Scotty always moved on from one woman to the next, never really seeming to let it bother him whenever a relationship fell apart. Several half-assed engagements came and went, and Scotty never seemed to mourn their losses for more than a couple of days. Steven was the one who sulked for weeks, always wishing he could be like his brother and just go find another warm bed when the current one got cold.
“All this time I thought we were fighting,” Steven says, not realizing how quiet his voice sounds. “Turns out we were finished.”
“I said I’m sorry, and I meant it.” She actually sounds sincere.
“How much did you leave me with? When you moved, I mean. The furniture and all that?”
“Enough.”
Steven pictures a half-empty condo with an oddly bare bookshelf next to his oversized reading chair . . . and not a lot else. She didn’t like most of the paintings, so at least the walls will have plenty left on them. And the bed was there long before she came along. At least he’ll have enough to live with for a while.
“You aren’t really surprised at any of this,” she says. It’s not a question.
“I guess not.”
He suddenly wonders what he’ll miss the most: the sex or the furniture. He really enjoyed both—especially when they came as a package—but since he’s gone without one for a while, he figures he’ll miss the other the most. Just thinking like that makes him aware that it’s best she’s moving out, even if it does kind of put a damper on Christmas.
“Good-bye, Steven,” she says at last. She means it just like it sounds and, a second later, there’s a click on the line and nothing more.
Steven hangs up the phone and looks around the hotel room. The idea that he has no one to go home to makes the room seem even smaller than it did before, and suddenly the extra day in Singapore seems like it will last an eternity. One would think that getting dumped would make him not want to go back to Toronto for weeks, but, instead, it just makes Steven want to be home twice as fast. He’d rather be drowning his sorrows at The Keg on Yonge Street than in some Furama hotel in Asia.
There was a time, about eight years ago, when he and Scotty both happened to be in the same country at Christmastime. Scotty managed to meet and “fall in love” with some yoga instructor from Calgary, and Steven was dating Diane, the nurse. Both Steven and Scotty wanted very much to impress the women in their lives, so they rented an isolated cabin way up in northern Ontario.
“You do the driving, and I’ll do the rest,” Scotty had said when Steven came to him with the plan that November. And the rest he certainly did. Scotty found the little two-bedroom cabin and made all the arrangements. Then, he bought two cases of reds and whites and packed them in the trunk of Steven’s old Jeep Cherokee. Scotty topped it off with enough sexy jazz for three full days of nothing but drunken sex by the fire and Christmas gluttony. The four of them had the best Christmas ever, snowed inside that cabin all weekend.
Even long after Diane and the yoga girl had moved on, Scotty and Steven still talked about that weekend. It had only been three days, but it had been three days of pure holiday bliss. Scotty didn’t complain about his headaches or about having to get in the car. Steven only took sweaters and jeans with him and didn’t care about shoving his clothes into an old duffel bag. The wine was cheap. The whole weekend had cost well less than the fifteen grand Scotty came asking for last week. It was just a cheap cabin with some cheap wine. Christmas and snow and women.
Steven wished he were in that cabin right now.
There’s a knock on the door, and Steven realizes he’s been staring out the window for a full ten minutes. The smell of steak fills the room as he opens the door and the room service waiter wheels the small metal cart over the threshold.
“Hello, sir,” the waiter says. He’s wearing the standard hotel uniform: all black clothing and a ridiculous Santa hat. Steven shakes his head and smiles, the wine finally doing what it’s supposed to do. “How are you, sir?”
“I’m fine, thanks.” Steven motions to the opposite end of the small room. “Just leave it over there, okay?”
“Very good, sir,” the waiter says, and does exactly that. “Will there be anything else?”
“No, thanks,” Steven says, and hands the man five dollars. “I appreciate it.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Wait a second.”
“Yes, sir?” The waiter turns around, the same big smile still on his face. “What can I get you?”
“I’ll give you fifty dollars for that Santa hat.”
Ten minutes later, Steven digs into his medium-but-supposed-to-be-medium-rare steak. He looks at himself in the mirror as he pours his third (or fourth?) glass of wine. He thinks that the hat perfectly complements his attire. The only thing missing is the pants.
And some music.
He reaches over to his laptop and pulls up his music collection. He keeps dozens of Christmas songs in a special file for just such an occasion. At home, he’ll attach speakers to his laptop and decorate the tree or something while listening to that playlist. He figures that this is just as good an occasion as any. If he can’t be in that little cabin in the middle of the snow, he can at least try and make this hotel room feel a bit like it.
The first song coming out of the laptop speakers is “River” by Joni Mitchell. As she sings about Christmas fast approaching, Steven takes a big long sip of his wine and leans back in his chair. He clicks off the lamp next to the hotel desk so that the only remaining light in the room is the city lights coming through the window and the dull blue glow from his laptop screen. It’s not exactly a fireplace, but it will do.
Steven stops chewing long enough to listen to the next verse. Then, he washes down his steak with another big gulp of his wine. He pours himself another glass and looks over at the other bottle sitting near the cardboard box of Scotty’s ashes.
At that moment he realizes that Robin was right. He never fought for her. He never fought for them. Even when she said good-bye and hung up the phone, he just let her go. He barely even protested.
“To hell with her,” he says out loud and for no reason other than the wine he’s already had and the new bottle he knows he’s going to open. Standing up, he lets his napkin fall to the floor as he shovels another piece of steak into his mouth. He walks over to the other bottle and brings it back to where he was sitting. He raises it in the air and points it at the box.
“Between your dying on me and the girlfriend’s leaving me, I’d say this is turning out to be one shitty Christmas, big bro.”
Sorry to screw up your holidays, Bing Crosby, Scotty’s ashes jab back. I promise you that the view is much worse from inside my current studio apartment.
“Touché.”
Maybe if you were chasing women instead of chasing relationships, you’d enjoy both a whole lot more.
“Now you’re just rubbing it in.” Steven takes a long gulp of his wine.
What now? Scotty’s ashes ask.
“Merry Christmas, Scotty, my boy,” Steven says. “Let’s get drunk.”
9
You really are a sad son of a bitch, you know that? Scotty’s ashes say from across the room.
“You’re starting to repeat yourself,” Steven says to them as he tries to slowly gulp down the last sip of the second bottle of wine. He pretends that, if he drinks the last bit slowly enough, the booze in the glass will somehow last longer and that he’ll savor it more than if he just downed it and swallowed as fast as he can.
Try as he might, he hasn’t been able to drink himself into another time or place. He looks around and, despite the strains of Dean Martin singing “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” he doesn’t believe it for a second. Not only is it not cold outside, but inside is still a hotel in the middle of Singapore City, and the wine is all gone. There is no mistaking the fact that Steven’s already on his way to being drunk, but, at the moment, something inside of him tells him that the only surefire pathway to Christmas cheer is if he drinks
more, passes out, and dreams of it.
“This looks like a job for room service,” Steven says, and picks up the menu off the nightstand. He figures that just ordering a third bottle of wine in no way means he has to actually drink the entire thing. He could have a couple of glasses. Or maybe just half the bottle. There’s no definite commitment just because the booze is open and next to his empty glass. Besides, it’s practically a vacation. No one would begrudge him a little party on vacation.
But you’re not on vacation and you’re not at a party, Scotty scolds him from his box. You’re drunk in your hotel room in one of the most exotic and exciting cities in the world while talking to the remains of your dead brother.
“Screw you,” Steven says. “At least I’m here keeping you company.”
Gee, thanks. Now I’ll somehow be less dead.
“One more crack like that, and I’ll be scattering your ashes in the toilet. You’ll spend eternity in the pipes,” Steven slurs, and laughs. He realizes how absurd it is that he’s talking to a cardboard box, but he’s had enough wine that he doesn’t really care. He never got to have a last conversation with Scotty so, at the very least, he can let himself have one now. No one has to know.
You’ve got the rest of the year to feel sorry for yourself, Scotty says. And at least the entire month of January. Right now, you should be out seeing what the nightlife in Singapore City has to offer.
“I should be seeing what the sandman has to offer as my head hits that pillow.”
And wake up with a terrible hangover in this place? Forget it. You can sober up as you take in the scenery. The heat alone will do it.
“And just what, pray tell, am I supposed to do if I leave this room? I haven’t the first clue where to go.”
Did you not speak to my beautiful girlfriend earlier today? She practically gave you an engraved invitation right there.
“She did? Wouldn’t that be awkward?”
You look just like the guy she was sleeping with, idiot. Scotty is practically pleading now. How awkward could it possibly be?
Steven knows better than to answer this question, mostly because he knows he’s not really talking to Scotty. It wouldn’t be the first time he talked himself into a really bad idea because he let himself drink too much. He’s got more than one scar to prove that, when enough alcohol is in him, the uptight snob gives way to the reckless fool.
You should do something while you’re here, Scotty’s ashes say. Why wait until you wind up in a box like this one? Live a little.
“To hell with that.” Steven stands up. Immediately, the two bottles of Cabernet he just drank hit him in the face, and he has to pause for a minute to keep his balance. He’s a little drunk, but not so much that he can’t stand or walk. He can carry on conversation. He knows he can manage without blacking out. After all, he’s a professional drinker. He can function better than most people would. Sure, he’s used to spitting out the wine half the time, but he swallows his fair share, too.
He looks at himself in the mirror. The Santa hat has made the top of his head sweat a bit, but he doesn’t think he looks as drunk as he is. He could probably walk in a straight enough line to fool the average person. Spitting on the sidewalk in Singapore is illegal, but he’s not sure if public intoxication is. He figures that, as long as his drool doesn’t hit the curb, he can probably hope to not be caned.
He looks at the cardboard box. He’s told himself he would never look inside. It’s too disgusting. Besides, it’s not really his brother in there. It’s just a bunch of gravel that someone shoved in there for Steven to have something to take home. It’s not Scotty.
“You stay here,” Steven says to the box. “I’m going to go on an expedition.”
I was the free spirit, Scotty says. Everyone said so. Now you’re going exploring without me.
“I’m a free spirit, too.”
Bullshit.
“Am so.”
You don’t really believe that, Scotty says. You’ve always hated that expression. Even Dania can tell that about you, and she just met you.
“Guess I’ll have to show you,” Steven says, and looks around the room. Tossed in the trash can are two long, slim paper sacks that one of the bottles of wine came in. Steven fetches them out of the trash and gives them each a once-over. There are no holes in either; doubled up, they can be pretty thick and durable. He looks over at the box of ashes.
“You want to go for a ride?” he asks.
Steven feels better now that he’s thrown up a couple of times. He’s not sure if it’s the wine that finally caused him to vomit, but he’s pretty sure that handful of ashes that ran down his hand didn’t help. The random bits of bone or whatever the hell that was had a way of disgusting him even more than he thought they would. What’s worse is that he didn’t expect the smell. Not that it smelled nasty or like a dead body or anything like that. It’s just that he didn’t expect to smell anything. Whoever called cremated remains “ashes” is a complete liar, too. Steven can attest that a handful of gritty rocks and muck is not at all ashy.
He pats his left breast and feels the folded-up paper sack in the inner pocket of his blazer. It causes a noticeable bulge and is not exactly comfortable, but he figures he’ll get used to it. It’s completely the opposite of what anyone would have expected him to do and—for that alone—he likes it. He’s pretty certain that he never would have dared do something as ridiculous as this had he not downed as much wine as he did, but that doesn’t really matter. If other people can get tattoos when they get drunk, then he can carry around his dead brother’s ashes in his pocket.
Getting into the taxi, Steven pulls out the little piece of notepaper he has with all of Scotty’s chicken-scratch nonsense written on it. On the other side, he has written down some things Dania said to him.
“Can you take me to The Cocktail Room?” he asks the cab driver. The driver turns around and looks at him as if he’s just asked for a ride to Winnipeg. It might be because Steven is still wearing the Santa hat.
“Where?” the driver says.
Steven looks at the sheet of paper and the other things he has written. “Orchard Towers. Do you know where that is?”
The driver laughs and starts the meter. “Of course,” he says. “Four Floors of Whores.”
“Four what?”
“You will see,” the driver says with a grin.
Steven puts his head back and closes his eyes for just a second. He wants to see if throwing up helped to clear his head a bit and maybe even sober him up enough so he doesn’t look like a fool when he gets out of the cab. He also hopes he doesn’t get dizzy and throw up again. If spitting is illegal in Singapore, then vomiting in the street is surely frowned upon.
He laughs to himself at his own stupidity. Rolling up a newspaper and using it as a funnel. Pouring Scotty’s remains down that funnel and into the doubled-up paper bags. He’d probably regret it if not for the fact that he thinks it’s actually something Scotty would have liked. Scotty found stupid behavior funny. He seemed to think foolishness was brave. Steven figures that, if his brother would have been fine with it, then he has no reason to think otherwise.
Enjoy the ride, big brother, he thinks.
Steven looks out the car window and stares at the Christmas lights everywhere. The taxi takes a turn down one particular street, and the display becomes ridiculous. There are twice as many lights and twice as many Santa Claus figures. It almost looks like a parade. From a huge lighted display, so big it covers an entire street corner, soap suds are being shot into the air to resemble snow. If he were sober, he would hate this. Right now, however, he thinks it’s perfect and he smiles.
Steven wonders if Scotty was actually happier than he is. It’s something Steven has wondered at least twice a year or so for the past decade. Sure, Steven traveled a good bit. He got to see Rome and Florence and Paris. He got to drink the best wine and eat in the best restaurants. He had a job that people envied and thought sounded interesting and differ
ent.
Everyone except for Scotty.
Scotty never seemed to envy Steven. He was too busy doing not much of anything, just traveling and sleeping with different women in different cities. He tended bar and waited tables. He did dock work and scrubbed the decks of ships. When he got bored, he moved on. Steven thought all of this sounded terrible. He liked his nice car and his hardwood floors and his high-rise view of midtown Toronto.
So why did people think Scotty was happier?
The taxi pulls up to an intersection, and Steven already wonders if this was a bad idea. The streets went from being deserted to suddenly being packed with pedestrians. People are walking everywhere, from one corner to the next, and even right in the middle of the street. Taxis and other cars have to drive around them. Drunken old men with British accents walk with their arms around tall Asian women dressed to the nines. And they’re all coming out of the same building.
It’s more than one building, actually. Steven can see this as the taxi pulls up to the corner and stops. It’s several office buildings all on top of one another, with people coming out of several entrances on all four sides. Even from inside the taxi, he can feel the bass from a dance club thumping through his feet. There’s a party going on somewhere, and it’s very nearby.
“Here we are,” the taxi driver says. “Four Floors of Whores.”
“What?” Steven asks again.
“Orchard Towers,” the driver says. “Go look. You see.”
“O . . . kay.” Steven reluctantly hands money over to the driver and gets out of the cab. He pats his left breast, just to feel secure.
“Nothing free there,” the cab driver says as Steven closes the door. A woman runs up, and, just as quickly as it arrived, the taxi disappears with her inside. Steven finds himself standing on the corner, surrounded by dozens of people probably more drunk than he is. That thought should comfort him, but instead makes him feel a bit queasy.
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