Transits Page 7

  They laid the frame against the bedroom wall. “Mom was pretty worried.”

  “Yes, she was a bit stressed out the first time I came by, but that time she was all smiles.”

  Tess's voice was bitter. “She has her moments.”

  “Ah girl, after fifty they get worried about the slightest thing. Sure, if the postman doesn't show up on time, they're saying novenas until they hear the clink in the mailbox. That's all you can do.”

  Tess laughed.

  After he left, she squatted down by the couch and opened one of the boxes. Botany books, old letters and postcards from her years at U of T stacked up around her feet. She picked up a photo album and noticed that the cellophane was losing its stick. She leafed through the pages of her and Peter's life—awkward grins and gangly limbs.

  A picture fell on the floor, an old black and white photo. It was her mother—vibrant, standing out on a cliff —staring back at her. Her arms reached out to the sides, palms open, and a crooked adoring grin pointed at the photographer, Tess's father.

  The phone rang and broke Tess from her thoughts. She laid the album on the couch and went to answer it.

  Peter sounded tired. “Mom called. She's depressed.”

  “What? I suppose she thinks I hate her now?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Oh, God! What am I supposed to do? I'm twenty-three and we're still playing this game!”

  “Jesus, Tess girl, you know what she's like. Call her.”

  A dog's bark pulsed in the background. “She has to understand that I have my own life. That I'm actually busy.”

  “You just moved back after five years, and you don't have a few days to catch up with your family?”

  “You just don't…”

  “What?”

  The dog was off its leash. It was yelping right under her window.

  “I don't know.”

  Peter's voice was quiet. “Just call her.”

  Tess hung up and fell into the couch. She remembered back to when she was eleven years old, Peter, thirteen. The couch had just been delivered. They were huddled together on the middle cushion, eyes fixed on the kitchen. Peter's bony arm was clasped around her shoulders. Their mother, framed by the archway, leaned against the fridge. Mrs Furlong was begging her to lie down. Tess's hand was forced into a buttonhole, clutching at the foam inside. They could see their mother crying. They watched her slowly slide down the side of the fridge, until finally, she sat splayed out at the bottom. Her pupils like dark shiny buttons. Her body limp like a flower past its bloom.

  “Hi, how are you?”

  Her mother replied in a heavy voice, “I'm all right.”

  Tess could hear the television in the background. “Listen, I'm sorry about today. I didn't mean to stress you out.”

  “Don't worry. I don't think we ever understood each other. You think I'm a real bitch.” The word bitch caught in her throat like a sob.

  Tess's voice was calm. “Now Mom, there's no need to get on like that. I made a mistake and I shouldn't have left you with so much to do. I'm sorry. Don't be angry.”

  “I just don't want you to think I'm a bitch.” Her voice was a whisper.

  “Mom I could never think you're a bitch.”

  “I didn't know what to do. He was standing there looking at me, asking me your address.”

  “Mom, don't go worrying about that now. It's all taken care of. I'll drop by and see you tomorrow.”

  “You don't have to do that; there's nothing here for you.”

  “Mom, you're there, I want to see you.”

  The next day Tess caught the bus to Mount Pearl. Her thoughts raced by with the passing houses.

  On the day of their mother's breakdown, Tess and Peter moved in with the Furlongs. It was one of those brutal Newfoundland Aprils when the snow was in no hurry to leave. Mr. Furlong helped them pack their bags. She remembered him leaning over and saying, “Now Tessy, my love, don't you worry about a thing. Your Mom's not feel­ing well and she just needs a break. Your father has been gone for a long time and it gets hard raising two youngsters by yourself. She'll be home again soon enough and life will be right back to normal.” Each word piled onto her chest, struggling to find a place to rest. That day they walked through the snow to the Furlongs' place. The cold numbed her and the falling snow wove a shroud of secrecy around the whole event.

  The bus stopped a few streets short of her mother's house. She got out and began walking. The sun measured a thin shadow in front of her. She passed the young birches just beginning to change colour. Finally she turned onto her street. When she approached their gate she instinctively clung to the post.

  Her mother was crouched at the far end of the garden planting bulbs. Tess watched her carefully pick up each bulb and hold it to the light, before placing it into one of the holes she had dug. She packed the soil on top and shifted her body to the left. She was making her way along the back fence.

  Tess felt her hand melt into the wood. She watched her mother in silence.

  Tess and Peter had stayed with the Furlongs for about three months. Every day, Tess would go by her house, haunting the grounds and looking in the windows. On her fourth week away, she ran into her yard after church. She was wearing a new lilac dress. It was too cold out for the thin cotton that day, even though it was May. Her mother had bought it shortly before she went away. They found it in the Sears catalogue—the spring edition. Her mother had said, “Maybe it will help this God-forsaken winter to stop.”

  Tess walked around to the sunny side of the bungalow where their kitchen faced. She reached up and grabbed the edge of the window, pushing her feet against the siding for support. The darkened glass mirrored her upturned face. She looked past her image. The room took shape as her eyes adjusted to the light. The stove, fridge and sink came into focus. In the back, against the wall, something moved. She clung frozen for a moment and then fell back in terror.

  She ran back to the Furlongs'. Ran blinded by tears. She ran away from the image of her mother—trapped in the stillness—staring back at her. Tess opened the gate and walked towards the house. Her mother turned at the sound of her footsteps. She sat kneeling as Tess approached.

  Tess waved.

  “Oh, you made it.”

  “I said I'd come.”

  “Well, since you're here you may as well help me.” Her mother held out a spade.

  “I don't know. I'm not really dressed for it.”

  “Oh, come on. You can put this bag under your knees.” She pulled the bag from under her and laid it out for Tess. The damp soil immediately clung to her light cotton pants.

  Tess knelt down on the white plastic. “Mom, about yesterday—”

  “Look,” her mother rushed, “I know that I get upset easily but you also have to learn to be more thoughtful.”

  “I didn't do it on purpose, Mom.”

  “I know, let's not dwell on it.” Her mother held Tess's hand and she placed a tulip bulb in it. Tess embraced the bud. Its outer skin felt dry and frail. “Anyway… how's your new apartment?”

  “It's fine.” Tess hesitated. “You wouldn't believe what turned up there yesterday.”

  Her mother looked at her.

  Tess paused for a breath. “Our old couch, the one you bought from the Furlongs years ago.”

  Her mother sat further back on her knees. “My God, what grave did you dig that that up from?”

  Tess shifted. “Peter managed to get it somewhere. It's in pretty bad shape.”

  “It was never very good.”

  “Yeah, that's for sure.”

  Her mother pulled absently at the soil. “You know, I used to think that Jack and Ruth shipped all their unhappiness over in that couch, it was so ugly.” She tried to laugh.

  Tess knelt waiting for something more. Her mother touched her leg and without looking at her said, “I have to run in and get the watering jug.”

  Tess said nothing as her mother walked away. She pushed the bulb into the
earth and covered it in soil.

  Shoot Now

  by Sean Flinn

  I've shot a bunch of videos down in Havana. Probably started, oh I don't know, in 1999. Done one a year since.

  Beautiful locations, easy to find extras, dancers, pretty girls and good-looking guys to play roles. And it's cheap. Shake your head all you want, man. I love these videos. I've made my name on them.

  I just finished my latest. Biggest shoot with the most locations and a solid story. The story: the talent, who I won't name in case I say something shitty about him—he's dumb as a post, actually—is vacationing with his buddies at a beach resort just outside Havana, Playa Santa Maria Del Mar. He falls in love with this local girl who works at the resort. But her boyfriend, a local tough-guy finds out. The boys clash. The girl chooses. I won't spoil the surprise. Watch for it.

  Angel—or “awn-HELL” if you speak Spanish—whose family came to Toronto from Cuba when he was a boy, is my DP, director of photography. Angel's stuck with me from the start. He's a genius behind the camera. It was his idea to shoot on the island. He hooked me and Cindy up with the right people. And the ladies fucking love Angel: a ripped black guy who speaks Spanish.

  Me, Angel and Cindy, my girlfriend and producer of all my videos for her company Shoot Now Films, blocked out all these cool sequences to tell the story.

  In one, the talent dances in a courtyard at La Catedral de la Habana, a chorus of local beauties behind him. A Son band that claimed the courtyard, bitched at us for screwing up their gig that day. So get this, we worked them into a shot, getting the Cuban girl, the love interest, to flirt with them. They were all smiles. The Son band played with this big arched wood door, painted turquoise with the curvy black wrought iron trellis behind them. Fucking gorgeous, man.

  The boyfriend pulls up on this skeletal motorbike. He freaks out at his girl. The talent steps up to him. We choreograph this fight-dance. Like that Michael Jackson video that the talent's fans are too young to remember. The boyfriend can't really dance but we get enough out of him.

  Lots of locations. Fucking exhausting. We went hard for, like, four or five days, working almost 18 hours each day.

  Me and Cindy always stay a few days after the shoot, before heading back to start post-production in Toronto. We always stay on Playa Santa Maria Del Mar, about a half hour drive from Havana, to hang out and drink on the beach.

  This time I end up staying by myself. On the last day of shooting, me and Cindy have a blowout.

  We're wiped. Thirty-six degrees or something. Bound to happen.

  Shooting on this street in Old Havana, not Calle Obispo, not Calle O'Reilly, which I always thought was a weird street name for La Habana. I can't remember the street name.

  Whatever the street's called, it does the trick: narrow, walled in by tall tenements with patchy bright paint and stucco. Sun-bleached wooden doors, cracked cobblestones. Old folks hobbling past.

  I get Angel, who speaks Spanish, like I said, to ask this one kid to repeat putting a bucket of water on a rope so her grandmother could haul it up again to her top-floor room. We shoot it from a few angles.

  The chaos starts when this rusted fucking oil truck rumbles past my AD, assistant director. Apparently this idiot doesn't see my AD, Shelley, yelling at him to stop. She's got perky tits. You think he'd stop. He tries to break, grinds the gears. The truck stalls and rolls on to our set.

  “For FUCK'S SAKE, Angel, talk to that moron!” I shout.

  Angel rushes over to the driver. A few old Cuban guys gather to give their two cents on the truck's problem.

  “Calm down, Steve, calm DOWN!” Cindy bellows at me.

  When I'm mad, I really hate anyone telling me to ‘calm down.'

  At that moment, I fucking hate her. I scream something nasty at her. My crew all turn to look at me

  It gets worse.

  Steam billows from the truck. It's not moving any time soon.

  I turn back to see if Cindy is coming to give me shit. She's at it with some white guy. A tourist geared up like he walked right out of an outdoors shop. You know the type: high-tech runners, yellow backpack with a million compartments, cargo shorts, doo-rag and a dreaded lock of hair down his back.

  He's right up in Cindy's face. She's wearing her producer game face: no emotion, listening, or pretending to.

  I'm not the biggest guy around, maybe six feet tall. But I work out, like, five times a week back home, have a long-barrelled pistol tattoo on each forearm. My hair's no-bullshit shaved. I wear black jeans, t-shirt and workboots, even in this heat.

  I don't like this guy in Cindy's face.

  When I get close, the force of his voice hits me like two hands on my chest. “Don't you think these people suffer enough without your exploitation?! You have to come here to make MUSIC VIDEOS?!”

  Before I say anything, I check to see that Shelley, my AD, gets the talent away from the situation. She does.

  “Hey motherfucker, what's your problem?!” I say right into the side of this guy's head. He doesn't take his eyes off Cindy.

  “Okay, Steve, calm down. Don—Don, right?—has some concerns. I think we should hear him out. Don, can I get you a bottled water?”

  “No you can't. I've got some in my backpack.” Don spits before turning to meet my fuck-you stare.

  I say: “Look, pal, we've got permits to shoot here. We employ Cuban people on our set. They're happy to have us. Now, grab a bottle of water and go FUCK OFF!”

  I can't see his eyes. Mirrored shades. In his lenses, I look so tired. Too tired to finish this.

  Two officers of the Policia Nacional in their heavy blue uniforms and black boots cruise by in a van with a low cabin in back. They'll never hassle a guy like me. I'm money. Permitted by authority.

  “Here, have some reading material. Like I said, watch your shit,” Don says before briskly walking off.

  I look down at the flyer: Cuba Libre! Free Cuba from North American tourist-colonization and pop culture exploitation. No names printed on it. Just a fist raised in the air. On the other side, the same message in Spanish, Angel confirms.

  The officers get out of their van and talk to us. Their English isn't bad. They ask questions about the shoot, the talent. They recognize the flyer and tell us student protestors, posing as tourists (not hard to do) come down, move from one cheap hotel to the next, causing shit.

  As the sun drops, shoot over, me and Cindy walk most of Playa Santa Maria Del Mar, staying on the wet sand—more stable under our feet. I bring a few of those watery Cristal beers in a plastic bag.

  Cindy's still pretty pissed at me for yelling at her and butting in when she was handling Don the Protestor. If that's his name. Cindy goes home the next day. Usually we screw every night after shoots end – in our room with the sliding door wide open. The moonlight turns everything in our room blue, including Cindy's ass.

  Angel goes too. He's eager to see the film, his work, before I get back and editing starts.

  So now I'm on my own, feeling sorry for myself.

  I decide a couple days of drinking and forgetting on the beach will do me good.

  We've stayed at this resort before. There used to be trees lining the entire length of the resort's beach. The owners thought tourists wanted unobstructed ocean views while they got drunk on the sand: so they cut them down except these ones I'm sitting under now. The wind can pick up and spray you with as much sand as water.

  The last stand of trees.

  Maybe this is my last stand shooting videos in Cuba. Don the Protestor got to me, the little prick.

  I start boozing as soon as the bar opens at eleven. Mojitos to kick off.

  “Hey, no, no, none of that shit, man.” I stop the bartender before he dumps mint syrup into the rum and soda. “Look, you got one of those, you know, plants, use that. It's not for show, for chrissakes.”

  I want fresh mint leaves crushed in my mojitos. I tip the bartender a few U.S. bucks, even though he looks all bent out of shape.

&n
bsp; The whole morning I drink mojitos. The rum cakes my mouth, gut, head, soul with sugar. Who needs syrup?

  I switch to beer eventually. Then straight rum—dark is best—and chase that with beer.

  “I keep my eye on you,” the bartender says, winking. Trying to be friendly, but I know he's serious too.

  I don't really swim. Just let my body fall into the water. I sit and piss dark yellow in the bright, shallow blue water.

  Couples frolic in the waves. They feel sorry for me. Especially the women. They think I'm alone. I am, but I got Cindy back home. I come close to hitting on one really hot woman. But I'm here to chill, not cause shit, I convince myself.

  I sleep long hours.

  One morning, I wake up restless. I shower fast, pull on jeans, flipflops and v-neck white t-shirt. I grab a Shoot Now ball cap.

  Almost out the door, I remember I can smoke now. I grab the pack from the dresser drawer. Cindy never lets me smoke during shoots: “You're already tense enough, Stevie.”

  “Hola, senor,” greets the cleaning lady, pushing her cart of coarse white towels that she twists into shells and birds to decorate the bed.

  “Hi,” I respond. I don't speak Spanish.

  Walking out front, Sinead O'Connor's “Nothing Compares 2 U” plays on the sound system. What's with the pale Irish chick music, I wonder, walking on the footbridge over the pool. I'm up too late for breakfast—food's shitty anyways—so I go for the bar.

  “Hola, senor,” the bartender says from under the straw awning.

  “You make film, no?” the bartender asks.

  Hung over, I don't feel like chatting. “Yeah. Do you have any guava?”

  Disappointed, he nods. He pulls a bowl of fruit from a small fridge. You can get smoothies and fresh juice.

  He slices the guava, the knife sinking easily into the fruit. He slides a chipped white plate with five or six boat-shaped pieces. The pink, creamy fruit makes me squint.

  “Wow, that's good, like, like pussy.” I laugh, just as an older couple walks by. The woman glares at me.

  I walk back to the building, through a small courtyard and out front to an airy lounge area. Fuck, I'm bored. Today and tonight, then home.