Grandma said that I have a slight, slight, slight, slight tendency at times to go a bit overboard. You were the one who said we have to defend the most vulnerable amongst us, I told her, and that’s you! I pointed at her slippers and compression socks. You said in every sport defence is job one! Then she told me that the security guard was not the main culprit. It was the rich owners of the company he worked for. He was just doing his job the way he’d been told to do his job by not letting ladies pee wherever they wanted to in the building. Grandma said he could have broken the rules and let her use the washroom but he was too afraid of it all getting caught on tape and then losing his job and then his family starving. She said he was the most vulnerable. Then I was mad because I had only been trying to do the right thing. I walked too fast for Grandma so she couldn’t breathe. Then I felt like crying because I was mad at myself and everyone. I slowed down so Grandma wouldn’t die. She was busy trying to survive and didn’t notice that there were tears in my eyes. Fighting is so hard and yet we’re never supposed to stop!
I lay down and tried to have a nap in the booth at the Duke of York while Grandma and her friends had lunch and talked about their bodies. Wilda has blue finger syndrome and her pelvic floor has dropped. And about doctors killing everyone. And about misunderstandings and Call the Midwife and capitalism and espionage and existential angst and the royal family and Iran and bus tours versus cruises and grandchildren and cotton versus silk underwear and living wills, and even you. Do you know where he is? Wilda asked Grandma. I had my eyes closed and waited to hear the answer. Then Wilda said ah, right. Grandma must have pointed at me and shook her head, zipped her lips and thrown away the key. One of the women, Ida, asked the others if they were going the assisted dying route. She told the women that her friend in Ajax had gone the assisted dying route and her last words were ahhhh, peace. Wilda said piece of what? She was joking. One last slice of cherry cheese cake? They all laughed and then they all sighed. Grandma said oh, but isn’t that beautiful. She means it but I can tell from her voice that it also makes her sad and mad that Grandpa and Auntie Momo couldn’t go the assisted dying route. Will you go that route, Elvira? Wilda asked. Assisted dying? said Grandma. Of course she would! She had filled out all the forms the other day at Raptors halftime. It’s very straightforward, she said. Wilda said she was worried about saying goodbye to everyone before she died. How would she get around to it all when she’d be so busy with dying. Grandma said no problem. Let’s say goodbye now and get it over with! We’re friends, we love each other, we know it, we’ve had good times, and one day we’ll be dead, whether we’re assisted or not. So, goodbye! They all thought that was a good idea so they all said goodbye to each other then and got it over with. Then Grandma told them the whole story of her diuretic kicking in and the guy with the gun and they laughed and laughed. He just didn’t understand! one of them said. They just don’t understand. They just don’t understand. When the bill came they all had to stare at it and think for half an hour and then they all put the wrong amount of money in the centre of the table and Wilda had to count it over five times and yell at everyone to stop interrupting her.
On the streetcar home I counted twelve people from all walks of life who looked at Grandma’s slippers. She didn’t care. She laughed. I wanted her to pull her track pants further over them but she was sitting down so her track pants rode up instead, even revealing her compression socks and parts of her legs. She also farted on the streetcar and in between gales of laughter when she could barely breathe she whispered to me that she was really sorry for embarrassing me and that when I was a baby and we were in public places together she would say that I was the one who had farted, not her. I’ll have to teach Gord to be strong and alert. Babies are fall guys. Then Grandma fell asleep with her head on my shoulder for six stops.
Two people standing in the aisle started arguing. The lady said to the man, Listen, you have to understand your gross factor for any woman under the age of forty. The man said: You could say under thirty-five. No, really, dude, said the woman, forty. The man said she was crazy. He said she should say thirty-five. She said she wouldn’t say thirty-five, no way. They stared out the window in opposite directions.
We stopped at the Sev to get microwave popcorn for the Raptors game. The same guy was there sitting on the curb wearing Grandma’s Winnipeg Jets sweatpants. He didn’t recognize her. He asked me for change.