Authors: Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall
Ghosted (36 page)
“Who do you know owned a motorcycle?”
Mason felt faint. “You’re kidding me,” he said.
“That’s right, young Jedi, he was my father.”
Mason put the phone down.
“Jesus,”
he said. He stood up, then picked up the phone again. “You told the doctor, but you never told me! All those fucking years!”
Chaz just smiled.
“He told you not to, didn’t he.” He sat back down. “That goddamn bastard!”
“He said it was more important that
I
knew.” A guard appeared behind him.
“Knew what, exactly?”
“What a good guy you’d be.”
Mason said nothing.
“Tenner was a complex dude,” said Chaz.
“And kind of crazy.”
They nodded at each other, and then they said goodbye.
Mason was a half-block from his door when an old blue Nova pulled up alongside him. The passenger window rolled down. “Hop in,” said Detective Sergeant Flores.
“I’m almost home.”
“You’re always almost home.”
“You don’t understand,” said Mason, leaning towards the window. “I got a guest staying with me….”
“Well, can’t she take care of herself?”
“That’s the thing,” said Mason. “She’s hemiplegic. Do you know what that is? It’s crazy, actually—half your body’s paralyzed, half of it’s got no feeling, but—”
“But they’re two different halves. Get the fuck in.”
Mason did and they pulled away from the curb.
Flores took a right on College. They drove past the university. A few more blocks and then he spoke. “I was contacted by someone,” he said. “She told me you’d kidnapped a hemiplegic girl. She described it pretty much the same way you did.”
“Oh,” said Mason. “Well, there you go.”
Flores turned to look at him. “You didn’t, did you?”
“What, kidnap a hemiplegic girl?”
“Yeah.”
“No. Not at all. I mean she’s staying with me but …”
“Yeah. That’s what I figured. The woman who made the complaint—she’s known to us, if you know what I mean….”
Mason nodded.
“And then there’s you….”
Mason said nothing. They crossed over Bay Street.
“Me and you,” said Flores. “We’ve had our share of run-ins.”
“I guess that’s life.”
Flores glanced at him. “I guess,” he said. “But in this job, certain people just tend to pop up—you know what I mean?”
“Sure,” said Mason. “Like in any job. I guess.”
“Perhaps,” said Flores, then took a right on Yonge. “I guess you heard about your hotdog stand—the Dogfather Cart or whatever you call it.”
“The Dogmobile,” said Mason.
“Yeah. It was full of drugs and money. Strange, don’t you think?”
Mason tried the window, but it wouldn’t slide down.
“Same guy who owns it, he ran that booze can next to you. I’m guessing you might know him.”
They were heading back along Dundas. As they passed the Art Gallery of Ontario, Mason thought,
I’ve never even been in there
.
“Sure,” said Mason. “I visited him in jail today.”
Flores kept on driving. At Spadina again, he took a right. Another block and he pulled to the curb. “You call me, Mason,” he said. “If there’s something you want to tell me.” He held out a card and Mason took it.
“Like what?” he said, and pictured a big white horse, standing beside a gas station.
“I couldn’t even imagine,” said Flores.
Mason got out, and the Nova pulled away.
He walked quickly up the street. He’d left for the Don at noon and now it was early evening. He hated Willy being alone so long.
He went into the building, up the stairs, but when he reached the top it was gone—that feeling of someone there, waiting for you to come home.
He opened the door and stepped inside.
T
HE
B
OOK OF
S
OBRIETY
Where the hell are you? I’m going crazy here. I’ve been out looking for you all day. And now I’m back here alone.
My body’s screaming to get hammered, my brain’s swearing at me to get high—but then I’ll be smashed in some alley and you’ll still be God knows where, alone.
I started out in Regent Park, in Bethany’s old place—broke down the door and there was nothing but a yoga mat, three coffee cups and a lamp with no cord. I went to the women’s shelters, but they won’t tell you anything if you’re a guy. “That bitch is worse than any guy,” I told them (referring to Bethany, not to you). Still they stayed firm.
I went to the men’s shelters—Seaton House, Jarvis, the Good Shepherd—to talk to the guys, get some info. A pretty young captive in a wheelchair should be noticeable. But nothing. I even went to Sherbourne and talked to the Thursday doctor, but she couldn’t help me and I could see what she was thinking—the same as Sergeant fucking Flowers: “Impressive, Mason. It takes a certain kind of guy to lose his paralyzed girlfriend.” He’s a fucking riot.
Where the hell are you?
I went into strip joints and dollar-beer bars, even visited the safe injection site. It’s amazing how many people I know—from the streets, from the Cave. But no one has seen you. I even went
to the shantytown down by the docks. They tried to help me out. A little dwarfy guy took me across the tracks to the old rail house, where there was a girl—not you—in a beat-up wheelchair. I gave him ten bucks anyway.
Dr. Francis finally picked up after the one-hundredth ring—all pissy because it was so late and I’d been calling her so much. In the end she was kind. She made me promise to stay sober until we find you. I’m going to see her tomorrow morning. What the fuck am I supposed to do till then?
“Write,” she said.
Are you fucking serious?
“But do it sober.”
I don’t feel like writing.
“Come on, we practised for just such an emergency. You can do it, Mason. Write something for Willy.”
So that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to write something for you, Willy.
But it’s like everything’s competing now: a thousand moments banging at the edge of my brain, like they all want to be thought, remembered, written—like this is their one chance to live again. But because they’re all trying at the same time, nothing makes it all the way through—just weird glimpses: my father shaking beneath a tinfoil blanket (he’s just run his first marathon); the spiky shadow of a cactus; my mother taking her glasses off and smiling; a blue dress; sunshine; a scene from the movie Gandhi; a red barn; wind in the trees, horses … I’ve never told you about the good things. I did such a job of forgetting them—and now they’re only fragments, here to bug my brain. I hope that you’re okay.
Every month I send my mother an email:
“I love you. I’m okay.”
Every month for five years: I type those words and I feel sick.
Because I more than love her, and I never am okay.
I thought I was okay last week. But now look at me. I just want to get drunk. I just want to get high. I just wish you were here. I need to talk to someone. I need to talk to you—about everything. Writing doesn’t do it. Or, rather, I can’t write. I miss you. I’m worried that you weren’t taken away. I’m worried that you left me. I feel hollowed out. Empty. Scared. Ghosted.
I more than love you, Willy. And I am never okay.
“You made it through the night.”
“Sort of,” said Mason, and paced across her office. “Fucking Bethany. She took the methadone, too. I found this.” He pulled a pink scrunchy out of his pocket. “It was on the floor by the fridge.
“What are you worried about?” said Dr. Francis. Mason glared at her. “I mean
precisely
. What are your precise worries?”
Mason sat down, but his knee kept going. “That she’s hurt,” he said. Dr. Francis said nothing. “That she’s back on the stuff. That she’s scared. That she’ll think that I’m not looking for her. I don’t know … I’m worried about everything.”
The phone rang. Dr. Francis reached to answer it, and Mason got up again. He walked to the window, turned, then saw Dr. Francis’s face.
She pressed a button. A voice came out of the speaker.
“… never at home. I thought he might be there—not that I don’t want to talk to you, doc…. Are you there, Mason?”
Mason’s breath caught in his throat.
“Oh good. That sounded like a gasp. I’m glad I caught you then….”
“Where is she?” said Mason. His voice felt locked inside his head.
“No, Mason. No questions.”
Dr. Francis was tapping at her keyboard.
“In fact, I don’t even have any questions for you…. Earlier, yes—I wanted to
know
things: like where I might find my notebook, or how you managed to beat me, or how best I could make you suffer… little things like that …”
Dr. Francis spun the laptop, so Mason could see the screen.
“Funny thing is, the more time I’ve spent on it—on
her
I should say—I began to realize something…”
The red dot was flashing, but not at Bay and Bloor.
“The satisfaction is never in the answer—it’s always in the asking.”
It was here at Spadina and College.
“And with that in mind, I do have one question for you, Mason….”
Mason spun around, as if Seth might be there—right there in that very room.
“How does it feel? To know I spent last night with your gimpy girlfriend—and that she’s never screamed so much….”
“Where the
fuck
is she!” Mason rushed at the phone. And then he saw the number.
“No!”
shouted Seth.
“You do
not
get to ask any questions…. For one: you didn’t sink a ball. For two: you cheated. And three: well, I’ve got someone else to play with now.”
Mason moved towards the window.
“That’s
boom, boom …”
He looked out, across the street.
“And fucking
BOOM!”
The window of his apartment blew out.
Mason turned and ran. Through reception, into the hall. He pushed the elevators once, waited two seconds, then dashed into the stairwell. Down six floors. Through the main lobby, the sliding doors, the sidewalk, between parked cars, one lane, two lanes … As he hit the median, before the streetcar tracks, he saw it in the road: the strewn wreckage of his new coffee maker. Something snagged like a fishing line beneath his chin. His feet flew up. He was airborne, looking at the sky.
If he had to describe the last thing he saw, right before the streetcar hit:
It looked like an invisible kite
.
Who wants to go to Fire Lake?
Head out, out to Fire Lake.
Yeah, who’s going to do it?
(Repeat)
SAVING GRACE
Anyone else would be in hell.
It is dark—just enough light to see the blistered ceiling, ancient steaming pipes, hollow tanks like metal bulls, the flash of a long blade. The sound is both constant and fluctuating—miles away, then suddenly right on top of her, the sound of his breathing. She is used to this kind of dark echoing terror. Part of her has lived inside it almost as long as she remembers. And this noise—the screaming hum, fading in and out—it isn’t so different from the voice in her head. It’s as if her singular world has finally become manifest.
She is naked, on her back, strapped to a table. It is redundant, she thinks, to tie down the likes of her.
He has a sword with a dog-faced dragon on the blade. When it cuts into her she sees flashes of light—and part of her begins to long for the blade.
A flash
. She sees saliva drip from his mouth onto her skin as he leans into it, carving up her flesh. Her own scream is so loud that the rest of the darkness goes quiet.
She knows her screams excite him, and so she gives it her all. She opens her mouth and howls. She can taste and smell her own blood. It begins to pool beneath her.
The more he tears her apart, the more she is complete and strong, using everything she’s ever learned. It feels good to know she’s tricked this slobbering, joyful beast and he doesn’t even know it yet. She’s found a way to finally free herself, and hopefully save Mason, too. This thought makes her happiest, and she screams with all her might, because she loves Mason—more than anyone she’s ever known. More than anyone since her father.