Tales from the Bottom of My Sole

by David Kingston Yeh

  “Your parents had an arranged marriage?”

  “And two of my sisters, or at least both their husbands came highly recommended. Mother and my aunties always were the biggest fans of Shaadi.com. Of course, Charita and Mona, they had the final say.”

  “Of course.”

  “Daniel, arranged marriages can be quite successful. You were the one who introduced me to Kyle.”

  “There you go.”

  “Thank you for doing this. I feel better already. You’ve been a big support. I don’t know what I’d do without you. Sometimes I feel I can barely take care of myself.”

  “Parker, you help handicapped people in their own homes. You take care of people all the time. You have a lot of responsibility.”

  “Tell that to my parents. I’m their only son, and what have I accomplished? In their eyes, I’m the ultimate underachiever.”

  “They’ve said that to you?”

  “No, of course they haven’t. But I know that’s what they’re thinking. I mean, how could they not? My sisters all have their own successful careers and where am I? I was my high school valedictorian but how far has that gotten me? Look at me, I’m a mess. You and Karenjit have been my two best friends. You’re on your way to becoming a doctor, she’s already made it to the cover of Penthouse. I can barely get over the fact that my goldfish just died. My psychiatrist says I could benefit from more structure in my life.”

  “What do you think?”

  “Maybe. I dunno.”

  “Parker, would you ever get a cat?”

  “What?”

  “A cat. My neighbour fosters cats from Toronto Cat Rescue. David and I took one in, kind of by accident. Except since then we’ve discovered David’s allergic. We can’t keep her, but we don’t want to give her back because she’s really cute and amazing. We’ve been calling her Hairy Houdini. She’s already gotten all of her shots and everything. Would you be interested in adopting a cat?”

  “Daniel.” Parker stared at me, his eyes bulging. “You know my parents never let us have pets when we were growing up.”

  “Oh, right. Maybe not, eh?”

  “I’d love to.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Definitely.” Parker sat bolt upright, gripping his thighs. “You have no idea.”

  “Okay. Well, I mean, you’ll probably want to meet her first and see what you think after that.”

  “Alright. But I’m telling you now, Daniel, my answer is absolutely yes. The honest truth is, I’ve been thinking about getting a cat for a while now.” He slurped down the remains of his smoothie. “I mean, this is kismet. This is meant to be. I’ve always dreamt of starring in a Raj Kapoor love epic with a Bengal tiger at my feet. Karenjit would be so proud of me. She’s a big supporter of PETA. When can I meet her?”

  “Hairy Houdini? Anytime you want. How about today?”

  “Can Kyle come too?”

  “Sure. In fact, why don’t we have you both over for dinner? We can order pizza and wings, and you can spend some time with her. If it works out, you can take her home tonight.”

  “Daniel?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thank you.”

  “Hey, well. You’re the one doing us a favour.”

  “You can come visit her anytime you want. You’ll be Uncle Daniel and Uncle David. We can all be one big happy extended family together.”

  “Parker,” I said, “we’re counting on it.”

  Luke was accompanying his mom back to Italy. Isabella De Luca’s fourth marriage, to Nicoli Badalamenti, was to take place on the family farm in an intimate ceremony with a dozen guests, Her eldest son was to walk her down the aisle. David was staying back in Toronto to manage the sale of the house. I asked him how he felt about missing his mom’s wedding.

  “It’s alright,” he said. “I’ve hung out with Nicoli, he’s a good guy. He’s a lot like Antonio. I don’t mind Antonio’s uncle being my stepdad. He’s worked for the family his whole life and practically been like a son to my grandparents. My aunts couldn’t run the farm without him. I wrote a little speech Luke will read at the wedding. It’s all good.”

  We stood at the bar of The Cameron House on Queen West, waiting for Three Dog Run to take the stage. Constellations of blue fairy lights glimmered overhead. Baroque, gilt arches and faded murals decorated the walls and ceiling, recalling the venue’s more glamorous past as a hotel in the 1920s.

  “Nicoli and my mom,” said David, “were childhood sweethearts. When I first heard this man had proposed, it just seemed crazy and totally impulsive. But my nonno took me aside and reminded me: This romance goes back to when they were kids. It’s been fifty years in the making.”

  I observed the galloping horse-drawn chariot carrying young lovers over our heads. “Okay, here’s a question. If your dad was your mom’s third husband, and Luke’s dad was her second, who was her first?”

  “Ooh.” David perused the drinks menu. “In my family, we don’t talk about that.”

  “Your mom’s first marriage?”

  “All I know is, back in the day there was some rivalry for her affections, and she couldn’t decide between two suitors.”

  “She told you this?”

  “No, not even. But my nonno did. Last summer, we’d go for long walks around the olive grove. He told me a lot of things.”

  “So, what happened?”

  “Well, on the day she turned eighteen, apparently she did marry one of her suitors. But then someone challenged the union and there was some kind of annulment. It was all really scandalous. After that, she left Italy on her own to start a new life for herself. That’s when she immigrated to Canada.”

  “Sounds dramatic.”

  “I think there were a lot of broken hearts all around. Like I said, Ma doesn’t talk about it.”

  Whistles and clapping signalled the band’s arrival onstage. Tonight, Pat was sporting suspenders and a ruffled shirt, his shaggy hair pulled back in two ponytails. Rob had shaved off his beard, leaving only an enormous handlebar moustache. Bobby hefted his saxophone, wearing a flat cap and a tweed vest. A heavyset kid in glasses settled in behind the drums; he was probably twenty, but in his Pokémon T-shirt, he looked closer to twelve.

  “Hey,” I said, “where’s Blonde Dawn?”

  “Maybe it’s her night off?”

  A tall ginger guy in a black V-neck and a pierced lip wiped down the bar in front of us. “What’ll it be, gentlemen?”

  David ordered a Boneshaker off the menu, just for the hell of it. It sounded like a concoction a lumberjack might throw back. But it turned out to be a delicate, floral cocktail of lemon juice, cream and gin. The bartender winked at the two of us. “Enjoy.”

  It’d been a while since we’d seen Pat on stage. The band was performing two or three times monthly now to small but devoted crowds. Since coming back from Burning Man last year, Pat was different, more focused on his song writing and I didn’t recognize half their set. After an hour, Bobby, Rod and the drummer stepped off the stage. Alone, Pat pulled up a stool and adjusted his mic. “Glad you could make it out. We’re Three Dog Run. You’ve been a phenomenal audience.” More whistles. Someone shouted: “Take off your shirt!” Pat mopped his brow and took a sip from his beer. “We’d like to do one last number before we go, something I wrote recently. See, a while back, I lost something, something really good, something really important to me.” He plucked at a ukulele in his lap. “This is dedicated to all the fuck-ups out there, to anyone who’s ever regretted anything, who’s ever felt truly sorry. This one’s for you.”

  He strummed a chord, then paused to untie his ponytails and shake out his hair. He rested his lips against the mic. As he sang the opening two verses a capella, the hair prickled on my arms. After the first chorus, Pokémon Kid marched back onstage playing a snare drum. After the second chorus, Bobby joined them with his accordion. Last to make an entrance was Rod on a gigantic, booming sousaphone, by which point everyone in the room was singing along, belting ou
t the song’s final rousing refrain.

  There was enthusiastic applause long after the band had left the stage. Pokémon Kid walked around with a plastic bucket which people filled with change and small bills.

  David leaned against me. “Do you think that last song was about Blonde Dawn?”

  That song had been about a lot of things. But yeah, I nodded. In Pat’s case, it probably also had to do with Blonde Dawn.

  “That’s too bad. I wonder what happened.”

  “Me too.”

  Pokémon Kid stopped in front of us. It was obvious he had no idea who we were. He was pale and pudgy, his big brown eyes made bigger by his thick glasses. I put a twenty in his bucket for both David and me.

  “Oh, wow. Thanks a lot,” he said. “Thanks. Thanks for your support. Guys, y’know, like, you can always go to our website if you want to follow us.”

  I looked at David who’d helped design the website for Three Dog Run.

  “You’re new,” David said.

  “I am. Yeah, I know. I am.”

  “What happened to Blonde Dawn?”

  “Their first drummer?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m not sure. I dunno. I never asked. I mean, I just auditioned three weeks ago. Tonight’s my first gig, my first time out with these guys.”

  “Well, you were great,” I said.

  “Wow, thanks.” The kid actually blushed. You might’ve thought I’d given him a gold star sticker and patted him on the head. “Thanks a lot.”

  “Tell Pat, David and Daniel say hi.”

  “You friends with Captain Pat? Hey, you wanna come backstage, meet the band?”

  “Um, no.” David glanced at me. “Tell Captain Pat we had to go. Big voyage ahead of us. Gotta weigh anchor, set sail.”

  I elbowed David in the side. “The show was awesome,” I told the kid.

  “Really, you think? Thanks, I’ll tell the band, for sure. Have a great night, guys. And thanks again.”

  “You too.”

  On our way out, the bartender raised his hand, displaying an octopus tattoo on the inside of his bicep. “Have a good night, gentlemen.”

  David clapped me on the shoulder. “Hold on a sec.” He strode over to the bar, and I waited two minutes while he chatted with the guy.

  “What was that all about?” I asked when we hit the sidewalk outside.

  “I told him,” David said, “I really enjoyed his Boneshaker.”

  “Really? And what did he say?”

  “He said thanks. Then he asked if you were my boyfriend.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “What do you mean, ‘what did I say’? I told him yes you were, we’d been together four years, and that you were the best lay I’ve ever had in my life.”

  “You said that?”

  “I did.”

  “And then?”

  “He said the two of us should come back sometime and try his Red-Headed Slut.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “You heard me. It’s a shooter.”

  “Oh my god.”

  “It’s all good.”

  “You sure he said ‘the two of us’?”

  “He definitely said ‘the two of us.’”

  “Oh jeez.”

  “Relax, lover.” David wrapped an arm around my waist. “We got all the time in the world.”

  Later that evening, long after midnight, drowsy and comfortable, thinking we might have sex but okay if we didn’t, I flopped down on our bed.

  “David. You know how you said there were those two guys in Sicily who were both in love with your mom?”

  David paced the room, laying out his work clothes for the next day. “I don’t know if they were in love with her. But yeah, okay.”

  “Do you think,” I asked, “one of those guys was Antonio’s uncle?”

  “Yeah. I thought about that too.” David set his alarm. “I dunno, the way my nonno told the story, it’d make sense if one of them was Nicoli. Maybe one day it’ll all come out.” He turned off his lamp and crawled into bed. “Time heals all wounds, they say, right?”

  “What’s important is that your mom’s happy.”

  David snuggled up against me. He was quiet long enough I thought he might’ve fallen asleep. But then he spoke. “Last year, when Ma and I arrived on the farm, we sat down for supper with my grandparents and the rest of the family and it was a real homecoming. By the end of that summer, it was like she’d grown ten years younger. It was as if my whole life she’d been holding her breath, and in Sicily she could finally breathe again.”

  David’s hand rested between my legs. I stroked his back and his hip, thinking about the bartender, his thick neck and freckled, muscular arms. I thought about what it’d be like to pull the guy’s V-neck over his head, to kiss him, or to watch him kiss David. Or maybe he and I could make out while David blew us both, the way Marcus had done once with Fang and me. I wondered how it’d feel to be on my hands and knees deep-throating David while the big guy fucked me from behind.

  Then I thought about what home meant in my life, what it meant for me to finally truly breathe. It was sharing a loft with my lover, this man called David Gallucci. It meant shopping together in Kensington Market, spooning him on crisp autumn nights, sitting side-by-side on the family couch as Betty lit the Christmas tree. If he and I had sex with other people, that didn’t mean we loved each other any less. If anything, I told myself, it meant we trusted each other enough to do so. Opening a relationship wasn’t for everybody. We were just starting out. I’d already hooked up with another guy while David was away last summer. All he’d done was kiss a girl. We had a whole new summer just ahead of us. It was only a matter of time before David had sex with another man. Softly, like bees buzzing against my skin, David began to snore. I wondered if I’d still be able to breathe then.

  Late in May, the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts announced its annual Dora nominees. Face, written and performed by Marcus Wittenbrink Jr., received six nominations, including Outstanding Male Performance and Outstanding Production. Marcus was no stranger to the Dora Awards, having been nominated three years ago for Philophobia. I congratulated him with a perfunctory but polite Facebook message. Within minutes, he replied with a rambling thanks which I figured he cut-and-pasted in response to all his adoring fans. However, at the end, he did add a P.S.: “Daniel, I hope you and David are well. I’d love to have you both over for dinner if you’re free at all this summer.” After that, he cited a few quite precise dates and times he was available.

  When I mentioned Marcus’s invitation, David shrugged, concentrating on tightening a bolt on his tandem bike. “Sure, why not? It has to be later though. Right now, I’m totally swamped.”

  “You really don’t care,” I said, “that Marcus is my ex-boyfriend?”

  He tossed aside his wrench and picked up a drill. “We’ve been through this before. Everyone has a past. You can’t go through life tip-toeing around the past.” He straddled the bike frame clamped to his repair stand. “All that’s important is that I’m your boyfriend, not him. Here, check this out.”

  He handed me a cycling magazine opened to a full-page ad. In the glossy photo collage, I recognized David and the rest of his bike store team, all wearing matching T-shirts. The owner was opening a second store, and David had just been promoted to manager. He’d be working long hours all through the summer helping train new staff. “Very nice.” I studied David’s colleague Arthur crouched between two kids in helmets. I’d been soaking wet when we first met at the climbing gym. I hadn’t realized how good-looking the guy actually was. “Arthur’s really handsome.”

  “What?” David powered down his drill and raised his safety glasses.

  “Arthur, he’s an attractive guy.”

  “Yeah, he’s a DILF.” He squinted at his bike frame, picking away metal shavings. “That’s his real kid in the photo, the one on the right.”

  “No way.”

  “He gets him mos
t weekends. He brings him into the store all the time. Art Junior is kinda like our mascot. By the way, I just hired Anne.”

  “What?” I put down the magazine. “Karen’s sister?”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “What does she know about bikes?”

  “Not bikes. Skateboards. She showed me a couple longboards she’d built. Totally sick. Then she showed me her OCAD portfolio, and all these graphics she’d done for skater friends. I was blown away.”

  Back during high school in Sudbury, I vaguely recalled Karen’s kid sister skating around with her torn jeans, toque, and army rucksack on her back. I hadn’t thought twice about what it might’ve meant to her. “She’s that good?”

  David loosened the clamps and flipped the frame over. “Yeah, well, Duncan’s the guy who handles all our skate gear. Anne came into our shop a while back looking for some truck parts. They got to talking. Now that we’re hiring, Duncan was the one who suggested her. And yeah, she’s that good.”

  “Wow. I’m happy for you both. I hope it works out.”

  “Duncan seems to think it will.”

  “You and Anne have really hit it off.”

  “Yeah, for sure. Except now, I’m her boss. But I don’t think that’ll be a problem.”

  “Does Karen know?”

  “I haven’t mentioned it. Look, Daniel, I know you’re best friends with Karen and everything, but Anne Fobister, she’s her own person too, y’know.”

  “Okay.”

  “She’s pretty cool once you get to know her.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re getting to know her.” I set the magazine aside. After a moment I said: “And you’re right, she is part of the family.”

  David wiped his hands on a rag. “I’m going to have to bring this into the shop.” He tossed the rag aside and cracked his neck. “I don’t have the right equipment here to work on it.”

  “Alright.”

  “So.” David plopped himself down on the couch next to me. “This is it.”

  “What?”

  David extended his arms. “This is it. This is all I’ve got. This is my home now, here with you. Ma’s shipped some of her belongings to Italy. Luke took a few things. All the rest she’s sold. The house goes on the market next week.”