The Answer to Everything (12 page)

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Imagine the light inside of you growing brighter and brighter and brighter.

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16 Nov

TheAnswer2Everything

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Inhale energy. Exhale pain. Inhale light. Exhale darkness.

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17 Nov

TheAnswer2Everything

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You are the only you. Do not conform. Confirm.

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18 Nov

TheAnswer2Everything

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Extremes excite. But tranquility and happiness reside in the centre of all things.

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18 Nov

TheAnswer2Everything

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In stillness there is peace. In peace, truth. In truth, freedom.

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19 Nov

TheAnswer2Everything

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You are loved. The heart of the universe beats for you.

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20 Nov

TheAnswer2Everything

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Father, Mother, Child, Wife, Husband, Friend, Teacher, Judge. The One you need is all this and more.

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21 Nov

TheAnswer2Everything

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Your True and Absolute Self is waiting to be born.

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22 Nov

TheAnswer2Everything

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Together we will wash away regret. Together we will vanquish pain.

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23 Nov

TheAnswer2Everything

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Tomorrow is new. Your pristine future starts now.

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25 Nov

Eldrich invited me to tag along when he went to visit Phil at home. It was November but strangely warm and humid—some kind of record high for that particular date in Toronto. On the way, Eldrich confided that Phil had recently been diagnosed with cancer. The docs didn’t know how bad it was; the surgery he’d had was an exploratory laparoscopic procedure to see what was what. I thought he looked unhealthy when I met him.

We took transit to his place, which was up around Lawrence and Leslie, a very chi-chi neighbourhood, with some of the most expensive and offensive homes in the city. We ogled our way past a vast display of energy-gobbling mega-mansions before finding Phil’s street and his surprisingly modest-looking home. After the watch and the Bentley, I was expecting something grandiose, something pillared, but 81 Elderbrook looked like it could exist in any middle-class, mid-century Toronto suburb. The front lawn was wide and deep, as was the driveway, which started straight, then arced slightly to the left into an ordinary two-car garage. The house was a bungalow and seemed on the small side for any neighbourhood but especially diminutive among the Bridle Path behemoths. It proved to be
an optical illusion, though. Once you entered the home, you got a sense of its true size. The foyer was expansive, with highly polished oak floors and a huge leaded-glass skylight. Basically, all you were seeing from the curb was this foyer, jutting forward from the main building and flanked by trees. Once inside, you could see how the building extended back and widened out. It was easily three thousand square feet of living space—small for the area, but still schmancy—and all hardwood and marble and thick Persian rugs.

Phil seemed happy to see me. “Handsome! Hello! Thank you for coming!” He was dressed oddly in bell-bottom lululemon yoga pants, a Tommy Bahama sweatshirt and a knitted cap and scarf. He led us into the kitchen, where we sat on bar stools at a large granite island while he unpacked a delivery he had recently received from a gourmet grocer. There were a dozen or so salads, each with an outlandish price sticker: $9.00 for a tiny tub of roasted beets, $11.65 for a sprinkling of couscous. There were exorbitant cheeses, high-end crackers and—I’ll never forget this—a slim box of organic popped corn that had been “hand-produced at exactly 479 degrees Fahrenheit.” OK. I ate the contents in three handfuls. We drank midget bottles of Limonata that had been über-chilled in a special beverage drawer built into the island. I downed three of them in short order, much to Phil’s amusement.

“I wish I had your appetite,” he said, moving some orzo around on his plate and sighing.

The plates all matched and so did the cutlery. My fork weighed half a pound. I think it was made of platinum. We used linen serviettes.

“I’ll clean up here,” said Eldrich. “Why don’t you relax?”

“Thanks,” said Phil. “I’m still a little woozy from my sleeping pills.” He moved to a massive leather sofa in the adjoining family room, covered himself with a throw blanket and patted the seat next to him. I trotted obediently to his side and sank into a sofa cushion. I asked for his story, and he gave it to me.

Phil, originally monikered Chen Xi Quan, was born and raised in Singapore. His family was still there and was one of the richest in the country. He said they were in the hotel business, but I later found out that in addition to owning seven hundred hotels across Asia, they owned a prominent bank. He told me they were also involved in Singaporean politics. Phil, middle child of three, was the pink sheep of the family—exiled to Canada after announcing to his parents that he was gay (bad) and wanted to come out (very bad), and intended to marry his Muslim Malay boyfriend who was nineteen years his junior (impossibly, stupendously, intolerably bad). The family could not abide the shame and ridicule of such a thing, so they paid Phil to change his name and disappear from their lives forever. They paid him a lot. He didn’t say how much but indicated that it was more than he could ever lavishly spend in a lifetime. “Put it this way,” he said. “They made sure I would never come back for more.” He laughed his giggly, high-pitched laugh, but he didn’t look so happy about it. His boyfriend, Mat, didn’t mind a bit, though. Phil said he was positively tickled to leave Singapore with a mountain of cash. At the time, there were a handful of countries where same-sex marriages
were legal. Phil and Mat considered Spain and the Netherlands, but eventually decided on Canada because of its proximity to the US. The couple liked to frequent New York, so they opted for Toronto over Vancouver. Phil’s family arranged for citizenship, and Phil and Mat moved here and got hitched. Fifteen months later, Mat withdrew $800,000 from a joint bank account and fucked off. Phil had set up the account so Mat could dip in freely and feel financially independent. Bad idea. A private investigator tracked him to Venice, California, where he was living freely and financially independently with an underemployed actor/personal trainer. Phil could have (and I think, should have) called the police and US Immigration to recover both Mat and his dollars, but he decided just to let it all go. He said that if Mat had married him for the money, he didn’t want him back. And he didn’t need the dough, so that was that.