Searching for Petronius Totem

by Peter Unwin

  “How much does he owe you?”

  “Pardon me?”

  The guy coughed. “Okay. Check the front desk. Petro,” he said. “We call him Petro.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Petro.”

  Relax, I told myself, relax, you’re in Vancouver, they do things different here. It’s all that weed they grow, and all that rain. I went to the front desk. Peter wasn’t working it. A young woman was.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi, I’m looking for Peter Tidecaster.”

  “Petro? Oh … I mean, he doesn’t work here.” She must’ve seen a look on my face, because she said, “Are you a friend of his?”

  “He’s my buddy, from Hamilton. We played on the same baseball team. The Dofasco Hog —”

  “I thought he owed you money or something. He’s in the lounge, down the end by the pool table.”

  “Thank you.” I gave her one of those smiles I use when I want a woman to know I’m the author of The Fly that Would Not Die for Love but Did Anyway. “I’m new in town. Maybe you know some place you and I could —”

  “He’s down the hall,” she said, pointing.

  I went into the lounge to where the pool table was and sure enough there was Pete. A familiar chord of neck muscles angled up from a stained wool sweater, the eyes seemed haunted by an earth-shattering knowledge known only to him, and his chin showed a deep cleft where someone had hit him in the face, perhaps with a hatchet. He leaned against the bar proclaiming, out loud, to no one in particular, “Today my friend, is the absolute birthdayness of all birthdays …”

  I went up to him casually. “Hi Pete. How you doing?”

  Pete didn’t say. Instead he jumped a foot in the air and gave me a look as though he didn’t recognize me.

  “It’s me. Jack.”

  “Jack? The Jack! How the hell are you, Jack? Sorry, man, I thought you might have been someone else. Let me finish up these shooters, I’ll be right with you.” Peter started on the four shot glasses lined up on the bar and tossed them into his mouth, one after another, like a man taking vitamins. When he was done he turned to face me, his eyes entirely bloodshot.

  “Jack. Jack. Jack. Jack. Jack. I gotta tell you man, you’re my best friend in the whole goddamn world.” He wrapped his arms around me and turned to the bartender who was very clearly barely tolerating him. “Hey Gus. This is Jack. He’s my best friend in the whole world. Get him a drink, a Dewar’s. Double. A double doo-doo, Gus, with a beer chaser. Make that twice.”

  We got the drinks and Peter put his arm around my shoulder again.

  “Jack, I mean … Jack … I just … I mean … Jack, I just got to tell you man …”

  What he said after that I can’t remember in any detail because that’s when I laid eyes on HER. She was standing by the pool table wearing a black dress or at least half of one, intricately-veined black stockings, black heels, black hair, the whole gotho-posto-punko-erotico black uniform thing right down to the fingernails and the toe cleavage. She was leaning on a pool cue as though it were the neck of a microphone, chewing hard on gum. Then she took up the pool cue and started to sway like a torch singer. Twenty-five guys crowded around her and when she swayed left, twenty-five guys swayed left. When she swayed right, the same thing, but in the other direction.

  “What do you think of that?”

  “Jesus Christ,” I said.

  “Exactly. She works here. Friend a mine. Very good friend. You might say we’re having a relationship. A platonic one, pure-lee platonic.”

  Pete gave me the whole story. “Her name’s Kotchee Lei.” Turned out Kotchee Lei had every bit of exotic blood in her a girl could have. One-quarter Aleutian Island Eskimo on her father’s side, one-quarter Indo-Chinese, two-fifths Apache, one-third Ecuadorian, three-sixths Maltese, half Haida Indian, and her great-grandmother was a Basque flamenco dancer kidnapped and held for ransom by the Swampy Cree.

  “Now she works here as a waitress,” said Pete. “A real diamond in the rough. Gets off shift at seven tomorrow, we’re going to watch the ball game. You should drop around.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I might just do that.”

  THE NEXT DAY I got to the Dominion Hotel at five o’clock and spent two hours watching Kotchee wait the place. She had a different dress on this time, one of those diaphanous dresses you read about in magazines. It was so diaphanous you could hardly get a seat in the joint. Every guy in Vancouver had suddenly developed an overwhelming taste for diaphanous. She walked around with a tray full of shooters and grown men gave her money just for being diaphanous. They gave her a fiver for walking by the table, a ten-spot for walking back. She stopped and said hello, out came the G-note. She sat down for a second and the oceanview condo got remortgaged. After each lap she took the money back to the bartender and he stashed it in a vault for her.

  Around seven Peter came in. He went to the bar and started laughing with Kotchee, and then the two of them came over to the table.

  “Kotchee, this is Jack. He’s my best friend in the whole goddamn world.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I said.

  She spoke to me for the first time.

  “Nice to meet you too, Jack.” She was looking right at me when she said it, or at least very close to right at me. Peter ordered a table full of drinks and yelled at the sleepy guy behind the bar to put the game on, second inning, game six of the World Series.

  “Kotchee doesn’t know a whole lot about baseball, do you, sweetheart?”

  “Nope,” she said exquisitely.

  “Jack’s an expert, he’ll tell you anything you need to know.”

  Things were starting to look good.

  Then two guys showed up.

  “Hey Kotchee.” One of them reached over and gave her a big wet kiss on the cheek and pulled up a chair. Three more guys showed up. They were pulling up chairs too. It was like we were sitting down to a church social. Then five more guys. Then a chartered busload of guys. All of a sudden it was the Million Man March of guys, all pulling up chairs. One of them tried to sneak his chair between mine and Kotchee’s but I cut him off. Behind me guys were still multiplying. It was like the fish and the loaves all over again, only worse.

  Then it was bottom of four. Philly threatening, two men on. One out. The pitch — Kotchee scratched her knee. Next thing anyone knew it was a commercial. Someone said, “What’s the score?”

  Nobody knew. They were all watching Kotchee scratch her knee. You could hear it, fingernail against nylon. It was all you could hear.

  Top of six, bases loaded, Kotchee crossed her legs; a quick mesmerizing play that saw left thigh bottom squeeze right thigh, high and away. By the time we’d recovered from the thigh squeezing it was top of seven.

  She uncrossed her legs.

  Bottom of seven. Bases empty.

  A shiver went across her shoulders, I looked up. Bases empty. Full count. A big fat fastball flew down Granville Street.

  “Kinda cool in here, isn’t it?”

  I leapt up. It was time to bust this game open. “Would you like a jacket?” I offered it to her like a hunter coming home with fresh meat. The game was over. Or pretty close to it. The trouble was, behind me, thirty-five other guys had their jackets off, holding them out. “Would you like a jacket?” they were all chirping.

  “Oh, no thanks,” said Kotchee. “It’s not that cold.”

  Thirty-five guys slumped into chairs with jackets on their laps. Then it was top of eight. Game hanging by a thread.

  Kotchee took her shoes off. A wave of tension ripped the crowd. The guy beside me started groaning like he’d been shot: a gut wound.

  Bottom of the ninth. Winning run at first.

  Kotchee wiggled her toes. That was it. On my right, the guy doubled over and slid to the floor. Behind me grown men on their cellphones calling divorce lawyers, saying one last goodbye to the kids and wives. They were goners. Every one of them a victim of Kotchee’s toes.

  I looked up to see the camera cut
in close on a batter’s head. He was working a chaw of tobacco and spat out a red streamer. Kotchee bolted back, disgusted, and looked over her shoulder, straight at me. Of all the guys there, it was me she looked at.

  “Did you see that great big goddamn hunk of gob that guy horked up?”

  Suddenly a bunch of men in uniforms were jumping up and down and slapping each other on the back. The World Series was over. Someone had won.

  FOR THE NEXT TWO DAYS my head was full of Kotchee, her toes, the way she talked, everything. Time was running out; I had a Saturday flight back to Hamilton. It was Wednesday. There she was, finishing up her shift, seven o’clock. I walked straight over to her like it was nothing,

  “Hi Kotchee, how you doing?”

  “Hello, Joe.”

  Naturally, I didn’t want to make her feel bad about the name thing, so I didn’t say a word. I mean Jack, Joe, what’s the difference? We could straighten up the details later.

  “Listen, I’m wondering if you want to go out, Friday maybe. See a movie or something.” That’s how I said it. Smooth, but not too smooth. You don’t want to be too smooth with a girl like Kotchee. A girl like that gets her fill of smooth, trust me. Every little greaseball who’s ever written a few novels is all over a girl like that.

  “Oh, I’d love to. It’s just … this week is packed for me. Just packed, Joe. Maybe next week, okay?”

  I was so excited could barely sit down. I thought I might even go out there and climb one of those stupid mountains. Next week! What the hell was I supposed to do for a week? Then it hit me: next week I’d be on the floor at Dofasco, working midnights and getting home in time to hear Alex in front of the Xbox playing Constant Brutal Death.

  Before I could resolve this problem Peter came into the lobby and he didn’t look good.

  “Jesus, Jack, Jack, you got to help me out, man. I think I might be in some serious shit.”

  “What sort of shit?”

  “People here, Jack, they’ve got no sense of humour. Everything is, like, ‘proprietary’ … proprietary this proprietary that. I mean fried chicken. How serious do you need to get about fried chicken? Airborne flying chicken at that. They can’t take a joke. It’s not like back home in the Hammer. I’m in serious shit, Jack, I need a whack of money bad.”

  Only I didn’t have any money. Never did. I was a Canadian author for Christ’s sake. A literary artist. Peter was looking frantic.

  “I got to get out of here.”

  That’s when my brilliant idea came to me. “Pete, look, I’ve got a plane ticket back to Hamilton, leaves Saturday. You can have it. How’s that?”

  “Jack? You don’t mind? I mean, you’d do that?”

  “I don’t mind. Anyway, I got a date with Kotchee next week.”

  “You are a snake, brother. You’ll knock her over, I’m telling you, you’ll knock her over.”

  I wasn’t so sure.

  “Listen, Jack, you want to know what men are like here? I’ll tell you. All they do is walk around in suits, talk on cellphones, order sushi, flip real estate, and update their Facebook pages. That’s it, Jack. You’re not like that. You’re down-to-earth, man. Earthy. Are you kidding? Women are crazy about that. They kill for earthy. Just wait till they find out you wrote The Fly that Would Not Die for Love but Did Anyway.”

  I was still not so sure.

  “You’re a cinch. Trust me.” He stepped back a bit and looked at me. “Only one thing. You’ll need money. You’ll need a job or something.” He slapped his hands together. “I got it! You can have my job. It’s perfect. I’ll straighten it up with the manager, right now. No problem. He owes me. Don’t worry, man. We’ll get you fixed up perfect.”

  Pete came back twenty minutes later. Starting Saturday I was the new desk clerk for the Dominion Hotel. He grabbed my arm and took me upstairs to the second floor.

  “I got a room for you, free of charge.”

  We stepped into a large closet that had a single bed in the corner with both legs missing on the right side of it. The room smelled of recent disinfectant and the carpet showed several large circular burns, like crop marks. The glass in the window was busted and ringed with blood. Clearly someone had put his fist through it and left a few ragged flaps of skin dangling from the glass.

  “We had a poet die in this room,” bragged Pete. “Choked on his own vomit. They always say that. ‘Choked on his own vomit.’ I mean, think about it, who else’s vomit are you going to choke on, right? You never hear, like, ‘choked on someone else’s vomit.’ Nobody ever says —”

  “I get that,” I said.

  Outside, about eight feet away, was a factory wall with an industrial ventilator facing straight at me. It sounded like a jet engine taking off.

  “Don’t worry about the noise. It’s on twenty-four seven. Amazing how fast you get used to it. It’s a spillover room. We don’t rent it out anymore.”

  Peter motioned me to the window and looked out. “And down there … that’s what we call ‘Blood Alley.’ People kill each other down there over dope deals and their petty artistic differences. Lately there’s been an armistice.”

  A bearded guy lay on the ground, curled up on a piece of cardboard. He looked like an oversized fetus in need of a shave.

  “Is that guy dead?”

  “No, I know that guy. Joey Cohen, the novelist. He’s alive. He owes me money. He better be alive. The guy owes me a hundred and twenty bucks. Hey!” he shouted. “Hey Joey, wake up! Get yourself into Emerg. You owe me a hundred and twenty bucks.” The novelist did not stir and Pete shook his head with some tired concern. “I’m pretty sure he’s not dead.” He waved his hand around the room. “What do you think?”

  I checked out the door very carefully. A deadbolt an inch thick was attached at eye level by four hefty screws. No one was getting in that door unless I let them in.

  “I’ll take it.”

  THAT’S HOW IT HAPPENED. Come Saturday Peter was on a plane back to Hamilton and I was sitting with my feet up at his old desk in the Dominion Hotel. Things went fine like that for two days. Of course I was feeling a little tense about the big date with Kotchee. The phone rang. Sometimes I picked it up, sometimes not. This time I did and right away I recognized Elaine’s voice.

  “Hi honey. How are you?”

  “Jack. You don’t have to do the hi honey thing with me, okay? I don’t know what you’re doing. I don’t really care what you’re doing. I got a call from the plant. They’re wondering where the hell you are.”

  “I’m in Vancouver.”

  “I know you’re in Vancouver, Jack. That’s what I told the shift foreman. Either you call him fast or you’re out of there. You understand me?”

  “Oh don’t worry about that, honey. I got a job out here in Gastown. I got Peter’s old job.”

  There was a pause.

  “Listen to me. There’s something else. It’s about Alex, your son. Something’s the matter with him. He’s not talking. He hasn’t said a word in seven days. Not a single word.”

  “Honey, don’t worry about Alex. You know Alex, he’s just the quiet type. He’s like his old man.”

  “Are you listening to anything I say? He has not said a single word in seven days. He hasn’t even hiccoughed.”

  Right then Kotchee came striding across the lobby. She had this dress on; half off the shoulder, and after that, half nothing at all. I had my hand over the receiver but all she did was curl her fingers at me.

  “Hi Joe,” she said, and sprung into the barroom.

  “Hi Kotchee.” I wasn’t even sure she heard me.

  “What?” said Elaine.

  “Nothing.”

  “I got him an appointment tomorrow at the clinic.”

  I was irritable now, I could feel it. “What clinic?”

  “The psychiatric unit at Chedoke.”

  “The what?”

  “You heard me. I’m taking Alex to see a psychiatrist.”

  “Wait a minute. You are not taking my son to see
a shrink!”

  “Eleven o’clock. Dr. Sally Boltz.” She hung up the phone.

  That was it; she was taking my son to see a shrink, like any son of mine would ever need to do that.

  It was clear to me that I needed to calm down so I walked to the doorway and stood there looking at Kotchee. Some guy with bad skin, wearing a green polyester gangster suit and alligator shoes, had her cornered and I could barely see her. I went back to the desk and sat down, and while I was sitting there taking a deep breath the guy in the green suit came out of the barroom and started toward me. He looked more like a walking aloe vera plant than he should have. I hadn’t finished taking my deep breath yet when the guy said, “Are you Peter Tidecaster?”

  I don’t know about Vancouver, but in Hamilton you see a guy in a green suit, polyester or otherwise, and that means he’s a detective for sure, or a private eye.

  This guy’s a private eye I’m thinking, a real live dick. His lips were thin: bone dry. A gold tooth glinted between them.

  “Nope. I’m not.”

  “You’re not?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You mind telling me what your name is?”

  “Okay. It’s Jack. The name’s Jack.”

  “That’s a nice name, Jack.”

  “Yeah, it’s not bad. Shortest poem in the language. On the other hand, according to Brecht when you name yourself, you always name another.”

  He looked at me hard, suspiciously. “What the hell are you talking about, buddy?”

  “Forget it,” I said. “Nothing.” Clearly he was no fan of avant-garde German theatre.

  “Funny thing though, Jack, I’m talking to that waitress in there, the cute one? She says your name’s Joe. I mean … Jack, Joe. Peter. Sounds to me like you don’t even know what your name is.”

  “I know who I am,” I said, evenly.

  “Is that right? Well, Mr. Leggit knows who you are too, buddy. You remember Mr. Leggit, don’t you, Petro?” He sneered.

  “Jack.”

  “Right. You remember Mr. Leggit. The little matter of the catering fees, the slightly larger matter of the software algorithms, the proprietary software? Five point one? Remember? The ranch in the Okanagan. The penitentiary bid? The computer lab? The virtual hotties? The flying chickens? You remember now, Jack?”