by Scott Carter
“Okay buddy, time to switch,” he says, tapping Drew’s shoulders.
Drew nods a thank-you and rolls towards a woman with a bolt through her nose.
Relief washes over Barrett. He wipes at the sweat left from Drew’s cheek and prays for the smell of hot dog to dissipate.
After two deep breaths, he turns toward Rebecca, and to his surprise, she initiates the hug. It’s a mechanical one, but intriguing enough for him to offer his best coy smile.
“Sensitivity training, huh?”
“I won’t tell if you won’t.”
“I don’t know, you might have more to hide.”
“I doubt that.”
He looks at her like she’s the extortionist. Then a woman with cat glasses a couple down shushes them, prompting Rebecca to look at the woman and shake her wrist and hand in a mock jerk-off before tossing her hand forward with splayed fingers. The realization of a kindred spirit makes Barrett smile.
“Any luck with your pest?” she asks, so close to his ear his toes tingle.
“Not yet.”
“I have a fan Sidney should speak with.”
“Really?”
“I don’t know about threatening, but he’s definitely off.”
Instinct tells him this is his opportunity. The tone of her voice, the conversation’s rhythm. It’s like he’s been there before.
“Thank you. What do you think about talking more about this over dinner?”
“Dinner?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t think so.”
The bell chimes twice more and Rebecca breaks their embrace. Immediately, all of his nerve endings loose that magical tingle. She gets up from the floor and begins to walk away before stopping and turning back.
“Tell Sidney I’ll call him.”
Fuck Sidney, call me, Barrett thinks. But he’s too amazed by the rejection to say anything, so he nods weakly and lies back on the floor. The reality is humbling.
This is the first time since he became a millionaire that he hasn’t been able to reference his mansion or set an evening’s tone with spending, which means she didn’t reject his lifestyle, she rejected him. He’s well aware that his habit of using money to ensure a good time is immature and vapid, but there is meaning to a life without depth, and that value is avoiding having to be rejected because the real you simply isn’t interesting enough. Now he knows for certain that his childhood priest was wrong. He won’t go to hell for all his debauchery, he’ll go to cuddle therapy.
Twenty-One
With a few glasses of Glengoyne Scotch flowing through his system, Barrett sits at his kitchen island and stares at a list of possible extortionists. Without any deep thought, the list is already at twenty-three, but the more names he writes, the more one name stands out: Todd Rempel. Todd interned with Barrett’s publisher last summer. They told Todd that Barrett was in marketing, but it’s possible he found out. Todd is a good enough guy, but full of ideas and ambition, two things that Barrett is only interested in when they are his own. From Barrett’s point of view, Todd couldn’t accept that interns work with little appreciation, and from Todd’s point of view, Barrett lacked the humanity to take him seriously or talk to him with any sensitivity. Todd decided against a career in publishing after the internship and went back to school to start a Ph.D.
Barrett taps the paper with his pen and writes: Todd feels slighted. He is bitter, jealous, and despite knowing Barrett only as a marketing executive, privy to enough of the behind-the-scenes of the Russell Niles books to organize the extortion.
He lights a cigarette, picks up a phone, and punches in Sidney’s number with aggression. It’s Sidney’s job to protect him, and he’ll know where to find the kid.
“I can’t leave work, Barrett. I’ve got too much to do,” Sidney says.
“I called about business.”
“That’s not like you.”
“Just listen. I want Todd Rempel in your office in an hour.”
“The intern?”
“I’m on my way.”
“You think he found out who you are?”
“It’s possible.”
“You really think he’s extorting you?”
“I think he’s a desperate wannabe who thinks I fucked him over.”
“You did.”
“Enough.”
“I’m just saying that using him in a brainstorming session and then not acknowledging his contribution is fucking him over.”
“Just get him in the office.”
Paced by thoughts of Todd Rempel’s ambitious eyes, Barrett sets down the phone, crumples up his list, and knocks it across the room with the overhead motion of a volleyball serve.
Fifty minutes later, Barrett sits across from Todd in Sidney’s office. Todd wears a cheap blue dress shirt and slacks. He’s not stereotypically nerdy, but he’s the type whose cerebral nature has always given him an aura a decade older than he looks.
“You know why you’re here, don’t you?”
“Sidney said you wanted to talk about some of my ideas.”
“Do you think I’m stupid?” Barrett asks.
“I think you’re a megalomaniac.”
Barrett circles his face with an index finger. “You’re not going to do well in jail.”
“Jail?”
“That’s right. But you prefer other J words, don’t you? Jealousy, jackal, justice.”
Todd runs a hand through a thick mop of curly hair. “I’m not following you, man.” He turns to Sidney. “Is he okay?”
Todd’s nonchalance heightens Barrett’s frustration. He’s yelling more than talking now. “You think Russell Niles stole your idea.”
“What idea?”
“The derivative piece of shit you begged me to pass on to him last summer.”
“Henry the Hippo?”
This is too intense for Barrett not to smoke, so he draws the blinds behind Todd and lights a cigarette. Two drags allow him to lower his voice. “Do you really think he needs to get his inspiration from volunteers?”
Todd is flushed now. More so from the mention of Henry the Hippo than Barrett’s accusation, and the intensity brings out a stutter that has plagued him since childhood.
“You said he called it creative.”
Barrett leans forward. “I say a lot of things.”
“You said he found it surprising.”
“Surprisingly bad for a grad student.”
Todd is past flustered. Everything about him looks underdeveloped now, more like a teenager, and as Barrett berates him he has to admit to himself that his instincts tell him that Todd isn’t the extortionist, that he is nothing more than a young man struggling to get a start in life.
“You’re not making any sense. What am I doing here?”
“Sidney will give you cash for a cab on your way out.”
“We’re done?”
Barrett nods, and Todd begins to exit the room before pausing just in front of the door and pivoting back towards him.
“Did he use my idea?”
A vein across Barrett’s forehead swells like it might explode. He picks up a mini-rubber football from Sidney’s desk and throws it at Todd, sending him scurrying out of the office.
He wishes Todd were the extortionist. Todd or any of the other people he’s mistreated, as long as their identity becomes clear. Because a faceless extortionist means there’s no one to direct his anger at and no one to blame for having to give away his yacht and money and sell his property other than himself. And that’s a reality that leaves him willing to rebuke a thousand Todd Rempels.
Richard sits at his dining table and stares at his journal until his mother sets a pill and half a glass of water down beside him. She leaves the room as quickly as she entered and he sets the Ritalin on his journal, noticing that it is the same size as the three binder holes on the left hand side. Resigned, he slips the pill into his mouth, swallows it without the water, and begins writing madly in his journal. His mother re-enters the
room and is so happy to see him using the journal that she tries to leave without him noticing, but he has already locked eyes with her.
“You’re writing in your journal.”
“Yep.”
“Can I see it?”
“No.”
At school, Richard says good morning to the librarian, walks to the computers, and sits at the one at the end of the aisle.
He types “Dr. Jason Burns” into Google and clicks on an article the doctor wrote about behavioural therapy. After scrolling to the bottom, he stops on the doctor’s email address where people are invited to send their comments. He cuts and pastes the address into an email account with the home devilhunter9, and in the subject box he types, YOU ARE AN EVIL MAN. He then clicks back to the Internet, copies a cartoon of the devil deflating the earth with his pitchfork, and copies the picture into the message. Content with his work, he hits send and smiles for the first time since he woke up. He then pulls out his cell phone and texts Barrett. cigarettes have over a thousand toxins in each one…just a reminder. Can i come over in an hour?
Barrett is back at home, standing on his second floor balcony overlooking the pool area when his phone buzzes. He glances at the text and smiles. He is about to put the Lamborghini on the market to help cover the cost of the last extortion and he is in desperate need of a moment of levity. He texts back: Do you want to know how many toxins are in the pesticide that sprays the fruit you eat every day? See you an hour. He hits send and feels as ready to sell the Lamborghini as he’ll ever be.
He calls his accountant, Gerry, who answers immediately.
“Good to hear your voice, kid. We need to talk.”
“I need you to spread the word that the Lamborghini’s for sale.”
“Sinatra’s car?”
“Please, just get word to people who will be interested.”
“What’s going on?”
“I can’t talk about it.”
“If you’re gambling ...”
“I told you I’m not gambling.”
“I’ve got a great place you can go for a month if it’s come to that.”
“It’s not drugs.”
“You’re hemorrhaging money, kid. What’s with these donations I’m looking at? Four million dollars in a week? You’ve only got so much property before it’s the mansion you’re taking a second mortgage on, and don’t make me remind you about the economic climate. You don’t own a property that hasn’t dropped in value the last quarter.”
Barrett wants Gerry’s guidance, he wants to take his hand and let him make things better, but right now it’s about survival, and that means one step at a time. “I need to hear you say I’ll get you a buyer for the Lambo.”
“It won’t be hard. But listen, kid. Whatever’s going on, you’ve got a lot at stake here.”
“I know. I’ve got to go.”
Barrett hangs up and counts the seconds until he can see Richard. When the kid arrives, Barrett takes him to the screening room. Richard has never seen a screen fill a wall in a house, let alone played video games on one, so as he manipulates a soldier with his controller, he does so in bliss.
Barrett sits beside him on a half-moon of chocolate leather couches. He watches Richard lean back on one elbow, and the pose makes him envision the kid as a man. Calculations run through his mind about how old he will be when Richard is twenty-five, and a sense of remorse runs through him like he’s never felt before. He lights a cigarette and inhales as deeply as possible.
Physically, he is in the room, but his mind is lost in the extortion’s haze. He wonders if the extortionist is monitoring the house or if the place has been bugged. He considers which of his undignified moments he would least want shared with the public when Richard’s voice breaks his trance.
“Do you have any secrets?”
The question is unnerving. “Why?”
“Because I have a big one and I don’t know what to do.”
“Who are you keeping it from?”
“Promise you won’t tell?”
“Who am I going to tell?”
“I’m keeping it from Mom.”
“That’s what kids do.”
“This is big one.”
“At eleven years old? Who are you protecting by keeping it? You or her?”
“Her.”
“Then you’re doing the right thing. That’s what secrets are for.” Barrett leans forward so that the muscles in his legs tighten. “How big is it?”
“Life-changing.”
“Life-changing?”
Richard nods intensely.
“Then you tell her.”
“You just said I’m doing the right thing.”
“Not if it’s life-changing. Your mother deserves to know the truth. What you have to ask yourself is would you want to know if you were in her situation?”
The kid doesn’t hesitate. “I would want to know. Definitely. Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
Richard starts another game and speaks while he concentrates on the screen. “Do you have any secrets?”
“Of course.”
“And who are you protecting by keeping them?”
Barrett looks at the kid hanging on every word, fully into the moment, and considers the last time he felt that way about anything. “Can we change the subject? Secrets make me uncomfortable.”
“Okay. What was Grandpa like?”
The question gets Barrett to sit up. Grandpa. The kid’s grandpa, Barrett’s father. The man who died before Richard was born.
“Why are you asking about your grandfather?”
“Because I want to know how close you were to your dad.”
Barrett knows this means he wants a point of comparison, but the question is tricky. His father was a provider, calm, taught him how to swim and later how to drive, but on an emotional level they weren’t close at all. No doubt his father was loving, but Barrett can only remember once hearing his father tell him he loved him.
It was October of grade seven, and he was on a nature trail three blocks from his house when a friend, Derek Pines, told him about a cave beneath a fallen tree on the south side of
the hill.
Barrett immediately thought this would be the perfect place to smoke cigarettes, and the two of them set off for the cave talking about how they would dress it up as a place of their own. They were so worked up that the fifteen-foot drop didn’t faze either of them, and after negotiating a steep bit of hill where the tree snapped, they reached what Derek called a cave. It was actually more of a large den, a hole that had been ripped or eroded, but they could still fit in it, and it was definitely private, so they crawled inside and sat across from each other. There wasn’t room to do much more but that didn’t deter their enthusiasm. This was a place of their own, a place free from the eyes of adults, and that alone made them talk non-stop with excitement. They smoked four cigarettes in a row and talked about bringing a portable radio the next time before deciding to go home and spread the word to the rest of their friends. Derek was leading the way out when Barrett felt a force smash into his back, hard enough to knock him to his knees. The blow felt like someone had punched him between the shoulder blades, and before he could process the moment, another smack knocked him fully to the ground. The hole collapsed, and dirt rushed over him until he passed out.
His next conscious memory was his father’s voice. Derek later told him that he ran home and told Mr. Fuller what happened. Mr. Fuller ran to the nature trail so fast that Derek was still a block away by the time Mr. Fuller dug Barrett out with a spade. And despite the dirt in his eyes, ears, and mouth, Barrett was still breathing. He’ll never forget the look on his dad’s face. The look of selflessness that only a parent can form. Mr. Fuller hugged Barrett tighter than he ever had and whispered “I love you.” All it took was a near-death experience.
Barrett looks closely at Richard’s young eyes. “Have you been thinking about your dad?”
“Yeah.”
; Of course he has, Barrett scolds himself. The sting of guilt for not helping his sister and Richard through the dissolving of their family heightens his discomfort, so he decides the best thing to do is answer the kid’s original question with what
he needs to hear.
“Your grandfather was a great guy, and I was very lucky to grow up with him as my dad.”
“Do you think he would have liked me?”
Barrett takes a cigarette from his pack, lights it, and drags hard. “Are you kidding me? He would have loved you.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he loved spirit, and you’re full of spirit.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you ask questions, expect answers, and then ask some more. He would have respected that about you.”
Richard smiles for a moment before his face turns serious again. “How old were you when Grandpa died?”
Barrett points at him with his cigarette. “This is what I mean by spirit.”
“Sorry. I understand if you don’t want to talk about it.”
The day Barrett heard about his father’s heart attack flashes through his mind. He arrived home from a campus pub around two in the morning when Carol called to tell him that their father was dead. Nothing’s been as sobering, and he often wonders if he’s ever really been intoxicated since. Or maybe he’s never really been sober since.
Either way, his life changed forever. He hung up after hearing the news of his dad’s death, and all he could think about was how boring his visit to the house was the last time they saw each other.
“I was twenty-two, and his death was unexpected,” Barrett says, reaching for another cigarette.
“What was it like to know you’d never see him again?”
“Horrible.” He knows the boy’s questions aren’t really about his grandfather, so he steers the conversation in the right direction. “Do you think you’ll ever see your dad again?”
“I don’t know.”
“If you don’t ever see him again, don’t just remember him leaving. As time goes on, you’re going to be tempted to focus on that moment, but trust me when I tell you to remember all your time with him equally.”