

### A Year Without Sleep

Published by Al Stone at Smashwords

Copyright 2013 Al Stone

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Table of Contents

Prologue

Faith

Natalie

Rachel

Josie

Cindy

Barbara

Adrienne

Coda

# Prologue

A week before, while being driven to his surprise party, Miles had felt like a condemned man being led down death row, shackled and complacent. He couldn't even summon the energy to be defiant. He had resigned before then, resigned completely from this sponge cake life. He had spent his teens and university years slouching on trains, scowling at the television, searching chat rooms for a connection. Dodging the glances of neighbours and family friends.

The feeling now, standing at the airport gate, was strangely similar to that condemned feeling. Except that this death would be a rebirth, a metamorphosis. Turning away, he couldn't think of anything to say, and he couldn't have mimicked the tears in his mother's eyes had he wanted to. He was simply numb.

Somewhere over the ocean, his mood started to change. All the frustration, all the boredom, the fear and the shame, drained away through the fuselage. It dispersed over the ocean, a new Pacific garbage dump. His lungs felt empty, expansive. Upon landing, he would be _tabula rasa_ , twenty unsatisfactory years erased for good. Like the Phoenix.

The white noise of the engines dispelled any chance of sleep. Staying awake resembled a nightmare – wasn't that the wrong way around? He imagined that, when he did sleep, he would dream of falling asleep, over and over again. But in the bitter haze, down deep somewhere, beneath even the guilt, he felt an unfamiliar feeling. Later, when it came back again, still unfamiliar, he would realise it was freedom.

He watched the sun rise over the clouds, starting with a narrow band of bright light and exploding into dazzling spectrum. It felt like they were flying directly into the sun.

# Faith

The clock hands creep towards the mark

Today I look towards my goal

This is my final spitting spark

This is the day I take control

There'll be no more procrastinating

For now I know what I must do

This is a memory I'm creating

This is my loaded gift to you

For I was never cold enough

This is the breaking of our pact

A celebration of our love

And this, my lone unselfish act

Is my release, is my delight

This is my proof, this is my price

A kiss that lingers on the night

This is my final sacrifice

*****

The train started at a crawl, through the neat suburbs of Vancouver, then over the river and up towards the snowy peaks pointing severely above the wisps of cloud. All around was lush and green, in the last flush of summer. Forest fires burned in the distance, lending the atmosphere a smoky haze. When darkness fell, Miles slipped out to the smoking car, to reflect and listen to the conversations of the ViaRail employees. The townships came and went, climbing into the hills like fairy castles, illuminated with the dull glow of the silicone lights. Every now and then they would pause to let the rattling lumber trains pass. Morning broke slowly, the river valley bathed in a grey light. Malachite green rivers snaked up to monoliths of granite. And then there were prairies, then industrial wastelands, then the sprawl of Edmonton. And Faith.

She hadn't invited him to come, but she hadn't discouraged it, either. They had been friends since she was eleven, chatting almost every day online. They had a special bond, they both agreed. He had been a part of her life, and she of his. He had seen her through her first boyfriend, her exams. He had read everything she had ever written. He had called her once, out of the blue. She had sounded so child-like; surely it wouldn't be the same now. She was a woman, on the cusp at least, and she was worth waiting for. What if she showed up with friends, giggling and whispering? There he would be, an aching Humbert: despicable, pathetic.

Frustration, for days. He couldn't get her on the phone, and she was never online. He had told her when he was coming, hadn't he? How stupid not to arrange a meeting place beforehand. It was all done in such a hurry, adding these ten or so days onto the start of his trip. He had delayed it just long enough for Karen's wedding, slipping past sleeping bodies on his way out. This could be the longest ten days of his life. He contemplated walking past her house. He couldn't work the payphones properly. He killed time walking through the city, drinking coffee, smoking long cigarettes in the gardens. At night he lay on the hotel bed watching music videos, drinking whiskey. Smoking cigarette after cigarette, putting them out on his arm. The rush was electric. Each one left a perfect white blister. He started to spell her name.

He practised his speeches in his head – the greeting, the parting, the promises for the future. He had so much to tell her, to spit out at her feet for her to pick up and cherish. He was a low dog, beaten too often to bark, grovelling with upturned eyes for the chance at a falling crumb. He was a vile spider, a predator. The time by himself was killing him, the ulcer in his stomach rupturing, the acid devouring his insides. The phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Hello, sweetheart."

"Mum."

"How's it going so far?"

He swallowed a lump, a little too slowly.

"It's not quite going as planned."

And that was all he could get out before he wept. He imagine the camera shot, slowly spinning as it drew up, he a shaking white spot in the centre, ever diminishing until the blackout.

*****

At last, a path that crosses mine!

A free-flowing river

Black hounds are pursuing me

For crimes I have long atoned

They will not find me in here

I can not now make the town before dark

So I'll let the river take me, strong and swirling

Soon I'll be heading south

Maybe there will be some green grass county

A wink and a meal for a lonesome traveler

A quiet place to lay me down

There is no big white boat to take me downstream

So I'll wade out to the middle

Where the water whispers to me

" _Lift your feet from the rocky bed_

I will carry you now, weightless

Close your ears and eyes

And just let go".

*****

Finally, he made contact. They made plans to meet up on Saturday, at the street festival. In line for coffee, he thought he recognised her as she approached from her head shot, but he couldn't be sure.

"You must be Faith", he came up with.

"You must be Miles."

She was like that, sassy, half-mocking. Smart.

"Excuse me while I just go say hi to my friend."

And just like that, it hit Miles how ridiculous this whole thing was. What was he doing here, in a foreign place, friendless and clinging to a dream that was dead, he just hadn't recognised it. They must have spent a few hours together, but barely on the same plane. It all went by in a blur, and all he really remembered were the acts – the magician, the _a cappella_ group. On Whyte Avenue her other friends showed up, young literate punks. They talked about school, which would be starting soon. Some band they knew were playing in a coffee house, and Miles watched them go on ahead. They disappeared into the throng of people enjoying a rare summer evening. Later, in an email, Faith pressed him about the episode, and asked why he left without saying goodbye. He told her he realised then that he had no feelings for her. Anything else would have been unbearable.

He changed his flight to the next morning.

# Natalie

Miles often had a fantasy that he would live out his whole life with only enough possessions to fill two small suitcases. The things he took with him would change, like the people he knew, but always just two suitcases full. That was all he had brought with him on this trip, just the essentials, no photos or trinkets from home. Compared to the other new arrivals milling around the corridor of the dorm, his luggage was pitiful, Spartan. Here he was, the other side of the world, a clean slate, just like the whiteboard that adorned the door of his private room, surmounted by his name in embossed lettering. His old name. He paused, fumbling for the keys they had given him.

" _Est-ce que tu as besoin d'aide avec ta porte?"_

She was obviously some kind of authority figure, and she had broken away from the girls she had been talking to to address him. He stared blankly for just a moment, formulating a response.

"Do you need help with your door?"

"No, that's OK. Thanks."

"Natalie". She pronounced it the French way, lilting up at the end. He was immediately attracted to her. She had a very pretty face, her fey eyes almost black. She wasn't skinny, but she carried herself very well. Her hair was chocolate brown, and her skin so soft, a velvety drape for her inviting body. When she spoke, it was quiet and alluring, a very faint accent adding to the mystery.

"Miles".

She looked again at the door, confused. He frowned and excused his way inside. He thought he detected an aroma of cinnamon and warm honey as she shrugged and turned back to her friends. He got to packing away all his things, in the beige cupboards and under the stiff single bed. Nothing to give himself away. He squinted through the peephole, perfectly positioned so he could see who was coming and going in the elevator, until he was sure no-one was outside, then scribbled his new name on the back of his welcome brochure, and replaced the one on the front of the door. He sat back down at his desk and looked out the window, east across the city just starting to light up.

He had extra time now, before classes started, to orient himself, and gradually the floor began to fill up with fresh young men and women, nervously adjusting themselves to life outside home and a routine of pyjama pants and Mac & Cheese. Most were from far-flung towns across Ontario and Quebec, their names ambrosia to his ears: Thunder Bay, Mississauga, Abitibi. There were internationals too – some French girls of course, but also a Trinidadian, a Dane, and disappointingly another Australian. Miles winced at the drawled vowels and worked hard on his trans-Atlantic intonation. He listened in on conversations, trying to pick up the subtle differences in tone carried over from Québecois French.

Frosh Week, as it was called, was an exhilarating experience for everyone. There was barely an adult in sight, all activities being marshalled by volunteer juniors and seniors, amused like Miles by the frivolity and drunker carryings-on of the new crew. There was genuine excitement in the air, a feeling of recklessness. Many were under the drinking age of 19, so most nights involved a trek over the river to Quebec, to a border town called Hull, which was rather more lax with its drinking, gambling, and stripping laws. Miles wasn't above it, and he even made some fast friends, attracted by his exoticism. Every other conversation turned into some girl slapping his knee and exclaiming, like a Chicago flapper, "we simply _must_ teach you to snowboard" – or skate on the canal, or eat poutine. His head was full of sexual escapades, but he found himself sabotaging them before they could be actualised. He threw his cigarettes away in a big gesture to impress a girl on the dance floor. In the wee hours he was holding her jacket as she hurled violently into the gutter. The next morning, at the getting-to-know-you brunch, she wouldn't even look at him.

How high's the water, mama? Two feet high and rising.

One night, after he had come home early from street party, Natalie breezed into his doorway.

"I'm going to watch a movie in my room."

He nodded. She was back a moment later, smiling.

"Are you coming?"

They lay together side by side on the single bed, watching some appalling modern fairy tale. Natalie flicked him playfully on the chest when he mocked the lead actress' hare lip. It was an awful thought, but he had to believe he could do better – and this sort of thing carried high risk on a confined dorm floor, like farting in a submarine. Still, when he went back the next night and found a note on her door saying she was out patrolling until 2 am, he was disappointed.

All the cash machines only distributed $20 bills, so he had to pay his residence fees with a giant wad of paper. He would return to that well often during his stay, not bothering to count or budget. He didn't even contemplate life past this semester and spent like a millionaire, buying companionship a drink at a time. He bought a guitar from one of the pawn shops on Rideau St, and left his door open while strumming. Gradually, people started to stop by and chat. He took a particular shine to Regis, the Trinidadian, who spoke slowly and with great gravity belying his age.

One night he made dinner with Natalie, some kind of regional stew. He had helped her already that day, stuffing some envelopes in the Residents' Association office. Now, washing dishes next to her, they already felt like a couple.

Later that evening, he got tired of waiting for her to come around as usual, so he knocked on her door and found her in conversation with the haughty French bitch next door. He hung around patiently, practising his French skills. Natalie had to tell Brigitte to _prends ta douche_ three times before she got the message. With the door still open, Miles pulled her to him and kissed her, sensuously, without words. She didn't resist, but her gaze when he pulled away told him all he needed to know. She apologised, saying she still burned a candle for her ex, who had broken it off after Valentine's Day. She said she couldn't imagine what Miles saw in her.

He was woken at around two-thirty by three soft knocks. He had set his indicator system to "Come on in", a peace offering. When he opened it, Natalie's silhouette was stumbling down the corridor in the low light. He called out to her in a stage whisper, but she didn't turn around. When he got to her door, she was having trouble opening it. She was staring at the handle, clearly anticipating the focus would help keep her upright. She was staggeringly drunk; Miles could smell the sugary cocktails amongst that warm, woman smell that was coming off her in waves.

"No, thank you. I have to get my PJs on."

She turned to him now. "I needed a night off".

He let her go. A few minutes later, the knocking came again on his door. This time, the pose was an exaggerated come-hither, one elegant arm propping her up against the frame, a singlet framing her soft curves.

"Do you know how to get a drink of water?"

He excused himself to put pants on, and by the time he was up, she was off again. He brought the water to her, worried that her warblings would wake the neighbours. She refused the drink, but held close to him. He smelled her raspberry hair, absorbing her exquisite warmth. She could do nothing but apologise, and ask why he was helping her. He got the door open, and wobbled her towards the bed. She pushed away, falling backwards and hitting her head on the wall without noticing. He lifted under her knees and swivelled her onto the pillow.

"You'll hurt yourself, I'm so heavy."

Her nipples were large and firm under her top, pointing at Miles like beacons. She tried to wriggle herself out of her pyjama bottoms, a luscious dark shadow underneath her sensible cotton panties. He stroked her cheek once, guiltily, but when he tried to pull away she kept grabbing his hand and pulling it back in to her bosom. In the background, the computer played a bizarre medley of French pop and power ballads.

Eventually, her soft snoring told Miles the ordeal was over. She looked so exposed, there on top of the covers, that he went back to his room and got a blanket for her and a pillow for him, and found uneasy sleep on the floor. She stirred around six, the morning glow sneaking around the shut-out blinds and framing her indignant, embarrassed face. With her sprawling hair, she looked like a lioness. She shooed him out, sobbing to the wall. He never saw that face from her again.

# Rachel

Dear couple, kissing on the stair

Do you know there's people passing there?

I'm sorry, I don't mean to stare

(You wouldn't care, I know)

If I could interrupt the flow

There are some things I'd like to know

Like, is this just a pretty show?

Or couldn't you resist?

Those hairs of hers clenched in your fist

Your breath on his, that steamy mist

Was it just like this when first you kissed?

Was it even half as sweet?

And tell me, how did you two meet?

A chance encounter in the street?

Did he swoop and sweep you off your feet?

Does she make your hard heart skip a beat?

Do you make each other's lives complete

And all that other trash?

Do you ever fight, do your wishes clash?

Does he treat you right, is he tight with cash?

Will that burning passion turn to ash

When your brash hormones subside?

When your opposing wills collide

When your two united paths divide

When all that now feels fresh had died

And you feel your organs shift inside

When your heart succumbs to the icy chill

And the chore of living makes you ill

I'll be there, I'll be watching still

Will I be satisfied?

*****

Miles adapted well to campus life. He had made some friends during Frosh Week, and the atmosphere on the floor was quite close-knit. He was enjoying most of his classes, especially the Canadian Film and Pop Culture ones. They took up only fifteen hours a week, so he got into a routine of staying up until dawn and sleeping until midday. He rotated between the free gym and jogging up and down the canal. There were events on all over the place – open-mic nights where tragics performed monologues about music videos and girls not liking them; stand-up comedy in the lecture theatres after dark. In the evenings they grouped in someone's dorm room, usually one of the doubles, watching DVDs and bitching about the studious types who campaigned for complete quiet on floor.

The French-language TV stations had a regular schedule of soft-core porn in the late afternoons. When the uptight twins, Rachel and Mel, came in, Miles turned it off and played cards with them instead. They were classic North American girls, made of that superior cheeseburger flesh and two percent milk skin. Mel was sweet and naïve, a fawn, while Rachel was much more interesting – cold and sardonic. She had a perpetual smirk, like she knew something you didn't, and behind the prudish mask he knew there was an interesting person. Her smooth angular thighs sloped down invitingly to where her dirty feet twitched on the coffee table. Viktor, the new guy, walked in, and their eyes all immediately went to him, as did all the girls'. He invited Miles out for a smoke.

Miles had seen him around, this guy Viktor, but not a lot. He stayed out of the politics and the camaraderie. He was older, 26 maybe, studying law. He was ex-army, Ukrainian by birth but also fluent in Polish and Russian. He was the kind of guy who always looked like he had a plan, like he knew the score. He didn't directly answer questions, ever, just a glib question in return and a gentle twinkle in his eye. They spoke of philosophy, criminology, and pussy. Caught up in the ecstasy of confession, Miles blurted out everything about Natalie. A random jock accosted them, drunk, asking to be let up into the dorm because he needed to talk to his girlfriend and she wouldn't let him in. Emboldened, Miles scorned him, fronting up chin to chin. He and Viktor chuckled like veterans as the guy swung away, yelping about his junior contract with the Atlanta Braves.

And they were fast friends, just like that. They were joined in their smoke breaks by Hasan, a crazy, hideous, hilarious Lebanese heir who pretended to be Russian and talked only of big-breasted chicks he fucked back home. Others joined and dropped off - Regis, Tariq, some Arab guys from upstairs - but this was the core, the Benzene team, the Gentleman's Club. These were the three who freestyled to breakbeats, who watched Hasan's home video of him launching grenades into the cedars, who recorded a music video for _Fuck Tha Police_ at four in the morning in Miles' room. Everyone else cooked meals in the kitchen one floor up – they went out every night for shawarma, pizza, calzone.

*****

It was his twenty-first birthday, the real one this time. Miles had taken great pains to hide it, to spend the day alone just in case. He stopped home for more cash, and was interrupted by Brigitte knocking on his door and inviting herself over for a cocktail. Now this was a strange bird – a sweet, tiny Frenchwoman who told outrageous lies, like she once turned down Ricky Martin for sex; she came second in a nationwide equestrian contest; she was going to be an airforce pilot but failed the medical. She put on Carla Bruni and sang along, huskily and with great pouts, urging Miles to accompany her on the guitar. They were going to play the jazz clubs, the two of them. She poured more Chambord, then broke into a fit of giggles.

She seized upon the fridge magnets his mother had sent with him, in French for him to practice.

Je murmure ̀a des livres des paroles de miel, et dans un souffle torride tu m'excites, et avec un regard de velour, allumes mon désir.

Tu chantes comme un ange: tender et tranquille.

They migrated to her room, where she showed him her scented candles, and expressed a desire to smoke some pot. When he got up to find some, she dragged him down by the arm.

He was about to call her out when the door swung open, and there stood the whole floor, wearing hats and singing to him. He grinned despite himself, stunned. His was the first birthday on the floor.

When the crowd died down, Viktor and some of the other guys joined them for more cocktails, and Miles' Canadian Club. He drank it all down very fast. Someone suggested they go downstairs to smoke up. In the foyer he sauntered past Natalie, some wisecrack squirting from the side of his mouth. He hit two cigarettes and a sizable part of the joint, before the drymouth and nausea set in. Soon he was leaning over the rails outside the library, his fingers down his throat, and then he was upstairs, finally vomiting it away in the bathroom. Someone took a photo, just his knees under the stall. It became the new picture for his door.

The next day, at the floor pancake night, he saw Natalie crying in the corner. Immediately assuming he was to blame, he made to go over, but Rachel arrested him by the arm.

"Don't. One of her childhood friends just died, in his sleep".

The tone in her voice and in her eyes told Miles in a second that Rachel knew everything about him and Natalie, exactly what he was thinking, and exactly what he was planning too. But there was compassion in there as well, and forgiveness, and that was what he seized on. She became an obsession of his, an enigma to be unwrapped. He felt that they were both living two lives – the social mask and the ball of sulphur underneath. He made excuses to hang out with her, massaging her back, even trying to violate the sanctity of the Gentlemen's Club. But even when her head was turned to him, her eyes never left Viktor. Sometimes the three of them would hang out, throwing cocktail olives at each other. They would snigger conspiratorially at the vanilla members of the floor.

For a while he concentrated on his classes, and on being a college student. He threw himself into his assignments, and the animated discussions in Pop Culture class. He forced himself to socialise outside the tight unit of the dorm floor. The photos he sent back home, though, were all of canals and buildings and yellow fire hydrants. This experience was his, not to be shared. He wouldn't give them the satisfaction.

He went on a day trip to Montreal, a couple of hours by bus. He picked a grey, wet day, and his impression of the city was not good. For a start, there were no Tim Horton's. He walked west towards downtown, then north up the boho Boulevard St. Laurent, up towards the Plateau, then west again when he got to the level of the Mont Royal. He almost climbed the mountain, but the rain really started coming down, so instead he walked around McGill University, where he could have ended up on this exchange. Maybe it was the weather, but he was glad with where he was.

He continued south, towards downtown, and it was just like any other city. Through Chinatown, then to the cobblestones and cafes of Old Montreal, where he looked for a trinket for Rachel. He had worked up the courage to ask her out on a date that night. Looking up from her airport novel, she had accepted with all the thrill of agreeing to lend him her laundry card. But she had accepted, and now it was his nerves that drove him onward, walking for three hours straight until his legs got weary and he went back to pick her up.

They managed to get out of the building without attracting too many stares, and they set out across Laurier Bridge in the fine rain. They covered all the easy topics on the way, like family, and origins. She was very polite and formal, certainly not rude, and occasionally interesting, but she never engaged with what he was saying, never volunteered information, never let her guard down for a second. She was, basically, impenetrable.

They eventually settled on a Spanish place. Miles had never been on a dinner date before, so he tried to remember the rules. He ordered some wine, even though neither of them liked it; they shared their food, they joked about the waiter. Miles got further and further out of orbit with his conversation, trying to get her to open up. He tried all his tricks: he asked her what she was passionate about (nothing); he asserted things they had in common (an analytic mind, an ironic detachment from reality, an aversion to eye contact); he made outrageous self-effacing jokes. He even got postmodern ("You look as awkward as I feel"). When he caught himself reciting, unprompted, some of his poetry, he felt like slicing open his own belly.

The club was one of those old-style ones he'd only ever seen in American movies from the '80's, with rails and a raised section up the back with tables looking out over the dance floor. He bought the alcohol ("I have a vested interest in getting you drunk"). They sat at a table on the front tier, often in silence. She confirmed to him that she and Viktor had been on a date, and she had slept over in his bed. Miles panicked. He wondered if he should find some excuse to touch her, if maybe the warmth from his fingers would magically defrost the ice queen. He sacrificed his last shred of dignity and asked her to dance. She rapidly declined, and so he gave up and they left.

He suggested they go up to their floor separately. Really he just wanted some time to smoke, and convince himself he didn't care. Whatever accord they had had, it was over now. He stood there for a long time, under the corner eaves blowing smoke and watching the rain come down.

*****

Do you ever feel like you are drifting?

A fallen tree-trunk out at sea

Looking forward to the wash-up

Not knowing where it will be

Do you ever feel like you are fading?

Bones bleached on an aching white

A glimmer in the atmosphere

You can see me but I'm not really here

Do you ever feel like you are falling?

Calm and silent all the way down

Looking forward to the landing

Looking forward to being found

*****

Gradually, and despite his best intentions, this crazy ride he was on turned into another routine. He went to class, he studied, he socialised. It was a double life of sorts – with the door open he was that amiable, non-threatening guy who participated in the gossip and the camaraderie. But when the door was closed, they were all the subjects of his dark fantasies. He yearned for the extreme he had promised himself, to live on the very edge of life.

He took a trip down to Niagara Falls with some strangers to cheer himself up, and it worked for a while. They were best at night, coloured searchlights illuminating the pretty American side. They crossed the border, which cost them eight bucks and a drive down to Buffalo before they realised they didn't have any American money or anywhere to go. He took a picture the next morning of a rainbow, reaching high above the falls. On the way home they stopped in Toronto and Miles went up the tower and walked over the glass floor high above the city, balking despite himself. He felt good, cleansed. But when he got back, the malaise settled overhead once again. He was halfway through his trip, and hadn't accomplished anything. His first week here had promised so much, after the disaster of Edmonton, but it had come to little. In a couple of months he would have to go back to his old life, find a job, see his old friends. This was just a sideshow, a distraction without any point. He stopped his daily runs along the canal, and smoked so much he could taste nothing but ash. And then, Viktor invited him down to the lake for Thanksgiving.

The cottage was a classic hunting lodge, nestled amongst the pines, almost right on the shore of Lake Huron in the Georgian Bay, in a town called Penetanguishene. Miles had been scared to come at first, of meeting Viktor's friends in an unfamiliar setting, but he was relaxed immediately by their friendliness and the natural splendour of his surroundings. It was the height of fall, and the trees were resplendent in burnished copper, auburn and gold. The cottage's owner, Amos, was an old army buddy of Viktor's, and he made Miles feel at home. In the middle of a drinking game, Miles heard low bass beats coming from the driveway. Viktor and another friend Marek were standing around the rented car, dropping impromptu raps. It wasn't that hard, actually. All you had to do was talk about your own prowess with women, how tough you were, and diss the other guys. They fell about laughing at some of the crazy things they came up with, steadily getting drunk. When it got cold they moved inside, dancing around the lounge with the others.

Some time later Miles somehow found himself clad only in a towel, following the torchlights down to the lake at four in the morning. When they got down to the pristine rocky beach, he was overcome with something unfamiliar, something he could only describe as pure joy. It was a truly beautiful scene: fog rolling in off the endless lake, the dark silhouettes of rocks poking out of the still, clear shallows. Everything was bathed in the light of the full moon, black and white and grey; the tree-lined banks curving out into the sound, the thin white stripe of the ski resort on a faraway shore. He felt at peace. The crisp air and the cool sand under his feet gave him a chill, and when he tested the water it felt freezing, but he carried on regardless, stripping off the towel and rushing headlong into the lake, hollering to the heavens with the others. Everyone was supposed to do it, but they all chickened out except for him, Viktor and Amos. For a moment he forgot his lumpy body and its hairy crevices. It was primal, natural, and powerful. Someone took a photo of the three of them, their arms around each other like sailors returned from war, the flash rebounding off their shining faces. Miles only saw it once, for a brief moment, but that image of himself, caught in the moment, lasted forever in his mind.

The next night they went back down to the lake, to watch the sun set and the pink moon rise. The menfolk cooked up a sumptuous chilli back at the house, and they all feasted and drank. One girl passed around a joint while they were outside freestyling again, and suddenly a conversation about what it would be like to have beer bottles for arms was the funniest thing in the world. Miles was sure that Viktor was his brother, and Belinda, the Australian girl who also came long, was his sister, and he had to protect them. While he was pissing, the back wall of the toilet slid down, and he waved to the busy street below.

On the way home they stopped in Toronto to visit Viktor's mother, a lovely lady who ran a naturopathy clinic out of her tiny one-bedroom apartment. Miles realised he hadn't known Viktor at all – this confident, suave ladykiller came from a single parent immigrant family. Now he could see why he had joined the army; Viktor, a man with more sarcasm than aggression and more insurrection than discipline. While Viktor took a nap, Miles walked through the park with his mother, he in his leather and her in her sensible shoes. On the drive home, Miles and Viktor just rapped to each other the whole time, giving each other stimulus words like "murder" or "moon", or exploring themes like the Middle East, the space age, animals at the zoo. Viktor told him that they were going to be friends now, even if they didn't speak for ten years, and he was always welcome in his home.

# Josie

And just like that, all the petty troubles that had occupied his mind were gone. He saw wonder and beauty in all the little things, the yellow school buses and squirrels and long avenues that symbolised suburban North America. He felt the pangs of oncoming winter, and looked forward to it. He loved this country, and he would do what he could to stay here. He wanted, for the first time in a long time, to live. When the first snow fell, one morning out of nowhere, he ran outside in a t-shirt, enchanted like a child. It was fun to walk around town in the slush, the neon Open signs and orange lights making the crystals twinkle. All the restaurants looked homey, and the scarves and toques and overcoats took the pretension out of people. The world was cake, and the snow was powdered sugar sprinkled on top.

It was a little disappointing, then, when Hallowe'en turned out to be a thirty degree day. Miles had been gearing up, keen to get into this peculiarly North American tradition. It wasn't a school day, so everyone spent the afternoon putting their costumes on and running around. Miles spent most of it teaching his neighbour Josie to play whist and doing shots of gold-flaked cinnamon vodka. He hadn't really taken the time to get to know Josie, but she also kept to herself and hung out mostly with her loud roommate, and her terse boyfriend, a skulking hockey jock called Mike. She was a cool chick, a bed-head hippie but serious about school. She swore, she belched, and she made fun of her own small breasts. She didn't like dancing, and hated shopping. She was French-Canadian, but not very, and had a pleasant softness on her small frame. When she smiled, she never showed her teeth, just a guilty grin that betrayed a lack of confidence. Once they got to talking, Miles could feel himself being pulled in, falling for another girl, and he tried to resist.

He drank so much he passed out on the bed, and when he woke up everyone was gone, out to the clubs or bars dotted around the campus outskirts. He drifted off to sleep again, and was woken around one by Viktor and a group coming back, but not ready to go to bed. Miles sipped a Coke to stay awake and listened to their stories. They went downstairs for a smoke, and beat the fire alarm by a minute. It was quite a sight, perched on the wall and watching everyone pour out in their costumes. Miles passed judgement on them like a king as they milled around: Jesus, the fairies, the gypsies and the whores. He traded a cigarette for a beer with Robin Hood and laid off lazy rhymes to whoever would listen, before his stomach gave up and he vomited it all up again. On the way back up Josie punched him on the arm, and Miles heard Mike immediately say "Who was that?". He smiled all the way up the stairs.

A few nights later he was in his room, actually studying, when she knocked at his door, complaining of boredom. He entertained her by showing her some of the idiotic videos he'd made, of him and Viktor and Hasan and Tariq clowning around in the middle of the night. He could have stayed there all night with her, but he had agreed to go out for food with the guys. When he came back, she took a long time to let him in, and he could tell she'd been crying. She told him she was just tired, and shooed him away. When she came round later, it was just to say she was going to bed. It was a strange excuse for coming round, and Miles was concerned. He asked if she was OK, and she was on the verge of saying something. He should have pushed it, he should have run after her and grabbed her. It could have changed everything.

After having nothing to do with each other, they now seemed to keep crossing paths all the time. They went on snack runs to the mall, and she tackled him into a snow drift. She would stop and say hi when he was out smoking – she disapproved, but was cool about it. Some of the other girls invited him to a casino night, and in preparation he taught her how to play blackjack. They barely left each other's side all night, going from the card tables to roulette to Keno, winning a little money and chatting. Miles was careful, very careful not to give himself away, not to pour his heart out like he always did, to appear content to be friends, which they were, and which he enjoyed. Maybe that was all there was to it – maybe he was finally learning to be friends with a girl. He pushed all other thoughts out of his head – he couldn't let himself go through this again. His heart was a book of matches, and there weren't many left to strike.

She stood him up one night, acquiescing to a date with Mike instead of tacos with him. She tried to make it up to him by dragging him out clubbing with some of the other girls. He taught her a lesson by paying her only cursory attention, and flirting outrageously with all the drunk girls. He was horny, after all – he was no eunuch, and as much as he liked spending time with Josie, it wasn't fulfilling him. He loved the drunk world, the perpetual 3 a.m. where anything goes, and everything gets said. The next morning everyone laughs it off and puts it down to too much drinking, but they all secretly know that the person they met last night is the real person. Kirsty, from the dorm, was a drunken wreck that night, recovering from a bad break-up. Miles practically carried her home, and just outside her door she threw her arms over his shoulders, dropped her ridiculous eyelashes, and kissed him sloppily. She pushed her crotch against him, bringing his hand to underneath her ass. Miles could feel Josie's eyes on him, but when he walked back past her door, having put Kirsty to bed, the door was very closed. The next day, Kirsty said loudly for all to hear "I was so drunk last night I could have kissed _anyone_ ".

Viktor scared him, chatting later, when he complained to Miles that he was getting bored of sex. It wasn't a fair thing to hear, considering Viktor had sex on hand whenever he wanted it, he was that kind of guy. He'd been on a weekend trip to Toronto with a girl from a few floors down, Paola, who had thrown herself at him. What he said alarmed Miles because it confirmed his suspicions. He was already feeling the wear-out of pornography, graduating from soft-core stuff up to much more explicit things to get the same thrill. He had only been laid once, and it was bad, but he had to hope it would get better. Otherwise, what was the point of anything?

They went out to the mall together to get Hasan's birthday present – he was turning 21 too, and they decided to get him a Zippo lighter with his name on it. They lit his cigarette with it, acting cool, and when he noticed his name on the side his eyes lit up like a deranged warlord and he embraced them. They had bought themselves ones as well. Miles' engraving was a howling wolf. Viktor's was the zodiac sign for Cancer.

They had big plans for the night. It started with shots of scotch on Hasan's bed, underneath a giant poster of two girls kissing. They took a cab to the best strip club in town, which was of course across the border in Hull. This was quite a place, not the dingy halls of shame of Sydney, but more like a well-lit nightclub, with a big centre stage. Of course they sat right in front of the main act, and these girls were not messing around. They not only went all the way, they let you up on stage. Hasan crawled up and lay on his back, a $10 bill between his teeth, and one of the girls literally snatched it off him, lingering over his face while he squirmed with delight.

They sent the pretty ones out then, selling private dances. Hasan took the first girl who came by. Miles took the tallest one he could find. She led him to a booth at the back and sat him in front of a full-length mirror, explaining that he could touch her anywhere except around the G-string. Miles was drunk enough to have overcome his shyness, so he obliged, while she rubbed herself against him, close enough to smell her hair and breathe hot air down her neck. She pulled the panties aside and played with herself, beads of moisture forming on the shiny surface of her piercings. She sat down on his lap and squealed with glee at what she found there. Then the song was over, and all she asked was if he wanted another one.

"How about, this time, you hurt me a little bit?"

"Why didn't you say so before?"

She slapped his thighs and scraped her nails down his chest.

"Is that the best you can do?"

And then she started biting: his nipples, his thighs, right on the head of his cock. All the while she kept up a steady and inventive stream of dirty talk – she was sultry and provocative, and Miles loved her for it. When it was all over, he got her to slap him in the face as hard as she could.

Hasan wanted to keep going, but Viktor had had enough, and Miles was out of money. They went to a club, somewhere in a bad neighbourhood, and Viktor danced with the girls. Miles and Hasan, standing at the bar, knew that wouldn't be enough, they had to have more. They would have to use Miles' room, as it was a single, and Hasan would go first as it was his birthday. When they told Viktor, he laughed heartily and agreed to help. When they got back, they looked up some places online, and Hasan called to negotiate a price.

"Yes, hello, you have escorts?"

"You're looking for a date, buddy? Just for you?"

"We want her to fuck me, and then she fuck another guy"

Click. Miles had to call back. His heart was beating very fast, and he was sweating, wondering what he had got himself in for. He promised he had never heard of anyone called Hasan, and arranged for a brunette to be sent in forty-five minutes. He cleaned up his room, and himself, in a blur. Viktor sat there coolly, but every few minutes broke into rapturous laughter. Miles didn't look at him. Hasan went upstairs to get his flavoured condoms, and Viktor and Miles agreed that this was definitely his first time. He was in a worse state than Miles, almost convulsing with nerves.

An hour passed, an hour and fifteen, and finally Miles got the call. He had to bring her inside, past security. Just walking across the parking lot, she looked like a hooker. He held his nerve and swiped her through the gates, emphasising the need for total discretion and wondering how long it would take for him to get booted from campus. He felt now like he was the one walking a prisoner down death row, and when he pushed his door open and saw Hasan sitting there wringing his hands and sweating, he felt even worse. What if he went crazy and strangled her? He was capable of it.

Miles closed the door, hoping like hell no-one heard them in the corridor. He sat in the lounge with Viktor, trying to watch some cartoon. He gulped down water, then had to run off to piss several times. It was an absurd situation, like a French farce. Finally Hasan came out, head in hands, claiming it was the worst night of his life. But Miles had come this far, and he had a long way to go before he could sleep.

When he went inside, she was already naked, curled up half-under his flimsy duvet, her grey breasts drooping over the top. Miles didn't know what to do, but he knew if she touched him he would come straight away, so he asked her to play with herself for a while. She stroked herself, languidly, from top to bottom, the boredom obvious on her face. Once again, Miles had the rules explained to him, which weren't dissimilar to the ones at the club. But Miles could only think of her children, asleep in their beds at home while momma worked. He desperately wanted it to be over.

As she slipped the condom on him and bent to put him in her mouth, she explained the last rule – he could only come once. It was an unfair trick, and Miles tried to delay by pulling out from her mouth. When he came, he wasn't even inside her. He apologised like a chump, and she just laughed and said that's exactly what his friend had done. They had to fill in time to avoid embarrassment in front of his friends, so they chatted awkwardly about their lives. Miles' pathetic sheathed penis hung there, limp and shameful. It had let him down the one time he truly needed it. He let her go before the half hour was up, kissing her on both cheeks and thanking her in Russian, then went upstairs to face the hounds. He was too tired to tell any story except the truth, sending Viktor into fresh paroxysms of mirth. Miles felt sick. He wanted to crawl into a deep dark hole and lie there for a week, but instead he curled up in his bed, trying to detect any remaining scent of her. The whole thing had been an utter disaster, and he hated himself, hated the needs of the flesh that bound him. His worst fears were coming true. He lay there, unable to sleep, until he heard the early risers in the hall, talking about the impending exams as if they were the most important thing in the world.

*****

I picked up Josh on a Carolina highway

Chaos junkie lit up like a bad blue dream

Man on the borderline, eyes like gasoline

Obscene

Sing me a song and I'll live your life today

Flashback, heart attack, married on the train tracks

Crack, fast track to suicide

Hard cock shotgun, missed the frontside

Don't you know we can never turn back

Nothing but the lifelines we regret

Marks of the flesh won't help me forget

Be happy with nothing or I'll just fade away

I came too late for all this glory

The edge of the world and back again

Defective

There's a monster in my veins

A tragic firefly masquerade

Neon signs, staying up through the night, and I'm cooking

Dealing with the dragon, dancing with the lions

Feeling dangerous

Wasted and longing for a change

Show me the finer things in life

Sex, drugs and self-destruction

Help to pass the time away

Just enough to stop me from shaking

And tomorrow will bring more

Riding on through the wasteland

Love that girl rolling in the slime

Sit back, slap that nasty mind

Wake me up when we scrape the floor

It's only life, and I'm only living

But it's always got to get back to love

Find a place in the sun, one kiss and I'm done

A change of pace for a pretty face

I'm gonna die, die, holding the rose that saved you

*****

He dreamed about her again, his muse, that night. He had dreamed of her many times before, usually in the same situation, but each time he had forgotten. Only when he dreamed of her again did he remember – or was this first time, and his mind just created fond memories and _déja vu_?

They were always in the same sort of place, a rudimentary cabin or motel room with sun streaming in through the windows. They were both naked. He could barely describe her, as in his dream he only caught glimpses of her, like a flashback in some sad movie. She was perfect, though, he knew that. She had long dark brown hair, a tall and broad frame, but slim, and perfectly smooth skin – her body was hairless and flawless. She was always laughing at him, lovingly mocking him with her eyes, as he talked to her about his writings. She gave him the opportunity to be romantic, but did not demand it of him. She didn't demand anything of him really, and he knew that she loved him, that they shared a perfect love, because when their bodies came together they were making love. He felt comfortable, like he never had before. And then, too soon, it was over, and already a distant memory.

*****

Somehow, Miles had become a social contender. He got invited out by all the girls and guys when they went to clubs, and when he got there he was the life of the party, chatting up strange girls, dancing up a storm, getting his ass slapped. He tossed his beer glass from the balcony into a pile of snow, then flicked his cigarette after it, feeling like the king of the world. He was having fun, finally the college experience, and it was sad that it would soon come to an end. Everyone else was coming back for the second semester, and then for many years, but for him this was it, the end of his degree, the end of his visa. All the Christmas decorations and music springing up over town, which depressed him at the best of times, just reminded him that when Christmas did come, he would have to go.

They had a semi-formal dinner, for everyone on the double floor. Miles pretended to be capturing it on video, when actually he was just filming Josie the whole time. She had ditched the pyjama pants and trucker cap for a summer dress, make-up and champagne, but she was still radiant. He was delighted when she asked _him_ where _he_ was sitting, and then came and sat next to him, forgoing her girlfriends. _King of Bongos_ came over the speakers, and Miles dragged her up to dance, improvising a move like the zombies from the _Thriller_ video. Pretty soon, all the cool people had downed their forks and were up dancing his dance, while the floor manager fumed over her casserole.

Back in his room, Faith pinged him on Messenger. They had spoken a few times since he had been there, mostly fatuous stuff, both of them pretending they still had a relationship. But this time they talked, really talked. He learned all about her life, how it was changing now, new people coming into her life. He helped her with a social studies assignment, and she called him a "fucking god". He felt like one. Tariq asked him over to smoke weed in his room, and it was good shit too. Miles just stood there smiling, lost in his own world inside his head, on an all-time high.

He went and lay in bed to fully appreciate the awesome feeling. His mind danced around randomly – he created logical problems for himself, then deduced perfectly rational conclusions to them, only to forget what the problem was. He wrote himself a song, a little mantra he repeated over and over, then wrote on his whiteboard.

I have a friend named Mary

Her sister's name is Jane

I love the way they run and run and run around my brain

*****

Miles was restless. He had run through all his assignment, aced his exams, he was on top of everything. But there was something caught in his throat, some tumor that needed excising. And he knew, of course, what it was. It was Josie. He was infatuated with her. He made up stories about going to the supermarket just to offer to buy her candy. He read up on biology, just in case she started a conversation about schoolwork. When Viktor suggested they go see a movie, he ran to ask her, but found only her roommate. Josie was already going out that evening, with her boyfriend. He had to act, now, it was crystal clear to him. He delayed Viktor, and ran upstairs to take a nervous shit. He stood in front of the mirror, steeling himself, talking it through, waiting for his hand to stop shaking. It was time to get it off his chest. Don't fuck it up. Don't be Hugh Grant about it.

She was there this time, and alone, thankfully, plucking her eyebrows in preparation for her date.

"I need to get this out."

"OK"

"I think you should know I have a crush on you. Did you know?"

She shook her head, mute.

"I thought for a while you had a crush on me too."

She didn't deny it. She didn't say anything for a while. Miles held his breath, waiting for it, whatever was coming.

"You caught me off guard, you know. You're going back to Australia."

As an afterthought:

"I have a boyfriend."

"I know."

He wanted to say, "What if I wasn't going back to Australia, what then? What if we got married?"

"But you're an awesome guy. I hope you'll write me when you get home."

"I hope you won't avoid me in the hallway."

And that was it. It didn't follow the script, but it could have been worse. Miles felt relieved, and happy in a bittersweet way. In another life, in another situation, maybe it could have worked out. It was almost enough.

*****

It was the end of term, and the time for farewells. The halls were filled with tinsel, with tears and laughter, with reverie and exam stress. People were packing up and leaving, home for the holidays after their last exams. Miles, of course, had nowhere to go. He said goodbyes to all his friends in suitable ways. They all must have known about all three of his romantic failures, but they said nothing, they just hugged him. He ate pizza with Natalie, smoked with Hasan, saw a film with Rachel, a firm handshake for Regis. His professors all gave him glowing recommendations, and a couple suggested he consider coming back for post-graduate studies. He was taken aback – he'd never even thought of it. As tempting as it was, Miles knew that you can't go home again.

Josie cooked him dinner, and they sat eating it from their laps and chatting. He thought she was leaving the next day, so their conversation was light and silly. But she came round afterwards to tell him she was catching a ride back that night. They said hasty goodbyes, a lump in Miles' throat. There wasn't enough time. He couldn't get the right words out, so he scribbled a short note and slipped it into her laundry bag. And then she was gone, and the whole world was empty, and he just sat there holding his guitar.

*****

The first night in Toronto he slept for fourteen hours. They both did. In the morning they took a long sauna, then went for a walk to check out the town. Viktor's neighbourhood was very Eastern European, but still Canadian. Everyone was so proud to be a part of it and flew the maple leaf from their balconies. Miles would have, too. The trees in the park had all lost their leaves a few weeks ago, and everything was hazy grey. At the government-owned bottle shop, people queued around the corner, a bouncer with a velvet rope controlling entry.

Viktor's date for the night stood him up, so he suggested the two of them go out for a drink at a local bar, the Woodhouse. They settled into a corner table to sip beers and watch the small crowd of older Ukrainians get merry. They eyed the waitress, an impossibly beautiful and tall vision named Anastasia. "Just like the princess", Miles said, and she smiled back over her shoulder. The Ukrainians got up to sing and dance, and dragged the two of them up too, and pretty soon they were sitting at the communal table, swigging back free drinks and talking shit. Anastasia came out to dance, and Miles ground against her, holding her belly from behind. He couldn't believe he was getting away with it. He danced like an animal that night. He dipped her, looking deep into her eyes, and when she came back up she planted a soft, wet kiss on the corner of his mouth. It sat there, tingling, all night.

Viktor became engrossed in conversation with some of the older men, one of whose business cards simply read 'Consultant'. Miles caught snatches of the conversation, about the military and politics. It was only after they had left, rather quickly, that Viktor explained that they were the Ukrainian mafia, and had been trying to convince him to reunite with his homeland.

Viktor's mother cooked a sumptuous feast for Christmas Eve: pickled herring, borscht, onion-fried pierogies and cabbage rolls. She barely touched any herself, but Miles and Viktor were famished, eating proper food for the first time in months. They got a call from Belinda, who was staying a few blocks away, so they went to meet her for a drink. She asked Miles if he had got laid during his time in Canada. By the time he'd told that story, they'd missed the midnight bells, and they raised their glasses in a belated toast: "to the future". When they parted the next morning, Viktor hugged him tightly, and reminded him to just show up, any time. Miles was sure he would never see him again. He would never see any of this again.

# Cindy

It was an unusual Christmas plan, everyone had said: a train journey for three days across the frozen prairies. Miles could think of no better farewell to the country he had come to love. The train trundled off, first heading north to skirt around Georgian Bay, before it started its long trek west. It would take 28 hours, the announcer said, before they even crossed the provincial border, so Miles settled back in his seat and enjoyed the scenery while the soundtrack of Neil Young played in his headphones. From time to time they would stop to let the commercial trains lumber past. He counted a hundred carriages at a time, at least. Miles envisaged a head-on collision in the middle of the night, a big glowing fireball. That would be some way to go.

They stopped that afternoon in a small town called Capreol. Walking the streets was like walking through a postcard – everything still and silent. The road was dirty and flattened from cars, but the sidewalks were blanketed with a whole foot of pristine snow. He climbed a drift, enjoying the sensation of his feet plunging through the crust up to his knees. There was something about snow – the way it made all spaces seem bigger somehow, the way it framed objects with a uniform blanket. It was a reminder that the world went on without human intervention, or despite it. He saw nobody: everything was shut down for Christmas Day. He walked by one parked car with its headlights on, and he considered knocking on the nearest door to warn the owners, but couldn't bring himself to break the spell. Behind the hills the sun was setting, and the town was bathed in a soft grey light that completed the picture. This was how he wanted to spend every Christmas.

The afternoon wore on, and he tried to sleep, curled up in his double seat. There were few passengers on the train, mostly alone like him, and utterly uninteresting. Sleep wouldn't come, and eventually he got restless. He sat for a while up on the dome level, forcing deep thoughts upon himself. It was a wild snowy night, and he could see nothing but the train's headlamps struggling to pierce the darkness - a blind worm barging through a tunnel of absolute black.

A little before midnight, they stopped unexpectedly at a poky little timber town called Hornepayne. There was one passenger on the platform, a young woman, maybe twenty-five. She walked into his carriage, meaning she was going at least to Edmonton. She ducked her head, even though she was nowhere near the roof. Now she was closer Miles could see just how attractive she was – long auburn hair, and a wonderful body, skinny but sexy even in heavy winter gear. But it was more than that, it was the way she held herself. She stalked down the aisle like a puma, eyes darting. Miles always said that he could tell everything he needed to know about someone by watching them walk across a room, and in this girl he could see it all. He could see vulnerability; he could see pain; and a fuck-it-all attitude that was probably the cause of both. He saw in her sparkling green eyes all her heartbreak, all the mistreatment by all the men with full sacks and empty promises, the tortured relationship with her father whom she worshipped beyond reason and kept trying, and failing, to replace.

She dumped her only bag, a cheap duffel, on a double seat two rows in front of him. Miles took a chance and walked past her down to the smoking car with a book. Sure enough, soon she came through the door and lit up a half-cigarette, slumping into the next booth over like a sack of bones. He asked to bum one in exchange for a swig from his hip flask, and pretty soon they were chatting. She spun quite a tale of woe, involving her recent ex driving her all the way across country for Christmas, and then dumping her and leaving her to find her own way back. She had no money, having walked out on her job washing cars in the freezing Edmonton winter. She set the drama masterfully, and Miles could immediately tell who she wanted him to play – the guy on the riverbank holding out a branch. It was the role he was born to play. He forced himself to make eye contact, holding her gaze, but saying nothing, just listening.

Cindy was gorgeous, in the best kind of bad-girl way. She had home-made tattoos on her fingers, a choker necklace, and pleasantly crooked teeth. She was thin as a rake, lithe, taut, a predator. Those cat eyes gave it away, that she couldn't be trusted, and it made him want her even more. Her smile, when it came, was brash and genuine, like a flower suddenly blooming from the concrete of her seen-it-all visage. He knew she knew what he was thinking, and he knew she liked it. It was thrilling, and intoxicating, a game they could both play. She knew this wasn't him, that he didn't do this kind of thing, that he was from a different world of good girls and ice queens. She was like a drug, a car crash in slow motion. Miles knew that if he touched this void, it would suck him in and swallow him whole. He couldn't resist. He didn't want to.

They headed back to the seating car, picking their path through unconscious limbs draped over the armrests. Miles suggested, as if he'd just thought of it, that since the carriage was going to get pretty packed when they reached Winnipeg, she should just come sit next to him.

*****

Neither of them could sleep, and there was nothing to do but talk. She was forthright, utterly shameless, and raunchy as all get-out. She was a ball of nervous energy, zipping from one random story to another like she was trying to prove something. Who knew if any of it was true? She asked him outrageous questions, and he resisted the urge to make up equally outrageous answers, to pretend that he had done anything remotely interesting with his life. He fell for, her, hard, because she was fucking _alive_.

She lost her virginity at 10, started a life of widespread drug experimentation at 11, stabbed a policeman at 12 and spent eight months in 'juvy'. She had spent 23 months in jail in total, mostly for fraud. In fact, she confided, she had paid for her train ticket with a stolen credit card. There was a warrant out right now for her arrest, for skipping a court appearance. She estimated that she had had sex about a thousand times, with nineteen different guys and four different women. She had a four-year-old son whom she had been forced to put up for adoption. She had a job as "pump-slut" at a Husky, until she threw a bucket of chicken at her manager and got fired. She left a boyfriend who had punched her four times in the face, only to move back in with him when she couldn't pay the rent. She had tattoos all over, and marks on her wrists where she had slit them several times. After one episode she used the gaping wound as a puppet to talk to mock her abusive boyfriend. There were burn marks all over her arm where her uncle had spilt boiling water when she was a child. In her spare time she read Anne Rice novels – stolen, of course. And she was half Cree Indian.

She was without doubt the most incredible person Miles had ever met, a human hurricane. He let himself get sucked into this perverse world, sealed in a time capsule, where he had been sent this incredible woman to shake up his pathetic little life, to redefine it, and then in two days she would be taken away again. He hated himself immediately for the weakness he had shown all fall, the snivelling coward bouncing around the safe little dormitory trying to latch on to any girl he could find. Here was this incredible woman, a walking fetish, and she was as into him, somehow, as he was into her. He just let go of all control and went with it.

Cindy adjusted her position _ad nauseam_ as they tried in vain to sleep, trying to get comfortable. She rested her head on his shoulder, then his chest, then his outstretched arm, and he could feel her hot breath on his elbow. She spooned into him, pushing her ass into his crotch and curling up sideways. Miles was spinning in outer space, tingling wherever she touched him. Somehow his arm came to rest on her breast, and neither of them removed it. She lay her head on his lap, caressing his thigh while he tentatively stroked her hair. She played absent-mindedly with the hairs on his arm, or tickled him: it was the most intimate session of love-making Miles had ever experienced. Eventually they found peace there, with her head in his lap and his arms wrapped around her, and they managed a few hours of sleep.

He bought her breakfast the next day – he would have bought her the train if she'd asked. It was a terrible meal, reheated frozen pancakes, but somehow he couldn't seem to care. He sat there grinning at her like a chump, running his socked foot up the inside of her leg, to which her only response was "Are you getting my good pants dirty?". They sat together all morning, as the suddenly very uninteresting Canadian Shield rock outcrops flew by. She had a neat trick of sitting on his knee and wiggling her bony ass around, a unique sensation, which made the grandma across the aisle shake her head in disapproval. Let them stare. There was no doubt they were hopelessly in love, at least to Miles.

Early in the afternoon, when Cindy was asleep in his arms, the attendant asked Miles to wake her up. There was a problem with her ticket, he said. They needed a phone number for the credit card holder whose number she had used to pay for her ride, and they would call when they reached Winnipeg. It was the bizarre inverse of an Alistair MacLean novel: they were safe until they reached civilisation. Cindy wasn't worried at all, but Miles was seized with fear. He envisioned the police meeting the train at the station, dragging his new love off before he got a chance to kiss her and tell her she was a good person inside. He wasn't ready to say goodbye to her yet.

As they dismounted, the guard's radio crackled: "She's coming down now, in the red sweater". Miles absurdly pondered rolling under the train and escaping to freedom down the embankment. But Cindy wasn't running. She lied like it was her profession, pleading ignorance and clemency at the same time. In the end she had to pay legitimately with her father's credit card, even though it meant she would probably get thrown out of home. Miles offered to pay for her, but she would have none of it. Relieved, they went for a walk down to the flea markets, where Cindy spent her last two dollars on a bag of fairy floss. She was the queen of the walk, striding through town in her knee-high boots, with Miles the faithful dog at her heels.

As soon as they reboarded, things were different between them. Cindy was less touchy, and distracted. Miles tried to work out what was wrong, and then tried to ask, but she brushed him off angrily. She was getting tired of him, it was pretty clear. Miles wanted to kiss her, and like a chump he asked, instead of just doing it. She rolled her eyes and told him she didn't kiss. She moved seats to sit next to some Iranian guy, who gave her a drink of something in a paper cup mixed with orange juice. Miles stared at her, half-wounded, half-furious.

"Oh, just fuck off!"

He caught up to her in the smoking car, jammed into a booth staring out the window.

"What? What do you want from me?!"

"I want to kiss you."

"I don't kiss. It's too intimate. I'll fuck you before I kiss you."

"So fuck me then. Do whatever you want with me."

She shook her head no, I don't believe you.

"I want to kiss you, and hold you, forever. That's what I want. But I don't want to be just another guy who takes advantage of you. Cindy, _please_."

She laughed then, deeply and genuinely.

"I've been practically throwing myself at you the whole time. And I go and talk to one guy, and you freak out. It's uncool, man."

"Just one kiss, that's all."

"You smell like cigarettes."

*****

She didn't speak to him until dinner, tuning him out with music, and even then she was more interested in holding court in the dining carriage with her ribald stories and talking acid trips with a dirty old man. Miles sat in their seat, fuming, trying to remember the sensation of her skin against the back of his hand.

The methadone – that's what was in the cup – kicked in around 10. It was so bad she came back to him, then, shivering and pale. She curled back into him without a word and just lay there shaking. She became itchy everywhere, and scratched herself shamelessly – her chest, her feet, down her pants. She rubbed up against him like a bear against a fir tree, driving herself almost to tears, clearly in agony. Miles could do nothing but try to restrain her as she bucked and writhed. Time was slipping away, precious time. They would reach Edmonton early in the morning. There was so much more to say, but she wasn't hearing him. He spent a long night sitting awake, her hands clasped in his, watching her uneasy sleep.

When she woke, it was gone, and she lay still in his lap, wordlessly looking up at him. He looked back at her, trying to say with his eyes what he couldn't put into words. Then she did something incredible: she slipped a gnarled silver ring off her thumb and slid it onto his little finger. He said he couldn't accept it, but she told him it wasn't a gift, that she would get it back. That was the point, she whispered to the sleeping carriage. This was a covenant between them – a ring to bind them together until he returned to Edmonton. She made him promise to come back for her, and he did. He didn't know how long it would take, but he would come, and he would wait for her. He swore to wear it until he saw her again.

They were almost kissing now, in the early morning glow, so tantalisingly close. She squashed his nose against her forehead, pressed her cheek against his, caressed his face with her fingers, looked straight through his eyes. He stayed very still, as if he was watching some rare bird, waiting for the inevitable sweet, soft kiss. But it never came.

He couldn't help himself – he started to cry, right there, when she started to pack her clothes. A lump gathered in his throat when he thought about what he was about to lose. She saw his tears and laughed at him, but mercifully shed a few herself, then chuckled and blamed him for ruining her face. He tried to laugh it off. He didn't want to cry, he wanted to be strong and stoic. But he had shared so much of himself with this girl, and now she was getting ripped away. It wasn't fair.

When it was finally over, when they had exchanged their last "see you later", when he had waved the last wave through the window to her on the station, he felt completely empty, like a shell discarded on the beach. He felt like vomiting, like there was a pinch in his gut slowly winding him up. He managed to keep himself together, until the attendant leaned in to him on the way through.

"Were you taking care of that young lady?"

Miles swallowed the lump, and said thickly:

"We were taking care of each other."

And then the tears came again, and he couldn't stop them, only hide them behind big black sunglasses, as the train rolled on through the snow-covered mountains and down to Vancouver.

*****

On the verandah in the oppressive heat

Sucking in the sticky air

Creeping vines subsume the paling fence

Tree roots breach the house foundations

Gumnuts and branches litter the green swimming pool

The thick itchy lawn rebounds from its recent trim

The bug zapper vanquishes another mosquito that was lured too close

There's a world out there of things built to devour us

This place was never meant for people

This is a giant hothouse

Where the wild things grow

And make a mockery of fences

And this city, one day dropped into the jungle

A ridiculous maze of chewed-up highways

It melts and sprawls like spilt tar through the basin

Soon it will swallow up the mountains

A wasteland of vast pretense

We're on stolen land and borrowed time

You call this an urban paradise

I call it a desperate torch

Thrust out from the verandah to ward off history

But the bugs will swarm in greater numbers

*****

It took three months to scrape up the money from his small trust and part-time work, and secure the one-year working holiday visa. He graduated from university, accidentally and with no fanfare. He cared about nothing but getting back there, to Edmonton, to find Cindy. When people asked about the ring he wore, that strange twist of cheap metal, he just said "that's private", and turned back into his mind, a faraway smile on his lips. At the airport, on the plane, he was nervous with anticipation, a believer for the first time, trying to forget he hadn't heard from her since January.

He checked into the youth hostel, the same one that had been the scene of so much heartbreak and frustration on his last visit to this godforsaken town. All he had to go on was her father's address, a long walk uptown. Like Manhattan, locals knew not to go past 110th St unless you belonged there, and Miles didn't belong there. The driveways weren't scraped and swept of ice like the ones in the tourist bloc, and piles of wind-blown garbage slowly froze in the scuffed urban nooks of the housing project. Young black men watched him from every corner as he trudged on, slouching towards salvation.

A big Native man opened the door, and Miles could tell immediately from the disappointment in his eyes it was Cindy's father. He obviously had no idea who Miles was, but he and his girlfriend listened patiently while he explained the situation. He seemed genuinely sorry to tell Miles, after a long pause, that Cindy wasn't there. She wasn't even in town. She had gone up to Fort McMurray a few weeks back to try and find bar work, with an old boyfriend, maybe one of the ones that beat her. They didn't have a forwarding address.

Everything turned to noise in Miles' mind. He couldn't hear anything Cindy's dad was saying, he could tell it was English but he didn't recognise any of it. The bullet train he had been riding for three months was derailed, jackknifing on itself and slipping from the bridge into the dark, dark water.

He smiled wanly, thanked them, and left quickly. Biting his lower lip to keep from weeping, he scribbled a note, folded the ring inside it, pushed it into the mailbox, and started the long walk back to the hostel.

*****

Edmonton was a strange city. It was the seat of the government of Alberta; location of the courts and the main university; the liberal oasis of arts and culture in the middle of a big sky ranch province: basically, the Austin of the north. But it was also a rough place, grimy and industrial, in many parts poor and crime-ridden. Miles heard several people mention alarming statistics about the percentage of paroled Albertan criminals released on the streets there. The northernmost metropolis in the world, Edmonton was home base for a large collection of the itinerant workers of the diamond mines and oil sands up north. In addition, there was an extensive First Nation coalition, a semi-permanent gathering of Lakota Sioux, Cree and Inuit from exotic corners: Grande Prairie, Slave Lake, Medicine Hat.

And it was amongst these people: the downtrodden, the paranoid lowlifes, that Miles found himself living, in a decrepit apartment building halfway down a big hill from the centre of town. Rent was $400 a month, ridiculously low. The landlady's eyes popped when Miles pulled out his wad of cash to pay the bond and first few months in advance. Like the rest of the inhabitants, she was probably also wondering why on earth Miles wanted to live there, a middle-class white boy from the other side of the world. Miles didn't really know either – he knew why he came, but he didn't know why he stayed, why he was determined to eke out an existence here.

The building smelled old and mouldy, no doubt not having had a door or window opened since winter started six months earlier. His apartment was just as dirty, but it was big and well-lit, and warm. The only drawback was there was no door handle: he had to staple a handkerchief over the hole to stop his curious neighbours peering in. There were also no lightbulbs in the hall. Miles found out later that was because the speed freaks on the lower level kept stealing them to freebase from.

He tried hard to keep to himself over the first few days, as he tried to set up his life. He pounded the streets, looking in record shops and bars for 'help wanted' signs. He set up a bank account, bought a cell phone on contract, and spent almost the last of his money on a leather jacket at the big mall, red like Tyler Durden's. Winter had almost thawed out, but there were still days of sleet and freezing rain, dropping to fifteen below with wind chill as he trudged up the hill each morning. Yet there was a steely spring in his step, a newfound confidence and optimism that defied his bleak situation.

Eventually he found the courage to answer one of the knocks at his door. The skinny white man identified himself as Tommy, who lived down the hall, and he invited Miles over for a beer. It turned out Tommy's place was the town hall - everyone was there, or at least all the "good people" from the building. Not the thieving landlady, and not the baseheads, and not the crack whores and their pimp who lived across the hall.

Tommy was from back east, a fishing town in Nova Scotia, and he had moved out here to make his fortune in the oil fields. He worked three weeks on cleaning oil tanks, and then drank one week off back home with his wife Trisha, a round-faced Cree woman who was his equal when it came to swilling beer, huffing cigarettes, and cussing. That was basically all anyone seemed to do around here, Miles quickly learned: go to Tommy and Trisha's place, drink warm cans of beer, roll and smoke your own cigarettes, and talk trash about everyone who wasn't there. Certainly nobody apart from Tommy worked, or had any inclination to. There was a rumour that Brenda, a large obnoxious woman who was always fighting with Trisha, was independently wealthy due to some divorce settlement or government payout, which was the holy grail for most of them. That's probably why she was always invited back, despite never failing to insult her hosts and threatening to call Social Services unless they looked after their baby daughter, Brandy, better. Miles held Brandy every time he visited, and spoke to her in long, learned words, the words of his education that he had no other use for now.

Brenda's partner, Johnny, was quite possibly retarded, or at least always very drunk and slow. They seemed like mother and infant son, more than partners, and Miles tried to avoid them. He grew closest to Peggy, an old crank from upstairs. Peggy was full of stories, telling him who to watch out for in the building, but also all about her life as a trapper's daughter. It was fascinating, but like all the other lives circling this particular sink, desperately sad. It was a story of abuse and rape, of unwanted children and devastating miscarriages, of a government conspiracy to cover up her mother's murder. Peggy had two sons who lived in town, one of whom, Clive, visited often, and one of whom lived in foster care and could only come when he snuck away from school.

Miles couldn't explain it properly in his diary, or in his rare phone calls back home, but beneath all the bullshit and hatefulness and despair of these people, there was a genuine warmth. They threw open their doors to him, always inviting him to come and visit, sharing their meagre supplies and wanting to hear _his_ stories. He didn't trust any of them not to rob him, but if the Mounties came knocking at their door asking for him, like they asked about the crack whores, they wouldn't have given him up for all the world. He was their exotic oddity – Casper, they called him, fresh off the banana boat. And they were his succour. Miles quickly learned to speak in their curious native slur, to use their colloquialisms and light-hearted insults.

# Barbara

Victoria, the wheelchair-bound woman from downstairs, had had a breakthrough with social services and was moving into an assisted-living compound near the food co-op uptown. She had a young woman living with her, Ione, whom Miles had seen coming and going a few times in her long black duster. Nobody was really sure what to make of Ione – she claimed to be Inuit, and even tried to demonstrate it with some throat singing, but nobody really bought it, despite the long black hair and puckered face. She also claimed to be a lesbian, and held up as proof a very butch companion, Eileen. Eileen had the eyes of a killer, and looked like she would take particular pleasure in twisting a hunting knife into the guts of Miles, or anyone else who came between her and her satin-haired lover. Miles wanted to stay away, but he was fascinated by Ione, so he invited her to come and share his apartment. He could use the rent, anyway: he had managed to find a part-time job at a sports shop at the mall, but it paid terribly and he was losing money buying beers for his new friends. Ione paid a little rent, and she taught him how to go out collecting cans and take them to the recycling depot. Seventy cans was enough for a six-pack of the cheapest beer, and they could usually collect them all together before the liquor stores opened at eleven.

Miles started following Ione out to local dive bars – Dockside at the top of the hill, Cliff Clayvin's at the bottom. Ione's personal hero was Shania Twain, and they would go to karaoke nights and belt out duets. Sometimes Eileen was there, and Miles would invariably leave them in a corner stroking each other's cheeks. Ione would come home bruised and bleeding, sometimes threatening suicide, or she would run off to a women's shelter for the night. There was never a dull moment with her.

One morning Ione came back with a black eye, and two pieces of better news. She had won some money at the casino, and two of her old friends from rehab were coming into town that night. When Miles came home at seven he found Ione at Trisha's apartment, beer in hand, and her friend sitting in the armchair. Her back was to Miles, so all he could see at first was one shapely leather-clad leg draped over a knee, a blood-red fingernail pulling absently on the tab of the beer can.

"Miles, this is my friend Barb."

It had only been a short time, but Miles had already decided that Native Americans were the most naturally beautiful race in the world, with their arrow-head cheekbones, shiny black hair and hazelnut skin. And this woman, Barbara, was the most exquisite example he had seen. He felt immediately slack-jawed and flustered. She had a voluptuous body, with just a hint of a tummy that got him excited. He imagined walking his fingers over that belly, down through the small growth of raven hair, between her soft thighs... he had tuned out, and she was addressing him. Laughing at him, actually, in a light teasing way, something about his work uniform. When she laughed, she crinkled her nose, just like Shania, and she laughed a lot. They sat there visiting for a half an hour or so, and Barbara let out hearty laughs amid a string of profane comments. Miles sat mostly in silence, in awe really, not wanting to give away his awkwardness or inexperience. He pressed home his only advantage, his mystery, by deliberately playing up his accent, then whispering slyly in Ione's ear to bring the party back to their place, _sans_ Trisha, while he went out to buy beer.

When he got back he found Ione's other friend had arrived, and was sitting in his seat on the couch they'd salvaged from the dump site. Jason was a burly bear of a man, his round face well-framed by eye glasses and some cultured facial hair. He was mixed-race, what they called Métis around here, but he could pass as white, and the way he told it he did, having a somewhat important job in Yellowknife. Miles came to understand he was a gentleman of some fine silks, but when he had had a few drinks he became loud and ebullient like the rest of them, insisting on some point or other, usually something to do with '80s hair metal. It wasn't clear what he was doing down here, or how long for. But importantly he had money, and tonight so did Ione, and when the beer was gone the four of them went up the road, just like any other group of twentysomethings in the big city, for a night out at the Dockside.

They sang karaoke, and talked loudly over the top of everyone else. The packed pub faded into the background, out of view and out of mind. They went through jugs of beer like it was water. When he wasn't leaning in to confide some secret about himself, Miles was leaning back, admiring the soft crevice leading down Barb's back into her the back of her leather pants. Behind her back, he waved over the Asian woman selling single roses, and tickled Barb's ear with it. She giggled and slapped it away in mock protest, and Miles pulled her head in, hard, and kissed her on the mouth. Her lips were soft, and sticky with strawberry gloss. She tasted intoxicating.

"I was wondering when you were going to do that."

They went to another bar that night, somewhere down the back streets. They sat in a booth staring at their pitchers. Ione was speaking deliberately, slurring, holding up her forefinger with every point she made, although none of it made sense. Jason, several drinks ahead, slowly passed out. Miles could feel the effects of the alcohol, the tunnel vision and muffled noise. The beer tasted like soapy water. He whispered to Barbara that they should leave them there. Stumbling out the door, he looked up at the night while thin snow drifted down around him. Then everything went black.

When he woke up he was on his back on the mattress that served as a bed, spread-eagled in the middle of his otherwise unfurnished bedroom. His jeans were around his ankles, bunched above his boots, and Barbara was seated next to him on the floor, her hand working up and down the shaft of his semi-hard penis as though sifting through the contents of her handbag. She had the bored look of a woman waiting for her doctor's appointment.

Miles's brain lurched into action, the urge to make love to this sumptuous woman overcoming his other powerful urges to sleep and vomit. He could not count on his penis, and this was soon going to be an embarrassment, so he took the initiative, tearing off those leather pants and lapping furiously at her cunt, growing even drunker on her smell. He had no idea what he was doing, but she was as horny as he was, and she moaned and writhed and egged him on. He willed himself into rigidity, stabbing at her like a striking cobra. He felt her muscles tense around him, and then a surge from deep within himself, deeper than he knew existed. Trying to delay, he pulled out, just in time to spray all over her belly and quivering thighs. He held himself above her, up on his palms, gasping for breath like a summer trout. She looked directly at him, and he couldn't tell what she was thinking. That's when Ione burst through the door, recoiling immediately in horror at the grisly scene that confronted her. Miles and Barbara collapsed, giggling into each other's arms. And that's how they stayed, drowning in that feeling, for the whole of the next three days.

They fucked a lot in that halcyon period, when they weren't partying with Jason's gay friends and Peggy and her son, smoking rollies and passing them round, smoking weed and passing out, smoking crack and staying awake. They would make transparent excuses to leave the room, and would come back sheepishly hand in hand. Barb was insatiable, and Miles was willing. He had no experience with this, but she coached him. The only other woman he'd made love to was frigid and scared, an abuse survivor searching for something to make herself feel human, searching for something in him that wasn't there. How badly he'd treated her. But Barb demanded satisfaction, urging him, swearing at him, imploring him to go harder, long past the point when he had come. He learned to hide it, to swallow the grunt in his throat and keep going, pounding like a demented bull. His determination made it work.

After it was all over, when everyone had gone home, they would lie curled around each other, listening to country music on the radio, and talking. Barb told him all about her life, in that dreamy way that characterises nascent love. She was a poet, like him, but she shamed him because she had known real pain. She had started writing on the day of her brother's funeral. As they were driving on the dirt road back to the reservation, an American eagle swooped down and hovered in front of the car for a moment, poising as if to check she was heading in the right direction, before winging away in a wide circle and back into the sky. That was the spirit of her brother, she said, in a final act of love before he had to go off to his new realm. That was what kept her going.

Barb didn't talk much about her two eldest children, and Miles didn't press it. But the bitterness was still very fresh when it came to her youngest, Susie. Susie's father, Barb's husband, was a lecturer, a hotshot in horticulture whom the courts favoured enough to bestow sole custody upon. Barb never got to see her. But Paul was a snake, a treacherous lecher who had driven Barb to the crack, then slept with her hussy sister Adrienne, then taken off and taken her beautiful child from her. Miles hated him immediately, and vowed to help plot revenge, to steal that sex tape he had made with an underage student and send it to the dean in an unmarked envelope. Oh, they had big plans, him and Barb.

On the third night, the four of them were drunk, lying in the lounge room watching the fuzzy television and filming themselves with Miles' camera. Out of the blue, Jason knelt in front of Ione and proposed to her. Ione hesitated for a while, and Jason pressed his case with unblinking earnestness. Eventually she accepted, and they hugged. She would go back with him to Yellowknife the next day, to live with him and be his wife. Mouths agape, there was nothing for Miles and Barb to do except raise their cans in cheers. The next day, everyone packed up their things and left. Barb had to go back to the reservation to visit her mom, and to make a court appearance. She couldn't say when she would be back, only that she would.

*****

The first call that Miles got wasn't from Barb, it was from Jason's friend Alex, the vainglorious gay government official who had brought the drugs to their parties.

"Jason's back in town".

"Is he staying with you, or Eddie? Is Ione here?"

"Listen to me. He's in trouble. He's at the ICU at the university. He got airlifted down in a medical chopper."

"Is he OK?"

"Just go see him."

He was lying flat on his back, staring straight up at the ceiling. Miles didn't know if he couldn't talk, or just wouldn't. His lips were swollen up like they had been stung by bees, and his eyelids drooped almost to a close. He was swathed in sterile white, huge bandages on his left arm and thigh. The nurse said they had had to graft skin from his thigh and buttocks to repair all the damage he had done to his wrist.

When he eventually could talk, all he could say was how stupid he had been. Miles didn't press him, but waited for the story to come out, in fits of sobbing. As soon as they had gotten to Yellowknife, Ione had taken off, with the new leather coat he had bought her as an engagement present. It took him a few days to find her, and when he did he found she had taken up with his ex-girlfriend, of all people. He banged on the door, and when they wouldn't let him in he threw rocks through the window and tried to climb over the balcony. After limping home, he emptied a bottle of whiskey with a pack of Tylenols and attacked himself with a butcher knife. Jason said, with a hint of pride, that he had died three times on the operating table from blood loss. He was stabilised now, but anything but stable, and he didn't know when they would let him leave the hospital. Miles visited him in between shifts, and he got the feeling he was the only person who did.

*****

When Barb eventually got back to town, the weather was changing, and summer was not far away. The townspeople traded their heavy coats for spring jackets, and they could be seen of an afternoon walking and rollerblading through the parks down by the river. It was strange to not be one of them, to be a shift worker, nocturnal and living amongst cement and rubbish piles. Miles still felt like an impostor, but to rejoin their ranks now would be even more disingenuous.

Barb was living down in Southgate, a lengthy bus ride away, with some old friends of hers from the reservation. It was a council housing block, but not shabby and not unsafe. The lawns were always nicely trimmed and the children's play equipment was smartly painted. Inside, the house was pure squalor, stacked with mismatched furniture and unwashed dishes. They were welcoming enough, Barb's friends, in that they let them do their thing, which was usually watching TV and lazily fucking in the lounge. Candy and Michelle always seemed to be dozing, intertwined with a head in a lap and an arm outstretched over an ashtray, the cigarette a burnt out tube.

Candy had long blonde hair, an amazingly pert pair of breasts, and arms like an oil pipeline. She used to drive trucks in the mines, but after the reassignment surgery she gave it up to be with her girlfriend. They seemed to subsist on some kind of disability pension, augmented by selling prescription pills on the streets. Visitors would come by for five minutes at a time, rough types, but Miles never felt in danger with Candy around. She loved to describe how they had fashioned her vagina, by slitting the penis in four parts lengthways, and tucking it in on itself, retaining a piece of the glans as a _de facto_ clitoris. Miles never got to see the handiwork, but he did catch multiple glimpses of those amazing tits.

He was never entirely comfortable there, and after a few weeks he got tired of being milked for money. After much begging, he managed to convince Barb to move in with him, rent-free until she got back up and running. She set about adding a feminine touch to their home, and it was a delight to come home and smell fry-bread cooking. The neighbours welcomed her into the fold, and it seemed every night they would all be laughing it up over a dice game, or two-stepping around the sparse lounge. Peggy would draw him aside when drunk and tell him what a pretty girl she was, such a pretty girl, but he couldn't trust her.

He kept their financial situation hidden, taking Barb out for pizza every now and then, even though he had hit his credit card limit. He had borrowed everything he dared to ask for from family back home, and he had to take out microloans before payday every fortnight – fifty bucks, then pay back sixty-two, then seventy bucks the next time, then pay back eighty-eight. He found a new job, at the theme park in the mall, which didn't pay any better but gave him better hours, more drinking time. They lived on meagre groceries and donations from the food bank, but they were happy. Miles couldn't remember ever being so happy. When Jason got released from the hospital, it was a no-brainer to invite him to live with them, if only for the small amount of rent he paid.

*****

baby I'm so glad you're home hey listen you got any cash 'cause Alex just got off the phone and we're about to make a dash I know you bought that case of beer but baby I need something more and it's OK if you wait here we're meeting at the corner store well hey it's only forty bucks and you're the one got us in debt and since when do you give a fuck it's just like you with cigarettes now honey I don't wanna fight 'cause I got too many regrets but I just need some peace tonight and this shit helps me to forget... would you go find a Brillo pad and then a piece of wire to poke it look I'm smiling aren't you glad and we are flying when we toke it greatest buzz you ever had and mind the hot end when you grab it and I know it's kinda bad but it is such a happy habit you can wipe that fucking frown why can't you see the funny side why don't you just go and lie down why do you have to kill my ride aw hun I didn't mean it honest over here give me a kiss this bliss is just tonight I promise it won't always be like this

now they're laughing like hyenas in the kitchen I can hear her there's a wall and more between us but I'm itching to be near her and it's close to three hours later and my tears no longer show and here she's smiling like a 'gator cause she knows I can't let go and I am thinking I can save her if I don't admit defeat so honey please do me a favour I made hamburger to eat but she drops resin in the food as she tips up another one and so I give up being rude and suddenly we're having fun 'cause now we found some cards to play and now I'm throwing down at poker now she's stripping all the way because I'm sitting on the joker now she's running round the building now we meet her in the hall and now our neighbour's saying something but I can't hear him at all and now we're splashing in the fountain now we're running from the guards and now we're lying panting counting all the holes between the stars and somehow now we've made it home and there's no point in getting dressed and she's re-dialling the phone 'cause there's a song she must request and Alex passed out on the floor and I just want to go to bed I can't believe she still wants more I tell her let's make love instead but there's a burning on her tongue and there's a blizzard in her head she needs her eight-ball nights among the fading lights and living dead... and she is happier it's true and I admit the night was great but babe I'd rather be with you and we can do all this shit straight.

*****

They were an odd match, the three of them, but they made it work, at least for a while. Miles was never lonely, or bored. They helped each other out: Jason couldn't do up the top button on his jeans, so Miles had to do it. Barb made food for them all, and kept the place looking nice. When the downstairs crackheads, with the massive hound that looked like it hadn't eaten skinny white guy in a while, were making too much noise, Miles liked the fact he had a large, bearded Native man to send in for negotiations. Miles got a new job, one he loved at a second-hand bookstore across the river. He enjoyed the forty-five minute work, a chance to clear his head of the good-natured bickering between the other two, stuck at home all day. He often worked the night shift, coming home around one to find Jason passed out on beer and Vicoden, and Barb watching TV over his snores. The two of them stole the early hours to make love, or just lie and listen to the radio and talk about the future.

On his nights off, the three of them would go out drinking, either at the bottom of the hill or at the top. One night, after Jason had belted out a truly horrible rendition of _Run to the Hills_ at karaoke, two well-dressed young guys approached them at the table and challenged them to a game of pool. They won most of the time, but Miles was too kind to blame it on Jason, and besides these guys were shouting jugs of Molson. Barb attached herself to one of them like a tapeworm. When the bar closed, they invited them across the road for a nightcap.

Their apartment was coolly lit, cold and pristine, like it was never lived in. The guys offered drinks, but couldn't find glassware, so they all swigged out of the bottle. Miles was dead drunk, his mind aching for sleep, and in the back of his head he heard bells tolling, some kind of impending doom. He wanted very much to leave, but Barb was having too good a time with her new friend. The other one challenged Miles to a game of chess, unveiling an exquisite cut crystal set. From the balcony he could hear faint giggles accompanies by loud sniffs. Miles tried very hard to lose, quickly, but it was hard to do against this guy. Jason blundered into the room like an ox, his drunken antics at least lightening the sombre mood. Knowing a little of chess, he decided to alert Miles' opponent that he was one move away from a dangerous fork. He tried to simulate the knight's jump, and knocked one of the bishops off the edge, where it shattered on the tiled floor. Silence exploded across the room.

It took Barb several seconds to come in, and nobody had moved a muscle. Miles's eyes were on the vein in his host's temple, and he was sure it had started to throb with increased speed and intensity. Jason was on his hands and knees, pressing crystal shards into his hands as he tried to reassemble the piece. Miles tried with his eyes to tell Barb this was a good time to leave, but he saw in her eyes she needed no convincing. She was white as a sheet. In the elevator on the way down, after scrambled goodbyes and apologies, she recounted how her companion had told her about the last time he was on that balcony. He had thrown a guy off it who hadn't paid his debts on time, then called some friends to come and clean it up.

Avoiding that apartment building added ten minutes to Miles' walk every day, but the knock on the door never came and pretty soon they forgot all about it.

*****

You note the anxious jerks of my attention

And ask if I will ever tire of you

My qualms, as would be prudent not to mention

Give worrying cause to fear this may be true

For quickly dies the thought that's entertained

But lingers long the notion undernourished

So would our lust last longer if restrained?

Will our love fade where longing would have flourished?

Could we the life-span of our love prolong

By choking feelings that our words betray?

Is't happier if love is loud or long?

Is't better to burn out or fade away?

In truth it matters little, good or ill

Long will I live, and love you longer still

*****

One day, Jason was out somewhere, and Miles wasn't working, so the two of them had the house to themselves for a change. Barb was quiet, which was rare, happy just working decorating some old coffee cans to put pencils and dice in. She was sad, Miles could tell, and when he pressed her he found out this was the anniversary of her brother taking his own life. She had always wanted a tattoo, she said, a special one of a heart, pierced by an arrow, with purple angel wings, flying away somewhere. She drew it out on a napkin.

Miles had seen, on his bus trips back from the mall, a tattoo parlour on the west side of town, about sixteen blocks' walk. When they got there, he sat and held her hand as it was emblazoned on her chest, just above her left breast. Barb looked up and out of the window the whole time, squeezing his hand as the artist traced over the outlines. The finished article, resplendent in colour, looked amazing.

They went out for dinner afterwards, to celebrate. Barb's back started playing up as they were leaving, and Miles had spent all his money. He carried her the last couple of blocks, her arms around his neck dragging him down. An ambulance was out the front, and people were milling around. Peggy said they had come for one of the speed freaks. Miles laid her carefully on the mattress, propped up with pillows, and there, in their dingy bedroom, the red lights flashing down the hall, he asked her to marry him. He could see the reservation in her eyes, and when she accepted, it was very quiet. It felt a lot like peace.

*****

Freeze frame – right there

She's the one in the background

On the right of screen

She's sort of looking around

See how the wind has caught her hair

This was in January

A close-up of her in bed

She half-smiles, then opens one eye

With one hand, supports her head

That's all you get to see

This one's kind of a blur

We seem somehow a lot older

She's running through the pines in the snow

Looking back over her shoulder

That's how I remember her.

*****

That day, that moment, was when things started to fall apart. And, like the song says, when it starts to fall apart, it really falls apart. Things hadn't been great for a while, but Miles was so infatuated he had dismissed it. It started, of course, with silly things, bad habits they both had. Barb criticised him for chewing with his mouth open. Miles was amused at how she lit a match every time she took a shit. She would tease him in front of their friends, and when he hit back she would shut down and give him the silent treatment for what seemed like days. He couldn't take it. One time it got so bad he left two hours early for work. He called her, from a payphone at the park, and told her he was on the verge of a breakdown. She told him to grow up, and hung up. When he got back home, he found a nasty little note, and she was gone for three days.

They fought mostly about money, of course. It was getting worse, despite the new job and the extra hours. Jason rarely paid rent, and Barb criticised Miles for not forcing the issue. She didn't pay it either, but she was a special case. She was holding out for her big lawsuit, the payout from the bank whose icy steps she had slipped on, leaving her with the chronic back pain that caused her reliance on Tylenol 4s, and flared up whenever Miles proposed they leave the house. She went away occasionally, to some of the summer pow-wows, helping her friend sell beaded trinkets at the concession stand. She had money sometimes, Miles didn't know where from, but she spent it on herself. Miles had to pawn everything he owned: his laptop, the video camera that was his birthday gift, even his prized red jacket. When he took it in to the shop, the lady wouldn't take it. No-one would ever buy a men's leather jacket in red, she said, waving her stumped arm at a rack of jackets, identical but for the colour. Miles pleaded with her, and eventually got her to pay twenty bucks for it, just enough for a bag of flour, mincemeat, and a pack of cigarettes.

One night Miles came home to a fractious situation. Jason was glazed over in front of the television, and Barb was stalking in the bedroom. She blew up when he came in, his jacket only halfway off. She had been adjusting the curtains above Jason's bed, trying to let the light in, when he had leapt up and, for some reason, bitten her on the ass. It could have been a harmless joke, or a bizarre proposition: Miles knew he was jealous of them. Barb was furious, and she demanded Miles confront him.

Shaking, he tried to recall a movie where the hero had confronted a man much bigger than him, and won. He decided to start strongly, relying on shock. He stormed out of the bedroom, shuddering the flimsy wall with the door handle. Jason was in the kitchen, feebly trying to make himself a sandwich. Trying to hide the waver in his voice, Miles told him what would happen if he ever disrespected Barb like that again. Jason laughed right in his face, a big obnoxious bray, and now Miles really was angry. So was Jason.

He picked up a dining chair, and in one motion smashed it to smithereens on the floor. Somehow, one-armed, he managed to pin Miles backward over the counter, the chair leg against his throat. Barb started screaming and trying to pull him off. Miles could have grabbed his ruined arm and disabled him, but he chose to stare him down instead, meeting his red gaze and finding murder there. Absurdly, he recalled Crocodile Dundee hypnotising the bull, and he began to giggle nervously. Jason spat hard in his face, and threatened him again, but he let him up and left, slamming the door.

Miles wiped his lips and tasted blood, and he discovered he had a raging erection. The sex they had then, on the kitchen bench surrounded by carnage, was the best they had ever had. Jason came back later, meek and contrite, but by then he had to go, and for a time it was just the two of them again, and it was better.

*****

Barb's mom, a lovely older lady with a long grey plait down her back, came to stay with them, bringing Barb's nephew, Adrienne's son Richard with her. Richard was a stern and resolute young man, a rising hockey star at school. Miles hoped he stayed in school, hoped he got a sports scholarship to college, hope he became the next Jerome Iginla, just hoped he found some way out of this situation, the broken home and the drugs and the waste that had swallowed up most Native people in this town. He bought him Slurpies, and gave him the Maple Leafs watch Tommy had given him as payment for something.

Mama Jo slept in the bedroom with Barb, and Richard was on the couch, so Miles was left sleeping on the floor. The sex dried up, and it seemed like that was the only thing that was holding them together these days. Miles took it badly, childishly, and for a week Barb didn't speak directly to him. After work, at 1am, he couldn't bring himself to go home, so he went on up to Peggy's and poured his heart out to her night after night. When Mama Jo went back to the reservation, Barb went with her, and she didn't say when she'd be back. On parting, Richard shook Miles' hand and told him he was the nicest man he had ever met.

He pulled Barb aside in the parking lot and begged her not to go, begged her to tell him when she was coming back. He gave her the cell phone and said he would call her every day until she came back to him. He retracted everything mean he had ever said, and told her that from now on he would be strong, a warrior like she deserved. He needed her with him or his life was worth nothing. She just told him she needed some time alone, and not to worry himself so sick like he always did.

*****

It's a perfect day for walking

Let's go out along the bluff

There'll be time enough for talking

But right now walking is enough

And if you lead me I will follow

Picking up the things you drop

And I'll be walking in your shadow

Until you signal me to stop

Well we will reach our destination

Why do you have to walk so fast?

And there's no point in walking backwards

For that won't take us to the past

But if you lead me I will follow

I will follow all the way

And I'll be walking in your shadow

Until the night brings down the day

Can you see the flag that flutters

From the top of that tall mast?

In the wind the flag is waving

While the pole is standing fast

And if you lead me I will follow

Just turn around and you will see

I'll be walking in your shadow

Hoping that you'll wave to me

But I will never be your lover

And I will never be your king

I will always be your student

And you can teach me anything

And if you lead me I will follow

Whichever way your path may wind

And I'll be walking in your shadow

Trying not to fall behind

I'll be walking right behind you

And I will catch you if you fall

Pretty soon you'll find your footing

And then you won't need me at all

And if you lead me I will follow

Let's walk far away from here

And I'll be walking in your shadow

So you won't see me disappear

*****

August was hot, hot like a bonfire most days. Whyte Avenue lit up at night, with festivals and concerts. The streets and parks were full during the days, people walking and laughing and throwing Frisbees. Miles hung out the apartment window, wearing only underwear, smoking his way through a pack and waiting for his work to start. Three weeks she had been away, three weeks without a phone call or a letter, despite all the ones he had sent, care of Mama Jo at the vague address she had left. The only correspondence had been from the phone company – the bill kept going up and up, and he couldn't pay it, so he couldn't cancel it. He called the numbers on the bill, but no-one answered. At least he knew she was alive. He wrote lists, of all the reasons she might be staying away, of everything he had done wrong, of all the things he loved most about her, of everything he would change.

One bright Saturday he caught the bus down to Southgate. He found Candy and Michelle in the midst of getting evicted. He helped Candy load up a beaten up old truck while Michelle watched on, smoking crack out of a Coke can the same way Sherlock Holmes might have smoked a pipe. He asked if they had seen her or heard from her, and they lied and said they hadn't. But they agreed to give him a ride out to the reservation, to the heart of darkness itself.

It must have at one stage looked shiny and new, the neat brick buildings lined up in the centre of town, an anxious gift of reconciliation from the government. That was a long time ago, probably after the Wounded Knee riots, and nobody had lifted a finger since then. It looked like an abandoned cult base, sitting out here in the dark wilderness. Night was falling, and gnarled hands suspiciously pulled curtains aside as they rolled into town, just as the sun was setting.

Mama Jo's house, predictably, was the smartest one on the row. Neat rows of flowering bushes were lovingly kept in the front yard, and the old porch had a swing seat and wicker chairs. It was here that Miles was situated, a cup of tea in hand, an eyebrow raised at Jo, pleading for grace.

When she spoke, it was slowly, but with kindness in the corner of her mouth, and pity too. He had come here seeking her counsel, and she would help as best she could.

"She was here, for a time. She needed some help from her mom."

"Where did she go after that?"

"She's been around. I guess I don't know."

Jo's companion, a grossly fat old man, rocked back and forth silently, looking Miles up and down. Candy was kicking the dust off the steps. Miles got the sense that everybody knew, the whole town knew where she was, who she was with. He was nobody to them, an outsider, a white man with an agenda. He would get nothing here. He thanked Jo for the tea, and indicated to Candy it was time to go.

"I think she's in town now, as a matter of fact. She said she had some business to attend to."

On the ride back, in the passing flare of the street lights, Miles searched Candy's face for a clue as she gunned it down the highway, him urging her on. Sitting between them with her head on Candy's shoulder, was Michelle's permanent smirk a little wider than usual? Was she just high, was she in on this plan from the start? Or was she just telling him he should have known all along this was how it would go? Either way, Miles knew before he opened the door what he would find there.

Most of her stuff was gone, an empty packet of garbage bags on the kitchen counter holding down a note.

Sorry Baby, I couldn't wait any more.

I caught a ride, so I had to hurry.

Sorry I missed you. Love Barb

That was the last time he heard from her.

# Adrienne

If before, waiting for Barb to come home, he was frantic and restless, now, when he knew she wasn't, Miles plumbed the very depths of despair. He had trouble sleeping, but his waking hours were filled with constant sorrow and anger and self-recrimination. Every night, on the way home from work, he walked the long way back, over the long bridge, daydreaming about midnight muggers taking him on, about leaping the barricade and plunging into the river below. He was amazed, and impressed, to catch sight of himself in a mirror, gaunt and bloodshot. He withdrew from his co-workers, who sensed his pain but could not get through to him. He went to strip clubs with Clive, sitting there motionless as the disco lights flickered over him. He spent long periods drinking with Peggy, and with Tommy and Trisha who had moved out uptown. He picked up some ratbag woman there, a homeless 47-year-old with open sores, took her home and fucked her without a condom.

One morning, coming out of sleep, he heard the front door click shut. He lay there frozen for a full minute, trying to suppress a cough. Then he flung himself up and ran to the window, calling out Barb's name. At the back of the building, he heard a truck pull away, and when he got outside there was no-one around. Whoever it was, they had left his laptop and Jason's abandoned stereo, but they had taken all his CDs, a lifetime collection of music, gone. They didn't even have cases, so they couldn't have been sold. He sat on the floor, looking around for a reason, for anything, but saw only disaster. He was enraged at how pathetic he had become, at how he had let this woman break him. Barb was still ringing up bills on the phone, hundreds of dollars every month that he couldn't stop and couldn't pay back. It was time to move out.

At work, he'd struck up an odd friendship with a fifty-something lady, Maude. She was Métis, but again passed as white, a long grey ponytail snaking down her back over her neat cardigan, blue jeans and boots. Miles liked her, because she was always fighting with management, barking her disapproval in a raspy voice, the product of forty years of smoking hand-rolled 'chokes', which she would share with Miles out the back sometimes, her hands on the small of her back arching up to the sky like a caged animal.

Her lodger, a militant lesbian, had recently moved out, and Miles made the proposition one night at the end of the late shift. She needed the first month upfront, which meant taking out a loan, but this would be the last one. From here on he would save money, living in a bedroom at the end of the hall, small but warm, with cable TV, and only twelve blocks walk south of the store.

Sometimes on the way home he would slip into the cowboy bar on the main road and watch the old folk two-stepping around the floor, incongruous hay bales piled up to the ceiling under the exit sign. But most nights the two of them would sit in the kitchen, rolling and smoking, talking over a pot of Tim Horton's, talking until four in the morning. She told him stories of her time as an illegal housekeeper in California, her jaunt around Europe with a square-jawed married G.I. She would let her ferrets roam free, and they would climb their legs looking for a comforting scratch. Maude would roll joints, and sometimes when he came back from the bathroom he would find her asleep in her saucer. He would pick her up, barely weighing a thing, and place her on the couch, and unlace her boots, then creep to his room and think about Barb and wait until light.

*****

Have you seen that old oak fence-post

That stands up on the hill?

The fence around it all fell down

But that old post stands there still

We've got no need for fences now

There's not much still left here

But that post stood strong all along

While we lost count of the years

That post has seen the waste of drought

The rage of summer storms

The winter cold has made it old

And it cracked when it got warm

When the floods came up the rot set in

Now it's hollow at the core

And you know there ain't but a coat of paint

That keeps it from rotting more

It bears the marks of an active life

For a post that never moves

Some healthy whacks from a wayward axe

The white-ants' flimsy grooves

It's funny how it borrows charm

From its defects and its stains

The posts were all pulled out last fall

But that one still remains

I still can't say exactly why

I chose not to upheave it

I think that something worked in me

And told me just to leave it

There's something great about that post

Its head is never bowed

Like a fly on the wall, it's seen it all

And it still stands tall and proud

It can't be beaten, broken, eaten

There's nothing it can't withstand

You can't be hurt with your feet in dirt

If you fall you'll only land

There are many things to love about it

But the thing I love the most

Is the way it takes all of life's tough breaks

I wish I was like that post

It shows no favour, it doesn't feel

It doesn't suffer a scar

Like the dawn of spring, a constant thing

That reminds us who we are

I know some day it will meet its end

Maybe in some furious fire

And all that's left of that knotted cleft

Will be ash, and strands of wire

It's sad to see in the world these days

Few things are built to last

And a time will come when I, too, am done

Because all things must pass

*****

Barb had left some stuff, mostly clothes and personal items. At first, he buried his face in them, searching for the smell of her, trying to remember what was slipping away from him. He didn't think of her often, not any more, and he felt guilty for it. He had to work to re-open the wound, to live in his scars, his personal calvary. But weeks passed, and the snow started to fall again, and he stopped feeling sorry for himself, and eventually he felt better. It was not finished business, though. That's when he called Adrienne, ostensibly to give her Barb's stuff in case she ever came looking for it now he had moved, but they both knew that wasn't why he called.

Barb had only ever called her a "backstabbing bitch", and he had only met her briefly a couple of times. He didn't know what to expect. She remembered him straight away, and suggested he come down that Friday night. She and her girls, big-hipped and big-haired cougars, were driving out to a country and western bar on the Whitemud. Miles sat there sipping beer while they danced, slowly getting drunk and frustrated. He had so many questions for Adrienne, that's why he was here. When she suggested they leave early he jumped at it.

Light snow was falling, and in the back seat of the taxi Miles watched it fall out the window. Adrienne's warm hand slid under his, and the squeeze she gave it was impossibly tender. Suddenly he desired her, more than he could contain. He brushed the hair back from her face – such a pretty girl, such beautiful skin, her fluffy pink sweater highlighting her comforting shape. The cab driver, leering, offered them a free fare if they would have sex in the back, and Adrienne laughed uproariously. When they got home she took Miles up to her bedroom, and lay him down on a space between the piles of clothes and library books. She undressed quickly in the dark, and slid herself onto him with a groan. She bit her lip as she pushed forward and back, her eyes squeezed shut. Miles realised her children were asleep in the next room.

In the morning he got to meet them, and he fell instantly in love. They were the most adorable girls, eight and six, with long brown hair and deep brown eyes. Janie, the eldest, was obviously half-caste, while Bella looked just like her mother. They weren't cowed at all by having a strange man in the house, and they took to him instantly, making him give them shoulder rides around the living room, or swing them round by their ankles.

Miles hadn't been able to ask any of his questions, and it was just assumed he would come back, and so he did, every week from Sunday night to Tuesday night, his weekend off the store. It was a long, cold bus ride, but he looked forward to it every time. He would help with their homework, tell them to eat the dinner their mother had made, and chide them when they made too much noise around the adults. He took them tobogganing on the small hill behind the council house. When they were at school, Miles and Adrienne would sit and drink beers and smoke cigarettes and just talk, about Barb and about everything. Her side of the story was more than a little different to Barb's. They would go on family trips together, to the video store, to Subway for a cookie, once even to the zoo all the way across town. Bella would run up to him, throw her arms around his head, and place a picture in her lap of the three of them, with a strange blonde man, the sun shining brightly in the sky. They were the centres of his little universe.

It wasn't always just the four of them. Adrienne had layabout cousins who would stop by and visit, and there was the woman next door with the weird kids who came over to play. She also had a boyfriend, Graham, a short, angry little man who had two daughters of his own. He eyed Miles with suspicion, and rightly so. Although Adrienne had never shown any interest in him since that first night, except once in a bar to make Graham jealous; although the girls were the main reason he still came, still he desired her, wanted to teach a lesson to this obnoxious little man with his face like the shiny head of a penis. Miles was sure he knew about the two of them, and didn't do anything to dissuade him. Graham was the interloper, not him, disrupting the little family unit when he brought his raggedy girls over.

One evening, when Miles walked in whistling, video in hand, he saw Barb's eyes staring back at him. Little black pools of confusion, belonging to the most beautiful child he had ever seen. It was her daughter, Susie, and she looked _just like her_. The only difference was the wide-eyed innocence, long departed from dear old mom. Miles took stock quickly. The man standing at the sink peeling potatoes, the rangy one with the pony tail, that must be Paul. That was Barb's husband – the snake, the drug addict, the lecher. When he walked over Miles checked for the knife, since Miles had cuckolded him, too. But instead he shook his hand firmly, warmly even, but his eyes said he knew about Miles and Barb, and he knew about Miles and Adrienne too.

Miles was on edge all night, watching Paul furtively to see what he would so. The three girls ran around them in noisy circles, and Miles had to stop himself from staring at Susie. When it went quiet they found them down in the basement, collapsed in a ball of sleep on a mattress. Paul picked her up over his shoulder, and stroking her hair took her out to his truck to go home, the picture of a devoted father. Miles prayed that night, prayed to the prairie gods and the Great Spirit, that these three girls, just these three, wouldn't be drunks, broke, addicted and abandoned like their mothers. Here and now, let the chain be broken.

*****

So much for all that we had planned

Her boyfriend bought her a diamond ring

He says it's just a friendship thing

But she wears it on her wedding hand

I cannot match that golden band

My love is not worth anything

Her boyfriend bought her a diamond ring

So much for all that we had planned

He says it's just a friendship thing

But she wears it on her wedding hand.

*****

Miles was woken one night by something he couldn't identify. All was quiet outside, but he felt an unease in the pit of his stomach. He crept down the stairs in the silicon glow of the street lamps, tiptoeing over Janie and Bella curled up under a blanket. At the foot of the stairs he paused. Graham was sitting at the kitchen table, almost falling to one side as he raised the beer can monotonously to his lips. His beady eyes peered glassily at Miles, and then locked on him coldly as he raised himself to speak.

"I think you're a fruit. A fucken fruit is what you are. Miles."

The last word, his name, was drawn out in a slurring taunt. Miles wanted so much to take the bait, to lash the man with his own six-shooter belt buckle and scream into his ear "I fucked your girlfriend!" Instead he left, just put on his shoes and walked all the way back to Maude's house, sixty blocks in the snow, singing to himself. At a level crossing a freight train whistled past, and Miles pissed in the snow and waved at its black mass. When he finally got back it was almost light, and Maude had left a scribbled note for him by the ashtray. Karen had called, somehow she'd traced him here. He knew what she was going to say before she said it.

"They've found Bobby".

Just like that, the future was sucked from him. Adrienne was his muse in the cabin, the five of them living wild, him and her and Janie and Bel and Susie too. Woodsmoke and fry-bread and laughing children. All gone. Bobby had done it again.

*****

The service was going to be in eight days' time. Something about arranging for the transfer from Indonesia, one of the islands east of Borneo where the tourists don't go. He must have thought no-one would ever find him there. It was not enough time for Miles. He barely had time to see everyone and say his goodbyes, to tell everyone he would be back, but he didn't know when. His sister would pay for his flight home, but not his flight back. His visa would run out the next March, after a long cold winter, even if he could somehow find the money to come back. The book store said they would think about sponsoring him.

He had one last drinking session with the old crew, at Trisha's apartment. Tommy was out on the oil fields, but Peggy was there. She embraced him like a son. Miles patted Brandy on the head, and promised to write. They gave him the best present they could afford, a family picture with an inscription scrawled on the back.

The Wee Book Inn let him take his pick of the books, as a farewell present. He chose a tattered old copy of _Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee_ , so that when he needed to he could break his own heart. He was at an internet café, waiting to have hot chocolate with Faith, when an email came through from Cindy, casually dropping him a note that she would be coming back to town, that night. She hoped he'd been well, and could he lend her a few bucks or did he have a place to stay? She didn't want to see her father just yet. He went up to meet the Greyhound, his own half-empty bag over his shoulder, like hers. If she was surprised to see him there, it didn't show on her strung-out face. Miles pressed money into her hand, then turned on his heel and left. He had somewhere much more important to be.

His last night there was one to cherish. The girls buzzing around him, handing him pictures of the three of them that brought lumps to his throat. He and Adrienne sat almost in silence, drinking from the vodka bottle he had brought and waiting for her cousins, self-appointed watchdogs, to pass out. Finally they did, and then she was on him, and they were both too tired to do anything but lie there, entwined. She whispered in his ear thanks for everything. He'd hoped she would beg him to stay.

In the airport, waiting in line to board, he bit off a piece of his tongue. He smiled in the eyes of the flight attendant, gulping mouthfuls of blood as he sat, waiting patiently for the jet, maybe the same one that had brought him here, to take him away again.

*****

When it was over, after the last guest had left, he looked round at his family, dressed in bright colours at his mother's request, and he knew he would not be going back. You can't go home again. You can only start again.

*****

I shut the dogs out and lie down on the floor

Wriggle out of my clothes

I'm sticking to the polished wood

But I won't sweat much longer

Like the brick walls now the sun has set

I'm losing heat

By the time the sun returns I'll be gone

You see I'm just a tourist in this body, this life

I am the heat that rises

No blanket can suppress me

I may return some day

If I can find no better place.

*****

# Coda

It was a full twelve months before he finally made it back to Canada, the familiar grey lumps of snow discarded by the highway, the insane breakfast announcers on the radio. He looked out the window of the taxi, only he was looking at himself in the reflection. His body, once hardened by hunger, lithe and whippy, was now bloated by milky coffee and long nights working back at the office. He had once imagined his face to have been blown by the icy prairie wind into pointed, Sioux cheekbones, a long Red Cloud nose. Now it appeared sunken, blurry. He had cut his hair, another sacrifice to the job. He wore a snug winter jacket and thermals underneath, sensible footwear. He was an outsider again, just another tourist in his own past. It felt like much more than a year.

He had written letters, and called, and got some back as well, from Peggy and from Maude, who had no-one else. He had heard nothing from Adrienne until a letter arrived, wrongly addressed, in September, dated July.

Dearest Miles,

Hi buddy, how are you? I miss you so much Canada is not complete without you. Your a Canadian so come home.

I was so glad to receive your letter and the girls will be pleased they are spending the summer with their fathers. We would never forget you because youve touched our hearts deeply. I hated missing your phone calls I felt so sad. I asked Paul to mail a letter I wrote during the winter it had pictures in it and a Christmas card. He didn't tell me it fell on the floor and got wrecked.

Graham and I split up in May he beat me up three times during that month and I charged him with assault. His mother died May 23 and we were going to marry May 21 in the hospital so she could see us. I loved her dearly my own mother didn't show me as much love. I had bruise all over my body that last fight me and Graham had. the first time he hit me I let it go because he was stressed his mother was dying but the second fight I let him hit me just once and then I beat the hell out of him. I even took off my own shoe and broke his nose with it. I was choking him but when he quit struggling I let him go saying its no fun if you give up.

The third time it was after the funeral we were sitting with his friends and he told one guy watch me beat up Ade. I heard him and I got up to leave but he grabbed my arm a burnt me with his smoke in the lips. Then I ran out and he caught me outside and beat me up. It was for no real reason but now I don't care I am happy now I am free from him.

Carla my friend gave me a car I will register it soon I hope. I miss you so much your my dear friend and I don't ever want that to go away. My auntie told me Barb lives in B.C. and that I should make up with her because she will die from Aids.

Well chow for now, Adrienne xxx

Maude was as good as ever. She had another lodger, but they were undisturbed as they smoked the evening away. Peggy had moved again, to a dingy apartment block up in the north of the city. She was going mad, stuck there in the apartment all day, afraid to leave and with no-one to come to visit. Clive was raising his baby boy from prison. Matthew, the other son, was in some rural work program for troubled youth.

By coincidence Peggy lived only a couple of blocks from the pawn shop where Miles had sold his jacket, the red leather one, for a measly few dollars. He decided to chance it, and sure enough that little bitch had been right. Nobody wanted a men's jacket in red. He bought it back from her for $120.

It was late afternoon by the time he got down past Southgate, the old familiar bus route taking him right past Adrienne's door. He could tell before he alighted that she was gone. Boards were nailed to the ground floor windows, and the first floor ones were broken with rocks. Inside was only dust and stepladders.

Miles was sitting on the stoop, smoking a cigarette and pondering his next move, when a battered old car pulled up. He recognised Janet, Adrienne's old neighbour. She bundled the weird kids inside, closed the door, and came and sat down next to Miles. A deep breath.

"She got evicted, yah, about a month ago. She was having these wild parties. I think she got back into crack, in a big way. The girls are gone, you know. With their fathers, not together. It's such a shame. I got your letter you sent her, but I don't know where she is. On the reservation, I guess."

"Not what you came all this way for, I bet."

*****

Miles had one more stop, in Ottawa on his way to New York to visit his sister and his new nephew. He had emailed Josie, and she had room for him to stay a couple nights, everyone having long moved off campus. She didn't really see the old crew much anymore, being busy all the time with her degree in marine ecology.

Miles missed his stop on the OC Transpo, and had to backtrack. He saw her standing across the street, waiting for him, the light snow dusting her long hair. Her hands folded inside a puffer jacket. She looked more beautiful than ever.

It was awkward at first, when they covered their news, because their lives were so different now. Miles realised they always had been, that they had only ever had one thing in common. But when they warmed up, and put the Gin Blossoms on the stereo, and got on to the good old times, it was like they were reliving them again. The flatmate came home, and the three of them played drinking games until late in the night.

Miles couldn't sleep at all that night, despite the alcohol in his system and the jet lag. He had taught himself to let go, of everything, everything except one. Or maybe the past couldn't let go of him. Back in Sydney, he could keep busy. He had no other choice, really. But here, in Canada, all he had was himself, and it filled him up fit to burst. His body was a vessel, and there was something greater than that, some spirit that drove him. His wolf.

A door opened, a crack of light, and Josie slid in next to him, her arm across his chest, her head resting on his shoulder, her eyes closed. She said nothing, and Miles controlled his breathing until it matched hers, rise and fall, rise and fall, and thought about what he was going to do next.

###
