Free Holding Still for as Long as Possible by Zoe Whittall Page A

claims and lots of architectural posturing that hid massive insecurities.
    A hotel that used to provide the neighbourhood a certain visible sketch factor had been rebuilt into a boutique hotspot called the Drake Hotel, with a hipster happy hour and over-priced entrees. The first Starbucks. Residents had reacted as if someone had taken a big shit on their front porch. The graffiti condemning it was witty. Roxy’s friend Richard, a local multimedia artist, made pins that read Blame the Drake . Roxy wore one, somewhat ironically. Condos were sprouting like acne on every block. Rents were rising. Our landlord, who was old, usually drunk and lived in Mississauga, only remembered to cash the rent cheques half the time. We were lucky he probably wouldn’t think to raise it. When Maria and I moved out of our place on Argyle, our landlord there said he was selling to a developer.
    Roxy organized walks around the neighbourhood trying to mobilize residents against the encroaching virus of progress. She was full of historical tidbits, and she rallied against the takeover. Me, well, I secretly hoped they really would build the rumoured Loblaws or Shoppers Drug Mart. Then I wouldn’t have to stand between peed-pants man and boob-touch guy at the 1–8 items aisle at Price Chopper. I was thankful for the occasional latte, sick of the syrupy swill from the doughnut shop next to the train tracks. I knew this made me a bad person, but whatever. You pick your battles. You do what you can. I was trying to cultivate some sense of balance.
    Roxy stood up to reach for the sugar and pulled the white shirt out of her pants, her protruding beer belly sticking out slightly over her belt. “Listen to this, Barbara Bush is reported to have said this about the Superdome shelter: ‘So many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this [chuckles] — this is working very well for them.’ ”
    My coat halfway undone, I shoved the groceries into the crisper, checked the freezer, and found the coffee tin empty. Another cup. Doughnut shop.
    â€œCoffee? I’m going back out.”
    Roxy poured a pink package of sugar substitute into her Diet Pepsi. She liked to drink things that taste like tinfoil. She preferred food with molecular properties akin to plastic bags. “Isn’t that fucked up?” she asked, not waiting for me to nod my head or add anything.
    Roxy liked to talk. I liked to listen. The roommate situation would probably work out well.
    Roxy was raised in rural Quebec in a gay commune and didn’t taste Coca-Cola until she was eighteen. Or not a commune, really. The way she explained its evolution, it seems that her two dads purchased a farm, and slowly their friends left the city to join them. They became an insular social movement, with solar-panel huts and organic gardens. Goats and pigs, donkeys and bunnies.
    Needless to say, the time Roxy did spend in rural elementary school was hard on her, the only Jewish, ambiguously gendered kid raised by a group of men. Consequently, she grew an incredibly thick skin and uniquely independent disposition. Her dads ( The Donalds: one Don, one Donnie ) sent her care packages of home-made jam, photos of lambs, and an annual holiday letter like no other. She made meals out of Pixy Stix and hard yellow banana candy, chocolate sauce on microwave popcorn; she had an overgrown bubble-gum dispenser sitting between the toilet and the sink in the bathroom. Her teeth were a battleground.
    Best of all, she hadn’t had television in the 1990s. She never saw my music videos. She never went to any big concerts. I was just an ordinary fuck-up to her.
    I zipped up my jacket and fished through a pint-glass of change on the shelf beside neglected vegan cookbooks, half-full bottles of vodka, and our near-finished collection of Smurfs figurines. I sorted the nickels from the quarters. “Want anything from the outside?”
    â€œC’mon,