Photo credit: Spacing Magazine
My phone is busted. I
downloaded, or I'm least sure, I downloaded Money by Cardi B, but it doesn't
show up on the playlist I called Artificial Intelligensia. I like making
playlists, so don't tell me to just Spotify it all. I get to be the DJ this
way, tailoring my own personal atmosphere and my self-artistic expression and
moving all the people I visualize. It takes talent to curate music this way,
letting one song flow into another, the waves sometimes smooth, other times
choppy. I have to fall into a space that's infinite and notate the algorithms
that stream through my mind.
My dad says I didn't create the
music, so it's not my artistic expression, I'm just a disc jockey, as he calls
it. What does he know? I mean, really, what does he know? It's because of him
that I go to therapy. My mom says I should do it for myself. but really, he's
the reason I haul my butt on the TTC and head up to Forest Hill. Mom says I
can't see a therapist in the Kingsway because that's where dad's therapist is.
What is she afraid of -- that we'll be outed in the neighbourhood for being
that family who goes to therapy in the building on the corner of Bloor and who
gives a rat's behind? Right, as if. Nobody cares, least of all me.
Great. My Presto Card isn't
working. I put money on it, but the gate declines my card. When I look at the
fare collector's booth, the TTC employee, a young brown guy wearing a toque, is
looking down at something, maybe the counter. I go over to the booth and speak
into the speaking area and I say "My card isn't working and I just put
money on it and I don't have anymore money to put on it". I see the TTC
guy is looking at his phone, which is cool with me, hey I'm not a narc. He
looks up at me with tired, droopy eyes, like he just got bad news that's sinking
in. He acknowledges my presence, as my dad would say, and waves me through,
like this is an everyday occurrence.
The tiles at Royal York remind
me of the bathrooms in the two houses my parents bought in High
Park
I never have much to say to Dr.
Cohen, if she is a doctor at all. I like calling her doctor, even though she
wants me to call her Ruth. When she wants me to talk or express my feelings, I
play her God's Plan by Drake, because he says it all. Wishin and wishin and
wishin and wishin. As in, my dad is wishin I'll enrol in STEM, but he knows I'm
hostile to science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Hey, at least I
know what that acronym means, dad, I say, that makes me smart right there. I
could be good at it, but I don't want to be, because it feels like I'm lost in
formulas as it stands. My mom will say 'why can't you be more like your brother
Eric.' Well, because I'm not a business scumbag who'll end up like dad. She hit
me once, my mom did. A little smack on my arm. I didn't speak to her for days.
She kept texting me to come downstairs for dinner, trying to lure me with sushi
and Uncle Testu cheesecake. She deserved a lesson. Hope that put the fear of
Child Family Services in her.
Passing Ossington makes me
breathe a little faster. Same tiles, different colours though. Some committee
in the dark ages thought ripping off the London
tube would elevate our public transit and stamp Toronto
as worthy. Who has the last laugh now? Developers like my dad. The world became
a dart board and Toronto a bullseye. Throw your money at this sleepy little
backwater folks, the people will just say thank you and sorry. I'm only 16 and
I feel 66 most days.
A woman is shuffling from
passenger to passenger in the subway car, asking for a loonie, toonie, fiver.
There's inflation for you. I'm only in the last half of my teenaged years and I
remember when people asked for a quarter. I crank up the tunes on my phone and
close my eyes. I imagine giving this woman a wad of bills. Because that's God's
plan, according to Drake. I can feel her hovering over me now, I can smell
sourness, wet wool and piss. Even with my earbuds in I can hear her say to me "loonie,
toonie, fiver". Behind my eyelids, I picture me putting my arm around her
neck and her screaming with surprise and joy. I wave a handful of hundred
dollar bills over her head and then let them go, raining down on her like
manna. She kisses me on the cheek again
and again. I can feel the loonie, twoonie fiver lady's scarf grazing my
forehead. I hold my breath and bless her from behind my eyelids as she moves
on, begging her way down the subway car until she gets off at Bathurst.
I'm wishin wishin wishin my
parents were fire-breathing Catholics, like my friend Anika's parents. Her
parents make her go to church and care about who she hangs out with and they
won't let her date, which she does anyway behind their backs. But they don't
let her, is the point. My parents would typically "understand" and
show their "support" if I wanted to bring home someone. I wishin
wishin they worshipped something other than the Bank of Bland. I'll make them
understand me someday.
For now, when I go into our tastefully recessed can-lit
basement slash living space and see my dad binge-watching Netflix, headphones
on, ensconced in his fat chair, hand wrapped around his drink, I won't take it
personally. But OMG he binge-watches The Crown, for Drizzy's sake. One night
when I went downstairs and pretended to look for a toy in our old toy box (as
if that wouldn't tip him off) I glimpsed his face as the blue light from
the tv flickered on him. His eyes were shining and tears were pooling in the bags
under his eyes. I shot a glance at the TV. Queen Elizabeth was talking to a
lady-in-waiting, as far as I could tell. I looked back at my dad. He blinked
and had a sip of his drink. I pulled out some fucking old teddy bear piece of
shit from the toy box and rang its neck. I know not to talk to my dad when he's
like that, but I wanted to so badly. I wanted to say, dad, I know where you
hide your stash and this is only a tv show and I'm sorry Aaron died of an
overdose and I miss my brother as much as you miss your son, but, fuck, I'm here.
Right here. Don't disintegrate on me.
But instead I start listening to Drake because at least I'm in forward
motion when I listen to music. I don't look back.
I'm walking straight ahead now,
because I transferred at Spadina to go northbound to St. Clair West. And I'm
walking down the pedestrian tunnel. I could get off at St. George
to have better odds of getting a seat, but I love this tunnel. It's like the
hallways at Havergal (Haver-gul), which I can't believe hasn't kicked me out
yet. I go straight ahead when I walk those hallways where I pace up and down with
my earbuds in, ignoring everything around me, my friends, the teachers, the
other kids. It brings me comfort to look ahead and ignore my peripheral vision.
Too many doors to open and voices that may scream.
There's something I hear right
now though. something high and wobbly outside my phone, which keeps fucking up
because the 4G keeps dropping out so I have no data to keep Drake going. The
sound is coming from the middle of the tunnel, from someone sitting on a stool,
I think. A person in a white coat drops
something by the person on the stool. I squint to see them better because my
vision is blurry. I can see my phone just fine, but distances are becoming a
problem. This phone is becoming a problem. I stuff it in my coat pocket and
take my earbuds out.
The air is cool, and the high
wobbly sound grows and stretches. People hurry past me, their footsteps
echoing. I'm getting closer to the person on the stool. It's an old man sitting
and playing a musical instrument of sorts. The sound it produces is weird, like
a warped violin. It makes me slow down because it sounds like a wail. The old
man is Asian and he's fingering the long-necked instrument while running a
bow along a couple of strings. He plays a note and it hangs over my head like
one long cry. Its weirdness stops me. For like a minute I can't move. What is
this thing he's playing? I'm by the instrument case he has open for donations.
Suddenly the music gets very quiet and still. He leans forward and closes his
eyes and lifts his head. His hand and arm is working the bow quickly, the bow
hovering over the two strings creating a sublime tension. Then he swoops into
the strings with the bow, making sounds that hurt my heart. The notes mourn and
wobble and lift and my ears blush. In a burst with my eyes open I see a
snow-covered mountaintop and an emerald lake and my brother Aaron dipping a cup
into a stream and having a drink of water.
The old guy keeps his eyes closed and he's smiling a bit. He's right in
front of me and I'm listening. He knows I'm listening. We're both listening.
I think I'm crying. I dig the
palm of my hand onto my right eye socket and it's wet. I cough on the sigh in
my throat.
I'm going to be late for my
therapist appointment. I clutch for my phone and pop my earbuds in. There's a
few coins in his case and, feeling sorry for him, I dig in my purse, find a
loonie, drop it in and continue straight ahead. My face is red hot. Why do I
feel sorry for myself? I hear the northbound train below and I start rushing
down the escalator with the others to catch it.
What a strange instrument.
Should I tell Dr. Cohen what it did to me? Maybe I can learn it, if someone
teaches me.
