She and I were inseparable. Butchers would always want to give me a little sausage or something. Something kid's sized. Something tasty. Apparently I was very cute. The long-time employee of the gas station was knocking on the driver's side window... with a Kit Kat candy bar. Another treat for a 36 year old little girl.

I was listening with rapt attention to CBC Radio One. When I was little, every now and then I would go to work with my father. My father was a taxicab driver. I nestled in the front bench seat with him. The radio dial was at eye level to me. In the afternoons the CBC rotation would include music, news, discussive banter and storytime. I loved storytime. It was theatre of the mind. I stared fixedly at the radio dial during those half hour excerpts, seeing a whole world in front of me.

Ack was paying for the gas by debit. Interac. He needed to go inside to perform the transaction. I stayed in the car and listened to a segment from the programme Definitely Not the Opera, or DNTO. Performing live from Winnipeg, Canada, was Christine Fellows, a native Canadian who was performing a song from her latest album, which has yet to be released.

She had a tenuous voice. There was a tremolo which was not designed, but created from her central nervous system. She sang accompanied with a grand piano and a sweeping cello. With a Kit Kat bar knocking on a pane of tempered glass, I was bawling my eyes out.

The song is titled Vertebrae. This is what she sang:

A photo essay of a family in mourning.
Perforated ever so slightly to better let the light seep through.
Sunday traffic clears a path.
We float inches above the road,
close our eyes and drive so slow.
Like we never need to get home to clear the doorstep of flowers,
throw open the blinds in his empty room, avert our eyes from his fingerprints. 
Is there something I’m forgetting?

Fall to my knees in the hospital parking lot on the way in,
arms full of branches. I am deadfall.
Deadfall.
Last time I came here to visit him
I ran sunburned through the halls with my arms full of tiger lilies.
I don’t remember this.
I was told to go home.
Clear the doorstep of flowers.
Throw open the blinds in his empty room.
Avert my eyes from his fingerprints.
Is there something I’m forgetting?

(Why, when you know you should go, is it so hard to leave?) 

Came this far to say goodbye, to set things right.
Instead I fiddle with his blankets,
fetching coffee no one will drink.
I am not prepared.
Through the hush of debts and the roar of engines we’ll struggle to recall.
This is how it ended.
This is how it ends.
Home.
Turn the key in the door and pause for what seems like an awfully long time.
There’s something I’m both remembering and forgetting;
a name on the tip of my tongue.

I had emailed her to tell her how I was affected by this song. I asked if she wouldn't mind transcribing the lyrics. She obliged the young girl. She also attached a quote in the body of text:

"To remember is to triumph over loss and death.
To forget is to form a partnership with death and oblivion."
– Charles Baxter 

Here, here.