Stung

by William Deverell

  Ray calls, hoarsely: “Why am I here?”

  Lucy goes, “Because God beamed you to me. She commanded you to stop fucking Sooky-Sue.”

  “We don’t call it fucking. We call it worshipping.”

  “Does she let you worship her in the ass?” Lucy tosses off her wine, pours another. So do I.

  “Again, I ask: How did I get here?”

  “Because you called me, you sap. Because if I didn’t save your butt you’d’ve gone stumbling down the street and got run over by a truck or got picked up and busted for breaking your bail terms and right now you’d be staring out a steel cage wondering how you ended up there.”

  By the time this speech is over, Ray is out, two dripping hands raised. “What happened to the towels? Something weird is going on, there’s no shit lying around. Man, I must have done more crystals than I planned.”

  As he dresses, we ask about how such excess came about. All he remembers, from last evening, is Sooky-Sue seeking to “elevate her raptures,” which I assume is their church’s euphemism for orgasms, by overdoing the ayahuasca. He’s absonotly worried about tomorrow’s drug test.

  “Yagé is legal, man, it’s our religious sacrament. Sooky is a trained shaman and she has a connection in Barranquilla. To keep me sane, I been doing it since just after I got bail, all tests negative, no alerts, no bells, no flashing lights.” He checks his phone. “Sooky’s worried.”

  “Tell her to worship herself,” Lucy says, as Ray taps out a message.

  I’m staying out of this, but I don’t blame Lucy for feeling betrayed, having raced off to rescue him. “So why did Sucky-Sue kick you out? Because you couldn’t get it up anymore? Couldn’t satiate her need for elevated raptures?”

  “It got a little weird last night. Even for me.” He pulls on his boots.

  “So she’s just as goofy in bed as she is in real life, eh?”

  Ray has his jacket and boots on, and is at the front door. He seems about to open it, then slumps, looks down, then up, and I see tears.

  “I miss you, babe. I’m an assoholic, I know, and I’ve treated you wrong. But I’m a junkie for you, I’m hooked, you make me high. I can’t help it. I love you.”

  She flies to him, attaches herself to him like cling wrap. He lifts her into his arms.

  I’m into my jacket and helmet and out the door before they make it into the bedroom.

  * * *

  The pitiful, wine-soaked supporting actor to this weeper stumbles down the stairs desperately trying to be happy for Lucy while she drowns in sorrow for herself. That touching scene has completely done me in. I have never felt so abysmally alone. So unloved. So mate-less. Passover is happening, Easter is happening, a long weekend and no one has invited me anywhere.

  I want my mother.

  She also wants me. She’d called earlier, an hour of loving chatter. My folks are beyond secular but tradition is tradition and there will be matzo soup and brisket tomorrow. It was unintentionally cruel of her to invite me — she knows my bail conditions restrict me to Greater Toronto. Golden Valley is a four-hour drive away, up near North Bay.

  As I push my bike out the doorway I spot a tall human shape across the street. Just standing on the sidewalk, looking at me, though I can’t make out his face. It’s dark now, after eight. Heavy man. Toque and padded jacket. Thus Lucy had described the night lurker. But this dude is in a parka. He’s hidden for a moment by a passing truck, and next seen is striding north, toward Dundas.

  I mount up and pump after him, still clutching my iPhone, hoping to get a shot of him under a streetlight. He sees me come and ducks into an alley. I’m not stupid enough to follow a hatemongering fascist douche into the dark, and do a wheelie south to Queen.

  I pause by the Drake to look up Constable Louella’s cell in my contacts. She answers, gasping for breath, and I remember she works out most nights at her local gym. “This better be unimportant,” she says.

  I laugh, promise to be short. I fill her in on the lurker and how I kind of chased him and she tells me I’ve got balls. I give her my change of address and she says, cool, she’s in the area, she’s off work this weekend, we could have coffee.

  Then I ask her if I can get a day pass to visit my family to help them celebrate Passover.

  “As I recall, doll, the formal conditions are you can’t leave town without a police escort.”

  “What about making the conditions less formal? You can do that.”

  “Can’t, Rivke.”

  “Mom plans a big Passover feed tomorrow. They don’t keep strict kosher but she’s a brilliant cook. They’re very welcoming, Mom and Dad, I told them about how you—”

  “How long does it take to drive up there?”

  “Three and a half to four hours.”

  “I’ll be by at half past eight in the morning.”

  * * *

  That night, between the cool cotton sheets of my too-roomy bed, I have another dream of Howie Griffin. “I’m not that kind of guy,” he says. But I’m all over him.

  Chapter 18: Arthur

  1

  Saturday, April 20

  “Okay, Glow, let’s try again,” says the producer-director known as Big Boris, who is hippo-sized, thickly bearded, adorned by a cowboy’s hat, and specializes in documentaries, or in this case, a dogumentary, as he calls it. “A lot more panicky this time. A cougar is chasing your toddler. You’re scared shitless.”

  Glow yells: “Baby Cosmos, come here, or Tigger’s gonna get you. Right now!”

  The four-year-old, who seems to enjoy these re-enactments, descends the limestone steps on cue but scampers the wrong way, not toward his parents, Glow and Krishna, but to the lead actor, Ulysses the Wonder Dog. This is the third take, and the third time Cosmos has run to Ulysses.

  The pup gives him a lick as he waits for his own cue. Arthur and Stefan are supposed to restrain him until he gets a signal. Then Ulysses, according to the script, will sprint off in pursuit of an imaginary cougar.

  The problem is that Ulysses is not some trained circus dog; he’s above doing tricks for applause. He does it his way.

  The media hailed Ulysses, making him odds-on favourite to win the SPCA Hero Award. Yet it’s still unclear, at least to Arthur, whether the cougar intended to snatch Cosmos or was taking the fastest route of escape.

  Arthur can’t see how Big Boris will pull off this cinéma-sans-vérité. He had told Arthur, “Guy I know, in the Rockies, he’s got a pet cougar, so we’re going to splice it in.” He and his crew of five work out of Edmonton and have been on Garibaldi two days, setting up. The Bleak Creekers were easily persuaded to resurrect their faux-equinox tableau of tents and tarps here in the vale between the cliffs of Quarry Park.

  TexAmerica made no complaint. The company has announced they are “re-addressing the situation,” which seems a euphemism for giving up — most of their heavy equipment has been hauled away already. It’s as if their energy has been sapped, like invaders succumbing to a war of attrition. The company’s good name, if it ever had one, has been further blackened by their local foreman’s vengeful murder of Tigger. Tug Cooley is back in Fort Worth, having avoided arrest for a string of non-extraditable offences, including careless use of a firearm.

  “Let’s try it again,” says Big Boris, who’s in no rush — it’s a pleasant morning, the sky is clear. His three camera operators have already replicated skinny Krishna nakedly exhorting the sun to surmount the limestone ridge, and they have also filmed the sunrise ceremony: the rotating, chanting circle.

  When Boris had the effrontery to ask Arthur to re-enact his bit part, he responded: “I’d as soon jump into a nest of writhing pit vipers.”

  Krishna fetches his son, horsey-backs him to the starting point, Boris shouting encouragement, promising Cosmos’s future stardom, as if he assumes that’s every four-year-old’s dream.

  “This is
ridiculous,” says Stefan.

  “But in an eerie way engrossing,” says Arthur. They stand well away from the action, leaning against a sun-warmed slab.

  “It’s not how I planned to spend my last day.” Stefan has finally achieved legal immigrant status, and is to depart tomorrow, Easter Sunday, to manage a wildlife refuge on remote Quatsino Sound. Lovelorn Solara, though not in a celebratory mood, is preparing a farewell vegan dinner for him, with Margaret as sous-chef.

  Arthur’s life companion arrived late last night on a crowded ferry after an even more claustrophobic five-hour flight. She almost swooned with relief on disembarking into the relaxed ambience of Garibaldi Island. Her hug was tight. But it was after eleven and they had little chance to catch up — she went quickly off to bathtub and bed.

  They made love on waking this morning, though it was no barn-burner. Negative factors included his tension over the upcoming trial and her exhaustion in opposing the Trans-Mountain pipeline. As well, she has led a campaign to have the quarry annexed to Gwendolyn National Park.

  But libido letdowns occur almost every time they reunite — they seem to have trouble finding each other after being apart so long. After a couple of days together, the process becomes more fluid, oiled by sharing and closeness.

  Arthur hasn’t found the right oh-by-the-way moment to mention he’d invited Taba into his private parlour for brandy-laced coffee by a blazing fire on a cold winter evening. Confiding the truth — or at least parts of it — is job one, he must face up to that. Ignoring it will cause marital grief. Worrying about it will cloud his mind for the trial — he must be at his best against the likes of Azra Khan and Madam Justice Colleen Donahue.

  So he’d better raise the matter with Margaret today, before she looks through the back issues of the Island Bleat and comes upon a News Nugget about how “our ever popular ravishing redhead Tabatha (Taba) Jones” went “all the way to Blunder Bay.”

  “That-a-boy,” Big Boris shouts.

  Cosmos, finally tiring, stumbles during the latest take, then scrambles up crying and races into Glow’s arms. Surely the director would now wrap things up. But no.

  “He’s a major movie star now, ma’am. So okay, I want you to ask him to do it just one more time. This time with the dog. Mr. Beauchamp, is he ready to fly?”

  “Not exactly.” In fact, Ulysses has lost interest after being held back for so long and is focussed on a propane grill on which wieners are sizzling and buns warming.

  Boris claps his hands. “Take a break. Lunch is on Prairie Dog Productions!”

  * * *

  “Namaste, namaste,” Arthur mouths as he works his way through the swarm at the food table. He has a double-barrelled hot dog for Ulysses; a single for himself, slathered with mustard. There are also celery and carrot sticks and apples, so Stefan doesn’t go without, though he wanders off by himself with his plate.

  Arthur has to hustle back to Toronto soon for three weeks of forensic spadework before the trial begins. He will have a housemate: Rivke Levitsky, a high energy person. He feels an avuncular fondness for her but worries she’ll want to chatter about the trial, bugging him with questions while he does his homework.

  When she’s not talking, she’s at her phone’s keyboard, typing notes, or voice recording, as if maintaining some manner of spontaneous journal. She was an English literature major, so may suffer the common delusion of writing a novel.

  Internet trolls, a scourge of modern times, have made her the subject of their base attentions. All the Earth Survival Rebels endure such insults and threats, but Rivie seems the main target. Threatened male egos. Fear of forceful women. That’s what the behaviour experts say. Conversely, Arthur has always been attracted to forceful women, but can’t say why.

  Ulysses devours his lunch and, of course, wants more. Arthur thinks of sharing his own hot dog but is loath to give him any more chemically enhanced quasi-meat, and eats it himself.

  * * *

  After lunch, Ulysses remains uncooperative, peeved at his second-rate status: all humans had extra wieners and the fat male human who shouts ate four. But the local dog gets treated as if he’s some inferior species. And they expect him to perform.

  Big Boris has apparently devised a plan to solve Ulysses’s camera shyness: he strolls a hundred metres away, down the grassy meadow and up the exit trail, then dangles something that looks to Arthur like a thick, braided rope. He yells, “Roll ’em!”

  Ulysses, a sighthound, has no trouble identifying Boris’s offering as a string of leftover wieners, and is quickly on his feet — he accelerates to warp speed, flies over holes and bumps, goes straight as an arrow for Boris.

  “Don’t move!” Stefan calls to him. He and Arthur know, from close experience, that Ulysses loves racing full speed ahead at humans — he will veer at the last second, usually to the right, missing by inches, then hit the brakes, leaving the target human shaken but safe.

  Unfortunately, Big Boris’s ill-considered choice is to veer to his left, and he takes the full brunt of the collision, sprawling into the tall grass as Ulysses deftly snatches the wieners from his flailing hand.

  One camera stays on Ulysses as he continues up the trail with his loot and disappears into a hiding place. Meanwhile, another camera was on little Cosmos, who, prodded into one more scamper, stops and wails on seeing his beloved wolfhound vanish. The third camera watches Boris, supine, stare at the blue sky. “Cool, baby,” he calls. “That’s a wrap.”

  “Let’s blow this scene,” Stefan says. Arthur is in accord. Stefan whistles. Ulysses reappears, looking innocent.

  On seeing Ulysses leashed and about to be led away, Boris complains: “Wait, we got the scene at the midget sculptor’s, what’s his name, McKee, McKay, where he climbed that phallus.”

  Arthur says that they won’t need Ulysses for that sequence, though they might want to splice in a cougar. At any rate, he adds, Hamish McCoy is at the Hall today, setting up for the annual Easter Sunday Art Show.

  He urges Boris to bring his cameras to this grand spectacle, an event hoary with tradition, going back eighty years, pronounced dead many times but just as often revived. “It would add a soothing, bucolic background to your stirring dogumentary. You could open with it.”

  “You just earned a producer credit,” Boris says.

  Arthur doesn’t know where Prairie Dog Productions hopes to show this film, but if by some miracle it goes viral on, say, YouTube, the painters, potters, and craftpersons of Garibaldi might finally enjoy a boom year.

  * * *

  Stefan unexpectedly opens up as they return home in his van. He speaks of how comfortably he has adapted to Canada, to a new life, of his many pleasant months at Blunder Bay, of how thankful he is to Margaret and Arthur, his admiration for them.

  “We will miss you equally,” Arthur says. “Solara will miss you much more.”

  Stefan nods, his expression set, as if he’s trying to avoid a show of emotion. “I’m sorry about that. I’m fond of her. I’m also afraid of commitment. I’m not good with people generally, as you’ve noticed. It’s the famous Scandinavian genes — we’re typically a private people, repressed, really, not very good at hugging. I am better with animals. Right, Ulysses?”

  The pup responds by licking his ear. Stefan laughs.

  2

  Sunday, April 21

  The Easter Art Show gets underway late, after a shower sends the Garibaldi League of Artists hustling their paintings into the Hall. Arthur and Margaret wait until they’ve set up, then do a quick tour, tarrying awhile at the Animal Section where they are compelled to marvel at four heroic portraits of Ulysses. Arthur supposes he’ll have to buy one. But only one? Wouldn’t that, he asks Margaret, hurt the others’ feelings?

  “Don’t be ridiculous. That abstract by Marcia makes Ulysses look like a pompous tin-star sheriff. Don’t encourage her.”

  Arthur figures he’ll
take two, the acrylic and the pen, one of which he’ll send to Stefan — who drove off on the ferry this morning after he’d spent his last hour at Bungle Bay romping with Ulysses and exchanging goodbyes in dog lexicon. Ulysses returned to the house literally looking hangdog.

  Solara had too much wine last evening at Stefan’s farewell dinner, and got weepy as he serenaded them on his guitar with something baroque and sprightly. But Margaret was wet-eyed too, despite Arthur’s efforts to keep things jovial. Stefan, allegedly unskilled at the art of the hug, performed with surprising gusto.

  Predictably, somehow, Arthur still hasn’t had his sit-down with Margaret. During waking hours they never seemed to be alone and when he joined her in bed the subject of Taba Jones felt massively inappropriate. In any event, Margaret again succumbed quickly to her weariness, abetted by the effects of Nancy Faulk’s gift of an excellent ten-year-old Bordeaux.

  The rain shower is in pause when they return outside the Hall, where a dozen sculptors and potters remain, displaying their works under awnings and beach umbrellas. Soon to join them, apparently, is Hamish McCoy: an old flatbed truck grunts up the driveway, Stoney at the wheel, Hamish and Dog peering over the dashboard. The thickly veined, erect penis with the useless, flapping wings is prone on the truck’s bed, on foam, a red flag tied to its claw-like toes.

  They park at a high point a hundred feet from the other exhibitors. Big Boris and his film crew are already there, already set up. Stoney is abundantly aware of the cameras because he hams it up while he helps raise the twelve-foot bronze. McCoy has devised a complex lifting crane from pulleys, cables, guy wires, and stakes pounded into the lawn.

  It’s unprecedented for Hamish McCoy to show up at the Easter Art Show. The rude fellow is cynical about what he calls the Sunday artists, “with their pretty pansies and moonlit ripples on the bay.” They in turn put up with his snobbery, because of his fame. Clearly, Hamish has arranged with Prairie Dog Productions to do a shoot here today. He loves the media, loves to shock the public.