No Relation

by Terry Fallis

“I believe in ghosts,” Hat said in solidarity. “My great-grandmother appears now and again in a little snow globe that I keep on top of my dresser.”

  “I sometimes hear noises at night when I’m closing up the café-bakery. I’ve been meaning to research the history of the building. Maybe it’s haunted,” offered Marie.

  The debate over the existence of spirits and ghosts raged for another ten minutes or so. Occasionally, the discussion even veered within spitting distance of my particular problem. In the end, there was no shortage of suggestions, prescriptions, home remedies, and incantations, but neither were there any epiphanies that evening. A few suggested medication (“SSRIS are all the rage these days”). Others were interested in employing some kind of shaman or ghost-buster to send Ernest packing (“Who you gonna call?”). In one of the more thoughtful suggestions, Jesse proposed that I write about the presence of Ernest Hemingway in my apartment, or perhaps even write to him. Marie thought I should try writing elsewhere, perhaps in the café-bakery. (Not a bad idea.) Hat even suggested I consider electroshock therapy (“Yes, it sounds scary, but I assure you, it really isn’t that bad”). Jackie Kennedy urged that I pray (“When I have a problem, I drop to my knees next to my bed”).

  “What about yoga?” asked John Dillinger, who’d spent most of the meeting in what appeared to be intimate private conversations with Marie Antoinette and Julia Roberts on either side of him. “I do it sometimes to cleanse my mind before auditions so I can assume any role I’m assigned.”

  I bet cleansing his mind didn’t take very long, I thought.

  “Interesting idea, John Dillinger, but I think it’s going to take more than pulling a hamstring in a Downward Dog to clear Mr. Hemingway out of my mind. But thank you.”

  I felt a little bad being so dismissive, but I didn’t really like the vibe I was getting from America’s first Public Enemy Number One. He had slipped into our midst a little too easily, a little too quickly, a little too smoothly. I wondered if anyone else in the room shared my reservations.

  The discussion sort of petered out after Julia suggested filing a restraining order against Ernest Hemingway. I knew she’d said it in jest, but not everyone around the circle picked up on the joke. The meeting broke up shortly thereafter.

  “Thanks, everyone, for the helpful suggestions. I’ll give it all some thought and keep you posted,” I said, drawing the meeting to a close. “Think about who might like to share their situation next week. Sorry about the rainout, but the long-term forecast suggests that we’ll be back playing next week. Julia and John, you’re welcome to play on our softball team now that you’ve passed the initiation to join the group. We could use the support.”

  I don’t know what I was expecting from the meeting, but I left feeling very down and discouraged. Perhaps I’d put too much faith in the power of the group to help one another. I had already considered and rejected the suggestions that had emerged in the meeting. Okay, I confess I hadn’t really considered electroshock therapy or yoga. But I wouldn’t be going down those paths.

  Marie had invited the group to come back to Let Them Eat Cake! for dessert and coffee after the meeting. Very nice of her, and most of the group was going, except for Clark Kent, who really felt he had to get back home to see his kids. I just couldn’t bring myself to go. I was just too bummed out. So I begged off. Marie looked sad when I told her, which made me feel even worse. She touched my arm and urged me to come, saying that I’d feel better. But I said no. I jumped on the subway and went home as the group piled into cabs. My last image of the scene, before I headed down the stairs to the platform, was of John Dillinger escorting Marie to a cab, his hand resting on her shoulder as they walked. He climbed in beside her.

  When I walked back into my apartment, I immediately noticed Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea under the back leg of the couch. I’d stuck the paperback there the day I moved in to compensate for the minor slant in the hardwood floor that left my couch exactly 128 pages shy of level. I’d missed it when removing Hemingway’s works from my living space. I replaced it with Wodehouse’s The Code of the Woosters and instantly wondered what it would be like to have my own valet, like the inimitable Jeeves. Then I took The Old Man and the Sea down to my storage locker to join the rest of my incarcerated Hemingway cache. On my way back up to the apartment, I had a faint hope that this final act of eradicating, erasing, expunging, extinguishing, and eliminating Ernest Hemingway just might liberate the words trapped between my head and my fingers. But no. After an hour in front of the laptop with a menacingly flashing cursor and a blank screen, I slammed it closed and lay back on the couch, approaching what seemed like rock bottom. I think I’d known even before I turned on my computer. You can feel it when the words are there, ready to flow. And you know when they just aren’t. What I didn’t yet know was whether my current barren state was permanent. But it was beginning to feel like it might be.

  I snapped awake at the urgent knock on my door. I swung my legs off the couch, my heart pounding a bit. I could see through to the kitchen that the clock on the stove said 10:45. It felt like I’d been asleep for days, not minutes. The peephole distorted Marie’s face, leaving her wall-eyed and hydrocephalic, yet still strangely attractive. Barely conscious, I opened the door.

  “Hem, we know it’s late, but can we come in?” Marie drawled. “It’s important.”

  Mahatma Gandhi and Professor James Moriarty were very close behind her.

  “Um, of course, please come in.”

  I opened the door and waved them across the threshold. Fortunately, my apartment was still in pretty good shape to welcome visitors.

  “What a splendid flat you have, Hem,” Professor Moriarty said.

  “Yes, it must be wonderful to live on a street with trees.” Marie looked out the window to the swaying branches illuminated by the streetlights.

  It took ten minutes to give them the tour and get them seated. They had all declined my offer of beer, wine, orange juice, or water.

  Marie was the one to explain this visit.

  “At the café-bakery, we were all thinking more about your, um, situation, and James here had an idea that got us really excited,” she began. “So we batted it around for a while and we just felt we couldn’t wait until tomorrow to share it with you. You’ll understand in a minute why the three of us were nominated to present it to you.”

  “Yes, she’s absolutely right,” Hat confirmed. “A most excellent introduction, Miss Marie.”

  “Why thank you, Hat,” she replied. “James, will you present the idea to Hem now?”

  A warm feeling of gratitude washed over me, even though I’d not yet heard their plan. How nice of them to do this, and to be so excited about it. All three of them were leaning forward, their eyes alight. At that point, I felt that whatever harebrained scheme they had in mind didn’t really matter. My spirits were lifted just by their presence, their energy, and their thoughtfulness. I was touched.

  “Well, Hem, it occurred to me that your approach to dealing with Mr. Hemingway’s hegemonic occupation of your subconscious may well be entirely and precisely opposite to what is required. When one is trying to rid oneself of a fear of spiders, or of public speaking, or of driving, or I dare say, of deep water, the remedy most often prescribed by psychiatrists and psychologists alike is to confront the fear, to challenge it directly, to overcome it by co-existing with it. With support, you learn about spiders. You hold them. You see that most are harmless. Through knowledge of them, and, more importantly, proximity to them, your fear subsides. Thoughts of them no longer distract. You may remain uncomfortable in their presence, but the raw fear is blunted, and perhaps even banished. Your mental space is liberated from arachnophobia to pursue more important endeavours. Am I being clear?” James asked.

  “I’m with you, Professor. Carry on,” I replied.

  I wasn’t quite sure where he was going, but there was a certain logic to his words.

  “You’ve told us that to try to deal with Mr.
Hemingway, you’ve removed anything connected to the great writer from your immediate surroundings – his novels, books about him, artwork from Paris, the DVD of Midnight in Paris, a jolly fine film, and so on. We contend that in so doing, you are running from Mr. Hemingway rather than confronting him or his spirit. We fear you may be inadvertently fuelling the fire rather than quenching it. So we have developed a proposal that my good friend Mahatma Gandhi will now share.”

  Professor Moriarty formally bowed in Hat’s direction.

  “I thank you for your kind words, Professor James Moriarty,” Hat started. “It is late and I will try to be short, though I am not fatigued in the least, no, I’m not.”

  Marie was just sitting there smiling at each one of us in turn. She really looked lovely.

  “Okay, Hem, here we go,” Hat continued, leaning so close to me he invaded what any reasonable observer would consider my personal space. “What we are proposing this night is built upon Professor Moriarty’s premise that you must confront your demon, not hide it away. Hem, we know that you have some free time right now and we have a sense that you are financially sound. I pray that our assumptions are valid.”

  All three of them leaned in even closer to me. I worried they might soon fall onto the coffee table in unison.

  “Well, I guess that’s a reasonably accurate description of my current situation.”

  “That news is excellent, just excellent,” Hat gushed. “Okay, Hem, this is it. We are strongly encouraging you to embark on what we have decided to call the Ernest Hemingway Exorcism World Tour. What do you think? Is it not a fabulous thought?”

  I was at a loss for words, largely because I had no idea what Hat was talking about.

  “Um, Hat, I think you need to share the details of the EHEWT,” Marie suggested.

  She pronounced it “ee-ute.”

  “There’s already an acronym?” I said. “Wow, you guys work fast.”

  “Oh, I’m so stupid,” Hat said, slapping both his thighs and shaking his head. “Yes, of course, Marie, thank you for setting me back on the path we agreed to take. Please bear with me, Hem. We’re all quite excited about this and it’s caused me to forget my place. The plan would be for you, Hem, to visit those places where Mr. Ernest Hemingway spent time. To go where he went, sit where he sat, write where he wrote, immerse yourself, body and mind, in the world of Ernest Hemingway. This is how you confront the spirit of the famous author who has you so blocked up that you cannot write.”

  Hat nodded at Marie, and she tagged in.

  “You wouldn’t have to spend long in each place, and you wouldn’t have to do it alone. In fact, we think you shouldn’t tackle it alone. So thanks to an hour or so on the Internet, here’s the plan. We think starting in Toronto makes sense. Hemingway worked for the Toronto Star and lived there in the twenties when his wife Hadley gave birth to their son, Jack, inexplicably nicknamed Bumby. James here is happy to go with you there. Next stop, Paris. By coincidence, I’m already booked to be there for a pastry course, ten days from now. I could be there at least on the weekend and in the evenings to help you explore Hemingway’s Paris. I’m afraid you’ll have to handle stop number three, Pamplona, Spain, on your own, but it’s a manageable side trip by train and bus from Paris. Hemingway loved Spain, as you probably know. Then you’ll fly back to Miami, where Hat will meet you to catch a connecting flight to Key West, where of course Hemingway lived and wrote for quite a few years. Finally, you’re on your own again for the last stop, as Hat needs to get back for the start of the Jets spring training camp. Your trip closes out in Ketchum, Idaho, to confront Ernest Hemingway where he died by his own hand. You land in Boise and then rent a car for the drive to Ketchum, near Sun Valley. Then it’s home to New York. And there you have it, the Ernest Hemingway Exorcism World Tour!”

  Hat reached out and clasped my shoulder.

  “It will be so much fun, Hem. And you’ll see. It will work. I know it will. We know it will,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Oh, and I’m sorry to say, Hem, that the cost is not inconsiderable, if I may put it gently like that. But we know it will be worth every one of the hard-earned dollars you’ll be required to spend.”

  CHAPTER 8

  “And they’re calling it the Ernest Hemingway Exorcism World Tour?”

  I nodded. Dr. Scott jotted down a note, her face impassive, blank. She did noncommittal very well.

  As soon as Marie, Hat, and Professor Moriarty had left my apartment shortly after midnight, I’d called Dr. Scott’s office and left a message. Her return phone call arrived at 8:30. She managed to squeeze me in at 10:00.

  “And what did you think when this little delegation arrived and presented their grand plan?” she asked.

  I’d anticipated this question.

  “After they left, my mind and my body disagreed on what should happen next,” I explained. “My body was ready for sleep, but my mind was spinning and flatly refused to shut down. So I just lay in bed thinking long and hard for a good chunk of what was left of the night. Two ideas were still swirling in my head when you called me this morning. Number one, I was filled with gratitude for the time, care, and thought my new friends had devoted to my little writer’s block problem. They seemed so excited about it, and that made me feel great. I was touched, and told them so.”

  “And number two?” she prompted.

  “Number two, the more I thought about their crazy idea of flying around to Hemingway’s haunts, no pun intended, the less crazy it all seemed,” I replied. “In the light of day, sitting here right now, it still strikes me as a well-conceived plan, rooted in something approaching reason. I think that’s what scares me. It all seems to make sense to me.”

  “Do you think your first point is unduly influencing your second point?” she asked. “Is your gratitude for your friends’ thoughtfulness colouring your conclusion about the value of the trip itself?”

  “I thought you might ask me that,” I noted. “No. I tried, I think successfully, to isolate the warm and fuzzy feelings and consider the idea on its merits, with some distance and objectivity. Each time I think it through, I still reach the conclusion that it just might help me with my writing. It feels like it should work. I actually think it will work. And I’ve tried everything else, so what have I got to lose other than the cost of the trip and a week of my life?”

  She stared off into space for a moment, I assume thinking about what I’d said, but who knows?

  “Hem, if you believe this to be true, if you really are thinking and reflecting, and not just reacting and yearning, then you should take the trip,” she said. “I don’t know whether this will work. Nobody knows. So if you really feel this will help, but then decide not to go because I counselled against it, the ‘what ifs’ will get in the way of everything else we might try in the future.”

  “So you think by confronting Hemingway on his own turf, I can make this all go away?” I knew what her response would be.

  “Nice try. What’s important is that you believe it. And if it turns out that it’s not Hemingway’s ghost haunting you, and this doesn’t work, there are far worse ways to spend a week than visiting Paris, Pamplona, and Key West.”

  The first person I saw when I walked into Let Them Eat Cake! was John Dillinger. The second was Marie. They were sitting at a table for two, and they were laughing.

  “Hem, you’re here!” exclaimed Marie, standing up. “I tried to call you earlier but I got your machine.”

  “Yeah, I had a meeting this morning and I was just on my way back home.”

  “Hey, Hem, how’s it hanging?” John Dillinger said, wearing a loopy grin.

  “Excellent alliteration, John,” I replied. “I’m fine, thanks. I didn’t know you were much of a café-bakery type.”

  “I’m not, really. I came for the scenery,” he said, snatching a glance at Marie while he straddled the line between smiling and leering.

  She giggled. Yep, she giggled. Not good. I turned to her.

  “I j
ust wanted to thank you again for last night. That was really quite special.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw John flinch just a little.

  “You dog, you!” John said. “I think I’ve misjudged you, Hem.”

  “And Hat and James were also amazing. It was quite a session,” I added.

  “I’ve definitely misjudged you!”

  Marie rolled her eyes, slapped John on the shoulder, grabbed my arm, and led me to a quieter part of the room. We sat down at the same table Sarah and I had taken a few weeks before.

  “I’m so glad you weren’t mad at us for barging in like that so late. We couldn’t stop ourselves,” she said. “You could probably tell we were a little excited about it all. So, um, what do you think now that you’ve had some time to mull it over?”

  Marie leaned in with her elbows on the table. Her fresh scent reached me and almost threw me off.

  “Well, I’ve decided that since you put so much thought into this, it would be downright insulting and ungrateful of me to pass up such a trip. So I’m going. I really am.”

  Marie shrieked, grabbed both my hands, and squeezed until my fingernails turned pink.

  Everyone else in the restaurant was looking our way, including John Dillinger.

  “I actually think it’s an idea that might work,” I explained. “I wanted to tell you first and confirm your Paris dates. Then I’m going home to start planning the trip and booking flights.”

  “Woo-hooo! The Ernest Hemingway Exorcism World Tour is a go!” Marie released my hands and thrust both her arms above her head. I recognized the gesture. Apparently, I’d just scored a touchdown.

  Ten minutes later, I rose to leave. Marie wrote down the Paris dates along with the details of where she was staying during her course and handed the slip of paper to me.

  “So what’s with Johnny D over there? Does he come here often?”

  “He was here last night with the rest of the group and seems to have taken a shine to our great food,” Marie said.