People had this romantic view of facing down their fears, as if only good could come of it. Warren could testify otherwise, and yet he kept on doing it. Case in point: this love letter Mason was supposed to be writing. It was a ballsy move on Warren’s part. At every step—approaching Mason, commissioning the letter, delivering it to a woman named Carolina—it must be freaking him right out. The least Mason could do was start to write.
He put aside the cards then carried his drink to the desk. He sat down, turned on the computer and picked up a book of matches. With his right hand he pushed the left-most match out and around the edge of the book, turned it in his fingers and struck down at the flint. The match-head burst into flame. He lit his cigarette then a candle.
He didn’t bother blowing out the match, just threw it over his shoulder, where it smoldered, then flickered out. Mason laughed out loud and took another drink. He turned up the music, trayed his smoke and did a line.
Leaning forward, he began to type.
Warren in Love—Take One
Since the moment I saw you, things have made sense. And that’s saying a lot for me. I haven’t had that sensical a life so far. (Whoaa … According to my spell-check sensical’s not actually a word.) I’ve had a life nonsensical, is what I mean….
Mason sat back. In some ways he liked the idea that Warren, a non-writer, would be spell-checking his way through the letter. And it was kind of refreshing to be working on something other than his novel, like he was feeding the good dog inside him more than the bad. Sometimes that’s all you could do: give the good dog an edge. It did bother him a bit, though, that he’d thought sensical was a word.
Shake it off, Shakespeare.
He lit another smoke.
His job was not necessarily to put Warren in a true light—a multiphobic, unitesticled, manslaughtering ex-comedian looking for love—but rather a good light. The trick was not to freak the lady out. There’d be plenty of time for her to get to know him.
So what could he write about?
It’s a love letter, Einstein. Write about Love.
Warren in Love—Take Two
Love is feeling big without tripping over your own feet.
Love is the kind of fear you can do something with.
Love is always enough to eat, and a haven from the plagues.
Love is spooning beneath cotton sheets with a fan blowing cool air across your face.
Love is a dog.
Love is all we need …
Shit.
He poured another drink.
“You know what I think the problem is?” Mason flipped the bun, then took it off the grill.
“What’s that?” said Warren.
“Carolina. You haven’t told me anything about her. It’d be easier if I knew who we were in love with.”
“Hmmm…. That is a problem.”
“What do you mean?”
“I just don’t know her that well.”
“I thought you were in love with her.”
“Well, I know her that well.”
“I’ve already got a headache, Warren.”
“Sorry.”
“What does she look like?”
“She’s beautiful.”
Mason waited.
“Caucasian. Brown eyes. Five-foot-nine.”
“Well, that’s romantic.”
Warren took a moment, then spoke: “Her eyes are almond-shaped, like a cat’s—but with only two eyelids, of course. Cats have three, you know? I think it’s called the nictitating membrane.”
“Now that I can use,” said Mason pulling an invisible pen from behind his ear to scribble it down: “No nictitating membrane.”
“She’s got a small mole on her upper lip.”
“Okay …” Scribble, scribble. “Got it.”
“She’s very pretty.”
“Good enough. So what does she do?”
“She works at a video store.”
Mason looked at him. Warren looked back.
“Is that how you know her, Warren? She rents you videos?”
“You sell me hotdogs.”
“Good point. What have you talked to her about?”
“Mostly videos…. What?”
Mason took a breath. “Okay. Well what movies does she like?”
“I know this … her favourite movies are—let me think. Chariots of Fire, Pretty in Pink and First Blood.”
“Really?”
“Those are all good movies. Have you seen First Blood? It’s an excellent film.”
“Great. This has been really helpful, Warren. Thanks.”
10
Writing about love hadn’t worked. Writing about Warren could scare her off, and he hadn’t exactly got a clear picture of Carolina. So what was left?
Feelings.
Feelings?
How does he make her feel?
Warren in Love—Take Three
You make me feel big without being huge and cumbersome. You make me feel like a tough guy in a bar, instead of a moving mountain that steps on trees and toes.
You make me wish I could be stronger.
No. Too close to that Jack Nicholson movie: “You make me want to be a better man.” Gag.
How about this:
Carolina behind the counter,
You make me feel like Rambo before the crummy sequels.
Short and sweet.
Not worth five grand, though.
Mason sat there, drinking and shuffling cards, bereft of inspiration. Finally he reached for the phone. Twenty minutes later, Chaz was at his door.
“Howdy, popstand. What’s the haps?”
“I’m writing a love letter.”
“Aw shucks, for me?”
“Nope.”
“Who else are you acquainted with?”
“People.”
“You’re a halfwit.”
“Play some cards later?”
“You’re already into me for too much dough. And little lambs eat ivy.”
“Well, that’s why I called you.” From his desk drawer, Mason pulled out the thousand Warren had given him. “I’m making some money.”
“That’s from hotdogs? Maybe I should switch jobs.”
“Aw, c’mon. Drug dealing suits you.” He passed him half the cash. “We’ll play for the rest later. Just leave me some powder, okay?”
“Sure enough,” said Chaz. He put the money in his pocket and tossed a baggie on the desk.
After Chaz left, Mason did a long, thick line and tried to imagine what would make someone fall in love with Warren. He wanted Carolina to envision him in some seemingly real yet romantic light—what he was, but also what he’d been, and what he could be.
Warren in Love—Take Four
Here I am, sitting awkwardly at a desk. It’s foggy outside my window, pale yellow light in here. I scratch my head, scratch this pen across the paper—scratch that: I’m using a laptop. It completes the image, an accountant-type stuffed in a suit, stuck in a chair, punching at keys … I know; it’s tedious even to imagine.
Yeah, it is.
Mason did another line. Then he pushed back his chair, shuffling cards.
“You don’t look so good,” said Warren.
Mason broke off some lettuce. “I missed my morning workout.”
“Oh.”
“Tell me, Warren.” Mason’s head throbbed. “Why don’t you write this thing yourself?”
“Writing scares me.”
“You don’t say?”
“It’s not like some other fears, where I’ve just got to find the will to step up. It’s more like eating when you’re nauseous.” Mason handed him the hotdog. “Every word is a new struggle.”
“That’s what writing is.”
“Do you want this gig or not, Mason?”
Mason nodded. “Yeah, I want it. I just need more material … Or maybe less—there’s so many ways to go….”
“How about this?” Warren was dressing his dog. “Why don’t you write me a
few different letters? Then you don’t have to worry about it being perfect. I can choose what parts to use. It’s not like I’m going to just hand over whatever you give me, right?”
“All right.” Mason handed him a Sprite.
“Tell me,” said Warren. “Why did you start writing in the first place?”
“What do you mean why?”
Warren seemed to think about it, then changed his question. “Well, if it’s so difficult, why do you keep doing it?”
11
Why did you start writing in the first place
Is that a pertinent question?
Think about it.
To tell stories.
No.
To tell my stories.
Closer.
To bear witness.
To whom?
To me.
Why?
So that others would, too.
Now we’re getting somewhere.
Yeah. I’m a narcissistic jerk. How’s that supposed to help?
Try it in the third person.
Mason used to be obsessed with being cool. He roamed the world in search of ways to prove just how cool he was. But it’s a tree-falling-in-the-forest type of thing. It doesn’t matter how many trains you hop, how many rabbits you skin, how many rafts you build, how many bar fights you almost win, how many times you crouch in the shade of your own duffle bag—boots beaten and dusty, the desert burning behind you—waiting for that next ride to anywhere, if nobody’s there to see it.
And so he’d learned to write in order to document his own coolness, his guts—his good-looking, good-lighting, good-karma hair days—the stuff that would sell a man to pretty girls and a fickle god, so they’d take him as a hero.
But Mason didn’t care what people thought of him any more. Wash your clothes in enough gas station bathrooms, break enough of your own vows and eventually you don’t give a shit—which is too bad, because the desire to impress people at least keeps you connected to the world somehow. And it’s hard to write a book when you don’t give a damn about the reader. Warren had been right: it was time to put the novel aside—to write something for a man who loved the reader madly. But how to make her love him back—to show him to her?
Try it in the third person?
And why not present tense?
Warren in Love—Take Five
He is on a train. The air outside is burning with brush fires, pulsing and crackling in the twilight. People are stuffing the broken windows of the railway car with blankets and shirts to keep out the smoke. There are goats in the aisle. The smoke swirls in, a chicken flaps out, aflame as it shakes to the ground.
He is on a dark beach. It has been storming for days—huts collapsing, people huddled in fear. The ocean is bleeding, rusted red and frothing, yet somehow he is pulling fish from the shallow, churning waves. He cooks them up, sparks rising in the air. He is carrying medicine through a desert. He is going mad from the heat and nobody ever speaking his language. He is jumping from a cliff into aqua-blue waters. An ugly dog follows him, won’t leave him alone, so that he can’t even get on a plane and go home—because of the dog; it’s the closest he’s come so far to love.
And would you believe that he is this same man, hunched over this desk—bad hair, unsure eyes, trying to write a love letter—a big man with vague dreams and desires stuffed into a suit? He knows no one can see him. No one could possibly see, by looking at him, the things he’s done. The thoughts he’s had. All that bravery and fear. It’s like it’s not even him. Like you wake up a new person every day—no credit at all for the life you’ve lived. He feels huge and invisible, as if the universe itself finds him cumbersome, irksome, baffling, boring—like every time he tries to do something strong, his big hands and thudding brain mess it up….
Who’s that? It feels like there’s someone out there, in the fog. For a moment his heart jumps, not in fear but hope. He straightens his back, narrows his eyes, stabs at the keyboard with confidence—trying to look like there is magic in his head.
The next morning Mason printed the letters, spread them on the table in the middle of his apartment, and read them again. Nothing looks good with a cocaine hangover. For the most part it is a horrible ghost of emptiness. But then there are those rare moments of all right—those random, leftover bursts of energy, fortitude, drive. And suddenly you’re out the door.
Mason rounded the block three times. He could have headed for the hills, but instead he stayed close—thinking, sick and energized. So when he was ready he was already there, up the stairs, back to the desk, all right and ready to focus. He pushed the letters together and looked at them anew.
One thing he’d learned over the years: trying to mythologize yourself rarely had the desired effect. Why had he thought doing it for somebody else would be any different? It was time to write the truth.
So Mason sat down for one more letter: “Warren in Love—Take Six.” It began like this:
I’ve got a lot of fears. I am scared of heights and tunnels.
12
Twenty days after first they’d met, two weeks after Warren had paid $1,005 for a hotdog and a Sprite, he gave Mason another $4,000 for ten pieces of paper.
“Aren’t you going to read them?”
“Later.”
“But …”
“Six letters, Mason. At least one of them’s got to be good. Don’t you think?”
It was a grey day, with a heavy warmth in the air.
“You want a hotdog at least?”
But the big man, nodding a sort of thanks, was already lumbering off down the street.
Mason put the envelope of money behind the counter, picked up a scraper and started on the grill.
Warren walks west on Bloor Street. The low clouds swirl overhead, rumbling, and then it starts to rain. Light at first, but within minutes it becomes a downpour, streaming across his sunglasses. He holds the envelope inside his jacket, his heart beating against it, and walks on—the clean water cascading over him. He loves the rain. The only thing better: thick night fog.
They were sitting at the table in his open concept loft.
“I sold a story,” said Mason.
Chaz put his finger on top of the money. “You’re flapjacking me, shore-leave.”
“What happened to popstand?”
“You got a stack like this, standing on dry land? You’re a sailor on shore leave.”
“And I’m flapjacking you?”
“Damn straight.”
“Are we playing or what?”
“Deal ’em up.”
They traded about a thousand back and forth for a while then went out on the town with it, hit a few bars. Mason made out with a girl in a bathroom, Chaz dropped some jerk’s cellphone into his pint of beer and they watched the sun come up from the roof of a pool hall.
It was a beautiful day.
Notes on the Novel in Progress
The story is the thing. Without the story you got nothing, chump. Look out the window. Spadina is ginger root salesmen on the steps of a synagogue. It is lingerie for a dollar, fake trees in real earth, giant chickens made out of chicken wire on storey-high pedestals in the middle of the avenue. It is a Gothic castle, right there, in the middle of the avenue. It is a mad man with an invisible kite, fighting the winds in the middle of the avenue. It is screeching tires, growling outpatients. It is a dead pig, slipped off a truck in the middle of the avenue. It is not the middle of the road. It is a drastic, aching, red-brick surprise.
Possible title:
A Drastic Aching Red-brick Surprise
13
It was a new world—a debt-free one. And other things had changed, too. Since watching the sunrise with Chaz, Mason had done his damnedest to get his act together. He hadn’t done drugs in four days. And so he was barely hung over when two policemen—one in uniform, one not—walked up to the Dogmobile.
“What can I get for you?” said Mason, his head down, fiddling with a bag of buns.
“Mas
on,” said one of them.
“Dubisee,” said the other.
He looked up, a bun in each hand.
They were definitely familiar: a blurry, irksome memory, seen through metal diamonds—chain-link, then the back of a cruiser. “I’m Detective Sergeant Flores,” said the plainclothes one with the mahogany skin.
“Are you kidding?”
“About what, exactly?”
“I don’t know. I’m trying to run a business here.”
“Okay.”
“I’ve sobered up a lot since … since last time.”
“We’re not here about that, Mason.”
In retrospect, Mason preferred sir.
“Do you know a man named Warren Shanter?”
“Captain Kirk?” said Mason.
“Not Shatner. And not William! Warren Sha …”
“You mean Warren?”
“Yes, that’s what I said.”
“I didn’t know his last name was Shatner.”
“It’s not.”
“Sorry,” said Mason. “You guys make me nervous.”
“That’s fine. We just want to know how you knew Mr. Shanter.”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know how you knew him?”
“Knew?”
“What?”
“You said knew.”
“Warren’s deceased.”
Mason’s hands felt awful with the stupid plastic gloves on. He took them off and dropped them.
“Are you okay, Mr. Dubisee?”
The stench of burning plastic filled the air.
Ghosted Page 4
