The Matter With Morris by David Bergen Read Free Book Online Page A

intention of speaking about. “Aww, man.” He looked down at his cowboy boots.
    Morris talked about his hands. He knew that, initially, none of the other men had wanted him in the group becausehe was a columnist and the group was afraid that he would use the confessions and conversations for his own gossip. “Nothing leaves this room,” Doug had said. “No one takes what is said here and moves it outside. That understood? It’s about the energy. If you take what is said here and bring it home to your wife, or your lover, or your brother, or someone else, then the energy gets sucked out of this space. I can’t know what you’re doing, but it’ll be felt. Believe me, you will affect the group.” He was talking to everyone, but he was preaching to Morris, who waved and said that he had enough fodder already. “I’ve got my own life,” he said, and he grimaced.
    Morris said that the flaking of his hands must be coming from worry and stress. “They bleed in the morning,” he said. “I wake up thinking about Martin.” He had talked about this before, but he once again told them a version of his pain. This time it was about the day in February when the people from the Canadian Forces had arrived at the house to give him the news. “My wife was working and I think now that I should have waited till she came home. I wanted to know at that moment why these two men were standing in my foyer, though I did know actually. It was like I couldn’t wait to hear the bad news. ‘Tell me,’ I said, and they told me, and as soon as they told me, I was sorry they had spoken and I was sorry that I had not waited for Lucille, though how does one do that when the messenger is chomping at the bit? She was absolutely furious. And irrational. Sometimes I think that what destroyed our marriage wasn’t Martin’s death but me not waiting for her to come home to hear the news with me. She called it typical and selfish. I know that I’m selfish, but I don’t want to be typical.”
    “Typical of what?” Ezra asked. He was sitting across from Morris and he was leaning forward, elbows on his knees. He was married to a beautiful woman who was a former model and he had potency issues. His wife was too gorgeous. His father had told him to marry a less beautiful woman, but he hadn’t listened and now he was in trouble. He didn’t trust her. Ezra said, “When are you going to get over this?”
    “And when are you going to be alive again from the neck down?” Morris asked. He felt the rage located in his lower gut and in his crotch. He smiled. Ezra leaned back and shook his head and closed his eyes.
    “Not fair,” Doug said. “Too personal. Listen, men, we know that we can’t use someone else’s vulnerability as ammunition. How are we going to trust each other?”
    Bill spoke. He rarely spoke, and everyone listened more carefully now because this was such a rarity. He did not speak of potency or sex or a spurned lover, but he talked about his father, who was at the edge of death. He said the words “edge of death” and Morris tilted towards him, as if there were something curious and interesting that had landed in the centre of the group. Bill said that he had always disliked his father, for his anger, his demands, his velocity. He was like a bullet ricocheting around a room and now the bullet had fallen to the ground. “The doctors say he’s going to die within the week.”
    Doug said that he was sorry. Peter, a Filipino man in his late thirties who lived with his extended family, all of them crammed into one house, placed his hand on top of Bill’s and left it there for three long seconds. Then he took it away.
    “Thank you,” Bill said.
    Ezra said that his father had died two years ago of a heart attack and left him with a business that was overloaded with debt. “He up and dies and leaves the bank banging at my door. He did it on purpose.”
    “What do you mean?” Doug asked.
    “It was like he wanted to be nearly