“What do you mean?”
“I mean, Luke pays you back in cash, right? Then he decides to spend the summer in Toronto with his girlfriend. He eats out all the time. Now he decides last minute to buy a plane ticket to Europe, just like that. I’m just wondering, how’s the guy actually affording all of this? I mean, I doubt he’s made his fortune shucking oysters.”
“Luke worked at a boxing gym.”
“Precisely.”
“So, what are you saying?”
“David, you were the one who thought that money might be stolen.”
Three seconds of silence. “I was joking.”
“You didn’t sound like you were joking.”
“Maybe not stolen.”
“But?”
“But I never asked him, okay?”
“David, I’m not trying to cause trouble, honest. I’ve actually really gotten to like the guy. I know you two have a history together. You told me Luke used to deal drugs, right? That’s what you told me.”
“That was a long time ago. We’d sell pot and M to the rich kids in the neighbourhood. Every school has its supplier, Daniel. Back in my day, it happened to be my big sister, Luciana Moretti, alright?”
“What do you mean ‘we’?”
“What?”
“You said, ‘We’d sell pot.’”
“I’d help out sometimes. It was no big deal.”
“How old were you?”
“Like, in middle school. She’d get me to pick up and deliver packages for her, and sometimes store stuff. She leased me this brand new Stinky 24 just so I could get around.”
“Stinky 24?”
“It was a bike, silver-and-black, with a Shimano 1x9 drivetrain and a RockShox 100mm fork. It was sick. I loved that bike. I was a little shredder.”
“David, you’d help Luke deal drugs? You were, what, like twelve years old?”
“Daniel.”
“Look, I’m not judging.”
“It sure as hell sounds like you’re judging.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“Then what?”
“Nothing, alright. Forget it. Like you said, it was a long time ago.”
“Yeah, it was.”
“Alright.”
Silence on the line. Finally, I heard David clear his throat. “Well. I’m sorry I woke you. I just really wanted to call and say hi.”
“David. I’m really glad you called. I don’t mind. Call anytime, okay? I miss you.”
“I miss you too.”
“I love you.”
I could picture David hunched against the payphone, one arm draped across his knapsack, wearing my old Blue Jays cap which he’d insisted on taking with him. “Wow.”
“What is it?”
“You know,” he said, “that’s the first time you’ve ever said that to me?”
“I’ve said ‘I love you’ lots of times.”
“That’s the first time you’ve said it without me saying it first.”
“Really?” I drew my knees up to my chest. “Okay. Well, I love you. I’m saying it.”
“When was the last time you came?” David asked.
“You’re always asking me that.” I smiled. “When was the last time you came?”
“I jacked off last night.”
“What were you thinking of?”
“You mean what was I fantasizing?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I was fantasizing,” David said, “that you and I were having a threesome.”
“Oh, is that so? Who with?”
“You really want to talk about this right now?”
“Yeah, I do.” My hand slipped inside my underwear. “You woke me up, I’m hearing your voice, and now I’m horny.”
“You know,” David said, “I’m using a calling card right now.”
“I know.”
“And I’m in a supermarket in downtown Palermo.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Okay, well. Listen. I can tell you, there are five farmhands who work on my aunts’ property. They’re all these older men, except for this one younger guy, Antonio.”
“Oooh. Antonio.”
“He’s missing his left arm above the elbow.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. He wears a prosthesis with a kind of double hook thing on the end. He’s around our age. He’s actually really cute. His uncle Nicoli’s the boss farmhand. The other day, I walk into the barn and Antonio’s hauling bales of hay by himself. It’s really hot, but he’s in great shape, a lot stronger than he looks, and he’s working really fast. His hook’s perfect for the job. When he sees me, he takes a break and pulls up his shirt to mop the sweat from his face. His jeans are riding low and it looks like he’s not wearing any underwear at all, and I notice his treasure trail goes down to where I can just see the top of his bush. Then he asks me in his broken English if I ever get so horny I just have to jack off right then and there.”
“No way. You’re making this up.”
“Honest to God, I’m telling the truth. This really happened. He tells me how the neighbour’s granddaughter has been cock-teasing him all summer, this girl Silvia who’s back home from college. So then we get to commiserating. He asks me about Canadian girls, and I tell him they’re from all over the world, right? I tell him how they’re independent, athletic, and super sexy. That seems to get him excited. He’s pacing and adjusting himself while we’re talking. He tells me he’s been studying English so he can move to America one day. It turns out this guy’s never left Sicily and grew up in the village down the road. Then he holds up his fist and starts singing ‘California Girls’ by the Beach Boys. He’s got this amazing voice and I’m totally blown away.
“So I jump in, grab his wrist, and start singing along with him, and he thinks this is brilliant. It’s his favourite song, and he’s never met anyone who knew the lyrics. After that, I ask him how to say blow-job in Italian. He doesn’t understand so I mime it for him, and he says it’s ‘pompino.’ I ask him when he last had a pompino, and he laughs and actually blushes. But he tells me it’s been a while, and I notice he’s glancing down at my crotch too. Of course, I’ve got this massive boner standing so close to this guy in this empty barn with all this sunlight lighting up the hay dust like sparks in the air. I can practically smell the sweat coming off him and the fresh straw on his skin, and bits of it in his hair and on his cheek. Then he looks kinda nervous but asks me if I can maybe do a favour for him, and I say sure. Uh-oh.”
In the background, I could hear the sounds of a PA system and rattling grocery carts, sifting across six thousand kilometres of fibre optic cables at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. My own underwear was already down around my ankles. “What is it?”
“I think my calling card’s about to run out.”
“The hell it is! David, finish the story.”
“Alright. But don’t be upset if we get cut off. So this guy, Antonio, he asks me to help him with his prosthetic. We have to get his T-shirt off of him first. Then there’s a leather strap that goes over both his shoulders which he needs me to unbuckle. I discover this thing is a lot heavier than I thought. It’s definitely not state-of-the-art, you can tell it’s been MacGyvered a million times over. I help him out of it, and he shakes out all this straw and dirt from the inside of it, including a dead moth. It’s a huge relief for him. He tells me his uncle got the prosthetic for him second-hand years ago, and it really doesn’t fit so well anymore. The stump of his arm’s all callused and chafed, and there’s a torn blister just below the base of his neck. When I point this out, he gives me a Band-Aid, and I put it on for him. Half his upper back is covered in old burn scars.
“I ask him how he lost his arm, and he tells me it was in a motorcycle accident five years ago. It wasn’t his fault, there was a drunk driver who ran a red light. His mo-ped was completely wrecked, torn right in half. It made the front page of the local newspaper. From the way he’s talking, it’s obvious he’s told this story to a lot of people a
lready.
“For a second he’s lost in thought. Then he tells me he was riding with his little sister at the time and that she died in the crash. I’m shocked, and I don’t know what to say. He says he still visits her every week in the cemetery close to his home. He’s also sorry for the driver’s family, because of course they lost a husband and a father. So I assume the driver also died in the accident, right? But Antonio says no, that man was killed six months later in prison.
“He doesn’t say anything more after that. I help him back into his arm, and he’s able to put his shirt on by himself. Right about then, the other farmhands show up, including his uncle. The old guy starts yelling at him, something along the lines of: ‘Why’s he sitting on his ass?’ And Antonio’s yelling back and everyone’s waving, but it’s all in good humour, and he takes a second to smile at me and says, grazie.”
Faintly, across the city, I could hear the thin wail of ambulance sirens in the night. “Wow.”
“So, I’ve been hanging out with this Antonio guy,” David said. “I mean, he’s someone I’ve gotten to know.”
“He sounds interesting.”
“Yeah, he is.”
“Should I be jealous?”
“What do you think? He says he wants to show me the Capuchin Catacombs in Palermo before I go. Apparently, they’ve got nine thousand corpses and mummies on display to the public. It’s a famous tourist site. That’s where, Antonio says, he kissed his first girl.”
“I’m not sure whether that’s romantic or macabre.”
“I’d say opportunistic. He was twelve, on a school trip. He also says if he ever comes to Canada, he wants to meet Avril Lavigne.”
“Why Avril Lavigne?”
“He thinks she’s really hot.”
“Okay. Well. I’m glad you made a friend.”
“I suppose I have.”
“Does he know you’re gay?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Are you planning on telling him?”
“I dunno. I’m not sure. Are you okay with that?”
“I get it. You don’t have to, only if you want to. Would you have sex with him?”
“With Antonio?” David laughed. “Absolutely. But the guy’s totally one-hundred percent straight.”
“But you fantasize about him.”
“Yeah, of course I do. I’ve fantasized about the three of us. I’m a horny little bastard. I’ve also fantasized about having a foursome with Sam and Dean Winchester. Listen, I’ve really got to go. I’ve got the van this morning and I have all these errands to run.”
“Alright. Well, thanks for calling.”
“I’ll call again.”
“Okay.”
Our connection abruptly ended. David’s card had run out. I put away my phone and got up to get a drink of water. After that, I turned off the side lamp and lay back down. The sheets on David’s side of the bed were cool to the touch. I thought about Antonio’s first kiss when he was twelve, how he might’ve held this girl’s hand, inhaling the subtle perfume of her, the blood rushing in his temples as she pressed her lips against his. I imagined his body crushed and torn, splayed on the black asphalt starry with shattered glass, aflame in burning gasoline. I wondered what the Sabatinis’ granddaughter really thought of him, this scarred, one-armed farm boy who still loved American music and dreamed of foreign girls. I thought of David and Antonio driving through the hilly countryside into the medieval heart of Palermo, where I waited in a café overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea. Greeting each other, we’d embrace and kiss, once on each cheek. Then the three of us would visit the Catacombs together, pay our admission, and step out of the sunlight into the cool darkness, descending the earth, our arms draped over each other’s shoulders and around each other’s waists, the ancient stone beneath our feet worn smooth by lost centuries of passage.
In the resting chambers of the dead, we’d pass the bodies of Capuchin friars and virgin women richly dressed in embroidered clothes, pausing by the chapel of the children, before entering finally the timeless and labyrinthine corridors of men. “Viva l’Italia,” David would say, the voice of my lover echoing, intimate but also faraway, like the wing beat of a moth crossing an ocean from the far side of the world. “Viva l’Italia.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Where Have All the Good People Gone?
On the day after Pat and Three Dog Run left for Burning Man, I got a text from Charles Ondaatje. He didn’t sound well and when I asked him if everything was okay, he said, no it wasn’t and that he and Megan had broken off their engagement. Charles met me after my last class and we walked my bike into the Village, ending up on the crowded patio of The Churchmouse and Firkin. It was a warm Friday evening and the neighbourhood was bustling with tourists and locals. Across Mait-land Street, beneath an expansive maple tree, a drag queen in a sparkling pantsuit shared a smoke with two shirtless dancers from Flash, a private men’s club. An elderly couple strolled past walking a Jackapoo, pausing to read the menu posted in a nearby restaurant window.
Charles appeared oblivious to our surroundings. He sipped from his Guinness, looking morose. His black bean veggie burger had arrived ten minutes ago, but he hadn’t taken more than one bite. His big frame was slumped over and his large arms draped in his lap.
“She thinks I’m having an affair,” Charles said, “with the Duchess of Grey.”
A sparrow landed on our table for a second before flitting away.
“And who is that?”
“A woman I’ve been interviewing for my doctoral research.” Charles sighed. “I’ve never even met the Duchess! I can’t believe this is happening.”
“Is she really a Duchess?”
“She’s a madam famous for her sex parties. I was telling Megan about my latest interview and she accused me of cheating on her.”
“Charles, if you’ve never even met this woman, it’s obviously just some big misunderstanding.”
“I’m not so sure it is.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, at first, of course, I refuted Megan’s accusations. The Duchess lives in Sussex, England. We’ve been conducting our sessions by Skype.”
“Does Megan know this?”
“Of course, she does. But you know how Megan and I have been exploring our sex life by including other people?”
“Sure.”
“Well, we have rules, arrangements we’ve agreed upon. It’s important for maintaining trust and fidelity.”
“Okay.”
“Well, the Duchess and I began corresponding just after Valentine’s Day. In hindsight, Daniel, I think there might have been a few indiscretions.”
My eyebrows rose. “Charles, you’ve been interviewing this woman for six months?” I imagined all the possible permutations of cybersex, especially if Charles and this Duchess had been Skyping in real time.
Charles buried his face in his hands. “I kept telling myself I was interviewing her. I’ve catalogued all my transcripts. There was just so much material I kept uncovering, I think I could write a whole book about her life. She started as a cabaret singer before becoming a club owner. For decades, she entertained an exclusive clientele: politicians, aristocrats, celebrities. She was the only one Freddie Mercury allowed to call him by his real name. But then she started to ask me questions, personal ones about my own life.”
“Charles.” I sat back. “How old is this Duchess?”
“She just turned eighty this year, on June second.”
“Holy shit.”
The waiter paused by our table, one arm loaded with dirty plates. “Can I get you boys another round?”
“No,” Charles said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Yes, I know,” Charles said. “Her birthday falls on International Whores’ Day. But that’s just a coincidence.”
“There’s an International Whores’ Day?”
“It originated in France. In Germany, it’s called, Hurentag. In Spanish-speaking countries, it’s the Dí
a Internacional de la Trabajadora Sexual. The word ‘trabajadora’ is feminine of course, since most sex workers have historically been women.”
The Flash dancers had finished their smoke and were heading back to work. When the shorter, hairier one winked at me in passing, I blushed and looked away. I’d never actually been in a male strip club. Trevor Fang always insisted that most of the dancers were in fact straight. Apparently, a good quarter of them also had college degrees. Fang often liked to tell the story of how he’d worked briefly as a go-go dancer in Montreal, not because he’d needed the money, but just for the sheer hell of it.
Charles was talking and I realized I hadn’t heard a word he’d said, something about the modern sex worker rights movement. “So after they’d barricaded themselves inside for a week,” he said, “the police threatened to take away their children. When the regular housewives of Lyon heard about that, they were outraged and many of them actually joined the sex workers in solidarity. Then the police weren’t able to tell the difference between one mother and the next.”
“So, how did it end?”
“The way it usually does,” he said, “in police brutality. They tricked the priest into unlocking a door, broke into the church in full riot gear, beat and arrested all the women. But by then, their protest had made international headlines, and sparked a sex workers movement across Europe and North America. You might think of the Church of Saint-Nizier as their Stonewall Inn. The Duchess remembers precisely when she heard the news. That same year, she helped form the English Collective of Prostitutes.”
“The Duchess was a prostitute?”
“Oh no! One would never call her that. She preferred the term courtesan. Then she was a dominatrix, holding ceremonies for special guests by invitation only. Officially, she’s retired now. But she still regularly receives proposals. You’d be surprised.”
“Proposals? From whom?”
“The Duchess of Grey is legendary. Even now she keeps an inner circle, a coterie of admirers, men and women. But she insists she hasn’t accepted money for years, not since Thatcher became Prime Minister.”
“Really?”
“She says if someone pays, then they are in charge. The Duchess needs to remain free. It’s important to her that everyone involved knows that she does what she does now strictly for her own pleasure.”
Tales from the Bottom of My Sole Page 11
