Poison Shy Read Free

it. For her, it was literally a security blanket, some kind of signal-muffling force field that kept her safe from harm.
    Whenever those government lasers came beaming through her windows, usually between three and five a.m., she’d burst into the hall, donning her blanket like a cloak, and begin banging on her neighbours’ doors, cursing like a lunatic. She was the filthy woman with the wild hair, the blanketed zombie in 33C who gave all the kids nightmares.
    â€œWhy in the world would the government want access to your thoughts?” I asked her on one of those rare occasions I felt bold enough to challenge her conspiracy theories.
    She looked at me and held up a veiny, trembling hand. “If I told you, then you’d be in danger, Brandon.” She hacked up some phlegm and spat into the bucket at her feet. “They never target the target. They’re very cunning. They go after your loved ones. That’s how they violate your soul.”
    I wanted to vomit at the thought of someone I loved being so far gone. I was filling her fridge with groceries at the time, so she didn’t see me shudder. All the teenagers I’d tried to hire as grocery boys had quit. She’d scared them away with volcanic prophecies of doom and death. In the end I had to do the shopping myself, but I didn’t mind. It gave me an excuse to visit, and I think she was grateful for the company.
    One time, while I was organizing soup cans by brand — she was meticulous about this for some reason — she said, “I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints.”
    I turned to look. Her gaze was fixed on the TV screen. She was watching one of those televised religious services on mute. An old man in a purple robe lifted his hands toward the stained glass above his head.
    â€œAre you talking to me, Ma?”
    â€œHmm?”
    â€œYou said something about a drunk woman . . .”
    â€œI did?”
    â€œYou just said it, Ma.”
    She stared at me blankly. “I must have been talking to Jesus.”
    I shook my head, my heart crumbling a little at what she’d become. It’s only now I can see that she was giving me some kind of warning, whether she knew it or not.
    A good chunk of my paycheque went to booze. I was twenty-nine and single with a decent job and very few living expenses. My apartment above the laundromat was rent controlled. I ate a lot of fast food: macaroni, veggies and dip, canned soup, peanut butter and jelly — your basic bachelor’s diet.
    Chad was my sole drinking buddy. His rediscovered lust for women had helped him forget about his sporting fame that never was. He liked them tall and full-figured, with big asses and saggy bell-clapper breasts. A girl who could touch her nipple to her belly button drove Chad wild. No matter where we went, he always seemed to find a girl who just happened to be into meatheads with out-of-control chest hair.
    I wasn’t so lucky. My approach to meeting women was essentially a non-approach. I liked to sit back, make eye contact, smile, and wait for them to come to me. It didn’t work every time — in fact it rarely worked. Most nights I was left to wander home alone after Chad had helped his soon-to-be conquest into a cab. I didn’t mind, really; there was always Internet porn, one hundred percent STD-free.
    Chad’s favourite bars were what I call plush holes — dimly lit date joints with high tables and cushioned stools that served ice wine and raspberry-flavoured beer. I couldn’t stand them. He said he went for the bimbos. I went because I didn’t have any other friends.
    One night, I told Chad I was in the mood for something different. We went to this new place called The Bloody Paw I’d read about in
The Frayne Exchange
. According to the article, the bar’s owner was an environmentalist named Viktor Lozowsky. He’d spent the last few years in the Northwest Territories, canvassing