The Ravine
Page 24
“Make it a good one, Phil,” my brother told me. He winked—at least, I think I saw him wink, but it may have been a tic, or he may have been trying to dam the tears.
I bound his wrists together—
“Make it a really good one, Phil,” said Jay, which confused me a little.
—and looped the rope between his hands, and then I took the two ends and secured them with a Buntline Hitch, which is (Todd was correct in this) the best knot there is.
“Done.”
“Sit him down and tie up his feet, too.”
This was done. I kept trying to think of a plan. On television, the heroes seemed able to devise plans in a trice. Indeed, Padre needed hardly any time at all to work out a feasible strategy, and sometimes circumstances were such that he had to do this twice, three times an episode. But the only plan I could come up with was to run away, and hope that the bullets lodged non-lethally in my butt-fat.
Todd checked the knots. Apparently they passed muster. “Now put some of that duct tape over his mouth.”
I picked up the roll of tape and noted that it had a surprising amount of weight to it, and then, miraculously, I formulated a plan. First of all, I would distract Todd. This could be pretty easily accomplished, I thought. Indeed, I didn’t think I would have to do much more than suddenly point, and exclaim, “Hey! What’s that over there?” Then, see, I would hurl the roll of tape at the gun, knock it from his pudgy hand, race over and claim it, hog-tie the motherfucker—well, the rest of the plan would work itself out. The salient point was the neutralization of the gun.
Unfortunately, before I could enact any of this, a sound intruded upon our collective senses. A siren.
“Oh, fuck.” Todd wrapped his arm around my neck suddenly and pulled me close. He pressed the barrel of the gun into my temple and breathed all over me, softly, intimately, as though we were lovers. “Looks like it’s just you and me, Philly Four-Eyes.”
We listened to the siren grow louder and louder, until it was a scream that echoed throughout the land. I kept thinking it was as loud as it could possibly get, but it kept coming, some horribly hungry beast—
Then, suddenly, there was silence, and the sound of car doors opening and slamming shut.
“Here we go,” said Todd.
“Todd Benson!” The voice came from just beyond the front door. “Come out with your hands up!”
Todd put his lips to my ear. “Did you know they actually said that?”
“No,” I admitted.
“Just like on television,” noted Todd, to which I could only nod dumbly. Then he raised his voice. “Don’t come in!”
As he spoke the words, the door to the Luau Lounge burst open and two OPP officers entered, weapons drawn. They planted their feet firmly and stood side by side, remaining as close as possible for comfort and solace. They levelled their side arms.
“Release the hostage.”
The OPP officers looked terrified, which I didn’t count as good news. It was pretty clear to me that neither had ever used his gun. Their hands trembled and sweat threatened to blind them.
“Release the hostage,” repeated Officer A.
“No, I don’t think I’m gonna do that, because then you’ll shoot me.”
“No we won’t,” said Officer B.
“Right. Like I believe that.”
“Honest injun,” said Officer B., which I thought might get him into a little trouble, it’s kind of an insensitive thing to say in Northern Ontario.
“Back off or I’m going to shoot Philly Four-Eyes here.” As though he needed to explain the epithet, Todd flicked at my spectacles with the barrel of the gun, and knocked them off my face.
So that everything became a blur.
And when that happened, I felt the same despair as poor Henry Bemis had felt on the library steps. In a post-holocaust world, he had found a reason to live—books and time enough at last to read them—and then, in an instant, everything was ruined. Even though my brother was once again tied up, even though my own death seemed likely, I’d maintained a small candle-flicker of hope. Now hope was gone forever.
I began to reach for Todd’s hand, and the gun.
I heard my brother’s voice—
“Don’t even think about it, Phil.”
—and everything went fairly crazy, although I, lost in my own blurry little universe, have a hard time relating exactly what took place. But I can report that Jay leapt from the shadows brandishing two lengths of rope, the ones I’d used to bind his hands and feet. And then—employing the lethal towel-flicking technique we’d perfected in the steamy bathroom of our childhood home—he deftly removed the gun from Todd’s fat hand. “Hey!” ejaculated Todd, as the revolver spun end over end out of harm’s way. Todd pushed me away and went for Jay, his face twisted with rage. Jay flicked the other rope and caught the end of Todd’s nose. Todd put his hands over his face, and said, “Ouch. Fuck.”
And then the OPP officers descended upon him.
That’s almost the end, although I should relate the conversation my brother and I had back in the motel room:
“How did you get out of the ropes? That was a Buntline Hitch, probably the very best knot there is.”
“I hooked my thumbs when I put my hands together. When you do that, it’s pretty easy to work your hands free. It’s an old magician’s trick.”
“What do you mean, an old magician’s trick? Where’d you learn that?”
“From television!”
“What?”
“Weird, eh? I’ve only watched television for about nine minutes my entire life. I watched Mickey Mantle strike out when I was a kid, and then I was in some bar, I forget which, and the teevee was showing Magic Secrets Revealed, and they explained that trick where a magician gets tied up, you know, but he doesn’t really get tied up …”
“See, I told you.”
“Hmm?”
“I told you teevee was great.”
“Maybe you’re right. We should all get down on our hands and knees and pray to the great magic box.”
“Not only should we, Jay, but we do.”
And the next morning, when we pulled out onto the Trans-Canada Highway, the odometer on the Dodge Super Bee turned over, and there were nothing but zeroes.
“So … what did you think?”
“Well … I’m not sure I understood the ending. With all the zeroes.”
“I just wanted to indicate somehow that my life was suddenly filled with possibilities. There is no ending as such.”
“Uh-huh. And how much of the scene in the Luau Lounge …?”
“Is true? You heard about it on the news, didn’t you? A couple of weeks back?”
“I suppose. I didn’t really pay attention. I don’t remember anything about a hostage situation.”
“Is it important that it’s all true-true? How much of what Anthony Trollope wrote was true?”
“What’s he got to do with anything?”
“Well, we’re both novelists. And we’re both quiet, sobersided men of considerable industry.”
“Uh-huh. Give me a break.”
“Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. What did you think of the portrayal of, oh, you?”
“Of me? Well, I thought it was, you know, fair.”
“Good.”
“It’s not like it’s a really detailed portrait. There are other women in the book besides me.”
“But it’s clear that you were, you know, where my heart lay.”
“Uhhh … nope. Not so much.”
“No, I guess you’re right. Not much was clear to me as I was writing the book. Things are much clearer now. Huh. Funny, eh?”
“What’s funny?”
“That my ending is the exact opposite to the ending of ‘Time Enough at Last.’”
“And the novel is a little too graphic, I think.”
“Really?”
“I don’t think Currer and Ellis should read it for a few years.”
“You’
d be surprised at the things Currer and Ellis know about.”
“Uh-huh?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You coming over tonight?”
“Well … I think maybe I can finish the book tonight. I think maybe that if I sit here long enough, I should be able to come up with just the right sentence to finish the novel.”
“If I were you I’d just bung something down—I woke up, it was all a dream—and race over here.”
“All right. I’ll see you soon.”
I have awoken. It is all a dream.
PAUL QUARRINGTON is the author of ten novels. His last novel, Galveston, was nominated for the Giller Prize; Whale Music won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction; and King Leary won the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. Quarrington is also a singer/songwriter, an award-winning screenwriter, a filmmaker, a playwright and an acclaimed non-fiction writer. His short film, Pavane, based on The Ravine, can be viewed at www.bookshorts.com. He lives in Toronto and plays in the band Porkbelly Futures.
VINTAGE CANADA EDITION, 2009
Copyright © 2008 Fizzy Dreams Inc.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
Published in Canada by Vintage Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, in 2009. Originally published in hardcover in Canada by Random House Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, in 2008. Distributed by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Vintage Canada and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House of Canada Limited.
www.randomhouse.ca
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
Quarrington, Paul
The ravine / Paul Quarrington.
eISBN: 978-0-307-37554-4
I. Title.
PS8583.U334R39 2009 C813′.54 C2008-903697-2
v3.0
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Part One - The Ravine
Chapter 1 - The Ravine
Chapter 2 - The Memory
Chapter 3 - The Television
Chapter 4 - The Brother
Chapter 5 - Birds of a Feather
Chapter 6 - The Bullet and the Cross
Chapter 7 - The Situation
Chapter 8 - The Ex
Part Two - Theatre and Television
Chapter 9 - Act two, Scene One
Chapter 10 - Van Der Glick
Chapter 11 - What Happened, Inexactly
Chapter 12 - Künstlerroman
Chapter 13 - Career Moves
Part Three - The Twilight Zone
Chapter 14 - The Date
Chapter 15 - All Souls’ Night
Chapter 16 - The Creative Process
Chapter 17 - The Plate
Chapter 18 - The Window
Part Four - The Search for Norman Kitchen
About the Author
Copyright