The young man’s face, and the face of his mother, wringing her body in tears, filled the space of the double sinks as she returned to her work. Her employers were having a party at five. And when the images of the mother and the son evaporated like the foam of soap from the two sinks, in their place were the faces of her own son, and his father, “that no-good bastard!” She pulled the plug in the second sink, with force, and the face of that “bastard” disappeared. She began to hum, “Sometimes, I feel like a mother-less . . .”
BJ got out casually, and with self-assurance, from the taxi, at the front of the tall apartment building near Eglinton and Victoria Park, in Scarborough; and as he walked across the lawn, he passed a blue car in which two men were sitting. The men were watching the same entrance BJ took. They had been there for the past three hours; and they had started watching the door since last Sunday. BJ paid no attention to the blue car. He walked straight to the panel of names, and pressed one of the buzzers. It was a buzzer beside the name G. Harewood. He did not know G. Harewood. He could have pressed any buzzer. It was only two o’clock, and his school friend who allowed him to use the underground parking, without her mother’s approval and knowledge, was still in school. This was the only way to retrieve the car.
“Who’s it?” a woman’s voice, mangled by the magnification and the malfunction in the speaker system, cried out. The voice came through louder then he expected, and he made a start. It stirred him more than usual. “Who’s it?” The voice was now irritable. “Is it George?”
“Yeah!” BJ said, trying to change his voice to George’s voice, with knowing George’s voice.
“Come on up!” the woman’s voice screamed. It was less irritable. “Come on up!”
And when BJ entered the lobby, he could still hear the voice saying, “Come on up!” and the buzzer on the door to let him in was still being pressed.
He pressed the button in the elevator to P2, and went down into the bowels of the building. Three women were in the elevator with him. The three women stared at him. When the three women were tired of staring at him, they stared at the floor. Pools of water from melted ice were on the floor. When the three women were tired of staring at the floor, they stared at the illuminated numbers on the panel in the elevator. When it came to P2, the three women stood where they were. It seemed to BJ that they were standing in such a way as to suggest that they had taken the wrong elevator. BJ got out. BJ walked straight to a corner of the large dimly lit underground parking area. Glimmering in the bad light of the dull fluorescent bulbs was the white BMW. He stood beside it. He looked at the front tires. He looked at the hood. He looked at the windshield. The elevator door was still open. The three women were watching him. He went round to the front of the BMW and he looked at the bumper. He looked at the cap which covered the hole to the gas tank. He screwed it tight. It was already tight. It was locked. One of the three women got off the elevator when it reached the main floor, and walked straight to a door marked SUPERINTENDENT. The superintendent answered at the first ring. He was eating a salmon sandwich that had bits of green things it in, which were now between his teeth. The woman started talking to the superintendent.
BJ looked at the licence plate. He passed his hand over it. He was about to brush the dust from the plate onto his trousers, but he remembered in time. He was wearing expensive clothes. His trousers were black. They were full in the leg, and narrow at the ankle. His socks were white. And the shirt and jacket fitted him as if they were three or four sizes larger than his weight and size. He took a handkerchief from his pocket. The handkerchief was white, and folded into quarters. He wiped his hand, and then he passed the handkerchief slowly over each letter of the car licence. When he was done, the licence plate was glimmering almost as much as the BMW itself. The licence plate said BLUE. His beeper was beeping. So, he got into the car, with the doors locked, and the engine still turned off, and he checked the beeper. It was Marco.
He turned the engine on. Gradually, the interior of black leather got warmer and warmer until he felt he was as comfortable, sitting in it, as he was in his room surrounded by all his solid-state stereo and CD equipment and books. In this car, he had installed an equally expensive system. John Coltrane was playing. He had left the cassette in the tape player. “A Love Supreme.”
The car was warm. BJ’s two large eyes filled up the rear-view mirror, and he could barely see, in periphery, the elevator door open, and a man and three women; and the women were pointing in his direction as they talked to the man; but the BMW was warmed up, and it moved without noise over the caked ice in some parts of the underground parking; and he manoeuvred it through spaces left by bad and careless drivers, past large concrete pillars, and mounted the incline to the exit door, in no hurry, and all the time speaking to Marco on the telephone, and he had to repeat himself two times, for the aerial struck the top of the last exit door, and finally he emerged into the brilliance of the winter afternoon, bright in the sun but still cold. The women had just told the superintendent, “I’m sure he looks like one of those drug dealers, and I feel he is, not because he looks like a Jamaican or anything, but . . .”
The two men in the blue car saw the white BMW emerge from the underground parking. And the two men made a note of it. And they registered BLUE in a notebook. And they made a check on their computer. And they began to talk on the telephone. BJ was heading for Yonge and Steeles, to pick up Marco at the subway station. He was in a good mood. The last racing day was something else: fuck! as Marco put it. They had won and won and won . . .
Facing her now were the most magnificent slender white sculptures of branches on the trees in the backyard. For many years now she had seen these trees change their form, and she still did not know the name of one of them. But this afternoon, around three, with the clear light and the brilliance of the sun which gave no heat, she marvelled at the beauty and thought of men travelling in olden times, over this kind of landscape, walking in shoes made from skins, and following in the tracks of wild animals they had to kill to stay alive. The landscape of this cold winter lay before her as if an artist had applied pearls and other kinds of jewels, with the precision of realism, on the branches of the trees. But she was not happy inside herself. Something was bothering her. And she picked up the telephone and called her landlord.
“Did you really see him?”
“Yes, I tell you, Mrs. J.”
“Go out, dressed? In his school clothes? In time for school?”
“Everythink.”
“You sure it was my son? You didn’t mistake somebody else for him?”
“Sure!”
“Well, thank you, then.” And to herself, she said, “I don’t know why I am in this mood.”
She had selected and laid out on the dining table the crystals and the silvers and the plates; and all she had now to do was choose the serving dishes, and put the placemats on the shining mahogany table. She checked the roast beef in the oven, and shook her head at the amount of food she cooked, with most of it thrown away the next morning, since neither husband nor wife liked to eat leftover food. “And with all this damn food wasting day in and day out, and so many people on the streets of this city starving, with nothing to warm their stomachs with, and that blasted boy I gave birth to, refusing to eat normal like ordinary people, saying he is a Muslim. What a Muslim is? Is a Muslim a person who doesn’t have common sense inside his head, that makes him refuse all this richness?” And she laughed to herself. It was a joyous laugh. A hearty laugh. A laugh from the bottom of her belly. She looked around to see if anyone was close by, to mistake her for a fool, to think that she was going out of her head, laughing and talking to herself like this. “And come telling me that he is fasting. Fasting? And all this food, all this food going to waste. I wish I knew somebody on my street, without foolish pride, to leave a plastic container of this food at!” And she began to hum. “Some-times, I feel . . .”
As BJ pulled away from the curb in front of the subway station in the
East End, with Marco strapped in beside him, and laughing and turning up the volume of the saxophone solo, the BMW was so loud with the music contained within it, that Marco himself felt his head was about to explode; and BJ was becoming nervous that perhaps the BMW would become conspicuous with the two of them in it with so much noise. The windows were rolled up. The BMW took the first entrance on to the 401 West doing eighty. BJ settled behind the wheel, with an unfiltered Gauloise cigarette dangling at the corner of his mouth, one eye closed against the smoke, and he put the car into fourth gear, and the car still had some more power left, and it moved like a jungle animal measuring its prey, and exerting additional power because of the certainty of devouring its prey. The prey in this case was their destination. But they did not have any anxiety of time and distance to reach that destination. It was simply that BJ liked to drive fast. That was why he convinced Marco to buy the BMW instead of the Thunderbird. And that was why he got it with standard transmission. They had won the money at the racetrack, one afternoon when Marco made the mistake of buying the three horses in a triactor race for ten dollars, instead of five, which was their custom. The name of the horse that won, that went off at fifty-to-one odds, was Blue. BJ knew he could not keep all that money in his room; and he knew that he could not open an account, without questions being asked. He knew he could not give it to his mother, even with the explanation that he had won it at the track. What would he be doing at the track? Why was he at the track on a school day? So, he bought a white BMW. He paid a friend of his, a real estate salesman, three hundred dollars to represent him. Real estate was at rock bottom at that time, and the salesman was more than happy to keep his mouth shut, and to pocket this unusual commission. But BJ knew all the time that he had to be careful, and that the time might come when the real estate salesman, still at the bottom of the unsold rocks of houses on the market, would need more help in keeping his mouth closed. He had to be careful.
He turned the music down a little more, and he reduced his speed back to eighty. As these thoughts entered his head, he had been doing one-fifty. He had just spotted a marked police cruiser, with 52 painted on its white side, parked alongside the 401. But he did not know that, as soon as he had pulled away from the subway at Steeles, at that precise moment, a blue sedan, with two men in it, had pulled away too, and had followed him until he entered the 401 going west. The marked police cruiser was expecting him. And as he swooshed by, the traffic policeman was on the radio to another one, somewhere farther west along the 401. Conversation passed between the policemen in the cars. “Drug dealers for sure!” And, through another system, came, “Question of being armed and dangerous.” And the two policemen who had been parked in the blue car across the street from the apartment building in Scarborough added their contribution: “We were hoping for a red Camaro, but you never know with these drug dealers; they have the money to change cars . . .” And Coltrane was playing his ass off, as Marco was saying, still fond of the way he thought BJ talked, and should talk. “Trane’s playing his ass off!” he said, again. He said it three more times. BJ grunted something. In his rear-view mirror he saw the police cruiser pull into the same lane as his, tailing him. He knew this stretch of the 401 like the palm of his hand. He was west of the Allen Road, approaching on the highway, a little north, the area in the city known as the habitat of drugs and guns and gangs, and called by two names: one the name of a woman, a whore; the other the name of a bird, which may also be a woman and a whore. Jane–Finch. He knew this stretch of road well. He knew he could get into the express lane within twenty kilometres. The cruiser was gaining on him. Marco was oblivious to this. He was listening to Coltrane. The cruiser’s red light was still not on. But BJ surmised that any time now, it would be. And the siren would start. The lanes ahead of him were crowded with slow drivers who had themselves seen the cruiser, and had reduced their speed. All four lanes heading west were crowded. But that was what he wanted. He put the BMW into third. He was gearing down to stop; and the car was not so noisy with the music; and that was when Marco commented about Coltrane’s mastery of “A Love Supreme,” when BJ changed his mind about stopping to face the consequences. For how would he know the cruiser was following him? Of the hundreds of cars on the highway, why should a police cruiser pick him out? Because he was a young black man driving an expensive car? He told himself he must not be fooled by the logic of a man, or of a woman, or of a time, a better time than was taking place in this city; he reminded himself that logic had absolutely nothing to do with it. He was intelligent in the ways of the hunter, and in this case, the hunted. He was relying upon his instincts. Somewhere in his vast reading, he had come across something about this. He was not quite sure, nor could he remember the exact quotation; but it had something to do with instinct and emotion and gut feeling. His mother lived by her emotion. He geared up to fourth. The BMW lurched forward. Marco said, “Fuck!” and tightened his seat belt. “Let her ride, baby, let her ride!” It was already in fifth. And in and out of traffic, from the slow lane, to the middle, to the fast lane, and when the fast lane was not fast enough, and the entire width of the four-lane highway seemed to be creeping, the white BMW swerved like a top spinning near the end of its revolutions. “Fuck!” Marco said, when they were safe, for the time being, on a secondary road, somewhere near Dufferin. “What the fuck?”
BJ smiled. He turned Coltrane up. The car was filled once more with the beauty of music, with the pulse of emotion, and with the feeling of the time; and they remained quiet in the waves of this melodious tune they both liked so much, and argued about. BJ insisted, because of his new religion, that it was a religious chant. Marco, equally insistent, said it was a love song.
“A love supreme,” he began chanting. “A love supreme. Nineteen times the brother says a love supreme! Nineteen times, BJ!” He never lacked enthusiasm about this aspect of the song. “Fuck!”
“Nineteen times,” BJ said. And he turned the music up even louder. They were cruising along Eglinton Avenue, passing record stores from which reggae and dancehall blared out upon them, past barbershops and restaurants and shops which sold curry goat and fish and oxtail and peas and rice, and they felt they could smell and taste the food even in this breathless afternoon, so cold, and so uncertain. Jerk pork. Young men, some younger than either of them, walked, with a patience that came closer to loitering, along the lively street, stopping now and then to place their hands on the parking meters, as if reassuring themselves and the ugly pieces of metal that life was still going on, even in this cold afternoon when it was difficult to breathe; in this heart of West Indian life, when there was no attention paid to the depth of the fall in the coldness and where life remained constant: the laughter and the lightness of dress and manner. “What about lunch?”
“Yeah!”
“Curry goat? Or oxtail?”
“Fuck! Goat and oxtail!”
BJ and Marco were driving around. Listening to Coltrane and taking in the sights. It was about four in the afternoon. The white BMW had just been washed at the car wash at the corner of Bathurst and St. Clair. And the music was sounding better, it seemed, now that the car was spotless. As they handed in their chit, the four car washers, who were polishing another car, paused in their work to admire the white BMW. And they looked long at the car and then longer at the two teenagers, and said something with their eyes and said something to themselves, and went back to polishing an old black Pontiac. BJ was accustomed to people looking at him and then at the BMW. And when Marco was with him, they looked at Marco, at him, and at the car. And sometimes, if it was in the parking lot of a supermarket, or in a mall, they would go through the order of looking and staring a second time, in reverse.
They were cruising south along Bathurst now. It was Friday afternoon about five. And the traffic was heavy. And BJ was driving within the speed limit. And as he turned left into the street before Dupont, to tack back on to Dupont because there was no left turn there, from under a low-hanging tree came a police cruiser
. BJ and Marco were alone on this stretch of road. And the cruiser came close to them, and BJ understood fast enough, and pulled over and stopped.
“Get out! Get out!”
“Yes, officer.”
“You too! Get the fuck out!”
“Yeah, officer.”
The policeman was out of the cruiser, and he had his hand on the T-shaped nightstick. His other hand moved to his gun to make sure, it seemed, that it was still there.
“Out!”
They were already out.
“Okay, okay!”
“Who’re you talking to like that? Eh? Eh? Who’re you fucking talking to, like that? Eh? Eh?”
And with each “eh,” he poked his T-shaped stick into Marco’s ribs.
“Up against the car! Up against the fucking car! Both o’ youse! Both o’ youse!”
It seemed that, in his training, his lecturer had had a hearing problem and he had to repeat each answer two times; for he was now saying the same thing two times, as if it was his normal way of speech. Or as if he was also accustomed to talking to fools, or immigrants who didn’t understand English, and he had to speak in these short, truncated, repeated sentences.
The Austin Clarke Library Page 84