Tales from the Bottom of My Sole

by David Kingston Yeh

“Antonio’s cute.”

  “When your mom gets married again, he’s going to be your cousin, you know.”

  David sighed. “Then I guess I’ll just have to settle for Silvia Sabatini.”

  “David, are you sure you’re not bi?”

  “I’ve told you lots of times, I’m not. I’m just ... homoflexible.”

  “Homoflexible?”

  “Making out with people is fun. Boys and girls.”

  “Now you sound like Pat.”

  “You and Karen never fooled around?”

  “No, never. I’m pretty sure I’m a six on the Kinsey scale. Parker told me he thinks he’s asexual.”

  “No kidding? Good for him to figure that out.”

  “You’re not surprised?”

  David shrugged. “Why should I be? It’s the 21st century. This is the next evolution of Homo sapiens: gender and sexual fluidity, and that includes ace. Although ‘renaissance’ is probably a better word. Hey, what about these for Anne?” He held up electric blue socks covered in gorillas.

  “Karen’s sister, Anne?”

  “She’s family, isn’t she? I bumped into her, by the way, last week at Silver Snail. Did you know she’s a collector? Runaways.”

  “What are Runaways?”

  “They’re these super-powered teens, mostly girls. They run away from their evil parents and form this kind of dysfunctional family. Their leader’s a Japanese witch; another one’s this alien lesbian who ends up dating another member who’s a bi-gender shape-shifter.”

  “Oh. You’re talking about comics again.”

  “Daniel don’t be so judgmental. Comic book writers are modern day myth-makers.”

  “Really?”

  “There’s a reason they killed off Superman back in the day. There’s a reason that antiheroes are so popular now. The industry used to be totally patriarchal, misogynist and heteronormative, but that’s changing.”

  “Those are some pretty big words there.”

  “Comics, mister, are touchstones for our collective consciousness.”

  “And,” I said, “superheroes are sexy.”

  David grinned. “And some supervillains too. Yum. Oh, and don’t even get me started on yaoi. Hey would you be interested in going to ComiCon this spring?”

  “No, not really. Why don’t you go with Anne?”

  “I just might.” David counted through the socks we’d set aside. “You wouldn’t mind?”

  “No, go for it. How many pairs do we have?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “Whoa.” I took a step back. “That’s a lot of socks.”

  “Yeah, and these are Christmas gifts for pretty much everyone we know.”

  “Do we really need to get that many?”

  “Daniel, how much money do we blow in one night out at Sneaky Dee’s?” He had a point. “C’mon, it’s fun to get gifts for people. We can figure out who gets what later. This is a sweet deal. People are going to love these.”

  Ever since David got promoted to assistant manager last summer, he’d been making a lot more money. Instead of fixing up our old broken couch, he’d insisted on buying a new one. I figured it’d be the 22nd century by the time I paid off my student loans. But if my boyfriend wanted to get all our families and friends socks for Christmas, who was I to say no? I remembered getting clothes for Christmas as a kid, and how underwhelmed I’d be. I’d just wanted toys. When did socks suddenly start becoming cool? Somewhere along the way, I’d grown up. Now I had bills to pay, debts to manage. I wasn’t even twenty-five yet and I felt I’d passed a milestone in my life, leaving some younger part of me behind. The truth was, I secretly loved that David still loved his comic books. I’d turned my back on my childhood long ago. No more secret tree house club meetings with Pat and Liam. No more toboggan races with Mom and Dad. No more snuggling up with Grandma to watch back-to-back episodes of The Golden Girls until one in the morning. No more toys for Daniel Garneau.

  For Christmas, David got me a vibrating dildo.

  He had me unwrap it in advance in Toronto, before I headed up to Sudbury. He tried to keep a poker face but couldn’t stop giggling.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Just open it.”

  When I did, I was stunned. “Oh. My. God.” I gingerly took it out of the box and hefted it in my hands.

  “It’s The Cherry Scented Vibro-Dong,” David said.

  “It has two speeds. The batteries are already in there. You turn it on with that knob at the bottom.”

  I turned the knob and the thing started vibrating like some anti-tank stick grenade about to blow.

  “It’s huge,” I said.

  “It is pretty big. So? What do you think?”

  “I ... I don’t know what to say.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “How much did you pay for this?”

  “Not that much. C’mon, it’s fun. I can’t wait to play with it when you get back. Unless you want to try it out now.”

  “David, there is no way I’m putting this up my bum.”

  “We don’t have to put it up your bum. We’ll just explore, and experiment, and see where it goes. When you come back, we can have a date night. Have a little wine. I can smoke a joint. Maybe you can test it out on me.”

  “You want me to put this up your bum?”

  “I dunno.” David bit his lower lip. “Maybe.” He was grinning like a kid in a candy store. “Like I said, we’ll see where it goes.”

  “Yeah, literally.”

  “C’mon, it’s fun to have toys. Merry Christmas!”

  I thought of the G.I. Joes my brothers and I used to play with as kids, the Autobots and Decepticons, Super Soakers, and Nerf blasters. It was fun to have toys. Except I was sure this was meant for a lot bigger boys than me.

  “This isn’t a toy. This,” I said, “is a weapon of mass destruction.”

  “Daniel.” David leaned into me and arched one eyebrow. “Don’t disrespect the Cherry Scented Vibro-Dong.”

  The first time I’d ever tried an actual dildo was on my first date with Marcus. That toy had been a lot smaller but no less intimidating. From an early age, I’d put a few things up my bum: fingers (I’d eventually work my way up to three), my thumb, the end of a toothbrush, a few select vegetables using a whole lot of body wash. It was all secretive, a little bit shameful, and a total turn-on. I learned later that pretty much every guy had tried sticking things up their bums. (ER doctors removed foreign objects from rectums all the time.) But even after I moved to Toronto, it never occurred to me to walk into a store, slap down my credit card, and purchase something designed and manufactured for that singular purpose.

  You had to be eighteen to walk into a sex shop, but in Ontario, a twelve-year-old could get a license to own a gun. In Sudbury, I’d grown up knowing a lot of classmates who’d gotten real guns for Christmas. Why was it so much more shameful to own a dildo than a gun? Not every family in Sudbury had guns in the house, but I figured most of them did. Grandpa would regularly dismantle and clean his rifles at the kitchen table. By the time Liam, Pat and I were in middle school, Grandpa had taught us all how to shoot. If Mom had been alive, things might have been different. But she wasn’t. If child welfare had ever caught wind of our shenanigans, the three of us would’ve been taken away for sure. But Grandpa also taught us respect, even Pat. I’d been to enough bush parties since to know not everyone had respect for guns. It wasn’t like David had brought a firearm into the house. The truth was, no one ever died from a dildo accidentally going off.

  Christmas Eve afternoon. Flecks of icy snow drifted down out of a luminous sky.

  Liam told Pat and me he’d started working for the Greater Sudbury Police Service. Earlier that fall, he’d gotten into the local news. A three-year-old had wandered away from a campsite in Killarney close to the North Channel. There was a lot of fresh bear scat in the area, and Liam Garneau had joined the desperate manhunt. He’d pointed out how clearly the authorities were searching in the wr
ong area, but no one listened. After that he set out on his own and walked out of the woods four hours later with the kid in his arms, hungry but unhurt. Since then, he told us, he’d been helping law enforcement track down missing persons on a half-dozen occasions.

  “You’re a fucking hero,” Pat said.

  “That is so totally awesome.”

  “There’s something else,” Liam said, stacking wood. He took off his gloves and pulled a splinter from the palm of his hand. “There’s this detective constable.”

  “Okay?”

  “We’ve worked together on a couple cases.”

  “Yeah. And?”

  “She’s invited me to dinner.”

  Pat and I both looked at each other. The three of us were working out by the garage. A month ago, Grandpa had bought himself a splitter, and a buddy of his from the lumberyard had dropped-off off a ginormous load of roundwood, at least four cords worth. Grandpa with his chainsaw had already cut the logs into half-metre lengths. Now the three of us were loading the splitter and stacking the firewood. Pat had dumped a two-four of Northern Ale in a nearby snowbank. To his credit, Liam stuck to a thermos of hot tea. Jackson lay close by gnawing on a beef shank bone.

  “Invited you?” Pat said.

  “Like, as in, on a date?”

  Liam’s brow knit. “I dunno. That’s what I was wondering.” He took out a pin joint and lit it with a wooden match. “A while back, I was telling her about the salmon stocks on Manitoulin.” He exhaled two thin streams of smoke through his nose. “Her dad’s a District Marshall with the Knights of Columbus and heads up their annual spring fish fry.” He took another puff, before passing the joint to Pat. “Then she suggested going for fish and chips, so we did.”

  Grandpa and Betty were out delivering tourtières, but they’d be home any minute. We were in full view of anyone pulling up the drive.

  “Hey guys,” I said, “you’re going to finish that before Grandpa gets back, right?”

  Liam looked at me strangely. “What?”

  “That.” I pointed at the joint.

  “Daniel, that’s from Betty.”

  “Our Betty, the nurse?”

  “It’s medical grade. She recommended it over what Pépère and I’d been smoking.”

  Pat took a swig of his beer and savoured a drag. “How d’you figure this holds up?”

  “It’s okay.” Liam observed Pat. “It’s a pure indica. Eighteen percent. Mellow body buzz. Pépère says he still prefers the Blue Dynamite.”

  “That’s cuz it’s Canadian, man.” Pat laughed, and he and Liam high-fived.

  I stared at them. After that, I concentrated on working the splitter. They knew enough not to offer me any. I’d just end up puking all over the driveway. Back in Toronto, David, Liz, and our building manager Rick would sometimes smoke up together on the rooftop. I’d had no idea that Grandpa and Betty smoked. There were a lot worse things, I tried to convince myself, than Grandpa being a pothead.

  “Guys,” Pat said, “we need to start planning our twenty-fifth birthday.”

  Before Liam or I could answer, Jackson barked and jumped up. A dented, blue four-door pick-up pulled up into the drive. I powered down the log splitter, brushed the sawdust off my jacket and took off my gloves. Karen and Bob clambered out of the front. In the backseat, I could make-out three figures.

  “Hey,” I called out.

  “Hey,” Karen shouted. I gave her a hug and shook Bob’s hand. Bob and Liam clapped each other on the shoulders.

  “Bob,” Karen said.

  “I don’t think you’ve met Pat. Pat, this is Bob.”

  “Hey, man,” Pat said.

  “You’re Karen’s new boyfriend, right? Merry Christmas Kwanza Hanukkah Solstice.” He pointed. “What happened to your eye?”

  “Well.” Bob stood back. “Well, it just so happens I got mauled by a bear some years back.”

  “No kidding? Holy shit. How’d that happen?”

  “I was rescuing my dog.”

  “Is that your dog there?” Pat peered toward the truck.

  “Yeah, that’s her. Gracie.”

  “Those your kids?”

  “My daughters.”

  “What’re their names?”

  “Zephyr and Sky.”

  Pat made a beeline for the truck. Karen plucked a piece of bark off my toque. “We’re just dropping off something for your grandpa.” Bob opened the tailgate and Liam helped haul a generator and a couple gas canisters into the open garage.

  Two girls jumped out of the cab followed by a gigantic German Shepherd. Gracie sniffed noses with Jackson, tail wagging. Pat and the girls huddled around both dogs.

  “Zephyr and Sky?”

  Karen nodded. “Yeah. That’s them.”

  The two girls were round-faced and dark-eyed, bundled up in colourful winter jackets. I didn’t say it out loud, but they looked just like Karen and Anne when they were younger.

  “Should I make some hot chocolate?” I asked.

  “Sure. That’d be nice.”

  “Your mom dropped off her shortbread cookies earlier today.”

  “Where’s David?”

  “In Toronto, at home with his mom and Luke. It’ll be their last Christmas together in that house.”

  “His mom’s really moving to Sicily?”

  “Sicily’s always been home for her. As far as she’s concerned, she’s just been living abroad these past thirty years.”

  “Well. Good for her.”

  Pat unbuckled his belt. “Now check this out,” he exclaimed, pulling it from his pants. “I had this custom-made by an Apache medicine man. See there was this evil rattlesnake and this little girl out in the desert ...”

  “How’re you doing, Karen?” I asked.

  “Alright. Better.” We observed Liam and Bob in the garage: two hulking unshaven men, one in a plaid Mackinaw coat and the other in a fur-lined bomber jacket, kneeling over the gas generator. Liam’s hair was growing long again, Bob’s was cropped short. If there ever was a zombie apocalypse, I’d have them both on my team.

  These were the kind of men I’d known all my life. Growing up in Sudbury, I didn’t know people like Marcus or Fang or Parker or Sean. As far as I knew, I was the only gay guy in the world.

  Karen’s hand slipped into mine. Our breath formed frosty clouds in the air. Bob’s girls were screaming and giggling now, chasing Pat through the snow, twirling his snakeskin belt over their heads. The dogs bounded past in pursuit. Months back, when I’d accompanied Karen to her abortion appointment, we’d agreed we’d say I was the father. It was just easier that way.

  “This morning,” Karen said, “he asked me to move in.”

  Grandpa’s truck pulled in off the road. He honked his horn as Betty waved open-mouthed at us through the windshield.

  I squeezed Karen’s hand. “It’s all good. Karen Fobister, Merry Christmas.”

  “Merry Christmas, Daniel Garneau.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Taking Care of Business

  I lay on my mat in Savasana.

  I focused on my outbreath, listening to the instructor’s steady, modulated voice. I let my shoulders and jaw soften, my eyes quiet down. My state of mind did seem calmer. After the class, everyone scattered, chatting in small groups, mats under their arms, water bottles in hand. Others were talking with the instructor and I waited by the exit until they were done. When we were the only ones left in the room, she gathered her belongings and walked over to me. I noticed a small rose tattooed on the top of her left foot.

  “So,” Nadia said, “how was that for you?”

  “It was great. I feel really good. You’re really good. Thank you for inviting me.”

  Nadia’s eyes were bright and reflective. “I’m glad you came.”

  “And how long have you been teaching?”

  “Not quite one year. I’m just starting.”

  “Well, you’re a natural.”

  “Thank you. You have good core strength, Daniel. But you
are in your head a lot.”

  I drew a deep breath and exhaled. “That sounds right.”

  “Let’s see your Mountain Pose.”

  I put down my bag, took some space and adopted Tadasana. Nadia circled, making subtle corrections to my spine, my hips. Standing back, she observed my form. “Better.” She adjusted the angle of my head. “Much better flow than when you began.”

  “I’ve been told I could use more flow.”

  Nadia picked up her bag. “Everyone, Daniel, could use more flow.”

  After changing, we met in the lobby of the studio where Nadia signed a clipboard and exchanged a few words with the receptionist. Leafy bamboo framed a gurgling fountain in one corner. Outside, February snow fell gently, blanketing downtown Toronto.

  “So where are you taking me this time?” I asked, as we strolled side-by-side down the street.

  Nadia raised the wide, fur-trimmed hood of her overcoat, and slipped on matching calfskin gloves. “There’s a special place, in the east end.”

  The last time we’d met in November, I’d taken Nadia to The Necropolis, a secluded cemetery in Cabbagetown. I’d brought rum balls and cinnamon croissants from a Sri Lankan bakery on Parliament, and a thermos of hot unsweetened chai. We’d sat on a blanket beneath the centuries-old trees, among the lichen-stained headstones. Most of the leaves had fallen, and the ground was a fiery sea of amber, yellows and gold.

  It was fall when we had scattered Grandma’s ashes up at the Good Medicine Cabin. Mom and Dad were buried at Maplecrest Cemetery up by Onaping. Every Christmas, we’d visit them. Cemeteries were peaceful, reassuring places for me, reminders of a bigger story than just our own.

  When I told Nadia about Parker’s hot yoga experience, she revealed she’d been practicing herself for some years, and invited me to one of her classes.

  On this occasion, in the heart of winter, we took the Queen streetcar eastbound. Crossing into Leslieville, I gazed across the Don Valley where the deep snow lay unbroken on the frozen riverbanks. When we disembarked, Nadia led me into a spacious patisserie called Bobbette & Belle, its front counter resplendent with fragrant bouquets of artisanal pastries. Portraits of wedding cakes decorated the pale, cream-coloured walls. We sat by the expansive windows, savouring an assortment of macarons, washed down with sips of latte. Nadia’s favourite was the white chocolate passionfruit, mine the black current cassis.