by Liam Durcan
“Yeah, well, agitated.”
“I wasn’t agitated, I was better. They’re just not used to seeing people recover.”
Norah watched her father and then looked at Brendan, her head toggling between the two. “You two look so much alike.”
“Do you think?” Brendan said, looking at his brother, whose face seemed narrow and slightly avian to him. Brendan inadvertently touched his own chin.
“I can’t get over it,” Norah said.
“We are related, after all; that might go some ways to explaining a similarity,” Martin said.
Norah ignored her father, turning to Brendan. “Are you up here for long?”
“No plans to leave just yet. We’ll see how your dad does.”
“Are you still working?”
“No. I retired last year.”
“What did you do?”
“I was a veterinarian.”
“Do you miss it?”
“Sure.”
“Then why did you retire?”
Brendan laughed. “Are you making a documentary now? I was bought out. I had a clinic, and we did well, and so we had a chain of clinics and we were taken over by a fairly big corporation.” Martin looked out at his brother, as though he were listening for the first time. “I worked as an employee vet for a couple of years and then it was just time to retire. The practice part was always fun, but in the last few years, before the buyout, I was getting more involved in the business aspects of it. Developing new programs.”
“Programs? What, like yoga for cats? The wallet biopsy?” Martin snorted, and Norah shushed her father.
“I developed a program called ‘The Canine Continuum,’” Brendan said, and Norah turned to him. “We found out that when a client had to put down an animal, there was a fifty-eight percent chance that person would be ‘on hiatus’ from the practice for the next year.”
“Grieving?”
“Yeah, or for a number of other reasons. And if the client was away for more than a year, there was a further sixty-one percent chance we would lose him or her to another practice altogether. So we would encourage clients to have several animals, you know, offer discounts, so that we would always have them ‘in practice.’ But people with single animals, that was a challenge, so I developed a program that clients could sign up for where they would never be on hiatus.”
“So you’d fix them up with a dog right away?”
“Yeah. They could prebuy; it even turned out to be good business for us to finance the pet ourselves in most cases. But it was more complicated; after a few months, we found that for the client to be completely satisfied, we had to, well, ceremonially recognize the event, you know, the death of one animal, the acceptance of the other.” Martin was listening now—with a smirk. Norah looked like she wanted to grab a notebook. “We would arrange for the euthanasia to occur in our grieving room. That’s fairly standard veterinary practice, but we would lower the lights and put on some preselected music, and when the client’s animal was euthanized, we’d remove it from the darkened room and bring the new animal in. A new puppy or a rescued animal. Whatever. We’d slowly turn up the lights. The person would be with his new dog.”
There was a pause, long and deep enough for a loon to have interjected its night call.
“And people like this?”
“People love this.”
“That’s retailing at its creepiest,” Martin said.
“It’s interesting,” added Norah.
“It was like discovering electricity. Our one-year hiatus rate decreased to six percent. Overall, three-year retention of clients is now at ninety-three percent. It was a revolution in small-animal practice. No downside: improved retention and client satisfaction, plus we were placing animals from rescue organizations.”
“What sort of music do people choose?”
“What?”
“Do people get to choose their music during this whole ‘continuum’ thing?”
“Sure.”
“What do they listen to?”
“People bring in their own music, sometimes. And if they don’t have music with them, we have a wide selection. Some New Age stuff, ambient music. And, you know, ballads. That song from the movie Titanic.”
Martin and Norah nodded and the conversation halted, ebbing into remembered music and the sound of eating, broken only when Martin accidentally swept a fork off the table. Brendan got up to retrieve it, but in one movement Martin swooped down and plucked it off the floor with his right hand, the speed leaving Brendan in mid-reach, open-handed. Norah noticed.
“You seem to be doing pretty well, Dad.”
“I told you. I keep telling everyone. In some ways, you know, I feel better than before. Clearer.”
“When I saw you in March, before you went to that rehab place in Vermont—you were still in the hospital, I think—no one thought you’d walk again.”
Martin sat forward. “Who didn’t think I’d walk?”
“What?”
“Who, specifically?
“Well, just everyone. The doctors. Mom spoke to the doctors. . . .”
“What about Jean-Sebastien and Catherine?”
“I didn’t speak to them.”
“Did I tell you I was heading up here?”
“Martin, give it a rest,” Brendan said.
“Let me finish. Did I call you or tell you I was coming up here?”
“Tonight?”
“Not tonight. In February, before I was injured.”
“No.”
Brendan watched his brother wheel around to face him, his gaze indiscriminate, spraying the room with unfocused anger. Refrigerator, brother, window.
“You see?”
“But you never tell me where you’re going, Dad.”
“That’s not the point. If I was doing something so out of the ordinary, I think I would have told someone.”
Norah looked at Brendan.
“He doesn’t think it was an accident. He thinks someone deliberately injured him.”
“I thought it was some guy in a truck,” she said.
“Yeah, yeah. But someone got me out on the road that night.”
“So that you’d get into an accident?”
“I’m sure of it. There’s no way I should have been out there.”
“And you don’t remember any of it?”
“Pieces. Moments around Christmas. I remember speaking to your mother.”
“It could have been just an accident,” Brendan repeated.
“Convenient, though, wasn’t it? I’m pushed out, my plan for the consulate project completely abandoned, and then, this accident.”
“You walked away from the project, Martin.”
“I can’t believe that,” Martin said. “I would have figured out some way of staying on the project, negotiated something with J-S and Catherine as a consultant, not something in the agreement, but a handshake deal. I’m sure of it. I wouldn’t have just taken the money and left.”
“Let’s talk about something else,” Brendan said hopefully, hopelessly, looking over at Norah. Martin didn’t move; his right thumb and forefinger pinched the edge of his plate.
“The Sydney Opera House,” Martin said suddenly, a non sequitur that froze both Brendan and Norah as they cleared the table. “Utzon, the original architect of the opera house, never saw the completed structure. He resigned from the project halfway through because of arguments about design and cost. Yet he maintained contact with the project. In the end, it was his design. His vision.”
Norah gently removed the plate from her father’s hand. “Did you explain to your partners that you still wanted to be a part of the project?”
“I proposed a role as a consultant to J-S.”
“And what did he say?”
“He said no. If we had agreed to anything before, he’s not letting on. That’s why they had my license taken away. No license, no role. Convenient.”
Norah sensed the topic needed to be changed. “So wha
t are you going to do up here?”
“Get better.”
“He has appointments in a couple of weeks at a rehab center back in the city,” Brendan interjected. “And it’s your grandma’s birthday in a few days, so I thought we might make a side trip to Detroit.”
“I’m not going to Detroit.”
“We’ll think about it.”
“Mom won’t know I’m not there.”
“I’ll know,” Brendan replied.
Martin turned to Norah. “Well, I’m staying. I have a ton of work to do. Given what’s happened, what with the accident and everything, I need to keep busy. Keep my name in the public eye.”
“Do you have other projects?”
“I’m thinking about an article on Melnikov. Maybe a biography.”
“Oh yeah, the guy you told me about, the cylindrical house, right?” The way Norah said it, Brendan felt she could have simply raised an index finger to her head and made a circling motion. Martin seemed to sense it, too.
“Yes, Norah. The guy in the house.”
“He had me bring along a trunkload of notes,” Brendan added, “and that model, too. Is that his house?”
“No, that’s something else. His house was different.”
“Cylindrical. Very cylindrical, as I recall,” Norah explained to Brendan, and then turned to her father. “Who are you writing it for?”
“I don’t know just yet. Maybe it’ll be a book.”
“That’s amazing, Dad. Last time I saw you, you couldn’t read.”
“Well, that’s still hard for me. Writing is still difficult, too, and I end up doing most of it from memory. It’s an odd feeling, I’ve been trying to put the story together, a Melnikov biography, but it’s just sort of stuttering along. And yet I feel like it’s there. Waiting for me.”
Brendan started on the dishes, pulling them clean from a sinkful of soapy water. Norah stood beside him, drying dishes while Martin sat silently behind them.
“How long have you been doing documentaries?”
Norah glanced over her shoulder at Martin in a way that could only be called wryly. Martin, perhaps thinking Melnikov thoughts, didn’t return her glance.
“I’ve only started documentary work recently. I did informational films before. Training films for corporations.”
Martin piped up. “You could have used her for your dog-killing thing.”
“Right fucking charmer, isn’t he?” Brendan whispered.
“I’m going to sit down in the living room.” Martin announced, and stood up. Norah and Brendan turned around to watch his wobbly first steps become steadier. This is his house, something he created. Maybe he will do okay here, Brendan thought.
“My stuff is in there,” Norah said to her father.
“That’s okay. I won’t touch it.” Martin’s voice echoed slightly.
Norah and Brendan quietly continued with the dishes. The sink of suds and the gurgle of dishes as they were submerged were hypnotic. Brendan felt it was almost a shame to interrupt it.
“But you’re working on something now?” Brendan asked.
“Editing.”
“I’d love to see it.”
“It’s pretty rough, but sure.”
With Martin reclined on the couch, Norah opened her laptop and pushed it back on the coffee table so that they all could see it. She guided them through the footage, which at first looked like a group of explorers clambering through a cave. But as the camera moved back, you could see that they were not in a cave, but emerging though the rubble of what was probably a tunnel into the more orderly wreckage of a larger underground chamber. There were three in the group—two men and a woman—all disappearing in darkness or suddenly caught in the glow of the camera lights. They wore harnesses and headgear and moved around one another in a way that Brendan could tell suggested complete familiarity. Brendan looked at his brother, squinting at the monitor. Martin sat forward, as well.
“They’re exploring,” Brendan said, looking to Norah for her to correct him. She simply nodded.
“It’s dark,” Martin added. “Who are these people?”
“Brendan’s right. They’re explorers,” Norah said. “They call these ‘urban expeditions.’ They find abandoned buildings and enter them and then record what they see.”
“Trespassing,” Martin murmured. “They could get themselves killed. Do you film them vandalizing things, too?”
“They don’t disturb anything. They record,” Norah said in a way that Brendan knew had been practiced, perhaps just for this moment.
On the monitor, the group had entered a long passage rimmed by the masonry of another era. No missing bricks, the mortar as solid as the earth itself, all unchanged after a hundred years. And yet unused, meaningless. Brendan wondered whether the sight of their work would please the builders or leave them in despair. Maybe they would be indifferent.
“Where are they now?”
“This is an abandoned subway station in Toronto, Dundas.”
“I didn’t know they had abandoned stations there,” Martin said.
“Not many people do. But it’s there, under the ground.”
“Well, I’ve never heard of it,” Martin said, and sat back.
Norah smiled. “So that means what? It doesn’t exist?”
“No. No. It’s just I’m surprised to hear about this.”
“Stations like this are pretty common. New York has a whole line of abandoned subway stations, but they’ve been sealed off by security since 9/11.”
Brendan sat forward. “These people would have a field day in Detroit. The whole downtown is like this.”
“Detroit is like Machu Picchu to this community. . . .”
“This community? There’s a community? “Martin said, laughing.
Norah ignored her father. “They were heading to Detroit the last time I spoke with them.
“Detroit is a disgrace,” Martin volunteered.
“Oh yeah? When was the last time you were back?” Brendan asked.
“The funeral. Are you saying it’s not a disgrace?”
“Detroit is complicated,” Brendan said. “Thirty years without visiting is a bit long to offer an opinion. And disgrace is a strong word.”
“Disgrace is the right word. You remember the Central Station; you remember what Detroit let happen to that? That is a disgrace.” He turned to Norah, hoping to make his case more persuasively. “Huge building, beautifully appointed. A main concourse that would rival any station in the country.”
“Is it still open?” Norah asked.
“It closed in 1968,” Brendan told her.
“Torn down?”
“Still standing,” Martin added. “One big vandalized shed.”
“They might turn it into a central police station,” Brendan said in a tone that he recognized was common among former residents when describing plans in Detroit. It was almost a Detroit dialect: part yearning, part resignation, so instantly recognizable to the brothers that neither had to say that the plan was unlikely.
Norah picked up a small remote and advanced the video to another point, where the three explorers stood frozen. She pressed PLAY and one of the men lifted his hand to the camera and smiled. Hi Norah.
“Who’s that?” Martin asked.
Norah frowned performatively. “Stefan.”
“These people know you?”
“I’ve gotten to know them. I spent six weeks with them.”
“Going into these places? You know, places like this aren’t just abandoned; they’re condemned. They’re fenced off for a reason; the support structures are unsound, the air is unsafe. . . .”
“I know that.”
“You obviously don’t.” Martin shook his head.
“I’m making a documentary about these people. I just can’t just back away the moment . . .”
“I don’t see the reason you’re following them in the first place.”
“They’re interested in these spaces, these great spaces, hi
dden away.”
“They’re trespassers.”
“Matta-Clark was a trespasser.”
“That’s different. He had architectural training; he knew what he was getting into.”
“So it’s okay to do this as long as you’re part of a club.”
“Who’s Matta-Clark?” Brendan asked, not taking his eyes off the screen, watching how the camera lingered on Stefan, big-shouldered and smiling, reminding him of Paul, his youngest. He wondered what cellular coverage was like out here.
“It’s not a club. But it takes specialized technical training to know that the floor won’t collapse under you.”
Norah turned to Brendan. “Matta-Clark was a performance artist who worked with buildings. He sawed a house in half and cut holes in warehouse walls.”
“Matta-Clark was an architect,” Martin interjected.
“And what, exactly, did he build?” Norah asked.
Martin shrugged. “Granted, he built nothing. Lots of people call themselves filmmakers without ever having shown a film.”
Norah pointed the remote at her computer and the image of Stefan ducking under a concrete beam blinked away to blackness.
“I’m sorry,” Martin said. Norah said nothing, closing the laptop before standing up and heading for the door, leaving Brendan staring straight ahead. Martin sat back in his chair, his glasses obscuring whatever he was looking at. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. Brendan wasn’t certain whether Martin knew his daughter was gone. “I’m sorry.”
Once he had helped Martin into bed and finished dispensing the medication, Brendan settled into his own room. He checked his phone for a signal and, surprised at how good it was, checked his voice mail, to find it empty. It would be early evening in Portland and he imagined his sons cleaning up from the day’s business. The remains of the day: oil in the fryers and sore muscles and the warmth of a used kitchen. Occasionally, he fantasized about just showing up unannounced on some Portland sidewalk, sidling up to La Cucina della Puccio and ordering some arancini. The fantasy ends uncomfortably when the order is handed to him without any acknowledgment of who he is from the two young men inside, who are perhaps just too busy to recognize their father on the other side of the window. Rita had been the one to support them in their idea for a food truck. He’d been the one, with all his business savvy, to throw cold water on the proposal, saying that a life as an executive chef in a restaurant was a safer way to start out than a crazy money pit of a food truck. The thought of finishing that order of arancini and just standing there on a wet Portland pavement, the pause and the silence after the last taste, and what the silence meant, was what kept him from pursuing the idea. Brendan looked away from his phone. From his room, he could see down to the patio, where Norah had returned, now reclined on a lounge chair. A small orange star glowed in the darkness beside her.