The Destroyed Room - Second Draft

The woman on the metro wore a scarf that reminded Mervin of the scarf on his bed at home. Samantha’s scarf. Before leaving for school this morning, she had thrown open the window, cried out, “I won’t need this,” and immediately flung it aside. After three consecutive nights together, there were a lot of her clothes scattered about. Some had even made it into Mervin’s dresser. He was amazed at how quickly she made her claim on his room. He wondered if this girl, this girl with the metro tunnel lights whizzing by behind her, was as proprietorial.

The train decelerated quickly and Mervin stood up and the doors opened; the platform rolled to a stop. A flight of stairs, an escalator, turnstiles, another escalator, and at last, sunlight. He looked behind him. No, the woman with the scarf was not among his fellow passengers.

To his surprise, when he arrived at his apartment building, the landlord was on the front step and stood up immediately, as if he had been waiting.

“Your room,” he said. “Somebody break in. I just come ‘ome myself… If I had catch him… Come look. It’s bad.”

They took the stairs up the grey-white stairwell. There was a stain on the wall, an indeterminate colour between grey and red. Had anyone ever attempted to wash it? Maybe it would not come out.

They arrived at the first floor and at Mervin’s door – or rather, what had previously been a door. Not even the landlord’s warning had prepared him for this. His mattress, for no apparent reason, had been wrenched off the floor, thrown against the wall, and slashed from corner to corner. Every drawer of the dresser was gaping open and the contents splayed out, as if the furniture itself had thrown up from the violence of the attack. The Limoges porcelain vase, the only nice purchase he had allowed himself since arriving in Montreal a month ago, was scattered in every shard size and shape across the wooden floor. Samantha’s scarf was nowhere to be seen. The rest of her stuff – a yellow t-shirt, a red bra, red stockings – decorated the mess of his own clothes, which were all brown, grey or faded.

“Holy,” was all he could say, not delivering the final expletive because the landlord was standing directly behind him.

“Never ‘ave this ‘appen in the building,” said the landlord, who had a beard that had turned yellow from the cigarette smoke.

“First time for everything,” said Mervin, trying to be stoic.

“They just smash the door off,” observed the landlord, eyeing with disgust the door hanging uselessly from its hinges.

Mervin said nothing.

“Did you ‘av insurance?”

“No,” said Mervin.

“They were shit-disturbers,” said the landlord. “Jus’ shit-disturbers. They will not come back. They go elsewhere to make trouble.”

“Maybe,” said Mervin.

“I will ‘elp with the mess,” said the landlord.

“Don’t worry,” said Mervin. “I’ll be OK.” He nodded his head.

“I will call a carpenter,” said the landlord. “The door frame is too damaged. I know someone. He can be ‘ere this afternoon.”

“OK,” said Mervin, nodding more insistently this time.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want help. It was that he wanted to be alone. He summoned up a brave smile. The landlord shrugged. He turned around slowly and shuffled to the stairs, descending to his own room – which was almost as squalid – in the basement.

Mervin wanted a place to sit and bury his head in his hands. The best he could do was sink to the floor and slump against the radiator. He was only nineteen and Montreal had turned on him. What most affected him was the injustice of it. He had been attending every class, doing all his readings, completing all his assignments, studying assiduously for every test. Where exactly had he gone wrong?

But no amount of self-pity was going to change anything. He stood up and took stock of the destroyed room – the broken continuity of the previously familiar – if Spartan – surroundings. He owned a large number of books and records. These had been strewn about, pages ripped, and the album sleeves emptied of their contents. The record player lid had been kicked clean off. Even his little metal box, meant for file cards but serving instead for handyman bits and bobs – screws and nails and a small screwdriver – had been opened and the insides sown here and there like seeds.
He went to the tiny bathroom to see what kind of damage had happened there. He attempted to whistle en route.

On the mirror over the sink, somebody had scrawled the word “slut” in a fat black marker. The violence of the word outdid everything he’d witnessed so far.

He couldn’t stay in here with the ugliness of the word demanding his attention. He returned to the main havoc. Slut… There must be something Samantha was not telling him.

It was she who had found him, not the other way around. One day, he was walking to class with a coffee in his hand. She came careening around the corner and sent his drink flying – mostly all over him. It was a spectacular accident. He was soaked. She couldn’t help but laugh. Then she apologized. Then she laughed again. She offered to buy him a new coffee. He declined, went home and changed, missing class. The following day, he saw her again. They realized that she was in lecture hall A at exactly the same time as he was in lecture hall B. They talked. She was from Toronto. She had been in Montreal exactly two months. She had never heard of his hometown.

Since the first night, when they had drunk a few on Crescent Street – who didn’t drink a few on Crescent Street? – they had stuck exclusively to studying then going to his home and sleeping together. It was a nearly businesslike arrangement. She was a liberated woman and took responsibility for her own pleasure. It had to be his home, not hers, because she had inquisitive roommates.

“They need to get a life,” she had said yesterday, in bed, while chewing gum mere inches from his face. “I don’t intend to be their entertainment.”

He would ask Samantha what the hell was going on later. He shook himself out of his reflections. For now, he needed to clean up the place.

He walked to the dresser for his gloves. He would need them to protect his fingers. It was then that he noticed a photo on top of the cheap plywood piece of furniture. He picked it up. The photo was of a little girl, dressed elegantly in a white dress, looking up at somebody. The somebody could not be fully seen. You could glimpse only the bottom of what looked like a long cloak or gown. The somebody was a priest. No one else dressed like that.

He was struck by the girl’s expression. Her upwards gaze was expectant – insistent, even. There was a smile on her face. As if she were saying, “You aren’t going to refuse someone so pretty, are you?” And she was remarkably pretty.

He put down the photo, feeling like an intruder in his own home. He retreated to the window where there was ample room on the sill to sit down. The thin November sun warmed him gently through the glass.

Call home? He knew his father would insist on driving down immediately, even though it was a full day’s journey in the car. But what was there to be done? Clean up, buy another cheap mattress, wait for the carpenter to reattach his door. By the time his father arrived, everything that needed to be done would be done.

And yet. And yet. His father was an enormous man with hands like baseball gloves. If the madman who had done this came back for more trouble, boy would he ever get a shock to find a retired amateur wrestler in his way. But the landlord said the culprit would not be back. But how could the landlord be sure about that? He just wanted to keep his tenants.

Mervin forced himself to make a decision. The decision was to stick it out alone. He would report the news at Christmas, watch his mother’s face flush with dismay, and shrug when his parents asked, “Why didn’t you call us?” He would say, “Oh, it was nothing I couldn’t handle.”

Just then, there was a bang on the door. His body convulsed with shock. The door came toppling right down as a large man seemingly walked right through it.
“Where is she?” he asked.

The man had a small mustache over thin lips, and greasy-looking hair – or maybe just wet from having been combed to the sides – and rather pasty skin. He had on a golf shirt that was tight at the shoulders and at the swell of his tummy.

“Samantha?” said Mervin.

The man did not respond to this, as if he had not even understood. He took another step forwards. He was trembling.

“Where is she?” he demanded again.

“Who?”

“You know who,” the man insisted. “Anna.”

“Anna? I don’t know Anna.”

The man clenched his right hand into a fist.

“Hey man, don’t mess around with me,” he said. His accent was very strong. It was Eastern European or Russian or something. “I will break your neck.”

“I don’t know Anna,” said Mervin.

“Don’t lie to me,” said the man. “I will smash your mouth. This is Anna room. Where is my daughter?”

“This isn’t Anna’s room,” said Mervin. “This is my room.”

He realized then who Anna must be. She was the pretty girl at the end of the hallway by the fire exit. Once, she had buzzed his room because she had been locked out. He had walked down to the entrance to let her in. She had been carrying bags of groceries. He had offered to take a few.

“Thank you, thank you,” she had said, her eyes looking over him – seemingly appraising him – as he took one, two, three, four bags, leaving her only with one bag left and her purse. He had wished he were more articulate as they walked up the long hallway, past his own open door and to her door – number 110. It was a long silence. Eventually she had said, “You are kind.”

Outside her door, he set down the bags.

“I’ll go see if the landlord is in,” she said.

It had crossed Mervin’s mind, if the landlord wasn’t in, she could come wait at his place, no? This had all happened a month ago, on a cold day. She would be warmer in his room. He could boil the kettle for tea.

Again, they made the long walk up the hallway, and again, he couldn’t find the right words in his head. Or maybe the right words were there, but stuck.

At his room, they parted ways.

“Thank you, again,” she said.

That look in her eyes, it was just like in the photo that now lay on his dresser. And then she was gone.

“Anna’s room is 110,” he said to the man in front of him. “My room is 101.”

It took a moment for this news to sink in. When it did, the man became visibly agitated. His hands fidgeted about, from the breast pocket of his golf shirt then down to the pockets of his jeans. Finally, his hands settled on something to do. He pulled out a wallet.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” he said. “I am a good man. I am so sorry.”

He held out a small stack of bills for Mervin.

“Take, please – for everything.”

Mervin felt that to refuse the money would simply reignite the man’s anger. He took it. He could see that there were fifties in the stack.

“Is enough?” said the man.

“Yes, thank you,” said Mervin. “Anna is up the hallway.”

The man turned decisively. He trod heavily out of the room, the wooden boards creaking. When the man was at a safe distance, Mervin ventured to the threshold of his now completely destroyed doorway. He peeked out. He saw the man knocking on the door of 110. A long wait. Then the man knocked again, even louder this time. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, as if from sweat. But in just that golf shirt, he could hardly be sweating. Then the man glanced backwards, shot a look at Mervin, who was not fast enough in ducking back into his room. The man must have finally departed using the fire exit, because the next time Mervin peeked out, the hallway was empty.

It took hours to set the room straight and even after that, he could not find the scarf. He met Samantha downtown, as they had agreed. They ate cheaply at Altaib. He told her about everything – about everything except the word inked onto the bathroom mirror.

“Everything is OK now,” he concluded. “Only thing missing is the scarf.”

“My scarf?” she said.

Mervin nodded. He wanted to say something reassuring, but he could find no explanation for the missing scarf, so what could he say?

“This is scary, Mervin. The guy totally destroyed your place? You don’t live in a good neighbourhood.”

“It’s OK,” he said.

They went to the study hall, as usual. He assumed that after studying, she would come home with him. But at eleven, she announced that she would be going home.
“I’ve got to do some stuff around the house.”

After that, they stopped sleeping together. He made a cursory attempt to find out why, and it was something to do with a boy she had known who was coming into town. She wanted to see if things would work out. That was enough of an explanation for him. She did not even come to his room to collect her stuff. In the halls, they merely nodded to acknowledge each other, and when the semester ended, they did not even do that.

The Destroyed Room

Not even the landlord’s dire warning had prepared him for this. His mattress, for no apparent reason, had been wrenched off the floor, thrown against the wall, and slashed from corner to corner. Every drawer of the dresser was gaping open and the contents splayed out, as if the furniture itself had thrown up from the violence of the attack. The Limoges porcelain vase, the only nice purchase he had allowed himself since arriving in Montreal a month ago, was scattered in every shard size and shape across the rough wooden floor.

“Holy, holy, holy,” was all he could say, not delivering the final expletive because the landlord was standing directly behind him.

“Never ‘ave this ‘appen in the building,” said the landlord, who had a beard that had turned yellow around his mouth from the cigarette smoke.

“First time for everything,” said Mervin, trying to be stoic.

“They just smashed the door off,” observed the landlord, eyeing with disgust the door hanging uselessly from its hinges.

Mervin said nothing.

“Did you ‘av insurance?”

“No,” said Mervin.

“They were shit-disturbers,” said the landlord. “Jus’ shit-disturbers. They will not come back. They go elsewhere to make trouble.”

“Maybe,” said Mervin.

“I will ‘elp with the mess,” said the landlord.

“Don’t worry,” said Mervin. “I’ll be OK.” He nodded his head.

“I will call a carpenter,” said the landlord. “The door frame is too damaged. I know someone. He can be ‘ere this afternoon.”

“OK,” said Mervin, nodding more insistently this time.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want help. It was that he wanted to be alone. He summoned up a brave smile. The landlord shrugged. He turned around and shuffled to the stairs, descending to his own room – which was almost as squalid – in the basement.

Despite his best intentions, Mervin cried. He was only nineteen and Montreal had suddenly turned on him. What most affected him was the injustice of it. He had been attending every class, doing all his readings, completing all his assignments, studying assiduously for every test, and now, on the verge of November, he was sitting at A’s in all of his courses. This was no kind of reward for such selfless devotion to the cause.

But no amount of self-pity was going to change anything. Mervin stood up and took stock of the destroyed room – the broken continuity of the previously familiar – if Spartan – surroundings. He owned a large number of books and records. These had been strewn about, pages ripped, and the album sleeves emptied of their contents. The record player lid had been kicked clean off. Even his little metal box, meant for file cards but serving for handyman bits and bobs – screws and nails and a small screwdriver – had been opened and the insides scattered like seeds.

He went to the tiny bathroom to see what kind of damage had happened there. He attempted to whistle en route.

On the mirror over the sink, somebody had scrawled the word “slut” in a fat black marker.

The violence of the word outdid everything he’d witnessed to this point. Slut?

He couldn’t stay in here with the ugliness of the word demanding his attention. He returned to the main havoc. Slut… Whoever had attacked him was insane – delusional.

He walked to the dresser for his gloves. He would need them to protect his fingers while cleaning up. It was then that he noticed a photo on top of the cheap plywood piece of furniture. He picked it up. The photo was of a little girl, dressed elegantly in a white dress, looking up at somebody. The somebody could not be fully seen. You could see only the bottom of what looked like a long cloak or gown. The somebody was a priest. No one else dressed like that.

He was struck by the girl’s expression. Her upwards gaze was expectant – insistent, even. There was a smile on her face. As if she were saying, “You aren’t going to refuse someone so pretty, are you?” And she was remarkably pretty.

He put down the photo, feeling like an intruder in his own home. He retreated to the window where there was ample room on the sill to sit down. The thin November sun warmed him gently through the glass.

Call home? He knew his father would insist – albeit with a tone of reluctance – to drive down immediately, even though it was a full day’s journey in the car. But what was there to be done? Clean up, buy another cheap mattress, wait for the carpenter to reattach his door. By the time his father arrived, everything that needed to be done would be done.

And yet. And yet. His father was an enormous man with hands like baseball gloves. If the madman who had done this came back for more trouble, boy would he ever get a shock to find a retired amateur wrestler in his way. But the landlord said the culprit would not be back. But how could the landlord be sure about that? He just wanted to hold on to his tenants.

Mervin forced himself to make a decision. And the decision was to stick it out alone. He would report the news at Christmas, watch his mother’s face flush with dismay, and shrug when his parents asked, “Why didn’t you call us?” He would say, “Oh, it was nothing I couldn’t handle.”

Just then, there was a bang on the door. His body convulsed with shock. The door came toppling right down as a large man seemingly walked right through it.

“Where is she?” he asked.

The man had a small mustache over thin lips, and greasy-looking hair – or maybe just wet from having been combed to the sides – and rather pasty skin. He had on a golf shirt that was tight at the shoulders and at the swell of his tummy.

“Who?” said Mervin.

The man took another step forwards. He was trembling.

“You know who,” he said. “Anna.”

“Anna? I don’t know Anna.”

The man clenched his right hand into a fist.

“Hey man, don’t mess around with me,” he said. His accent was very strong. It was Eastern European or Russian or something. “I will break your neck.”

“I don’t know Anna,” said Mervin.

“Don’t lie to me,” said the man. “I will smash your mouth. This is Anna room. Where is Anna?”

“This isn’t Anna’s room,” said Mervin. “This is my room.”

He realized then who Anna must be. She was the pretty girl at the end of the hallway by the fire exit. Once, she had buzzed his room because she had been locked out. He had walked down to the entrance to let her in. She had been carrying bags of groceries. He had offered to take a few.

“Thank you, thank you,” she had said, her eyes looking over him – seemingly appraising him – as he took one, two, three, four bags, leaving her only with one bag left and her purse. He had wished he were more articulate as they walked up the long hallway, past his own open door and to her door – number 110. It was a long silence. Eventually she had said, “You are kind.”

Outside her door, he set down the bags.

“I’ll go see if the landlord is in,” she said.

It had crossed Mervin’s mind, if the landlord wasn’t in, she could come wait at his place, no? This had all happened a month ago, on a cold day. She would be warmer in his room. He could boil the kettle for tea or instant coffee.

Again, they made the long walk up the hallway, and again, he couldn’t say anything. It was like in his classes at McGill. Everyone else was smooth and nonchalant, effortlessly coming up with jokes. But he was completely trapped inside his head. At his room, they parted ways.

“Thank you, again,” she said.

That look in her eyes, it was just like in the photo that now lay on his dresser. And then she was gone.

“Anna’s room is 110,” he said to the man in front of him. “My room is 101.”

It took a moment for this news to sink in. When it did, the man became visibly agitated. His hands fidgeted about, from the breast pocket of his golf shirt then down to the pockets of his jeans. Finally, his hands settled on something to do. He pulled out a wallet.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” he said. “I am a good man. I am so sorry.”

He held out a small stack of bills for Mervin.

“Take, please – for everything.”

Mervin felt that to refuse the money would simply reignite the man’s anger. He took it. He could see that there were fifties in the stack.

“Is enough?” said the man.

“Yes, thank you,” said Mervin. “Anna is up the hallway.”

The man turned decisively. He trod heavily out of the room, the wooden boards creaking. When the man was at a safe distance, Mervin ventured to the threshold of his now completely destroyed doorway. He peeked out. He saw the man knocking on the door of 110. A long wait. Then he knocked again, even louder this time. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, as if from sweat. But in just that golf shirt, he could hardly be sweating. Then the man glanced backwards, shot a look at Mervin, who was not fast enough in ducking back into his room. The man must have finally departed using the fire exit, because the next time Mervin peeked out, the hallway was empty.

The Day Trader

“Why am I here?” Ron asked himself as he stood and looked at the bungalow before him.

To describe the bungalow as nondescript would have been to waste breath on describing it at all. It was in a north end Edmonton neighbourhood and Ron did not like the north end. It was also at the end of a very long bus ride.

In one hand, Ron had a note pad on which he scribbled the addresses and phone numbers of potential customers. In the other hand, he had a bag of knives. The one advantage of this particular sales gig was that if a workday went really badly, you had the means at your disposal to kill yourself.

“Why am I here?” Ron asked again. Then he answered his own question. “I’m here because I’ve got no fucking choice.”

The sales gig he was on, RazorSharp knives, worked via a system of referrals. You had two days of training. On the second day, after you’d mastered the product knowledge and role-played “demonstrating the benefits of RazorSharp,” which consisted, in part, of cutting the lid off of a can of beans with the RazorSharp Everything Knife and also cutting a quarter in half with the RazorSharp scissors – after all that, you compiled a list of everyone you knew.

“Those are your first customers!” shouted Mitch, the trainer, enthusiastically.

Mitch was six foot seven, very skinny, and had acne. He did not seem charismatic but he had been Ontario’s lead salesperson for two years running and was now out in the west to teach westerners how to do it. Ron listened to Mitch always with a mixture of hope and dread in his heart. Hope, because if someone like Mitch could pull down an income of five grand a month, then surely anyone could. Dread, because, well, Ron’s father always said if something sounded too good to be true then it generally was.

And lo, it was!

In any case, on day two of training, you were asked to call at least three people on the everyone-you-know list and arrange to come to their homes and sell them knives. Ron had called Aunt Jeanette, Peter Samsberg – a former high school teacher and a super nice guy who couldn’t say no even to the Mormons – and lastly, Dick Chambers, the richest guy in the neighbourhood, who sort of knew Ron’s parents. To his relief, all three consented to sit through his sales pitch.

“But no promises, kid!” Dick had laughed, in his cigarette-smoky way.

Kid? Ron was twenty-two. But what did it matter? You sold your dignity the second you first delivered the RazorSharp sales pitch. “Other knives just don’t cut it!” The point was, by some circuitous system of referrals from those very first customers, Ron now found himself here. At the crappiest house he’d visited so far. Who had been the original link to this dive? He could not remember. He had no head for this anymore.

Ding dong, the bell chimed in response to Ron’s tentative touch. He wished the bell didn’t work. He wished the customer, a certain Sam Smuckers – like the jam – could have forgotten all about this appointment and gone out instead. But no, here was Sam Smuckers coming now. You could hear creaking footsteps behind the faded wooden door. That was the weird thing about this gig. No customer was enthusiastic about Ron’s visits and many of them purchased nothing and simply smiled at him sympathetically as he strained to cut yet another quarter. But no one had ever missed an appointment. Ever. The only person who had been obliged to call off an appointment was Ron himself when he got lost one time in Mill Woods.

Stupid Mill Woods.

And stupid Sam Smuckers. Here he was.

“You’re Ron! Come in!”

It was one of those happy types. The type to maintain the charade that this could be a real swell time.

“I’m Sam,” said Sam Smuckers.

He gripped Ron’s hand and shook it vigourously. Ron looked up into a pair of clear blue eyes. The eyes narrowed as if making a character appraisal.

“You’re a good lookin’ kid,” said Sam Smuckers. “Jeez. Where’s my girl, Sharon? I’ll hafta to lock her up!”

Ron looked around to see if this Sharon girl existed. Sam Smuckers laughed – very loudly – but in a way that seemed controlled. Rather like a well-rehearsed stand up comedian might laugh at his own jokes.

“Come in, come in,” said Sam. “Do you want some coffee? Hot out there, eh? Why don’t you take off your shoes? Maybe a cold glass of coke is better? Do you like coke? Or Diet Coke? Gotta watch the weight as you get older. Look at me. It’s catching up with me.”

Sam Smuckers, as he hurried up his own hallway, drew distant enough for Ron to get some perspective on his size and shape. In short, this was a big man. Six two or three, and at least two hundred and twenty pounds. Some of that muscle. Maybe most of it muscle. He was the big-boned type and his big clothes hung from him in a way that made further judgments impossible. But big. Definitely big. Some advanced sales techniques he’d looked into online informed him about categorizing customers, and physicality played into that. Customers who could be confident in their own skin were tough sells. They felt less compelled to buy stuff to compensate for their insecurities, so the logic went. However, they could be sold on things if you appealed to their vanity. But with knives, it seemed to Ron, vanity didn’t enter the equation.

“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong,” Mitch had said once during a one-on-one just-checking-in-on-things meeting. “Vanity plays a part with knives. What if their friends bought the knives? Well surely they are just as good as their friends, no?”

Sam Smuckers had led Ron into a living room. It was a dwelling space so sparse that it had almost a cheap hotel quality. There was a large TV, a coffee table, and a couch. There were no knick-knacks, books, plants, or other possessions. Although the surroundings were lackluster, they were quite clean. The whole house had a smell of Pine-Sol, as if somebody had just given the place a going over.

“Make yourself comfortable.”

Ron obeyed Sam Smuckers.

“I’m gonna get you that drink,” said Sam Smuckers, with a reassuring smile. “Then… then we’re gonna talk sales!”

With these words, Sam left the room. Ron already felt that his sales pitch, which obviously hadn’t even started yet, was nevertheless doomed. It wasn’t for the customer to set him at ease. It was for him to set the customer at ease. He was supposed to be the one in charge. But that seemed pretty hopeless in the presence of Sam Smuckers.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” said Sam Smuckers, re-entering the room with a glass of pop. Ron took the glass with a thank you and as he brought it to his lips, the bubbles danced onto his nose.

Something strange happened. Sam Smuckers pulled the coffee table towards the couch and sat on it. This meant that he was sitting mere inches away, directly opposite Ron. You could smell the cologne. The proximity of the table as well as Sam’s robust frame being on top of it were highly detrimental to Ron’s sale pitch. He cleared his throat.

“I might need the table in a minute,” he said in a half choke.

“This table?” said Sam, slapping the table.

“Yes,” Ron struggled to reply.

“You won’t need it,” said Sam Smuckers.

This was news to Ron.

“You won’t need it because we’re going to talk sales,” said Sam Smuckers. “Like I promised. But before we discuss sales, we’re gonna discuss buys. Right? You can’t have sellers without buyers, right?”

Behind Sam Smuckers’ head, there was dust floating in the air, perfectly pixellated in the morning sunlight. This is where Ron mostly focused, even though he knew he should try and look his customer right in the eyes.

“I guess so,” he said.

By this point, he should be unzipping the knives and laying out the full set so that Sam Smuckers could touch them and handle them and “fall in love” with them. But this event seemed more and more of a remote possibility by the minute.

“I’m a buyer, you’re a buyer. We all buy things. That’s how the world goes around. You can’t come here and expect to sell without also expecting me to buy. Right?”

“Sure,” said Ron, prepared to face the lecture coming his way. You could tell this man was a talker. Some customers were talkers and you just had to listen. They’d been nice enough to let you into their homes, what else could you do? Trudie, a friend of Aunt Jeanette’s, had gone on for almost half an hour about why she wanted to assassinate the premier of the province. You wouldn’t have expected it of a sixty year old. Of course, she was kidding. But in the presence of so many knives, “one did get ideas.”

“So Ron,” said Sam. “I hope you’re not disappointed, but I’m gonna tell you right now, I’m not gonna buy any of your knives.”

Sam moved his face even closer and pursed his lips. It was as if he were daring Ron to slap him. Which of course would never happen in a million years unless Ron wanted his ass kicked.

“OK,” said Ron. “You don’t even want to—”

“See the product? No, I don’t even want to see the product. You know why? Because I never cook, Ron. I never cook myself a square meal because a) I am too goddam busy and b) I don’t like to cook because I’d rather pay someone else to cook for me. Is that a crime? I don’t think so! In any event, because you are probably a busy person just like me, I’ll cut right to the quick. Buyers and sellers, that’s what we were discussing. You can’t have one without the other. We need both. I am both. They are flip sides of the same coin. Now, what makes this all go around, this system of buying and selling?”

Ron was watching the dancing dust. This was a little like getting taken hostage. Being subjected to unusual punishment like this.

“Ron, you’re not going to get the answer when your thoughts are a million miles away!” said Sam. He snapped his fingers. Holy shit, that was uncanny. Ron blinked. That was really uncanny. “Are you with me, Ron?”

“Yes,” said Ron.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” said Ron.

“I have a daughter called Sharon, like I told you, and she never listens. But she is only seventeen. She’s going to be a writer. Writers don’t need to listen to anyone. They just pour out whatever is in their heart, and people pay to read it. Some people, anyway. That’s Sharon. And I love her. But Sharon isn’t us. You and me, we are salesmen. And we salesmen, we need to listen. Right?”

Ron nodded his head. Then, in an attempt to regain some lost footing, he said, “What kind of sales are you in, Mr. Smuckers?”

“Good question. Obviously, you were listening! I sell stocks and shares, Ron. I’m a day trader. I’m plugged into a coupla guys in New York who move things for me quick. On the stock market. I do trades for myself and I do trades for other people.”

Just then, there was the sound of a door opening. Ron heard a burst of sound from the summer outside – the squawk of a magpie. Then a girl appeared in the room. She wore a pair of shorts and a bikini top. This must be Sharon. She didn’t look seventeen. She looked about twenty-two. She had a knowing smile. As soon as she looked at Ron, he knew that she knew he wanted him. Not that this would’ve taken a genius to figure out. It was simply the subtlety and speed with which all this was acknowledged, with the tiniest crease of the lip. All this led you to believe she might have been in the game longer than seventeen years.

“My daughter, Sharon,” said Sam. “This is Ron. He’s come here to sell knives.”

“Knives?” said Sharon.

Ron nodded. He didn’t know what to say without feeling foolish.

“I just came to say your cell phone called while I was out,” said Sharon. “It was somebody called Mr. Vargas. I said you’d call back.”

She handed a cell phone to Sam Smuckers and then elegantly departed the room leaving a faint odour of hairspray. Afterwards, there was silence. It was obvious that they had both been in the presence of deeply carnal beauty and just as obvious that neither party should acknowledge the fact.

“Did you notice the trick with the phone?” said Sam Smuckers, after a respectful moment had elapsed. “Did you notice that my daughter fielded a call for me on my cell phone? Does that not strike you as odd? Why is it that my cell phone – something that I could keep here on my belt all day – happens to be with my daughter?”

Ron shook his head.

“Because I’m too important even to answer my own cell phone,” said Sam Smuckers, then smiled broadly, clearly at his own expense. “Ever notice how all the busiest people in this world have other people to answer their calls… even their cell phone calls, half the time? I took pains to notice this. So I give my phone to my daughter, my wife – even my little niece, Judith, who is ten. It doesn’t matter who answers it. People get a kick out of it. They always know Sam Smuckers is that guy who usually has someone else answering his phone. That’s just the league of men he belongs to. Crazy, eh? But let me tell you something important.”

Sam Smuckers held up his finger to signal something very important.

“I always call back within an hour, and I always apologize for missing their call. I apologize a lot. I’m a good guy that way. I want people to know me as a good guy. Of course, deep down, I am a good guy. But if you’re a good guy, you need to give people the opportunity to know that you’re a good guy. And the missed call – especially if it’s your snookikums niece who answers it – plus the apology afterwards? Nothing says all around good guy like that.

“I work from home, by the way.”

Ron concentrated on the dancing dust. Something was happening. A lecture that had started as bullshit now had a whiff of something novel about it. He was paying attention despite himself. And it seemed that Sam Smuckers genuinely liked him and wanted to talk. That was already an advantage over the usual uncomfortable ritual that passed as a typical sales visit.

“I see,” said Ron.

Sam gestured around him.

“Not much of a home,” he replied. “You’re afraid to say it, but I’ll say it. This isn’t an attractive home. It’s a cheap home, even by Edmonton’s standards. But let me say two things about the home. Firstly, I predict that this home will triple in price in under ten tears. No lie. The oil sands will be heating up, Ron. I watch these things. I’ve got my long-term investments in oil. When I sell this, I’m going to make a killing. And the second thing is… Why buy a nice home, anyway? This is Edmonton! Don’t you think it makes more sense to make a killing and get out while the going’s good and get something real fucking hot in interior British Columbia somewhere? Or how about Spain?”

Ron nodded. Yes, he could see the logic to that.

“Let me tell you, in money terms, my home is being built right now – a deluxe villa with a swimming pool. It’s being constructed in the bank as we speak.”

Ron nodded again. Sam took a deep sigh.

“I’m bragging,” he said. “I’ll shut up about that now. I’ll get to what I was going to say. Here goes, Ron. I want you to listen to this carefully. Ron, if you have about five hundred dollars on hand, I want you to give it to me.”

Sam leaned back. It was the first relinquishment of his urgent posture since the departure of beautiful Sharon. He tapped his knee with his fingers lightly. He smiled. Then he laughed.

“You think it’s crazy, right? To give me five hundred dollars?”

Ron shook his head.

“I don’t know. I don’t understand.”

“Of course not. Look, I’m a day trader, right? It’s 1999. Do you know the killing people are making on the market right now?”

“I’ve heard,” said Ron.

“And you’re not a part of it, are you,” said Sam.

Ron smiled sheepishly. The shame of it was, no he wasn’t.

“No harm in that. I knew you weren’t part of it because you’re selling these knives. And that’s OK. You need capital. But I’ll bet that selling knives is seeming like a tough row to hoe right now, eh? I mean, how many of these knives will you have to sell before you can buy some good stock on the stock market?”

Was this another rhetorical question? There wasn’t even a goddam chance of buying stock on the stock market. Ron had busted his butt the last three weeks to get money for rent. Now he needed food and bus money. Things were desperately tight. It was weird that Sam Smuckers had asked him for five hundred dollars because that was almost the exact sum he had in the bank right now. Take a chance on the stock market? Not a hope in hell!

“I’m a long way from that,” Ron admitted.

Suddenly, Sam Smuckers jumped to his feet.

“But you’re not,” he said. “You are not.”

He paced to the window and looked out. He became just a large silhouette to Ron.

“Let me explain, Ron,” said Sam Smuckers. “It only takes five hundred dollars to start out. If you give that to me, I can practically guarantee you it will be six hundred by tomorrow. I’m watching a certain stock quite closely. It’s a good one for you. A precious metals firm has found a gold mine in Indonesia. A literal gold mine – you know, with gold in it. This is a Canadian firm. They’re good guys. I actually know the son of one of them. He played university football with my own son, Vince, who isn’t here right now. Too bad, that, because you two would’ve got along. In any case, a few of us are putting money in this and the speculators are getting in on the deal too. See, they’re betting that this gold mine, when it moves into full production, is going to be the highest producing gold mine in the world. Future contracts are changing hands like hot little potatoes. Everyone wants a part of this. If you’re a hedger or a speculator, this is a market for you, Ron. It really is.”

This talk was dizzying for Ron and he had lost track a while ago. But he didn’t say anything.

“Your friends talk about this kind of stuff?” said Sam.

As it so happened, some of Ron’s friends did talk about this. Even some of the folks at RazorSharp talked about it. The stock market was a major discussion point everywhere, it seemed.

Ron nodded.

“The smart ones will be the ones who buy in. They say what goes up must come down, and this is the truth, Ron. I’m an optimist – perhaps the most optimistic person you’ll meet – but I still believe the old logic. Soon the stock for this gold mine is going to become overpriced and only the richest of investors will be able to get in on it. I’m so glad I got in this year. This is so big. This stock has the biggest potential of any I’ve ever had.”

Ron nodded. The swerve into speculation talk had lost him, but this sounded a bit more like plain talk.

“Lucky you,” he said, trying to grin.

Sam turned from the window. He was still a silhouette, but his bright blue eyes just about shone through despite the fire of summer behind him. He looked like some kind of Egyptian god – all two dimensional.

“Lucky you,” Sam repeated, throwing it right back at Ron. “Seriously. I’m hitting the jackpot here, but when I look at someone like you – almost my son’s age too – I think to myself, here is someone who should share in the good fortune. I mean, you came all the way here and I’m not buying anything. Right? It’s a big bust. But if I can turn five hundred bucks into six hundred bucks – and that in just a day – then that’s a start, right? You can’t be unhappy with that. Then, if you’re pleased with that result, maybe you’ll try again. We’ll turn six hundred bucks into seven hundred bucks. Maybe more. Maybe we’ll take a hit of fifty bucks somewhere along the line.” Sam Smuckers shrugged. “It happens. But you know what? You get right back into the saddle the next day and do it all over again. It’s a sport, Ron. It’s a sport. And I tell you what, it’s a sport for young men like you because you’ve got the nerve for it. So what do you say? You got five hundred bucks?”

“What, right now?” Ron asked.

“Yeah, right now!” Sam laughed. “I’m a day trader, not a tomorrow trader.”

“How does all this work? I don’t understand.”

“I put that money into the futures market. I call some guys in New York. They talk to some guys and round about four o’clock our time, we cut a deal and sell. That’s in six hours. Not a lot of time to wait.”

“But I don’t have five hundred on me.”

“That’s OK,” said Sam. “Perfectly OK. You drive to the bank and get it.”

“I don’t have a car. The nearest bank is at Northgate, I think.”

“You don’t drive, Ron?”

Sharon came back into the room. She had moved so stealthily, Ron hadn’t noticed her approach. Just as before, she wore shorts and the bikini top. All that had changed was she had a book in her hand. Ron tried discretely to see the cover. Whatever it was, it had a glossy cover.

“I can drive you, Ron,” said Sam, not even glancing at his daughter.

“I need a second to—”

“To think?” said Sam. “Sure. OK.”

“Dad, if you’re going out, can you go to the library and turn this one in for another?”

“Sure,” said Sam Smuckers. He took the book from his daughter. “Who is this? Helen Fielding? I haven’t heard of her.”

“She’s got a new one out. The Edge of Reason. Can you pick it up? I checked, and the library has it.”

The girl looked at Ron. She smiled. Sometimes, there was a girl so perfect and yet so manifestly right in front of your face that it seemed like a bit of a miracle. This was that kind of girl.

“I hope your daily cash limit goes as high as five hundred,” said Sam to Ron.

“Of course it does,” said Ron.

“Well honey, I won’t be long.” Sam Smuckers was talking to the girl now.

“OK. I might not be here when you get back. Susan’s coming and we’re going rollerblading.”

Ron was picturing this girl, and another girl maybe just as beautiful, rollerblading. It was too much. Sam Smuckers turned back to him.

“So, Ron. A decision?”

“I just don’t know, Sam.”

“I know it’s a tough decision. But listen. I’m right here. I’m not a fly-by-night deal. I’ve got a business card.”

Sam Smuckers paced over to Ron, pulled a card from his back pocket, and handed it over. It said, Sam Smuckers. Day trader. Ron looked up from the card. Sharon had disappeared. There was that hair spray smell again.

“I just don’t know,” said Ron. “It’s too quick to make a decision.”

Sam shook his head.

“That’s an absolute misconception,” he said. “In this sport, all decisions are lightning quick. I make this offer today because you’re in my house and I like you. Tomorrow, I will be busy with other clients. But today, I’m here. I’m advising you to go for this gold mine. That’s free advice. I’ll show you the newspaper. The company is listed in the newspaper. But that’s all beside the point since trust isn’t the issue here. The issue here is risk. Do you have the nerve to take a risk? When you think of it, really, it isn’t that much of a risk. Granted, five hundred isn’t pocket change, especially to someone like you. But you’re, what, twenty years old? Do you think in the whole of a lifetime, with all the hundreds and thousands of dollars you’re going to make, that five hundred is anything more than a drop in the bucket? It’s nothing, Ron. I mean, it’s nothing if you lost it. But if this turned into the start of a great business partnership between us – I need someone young to learn the ropes, see, and sometimes, with all my clients, I can’t keep up – well if all these things turn out the way they should, suddenly that five hundred means something, no? It’s the five hundred you tell your grand kids about.”

Quite unexpectedly, Sharon was back again. Something very serious had happened in her brief time away. She had taken off her shorts. Now she wore only a bikini top and bottom. Ron felt himself losing grip of reality. This was unbelievable.

“Susan’s here right now,” said Sharon. “We’re going now. You don’t have twenty for some pop and ice cream from the Mac’s store, dad? Please?”

She held out her hand.

“I know it’s not gonna be twenty,” he said.

“I’ll bring back change,” she replied, then departed again, leaving in Ron’s mind a mirage of her miraculous appearance.

It was too much. It was all too much. The girl had short-circuited all his normal thought processes.

“I can’t do this deal,” he said to Sam, and he stood up in his bid to make the declaration final.

“You can’t, eh?” said Sam.

“I can’t,” said Ron.

“You don’t mean can’t, because I know you can. You mean you won’t.”

Ron shook his head.

“Just say it,” said Sam. “You won’t.”

This was the most terrible feeling.

“I’ll make you the offer one last time. It’s not every day a kid comes in here who I see as a potential business partner. Seriously consider this.”

“I can’t do it now. Can we talk—”

“Talk about it?” Sam Smuckers looked disgusted. “You’ve either got the balls to make a decision or you don’t. Which one is it?”

Ron averted his eyes.

“I can’t,” he said.

Sam had to be getting to the library, he said. On the front step, Sharon was putting on her rollerblades. Ron nearly tripped over her in his haste to get out. There was no sign of this friend she had mentioned. Maybe she was round the back, sun-tanning or applying lotion, or whatever girls of this calibre did. Ron cantered down the driveway and did not look back. He hated himself. He would never join their league at this rate.

The Kid Who Had It All

Leftovers. Some reward it was to come home to only leftovers. That’s what Patrick thought as he opened the fridge and saw the plate of cold spaghetti covered in cling wrap with his name sticky-noted to it. In the living room, he could hear the rest of the family settling down to watch the Thursday night movie. Meanwhile, he was going to eat leftovers, all by himself.

There was only a spoonful of meat sauce left on the spaghetti. He looked around for the parmesan cheese. Here it was. Maybe only two granules of cheese left in the bottom of the container. What’s more, the Chorizo sausage that had been here this morning was now gone. The whole thing.

For Pete’s sake, what were his twin brothers, vultures? How come they ate everything in sight? Here he was, the best forward on his soccer team, eleven years old and almost the biggest kid in his grade, having just run his behind off, and there was nothing to eat. Meanwhile, there were the twins, sitting with mommy and daddy, all the way back in grade three, but just look at their appetites. They were like piranhas.

He put his leftovers in the microwave and sat down at the table while he waited. He looked outside. It was still hot, and he could feel the sweat from the soccer game stuck to his skin. In the yard, the bushes were heavy with shiny leaves. He watched a squirrel hop along the fence. Yesterday, he’d rushed out to throw a ping-pong ball at the squirrel but the white sphere was blown drastically of course by the breeze. Thank God no one had witnessed that.

Ping! The stupid leftovers were ready. He fetched the steaming plate. He wolfed it down with a fork and a spoon. He was starving, and it was better than nothing.

He had scored twice today in a five-one thrashing of the St. Joseph’s Gyrfalcons. Afterwards, one of the kids on his team had said that his second goal was wicked. Patrick had flushed with pride despite himself. Just like he flushed now. If only everyone in the family had seen it. He had received the ball from the halfway line, cut a wide arc around one of the opposing midfielders, deked out a defender with a fake to the left and then a swerve to the right. Finally, he’d given the ball a solid kick and watched it fly into the back of the net. The goalie had reacted, but barely. He had hardly been able to see the ball because it was like a rocket.

Why had no one in the family witnessed that? Because they were too busy, that’s what they said. Too busy to load the twins and Margot, his sister, into the van, and drive the twenty-five blocks to the playing fields. Too busy? For Pete’s sakes! Look, they were all sitting in the next room staring at their stupid movie.

The fact was, he just didn’t get any respect around here.


After eating, he wandered outside and sat on the last step of the deck. The grass was cool on his bare feet. There were some mosquitoes floating around his head, and he had to swat them away. Mosquitoes just loved him. They loved him more than anyone. No sooner had one mosquito found him, than he immediately buzzed off to tell all his friends. Then all the neighbourhood mosquitoes came in a squad to feast on him. For Pete’s sakes, why was it that he got eaten alive but the twins, for example, hardly ever got bit even once? He had asked his dad the other day why they couldn’t just spray the whole yard with a mosquito-killing spray, but his dad had some stupid hang-up about chemicals and said, “Think of all the other things you might kill.”

Result was, Patrick wore bug spray and stank to high heaven. Meanwhile, the mosquitoes just laughed at him and ate his flesh anyway.

As Patrick was looking around the yard, he noticed something he had never noticed before. In the corner, there was a bush with berries on it. He got up from the step and approached the bush for a closer look. Well, wouldn’t you know it? It looked like a gooseberry bush. He reached out and picked one of the berries. It was green and hard. He crunched it between his teeth. It tasted bitter. He reached out for another berry, but this time chose one that was yellowy in colour. The taste on his tongue was sweet and soft. It was delicious. In fact, he liked it better than the taste of the gooseberry jam that his aunt brought over every year. He reached for another and another. The truth was, the leftovers hadn’t quite filled him up. This little snack was just what he needed.

Patrick edged deeper and deeper into the gooseberry bush. Unlike most gooseberry bushes, this one didn’t poke you or jab you with its nasty thorns. This particular gooseberry bush didn’t have any thorns. It simply had lots and lots of delicious gooseberries.

Patrick started to feel a bit sick from all the gooseberries and stopped eating. It was then that he realized that he was crouched in the very darkest depths of the bush. He turned to look behind him but he could no longer see his house. He could see only branches, leaves, and big fat berries. He turned to look in front of him. Again, only branches, leaves, and big fat berries.

It seemed to him that this gooseberry bush must go on forever. He crawled forwards like a dog. He clawed the branches and leaves out of his way. He crawled forwards some more. Shouldn’t he be hitting his head against the fence by now? But he wasn’t hitting his head.

Suddenly, Patrick stopped. He heard voices. He commanded all of his muscles to freeze and for his lungs to stop breathing. You would have thought that the voices were those of his family. But they were not. They were the voices of complete strangers. And they traveled to him as if through a dense mist. There was a far-away feel to those voices, as if they came out of a movie.

He thought for a second that a radio or television was playing somewhere. Then, through the foliage, he saw a white shape flitting by. It made him jump, it had come so close.

“Come back! Come back!” shouted a voice.

There went another shape flitting by. This shape was green. It was chasing the first shape. They were children, playing around. What on earth were strange children doing in his yard?

“You’re trespassing!” he yelled out. But the two shapes had vanished.

Patrick clambered through the rest of the gooseberry bush. He stood up and found that he was no longer in his own back yard. In fact, he was no longer even in his own neighbourhood.

He had entered a place that was lush with trees of every size and shape, so dense that you could not always tell where one tree ended and the next began. There were trees with leaves that were soft and furry, trees with leaves that were thin and spiky, trees with leaves that were broad and sunny, and trees that were hiding in the shade of other trees.

You could smell an odour of wetness everywhere. It was like entering a bathroom about fifteen minutes after someone had taken a long shower – somebody fragrant like his sister, Margot, not one of the twins. But it wasn’t that soapy, shampooey smell that he disliked. It was a smell of pine or resin.

He then noticed a pond that was half in the shade of the trees, half in the light of the sun, glittering green. A bridge arched over it, narrow, and with bamboo railings. Patrick saw that the children who had whizzed by moments ago were now running over this bridge. A white shape, like a ghost, chasing after a green shape that wore a peaked hat. He heard distant laughter, then the shapes descended from the bridge and vanished into the darkness of the trees on the other side.

Patrick hardly had time to scratch his head and wonder what was going on before, quite suddenly, total strangers descended upon him.

“Herbert? Herbert? Is that you?”

Looming over him there was a plump woman, dressed bizarrely as a ballerina, with tiny pink shoes that hardly seemed sufficient to carry her weight. By her side was an equally large man, glimmering white in an astronaut’s suit. His jolly red cheeks were puffed out, touching the glass of his helmet, and he was clearly saying something, but all you could hear was, “Hmmm Hmmm Hawww Hawww.”

“What he’s trying to say is, your mama and your papa have been worried sick because you forgot your inhaler, Herbert. It is Herbert, isn’t it? I only caught the tiniest glimpse of you earlier. Have you changed from Robin Hood into a soccer player? How ingenious!”

Before he could deny being Herbert, there was a large plastic device thrust into Patrick’s face. He recognized this. One of the kids in his gym class was always gasping on a device like this after softball or high-jump practice. It was for asthmatics.

“You look red in the face. Are you short of breath? Breathe, Herbert, breathe.”

The woman pushed the inhaler right into his mouth and he had no choice but to breathe. It left a yukky taste afterwards.

“Good grief, what a calamity if harm came to you under my watch.”

The astronaut agreed.

“Hmmm Hmmm Heeee Haaaw,” he said.

He sounded like a braying donkey.

“Now Herbert, tell us everything you’ve been up to since your last birthday. I would so like to know about your adventures, my clever, ingenious and handsome little man! And then I’m going to give you a big piece of Chorizo sausage, because I know how you love it.”

She pulled the Chorizo sausage from a ludicrously small pink bag hanging on her shoulder. It was true that Patrick loved Chorizo sausage. He loved it more than even ice cream, chocolate, or marshmallows roasted over a fire. How did this woman know that? Very weird. But for now it seemed best to play along at pretending to be Herbert, whoever that was, at least until a piece of Chorizo was safely in his tummy.

“I’ve been very busy doing my homework and playing soccer and having fun with my friends,” said Patrick, familiar with the kind of rote answers that made grannies and aunts happy, especially if they had not seen you in a long time.

The plump woman’s face clouded.

“Friends?” she said. “Friends? What a curious thing to say.”

The astronaut also seemed surprised. So much so that he pulled off his helmet and said, “Hmmm… What?”

There were two large pink faces staring at him like at a circus freak.

“Oh nothing,” said Patrick, and pretended to laugh. “It was a joke.”

“I should think so,” said the woman. “It’s a delight to see you playing with your cousins and second-cousins-twice-removed, who are, as I’m sure you are aware, always respectful and deferential because of your prestigious station in life. But I certainly hope that being friends with any of the ruffians living outside The Garden is an idea that remains to you, now and for always, just a laugh.”

“Haaaw haaaw!” said the astronaut.

“Quite,” said the woman.

Patrick nodded obediently.

“It really was a joke, I swear,” he said.

“Well, of course. And now I think of it, it’s a delightful and ingenious joke. A real scream!”

She clapped her hands and the astronaut cheered, “Huzzah!”

“Can I have some Chorizo sausage now?” Patrick asked.

“Oh, bless you!” said the ballerina, and gave him the Chorizo sausage, already sliced and ready to eat. He popped a piece into his mouth.

“Now we must be getting along,” said the ballerina. “There is the laser show scheduled for four in the planetarium, and you are the star of the show.”

“He is, he is!” shouted the astronaut. It was the first full sentence that Patrick had heard him utter.

They moved through the garden, under the shade of the full moon maples, and while Patrick ate delicious Chorizo sausage, the ballerina admired the flowers, which were yellow and red and scarlet and purple and almost every other colour of the rainbow. At last, after crossing the bridge with the bamboo railings, they turned a sharp corner around a row of sculpted bonsai trees, and arrived at a large wooden building.

At this point, the astronaut’s previous monosyllabic grunting gave way to a passionate lecture.

“How I admire this replica of the Shusuitei tea house, which was originally constructed by the Kujo family during their reign in the Kyoto Imperial Palace, now painstakingly reconstructed by your parents. Inch by inch, it is a perfect copy, and who cannot adore the way in which the veranda affords the most magnificent view of the entire garden? What a civilizing influence the Robespierre family has had on this outpost of the Empire. And the addition of a planetarium, dug into the bowels of the earth under the tea house, is a concept of pure genius.”

“Ingenious!” said the ballerina, in complete agreement.

“Now it’s time for the show,” said the astronaut. “We have been instructed to get you ready, Master Herbert Robespierre.”

Patrick had just popped the last piece of Chorizo sausage into his mouth. It occurred to him that now might finally be the time to admit the truth, which was that he was not, in fact, Master Herbert Robespierre, whoever that was. But just then, two dwarves with very large heads appeared, and after bowing to him, opened up a trapdoor in the side of the tea house, beyond which was a long dark tunnel. It occurred to Patrick that being Herbert Robespierre might still provide a whole lot more fun – especially in comparison to his regular life, in which no one showed him any respect – and so, smiling at the dwarves, who were so jolly-looking that they almost made him laugh, Patrick descended into the tunnel.

When his eyes finally adjusted to the darkness, Patrick realized that he was entering a sort of theatre. He noticed that there was a large crowd gathering, each one of them taking a seat in the audience. And what a crowd it was. Over there was someone with the head of a mule or a donkey, behind him was a fairy with silver wings, in the adjacent row there was an entire brigade of garden gnomes come to life, lining up patiently, waiting to take their places.

Patrick turned and said, “What the?” but the plump ballerina hustled him along.

“Not now,” she hissed. “They mustn’t see you yet.”

They veered to the side of a stage, out of sight of the audience, and into a backroom.

“The green room,” announced the astronaut. “Hmmm. Jolly hot in here, no?”

In the green room was a pretty girl with red hair and a large halo over her head. She was carrying what appeared to be a wand in one hand. In the other, was a little rodent, squirming and kicking its little legs. Despite the effort of holding on to all of this, the girl performed a curtsey.

“Mister Herbert Robespierre, I am honoured,” she said.

“Master Herbert Robespierre,” said the ballerina. “Mister Robespierre is his father, dearest.”

“Will you name my pet mink?” said the girl to Patrick, with a pleading tone. “I would be so honoured.”

Patrick was now very confused, and thought that maybe he’d let this game go on for too long.

“Name your mink?” he said.

“Yes, yes,” said the girl, and by her blushing cheeks, you would almost think she had a crush on him. “Name him. Anything you like. Johnny or Roger or Mickey.”

“Mickey – that would be alliterative,” said the astronaut.

“No one’s asking you, daddy,” snapped the girl.

“Alliterative is when you repeat consonants or vowel sounds. For example, Mickey the Mink, or Roger the Rat.”

“He’s not a rat,” shouted the girl, throwing her wand down in order to shake her fist.

“Let’s call him Cristiano,” Patrick announced, hoping to bring peace to the suddenly feuding family.

“Cristiano?” asked the ballerina.

“I’m sorry, is that good enough?” Patrick inquired. “I’ve never named a mink before.”

“I love the name Cristiano,” exclaimed the girl, delightedly. “He can be Chrissy for short. Chrissy the Mink!”

“Cristiano Ronaldo is my favourite soccer player,” explained Patrick. “He plays for Manchester United.”

Suddenly, an enormous man dressed up as a wrestler appeared at the doorway.

“Master Herbert, Master Herbert, only three minutes, and good grief, you are not dressed yet.”

The wrestler had eyebrows painted in thick black pen over his glittering eyes. He was very frightening.

“Take this, good grief,” he urged Patrick, thrusting a bundle of clothes into the nervous boy’s hands.

“OK, OK,” said Patrick. He didn’t have a clue what was going on, but it was certainly too late to stop the show now. Everything proceeded to happen very quickly. While everyone bustled away into a neighbouring room, he took off his regular clothes and changed into the new clothes. He looked in the mirror and found that he was dressed up like a samurai, in a light cloth tunic, and a sheathed sword at his side.

“Ready?” shouted the voices next door, which made him think that they’d been watching all along. That would have been embarrassing, because he had a big freckle on his bottom. But there was little time for him to stay embarrassed, because the astronaut, ballerina, wrestler, and girl had returned to hurry him on to the next mystifying task: pulling on a strange assortment of belts and straps. One of these belts, the one around his tummy, was pulled so tight by the wrestler that Patrick almost coughed up a piece of Chorizo sausage.

“Careful,” said Patrick.

“Sorry, Master,” said the wrestler.

Next, Patrick was ushered past another trapdoor and into a dark and cavernous space, which he guessed to be underneath the stage, because he could hear footsteps creaking loudly overhead. He was made to stand on a platform. He now had only a dwarf for company. The dwarf made him kneel down so that wires could be attached to the straps and belts around his torso. Then, with a grunt, the dwarf wished him luck, and departed.

No sooner was he alone, than the creaking footsteps stopped. There was a moment of silence, during which Patrick wondered whether he had been taken prisoner in this lonely, cramped place. Then, violent explosions erupted above him. There were pops and crackles and zaps and bangs. It sounded like fireworks. Abruptly, an opening in the ceiling appeared, and he was jerked upwards by the wires. He shouted out, “For Pete’s sakes,” but then he was whizzing upwards so quickly he couldn’t do anything more than gasp. Fifty metres or more into the sky he was elevated. He could see the huge crowd seated beneath him, and on the stage itself, the girl from the green room. She was waving her wand at him, as if it were her that had conjured him up from the depths.

“Master, Master,” chanted the audience. Then there were cheers and whistles.

Lasers of blue and red and green started cutting through the planetarium, circling and probing the domed roof, and slowly moving into a pattern that rotated around Patrick himself. All the while, the crowd maintained the chant.

“Master, Master!”

It would have been cool, like something out of Star Wars, except for the fact that it was terrifying because he was way up in the air, kicking his legs like that poor mink had earlier, and the eyes of everyone were upon him. Suddenly, at the back of the planetarium, another trap door opened up, and an elephant plodded in with four jugglers on his back. The jugglers were juggling fire. Then, one by one, they threw their fire batons towards a netting that Patrick had not noticed before. On the netting there must have been something flammable, because the fire spread quickly. It formed the shape of the following words:

The Empire salutes Master Herbert, future leader of The Garden.

The entire back wall was illuminated by this message. The audience’s roar, which had already been deafening, became ear-popping. Now everyone was standing. Patrick wanted to scream, “Put me down, put me down!”

But he was already coming down. The fires fizzled out just as quickly as they had been lit. He was hurtling toward the stage. He screamed. He thought he was going to break his legs. At the very last second, his descent was slowed, and his feet gently touched the planks. The wrestler reappeared to liberate him from his harness. The red-haired girl ran up to him and curtseyed.

“You were so high up there,” she said. “If it was me, I would have puked.”

The girl seemed to him there and then as about the nicest person in the world.

“What’s your name?” Patrick panted, still breathing heavily.

“I’m Gloria,” said the girl, her face suddenly turning sombre. “You forgot me?”

“Gloria!” somebody hissed. It was the ballerina. “He’s a very important person. He can’t remember everyone.”

Suddenly a big mule-headed man jumped onto the stage.

“Please can I have an autograph?” he begged Patrick.

Patrick was quite prepared to say yes, but the wrestler leaped out and threw the man back into the audience.

“No autographs!” he thundered. “He won’t sully his hands with your inky pen.”

Everyone was hustling Patrick away yet again. They hardly gave you time to catch your breath. It was a return to the green room to change again. Before leaving him alone, the girl very cleverly slipped something into Patrick’s hand without anyone else noticing. Then she slipped away into the neighbouring room.

Patrick opened his hand. From his palm a tiny little bird fluttered into the air. It was a hummingbird, and its wings beat so quickly they were a blur. It was a beautiful sight to behold. Patrick expected a bird like that to flutter away in search of freedom, but instead, it smiled at him, then landed on his shoulder. He could not even feel its weight.

“Birdie, I’ve got to change, so you’ve got to move,” he said.

Patrick found that as he proceeded to change, the hummingbird was able to pose on his shoulder or arm, or flutter at a respectful distance, then return when he was no longer moving around. It had remarkable agility and poise.

Just then, just as he was completely stark naked, a tall slender man with a pencil-thin moustache and a lady with black hair in a tight bun entered the green room. Patrick blushed bright red and reached for his tunic so that he could hide behind it.

“You forgot everything,” the man said. “My son, how could you forget everything? You didn’t even un-sheath your sword, let alone perform the elaborate swordplay that you have spent five years mastering. What are people to think of you now? Of course the audience doesn’t mind. They are lumps, and will cheer on anything shiny and flashy and with big bangs. But what about the ambassador from Wasabi? What is he going to think of your performance, or should I say, non-performance? I told him that you are going to be a great warrior, and you looked like nothing more than a great klutz! Kicking your legs and looking foolish. Herbert, you’ve failed me. You’ve failed the Robespierre lineage. What have you to say for yourself?”

The hummingbird fluttered around Patrick’s head, as if sharing in his confusion and bewilderment. For Pete’s sake, what was he supposed to say now?

“Isn’t it rude to barge in on me while I’m changing?” he finally said, with all the courage he could muster.

“Rude? You’re throwing the word ‘rude’ at your own father?”

“Darling, please, you’re going to have an asthma attack if you’re not careful,” said the woman, who was very beautiful, but had such a perfect face that she seemed like a cyborg. “Herbert, I can’t pretend I’m not disappointed, but if you practice very hard tomorrow to make up for it, I’ll let you watch monster truck racing on the weekend like you wanted.”

“You’re too easy on him,” said the father.

“You’re too hard on him,” said the mother. “It was a big crowd. He got nervous. He just needs more practice. And more positive reinforcement.”

“More positive reinforcement!” the man laughed humourlessly. “How much more positive reinforcement can he take? He’s already got a golden retriever, a camel, a litter of West Highland White Terrier puppies, eleven televisions, seven different video game consoles, an ice-cube dispenser for the ginger ale that he’s addicted to, not to mention the fact that I just named a thoroughbred horse after him.”

“You named it after yourself,” the woman retorted.

“No,” said the man, wagging his finger. “After him. It was Master Herbert, not Mister Herbert, and what is more, while you’re watching stupid mindless monster truck racing, my thoroughbred is going to win The Garden Championships!”

While this argument was going on, Patrick was trying to discretely inch across the floor to his regular soccer clothes so that he could get dressed. But he was halted by a loud shriek just as he dropped his samurai tunic.

“Good gracious!” cried out the woman. “That’s not Herbert. Look, he’s got a freckle on his bottom.”

The man frowned in response to his wife’s alarm. He glared at Patrick.

“By Jove, you’re right,” he said. “This is an imposter.”

Patrick snatched up his soccer shorts and frantically pulled them on.

“I was going to tell you earlier,” he said.

“Who on earth are you?” shouted the man.

“Nobody. Bye!”

With these parting words, Patrick dashed out of the green room as fast as he could. He ran all the way up the dark tunnel, out into The Garden, then towards the bridge, which he crossed at a clumsy canter. He nearly tripped. He quickly looked behind him, and saw the couple emerging from the tea house, hopping with anger. There was no time to waste. He shot down to the other side of the bridge, veered off to the left, and suddenly collided head first with something.

“Ow!” he cried.

“Ow!” cried somebody else.

Patrick rolled across the soft grass and then returned upright. Nursing his knee opposite him was a boy who looked very much like he did.

“Sorry,” said Patrick.

“I think it’s broken,” said the strange boy.

“What’s broken?”

“My leg or my knee. What were you running for?”

Patrick wondered how he was going to explain all this.

“I think I’ve been mistaken for you,” he said. “You’re Herbert?”

“Hey,” said the boy. “You look just like me.”

“You noticed that too, eh?” said Patrick.

The boy grimaced with pain as he slowly got to his feet. He limped over to Patrick and studied him with curiosity.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Patrick,” said Patrick.

“Where do you come from?”

“I come from the other side of this gooseberry bush,” said Patrick gesturing to the bush, which was a mere couple of footsteps away.

“There’s nothing on the other side of the gooseberry bush except a fish pond,” said Herbert.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” said Patrick. “It’s my house on the other side of this bush.”

“Your house? There are no houses except my house around here.”

To prove his point, Herbert pulled Patrick by the hand and marched around to the other side of the gooseberry bush. Sure enough, there was simply a fish pond with a couple of lazy-looking fish bobbing at the surface, opening and closing their fishy mouths.

For not the first time, Patrick was frightened.

“What’s happened? Where has my house gone?”

“I tell you, there’s no house except mine.”

“Where am I?” Patrick asked.

“You’re in The Garden,” said Herbert. “The lousy, stinking, no-good Garden, where nothing ever changes, and nothing will ever change, and where nobody ever leaves you alone, and where I’m supposed to perform a stupid sword-show in—”

Suddenly, he stopped talking. He had looked at his watch, which Patrick had noticed was a very expensive sports watch.

“Oh gosh, I’ve got to go. I’m already horribly late.”

Herbert was just about to run off, when Patrick called out, “Wait!”

“What is it?” asked Herbert.

“If it’s a big laser show in the planetarium you’re going to, I wouldn’t bother. It’s over already. I was there. It was a big screw up.”

“What? How could they have started the show without me? I’m the star.”

“They started and finished without you,” said Patrick.

He then explained how he had been mistaken for Herbert, and performed, to mixed reviews, the entire show. He explained all the way to the story’s end, including how he had been running away from Herbert’s parents, which is why he’d ended up not looking where he was going and crashing right into his look-alike.

“They’ll have a search party out for me soon,” said Herbert. “I’ve been missing for at least an hour.”

“An hour?”

“Yes. I was playing around with my second-cousin-twice-removed, playing tag. That would have been an hour ago that I ran away, with the sound of their voices echoing in my ears. ‘Herbert, you’ll get your clothes dirty. Herbert, you’ve got to get ready for the show. Herbert, what if you fall and get a concussion?’”

Herbert mimicked the nagging voices of his parents very well, Patrick thought.

“Gosh how I despise them,” Herbert continued. “Can’t do this, can’t do that, can’t do anything! Can’t breathe!”

He was nearly shouting.

“That sucks,” said Patrick. “But it must be nice to have eleven televisions and seven video game consoles, and a golden retriever. And to have girls ask you to name their minks!”

Herbert sighed.

“I’ve named five minks in the last week. And two goats, and four cats, as well as a chinchilla.”

“A chinchilla? What’s a chinchilla?”

“It’s a really soft rodent. I prefer it to the mink, to tell the truth.”

“Well then, isn’t that something? To get so many gifts and so much respect? For Pete’s sake, where I come from, nobody gives me any respect. Just today I had a big soccer game, and my parents didn’t even show up! And my twin brothers ate all the rest of the Chorizo sausage, even though they know I love it.”

Herbert looked at Patrick with great intensity.

“All that you’re saying is true?”

“Yes,” Patrick nodded. “And I don’t get gifts all the time like you do. And I have to walk to school, even though other kids get a ride in the car. And last Christmas, we were supposed to go to Mexico, but then my dad got laid off so we could only afford to go to the mountains.”

“Laid off? What does laid off mean?” asked Herbert.

“That means to lose your job,” said Patrick, sighing.

“Did he find another job?”

“Yes, he’s working for the city now, but he says there still won’t be enough money for Mexico this year. There won’t even be enough money for the mountains, because the car’s transmission is shot and we need to buy a new one. I’m just going to have to stay at home, dad says, and entertain myself.”

“Entertain yourself?” said Herbert. “I try going off to entertain myself all the time, but my parents always send a search party after me. And I’m not allowed out of The Garden, ever. It’s not safe anywhere else, that’s what they say. Not for a future leader. But I don’t want to be a leader. I don’t want any of this.”

Patrick was rather amazed. Besides the arguing parents, it had seemed to him that Herbert’s life was pretty fancy. More than fancy, in fact. For Pete’s Sake, Herbert was the kind of kid who had it all. They had put on a laser show for him, for crying out loud! Mind you, being suspended high in the air over the heads of hundreds of staring faces – that had been kind of scary.

“I was going to say that you’re the kind of kid who has it all,” said Patrick. “But… Who knows?”

Herbert shook his head, seeming somewhat stunned.

“Me? Me? I’ve got no freedom, no fun, no time to myself, and above all, I’ve got no friends. I was just about to say that you are the kid who has it all.”

Just then, both boys heard the sound of distant voices, calling out. The voices shouted, “Herbert! Herbert!”

“Oh no,” said Herbert. “There we go. The search party.”

“You don’t want to go back?” asked Patrick.

“Not for all the televisions in the world,” replied Herbert. “I wish that house of yours was real, instead of a figment of your imagination.”

“It is real,” said Patrick. “It’s just disappeared. I have to look for it.”

“Let me help you,” said Herbert. “I want to escape. I’m sick of The Garden, my parents, and being the centre of attention all the time.”

“Maybe if we actually go inside the gooseberry, my house will show up,” Patrick suggested. “I don’t know how it worked, but that’s how I found this place.”
Herbert nodded.

“That’s worth a try,” he said.

“Are you sure you want to risk it?” asked Patrick. “What if you leave this world and never manage to make it back?”

Herbert looked at Patrick, then turned his head in the direction of the voices. Just a moment later, they both saw a small army of dwarves, led by a samurai on horseback, crossing the bridge over the pond.

Herbert returned his gaze to Patrick.

“What kind of responsibilities do you have in your world?” he asked.

“Responsibilities? Oh, I don’t know. Homework. Taking out the garbage on Wednesdays. Soccer practice, although I suppose that doesn’t count, because I signed up for that.” Patrick scratched his head. “I think that’s it.”

Herbert heaved a deep sigh. He gave Patrick a melancholy smile.

“Let’s get going,” he said.

Before anyone could spot them, the boys dived into the gooseberry bush. Patrick led the way. He smashed through the branches. Finally he caught a glimpse of his own back yard. Wouldn’t you know it, the twins were running around, with ice cream or something smeared on their little faces. The monsters. And what was that? For Pete’s sake! They were playing catch with a Chorizo sausage.

Before they hurtled through to the other side of the gooseberry bush and into view of the twins, Patrick gave his new friend a warning.

“Those twins, they won’t give you any respect.”

“That’s OK,” Herbert laughed. “I don’t want any!”

X and Y

A woman of thirty-some years is walking into a music store for the first time in a decade. She is wearing high heels. She is on an hour lunch break. Why did she not come in here before? Reluctantly, she admits to herself the reason why. It was because of the punk music that crashes out of the doors and breaks onto the street like the driven spray of a storm tide. And also because of the lunch-hour worker himself – with his moth-eaten hair, the safety pins in his ear and the sullen glare. In the past few days, she has hovered in the doorway several times, considering entering, and while her heart beats erratically she disguises her intentions by pretending to study the gig posters that wallpaper the entrance. But every time she catches the look of the employee, her heart takes a gravity-defying lurch upwards and she backs away.

How ridiculous to be so anxious. How absurd. She – a woman of thirty-some years of life experience, a professional job, eight years of schooling in the United States to become an optometrist, an ex-husband, a new condo downtown, a trip to Egypt – Egypt! She has castigated herself so many times for being afraid. The employee is no more than a bum. But no, don’t call him a bum. That’s unfair. That’s demeaning. Oh, what an absurd situation to be worrying about what to call him and how to relate to him. Why is the effect of him and his music so daunting to her? Let’s not forget that she has been to Egypt, and specifically, to Luxor, where scores of tourists were massacred by terrorists not so long ago, and she went there alone, (it was right after the divorce, in her liberation phase) and not even that situation troubled her as much as this…

But today, on the pavement outside the store, she realized that for once, the sonic squall was not assaulting her ears. Instead, it was the soothing tone of a song called “The Speed of Sound.” She has often heard this song on the radio during her drive across the river to and from work. She adores this song. She dared to almost mouth the words of the chorus, and when she glanced inside she saw that behind the counter was a girl, not the punk.

She has stolen inside with a guilty thrill. She is going to find whatever album it is that her beloved song is on and she is going to buy it. And the punk will be none the wiser. This will be her first album in a decade. She remembers the last album she bought, it was Ten by Pearl Jam. Her tastes were rawer in those days. She used to drive a beat-up Ford Fiesta, practically the same size and value as a large can of beans, but then her boyfriend at the time insisted that she needed a stereo system – it was driving him crazy driving with her with only a shitty radio to listen to – and so, because he was a handy sort, he installed a CD player and speakers, and from then on, Pearl Jam or whatever late-metal band her boyfriend was into at the time was booming away in that car’s tiny frame – and its value immediately tripled...

She is a little distracted by a row of CDs on the wall featuring a woman’s naked back on the cover, and graffiti scrawled onto her skin. She’s not too keen on that. She isn’t sure what it means. Why would a young woman with evidently good skin and a good body allow someone to scrawl in ugly ink all over her back? She turns away. There’s no need to get distracted here… She has a specific goal in mind. Find that album and buy it. She can listen to it on the drive home after work.

What is the band called again? She wanders up an aisle, she is among the acts with F names and then G names – Franz Ferdinand, he sounds German or something, and later on, Gorillaz – on some level it bothers her that misspelling words has become so accepted, and now onto the H names and the I names (of which there are few) and then the more fertile territory of the J names… Look here, Janis Joplin. She respects Janis Joplin – what an orgasmic intensity that woman has – or rather had – alas, she was another of the sixties greats that burned bright but was extinguished too soon. Now suddenly and unexpectedly she is thinking of orgasms. Her hand hovers over the row of Joplin albums and now, not knowing why, she withdraws it. Orgasms. This is not the time to be thinking of orgasms. After a few glasses of wine with dinner and in the tub afterwards with candles – that’s the time – if the remembrance of things past does not make her melancholy instead – but here and now? This is not the time to think of orgasms. Buying a Joplin album won’t help. Where is her beloved “Speed of Sound” going to be?

If only she could remember the band’s name. It is on the tip of her tongue. If she saw the name she would undoubtedly recognize it. She takes a trip down the next aisle, through Killers to Queensryche. She has a feeling that she has meandered well away from where she is supposed to be… Her beloved song was written by a band with an initial letter much closer to the beginning of the alphabet. She knows it. She makes a deep arc around the aisles and over to the far wall where the alphabet begins.

She is running her hands along the front of the CD cases, ABBA to the Beatles, feeling increasingly at ease and almost comfortable, when she hears a loud, masculine cough. It comes from the doorway. She turns to look. Oh Good Lord. It’s the punk. He has spotted her right away. They exchange a glare and then her eyes dart back to the CDs.

“Thanks for staying later,” she hears the punk say.

“No problem,” says the girl.

“You aren’t listening to Coldplay are you?”

That is the name of her band. Coldplay. And here is Coldplay right in front of her – how synchronous. She picks up an album but shields her finding from the punk by turning her back to him. She looks over the song titles on the CD’s back. There it is. “The Speed of Sound.” This is the album. Meanwhile, she can’t help but overhear the conversation at the counter.

“How many times have I warned you about this?”

“Oh, Rich – just one guilty pleasure.”

“No. No. This is the beginning of the end. Next you’ll be listening to Hootie and the Blowfish and paying eighty bucks to see the Eagles in concert.”

Laughter.

“Rich, you know I won’t.”

“No I don’t… Well I’m switching it. You’re leaving anyway.”

“You are a music snob.”

“No I’m not. I’m just looking out for your best interests. You don’t want to get soft.”

“Snob.”

“Sellout.”

She dares to take a fleeting glance at the arguing duo. Sure enough, the girl is moving out from behind the counter and walking towards the exit. She is obviously on her way out. Within seconds there will be only the punk remaining.

Trapped. Good God. She’s trapped with her Coldplay album in her hand and the punk between her and the street. What can she do? She could simply return the album to the shelf, meander a bit to seem like nothing suspicious is going on, then casually float outside… She’ll buy the album from a different store. Easy enough. She now knows the band’s name… She could buy it at Future Shop on her way up 109 Street. It might even be cheaper there.

“See you, Rich!”

“See you, sellout… I mean, Stella.”

“Shut up.”

These are the last salvos exchanged before the population of the store is reduced to two. Her and the punk. And now, abruptly, the Coldplay has been silenced. There are a few moments of blessed silence. And now – she could’ve guessed it – a vicious, stabbing bass is kicking in, and seconds later, an excoriating slice of guitar static. Maybe because the punk pities her, the music is not quite so loud as usual. She can still hear herself think. Her thoughts have accelerated to a tempo surpassed only by the music. What do I do? Buy it here, buy it elsewhere? Never buy it? Give up on music? Listen only to the radio? Buy something else instead? March up there with – what’s this band – Dead Kennedys – that sounds pretty radical – lay it on the counter and defy that punk to pigeonhole me?

But the thought of spending good money on an album that bears a picture of a man’s face wrapped up in barbed wire seems utterly stupid. She doesn’t want the Dead Kennedys, whoever the hell they are. She wants Coldplay. And she is a consumer, free to make whatever choices she wants. She squeezes her CD even tighter in her palm – her now sweaty palm – and she walks purposefully to the front.

“I’m going to buy this,” she announces.

With a weary air, the punk picks himself up from his stool, looks at the CD and then peers up at her. To her surprise, rather than glaring and then proceeding to conduct this transaction with a taciturn and reluctant attitude, he smiles at her. It dramatically alters his face. His cheeks have more fat on them than she had expected. There are even very faint dimples on them.

“Coldplay, eh?” he says.

She nods her head. She doesn’t have a clue what to say to this. She meets his glance for a moment and then averts her gaze beyond, to the street.

“Very popular this CD,” he continues. “Very popular.”

“I heard them on the radio,” she says. She is starting to hold out hope that by being pleasant and talkative – rather than disdaining him as she would a drunk on the street – this might not turn out to be such an excruciating encounter after all.

He sighs.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m not sure if I can allow you to buy this.”

He sits back down on his stool. He is still smiling.

She is confused. Clearly, he is playing a little joke on her, but how exactly should she respond? He no longer seems threatening to her – seeing now from close up that he actually has fragile green eyes and something of a weak chin – this has fully dulled her fears. But she is still left with a sense of floundering… of being entirely out of her comfort zone.

She will play along with the joke.

“I’m not sure I can allow you, uh, to not allow me to buy it.”

She feels quite proud of this line after hearing its echo in her own head. That was witty. It wasn’t very slickly delivered, but it was clever.

“No, seriously,” says the punk, his smile fading, and feigning a businesslike air. “I don’t feel I would be doing my job. This album is not going to hold up. You’re going to listen to it twenty times – and even then it will barely be much more than background music – and then you’re going to find it boring… incredibly boring, even though you won’t want to admit it to yourself. This album is like a cheap Korean car. It’s all polished and neat on the showroom floor but it won’t go the distance. And I feel it’s my job to advise you against it. You want an album that may, admittedly, take a bigger investment of patience and concentration in the short term, but will pay much bigger dividends in the long term.”

It surprises her to hear him speaking this way. Then she inwardly rebukes herself for being surprised. What did she expect? Grunts? Clicks and warbles? He might even be a university student – you just don’t know.

She’s aware that her awkwardness is making her blush.

“I’m not a kid anymore,” she says. “My tastes have changed.”

She is saying this apologetically, but immediately hates herself for it. What a terrible, lame excuse. What is she trying to say? Age is no excuse for anything, but here she is, talking the way she would have hated to hear adults talk when she was young.

“Your tastes have changed,” the punk echoes. “I don’t understand.”

He is looking at her intently, defiantly. This is simply beyond belief. Why should she have to explain her choice of music?

“Can I please just buy this and move on?”

She tries to adopt something of an irritated tone – a tone that says, I’m in a rush, I can’t be bothered, let’s hurry it up.

“Well sure,” says the punk, sighing again and getting to his feet. “I suppose. I suppose you can buy this and move on, and turn your back on approximately fifty albums better than this one that came out this year alone. You can do that.”

He runs the scanner over the album and his till emits a beep.

How dare he? How dare he make her feel guilty about buying something she wants?

“Where is your manager?” she says. This sentence spills out of her before she was even aware of its existence in her head.

The punks ceases his casual, nonchalant motions at the till.

“My manager?”

She loathes herself in this moment – simply despises herself. What the hell is she doing? She has never been the type to request a manager. Good God, she worked many years in retail herself while she was a student – she knows how it is. Only jerks ask to talk to the manager.

She struggles to contain her potentially uneven tone.

“I just want to buy the album and be spared the lecture,” she says. “If that’s not possible, I would like to talk to the manager.”

The punk nods his head. She has evidently unnerved him.

“It is possible,” he says. “I’m sorry. I was only joking around. I’m sorry. I do that sometimes, I—”

“I simply want to buy something I like and move on.”

She can feel herself getting worked up. This isn’t good. She knows her tendency to reach the verge, beyond which she goes into freefall – powerless to stop her descent into blind emotional outbursts.

“I understand, ma’am. I’m sorry. I just…” His eyes are pleading with hers. “Music is important to me and I… I get carried away. I get irked when people turn a blind eye to the good stuff.”

He is dropping the album hurriedly into a bag. The till is coughing up a receipt.

“Good stuff? Good stuff like this… this noise?”

He stops.

“This? Ma’am, this is the Clash.”

She is about to say, yes, that’s exactly what it sounds like, but stops herself. Oh when did she become so old? It’s not her fault. You don’t see it coming when you’re this punk’s age. Her complaint with him has nothing to do with music. It’s about his sheer insensitivity. Look, all she wants is to listen to that song whenever she wants, wherever she wants, and let it sooth her after a hard day’s work. That is all. God knows she’s earned it. She longs to have the music fill her car like water into a gently rippling pond, and feel it wash over her while she steers herself past the glass towers reflecting the light of the setting sun… She longs to feel the tension in her chest slowly deflate… She will maybe even set her CD player by the bathtub and let it play while she immerses herself in oils and lotions… She deserves all this. She has lived, and this punk has not.

“You can have your Clash, and I’ll keep my Coldplay. I don’t need the lecture.”

“I understand, ma’am.”

He is handing her the bag. He is afraid of her. She despises the way he has started to call her “ma’am.” This is what you call a sexless lady. This is what you call someone for whom you have nothing but commercial interest.

“I don’t think you do understand,” she insists, almost ripping the bag out of his hand. “I come in here, looking to spend a little money, and wanting a little bit of music to make me happy, and you treat me like this? You don’t know me. You don’t have a clue what I’ve been through. I had a husband and lost him – lost him to someone your age. It didn’t matter how hard I fought for him or how faithful I was, I still lost him. And now I’m thirty-five. I work six days a week. I have financial commitments up to my eyeballs. My stupid husband was a dreamer – he wanted to write for a living – and he barely had any money, ever – and I’m left trying to sell our house and our car, meanwhile, he disappeared the second our divorce was done, taking this little nymph with him to Latin America – God knows what they’re doing – and he has no sense of responsibility, or accountability – it’s all in the moment with him…. He gets what he needs with snake-oil charm. It’s all the intensity of wine and words and music – yes, music, too – that’s part of his reason for being… And you just can’t live like that. You hurt people like that. When you don’t account for your actions and you care only for the pleasures of sex and art and whatever—”

She is forced to a halt by a constricting of her throat. If she keeps on this path she is going to be in tears. She has said far too much. The punk is looking at her with an attempt at empathy but he is probably appalled and embarrassed – much as she is. How on earth did she let herself go off like this?

She forces out the words, “Thank you, anyway.”

She turns and half-runs out of the door. She is aware of the punk’s eyes following her the entire distance. It is time to get some lunch but she doesn’t want lunch... She glances at her watch. Her next client is in twenty minutes. She can hardly bare to face him. The client is forty and evidently affluent and has a deep tan from a recent vacation in the Cayman Islands. She isn’t at all interested in him, but the client has such self-confidence that he appears to have assumed she is interested, and he knows she is no longer married – he noticed between one appointment and the next that her rings had disappeared – and she is terrified that in the close quarters of the examination room, her loneliness is an odour that is tangible, and whenever he sniffs, which is often – it’s a tic of his – she feels her heart jump, as if someone tugged at the veins and arteries that moor it. She feels that it is almost impossible to face him in her current state. How did she so quickly become undone? She is going to have to walk around the block a few times, take a few deep breaths, calm herself down, restore her sense of purpose.

What an afternoon… what a tension-filled, awkward, agonizing afternoon. But she gets through it. She gets though it. Afterwards, she hurries to her car, eagerly anticipating listening to her new album. She backs out of the lot and onto Whyte Avenue, rolling along smoothly in her Nissan Maxima. She turns up the volume and the music bursts into life.

Something is wrong. She is not enjoying it as much as she ought. The singer sounds weak and unsure of himself. And where is her beloved song? The Speed of Sound? She tries to give the initial tracks a chance, but after the first minute of each, skips impatiently to the next one. Finally, at track seven, the Speed of Sound comes on. Bell-like tones descending, the drums kicking in, the voice again singing to her that familiar refrain. But it doesn’t sound the same. She increases the volume. There is a swell of melody, but unlike before, the swell is not matched in her chest… She feels nothing. How can this be? The song sounds bizarrely hollow.

She stops at the traffic lights. The song has hit the chorus – the moment that she should enjoy the most – but now enjoys the least. The anticipation has ruined it. What is wrong? What is wrong with me, she asks herself. She bows her head, not wanting anyone to possibly see her distress – the traffic is heavy and she’s surrounded. She looks down and there are her thighs pressed against the seat – thicker than they have ever been. Oh God… What am I going to become?

An angry honk from the car behind her jolts her attention back to the road. She drives the rest of the way home in silence.