Night in the World, page 5
Justin listens feeling tremors of recognition. He snorts, blows smoke. “You think?”
“If people in charge get their way, yeah.”
He’s decided he likes young Kurt. Or finds him bracing, which is perhaps even better. Since they’re feeling so loose, Justin wishes aloud that they had something stronger.
It’s two in the morning. Kurt says he knows a place Justin might find cool.
He pulls out his phone and texts the sitter: must deal with a leak in the kitchen, will be very late. Can you sleep over? Her parents are just up the street. She replies in seconds: no problem.
On Kurt’s directions, Justin drives them north to Davisville. Mount Pleasant Cemetery opens on their right, its tombstone paths wending from Yonge Street toward other shores. Uptown isn’t where he expected to be headed to this secret destination, so the trip’s already worthwhile. They leave the car in a public lot and foot down a lane under the sharp moon, vapour coming from their mouths.
At the rear of a brick building they approach two figures flanking a steel door. The men look them over. Just you two? Kurt offers the cover: a red fifty folded over more notes.
The doors are opened and banged shut behind them. They’re in a warm corridor lit by sconces. Ahead: low, pulsing music.
They emerge into a cavernous space, more noisy than crowded, in which the music and voices cloud. Brick walls rise several storeys to a sloped roof raised on thick squared beams. About halfway up, a catwalk runs under a gallery of canvases hanging from chains. People are standing up there with drinks, leaning over the railings to watch the floor below.
Justin follows Kurt through sitting areas sectioned by Japanese screens. It’s a pretty crowd, everyone shimmering as if dusted with money. He’s grateful to be wearing his Prada trench coat, a gift from Naomi.
Kurt indicates a man to see for their purchase. Justin hands him several hundred to get what Kurt feels is best, which turns out to be one small packet of coke, plus crystal, plus some pills.
“Want to ditch your coat?” Kurt tosses his onto a sofa behind one of the screens. “Don’t worry, no one will fuck with you here.”
Justin sits. The place actually feels like someone’s home — the dealer’s, perhaps. Down a hallway he can see two bowls for pet food on the floor.
The bar sells full bottles of liquor or wine only and no beer.
“Are you kidding me?” Justin glares at the woman serving them.
“Pretentious cunts,” Kurt says, once she goes to fetch their order. He’s acquired an even grimmer mood since their arrival. When their Prosecco and water arrive, he sets to work on the blow.
Cocaine. There were a few years Justin had a lot of fun tooting up. Different times. Freer, and oddly, more innocent. Yes, he’ll stand by that thought. The seventies — even the early eighties — were still innocent: sex without death, drugs without guilt. And music — oh, the music! Created by people who were passionate about artistry and who actually took chances. Real music, not the cannibalized, regurgitated mixes and mash-ups cynically marketed today.
Kurt chops and gathers and chops again. Justin thinks about Robert Fripp and his work on Heroes. The coke is only mildly alluring; Justin prefers the Prosecco and pretty faces. Whenever someone new comes into the room, the people up on the catwalk are quick to study them with feigned nonchalance, though whoever they seem to be anticipating (a celebrity?) never arrives.
An Asian woman in a peacock-blue peacoat enters, scans the room and heads their way. She’s lovely. Snowflakes halo her dark cropped hair, tip her leather boots.
“Hey Kurt!” she says, smiling.
To Justin’s surprise, Kurt greets her rudely and doesn’t invite her to sit. “Fucking mooch,” he mutters after her short visit’s over. He offers Justin the mirror. “She tries that again and we’ll have to swat her.”
Justin inhales a line, coughs, and swallows. Showers of sparks fly into his head.
“Amen,” Kurt says. He toots his line, swallows, and grins.
Blinking, Justin gazes at the room with renewed interest. Blinders he wasn’t even aware of have fallen away. Look at the colours! The people!
“Another?” he says to Kurt.
“Give it ten.”
They finish the bottle, do a second line, then decide to find Blue. She’s at the bar sipping water. Kurt kisses her cheek and introduces her as Leelee.
“Not to you,” she says, the smile gone.
“Oh? What are you to me, then?” He wraps his arms around her and rocks his groin against her hip.
“Apparently no one,” she replies, but her eyes engage Justin’s and she strokes her neck.
They bring her back to the sofa and put her between them, pour her wine from the new bottle and feed her a line, which turns her all wonderful. Now they have a party with twirl and spin, not just two guys dribbling the energy back and forth. Kurt hands them the pills, explaining that they complement the coke, and though Justin is skeptical (things are so pretentious now, back in the day they just drank beer with their coke), he’s not going to be a drag. He takes two, washes them down. Their little party gets intensely festive then.
HE’S BEING CARRIED on waves of sound.
He’s been exploring the room — for how long? There’s no windows. It might be day or night. He might be dreaming. People recline on the sofas, the women’s jewellery and breasts slouching. A little crowd hives against the bar.
Something keeps buzzing against his thigh. Ah — the phone. An unfamiliar number, not the sitter’s. He puts the device away. There’s only one other number he cares about. Because his heart’s a dog, waiting for its master. But she’s many miles away, his bride, sleeping under strange trees. He’s on a long leash tonight.
He climbs the stairs to the catwalk, his eyes alight. He moves as a proud warrior, and whatever his gaze touches springs to attention: women sense and appreciate, men nod their respect. These people aren’t a tribe, yet the old affinities and longings flow deep.
Leelee’s beside him and he’s talking to her at length in front of a painting, hearing himself use the words “roller coaster” and “malfeasance” in the same sentence. Really? They’re touching too. Did her hand reach for his arm, or did his arm pull her hand toward him? A gemstone earring winks in her upper ear, just below the helix. Back in the day a stud in your upper ear stood for something: you were a rebel, you had opinions. Back in the day. Then there was the further back, the time of tribes, when a piercing would have to be earned, a rite of passage, sign of womanhood and wisdom. Justin thinks about this as he talks. Tomorrow night Leelee might wear a mood ring or a princess-cut diamond — whatever!
He touches her shoulders, feeling he should reassure her through these waves of perception. Where did it go, all the meaning in things? Who poured it out? How can they gather it again?
Leelee leans in and nips his earlobe because he’s stopped paying attention. In response he moves his hand to her bum, then takes it away. She kisses his cheek, tongue-flicking the skin. His chest is swelling, his heart pounding.
Outside he finds Yonge Street and flags a cab, not caring about his car. Once he’s heading safely away, the fear falls behind. He had a good time tonight and wasn’t a bad boy. He’s still very high and the city multi-colourful. He loves riding through it as the sky pales. He loves arriving home.
The sitter’s asleep on the couch. Upstairs he checks on Gwynn then slides into bed, thinking of Naomi. The part of her body he knows best these days, besides her face, is the shallow pool between her shoulder blades when he spoons her. He likes to put his lips there.
No state is permanent. He and Naomi can still be happy. When she comes home tomorrow, he’ll deposit all his kisses in that pool.
HE WANTS TO LIFT HER over his shoulder. Instead, he carries her bags inside. There’s colour in her cheeks and she looks relaxed. He kisses her tenderly and long, holding her, his beloved, his wife. She’s warm and surrendering, though not like when they were young; she withholds not so much her body as her heart, he feels, like it’s a gem she’s keeping close.
He tells her that he’s got dinner covered. Why doesn’t she see Gwynn, then meet him for a drink? He knows better than to demand face time with her anyway until she reconnects with her daughter.
In the living room he opens wine, lights candles, puts on Emmylou Harris. When Naomi’s back and settled in, he starts telling her about The Black Rider. It was the best theatre — maybe the best performance — he’s seen in his life.
“Better than Devo in ’79?” she asks.
“Ha! Life-altering concerts aside.” He smiles, so grateful for her memory of his stories. He kisses her brow. But how to do the play justice? The bride’s pinched face, her parents’ tormented-souls wailing. That grinning, thrusting devil slapping the hero’s fat ass.
“It was incredibly artful, yet totally raw,” he says. “It felt like it turned us inside out.”
“Ouch.”
“Yes. But amazing. You know how when you see a great band, a really fantastic band having a fantastic night, and the music shatters all the bullshit that accumulates over everything, all this crust, this dead matter that strangles us?” He’s gesticulating, trying to convey the play’s effect. It was like realizing he’d been breathing through a tube. Gulping air. It was like the coke. “A hand grenade tossed into the room,” he says. “Blam!”
Naomi smiles. He wishes she’d laugh. Always these days she seems to be wanting yet not wanting him. It makes his heart sore.
“Sounds pretty wild,” she says. “What did Gwynn think?”
“She loved it. The kid’s got good taste. I wish you could have seen it too. Hey, I could find out how many more shows are running. Maybe we could go?”
“Maybe.” Naomi tucks her feet under her. “It’s a bit of a stark contrast to the headspace I’ve been in.”
“Tell me about it.”
Naomi sips her wine. “I thought Gwynn was coming down?”
“She will soon enough.”
Naomi stretches her legs and points her slim bare feet. Takes another drink. It occurs to Justin that maybe this is it: he and his wife have nothing to talk about anymore except their child. The chasm’s permanent. Still he abides, while she fidgets and resettles, refusing to believe it.
“Babe? Tell me about your time. I want to hear all about it.”
“The retreat was great, really great. Just . . . kind of the total opposite experience, I think.” She pauses, and he tops up her wine.
“Thanks, Jay,” she says, and his heart swells. Don’t you see, Naomi? Things can be so easy if you just love me. Just act like I’m here.
She describes the retreat centre, cabins in snowy woods, a main lodge. Days spent learning to do nothing, working on her “practise” of doing nothing . . . confronting all the distractions that draw one’s attention from the moment, from living. To Justin it sounds like they actually paid for a similar experience. The idea excites him.
“But it’s not the same, Jay,” she says. “On the retreat you try to reach a place of accepting yourself and training your mind not to be so possessed by those distractions. We weren’t allowed to speak during the time, even at meals. But at the end, the most incredible thing happened. We’d been together for a week, right? Twelve of us, never a word. Then when the final meditation was over the facilitators — the only ones who ever spoke — thanked us and said we were now allowed to talk to each other. It was an odd moment because during the last couple of days I felt like I was starting to get somewhere, finally, and didn’t want to break the spell. I was still frustrated and felt like the whole thing was incredibly hard, but not all the time. I seemed to be moving out of the swing between resistance and acceptance to this other place beneath them, if that makes sense. It was really interesting.
“Anyway, the retreat was over. Then you know what happened? We all stood up and spontaneously embraced. No ‘Hi, I’m so-and-so,’ little hug and kiss or handshake. Just ‘Hi!’ And then falling into these full, long embraces, everybody, like it was the most natural, easiest thing to do. People were strangers yet not strange. Just . . . other selves, almost, you know? We’d harmonized through silence.”
Justin slips down to her on the couch, wanting to take her hand but waiting. He still thinks they had a similar experience and wishes she’d see that. It’s not like his was less valuable because he didn’t struggle through a sanctimonious week.
“And now, it’s really over,” Naomi says. “I drive home and whoosh, here I am again in the big ‘what next?’” Her eyes drift down, brow tightening into a vulnerable, lonely expression that Justin knows well — one that lies at the core of Naomi and his love for her, though she seldom shows it.
Yet he doesn’t know what to do with this sadness that’s taken hold of his wife. This lostness she keeps searching for ways to understand. “The ‘big what next’ is that you come home to the ones who love you, and the rest will follow,” he says, and slides his arm around her.
Naomi’s head inclines toward him, but the rest of her stays still. She doesn’t even raise her eyes. In a moment she leaves to check on Gwynn.
The next morning he feels rundown, a scoured sensation. Yet he makes his girls pancakes, playing the jolly chef and hamming it up as he serves. After they leave he descends into his office to begin shovelling through the day’s bullshit. Lonely, sore. Always sore these days.
The jeans he was wearing on the weekend are still lying there in a pile of clothes. He checks the pockets for the unused packets of crystal. Thumbs them a moment, then puts them away in his desk.
• THE ISLAND •
5
THE FERRY TERMINAL for Toronto Islands has changed little with time: it’s still a rough, concrete pen, open to the pigeons and bitter wind, with four gates. Moored at the wharf are the same boats that brought Oliver between shores as a baby and boy, and carried his father through his childhood too. Of these only the fleet’s youngest and smallest vessel, Ongiara, makes the winter run. The others, battened down until spring, float like phantom bergs against the dusky sky and ice-filled water.
Calling Ward’s Island, a crewman unlocks and opens the gate with a clang. The huddle of passengers flows through, and Oliver passes the man a paper ticket. The Ongiara’s flat, open deck, which can transport vehicles when necessary, holds only bicycles tonight. Oliver veers to the narrow starboard cabin, overheated as always, and sits on the wooden bench near the bow. People and chatter push in around him, the horn blasts, and they rumble out of dock.
He pulls off his fogged glasses to dry them, presses aching fingers to his cheeks. The hull bangs and scrapes against ice. Peering out, he watches slabs of it bob heavily or get heaved up and away by the boat’s slow passage through the inner harbour; this trench will be re-broken daily for the several-kilometre trip unless the harbour freezes solid. He wonders when that last happened? In the old days Islanders skated on the harbour during winter, were accustomed to weeks-long freezes without boat service. He remembers playing hockey out here with other kids: the crack of a puck in knife-cold air, trees creaking like they’d snap and the dormant-looking city seemingly a world away. But winter has been ebbing for decades — this year being the exception that proves the new rule, the “new normal” that’s anything but.
He turns back to the cabin. The passengers — all Islanders, commuting home from their workdays — are gabbing as loudly as ever over the engine and grinding racket. They have teenaged children picked up from high school with them, dogs, groceries. Some call out to their neighbours, laughing, while others have their heads together in talk. A woman with wild grey hair wags a finger at her friend, making Oliver grin. Day in and day out there’s a festive mood to this boat ride home, which has to be one of the most unique commutes in the world.
As they close in on shore he leaves the cabin to wait on deck. In the gathering night, the island is a rim of deeper darkness marked by scattered lights. It looks so slight, so fragile, a narrow lap of earth they could easily slip past. Yet it calls, as it has always called. And he answers as he’s always answered: with all his heart.
The boat brings him in.
At Ward’s Island dock the crewmen toss ropes and knot them tight around the pier cleats. They lower the mechanical boarding ramp and unhook the guard rope, then stand on either side in their winterized hi-vis jackets. Oliver is first and he is ready. He passes between them and up, crosses the docking platform to the road, and strides into the night.
Everything changes once he’s left the boat.
It’s darker, windier, colder. The island is a long, low sandspit lying between the open lake and the city’s dense geometry. Through bare-limbed trees Oliver can see both perspectives as he walks: to the south, the dark open water of Lake Ontario seems to stretch to infinity, the far shore — by day visible as an intermittent, roughly penciled line — so distant that it belongs to another country. And to his right in the north, a tower kingdom rears up at the lake’s edge, jubilantly lit, as if the bulrushes were transformed by magic.
Cyclists puffed like birds in winter clothing pass him, their bikes hitched to grocery trailers, bags dangling from handlebars. He’s glad when the last exiting passengers are gone, glad to be alone.
Everything changes here. He changes here. Home, centre — the place he came into the world. The place their family was whole. Though he was only ten when they left, he’s come here countless times since; could walk this place in the dark; knows its body like no other. His father, too, is here. The coloured lights shining through the trees, the boat masts gleaming like icicles, the little woods and bays — all are inseparable from the sound of Dad’s boots as they walked to the ferry, the way he cooked morning eggs doused in pepper or lifted their canoe. The paths they took together remain rooted like willow tendrils. And his father also, like a shaggy old willow with a gnarled trunk, one of the battered trees by Hanlan’s Point — that’s how Oliver imagines him, living out the life that was cut so short.
