Land Mammals and Sea Creatures by Jen Neale

Author:Jen Neale
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ECW Press
Published: 2018-04-04T00:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

Coyote

Female animals are more likely to commit suicide than males, or so it says in Antonio Preti’s “Animal Model and Neurobiology of Suicide.” Humans are an exception. Boys do it more than girls, but girls attempt more often. Vertebrates do it more than invertebrates. Although, the invertebrate Globitermes sulphureus, a termite, will cling to predators with its mandibles, then proceed to squeeze its own abdomen until its head explodes, covering everyone with poison. In 2008, twenty-six dolphins filled their lungs and stomachs with mud and beached themselves near Cornwall. One hundred and fifty-two landed themselves in Iran the year before.

Over the passing days, the whale’s body was being released from its ocean-dwelling form. Its fins, tail, baleen plates lost shape and travelled outward as a gas that wound its way around the limbs and necks of Port Braid residents. It was becoming a part of the town, ordinary as road signs. It entered through doorways and infested upholstery.

From the back of Marty and Julie’s backyard, the skunk had disappeared, likely dragged off by a coyote, only tufts of fur left behind, but around the town the remains of other wildlife became apparent, roadkill lining the edges of rural highways.

On the evenings of JLL shows, as the afternoon light gave in to dusk, Port Braiders meandered past the bungalow. Great clouds of smoke moved with groups of former environmentalists and anti-corporation activists as they sucked on cigarettes and blew pollution at street lamps. The Gregion Lake cottagers, whose orbits never intercepted the townspeople’s, joined the tail end of the migrations, wearing headlamps and Gortex, ready for whatever weather phenomenon—eclipse or rainstorm—might interrupt their gentle roadside hike. They linked arms and shouted, every action out of character. Two young parents crouching on the curb to light a joint. A man with a white ponytail walking by, tapping white powder into toilet paper, twisting tight balls for any passersby who wanted to swallow his offering.

Julie avoided the shows, staring at the pages of a book until midnight, when faraway singing floated through the bungalow windows. She would open the front door and stand on the porch, take in the whale smell swimming in the evening dew. In the night air, the smell slid into the darkness between oxygen molecules. The singing rode over waves of ocean-cooled air.

Liquor laws dictated that The Halibut should be cleared before twelve, but the shows were never over by then. Julie wanted her father home, and the bottom of her lungs burned during these waits. She checked the time on her phone, stood on the stoop, watching for bodies to come around the corner. She would slide on a pair of flip-flops and walk to the end of the street, crossed arms, an angry parent waiting. As the singing grew louder, Julie’s heart beat faster.

She had always been able to depend on Marty’s whereabouts at different times of day. From nine to seven, he was at The Halibut, at night, home. Julie could call him during those hours whenever she’d had a bad day in Vancouver and never miss him.

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