Some Great Thing

by Colin McAdam

  “Yeah, that’s all right. Will he come back here later?”

  “No. They go home after all-day trips. They like that.”

  “CAN YOU DO ME A FAVOR, ladies? If Jerry shows up here after school, can you tell him I’m looking for him?”

  “HEY, MARIO, do me a favor. If you see Jerry this aft can you tell him to come home?”

  “Yes.”

  “And can you tell Cooper the same?”

  “BASICALLY HER BRAIN will be poisoned. Her liver isn’t filtering toxins from her blood and some are reaching her brain. I don’t know about permanent damage, but she’s going to be delusional for a while. And the withdrawal is going to get to her. How much was she drinking?”

  “Not much.”

  “This doesn’t happen from a binge. How many a day? Thirty?”

  “No way.”

  “It would have been near that.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “She will be feeling serious withdrawal and that itself will make her delusional.”

  “OH. HELLO. This is Jerry McGuinty calling. Is that Kwyet?”

  “This is her mother.”

  “I’m looking for my son, actually. Kwyet used to babysit him.”

  “Of course, yes. No, Kwyet is in Montreal now. She lives there.”

  “Right. I don’t suppose you have seen him. Jerry? Little guy?”

  “No. Sorry.”

  BY MIDNIGHT on the second night there was still no sign of him. I checked all my sites, called everyone. I still didn’t know what to tell him about Kathleen, but, you know, I wanted to see him.

  I didn’t feel like a drink that night.

  Next morning I did a round of the sites again. At the hospital I decided to call the police.

  “My son has gone missing.”

  “Where are you calling from, sir?”

  “The hospital.”

  “Is he hurt?”

  “No. He’s missing.”

  “In the hospital?”

  “I am in the hospital. My son is missing.”

  “I’m not understanding, sir. Did your son hurt you?”

  I went to the police station myself. I wasn’t seeing Kathleen at the hospital anyway—I always chose the wrong time to see her and got stuck with that doctor.

  “I want to find my son,” I said when I got to the police station. “He hasn’t come home for a couple of days.”

  I had forgotten that policemen are as stupid as professional movers.

  “Can I have your name please, sir?”

  “Jerry McGuinty.”

  “How long has your son been missing?”

  “I just told you.”

  “Don’t get scrappy please, sir. What is your son’s name?”

  “Jerry McGuinty.”

  “Your son’s name, sir.”

  I WOULD FIND HIM. Nothing serious. I half suspected we were just missing each other—you know, ships in the night.

  He was coming home when I was at the hospital, and he was going to the hospital when I was coming home. I left him notes, see: “I’m at the hospital, buddy”; and I left a map, cab fare, whatnot.

  “EDGAR.”

  “Hey, Jer.”

  “You seen Jerry?”

  “You all right?”

  “Yeah. No.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Kath’s in hospital.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Ah, you know. You seen Jerry?”

  “Not since yesterday.”

  “You saw him yesterday?”

  “What’s wrong with Kathleen?”

  “Where did you see him?”

  “I don’t know. Yeah, I saw him near your place. Maybe it wasn’t yesterday. No, it was. What’s wrong with Kathleen?”

  “She fell. Are you sure it was yesterday? I haven’t seen him for a couple of days.”

  “Is everything all right?”

  “Well, no, man, that’s … I’m trying to sort things out. One or two things are out of place. My son.”

  “I’m pretty sure it was yesterday I saw him. I saw him with Johnny Cooper.”

  “I’ve asked Cooper. He hasn’t seen him, not for a couple of days.”

  “Sorry, Jer.”

  “Keep your eye out, will you?”

  “You look pale, buddy.”

  “I’m tired.”

  “Sit down.”

  “I should keep looking.”

  HE STOPPED showing up at school.

  A long period began when every noise in the house had me excited and terrified, like Fear could get a Hard On: Its him! His body’s found! Him! Death! Imagine what the doorbell did to me.

  After about five days of him gone the doorbell rang and I opened the door to Tony Antonioni.

  “Jerry! I seen your Jerry!”

  “Where?”

  “Downtown! This morning. I seen him! I was in my car and I seen him. But, excuse me, Jerry, I cannot get out to see him. I’m stuck in traffic, I see him across the street, and I honk to him PAP! but I cannot get out because traffic! I call, ‘Jerry Jerry Jerry!’ but I forget to open window, and then he is gone and I cannot get out because fucking traffic, Jerry.”

  “What do you mean he’s gone?”

  “Down, you know, turn a corner. I cannot see him.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I try here all day. And at site.”

  “I told you I would be at the hospital.”

  “No. Why?”

  “I did.”

  “No. You sick, Jerry?”

  “No. Did he look all right?”

  “Fine! Handsome boy.”

  “What the fuck is he doing downtown?”

  “Who knows? Not me.”

  “HER BLOOD is clotting more regularly. We have taken the ligatures off her esophagus. She can speak now, Mr. McGuinty, but it is best at the moment to give her no reason to. She is in a phase of withdrawal.”

  “Yeah. She probably needs those painkillers. Those painkillers did her good.”

  “I suspect not, Mr. McGuinty.”

  “Yeah, well.”

  I DROVE DOWNTOWN, all around Bank Street there, you know, lower town, uptown, whatever you want to call it, because calling anything anything makes no difference, no, you can call for Jerry with your window up or down, you’re not going to find him, and whether she’s my wife or not it doesn’t matter because she’s my Kathleen and isn’t, no matter where she is, hospital, bed, it’s all the one place in your mind, Jerry McGuinty, the Jerry place, where everything is what it might be, so you can call, shout a city into being, name it, and it’s yours and never will be, see.

  Is that him there?

  He’s smaller than that. Considerably shorter, such as a baby might be.

  IT’S BEEN THREE weeks now, so that’s a bit too long. You know, come on, Kathleen, smarten up. Wake up, you know, we can have a bacon sandwich together and I’ll go off to work. I can get you a new van and you can make us a couple of them, you know, you can make those goofy little things that you made at the party, because they probably made your heart a bit happy, eh, even though it was bitter and had its eye on Edgar, eh, for the time, for that little time? Let’s have a chat, anyway, talk about what’s up, you know, three weeks and Jerry’s missing and you’ve had a drop or two out of sadness, was it?

  “I SEEN HIM again, Jerry!”

  “Where?!”

  “Same! Downtown! Again, Jerry, same place, for sure your Jerry, and seriously? Fucking traffic!”

  JERRY, I TELL YOU, he was not one of those kids who paint pictures for their daddy, you know, Here is my daddy with a hard hat, which I could stick up on the fridge. He was never one of those kids, that I ever saw, never even handed me a piece of paper, that I ever remembered, yet here comes this letter, in the mail of all things, stamp, my name in writing like mine a bit but shakier, with the address. Writing to his own home like he was a stranger, you know, Dear Sir.

  Dear Dad,

  I am writing to let you kn
ow that I am OK.

  I am OK. Is she OK?

  Jerry

  8

  WHY SHE NEVER gave him her address was beyond him, although it might just be negligence, youth, carelessness, on the phone, carefree, in her bedroom. He would find her.

  But it is not as though Montreal is a hamlet. He can’t ask the baker where Kwyet lives. And he can hardly call her mother to get her address. Really, it was unforgivable and delicious of her.

  For this journey he would need brown brogues for strolls across campus, black Oxfords for dinner, a dark blue suit, white shirt, blue shirt, brown hound’s-tooth jacket, his larger khaki trousers, damn his waxing belly. He would need a map of Montreal, the usual toiletries, perhaps a packet or two of the terrific sheep gut, one lives in hope and fear.

  Perhaps if he brought a squash racket she might consider him vigorous, you know, he used to play often, but no, no, and damn the house plum sauce.

  She won’t see him with his luggage, anyway. He will check into his hotel first, perhaps reacquaint himself with the city, and then he will stroll over to campus and make his Kwyet inquiries.

  What a name. He wondered if she was well known. “Hello, I am looking for Kwyet.”

  “Peace as well, I suppose?”

  It will be marvelous. He longed for sophomoric raillery. He wondered if he would meet her friends.

  If mystery must have form and name, let it be hers and Kwyet’s.

  Three pairs of underwear, three pairs of socks, some aspirin.

  He wished he at least had a phone number, though. He will have to leave her a note somewhere. If he were taking the train he could draft a note or two, but it is best to take the car, for this first visit anyway, since she may live far from a Metro stop.

  And a gift, a gift, a gift, a gift. He would bring the following possibilities in the car: a small Ficus benjamina, Leonidas chocolates, one demi-bouteille of Chateau D’Yquem, a book. What book? Graves’s translation of Apuleius—silly, inscrutably moralistic, a meaningful myth in the middle.

  Does she have roommates? Housemates? Greek sisters? They may want presents.

  How would he get it all to the car?

  IT IS COLD TONIGHT, so cold that the faster he drives the more the engine cools. No danger of eagerness overheating.

  He feels so alone when he drives. He should have taken the train.

  And it is late. He won’t find her tonight. Damn traffic leaving Ottawa. If that city would stop spreading there would be less of that miserable commuting. He might have been there by now.

  She is probably out with her friends. Center of attention. Friday night. The city drawing toward her like plasm to taste her nuclear honey.

  Has he thought of her possibly having a boyfriend?

  Well, yes, certainly he was aware that she was once seeing a young pilot or some classmate who flew planes, but he long ago realized that anyone she was with would simply be a curious pause along her journey toward him. He mumbled in the car with a worn-out smile: “If ever any beauty she desired and got ’twas but a dream of me.”

  And why the delays? Why, “visit me in a year,” “visit me in four weeks”?

  Mystery. Simple, unfathomably complex mystery.

  Aha. There is Montréal propre. St. Joseph’s illuminated. Find your way to the hotel, check in, contemplate your hunt.

  “HELLO. SIMON STRUTHERS. I reserved a room.”

  “Yes, Monsieur Strudders. Room one-one-seven-two.”

  “Is there a phone book in the room?”

  “Yes, monsieur.”

  S

  S

  S

  Saint-Jacques

  Saint-Jean

  Sansculotte (hilarious!)

  Savoyard

  Schmidt

  Schuster

  Schutz Schutz!

  Schutz B

  Schutz Ernst

  Schutz K

  Schutz K!

  992—1716

  992—1716

  “Hallo.”

  “Hello. Is that Kwyet?”

  “Scuse?”

  “I’m looking for Kwyet.”

  “Quiet?”

  “Yes, may I speak to Kwyet?”

  “What’s dat quiet? C’est une blague. I’ll ’ang up. Dere’s de fucking quiet.”

  THE THING TO DO is to have a late, simple, solitary dinner in the hotel, get up early, go to McGill, find which . . .

  Is she in a residence? Are there colleges at McGill?

  There will be a main administration building, of course, and they will . . .

  But it will be Saturday.

  Why did she not call him last week? It would have been awfully simple.

  “EXCUSE ME. What is that central building there?”

  “That’s the Arts Building.”

  “Ah, the Arts Building. Thank you.”

  The Arts Building, such as where an Arts student might spend her time, reading Classics, chatting to corduroy men. He will have a look.

  It is dark in here. The Dark Arts. And empty. There must be a common room, or an office somewhere. Yes, here we are. Office. Closed. Hours Mon–Fri 9:00–3:30. Those are civil servants’ hours.

  There must be a common room. What’s upstairs?

  Not a soul about. What is happening to the Arts?

  These all seem to be classrooms. Yes. Imagine Kwyet at one of those desks. She’s not too young for him, is she?

  Ah, here’s an office. Professor Godfrey. And that must be Professor Godfrey.

  “Professor Godfrey?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you do? Simon Struthers.”

  “Hello.”

  “I am looking for someone. A student. Kwyet Schutz. Do you know her?”

  “I have too many students to know any of them. What does she look like?”

  “Look? She is fair, and, fairer than the word, / Of Wondrous virtues: sometimes from her eyes / I did receive fair speechless messages.”

  “Sounds familiar. But the name doesn’t.”

  “Where do students go, generally, to study?”

  “They don’t. This is a big city. On Saturdays Learning will be cast into the mire, and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude. Try Peel Pub or Bar St. Laurent.”

  “EXCUSE ME. Is there a main administration building on campus?”

  “Yeah. Totally. But it won’t be open today.”

  “Oh. Perhaps you could help. Are you a student?”

  “Yep.”

  “Do you know Kwyet by any chance?”

  “Quiet? Are you a Christian?”

  “No.”

  “No, man. I don’t ‘know quiet.’”

  “Is Peel Pub on Peel Street?”

  “Now you’re talking.”

  “This way?”

  “Off campus, right on Sherbrooke, left on Peel.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Wait a minute. Do you mean Kwyet? Like the girl?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ohhh. No, I don’t know her. Are you her father?”

  “No.”

  “Uncle or something?”

  “No.”

  “She’s gorgeous. But I don’t know her. Are you looking for her?”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s probably swimming. She’s on the swim team. But I don’t know her. Just in class, you know?”

  “Do you know where she lives?”

  “No.”

  “Where would she swim?”

  “In the pool, man. Up the hill. Over there. Corner of Pine and Parc.”

  HE WONDERED if he should get his car. All these hills. But then he might have trouble parking. He shouldn’t have brought his car at all. We invent cars to diminish space and now there is not enough space to park them. Sing his urban dirge.

  But, really, Kwyet, a phone call last week would have saved a bit of exercise. He will be trim for you, of course, lithe, strong of thigh, but he might have been saved this hill.

  Does this mean he will see you in a bathi
ng suit? He wouldn’t dare. There must be a lounge room or somewhere you will inevitably pass from the pool.

  “McGill ID.”

  “Pardon?”

  “ID please.”

  “What ID?”

  “Are you a student?”

  “No.”

  “Faculty?”

  “No.”

  “Are you a member?”

  “Of what?”

  “The pool, sir.”

  “No. I’m m looking for Kwyet.”

  “Do you want to use the pool, sir?”

  “Do you know Kwyet?”

  “If you mean adult swimming, it’s at two o’clock. No children or games allowed. Membership is forty dollars for six months, that will entitle you to ten free weekday swims, but if you want free admission on Saturdays you will need to tick that box there, ‘Gold,’ and could you please step aside while I serve my next customer?”

  “But I don’t . . . Forty dollars?”

  “Excuse me.”

  “Sorry. Forty dollars.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Can I go in?”

  “For one dollar, yes.”

  “I just gave you forty.”

  “You didn’t tick that box there, ‘Gold.’ Dollar admission for regular members on Saturdays. Membership has its privileges, eh, sir, ha ha, stand aside.”

  He hardly needs this towel, does he? Good heavens, no lounge. He doesn’t . . . He doesn’t have trunks. “Excuse me.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is there a place to watch the swimming?”

  “Bleachers. Follow that sign: Bleachers.”

  HE WON’T PRETEND that this is not a pleasure. In More’s Utopia we would see each other naked before marriage. This is a more sensible balance, me in the bleachers, them in their swimmers.

  He doesn’t dare, he wouldn’t dare to look. Is that Kwyet there? No. My God, the young . . . the young body is designed to keep the aged young of mind.

  Is she here at all? It is hard to concentrate on just one. Let’s see, roughly fourteen women. Fifteen men. That old man in there should be ashamed of himself. The group over there must be some sort of team. The longer he stays here the more suspect he will seem. He should take off his overcoat, yes, and walk directly over to them. Look them in the eye, keep your eyes up and steady.

  “Hello! Hello! Hello, down there!”

  “Yeah?!”

  “Sorry to trouble you! Sorry to interrupt! I was told that someone I know . . . ! I am looking for someone, you see?! Kwyet! Do you know someone named Kwyet?!”