I can also see a blinking yellow light, straight ahead.
Suicide Curve.
Caitlin hits the brakes.
The old mayor does not.
There is an explosive crunch of metal on metal, a burst of steam, and the old Ford leaps upward, its belly catching on the cliffside railing.
The ’Bility Bus is still rocking from the sudden stop as Carrie and I leap out through the front door and sprint toward the Ford Deluxe. The car teeter-totters atop the guardrail, its round rear end swaying in the air, its headlights peering past the cliff edge into the abyss. I grab onto the cold, shimmering chrome of the rear bumper. Carrie takes hold also. Then Landon, Arty and Dennis are beside us. Caitlin’s and my mother’s hands jam in between mine and Dennis’.
“PULL!” someone shouts. It’s me. Sometimes I still don’t recognize my own voice.
Fourteen hands pull back on the bumper.
“PULL! PULL!” Landon yelps.
The car rocks back and forth.
“PULL! PULL!” my mother cries.
Back and forth, back and forth; the rear end of the car dips closer to the ground each time, while the nose drops a little farther over the cliff.
Carrie and Caitlin and Arty’s voices ring out in unison: “PULL! PULL! PULL! PULL!”
Inside the black car, the old man’s limp body lolls to and fro with each see-saw motion.
“PULL, GODDAMMIT, PULL!” Dennis hollers.
The underbelly of the old Ford Deluxe slides with a metallic screech from the bent railing. Its tires bounce on the ground, and the car rolls backward, away from the ledge. It comes to a rest in the middle of the road at Suicide Curve.
The paramedics move the old man from the driver’s seat onto a gurney. His trademark three-piece suit is soaked in blood, from the lapels of his jacket to the knees of his freshly pressed pants. Hitting the solid steering wheel has split his face open from forehead to chin.
After the paramedics have slowed the bleeding, injected their moaning patient with painkillers and sedatives, they wheel him away. As they lift him into the back of the ambulance, something jolts us from our collective state of shock.
It’s a gurgling, strangling sound, coming from inside The ‘Bility Bus. It’s Michael.
Caitlin rushes away, ducks into the red van. She emerges a moment later with something in her grip, which she places in the old mayor’s blood-spattered hand. It is Michael’s pocket watch.
“He wants you to hold onto this for him,” Caitlin says.
His golden eyes glisten through the pulpy, crimson mass of his face.
“He says that he loves you,” Caitlin says. “He says that he forgives you. He says that he wants you to live.”
Landon wanders up beside Caitlin. Saying nothing, he slides his finder scope into the old man’s other hand.
Dennis approaches tentatively, and tucks the 1983 silver dollar into the blood-soaked breast pocket of his suit jacket. “The value of a dollar,” he says.
I slip the jackknife in with Dennis’ dollar coin.
“Stainless Steel, Dad. Stainless steel.”
A paramedic pulls the doors closed, and the ambulance races away with our father inside.
It’s late now. It’s dark. Everyone else has passed out from exhaustion, but something keeps me awake. Dennis can’t sleep, either.
I blow the dust from a bottle of 1988 Mouton-Rothschild, then I uncork it, noting that it is roughly the same age as me. I know from the old mayor’s lessons that this wine should be decanted first, but I am ready for a drink now. There is plenty more where this came from.
I clink glasses with Dennis, who sits beside me on the front step of the bungalow.
“Enough excitement for one day, eh?” he says.
“Quite a homecoming,” I agree.
I swirl the dark liquid around the bowl of the glass, inhale its intense nose of coffee, chocolate, blackberry, and cedar. Beautiful.
Dennis takes a sip. His eyes widen. “Oh. My. God. This tastes incredible.”
“It should,” I tell him. “One bottle can go for a thousand bucks at auction.”
“Seriously?” Dennis says. “Where did you get this?”
“The cellar downstairs.”
“The cellar? Downstairs?”
“He’s got at least a thousand bottles down there. Probably more.”
Dennis sets his glass down on the concrete step beside him, very carefully, and picks up the Bordeaux bottle, cradling it in his hands like a sleeping infant. “A thousand bottles?” he wonders. “Are they all worth as much as this one?”
“Give or take.”
“So,” he says, wide-eyed, “you’re telling me that there is roughly a million dollars worth of wine collecting dust in the basement of this little house?”
I nod.
Dennis shakes his head. “And the old man thought it would be a good idea to get the family out of debt by killing himself for some insurance money, rather than just selling some of his wine?”
I take a long sip of the dark, fragrant fluid. “I’m not sure it was just about the money,” I say.
Dennis shrugs. “It’s never just about the money, Philip.” Then he gets that look that I’ve seen so many times before. “Philip,” he says, his face glowing as if a halo of gold coins is orbiting his head, his hand stroking the wine bottle like it’s got a wish-granting genie inside, “I just got a great idea.”
A Future Winter
The Good Stuff
Business is booming at Skyler Fine Wines. All of the shops on Faireville Street, including The Arty Gallery, The Good Faith Gift Shop, The Tea Cozy and Lynette’s Little Edibles, are doing well. People come from all over to take in a show at the King George Playhouse, or a blues concert at Cecil’s new venue. The new slogan on the town sign is “The Day-Trip Capital of Canada!”
Dennis came up with the slogan. He’s a town councilor now. He’s thinking of running for mayor. Our father is proud.
Unlike Dennis, I have no desire to be the gear that drives anyone else; I want the world to be the wheel that drives me.
My father is proud of me, too. I travel frequently to the wine-producing regions of the world. We sold most of the wine from the bungalow basement years ago, so my elevated senses of smell and taste have been useful in selecting new vintages to keep our customers happy. As Dennis often says, he’s the brains of the operation, and I’m the nose and mouth.
I still half-expect to bump into Adeline whenever I step from a plane in France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Australia, South Africa, California, Chile, or Argentina, but never when I drive to Niagara or fly to British Columbia. A decade has passed since she first flew off to conquer the world without me, and she hasn’t been back to Canada since.
For the first couple of years, she sent me frequent letters and emails, but after she met her fiancé Benjamin (“a stunningly gorgeous man”) in Milan, her communiqués became less frequent, until I stopped hearing from her altogether. I can only assume that she and Benjamin are married now, a beautiful couple with beautiful lives, exploring all the beautiful places in the world.
I couldn’t go with her. I belong here, and she belongs everywhere else. One day I’ll see her again. Or maybe I won’t. You really never know what will happen.
Occasionally I find a wine that is both delicious and inexpensive, so I send a few dozen cases to Cecil. He’s got the space to store it now; C.B.’s Tabernacle of Blues is a lot bigger than The Incredible Blues Bar was.
I wonder what Candace Brown and Pastor Vangelis would think of the place now? Anthony and I like it; we’ve got reserved seats at the bar, and our own private stash of “the good stuff” in Cecil’s storeroom.
The rent Cecil pays us for the windowless concrete building is roughly equivalent to the cost of Michael’s monthly medical bills. Michael can hold his head up now, and can control the movement of his eyes. He’s also regained the use of most of his right hand, and can communicate using a joystick-operated speech synthesizer.
I’ve learned to understand his vocal utterances almost as well as Caitlin. It’s worth everything just to be able to talk with him again.
I am standing outside our faux-castle home at the top of the hill, which we’ve gradually rebuilt. Carrie and I share it with Michael and Caitlin. That we live all together constantly amazes us, and it’s something for which we are grateful. It seems as if it was always meant to be this way, that all of our earlier struggles were meant to bring us together here.
The block of granite, which was an obstacle in the path of the weak, becomes a stepping stone in the path of the strong.
Our two children resemble Carrie more than me, but they’ve both got my brown eyes. Neither of them has a cleft lip, flattened nose, or strange teeth. I am especially thankful for this. Mikey is in grade two, and Katey started Kindergarten this year. They both love school, and they have lots of friends.
Time meanwhile flies, never to return.
The kids are out on the hillside with their uncle Landon, who has built a new model airplane, a four-engined reproduction of a Lancaster bomber. The little airplane struggles against the harsh December wind, but it eventually climbs into the sky.
Do not fear the winds of adversity.
A kite rises against the wind rather than with it.
Once the plane is buzzing along at a safe altitude, Landon hands over the controls to Mikey. He eventually lets his little sister have a try. The kids think that Landon is the coolest uncle in the world.
Katey hands the remote-control to her grandfather, who hoots and laughs as the little airplane banks and climbs and dives overhead.
“Oh my, oh my!” the old mayor says. His voice is muffled, like his cheeks are full of cotton balls, the way I sounded when I was still Monkeyface. And, I suppose as I get older, my voice sounds more like his did when he was still the mayor.
A thick, jagged purple scar runs diagonally from under his left eye, through the middle of his crooked nose, through both lips to the tip of his chin. Both his legs are encased in titanium braces, and he uses two canes to walk. But, at almost a hundred years old, he still stands on his own two feet, and his eagle eyes once again sparkle with life. Mom runs up the hill from the house. The mayor grins at her. They act like high school crushes whenever they’re near each other.
We don’t stop playing because we grow old.
We grow old because we stop playing.
I call him “Dad” now. So does Dennis. So does Landon. Michael burbles something that sounds like it, and he makes the speaker on his speech synthesizer say it all the time: “Dad.” Our father. My brothers.
A tear sneaks out of my right eye. I can’t stop it.
Snowflakes begin to flutter from the grey sky. Katey claps her hands and jumps up and down.
Today is my thirtieth birthday. It always snows on my birthday.
Carrie wanders outside with a tray of glasses: apple cider and wine. It’s the last bottle of the 1990 Petrus; we’ve been saving it for a special occasion.
Live well. It is the greatest revenge.
Another tear follows the path of the first.
The old mayor hands the controls back to Landon, who brings the miniature Lancaster in for a safe landing.
A sunbeam shines through a little break in the clouds. We all clink our glasses together, and I put my arm around Carrie’s waist.
“Look,” Mikey says to his grandfather, uncle, and sister, “a Jacob’s Ladder!”
Jacob had a dream about a ladder extending toward heaven.
I taught him that.
The tears fall steadily now.
I don’t wipe them away. I let them come.
I never used to cry.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Gratitude
For love, support, encouragement, and many other things that make life worth living, my love and thanks to my wife, Nicole. This book is for you.
For my parents, Mike and Judy Scarsbrook; every day I am more grateful that you are my parents. This book is also for you.
For her tireless work as my literary agent, thanks to Margaret Hart of the HSW Agency.
For their respective roles in getting this book into print, thanks to editor extraordinaire Michael Kenyon, and to Al and Jackie Forrie and the wonderful staff at Thistledown Press.
For generous support during the creation of this book, my thanks to the Toronto Arts Council and the Ontario Arts Council.
For the nickname “Captain Quote”, thanks to my excellent friends Mark Denney and Ryan Harlock.
And to all my other excellent friends . . . thanks for being excellent friends!
Acknowledgements
The following chapters were published, in different form as short stories, in the following fine publications:
“Yellow to Blue” appeared in the October 2007 issue of LWOT (Lies With Occasional Truth) — “The World’s Greatest Fiction Magazine”.
“Brown is Not a Colour” was published in the Summer 2008 volume of The Dalhousie Review.
“Lightning and Flames” appeared as the story “Neville 19:56” in the Summer 2008 issue of The Nashwaak Review.
“Jacob’s Ladder” was short-listed (and “Day of Reckoning” was long-listed) for the 2007 Fish Short Story Prize (Ireland).
And just in case you were wondering . . .
The town of Faireville and its neighboring city, Gasberg, are completely fictional. All the places and things described within these two places are products of the author’s imagination.
The city of Toronto, however, despite occasional claims to the contrary, is real, and most of the places and things described within it are also real (except in a few cases where the author has bent reality to suit his fictional purposes).
All of the characters in the book are in fact characters, meaning that they are products of the author’s imagination and do not exist in the real world.
You can find out more about the author and the products of his imagination at: www.richardscarsbrook.com.
Richard Scarsbrook has had his fiction and poetry published in numerous literary journals, magazines, and anthologies. Cheeseburger Subversive, his first book in the Dak Sifter series, was a finalist for the 2004 CLA Young Adult Book Award, and was nominated for the Ontario Library Association’s White Pine Award. Featherless Bipeds, the sequel to Cheeseburger Subversive, was short-listed for the 2007 CLA Young Adult Book of the Year Award and the 2009 Stellar Book Award. Scarsbrook lives in Toronto, Ontario.
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