“No, man. You are dead wrong on both counts. It’s not Handel and it’s not Marsalis.”
Donny stared, cigarette smoke leaking from his nostrils. “It can’t be. Let me see that thing.” Donny looked over the CD case, shaking his head. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said softly.
“That’s Gerard Schwartz playing Scarlatti. He’s as white as they come.”
“You see? I told you Marsalis plays like a white boy.”
Dan smirked. “Gotcha!”
Donny raised a warning finger. “You say a word about this and I’ll tell everyone you gave Abe Pittman head in my bathroom because you felt sorry for him when Victor dumped him.”
“Ooh!” Dan said. “That’s mean. Okay, I promise.”
The track came to an end. The night was silent again. Donny turned to look at Ked curled up on his chair.
“You think the kid enjoyed his party?”
“Party of three, with his father and surrogate uncle?”
“Doesn’t he have any friends his age?”
Dan shot him a look. “Do you think he’d want me to introduce them to gay Uncle Donny and his dad’s boyfriend Bill?”
“I see. We’re good enough to fuck, but not good enough to be family, is that it? And what happened to His Royal Highness, anyway? He stand us up again?”
Dan shrugged off the question. “You know — work. Something came up.”
“Uh-huh. Something’s always ‘coming up’ at work. When are you going to get wise to that one?”
Dan cocked a warning eyebrow. “Whatever that means, Bill is fine. For now.”
“Yeah? Then why’s he always running around half-naked, doing E at clubs and acting like he’s still in his twenties? He’s a doctor, isn’t he?”
“He’s still a big kid at heart.”
“I’ll say.”
Dan took a pull from his beer and set the bottle on the table. “Anyway, it’s not as if I have options.”
“And it’s not as though you advertise, either. When was the last time you went out to a bar?”
Dan shrugged. “I don’t get lucky in bars — I just get drunk. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m no beauty.”
“No, Sugar, you are not, but you have a very tight, trim body the older boys love because it makes them feel like powerful daddies, and the younger boys enjoy because it makes them feel desired by a hot, sexy man. So everyone’s happy.” Donny looked askance at Dan. “What about you?”
“Don’t be a spoilsport.”
Donny glanced over at Ked again. “The boy was asking how come you and I don’t date any more.”
Dan took another pull on his beer. “What’d you tell him?”
“I said I only fuck white boys to hear them scream, and I don’t date you because I couldn’t respect you if I did.”
Dan threw a hamburger bun at him. It glanced off Donny’s shoulder and rolled across the table.
“Asshole! You did not say that. And as I recall, you’re the one who screamed on our dates. Good thing I told Ked not to believe a word you say about me.”
“Well, I think I once told him his daddy was pretty sizeable for a white boy. He told me his mother said the same thing.”
Dan laughed quietly. “Bastard.”
“What? It’s true! It’s a monster.”
“You don’t need to tell my kid that.”
“Don’t you want him to grow up to be proud of you?”
“Not for that.”
“Suit yourself.” Donny crossed his arms and turned away. He waited a moment before looking back. “So you and Miss Doctor are getting along these days?”
Dan shrugged. “He’s unreliable and takes forever to return calls, but he’s great in the sack....”
“And you say I reduce everything to sex!”
“… which you do … plus I’m going to meet some of his friends this weekend. Did I mention that the wedding we’re invited to is on a yacht?”
“Ooh! A yacht even!” Donny made a face. “The girl’s classy for a low-down bitch. Where’d she buy these friends?”
Dan stabbed the air with a finger. “You are a total asshole.” But he was laughing.
“It’s my greatest charm....”
“You have no charm,” Dan said, emptying his beer. “One of the guys getting married is Bill’s oldest friend. They went to school together. Upper Canada College and a few years of university somewhere.…”
“You and your rich boys.”
“I was still born in the gutter.”
“And you’ll die there, if you don’t stop dating men like Bill. Like most poor folk, you confuse money with class.” Donny peered intently at Dan. “You used to be a regular prolie when I met you — rough around the edges and wet behind the ears — but somewhere along the line you picked up some pretty bourgeois tastes.”
Dan snorted. “Really? And what about you?”
“Moi?” Donny splayed a hand against his chest — Marie Antoinette before the tribunal, disavowing all knowledge of privilege. “I’m as middle-class as they come. Which is why you stopped dating me. It’s okay, though. I respect you now. But do tell about the wedding. It sounds very recherché.”
“Let’s have some Scotch first,” Dan said, rising.
Donny’s hand went up. “I’ve had enough for tonight. Haven’t you?”
“Maybe.” Dan sat back and cupped his hands behind his head. “Anyway, I don’t know much about the wedding yet, but it promises to be fun. I’ve never spent an entire weekend on a boat before. Just me and Bill and a bunch of rich folk.”
“Rich white folk, no doubt. And where does the prideful event take place?”
“Somewhere in Prince Edward County, half an hour east of Kingston. Ever hear of a place called Glenora?”
Donny took so long to answer that Dan thought he hadn’t heard his question. “Yeaaah ...” he said finally. “Something about a freak lake?”
“I don’t know anything about a lake, freak or otherwise, but they make a very nice pale ale.” He held up the bottle of Glenora Red Coat he’d just finished.
“Oh, is that why.…”
“Just sampling the local wares.”
“And here I thought you were getting cheap on me.” Donny shook his head. “No, man — this place is famous. There’s some strange geological phenomenon like nowhere else in the world. It’s up on a mountain somewhere. Apparently it has no incoming source of water, but never runs dry.…”
“Underground streams?”
“Maybe. I don’t remember.”
“You sure you don’t want another drink?” Dan asked.
Donny put down his bottle and stood. “Thank you, no. I must depart.”
“It’s about time. I thought you’d never leave.”
“And that’s the only reason I stayed this long.” Donny looked over at Ked. “Say goodbye to the kid for me.”
“Take some cake?”
“Please!” Donny made a face. “Keep it for your doctor.”
Ralph sniffed curiously at Donny as he passed through the kitchen then turned back to his bed.
“Thanks for coming,” Dan said. “Ked was thrilled you made it.”
“Me too.” Donny filled the doorway. “It was fun to celebrate somebody else’s birthday for once.”
They hugged as Donny’s fingers felt around Dan’s midriff. “Still not an inch of fat on you. I don’t know how you do it, with all the drinking you do.”
“Willpower,” Dan said. “That and light beer.”
Donny smiled. “You have a good weekend, Sis. And take notes — sounds like it’s going to be trés elegant. I expect you to come back with lots o’ dirt. I want to hear all about how the rich and filthy-minded live. I need to compare notes!”
“I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.”
An hour later, Ked was packed off to bed. Dan had cleaned up the porch and headed inside. After pouring himself a final drink, he put away the bottles of alcohol. Upstairs in his study, he turned back to th
e folder containing the file on the runaway, Richard Philips. He read the report again, and again laboured over the photograph. Something about the boy’s eyes — some vulnerability — wouldn’t let him go. Finally, he closed the file and turned off the machine.
Three
Coffee and Donuts
Dan’s heart pounded beneath the sheet. The phone was halfway through the second ring. The caller ID strip glowed green: bell payphone — 3:34 am. It might be Bill calling to say he’d finished his shift, though he usually crawled off to his own place and didn’t bother to call — if he even thought of Dan when he left work. Then too, Bill had a cell phone.
Dan cleared his throat and picked up, but the answering machine got there first. A dial tone hung in the air. He stared through the blackness at the receiver. “If you’re going to wake me up, you could at least identify yourself so I’ll know who to be pissed off at tomorrow.”
He smacked the phone down. Anyone in trouble would have left a message. Kendra certainly, and Ked was asleep in the next room, so it couldn’t have been anything to do with either of them. But you’d have to be desperate to phone at that hour. His heart was still doing a jazz number.
His thoughts returned to Bill. He might’ve been arrested with drugs in his pocket at some after-hours club. Once he’d been stopped while driving on the verge of being impaired, but it turned out he’d operated on the cop’s mother and got off with a warning. Bill was lucky that way. What if he’d been in an accident? Dan tried not to think about it. In another minute he’d have himself convinced Bill was somewhere out there, hurt or in trouble, and that Dan had failed to be there for him.
He rolled onto his back and stared at the darkness. Anonymous calls pissed him off. He might lie awake for hours wondering who it was. Part of him liked to think Bill would call to say he wanted to come over, screw the late hour. Even with Ked at home, Dan would’ve agreed. But that never happened. Bill didn’t sleep at other peoples’ houses.
He tried to drop back to sleep, but with no luck. Sometimes he dreamed of Bill and woke up arguing aloud. They were usually on a train in a foreign city — London, New York, once Miami — headed somewhere that mattered to Dan, but never to Bill. Dan would try to impress on Bill the importance of the trip, but without success. The dreams always ended in confusion, with missed connections, lost tickets, and dashed hopes for arriving wherever they were heading.
Dan’s therapist encouraged him to explore how he felt. It didn’t take a shrink to tell him all the signs of a heavily flawed relationship were apparent in waking life, never mind in la-la-land when he was asleep. Even intelligent people let themselves be deluded by their emotions.
Bill seemed incapable of affection, elusive and ambivalent about his feelings. Commitment-phobe didn’t cover it. He’d make dates and cancel at the last minute. He had excuses — work commitments, family obligations, social networking. Despite the fact they’d been dating a year, they never seemed to get closer. When pressed, Dan found it hard to point to anything meaningful between them. In all that time, he’d met only a handful of Bill’s closest friends and not one family member.
“We’re not close,” Bill had said of his four brothers and two sisters.
In this case, “not close” meant sporadic telephone conversations with his siblings, and infrequent family gatherings of unstated intent. Dan was never invited. At least not by Bill. Even Christmas seemed a duty, though not one Bill felt required a spouse. When Dan pressed him, Bill would shrug and say it wasn’t important, shutting down the conversation.
To Dan, the ideal relationship was an easy-going fusion of personalities that allowed both partners to remain healthily independent while knowing each could depend on the other. A state in which late night phone calls were a cause for joy, not alarm, and trust was a matter of course rather than fantasy. Bill was a constant challenge to that goal.
And then there was the small matter of Kedrick. Dan’s dates were impressed to learn he was a father, but he sensed their wariness, as though it meant he was already taken. They seemed to doubt he could divide his loyalty between his son and a partner. Maybe they were right — part of him would always be devoted to Kedrick, no matter who came into his life. But Bill didn’t demand Dan’s loyalty so much as his physical availability. In that, at least, he was easy to please.
It was Donny who’d dubbed Bill the “heartless heart doctor.” “It’s ironic,” he said, “but that man has no feelings for anyone but himself.”
They’d been sitting in Timothy’s Coffee on Church Street, adrift in a minor sea of T-shirts and denim. Donny had just come from work. He was dressed impeccably in a white button-down shirt, Gucci tie, and black Oxfords — Will Smith behind the perfume counter at Holt Renfrew.
He thrummed a finger in Dan’s face. “That man is a self-centred egotist. He expects you to come running when he’s free and complains if you won’t. On the other hand, he doesn’t return your calls for days and whines if you mention it. Where’s the equality?”
“He’s a busy man.” Dan turned to watch the traffic outside the window. “He’s dedicated to his work. It’s not unusual for him to spend fifteen or sixteen hours at the hospital, even when he’s only scheduled for twelve.”
Donny hung on noisily and tiresomely like a dog with a chewy toy. “He could still call to let you know. It’s not as if you’re chopped liver. You’re a heavy hitter in your department, too.”
“He saves lives. He can’t just tell people to come back later.”
“Excuse me?” Donny said in that haughty, offended-minority tone he used to give himself the edge in an argument. “And what exactly is it you do?”
Dan’s eyes flickered over to the line-up at the counter, where curious faces had turned to take in their conversation. His voice lowered. “I find people who don’t want to be found and I return them to places they don’t want to be returned to, for reasons that are usually none of my business.”
“Fuck you!” Donny said. “Fuck you, you self-loathing faggot!”
He jostled the table and sent coffee spilling from the cups and sluicing over the tabletop. Next to them, an older man with sunken cheeks leaned in sympathetically and offered a stack of napkins.
“Thanks,” Donny said, dabbing ineffectually at the mess. He turned back to Dan. “All I’m saying is, you save lives too. Why is your job less important than his?”
“Stop it,” Dan said. He didn’t bother to pretend to be offended. “I never said my job is less important — it’s just more flexible.”
Dan hated arguing. Donny always managed to sound right, even when he wasn’t, and he had the energy to back it up. But in this case he had a point. Dan may have been a pro at what he did, but somehow he felt like a fraud.
The telephone’s anxious ring jarred him, putting Donny and his stained napkins on pause. The ID strip showed a private number now, but there was still no name. It seemed to be his night for anonymous calls. Dan grabbed it before the caller could change his mind again.
“Dan Sharp.”
A whispery silence greeted him.
“This is Dan Sharp. Who is this?”
“It’s Steve — Steve Jenkins.” The voice carried a flatness that made it all but unrecognisable.
Dan’s mind bounced around trying to find something familiar in the tone and in light of the unusual circumstances. His former next-door neighbour shouldn’t be calling at four in the morning.
Dan’s voice softened. “Steve. Did you call half an hour ago from a payphone?”
“Yes. I’m — I’m sorry about the time.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m not sure. Could I … could I talk to you?”
Dan threw off the sheets and sat up, his training kicking in like a decathlete approaching the stadium. “Of course. Where are you?”
“I’m in an apartment near Donlands and Danforth.”
Dan squinted at the caller ID and read off the number. “Is this the number you’re calling from, Steve?”
“I think so. I’d really like to get out of here, though.” His words sounded in a slurred monotone.
“Are you on any medications, Steve?”
“Um, no — yeah. I took a tranquillizer, but it doesn’t seem to be helping.”
“How many?”
“Pardon?”
“How many did you take?”
A pause. “Just one. I’m pretty sure.”
“Okay, we can get you out of there. Can you walk? Are you all right — physically, I mean?”
“Yes. I’m okay.”
“Do you know the Coffee Time Donuts on the southwest corner of Jones and Danforth?”
“Yes. I’m a block away from there.”
“Can you manage to get there? I can be there in five minutes.”
“Okay — yeah. Thanks. I really appreciate it, Dan.”
Dan arrived with Ked in tow. The shop was garish at that hour. Table surfaces reflected the glare of nighttime windows. Fluorescent fixtures lit up over-sized posters for coffee and bagels, making the racked donuts glow with a blue tinge. Coloured sprinkles and powdered sugar vied with sticky glazes for counter appeal, finding none. A sleepy-looking employee roused himself and approached the register, his hair weirdly illuminated by the light.
“Good morning,” Dan said as cheerily as he could manage.
The boy mumbled a few words that vaguely resembled English. Whatever the intended meaning, the sentiment was clearly not welcoming. He wiped his hands on an apron that looked like it had done time in an abattoir. Dan ordered three donuts and a cardboard container of milk for Ked, who looked at him strangely.
Dan frowned. “What? It’s good for you.”
Ked rolled his eyes. He picked up the tray and went off to a table in a far corner, slouching into the seat.
Dan looked around. One table over, an old Asian man picked at the crumbs on his plate. Or someone’s plate. At the far end of the shop, a serious young woman in a beret conferred in quiet tones with a man in a thirties-style suit. Bonnie and Clyde in an idle moment. Dan and Ked were the only other customers. In the daytime, the place bustled with immigrants who didn’t share the North American disdain for cheap coffee and lacquered tables. At this hour it looked more like an Edward Hopper study for the lost, the lonely, and the rebellious.
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