Part 18 (1/2)

The lobby smelled like cigarettes and beer. We could hear yelling and gla.s.s clinking in the bar behind us through the swinging doors, like the kind of doors in a western movie except for made of metal. The carpet was black with giant red flowers, and had a dirty crusty part right outside the bar doors and a worn-out-carpet path going from the outside door to the front desk.

I looked around while Mum did the talking at the front desk. The bar doors smashed open and a skinny guy, kind of like the guy who sold me the Christmas tree, tripped out and sloshed his beer, yelling over his shoulder at the bar, ”Oh yeah, eh, well f.u.c.k you too, buddy, and your f.u.c.kin' cat, y'f.u.c.kin' ...” He laughed himself into a cough and said, ”s.h.i.+t, I got beer up my nose,” and swung his head around, whacking it into the door. ”Ah s.h.i.+t, man, my f.u.c.kin' head!” He looked at me. ”Good thing I'm p.i.s.sed or it'd hurt like h.e.l.l,” and he cough-laughed again, and rubbed his cheek and looked around the lobby. ”This isn't the f.u.c.kin' can-hey man, where's the can?”

The desk-guy looked up from where Mum was filling out a card. ”Look. Don't come out here with your beer, it's illegal. Go back in the bar,” and he took the card and handed Mum the room key. He changed his voice to nicer when he said, ”It's number two-twenty-three and the doors lock automatically. You can take those stairs up.”

The drunk guy was still standing in the door with his hand inside his rumply s.h.i.+rt. ”Hey a.s.shole, I didn't come out here t' drink, for f.u.c.ksake-I wanna take a p.i.s.s and you're talkin' about drinkin'! Well, s'cuse me in front of the kid, but f.u.c.k you,” and he giggled and shook his head and took an imaginary hat off at Mum and me and backed into the bar.

We went up the stairs, down the hall. The wallpaper was glued tight on the walls, no coming-loose parts, just yellow and brown splotches. The carpet was green; there was a dresser and a bed covered with a gold bedspread that looked like it used to be some drapes.

Mum threw her purse and our tote bag on the floor and looked around. I went to the blinds and banged and clanged them to the side so I could look down at the street.

”Grace, get out of there! Don't stand in the window like that, OK.”

I banged back out. ”Why?”

”Just-It's better not to.” She was standing by the door, trying to wiggle the back of a chair under the doork.n.o.b. It was too short. Her eyes went around until they stopped on something bigger. ”Here, come help me with the dresser.” She pushed our stuff on the floor and started nudging the dresser out from the wall.

”Why? What are we doing?”

”Putting it in front of the door-give me a hand.”

”Why?”

”Because. Because-because-because, because of the wonderful things he does.”

”What?” I figured so Child Protection couldn't break in, so I pushed the dresser hard as I could.

”Because this is what you do in an eleven-dollar-a-night hotel.”

I remembered about the drunk guy downstairs and looked for more furniture.

When all the chairs and end tables and stuff were piled on, I asked if we were going to move the bed.

”Uh, no. I think that's enough.”

”'K. Now what? There's no TV.”

”I don't know. Let's get ready for bed and play Twenty Questions or I Spy or something.”

Eilleen Thirteen.

DECEMBER 1974.

ALMOST SEVEN A.M., according to your watch. Still dark out. Grace is sleeping. You're not. Not that you did at any point, just lay on your back listening for footsteps of cops, social workers or rapists, because that's what you do when you and your baby are holed up in an eleven-dollar fleabag.

All night you've been running scenarios. You've pondered the interior, running to Kamloops or Penticton. But what's the coast for, if not stowing away on s.h.i.+ps, floating to Hawaiian islands, floating ... Tried to fall asleep floating on breath last night. No dice. Imagined them banging on the door of your apartment. Mrs. Hoffman, we know you're in there. Same words, different faces.

Is this rock bottom? The one they yammer on about, the one you hit and float from, ears popping, lungs exploding, busting a new gla.s.sy surface, a new woman cras.h.i.+ng out of the water towards the light, the sun that finally came up?