Stupid Beautiful Days by Annie Zhu

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Long before I moved into my current neighborhood where people push tiny dogs around in baby strollers, I lived amongst the bottom of the barrel. I was young then. Now, whenever I pass Moss Park by streetcar, I’d recall my first year in Toronto. I’d think: I never want to be young again. 

Every day was a variation of the same. I went home after the morning shift and sat on my stoop. Across the street I saw the old hooker opening her bedroom window and lighting a cigarette. She wore a cheap yellow polyester slip and a look that said she was dead on the inside. We stared at each other for a second. We looked away at the same time. Then my eyes followed the aging Frankenstein shuffling down the sidewalk holding a crumpled plastic bag with an iron-grip fist. I hoped he wouldn’t stop to shoot up in front of me. Thankfully, he continued shuffling. I watched another man at the end of the street, his upper body bent into a big black garbage bin by the curb. I didn’t know what he was hoping to find. Maybe anything resembling food. 

I didn’t feel sorry for them. I was selective with my tears. I was immune to people like him, the way this man was immune to the smell of garbage. 

Bernadette and Eve squawked over each other inside the house. I only sat on the stoop to bide my time before I had to go in and face their cruel black eyes and sharp insults. Bernadette was the one with the limp in her left leg, and Eve was missing half the hair on her scalp like a haunted doll. Once I went in, the old bags would pounce on me to complain—my eau de perfume of ground coffee beans, how I left one strand of hair on the bathroom floor, my opened package of hot dog wieners stinking up the shared fridge—and I’d nod before descending into hell itself.

Down in the darkness and dampness, I would actually long to be back at work. Even though in the cafe, I would count down the seconds to the end of my shift. Work and home were refuges from each other. Not even twenty and I was hardening into a bitter old bag the more I worked at the cafe, my hatred mounting whenever the fancy university kids streamed in spewing orders for unnecessarily complex variations of the same drink, so dramatically tired and needing their second or third hit before lunchtime. At least they took their orders to go. Recently, I watched two lovebirds sitting for hours in a corner of the cafe. They leaned into each other, faces practically touching, radiating the heat of passion, fingers interlaced, grins plastered on like clowns duplicated, their teeth as long and rectangular as piano keys. I wanted them gone and I couldn’t look away. Then there were the cheerful customers, perky even before caffeine. They were the worst. They made endless small talk about the sun and how nice it was outside, as if the sky needed pointing out that it was blue. On those days, I missed the bad weather. I missed the snow and rain, chances of pneumonia and the flu. I missed going home and feeling relieved not to have to be outside. I missed when everyone else was miserable too. 

On one of those stupid beautiful days at the start of summer, I snapped. I was burning and melting on the stoop, rocking back and forth like I was on withdrawal, pent up with desperation and life unlived, watching every second of my youth tick by before my eyes. I wanted to do something, anything. Nobody told me freedom was this stifling. Nobody told me addictions had their uses. Drugs, booze, bodies, food. They numbed the pain of life while providing a lifeline. 

Outside the old hooker’s house, I spotted a gray bundle moving on the sidewalk. At first I thought it was a raccoon playing with street trash. It turned out to be my neighbour waking up. He had been sleeping on the cement, using his crutches as a pillow. I should have known it was him. He often blended into my surroundings like a dreary prop. He looked anywhere from thirty to fifty, with an aquiline nose and double parenthesis lines framing his furry mouth, a sea captain without the dignity. I called him Willy. His job entailed sitting by St. Lawrence Market with an upside-down hat in front of him for strangers to fill with loose change. He often spoke to himself in gibberish, but I’d gotten used to it as I did to church bells ringing the hour. He had been stirred by a young and haggard woman screaming obscenities. I was afraid she might trip over Willy as she stormed down the sidewalk in dirty combat boots. A red-faced fellow stomped after her, calling her a fucking bitch. They must have come from one of the injection sites where addicts go for free drugs so they won’t die. The man lunged for her and I assumed he would choke her, but they embraced and kissed roughly, practically gnawing each other’s faces off. A three-legged dog slowly hobbled after them, which was the most pitiful sight I’d seen that day. 

After a few minutes, another neighbour of mine stepped over Willy, who was now back asleep. This man looked like one of my ancestors. I usually recognized him by the top of his head, mostly shiny skin framed by a garland of wispy black hair. His eyes I’d never seen because they were always fixed to the ground in search of discarded cigarettes that he collected in the pockets of his military shirt. He was smoking such a nub as he passed, the most cost-efficient way of keeping up an expensive habit. When he disappeared down the street, I went back to listening to Bernadette and Eve’s overlapping voices screech like out-of-tune violins, a duet of complaints in D minor. 

I thought about the old violin I’d seen inside the window of a pawn shop. The price tag said two hundred dollars, which was a lot of money for me back then. As a kid, I used to play until our after-school music program lost its funding and I had to return the violin I’d been renting for a subsidized fee. By then I was too busy helping my parents at the store and surviving high school. I stopped listening to classical music in favour of whatever was popular. 

I thought about that dark maple violin next to its idle bow, both lying silently inside their perfect velvet molding, the battered black leather case opened like a viewing casket. I told myself I would just go and take a quick peek. Along the way, I tried talking myself out of the ordeal, recalling the calloused fingers of my school days, the sore neck, the stiff shoulders. Producing tortured sounds so dissonant from the perfect one playing in my head, those taunting phantom melodies. Learning braille had to be easier than playing a single note on that unmarked fingerboard of infinite sonic possibilities. I would be wasting my time. 

Yet I found myself speed walking to the store, catching whiffs of the lovely familiar concoction of weed and urine along the way. At the intersection, I saw the fat lady in the wheelchair planted on the opposite corner and I inwardly groaned. I looked everywhere but at her when I crossed, but I still heard her high, desperate pleas.

“Miss? Miss? Can you spare—”

I turned onto Church Street where the pawn shops were. I looked through the windows one after another, searching through garish gold watches, fancy pens, and strings of pearls. Finally, I spotted it. I pressed my face to the glass to get a better look at the pristine wooden body coated in a thin veil of dust. 

The next thing I knew, I was inside the shop with the violin wedged between my chin and left shoulder. I sneezed then pulled the dusty bow across the strings, producing a blood-curdling wail that must’ve loosened the shopkeeper’s teeth. He was a stoic, humourless man. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to barter, but with my ugliness combined with my lack of charm, he didn’t budge. Still, I carried the case home happily, even when I passed the zombies loitering outside the Salvation Army. They blew smoke in my ear and stared through my soul.

The two old bags were widows who lost their husbands to infidelity and death. When Bernadette and Eve first accepted me as a tenant, I had hoped they would warm up to me. Turned out they didn’t even like each other. I learned quickly that people in this city wanted nothing to do with me. I had an air of loneliness about me, but this wasn’t intriguing because I wasn’t attractive. The old bags probably chose me for that reason; they could tell I had no social life and I would be quiet, the next best thing to invisible.

I was careful to only play the violin when I knew the old bags were distant from hearing range, either out of the house or settled upstairs in their bedrooms. Eve, especially, was hard of hearing. 

Every day, I practiced for a minimum of three hours. The strength of my muscle memory surprised me when I picked up the scales I’d learned as a kid in no time. I borrowed all the books I could find at the library. After work, I had a purpose, searching for cheap music books from secondhand shops around the city. Scales were all I played in July and August. In September, I added études, and October, repertoires on top of everything else. 

On Hallow’s Eve, with no children ringing the doorbell, I felt ready to take on a song. Le Cygne would’ve been a good starting point, but I had my ears set on Massanet’s “Meditation” from Thaïs. I wanted my violin to express feelings I’d never felt. By late November, I knew the song by heart. My intonation was all over the place, my vibrato awkward. At night, I dreamt I played the song perfectly from beginning to end with a passion I couldn’t believe was my own. I woke up with my body buzzing. 

I wanted to practice all the time. I became careless. One afternoon, the pounding on my door startled me enough to almost drop my bow. I turned around and Bernadette was already limping down the stairs. Even though she was a good foot shorter than me, she marched right up to my face. The bare lightbulb hanging over us, the basement’s only light source, emphasized her etched elephant skin and white lashes shielding the black tunnels she called eyes.

“What. Was. That. Racket?” 

I stepped back, instinctively hiding my violin behind me. “It’s music.” I hated how my voice sounded like a squeaky little girl. 

“It’s goddamn awful is what it is.” 

Her opinion sounded like a fact. My hands clenched around the bow and the neck of the violin. 

“Make that noise again,” she continued, “and see what happens.” 

I wanted to come back with a stinging retort, but she was already struggling up the stairs, a veiny hand on the rail to pull up her skeletal body. I would have pitied her if she wasn’t poison. The whole house was poison. The whole neighbourhood. I thought I was immune, but it’s already too late when you’re infected. I wished in that moment for Bernadette to drop dead.

No such luck. I started playing the most annoying violin song I could think of: Flight of the Bumblebee. Badly, but not for lack of trying.

Bernadette cawed, her hands automatically smacking her ears, making her lose balance.

Eve appeared at the top of the steps. “What in the hell—” 

Bernadette grasped at her, and Eve pulled her up the last step. They couldn’t get away fast enough. By then, I was merely playing random notes to mimic nails on a chalkboard.

When I stopped, I could hear Bernadette hollering about me and what I was doing down there. Without thinking, I ran up the stairs, passing the old bags in the kitchen, flying out the door before they could say a word.

Once I was outside, I could exhale. I noticed all the gray was gone. In its place: white cotton candy. The first snowfall of the year. A strange sense of peace tempered the atmosphere, a potential for magic. I could be Clara from The Nutcracker. I could enter a world of rollerskating bears, a dancing horse, and a Sugar Plum Fairy who lives inside a Fabergé egg. 

Across the street, the old hooker wasn’t home, her lights all off. I actually missed her. I walked over and sat on her stoop. Shivering, I gently placed my violin and bow on my lap, then pulled the sleeves of my oatmeal-coloured sweater over my fingers. I looked up and saw Willy. Camouflaged in fresh snow, he was sitting on his crutches, back leaning against a utility pole. His head was down, but he didn’t seem to be sleeping. I could hear him quietly muttering to himself. Between Willy’s gibberish, the old bags’ echoing screeches, and the wind pressing upon my ears, the fleeting impression of peace settled into an inchoate fear.

The only thing I could think to do was play “Méditation.” Terribly. Practically every other note too sharp or too flat. My intonation was wrong. My rhythm wrong. Everything wrong. I wanted to bash the violin into a million pieces. I was getting worse with practice. This impossible instrument. This stupid song. But somehow, I played it to the end. 

When all was silent again, I resigned to my reality. Willy lifted his head. He stared at me with his droopy brown eyes.

“That was beautiful,” he said. 

He propped himself up with the help of his crutches and slowly hobbled away.

The next day after the morning shift, the snow had mostly melted and I went home and sat on the stoop. I assumed the incident with the old bags would blow over and I could go back to ignoring them. But it was surprisingly silent inside the house. They were always home at this time. I wondered if they had died of sudden deaths. Wishful thinking. 

A bundle of garbage on the sidewalk caught my attention. At first I thought it was Willy. Then I realized it was my stuff. My violin case was under the burgundy duffle bag, the one that came with me on the four-hour bus ride when I moved here. 

I ran up the steps. My key didn’t work. I pounded on the door with both fists.

“Hey!” I yelled. “Hey! You stupid old bags. Open up!” 

I kept pounding until I ran out of strength. Legally, I had no legs to stand on. Every month I paid in cash, but I wasn’t even halfway through the current month. I couldn’t break a window because all of them were protected with metal bars. 

I ran back down and checked the violin. Nothing was broken, thankfully. I played a few notes to make sure. Even the leather casing had no scratches. I opened the duffle bag. All my unfashionable clothes were inside, folded and neatly packed on one side. On the other, my toiletries and food had been separated into several big Ziplock bags. Even my three hotdog weiners were in there, probably expired. 

I didn’t know why I was surprised. They have always been clean and organized. Eve was practically OCD. They tried to maintain a certain standard of living, probably because their home was the only thing they could control. 

I sat on the stoop again and looked at my stuff. It was pathetic how little I owned. Maybe I wanted it this way. I never planned on staying in Moss Park forever. But I couldn’t go back to that dirt-road town where the most interesting thing about me would be that I had once lived in the city.

“Girlie.” 

I looked up. The old hooker was blowing smoke out the window.

“They’re not home,” she told me. “It’s getting dark. You can crash on my couch if you want.”

What was left of the sun cast a blood orange glow on the street. I hesitated, but the darker it got around here, the more dangerous. The real creeps came out at night. I shivered, feeling the chill in my bones. 

“You sure?” I asked.

She nodded coolly as if she was used to strangers in her house, which she was. I picked up my things and walked over. We introduced ourselves. Her name was Sherry. She looked younger up close, maybe only in her late thirties. Her hair was bleached a flat, dry blonde, except for the auburn of her roots coming in. The freckles over her nose looked like little blood splatters, her blue eyes diluted Windex. 

Sherry’s apartment took up the entire first floor of a decrepit Victorian row house. The living room smelled like cigarettes and unwashed men. The mismatched ’80s furniture probably came from Goodwill. The old bags shopped there too. Sherry pointed to the brown couch and said I could make camp there. I sat down and smiled up at her to show gratitude.

“What are you doing here anyway?” She loomed over me, cigarette still in hand.

“You said I could crash here,” I answered, confused.

“No. Here. This shit neighbourhood.” 

“Oh. Because. I found a cheap room.” 

“Bad deal,” she said. “This is a place for people who don’t matter.” 

I watched her take the last drag of her cigarette, then squeeze the butt into the opening of an empty Coke can on the coffee table. 

“You matter,” I felt obligated to say, but even as I said it, I knew my words ringed false.

She looked at me with those flat blue eyes. The shallow end of a swimming pool. Eyes that said no, she didn’t. 

“It’s better than where I’m from, I’ll tell you that.” She held up her palms to the room. “But now look at me.” 

Whether she was being sarcastic or genuine, I couldn’t tell. “It’s certainly more interesting in the city,” I said politely.

“You wouldn’t be here if where you’re from is any better,” she said. “But girlie, this is as good as it gets for us.” 

I considered whether that was true. Back home, I had people who cared about me, or at least knew who I was. I came here to make something of myself, but I couldn’t because I didn’t know until now how much I hated myself.

“If you want money,” Sherry said. “You can probably charge double what I charge.” 

I blinked back at her and waited for the punchline. She wasn’t joking. 

“I’ll think about it,” I replied.  

She threw me an itchy-looking brown blanket. “If you want to shower, there’s extra towels under the sink. Help yourself to a sandwich in the kitchen. There’s bread and baloney in the fridge.” 

I thanked her again, awkward but overwhelmed by her kindness. I wished I had something to offer her in return. I made a good twenty dollars in tips that morning, but I didn’t want to insult her with money. 

Since I just sat there on the couch, she sat next to me and turned on the TV. We watched a rerun of This Hour Has 22 Minutes, a show I used to watch with my parents. She cackled at everything, even the unfunny sketches. I realized this was the first time I’d been invited over to someone’s house in the entire year that I’d lived here.

When another episode started, someone knocked on the door. Sherry stood up and pulled out this folding screening so it hid the couch area. 

“Gotta work, baby,” she said to me.

With the screen blocking me, I could only see the man at the door as a hulking shadow. Bill was his name, apparently a regular. 

“Who’s over there?” I heard him say on the way to the bedroom.

“Never you mind, stud.” 

Sherry closed the bedroom door. Even with the TV on, I heard her playful banter and cackling, then the harmony between the bed squeaking and the man moaning. I thought how convenient that the men came to her. That she had built enough of a clientele that she could work from home. 

When Bill left, I turned off the TV and the living room lights to go to sleep early. The blanket Sherry gave me was too thin so I put my winter jacket over it. 

I was about to doze off when another man arrived, someone who skipped the small talk and laughter. The bed squeaked so much I thought it would break. Sherry stayed silent the whole time, but the man’s cries were high and desperate, as if he were about to die.  

I kept my eyes closed. My hands pressed my ears tight. This was it. My low point. My rock bottom. I told myself it was fine. I was fine. Everything was going to be fine because tonight was the last night I would ever be here.

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Annie Zhu is a writer from Toronto. Her fiction was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and longlisted for The Berlin Writing Prize, The DISQUIET Prize, and the John Steinbeck Award for Fiction. 

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13 July 2023