“I see you, son,” said the veteran to Beck. “I know you see me. I know you’re starting to see us.” At the sound of his voice, Beck willed his vision to become soft and unfocused.
One evening, Prime Minister Alan Dunphy delivered a moving speech. To the flash of cameras, he said, “Canada has completed consultations with rights holders on this major project. And working with our Indigenous partners has been paramount. To date, forty First Nations have negotiated benefit agreements simply because the benefits are clear: jobs, housing and financial gain,” claiming the First Nation near Suffield was one of them. It was not. And due to the newly imposed media blackout at the site of the protests and disconnected telecommunications towers, no one could report on this false statement.
The morning after, instead of being handed a rubber-bullet gun, Beck was handed a flamethrower. Beck did as he was told and set the yellowing grass on fire. The flames did what they were supposed to do and forced the frontline protesters to retaliate in screams and coughs. But then, by command from Sergeant Sullivan, the soldiers began rounding the protesters’ encampment until the rear of their settlement, once a modest stand of brush, was engulfed in flames. Beck did as he was told. He watched, through his face shield, as a mother ran the perimeter of the fire, her toddler on her hip, searching for a way out. She, along with other protesters, quickly hopped into the back of a pickup truck, which drove out of the pandemonium. Numerous other pickup trucks returned several times to pick up dozens more people. He watched, through his face shield, as the veteran, carrying an elder on his back, stared helplessly back at him, their clothes set alight. Screaming from the pain, the veteran managed to fireman-carry each of the elders into another vehicle, and they too drove off the site. Hundreds of people screamed, all at different pitches, different tempos in their pleas for help. Most escaped by foot and, once outside the circle of confusion, looked back at their tents engulfed in flames and coolers melting in the heat.
The world was told that wildfires had spread throughout the area, forcing the protesters to evacuate. But Beck knew those who escaped by foot were put into cube trucks and sent elsewhere. To where, he did not know.
A month later, still with the smell of burning plastic in his nostrils and mind, Beck submitted his memo requesting release from the military, claiming his aging father needed help on the family chicken farm. By the time Beck flew back to Toronto, the city was also in chaos.
“Can I help you with your bags, sir?” said one uniformed worker at the Pearson Airport arrivals area. Behind the worker, Beck could see a Muslim family being forced to kneel. A security guard began rifling through their suitcases.
“Get them off!” The women of the family removed their hijabs. “Now hands up!”
“Sir? Sir? Do you need help with your bags?” Beck shook his head. He made his way to the exit to call for a taxi and saw a white woman standing by the automatic doors holding a sign that read “BECK COLLINS.”
His face betrayed his confusion. Who had scheduled a pick-up for him? Liv smiled. “Hello, Beck.”
“How do you know my name?”
“From your memo requesting release from the military.”
She slid the doors of a black Grand Caravan open. “Get in.”
One of the kerosene lamps flickers, and Beck adjusts the knob to make the light brighter and steady. My eyes are heavy and lulled by the softness of these beds.
“I know you’re both tired. But I need you to listen to what I’m saying now.” Beck sits on one of the beds and makes eye contact with me and Bahadur. “You have absolute agency to leave. You are free to leave at any time. I’m not here to boss you around. I’m not your leader. I’m working every day to be your ally. Do you understand?” We cautiously nod. “I want you to know that what we saw in Toronto with the mass round-ups and camps was just a pilot project. Because of its success, the federal government plans to make it a national initiative. There are people involved in a group that is fighting back, part of something called the Resistance, that has been helping to hide you. They are now setting up training camps like this all over the country. People are learning to fight back. We’re not the only ones. By no means are allies like me and Liv leading these camps. Instead, we are led by a network of Others who are heading the Resistance against the Boots. These Others expect us to adhere to an allyship code of conduct, and part of my allyship is teaching my skills in combat. As a gay man, I could no longer, in good conscience, serve in the military. But I can serve the Resistance. Here, I can teach you close-quarters combat and how to properly use your personal weapon.”
“Why would we put ourselves in danger? We’ve been running on our own already.” Bahadur looks at me, looks at Beck in confusion.
“Yes. You’ve been running, and it is a fucking miracle you both are even alive after the Renovation. But at some point, we have to stop running. What happens when we have nowhere to hide? What happens when we run out of allies? Out of food?”
“We?” Bahadur sneers.
“You’re right,” Beck backpedals and stutters. “I . . . It’s not me. It’s you. I have very little to lose.”
“You have nothing to lose.” Bahadur raises their chin slightly to meet Beck’s eyes, and there is a pregnant pause. I cross my legs tightly and look down at my mucky shoes. “You think just because you’re a gay man you can guide us in the Resistance? No. You don’t even have a clue what it’s like to be us. You’re gay. So what? You’re not a feminine Black man, you’re not an Iranian Trans person. All you’d have to do is be closeted, code-switch, and you’d be safe. Kay and I can’t do that, can we?”
“You’re right. I have nothing to lose. I’m sorry.” Beck breathes deeply. “What I should have said is if you want to stop running and hiding, you will have to learn to fight back. And my job is to teach anyone willing to learn how to do exactly that. Each camp is being taught these skills to prepare them for the uprising happening on the full moon.”
“Uprising?” I exclaim.
Beck continues in a calm, measured cadence for maximum clarity. “Yes. On the day of the full moon, there’ll be a Summit of Nations, where dozens of delegates from all over the world will travel to Toronto to witness the national launch of the Renovation. This may be our only chance to clearly state to the worldwide media that a genocide is taking place,” Beck explains. “The UN is already watching Canada closely. Both Ireland and New Zealand have declined their invitations to the summit in protest of the Renovation. We need to show the world that these aren’t workhouses, these are concentration camps. And people aren’t resisting arrest, they’re fleeing violence. The plan is to disrupt the summit by leading a procession up Yonge Street, and in front of the international media you will say your names.”
“Why?” I ask quietly.
“Then it will be on international record what you have survived and that you are survivors.”
Bahadur and I are frozen in an expression of bewilderment. At a loss for words, Beck gets up and grabs a kerosene lamp. He places it on the timber floor. He slides a bed to the side and uses his thumbnail to pluck one of the planks up. Underneath the slat of wood is a black vinyl hockey bag, covered in a layer of yellowed dust.
“Look.” Beck lifts the hockey bag with a laboured exhale and unzips it. Two rifles. Three handguns. Various boxes of bullets. Bahadur glares at me and my eyes widen.
“What?! Why do you need weapons for a demonstration?” cries Bahadur.
“It will be more than a demonstration. This will be one of many uprisings in the city happening at exactly the same time on July 1.”
“And ours will be the one that the media will be documenting?” I ask, fearfully.
Beck nods and continues in his steady rhythm to ensure we understand. “Exactly. We’ll need to hit them where it hurts. Your productivity. Make them unable to exploit you. Think about all the atrocities committed by the Boots in the Renovation in the name of profit and to advance ethnic cleansing. It’s no secret what’s happening here.
There have been leaked images and videos of mass incarceration, slave labour, deportations, killings all over the internet. What will stop the Renovation is destroying their profit by destroying production, and white folks like me demonstrating that we’re in allyship with that destruction. While we’re on Yonge Street, with the majority of Boots surveilling the summit, the Resistance will be strategically bombing every workhouse in the city.”
I think of the people who can be harmed. “What does that mean? ‘Strategically’?”
“It means the Others inside these workhouses, along with undercover Boots, are working strategically with the intention of escape and relocation to safety.”
I wonder at the idea of safety, too afraid to consider the possibility of you being among the freed. My ears ring. Was this what Liv meant? A chance to never hide again? A chance to be reunited with you?
Beck continues. “Yes, that means we have to use force. Yes, that means we will use weapons. But know that our aim is evacuation for the Others and pure offence on the part of the allies and undercover Boots.”
“You sound like you’re describing a football game,” Bahadur scoffed.
“It’s not a game to me, Bahadur. It was imperative to the leaders of the Resistance that any bloodshed will be at the hands of the allies against their own. The focus for the Others, everything I will teach you, is defence and escape.”
“No. No way. No fucking way!” Bahadur begins pacing the room. “I just left a war-torn country. You Canadians want to play war? You want to play cowboys and Indians? This isn’t a game. War means begging for men to get off your body while they rape you. It means looking into the eyes of someone while you cut their throat open. Is this what you want, Beck?”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying.”
“Then what is it? You want us to just bow down and listen to some white boy’s advice about how to keep ourselves safe when it’s people like you who have gotten us into this shithole in the first place?”
“Maybe we should—”
“No, Kay!” Bahadur stops their pacing long enough to practically spit in my face. My cheeks flush and I bow my head down. “Beck, what did Firuzeh arrange with you? Was the agreement for me to be part of this . . . this uprising?”
“Firuzeh arranged for you to be safe.”
“And you call this safe? Is enlisting in a makeshift army safe?”
“I—”
Bahadur holds their hand up to stop Beck from speaking. “No. No. I don’t want to hear your nonsense. I don’t want to be polite about this any longer. I want to be frank. Can I be frank?”
Beck’s face is red. He silently nods.
“Thank you.” Bahadur continues. “I don’t trust you. I don’t trust you or your racist parents. I don’t trust that the world will somehow see our faces at this uprising and suddenly act on our behalf. Look at the Rohingya. There was solid evidence that there were atrocities committed against them by the Myanmar military, and the international community did nothing. Why? Because what did the international community have to gain from their freedom? Nothing. Did they have oil? Did they have any resources at all? No. It’s the same with the Others, Beck. But instead, the international community gains so much from our incarceration. It gains free labour.”
My head is down. I sense Bahadur looking my way, wondering if I will say something. I cross my legs tighter. My palms are buzzing and numb. I will them to move. I say nothing. I do nothing.
“And I love when you say shit like ‘You have absolute agency to leave.’ Are you fucking kidding me? Are you serious? What agency are you talking about? Can you imagine me and Kay walking off this farm, taking with us this agency you think we have, looking the way we do? Yes! Of course! Agency! We are dripping with agency. We have so much choice! Use your head, Beck. We’re out here and we’re trapped. We go out there and one person sees us on the highway and we’re dead. Anyway . . . Most of all I don’t trust some ex–army soldier who was paid to basically shut out tribal members from a pipeline site.”
Beck nods. I look away. Bahadur sits on the bed with a loud creak of the mattress springs, then silence.
Finally, “Listen. I don’t know what has changed in you, all of a sudden you think you’re our saviour, but I can’t go through with this. I’m not here to help you feel better about yourself.”
“I understand.” Beck looks at me. “Kay?”
I can’t even look at anyone. I don’t know what to say. I just stare at my muddy sneakers, considering why one set of shoelaces is double-knotted and the other is not. When was the last time I tied my shoelaces? When was the last time I walked around barefoot on clean floors?
“I understand. I . . . I hear you. You’re welcome to stay here. But before the full moon, we have to evacuate.” Beck makes his way to the front door of the cabin leaving one kerosene lamp for us, the other in his hand. “Goodnight.”
5
Check, please.” Nadine gestured to our waiter. Even though the Bridge Restaurant was a victim of its own success, its dessert selection made it our favourite place to meet. Sharing a triple-decker cream-cheese French toast while catching up on each other’s news had brought us back again and again throughout the years. We had finished eating and had been staring at our dirty plate for at least twenty minutes. “Excuse me?” Nadine finally stood and raised her hand, hoping to get the waiter’s attention. The place was lousy with what seemed to be male models, all with expert fades and crisp black ties. Our waiter flashed his blue eyes in our direction and rushed to another table.
“This place is a joke. We’ll never get out of here.” Nadine leaned her elbows on the table and looked at me. “I guess this gives me more time to pry into your personal life.” I threw her a look of indignation. “What? I’m allowed to pry!” We shared a laugh. She piled the cutlery onto the plate so she could reach over and cradle my hands. “Are you doing okay? How are your roommates? Are they legit?”
I pressed my lips and looked down at the table. “They’re okay . . . I guess.”
“I knew it. Kay, you always have a place to stay with me.” I didn’t. Nadine’s father was very clear about my being a burden in their household, even though he was on business trips most of the year. But part of me could not endure the heartache of living with Nadine, watching her go to university each morning and learn to be an adult, while I was left to stare all of my barriers in the face. Thanks to her, I did not live my teenage years homeless, but I certainly had no roots under my feet, and I felt it, emotionally and financially.
“Is it at least safer than the last place?” The last place was on Jarvis, a single room among many, no windows, bedbugs.
“I’m fine. The place is fine.” My most recent place was a townhouse near Dufferin Mall, west of Toronto’s downtown core, where the rent was still manageable for poor homos like me. Seven Queer artists, dozens of windows, bedbugs. Two of my roommates were a couple who spent their time either screaming at or fucking each other. One of them stole money from my wallet. None of them washed dishes. None of them flushed the toilet. “If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down,” read a paper sign in swirly, hand-drawn letters by the toilet. But my roommates seemed to have conflicting views on the spectrum of shades between yellow and brown.
“You promise? No one touches my Queen Kay. No one.” I smiled. She held my hands tighter.
That same week, I got a job washing dishes at a gay bar called Epic. Everything about Epic was small. It was in an alleyway that had been converted to an indoor space, like a thin slice of gayness on Church Street. Six small tables, one small stage lit up by one sad LED. And me, skinny and eager, washing dishes in the back kitchen over a tiny sink, not large enough to fit five glasses in it at a time.
“It’s not like we get a ton of customers eating here. It’s more like a place to grab a drink and watch a show,” said Henry, Epic’s owner. He was an astonishingly tall white man with a long and discerning face. “I would do the dishes myself but . . .” he
held up his enormous paws. “My hands are so dainty and soft.” I liked the way he held on to the vowels of his words before capping them with the tiny tap of a consonant. Sooooooooooft.
My first Thursday I was gathering glasses from the bar and checking for water marks. The bartender was put to task to paint over the giant “GAYLORDS!” and penis drawing, which had been scribbled on our front door the night before.
“Payday!” Henry entered dressed in full drag, holding a stack of envelopes. “Gerald.” He handed a cheque to the bartender, who was still holding a paintbrush. “Bee.” He handed a thicker envelope full of bills to the waitress, whose work permit had not yet arrived, so she was always paid in cash. “And you, young man.” Henry winked at me. “It’s only day three for you. Just keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll get paid next payday, alriiiiiiiiiiiiiiight?”
Henry had mistaken my awe of him for longing for pay. I stood there, unable to move at the sight of him. I had never seen a drag queen before. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror behind the bar.
“Fucking shit. My eyebrows.” He turned his head right and left to confirm that they were indeed uneven. When he began making his way to his office behind the stage, I could not help but follow him.
He had left his office door open enough for me to see him wheel his chair closer to his desk and position a mirror in front of his face. He hummed to himself and began rifling through a large pink leather handbag. On the desk he placed a glue stick, a jar of powder, a large brush and a tube of concealer. Using a tissue, he removed his painted-on brows. He clicked his tongue. A tragedy. A mess. He started over again. Glue stick along the fibres of his brows. Powder to set the glue. Concealer. Sable liner to make two perfect brow arches high on his forehead.
“You know, I don’t pay you to stare at me while I do this.” I hid. “No, no. Come in.” I froze. “Kay. Come in. Really. I was just joking.” I tiptoed into his office. Four by six feet. The walls were covered with black-and-white photos of people smoking cigarettes and laughing. A woman flashing her breasts at the camera. Two men in an embrace sticking their tongues out. A line of men in tutus doing the can-can. “Come sit.” He slid out a small folding stool that was stored between his desk and the filing cabinet. I cranked it open and sat. I wanted to cross my legs, but there was no room in that tiny office for me to do so.
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