by Trevor Clark
Nobody up at King seemed to have been downed by a stray bullet, but he could hear shouting and see people running around, maybe because the car had barely made the corner. What he had to do, and fast, was grab a cab up to the Bloor subway line or catch a streetcar east, then get shit-faced in a bar closer to home.
14
A couple of hours later, Rowe was sitting in his chair watching TV when his telephone rang. From the faint connection and street noise, he gathered without having understood what was said that Lofton was outside his building, and buzzed him in.
It took Lofton almost fifteen minutes to get up the stairs and down the hall. Then he was at the door, swaying on his cane with eyes that seemed to be having difficulty focusing.
“You’re hammered,” Rowe said.
“Fuck. You got a beer?” He lurched and then caught his balance, wobbling.
“How about a Coke?”
“Fuck.” Lofton’s scorn was dramatic. “Beer . . . please. You don’t have any fuckin’ idea. . . .” He made it around the coffee table to the sofa, and sat down heavily as his cane hit the carpet.
Rowe, sizing up the situation, went into the kitchen and took a couple of beers from the refrigerator. Perhaps he’d get Lofton to a bar instead of having an unmanageable drunk on his hands all night. Make use of his impromptu sociability.
“I can’t figure this show out,” he said, nodding to the television as he handed him the bottle. “It’s shot like a documentary and looks real enough, but nobody being videotaped ever asks, ‘Hey—what’s with the fucking lights and camera?’ And they never try to cover their faces, they just keep crying and screaming and pleading with the police.”
He sat in the armchair and aimed the remote to lower the volume. “I mean, everybody in North America’s got to know the show by now, but nobody ever looks at the camera and says, ‘Wait a minute—I’m not on Cops, am I?’ I’d think it’d be something to find yourself on national TV during one of your darker moments. Even if they paid you a bundle later to use the embarrassing footage, you’d think your initial reaction to the lights and camera in your face would be surprise.”
“Editing,” Lofton mumbled.
“If it’s been cut out where it’s explained to them why they’re being videotaped, they should still be sneaking glances or trying to improve their behaviour, but they seem completely oblivious. And it’s definitely not a hidden camera.”
“Almost got fucking . . . killed tonight,” Lofton said.
“What?”
“Fucking . . .” Lofton struggled for the appropriate words. “Fucking drive-by. Niggers tried to shoot me outside Marva’s—fuck. I shot too, but missed, I think.”
Rowe turned down the TV volume. “Are you telling me you were in a gun fight?”
Lofton stared without appearing to see him. “Fucking . . . yeah, homeboy. Broke my fucking bottle.”
“What have you been drinking, anyway?”
“Rye, Mother. Tequila.”
“This the ex-boyfriend?”
“Marva’s old boyfriend. I was gone . . . fucking gone, man.”
Rowe took a swig of beer and turned back to the television while Lofton fumbled to light a cigarette. It was impossible to know what to believe. “I’m just on my way up to Originals. You should come with me.”
“Fucking leg hurts.” Lofton slowly got to his feet and unbuckled his belt. Squinting with a smoke in his mouth, he started to pull his Levis down.
“What are you doing?”
His jeans were around his knees when he said, “Look.”
“Pull your fucking pants up.”
Lofton stood there swaying. “I’m just telling you . . . fuck.”
Rowe stood up and tried to guide him back to the sofa. “You’re going to fall into the TV.”
“Man . . .” Lofton looked in his direction with a hurt expression. “I wouldn’t do anything . . . you don’t have to worry, I wouldn’t—” He bumped into the coffee table and almost lost his balance, then went down hard on the couch. His cigarette bounced, sending sparks into the carpet. “Fuck.”
Rowe bent down and handed him the smoke. “All right, look, we’re both going out now to have some fun. The fresh air will wake you up. Just fix your pants.” He put his arm around Lofton’s shoulder to try to ease him off the sofa enough to pull up his jeans by a belt loop, but he was uncooperative and reached past him for the bottle. He was very heavy.
Rowe sighed and walked back around the coffee table. He turned off the television. As he watched him slowly struggling with his pants, he realized he was in the presence of a blackout. Even if Lofton had had the faculties to find his way there and was more or less keeping up his side of the conversation, he was going to be missing hours from his life as if they’d never happened. Unless they went out and did something, Rowe himself was going to be sucked into that black hole. There was also a concern that Lofton might piss himself. He could put the man’s head into the toilet bowl, and he wouldn’t even remember being there.
“Fucker had some fuckin’ . . . uzi or something,” Lofton said, pulling things out of his pockets. He stood there with his pants open around his hips, looking at a wad of crinkled twenties and fifties.
“What are carrying all that money for? You’re going to lose it.”
Lofton looked up at him, then down again.
“Do you want me to hold onto it?” Rowe asked. “You’re just going to lose it all.” He stood up and took the bundle. Rifling through the bills, he counted four hundred and sixty, and took out three twenties. “Hold onto this. I’ll give you back the rest tomorrow.” He watched Lofton pocket the money with difficulty. “All right—zip up, drink your beer, and we’re out of here.”
After Lofton finished off the bottle and they managed to get his loose-fitting jeans into place, he was slowly ushered out the door. When they got into the stairwell, however, he refused to move. It wasn’t clear why. He stood leaning on his cane with his back to the wall. Rowe looked up from the landing and said, “Come on, man—let’s go.”
Lofton shook his head.
“What are you waiting for? You’re on the stairs. We have to leave the building. Then we’re going to catch a cab to a bar.”
Lofton didn’t answer. He pulled open the door to the hallway and turned right, apparently trying to get back into the apartment. The door closed again. Rowe waited. When he saw Lofton’s image pass the glass in the other direction, he went down the rest of the steps to the first floor and walked along the corridor to meet him at the bottom of the north staircase.
Lofton seemed surprised to see him when he got to the landing, and turned around gripping the railing as he climbed back to the second floor. Rowe walked down the hall and waited outside the first stairwell. Nothing happened, so he went up to find him leaning against the wall again. “What the fuck are you doing? Let’s go. Come on.”
There was no answer. Lofton looked angry and confused.
Rowe beckoned with his finger. “Come on. Let’s go get some more beer.”
It was another fifteen minutes before he managed to coax Lofton down the stairs. Outside, on the northeast corner, Rowe tried to sober him up while looking for a taxi. He didn’t want to drive for fear of Lofton throwing up. It was stupid taking him to a bar, but at least he’d be able to keep an eye out for a woman at the same time. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d had to keep him propped up.
Lofton was getting increasingly difficult to deal with. From his drunken muttering it seemed he was starting to see Rowe as his antagonist. Screwing his face into his most disgusted scowl, Lofton gave him a half-hearted push.
“Relax.” Rowe saw a southbound cab and hailed it. The driver flicked on his indicator and slowed down to make a U-turn, but as he pulled around to the curb he suddenly hit the gas when Lofton began swinging his cane.
“You scared him off. Fuckin
g behave yourself,” Rowe said, staying out of range. He moved forward and grabbed the cane, twisting it downwards to subdue him. “Now just stand here and don’t do anything.”
“Ffffuck!” Lofton pulled away, and with both hands on the handle, began jabbing him.
Rowe knocked it aside and pushed him hard, then turned and walked back towards his building. He looked over his shoulder expecting to see Lofton coming after him, but he was sprawled on the sidewalk. Trying to prop himself up, he pulled a gun from his jacket and aimed it in Rowe’s direction, but fell back again.
There was a car waiting at the lights across the intersection, but the driver and passenger were talking and didn’t seem to be paying attention. Traffic was going by steadily. Rowe ran back, giving Lofton a wide berth, and picked up the Beretta. He looked at his partner on the sidewalk by the park, soaked in urine, bringing down real estate values. He was either going to kill someone or get them all arrested.
Rowe glanced around before putting a steel toe into Lofton’s gut. As he walked east under the trees, he decided that he wasn’t going to give him his money back. And now he was going to have to go and ditch the gun in the Moore Park ravine in the fucking dark.
15
After passing over replies to her personal ad from a convict in Kingston Penitentiary, an elderly man in a trailer camp, and a two hundred pound individual named Emillio who said he loved to 69 and make many wimmen bery, bery hot, Patricia Meredith contacted someone who worked in the book trade and said that he shared her appreciation for candlelit dinners, children and long walks. Judging from his photograph, he looked presentable.
Her ad had described her as an attr 32-yr-old artisan & mother. During their phone conversation she’d elaborated on the subject of her daughter, Kelly, and the craft business she operated out of her house making ashtrays, candy dishes and small bowls, which she fashioned from aluminum and sold on consignment to small stores. This line of work had begun sometime after she’d earned an M.A. in Geography and had accumulated thousands in loans from the government, on the advice of a friend who sold pottery and rented a stand at an annual crafts fair.
The balance between his sort of rugged looks and involvement with books intrigued her, as her submissive role in S&M circles revolved to some extent around the same dichotomy: men who could mete out punishment with a sensibility that could appreciate the subtleties of restraint when required.
They’d had a promising talk. Derek Rowe seemed reasonably intelligent as he discussed career objectives in the area of management, and he enjoyed reading—well, crime, westerns and political thrillers, but at least he read. As for movies, he liked Tarantino but professed to share an interest in foreign films such as La Femme Nikita.
Cigarettes were a vice, unfortunately, but there didn’t seem to be a problem with drugs or alcohol, so she could worry about breathing the secondhand smoke later. He sounded fit enough with the horseback riding and white water rafting and whatever else he’d said he did. She was too lazy for all that outdoor activity herself, but he’d probably be all right joining Kelly and herself at the community pool, or ordering Chinese and settling in with a video when babysitters were a problem. Thankfully, there was no baggage like a separation or children.
She didn’t want to give out her address just yet, so it was agreed that they’d meet in the Lava on College not far from her home. Patricia put on lipstick and a touch of mascara, clipped her auburn hair, and picked out a purple wide-brimmed hat to go with her long dress, scarf, and the funky coat she’d bought secondhand. Her eyes were as blue as cornflowers as she checked herself in the hall mirror and brushed off some lint.
She called Kelly, and had to repeat herself twice before the girl got off her bed and sighed her way up the basement stairs, always resentful when she had to spend the night at Arlene’s and Mario’s. They left by the rear door and walked past the backyard tool shed that she’d remodeled into a work studio, and opened the gate.
A man she presumed to be Derek motioned her over to a table on the upper level to the right of the bar. In the orange-reddish lighting he looked older and rougher around the edges. The hair was now quasi-military, and greyer. The tight Levi’s also dated him, as did the Miami Vice T-shirt-and-jacket ensemble.
“Hello,” he said, pulling out a chair.
“Hi.” She took off her coat and hat.
After she was seated, he sat down opposite her. “Nice place. Is this your local hang-out?”
“I don’t go to bars very much anymore,” Patricia said mildly. “I don’t like it when men come up and bother you to dance, or try to talk. I just want to tell them to . . .” she shrugged with a small laugh, “fuck off.”
His smile was ambiguous. “I thought that was why they put dance floors in these places. Where do you prefer to meet people, besides ads?”
“I’ve always thought the best way was through friends, or at a party.”
“A party—well, sure.” He looked around. “It’s probably faster to get a drink at the bar. What would you like?”
“Maybe a Carlsberg if they have it.”
Patricia watched him walk through the narrow main section alongside some couches and an exposed brick wall with mounted speakers. Doors to a closed patio were set within yellow enclaves, rimmed with white bulbs and decorated above by stained glass. Fans revolved on the red ceiling. The crowd looked younger than last time, maybe in their early twenties, but the ambiance with the angular counters, light shades and fixtures remained neo-Art Deco. Behind her, along the wall, there was an array of geometric mirrors.
When Derek came back he placed a glass and bottle on the table in front of her. “I guess you don’t come here that often then.”
“I’ve been here with my friend a few times, once when she was here to read her poetry.” Pouring some beer, she added, “I don’t think you’re allowed to smoke in this area.” Derek glanced around and put the pack back in his jacket. “Margaret’s a good poet. She’s a radical feminist, so most of her poetry is heavily political.”
“She a lesbian?”
Patricia laughed lightly. “Well . . . yes, as a matter of fact.”
“Right.” He reached for his glass. “From what I can see, if a woman fifteen years ago said she wasn’t a feminist it was like admitting she was a moron. Now, with a lot of things like equal pay out of the way, the hardcore types seem to have hijacked the whole thing.”
“I consider myself a feminist,” she said.
“Well, all right. But you’re not a ‘radical’ feminist. If you were, you probably wouldn’t be sitting here with me.”
She let it go, and felt him watching her as she sipped her beer, looking out the window. Perhaps to get back on track he said it was nice she was able to work on her art while raising a daughter, and asked how she got into it with a degree in Geography. She told him she couldn’t get a job teaching without a Ph.D. and had to repay thirty thousand dollars in student loans. It was too much debt to stay in university, especially after she and her husband split up and she left Windsor. They’d used a lot of the money to live on. When asked what he did, she said that her ex used to sing with a punk band but gave it up after receiving an inheritance from his grandmother. He was living in her old house.
After a brief silence, Derek inquired about her interest in working with metal. Patricia told him about her friend who was into pottery and always had a booth at the One-Of-A-Kind show at Exhibition Place, and said she was planning to rent space next year as well.
When she finished her beer, he ordered another round. She excused herself to go to the washroom. Walking through the throng of strangers milling about the bar, she admired the two kitschy lava lamps standing among the martini glasses on a shelf behind the bottles: globular and psychedelic. There was red lighting over the far hallway by another wall of mirrors.
Even if he wasn’t intellectual or artistic, he seemed normal enough, ex
cept perhaps for the reactionary attitude. She wondered what Margaret or Arlene would think. Trouble was, you couldn’t always go by a lesbian’s opinion in these matters, and Arlene generally had something nasty to say about everyone, including own her husband, whose hygiene was a handicap in bed. They’d still have to admit that she could do a lot worse, if they had any real idea what the personals could dredge up.
When she got back, Derek asked her to dance to a Cranberries song. She wasn’t always comfortable on the floor, but he seemed to know what he was doing, even if he’d learned some of his moves in the disco era. She found she was enjoying herself enough that she could overlook the aftershave.
Back at the table he held out her chair. “So, have you met a lot of men through your ad?”
“Not really. I was seeing somebody else for a little while. He had a mean streak, and my daughter didn’t like him. Unfortunately, I have to see him again because I owe him some money.”
“For what?”
“He lent me two hundred dollars.”
“Maybe he wasn’t all bad.”
“He was,” she said with quiet resolve. “He told Kelly that he thought my—my ass was getting too fat. He didn’t like fat asses.”
“Oh. Well, we know he was blind anyway.”
“Maybe he had a point, but I don’t think you say that to somebody’s child. She’s very unforgiving; she’ll just cut you off. It’d be tough to be her friend.”
