The Town Beyond Their Recollection

He put out his smoke in Misty’s ashtray. The door was already open and his leg was hanging out. He leaned back even further and yanked his other one. His pointed boot clacked as it landed against the pavement.

“Toad!” he heard as he stood up only slightly wobbling.

A woman approached him from behind, “You got a second?”

The pointed boots turned parallel with the car and he squinted at her.

“All I’ve got is seconds, lady, what do you want this time?”

He leaned against the open door and smirked, a wild twinkle in his now wide open eyes.

Five years ago Toad met a different lady named Jane and they would go for a trip every now and then. His cat would always join them, adventuring, camping over on the big island, drinking homemade port and playing cards beside a fire.

Jane died one summer between then and now and time, for Toad, has shattered beyond repair. He’s glitchy now and his shirts always feel like they’re still on the hanger.

“You’re such an old flirt, Toad, stop it,” the lady said through her big smile as she thwacked him on the belly with a sturdy pile of mail.

“You’re too good to me,” he said putting his hand on top of hers.

She dragged her hand away slowly and then stood there holding more eye contact than Toad could really handle. He mentally inspected his bushes and playfully grinded his teeth. The cat purred around his ankles.

“There was a girl here today snooping around your porch.

I yelled at her a bit to see what she was doing.

She said she just comes here sometimes and you don’t mind.”

Toad’s face dropped into a scowl.

“Snoop is right!” he said pretty snappy. “That damn girl is always trying to influence me and extract my secrets.”

He leaned over into his car and snatched up the brown paper bag from the backseat. He nodded at his neighbour.

“I got you the good food, Beauty,” he cooed as they walked inside together.

Beauty sat on the stool while he prepared their dinner.

He scratched her on the head while he chewed steak and potatoes and a few roasted baby carrots from his garden.

She licked his hand while he sipped the last drops of port.

Early the next morning the phone rang.

There was no way Toad was rushing out of bed on a Sunday for anyone.

“Hey, it’s Toad, if I like you leave a message, if I don’t, then don’t.”

“Uh hi Toad, it’s Stacey. I came by yesterday. You said you had some blueberries for me. I didn’t see any but I stole a popsicle. You need to cool it on the sugar, man, there’s like fifty boxes of frozen treats at your place. Someone oughta spank some sense into you, old goon.

I love you.

Okay bye.”

His body relaxed when he heard the click.

He had kind of actually wanted to rush out of bed for that one.

Instead he sat there a bit smug, thumbing the edge of his duvet - a big warm floral duvet Stacey snagged him at an estate sale a few weeks ago. He wouldn’t have thought floral would work on him, but the big dark roses felt charming in his hermit cave.

He slid out of bed putting each foot right into a wooly slipper as it landed on the floor. He loved the way his body would just do things once he had practiced enough.

He shuffled off to the freezer and selected an orange creamsicle.

A memory flashed through him like a bolt of lighting. Jane standing against the barn door, one shoulder bare, tonguing an orange creamsicle in the sunshine while he shot frame after frame of every little flinch she made.

He moaned leaning against the counter. He felt the weight of his kidneys and stretched out the cranky voice of his seventy year old spine.

When the creamsicle was done he hit the flashing button and listened to Stacey’s voicemail one more time. Deleted it. Then got dressed to go for a drive.

Every morning Toad ended up at the grocery store cafe even though every day he truly fooled himself into thinking he didn’t know where he would end up. His double espresso run extra extra long was ready by the time he got to the counter.

There was pretty much a line up of women waiting for their daily dose of Mr gruff-but-sweet-and-handsome-but-too-old-to-be-anybody-yet-young-enough-to-make-em-tingle. That’s what he figured anyways, by the looks of things.

He dropped ample change in the tip jar and took his seat by the window with a slice of the paper. Thick cream curled around in his dark coffee.

“Who cares.

Who cares.

Who cares…” he said to himself a little louder than he meant to as he flipped through the local news. Then he bit his tongue and nearly choked when he saw Stacey’s picture across the last page.

Stacey grew up in a farming town in local Ontario and knew a lot about pigs and goats and chickens and things that Toad thought would be neat to know but weren’t in his line of duty this lifetime.

Her strange storehouses of knowledge were one of the things he liked best about her, but he liked to play it up that she was taking all his precious energy making him imagine a world he didn’t need to inhabit.

Toad felt wrapped in the mystery of the universe as he read the article on Stacey petitioning for bi laws against killing barn owls. Who cares crossed his mind again, but he kept reading. Her skin was so soft and she gave the best massages and for some reason she just kept coming around.

Ten times more effective rodent killer than a cat. Otherwise harmless. Not a bad omen at all. “People need to take their heads out of their asses and stop using ignorance as an excuse to itch their boredom with harassing nature,” they quoted Stacey.

Wow, he thought. Do they usually let people say “asses” in this paper? Do I ever even actually read the paper? I dunno, he scratched his still-pretty-decent head of hair. You can learn a lot reading the paper, I guess.

He liked when Stacey got all fired up. Her sentences got longer and they wound around like a mountain road - you can feel that you’re making your way to a climax, you know it’s coming, but the relief and beauty are still always rather breath taking.

Relief and beauty always exceed expectations, don’t they? He thought as he stuck his hand in his pocket and rattled the car keys rhythmically against every finger.

The day passed and he didn’t call Stacey back.

Next morning, same thing, except before the cafe his car took him to the old barn.

He wondered if there were any owls in it.

He didn’t end up going in to find out. He didn’t even get out of the car. He just sat there in the vibrations of the loitering vehicle - thinking about Jane.

She looked really bad at the end, he thought. Wow, you’re a jerk, he replied to himself. Sorry sweetie, if you can hear me, I only half meant it. You could have been painted with shit and still sparkled radiant.

His lower lids pooled up with tears threatening to fall all over his face. He stretched his eyes open as far as they would go so maybe this wouldn’t have to count as the one billionth time he’d cried missing her.

He never thought he’d be a sappy person missing anything. As much as he loved routine, life was always fresh, buzzing in the exactness of the moment. Maybe that’s the joy of being such a simple man, he thought. He felt tender towards everything.

He missed her. He missed her so much he could have fed himself to the angry pitbull up the road.

“Just have me!” he screamed at the dark sky threatening to pour.

Just have me, Jane had screamed at him on their first camping trip. They were drunk and he had won at cards. She was being saucy offering herself as the prize, a sore but hilarious loser.

He blinked and the fat drops rolled down his tanned cheeks. It started to rain. He backed out of there all foggy with grief, yet swollen with the tenacity of love that defies the pain from actually causing you to completely crumble.

He could feel her all around. He knew she was swinging from the rafters in there. She was running towards the ocean to collect wild rose petals before they were all swept to the ground in the days of rain ahead. She was hopping in the back seat ordering him around like a chauffeur in some well done foreign accent. She was everywhere.

The Americano burned his gut, just like every other morning, and he groaned as he headed home for a nap.

Stacey was sitting in the chair closest to his door eating an ice cream sandwich. His boots clickity-clacked as he made his way into the patio.

He never ceased to be entertained by all his own decor choices. Behind Stacey was a great 2D gargoyle he thought of as Patsy.

He boogied past them both and headed to his bed without saying a word.

Stacey licked her fingers and followed him in grabbing a stool along the way.

The stool went at the foot of the bed and they both settled in.

Stacey reached her hands up to the top of her head and rested them there a second before pushing them all the way up as far as they would go straight above her. Then she let her hands and arms fall slowly slowly down to her sides. Her eyes were closed but fluttering and her deep breathing made a nice hum.

Toad watched her and then closed his eyes and wiggled down into his soft mattress underneath the floral duvet.

She put her hands on his feet and started working them the way she was trained. This is how she paid her rent.

“Ow ow ow,” he blurted.

“Shut up, you know this helps,” she answered instantly and continued, “You're always dementing reality, saying things you don’t mean, saying the exact opposite of how you really feel.”

Wow apparently she was feeling daring and passionate, she noticed to herself.

“…and…” she continued but trailed off smirking now as she worked her way up to his knee.

He couldn’t help but moan. It felt so good.

“That’s what I thought,” she said. “I also think you’d be better off telling the truth. It’s like, yea yea yea I get it, you needed to protect yourself way back when so you developed this character. But it’s me. And it’s now. It might just be safe to say how you really feel?!”

He craned his head up to look her straight on. “I find you repulsive when you tell me what to do, you know that right?!”

“Keep it in your pants, my friend, relax,” she said shaking out his lower limbs. “Anyways, that’s it, just a little bit of lovin’ today, I gotta get you to your appointment.”

“What appointment?” He did not want to move.

“The one you marked in huge red letters on your calendar.”

“This is the one they’re going to tell me how long I’ve got left? Let’s skip it. I don’t want to know.”

“What do you want to do instead?”

They went for a drive, dropped by the garden and harvested some goodies. Then they chuckled over strong coffee and quickly melting ice cream down by the ferry dock.

Stacey was also very good at accents, like Jane, a spunky renaissance woman. Toad straightened up a bit feeling pretty proud to be sitting with her there in such a public place.

Stacey was offering Toad what she called a “whisper theatre”. Each person that approached the shop counter was the subject of a brief monologue.

Each person had been told exactly when they will die.

“Good morning everyone [perky southern drawl] I’m Trixie Detoya and I’ve got a year at best. I plan to use it painting my nails and acting like everything is just as dandy as the feathers in my hat. I won’t tell a soul and then momma will sing at my funeral and everyone will be truly heart wrenched and the flowers will be just incredible.”

They made eye contact and smiled before the next delivery was due.

“Hello, Vladimir here [deep slow Russian voice]. I’ve never had much to say, even less now that my days are limited. I conserve my energy for take off. Inner child wants hot chocolate though. Whip cream, dah.”

The Russian accent was one of their all time favourites. Vladimir sat surprisingly close to them once he’d received his warm drink.

“Yo, everybody make room, it’s Richie [very white wannabe rap star voice]. I’ve got just two months left in this funky flesh suit… and shit do I really regret livin at my parents house all this time… saving money seems duuuumb AF now. I vow to spend spend every last cent on hot sex.”

Toad chuckled at that one.

“Okay, just one more.” he tells her while rubbing his belly and scrunching his face before letting out a big burp.

When they got back to Toad’s they laid on the big wide woven hammock together in the backyard. Toad hiked up his pant legs and opened his shirt. Stacey took hers off.

“What’s with the owl thing?” Toad asked.

“Oh you saw the article,” Stacey rolled her eyes. “I look like a troll in that photo.” Toad watched her breasts jiggle as she scratched her freckled skin in an irritated twitch. “I know you don’t want me to say this, but we could talk about what’s happening with you and like maybe I can help you organize some things. You know? I think you’d be relieved to have that done.”

Grumble.

gRUMBLe.

Tension. Tension. Tension.

“No.” he finally said, rolling off the hammock and shuffling inside to the freezer like an old beat up pirate on a mission for stolen jewels.

A lot of grief came up in her chest and she stretched her arms out wide.

She breathed in so so deeply.

He shuffled back out the heavy metal screen door and it clanked behind them as he arrived at her side. He stood staring at the poppies and handed her a popsicle.

“Well don’t drop it all on my head at the last second,” she said opening the wrapper. “It’ll all be hard enough.”

She made a sound that sounded a bit like a sniffle.

He snapped his head to look at her and snarled, stretching his lips and baring his teeth, heavy breathing for a very full effect.

She wanted to be brave and keep leaning in, but everything was so electric she didn’t quite trust herself to handle it.

They ate in silence. Their mouths changed colours.

Toad was still standing. He tilted his head back until it was completely reclined nuzzling the sky with his pointy nose that matched his pointed boots. His feet were bare on the earth and he felt suddenly utterly at peace.

He hadn’t felt this kind of bliss since making love to Jane and he wondered if her angelic self wasn’t fondling him right at that moment. Time seemed to stretch kindly in every direction, all concerns obliterated.

Jane had been dragging him over to the other side since she left… or was it rather just him dragging her heels behind her, classically pretending he wasn’t in a rush and probably had other important things to do.

He shrugged to himself, satisfied with how everything had turned out.

Jane, like Stacey, used to poke at him to spare less energy on sarcasm.

“I love you,” he said.

His hand plopped down purposeful and awkward on the top of Stacey’s head.

“Yah,” she replied exhaling longer than most humans are able.

He stood there smiling in the gorgeous sun, his hand still on her head, his thumb hanging down stroking her third eye.