by John Brooke
Jane cut him off. “I’m sorry,” said Jane, and Bruce believed her because Jane captured the essence of sorrow; “not today. Today we’re talking about unsung heroes and there are still a few minutes left and there’s a line or two open. The numbers again, if you’re calling from outside Montreal…”
Were they stupid? Pathetic? Sometimes you lose it because it’s never resolved. But you think it might be, and some days that it has to be. And then, after that day of doubt and pain you know it won’t be. And you knew each morning as you left your house and went into the world that the woman who got dressed in the morning could move away — poof! — suddenly gone, to reinvent herself in another window. What then?
“Hello, Radio Noon, you’re on the air.”
“Buenos, madame, Roche Molinas...I am on my lunch break here in Mike’s place.”
“Hello, Roche.”
“Call me Rocky.”
“Rocky.”
“My children are in Argentina with my ex-wife. I am here. I deliver the flyers in every part of Montreal, every day. I send money to my children for their school, and then I work some more.”
Each morning Rocky would set his sack of junk mail on Max’s chair and take his place at the window. You didn’t talk politics at the group. Freedom was too relative. Start comparing, especially in Montreal at that time, and too many people would be found to be absurd. But Rocky and Bruce could begin to share on this one thing: His kids were in Argentina, Bruce’s were in Westmount with Denise.
Rocky named his hero. “The woman who gets dressed in the morning.”
“But why?” asked Jane, hushed now — and did Bruce detect a hint of need? “Why do you love her?”
“She is the pony by the stream,” said Rocky. “I saw her once, in the shade of an arayana, free, unwary as she refreshed herself. The southwest wind was blowing. We call it the pompero… Then she ran off for the sake of freedom, and a few years later so did I. We are a romantic people, see. We look for signs to light our hearts. Thank you.”
“Thank you,” said Jane. “Thank you, Rocky Molinas.”
When the woman in the window was finished buttoning her shirt and disappeared, Rocky would sling his bag full of Roi du Coq and Dairy Queen specials back over his shoulder and return to the staircases. Up and down, all day long…Expo’s cap, jeans riding low on his buttocks, totally macho, a gaucho of the streets of Montreal. He wore black leather boots with raised heels that were completely wrong for the job; but you could follow him into the distance like a drum. Some days they teamed Rocky with Didier. Bruce had heard them pass on a Saturday morning, Didier singing his verses, high and mournful, over and over, accompanied by this cantering rhythm that lasted in the mind of the street. Sitting there in recycled air on the eighth floor of the Bourse building in front of a screen full of forecasts and consistency indexes, Bruce admitted to himself…to his radio (to Jane?), that he loved Rocky Molinas. He had admitted this to Gen as well, and Gen had said she understood. Denise never could or would have.
Then Thu made contact with Jane. “She come into my store once,” said Thu.
“Yes…?” Jane held her breath on-air. On-air! This was Jane at her finest.
“She buy apple juice. She has a child.”
“What’s she like? Thu? Can you tell us?”
It was not easy to listen to Thu — his English sounded as though he were chewing on a rubber spoon and the effort made him nervous. Imagine a man in turmoil: a whine then a squeal, searching for each word. Thu said, “I cannot look at her. I feel ashamed.”
Again, Jane waited.
Thu said, “For two years we waiting on a boat. Life is here, Montreal now, I accept this, but that hard for my wife. We have three children, soon we have one more. My wife talk with all the people who come into our store. She want to belong, but trauma still there because she never accept her fate, and we having bad days. My wife angry for a week... This like on the boat: Sun in morning was only good thing. There is anger, women’s anger, men so sad, sicking children, noise and dirty... Anger of my wife affects me. One morning I losing my control. Sorry.”
Yes, some days you lose it. Bruce was there the day Thu lost it.
Thu didn’t come to Fav and Max’s. He saw her just as well from his depanneur next door. But he was one of them, to be sure. Thu would stand behind his cash and make people wait to get their change while he watched her. He’d lose customers. Playing shopkeeper was foreign; Thu was a mathematician by profession, a shopkeeper by bad political luck. One morning Thu made a run for the periwinkle vine that grew below her window. They saw him — suddenly at the curb, then bolting through traffic, then climbing, lean and athletic, up onto the first floor sill and even to the next before falling and shattering his wrist. They saw Thu lie there as the children marched by on the way to school, books in arms and packs on backs like so many U.S. Marines.
While she was buttoning her white blouse, as if with no idea of the world below.
But you don’t know what she knows. She might know everything about you.
Perhaps she could see into your deepest heart as you stood there gaping.
Maybe she thought you were in love.
The next morning Thu arrived with his wife and his arm in a sling. He left his wife with the morning trade and came next door to stand with the rest of them. After the woman had combed her hair and left her window, Thu blocked the door and kept them captive and told them what he just told Jane.
He told them, “Sorry.” As if his mad dash was a violation of their unspoken pact.
They told him, “It’s all right, Thu, no one’s perfect, these are tricky times.”
Jane was also forgiving Thu. “Don’t worry, Thu. Just keep going. Thank you for your call.”
Thu’s wife was petite and pretty. Sometimes she wanted to practise her English; other times she wouldn’t even look at you while making change and putting your beer in a bag. She’d be machine-like, riveted to the little TV beside the cash and another one of those Vietnamese videos…simplistic-seeming morality plays, always with a heroine running scared through the woods at night. You’d feel something was wrong, but it wasn’t your language, so you’d count your change and leave.
Bruce could feel there was something wrong with Denise. You could say he ran for that vine and climbed it. And maybe he made it all the way up, because now he was with Gen. But still: you make a run for it, it’s because you’ve done something wrong. Isn’t that it? You want to say sorry. But to whom?
“Time for one more call,” said Jane. “Hello, you’re on the air...”
“Is Maxim here.”
“We’ve been hearing about you.”
“We do good work. Listen, my partner Favio, he wants to tell you something.”
“All right, quickly then.”
“Yes? This is Favio…”
“Go ahead, Favio.”
“This woman, she bring her son in one Saturday. Five, six, just a small boy. I take him. This woman, she read the GQ magazine while I work. We have a tape on, like always on a Saturday. We play the Italian music. This is music of love. We believe it’s good for the men to hear this music. I notice when they sing Marie, the woman has a tear dropping onto my GQ. I watch her and I see loneliness. I realize I never see a man up there with her. But in a barber shop you don’t ask unless they tell, you know?”
“No,” said Jane, “I guess you wouldn’t.”
Favio said, “She give me two dollars tip and leave with her boy. I don’t know what to say to her. So Max, he run across the road after her and he give her to keep the GQ. He say this for you, but neither he can say nothing more than that. It’s hard to say much to a woman like her.”
“It was just a haircut,” averred Jane, edgy, as if a barber should know. “Sometimes there’s nothing much to say.”
Favio asked, “So what you think we should do?”
Jane laughed. But gentle, like your mother used to. “Keep watching.”
“Yes?”
&n
bsp; “I’m sure of it…Tell Max, too.”
“Yes, I will. Ciao.”
“Thank you for your call.” Now her theme music was rising and Jane said, “Looks like we’re out of time again. Another hour of talk, gone into thin air. Today we’ve been hearing about unsung heroes, those unknown people who make a difference to Montreal. Let’s all keep an eye open for more of them. We’ll talk again tomorrow. Bye.”
Bye, Jane…The music took her off the air. 4 So Jane was gone. Like the woman who got dressed in the morning would be gone. Suddenly she’d be gone from her window and that was it; you’d say salut…or maybe chat for a minute, then head off to where you were supposed to be. Bruce felt it was true what Jane said, how you talk but it never lasts. Gone into thin air — the thin air that exists between everyone. Sometimes Gen and Bruce couldn’t talk to save their lives. After a time she’d be in French, he’d be in English. After that, they’d lie there and stare at each other. You could be seeing love’s memories and the other would never know.
Or that third person they say needs to be there when you’re making love.
Now they were saying sunny again in the morning. Good. Perfect conditions for the group.
Bruce turned off his radio, finished his apple and got back to work.
_____________
1 Down at the station, Jane turned and gave Bill, the production assistant who screened the calls, royal shit for letting these perverts on the air.
Bill told her, “The man said he wanted to say some words about his wife. And he did… Jane, I’m sorry. I can only go by what they tell me. But it’s sort of interesting,” he mused, probably the riskiest move of his career thus far.
While Jane stared at herself in the studio window. Being a trusted voice, a “personality,” being a focal point of so many people’s lives; this was an art and not always easy. If the people only knew.
2 Jane, who had perfect posture, found her reflection in the studio window and adjusted her hair.
Although she was invisible to everyone, blonde suited her.
Then again, so did green. Green was fun. Her son had told her, “Mommy, I liked you green.”
3 Jane turned to Bill and said, “What are you trying to do to me? This caller is not helping the matter.”
Bill, who liked Jane in a dangerously unprofessional way, replied, “I thought you said — ”
“That man is mean,” said Jane. “You can hear it in every word he says. He’s cold… He doesn’t know what it’s like, the life out there.”
“Do you?” asked Bill — point blank, putting his career on the line for the second time that hour. But it was becoming a personal thing and he needed to break through to Jane.
Jane said, “Yes! I see them every day. I feel them!”
“Jane,” said Bill, daring to reach for her, “what’s the matter?” He saw something in her eyes that caused him pain.
“Oh…” whined Jane, fending him off.
“It’s your show,” said Bill with brazen bitterness.
Which Jane ignored. “Yes — it’s my show.” And they were at a critical point. She thought of Marcel Beaulé, the blatantly separatist morning man. It was a matter of professional due. Marcel Beaulé was number one in the greater Montreal listening area and you had to take note, even if you’d never agree…The other morning, as she dressed for the day, she’d listened to Marcel Beaulé and that ex-FLQ man Patrice Painchaud, there in the studio as a guest, talking so earnestly about “the enemies of Quebec.” Horrible, the two of them egging listeners on to war. It left her wondering. But Marcel sure knew how to handle his people… Jane was never so certain how to handle hers. Breathing deeply, she released the cough button.
4 Jane sat motionless till her theme faded and she knew they were off the air. Rising, she brushed past Bill. She wished he would stop liking her. She liked him too, but she had a job to do and there were people counting on her. These men of Montreal — they needed her. Now she knew. And focusing on one man could break the spell. If the elements of Jane — body, voice, mother, goddess — were to remain intact as one erotic whole, the love of one man could never enter the equation. That Léonard from Zaire would see it in a second. Rocky the junk-mail deliverer too. They would know. In a year or so she would be bumped. It was inevitable in the radio business — just talk in a visual world. She would take her child and leave the sunny window. She would find love in another city. For now…
Jane went straight to her producer’s office. “We have to do something on dreams,” she said; “tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow we should talk about the new welfare rules.”
“No!” Did she stamp her foot? Poor Jane.
But there was also the element of sympathy which flowed in her direction; now she knew this too. Those two barbers… “Dreams,” she insisted. “It has to be dreams.”
And although no one could ever completely see her, Jane was already wondering what to wear.
The Next Thing After Baseball
BASEBALL BROADCAST STANDARDS COMMITTEE TRANSCRIPT
(Winter Session, 1997)
Harve Doody: Gentlemen, my position is that something in Montreal messed up our ball team’s mechanisms. And that I was doing my job.
Dan (The Dart) Wirnooski: My position is that Harvey Doody lost it under pressure, and that I should not have to bear responsibility. It’s not fair. We’re not joined at the hip.
Harve: Of course we are. It’s how we work. As the voice of the team, I express its fortunes. Danny Wirnooski is there to help me. I cue him with questions and stats, he provides the colour commentary — by which we mean details, fine points. No?
Dan: Yes, that is my job description. But it has nothing to do with what happened.
Harve: Montreal got into our team’s system. Not their team, the city. The feeling of the place. We had a chance to win it all. That city in Canada finished us off. My colleague refuses to face the issue.
Dan: Former colleague.
Harve: The point is, I key off Dan. Sixteen years with Chicago, another three with the Indians before it ended — Dan’s got the same rhythms as the men down on the field. That’s why he was hired. You have to understand: if you want to get to the soul of the game, Dan Wirnooski goes first and Harvey Doody follows. I followed Dan into the dark heart of Montreal.
Dan: I was hired because my voice fit the requirements.
Harve: They announced, “Landing at Montreal, Dorval in three minutes.” I looked down at the place and could feel something bad stirring in my gut. We were coming in for the weekend, from Pittsburgh, going into the last three games of what had been nineteen days on the road in the humid east. The people who run our ball park had sent us away to make room for a flying truck extravaganza, a Christian convention and our town’s annual gun show. I suppose that scheduling decision was based on our dismal past. But we were in the race for the first time in our history, one-and-a half games back heading into September. We’d just dropped two in a row in Pittsburgh by a run. I didn’t worry about it as we headed off for Montreal — they were well out of it, twenty games back, no hope, and no threat to us. That team has had its moments, but in truth, they’re always out of it. No money, no fans, that bizarre dodo of a stadium, they’ve been on death row for years. Then I looked down as we approached…
It’s a baseball kind of feeling. Coming into Montreal, I knew it was going to be over.
Dan: The stewardess came by and made us buckle our seatbelts. When we touch down they all start clapping. Not our guys. I mean all these Quebec people in the plane with us. Happy to be home. Every time we went there, I’d noticed this. But Harve, he leans over and tells me, real low and almost frightened-like, “Danny, it’s all going to end right here in Montreal.”
I told him, “Smile, Harvey.”
Harve: Right: smile. First there was the Montreal ball girl. Works the first base line. Ralph our technician patches into the local coverage and feeds it back home. But we travel with a camera so we can do our own spot
s with the players, remotes from the stands, things like that. That night before the game, Danny’s over on the sidelines playing catch with the ball girl. He’s got Gary, our camera, and Rachel, our PA, and he’s trying to interview her from forty feet away. And she can barely speak English. I said to myself, What is this? There are twenty-five men down on that field with the name of our city stitched to their jerseys and they’re holding it all in the balance at the start of a three-game stand at the end of August, but Dan the Dart Wirnooski spends the whole time with the Montreal ball girl!
I pointed this out to Richard, our producer-director. He tells me, “But Harve, the woman’s got one hell of an arm. And those blueberry-coloured eyes? I think Danny’s developing a good nose for a story.”
I was appalled by such a frivolous answer and I question Richard’s leadership in this whole thing.
The fact is, Montreal got to Dan Wirnooski too. He goes for a dog and fries at the end of the third and he misses the whole fourth inning. Our shortstop throws two balls into the stands on routine plays to first… Sure, I can describe it. But I can’t explain it. Where’s Dan to explain this kind of profound lapse to the folks at home? Back down putting moves on the Montreal ball girl, that’s where. We had the go-ahead run on third in the sixth, but our guy is dreaming and gets picked off. Unbelievable! I turn to Dan to provide an explanation and he’s dreaming too, staring off at the first base line — missed the play entirely. We sneak ahead in the seventh, then we ruin it in the eighth: our right fielder goes diving out of play for a ball that lands twenty feet behind him, sits there like an egg and gets a triple that becomes the tying run. What in the name of all that we hold dear was our man thinking about? Our fans are going out of their minds! They’re watching this disaster occurring far from our home field, in a foreign place, and it’s affecting their lives. From Dan we get a big laugh, like it’s some kind of slapstick. He tells the folks at home, “I’ll betcha Bernie the ball girl coulda made that play.” Do you think our fans were laughing?
