Ghosted

by Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall

  “Poker’s not about luck,” said Mason.

  “I sit corrected,” said the girl. “You’re not very good.”

  He was about to explain it to her, then stopped. “You want a drink? Let’s go to the bar.”

  “I can only go around in circles.”

  “What?”

  “Circles.”

  He pushed her to a table near the bar, then got them a couple of Jamesons.

  They introduced themselves.

  “What’s Willy short for?” said Mason.

  “It’s long for Will,” she said.

  “You’re kind of feminine for a Will.”

  “And short for a tall girl … Shit happens.”

  They drank whisky and Mason chopped some lines on the table.

  “I like drug addicts,” said Willy. Mason laughed, offered her a rolled-up bill, and she shook her head—slow and methodical, like a bird on a branch looking both ways. “Not for me.”

  Mason kept drinking and doing lines. He was buzzed, chatty and the music was thumping, so it was a while before he noticed she’d stopped chatting back. “What’s up?” he said.

  “I have to pee.”

  “No problem.”

  Willy shifted in her chair. “My friend’s supposed to be back.”

  “Oh,” said Mason. “Oh … and you need to pee.”

  “I’ve drunk a lot.”

  “Oh …”

  “You keep saying that.”

  “Sorry.”

  She was staring at him intently.

  “Do you want some help?” he finally asked.

  “Sure,” she said, and Mason got up.

  He pushed her through the crowded Cave and into the bathroom. It took a moment to adjust to the light. Looking in the mirror, he got his first clear sight of Willy. Her lips were red and full, her hair black, tied in a ponytail, her skin so alabaster white it radiated blue in the shadows. Her eyes were green, her teeth pointed. There was a bruise on her collarbone. It reminded Mason of a sea urchin. Her breasts were large, pressing against the tight weave of a dark blue sweater.

  “What are you looking at?”

  “Your teeth,” he said. He looked over at the stalls. All four were occupied, and none accessible to wheelchairs. He hadn’t noticed that before. He’d have to talk to Chaz.

  “So. This friend of yours …,” he said, and then one of the doors opened. A guy and a girl came out.

  Mason turned to look at Willy. “How do we do this?”

  “It’s going to be awkward.”

  “Awkward’s my middle name.”

  Willy snorted. “You’ll have to pick me up.”

  Leaning down to her, he felt how drunk he was. He curled an arm beneath her legs and the other beneath her arms. She smelled of bubblegum and ashes. He began to lift and she gasped. “Sorry,” he said.

  “It’s okay.”

  She was halfway out of the chair.

  “What should I do?”

  “Try again. You can be rough—especially on my right side. I’ve got no feeling there.”

  He yanked and heaved and eventually Willy was in his arms. He stumbled forward and her head smacked into the stall.

  “Ow!”

  “Sorry.” They tumbled into the toilet. There was a thud and a splash. Most of her landed upright, somewhat on the seat. Mason was on his knees at her feet, his arm still wedged beneath her legs, his hand in the toilet water. “Well, that was easy,” he said.

  Willy laughed. “You know you’re not done.”

  “The pants?”

  “The pants.”

  “Should I just pull …?”

  “Well, undo them first. You’ve taken a girl’s pants off before …”

  The people in the next stall over started banging around and moaning. Mason undid the top button, pulled down the zipper. Her underwear was pink. Shifting the waistband back and forth he shimmied her jeans down over her hips, down below her knees. There was soft golden hair on her legs. He reached up and, trying not to look, yanked her panties from under her ass: one quick movement, like whipping a tablecloth from beneath china.

  “Okay?”

  “Yep.”

  “I’ll close the door, then. You okay?”

  “Yep. Sure.”

  He backed out of the stall and closed the door behind him and went to wash his hands. He stood next to Willy’s wheelchair. “I’ll just wait here,” he said, calling through the door.

  “Okay.”

  He turned the tap back on—he thought the running water might help her pee. After a while she said, “You still there?”

  “Yep.”

  Then there was silence again. No sound of peeing even. He sat down in her chair.

  “Are you sitting in my chair?”

  “Yeah … Sorry.” He moved to get up.

  “No, it’s okay. I kind of like it.” Finally he could hear her start to pee.

  He wheeled himself over to the counter and cut up some lines. The peeing stopped.

  “I’m still going to be a while,” said Willy.

  “Okay,” said Mason. The stalls on either side emptied out—little punks and tramps sniffing and giggling, spilling forth like strung out clowns from a small stinky car. They looked at themselves in the mirror, then tumbled back into the Cave. Mason rolled over to the stalls. He faced the closed door. “I don’t really get it.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m just confused about … um … what kind of paralyzed are you? Do you mind if I ask you that?”

  “I’m hemiplegic.”

  “You’re what?”

  “I can only move half of me, split right down the middle. Only the right side can move.”

  “And you can only feel your left.”

  “Right.”

  Mason rolled closer to the door, half a rotation. “Are you telling me you can only feel half your body, and it’s the side you can’t move?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And … and the side you can move, you can’t feel at all?”

  “Yep.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “God’s probably laughing his head off.”

  He thought of her face, her green eyes. “Can I ask you what happened?”

  “I’m not going to tell you.”

  He imagined how the two of them looked from above—staring at each other through a blue metal door.

  “I’m going to smoke something,” said Willy.

  “You can smoke it out here.”

  “I’m going to smoke some heroin.”

  “Oh. Okay.” He heard a lighter spark. He took out a cigarette and lit it. The two lines of smoke rose, mixing in the air above the door. “So what about this friend of yours?”

  “Fuck her,” said Willy, then inhaled and exhaled slowly. “I shouldn’t say that. She takes care of me—most of the time. Then there’s other times—when I’m pissing on strangers….” She inhaled and let it out again.

  “You didn’t piss on me.” He thought of her thighs, covered in soft downy gold.

  “You got lucky is all.”

  They finished smoking.

  “You all done?”

  “Yeah, I am.” The lock clicked. Mason pushed open the door and knelt before her. He put one hand between her knees, gripping the soft pink fabric of her underwear. With the other hand he cupped her backside, lifting it gently, sliding the panties up along her thighs. She reached out her right arm, hooking it around his neck, and pulled. She held herself like that, slightly off the seat, as he reached in with both hands, his fingers under the strings of her underwear, stretching the pink cloth up, around, then snug across her ass.

  “Oh.”

  “Okay?”

  “Okay,” said Willy.

  25. The weather that describes me best is rain.

  26. Love is not meant to hurt us.

  Notes on the Novel in Progress

  Writing is like a poker game. It takes patience, concentration, endurance, focus.

>   No wonder your book is a mess.

  It also requires inventiveness and guts—flashes of bravery and risk.

  And …

  The ability to read other people.

  Things to beware of:

  A novel full of people who only read themselves.

  Narrators consumed with the act of narration.

  The origin of characters.

  Mirrored walls.

  Rooms without belly dancers, windows or doorknobs.

  Open concepts.

  Caves within caves.

  To research:

  Bridges. Bats. Wheelchairs. Subway tunnels. Harm reduction. Love.

  Possible title:

  The Book of Hangovers

  36

  Mason had slept badly, his dreams full of people falling, and he’d woken a number of times into that slipping terror that he was falling, too.

  Now here he sat with his second cup of coffee and the winning submission: “The Saving Grace.”

  It was the work of Dr. Anders Christoph of Trent University, and in many ways it was similar to Soon’s—poetic, hyperbolic. Christoph wrote about the confluence of geological, mythological and historical forces, the ancient shoreline of Lake Iroquois, existential emptiness and Michael Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion. He had gone so far as to compare his design to the character of Nicholas Temelcoff—the bridge-builder who swooped out of the fog to save a falling nun. The whole thing depressed Mason. His stomach grumbled, so he packed up the file and went to get a burger.

  He’d planned to go to his local Harvey’s but at the corner he kept on walking, all the way across downtown to the one known as Ho-vee’s. He ordered a burger and a milkshake then sat down at a table against the wall to eat and read. Every time someone came through the door he looked up.

  That’s not her.

  He looked back down. Ketchup dripped on the page.

  Christoph’s manifesto was full of musical imagery. He described the barrier itself as “A virtuous harp with steel strings, to be plucked by passersby, strummed by the wind—a song of renewal carried through the valley.”

  Mason finished his burger. “Don’t You Forget About Me” was playing on the radio. He scanned the restaurant one last time.

  She’s not going to come.

  He left Ho-vee’s and headed for the valley.

  27. I prefer colourful paintings to dark ones.

  28. Misery is indifferent to company.

  The Bloor Street Viaduct spans ten lanes of highway, two sets of railroad tracks, the city’s primary power lines, a cycling path and the shallow waters of the Don River. It is approximately a third of a mile across and 131 feet high. Standing atop it on a clear day, you could see the valley stretching north into hills or south all the way to the lake. From the southern walkway you could see the downtown skyline, the CN Tower rising. Or at least that’s how it used to be.

  Today, as Mason walked onto the bridge, all he saw were lines. These were the strings of the virtuous harp. They’d started at both ends of the viaduct, working towards the middle. About a quarter had been done so far and over the summer the rest would be filled in, too—until everyone was safe. Saved from themselves and the pull of gravity. Saved by the Saving Grace.

  The lines were strung vertically, from large metal crosses. If you tried to look through them while moving, the nausea was instantaneous. It was like looking at the world through an oscillating fan—not a good thing to do with a hangover.

  He stepped up and put his head against the thick metal cables, so that now he could see the view: cars backed up on the parkway—never-ending lines in both directions—beside them the river, shallow and murky brown, its banks lined with sparse trees and bushes. There was a haze over the lake in the distance. The CN Tower looked flimsy in the bright sun. He stepped back, grabbed onto one of the taut steel strings, and tried to give it a pluck. Paul Bunyan couldn’t have budged it. The whistling wind was like a failed transmission signal.

  He kept his eyes on the pavement and walked towards the centre of the bridge. As he came to the end of the lines his queasiness passed, the world opened up and suddenly he could breathe again. Mason looked out. It felt like he was standing in the middle of the air. He thought of a passage from Soon’s journals.

  It’s not the Golden Gate, but there is something: enough poetry, music and active volcano; mix it with despair, the concrete and shrubs below, and you’ve got a deadly sort of beauty. Standing on the viaduct I began to see them—my neighbours, students, the people of my city, stepping towards the railing….

  And now Mason saw them too—some hesitant, some manic, making a last cellphone call, blinded by tears—dozens then hundreds of them, pushing forward, pouring over the edge, into the grip of gravity, then down. Their bodies exploding at the bottom.

  He felt nothing but anger—at the Saving Grace (four million dollars to make him nauseous, chicken wire would have done just fine) at Soon (his bullshit artistic envy), at himself. Poor Circe, how right she’d been: we’re all just a bunch of King Kongs—stupid, lonely, stumbling around trying to make harps out of bridges, dying for beauty.

  The whole walk home Mason thought of one sentence, written by Soon on lined yellow paper.

  Sixty-eight survivor accounts and only one consistency: “When I started to fall, I changed my mind.”

  37

  “I’m not going to do it.” They were back in This Place. Mason pushed the cheque across the table towards Soon.

  “What is that?”

  “It’s your money. I’m not taking the job.”

  “I paid you in cash.”

  “Either way … I’m not collaborating with you.”

  “Why not?”

  Mason looked around the bar then leaned in. “After all that research—all that thought and energy trying to stop people from killing themselves … a couple of failures and all of a sudden you want to kill yourself?”

  Soon sat back and looked at Mason. He seemed to be sussing something out. “All of a sudden … I wouldn’t exactly say that.”

  “What would you say?”

  “How about ‘not at all’?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “He wanted to kill himself not at all—I know the syntax is weird, but …”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Please sit down.”

  Mason did.

  “I’m not saying I didn’t think about it,” said Soon. “When they announced the winner I fell apart. The Saving Grace …” He spat it out like there was something green and fuzzy growing on the words. “I was perfect for that project. My idea was better.” He stared at the full beer in front of him. Then, for the first time in Mason’s presence, he took a sip.

  Mason said nothing.

  Soon wiped his mouth. “It wasn’t my first one.”

  “Your first idea?”

  “My first breakdown.” He looked at Mason. His eyes had a spark in them. “Isn’t that a great image? Like we’re cars that overheat and the gears just jam and suddenly there’s smoke and coolant everywhere. You lose your cool. That’s what happens in a breakdown.” He took another, longer sip of beer.

  They drank in silence.

  Then finally Mason spoke. “Okay,” he said. “So what happened the first time?”

  Soon put his glass down. “The novel happened.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The Ghosts of Gauguin.” He tipped the glass slightly and stared down into it. “It was a great premise—about this group of struggling artists who fake their own suicides then sell each other’s work on eBay for millions. They escape to a remote island in the South Pacific—rich and famous and supposedly dead.” He gulped at his beer. “Then of course they end up killing each other. It was The Da Vinci Code meets Lord of the Flies.”

  “Huh.”

  “Yeah. Huh. I’d been working on it for years. Everything I’d learned about art and the drama of life was going into that book.” He looked Mason in the eye. “It
would have been a bestseller.”

  “So what happened?”

  Soon drained the last of his beer, then swallowed down a belch. He thumped himself in the chest. “This movie came out: Posthumous Island. You ever see it?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Yeah, it wasn’t very good. But it was my book—exactly!” He waved at the bartender, who poured them another glass.

  “What did you do?”

  “Nothing.”

  The bartender put the beers on the table. Soon took a sip. When he spoke again his voice was a little louder, his words slightly slurred. “What the hell could I do? I couldn’t prove they stole it. And maybe they didn’t even know they had.” He took another gulp. “You know how one year there’s like four movies about people switching bodies? Or dogs playing sports …? You know what I mean?”

  Mason nodded.

  “But this was more than that!” He thumped the table, his beer sloshing over his hand. “It was so specific!” Soon took another sip. “Think of it! How long have people been writing books? Hundreds of years, right?” He stared at Mason.

  “Right …”

  “Right! So for hundreds of years nobody thought of this premise. Then suddenly—wham!” He slammed his hand onto the table and both their glasses jumped. The beer was beginning to pool. “Two people think of the exact same story in the exact same year! Or close to the same year?”

  “Uh … no?”

  “No way!” Another sip. “Or maybe yes!” A bit of beer sprayed from his mouth. “Maybe that’s how it works! Like there’s these ghosts of ideas roaming the earth, diving in and out of heads.” He mimed this happening, as if the ghosts were attached to his fingertips, and dripping with beer. “Maybe that’s what happened to me. Five years of my life, sanity, everything—sacrificed for what? Can you imagine what that’s like?”

  The bartender had brought over a stack of napkins and now Mason was wiping the table. “So what did you do?”

  “Oh, I did a lot of things … a lot of things! I yelled at God. I got addicted to sleeping pills. I even started drinking.” He took another glug. “I’d never really drank before that.” Some beer trickled out the side of his mouth. “I don’t always react that well to alcohol.”

  Mason nodded, piling up the napkins.