In Search of the Perfect Singing Flamingo

by Tacon, Claire;

  “If you want, I can send out the weekly email.”

  She half-smiles, acknowledging the gesture. There’s almost no one on the sidewalks. Mississauga’s not a walking town, but usually there are a few clumps of car-deprived adolescents flirting in the strip mall parking lots. Apparently today’s humidex is too much even for them. Kathleen ticks through the stoplights toward our cul-de-sac.

  We flash past our local grocery store. Too late I remember that I’d meant to buy paper towels while they were on sale.

  “Melanie’s getting some test results this week.”

  “Is she pregnant again?” It doesn’t seem unlikely – surprises happen all the time. It could be the best thing for those two.

  Kath squints at me. “No, Henry. It’s carrier testing. To make sure what happened was spontaneous.”

  The word makes it sound like a surprise party. But we learned the threat of that term, too, when Starr was eventually diagnosed and Kath was four months along with Melly. Spontaneous, hereditary.

  “Since the weekend, I’ve been thinking about how hard you work to make Starr’s life easier. It would be nice if you could do the same for Melanie.”

  “Does she need a ride to the appointment?”

  Kath raises her hand from the steering wheel to shush me. “She and Chester are so busy. She’ll barely have time off work this week to meet with the geneticist. Chester’s full-on at the station.”

  Since her demand that I be more active, I’ve been wondering what exactly Kath means. It feels like more than an offhand gibe. It feels like she’s asking for a fundamental renegotiation. Thirty years ago, she’d never have been with me if I’d been one of those guys that kept tabs or dictated her decisions. All this time I’d figured my wife was happy at the helm because she knows I’m pulling my weight below deck. Now it’s like I’m just some dope along for the ride.

  “If you could do something concrete for them,” Kath continues. “Not asking them questions, not pushing advice.”

  It feels like a fill-in-the-blank quiz – be a better father 101. Whatever she’s driving at, I’m stumped.

  “They’re never going to have time to fix the guest bath.”

  I’ve been offering to help Chester with that since they bought the place. Why now, with the testing, would it be a priority? There’s the unsaid too. Kath knows that in the wake of the trip I’d been hoping to make it up to Starr, bring her to the Funhouse for a couple shifts. Without a job, she’ll want help filling her days.

  “I’m at both stores this week.”

  “I thought I’d take Starr to the salon, get our nails done. See what’s playing at the Cineplex.”

  It’s important to get Starr back into a movie theatre after what happened at the student showcase. If she can be desensitized to it again with someone she trusts, the shock might not bloom into a phobia. Kath is kind enough not to spell it out. Apart from history, kids, it’s these small considerations of hers that have held us together.

  “You can make time.” Kathleen signals into the drive. “You always do.”

  By the time my box of tools and I appear on his door at seven a.m., Chester is ready to head to the station. He’s not on the clock until ten, but I can’t blame him for the evasion. Stepping into an in-law’s spat isn’t something I’d sign up for either.

  He waits for me to stick my shoes on the hall rug and then leads me straight up to the bathroom. “Have you had breakfast?”

  “No, but I’m fine. Thanks.”

  “There’s pasta salad in the fridge. It’s for Lainey when she gets back from her shoot, but there’s extra if you want some.” He doesn’t push it.

  “When is she back?”

  “Sometime after nine tonight.”

  “Still working crazy hours?”

  “Well, she’s stayed with Starr twice this week. She figured, with what happened.” He sighs and rubs his hairline. “She left a couple hours ago to catch up on the production paperwork.”

  He turns and lets that soak in, his six-foot-four frame barely clearing the doorway. I spent most of my youth pining for growth spurts, but my son-in-law regrets his height, says it makes the lifting more of a strain. Chester’s putting his time on the road in now, before the inevitable sprained ligaments and slipped discs set in. He’s not looking forward to administrative duty.

  The heat gun makes quick work of the vanity’s vinyl coating because the manufacturer only applied adhesive around the perimeter. The cabinet body is more finicky, but I’m able to get any lingering glue off with my palm sander. There’s no getting around the fact that this is a temporary fix – particleboard doesn’t stand up to long-term wear. If we had the cash, I’d swap in a wood vanity from the reuse store.

  The cheapness of SunVista Developers, however, isn’t why Kathleen’s sent me here. It’s clearly a get-to-know-your-daughter bid, the type of plan my wife reads about in self-improvement books. It all feels a bit like detention and I half-expect Mr. Wellington, my grade nine civics instructor, to pop out and berate me for my life choices. This is exactly what I warned you would come from bad penmanship. Fifty-three and my wife’s sending me on remedial field trips.

  After the first coat of primer, I slip into the master bedroom’s ensuite to wash my hands. The soap pump is next to a cluster of vitamin supplements – healthy baby prenatals, fish oil, vitamin D. On the lip of the tub, a stack of books is propped against the towel rack: a Calvin and Hobbes anthology followed by Coping with Loss, Genetic Inheritance, Siblings with Special Needs and The IVF Bible. The titles alone are a hard walnut in my chest.

  Half the Mississauga store is out of service. They were supposed to get the assistant tech in to cover my vacation but the kid refused. Alien Annihilation, Fire Truck Pileup and Leaning Tower of Pizza are all down, along with the conveyor belt on the glass sanitizer. At some point over the weekend, a basketball got jammed in the hoop lane, so the gate couldn’t close. When that happens, it’ll just keep clenching the ball until a fuse blows. Some genius tried wedging the ball out with their meal tray and now the net, alley and scoreboard are splotched with mustard and chunky relish. Only one Skee-Ball lane is open and the cashiers are counting tickets by hand. No one else who’s trained on maintenance is in until next week.

  Brandon flaps himself over to visit me while I’m running diagnostics on the Ticket Gobbler. “I was hoping you’d start on the Stacker. Did you see we’ve got an iPod prize now?”

  “Bet the kids love that.” If I’m going to plead Darren’s case, I’m going to have to keep Brandon puffed up. “It shouldn’t take too long here.” I nod toward the bottleneck at prize redemption. The cashiers should be using the scale instead of counting but I bite my tongue.

  “Right. But then straight to the Stacker.”

  Aye aye, sir. Brandon makes no motion to improve his own productivity. He pulls up a chair and watches me work. With his legs crossed, Brandon’s pants ride up mid-calf, his leg hair curling in mousy patches above his tube socks.

  “Buddy, you were lucky you were on vacation.” His voice is muted by the Ticket Gobbler’s screech. “The weekend was a real shit-show.”

  “Yeah?”

  “That Chinese kid ran off with the mascot. Still hasn’t returned it. But I spoke to my uncle and I guess he’s paying for us to get a new one.”

  “Sounds like no real damage done then.”

  Brandon hammers his foot back to the ground and slaps his palms against his thighs, incredulous. “No damage done?”

  “If you’re getting a new one.”

  “What about all those birthday parties with no mascot? You’re lucky you don’t deal with customer service – believe me, those parents were pissed. I gave away at least fifty tokens to each party.”

  That works out to four or five bucks on our end, if that. “Greyson said he lent you a new suit.”

  “You been talking to him?” Brandon’s pitched forward now, his elbows swallowed up by his pant folds.

  “I was in earlier this w
eek.”

  “Wish you could have come back here sooner. Where were you again?”

  “Just outside Chicago.”

  “The cops said that’s where the kid went too.”

  I turn back to the Ticket Gobbler, unscrewing the access panel to the shredder. I pop out the rotating blade and hold it up to the light. “Brandon, he screwed up, no question. But basically he’s a good egg, a good worker. Don’t saddle him with a record.”

  “Should have thought of that before.”

  The jammed tickets slide out from where the rollers had clamped them. It’s an easy repair – the flat blade’s too dull and stopped cutting. There’s a kit to sharpen it on site but it’s reached the stage where I’d better take it home and use my wheel grinder. “You could tell them to back down. You’re the shift supervisor, it’s your call.”

  Brandon’s heavier breathing inflates him. He looks on the verge of floating right off his seat. “You drove him, didn’t you?” Brandon’s face briefly looks more hurt than angry, unable to comprehend that I’d take Darren’s side over his. I don’t know if it’s a race thing. From his spluttering, you’d think I was his mother and he’d just caught me taking it from the mailman. “That makes you like an accomplice,” he spits out. “You’re fired.”

  As evenly as I can, I tell him he can’t fire someone without notice.

  “There’s cause,” he barks. “There’s cause.”

  I’ve been working at Frankie’s longer than he’s been on the planet. I know my rights.

  “Put down your tools.”

  I hold my screwdriver up in the air like it’s a raid. Brandon doesn’t even give me time to gather my things. Just says I’ll get what’s mine when they’ve been through it.

  On my way out, I point back to the Ticket Gobbler’s open housing. “Just so you know – your blade’s on California time now.” Even if he couriers it to our parts dealer in San Diego today, it’ll be a week before it’s returned. Since I can fix it myself, I never keep a spare. While Brandon’s brushing up on employment standards, he may as well stare down another weekend with manual counting.

  Turning out of the parking lot, I have no idea where to go. All the preceding momentum – striding out of the store, jerking on the ignition – stalls. There’s always Tim’s, I suppose. I could sit like the other old-timers, flicking through a paper, letting sugar flakes collect on my lap. When I cruise past the one on Britannia, the drive-through line is ten cars deep and there are no free stalls. I end up on the 401 battling the lunch-hour rush, lurching toward Victoria Park.

  Greyson’s in his office, stapling invoices to purchase orders. “Come on,” he says and grabs his jacket, safari wear with pockets inside of pockets. He takes me next door to the Mandarin and we end up at a table overlooking the rear lot. Three delivery vans come and go before we get our tea.

  “You want the buffet?”

  “No.”

  “I’m going to have the buffet. Morna’s at her sister’s tonight.”

  “Okay then.”

  I load up my plate at the Yorkshire pudding and roast beef station and deposit some salmon sushi next to the grey brown slices. Greyson’s plate is a kaleidoscope of glossy batter. He offers to transfer an egg roll to my plate.

  “I’ve been on the phone for an hour with Owen Sound.”

  “Shit.”

  “You’ve got a job here as long as you need it.”

  He takes a minute to chew through some ginger chicken.

  I saw through my beef to be polite. “Just because I was with the kid doesn’t mean –”

  “I know. I told them that.” He takes a gulp of water and smiles. “It’s all done over there. Final word. But I’ve talked them into three months of severance, clean record of employment. You’ll have to sign a release.”

  Even when you know the axe is falling, the head in the basket can still surprise. It was foolish to hope that the Funhouse would see me through another decade. A smarter man would have been looking for an escape route long before there was a ticking clock.

  “I’d have made you store manager if you’d applied.”

  We both know one salary, even that one, won’t make ends meet.

  “You sure you can’t buy me out?” Greyson can’t quite manage his usual grin. “Like I said, you’ve got a job here as long as you need it. When you’re ready, I can even package you out, give you another three months. We can pretend to have a big fight.” The scallop speared on his chopstick threatens to fly off. “But really, you’re my oldest employee. I’ve only had to make three service calls to corporate in fifteen years.”

  “What about another location, part-time hours?”

  Greyson clears his throat. “We both know they’re all company-owned now. Theft, the whiff of theft. No one’s going to touch it.”

  “You know, the kid veers more to nerd than delinquent.”

  “Is there a video of the sword swing? If something goes up on YouTube, nothing’s going to help him – they can sue over a decapitated Frankie Fuzz.”

  There were “No Photography, No Video Recording” notices at the front of the auditorium, not that it’s a guarantee. But the lighting was probably too dim for most cameras, and the whole thing was over within minutes.

  “Being a kid works two ways, Henry. Darren could apply for a pardon before he’s even turned twenty-five.” He shakes his head. “Don’t throw yourself under a bus. You’re too old to recover.”

  It’s hard to imagine what being given the bum’s rush at my age will mean. It feels shameful somehow, a character flaw. I can’t think how I’m going to tell Kathleen. I’d give anything to rewind to those first years at the Victoria Park store, when the equipment was a novelty and there were more hours than I could take. I wasn’t yet thirty, Greyson wasn’t yet forty. It felt like we’d stumbled into the next big thing.

  He checks his watch and gets up to leave, a pile of food left on his plate. “Stay for the dessert bar.” Greyson motions for me to sit and passes the server his credit card. “Like I said, you’ve got a job as long as you want it.”

  “I’ll be in to work tomorrow.”

  He taps his head in mock-salute. I’m left in a half-empty room, next to the dish cart, the bin overflowing with discarded food. The lunch crowd has thinned out and I stay for another half-hour watching my vanilla ice cream melt into the fudge sauce.

  DARREN

  TWO DAYS AFTER THE COP’S VISIT AND I’M ALREADY scheduled two afternoons a week at the Boys and Girls Club. The lawyer thought it would play to my strengths, that the judge will be impressed that I’m helping inner-city kids. My parents make it sound like I’m Antonio Banderas in Take the Lead, but the reality is these kids are the same ones I’d see at the Funhouse. There’s not much difference, really – instead of an arcade, we have beanbag toss and group sports. Instead of pop music rip-offs, I’m singing jingles about cows that count and French tunes about body boundaries. Ceci c’est ma main, ce n’est pas ta main. If anything, the pizza here is better.

  Each day has a different age group with a euphemistic name. Mondays are Bright Stars, four- to six-year-olds who get milk and carrot sticks at snack. Wednesdays are Bold Explorers, seven- to eight-year-olds who get juice cups and rice cakes. They’re old enough to laugh at how bad I am at basketball.

  After my session with the Explorers, I spot Jesse by the vending machines. She’s so surprised to see me outside of the Funhouse that she gives me a once-over, double-checking. For old time’s sake, I mime the official Frankie greeting, bending down with a hand over my eyebrows like I can’t quite make out who’s there, then hopping up in surprise and bounding over to say hello.

  “Is this what you do in your off-hours?” I ask.

  She transfers her weight from foot to foot. “Actually, it’s all off-hours right now.”

  Something we have in common.

  “My mom didn’t want me to go back. After what happened.”

  “That guy was such an asshole.”

  Jess
e flushes at the swear, flicking her eyes from side to side to check that no one’s heard. “I didn’t know what to do.”

  “Brandon should have let me toss that guy out.” I don’t know why, but she’s clearly twisted things inward, still flaying herself for someone else’s trespass. I ask how she’s riding out the rest of the summer before grade twelve.

  “I’ve got the swim program here. And I’m a reading program helper at the library.” Jesse’s the only person I know whose high-school volunteer hours were finished in grade nine. “I’ll look for another part-time job later. Besides, my mom spoke to a friend who works in admissions and Queen’s likes students who are well-rounded.”

  “Your grades must be good enough to get you in.” Because how could they not be?

  Jesse does another shoe-gazer routine. She’s not just looking to get in – she’s hoping for a full ride.

  “Well, you’ve got another year to round out.”

  “Six months. That’s when the applications are due.”

  It’s nice to see her be a straight-up keener not just self-conscious.

  “I heard you got fired.”

  “That’s one version of the story.” I tell her about the slur, the suit, my upcoming court date.

  “You’re getting fingerprinted?”

  Seeing Jesse’s shock magnifies my own dread, which I’ve been fuelling with late-night googling. Scared-straight websites with bad stock photos and bullet points listing how a criminal record will hobble my potential. If the lawyer can’t make this go away, with a conditional release or at least a lower charge, it will probably be a decade until I can enter the States again or get an off-campus apartment. Another point of anxiety – I haven’t even met the guy my parents have hired. What if he’s the Jeremy of the legal profession? I picture my future shredded in a blender, like so much protein powder.

  “If you’re at Queen’s, you can visit me in Kingston Pen.”

  “That’s not even funny.”

  My bravado’s all I’ve got.

  Before Jesse leaves, she makes me promise that we’ll go for lunch together one day before my volunteer shift. I’m so starved for company, it seems fun enough. In grade twelve bio our teacher told us about an experiment where they recruited a bunch of lonely old people to watch TV. Dementia patients, maybe. It turned out that I Love Lucy triggered the same brain activity as visits from their kids. Hanging with Jesse, awkward as she is, is a step up from socializing exclusively with slasher movies. My parents and I have barely exchanged words. When we do it’s to transfer files and go over my to-do list. Mealtimes I’m invited downstairs only to witness their ongoing righteous smoulder.