The Garneau Block (20 page)

 

57

a real talent

D
avid made his way to the fourth downtown homeless shelter. He didn't have much time before he had to get back and meet the appraiser, so David hurried up the cobblestone streets of the improvement district, past men and women in doorways and on the sidewalk, swivelling in their wretchedness. They asked him for money and cigarettes. If, as he expected, Barry Strongman was not at the fourth downtown homeless shelter, David would return to the Garneau Block satisfied that he had done everything, and more, to find the man.

Bruised by the slow savagery of self-destruction he had witnessed at the first three shelters, David found himself repeating, like a mantra, that these people had made a choice.

Several men and women were gathered at the entrance of the fourth shelter, passing a bottle wrapped in brown paper.
“How's it goin'?” one of the men asked, as David started up the concrete stairs to press the door buzzer.

“Very well, thanks. And you?”

The man looked down at himself, his layers of grey clothing and the mass of toilet paper and Superstore bags that served as his left shoe. “I haven't had a shower in a week and a half. Doin' brilliant, partner, A-number-one. I appreciate your asking.”

David pulled his right sleeve over his hand, so he wouldn't have to touch the black buzzer. The intercom looked and smelled as though someone had seen fit to urinate on it.

“Yes?”

“My name is David Weiss. I'm looking for a fellow called Barry Strongman. I'm sure he isn't here. I was just…”

The heavy door hummed and David opened it. At the bottom of the steps, the man with the toilet-paper shoe said, “Liars told me they were
full
. Got half a mind to burn the place down.”

Inside, pods of the unfortunate filled a vast room of chipped white tile. There was a pool table in one corner, several old couches in another, and what appeared to be a healing circle in a third. On David's right was a bulletin board. Five sheets, each a different colour, advertised a daily Let's Fix It meeting.

A woman with a big mess of dyed blonde hair, in red overalls, approached David with a wide smile. “You're here for the meeting?”

“Agh.”

The woman shook David's hand, looked him over, and tilted her head. “I'm Jane, the assistant director. You're not…what are you doing here?”

“I'm a friend of Barry's. A few weeks ago I lost track of him.”

“Well, he's in the middle of a session. Feel free to join in but don't interrupt until he asks for questions. Before question period, he gets a little testy.” Jane led David to a door in the back of the room, not far from the pool table.

David recognized Barry Strongman's muffled voice coming through the thin wall. Jane opened the door and David entered. It was a classroom with only two empty chairs in the back, so David quickly settled into one and looked up. Barry Strongman, who had briefly stopped talking, stared at David and continued.

“There's top-down power and then there's bottom-up power. They're both important.”

Near the front of the room, a few of the pupils grumbled in opposition.

“If you can't listen quietly, you can leave.”

One of the pupils put up his hand. “But I think you're wrong.”

“Really? Get out!”

“But.”

“Out!”

The pupil, in a soiled lumberjack coat and
CAT
Diesel hat, shuffled out of the classroom with a mumble. Once he was gone, and the door was slammed, Barry Strongman paced the front of the room.

“Anyone else think I'm wrong?”

A few of the pupils said no.

“I can't hear you.”

“No.”

“Louder.”

“No!” said the pupils.

Barry Strongman clapped his hands. “Do you know why all the trees in this neighbourhood are so skinny? It ain't from folks pissing on them so don't say it, Lou. They're skinny because no one's dreaming around them. No one's looking ahead and thinking, ‘Dang, I'm gonna make something spectacular out of myself,' which is the vibe a tree needs if it's expected to grow. Anyone think I'm wrong about that?”

The pupils looked around at one another. It was close to noon and David was satisfied that Barry Strongman was safe and alive and, apparently, happy. So he made for the door.

“Where you going, David?”

He stopped and gripped the door handle. “Back home.”

“Back home to do what? To
fix it
? We're fixing it right here, brother, where it counts. Let me tell you something, my people. This man kicked me out of a
PC
Riding Association meeting because I was homeless.”

“Barry, that is a private matter.”

“You see, we can dream past this place, hope ourselves into the future. But then we hit barriers like this man, David Weiss, who wants to keep us down because we threaten him.”

“He is a top-down man,” said one of the pupils.

Barry Strongman pointed at the pupil. “Shut up or get out!”

With that, David opened the door and rushed across the main hall. Jane jogged to intercept him. “So what did you think?”

David took a breath, to calm himself. “He's certainly a confident public speaker.”

“A little bit too commanding, I'd say. But a real talent. Next thing you know, he could be pulling big bucks on the business-lunch motivational speakers' circuit. Don't you think?”

David walked out of the shelter and down the street, past the growing crowds and withering trees on the boulevard, with his finger on the Yukon Denali's panic button.

 

58

appraisals

D
avid Weiss planned to charm the appraiser and to inform her, in an aside, that he was highly placed in the party. As much as everyone on the block dreaded and disliked this process, a pleasant experience for the university appraiser could mean thousands of extra dollars. So David turned on some Brahms and threw a Safeway pie in the oven just before she arrived.

The appraiser ignored David. She walked through the house with a clipboard in hand, humming and making notes. Both her shirt and slacks were fortified by multiple pockets.

David found he couldn't focus on his plan. Barry Strongman's petulance lingered in his mouth like a spoonful of old yogurt. How dare Barry Strongman, a
homeless person
, mock the president of the Strathcona
PC
Riding Association–in public?
Even if that public was a collection of thirty mumbling fools?

What lingered in David's ear was the idea that Barry Strongman had become “a real talent.” If his story appeared in the newspaper, there might be a word or two about the evil David Weiss. David had been involved in politics long enough to know what to do: deny the rank accusation and call a lawyer.

“It's a beautiful house,” said the appraiser, when she finished. “Pity what happened next door.”

This was David's opportunity to convince the appraiser that no one gave the Perlitz tragedy much thought. Tragedy? What tragedy? Instead, he accompanied the appraiser to the front door and slipped into his Velcro dog-walking shoes. Garith hopped and barked and spun in anticipation.

As David led the appraiser down the front porch steps toward the sidewalk, he wondered if Barry Strongman might go on a drug-fuelled bender and die soon. It would be sad and happy all at once.

They started toward 11 Garneau and met Raymond Terletsky in the middle of the street. It was lunchtime. The brown-and-grey beard Raymond had been growing for a week was coming in thick and uneven, like much of the facial hair David had observed in the shelters that morning.

“There's going to be a meeting tonight,” said Raymond. “The plan is flourishing. Who's this?”

“This is Ms. Jacobson, Raymond. She has been hired by the university to appraise our houses.”

The woman held her hand out. “Chloe Jacobson.”

Raymond looked down at her hand. He backed away and made a show of tossing his leather briefcase into the front yard
of 10 Garneau. “Come not between the dragon and his wrath!”

“What?” The appraiser turned to David. “Who is this man?”

“Dr. Raymond Terletsky.”

The professor backed further away from them and knelt on the lawn of 10 Garneau. He stroked his natty beard and howled. Garith began barking at him. “Thou whoreson zed! Thou unnecessary letter!”

David turned to the appraiser. “I'm really sorry about this. The university fired him for sexual harassment and then his wife kicked him out. He lives in my spare room.”

“Thou art a boil, a plague sore, an embossed carbuncle in my corrupted blood.”

“Do you think I should come back later?” The appraiser stared at Raymond, who continued to kneel and spout on the brown October grass. “Is he dangerous?”

“Tough to say.”

Jonas had come out of his house in a sweater and toque to watch the spectacle. He ambled onto the sidewalk. The actor put his finger to his lips, shushed Garith, and approached David and the appraiser. “What's up with the big guy? Why's he screaming in Elizabethan English?”

Raymond snarled, “From the extremest upward of thy head to the descent and dust beneath thy foot, a most toad-spotted traitor.”

Jonas picked at the goop in his eyes. It was clear to David that Jonas had just woken up.

David made the introductions and together the three of them watched Raymond and Garith. Man and dog had made a
kind of peace. Garith licked the professor's ankle and growled. “Here I stand your slave,” said the professor, to the dog. “A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man.”

“Jonas, can you take Raymond to my place? Get him a cup of hot chocolate or something? I'm taking Ms. Jacobson to his house and I don't want him going orangutan on her.”

The appraiser interrupted them. “You know, I'll come back later in the week. What's a good time?” She pointed her toe in Raymond's direction. He remained kneeling, but had gone silent. “A good time to avoid this sort of thing?”

“Mid-morning or mid-afternoon,” said David. “He works downtown.”

“I thought you said he was fired for harassment.”

“There's a labour shortage, Ms. Jacobson. We can't allow our best people, even if they are menaces, to wallow in unemployment.”

They arrived at the point where Chloe Jacobson might have shaken their hands, but she didn't shake their hands. She just got in her car, a beige Toyota Camry, and drove away.

The block now clear of strangers, Raymond Terletsky approached David and Jonas on the street. David raised his eyebrows. “You know, pal, I don't think I've ever seen anything like that.”

Raymond ignored him and regarded 10 Garneau.

From the south, Rajinder Chana arrived. With only a small wave for greeting, he joined the other three men of the Garneau Block. Rajinder glanced at the professor, who had recovered slightly but still appeared to be panting, and addressed David
and Jonas. “Are you available this evening, for another meeting? Raymond would like to unveil his preliminary plans for making 10 Garneau into a cultural institution.”

“A friend's coming over,” said Jonas. “We were planning to sit by the fire pit in the back. We'll make it a party.”

David shook his head. “This is ridiculous. We should just let that appraiser do her job.”

“Thou shalt join us.” Raymond lowered his voice. “And behold, thou shalt bring refreshments.”

Even if David had possessed the energy to argue with Raymond, he wasn't sure he knew the vocabulary.

 

59

a fire in october

M
adison spooned roasted eggplant into a bowl for baba ghanouj while Abby blended chickpeas for hummus. To Madison's consternation, they listened to her mother's favourite album: the Gipsy Kings'
Greatest Hits
. Shirley was not attending the Garneau Block meeting so it only seemed fair that someone else make the baba ghanouj.

“I'm not as good at this as Shirley. It's going to taste like boiled crap.”

Abby slammed her fist on the counter. “If I hear one more negative comment from you…”

“What? What are you going to do?”

For a time, Abby seemed to be thinking of a punishment for Madison. Then she began chopping garlic.

Since Rajinder had left Sparkle Vacations that morning, Madison had grown increasingly anxious about their future together. And it wasn't just the baby.

Rajinder was not only handsome and intelligent; he was also rich. And rich people were obliged to honour their wealth by choosing partners who exuded a certain level of sophistication. Madison had one dress, a white dress from Jacob with a red wine stain.

If he were thinking about objections his parents might have had, perhaps he was also thinking about his own.

“Is it Rajinder again?”

“No.” Madison smelled the collection of eggplant in her large blue bowl. It smelled of soil. “Yes.”

Abby dropped a handful of minced garlic into each bowl and poured another splash of Chardonnay into her glass. “Have you told him yet?”

“No.”

Abby took a long sip and smiled. “We're so alike.”

“No, we aren't.”

“When are you going to tell him?”

“I was planning to tell him tomorrow night, during our second first date.”

“How do you think he'll react?”

“Like any sane man. He'll say congratulations. And then he'll think of the classiest way to extricate himself from the relationship. Which is really only a relationship in my mind
anyway.” Madison squeezed lemon juice into the bowl of eggplant mush and twisted some kosher salt over it all.

Abby leaned against the fridge, which was covered in magnets and fifteen years of family photographs. “You're my favourite person in the world and I think it reflects poorly on Edmonton and society in general that you're still single, but in Rajinder's case, you're probably right.”

“You're supposed to say Rajinder has to love me because I'm your beautiful daughter and who
wouldn't
love me.”

“I'm taking a step back here, from the fuzz of overwhelmingly warm regard I have for you. And I'm looking.” Abby looked down at Madison's belly for a moment. “Darling, you don't know your baby's father. You work at a travel agency, and, sorry to be blunt, you're kind of lazy.”

“I feel like a princess. A wonderful princess.”

“But you're beautiful. And smart and caring. What you are is a late bloomer, and I hope Rajinder sees that. You're a small mountain of potential.”

Madison pulled two tablespoons of gooey tahini out of a jar and transferred them to the blue bowl. Then she plugged in the mixing wand and went to work on the mush. She couldn't hear Abby over the tiny engine inside the mixing wand, but she had heard enough from her mother. When the baba ghanouj had the right consistency, she unplugged the wand and heard the conclusion of Abby's speech.

“…and I told him I wouldn't sacrifice my principles, no way. But we've made it work, haven't we? Haven't we, darling? Aren't we a social, political, and romantic model for the future? For harmony itself?”

“Can we go now?”

Madison and Abby put on their jackets and hats, and carried their dips, pitas, and vegetables through the alley. The voice of Raymond was audible, in the short burst of stuttering that prefaced one of his pronouncements.

“I've been thinking big,” he said. “Bigger than I was raised to think. Big!”

The men spotted them and both Rajinder and David hurried over to help. Jonas threw a couple of new birch logs on the fire, causing the flames to leap up and the smoke to rise a deep black. The dips and plates of bread and vegetables were arranged on the picnic table, and a small line formed.

Carlos stood next to Jonas in a Stormrider jean jacket and an Eskimos cap. He removed the cap and replaced it several times, nervously. Jonas pulled Carlos out of the dip line and led him to Madison.

“I know you met briefly at the Next Act lo those many days ago, but this is my friend Madison. Madison, this is Carlos.”

“Hello again.”

Carlos smiled and tipped his cap. “Great to see you.”

“So Jonas tells me you took him
hunting
. With a bow and arrow.”

“That I did. That I did.”

“I don't think I told you this, Maddy, but Carlos made me take a picture of him with the antelope he killed. And he propped the poor animal's head up, as though it were alive.”

“Buck scored 81.” Carlos turned his head and waved his pride away, as though it smelled badly. “I got lucky.”

“Now I get to take him to
Bluebeard's Castle
and
Erwartung
.”

“Gosh,” said Madison, because she didn't know what else to say. On the other side of the fire, Rajinder stood with a paper plate full of dips and a Big Rock. She wanted to go over and talk to him but she was trapped by the spectacle of Jonas and Carlos, which beckoned like a highway accident. “That's just…gosh.”

Raymond interrupted. “Does everyone have a drink and some snacks? Everyone? Then get comfortable. Sit at the picnic table or on one of the stumps. This meeting shall come to order forthwith, before it gets any colder and before anyone drinks too much beer.”

In the commotion, Madison was able to extricate herself from Carlos and Jonas to sit on a stump next to Rajinder. He smiled at her. “This is splendid baba ghanouj. You need not have worried. It is clear you have a talent for Mediterranean classics.”

“You think so?”

“I do, I do.”

Raymond stood on a stump. The fire uplit his bearded face, hiding his eyes. He rubbed his hands together like a seller of fake Rolexes, or souls. As Raymond spoke of the future, of his plan to liberate the Garneau Block from the failure and death of Benjamin Perlitz and from the greedy clutches of the university, Madison grew afraid. Afraid to shift in her seat, afraid to reach back and scratch the itchy spot on her left shoulder. In only a few weeks, Raymond had changed from dirty professor to awkward prophet.

He prefaced his plan with glittering generalities, and then Raymond quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson. “A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his
mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages.”

“What about a woman?” Abby lifted her glass of wine over the fire.

“A woman, too. Yes, yes, a woman.” Raymond paused and pulled at his little beard. “I forget what comes next.”

“Sorry,” said Abby.

Raymond said shhh, and whispered to himself, trying to find the next line. He sighed. “Anyway, we shouldn't listen to other people, even so-called experts, so much as we should listen to the genius of our own hearts. All right?”

“All right!” said Jonas.

“What it comes down to is that ‘God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.'”

A rumble of recognition travelled through the circle. Raymond was interrupted by footsteps crunching leaves in the grass behind him. A voice out of the darkness said, “Good evening.”

Raymond attempted to see who it was and turned too far. His stump tipped and he landed with a thud on the grass. Winded, he gasped and honked for air. Rajinder was closest, so he turned Raymond on his side and said, “Relax, my friend, relax.”

While her husband convalesced on the lawn, Shirley Wong smiled and introduced the young man who accompanied her. With his hockey jacket, perfectly parted hair, and gleaming white running shoes, Steamer looked to Madison as though he were visiting not from southern Alberta but from 1957.

“Why Steamer?” said David, who stood up so Shirley could sit next to Abby.

“It's a long story.” Steamer took a seat on the picnic table.

“The professor's going to be twitching down there a while, I figure. We've got time.”

Steamer looked at Shirley and said, “I have what a guy might call a nervous excretory system. Before a game I like to…I got to…Well, I need to go ahead and…”

“That's enough, Steamer,” said Abby. “I think we understand.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Weiss.”

Rajinder helped Raymond to his feet. Still coughing, Raymond slouched back to his stump. This time he only put a foot on it, and leaned on his knee. “Shirley, my love, I'm delighted that you've come. It does my heart so much good to see you. You're like a balm to my soul, my everything. I wish for…”

“Shut
up
,” said Shirley.

Rajinder flared his nostrils. “Perhaps, Raymond, you could outline your plans now.”

“Yes. Yes, terrific, Rajinder. A round of applause for Rajinder, everyone, who's agreed to bankroll this project.”

A round of applause ensued. Over the applause, Rajinder tried to protest. “I am uncomfortable with the word bankroll.”

When silence returned, and when Raymond was finished staring at Steamer, his professorial voice returned. “The site of 10 Garneau will be a locus of Edmonton's mythic power.”

“So a museum?” said David. “Big whoop.”

“Not a conventional museum, no. Forget everything you know about museums. There will be no artifacts of recent history with explanations in both of Canada's official languages. I'm thinking of a more magical place. A labyrinth of our collective dream. A funhouse. Truth and energy, murder and heroism. Hockey. Immigration. Theatre.”

“You mentioned a buffalo,” said Jonas.

“I want input from all of you, of course, but, yes, I think we should have a herd of buffalo.”

“Won't that make an awful mess?” said Abby. “And what will they eat?”

“No, fake ones.”

“Maybe the fake buffalo should be flying out of the house, like ghosts, since our ancestors killed them all,” said Jonas.

Shirley raised her hand. “Speak for yourself.”

“So flying buffalo?” David opened a new beer. “Professor, I think you must have been smoking
The Magic Flute
instead of listening to it.” No one laughed so David elbowed Steamer in the ribs. “You know what I mean, partner? As in wacky tabacky?”

“I don't do drugs,” said Steamer.

“No. No, you don't. I'm not insinuating that. I was just letting you in on the joke there, Steamer.” David elbowed Steamer again.

“Please don't do that.”

David hopped up off the picnic table and Garith hopped off with him. “You're all lunatics. This neighbourhood's a goner.” He walked out of the yard and into the alley, with Garith's collar bell tinking behind him.

“Should I go talk to him?” Rajinder whispered in Madison's ear.

She leaned back and placed her hand on Rajinder's neck, hot from the fire. She pressed her cheek softly against his and whispered, in his ear, “No.”

“I think this is brilliant,” said Abby. “But I don't know what you're talking about. What does a locus of mythic power look like?”

Raymond turned to Rajinder for a moment, and then back to Abby. “We need to brainstorm about exactly that, right now. And tomorrow I'll write something up, our vision, and fax it to some brave architects. At the top of the page I'll put an Emerson quote and maybe something about
King Lear
. We give them a few days to come up with something, we put a shortlist together, and we meet with them on the thirty-eighth floor.”

“A few days?” said Jonas. “Artists don't work like that.”

“If I hadn't chased the appraiser away today, the reprobates at the university would be writing cheques for us right now. My friends, we don't have six months or even two months.”

Fatigue hung over them, along with confusion and alarm. For the moment, however, no one seemed willing to give up. So Raymond took out his African cave art notepad and pen, and they began to design the labyrinth of their collective dream.