Rockets Versus Gravity

by Richard Scarsbrook

  “Um, possibly, sir,” James says. “They, uh, wouldn’t say over the phone.”

  “Well, for Chrissakes,” Harry says, his eyes wide, “get yourself out of here! Go! Now!”

  In the past two years, Harry Riskey has had three at-fault car accidents, two massive heart attacks, and one rectal polyp removal, all of which have caused him to suspect that he might not live forever. More than anything else in the world, Harry wants a rightful heir to his fortune and legacy, a young man whom he can sculpt after his own great likeness. And it has to be a young man; Harrison Riskey is a true believer in Patriarchal Lineage. His only legitimate offspring, Sidney, was supposed to be his heir apparent, but of course his wife got one of the chromosomes wrong, and Sidney came out female. So, at Harry’s age, a grandson is really his only hope, and hence Harry’s great interest in the well-being of James’s sperm.

  “I’ll call my driver to take you to your appointment,” Harry says.

  “Okay,” James says. “Thanks, Mr. Riskey.”

  “You can call me Harry when we’re talking family business, Jimmy. The limo driver will be waiting in the foyer.”

  “Thanks, um, Harry,” James says.

  James and his sperm have never been invited to ride in the Riskey and Gamble company car before. There is a rare bounce in his step as he zigs and zags around the other putty-grey cubicles to escape for the day.

  Just as the elevator doors slide open, Harry Riskey calls out to James, “Take your laptop with you. You can work on policy forms and answer client emails from the doctor’s waiting room. This isn’t a vacation, Jimmy.”

  James slinks back to his desk to pick up his company-issued laptop, which is embossed with the words Property of Riskey and Gamble.

  Maple Leaf Sermon

  Game Seven, Round Two of the playoffs. Just five bucks a seat to see the Leafs play the Devils on the Sony Jumbotron at the Air Canada Centre. Come one, come all!

  Having paid just one-fiftieth the price of a regular-season live game ticket, the blue-and-white masses converge on The Hangar, from Oshawa, from Pickering, from Mississauga, from Scarborough, from Hamilton, from London, and from between and beyond. For many, it’s the first time they’ve entered the temple; the season tickets are mostly owned by Bay Street business types, who don’t even return to their seats from the bar until the middle of the second period.

  But these are the Faithful, these are the True Fans. Oh, hear the pre-game thunder! Six thousand voices, voices usually confined to suburban basement rec rooms; the roar reaches out into the streets.

  Outside the arena, a man with bone-thin arms and rawhide leather skin is shaking his dreadlocks and a makeshift Stanley Cup, which he has made from a dented public washroom garbage can and a tomato-juice tin crowned with a margarine container.

  The man smells of stale sweat and dust and urine, and he is clothed in dirt-scrubbed robes, like a battle-worn Jesus (or maybe it’s Mohammed, or perhaps these sheets were all he could scavenge to cover himself).

  He shakes the coin-filled trophy replica — schlink-schlink-schlink. A flake of dried spittle flies from his scabbed lower lip as he rhymes:

  The Blue and White will win tonight.

  and everything will be all right.

  Our Leafs will win for me and you!

  In Jersey, all will cry “boo-hoo!”

  Most of the hockey-sweater-wearing faithful step around him, as if he is a fire hydrant or some other sidewalk obstacle.

  A small child waving a “Go Leafs Go!” banner ambles toward the dusty man, burbling and smiling, but her mother tugs her in the opposite direction, scolding, “No, Amberlindzy! Dirty! No!” As they rush toward the safe haven of the arena, the mysophobic mommy frantically digs inside her purse for a bottle of Safety First!™ antibacterial hand sanitizer (with Aloe Vera).

  The Plastic Cup Prophet spots two likely marks: a man and a teen. The man is tall and wears a windbreaker with a crest on the chest that reads FAIREVILLE MEMORIAL ARENA; the words ARENA MANAGER are embossed on one sleeve, AARON on the other. Arena Manager Aaron is pushing a kid in a wheelchair, who is wearing a Faireville Blue Flames hockey jersey with a ceremonial team captain’s C stitched onto the front and WHEELIE embossed on the back. Out-of-towners, for sure, so the Prophet continues, undaunted:

  Listen, Arena Manager Aaron! Listen, Captain Wheelie!

  The Blue and White like clouds and sky!

  You have got to dig this fact.

  The Maple Leafs are the children of the trees,

  the trees which make the air we breathe.

  Air and sky keep us alive, my friends!

  All hail the Blue and White!

  For his effort, and perhaps for a bit of good karma, Arena Manager Aaron tosses two loonies into the surrogate Stanley Cup, and Captain Wheelie ups the ante with a crumpled five-dollar bill. The Prophet’s cup overfloweth, and he holds it overhead, skating circles on holey sneakers around the concrete sidewalk rink.

  Then, like a preacher man who’s seen the light or the Lord, he lowers the surrogate cup inches from the contributor’s face, taps a bony finger on the blue gas-flame crest of Wheelie’s bush-league hockey sweater, and chants:

  How did they manage to come this far

  after barely making the playoffs?

  Divine intervention, my man!

  God wants the Maple Leafs to win,

  to beat those devils, those Jersey Devils.

  The Lord is in the Leafs tonight.

  They beat the Senators in four straight.

  Do you know why?

  “Hey!” Arena Manager Aaron protests. “Don’t you diss my Senators!” But the Plastic Cup Prophet doesn’t miss a beat:

  ’Cause senators are politicians!

  The goodness of nature will triumph

  over the artifice of politics!

  The Senators wear red and so do the Devils.

  The Senators fell, and so will those Devils.

  Those Devils from Hell.

  “I know it’s the playoffs and all,” another grinning, adrenalin-charged fan says, “but do you really think God is gonna get involved in a hockey game, dude?”

  The Plastic Cup Prophet stretches one Reaper-like finger toward the blue maple leaf crest on the fanboy’s Officially NHL-Licensed Toronto Maple Leafs Home Game Jersey, and like any clean-shaven, cologne-wearing, north Toronto McMansion dweller would do, he instinctively takes a step backward.

  A carload of teens sail by in someone’s daddy’s BMW convertible, their faces painted blue and white, their “Go Leafs Go!” banner held aloft; they cheer, “WHOOOOOOOOOO!”

  The Prophet flashes a yellowed, gap-toothed grin and says:

  They cheer, my man, they cheer,

  because they feel the power of the Lord

  through the Maple Leafs!

  And so shall you cheer as well.

  So how ’bout some change, my man?

  Mr. North Toronto waves his open palm and reflected streetlight from the man’s silver ring glints in the Prophet’s eye, so he says:

  No change to go ching?

  Hey, I’ll take that ring!

  That ring is the man’s lucky charm, though. Whenever he wears it, good things happen. The Leafs are going to win tonight. He’s bet good money on it, at ten-to-one odds. Mr. North Toronto retreats, leaving a wake of cologne floating in the air.

  The Prophet will not chase after a retreating mark, so jangling the change in his makeshift Stanley Cup — schlink-schlink-schlink — he heads toward another knot of approaching pilgrims, chanting:

  The Blue and White will win tonight,

  and everything will be all right.

  Our Leafs will win for me and you!

  In Jersey, all will cry “boo hoo!”

  * * *

  Now it is three hours later. The third period has e
nded. The game is over.

  Six thousand faithful shake their hanging heads. Six thousand pairs of lungs exhale long, anticlimactic sighs. Six thousand pairs of feet shuffle from the temple.

  The story, as told through the vessel of the Sony Jumbotron:

  The Leafs scored first in New Jersey, but the Devils answered with five goals. Five freakin’ goals!

  And so, the Toronto Maple Leafs’ improbable playoff run has ended. Across Toronto, across Ontario, and even in places beyond this realm, thousands of blue-and-white jerseys will be folded up and put away for the summer.

  There’s always next year. Faith is Faith.

  Not too far from the old Maple Leaf Gardens, inside a grimy little diner on Dundas Street, an ancient black-and-white television hangs from above the breakfast bar, broadcasting the closing commentary on Hockey Night in Canada, the only program that the diner shows with the volume turned up.

  The Plastic Cup Prophet sits at a table in the back corner; the management won’t allow him a table in front by the window. Bad for business, they say.

  He wipes clean his second bowl of chili with a dinner roll and then drains another cup of thick black coffee. He sighs and rasps through the gaps in his teeth:

  Best damn meal I’ve had in a month.

  All hail those Leafs. All hail those Devils.

  Impact

  im-pact

  ˈimˌpakt

  1. The action of one object coming forcibly into contact with another

  (as a rocket striking the Earth).

  2. Have a strong effect on someone or something.

  The Receptionist

  As the limousine cruises north up Yonge Street, James Yeo feels like the rock star he once thought he might become. He watches the women and girls on the sidewalks; they have traded their long coats and warm boots for low-cut tops and short skirts. They have put on their high heels and they’ve let their hair down. He’s glad that he had his sunglasses in his jacket pocket.

  After so many months of stone-grey skies, the intense sunlight makes the whole city seem surreally bright. The sleepy-sounding announcer on the radio refers to the heat as “thermonuclear”; James thinks that this might be overstating it a bit, but then he remembers that this is Toronto, where the news media once named a four-inch snowfall “Snowmageddon.”

  The radio plays a Valium-mellow version of Jimmy Cliff’s “I Can See Clearly Now,” and the singer’s oozing voice reminds James of melting marshmallows.

  James leans forward and says to the limousine driver, “Hey, how about you turn the dial to the Mighty Q, my brother! And crank it!”

  “Pardon me, sir?”

  The driver’s black suit is crisply pressed, and the bill of his chauffeur’s cap shines as brightly as his patent leather shoes. The brass plaque on his lapel reveals that his name is Carl.

  “Carl, my man,” James says, in a classic rock DJ voice, “one-oh-seven-point-one on your FM dial, s’il vous plaît.”

  Carl wants to roll his eyes, but his Code of Professional Conduct prevents him from doing so. His boss, Harry Riskey, has told him about James, about how Harry’s going to “put the loser on the ejector seat” as soon as “he gets some baby batter” into his daughter’s “inheritance oven.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Carl intones, “Mr. Riskey prefers that the radio remain at a low volume, tuned to the easy-listening station.”

  “Aw, c’mon, Carl! What Harry doesn’t know won’t hurt him! Just flip it back to Foot-in-the-Grave FM after you drop me off.”

  Carl sighs and reaches for a button on the tuner.

  Predictably, Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild” thunders through the car’s premium sound system. James drums along with his fingers on the back of the front seat headrest, and he’s filling his lungs to belt out the anthemic chorus when Carl pushes the power button and the song dies a sudden death.

  “Yonge and Eglinton,” the driver says. “Your destination, sir.”

  Carl gets out and opens the passenger door for James, who hands him a folded five-dollar bill and then bounces and jives up the sidewalk toward the doctor’s office, singing, “Ah nevahhh wannah DIII-EEEE-IIIIIIIIIIIIIE!”

  Carl slides back into the limo, tosses the five on the seat beside him, and says, “At least I make more than he does.”

  All of the plastic seats in the waiting room are occupied by other patients, so James leans on the check-in counter just inside the door. The receptionist hasn’t even noticed him yet. The phone rings, and she grabs it before it can sound a second time.

  Doctor Brown, who looks like he might be younger than James himself, bursts into the waiting room.

  “Is it time?” he yelps at the receptionist. “Is it time?”

  “Not yet,” she says, sighing. “I’ll come and get you if there’s any news. Okay?”

  The doctor turns on his heels and retreats into the examination room.

  When the call is finished, the receptionist finally acknowledges James’s presence by saying, “Name?”

  “Um, James. James Yeo.”

  James’s hormones have already been supercharged by the sunshine and short skirts outside, and this effect is multiplied exponentially by his proximity to the attractive receptionist. He doesn’t remember seeing her on his first visit to Doctor Brown’s office; he definitely would remember her. He is taken by her soft voice with its slightly rural accent; today she’s dressed for the weather in a scoop-necked sundress, and as she leans forward on her elbows, James finds something else about her to admire.

  “Health card number?” she asks, without looking away from her computer screen.

  He fumbles for his wallet, and as he pulls out the requested card, several others fall out. They fly everywhere as he tries to catch them. He stoops to pick them up, and his sunglasses slip from his collar and clatter on the tiled floor. When James finally stands upright again, he offers the cute receptionist his Star Trek fan club membership card.

  “It’s okay,” the receptionist giggles, “I’ve already found your number on the computer.” She finally looks at him with summer-blue eyes. “Sorry about the wait. Doctor Brown’s wife’s due date was last week, and every time the phone rings, he runs out here. It’s slowed things down a little.”

  James inhales deeply through his nostrils; she smells like lavender. She leans forward on her elbows again. James can see her sheer, light-purple bra.

  “We are so backlogged,” she sighs, glancing at the packed waiting room. “The pipe is about to burst!”

  Gawd, James muses, I am so backlogged. MY pipe is about to burst. He thinks about Sidney pushing him away again this morning, then steals another glance at the receptionist’s cleavage. A crucifix and a silver ring, suspended from a slender chain, are nestled between her breasts.

  Maybe the ring means she’s married, too, James thinks, vividly imagining a vigorous extramarital hotel-room tryst. He can almost feel that ring and crucifix dangling against his face. Providing a sample won’t be a problem today.

  “My name’s Clementine, by the way.”

  “Hi, Clementine,” James says.

  “Hey, has anyone ever told you that you look just like another James? There was this musician named James Why. He used to play the clubs a couple of years ago, when I was still in nursing school.”

  “Yeah, I get that a lot,” James says.

  Actually, James never gets this; Clementine is the first person outside his circle of friends to ever mention his former musical alter ego in a non-deprecating way.

  “So,” James says, drumming his fingers on the desktop, “you’re a nurse? How come you’re working the reception desk?”

  “Nursing jobs are scarce right now,” she says, taking note of his wedding ring. “It’s a lot more expensive in the city than it was back home, and I’m a single mom with an eight-year-old kid.”

 
; She’s dropped the Poor Single Mom bomb, and now she is staring obviously at the wedding ring on his finger, but James continues to smile at her. So Clementine smiles back at him.

  Doctor Brown bursts into the waiting room again.

  Clementine sighs. “I told you I’d come get you as soon as —”

  “Is this Mr. Yow?”

  “It’s pronounced Yeo, Doctor Brown,” Clementine says.

  Doctor Brown squints at a chart inside a folder, the way that doctors do, and mutters, “I’d better take you now. Follow me, Mr. Yow.”

  “It’s Yeo,” James says. “As in, ‘yo, yo, daddy-o!’ ”

  Doctor Brown subtly rolls his eyes. “Right, right, sorry,” he grumbles. “Can’t read my own damn writing.”

  Or maybe he said “handwriting.” Doctor Brown is difficult to understand when he’s mumbling, which is most of the time.

  The other patients moan and sigh as James follows the doctor into the examination room. Their glares betray their collective complaint: This guy strolls in wearing Ray-Bans, flirts shamelessly with the receptionist, and then he gets to jump the queue? Who does he think he is?

  James answers their glares with a dismissive glance, which says: I’m James Why. I came in a limo. I sing and play the guitar. And ah nevahhh wannah DIII-EEEE-IIIIIIIIIIIIIE!

  On the countertop, there are boxes of latex gloves and generic tissues. The concrete-block wall is painted that Digestive Tract Bile shade of greenish-yellow only ever seen in medical facilities, and hanging from it is a blood-pressure-reading apparatus and an empty Dixie cup dispenser. Other than the industrial-sized squirt-bottle of K-Y Personal Lubricant, the only thing that distinguishes the fertility doctor’s examination room from any other is that, instead of the usual six-month-old Time and Golf Addict magazines, there are stacks of Ass Master, Juggs, Biker Mamas, and MILF International, as well as a few back issues of Playboy and Penthouse for those with more refined tastes.