by Terry Fallis
The next morning, Matt knocked on my hotel room door. We’d booked into the Algonquin. It was an old and noble Manhattan hotel, but the rooms were very small.
“Okay, our work here is done,” he started. “But will you indulge me and join me on a bit of a mission? I’d rather not say much about it, but it makes no sense if you don’t come with me.”
“I have to be back in my cubicle in two days,” I reminded him.
“No worries. It won’t take that long,” he said as he handed me two boarding passes stapled together.
“What would you have done if I’d refused?” I asked, looking at the boarding passes.
“I was pretty sure you wouldn’t.”
Three hours later we boarded an Air Canada flight to Toronto, then connected to an Ottawa flight. It seemed we were going home.
Four and a half hours after leaving LaGuardia, a Blueline taxi dropped us off at the Chateau Laurier. It felt very strange to be back in Ottawa. I felt different from when I left a few weeks earlier. So much had happened. So much had changed.
“You do know that I have a perfectly serviceable apartment in the Glebe, right?” I said.
“What’s a Glebe?” he asked.
“A neighbourhood just south of the downtown core. It’s about a six-dollar cab ride from here.”
“But this is easier. Besides, we’re celebrating,” Matt explained.
We checked into two different rooms and met in the lobby twenty minutes later.
“Now what?” I asked.
“Patience. We have three stops to make. It’s all arranged,” Matt said.
He checked his iPhone map app and led me out the revolving doors of the Chateau Laurier. We walked for ten minutes to a downtown office building known as World Exchange Plaza. We walked directly to the elevators and boarded one. Matt hit the button for the twentieth floor. Laurendeau-Rousseau was one of Canada’s largest law firms and occupied Suite 2000.
Matt approached the young man who sat at the reception desk.
“Hello. We have a meeting in the Trudeau Room,” Matt said.
“Mr. Paterson?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Just down the corridor, second door on your right.”
Matt and I walked down the hall and into a small conference room. A large oil painting of what looked like Georgian Bay hung on the wall. A plate of cookies and a carafe of coffee waited on a side table.
I was about to say something, but Matt raised his hand to stop me. We could both hear the soft footfalls of someone approaching along the corridor. We heard them stop just outside the open door, and pause for a moment. Then through the door came the unmistakable figure of Cam Forster. Even though ten years had passed, I’d have recognized him in a Ninja Turtle costume.
He closed the door and turned to face me. He looked upset, distraught. I looked at Matt. Using his index finger, he just gently pushed his chin up to shut his gaping mouth and then pointed at me. It seemed my yap was hanging open. I closed it.
“Alex, I wasn’t sure you’d have come if I told you,” Matt said. “This is important, for both of you.”
Cam then took a few fledgling steps towards me. He looked stricken. On instinct, I braced myself for his traditional headlock, but it never came. Instead, he extended his hand. I shook it and he drew me into a hug. He wasn’t exactly sobbing, but he was snuffling and held the embrace longer than seemed appropriate.
“Alex, I’m so sorry,” he said. “I was a jerk, an asshole. I didn’t know what I was doing. I’m so sorry.”
He let go and we all just stood there.
“Sorry, I thought I’d be able to hold it together,” Cam said, “but then I saw you, and, well…”
You get used to holding it together.
“It’s okay, Cam,” I said.
“No, it’s not okay, Alex. I just slipped into Jackson’s orbit. He seemed like a big shot and I kind of liked how it felt to be around him. But the ARCHangel thing just went way too far. Way too far. I was horrified as it was happening, but I was in too deep by then. Or at least that’s how it felt.”
I get that. Jackson was a big shot.
“Cam, you don’t have to…”
“Yes, I do. I need to. I really do,” Cam insisted. “I even made a lame attempt to stop the whole thing. Not that it worked. But I stopped your descent about fifteen feet earlier than I was supposed to. The lights would have missed you. But Jackson noticed. And he was not happy about it. He pushed me away and hit the button again until you were right in position, that stupid piece of red tape right where it was supposed to be. I’m so sorry I didn’t do more. And you have to believe me, I had no idea about the Viagra. Jackson just told me to distract you in the cafeteria, so I did. That’s when I put you in…”
You don’t have to remind me. I know. I was there.
“I know, Cam. The headlock. I remember,” I said. “But who shot the video?”
“We shot some of it from the lighting bay but we couldn’t just stay there for the whole scene. We would have been caught. But what I didn’t know was that Jackson had threatened three grade niners into shooting the scene from their seats. We met up afterwards, gathered up the memory cards, and then Jackson stitched the video together and uploaded it to YouTube. I’d never even heard of YouTube and had no idea that was his master plan.”
Who knew he could edit video? Clearly a man of many diabolical talents.
“Well, he did a pretty good job on the video,” I said. “It still drives a lot of traffic.”
Cam winced.
“I know. I know. Look, Alex, I’m so sorry. When it went viral, I was a bit of a basket case for quite a while. I was paralyzed. I should have called you, but I just couldn’t do it. Plus, I kept waiting for the principal or the police to show up at my door. But they never did, because you never squealed. And now I’m a lawyer because you kept our secret. Thank you.”
Don’t think I wasn’t tempted. But the toothpaste was already out of the YouTube.
“It would have just made it worse. Even more people would have watched the video if I’d turned you both in,” I replied.
“I’ve thought about it a lot over the last ten years, but still, I never called or wrote. I should have. I just couldn’t. I’m sorry.”
It was a long time ago.
“It’s fine, Cam. It was a long time ago.”
“Yeah, but now whenever I read another article about bullying and the consequences, I think of you and ARCHangel and my role in it, and I feel sick.”
I wonder how Jackson feels?
“It’s okay, now, Cam. I know Jackson was in charge.”
“Cam, perhaps you should tell Alex what you told me on the phone, about your pro bono client,” Matt suggested.
“Right. Well, as part of working through my ARCHangel guilt, I’m doing all the legal work for Kids Help Phone gratis. It’s nothing compared to what I did to you,” Cam said. “But I can’t turn back the clock. I wish I could. But it makes me feel a little better to help them out.”
Good for you.
“Good for you, Cam,” I said.
“And meeting you today, something I’ve wanted yet dreaded for a very long time, an inexcusably long time, well, it lifts a little weight from my shoulders. I hope it does the same for you.”
It’s a little early to tell, but I think it might.
“I’m glad we’ve connected again. Thanks.”
We talked for a few more minutes about what it was like finding Matthew after so many years. At one point, I saw Cam looking from Matt to me, and back again. It was then that I noticed that Matt and I were both standing in the identical position, feet shoulder-width apart, our arms hanging free in front of us, our hands held together by interlocked fingers, our thumbs crossed, too. Identical and a little eerie.
Cam apologized another forty-seven times before hugging me for too long again. Then he gathered himself and walked us back to the reception area.
When Matt and I emerged from the el
evator on the ground floor, he put his hand on my shoulder. There had certainly been a lot of hugging and touching in my life since I’d found my twin brother. I realized I liked the sensation and what it meant.
“So? How do you feel?” he asked.
“Better, I think. A little lighter,” I replied. “But how did you find him?”
“Come on. You gave me his name when you told me the story and Google did the rest. It’s not hard to find a lawyer working in Ottawa when you have a name,” Matt said. “Then I just called him up to make sure I had the right guy. It took a while to explain who I was and what my rather unusual connection was to you, but we pushed through. It was like he’d been waiting for my call, or maybe your call. He was ready.”
“But you didn’t have to keep it a secret from me,” I said.
“Really? Think about it. If I’d suggested this, would you really have agreed? Would we have just met with Cameron Forster if I’d told you?”
I stopped walking and thought about it.
“Okay. Fair point,” I conceded. “I probably would have pushed it off or just said no.”
“But now that it’s done, was it helpful?”
“Comfortable? No. Helpful? Maybe,” I said. “Thanks for making it happen. You had other things on your plate this week. It was a thoughtful, um, brotherly thing to do.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” he said, as he raised his hand to hail a taxi.
We settled in the back seat of the cab. He read the address off his iPhone for the driver.
“No, Matt,” I said.
“Alex, yes, it’s important. Please,” Matt replied. “It’s part of all this.”
It was close to five when we arrived. Most had left the building. The football team still toiled on the field, running drills. Thankfully, no one seemed to be in the main office or the foyer. My high school had changed very little in ten years. I hadn’t been inside since that night, since Gabriel, or what the rest of the world knew as ARCHangel.
“Are we expected? We’re not meeting anyone, are we?” I asked.
“No and no,” Matt replied. “You’re just dropping something off.”
I looked at him, puzzled.
“Baggage” was all he said.
He looked around the front foyer and pointed to the two sets of double doors on our left.
“In here?” he asked.
I nodded. He walked over and tried the doors. They were open. The lights weren’t on, but the windows on one side gave more than enough illumination. It was smaller than I’d remembered. Filled with people, it had just seemed so much bigger. Alone in the auditorium, we walked down the centre aisle. Instinctively, I looked up to the ceiling and found the lighting bay. Then I let my eyes follow my descent to the altitude where I’d stopped and the spotlights found me. A calm settled over me then as it inexplicably had that night ten years earlier.
“Do you want to go up?” Matt asked, nodding his head towards the lighting bay.
I shook my head.
“Don’t need to,” I replied. “Everything seems smaller, now.”
“Maybe it wasn’t packed to the rafters that night as you remembered it,” he said.
“No, no, it was definitely packed to the rafters. It just seems smaller without the people, and in daylight. Smaller in every way.”
Matt kept a respectful distance and waited.
I moved to the third row from the front, fourth seat over, 3D, and sat down.
“This is where she sat.”
“Red dress?” Matt asked.
I nodded.
“I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She kept me calm and breathing all the way down.”
We stayed only a few more minutes. I knew the cab was still idling in the turning circle out front.
“One more stop?” I asked, as we climbed into the back seat of the taxi.
Matt nodded.
“Are you okay? We can call it a day and forget the final act,” Matt offered.
“No, let’s finish it,” I replied. “I think I feel better than I thought I would. So I might as well see it through since you’ve already organized the whole tour.”
But the address he gave the driver was not the one I’d been expecting. It was a short trip. The cab pulled up in front of the main entrance of the Ottawa Hospital, and we got out. Inside the lobby, Matt seemed to know where he was going. We boarded an elevator. When the doors opened, the sign on the wall opposite said “Oncology.” Matt turned right and started down the corridor, scanning the room numbers. Then he halted, turned around, and walked back the way we’d come to the hallway on the other side of the elevators. Matt soon stopped in front of a room with the door propped open. I looked inside and saw a small figure curled in the bed. Various tubes snaked from machines and IV stands into various entry ports in the patient. I did not recognize him. I looked at the patient’s name and number posted outside the door and could not reconcile the name with the figure in the bed. His eyes were open, though he’d not yet noticed us.
Matt gently knocked on the door but stepped to the side so that only I was framed in the doorway. The man looked at me, squinted, blinked a few times, then grinned as he rolled over onto his back.
“Holy shit. As I live and barely fuckin’ breathe, and I won’t be for long, the ARCHangel is in the house!” Jackson Trent’s voice was a much softer version of the one I remembered. “Hope you’ve still got your wood on!”
Then he was wracked by a coughing fit. I was shocked. I would never have recognized him. His coughing slowed and stopped. I walked up to his bedside.
“Um, hi Jackson,” I stammered. “It’s been a very long time.”
“Not long enough, boner-boy. But now that you’re here, I want to thank you for being such a pussy that night. It made the greatest prank I ever pulled a piece of cake,” he said.
By this time, Matt had entered the room.
“This is my brother, Matthew.”
Jackson barely looked at Matt, then came back to me.
“My best fuckin’ stunt ever. You made me famous,” Jackson said.
“Actually, I think it’s the other way around,” Matt said. “You made Alex famous, and not in a good way.”
“Yeah, well, fuck you,” he whispered. “ARCHangel was my greatest achievement. I still watch it a few times each week, just to keep the numbers up. It was fuckin’ brilliant. I was fuckin’ brilliant. And you walked right into it. We were going to do it anyway, but when we found you in the caf and you actually had a fuckin’ Coke in your hand, it was like winning the lottery. It was meant to be.”
There was a pause when all we could hear was the hum of the machines and Jackson’s laboured breathing as he recovered from his own words.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked. “I mean, what are you sick with?”
“Lung cancer. Stage fuckin’ four,” he replied. “It showed up eight months ago after I thought I’d beaten melanoma. Too much fuckin’ sun on the golf course. That’s what started it all. Thought I was just allergic to the new fertilizer we were using on the course. But it was the big fuckin’ C, again.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, still barely recognizing the slight figure hunched in the bed as Jackson Trent, Bully of the Year, 2005.
For the first time I saw the clear plastic tubing hooked behind each of his ears delivering oxygen through two prongs in his nostrils. I hadn’t really noticed this earlier, I think because it was such a familiar sight.
“I’m sorry you’re sick,” I said softly. “And for what it’s worth, I forgive you for, you know, for ARCHangel.”
“Yeah, well, fuck forgiveness and fuck you,” he said, lifting his head off the pillow and giving me a look of pure contempt. I finally recognized Jackson Trent in the hospital bed. “I don’t want your goddamn forgiveness. You had it coming with your pansy-ass acting. You fuckin’ asked for it. And it was a thing of beauty. It was perfect. Probably the only perfect thing I ever did. So fuck forgiveness.”
I suddenly felt what I
can only describe as closure enter the room and wrap itself around me. I had not expected it to be so palpable. But there it was.
I walked over to the bed and put my hand on Jackson Trent’s arm, above his intravenous. I gently patted it, twice.
“See you, Jackson.”
Then I turned and walked out of the room, with Matt two steps behind.
“Yeah, well, fuck you, ARCHangel. See you on the other side.”
I stared at the girl below, her face a blend of sympathy and rage. But those eyes. Her eyes. New sounds above me, then vibrations.
CHAPTER 15
“It’s an extraordinary story. I’m very happy for you and Matt,” Wendy Weaver said. “And finding your father, too. It’s amazing.”
We were in her office the next morning. She’d made room for me on short notice. I was sitting where I always sat, but it felt different. Everything felt different.
“But before we get too far ahead, tell me more about your acting debut as your twin with that American investor,” she asked. “Clearly you pulled it off, but how were you feeling when it was actually happening? What were your emotions? What were you thinking?”
“Funny you should ask. This never happens, but for some reason I had no worries about her recognizing me as Gabriel. Strangely, that fear wasn’t even in my mind. Maybe that’s my actor’s arrogance kicking in,” I said. “And I felt very calm and comfortable when I was finally in the room with her. Odd. I was terrified when we pulled up out front, but just fine when I stepped out of the car and the performance started.”
“Why?” she asked. “Why do you think you felt that way?”
“You already know why, but you really want me to say it, right?”
“Am I really that transparent?” Wendy asked.
“Either that or we’ve both been doing this for far too long,” I replied. “But to get to your point, the only conclusion I can draw is that I was not myself when I was in the meeting, therefore I was not anxious and over-wrought as I usually am with strangers. I was playing Matt. I was acting. Alex MacAskill wasn’t in the room, so I was safe.”