Toronto Noir Page 9

  And he was right. A small settlement presented itself in a long narrow clearing amidst a profusion of what must have been corn stalks.

  “Meet my friend,” said Miguel, and waved his hand toward a woman tending fire in a large pit circumscribed by stones. The woman straightened for an instant to pull her long black hair back from her face and over one shoulder. She wore grimy white shorts and a baggy red tank top over a pink camisole. No bra, Beth noticed. How wonderful not to have to worry.

  Miguel sat them down on a log and told them that his friend would now demonstrate a traditional recipe. The woman bent to retrieve what looked like a turnip from a large pot near her feet and shred it into a wooden bowl. A kitten sprung from behind the log with an angry oversized rooster in hot pursuit. Then a mongrel dog roused itself from behind a post and began to chase the rooster. The assembled group watched the kitten, rooster, and dog as they circled the woman’s cooking shelter. Then they sat and observed the woman shred her root vegetable. After about fifteen minutes, a fourteen-year-old girl with an infant straddling one hip came striding, barefoot, from between the corn stalks. She smiled at Beth, who smiled back. When the girl began walking away, toward the river, Beth rose to follow.

  “Beth,” said Paul. “No.”

  Beth patted Paul on the shoulder. “I’m all right,” she said. “I’d just like to know her name.”

  Beth followed the girl into another small clearing. “Hello,” she called out. “I’m Beth.” She patted both hands against her chest and stepped closer to the girl, who was still smiling, her head cocked to one side coquettishly.

  “Juana,” said the girl. “Me llamo Juana.”

  “Encantada,” said Beth, and for a moment the two simply stood staring. It was a moment that opened up like a hard coconut cleft in half to reveal its white tender meat.

  Then Beth pointed to the baby, whose round brown eyes had pivoted toward her. “And what is the baby’s name?” she said.

  “No.” The young girl shook her head.

  She had misunderstood, or not heard correctly. Beth tried again. “El nombre del niño?”

  “No,” the girl said again.

  Perhaps it was a girl? “El nombre de la niña?”

  Again, the girl shook her head and shifted the baby to her other hip impatiently. She was bored with this. Beth was not showing her anything new. “Nombre,” she said again. She pointed to herself and said, “Beth.” Then she pointed to the girl and said, “Juana.” Finally, she pointed to the baby and shrugged emphatically.

  The girl stomped her foot. “She no have name,” she said. “No name.”

  “What do you mean?” Beth cried. “She is so beautiful and new. She must have a name!”

  Juana smirked. “No name.”

  Beth leaned up against a tree, steadying herself. If the baby had no name, then perhaps it was not … claimed. Perhaps it had not yet been properly tethered to this place, these people. Maybe there was a chance. In a flash, she saw it—the plump, umber-colored child tucked under a yellow fleece blanket, being ferried along Bloor Street like royalty in her sturdy stroller. If she got homesick, Beth would show her the Humber. They would gather bouquets of pale purple phlox and Queen Anne’s lace and she would tell her the story of Etienne Brûlé, who learned to live among the Hurons. She would show her the CN Tower, that useless, space-age thing. Oh, there were those little pots of organic baby food in the No Frills grocery store, weren’t there? And bags at the baby boutique that had compartments for everything …

  Juana moved closer to her, reached out to touch Beth’s cheek and hair, the silver camera that hung like a medal around her neck. Beth brightened. “Would you like me to take your picture?”

  “Yes, yes,” Juana said happily, bobbing up and down.

  “Okay,” said Beth. “You should stand over there. Maybe I should hold the baby.” She held out her arms to take the child, but Juana backed away, cradling the baby’s head under her stern chin.

  “No,” Juana said.

  And then the group spilled into the clearing, muttering and perspiring, craning their necks to see a flock of parrots winging by.

  Next to the Humber, Beth could hear thunder rolling in over the lake.

  “Paul,” she said, “do you think we should go back, find a way to help them rebuild?”

  Paul sighed heavily. Soon the sky would open, and it was possible the humidity would break.

  “I mean, if we are responsible, maybe we should just take responsibility …” Beth knew she was whining a little, but couldn’t help herself.

  Paul threw up his arms, which almost made Beth laugh. “Jesus, Beth, do you even know what happened to Etienne Brûlé?”

  Beth nodded. Brûlé had eventually been disowned by his countryman, Champlain, it was true. And then the Hurons decided he had betrayed them to the Iroquois, or at least this was the speculation. And those were harsher times, weren’t they? “They killed him,” she said quietly.

  “Yes,” said Paul, pleased with her accuracy, but not nearly finished with his own story. “The Hurons killed him.” He paused to take a breath, then turned toward her and whispered sadly, excitedly, “Then they ate him.”

  And that was when Beth pushed him. If he had fallen differently, with more agility and pliability, the water might not have pulled him to the center of the flow. But within seconds, Paul was struggling in the depths of the river, carried further and further away from Beth by a wicked undertow.

  For a few seconds, Paul seemed not to care; there was surrender in the position of his body. But then Beth watched as he clambered strangely toward the shallow water on the opposite shore, and she watched as the current caught him by the ankles and pulled him back into its grasp. Perhaps he would survive; it was up to the river to decide. It confused her to think about what she wanted—how rarely people’s plans and yearnings find their proper, perfect form. She focused on the rushing water between them, its opaque mystery, the smell of rust, fishgut, and human effluent. She noted its very force, which was like the force of blood or cum, a liquid force that pulsed around the globe, hastening into places humans could not reach.

  The evening after Beth met the nameless baby, Miguel invited her on a jungle walk. Paul had gone to bed early, blaming the bug bites and cheap wine for his fatigue.

  “It is possible we will see some night animals, the nocturnals,” Miguel said as they traipsed carefully along the path. “Do you have any like this in Toronto?”

  Beth laughed. “Maybe raccoons,” she said. “They’re the cleverest creatures you’ve ever met, and they’ve adapted to us, so now we adapt to them.”

  “Adaptation,” Miguel said. “Is that how you call it?”

  The light was beginning to fade, making shapes waver, turning living tableaux into unreliable dreamscapes. Miguel placed his hand at the small of her back and invited her to take a closer look at an orchid the size of a thimble which was growing in the crook of a tree.

  “Can you see?” he said. “Here.” He slid a penlight from his pocket and shined it tightly on the flower. “It’s precious, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Beth said. And then, in a rush, “There was a child, back there, in the forest. She was maybe three months old, so sweet, and she didn’t have a name. I was wondering if there might be a way, if she is not wanted or a burden of some kind, I know I—we—could provide a good home. We live in a village of sorts—clean and comfortable, with very good educational opportunities and lots of diverse friends and toys for her to play with, secondhand clothes, because we don’t like to be wasteful, and love. We have love for her. We can’t have kids of our own, or at least that’s what we’ve found.”

  “I don’t think so,” Miguel replied.

  “But I don’t understand!” Beth began to sob, then stopped when she noticed Miguel chortling to himself, bent at the waist with the laughter that was coursing through him. He stopped for long enough to hold out a fibrous piece of bark he had pulled from the trunk of a tree. The bark was a coppe
ry color, flecked with a darker, richer brown, and the piece he had stripped sat in the palm of his hand like a special seashell.

  “Try it,” Miguel said. “Rub it here.” He ran his index finger across his gums. “Chew on it. It was what we used when we went to the dentist, to do the dental work. A way of freezing, of feeling no pain.” He passed her the bark and she put it in her mouth like a lozenge. It was true what he said; within seconds her tongue felt clumsy and numb. She looked at him, shocked, and found she could not speak.

  “Shh,” he said, although she had not uttered a word. He sidled up close to her, from behind, and put his arms around her in a restrictive embrace.

  I should resist, she thought, but fear was making her tingly and compliant. She wondered if there was a place where she truly belonged.

  Then Miguel’s fingers were down the front of her pants, his lips tender at her neck, his fingers rubbing and hooked up inside of her. “Here you go, Toronto,” he said into her ear. “A souvenir.” And Beth came, gasping soundlessly into the hand he had clasped firmly across her mouth. “Now,” Miguel said. “Now do you understand?”

  SIC TRANSIT GLORIA AT

  THE HUMBER LOOP

  BY SEAN DIXON

  Humber Loop

  She said she wasn’t married anymore. But then, about two weeks into our thing, the dude came to visit, from Ohio or Iowa or someplace like that, I don’t even know. And he insisted that they sleep together, side by side in the same bed, every night for ten nights. Said she owed him that since he was her husband and she was his wife. She agreed to it, she told me, because she was afraid of him. Said she’d left a little something under my pillow to get me through. Said she’d call again in eleven days. I could hear him in the background, demanding to know who she was talking to. She told him to fuck off and then she said bye and hung up.

  Reflecting on it now, it didn’t sound too much like she was afraid of him.

  I had three gigs lined up. Double bass players can always find a gig, even if they only know ten or twelve notes. I don’t have a car, but it’s not a problem. I used to have a car. A big car. Fit the soft case nicely in the backseat. But then one day I backed the car over the bass. It could not be salvaged. I kicked the car a couple of times and then sold it so I could buy myself another bass, along with a lightweight, state-of-the-art Styrofoam case, more than an inch thick, with an Oxford cloth surface. Meant for air travel. It was six and a half feet tall and weighed just over twenty pounds without the instrument. I didn’t mind. The contents would not get damaged. And there were wheels. I could roll it down the street to wherever I was going, even in the rain. Means I was generally available to play. Man, I just want to play. Never tried to pull that rig onto a streetcar. Wasn’t even sure it was possible. Just did gigs in the Queen West area, mostly. Walking around. And up Roncesvalles. I got a rain hat that looked like a Tilly but it wasn’t, though that didn’t stop people from calling me asshole.

  Day after the husband showed up, it was Monday. I played the Local on Roncy, with an old-timey type group that wanted to keep things pure. Pure meant three-chords, nothing fancy. A fiddler from BC sat in that night. Changed the key in the middle of a number, tried to ramp things up a notch. Sent everyone scrambling for their capos. Afterwards I broke his nose. Wasn’t myself really.

  Tuesday I played with a singer-songwriter-type girl. Bar on Queen West. The flower sellers come in there. Some of them sell flowers that light up and blink. The hallway to the washrooms is pretty narrow. Her name was Harmony. Pretty sure it was a fake name. Don’t know how she came up with Harmony when she sings by herself. She looked like she had kicked a bad habit and was starting over a little old. But she had talent.

  Turns out she wanted to fire me. Told me after the gig I was too intense. It’s true I get nervous. I take calcium supplements for that. Like beta-blockers, only cheaper. When you get nervous, your body eats up calcium, and then the depletion gives you a case of the shakes, which makes you even more nervous. It’s a cycle. I tried to take glucosamine too, for arthritis. But it hurt my stomach too much so I had to stop. Anyway, I don’t have arthritis.

  I don’t know where Harmony got this idea I was messed up, but she was pretty intense herself so it was hard to convince her of anything other than what she believed. I asked if she’d give me one more chance and she said come back in two weeks and see if she hadn’t replaced me yet.

  That was an early night. I went home and thought about my girl. How she told me when we first met that I made a two-dollar suit look like a million bucks. How she kept me relaxed. I was always getting paranoid. She kept me relaxed. That was her primary virtue. Guess that’s what turned a little thing into love.

  Wednesday I played a blues set at the 403 on Roncy. Only pops up from time to time. Singer’s name was Gloria. She’s Ojibway, with a blind and swollen eye and a voice like Stelco. I met her a few years ago. Up north in a tee-pee. Introduced herself while sitting on the can. Made a joke about how it was a throne and the people had to bow down before her. And they did. Then she sang some and I played on a washtub bass that someone dragged out. I hadn’t played since high school. Gloria told me music was going to save my soul. She was right. Called me Plunk Henry, which I guess is who I am.

  I’m Plunk Henry. How do you do.

  The rest of the time was a bit of a blur.

  I was living in a big warehouse building on Niagara Street. Still am, I guess. You really live alone there. You take the freight elevator or you take the stairs. I stayed in my bed, knowing no one would come and bother me. Tried to imagine her but instead I’d see the husband with her. She’d be fulfilling her wifely duty over and over and over again. Made me a bit crazy. I’d lie there in my underwear and jerk off and cry. Or try to cry. I don’t know if I cried. I never thought about anyone else. Even tried to draw a picture of her. Tried to draw her mouth. Looked more like a mustache. Tried to draw her breast. Looked more like a fried egg. Still, my doodles were better than all the porn on the Internet.

  After a couple days, I was still trying to get a grip. I tried to imagine our relationship in a year or two. Maybe less than a year. Maybe six months. Not having sex anymore. Me starting to think she talked too much. She telling me what she thought of my playing.

  Didn’t work though.

  Eleventh day she came up the freight elevator and appeared at my door. Said the husband was gone back to Iowa or Idaho. I was a bit stunned. I’d taken the mushrooms she’d left for me. When she came in, she sat down in the only chair in the room, petting the cat that got in with her, and telling him that he was a bad cat, that he shouldn’t be there. I looked at her. Her skin was paisley and her eyes were burning brighter than a mirror in the sun.

  She said it made her feel like a cheap whore, coming from her husband’s bed to mine. I told her it wasn’t her husband’s bed and she wasn’t a cheap whore. I told her she was my precious flower. She told me to shut my mouth. Said she felt like a cheap whore. Said she liked the feeling. Liked putting her mouth around the words.

  I should have taken my cue from that, I guess.

  She chastized me later. Said I burned her insides. Truth is, it burned me too. Hurt to pee for a couple of days. What comes of a girl making you so you don’t know which end is up.

  She seemed flattered though, she could screw me up so bad to get a bona fide chemical reaction. Like I was her little science project. And it calmed me down too. I remember getting up at dawn. Saw the sun coming in through the window. Thought, I’m normal. Wondered if I’d stay that way. Remembered how things had been a few weeks before. When I’d rehearse with fellow musicians.

  Musicians are generous people, the same way that language instructors are. They know you want to communicate. Nobody wants to stab you in the back. Been told too that bass players live longer than all the others. Like elephants with their ears that grow large, encouraged by low and gentle music. I’m still waiting for that.

  We holed up for a few days. I cancelled all my gigs. Was runnin
g out of money but she didn’t seem to mind. Told me when we came up for air we’d figure something out. Said she knew a guy who knew a guy.

  She sure knew how to make me relax.

  Still, after five or six days, I realized it was the night of my second-chance gig with Harmony. The last thing I wanted to do, this stage of my career, burn my bridges.

  I said I was going and she was insulted. Like, really insulted. Like a whole different person came out. I said I just wanted to play and she said I sounded like a broken record. Said her baby sister played better than me. Said if I was going to treat her like trash, she was going to treat me like something worse.

  She really didn’t mean it though. She was just feeling sore.

  As I rolled out the door she threw an old mandolin at me. Hit the wall beside my head. I heard the crack. Reminded me how I backed the car over that bass. I lived a nightmare for a while after I lost that bass. Felt like I’d had this pact with the devil. Said he’d come to collect his pay. Only I couldn’t remember any of the good parts. The upshot was any instrument I put my hand to was set to break. Even the washtub bass in Wicky. Even the one I had now. Devil promised it would make the sound of a wrecking ball going through old paneling. It was my destiny, he said. Didn’t make any sense. All I did was back over a bass in a driveway. Where’s the unpardonable sin in that?

  There was something wrong with the freight elevator. In the end I took the stairs, lugging the rig down two floors. Awkward at the corners of the landings. Then out into the street, rolling up Niagara to Queen. Heading west. Like it was your average night.

  It was hot though. Muggy. I was sweating by the time I got to that bar. With the blinking flowers and the narrow bathroom hallway. Like half the bars in Toronto, you’re probably thinking. I’m sure you don’t mind me keeping it vague.

  From the sound of it, there were a lot of people beyond the edge of the bar, where I couldn’t really see them. They didn’t care too much about us. I tuned them out mostly. Toronto is a city where they welcome you with folded arms.