okay,” Karen says, tousling his orange hair with one hand as she squirts blue liquid soap into the sink. “Your father thinks it was Dilly.”
“So?” He whirls on her, his face screwed up in an anger so intense that Karen steps back. “Does that mean I should thank you?” He starts weeping, his neck flushing crimson, his cheeks billowing in and out like the gills of a puffer fish. “What am I supposed to do, anyway, with that stupid microwave in the bathroom?”
“Andy —”
“She thinks I’m a moron! She hates me!” He throws himself against Karen’s bosom and blows small bubbles of mucus against her sweater. “She’ll never speak to me again!”
“Oh, Andy, that’s not true,” Karen murmurs, rocking him slightly. “She loves you. You’re her brother.”
“Big deal.”
“I’ll move the microwave somewhere else. The furnace room.”
“So? How will that fix anything?”
“I’ll talk to her —”
“No!” He pulls away and stares up at her in alarm. “You always make things way worse!”
Inwardly, Karen shrivels. She forces her face blank. “All right,” she says mechanically. “I won’t say anything.”
“Promise?”
“Really, Andy ...”
“No, Mom, you’ve got to promise! Promise me you won’t say anything!” His pale fingers embed themselves in her forearms.
“But —”
“Mom!”
“All right. I won’t talk to her. Promise.”
Andy shudders in relief and releases her. “Good.”
Karen washes the dishes in a daze. Beside her, Andy carefully polishes each one dry.
“I think I’ll go for a walk,” she whispers as she places the last dish in the cupboard.
“You okay, Mom?”
“What?” A bright, brittle smile creases her face. “Certainly. Go join your father now. I’ll be back in a bit.”
Chapter Two
Moey Thorpe has never been in the Footstop Café. As his mustard Plymouth chortles over the ruts and bumps leading to Lynn Canyon, he wonders what it will be like within the café’s cottage-quaint interior. But the thought is only a vague, wispy one without enough curiosity to merit life, and it instantly melts away in the twilight.
Gravel crunches beneath worn Michelin tires as he pulls into the canyon’s parking lot. The smell of hot motor oil sours his nostrils as he climbs out of the car. Leaving the doors unlocked (no point in locking them; the rear window is just a sheet of plastic), Moey lumbers towards the bridge.
From the waist up, he is a big, hairy man, his hair the thick black sort that reminds most people of genitals. From the waist down, he’s as slim and tight as a delicate transvestite. In shape he resembles a snow cone.
Moey passes the park’s first headstone, a bronze plaque implanted in a large boulder. The boulder squats at the top of a flight of low, shallow stairs that leads towards the suspension bridge. The sombre words it bears bless the memory of a woman who was crushed to death by a similar boulder while sunbathing peacefully in the canyon.
Moey next passes three calf-high concrete pylons. Some time ago the District Council of North Vancouver saw fit to erect a large billboard that graphically depicted the various dangers lurking within the canyon. Sketches of bodies decaying in the foamy clutches of whirlpools, trapped beneath submerged logs, or impaled upon rocky protuberances were all realistically portrayed in hopes of decreasing the annual death toll.
Instead, the billboard merely caused a traffic jam of Japanese tourists upon the stairway, and teenagers continued to plunge lemming-like to their deaths. The billboard was therefore relocated to the parking lot. The three concrete pylons remain like an enigmatic sculpture in its original display spot.
Without so much as hesitating — a true local — Moey marches onto the bridge. It shudders and creaks beneath his weight, the entire length of it undulating gently. A cool autumn breeze redolent with dead leaves and rotting bark blows up from the canyon and into his bristle-brush hair. Far below, not yet engorged by rainfall, Lynn Creek runs like a thread of Christmas tinsel between cliffs and boulders.
As always, Moey stops in the middle of the bridge. He glances left, then right; at this time of night, at this time of year, all teenagers should be at home doing schoolwork or drugs. But still he makes sure he’s alone.
In the gathering gloom, both ends of the bridge gape black and empty at him. Good.
He takes off his ski jacket (a greasy relic from younger days) and from its left pocket extracts four silver discs that glint wickedly in the moonlight. Using his teeth and fingers, he works the elastic loops attached to each of the discs over his thumbs and middle fingers. From the right pocket of his ski jacket, he removes a length of cloth. It clanks like prison chains and glistens as metallically as the four discs gleaming on his fingers. His breath quickens.
Moey attaches the scarf-like, clinking cloth around his hips, then raises his hands above his head. The cool wind races up the gorge and caresses his body. His nipples harden against his plaid work shirt.
Then, with a flourish, Moey Thorpe begins to belly-dance.
Every culture in the Middle East claims ownership of this exotic dance. But much like religion, each country shares familiar aspects of the dance while at the same time making it wholly unique. The true origins of the dance have been lost in the sands of time.
The Greeks under Alexander the Great, the Turks in the Ottoman Empire, the Romans, and the Nubian dynasties of ancient Egypt all may have shared the crime of disseminating the dance throughout the Middle East. The only fact known with certainty is that the danse du ventre was introduced to North America in 1893 at Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exhibition by a certain Sol Bloom.
Culture and history aside, however, there are three things essential to all belly dancers: skill, suppleness, and a costume. All else can be faked.
Ah, yes, the costume! Again many arguments exist about what constitutes genuine belly-dancing attire. Some adamantly claim that only the Gypsy look is authentic, with its many draping scarves, its colourful flared skirt, its jangling silver jewellery and flounced croptop. Others scornfully declare that a genuine belly dancer wears only gauzy harem pants and a coin-studded bra. But so much more exists! Beaded fringes, gold silk tassels, hip scarves, veils, armbands, headdresses, painted glitter, sequins, stretch lace, gauntlets, Beledi dresses, high heels, Moroccan slippers, bare feet, ankle bells, wigs, capes, turbans! The list goes on.
One thing and one thing alone is consistent (except in Lebanon, for reasons known only to the Lebanese): the zils, also called sagat. Be they bronze or tin, factory-made in Taiwan or hand-hammered in
