Authors: Linden MacIntyre
He gave a long and rambling account of a letter he and Sam were writing to the governor of Texas. “Sam figures they’re executing all the wrong people,” he declared. “He figures since it’s a form of human sacrifice to appease the pagan gods, they should be doing as the pagans did. Execute the pure, the innocent. Babies, virgins. That’s the way to win divine approval. Not by sacrificing human garbage.”
The table fell silent for a while. She noted he wasn’t really eating, just pushing bits of food around his plate.
“Interesting theory,” Duncan finally said.
“He’s serious. He’s really going to send it.”
“Is that wise?” Cassie said. “That Bush guy is his only hope.”
JC laughed. “Well, in that case, there’s nothing left to lose.”
Gathering the dishes, Effie whispered to him, “Can we talk later?”
“Sure,” he said. “What’s up?”
“I might have a little problem.”
“Oh?” He seemed engaged. “What kind of problem?”
“I’m being harassed,” she said. “Some man keeps calling.”
“Some man?” He was smiling. “How did he get your number?”
For just a heartbeat, she was unable to respond.
“Okay, later,” he said, and squeezed her arm. “When we get a moment to ourselves.”
After the cake, Effie called for their attention. And there was applause when Cassie told them of their plan. She and Ray were getting married just after Easter. She glowed as she spoke. Ray listened, sombre, Effie thought, his bearing more that of a proud father than a groom to be. JC was smiling, staring at his hands.
The young woman, whose name was Moira, spoke briefly. She and Cassie had been friends since journalism school. Cassie blushed as Moira hinted at possibly indelicate disclosures about
her appetites, Ray’s masculinity. When everybody laughed, JC laughed loudest. Effie’s brief discomfort passed.
When the general conversations revived, Effie overheard her brother comment, as he handed a drink to JC, “I didn’t realize that you were a friend of Tammy’s.”
“Who?” JC frowned, flushing.
“Tammy.”
“Who’s Tammy?”
“Tammy’s a little street girl, hangs out around Jarvis and Gerrard. I thought I saw you talking to her. But I guess I was mistaken.”
“I have no idea who you’re talking about,” JC said. Effie wondered if anybody else was conscious of the aggression in his tone.
“I think it’s pathetic,” Cassie said. “I don’t know who’s worse. Those poor girls or the creeps who take advantage of them.” There was a murmur of agreement. Then, “By the way,
Father
, how do
you
happen to know her? Huh?”
Duncan laughed. “On the really cold nights, she comes to the shelter to get warm. Helps out sometimes, so I got to know her a bit. She’s from some small place back east, but she gets vague when I ask too many questions. I kind of keep an eye on her.”
“I think I know the one you’re talking about,” Cassie said. “You can see them from the window of the Thai restaurant on the corner. Remember the one I pointed out that night, Ray? It must have been twenty-five below, and she’s out there in this cheap little leather jacket and a skirt up to here.”
“Sounds like her,” said Duncan.
JC was listening, his expression now dark. “People do desperate things to survive,” he said, finally.
“She’s far from stupid,” Duncan said. “I keep trying to talk her into going back to school. There’s hope for her.”
“Don’t count on it,” said JC.
Duncan shook his head sadly. “Last time I saw her, she’d been beaten up. By her pimp, I gather, though she calls him her boyfriend.”
There was another long, thoughtful silence.
“Well, I sure wouldn’t mind getting my hands on the cock-sucker,” JC said. “Just for five minutes.”
Everyone stared at him, startled.
“I think it’s time for beddie-bye,” he said, standing suddenly. “I have a doctor’s appointment in the morning.”
Effie was speechless.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said. “After the doctor.”
“Please do,” she said. Should she walk to the door with him? He’d promised her they’d talk.
He held Cassie’s hand for a moment. “Honey, I wish you all the best things in the world. I hope I’ll be there for the wedding, but I might not be able to make it.”
“Awww,” she said. “What could be so important that you’d miss my wedding?”
He kissed her cheek lightly.
“Duncan,” he said. “Can I talk to you for a second?”
After about ten minutes by the front door with JC, Duncan returned to a silent room, seven staring faces. “He’s okay,” he said.
Effie began to gather plates.
“There’s a lot going on in his life just now,” Duncan whispered to her. “He just needs space.”
“Space we’ll give him,” Effie said, working to contain the fury she now felt.
Cassie and Ray lingered until after Duncan and the other guests
were gone, Cassie busy with dishes. Finally she asked, “You okay, Mom?”
“Just dandy,” Effie said. “It’s ironic. He has this theory: women change, but men don’t.” She laughed. “He should look in the mirror.” Then she asked Ray, “How long did you say the after-effects of a head injury last?”
“I wouldn’t be too concerned about the head injury,” Ray said. “But has anybody talked to him about the incident that caused the injury?”
“What about it?”
“A certain kind of man can suffer psychological trauma that’s far worse than the physical damage from an assault like that.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I put myself through med school working underground in Sudbury. I knew younger versions of JC. Serious men, hard as rock. The problem is that, when subjected to a superior force, rock shatters.”
“Come on.”
“It’s true. You say he’s changed. I didn’t know him before the incident on New Year’s Day. What’s different? Maybe his theory is right. Maybe he hasn’t changed, isn’t capable of change. Maybe his problem is the inability to cope with change. What do you think?”
She didn’t know how to answer.
She stood with them as they donned their coats to leave. Cassie stooped. “What’s this?” she asked. Then, “Somebody lost a floppy disk. There’s no name on it, just—”
Effie took it from her, looked at it briefly. “I’ll hang on to it,” she said.
“What was that word?” Cassie asked, smiling oddly. “Impo—?”
“It belongs to JC,” Effie said. “Some notes about stuff he considers to be important. I think he’s writing something.”
“Let’s hope so,” Cassie said. “It often helps to write things down.”
Standing at the closed door, Effie examined the disk she’d last seen just after New Year’s. Above where he had written “Huntsville, TX, ‘98,” he’d printed in bold capitals the word “impotence.”
The light on the answering machine was blinking, and she snatched the phone receiver from the cradle. There was no sound, just breathing. She slammed the phone down, ran to the kitchen, rifled through a drawer until she found the stained business card. She punched in his number.
“Listen, you fucking bastard,” she hissed when he picked up. “You call here again and I promise … you’ll be sorry. Do you hear me?”
She almost screamed the last part.
“No problem,” he said softly, almost sadly.
She slammed the phone down and stood there shaking, a feeling like elation coursing through her veins.
A
fter JC had gone back to the city, that blissful summer of 1998, he’d called her every night while she was in Cape Breton. The ringing telephone, usually at ten o’clock, became the highlight of each solitary day. He was working hard, couldn’t remember a more productive time in his life. She was a distraction, but a good one. He was inspired by her, even found himself writing small snatches of poetry, he said.
“I can hardly wait to see some.”
“You’ll be waiting,” he said with a laugh.
“That isn’t fair,” she replied sulkily. Then realized she sounded like a girl. She accused herself of trying to be cute, resolved to be more conscious of her age, of her maturity. But then she’d tell herself,
There’s nothing wrong with feeling young. There’s nothing wrong with feeling happy
.
She remembered how she cursed her father as they stumbled past his grave on that last day of his visit. “You’ve done it again,” she whispered.
But it was different this time. She could feel it in the arm around her shoulder, but also in the quality of the silence following her
unexpected breakdown. It was not, she realized, the fearful silence that follows some unexpected revelation of vulnerability or the resentful silence that gathers over interrupted pleasure. This was the silence of trust, the silence of unquestioning accommodation, the silence of the strong. And she knew that, one day, she’d tell him everything, in spite of all her reservations.
She rarely left the Long Stretch, driving to town only when she needed to replenish groceries or to buy wine, though she rarely felt an inclination to drink alcohol. She was, she admitted to herself, worried about the places it would take her. On one trip she visited the bookstore in search of reading material. She needed more escapism. Or maybe it was reality she sought, remembering who worked there.
She bought a novel by a famous local author who, hitherto, had written only short stories. The publication had been widely discussed by people in the English department who’d assumed that she knew the writer personally, being from the same small place.
“I spent years away from there,” she said. “I’m almost a stranger there myself.”
She was surprised by the lack of resemblance between JC and his daughter. Sylvia was slightly overweight, had soft features and none of the taut planes and angles that defined her father’s face. Her voice was also soft, but Effie noticed that her smile was easy and authentic and, with mild alarm, that her eyes had the colour and directness that revealed so much of JC’s character. She offered a compliment about the bookstore, and Sylvia seemed pleased.
“You aren’t from here, then,” she said.
“Well, I grew up here,” Effie said. “But that was a long time ago.”
Sylvia smiled. “It couldn’t have been all that long ago.” They both laughed.
She wanted to say, “I know your father.” But she didn’t, because she had no idea what that simple message would convey. She knew from personal experience the potential turmoil in those enigmatic words, coming from a stranger. “I know your father.”
“Is this your shop?” she asked.
“No,” Sylvia replied. “I just work here.”
“Well, it’s a great store. I’m impressed.”
“Thank you.”
Walking away from the store, the words came back to her, “I’m almost a stranger here,” and it felt true. She tried to imagine a future conversation, and whether she’d feel awkward for having failed to be forthright at their first encounter. Would Sylvia even remember her?
She spotted Stella in the parking lot. She thought she could avoid her, but Stella called out cheerfully, “Hey, stranger!”
When she got close, Stella said, “I’ve been meaning to come out for a visit. But …” She shrugged. “I think you probably know how I feel. Guilty, sad, helpless in a way. Have you talked to Sextus?”
Effie shook her head. “There really isn’t much to talk about.”
She was torn. She wanted to say, “Yes, I know exactly how you feel.” But she also wanted to say no, emphatically, to extract some possibly original disclosure from this woman who projected so much strength but who was, at the same time, so obviously needful. And was there really such a contradiction there? Couldn’t the strong be driven sometimes by their needs?
“Duncan says hello,” she lied.
The smile was spontaneous. “Say hello back for me,” Stella said. “He hasn’t been home since, has he?”
“He’s pretty tied up with his street people.”
“I can imagine. I was a social worker in Toronto years ago. It was different then, not so many homeless. But I can imagine what he’s dealing with.”
They were standing in the parking lot. Effie was conscious of appraising stares from passing men. What is it they look for when they stare? What is it they need? She had a pretty good idea of what men want, and the sudden bitterness was like a chill. She thought of Sextus, and how she had mistakenly believed that his needs had finally aligned with hers; that his nervous heat had been replaced by warmth, the superficial urges set aside for something deeper. She’d sensed solicitation: What did
she
want? What did
she
need? At first she was suspicious. It was nothing more, she thought, than a more mature seduction, but self-interested nonetheless.
Now she studied Stella’s face, trying to estimate her age. Forty-five, she thought. Could that have made the difference? Did the biological divide lie somewhere in that narrow corridor, mid-forties to mid-fifties? Was that where primal magnetism started to wane?
“Well, I suppose I should get going.”
“Yes,” said Stella. “I won’t keep you. Danny asks about Duncan all the time. If I’m hearing anything.”
“It was sad, seeing Danny,” Effie said.
“Even just a phone call from Duncan would make a big difference.”
“To Danny?”
Stella laughed. “Of course. Or … to me. I could be the messenger.”
The directness was startling.
“I suppose you’ll be around for a while longer,” Stella said, as she turned away.
“A bit longer,” Effie said.
“You know where I am in Creignish. Up on the mountain road. Don’t be a stranger.”
She rose early and took long walks, savouring the damp dawn air. She studied the rising sun for clues about the coming day. “Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning,” the old saying went. And it was perversely true. The most dramatically beautiful mornings were announcements of a grim day to follow. Returning from one early walk, she was startled by the soft thud of footsteps behind her and wheeled in fright. It was John. He was running, and a woman was running beside him. They were dressed identically, in tight spandex pants, T-shirts and baseball caps, as they cantered lightly by. She noted that they were similarly built: strong legs with bulging calves and quadriceps, flat chests and narrow shoulders. A ponytail protruded from the back of the woman’s ball cap.