Rockets Versus Gravity (8 page)

From inside his cramped, putty-grey office cubicle, James Yeo is cold-calling a potential new client.

“No, Sheila — may I call you Sheila? — this isn't a joke,” he says, repeating the target's name over and over again to create a false sense of intimacy, as he has been trained to do. “Yes, Sheila, the name of our brokerage really is Riskey and Gamble Insurance.”

The company, of course, is named after James's father-in-law, Harrison Riskey, and Baldric Gamble, Riskey's best friend since their business school fraternity days. Among the expense-account raconteurs at their old boys' club, they are known as Harry and Baldy, and much fun is made of the fact that Baldy sports a thick mane of silver-grey hair, while Harry's dome is as smooth and polished as an infant's baby-oiled bottom. As a pair, their “street names” remind James of the kinda gangsta boyz who'd mess ya up real bad fer missin' a payment, but their five-thousand-dollar suits, hundred-thousand-dollar cars, and multi-million dollar homes put them in the exclusive category of privileged men who can afford to have others throw the punches for them.

“I assure you, Sheila,” James continues, reading from the script on the computer screen, “signing on with Riskey and Gamble is neither risky nor a gamble. However, insuring with our competition could be either, or both. Our company slogan is, and always has been, ‘Riskey and Gamble: Safe and Sound.' ”

The slogan reminds James of Big Brother's Doublespeak in George Orwell's
1984
:
“War Is Peace,” “Freedom Is Slavery,” “Ignorance Is Strength,” “Risky Is Safe,” “A Gamble Is Sound.”
He has never shared this observation with Harry or Baldy, though.

Once, when James joked that the cold calls would be a lot easier if they had just named the company Safe and Sound Insurance in the first place, Harry Riskey raged that “Real men put their real names on their accomplishments! That's what real men do, Jimmy! Real men don't hide behind fake names!”

Harry and Baldy roared with laughter, knowing that James used to play guitar and sing his original songs in pubs under the stage name James Why. (Incidentally, since coming to work at Riskey and Gamble, James has not performed live once. He has not written a single new song. He hardly even sings in the shower anymore.)

Harry and Baldy speed-walk through the office, neither interacting with any of their inferiors. Both men would rather be out on a members-only golf course or at the club drinking premium Scotch with other men in five-thousand-dollar suits. When they actually show up at their twenty-seventh-floor business, they prefer the sunlit, polished-wood panelling of their adjacent corner offices to the fluorescent glare and putty-grey of their minions' cubicles. Also, Harry and Baldy's offices have well-stocked mini-bars, while the proles make do with a coin-operated coffee machine (currently out of order).

As Harry Riskey passes James's cubicle, he grunts, “Gawd-dammit, Jimmy, I'm not paying you to daydream.”

James hates it when Harry calls him “Jimmy.” It makes him feel like some subservient pup, nipping hopefully at the Big Boss's heels (which is exactly how Harry Riskey
wants
his son-in-law to feel). It is never wise to correct Harry, though, so James once again allows himself to be called “Jimmy.”

“Well, actually,” James says, “I just got off a call with a client who agreed to —”

“Then get on
another
call!” Riskey barks. “Selling insurance policies pays the bills around here, and your salary is one of the bills. So sell some more gawd-damned insurance policies, Jimmy!”

James assumes that Harry's aggression is just alpha-male posturing meant to impress Baldy, but he still finds the bile difficult to swallow. Thanks to his friend Ranjeev in Accounting, James knows that he is the top salesperson in his division, yet he takes home the lowest salary. But he also knows better than to complain. Riskey and Gamble Insurance has a closed compensation system, meaning that nobody is allowed to know how much money anyone else makes. The theory is that removing wage competition between employees creates a more “trusting” work environment. This “trust” is well enforced, contractually:
Any employee of Riskey and Gamble can and will be terminated without severance for revealing their financial compensation to another employee.

“Well, don't just sit there with your mouth open, Jimmy,” Harry huffs over his shoulder as he struts away from James's cubicle, “get on another
call, for Chrissakes! Winners win, and losers lose. You have to decide which one you're going to be, and be it. Have you even started reading the Book yet?”

Of course, “the Book” that Harry is referring to is:

YOU DESERVE BETTER!

YOU DESERVE MORE!

Rule the Boardroom! Rule the Bedroom! Rule the World!

Harry was overjoyed when he discovered that there was already a copy in James and Sidney's house; he and Baldy both have signed copies displayed prominently atop the desks in their respective corner offices.

James ignores the question about the Book, and says, “Actually, Harry, I'm just wrapping up my cold-calling docket, so I can —”

Harry stops in his tracks, and, without turning around, says, “Don't call me Harry when we're in the office, Jimmy.”

“Um, sorry, Mr. Riskey,” James rephrases, “but what I was trying to say earlier was that I'm wrapping up my calls for the day because I've got the afternoon off. I cleared it with Sanchez last week. If I don't leave right now, I'll be late for my appointment.”

“You can reschedule your manicure for the weekend, Jimmy,” Harry says.

From inside his office, Baldy guffaws and then breaks into one of his frequent coughing fits. His daily lunchtime cigar-and-cognac habit isn't doing his aging body any favours.

“Well, actually, Mr. Riskey,” James says, “it's a
medical
appointment. Um, you know, a
follow-up
medical appointment.”

Harry Riskey spins around, strides back over to James's cubicle. He towers over his son-in-law, raising his chin so that the point on his impeccably trimmed beard is aimed right between James's eyes, like an ancient king staring down an inept serf. Twice a week, Harry pays more than James earns in a day to have his grey facial hair groomed like the putting greens at his members-only club.

“Jimmy,” he says in a stage whisper, “is this about your sperm count?”

“Um, possibly, sir,” James says. “They, uh, wouldn't say over the phone.”

“Well, for Chrissakes,” Harry says, his eyes wide, “get yourself out of here! Go! Now!”

In the past two years, Harry Riskey has had three at-fault car accidents, two massive heart attacks, and one rectal polyp removal, all of which have caused him to suspect that he might not live forever. More than anything else in the world, Harry wants a rightful heir to his fortune and legacy, a young man whom he can sculpt after his own great likeness. And it has to be a young
man
; Harrison Riskey is a true believer in Patriarchal Lineage. His only legitimate offspring, Sidney, was supposed to be his heir apparent, but of course his wife got one of the chromosomes wrong, and Sidney came out female. So, at Harry's age, a grandson is really his only hope, and hence Harry's great interest in the well-being of James's sperm.

“I'll call my driver to take you to your appointment,” Harry says.

“Okay,” James says. “Thanks, Mr. Riskey.”

“You can call me Harry when we're talking family business, Jimmy. The limo driver will be waiting in the foyer.”

“Thanks, um, Harry,” James says.

James and his sperm have never been invited to ride in the Riskey and Gamble company car before. There is a rare bounce in his step as he zigs and zags around the other putty-grey cubicles to escape for the day.

Just as the elevator doors slide open, Harry Riskey calls out to James, “Take your laptop with you. You can work on policy forms and answer client emails from the doctor's waiting room. This isn't a vacation, Jimmy.”

James slinks back to his desk to pick up his company-issued laptop, which is embossed with the words
Property of Riskey and Gamble
.

G
ame Seven, Round Two of the playoffs. Just five bucks a seat to see the Leafs play the Devils on the Sony Jumbotron at the Air Canada Centre. Come one, come all!

Having paid just one-fiftieth the price of a regular-season live game ticket, the
blue-and
-white masses converge on The Hangar, from Oshawa, from Pickering, from Mississauga, from Scarborough, from Hamilton, from London, and from between and beyond. For many, it's the first time they've entered the temple; the season tickets are mostly owned by Bay Street business types, who don't even return to their seats from the bar until the middle of the second period.

But these are the Faithful, these are the True Fans. Oh, hear the pre-game thunder! Six thousand voices, voices usually confined to suburban basement rec rooms; the roar reaches out into the streets.

O
utside the arena, a man with bone-thin arms and rawhide leather skin is shaking his dreadlocks and a makeshift Stanley Cup, which he has made from a dented public washroom garbage can and a tomato-juice tin crowned with a margarine container.

The man smells of stale sweat and dust and urine, and he is clothed in dirt-scrubbed robes, like a battle-worn Jesus (or maybe it's Mohammed, or perhaps these sheets were all he could scavenge to cover himself).

He shakes the coin-filled trophy replica —
schlink-schlink
-schlink.
A flake of dried spittle flies from his scabbed lower lip as he rhymes:

The Blue and White will win tonight.

and everything will be all right.

Our Leafs will win for me and you!

In Jersey, all will cry “
boo-hoo
!”

Most of the
hockey-sweater
-wearing faithful step around him, as if he is a fire hydrant or some other sidewalk obstacle.

A small child waving a “Go Leafs Go!” banner ambles toward the dusty man, burbling and smiling, but her mother tugs her in the opposite direction, scolding, “No, Amberlindzy! Dirty! No!” As they rush toward the safe haven of the arena, the mysophobic mommy frantically digs inside her purse for a bottle of Safety First!™ antibacterial hand sanitizer (with Aloe Vera).

The Plastic Cup Prophet spots two likely marks: a man and a teen. The man is tall and wears a windbreaker with a crest on the chest that reads
FAIREVILLE MEMORIAL ARENA
; the words
ARENA MANAGER
are embossed on one sleeve,
AARON
on the other. Arena Manager Aaron is pushing a kid in a wheelchair, who is wearing a Faireville Blue Flames hockey jersey with a ceremonial team captain's
C
stitched onto the front and
WHEELIE
embossed on the back.
Out-of
-towners, for sure, so the Prophet continues, undaunted:

Listen, Arena Manager Aaron! Listen, Captain Wheelie!

The Blue and White like clouds and sky!

You have got to dig this fact.

The Maple Leafs are the children of the trees,

the trees which make the air we breathe.

Air and sky keep us alive, my friends!

All hail the Blue and White!

For his effort, and perhaps for a bit of good karma, Arena Manager Aaron tosses two loonies into the surrogate Stanley Cup, and Captain Wheelie ups the ante with a crumpled five-dollar bill. The Prophet's cup overfloweth, and he holds it overhead, skating circles on holey sneakers around the concrete sidewalk rink.

Then, like a preacher man who's seen the light or the Lord, he lowers the surrogate cup inches from the contributor's face, taps a bony finger on the blue gas-flame crest of Wheelie's bush-league hockey sweater, and chants:

How did they manage to come this far

after barely making the playoffs?

Divine intervention, my man!

God wants the Maple Leafs to win,

to beat those devils, those Jersey Devils.

The Lord is in the Leafs tonight.

They beat the Senators in four straight.

Do you know why?

“Hey!” Arena Manager Aaron protests. “Don't you diss my Senators!” But the Plastic Cup Prophet doesn't miss a beat:

'Cause senators are politicians!

The goodness of nature will triumph

over the artifice of politics!

The Senators wear red and so do the Devils.

The Senators fell, and so will those Devils.

Those Devils from Hell.

“I know it's the playoffs and all,” another grinning, adrenalin-charged fan says, “but do you really think God is gonna get involved in a hockey game, dude?”

The Plastic Cup Prophet stretches one Reaper-like finger toward the blue maple leaf crest on the fanboy's Officially NHL-Licensed Toronto Maple Leafs Home Game Jersey, and like any clean-shaven, cologne-wearing, north Toronto McMansion dweller would do, he instinctively takes a step backward.

A carload of teens sail by in someone's daddy's BMW convertible, their faces painted blue and white, their “Go Leafs Go!” banner held aloft; they cheer, “WHOOOOOOOOOO!”

The Prophet flashes a yellowed, gap-toothed grin and says:

They cheer, my man, they cheer,

because they feel the power of the Lord

through the Maple Leafs!

And so shall you cheer as well.

So how 'bout some change, my man?

Mr. North Toronto waves his open palm and reflected streetlight from the man's silver ring glints in the Prophet's eye, so he says:

No change to go ching?

Hey, I'll take that ring!

That ring is the man's lucky charm, though. Whenever he wears it, good things happen. The Leafs are going to win tonight. He's bet good money on it, at
ten-to
-one odds. Mr. North Toronto retreats, leaving a wake of cologne floating in the air.

The Prophet will not chase after a retreating mark, so jangling the change in his makeshift Stanley Cup —
schlink-schlink
-schlink
—
he heads toward another knot of approaching pilgrims, chanting:

The Blue and White will win tonight,

and everything will be all right.

Our Leafs will win for me and you!

In Jersey, all will cry “boo hoo!”

N
ow it is three hours later. The third period has ended. The game is over.

Six thousand faithful shake their hanging heads. Six thousand pairs of lungs exhale long, anticlimactic sighs. Six thousand pairs of feet shuffle from the temple.

The story, as told through the vessel of the Sony Jumbotron:

The Leafs scored first in New Jersey, but the Devils answered with five goals.
Five freakin' goals!

And so,
the Toronto Maple Leafs' improbable playoff run has ended. Across Toronto, across Ontario, and even in places beyond this realm, thousands of
blue-and
-white jerseys will be folded up and put away for the summer.

There's always next year. Faith is Faith.

N
ot too far from the old Maple Leaf Gardens, inside a grimy little diner on Dundas Street, an ancient
black-and
-white television hangs from above the breakfast bar, broadcasting the closing commentary on
Hockey Night in Canada
, the only program that the diner shows with the volume turned up.

The Plastic Cup Prophet sits at a table in the back corner; the management won't allow him a table in front by the window. Bad for business, they say.

He wipes clean his second bowl of chili with a dinner roll and then drains another cup of thick black coffee. He sighs and rasps through the gaps in his teeth:

Best damn meal I've had in a month.

All hail those Leafs. All hail those Devils.