Ghosted

by Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall

  “It was hard to play sober—I guess a lot of things are going to be hard.”

  “You played better.”

  “Maybe. Cheating helps.”

  “I guess so…. You think he’ll do it?”

  “Who, Seth? We’ll see. At least we got him tagged.”

  Chaz picked up the bottle and gestured to Mason. Mason shook his head. “I got a question,” he said. “Those paintings in there. They’re Soon’s, right?”

  Chaz poured a glass. “I found them in the Dogmobile.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I needed somewhere to store things. Didn’t want you detoxing in a room full of coke and guns.”

  “Good thinking.”

  “I got it towed back here—nice driving, by the way.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “So I thought I’d stash it all in that big empty hat. I took down the drop ceiling, and there they were….”

  “Hats off to you….”

  “What?”

  “A note he left.”

  “Well, he left you another one, too.” Chaz dug into his jacket pocket, pulled out an envelope and put it on the table.

  Mason stared at it.

  Chaz looked at his watch. “The rabble will be here soon.”

  “Thanks,” said Mason. He picked up the envelope and headed back in, to the cave within the Cave.

  Dear Mr. D.,

  I have entitled the series: “The Ghosts of Soon.” Enclosed is a signed letter of provenance, so that no one will debate either authorship or ownership of these paintings. They belong to you, and as long as I am held in the public consciousness they should be worth something. It is in both our interests that I am well remembered.

  I’m sorry I misled you, but I also misread you; I didn’t expect your conscience to kick in quite so fast. Thanks for caring. You’re a good man.

  Soon Sahala

  Fishy was supposed to have been watching the monitor. As it was, Chaz was on the wrong side of the room when he heard the thunder: Detective Flores and fifteen other cops in flak jackets, six of them holding shotguns.

  Willy was still asleep. Only Mason saw it happening—drinks and chips scattering, Chaz hurtling over the bar. But that was it—he didn’t drop to the floor, didn’t roll through the trap door. He stood up straight and Mason knew what he was thinking: his friends were safe, and that’s all that mattered. Why push his luck?

  He and Mason were facing each other now, and although Chaz couldn’t see though the glass, they found each other’s eyes. Chaz gave him a smile, then turned around with his hands up—shotguns trained on his generous grin.

  Who wants to take that long shot gamble?

  And head it out to Fire Lake?

  THE EIGHTH

  BENEATH THE BLACK HELMET

  77

  Mason stood on the subway platform. There was hardly anyone around, even here at St. George station, where the University line crossed over the Bloor. His hands were shaking, he was looking down at the track. Air rushed in and out of the tunnels, the distant sounds of metal on metal, radio buzz, fluorescent humming.

  At 12:07 a.m. the sound system clicked on—a low hiss from the speakers in the ceiling, a computerized bell: bong, bong (two notes deemed suitable for getting people’s attention). And then a level, vapid voice: “Attention TTC commuters. At this time, travel both east and west on the Bloor line has been suspended until further notice. We apologize for the inconvenience. Attention TTC commuters …”

  Mason stood there another minute, until the air shifted. The southbound train came screeching out of the tunnel.

  He stepped in, the doors closed behind him and he was off. As the train flew through the darkness, an image of a man came into his head. He was in a business suit, running through a field. There was a look of exhilaration and fear on his face. Then Mason realized what it was: a Monty Python skit he hadn’t seen for years, the voice-over something like, “God gave this convicted killer the rare opportunity to choose the manner of his own execution …” And at this moment, cresting the hill behind him, came a legion of naked, buxom women. Mason could see them now, their long, soft hair flying as they ran. They chased the man right off a cliff.

  God knows, with all those options out there, why Seth would choose the subway. But apparently he had.

  Mason got off at Queen’s Park and walked the rest of the way. Near his apartment, he cut through the alley. There was still police tape around the loading dock and the Dogmobile was gone. He was pretty sure the cops hadn’t found the QT room. Flores and his men had emptied the Cave while he and Willy watched from behind the glass. They’d waited all through the day—then, in the evening, he’d carried her out.

  They’d left everything behind—including “The Book of Handyman,” “Notes on the Novel in Progress,” seventy Socratic statements, the letters he’d written for Warren, Willy and Soon, Soon’s research and anything else incriminating Chaz had found in Mason’s apartment and transferred to the QT room, believing that would be safer.

  His laptop was down there, too. But still, he wasn’t in a hurry to go back—especially considering the bag of cocaine. Mason had found it tucked down between the bed and the wall. Chaz must have dropped it there while moving his cache out to the Dogmobile. All that time detoxing, Mason had been locked in a room with a pound of pure Peruvian. He salivated thinking about it. Unless the cops had miraculously found the entrance to the QT room the coke was down there right now—along with “The Ghosts of Soon” and a tape deck that played only one song, over and over and over …

  Mason climbed the stairs to his apartment. He liked the feeling of opening the door, knowing there was someone inside.

  “Hey there, cowboy,” said Willy. She was propped up in the captain’s bed.

  “You’re awake.”

  “I wasn’t uncomfortable,” she said. “Just waiting for you …” He could see she was nervous. She didn’t know how to ask the question.

  “He did it,” said Mason.

  “Seriously?”

  “The subway stopped running right after midnight. We’ll know for sure tomorrow.”

  “Holy shit,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  78

  Mason’s alarm rang at 8:45 a.m. It was the first time he’d ever set it, his first day with rules: awake before nine a.m., breakfast, lunch and dinner, at least an hour of exercise, no drugs, no gambling—and for the time being, no booze—to bed by one a.m. He’d even decided to look for a job, something that didn’t involve hotdogs, suicide or writing. Let other people write books.

  Willy stirred. He told her to sleep a bit more, then got out of bed and climbed down the steps. He shaved, ate some granola, then called Dr. Francis.

  There was no answer at the MHAD office. He tried her cellphone.

  “Dr. Francis speaking.” There was noise in the background.

  “It’s me,” said Mason. “Where are you?”

  “I work at the shelter on Tuesdays.”

  “Oh. Do you have any news?”

  “The prognosis looks good!” she said.

  Mason realized he’d been holding his breath, and let it go.

  “Come to my office tomorrow and we can talk about it.”

  “Willy needs her medication,” he said. It had been over forty-eight hours. Had the doctor forgotten?

  “Right …,” she said. “Why don’t you meet me here at noon.”

  In the hope that she could sleep through most of the day, Mason gave Willy some Imovane. “But if you wake up in pain,” he said, “take a sedative. And you call me on my cell.” He put the phone next to the bed.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll be all right.”

  Except for the trip to the St. George subway station, he hadn’t gone farther than a city block in weeks—the Cave, the MHAD building, the market, the park. When had the world got so small he could see the breadth of it from his window? It was time the universe started expanding again. He took long str
ides and a roundabout route: through the university, around Queen’s Park, down into the financial district, then back up Yonge Street. The air was cool, the sky was clear, and he figured this counted as exercise.

  He arrived at the Sherbourne Shelter around 11:30. It was in the basement of a stone church that had become more and more secular over the years—an old men’s shelter for the “hard to house” over the age of forty-five. Mason had spent enough time on the streets to know that if you managed to live to fifty you weren’t so much put out to pasture as turned into prey. Towering office buildings stood on either side of the old church, looking like they were about to steal its lunch money. There were a half-dozen guys smoking on the steps. Mason considered walking a few more blocks to kill the time, but his ankle had started to throb, so he took a seat on the stairs.

  A stocky, red-faced man in a cat burglar toque sat down next to him. “Got a smoke?” he said.

  “You’re smoking one,” said Mason.

  “Yeah, but for later.”

  “Nope. Sorry.”

  “Huh!” said the man, then leaned back a bit, as if studying him from a different angle. He took a long drag on the filter. “So what’s up with you, man?” The others were looking over now, too, like they were trying to figure out if Mason was worth trying to figure out. Any other day he might have fit right in, but this was the new Mason—the one who shaved and crossed things off lists, and it seemed they could see it in him.

  “I’m here to visit my friend,” he said.

  “Who’d that be?”

  “The doctor.”

  “The who?” One of the old men with hard eyes was lumbering towards them.

  “Dr. Francis. She’s the …”

  “Watch what you’re saying ’bout Frannie,” said the old man, leaning in close. He smelled of cherry cough syrup and fresh urine.

  “I said she’s my friend,” said Mason.

  “Saved my life, that lady did!” said the old man, as if they were arguing. “No one says nothing bad about her!”

  “Fair enough.”

  The rest of the old guys were shuffling over now, too. Mason took his hands out of his pockets. “How’d she save your life?”

  “Ah …” He flicked his hand in the air like Mason wasn’t worth the trouble. “Had one of my attacks right there on the floor. I was legally dead….”

  “You weren’t dead, Wilf,” said a man with rheumy eyes.

  “Legally I was. But Frannie—she’s smart! She knew right away what the problem was. Gave me a shot right in the thigh. Turns out …,” he lifted one of his fingers, like this was the crux of everything, “I’m allergic to shrimps.”

  “You didn’t know that?”

  “Never had a shrimp before. There’s a first time for everything. Point is, I been around doctors my whole life—they never knew I was allergic to shrimp. To them I’m no more than a dog. But Frannie—she’s different.”

  Mason did his best to follow the logic. “She’s allergic to nuts,” he said.

  Wilf sat up a bit straighter. “To nuts!” he said and looked around at the others, who actually seemed impressed. “I told you! She could see that we’re the same—she’s got that empathizing gene, makes her care about people. She saved every one of us….”

  “Didn’t save me,” said the rheumy-eyed one.

  “Bullshit,” said Wilf. “You’re full of shit is what you are. Who got you morphine? Who got you housing?” He turned back to Mason. “It’s true! He doesn’t even live here! Just comes on Tuesday to see the doctor.” The guys on the stairs started to laugh.

  “I didn’t say I didn’t like her,” said the one with rheumy eyes.

  “You’re in love with her!” said Wilf.

  “I’m in love with her! You’re the one with the shrimps and nuts and all the empathizing!”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  All of them were laughing know—even the cat burglar, who handed Mason a smoke.

  67. I don’t know the constellations.

  68. My heart is just an organ.

  At noon, Mason said goodbye to the guys on the stairs and went into the shelter. It was like a hospital in an old war movie where they’d managed to keep the soldiers alive but never quite healed. They were propped in doorways, lying on a bench, curled up in a corner, reading on a cot, walking around in circles, their hands buzzing at their own ears. They wore modern-day civilian rags, but the war was still with them—in their eyes, in their hacking coughs, their shaking hands, in the stiffness of their walk. The war was the cold of the winter, the heat of the summer, the violence on every corner, the never being able to relax, the pain of memory, the loss of memory, the crack, the Lysol, the smack, the booze and the new weapons too: the meth and the oxy and the giant TV screens attached to high-rise buildings. The war was foster homes, halfway houses, residential schools, jails, prisons, shantytowns, soup kitchens and shelters. It was never getting a real night’s sleep, hands grabbing at your belongings, men coughing sickness right into your mouth. It was abusive fathers, dead mothers, cruel foster parents, crowded jail cells. It was TB and scabies and hep C and AIDS. It was bedbugs and kerosene fires and cuts that never got clean. It was cops and gangbangers and bikers and bashers and pimps and your brother passing out on the streetcar tracks. It was schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, borderline personality. It was rage, isolation, mourning. It was self-deception, self-hatred, self-harm, self-destruction. It was your old lady loving you, your old lady leaving you, your old lady dead. It was missing everyone you’d ever known. It was nothing ever changing, and no one to depend on. It was a code that changed every moment, a war that never ended. It was suicide. And Mason, walking through the shelter, felt like a man who’d barely dodged the draft.

  Dr. Francis was talking to an old-timer in a trucker’s cap. “Would you take me fishing sometime?” she said.

  “Yalright,” said the old-timer. “But it ain’t gonna be easy. We go for the big fish.” He glared at Mason.

  “All right then, Flash. I’m gonna hold you to it.”

  The old-timer nodded.

  Mason followed her to a small office in the corner of the room. “You fish?” he said.

  “I’m a quick study.” She sat down in front of a computer and started clicking with the mouse. “Come here. I want to show you something.” Mason pulled up a chair and sat down beside her. “There.” She touched the screen with her finger, where a red dot pulsed in the middle of a street map. “That’s where he is.”

  Mason felt his muscles tightening. “I thought he was dead.”

  She turned around. “Look at the intersection.”

  Mason leaned in. “Bay and Bloor.”

  “At precisely 12:02 this morning,” said Dr. Francis. “A westbound train pulling into the Bay subway station struck and killed an unidentified male. Even the cops will tell you that. What they won’t tell you is that, although the body was severely mangled and partially decapitated, the early autopsy report suggests the man had no scalp. You need a coroner friend for that kind of detail.”

  “So why is that dot still flashing?”

  “Well, I’d assume that there in that tunnel, among all those bits of flesh and bone …,” she turned back and tapped the screen once more, “is one bloody little microchip.”

  “Yuck,” said Mason.

  Dr. Francis nodded once, slowly, like she was accepting a compliment, then closed the screen. “Come on,” she said. “It’s my lunch hour. Let’s take a walk.”

  There were a few guys smoking crack in the alley, including Wilf of the shrimp and nuts. When they saw Dr. Francis they looked embarrassed. She waved, then carried on to Bloor Street.

  “They like you,” said Mason.

  “It took a while.”

  They walked along Bloor, and soon the viaduct could be seen up ahead. Dr. Francis looked to Mason, who gave a shrug. He was curious to see how the Saving Grace was coming along, but still he felt anxious as they walked towards it. Conversation seemed di
fficult. There was little that wasn’t complicated between them. Of the three people they had in common one was in jail for drugs and guns, one was on the doctor’s methadone, illegally, and the third, thanks to them, was splitting his time—or at least his body—between a coroner’s office and a subway station.

  Dr. Francis gave it a shot. “That girl you went looking for … what was her name?”

  “Oh,” said Mason. “Well, I really don’t know what her name was. That’s sort of the problem.”

  “Yeah. Of course.”

  “I thought it was Sissy.”

  “Sissy. Right. I’ve been thinking about her. It’s a very specific need, to become somebody else—like a psychological survival instinct.”

  “Do you think she killed herself?”

  “Dunno. But if she didn’t, she’s probably someone else by now, since Sissy wasn’t working. Best scenario, she’d mix the memories she could live with into a character who has never actually existed. The way I see it, that could open her up to possibility—like a door to the future.”

  “I should have done something before she disappeared.”

  The doctor said nothing.

  They walked until they came to a barricade of orange cones and striped wooden horses. There were arrows diverting traffic north and south to alternate bridges and a large octagonal sign that read, Closed for Opening.

  “Good title,” said Mason.

  The doctor laughed. “How’s the book going?”

  Mason stepped over one of the horses and walked towards the bridge. There were trucks, pallets and a crane, but no one was working at the moment. A banner blew in the wind: The Saving Grace—Completion July 11.

  “Just five days left to jump,” said Mason.

  “It was a serious question,” said Dr. Francis. “About your book.”

  “I know,” said Mason. He walked onto the bridge.

  “So …”

  “What do you mean ‘so’? It’s done.”