by Tom Moore
He wiped the soap from his face and turned to look at me. He was just the same, except a year and a half older. “What happened to U of T?” I asked.
“Got bored. A bunch of strangers. Wanted to come back with the locals.”
“Glad you did,” I said, mocking his cryptic style of talking.
“I transferred down this term. Grades came with me.”
“How’d you do? All A’s?”
“What’d ya think?” He continued to dry himself like a big maharaja. “I heard you were in Doyle House, so I figured I’d stay here, too. Better the devil you know.”
“Are you doing economics?” I asked.
“Rolston’s class,” he nodded. “Why?”
“Oh, just wondering. Have you eaten yet?”
“No,” he said.
“Good! I’ll wait for you.”
We went to the cafeteria breakfast and were hardly seated when he said, “So, you and Fagan are an item.”
“We’ve been together for almost a year now.”
“How’s that working out?”
“Pretty good.”
“Not a union I would have predicted.”
“She’s changed a lot in the past year.”
“I’ve seen her.” His tone was equivocal.
“What floor you on?” I asked.
“The first, of course. No need to walk up four flights of stairs.”
“Of course.”
“Your roommate is an interesting piece of work.”
“Malacat?”
“Mr. John Malacat from Grand Falls.”
“How do you know so much? You just got here.”
He ignored my comment. “His father runs a tavern and strip club called, imaginatively, ‘Dirty Dicks.’”
“His father’s name is Dick?”
“No, the other meaning.” A lock of straight blond hair fell across his glasses. “John is also the main drug dealer in the five residences. You’re not involved, are you?”
“Of course not.”
“Well, if his room is raided and they find anything untoward, you could be implicated.”
“Implicated?”
“Sent to jail.”
I was pondering this when a familiar voice behind me said, “Anyone sitting here?”
Before we could answer, Malacat and Weasel and Docker were sitting at our table. John sat across from me, with Monk at the end and between us. “Hi, guys,” I said.
“Who’s your new friend?” John asked as he tasted his juice.
“This is Jerome Banion. We call him Monk back home.”
“From Curlew, are you?”
“Isn’t everyone?” Monk answered. Most of us laughed.
“Bit late to be settling into Doyle House.”
“I just transferred in from U of T.”
“Oh, wow! U of T! Impressive,” Malacat said.
“No, it’s just big, mostly. They have a really impressive English and law faculty, but everything else is just a bigger version of here. Lots to do, of course.”
“Lots to do here, if you know where to go.” John winked at his pals.
“I don’t mean bars,” Monk said. “I mean museums, theatre, art . . .”
“I don’t mean bars either. Pass the salt,” John said.
We all looked down at the salt shaker between their two hands on the table. John could reach it just as easily as Monk. It was a challenge. Monk looked at the salt shaker as we all waited to see what he would do. Then he picked it up, turned around, and threw it the length of the dining hall. It bounded along in hops and rolled into the stainless steel kicker plate at the base of the serving counter. It spun round and round, then stopped.
John looked at Monk for a moment and said, “We’re not going to get along, are we?”
“That’s one thing we agree on,” Monk said, as to a friend.
It was a quiet breakfast.
Later that week, my phone rang. “Felix, it’s Monk. I’m in the infirmary.”
“What?”
“Bring me my economics book, and I’ll meet you in Rolston’s class.” His book and notes lay on my desk, where he had been helping me with my elasticities of supply and demand.
“Why are you in the infirmary?”
“Someone put a box of tacks in my bed, and when I slid my legs in, they occasioned some nasty scratches. Nothing major. Tetanus and lockjaw shots.”
“Are you okay?”
“I can’t run the hundred-yard dash as well as I could, but I’ll be fine.”
“See you in class.” I hung up the phone and looked at my watch.
“Someone in the infirmary?” John asked. He lay on his bed reading Playboy.
“Yeah, Monk. Some prick put tacks in his bed.”
“Must have made enemies already.” He went back to Playboy.
I got up and went to class.
After, Monk and I met Tammy in the Spanish Café. He told us about his injuries.
“In the infirmary?” she asked. “You must have been scratched up pretty bad?”
“I’ll be okay.”
“Who would do such a thing?”
Monk and I looked at each other. No sense telling her.
“It’s been happening all week.”
“What has?” I asked.
“Little terrorisms, like honey poured over my doorknob, my bed frenched, nasty little things. My roommate has moved out.”
“Not so good,” said Tammy, patting his arm.
“I’m a big boy, but I am getting tired of it.”
“What will you do?”
“I don’t know yet, but it may be time for a counter-strike.”
“I gotta go to class,” Tammy said. We kissed, and off she went.
“What’s going to happen, Monk?”
He shook the hair out of his eyes. “One of two things: whoever’s doing it will simply get tired and give it up. After all, he’s risking getting caught each time he breaks in to vandalize my room. I’ve got the proctor, security, and the floor prefects on the watch, so it’s getting incrementally more dangerous for him.”
“Or?”
“Or he will keep it up until I leave Doyle. Then he will have won back the respect of his peers. Peers, like you, who foolishly respected him to start with,” he said.
“You should have passed the salt,” I said.
“I did. Remember?”
To end the feud, I stole a salt shaker from the dining hall and brought it up to the room. Uncharacteristically, Malacat was at his desk working on an assignment. Usually, he had others do them for him.
“Monk sent this,” I lied, and handed him the salt shaker.
He took it in his hand and looked at the little hexagon-shaped glass body with its silver metal cap. “It’s only half full,” he said without looking up.
“It’ll have to do,” I said.
“Yes,” he said, “I guess it will.”
He placed the salt shaker on the top of his bookshelves, like a trophy, for all to see. His dignity had been restored.
Things quieted down for a while, and I could concentrate on my courses and enjoy my relationship with Tammy. She seemed more and more in love with me. Was I in love with her? I wrote tedious love poems that lacked both skill and sincerity. During this period, I enjoyed every course I did: psychology, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, economics (thanks to Monk), and my favourite, English literature.
We were doing Shakespeare’s plays. First term: comedies. Second term: tragedies. Nothing in university, and few things in life, affected me like Shakespeare. The fine quality of his thought and the beauty of his language inspired and delighted me. I worshipped at the feet of the master. English
assignments were not work for me; they were explorations into just how the master did it. If I had not been studying him as a course, I would have been reading him on my own. I wanted to get closer to the fineness of his art, his skill, his mind, his soul.
Philosophy introduced me for the first time to disciplined thought. What is life? Why am I here? Questions that were entertained by men since pre-history, by the ape-man gazing up at the stars. It gave me the chance to explore the reactions and answers to those eternal questions by the greatest minds in the world. Aristotle, Plato, Descartes, and Hobbes became my heroes. My highest mark that year was ninety-six per cent in logic, the second unit of philosophy.
In psychology, I enjoyed learning about Freud’s sexual theories and how he helped bring us out of the Victorian era of guilt and prudishness. Tammy and I had brought ourselves out of it without Freud, often fuelled by the music of the Beatles and, later, the Rolling Stones. The masking tape was often on the button of the doorknob at 407 Doyle House, with Malacat politely asleep in the lobby for the night.
In sociology we learned about the Yanomami of South America and how their society reflected the same basics as our own, and of every society created by mankind. I was in my element, bringing in straight A’s and boring everyone to death with my thoughts, poetry, and wild metaphors. Tammy listened to me patiently. Malacat told me to pack off and said I was taking this university thing too seriously.
“It’s just a ticket to free money. Wise up, Felix. It’s about money. Jeez! You need someone to take you along by the hand,” he said.
He was studying commerce, intending to do postgraduate work and eventually become a banker or stockbroker. “Why a banker?” I asked him.
“’Cause that’s where the money is,” he quoted Willie Sutton.
Monk loved Shakespeare, too.
“Soon, you’ll hear he didn’t even write his own plays. Don’t believe it. Nothing of the sort is remotely proven, except people’s inability to accept that a human being could have written anything so pure.”
“Thanks, Monk.” I was not even sure why I said it.
“You know, I’m worried about your relationship with John Malacat.”
“Oh, no problems there. He’s all right.”
“No, Felix, he’s not all right. He’s a drug dealer who can go to jail any day if someone were inclined to make the right phone call.”
“What?”
“You have nothing in common with John Malacat. He is a criminal on his way to Dorchester Penitentiary. He may get through university, but he will surely end up in jail, or worse.”
“I didn’t pick him. I was assigned to the same room.”
“Felix, you have to take some control of your life. You can’t just float on a sea of chance and take whatever comes. What comes may not be good.”
“What do you think I should do?”
“You should get Malacat out of your life. I have no roommate. You could move in here with me.” I looked around his room: bare walls, no posters, empty shelves.
“Felix, have you ever wondered why John Malacat had you for a roommate? After all, you don’t have a lot in common.”
“No, I never have.”
“He needs a roommate like you, with a spotless reputation, so no suspicion will fall on room 407, and he can carry on his illegal affairs.”
“Jeez, Monk, you’re saying a lot. I’m pretty happy, so why should I just up and move out of 407?”
“Felix, you’re too passive! You go along with everyone and everything. You argue with no one and object to nothing. You’re a creature of inertia. Your relationship with Tammy is her idea. You live with John Malacat because you were put there. You don’t have one individual idea of your own. You agree with everyone, Felix!”
And I had to agree with him.
One night, John returned, very drunk, from a night downtown. At first, he was not to be found. I knocked on Docker’s door, but he and Weasel were into the evening’s game of sergeant major in the lobby. It was after midnight when I went into the bathroom looking for Malacat.
“John,” I shouted into the shower stalls. No one about. I looked under the toilet cubicles and saw a familiar set of big feet sideways on the floor. I swung open the cubicle door and found the king of the residence unconscious on the floor. To add insult to injury, his pants were still down around his ankles from when he had toppled off the throne. I leaned into the stall. “John! John! Wake up!”
I reached in and grabbed him by the shirt. “Wake up!” But clearly, it wasn’t going to happen.
I pulled his pants up around his rump and fastened his belt as well as I could. Then I started pulling him out of the stall. He started to rouse and jumped in fear. “Felix, is it you?”
“Yes. Let’s get back to the room.”
“Oh, no, I can’t walk.”
“I’ll drag you. Let’s go.” I hoisted him with one arm over my shoulder and slid him through the bathroom door and down the hall, passing the card players as we went. Docker, Weasel, and the other players barely looked up as we dragged past, like one horrible creature from 407.
I put him on his bed, my duty done. He could clean himself up tomorrow, and the hangover was his own to deal with. I picked up the phone to call Tammy.
“I heard you’re moving out,” he said drunkenly from his bed.
“You can’t believe everything you hear,” I said, and dialled Tammy’s number. “Remember to shower tomorrow,” I added, but he might have been asleep.
9
The Return of Ellen
One day, I got a phone call from Gib Martin. “Did you hear about Billy Crotty?” he asked.
“What are you talking about?”
“He tried to off himself,” Gib answered.
“You mean suicide?”
“Yes, stupid. That’s what I mean. Threw himself into the harbour. He was splashing around when someone noticed him. They got him down at the hospital now.”
“The harbour? They probably had to hose him down when they got him out. Think we should go visit him?”
“I don’t know. Let’s wait till they get him home.”
So, a day or two later, when Billy Crotty was back in his home at Aldershot Street, he received a visit from two former tenants. I think it was a Thursday night that Gib and I showed up with a dozen Dominion Ale to visit our old landlord.
“Billy, how you doing?” Gib began. “Felix and I just came down to say hello.”
“Come in, boys, come in. Good to have some company.”
“How you doing, Billy?”
As he led us into the kitchen, he seemed even more unsteady on his feet than the last time I’d seen him.
“Oh, okay! I jumped into the harbour!”
“That’s never a good sign,” I said.
“No, I s’pose not, but it worked out for the best. I’m no longer in that horrible state.”
“No?”
“No. Not since I let Jesus become my personal saviour.”
“How did you get from the harbour to Jesus?” I asked.
“Reverend Stone from the Tabernacle Church came down to get me.”
“Good of them to care,” said the Gibber.
“Oh, they care, like no one else did since Alice left,” said Billy.
“What’s this about Alice?” Gib asked.
“She came back to me last week,” Billy said.
“Last week?” I asked.
“But her name was changed,” Billy said, looking out the window, confused.
“What’s her new name?” I asked.
“Ellen Monteau,” he said.
The floor fell away beneath my feet.
“Did you say Ellen Monteau? Where do you know her from, Billy?” I knew that she was doing some courses.
/> “I don’t know her at all. She just turned up here one day looking for you, Felix.”
“Who is Ellen Monteau?” Gib asked.
“Gib, you don’t even know who Alice is yet,” I snapped.
“She was an angel,” Billy said. “She knocked on the back door, just like you did, Felix.”
“What did you tell her?” I asked.
“Who? Oh, I was on my way to jump into the harbour, just trying to get rid of her.”
“Name from your past, Felix? Care to enlighten us?” Gib asked.
“Billy, is she at MUN? Where is she?”
“She’s at MUN part-time,” Billy said.
“What did she say?”
“She walked in here like she owned the place. Like Alice.”
“Who’s Alice?”
I sat down with my Dominion between my knees.
“She went upstairs where you used to sleep, and she smelled the air. It was strange. She told me I needed professional help,” he finally said.
“Sounds like she needs a bit of help herself,” Gib offered.
Billy stared off through the wall for almost a minute. Then he snapped back. “Enjoy your beer, boys. It’s some good to see you again.”
That night in residence, the phone rang. “It’s for you,” Malacat said.
“Hello,” I said.
“Hello, Felix. Is this you? You sound different. Where were you?” Tammy asked.
“Tammy? Oh, hi. We went to visit Billy Crotty. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” I hung up without saying goodbye.
“Trouble in Paradise?” I heard Malacat’s voice inquire in the dark bedroom.
That winter, sociology classes ended and anthropology began. We were all anxious to see who our new classmates would be. Tammy had tried to get into the course with me, but couldn’t for scheduling reasons. I went in the door of E-2, a large amphitheatre, looked around, and saw Ellen Monteau sitting in the front row with the winter sun shining on her hair. It was a vision that carried me back to her grade eleven classroom years before, and it all swam before me again: poetry, roses, green hills, mountain peaks, starlit skies, swimming the Hellespont, conquering Everest, duels, eating pufferfish, killing and dying for love, love, love. I sat in the back of the theatre and missed every word the professor said.
