Broken Man on a Halifax Pier

by Choyce, Lesley;

  “That’s fine with me. Let’s do it. When is that mail train expected?”

  “Not any time soon.”

  When I woke up one foggy morning, it must have been the fog that made me think about Halifax. The past that I had left behind. I still had that damned apartment. And I hadn’t paid rent for a couple of months.

  The landlord said he’d hang on, cut me a break until my luck got better. But how long ago was that? I decided I better give him a call.

  Jimmy was a slum landlord, a seventy-year-old man, born in Poland, who had jumped ship in Halifax back in the days of the communist government. He smoked filterless cigarettes down to nothing until they’d burnt his lips. I remember him with two good blisters top and bottom almost all the time. He liked to tell me stories about the women in Poland and the beer. Even in his seventies it was still women and beer for Jimmy. Women of all sizes came and went. Beer flowed freely.

  “Hello,” he answered, with a smoker’s gravel in his voice. Talking to Jimmy was like talking to a cement mixer.

  “Jimmy, it’s Charles.”

  “Charlie. I thought you must be dead.” I’d corrected Jimmy a hundred times about the name, but it never stuck.

  “I’m not.”

  “Shit.”

  “You seem disappointed.”

  “No, Charlie, I’m glad you’re alive. It’s just that I was sure you weren’t coming back.”

  “I know. My fault. I’ve been out of town. I got caught up in things.”

  “Jesus, man. You were four months behind in rent.”

  “Really? Was it that long?”

  “I figured you were either dead or ran out on me without paying.”

  “Well, I was hoping I could catch up somehow.”

  “I know. I’m sure you were. But I guess I gave up on you. You know I got bills. I need my tenants to pay. The women, the girls I see, it takes money to keep them around, you know. I don’t mean I pay them or any shit like that. It’s just that I need to keep them happy. A little gift. A meal out at the casino. You know.”

  “I should come get my things. And I’m still gonna find a way to pay you what I owe.”

  There was a pause and then Jimmy coughed long and hard straight into the phone. “Well, here’s the thing, Charlie.”

  I guess I should have seen this coming.

  “The thing is, I cleaned out your apartment. I gave up on you. Dead or deadbeat, either way. My father, who used to be a boss in a pickle factory in Warsaw, always said, business is business. Biznes to biznes.”

  “What do you mean cleaned out?”

  “Well, I saw that young man in there one day. He had music blasting. He was hooting it up, and when I confronted him, he showed me the key. Told me to fuck off. Well, I thought that was it. You were gone and you’d given this monkey the key to your place.

  “I waited for some word from you. But nothing. I was gonna put your stuff out at the curb, only the city fined me for doing that the last time, the buggers. So I had a kind of open house and gave all your stuff away. You didn’t have a whole hell of a lot, buddy.”

  “You mean it’s all gone?”

  “Yes, it is. I’m sorry to say. Maybe I made a mistake.”

  Maybe I should have been upset about this. But I wasn’t. I was free of my possessions, once again, free of my past.

  “Jimmy, I think you did the right thing.”

  “Phewy. I like you, Charlie. I didn’t intend to do anything mean.”

  “What did you do with my books?”

  “Gave ’em away.”

  “Good. My computer?”

  “Some college kid took it. Don’t know his name.”

  “You didn’t happen to see a cardboard box with a stack of papers in it?”

  “Your novel you’d been working on?”

  “Yeah. That.”

  “Oh, I kept that. I found it and started reading. I was hooked from the word go.”

  “You saved it?”

  “I saved it. I read it. But it’s not finished. You got to tell me how it ends.”

  “I don’t know how it ends.”

  “I should give it back to you then, so you can finish it.”

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever finish it.”

  “Here’s the deal,” Jimmy said, punctuated by a staccato of coughing. “I forget about what you owe me and I give the novel back to you if you promise to finish it and let me read the rest.”

  “Deal,” I said.

  31

  It’s hard to say exactly what we did with our days. We lived them. One by one. We went to sea a few times on the calm days. I paid close attention to the marine forecasts. We caught some haddock and some mackerel. Ate a lot of fish. Both agreed it might be time for a bit more turf and a little less surf in our diets.

  Ramona hinted that she had some more appointments coming up soon, never quite answering my questions about what for. Alan Romaine came over a couple of times and took down my story about Brody in detail. I could see his mind working all the while about the “narrative” and how he would make it play out. Part of me wished I hadn’t got involved and a bigger part of me was dreading that things might not turn out as cheery as Alan made it sound.

  But it was summer on the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia and the nor’easters were on vacation — like half the province. I wanted the warm summer days of life in the Harbour to stretch out forever. But then I woke up one morning to hear Ramona announce that she was going to Halifax. “Appointments,” she said. “And I need to visit my mother.”

  The drive to the city seemed much longer and more difficult for some reason. Worlds colliding again.

  “What is the name of that novel you were working on?” she asked. “You never told me.”

  “I never told anyone.”

  “Well, Jimmy read it, right? He said he liked it.”

  “Jimmy isn’t exactly a literary critic.”

  “At least tell me the name.”

  “Purgatory Newsletter,” I said. Now that I said it out loud it sounded truly ridiculous.

  I think she was trying to suppress a laugh. “Hmm. Purgatory — as in the place between heaven and hell?”

  “Well, I didn’t mean it literally. Besides, it was just a working title.”

  Ramona was on her phone now. I kept forgetting that people could use phones to look up things on the internet.

  “Here,” she said. “I got it. Wikipedia: ‘Purgatory is an intermediate state after physical death in which some of those ultimately destined for heaven must first undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.… Only those who die in the state of grace, but have not yet fulfilled the temporal punishment due to their sin can be in purgatory.’”

  “Hey, look, I’m not even Catholic. I was probably thinking of Dante and El Purgatorio. It was a sophomoric idea, I can see that. It was a book about being stuck in an in-between world. Not heaven, not hell. To be honest I didn’t know where it was going. I kept losing the story. Kept changing my mind.”

  “Was it about you?”

  “No. People always make that mistake about fiction writing. It was a story. One I’ll never finish.”

  “I thought you promised your old landlord you’d finish it.”

  She could tell I was getting miffed about trying to explain it. “I’d like to read it,” she said. “Maybe I can help you find an ending. Find a way for your protagonist to move out of purgatory.”

  “Fine,” I said, just to end the discussion. I couldn’t figure out why talking about the novel made me so agitated. I guess it was another reminder of what a dismal failure my life had been.

  Ramona dropped me off at her apartment, gave me a key, and told me to keep it, said she’d be back by one and we’d go see her mom.

  When she returned at 12:15, she seemed distracted and upset. “You okay? What happened?”

  “Nothing happened. I’m fine. You coming with me to see Mom or what?”

  She seemed angry
with me. I didn’t understand. This wasn’t like Ramona.

  “I’m coming. Of course.”

  My mind was stuck on the purgatory thing. The celestial waiting room. Stuck in limbo. With a way out, but the way out involved punishment. Punishment followed by forgiveness. Is that the way it works? Were the Catholics right? If you made it to purgatory, the good news was you weren’t going to hell; you just had to take your licks and then you could go to heaven. But then maybe some people might be stuck in purgatory forever. Forever in between. Forever being tested, punished, but not forgiven.

  There was a man sitting in a chair in Brenda Danforth’s nursing home room. He had his back to us. He didn’t turn around as we walked in. Ramona’s mother was looking downright cheerful. She lit up even more when she saw us. It must have been one of her good days.

  “Ramona, darling, look who’s here.”

  That’s when the man in the suit stood up and turned our way.

  “Oh, God,” Ramona said. “What are you doing here?”

  He was seventyish, maybe older. A man with thinning silver hair in a very expensive-looking suit. A man with a big broad smile on his face. A man who was Ramona’s father. I got that at once.

  “I came to take your mother out of here. I want her to come home with me.”

  Ramona looked at father with a look of pure contempt. Then she looked at her mother and realized her reaction was causing her mother distress. She closed her eyes and clenched her fists, but when she opened her eyes, she forced herself to smile.

  “Isn’t it great to have your father back?” Brenda said.

  Ramona’s father held out his hands, palms up. I couldn’t help but notice the Rolex watch. A very expensive Rolex watch. Old moneybags. I wondered what happened with the woman he’d run off with.

  “We should talk over lunch,” Ramona’s father said. “Your mother and I have been catching up on old times and I think she may need to rest now.” He turned to his wife and said, “Isn’t that right, dear?”

  She nodded a sweet smile. The woman was happy. There was no doubt about it. Her long-lost philandering husband had returned and she was happy to have him back. Maybe we should have stayed, but Brenda had already closed her eyes and nodded forward.

  Ramona was positively volcanic, but she held it in until we were out of the room and down the hall and out in the parking lot.

  “I’m sorry,” Ramona’s father said to me once we were outside. “I didn’t properly introduce myself. I’m Stanley Danforth. You can call me Stan. And you are?”

  “Charles,” I said, “but you can call me Charles.”

  He bloody winked at that. The fucker winked. “Let’s go to Da Maurizio, Charles. Ramona and I need to talk. Meet you there in ten minutes?” He was as calm and self-assured as any man I’d met. No hint of a guilt-ridden skirt-chaser who had left his wife in mental decline.

  I didn’t answer as he got into his blue BMW and eased out of the parking space and drove off.

  “That man really your father?” I asked. It was like some strange actor playing a very sophisticated role had shown up in her mother’s room.

  “Unfortunately, yes. Now, just get in the damn car and drive us to the restaurant.”

  So I got in the damn car and drove us to the restaurant.

  I’m not a big fan of restaurants to be honest. They can be okay, I suppose; however, I have always thought that if you are going to have a family argument, a really big blow-out of some sort, that a restaurant is not the place to do it.

  But there we were. Her father acting like a prince among men and Ramona ready to explode with rage at any moment.

  Her father had already ordered champagne. “I hope you don’t mind that I took the liberty of ordering a little refreshment,” he said.

  He reminded me a little of the publisher back at the Tribune. A man who had been born to money and privilege and oozed it out of every pore of his body. Jock Watson was his name, and he liked to get us all together in the newsroom, grace us with his presence, give a little pep talk, and tell us how much he admired us and how we were all like family. But when things got tight, he pulled the plug on the paper and walked away.

  Jock Watson and Stanley not only wore the same Armani suits, but they were cut out of the same cloth. A very expensive fabric with a stain-free, almost Teflon-like coating.

  He was looking rather pleased with himself — calm, self-satisfied, adjusting the placement of his fork and knife by his plate. Ramona was studying her own knife, undoubtedly trying to judge if it was sharp enough to do the job she had in mind. The waiter poured champagne for the family reunion.

  When the waiter bowed and slipped away, Stanley cleared his throat. “I know I made a mistake, Ramona. A very big mistake. But now I’m back to make amends.”

  “It’s not that easy,” Ramona said.

  “I know it’s not. But I need to do this. For your mother and me.”

  “You left. You left when she needed you.”

  “I left your mother in good care. The care she needed.”

  “Then why are you back? What happened to what’s her name?”

  “Christina? She was only using me.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “It took me a long while to realize. I can’t believe I was so naive.”

  “I can’t believe you are such a shit,” Ramona said, raising her voice.

  “I deserve every bad thing you have to say about me. I was a poor father and a terrible husband, and it took me all this time to realize it. Now I’d like to make things right.”

  It was fascinating to see how detached the man was from emotions. He’d made a mistake and now he’d correct it. That was his story. His narrative. A man of wealth and privilege, a man who walks away and feels no qualms about it. Then comes back. Patches things up.

  “I love your mother very much. I always did. Then this woman, Christina, came along and cast some kind of spell over me. Looking back, I can’t see how that could have happened. But it did.”

  “But you can’t just come home and make everything right that easily.”

  “I want to take your mother out of that home. They have done a good job there. You can’t deny I made sure she has had the most excellent care in my absence.”

  “You left money. You ran. I don’t call that taking care of her.”

  Stanley folded his hands in front of him as if praying, as if wanting to do penance. “You and your mother were both well provided for. The family trust. It was well endowed. I worked many years to build up that nest egg. And it paid off.”

  “You never worked hard in your life.”

  “Money came easily to me, I’ll admit. But I was a wise businessman and that was a skill as well.”

  “Money always came before family.”

  “Be that as it may, I am here now and I want to bring your mother back with me and provide around-the-clock professional assistance to help with her condition.” Then he turned to me.

  “Charles, if I may be so bold as to ask your opinion, what would you want if you were to find yourself in Brenda’s condition? To remain in an institution or to be living in a real home with a loved one?”

  Ramona shot a few daggers at me.

  I took a fortifying sip of wine. “Well, Stan, I don’t think that is for me to say. But, suffice it to say that Brenda seems to be doing as well as can be expected in the home she is in, and you have proven yourself to be, well, if I may be so bold, unreliable, so maybe she should stay put.”

  “Unreliable is a polite way of putting it. I do understand.”

  “Dad,” Ramona interrupted. “You are more than unreliable. You have been an asshole your entire life. And I’ve had to live with it. Now, I think you should just disappear yet again. Do your little vanishing act that you do so well. And leave us all alone.”

  I guess the waiter wasn’t really noticing the domestic squabble that was about to erupt into a verbal firestorm, for he arrived, looking over Stanley’s shoulder, and asked if we were
ready to order.

  Without missing a beat, Ramona’s father serenely answered, “I’ll start with the Caesar salad, please, followed by the sirloin.”

  It seemed nearly unthinkable that Stanley could remain so inhumanly calm and aloof as if the current discussion had been over what colour to paint the gazebo or some such thing.

  “Fuck this,” Ramona said, getting to her feet. “I’m leaving.”

  I was hoping she meant we’re leaving. I was right behind her. I didn’t look back to see Stan’s reaction. My guess is he remained unruffled. I knew that nothing was settled. Not a damn thing.

  I followed Ramona out to the car. We got in and it was like a bake oven in there. If we had left a dog in the car it would have been dead by now. I put in the key but couldn’t get the windows to go down at first. I fiddled with the key some more until I got it. A puff of air pushed through the interior as I noticed Ramona was crying.

  I put my arm around her and she leaned into me until her tears soaked my shirt.

  When she pulled herself back together, she sat up and blew her nose. “That appointment I had this morning. It was with Mom’s doctor. Well, my doctor too. He confirmed that I’ve got what she has. Early-onset dementia. I’ve got the gene. I have some early symptoms. Someday I’ll be like her.”

  “That can’t be,” I said.

  “It’s only a matter of time. If you’re looking for a way out, I suggest you walk away now.”

  It seemed we were repeatedly opening doors for the other one to exit from our lives. I thought it odd that, on a day like this, the day that her news came, the day her father arrived, she was thinking of me and not herself. It made me love her even more than I already did. And up until then, I didn’t think that was possible.

  32

  On the drive back to her place, she dried her tears and pulled herself back together. “Think about what I said. You can walk away from me any time and I won’t think any less of you. This thing will catch up with me. Do the research.”

  Images of Ramona’s mother flashed through my head. Was that really why her father had run off? And why in God’s name had he returned? No, I didn’t think I’d walk away even though I had been so good at just that all my life.