“You got any Indian in you?”
“My grandmother’s Métis.”
“That means you got one-sixteenth Indian blood in you.”
“I suppose it does. She was a school teacher. She taught English. She pretty much passed as white her whole life.”
“Good for her. You do what ya gotta do to survive.”
“She’s got dementia now. I don’t think she remembers much of who she was anymore.”
“That ain’t so bad.”
“Maybe for some people.” I tucked the eagle feather back under my T-shirt. “You’re a good man, Robert Burns. I want you to know that.”
He studied his shoes. “You know I’m not, doc.” When I didn’t say anything, he grinned and shook his head. “Doc, I know you know. I saw it in your face, that day you took me in.” I still didn’t say anything. Robert Burns pointed behind him. “I just got a needle in my butt. Hurt like hell. You know what for?” I shook my head. “It was my T-injection. You know what that is?”
“Testosterone.”
“Naw, man, T’s for Thunderbird. I just got my Thunderbird-injection. If things go right, they’re gonna help me get my top-surgery come spring. You know what that is?”
“A mastectomy.”
“Naw, man, c’mon. That means top-of-the-world, top-o’-the-mornin’-to-ya, top gun, top notch, top dog. That’s right. So fuck these bindings. I am so sick of them. I am so fucking sick and tired of it all. Sometimes, you get so sick, eh, you get tired of walking Mother Earth. Ever get that sick, doc?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“Don’t. It sucks. You know why I carve my feathers and wolf-heads?” I shook my head. “So I don’t carve myself. Check it out.” He rolled up one sleeve of his flannel shirt. Dozens of white scars covered the inside of his forearm. “I hear voices they tell me to carve myself, eh. But I carve my feathers and wolf-heads. There’s a lot of medicine in that.”
“I think you’re onto something there.” He rolled his sleeve back down. “Here,” I said. I took off my ring and handed it to him. “You take this.”
“I can’t take that.”
“Sure you can. I’m giving it to you.”
“Fuck that. Your friend gave that to you.”
“Yeah, and now I’m giving it to you. Look, I’m moving at the end of the summer.”
His broad brow furrowed. “You leaving town?”
“I’m moving across town.”
Robert Burns blinked and ran his hand over his face. He reached out and took the ring. He examined it in his big stubby fingers. After a while, he said: “You need anything.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’m going to go now.”
“Alright, doc. Don’t be a stranger.”
“Keep it real.”
“I always do.”
I rode away. I needed to start packing. I never was one to leave things to the last minute. Rounding the corner, I glanced over my shoulder and waved. Robert Burns, who was still standing where I’d left him, raised his fist. The truth was, I was going to miss this neighbourhood. I was going to miss the Conservatory in Allen Gardens, St. Lawrence Market just a few blocks south, and the Gay Village on Church Street just a few blocks north. But most of all, I was going to miss its colourful characters, and people like Robert Burns. I knew his was one of just countless stories out there. But like Karen had said, I’d still barely scratched the surface of everything this city had to offer. And it was time to move on.
CHAPTER TWELVE
This Could Be Anywhere in the World
David’s loft was just around the corner from where he worked at Bikes on Wheels on Augusta Avenue. I’d been spending so much time at his place over the last year, moving in didn’t seem like such a big change. There was a lot more sunlight for all my plants. Also, living in Kensington Market, I was closer to Pat and Blonde Dawn, and a lot closer to school. (After four years of undergrad, starting med school didn’t even seem like that big a change, just more classroom lectures and more studying.) I’d missed the neighbourhood Karen and I had staked out as our own. Sneaky Dee’s and Free Times were both just blocks away. In the end, David was right. It really was like we were just two regular guys sharing rent. The only difference was we also shared a bed.
Towards the end of October, Pat organized a dim sum outing in Chinatown. David and I rolled out of bed one Sunday morning, strolled ten minutes over to Spadina Avenue and hiked up a circular stairway to the second floor. The restaurant turned out to be a cavernous hall decorated with red lanterns, with a raised stage at the far end adorned with a golden dragon and phoenix. There must’ve been over three hundred people, young and old, Chinese and non-Chinese, packed into the space. It was buzzing and chaotic, elegant, tacky and totally fabulous. I’d never been to dim sum before, and David told me I was in for a treat. We’d invited Parker, and Megan and Charles. Pat and Blonde Dawn had also brought along a few of their friends. We were the perfect party for a table for ten.
I recognized one of Pat’s friends as the saxophone player from the Free Times Café, who reintroduced himself as Bobby Lam. As the only Chinese person at our table, he was our default go-to guy when it came to identifying the contents of the bamboo steamer baskets and stainless-steel platters being pushed around on carts by ladies calling out, “Har gow!” and “Shumai!” Pat was more than eager to try everything, and he’d gesticulate and order two of every dish that passed by without even waiting to see what was inside. We had shrimp dumplings and sweet-and-sour pork, crispy fried squid, and sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaves. My favourite was the steamed BBQ pork buns.
More than once, Pat exclaimed with his mouth full: “I have no idea what the fuck I’m eating but this shit is delicious!” Then Bobby would lean over, examine his plate and illuminate him. Megan passed on the pig’s blood and half a dozen other items, but the rest of us followed Pat’s lead and tried at least a bit of everything. (Parker’s favourite was the chicken feet.) There was tea and more tea to wash everything down.
In the end, we stayed for hours, catching up and chatting and debating the merits of chopsticks versus forks, paperbacks versus e-readers, and The Beatles versus The Stones. Everyone agreed that Toronto offered some of the best selections in ethnic foods in the world, and conceded that lightsabers were in fact the ideal weapon of choice when battling zombies. At this point, Bobby mentioned how many of the locals believed the building was haunted, given that it was once an old Chinese morgue and funeral home. Megan shrank back, wide-eyed, in her seat. Then David remarked how his Roman Catholic mother talked regularly to her dead husbands, which prompted Charles to offer-up a mini-lecture on séances and ectoplasm. At this point, Megan uttered a mouse-like squeak and excused herself from the table. No one seemed to notice, including Charles who continued on enthusiastically about Toronto’s Haunted Walk and real-life modern-day ghostbusters.
I excused myself from the table, and found Megan outside pacing the street corner, puffing on a cigarette. Today she was wearing a black turtleneck and a red beret with matching mittens on a string that dangled from her wrists, flopping about whenever she’d gesticulate. “You okay, there, Megan?”
“No, I’m not okay. I’m not,” she said. “I don’t know why Charles has to go on and on about ghosts when he knows it creeps me out. And those chicken feet are absolutely disgusting! I don’t know how people can eat those things. I know it’s so not PC for me to say that, but I really don’t give a flying monkey’s ass. You think they have monkey’s ass on the menu? I wouldn’t be surprised if they did. Sweet and sour monkey’s ass, sticky rice monkey’s ass in lotus leaves, crispy barbecued flying monkey’s ass-on-afucking-stick. Honestly! I tried ordering a plain garden salad (with no tomatoes since you know, Daniel, I can’t stand the texture of raw tomatoes), but did you know those cart ladies don’t even speak a word of English? I’m also PMSing right now. So that just explains everything, doesn’t it? At least that’s what Charles would say. ‘Megan, sweetie, you’re PMSing. This will
pass.’ I hate it when he says that.”
“You two fighting?”
“What? No, Daniel. That’s the problem. We never fight. My ex-boyfriend Chris and I, we used to fight all the time.”
“And that’s a good thing?”
Megan sneezed. “Well, no. It was awful.” She searched her pockets and pulled out a crumpled tissue. “But we’d have make-up sex afterwards. Make-up sex is the best. It’s just the best. But Charles, he just, like, he goes along with everything.” She dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose. “If I complain about something, he’ll listen and understand and apologize if he needs to, and he’ll be so calm and nice about it. Sometimes it drives me crazy. I want my knock-down fights. I want my make-up sex.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Look at me. I don’t even smoke! I just bummed this off an old Chinese guy with one tooth right now. Here, take this away from me, please.”
She handed me her cigarette, smeared with lipstick. “Charles,” I said, “is a really nice guy.”
“I used to want nice. I remember that. I remember when that was all I wanted.”
“You two have been together, what, two-and-a-half years?”
“Well, since that dinner party of yours. I suppose it’s been that long. Has it been that long? How are your friends from upstairs, the ones who were pregnant? What were their names?”
“Mike and Melissa.”
“That’s right.”
“They had their baby, little Benjamin. They moved into a condo up in North York. I don’t really see them anymore.” I butted out the cigarette.
Megan sniffed. “I miss Karen. She was my best friend. Well, she still is. But you know how it is.”
“Yeah. Well, she’s my best friend too. I miss her too.”
“Charles is going to be a professor one day. Professor Ondaatje. Doesn’t that sound nice? I think about having his children. Seriously, I do. I could be Mrs. Ondaatje, couldn’t I? He says he’s a devout atheist. Can you be an atheist and still believe in ghosts? I could be an atheist. I have an open mind, right? But Daniel, I just don’t know what I want these days. Maybe I’m just being too nitpicky. Do you think I’m being too nitpicky?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Karen said you and I can both be a bit uptight sometimes.”
“She said that?”
“Of course, there is one thing about Charles I can’t complain about.”
“What’s that?”
“He’s huge. But I guess you would know that. Honestly, compared to Charles, Chris was a cocktail sausage.” Megan whispered: “Did I ever tell you Chris always had to use a cock ring?”
“Yes, you have.”
“Well, Chris always had to use a cock ring, just to keep it hard. I think he had something wrong with him down there.”
“He tried to kiss me once.”
“What? Who?”
“Chris.”
“My Chris?”
“Your Chris. A few summers back, during Pride. He tried to kiss me. He was drunk.”
“Oh my god, do you think Chris is gay?”
“Well, I don’t know. Pat’s convinced no one’s completely straight. I figure most guys are mostly straight. I think Chris might fall into that category.”
“What was it like, Daniel, when you and Charles were together?”
“Charles and me?”
“Megan nodded.
“Um.” I scratched my head. “It was ... nice?”
“When you two kissed, would he do that thing with the tongue?”
“What thing?”
“You know, that thing.”
“Oh, that thing. Um, yeah, he would.”
“Did you like it?”
“I didn’t mind.”
“Would he, like, go down there, on you, with you?”
“Um, sure. Why? You?”
“No. Well, sometimes. Not as often as I’d like. Except then he’d do that same icky thing with the tongue.” Megan rolled her eyes.
“Well, why don’t you tell him you don’t like it? He can’t read your mind, Megan. Tell him what you would like. Tell him what to do.”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that!”
“You’re a teacher, Megan. Just think of him as one of your students.”
“I teach pre-K to grade three, Daniel.”
“Exactly.”
“You know, Karen and I kissed once?”
“Oh?” I was genuinely taken aback.
“It was awkward. I mean, I thought it’d be, you know, like all that.” Megan screwed up her face and shook her head. “We were able to laugh about it afterwards. She made me promise not to tell you. Honestly, I don’t think I could ever do it with a girl. Ew!”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Ew.”
“Daniel, what was it like with Marcus and Fang?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you know. When the three of you were together. What was sex like?”
“Who says Marcus, Fang and I were together?”
“Daniel, are you kidding me? Everyone knew the three of you were together. There’s nothing wrong with that! Really, I’m not judging you at all. It’s the opposite, in fact. I mean, first of all, I think guy-on-guy sex is so hot. Sometimes I’d get Charles to watch gay porn with me. I used to think about the three of you doing it all the time. And Marcus, he’s so attractive. Not that you’re not attractive, I mean, you are. But Marcus, he’s like this angel, he’s like this Greek god. In fact, I was thinking, well. Do you think Charles would ever be into a threesome, like, with another boy?”
“You should ask Charles.”
“Would you sleep with us?”
“What? What? Megan, hold on. Look, I’m with David.”
“Well, do you think you and David might sleep with us? I just need, I think, I mean. I mean we’re friends right, all of us? But you gay guys sleep with your friends all the time, don’t you? And I was just thinking, Charles and me, we’re kind of in a slump right now. And he’s not into open relationships, and I’m not either. But I thought maybe like just this once. And I trust you. And David seems really nice. And there’s no harm in asking, right?”
“Megan. No. No, I don’t think that would be a very good idea.”
“Okay.”
“Look. Megan. Have you tried a strap-on?”
“What?”
“A strap-on. I think Charles might enjoy that.”
“Why would he enjoy that?”
“What do you mean, ‘Why would he enjoy that?’ Charles, he would enjoy that. He likes it.”
“Likes it?” Megan blinked and raised one hand. “Oh no. No, he told me that he’s, you know. Oh no. He told me that when he was with other men, it was exclusively, you know.”
“What?” Now I was more than taken aback. “Charles never topped me. He was always the bottom. I never bottomed for him, not once, not even close. Not that there’s anything wrong with being the bottom. But that never happened between us. Did he tell you he was the top in our relationship?”
Megan nodded.
“Okay. Well.” I folded and unfolded my arms. “Well, that. That’s a lie. And I’m disappointed. I’m really disappointed. And, Megan, you should get a strap-on. In fact, don’t tell him. Just get it. And I think you should surprise him with it when he’s least expecting it. Trust me, he’ll love it. In fact, I’ll help you pick one out.”
“Oh, Daniel, would you?”
I rested one hand on her shoulder. I could’ve said a lot of things to her in that moment. I could’ve told Megan that Charles had all the sex appeal of IKEA furniture, and that when it actually came to performance in bed, despite his vast and esoteric intellect, what Charles needed most was someone to take him by the hand and lead him like he was in pre-K. But instead, I simply smiled and said: “Hey, what are friends for?”
Grandma was sick. It’d happened suddenly and without warning. She’d been able to leave the nursing home without any fuss and come home for Thanksgiving. But by November
, she had moved into hospice care, and was sleeping almost all the time. A week before Christmas, the chaplain was called in. In the early morning of Christmas Eve, Grandma passed away. Grandpa was at her side, holding her hand when it happened. Liam, Pat and I were crashed out on a couch the head nurse had let us drag into Grandma’s room. I woke up first, blinking blearily. Pat was snoring, drooling on my shoulder. The flowers crowding the windowsill shone, luminous. For a few seconds, I didn’t know where I was. The sunlight was blinding on the white sheets. I squinted and rubbed my eyes. Gradually everything came into focus. I got up and went over to Grandpa, knelt and held his shoulders. After a minute, Liam and Pat did the same. Grandma was ninety-one years old.
I texted Karen who arrived forty minutes later along with the Miltons. To my surprise, Karen’s little sister Anne also showed up. As usual, she was dressed all in black, but on this occasion it seemed appropriate. I remember the red exit signs, the sound of the nurses’ heels on the linoleum floor, the oil in Grandpa’s unwashed, thinning hair. The staff knew exactly what to do, what we needed, and how it was to be done. In the end, I was the one who spoke with the doctors and the funeral director. Mr. Milton was helpful, as was Karen who had managed arrangements for her father’s burial two years ago. The Miltons stayed with Grandpa that afternoon and all evening.
Late that night, when everyone had gone home and Grandpa had gone to bed, Karen knocked on the front door and I let her in. The four of us sat silently in the kitchen. In the last few days, I’d cleaned the house from top to bottom. Liam had jerry-rigged the downstairs toilet with a coat hanger so it was working fairly reliably. The furnace, however, was acting up again. At Grandpa’s insistence, the three of us had taken his pick-up and gotten ourselves a Christmas tree. It just didn’t seem right not to have one. It was smaller than usual this year, and we’d taken our time decorating it. Tonight, Liam made a big pot of Labrador tea. A plate of store-bought shortbread cookies sat untouched next to it. After a while, Pat emptied his cup and set it upside-down on the table. “Well, that hit the spot.”
“Yep.”
A Boy at the Edge of the World Page 19