The Complex Arms Read online

  “Velvet’s thinking of looking at other buildings, Frosty.”

  He’s positioned himself with a good side view of Velvet’s breasts. “Lucky you found a vacancy in the Complex Arms,” he says. “Everyone wants to live here — free rent first month, utilities included, bus stop just outside the door, walkin’ distance to schools, a mini-mall with a Petro-Canada, a convenience store, a physiotherapist, and a daycare ’round the corner, if you need one. Need one?”

  Velvet shakes her head. “No kids.”

  “Yep, too much trouble they are. Cute when they’re babies, but if they have somethin’ wrong it’s hard, especially when the kid’s not yours.” Frosty is a slur of mumbles, shoulders slightly hunched, hands in his back pockets, nervous bow legs twitching side to side.

  Adeen is doing her best to keep her mouth shut until they are alone, and then she will blast him, full steam ahead.

  “You know, if it hadn’t been for the tenant who fell off the balcony, we’d be full,” Frosty says.

  “Frosty.”

  “A tenant fell?”

  “An accident.”

  “Irene okay?” Adeen is keen on changing the subject.

  “Yep. Cleaned her up and she’s watchin’ Sesame Street. You know, Adeen, I can show Velvet the —”

  “Bet you can.”

  “And what am I supposed to do? Watch Sesame Street, too?” Frosty’s mouth is scrunched in a fading shout as Adeen and Velvet climb the stairs to view the vacant apartment.

  “What about that air conditioner for Shylene? That should keep you busy.”

  Adeen is jiggling a handcuff of keys that looks like an overloaded charm bracelet. “It’s on the fourth floor in front. No elevators in this building, but I look at these stairs as my Stairmaster. Get my exercise that way,” she says over her shoulder, Velvet coming up the rear.

  “Oh, that’s fine.”

  They reach the top floor and both are panting. “Didn’t realize I was so out of shape,” Velvet says.

  “You’d be surprised how we can let the body go. Hey, what do you do for a living by the way?” Adeen inserts the key in the lock.

  “Just got in town. Start looking tomorrow.”

  “Oh? What you good at?”

  “Waitressing.”

  “I’ll keep my eyes open. Hope you don’t mind, but your neighbours are a dad, Wayne, and his teenage son. Divorced. Something wrong when a father gets custody of a kid, don’t you think? Cody parties when the dad’s away. Any noise complaints, give to me.”

  “And the other side?”

  “Jack, a retired principal. He’s the one I mentioned before who thinks my daughter is a gifted artist, and she’s only ten. Anyhow, now he paints all day. Awful stuff but I guess, as they say, art is in the eye of the beholder. Does these watercolours of dead flowers in memory of his mother. That must have been some relationship! Says his paintings mean something. Well, what could dead flowers mean except they are dead? Harmless fellow, though. A character, but nice.”

  Adeen swings the door wide open. “Ta-dah!” The smell of fresh paint, vinegar, and bleach assaults their noses. “Immaculate. And look how bright the rooms are.”

  “Can we maybe open a window?” Velvet is feeling light-headed.

  “Can do.”

  Adeen ambles toward the balcony, draws the verticals to one side, and glides the patio door open. Splashes of sun dapple into the living room through the tall birches across the road and hang on the walls like abstract art.

  “Spotless and a good view. Look — you can see downtown Edmonton from up here.”

  Velvet joins her on the balcony.

  “They’re almost done with the Whitemud Drive over there. Will get you straight across the city in twenty minutes, they say. Edmonton is growing. Well, not as much as Calgary. But we have class. Lots of poets here. Frosty writes poems. Thinks he’s Charles Badger Clark in chaps — one of those American cowboy poets who recites his stuff at rodeos and festivals. No money in that, but he likes to stand onstage and recite “America by Heart.” Keeps him out of mischief. I used to be impressed when I first met him.… Anyhow, ever been to Calgary?”

  “No, but my boyfriend’s played gigs out there. Prefers Edmonton.”

  “Musician?”

  “Supposed to meet him here.”

  “Yep. Cowboys, rednecks, punks, and transients hungry for a fast buck, find them here. Almost sounds like a country song.” Adeen begins to sing, “Here here, cowboys, punks, rednecks, transients too many to feed, make a fast buck Fort Mac, awaiting your big fuck. Oh … s’cuse me.”

  “That’s a bouncy little tune,” Velvet says.

  “Oh, we get crazies here, too. Sometimes I think the Complex Arms is a loony bin!” Adeen faces Velvet as though she just remembered the cowgirl was there. “One bedroom, you said?”

  “Yes, that’s fine.”

  “Am I talking too much?”

  “No. It’s okay.”

  Both rest their eyes somewhere into the far-off space where sky meets land.

  “I think I want to see other apartments in other buildings if you don’t mind.”

  “Don’t know where else you would find an apartment with such a view. You’ll find out yourself, sure enough. See that land over there? Beautiful.”

  Adeen points to a sad spot across the unpaved road, beyond the sagging fence, far over the hump of sun, where a familiar dryness coats the barren fields awaiting further development. Over to the east, a rusty pickup truck, mostly ruined after too many years of unpredictable weather and neglect, sleeps on its side, the driver’s door, windows, and windshield riddled with holes as though someone had used the vehicle for target practice. Halfsubmerged behind tall prairie grasses and wild flora — wild rose, Canada thistle, brome grass, and switchgrass — the truck appears to be in a slow sink. Beyond the slope, next to an abandoned farmhouse with its weathered grey complexion, rotting barns lean in an arthritic stoop like an old man teetering on the brink of collapse. To the west, the smog from forests burning up north near Grande Prairie hover over outlying regions, thin out, and creep into Edmonton.

  “Wonderful scenery. You can sit out here and meditate and listen to the birdies argue. Relaxing. Some nights late autumn, you can even see the northern lights. Haven’t seen anything until you see those northern lights. Quite a display. Worth the rent for that alone.”

  They both return their attention to the blank sky, still without a fleck of cloud, just a blur of white concealing rain.

  Adeen takes a deep breath, exhales. “Okay. Plus first month’s rent is free.”

  No response from Velvet.

  “Can you smell the smoke?” Adeen inhales. “Awful thing. Everything is dying. Every summer a forest catches fire. Payton, one of our tenants, he’s a Jehovah’s Witness, says it’s the end of the world. Armageddon is coming. Again. A summer from hell is what he predicts. Nobody has seen anything like it. Oh, he won’t bother you by the way. Just a bit peculiar.”

  Both are welded to the spot, uncertain what to say, what to do next. Adeen finally twists her body to face Velvet.

  “So you want this apartment or not?” She is jangling the keys again, a nervous habit; something to break the silence.

  Velvet has been patient, polite, drumming her fake white fingernails on the balcony railing, her forehead a furrow of indecision. “Haven’t made up my mind yet.”

  “You’ll like it here. Some of my tenants, they’re like family. Like at Christmas, we get together and sing carols on every floor and end of this month, just after Klondike Days, we’re throwing a block party, a barbecue in the courtyard below. Now that’s a good reason to rent here. With all the tenants contributing, best food ever and it’s free.”

  “I don’t need a family.”

  “Everyone needs a family, someone. Just saying that we have a great bunch of people living here if you have any worries. It’s a safe building. We all look out for each other.”

  They’re about to head inside from the bal
cony when Adeen sees it.

  “Oh, damn! Thought they would have gotten rid of the kid’s tricycle.”

  “Your husband said a tenant had fallen?”

  “Down there.” Adeen points directly below. “Jan and her little girl, Nina, both hit the pavement hard, right there. You can still see some of the brown stains. Frosty tried to scrub the blood off after the cops said it was okay, but we couldn’t scrape it all; waiting for a hard rain to erase that shit. May have to recement that patch.”

  A ferocious silence spreads between them again. Velvet is absorbed by the stain; can’t look away.

  “Mary Poppins parachuting in an open umbrella. That’s the way I see Jan. Lovely girl. So young. Yep, yep, yep. I should have followed my gut. They weren’t here a week when we heard this banging, crashing of furniture, crying and horrible screams. Frosty and me, we ran up here and the guy was just running past us, down the corridor like an escapee from the remand. Almost tripped me, and there she was, Jan, in the hallway, crying, snot running down her nose like she was a kid herself, and the little one, only a toddler, hiding behind her mother’s ass. I’ll never forget the look on Jan’s face, teary eyed and her saying how he had wrecked her life. But don’t you think we wreck our own lives? I mean, she decided to live with the creep, so her responsibility and no one else’s. That’s what I say.”

  “You say a lot, Mrs. Whitlaw.”

  “Call me Adeen. When you are the manager of an apartment building, well, let’s just say, it goes with the territory. Do you want to hear more?”

  “Sure. Might as well.”

  “Anyhow, we went inside and the place was a holy mess. He had smashed the terrarium, broken glass everywhere, and this lizard running loose around the carpet. The guy didn’t look mean when he rented the place. Seemed like a nice family. But then, what’s the definition of nice or even normal? What’s the definition of family, eh? That’s what I want to know.”

  Velvet is pushing the tricycle back and forth with her foot.

  “Not a regular occurrence here by any means.”

  They again lean over the balcony in a silent acknowledgement to where Jan and Nina had landed.

  “An awful thing. An awful thing. Jan died but the kid lived. She saved the toddler. Made herself like a cushion for Nina. Husband is out on bail waiting for a court date. Nina is living with her grandparents somewhere in England. Husband’s friends and Frosty taking his side, saying that it was an accident. She was drunk, Jan’s husband told the cops. Bullshit. Jan didn’t drink. Her husband threw her over. I just know it.”

  Adeen turns away, reaches with anger for the tricycle. “So I need a deposit if you plan on renting the apartment.”

  “I thought first month’s rent was free.”

  “Yeah, but I still need a deposit. You can leave any time, but I need three months’ notice.”

  Velvet takes another look at where Jan and Nina had fallen and then averts her face in horror. She shuts her eyes as though that gesture would erase the scene of such cruelty witnessed on this balcony.

  “You okay, girl?”

  Velvet nods as they re-enter the living room, Adeen carrying the tricycle by its handlebar. “Everything in the apartment has been sanitized, so no worries.”

  Velvet is still mulling over her decision.

  “Okay. Includes utilities for a one-year lease.”

  “You got yourself a deal.” Velvet shakes Adeen’s hand.

  ADEEN

  Where people are concerned, I’m intuitive. I didn’t want National Velvet or Velvet, whatever she called herself, as a tenant, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt. I mean, she was from the Soo. I would expect the same if it were me. Anyhow, I planned to stay out of her bleached hair. Should have followed my gut feeling. Just no good vibes came out of that feeble brain of hers. I mean, she went around braless for heaven’s sake. I knew I’d have to keep Frosty on a short leash, that dog.

  But the Swanks would have thrown us into the street if they ever found out I had rejected a potential tenant. We lived rent-free and that was a saving. The Swank Property Management Group wanted low-maintenance occupants who paid their rent on time, didn’t cause any trouble. I told them nothing. Plus, they wanted the building in pristine condition. Guess who did most of the work. Oh sure, Frosty could do repairs, but some days he had problems with his wrist and leg on account of when he got hit crossing Whyte Avenue after a merry night of drinking at the Commerce Hotel. A lot of times, I did the tough jobs. Guess I’m grateful he isn’t in a wheelchair.

  I don’t know. Lately, I just been wanting to run away and live with the wolves. At least you know where you stand with them. Plus, they take care of their elders, which I’ll require in my old age. But where would I have gone with a daughter who spoke in sounds and a cowboy for a husband who thought he was Charles Badger Clark?

  If someone had asked me when I was a kid, “Adeen, what do you want to be when you grow up?” I would have said I wanted to be an artist, paint portraits, not be a caretaker of an apartment building, attending to needy tenants and evicting mice. Oh, those mice. No pets were allowed in the Complex Arms, but ten-year-old Derrick had these mice in a cage, a birthday gift from a friend. Actually, the friend’s mom wanted to get rid of the critters and he asked if he could have them as pets and so I said okay. How bad could it be? “Just make sure they stay in their box,” I said. Well, one got loose. Eeek! Frosty set traps. I had a soft spot for Derrick but … Rosemary almost fainted in the hallway when she saw it.

  No, I wanted to be a social worker. I guess because of Irene. The one I had after Irene’s birth was so kind and generous. I wanted to make a difference somewhere in this world. I don’t know. I grew up in the fabricated, idealistic world of the sixties. We marched in the streets of downtown Montreal chanting love and peace slogans, tossing pennies at the homeless who huddled around Metro stations waiting for a miracle of food. Jesus dividing the loaves and fishes so everyone could eat. No Jesus. I was one of those innocent flower children who burned her bra and wore sheer, tie-dye skirts and peasant blouses. Yeah, I was a hot chick; nothing like Velvet though. So many possibilities then.

  I wrecked my life. My fault. I chose my life, just like Jan did. No one forced me to sleep with my boyfriend; no one forced me to move here, even Mona, my decision alone. Only have myself to blame. We are responsible for our lives. Do I sound like I’m trying to convince myself? Convince you? One night and poof, like that, everything changed. “You made your bed. Now you can lie in it,” my mother used to always chant at me, like her life was any better.

  But I had my tenants. Frosty said I intruded on their lives but, you know, when shit happened, I was the one they came to for the fixing. I was like a den mother there, and besides, it reminded me that my life was decent enough compared to some of them.

  Anyhow, that’s the story there.

  GOODNIGHT, IRENE

  Adeen closes Irene’s bedroom door with a gentle twist to the knob. It is always a victory to see Irene settled and in bed. With no air conditioning, the unbearable heat in the apartment makes caring for Irene an almost impossible task. The series of impulsive tantrums and exhausting pursuits that inevitably occur when the heat rises always results in Adeen on the verge of tears. Over the years, however, Adeen has discovered a solution, a last resort that has become a bedtime ritual. She sings “Goodnight, Irene.” This repetitious folk lullaby, a natural sedative, always manages to lull her daughter into a peaceful sleep for a few hours.

  Adeen tiptoes past Frosty’s six-foot-four frame, outstretched on the second-hand corduroy couch, a rescue from a fleeing tenant. Soiled bare feet dangle over the edge; he has been snoozing since Adeen returned from showing Velvet the vacancy. He is now stirring.

  “Did she take the apartment?” he mutters drowsily.

  “Oh. Didn’t mean to wake you up.”

  “Can’t sleep none how.” He sits up, ruffling his hair with his fingers, but the front curls insist on springing back onto his forehead
.

  “Yeah, took a while. Velvet, what a weird name! Reminds me of those garish Presley paintings done on black velvet, the ones you see in those cheap motels on the way out of town. Anyhow, I convinced her that the apartment was a bargain. She liked that she could see the sky and downtown from the balcony. ‘Like home,’ she said. Mr. Swank should be pleased that I signed up another tenant, filled up that difficult vacancy. And considering the economy, it seems to me this might be a good time to ask for a raise.”

  “When she movin’ in?”

  “She signed the lease and is moving in tonight. Needs a place real quick, she says.”

  “Blue Velvet Coburn sounds like the name of a rock band. Think that’s a real name?” Frosty says in his usual soft drawl as he heads for the fridge and a Molson. Adeen follows and both seat themselves at the kitchen table. Adeen is digging into a salad bowl of chipped ice.

  “People name their kids after anything these days. It’s the trend. So yeah, I believe her.”

  “You told her about what happened up there?”

  “Yep. Showed her where they landed and everything. Didn’t seem to bother her one way or another. She seemed hesitant at first. Don’t know why. Tried to sell her on the benefits of renting at the Complex Arms — close to everything, you know the drill. Going to look for work tomorrow after she settles in, she said.”

  “What kinda work she lookin’ for?”

  “Waitress jobs. Hope she’s not a troublemaker.”

  “Adeen.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Stay out of her business.”

  “Not crazy for the bitch, so not to worry.”

  She slides two mini cubes of ice inside her mouth and starts to mash them like a dog gnawing on a bone, her left cheek out to there with the crush. Frosty is laughing.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You still have your clown face.”

  “Oh, I haven’t had a chance to wash up.”