Fight Night(8)

After that I went with Grandma on the streetcar to meet her friends at the Duke of York. I went because she was dizzy and had to lean on me. Every six months the group of them get together to celebrate that they’re still living. Grandma wore her red slippers instead of shoes because her right foot was puffed up like a blowfish. That’s the leg they took the vein out of to put into her chest. Look at the way my track pants cover them up, she said. Nobody will notice I’m wearing slippers. Before we left I spent twenty-five minutes helping her get her compression socks on. She almost went with one compression sock only because she was impatient but I forced her to let me put the other one on because it looked stupid with just one. Halfway to The Duke of York her diuretic kicked in and we had to make an emergency stop to find a bathroom. We got off the streetcar and went into the first building we saw which was the corporate headquarters of OBTRON. It had a lot of glass and shiny black furniture including the desk where the security guy was sitting. He didn’t look at us the whole time. He had a gun. He stared at all his TVs and said, I’m asking you to leave right now.

Surely there’s a washroom in this building that I could use, said Grandma.

I’m afraid not, he said, they’re not designated for public use.

She really has to go! I told him.

You don’t have to yell at me, miss, I can hear you. I told you they’re not designated for public use.

Her diuretic kicked in on the streetcar and she’ll spring a leak if you don’t let her use the fucking washroom, you fascist prick! I said.

Swiv, said Grandma. She pretended to slice her throat with her finger. The guy finally looked at us and got up and came around to the front of the desk with his hand on his gun. Grandma asked him if it was all right with him if she peed in one of those giant planters by the window. He said no, he couldn’t authorize her to do that. Do it! I told Grandma. I’m authorizing it! She said no, no, we’ll find a place. She told the security guy she was very tempted to let ’er rip right there in the lobby on that shiny floor and he said ma’am, you do not have a constitutional right to use fighting words with me. Then Grandma started talking about constitutional rights but she was huffing and puffing and also dizzy still, and sort of teetering around and it was hard for her to talk. You’re gonna have a goddamn cardiac event, Grandma, I told her. I’m telling De Sica. De Sica! said Grandma. Did he call? Don’t let this be the hill you die on! I said. Hooooooooo, said Grandma. You’re right. What a ridiculous last stand. I took Grandma’s hand and we went to the Tim Hortons next door and bought two Boston cream doughnuts so they would give us the code to the washroom.

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.