Gillian McCain

Gillian McCain grew up in Florenceville, New Brunswick. She was the program coordinator of the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church, the editor of the Poetry Project Newsletter, and currently serves on the board of directors. She is co-author (with Legs McNeil) of Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk, and the author of a book of poems, Tilt.

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"Bill’s in town."

"No. Where?"

"Upper East Side. Some dental thing."

"No, Bill? My Bill? He’s here?"

"Yep, he’s here, just a couple of miles away, and you’re missing him."

Angel shimmied in the office chair before ripping an order form out of the typewriter dramatically.

"I always miss him. I always miss Bill."

John sighed. He turned away from the window and went back to his desk. He picked up an invoice for Hammerhill laser paper. He wished it was 5:30.

"Maybe we should close early so you can go uptown and try to catch a glimpse," he said.

Angel glared at him. Angel was above catching a glimpse and John knew it.

"I love Bill," Angel sighed.

John lit a cigarette. Smoking in the store was one of the few perks of being a small business owner.

"You know why I love Bill?" asked Angel.

John shook his head without looking up. He wished he was high.

"He’s human."

John leaned back in his chair. "So’s Fabio," he said. John suddenly became serious. "Bill was highly underrated," he announced. "Highly underrated."

"See, that’s what they don’t understand," Angel theorized. "People love Bill. They don’t care. People don’t care."

"Bet his wife cared," replied John.

"Nah, she doesn’t care anymore. She hit him. That was enough."

"Excuse me?" John choked on some smoke.

Angel continued to type seventy-five words a minute.

John coughed into his fist. "She hit him?""

"Si."

"You mean…physically? Hit him? Like…literally?"

"Yeah." Angel sighed. "So?"

He sat up in his chair, and peered at Angel over his metal frames. For the life of him, John could never understand why he always wore that heavy brown lipliner. "I cannot condone violence," John said, shaking his head. "I don’t care what Bill did, I can’t stand physical violence. If my wife ever…"

"Oh, you don’t know," Angel muttered. "You know nothing."

"What do you mean? I mean, Bill deserved to be punished, sure, but she hit him? That’s not right. That’s just not right."

Angel rolled his eyes.

"Better that way. Pop him one. Then get on with life."

John shook his head. Five days a week, fifty weeks a year, nine years in all, and Angel still surprised him. "She didn’t… how do you know this?"

"He told me."

"When?"

"I don’t know," Angel answered, exasperated. "Back in the day."

"That’s just unbelievable. I refuse to believe that." John sighed. This was a lot to digest.

"Oh, you. You don’t understand women. I shouldn’t even be talk--…"

"What do you mean I don’t understand women? I’ve been married to one for twenty-two years."

Angel chose not to comment; John chose to stand up, stretch and yawn.

"Bill should have handled it differently," Angel eventually muttered to himself. "Could have used it to his advantage."

John sat back down. "You mean, like, with the voters?"

"No, stupid." Angel looked at John for the first time that day. "With his wife. These things happen. Women don’t necessarily mind if…" Angel’s voice drifted off. John began writing out an order for Hewlett Packard 1823 color ink jet cartridges. They were flying off the shelves lately.

"That happens, and most ladies rise to the occasion," Angel continued. "You appreciate more what she got."

"Jesus, I cannot believe the things you say sometimes."

Angel smiled.

"You are sick," John sighed. "You are not like most…people."

"Oh, no? You ask your wife. Ask your wife when you go home. You sit down to supper and you say, ‘Honey---‘"

"She will laugh. My wife will laugh. She thinks you’re a kook, anyway."

Angel pursed his lips. "She may laugh, but she’ll agree with me. Just you wait."

John pretended he was in the middle of a calculation.

"I should not talk to you about these things," Angel said as he extracted a nail file out of the pocket of his robe. "You make me too mad. Too mad."

There was silence, except for the ka-ching of the adding machine and the filing of a thumbnail. A bell rang as a customer opened the door.

John looked at Angel. He started to wonder what he did at night, but then thought better of it.

"Before or after?" he asked.

"Before or after what?"

"Like, before he left office or after?" John couldn’t understand why he had so much emotional investment into the outcome of this story. It wasn’t like he had enough to go around.

"What do you think?" Angel stopped filing and blew on his nails. "After she found out, dummy." He noticed a pile of pink file folders teetering on the shelf above his bosses’ head, but felt too lazy to warn him.

John stamped out his cigarette. "She should not have hit him when he was President," he said. "She definitely should not have hit him when he was President."

Angel looked at his watch and let out a world-weary sigh.

"The least she could have done was…I don’t know." John paused. "The least she could have done was… waited," he whispered sadly.