Controllers

by Matthew Walsh

 

The sign for Brighton read BRIGH because Hurricane Samantha ripped half the town sign down a summer before and it never got replaced.  On the highway, he told himself that there were people more fucked up than him, certainly. It took four hours to get to Brighton from Halifax. Grier would arrive in Brighton at 3 AM. He drove straight, stopping for coffee and wading in ferns up to his waist to piss, his breath fogging on the night air. Everything was quiet and dark.  The stars were so bright. He liked astronomy, but he could never see stars in the city because of the smog.

Finally, he pulled onto the dirt road that led to the cottage.

It was Lisa’s family cottage. She’d been staying there for the last six months. Grier squeezed the bridge of his nose, branches scratched the sides of his Lincoln, green leaves stunned in the headlights swathed over the windows.

Grier hit the breaks, and screamed. There was a moose in the middle of the road.

He honked. The moose wouldn’t move. What was a moose capable of? He knew they were the giants of the forest.  The cottage was a half-mile away, he could walk it, but the moose…. He couldn’t get the car around the moose. He backed up,  headlights on the moose, as it faced away from the car. Grier did his stress-breathing exercises.

Lisa banged on the car window. She had a frying pan in her hand, wearing a green bathrobe he’d never seen her in before. Her hair was wet. He rolled the window down. “What are you doing here?” Lisa demanded.

There were eggs in the frying pan,  enough for two. The moose was gone. He looked up at Lisa.

“I came to bring you a couple of things from the house.”

“And you slept here? You’re fucked, Grier.”

Grier knew Lisa was going to leave him when he caught her watching porn in the solarium. He came home to the condo on the eighteenth floor, kicking off his alligator shoes. He heard a faint new sound, buzzing, which he thought was the panini grill. When he opened the solarium door, he saw Lisa on the daybed with a pair of floral underwear around her ankles, a sweating glass of club soda and lime, through which he saw Lisa’s hand, with the controller, rewinding a scene that he’d missed but Lisa wanted to see again.

In Lisa’s other hand was a vibrating blue egg, which dropped from her hand and skittered along the oak floor. Lisa screamed, her leg tangled in the blanket and she fell hard on the floor, knees first. She screamed, holding her knee, the porn music whispering below the screams, the little blue egg buzzing on the floor like it had places to go.

Lisa couldn’t say how long she would be gone. Friends had been asking. Grier didn’t know what to tell them. She took nothing with her, but wanted the panini grill, but she left it behind even though she loved it.

Lisa was comfortable in the country with no internet, but she had a phone line. He didn’t know anyone who could live without the internet, he said to Lisa one night. “You don’t have to. You have plenty of internet in the city.” Lisa said.

“I don’t want the internet. I want you.” Grier confided walking around the small, empty blue room across from their bedroom. Lisa had painted it a starlight blue. “I should come out this weekend,” Grier said, looking down on the city from the blue room.

“I’ve gotta get three paintings ready for an installation in Stellarton.” Lisa countered.

Grier thought he would disrupt her creative process.  She went there to be alone. That’s what therapy teaches, Grier thought.  If Lisa needed solitude, he would provide it the only way he knew how, with his absence.

Grier and Lisa exchanged occasional emails, subject header: CONDO. He refused to sell the condo. He would not downgrade. Grier spent more time at the office, working on menu layouts for restaurant chains.

One night he dreamed about dogs.  For two days he walked by a pet shop, and finally decided on a little white and brown dog. He brought the dog home but when the claws scratched the hardwood floor he thought he should return it. The wood was imported and expensive.

He tried keeping the dog on the kitchen laminate, but all it did was screech all night.  He tried to return the dog but the pet store would not let him. “There’s nothing wrong with the dog at all,” Grier said, setting the dog on the check-out counter. He rubbed the dog’s head and looked at the cashier.

“We can’t take the dog back because he’s been outside. He could make the other dogs sick.” The cashier stapled a stack of receipts together. “A pet is not a toss-off, Bucko.”

Bucko.

“It was a big mistake,” Grier said.

“We’re closing in ten minutes.”

A few days later, Grier thawed some tilapia fillets. He wanted to call Lisa but she was probably chopping down a tree. Diana arrived for dinner when the fish was crispy and hot. Diana had perfect timing. She wore a black dress with pearls, and took her shoes off at the door.  “Grier, why aren’t you smiling? Still not smiling yet? Aren’t you happy to see me?”

“I`m thinking about Lisa,” Grier said, pushing away his wine. Diana laughed with her whole face, putting a hand delicately on his shoulder. “You’re a real deluded one, my god, Grier! It’s been a year!”

“Six months.” Grier looked out at the sunset. “I feel incomplete without her,” Grier said, setting the dinner table.

“Well, Lisa feels complete without trying for the baby,” Diana said. “I’ve come to terms with her feelings.  She’s still so young, Grier.”

“She’s in Brighton.”

“The perfect place for her,” Diana said. “Oh, Grier, I love you both–even through the troubles.”

“She never liked you.”

“We’ll all laugh about it in a few years.”

Grier was not laughing. The three of them had been close through both procedures, and while Diana had done this kind of thing before, Lisa grew uncomfortable and distant, and dropped the idea of a shared parenting strategy.

Diana broke into her soft-boiled egg. “You should see the look on your face,” She said, “Think about getting a little tuck. Tighten your chin up.”

When she went to the bathroom, Grier snatched Diana’s phone up and checked her incoming messages. Lisa was there, sixth from the top! His eyes ate helplessly at the shared messages. They only went back a month, but Lisa mentioned someone named Sidney.

Was Sidney a lover from Brighton? Grier heard Diana cough and returned the phone to the side of her plate, pouring them both more wine. They had been such good friends he didn’t want to make things weirder. Diana came back, scratching her head. “Why is there a puppy dish in the kitchen?”

“Oh, Grier, you beloved fool,” Diana said, laughing helplessly as she put her shoes on. She was almost crying. She kissed both of his cheeks and then repeated the act. “Will you walk me to the lobby?” She asked.

“I’ll walk you to the elevator.”

Her purple coat was draped over her arm, and her lips were straight. “Oh, you cheer me up,” Diana said and kissed him softly on the neck before stepping out into the hallway in her bare feet. “Call me a cab?”

“You’re a cab.”

When Diana had left, Grier packed his car and drove to Brighton. He told her he didn’t want to fight. Lisa looked up the road, where Grier assumed this “Sidney” person was, possibly emerging from the shower, looking for his green housecoat. He got out of the car and stood in front of Lisa for the first time in six months. “I had the urge to see you,” Grier said. “Work is bonkers. Totally bonkers. I brought you something.”

“What?” Lisa asked. Grier gestured to the back window. She peered in, then frowned. “The panini grill?”

“It’s the panini grill.”

“Grier–”

“I panicked. I had to see you!” Grier said, with his arms open. Lisa started walking towards the cabin, shaking the cold eggs out of the frying pan along the dirt road. He followed her. Lisa’s pace quickened, until she reached the front doorsteps, where she shut the door behind her. Grier stood in the driveway, hands in his pockets.

Lisa came out later and handed him a black coffee. She wore jeans and a shirt, one Grier remembered picking out for her. “I`m going out for a few hours, so why don’t you go into town and do something?”

“I`ll just stay–”

“No, you won’t,” Lisa said, jingling her keys around her ring finger. “And you design restaurant menus, how can work be totally bonkers?”

“Do you know how many pictures of hamburgers end up looking like top hats on menus?”

“I couldn’t even guess.”

“Tons of them.”

“I`ll be back late,” Lisa said, pointing at Grier’s car. “I need you to leave so I can leave.”

“Then I might go to that diner in Bayfield, that country kitchen,” Grier said. Lisa got in her car, giving him a thumbs-up, then waited for him to drive off. He watched her shrink in his rear-view from her spot in the middle of the road.

When he came back from Bayfield, the moose was in the road again. A small one. A bag of apples was sitting beside it. Grier honked at the moose and this time it looked at him with big wet eyes. He parked the car, and slowly walked around the moose, who huffed at him and slowly chewed an apple.

Lisa had taken the extra front door key from the hiding spot. Grier walked circles around the cottage, looking for an opening. At the back of the house was the bedroom. Through the sliding glass doors he saw that Lisa had rearranged things. Large canvasses leaned against the wall, a large nest of blankets laid beside her bed.

Grier froze and looked into the foliage. He took a few steps and listened. Something was out there, he thought. He walked back to the car. The moose was gone, the apples trampled and scattered everywhere. He waited cautiously in his car, checking the door locks.

When Lisa’s car honked behind his, Grier drove up to the cottage. Lisa was out before him. It was dark, and the stars were out, and Lisa had a box with her. He wanted to know where she had gone, but instead, he said, “There was a moose in the road!”

“Sometimes she comes around. She’s been around here since the winter.” Lisa said, tenderly, as she opened the door to the cottage and put the box on the counter. “She’s a bit of a local celebrity.”

“Pretty tiny for a moose,” Grier said, folding his arms.

“She’s a juvenile. You’d know all about that,” Lisa said, smiling. Grier breathed a sigh of relief. She was laughing, she was opening up.

“I think she’s sick.”

“She has a healthy appetite,” Lisa said, pouring water from the faucet. “You should check into a hotel if you don’t plan on driving back to the city.”

“I had dinner with Diana last night.”

“Why are you here?” Lisa tried to say calmly. Grier took his shoes off. “Don’t take your shoes off. You aren’t staying!”

“Why?”

“Go back to the city!”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know why you’re here!” Lisa stormed towards the shoes, grabbing them before Grier could stop her. She chucked them across the lawn, then pushed Grier out on the porch. “Why would you come here and mention Diana?”

“I thought you would want to know!”

“I don’t want to know!” Lisa said.  They spoke through the crack in the door.

“I thought you loved Diana!”

“Leave, please.”

“We can make this work,” Grier said. Moths were flickering against the porch light, touching the bulb with their furry heads like they wanted to get inside the glowing circle. “Make it work together.”

“It was a mistake!” Lisa said, closing and locking the door. Grier walked down the steps and into the grass. His socks were soaked, the night was misty. Fog rolled in from the lake and swamps north of the property. Grier found his left shoe and looked up at the house, all black and closed up and not his anymore.

The shed wasn’t locked so Grier slept in it. He woke up in the early morning to another sound. Blue light shone over the top of the trees, and through a gap in the shed wall he could see the moose, racing towards Lisa who stood off the porch with a bowl. His immediate urge was to scream out, but the moose came to a halt and nuzzled Lisa with its head. Lisa pressed her head to its cheek. She held an apple in her hand and the moose ate from it, licking Lisa’s palm.

The moose came around because Lisa was feeding it. When she left, Grier called animal services and a man showed up with a rifle. “She is a bit of a local celebrity,” Kenny with the rifle said, “moose being that friendly and coming from the woods must be sick.”

“Lyme disease.” Grier agreed, with his arms folded in front of his chest. Kenny combed the woods and couldn’t find the animal and promised he would be back at dusk. “Is dusk a good time for moose?” Grier asked.

“The best time,” Kenny said, swinging into his truck, and driving back to town.

Grier spent the afternoon collecting blueberries in a bucket. Lisa came back when he was carrying the panini grill to the porch. Lisa was swinging car keys on her middle finger. “Are you finally leaving?” Lisa called to him. She juggled a bag of groceries, looking around the property. Grier laid the panini grill on the porch. “What are you doing with the moose?”

“The moose comes around in the morning and I feed it,” Lisa said. “Diana texted me this morning. Please don’t drag me through shit again.”

“What did she say?” Grier thought Diana would be able to get through to Lisa, get everything back on track. Lisa put the groceries on the kitchen counter and leaned against the counter, looking at Grier disgustedly. “She said you had a dog.”

“I had a dog,” Grier said, “I left him tied to a pole outside work and when I came back he was gone.”

“Is that what happened? Could anyone be so heartless? Go find it, Grier. Go find that dog and be happy.”

“What are you doing with that moose?”

“It’s still a young moose. It needs me.”

“Animal services came to remove the moose.” Grier said.

“They came here, unprovoked, to stop a moose from sitting on a dirt road?”

Grier nodded seriously.

“I`m calling the police to remove you, how’s that?” Lisa went into the house with her cellphone and Grier followed her. It was almost late afternoon. When was dusk?

Lisa ran to the bedroom. She yelled at Grier for following her inside, and slammed the bedroom door in his face, but not before Grier saw the nest of blankets up close, with long dark hairs on the linens. Grier felt acid rise in his throat. “Do you have that animal sleeping with you in the house?”

“She has no mother!” Lisa said from behind the door.

“Is the moose Sidney?”

“The police are on their way!”

“Great, I have my amazing ordeal to explain,” Grier yelled, shaking the door handle.

“If a door’s closed, don’t open it!”

Grier bit his lip, wanting to scream but he didn’t want to treat her like an animal. He heard Lisa open the sliding glass door, and saw through the windows the top of her head coming around the house. From the porch, Grier spotted Lisa leading the moose back into the bedroom. A vehicle was coming up the road, and Grier’s heart sank further when he saw it was Kenny.

Kenny stepped down off the truck. Seeing Lisa in a white dress with the moose reminded Grier of the covers of romance novels. “Get off my goddamned property, Kenny!” Lisa shouted. Kenny held his hands up.

Grier heard more vehicles coming. Lisa disappeared inside with Sidney. From a window, Lisa screamed, “This is not your property, Grier. You think you own everything?”

Grier thought about where he left the dog. The day after buying it, he drank champagne to celebrate. Day-old, it had lost some of its bite. He made dinner and ate slowly while the dog whimpered at his feet. It sat under the table and rested its chin on the rung of the chair, maintaining eye contact and making Grier nervous. What the hell did it want?

The fish was dry, so Grier gave it to the dog. The puppy wobbled over and sniffed Grier’s foot. Grier raised his legs into the air. Grier put the champagne flute in the sink and went to bed with the door closed, thinking about the mistake he’d made.

Lisa and the moose stood in the window, unashamed, while Grier, Kenny and the people from animal services pooled around the house. Dusk, Grier thought. Lisa and Sidney stood side by side in the window as men approached the house.  One of the officers removed the panini grill off the porch. Grier rubbed the space between his eyes, thinking wildly. All this time? He thought, all this time? There were signs all over town: DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS. Grier hoped Lisa realized she could only blame herself. Kenny was knocking on Lisa’s door.

Grier backed up from the crowd, and cut through the bushes to where the towncar was parked. The leaves of the trees and bushes were wet, cold like a puppy’s nose.

 

Matthew Walsh is a Nova Scotian writer, and his work has appeared in Carousel, Joyland, and Matrix. New work is forthcoming in The Quotable, Pulp Magazine, and Johnathan Magazine.