Authors: Anthony Bidulka
easy manner, I guessed Marc Driediger was pop-
ular with his students. “So when did you next see
James?”
“Actually, I haven’t seen him since.” Marc held
up his left hand and thrust forward a chubby ring
finger with a simple gold band on it. He grinned,
setting his whiskers so close to his nose they must
have tickled him. “I don’t think Allan would
approve. But I have to admit, I wouldn’t mind,
just for old times’ sake.” Then he added, almost as
an afterthought, “If you see him, pass him a
hello.”
I left the campus wondering if I’d just wasted
my time. The theory that James Kraft was some
evil-monger playing havoc with Daniel’s life now
seemed full of holes. But then again, Marc
Driediger hadn’t seen James in a while. A lot could
change in two years.
148 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
I used the 25th Street Bridge to cross the river and
headed towards Colourful Mary’s. Daniel had
agreed to meet me at Mary’s for a late lunch. We
had a number of things to discuss. Although most
of the midday diners had departed, I chose a table
half-hidden behind a grove of overgrown philo-
dendrons in case Daniel was uncomfortable being
seen in Saskatoon’s only publicly admitted, gay-
owned and run restaurant.
Mary and Marushka had obviously spent some
time decorating the place in honour of the season.
The walls were covered in giant, plaster replicas
of every candy imaginable and the windows were
latticed with strips of faux licorice. The ceiling
was now slabs of fake brown wafers covered in
fake icing and fake candy sprinkles. It was what
I’d expect the inside of a gingerbread house to
look like.
Daniel was right on time, walking in only sec-
onds after I was settled. He hung up his coat and
scarf on a coat rack near the door. As he walked
through the restaurant, six eyes belonging to two
twentysomething trendy boys and one very obvi-
ous drag queen were sticking to him like glue.
Was I imagining it or was he sticking out his chest
and sucking in his tummy?
He settled himself, resplendent in a dashing
grey suit, on a chair opposite mine. His hair seemed
a little wavier than I remembered it last and I won-
dered if he was wearing a different pair of glasses.
These were silver rimmed. They matched his silver
belt buckle and silver watch. I was sure his other
glasses were gold rimmed. Hmmm.
Anthony Bidulka — 149
“I haven’t been here in months. I’m glad you
suggested it. What are the specials?” he asked
exuberantly, his cheeks still flushed red from the
outside chill.
I looked up at him, surprised by his ease.
Colourful Mary’s was a top-notch restaurant fre-
quented by all types. I don’t know why I expected
him to have never been there before. Oh wait—
maybe it was because someone with even a trace
of sexual ambiguity might stay away from a gay-
owned diner?
Just then Mary showed up with a smile that
contrasted beautifully with her dark skin. She
gave me a quick shoulder rub and sharp-eyed my
companion. “So hons, can I get you something to
drink?”
“Could I get a chai latte?” Daniel asked.
“Absolutely, dear, how about you, Russell?”
She gave me a look that said, “So who’s the guy?”
“Coffee please. Any specials today?”
“Marushka will be hurt if you don’t try the
meatballs in ketchup sauce—I’m not supposed to
call it that, but that’s what she uses as the base—
and I’m pretty sure there are two bowls of the blob
soup left.”
“Blob soup? Ketchup sauce?”
Mary crossed her eyes at us for effect. “I know
there’s some Ukrainian name for all of it, but it’s
unpronounceable for someone whose last name
doesn’t end in ski, ka or chuk, but experience has
taught me that the more unpronounceable it is, the
better it tastes.”
Daniel gave her a winning smile. “Bring it on.”
150 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
“Sure,” I agreed. “But do I get to request how
many blobs I want in my soup?”
“When it comes to food in this restaurant,”
Mary said as she headed away, “the only one with
any decision-making power is Marushka.” I
doubted this. Mary is half First Nations Cree, half
Irish and Marushka is Ukrainian—a feisty pairing
to say the least.
“I’m glad you suggested this meeting, Russell,
there’s something I have to ask you…and I’m not
quite sure how to do it. It’s about tonight.”
I was glad Daniel seemed to be over stewing
about the guy in the blue car, but I didn’t want him
changing his mind about my attending his office
Christmas party. “I’m still invited, aren’t I?”
“Well sure. It’s just that…I’ve been thinking
about this…and, well I hate to ask you this.”
“Just ask. We’ll deal with it once it’s on the
table.”
“I want you to bring a date,” he blurted out.
“A date?”
“A woman.”
Mr. Liberal who sauntered into a gay restaurant
and thought nothing of posturing for the boys and
boy-girls was back to showing his true colours. “I
don’t think I understand.” I did but I wanted him
to spell it out. I didn’t care how uncomfortable he
was with it.
“Russell, it’s just that…it’s my workplace and
it’s Christmastime and people don’t go to
Christmas parties alone and you’re too attractive to
be single at your age and I just think it would raise
less attention if you showed up with a woman and
Anthony Bidulka — 151
then no one would think anything weird about
why I know you and so I was thinking last night
that you could just…” He took a breath, “Just for
one night…”
I let him blabber on for thirty seconds more
before finally putting an end to it. I didn’t have the
time right then to decide whether I was insulted,
irritated or simply indifferent to his suggestion.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” He seemed surprised.
“Okay.” I could give in on this one.
He moved his hand closer to mine, such that I
thought he was about to touch it but he didn’t. He
looked at me closely and said, “Thank you.” I
nodded.
“I may have found SunLover,” I told him.
“You do move fast, Russell, I have to tell you.
How did you do it?”
“Gays.r.us. Except the fellow I’ve met is going
under the nickname Sunny. There’s a good chance
SunLover could be using a different nickname, so
I’ve been keeping an eye on anyone in the chat
room who has any of the same attributes as the
man you met at Bare Ass Beach.”
“Okay. So now what?”
“Now we meet him and see if it’s the same
guy.”
“We?”
“Uh-huh. You’re the only one who can identify
him, Daniel. I can’t do this without you.”
“I…I don’t know if I can do that. I don’t know
if I can face him again. Especially if he turns out to
be Loverboy.”
152 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
I thought about this for a moment. “You may
not have to. All I need you to do is identify him. I
can do the rest.”
“How can we do that?”
“Just leave that up to me.”
“Here we go, hons,” Mary said as she deliv-
ered two bowls the size of woks filled to the brim
with a yellowish broth. Throughout the liquid
bobbed several blobs of a doughy consistency and
in various sizes and shapes. It smelled amazingly
good.
We thanked Mary and I caught a glimpse of
Marushka’s dewy red face as it peeked through
the diamond shaped glass in the door to the
kitchen. I winked and she smiled, reminding me
of one of those fairies…Merriweather was
it?…from
Snow White
or was it
Sleeping Beauty
?
“Mmm,” Daniel made noises of appreciation.
“My taste buds have just climaxed.”
I took my first bite. It was like the best chicken
noodle soup I’d ever tasted but without the chick-
en and with all the noodles balled together into
blobs. “Of course Sunny and SunLover may not be
the same person,” I said.
Daniel nodded mid-slurp. Good. I wanted him
a bit distracted while I brought up Plan B.
“I’ll keep watch in gays.r.us, but we’ll have to
do more. We obviously can’t go back to the scene
of the liaison in the middle of winter, hoping to
spot him there, so we have to come up with some
other way to find him.”
“Oh?” Daniel sensed a possible change in his
fate and stopped eating.
Anthony Bidulka — 153
“He’s a gay man. We have to go where gay
men go.”
Daniel’s lips tightened and his eyes narrowed.
“There’s that dreaded ‘we’ word again. Like
where?”
“Right here for instance—Colourful Mary’s.
Gay people frequent this restaurant. There’s a
chance he might show up here.”
“Oh, okay, I can do that.”
“And bars.”
“Bars?”
“Gay bars.”
He swallowed hard (no soup this time), his
resolve quickly weakening. “Gay bars?”
“Hot dance spots. Gay men like to dance.”
“Dance?” He seemed to be turning into a sim-
pering fool in front of my very eyes.
“There are certain stores gay men frequent.”
“Oh yeah?”
“And cruising spots.”
“Cruising?”
“Where guys pick up guys for sex.”
“I can’t do that!” he spit out along with a tiny
bit of blob.
I frowned. “You already have. Twice at least.”
This was unnecessarily mean, but maybe uncon-
sciously I was getting him back for the “bring a
date” thing.
“Russell, I am not about to start hanging out in
discos and dance halls and dark alleys!”
Discos? Dance halls? What decade was he liv-
ing in? Dark alleys? Well…okay, I’d give him that
one.
154 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
“Besides, it’s too much! How can we possibly
cover all that ground and expect to find one man?
The chances of our being at the same place at the
same time as SunLover is infinitesimal!”
I rocked my head from side to side. “If we were
living in Vancouver or Toronto or even Calgary,
I’d have to agree with you, but in Saskatoon I’d
say our chances are much better than infinitesi-
mal. And besides, it’s the only option we have.”
“I can’t do it, Russell, I can’t go to those places.
Suppose someone saw me going in or coming
out?”
“Coming out?”
“Stop it, Russell, I’m being serious.”
“So am I. You hired me to find these guys and
that’s what I’m trying to do. But I can’t do it with-
out your help.”
“No. I hired you to find Loverboy! And you
did. James Kraft is Loverboy. Why don’t we focus
on him? I know it’s him! We don’t have to go lurk-
ing about in parking lots and bars to find
SunLover! Let’s go after James Kraft!”
“James Kraft is in New York.”
That stopped him short. “What?”
“I just found out last night. James Kraft is liv-
ing in New York City.”
Daniel was quiet for a moment, contemplating
this new information. Finally he said, “That does-
n’t mean he can’t be Loverboy, does it?”
I had to agree. “No, it doesn’t.”
“Then go get him!” he said, slapping a palm
against the tabletop and trying, unsuccessfully, to
restrain his voice.
Anthony Bidulka — 155
Mary gave us a glance from where she was
chatting up a table of adoring baby lesbians, but
other than her, no one seemed to be paying us
much attention. “Daniel, calm down. Think about
this rationally. You’re only focusing on James
Kraft because he’s the easy target and because you
don’t want to step foot into a gay bar!”
“Yeah, so what? So what’s wrong with that?
And sometimes, Russell, and I know this from my
work, just because an answer is easy, doesn’t
mean it’s not the right one.”
“How were the blobs, boys?” Not a question
you hear every day. Mary was back with two
plates covered with meatballs in a creamy red
sauce and a hunk of heavy looking brown bread.
She exchanged the soup bowls for the meatball
plates and left without further interruption. She
knows when to leave her patrons alone.
“Daniel,” I said, lowering my voice a few
notches below the last time I’d used it, “I agree
with you. And we may have to go after James
Kraft in New York. But there are some steps we
can take right here at home that are more obvi-