The Hole

by David Halliday

  “My mom says we don’t speak English,” Terry responded.

  “My mom says things are a mess.” Adelle dropped her cigarette to the street and ground it out with her heel. She asked Terry for a cigarette. He was out. She turned to Wiggy again. Wiggy shook his head.

  “What do I look like? A bank? You’re the one with a job. Why don’t you buy your own?”

  “Give her a cigarette,” Frank barked. “You’re giving me a headache.” The friends moved out of the plaza and moved west along Bloor Street toward a nearby hydro field. After continual pestering, reluctantly Wiggy offered his package of cigarettes to Adelle.

  “There’s your mom,” Wiggy said.

  Across the street Terry’s mother stepped into the Zig Zag bar.

  “Ya, I see her.” Terry turned his head away.

  “She spends an awful lot of time in there,” Wiggy said. “My mom says-”

  “Can’t you ever shut up?” Frank interrupted.

  “Can’t you ever stop criticizing?” Wiggy responded.

  Disappeared

  Detective Sam Kelly shook his head. Jack, the bartender, nodded as he placed the tall glass of beer in front of the policeman. Sam lifted the glass to his lips and in one long swallow, downed it.

  “The thing that gets me,” Sam said, “is that no one is talking about it.” Jack reached behind him and grabbed two shot glasses. Into each he poured two fingers of whiskey. He placed one in front of Sam and took the other for himself. The two men tapped glasses and downed the contents. Jack shook his head.

  “God, I hate that stuff.”

  Sam laughed. “You say that every time I’m in here. Why do you drink?”

  “Takes the edge off the day,” Jack said. “Ah, I was never made to be a barkeep. This place gets to me sometimes, Sam. The people get to you. I hear the same conversation each time someone sits down here. And I have to listen. Or pretend to listen. Not you Sam, of course. You’re the only real person I talk to. I could have been a schoolteacher. Never knew that, did you? Went to teacher’s college. Actually taught for half a year up in the Saulte. Kids got to me. And there wasn’t much to do in your free time. Except drink. And I never did like to drink.” Sam shook his head.

  “I never knew that, Jack. You, as a schoolteacher. Well, we all have regrets. I always wanted to be a cop. And when I became a detective, I thought I’d really made it.”

  “I think we’re both going through that midlife crisis,” Jack said with a smile on his face. He poured Sam a second draft and placed it in front of him. “That’s what the wife tells me. Thinks I’m running around on her.

  Who has the time? Or the energy. I’m telling you, Sam, once women reach the menopause, it’s like they become sex-crazed. The wife won’t leave me alone. I ain’t a young man anymore. Takes me time to recuper-ate. And even after that, she thinks I’m running around. I’ll tell you the truth, Sam, I don’t have that much interest in sex anymore.” 34

  Sam laughed, moving his glass of beer in a small circle on the bar.

  Jack grinned. “Good to hear you laugh, Sam.” Sam smiled. “Too many sad stories,” he said. “I need a vacation. Do you know how many husbands are walking out on their wives these days?”

  Jack shook his head.

  “I can count at least five since Christmas just in a six block area around the Zig Zag. A couple of them have moved in with other women in the area, women whose husbands fled their homes. It’s like musical beds.

  But the other three just disappeared. Left their wives, their kids, mort-gages, debts, even their cars for Christ’s sake. Just disappeared. And I have to sit at their kitchen tables listening to these women. They’re a mess and they have no idea why hubby left. Can you believe that? It was like a shot out of the blue for them. You’d think they would have suspected something.”

  “No idea?” Jack said, shaking his head.

  “None,” Sam replied. “And then the kids start running off. What is it the kids find so alluring out there? We find most of them downtown, living in cardboard boxes. Squalid. Selling their little asses to feed themselves. How bad could life be at home? And worse, there are some of them we never find. Never. Some days I think I’ll wake up one morning and find that everyone on the planet has disappeared.” Sam took a swallow of beer.

  Terry stepped into the bar and looked around.

  “Shit!” Jack said. “Kid’s looking for his mother.” Sam turned and looked down the bar at Terry.

  Jack moved down the bar and spoke to Terry for a minute. The boy left the bar. Jack returned to Sam.

  “Poor kid. He’s locked himself out and he can’t find his mother. Didn’t have the heart to tell him where she is. Left earlier with a tall drink of water. Probably shacked up at the Islington House. Guy must be seven feet. Fella named Hank. Strange hombre. Dressed in black like Johnny Cash. The guy is obsessed with the year 1950. A regular encyclopedia on the subject.”

  “Didn’t she lose her husband a few years ago?” Jack nodded. “Ten years ago.”

  “Has it been that long? Didn’t people think he ran off with Joe Mackenzie’s wife?”

  “I don’t know anything about that. Crazy Joe’s wife could have run off with a dozen different guys. Did I tell you the time I found her out back 35 in a snowbank, drunk out of her mind, getting ploughed under by some guy? She was one crazy broad. Mary’s husband, I can’t remember his name, only came in here a few times. Nice guy. Quiet. Not the sort of fellow to run off on his wife. He was real close to Terry. Used to see them everywhere together. Very sad. Mary took it bad but it was worse for the kid. Started acting out in school. What a handful he became. Getting in fights. Skipping classes. Mary started sleeping around. A woman raising a son by herself gets lonely.”

  “He’s not a bad kid,” Sam said. “I’ve had a few run-ins with him.

  Teenagers are difficult. It’s a tough time in your life and then to lose your old man…”

  The two men were silent for several moments. Sam sipped at his beer.

  Jack turned and looked up at the television. Championship Darts was on.

  “What do you know about this Hank fellow?” Sam asked.

  “Nothing more than I’ve told you. Talk to him for five minutes and he’ll bore you to death with information. But he does seem to have mesmerized Mary. Talking about disappearing, did Mary ever tell you what happened to a girlfriend of hers?”

  Sam shook his head.

  “This is going back quite a few years. Twenty years. Before your time.

  A group of them, kids really, went down to Echo Valley, near the Mackenzie farm. Drink a little wine, make out-you know the ritual. I guess they got pretty hammered one night. Mary passed out. When she awoke the next morning, one of the kids was missing. She woke the others.

  They didn’t think too much of it at the time. Figured the girl had gotten up and taken off home. Later that day, the girl’s parents started phoning around to all of her friends. She had never come home. There was a big search. Her friends were all taken down to headquarters.”

  “And they never found her?”

  Jack shook his head. “That’s what I heard. It was like she fell off the edge of the world. Cops put it down as a runaway. Doesn’t make sense for a kid to run away when she’s out partying with her friends.”

  “Where do her folks live?”

  Jack shrugged his shoulders. “After a year or so, they moved away.

  That’s what I heard. Went out west someplace. I think those kids knew more than they were saying. Mary doesn’t like to talk about it.” Sam stared at Jack for some time.

  “What did I say?” Jack smiled.

  “I don’t know,” Sam replied. He shook his head. “Did you ever get the feeling that something was going on around you, but you have no idea 36 what? Like a blind man standing on the edge of a precipice with an urge to dance.”

  Jack looked at Sam and smiled.

  “Did you just make that up or did you read it somewhere?” Haircut

&
nbsp; Hank’s legs stretched out over the barber chair and across the room.

  George snapped his gum and draped a white sheet over Hank’s chest.

  “Hell of a big man,” George said, snapping his gum. “It’s like your feet are in a different time zone. My brother-in-law was pretty tall, but he’d look like a dwarf next to you.”

  Hank smiled.

  “Guess you’ve heard all the tall jokes?” George said with a smile.

  Hank nodded. “Ad nauseam,” he responded.

  “What’ll it be then?” George asked. Hank described how he wanted his hair cut.

  George took his scissors and began to trim.

  “Had a guy in here last week who had a bald spot on top. Said he wasn’t bald. Just had outgrown his hair.”

  George laughed. Hank grinned.

  “Height don’t matter to a man,” George continued. “But you don’t like to see a tall woman. Looks freakish. We had a woman working over at the drugstore who was close to six feet. She used to come into the shop here for a haircut. Wouldn’t let her in a salon. What brings you to the Six Points?”

  “Is that what they call it?” Hank replied, his eyes closed.

  George nodded. “Crossroads of three main streets-Bloor, Kipling, and Dundas. Been a village for over a hundred years. Not that I’ve been here that long. Married the daughter of a barber and inherited this place.

  Not that I’m complaining. Hair’s been good to me. My father-in-law worked in here with me for years.”

  “Did your father-in-law ever hear stories about strange disappearances in the area?”

  George stopped for a moment and thought.

  “That’s an odd question.” He paused for a few moments to think.

  “Mentioned something about disappearances in the thirties. During the depression. Lot of folks moved through the area. No one paid much attention. And then there was a time right after the war. There was a slew 37 of disappearances when Shipp started throwing up the houses around here. Lot of rumors. Why do you ask?”

  Hank smiled and closed his eyes.

  “Just making small talk,” he said.

  George snapped his gum and laughed.

  Margaret

  “What did you do?” Adelle asked Cathy, her eyes wide with anticipation.

  Cathy leaned across the restaurant table in the booth the two girls occupied. “I kissed it!”

  Adelle clapped her hands, leaned back, and laughed. Cathy smiled.

  “You didn’t!” Adelle cried.

  The waitress arrived at the table to take the girls’ order. With her hair pinned up, her thin bosom-less body, and the low sarcastic voice that slipped out of the side of her mouth, she was, for the girls, the anti-fe-male. Her name was Margaret. The girls looked up with disgust.

  Couldn’t she see that they were talking? The girls ordered.

  “You dragged me over here for a Coke and two straws?” Margaret said with a snarl.

  Cathy looked up and smiled with as much charm as she could garner.

  “We are having a conversation,” Cathy said, enunciating each word as if she were speaking to someone who did not understand the English language.

  Adelle turned and raised her eyebrows, giving parenthesis to Cathy’s declaration.

  Margaret tapped her pencil on her ordering pad, leaned to one side, and smiled. “We are running a business,” she replied. And then leaning over the table, added, “And if you ladies give me any more of this snotty business, you’ll no longer be welcome in this establishment.” The two girls were silent for a brief moment before Adelle added, “I’ll have toast.”

  Margaret returned to the counter.

  “Where is she coming from?” Adelle cried.

  “What a bitch!” Cathy whispered.

  “No wonder there’s never anyone in this place,” Adelle added, her eye on Margaret. “I would never talk to a customer like that. Mr. Leblanc would fire me on the spot. She must be going through the change. My mother’s like that. The other day she went into a rage because I used a 38 bit of her makeup. There was hardly anything left in the tube of face cream and she blames me because it’s all gone. Like it’s my fault that she didn’t buy more. She uses my tampons and I don’t scream at her. Why do women become such witches? If I turn out like that, promise me you’ll have me put down.”

  Margaret returned with the girls’ Coke and toast. Both girls smiled at the waitress. Margaret shook her head.

  When the waitress left, Adelle turned to Cathy.

  “What happened next?”

  The Fight

  Sam Kelly sipped at his coffee as he sat on the stool by the counter.

  “The blueberry pie is fresh,” Margaret said. She’d always had a soft spot for a man in uniform-although technically Sam wasn’t in uniform.

  Still, he was a cop. Her ex-husband had been a fireman.

  “Well, then I’ll have a piece.” Sam smiled.

  Margaret turned away, returning a moment later with a slice of pie and a fork. Sam took a piece and smiled.

  “This is good,” he said, wiping his mouth with a napkin.

  Margaret leaned against the counter and lit up a cigarette.

  “I didn’t make it so you don’t have to pretend that it’s good.”

  “It’s not bad,” Sam reiterated.

  “You don’t mind?” Margaret gestured to the cigarette.

  Sam shook his head.

  “The boss is out. It’s the only chance I get to steal a puff. If he shows up the cigarette is yours.”

  She put an ashtray on the counter.

  “I thought this place was nonsmoking,” Sam said.

  “Only when a cop walks in.” Margaret laughed.

  Finishing the pie, Sam wiped his mouth with a napkin and pushed the plate away. He took a sip of coffee.

  “Tell me about the fight.”

  “Isn’t much to tell,” Margaret began. “They were sitting at one of the tables when suddenly their voices were raised. I turned and was about to go over and ask them to keep their voices down when I saw Terry lunge across the table and plant one on the kisser of the other kid. He had a strange name. Piggy or Wiggy-something like that. The other kid lay on the floor. There was blood coming out of the side of his mouth. Terry 39 stood over him and the kid on the floor started laughing. Then they got up and left together like nothing had happened.”

  “Do you want to lay charges?” Sam asked.

  Margaret shook her head. “There was no damage. And the boss wasn’t here. And Terry is Mary’s kid. Mary’s a good friend of mine.”

  “I’ll have a talk with those boys,” Sam said.

  “What’s wrong with kids these days?” Margaret cried. “It’s like they’re angry at the world.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Disappearance

  Wiggy lay in the tall grass, raised the bottle of gin to the moon, and made a promise. “I shall buy the most expensive fuctioning automobill in the world once I get a whale paying job.” The moon isn’t yellow. Lifting himself from the grass, he bowed. He glanced out over the valley at the creek moving like a silver snake through the trees. God, it’s pretty. A laugh spurted out of his mouth as he collapsed once again onto the tall lush grass.

  Cathy howled with laughter, smoke splattering out of her mouth.

  “What’s a fuctioning automobill?”

  “What’s a whale paying job?” Terry added, holding his stomach, his laughter tied in knots in his abdomen. Why do they say the moon is yellow?

  Frank lifted himself off the grass into a seated position, his sobriety a wonder to his friends. “What is the proper use of shall?” Cathy looked at Frank with a puzzled expression. Are you real? Wiggy was about to untangle himself from the tall grass and address the group again when Adelle grabbed him by the sleeve and passed him a joint.

  “Don’t say another word,” Adelle pleaded, looking at her other friends lying around on the long grass, laughing in gasps, holding their stomachs, tears running down their c
heeks. “You’re going to hurt someone.” Wiggy shrugged his shoulders, a bottle of gin in one hand, a joint in the other. He looked up into the sky where clouds were huddling around the moon. Where’s my other hand?

  “The moon looks like a scalper outside the Gardens.”

  “What happened to the word shan’t?” Frank asked. “It’s completely disappeared from the language. Are there any other words that have disappeared?” Maybe whole languages have disappeared.

  Adelle looked at Frank. Why do you always problem solve when you get stoned?

  Frank looked back. Are you asking me a question?

  Wiggy pointed into the sky. “The moon looks like a child in bed and someone is putting a pillow over its face.”

  “That’s certainly a cheerful insight,” Terry said.

  Adelle wiped the tears from her cheek. “Whose got the joint?” Wiggy passed the bottle of gin to Adelle who looked at it, shrugged, and took a swallow. Tastes like scotch tape.

  “It sure is getting dark,” Cathy said as she moved closer to Terry.

  Terry smiled and put his arm around her shoulder. She stared at the tall pines, their heads softly swaying in the night.

  “The tree tops look like the Supremes.” She pointed at one particular tree and added, “That one is Diana Ross.”

  Wiggy turned to Cathy. “Looks more like Van What’s-his-name.”

  “Van Gogh,” Adelle offered. “The Dutch painter. His paintings are all curls and streaks like someone took an electric blender to nature.” Beauty is loneliness come to fruition.

  “Didn’t he lose an ear?” Frank asked. Can you still hear if you don’t have ears?

  “Cut it off himself,” Terry added.

  “He did those weird sunflowers,” Adelle said. “My mom has a calendar with them on it. June, I think. My mom told me that he never sold a painting during his lifetime.”

  “That’s right.” Cathy nodded then began to giggle. They should teach business management at art school.

  “Never sold a painting?” Wiggy cried, sitting up. “Some artist, eh?

  What did he do for dough? Sell dope? I heard about guys who got stoned on sunflower seeds. It must be a special recipe ’cause I could never get off on them.”