The Garneau Block (11 page)

 

30

the next hit at sundance

J
onas had a concern. The writer, director, and producer of
Haberdasher
, a feature film set in Detroit, sighed and put his hands on his waist. “What now?”

With respect, Jonas outlined the concern. His character, the wise older brother of a doomed gangster, was supposed to be an accountant. Jonas couldn't imagine an accountant, even an accountant who grew up
in the hood
saying, “Yo, dawg, your lifestyle is wack. You gots to be on dat Gandhi tip.”

“Dude,” said the writer, director, and producer, a twenty-four-year-old named William, “I'm paying union rates here. I'm paying you to realize my vision. Are you gonna realize my vision or what?”

William, Jonas, and several other actors and crew members were in a quiet southeastern playground. The surroundings were more suburban Idaho than Detroit, with a Tim Hortons and Blockbuster Video strip mall on the other side of an abandoned soccer field dotted with lost Safeway bags, but Jonas had opted to keep quiet about this. He and the gentleman playing his doomed younger brother were sitting on swings and having, according to the script, a
mano-a-mano
.

At the end of the day, Jonas would make $280 for this mano-a-mano. And from what he had seen in the script, no one would ever see this movie outside William's family and circle of close friends in a rented theatre. Unless, of course, someone uploaded it onto the Internet as a joke.

“Yes, William, I apologize. I am here to realize your vision. I'm just wondering if a white accountant in his early forties would say dawg and wack and dat. Do gangsters in Detroit even say that stuff?”

The writer, director, and producer squeezed his chin and looked around at the rest of the people in the playground. Most
of them glanced down to avoid William's gaze. With his chin-squeezing hand, he summoned Jonas. “Walk with me.”

It was a bright day, just after noon. Even if Jonas delivered his lines as they appeared in the script, the shot would be burned out by the sun. The way William had said
walk with me
made it clear that he saw himself as the star of
Haberdasher
. And the star of contemporary human existence.

No one wanted to be an actor anymore. In the era of reality television and pop star movie crossovers, craft was irrelevant; everyone wanted to be famous, as though it were a legitimate career goal. This was the fourth local film Jonas had worked on this year. Each had been bankrolled by some kid's parents, each had included gunplay, and each was set in an American city to improve its potential in Hollywood.

Jonas followed his employer into the adjacent area of slides and swinging bridges. “Umkay, Jonas. Are you the writer and director of this movie?”

“No.”

“Did you put up the cash?”

“No.”

“Have you graduated from a recognized radio and television arts program?”

“No, William, I haven't.”

“Then why are you trying to be the writer and director of
Haberdasher
? You're here for one day, in one scene.”

Jonas wanted to reach down, pick up a handful of urine-encrusted sand, and stuff it into William's underbite. Yet as much as he despised William and everything he represented, it wasn't the boy's fault. Walt Disney, sitcoms, teen novels, the
school system, and William's parents were to blame for telling him he could be whatever he wanted to be as long as he followed his dreams.

William's parents should not have supported his passion for film. They should not have called him special and smart when he was a teenager. If they were honest people, with integrity, William's parents would have encouraged him–nay, forced him–into a career in the navy.

“You're right about that, William. I apologize for my behaviour. This morning, I received a rather disturbing letter in the mail. It seems I'm going to be evicted.”

William removed his beret and looked up at a cloud that had obscured the sun. “We all got our problems, buddy, but we're making magic here.”

“Right, right.”

“So are you ready to get back on that swing? To make this happen for us? In a few months, in our hospitality suite at Sundance, we'll look back on this moment and laugh.”

“Ha ha.” Jonas slapped William on the back. “I suppose we will.”

On his way back to the swing set, Jonas had trouble getting back into character. His landlord in Vancouver would receive the letter he had forwarded that morning, and before long Jonas would have to find a new place. A new place in Edmonton, the anticipation of which tasted quite a lot like that handful of urine-encrusted sand.

In truth, he wanted the same things William wanted: respect, success, millions of dollars, a proper tuxedo and an apartment in New York, perhaps some cocaine from time to
time. But that was impossible now. A twenty-four-year-old moron with an underbite had a better chance of getting that apartment in New York than a theatrical genius.

“Action,” said William.

The gangster talked about their dead mother, who had perished from a marijuana overdose. Jonas didn't have an encyclopedic knowledge of street drugs, but he didn't think this was physically possible. Of course, he wasn't going to bring it up. Earlier that morning, when Jonas asked why a film without any clothing manufacturers is called
Haberdasher
, William told him he “didn't understand creativity.”

As the gangster delivered the remainder of his lines, Jonas scanned the playground for Carlos. He supposed even stalkers had days off. Or maybe he'd begin stalking this afternoon or evening. Maybe Carlos would follow him to the Let's Fix It meeting downtown, and enjoy some of Abby's hummus.

“Yo, dawg.” Jonas made what he took to be a gang sign from the 1980s, and turned to his doomed brother. “Your lifestyle is wack. You gots to be on dat Gandhi tip.”

 

31

convincing david

S
hirley Wong and Abby Weiss stood on the sidewalk in front of 12 Garneau with bowls of baba ghanouj and hummus,
respectively, while Madison begged her father to attend the meeting.

“There's nothing to fix.” He sat in front of the television in a Bush-Cheney 2004 T-shirt. On the television,
Wheel of Fortune
. “Gin rummy. The phrase is gin rummy.”

Madison looked at the screen. Her father was right about gin rummy. “The future of this block is important to me, Dad. I grew up here. We have to fight for it.”

“I called everyone. No one can do anything.”

“They're Tories. They never do anything for gay liberal Edmonton.”

David Weiss sighed. “That's a myth. A dirty, lazy myth. Take it back.”

“If you agree to come, I'll take it back.”

“Bah.” David waved her away and went to stand in front of the bookshelf in the living room, filled with Abby's favourite novels in hardcover. He pulled out
Love in the Time of Cholera
, shook his head, and then slid it back into place. “I'm disillusioned, Maddy.”

“Because your friends blew you off?”

David grunted. “Last night I kicked Barry out of an association meeting. I can't stop thinking maybe it was the wrong thing to do.”

“Barry the street paper guy?”

“Yes.”

Madison shifted the bag of pita and cut vegetables into her right hand and looked out the window at her mother and Shirley. Abby lifted her bowl of hummus.

“I don't know, send him flowers. Come on, Dad.”

“Send flowers to a homeless man?”

Madison saw that by making ridiculous suggestions she wasn't going to steer the conversation, naturally, to the importance of the Let's Fix It meeting. “Please just come. We need you there. We need your intelligence, Dad, and your experience with gatherings of a social and political nature.”

“Bah.”

“I'll give you fourteen dollars.”

“Madison, come on. Just leave me to mourn in peace.”

“I'm pregnant.”

David dropped the remote control on the hardwood floor, and the battery slot popped open. Two
AAA
s rolled under the coffee table. “No, you aren't.”

“Yes, I am.”

“But you don't have a boyfriend.”

Madison took a deep breath. “For about five minutes in the summertime I had a boyfriend in Jasper.”

“Who is this five-minute boyfriend?”

“His name might be Steve but I suspect it's Jean-something. He's from Quebec.”

“First the National Energy Program, then the special status nonsense, and now this. May they freeze in the dark!”

“Dad.” Madison opened her arms for a hug.

“What is
with
those people? Distinct society, my ass.” David hugged his daughter and kissed her in the ear. “Well, this is wonderful.” He took a step back, held her out before him, and wiped the burgeoning tear from his left eye. “I mean, is it wonderful? You're happy? You're going to…?”

“Yes, I'm keeping it.”

“How far along are you?”

“Just entered my thirteenth week.”

David shook his head. “What a dope I am. I thought you were just getting a little pudgy, not doing enough sit-ups.”

“And that's why you have to come to the meeting. Pregnant women shouldn't be subjected to stress and uncertainty. I need my daddy to protect me.”

For a moment, it seemed David was going to argue the point. Then he relaxed and walked down the hall toward his bedroom. “Just let me put on some decent clothes.” While he changed, he mumbled about “the damn Pepsis” and called out, “Hey, does your mom know?”

“Just you and Jonas so far, and my doctor.”

“So I know before your mother?”

“Yep.”

David came out of the bedroom in a pair of blue chinos, sandals, and a Hawaiian shirt. “How sweet it is!”

When Madison and her father emerged from the house, Shirley and Abby put their matching bowls of baba ghanouj and hummus on the sidewalk so they could clap. “Hurry,” said Abby, “we were supposed to meet everyone at the Sugarbowl five minutes ago.”

David took the pita and vegetables from Madison, as though the bag were burdening her. He put his arm around his wife. “Where's Raymond?”

“I don't know. Maybe he got held up at the U.”

“He's coming though, right?”

Shirley raised her eyebrows. “This morning he was acting strangely, and I know he's deep into research on Victorian death rituals.”

“Whoa.” David kissed Abby on the cheek twice. “I can't believe someone pays him to do that.”

They walked through the parking lot behind the theatre. Jonas was sitting on the Sugarbowl patio with a glass of red wine. When he saw them he said, “Finally. I had to fight some sorority girls to save these seats. Seriously fist-fight them. Where's Raymond?”

Everyone shrugged in unison. As Shirley, Abby, David, and Madison took their seats, Jonas snapped his fingers at the server.

“Mademoiselle. We're in something of a hurry.”

The server didn't react to Jonas. Instead she smiled, said hello, and took their orders. When Madison ordered a soda with a spot of cranberry juice in it, David squeezed her hand. “That's my girl,” he said.

Jonas took the plastic wrap off the hummus and sniffed. “So I was thinking maybe we should stop by the young Indian man's place and see if he wants to join us.”

“He doesn't talk,” said David. “I've tried. He's either a deaf mute or he doesn't know English. It'll just be humiliating for him.”

Abby sat up straight. “We should stop anyway. I bet he's lonely. That's a perfectly lovely idea, Jonas. This is his neighbourhood, too.”

“Whatever you think, hon,” said David. “But he doesn't talk.”

“Remember when we tried the Welcome Wagon routine on him?” said Shirley. “He could barely say thanks for the fruit basket.”

Jonas finished his first glass of wine. “He was just stunned by your beauty. Who could blame him?”

“You only say that because it's true.” Shirley slapped Jonas on the arm.

Raymond Terletsky approached with a box in his hands.

“Oh, there's my professor.” Shirley pushed her chair back and started out to meet her husband. She turned back to her neighbours and smiled. “Looking cute and rumpled.”

 

32

cute and rumpled

I
n the past, whenever he had mused upon personal apocalypse, Raymond Terletsky imagined physical torment. Severe gastrointestinal problems in public, migraines, an invasion of cockroaches and termites. Yet there had been an unexpected, dreamlike quality to the worst day of Raymond Terletsky's life. Neither his bowels nor his head was troubling him, and so far no insects had crawled out of his mouth or anus. He hadn't even walked through a spider web.

That afternoon, after Claudia Santino and Dean Kesterman had sacked him, Raymond opened a bottle of champagne and
sat in his office. It was Veuve Clicquot, a gift from one of his colleagues upon the “Hierarchy of Funerals” publication in the
Maltese Journal of non-Continental Philosophy
. Since he didn't have a glass handy, Raymond sat in his office and drank the champagne straight from the bottle.

It is dispiriting to spend five hours drinking champagne and thinking up a good lie to tell your wife. It is especially dispiriting when, at the end of those five hours, you have nothing to tell her but the truth. Shirley Wong was a wise and insightful woman. She knew it was extremely difficult to fire a tenured professor.

An instance of physical violence was the only possible alternative, but Shirley would not have believed it. Raymond couldn't picture himself striking a student or another professor, so selling the story to his wife would have been impossible. If he told her the reason for his dismissal yet pleaded innocent, she would support him all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. However, in the end, the university would win the case. Raymond would lose Shirley and the legal fees would swallow up everything they owned. Their children would be shamed.

So on the way to the Sugarbowl, with a box full of his most cherished books, Raymond practised the truth. At least the university was buying their house, which would carry them financially until he found another job.

Perhaps the Maltese were hiring.

Shirley met him in front of an old two-storey house in the midst of renovation. There was dust in the air, from the process of refinishing hardwood: generations of foot sweat. Shirley
laughed and waved it away. “It feels like we're in the middle of a desert storm.”

“It does,” he said. “It really does.”

“What's in the box?”

Raymond lowered it so his wife could see inside. Shirley Wong was five-foot-two and he was six-foot-three, which had made for some comical wedding photographs. There were five or six first editions in the box, historically significant works in Latin that needed repair, and several copies of the
Maltese Journal of non-Continental Philosophy
.

“Why are you taking these home?”

Raymond had practised. It was best to be simple and direct about it. He didn't want to stutter his way into an explanation, and telegraph his guilt, so he looked her in the eye.

“Hey.” Shirley smiled. “Are you drunk?”

“They fired me.”

The smile faded and then returned in a more authentic way. “Go on, you.”

“Claudia Santino and the Dean fired me today. This morning.”

Shirley sniffed and took the box from her husband. She put it down on the grass next to them, and embraced her husband in the hardwood dust. It took Raymond close to a full minute to realize he was crying. “I made a big mistake, Shirley. I deserved it.”

“The bastards. What happened?”

“They're only giving me two weeks. No severance, nothing.”

“Do you want to go home, talk about it?”

In their usual manner of hugging, Raymond was bent forward so they resembled an arch. It seemed, at that moment, that he was the short one and Shirley was the tall one. She stroked his head. Over her shoulder, Raymond saw their neighbours at the Sugarbowl with a bottle of red wine. They all looked away or at their glasses. Even in the desert storm they had seen him shaking and rubbing his eyes. And when he tried to stop himself it only got worse. He sobbed and held his breath, hoping that might help. But it didn't help.

“Raymond? Can you tell me what this is about?”

A few students walked, rollerbladed, and bicycled past them. Eventually, Raymond found clarity and a measure of control. He wiped his face with the bottom of his untucked white shirt. “Wow. Sorry.”

Shirley laughed too. “That's very healthy, you know.”

“I'm a new man.”

“We can skip this meeting.”

“No, I want to go.” Raymond picked up his box of books and led Shirley to the Sugarbowl patio. “I'll tell you all about it later.”

As they drew nearer, Shirley announced, “Raymond feels strongly about Fixing It. Very, very strongly.”

Abby applauded. “Hooray for you, Raymond. Let's Fix It. But first, put that box down and take a fortifying drink of wine. It's Shiraz, if that's okay.”

Raymond sat next to Shirley and took her hand. A cloud of discomfort had settled over the table, despite Abby's efforts to blow it away. Jonas snapped his fingers and ordered the server to bring another wine glass. There wasn't time for a new bottle,
as they had to be downtown for the meeting in thirty minutes. But after Jonas filled Raymond's glass, there was enough left to top up everyone else's.

“To the future of the Garneau Block,” said Jonas.

They touched their glasses together and took sips and sat back in their chairs. Then they smiled politely at one another, and nodded, and watched the students and professors and Kung Fu practitioners and home renovators pass and mingle in the avenue. Finally, when the collective anguish seemed unbearable, and Raymond was on the verge of crying again, David brought up the weather. He had heard it was supposed to rain overnight or in the morning.

“That'll smell nice,” said Madison.

“We could sure use the rain,” said Abby.

Shirley nodded. “And the farmers.”

“Just watch, the basement'll flood,” said Raymond.

Jonas stood up. “Oh, finish your drinks and let's get on the
LRT
before we all kill ourselves.”