Best Canadian Stories 2018

by Russel Smith

  Eight months ago, she’d been checking into the hotel here and saw Tom coming out of an elevator with his duffle bag. She looked away, since she often hallucinated familiar faces while travelling, but he spotted her and came right to the front desk and watched the concierge give her a key. “It’s a beautiful hotel,” Tom said. “Quite a town.”

  The hotel was built to look like an old mission (she’d thought it was an actual converted mission and was not disabused of this until after she’d accepted the job), and the cool Mexican tiles alone were enough to convince a person that this would be a wonderful place to live.

  “What are you doing here?”

  They were frozen in the lobby, staring at each other. A breeze from the bronze, old-timey ceiling fans tossed his shoulder-length hair. He was looking craggier every year, long lines where his dimples used to be, eyes a bit bloodshot, though through the alchemy of his charm all of this made him seem more beautiful.

  “Did you think you were the only big shot with a campus interview?”

  It was then she understood what was meant by the phrase I was floored. She gathered herself and tossed back to him: “Oh, you have a secret interview. You must be taking this very seriously.”

  He liked it when she hit him with things she herself would have hated to hear. The meaner she was to him, the warmer he was to her. “Let’s have a drink. I’ve got a few hours before I have to catch my flight.” He led her to the bar, which, since it was the middle of the day, was mostly empty. She was still crumpled as the clothes in her suitcase. “Pretty soon they’ll know everything about you,” he said.

  “Just like you do, I guess,” she said.

  “I do know everything about you.”

  She sipped her old fashioned through the tiny straw. “What do you think I want to do right now, if you’re so smart?”

  In the hotel room, in bed with him, she felt as she always had in all those years of letting this happen. It had happened a thousand times; it had been six months since the last time; it was always the same: just at their moment of greatest intimacy, his warm flesh against hers, absorbed by hers, his moaning and sighing marks of vulnerability, she felt that she could not trust him. His mouth was on her until she couldn’t bear it, until she was almost in a trance, hallucinating a third party as though her suspicions were made flesh. So, now, against the door, lifted onto the bathroom counter, him pulling her open with his hands, and then on the bed, distrust flicked through her. “What are you doing?” she cried out as she came. He wanted to distract her before her interview.

  “You romanticize my despair,” he said. But the magic had gone out of him. In all those years, Evie hadn’t slept with anyone else, as though a silent commitment could stand in for monogamy. He said, “Let the best man win,” before letting himself out the door, and she nodded, decided that though he’d hoped to throw her off her game she’d use the fuck to her advantage. She was desirable, powerful, the sort of person who could shake off an intense encounter and go into a room full of strangers and charm them with her poise.

  “Whatever you do, don’t drink, no matter how much you want to,” her advisor had told her. She downed a black coffee and then another. She rinsed out her mouth with tepid water and brushed her teeth. She zipped on her nicest pencil skirt.

  Now it was Evie who’d started drinking. She was not an alcoholic and could admit that she was drinking excessively, watching bad reality TV and Dr. Phil and going through a twenty-sixer of Wild Turkey every week. This is not the outcome we expected, she thought he’d say if he were here with her and not with Natasha in Toronto. Now it was Evie who was drinking and Tom who was in love. There was a language to these photos. She knew it was post-coital and then also pre-coital. Now, 3:29, Natasha had finally replied. Yes! I’m in Toronto! Then How are you?

  Go fuck yourself, Evie thought, trembling like a palm. Before she could think better of it, below the photo of the two of them, she copy-and-pasted a quote from the lecture she’d been writing. “I know that human beings are on the average not worth much anywhere, but here they are more good-for-nothing and irresponsible than elsewhere.” Take that! The slim moment of triumph was followed by terror, but before she could figure out how to delete it, Steven Vandersteen walked in.

  Well, it turned out that Steven Vandersteen wore a top hat. She was in no mood to laugh, and, trembling still, Evie looked calmly at the hat and the bearded face beneath it and gestured at the chair for him to sit.

  “I assume you are Steven Vandersteen,” she said. “Nice to finally meet you.”

  He smirked at her. Then, he lifted his finger and thumb to the brim of the hat and tipped it at her. “Likewise.”

  “So, I’ve got your essay here, and I just wanted to consult with you before I send it down the channels.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I mean, you didn’t write this, right?”

  “I wrote it.”

  “You arranged it.”

  “If you think about it,” he said, with such an emphasis that it was clear he thought she hadn’t thought about it, “that’s all every essay is. An arrangement of various invented words.”

  “I have to disagree with that,” she said.

  “There is nothing new under the sun. Who said that?”

  She stared at him. Men always taking it upon themselves to teach her.

  “Marcus Aurelius,” he said.

  “Actually, it’s from the Book of Ecclesiastes.”

  “I can guarantee you,” he said, seeming not to have heard her, “that Wittgenstein wouldn’t care one way or another whether he received attribution. He was purely interested in the truth.”

  He pronounced the “W” in Wittgenstein as a “W,” and for a moment she felt sorry for him. He was the sort of kid who thought that genius was worth something, the sort of kid who wants to find out that he is a genius, or, rather, the sort of kid who is certain that he is a genius and is just waiting for someone to discover it. Like a tall, thin woman waiting for a modelling agent to come along.

  “You never come to class, and you’ve committed several shades of academic dishonesty. Not just misattribution but outright plagiarism. And regardless of the possibility for novelty on this Earth, there are rules and consequences in the university, and—

  “Man, I feel sorry for you,” he said.

  She was still trembling. She took a deep breath. “What are your plans? I saw that you’re a philosophy major.”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, you’re wasting your money and your time if you don’t bother learning the ropes here. You want to just think your own thoughts, might as well drop out.”

  “Yeah, I wish,” he said.

  “Guess what?” she said. “The world’s your oyster. You can just drop out and work with your hands and learn how to build hot air balloons or whatever. Spare the rest of us this nonsense.”

  “What the fu …? Hot air balloons?”

  “You aren’t a child,” she said, though he was, though he looked like one. “You like the truth so much?” (I’m not a liar, I’m just kinder than you are, she had told both Tom and Natasha, who thought she was soft just because she was pretty, because she was blond.) “You want me to tell you the truth? If no one else will?” He’s a cheater, she thought, but he’s also a child.

  “Lay it on me,” he said.

  It would feel good to punch a person in the face. Sometimes it would. “Everybody is putting up with you. You think you’re a renegade surrounded by phonies, but those phonies are just being kind. Wearing a fucking top hat.”

  Now she felt breathless, as though she had run into him and beat at his chest with her fists. She laid her hands palm down flat on the desk to stop their trembling. Out of the corner of her eye she could see that her phone was flashing with a message, but Steven Vandersteen showed no sign of getting out.

  “Whoa, lady, I don’t
know what your deal is, but—”

  “You are supposed to address me as Professor.”

  He stared at her, eyes banded by shadow below the brim of the hat.

  “It’s very disrespectful.” She thought maybe he’d take the hat off and clutch it to his chest in apology and humility.

  “So, what do you want me to do about this essay?” he said.

  “You’re going to take this home and you are going to rewrite it.” He nodded at her. “If you don’t want to fail,” she said, and he continued to nod. In this case, nodding did a great deal to humanize him. “You think you’re such a genius?” She smiled at him. “Okay, then. Prove it.”

  For What You’re About to Do

  Brad Hartle

  I’ve driven out to Selkirk Mental Health Centre to be with my dad. He’s about to be taken to Winnipeg for his trial and I’ve been asked to wait in a holding room while the staff get him ready. Waiting with me is a peace officer named Rodney. Rodney’s heard I’m in from Toronto and we’re making polite conversation about the Leafs’ goaltending woes when Dad shuffles in, arm in arm with a nurse. White slippers and an orange jumper is his outfit for today, and the nurse is in almost-matching orange paisley scrubs. It could be a strategy, the near-matching clothes. Maybe she’s putting him at ease? Saying, yep, I dress silly sometimes, too. We all do here. Not just you murderers.

  The name on the nurse’s name tag is Alice and I tell her my wife’s name is also Alice.

  “It’s a common name,” she says.

  Rodney smirks and taps Dad’s arm. “If she seems prickly it’s because I’ve been turning her down all week.”

  “Oh!” Dad’s eyes beam with his old clowner’s joy. He looks from Alice to Rodney and back at Alice. “You could do better than this brute!”

  “And I regularly do.” Alice licks her thumb and gives Dad’s mangy eyebrows a straighten. To me, she says, “Sorry. Overtime hour six.”

  I tell her no harm done.

  She glares at Rodney. Rodney winks. “Such a pig,” Nurse Alice says, but when she places her hand on Dad’s shoulder she’s all business. “Now, Mr. Wakefield, we’re gonna send you on a field trip today. That sound okay?”

  When she addresses him as “mister” I smile in an unexpected way.

  Dad looks at Rodney, then me, not seeming to recognize me. “I’m not up for it.”

  Rodney says, “But we’ve got your boy, Ira, here with you, all the way from Toronto. He’s gonna be with you the whole time. Right by your side.”

  “Hey, Pops, look what I brought for you.” From my pocket I pull his old ruby-red clown nose.

  “What am I supposed to do with this?”

  They all look at me. “I hoped it would, well…”

  “What Ira’s getting at,” and Rodney looks at me to make sure it’s okay if he comes to my rescue, “is we have to visit some gloomy folks who need to see what a kind fella you are.”

  Nurse Alice rubs Dad’s arm. “And they’re gonna see right away, aren’t they?”

  Dad pushes the nose back at me. “Foolish.”

  Alice says, “You don’t have to wear it if you don’t want, but Ira should hang onto it in case you change your mind.” She mouths to me, He’ll change his mind, then says, “I’m gonna leave you boys to it.”

  Dad wide-eyes Alice. “You’re not coming?”

  “You don’t need me.” Alice’s hand makes slow circles on Dad’s back. “I’ll be here waiting for you, though.”

  “I’ll be with you, my friend,” Rodney says. “And Ira, too.”

  Dad looks at me and then Rodney. “But you.” He points at Rodney. “You’re coming for sure, right?”

  “Yes, my friend. For sure.” Rodney lays his hand on Dad’s shoulder.

  It occurs to me I’m the only one in the room who isn’t in some way embracing my dad.

  Last night at the airport there were no hugs waiting. Mom tore up her driver’s license decades ago, so I cabbed to her place, our family home in West Winnipeg. She’s lived alone since Dad went into a care home a year ago.

  As always, the front door of my parents’ place was unlocked. Lights were off in the doorway and down the hall. I stomped the snow from my boots and yelled into the dark, “Mom!” She hollered back that she was in the kitchen, where I found her hunched over her laptop. When she stood to hug me she seemed creaky, aching. I noticed what looked like a lesion at her temple and pushed back her white hair. “What’s this?”

  She shook her head away. “A bruise that’s not going away fast enough.”

  “From what?”

  “Had a little fall in the walkway. It’s nothing.”

  I tried to get a better look, but she jerked away. “You’re falling apart.”

  She reached into her mouth and removed her dentures, the whole top and bottom rows. With her sunken-face smile, she said all slobbery, “I’m a picture of health. Now, give me a kiss.”

  “I’m not kissing you, you old hillbilly.” But of course I did, a wet one on her forehead.

  She put her teeth back in and pointed at her computer. “How do I create a profile?”

  “A profile for what?”

  “Hear this. They should have locked the old drunk up when he got his dui.” She was on the Winnipeg Free Press website. “I want to tell this guy, this guy named,” she leaned closer to the screen and squinted, “JetsPrideBaby, that he doesn’t know his asshole from his word-hole.”

  I hadn’t taken my coat off and the heat was getting prickly.

  “It’s a story about your father” She scrolled up. The headline read: “Personal Care Home Assault Kills Woman, 87.”

  “We figured it would hit the media at some point, right? Don’t overreact.”

  “It makes your Dad out to be a drunken murderer!”

  I took off my parka and set it on a chair back. “It really mentions his dui?”

  “Yes! For no good reason!” With her hands in the air, the frilly arms of her nighty fell to her shoulders in bunches.

  All the pertinent information was in the article. Tomorrow my dad faces a judge for the first time since a fellow resident at the care home, a woman named Penny Whallen, came up behind him and he turned around and shoved her. She fell, struck her head and died. The subhead read: “Accused has criminal history.”

  Mom said, “That dui was over twenty years ago!”

  “They’re in the business of selling news. Controversy sells.”

  “How would they even know about the dui?”

  “Record check.”

  “How are you so cool about this? This is your father. It’s not who he is. It’s slander!”

  “It’s not slander if it’s fact.”

  “Why didn’t you bring my grandson? I could have ordered him to help me.”

  What I didn’t tell her is Tim and I hadn’t talked in days. That when Tim heard of the trouble with his grandfather, he laughed. “What an old retard,” he said, and I threw the tv remote I was holding at his head. Without a thought. A reaction from some violent depth. It cracked against his forehead, batteries flying out, and I was over him, pinning him against the couch, my forearm against his throat and my wife yelling, trying to pull me off. Tim left the room swearing over his mother’s demand that we calm down.

  “He’s studying for his midterms,” I said to Mom. “And he’d say the same thing to you: commenting on this will plunge you deep into the Internet’s sewer.”

  “How did you become such a pushover?”

  That one stung and my look must have shown it.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean that.” I saw the slightest quiver in her lower lip. “Ira, I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know how to help.” I hugged her and could feel her warm breath on my neck. “I don’t care if I’m being stupid. Let me be stupid for your father.” S
he pulled back and gave me those teary eyes. “Because I am stupid for your father. I love him so stupid.”

  I’m a suck. I set her up with a profile. When it came to creating a username I asked her what she wanted to call herself.

  “My name, of course. I’m Angela Wakefield, not some coward.”

  With Mom fighting it out on the comment board I went to my old room to call home and check in. Alice answered and I said, “I’ve arrived at the killer’s lair.”

  “Yes, well, this family is full of criminals.” She let that statement dangle for a moment, then said, “Tim was arrested.”

  “Arrested?”

  “He had a bag of pills in his locker, which he’s been selling. A grand worth of Oxycontin.” She said Oxycontin slow, navigating each syllable like she had just learned the word.

  “That asshole.”

  “Yes.” She breathed deep. “Yes, he is.”

  “Is he there? Should I talk with him?”

  “Nope, you shouldn’t. And you know that.”

  “But he’s there?”

  “Yes, police released him a couple hours ago.”

  There was a decorative doll on the bed, nestled between pillows. With a backhand I sent the doll flying, its hard head hit the wall with a thump. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do from here.”

  Alice exhaled into the phone. I pictured her taking a seat at the kitchen table. “I don’t know either.”

  “Is he expelled?”

  “I meet with the school tomorrow.”

  “I’ve never seen drugs around the house. He doesn’t look like he’s doing drugs.”

  “Doing. Selling. What’s the difference?”

  “Right,” I said. And there was silence.

  “How’s your Mom seem?” Alice asked.

  “She’s fighting for her husband’s honour on the Internet.”

  Alice giggled. “I love that woman.”

  I stretch out on the bed. “It’s madness.”

  “No, it’s all she can do at the moment and she’s someone to do all she can. It’s admirable.”