In Transit

CONTENT WARNING: This piece explores experiences with anorexia. 

T

he best burger in the world is 13 kilometres outside of Ottawa, Ontario. You spend the most time with your father when he is driving. He puts on Bruce Springsteen and then ten other guys who sound like Bruce Springsteen but are somehow different. He asks you to adjust the volume because his hands are the size of baseball mitts, and the dial is very small and sensitive. He says the best burger in the world is only five minutes away. You look out the window and think about your religion teacher. She always smears her lipstick over her cupid's bow, which makes her mouth look like a glossy pink football. She said you misunderstood the story of the mustard seed and that the kingdom of heaven grows from small beginnings. You don’t remember what exactly you said that was wrong, but you definitely used the words honey Dijon. Your father tells you that all he remembers about Mass is the small white polyester gloves he had to wear that were tight around his wrists and made him feel like a cheap magician. He told you this in the car some time ago.

Ontario is sometimes hideous. There are no hills, and the car is full of an unbearable, sticky heat. He tells you this guy is called Buffalo Springfield, which is ridiculous. You turn up the dial. It is late summer of a relentless drought; every field you drive past is scorched dry grass and miserable, sad cows. Your father says you have no idea whether or not the cows are miserable. Boys don’t understand anything.

Your mother tells you stories about your father sometimes. He is from a farming community, like you. His father was cruel and died young. He tended to soybeans and a blistering fear of God under the brutal white of the rural sun. He was small, like you. Probably smaller, you know, he was poor. You feel ashamed sometimes for thinking this makes your life more interesting, as though you can absorb his history by proxy. You know his father was a tall man with screams of black hair he shaved above his ears. When you imagine him, you can only picture his profile.

The highway splinters off around Stittsville, and your father makes a turn onto a gravel road. The best burger in the world is 1.6 kilometres away. Your father sometimes talks out the side of his mouth like he’s dragging his feet. He says, turn the dial down.

Your father’s favourite restaurants are all on the side of some road. Your mother says he eats like he’s afraid someone will take it from him. Your father says that when he was in Catholic school, his teachers bound Bibles together with leather belts. He says he knew the Hail Mary better than his own name.

You have been learning how to hate things lately, and your most recent fight concerned your newfound hatred for horses.

Some other time, you are driving through a small town outside Pembrooke. Your father keeps opening and closing the windows. He says your mother is angry with you. You think it is probably about how you don’t do your math homework. You think your mother is probably an evil bitch. You have been learning how to hate things lately, and your most recent fight concerned your newfound hatred for horses. She said it made you cold and unfeeling not to appreciate the majestic beauty of a horse. She stormed off, and your father stared into his dinner. When you fight with your mother, your father doesn’t commiserate with you. Mostly because you both know it isn’t you she is angry with. 

A few weeks prior, frustrated with your returning from the thrift store with nothing suitable to wear in the Ottawa winter, she took you to the mall. The mall had often been your battleground; your mother would have you try on a slew of business casual blazers and dress pants, often chiffon-bright shades of blue and red. You would profess immediate and burning hatred for the garments, she would say you didn’t have to try them on if you knew you would hate them, you would say you did not know how deeply you hated them until you tried them on. She would become tight-lipped and quiet for the rest of the trip, chirping occasional "yes"es and "no"s until you returned to the car, at which point she would look straight ahead at the sleet grey road and say, “You embarrassed me today,” and you would drive home in silence. That particular trip was no exception. You had grown into your anorexia spectacularly. You would starve yourself until about 2:00 p.m. every day, at which point you would consume the better half of a jar of Kraft peanut butter. In the evening, you would binge on pieces of toast and cold slabs of butter. Your mother knew this; she would take you aside whenever you looked in the mirror too long, pinching rolls of fat you imagined you’d someday have the money to get surgically removed. She would put a tough hand on your shoulder and chide, “Just stop it.”

As you rode to the mall, she seemed to steel herself, taking small, short breaths and gripping the steering wheel like a stiff drink. The radio played Taylor Swift’s "Shake it Off." Whenever the light would go red, you would watch your mother’s sharp profile—snow white, freckled skin, a small bump in the middle of her nose, and pin-straight jet-black hair. She would spin her wedding band and clear her throat.

You balled up the clothing on the floor and watched it while you sobbed hotly, imagining the pile amalgamating into a cruel, waifishly thin pseudo-French woman smoking a long cigarette and spitting in an occasional, feminine way.

When you arrived, you proceeded to a Quebecois-owned store in which everything was a 40 to 60-dollar polyblend (this is an indication of quality for the Ontarian middle class). Your mother selected an array of small to medium button-ups and dress pants. The change room was a blinding shade of cream, flattening white fluorescents against the blotchy spots of red lighting up your teenage body like a chubby, eczemic Christmas tree. The first pair of pants made a small, angry noise upon making contact with your thighs, the button-ups cased your arms like sausage links, stopping mid-forearm abruptly. You balled up the clothing on the floor and watched it while you sobbed hotly, imagining the pile amalgamating into a cruel, waifishly thin pseudo-French woman smoking a long cigarette and spitting in an occasional, feminine way. Your mother dragged you by the elbow back into the car after hearing your cries, furious. She began to drive, eyes narrowed. Your ears rang. She sighed heavily and said, “If you don’t like your body, change it.”

Your father doesn’t know this; he hardly knows anything about what you and your mother say to each other when he isn’t around. In some ways, this is nice; you feel cocooned in a Gilmore Girls bubble, listening to Norah Jones in her popsicle blue Subaru. Your mother says you should not marry a man like your father. She says you should marry a man who knows how to talk to you. 

You meet Lo when you are 16; they have thick forearms, and when they say your name, you can hear it sink to the bottom of their pallet.

You are wearing some fucked up tube top in the back seat. They are looking at you. You say, "Look, cows." They look, they nod. They squeeze your hand twice. You know it is because they hate this song to such a degree that it might be making them overwhelmed. Your grandmother is newly dead, and you are newly guilty. She gave you 500 dollars in cash two weeks ago. You think it is because she did not take the gay thing particularly well. Your mother said, "Go to the concert anyway." So, you are in Kat’s Toyota, Montreal-bound. Kat and Dawn are in the front seat. They are a couple that make it easy to look at your relationship and say, “Look, things could be worse.” Kat smokes a Belmont out the window, and Dawn wrinkles their nose. Lo squeezes your hand again and lets go. Ottawa is not far from Montreal, but Kat says the highway is congested. You always thought that was a very poetic thing to say, even though it sounds a bit gross. Lo says, "We should have left earlier." Lo says, "I love you."

Aperture is a coffee shop on Main Street in Vancouver. It smells like incense, and all the stools squeak loudly in a way that makes you feel bad about your body.

Later, in some other part of the world, Lo says Charlotte has a record player. She plays dusty jazz that makes her head spin in a good way. You nod and sip your Americano, which is black and tastes like nothing. You say, "She seems awesome." Aperture is a coffee shop on Main Street in Vancouver. It smells like incense, and all the stools squeak loudly in a way that makes you feel bad about your body. Their hair is shorter than you remember. You keep pointing out things like this. You ask, "Did you get new glasses?" You ask, "Did you cut your hair?" They shrug. Lo is very good at being nonchalant. You bite off a hangnail, and it bleeds. You wipe the blood on your jeans when they go to the bathroom. You count five things you can see. The grain of the countertop looks performatively faded, and your jeans are too tight. They say, "It’s nice to see you." You feel like you are sweating need. Your mother said that you shouldn’t see them today. Your mother sees headlights of grief down every highway. You told her she was being paranoid. 

One of your Vancouver friends once dated a girl who wore long acrylic nails and broke up with her one million times. She says she believes in love. You believe her.

They say Charlotte lives in a big house full of people who love her. You say, "She sounds awesome." You throw up black coffee in the bathroom. You feel like you are making a very big deal out of a very small thing. When you imagine them, you can only picture their profile. 

My mother says I eat like I’m afraid someone will take it from me. I’m worried that’s how I love too. 

The best burger in the world is 13 kilometres outside Ottawa, Ontario, where nobody lives. Your father loosens his grip on the wheel and puts one hand out the window. The wind smells like cow manure and dust. He says, "Remember the first time I brought you here?" You shrug. You are getting better at being mean to your father. He plays "Drift Away." The summer is brutal. You eat your burgers in the car because there is a loud, gross baby in the restaurant. Your father says, "Good, right?" You say, "It’s okay."