“Puh-puh-puh-parrrrting g-g-gift?”
“This condition that claimed my father’s body and mind is of course a potentially hereditary one.”
Enola Gay, you have permission to deliver your payload.
“Have you, have you, have you, have you been t-tuh-tuh-tested?”
“No, and nor do I need to be. I can already feel it inside me. As sure as it killed my father so too will it soon come for me. But not before . . .”
He stops midsentence, something I don’t recall ever happening. I can never seem to get out of my own head, though right now I can’t seem to get in it. I pray time might pass unmolested.
“But not before I have managed to leave something behind.”
He finishes the fractured sentence and my eyes light up and then sink under this new burden of sincerity.
“And surely in your insight you have now come to the truth of it.”
“Your wuh-wuh-wuh-wife—”
“Is halfway across the country trying in desperation to become pregnant with another man. She is fast becoming dry and this may well be her last chance to carry the child that I once promised her.”
Max leans back, folds his arms, and tilts his head upward to look at the roof.
“In my father I saw weakness and mediocrity and as a young man I was determined to surpass him in every way. And by all measures surpass him I have. I also believed that all my success in life would be for naught if I hadn’t any children with which to share it. Above all else I knew I could have been a better father than he was. But which is the greater sin? Denying myself the children I intended to care for with the entirety of my capacities, or passing on to them the same defective genes that might also lay premature claim to their lives? And so was the gamble I never chanced. And in my guilt and in my denial I reasoned that despite not leaving a familial legacy behind I may yet leave a legacy of comparable importance. The legacy of a Prime Minister. And with that I might burn my name into the pages of history before succumbing to my father’s debt.”
“Muh-muh-m-m-m-m-muh-muh-Max I d-d-d-d-duh-don’t—”
“Pay it no further mind, dear Lawrence. Though it hangs precarious above me as the rusted Sword of Damocles my end is not upon me yet. And neither is yours. You have a condition and it is one that you rightfully curse, but you have a life ahead of you that will be full and wide. I myself find a comfort in that, I should think that you may as well. But I am afraid that you simply must excuse me. My mind is wearied and must be returned to a condition that the tasks of tomorrow necessitate. Such is the mechanism of all things.”
And without wasting a second to linger on what was just said Max places his hands on his knees and hoists his large frame up from the chesterfield with an audible groan that plays repeatedly in my head. He reaches the staircase but before ascending he turns his attention to me once more.
“Oh, and Lawrence?”
I turn my head and raise my chin toward him.
“Apologies for raising my voice. Mes manières m’échappent au pire des temps.”
And then he disappeared up the staircase leaving me alone in the room that was dark save for midnight’s muted light. I didn’t get up right away. I didn’t get up for quite some time. I sat there on Montblanc’s pristine furniture in a way that few others likely have. And as I sat there I finally realized something that should have been clear to me for a long time now.
I am not happy with the state of my life.
55
PATHOGENESIS
EVERYTHING IS BREAKING and everything is falling apart and aging and dusty and decrepit and decaying and derelict and dilapidated and disintegrating. Nothing is working properly and it’s all falling apart. I think about how much dust my apartment must have gathered. It was dusty when I left. And it’s all broken. There’s a chipped mug on my desk and it’s full of pens that don’t have any ink. My microwave has been broken for six months and I haven’t bothered to move or replace it. It’s all breaking down. The white rubber tips on the toes of my Chucks, once a luminous white, are now stained with dead grass and dirt. Fading and aging and the plumbing doesn’t work right. It drips all night and I can hear it in my dreams. I’m breaking. I’m getting fatter and slower and I can’t get up in the mornings. The screw on my glasses is loose and now the frames wiggle. The enamel on my teeth has worn down and now they hurt when I eat anything with sugar in it. It’s fading and breaking and nothing is working. My white shirts are all stained at the pits. My bookshelf is covered in dust and moths are eating my sweaters. And there’s dust and I breathe it in and it settles in my lungs. And there’s mass graves in the jungles and in the frontiers and their dirt is cold and can’t be washed off. Everything fades and people don’t remember my face. There’s a metallic taste in my mouth and I don’t know if it’s coming from malfunctioning organs within or from the rusty air outside. Old papers with poems are stained yellow. My computer is contaminated with viruses and spyware and malware and nothing is working anymore. The mouse and the keyboard are covered in dust and grime and dead skin and oil. The wheels on my suitcase have fallen off and I’m not strong enough to carry it for very long. There’s visible particles dancing around in my glass of tap water and I drink it anyway because my better judgement is broken. The carpet is ugly and crusted with vegetable juice and the walls are smoke-stained. Everything is breaking and decayed and nothing is working the way it was meant to. There are creases all over the covers of Joyce and Cohen and their innards smell of smoke and earth. The cuffs of my sweaters and shirts are tattered and frayed and stretched and nothing fits quite right anymore. Nothing works right and everything is dusty. A diversity of dead insects is collected in the lampshade, buried under a blanket of dust. I dig my grave with a spade that has a broken handle. There’s a pain in my lower back when I sit in the same place for too long because I’m decaying and breaking and I’m forgetting the sounds of the voices I once knew. The skin on my feet is cracked and dried. I want to ask my maker for input but I’ve forgotten how to take the prayer position. My wits are fading and my vocabulary is fading and everything else is breaking. There’s plastic duct-taped to the window where the glass broke over a year ago.
Everything is breaking and everything is falling apart, yes, but I am still here. I am still here and I have the privilege of being able to selectively ignore the surrounding decay when I need to. But Montblanc? Well he’s breaking in a way that can’t be fixed, isn’t he?
56
PROGNOSTICATION
I HAD NOTICED certain oddities in M’s physical mannerisms before. A subtle shaking of his shoulders, an occasional jerk in his walk, though prior to last night’s confession I never thought much of it. It’s not as if he ever seemed troubled or needed help of any kind. As for his numerous personality idiosyncrasies, well those I just chalked up to the eccentricities that are to be expected from the rich, powerful, and charismatic. But I retain now the Forbidden Knowledge. Montblanc’s mind, once a sharpened steel dagger, was to give way irrefutably to rust, his body to a similar fate. And what is this going to mean for his future plans? How does the prodigal problem solver approach this? I don’t know. I don’t know what he’s thinking. I don’t know anything. I’m not a detective.
But what if I were?
***
The year is 2022. Maxime Montblanc has retired from the worlds of business and politics and now, after finding a new vigor and determination within himself, works as the nation’s most cunning and effectual private detective. And at his side? His most trusted friend and partner—me. Yessir, we’ve been all over this great land from the forests of Tofino to the beaches of Prince Edward Island. We’ve played chess under the Northern Lights in Whitehorse and waded across the shrill waters of the Saint Lawrence. Always in pursuit of a case, always in pursuit of justice. But this new case? Well, it brought Max back to a place he knew all too well, back to a place he swore he’d never go ba
ck to again.
Turns out a Member of Parliament had just been murdered. Quite the grisly case as I understand. It had happened sometime that morning. Neither the local authorities nor the press had been informed. The folks at Parliament Hill were hoping that Max could work some of his magic and solve the case before making it public and inviting widespread pandemonium. We arrived on the Hill an hour before noon and were hastily taken to the scene of the crime—the kitchen of the Parliamentary Dining Room.
A grisly case indeed. The naked body of Liberal MP Michel Renault had been stung up by the wrists in a Jesus Christ post hanging now one foot above the stainless-steel food prep counter. Renault’s body had been opened in several areas: the inside of each thigh, each forearm, the neck, and the biggest cut from his sternum to his navel. The killer had left a collection of pots, bowls, and glassware directly underneath the hanging body and the blood, most of which had been emptied, was almost entirely contained within these receptacles save for a few splashes that had crusted atop the stainless-steel. Directly underneath the body was a white card positioned between the two dangling legs as if were a descriptive plaque for a museum exhibit. The card was blank and featureless save for the words, le traître, which had been written in thick black ink from a heavy hand.
“Gosh guh-guh-guh-golly, Mmmax!”
“Gosh golly indeed, my friend. ’Tis a grim affair to be sure.”
“What do you suppose it muh-muh-mmmeans?”
“I must confess I haven’t a clear inclination at the moment.”
But Max’s bemusement didn’t worry me. Our cases often started this way but I knew that before the day was through Max will have found his perpetrator and we would be off on a new adventure. After taking some more notes at the crime scene, Max decided to question some of the MPs who had been in the building when the crime was thought to have taken place. We first came across Mark Crowe, an old colleague of Max’s, who was in the process of carrying boxes full of papers and books from his office.
“Welcome back, Max. Didn’t think I’d ever see you in here again. Wish it were under happier circumstances.”
“Hello, old friend. Haven’t you an intern that could be moving those boxes for you?”
“Ah, I let him have the day off today, he wanted to go camping or some shit. Besides, I don’t mind doing it myself. Beats doing actual work, right?”
“We nuh-nuh-need t-t-t-t-t-to ask you suh-some—”
“Lawrence, please. We need to ask you some questions, Mark. Michel Renault—do you know of anyone who would have reason to think of him as a traitor?”
“Besides pretty much everyone in Quebec you mean? Look, people around here liked Michel, myself included, but he had lost pretty much all of his favour in Quebec. Look at his voting record. He’s a francophone that voted to limit Quebec autonomy whenever he could. You know how that works. Half the province probably sees the guy as a traitor, especially the people that voted for him. Truth be told, he was a nice guy but kind of a shitty politician in that regard. Didn’t really do much to keep the favour of his constituents. I don’t mean to tell you how to do your job, Max, but if I were you I’d start looking into Quebecers that have a known history of extremist separatist activity.”
***
(This is about where the commercial break would be.)
***
When we come back, Max and I are talking to Grace Aitken, the assistant to the Parliamentary Librarian of Canada and one of Max’s ‘closest’ associates during his time as an MP.
“How’s your wife, Max?”
“Thank you for asking. Listen, Grace, I was hoping you might use your RCMP connections to pull a little information for me.”
“Of course, whatever you need to help find this guy, just let me know.”
“I need you to pull all criminal records from Quebec of individuals with separatist affiliations, specifically those who lived within Renault’s riding.”
“Sure thing, Max, I’ll give you a call as soon as it comes in. Think you might have this case wrapped up in time for a drink tonight?”
“I think with an incentive like that it won’t be a problem at all.”
***
It’s getting late in the afternoon now. Mr. Seabrook, the head of security at Parliament Hill has given us until the end of the business day to solve this crime before he brings in the official authorities. Max and I have questioned several people but we don’t seem to be any closer to finding a perpetrator. Joined by Mr. Seabrook, we decide to search Renault’s office for clues. The office is scattered, papers and books cover much of the floor. Max picks up on the disorder immediately.
“I’ve always known Renault to be an orderly and organized man. Tell me, Seabrook, why is his office in such uncharacteristic disarray?”
“He had only just moved into this office yesterday. Looks like he was still in the process of unpacking everything. Damn shame that he never got a chance to enjoy this office though, it’s got one of the better views in the whole building.”
“Quite majestic indeed.”
“Look, I’ve given you all the time that I can give ya. I appreciate you trying and all, but I’m afraid I gotta call this one in now.”
At that moment Max’s phone rings.
“Max, it’s Grace. I’ve got a list of names for you, and get this, one of them boarded a plane to Ottawa last night. We ran his credit card, he’s staying at a hotel across town.”
Max thanks Grace, hangs up his phone, and leads us out of Renault’s office. As we rush down the hallway, we once again run into Mark Crowe, still in the process of moving boxes out of his office. Max stops and Mark addresses him.
“Hey Maxy! You’re moving pretty fast, you found the guy or what?”
“Indeed we have. Mr. Seabrook, detain this man. Lawrence, call the police.”
“Me? Come on, man, don’t be crazy. I couldn’t have done something like that!”
“You wanted Renault’s new office. You both wanted it. It’s nearly a half meter longer than this office, it’s directly across from the men’s room, it has an undisturbed view of the river, it’s better than your current office in every conceivable way and you couldn’t handle the fact that Renault was going to get it instead of you so you murdered him and attempted to frame a Quebec autonomist.”
“But how? How did you figure it out? I was so careful!”
“You were careful, Mark. You made it seem as if it were an act of political extremism. You pinned it on a separatist who you knew was going to be in town. You even made sure that your intern wouldn’t be here to witness anything. Indeed, you were careful, but you forgot one crucial thing.”
“And what’s that?”
“I’m Maxime Montblanc. Take him away, Seabrook.”
And roll credits! See you all in next week’s adventure when Max and I disrupt an illegal seal-hunting operation off the coast of Nova Scotia.
***
But of course, I’m not really a detective and I know that things don’t play out like they do on TV. I know that story was ridiculous, poorly written, and riddled with tonal inconsistencies and plot holes. I know that M and I won’t be traveling the country solving crimes together in the future. I know that once I’m finished with his book he will send me home and I’ll likely never see him again.
I know that I’m not really a detective, but I don’t need to be. Right now the truth was plain enough. Max was sick. And I don’t think he planned on getting better.
57
PAYNIMRY
THE LIGHTS ON the menorah are pinched out by calloused fingertips that don’t mind the heat of the flames as you or I might. It gets darker and what it becomes in here is obvious—it’s a meditation on the very process itself. God is perfect and in us He fills with urine and phobias. There’s a corpse on the bottom of the shallow lake still holding a mirror and still separating sediment
with fine raven hair. M has a wife and follicles and dead skin of her might have been entering my lungs and suddenly I am intimate with her as our bodies collide and combine. Does M still go down on you? Tell me his routine in so much as it defines the man I am meant to be defining. I don’t know her name. Women are all nameless to M. God is perfect and so would have been the feminine were it not for M and his desecrating member flailing wildly and unkempt. He fathered Oshawa. Oshawa is an Ojibwa word that white fuckers have translated as portage, that is, the place where one must carry their canoe. No trick of the court mage that I would end up here with canoe overhead and propped up by my thin buckling arms. Fragility forgoes forceps. The slapping sound of M’s pelvis against her buttocks rhythmic and controlled as a performing percussionist. We have it under microscope. He has it under lock and key. I recite the poetry of greater men and women—closer to God’s perfection—I stumble over words and get them wrong and they walk on me and make me lick their feet and I thank them for the opportunity to do so. His wife invites me inside out of misplaced motherly intuition and she wipes the blood off of my face and skinned knees but she gets too close and I have come to prove my worth. What am I compared to him but she gives notes and encouragement and I almost believe her. I want to see us explode, I want to hear the branches shake and the critters scatter and I want to believe her and I want to believe that this was meant to last forever and that God is perfect and that I embody his perfection and that I am fucking her good but I am not so brazen and I am not so ecclesiastic and I have been waiting for Leonard Cohen to conduct my bris with his personally engraved izmel and I wait here in Oshawa with no canoe to carry and no water to place it in and no knowledge to fashion one because I am devoid of culture and heritage. When we finish I ask her when M will be home and she says she doesn’t know but if I wanted to go again there would probably be time enough but she’s a little sore and maybe I should use my mouth and so I oblige because I would never dream of talking back to her because she has excellent posture and speaks so well and she’s so perfect that I just want to weep. She says I’ve done the front, now do the back and so I do. And I want a canoe so I might set about the lake at the orange dusk between the reeds and framed within the mountains while ignoring my reflection in the mirror held by the corpse at the bottom. Can we ever walk along the dilapidated train tracks and smell the rust in the air? Can we ever promise that we will run parallel as they do until our own bodies rust and decompose? Can we jaunt at the same speed with hands held through the sun-kissed fields and the fresh fallen snow as we remember fondly the feeling of the other? Can we alternate between the smell of forest soil and our own secreted fluids? Will we always want to? One day they will carve marble statues of us in our various positions and the oblivious masses of the future will gaze upon us as we did ourselves. Oshawa falls to the flood and suddenly no one can find their canoes. We ramble on in all directions but M finds me and he wants to know why his wife smells the way she does and he confronts me and it feels a little too personal for me. I crawl and I crawl back into my damp hole where I can masturbate to the memories I shared with her. Spiders and flies lay their eggs around me and I see that they have done it right. The Canadian identity is slipping away. Canada is having an identity crisis. What could I possibly offer to bolster our culture but for this meditation on the process itself? M will save us, I always suspected that he might though I do not suspect that I will be casting my vote for him. Not after knowing what I know. That’s my right and I must cherish it above all things. My heart soars on the sounds of forgotten chords. I could live in hope. Freedom is nothing and it means nothing. Save us from ourselves and come in whatever guise suits your mood. The angry father or the loving mother all end and all end and all end. No one was allowed to cry in our village, it was to be the village of smiles and so it was until the White Men came and claimed our land, our women, our livelihood. And in their conquest they dared to ask what we called the village. We called it Oshawa, and so it is called to this very day. You would know. You would know it all if I told you enough, but I don’t want that responsibility anymore. It gets dark in this hole and I can only wait for the servant that God sends—be it M, his wife, or any of the others—to take the blade to me, to drag me from the hole, to carry me over their heads as if I were a canoe, and to throw me into the lake with all possessions stripped save for the flawless mirror bound to my hands.
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