A Buck Fifty

When Kim tells me her dad died that morning, the inside of my head clangs like a church bell. This is our very first phone call, and for a second, I don’t recognize her voice or her name. I sit down on the side of the bed in my parents’ bedroom, and I kind of grow up in that moment. Thanks a lot, God. When I woke up this morning, I said to myself: gee, I hope I grow up today.

This is so typical of me, taking the floor when Kim has just told me her dad died this morning. Seriously Angie, drop the daze and think of someone other than you. But I do love my daze. I can spend hours wandering around in the ravine behind our house, or in my room, reading, writing in my diary, looking through my shell collection, and only appearing for meals. 

Kim lives on the other side of town, a whole new existence that I’ve recently added to the selective broadening of my world. Houses are closer together there. My mom’s nose twists up when I start making friends from the other side of town, and she barely says hi when they come over. Mind you, mom has us six kids, so another kid in the house maybe isn’t her cup of tea. But her nose-twisting lodges in my brain and says: you’re better than they are. I hate that voice. 

Kim says she’s coming to school that afternoon. 

“But you don’t have to come to school today,” I say. 

“I want to. I can’t stay home with my mom; I can’t take it. But will you come over after school? And stay for dinner?” 

I agree to go, and tell my mom I’ll be home before dark. After lunch, I walk back to school with the weight of a whole new world on my shoulders. I don’t know about death, I’ve never been to Kim’s home, and I feel like I’m following some universal code bigger than myself. 

Kim lives in a small house with her mother and older brother who’s away at university. The house is so quiet, I tip-toe through to the living room. Her mother is in her bedroom, which feels strange until I register that her husband has just died. Kim and I sit on the sofa and she shows me pictures of her dad. He died of untreated gangrene due to his diabetes. Untreated is the key word. Kim says he just gave up, didn’t look after his foot. She meant he died on purpose. 

My little brain is still grasping at the meaning of gangrene, let alone of being a grown-up and choosing death. Talk about a daze-breaker. While I want to run down the hill to the ravine, jump across the creek, get soakers, and stamp on skunk cabbage, here I am being a friend in need. Kim’s mom comes out about an hour later to get dinner on. She’s small, and her face is pale, but she’s kind to me and she rustles something up for us. 

After that, Kim and I spend a lot of time on the phone or meeting at the Tartan downtown; we go to school dances and house parties. We have a lot of fun in math class. You’re one of the popular girls, she says, making me feel special but also sad. Kim is the smartest kid in grade 9 and plays the saxophone in the school band. She writes poems and songs for me. We have this really cool code – a buck fifty. It means I am your friend.

In grade 10, I start seeing Charlie who also lives on the other side of town. He’s in grade 11 and is wonderful. The three of us hang out in Kim’s basement. Kim writes more poems about our buck fifty deal, and I get the feeling she wants more of me than I want of her, which sometimes makes me feel like a tidal wave is about to sweep me out to sea. 

Charlie can get booze and drugs so Friday and Saturday nights are party time at whoever’s house is parentless. One time Kim hosts, and it gets weird. Kim is drinking scotch. The boys are drinking, smoking pot, and walking around the house like they own it, making comments about the green colour of the paint in the kitchen, or about Kim, which is not cool. I admit, Kim is different – smarter than us, always a bit nervous, and serious. Keith makes a comment like: Kim’s like a dog on a leash, hinting that it’s MY leash. Then Mac comes out with: Kim’s a carpet plucker. The boys roar, and I look over at Kim, who is lying on the sofa, eyes drifting open and closed, looking like she’s ready to pass out. Drinking is a bad idea because Kim’s diabetic. She’s already had reactions, where she’ll have to drink juice to get her sugars right. I’m sober enough to encourage the boys to leave now. I cover Kim up and make my usual bed on the living room floor. In the morning, I load her insulin needle, which has become routine for us. I don’t know what carpet plucker means, but I just know it’s disgusting. 

That spring, something happens at home that blows up my world like a nuclear bomb. 

One Sunday dinner, my mom looks across the table at my dad, and says: “Haven’t you got something to tell the kids?” 

The dinner table gets super-quiet and after a short pause, my dad wipes his hand across his forehead and starts to say: “Your mother and I…” his voice breaks, “…have decided to separate.” 

Freddie, my brother, runs from the table, crying. The rest of us sit there looking down. After dinner, I set out to the other side of town to find Kim and Charlie, but it feels like I’m walking upstream against a rushing river during a storm. I’ve had dark creepy feelings before, but now my comfortable daze is invaded by evil forces, so I grow a shield around my heart that very evening on my way to Kim’s. As soon as she opens the door, she sees my face and knows. Kim listens to me and says: That’s awful kiddo. Her caring reminds me of that tidal wave feeling I get sometimes, like I’m being smothered, even though – or maybe because - Kim knows how to get me to drop my shield.

So back to the topic of my mother. Mom isn’t the warm, loving mother type. She is beautiful and stylish, plays bridge, drinks gin-and-tonics, reads the paper from end to end, and goes to the city every Wednesday. Your mom is a sophisticate, Kim says. Oh ya, thanks God, thanks for giving me a sophisticate for a mother, just what I need.

Time goes on and my parents’ separation doesn’t materialize, although I’m watching for it. One Sunday after church, my dad comes into my room and sits next to me on my bed. 

“I noticed in church that you’re looking sad, honey,” he says. My brain fills up with hot flames, because I’m so shocked that anyone notices me, let alone someone as important to me as my dad.

“Ya, I’ve been wondering, like, you and mom are supposed to be separating, but nobody’s talked about it.” 

“Ah,” he says, “we worked it out and we’re not separating now.” 

That conversation cracks my daze right open. Grown-ups drop a bomb and then walk away as if everything’s normal.

That same summer, Kim starts smoking like a natural -- her dad was a smoker, so she’s following in his footsteps. She’s also playing in a band. One Friday night I go to see her play at the church hall. I’m in one of my heart-shielded moods, stuck inside my dark scary world, watching Kim singing back-ups and playing the congas. She can play any instrument and is really good. She looks out at me, and literally puts her hand on the corners of her mouth pulling the ends up into a smile. Kim, on stage, between beats, trying to get ME to smile. I smile. Thanks, God, for a buck fifty. No sarcasm for a change.

One more important thing about my mom is that she’s always late. Whenever it’s time to leave, my mom will wipe the counter, empty the dishwasher, take out the garbage, whatever. This is only pertinent because, guess what, I start being late. Not for school, not for Charlie, just for Kim. For instance, we’ll arrange to meet downtown at 10 o’clock on Saturday morning, and I’ll show up an hour late. Are you gonna be late this time? she might ask. I’ll try not to, I’ll say, but really, I don’t think it’s a big deal. Eventually, this habit of being late for Kim confuses me. It makes me feel powerful, and that’s fucked up. One mid-summer day, Kim and I are going to walk to the county fair. Kim is meeting me at my place at 2 o’clock. That morning I go downtown to meet Charlie at the Tartan for brunch. Afterwards, instead of heading home, Charlie and I walk along the river up to the old mill to make out. By the time I get home, it’s after 4 and Kim has left, pissed. I phone her but she isn’t there. I phone the next morning and she basically tells me this is it. She doesn’t want to hang out with me. My lateness means I don’t respect her. She hangs up. 

The pit of my stomach goes into a knot and my knees fall below my ankles like I can’t walk. I deserve this. I’m actually relieved that my lateness is going to end today, right there. Thank you God, for not letting me turn into my mother.

But I really just want Kim back. For the rest of the summer, she ignores me, even when I go see her band play. Kim dates Duncan, the band leader, for a while but not for long. She ignores me at school that fall, too. 

Finally, around Christmas, I call her and she agrees to meet at the Tartan for lunch. We’re in our final year of high school. I tell her I’m sorry. I ask if we can hang out again and she says yes. I promise her I won’t be late anymore. Kim is getting straight As so she’s more confident now, but she’s also more nervous than I remember. She reminds me of a baby fox I once saw, cowering in a ditch as cars speed by. 

We reminisce about our capers in math class and the poems and songs Kim has written for me. I start singing: Blue sky, birds fly, sunshine is mine, taking what I caaaaaaan. That brings a smile to Kim’s face. I ask about her diabetes and she tells me she’s been taking antidepressants for two years. 

“Why didn’t you tell me back then”? I ask. “It’s kind of important for best friends to share things like that.” 

She smiles at the best friends reference and says: “Buck fifty, kiddo”. 

“So, how is your diabetes?” I insist. By then, I know that the combo of drinking, smoking, and antidepressants is reckless. 

“I’m fine,” she says. “You’ve come out of your daze.”  

“What me? No way!” I joke. And like that Kim and I are friends again. 

But her dark nervousness gets worse. She’ll laugh but sometimes it sounds forced out of her throat like her neck is being squeezed by an invisible snake. Her hands shake when she pulls out a cigarette. Kim and I have never talked about Mac’s idiotic comment in grade 10, but a couple months later Kim brings it up when we’re at my place in the basement, having a sleep over. Kim is sitting on a mattress on the floor and I’m lying on the couch. 

Kim says: “You know why it didn’t work out with Duncan and me?”. 

“Go on,” I say. 

“Well, I don’t know how to say this.” 

“Just say it” – I know where she is going, poor thing, and I sit up. 

“I’m gay,” she says. 

“Okay,” I say, “I think I know that; I think I’ve always known it.” 

“You mean…” she hesitates. 

“Kim, I’m so glad you’re telling me. Hey - buck fifty - we’re good,” I say. 

She lays back, breathes out a deep sigh and says, “I told my mom. She said more or less the same thing as you.” 

Kim tells me she is afraid about coming out, and maybe I am too quick to assure her, but I say: “You’re allowed to be gay. And hey, I was your first love, right?” 

And then we just get on with our night, talking about exams, music, Charlie, my mom. In the morning, I ask Kim about the bandage on her foot. 

“Something’s rubbed the side of my toe and being diabetic you really have to take care of your feet,” she says. 

We look at each other. My mind shoots right back to the death of her father four years ago. I know Kim thinks the same thing but we don’t say it aloud. We’re just heading into March break, looking forward to a trip to the city together, to stay at Kim’s aunt’s. 

On Saturday morning, I’m downstairs in the rec room and I get a call from Kim’s mom. 

“It’s about Kim,” she says. “Is there anyone at home with you today, darlin’?” 

“Yes”, I say, “my sisters are home.” She always calls me darlin’ like Kim calls me kiddo. And I’ve started calling her mom, which makes the three of us happy. But I don’t want Kim’s mom to continue. I want to run away, just like I wanted to run away that day Kim called me about her dad. I want to run down to the ravine, jump over the creek, etcetera. 

“Kim’s gone,” she says. 

“What do you mean gone?”. 

“Kim died last night,” she says, “I found her in the tub. She used a hair dryer.” 

I drop the phone and my legs crumple. I fall to the hard basement floor and wail, like a wild animal caught in a trap. My sister finds me. The rest of that day, and the days after, are a blur. 

I don’t want to talk about me now, about how I feel. This story is about my talented most caring friend Kim, who was also gay, and had depression, and add to that, diabetes. She took her life. And I wasn’t in on the secret because if I had been, I would have stopped her, and she knew it. Every night I lay awake, asking what made her want to die. Kim’s mom tells me that she found a note under Kim’s pillow. I’m scared to find out that it’s because I wasn’t there for her enough, I’m a bad person, so bad. But gradually I have to know.

 I call and ask, “Mom, can I read Kim’s note? Can I come over?” 

“Of course darlin’, I’m here,” which means she’s physically there but also that she’s there for me. 

Mom has a pot of tea ready at the kitchen table and next to the pot is the note. I recognize Kim’s handwriting from the doorway. She pours our tea as I stand a few feet away, and then pulls out the chair for me. Steam from the tea is swirling up from the spout. I pick up the note and read it, twice. And then I look at Mom, both of us in tears. 

“Her foot was gangrene? Couldn’t they fix it?”

“She never had it looked at. I had no idea. She must have hidden the dressings so I wouldn’t know. It spread.” 

“So she took after her dad,” it is slowly dawning on me how disturbingly alike Kim and her dad were. 

“Yes, he suffered from depression, too.” 

After our tea we go for a walk in the woods where Kim played as a kid, not talking too much. It’s a grey damp day. Later, Mom cooks me dinner - grilled cheese sandwiches and fruit salad. I lay down on the sofa, while we watch TV, and I drift off into a deep sleep. Mom has called my mom to say I’m staying the night. 

The next morning, I walk home slowly, head down, kicking the same stone the whole way, even across the streets. Once I get to my driveway, I pick up the stone and put it in my pocket. I think about my daze, and how I can’t even feel it anymore. I miss Kim and just want to talk to her, read her latest poem, and hear a new song she’s composed for me. I rub the stone in my pocket. Thank you, Kim, for a buck fifty. I head to the ravine. Thank you, God. Thanks an awful lot.