The Master of Happy Endings

by Jack Hodgins

  They worked their way out of the neighbourhood past mansions Thorstad did not recall noticing on his way in. “That,” Travis said, indicating a large pink-stucco house out near the water, “my mother sold to a couple from Arizona who come up to stay in it three weeks a year. Empty the rest of the year, except when gardeners or cleaners make their rounds.” It wasn’t clear whether he was criticizing the extravagance of foreigners with money or simply boasting of his mother’s ability to attract wealthy clients.

  “Now she’s talking about investing in a residential cruise ship. She figures once the idea catches on there’ll be big demand— retired people wanting to, you know, own a suite in a ship that never stops roaming the world!” Thorstad assumed he was speaking of luxury liners for the wealthy, but couldn’t help imagining shiploads of senior-seniors sent out to sea and forbidden to return to land.

  Once they’d turned onto a major thoroughfare and other cars were left behind in a rooster tail of rainwater, it was clear that Travis had been taught to drive by his mother. Drivers shook their fists. Horns were honked, though Travis appeared not to hear. Axel Thorstad decided that this was one too many reckless drivers to suffer in silence. “Slow down, please. Or let me off at the next intersection.”

  “She hates me volunteering,” Travis said, releasing the pressure on the accelerator just a little. “She’s scared I’ll, like, bring home a disease. Or, even worse, street people to camp in our basement. I wouldn’t be surprised if bringing you here was, y’know, to keep the guest house occupied by someone she chose herself.”

  There was little about the downtown area that looked as Thorstad remembered it from occasions when he and Elena had driven down for a movie or a play. What interested him now was the number of tall cranes standing above holes in the ground. Giant billboards displayed colourful illustrations of the towers that would rise from these sites—glass and steel and lush roof gardens. “Homes for your homeless?” Thorstad asked.

  “Very funny, haw haw! A one-bedroom suite in those will cost more than, you know, a four-bedroom house in Winnipeg.” While they idled at an intersection, he added, “They’re being built for rich outsiders to invest in and later sell to other rich outsiders planning to retire here.” Then, as they started across the intersection, “Eventually local working families will have to camp outside the city limits in shack towns. You’re looking at a future Rio.” He turned a broad grin to Thorstad. “See how I drive my mother nuts?”

  An astonishing number of vehicles had been reborn as moving billboards. The back ends of buses advertised new condominiums for sale. Pickup trucks were as colourful as the Saturday comics, with Action Heroes advertising bathroom fixtures and cartoon kittens promoting toilet tissue. One Toyota advertised the company that would paint advertisements on your vehicle, and—by way of example—displayed an image of its own decorated self on its door.

  “My mother’s company advertises on great long moving vans. It takes a lot of space to show a townhouse complex big enough to, you know, bury a produce farm.”

  Of course all of these vehicles were shedding rainwater. Rain poured off awnings in front of stores, ran in rivers along the curbs in search of drains, danced on the lake-like surface of intersections, and defeated the best efforts of the Tercel’s windshield wipers. The interior of the car was loud with the wipers’ thrashing and the steady drumming of water on the roof, increasing Thorstad’s sense of having entered a city in the throes of a clamorous panic. He felt a touch of alarm himself.

  They circled the block twice before finding a vacant parking space, then waited for a break in the traffic before dashing across the street to come up onto the sidewalk beneath an awning, stomping their feet and shaking rainwater from their umbrellas. Thorstad’s stomach told him he was about to become an intruder in a foreign world.

  In this covered space outside the squat green stucco building, they were amongst people who’d come outside and started off in one direction and then turned back, perhaps surprised by the rain. Smokers and lounging dogs formed a sort of hub around which others revolved. Shopping baskets piled high with garbage bags sat parked by the window. Thorstad watched a cyclist pedal past, pulling a trailer stacked with cardboard cartons. An elderly Chinese, adopting a custom of his ancestors, balanced a long slim pole on one shoulder, a bulging black garbage bag hanging from either end.

  He hadn’t thought to expect such noise inside, or so many people. Seen from the doorway, this was rather like the first glance at a crowded Breughel painting, where individual faces might belong to any of the overlapping dark-clothed bodies. Several round tables were occupied—some people chatting, some only staring into the table’s surface. As he followed Travis through the crowd inside the door, he saw there were also clusters of people engaged in conversation while standing. On the floor along a side wall, several dressed in winter coats appeared to be sleeping against a pile of camping gear, while above them silent stock cars tried to demolish one another on a wall-mounted television screen.

  There were too many people for the space, and yet more streamed in. Already his toes had been stepped on, his elbow pushed aside. It wasn’t all that easy to breathe. He was aware of sweat breaking out on his forehead. How was it possible for there to be so many in need of this place? Some came to the counter where mugs were available while others pushed through to a side table where they could make toast. Travis explained that after a night of sleeping in cardboard boxes or under bridges this was the closest thing these people had to the comforts of home— though the bare plywood walls and marked-up flooring brought to Thorstad’s mind a bingo hall or small-town community centre.

  Wherever he stood he was between someone and something that person needed—the coffee urn, the small computer lab, the outside door, or the entrance to the pool table area. Fingers plucked at his sleeve. “Hey you—Stretch! Yeh, you! You know where Neil got to?” A woman who looked as though she hadn’t slept in recent weeks put herself directly before him to demand attention: “I don’t remember your name but I’m looking for the dumb shit who took my mug before I’d finished my drink.”

  Thorstad wasn’t sure he could deal with so much evidence of need without betraying signs of pity, or an instinct to apologize— for what, he didn’t know. But Travis seemed to be comfortable. He stopped to chat at a crowded table, then turned away laughing, calling back something as he walked away. While gathering mugs at another table, he appeared to be listening hard to a diminutive woman’s earnest monologue, her hand clamped to his arm. When he’d been freed to turn away, he was confronted by an obviously distressed man who stood solidly before him, struggling hard to explain something. He walked this man to the back of the room where he knocked on a closed door and waited for it to open.

  Eventually Travis showed him how he could help by gathering up used coffee mugs and taking them to the counter where they would be washed, then carrying a plastic tub of clean mugs back to the table of coffee urns. Thorstad was soon using paper towels to wipe up spills, returning the knife to the peanut butter jar, and tidying the sliced bread that seemed to get scattered across the side table every time someone used the toaster. He spotted his own crop of abandoned mugs to carry to the kitchen, where a large man with a blue plaid shirt and wide suspenders dumped them into a sink of soapy water. No one asked why Axel Thorstad was here. He could have been just another of the regular volunteers, or a felon sentenced to community service. He smiled, to think of Lisa Svetic reporting this to the others: “Old fool left to become a rich boy’s teacher and found himself cleaning up for the down-and-out!”

  The dishwasher may have been the only one to be curious. When he’d handed over Thorstad’s fourth or fifth tub of washed mugs, he cocked an eyebrow. “You came with young Travis?”

  When Thorstad had explained his situation, the man bent to rest his folded arms on the counter. “A good boy, him. ’Course he makes no bones about his reasons. The Hollywood people told him he had to do this.” He was a large man with a good dea
l of unruly facial hair. “A bit of a snot at first, he made it clear he didn’t want to be here. Made a few enemies. But eventually he got into the right spirit and does a fine job.”

  “People seem pleased enough to see him.”

  “Oh, he can be a charmer when he wants to, when there’s someone he wants to impress. Today I’d guess that’s you.” He shifted his weight and chuckled. “Maybe he’ll be a big movie star one day and send us a few million bucks for a new building! Or give some of these folks a job. What about you? You planning to volunteer?”

  He should have expected this. “I’m supposed to help him pass exams but I’m probably just heading home.”

  “We need someone willing to do shower duty but you wouldn’t like it.” The dishwasher straightened up and stretched, pressing both hands into the small of his back. “Means you stand outside the shower door with a clipboard, check off a person’s name when his turn comes up. Let him in. Bang on the door when his time’s up. Then go in and clean everything before you let the next one in. There’ll be needles—broken, some of them. Nobody’s favourite job, but it has to be done.”

  The dishwasher wrung his nose with a red-and-white handkerchief, which he then returned to his jeans pocket. “Anyway, a man your age should be taking it easy. There’s a hell of a lot of frustration in this and you’ve probably had more than your share already.”

  Thorstad became aware that a pair of eyes was trained on him from a lying-down position. Apparently the bulky person laid out on a pair of chairs needed to puzzle out something about the old fellow talking to the dishwasher. He raised his head and frowned, as though trying harder to see through a haze. “Sir?”

  For most of his career Axel Thorstad had been “Sir.” When he wasn’t “Sir” he was simply “Mr. Thorstad.” If other names were spoken behind his back he’d chosen not to hear them.

  “Shee-it.” This person put boots to the floor and sat up, then heaved himself to his feet. “Thorstad?” He was a middle-aged man with long matted hair shooting off in several directions, wearing layers of cardigans and shirts beneath a heavy overcoat gaping open—a sort of greatcoat with dark patches where the rain had not yet dried.

  The dishwasher said, “You got a problem, Walker?”

  The man named Walker closed his eyes and shifted unsteadily. Then he opened one eye and peered at Thorstad as though trying to decide why they were looking at one another.

  “Not Angus Walker?” Thorstad said. The name had come to his lips of its own accord. There must have been some remnant of the seventeen-year-old in the rough features of that face. Since Walker’s attempt to come closer unsettled his balance, Thorstad took the few necessary steps and held out his hand. He supposed they both would wish that he hadn’t.

  There was nothing to indicate this man was surprised to find Thorstad here, or embarrassed to have his English teacher catch him laid out to sleep on a pair of chairs. Thorstad was careful to show no surprise himself.

  “Jesus!” Walker laughed. “Lookit you! You’re fuckin’ old!”

  Thorstad laughed. What else could he do? “You’re no more surprised than I am. A joke has been played on me, as you can see.”

  “On us both!” Walker threw out both arms to present himself for inspection. With the heavy coat opened wide, Thorstad was shown the washed-out flannel shirts and sweaters meant for someone larger, as well as the stained and sloppy jeans.

  Walker was too shaky to hold the position long, and put a hand against the wall, then seemed to forget for a moment that he’d been involved in a conversation. Should Thorstad back away and behave as though the exchange had not taken place? He looked to the dishwasher for guidance, but the man had stepped up close to Walker. “You sleep last night?” No answer. “The cops hassle you?” The response was too quiet for Thorstad to hear. “Did you have something to eat, then? There’s doughnuts somewhere.”

  Walker was not interested in doughnuts. He’d decided to return to his chairs, where he laid himself carefully down and curled up, perhaps for more sleep, having already forgotten or dismissed his encounter with his Grade Eleven past.

  “Walker’s a regular,” the dishwasher said. “Has been for years.” “He was quite a good student,” Thorstad said. Angus Walker had been a son of the town’s optometrist. “I’m sure his plans did not include this.”

  “All I’ve been able to find out is, he got an education and started teaching somewhere up north. Spent a few years in a mostly Native school. A newspaper friend of mine tried to get his story but that’s all he learned.”

  When the dishwasher went back to his soapy water, Thorstad carried a tub of washed mugs out to the coffee-urn table. Then he mopped spilled coffee from the floor, carried discarded newspapers to the recycling bin, and fetched paper serviettes or sugar packets for those who asked. He looked around for more used mugs to gather in his tub.

  When Travis’s shift had ended and they were outside and ready to dash across the street to the parked Tercel, Thorstad’s name was called from behind. Of course it was Angus Walker, coming unsteadily up the wet pavement.

  Travis took hold of Thorstad’s sleeve. “Come on, man. It’s wet!”

  “To hell with teaching, Thorstad!”

  Thorstad felt something turn in his stomach but of course he mustn’t run.

  “To hell with Shakespeare, Thorstad! What use was John Keats to me when it mattered, huh? What use was the subjunctive mood when the chips were down?”

  But Walker was already turning back, one hand making the unmistakable gesture of dismissal, and Axel Thorstad was left feeling weakened and a little shaky, as though he’d just been pulled free from genuine peril.

  After lunch at home, Travis was again able to avoid a study session by setting off to take part in a “compulsory” game of lacrosse with his friends. Thorstad went for a long walk along the coastline before returning to the guest house to read from Travis’s textbooks. Later, over pre-dinner drinks in the living room, Carl apologized for not warning him about Walker. “I saw him when I went down with Travis the first time he volunteered—to see how I felt about this so-called research. Angus played on the same hockey team as my brother. Lived two blocks down the street.”

  “There is a temptation to sympathize, of course,” Mrs. Montana said, examining the vase of orange gerberas at her elbow, “but people make their choices.”

  “Audrey,” Carl said.

  Thorstad watched a grey squirrel run up the trunk of a Garry oak outside the window. “It seemed cruel just to walk away,” he said.

  “You’ve spent your life leaving students behind,” Carl said. “They’ve left you behind. Forget him. He’d probably be the first to tell you that.”

  Thorstad had never imagined former students living on the streets. Now he wondered if Angus Walker was one of many. He knew little about their adult lives, except for those who wrote to thank him or request a reference letter. He had no idea whether his students slept in mansions or in a cardboard box under filthy back-alley steps.

  “And Angus was a teacher?”

  Carl nodded. “Somewhere up north.”

  Thorstad was aware that he must be frowning rather fiercely. “And Hollywood has turned this sort of thing into a television series.”

  Carl sighed, perhaps a little wearily. “When you get back from L.A. your head will be so filled with the Hollywood version you’ll suspect Angus Walker and his pals of putting on their sadsack show while you’re there to see it, and becoming activists and troublemakers as soon as your back is turned. Like so much else, Forgotten River is in the business of telling stories in order to pry you loose from your money.”

  8

  After dinner, Travis offered to give their guest a tour of his second-floor quarters, beginning with his study at the head of the stairs. Here one wall of floor-to-ceiling shelves displayed children’s books and several biographies of actors, Laurence Olivier and Steve McQueen amongst them, and a row of published movie scripts. Closely Watched Trains. Cannery
Row. The remaining shelves were occupied by matchbox pickup trucks and miniature spaceships along with small figures Travis described as his childhood superheroes. A guitar leaned against his long black desk.

  “He claims strumming on that thing helps him think,” Carl said from the doorway. “I’ll leave it to you to decide if it does any good.”

  He reminded Thorstad that he and his classmates had been influenced by the disco music of the seventies, and had considered the Bee Gees’ songs the equal to any of the poems they studied in class. “We could hardly believe it when you agreed to let us write essays on the cultural importance of Rolling Stone magazine! Or—what was it?—the thematic undercurrents of “Stayin’ Alive”! I defy you to find any meaning in the stuff he listens to up here.”

  According to Carl, the “stuff” Travis listened to was closer to shouting than to singing, short rhyming couplets delivered like quick jabs to the solar plexus. Apparently his friends listened to the same sort of thing, three of them sometimes coming home with him from school to do so—two with braces on their teeth and rigid mohawks on their heads. “But we won’t let them get in your way.”

  Travis’s study was remarkably tidy but no tidier than the rest of the house. Nowhere had Thorstad noticed stacks of CDs or books on a chair, or abandoned magazines left open on the carpet. But rather than give credit to his mother or a cleaning service, Travis explained that it was only because they hadn’t lived here long. “We never stay anywhere long!” He threw up his arms as though this were a source of frustration or alarm. “I could come home from L.A. and be met at the door by strangers! It’s happened before. Someone offers her more money than it’s worth and she’ll take it, then find an even better deal for an even better house. We won’t be out on the street—just moved.”