by Shilo Jones
Peele’s tongue flicks across his lips. “Dirt bike? Ugh, but okay. Shared use. Plenty of room. You can go ride up-valley, in…wherever? Abbotsford? That’s what makes this place so amazing. Mountain bike, ski or snowboard, surf, trail run, rock climb—the list goes on and on!”
“Sled?” I ask.
“Pardon me? As in, Ski-Doo?”
“Yeah. Backcountry sledneck?”
“Motorized?”
“Full fuckin’ throttle. Waaa! Waaa!”
“Um, no? Not here? Maybe Prince George?”
I got both hands clenched on the chair, trying not to drown in the aggro-competitive energy flowing from the lawyer. Peele glances at his phone, scratches his beard, lifts a second finger. “And then we have Vancouver’s cutting-edge food. Ethnic, everything inclusive. Sushi. Dim sum. Tacos. Big fan of fusion dim sum tacos. I eat out like every night I’m not in a cooking class. And don’t forget food trucks! An integral part of what makes Vancouver so desirable—”
“They have food trucks everywhere. In every city. All over the world.”
“Sure. But not like here.”
A third finger comes up, wiggles at me. I picture the room on fire with the lawyer tied to his desk while he says, “Then we have our incredible weather. For Canada? Warm, lovely weather. At least you don’t have to shovel it!” Peele mimes shovelling snow, chuckles. “And, I mean, weather’s free, right? Free is good…if you’re poor! Look at it out there. Gorgeous. March and it’s already—what? Ten degrees? Friend came in from Winterpeg yesterday. Minus thirty-five. Ha! And that’s not counting wind chill! I was like, no way. Uh-uh. No thanks. You poor souls. You losers suffering out there in Winterpeg and wherever, basically everywhere east and north of here, which is everywhere. I mean, life’s too short! Why would anyone ever live there? I said that to them. I’m a casual, upfront kind of guy, so I said: ‘Why do you live in that freezing hellhole?’ They said: ‘Work.’ I said: ‘Pffft. I’m staying right here, thank you very much, where I belong.’ ”
Clint fires up a round of Angry Birds. Peele has a side table covered in trophies and framed photos of him mountain biking and snowboarding. He sees me looking at the pictures, says he’s no longer so competitive, it’s all about having fun, raises a fourth finger. “Then we have…I mean, look at that downtown core. A lovely, livable city. Masterpiece of urban planning. Did you know, planners visit from all over the world to study how amazing we are? Had you heard that? Walkability means something to families today, especially when we tell them it should. Who wants a car? Not me. Not smart, in-tune urbanites my age and younger. We’ve done polls. Cars are expensive, ugly, polluting, very twentieth century. Wrapped up with Arab oil, acid rain, manufacturing, dying industry. Even strip malls. Can you imagine? Strip malls? Ugh…obesity? Thigh chafing? Who wants that? Biiig branding problem. Ha! Get it? Biiig!” Peele pauses to see if I laugh. I don’t. “Anyway, Mark, live where you work. That’s the future for people who can afford it. We’re not even putting parking garages in our developments, which is super sustainable, allows us to get like ten more units in each building. So we win twice! That’s how committed we are to green cities. A statement, really, about what’s important in life. It’s about creating a city where everyone, all kinds of people, productive, well educated, high-earning, money from all over the world, can come and walk to work and raise a family and go mountain biking. Helping manifest that super-inclusive vision.”
There’s basically only one thing you can do, I realize, and that’s hold your breath. So I do. Kind of a game, to see if my breath gives out before Peele stops talking. Clint giggles, shows me his phone, a picture of a stacked naked chick pressure-washing a mud-caked ATV.
Peele asks if he can take a peek.
My brother says what?
“Your phone? What you were showing Mark? Being distracted, rude, not fully present for me talking?”
Clint lifts the phone so Peele can see the naked chick. Peele stuffs a bit of beard in his mouth, chews, seems about to say something, stops himself. His hands do their fluttering thing, then he tells my brother to maybe put the phone on his desk? So Clint can pay proper attention?
What’s gonna happen is we shit-kick this two-faced lawyer, maybe light him on fire if I’m lucky. Because no way is Clint gonna take that from—
My brother stands, rolls his head side to side, sets his phone on the edge of Peele’s desk, sits down. Peele looks like a coyote scenting a half-eaten doe and I feel him sucking the air from the room, suffocating me—
Peele lifts a fifth finger, actually a thumb. “And as I was saying, Vancouver! This is what it’s all about. We’re a global city now. Part of a vast network of global citizens.” Peele does a circular hand motion to indicate the expansiveness of the globe. “Multicultural. Conscientious. Accepting. Of course I go to Pride. It’s funny! I mean…fun? Those people are so…alive! This city, it’s changing. And that’s good. I mean, Mark, don’t move to one of the world’s most vibrant and dynamic cities and complain about how expensive it is! Don’t do that. That’s not West Coast at all. Get lost, we’re too inclusive for you! Sourpuss, downer, you missed the boat! Because this city…it’s more like a village, really. Or a family? A big happy interracial family with like three doting parents, two of which are same sex—”
Clint looks up. “Need three working people in a house to afford—”
“Shit,” I say. “Need six. Average income—”
“See?” Peele says, nodding vigorously. “How living in such a desirable city is changing us in ways we have yet to fathom? Like, restructuring the…hmm…stodgy conventional oldness of our lives into something more progressive, seeping edge? Single-family homes? Wasteful, antiquated. Who wants to live like their grandparents? Money’s tight because you’re a loser? We get like ten Vancouverites to a house, multiple mortgages, easy-peasy! Resource efficient. Very quiet inoffensive sex. Can’t upset the neighbours in the next room! Like in the old country, or Bangladesh, or wherever. Either that or the houses sit empty, accumulating wealth simply by existing. Wow! Anyway, gentlemen, I affirm our global city. Allow me to toot my own horn? Toot toot, ha! I’ve been in this business a long time. Like, four years. Two more, maybe eighteen months depending on what the market does, and I retire. Truth! I’ve sold property to all kinds of people. They come to Vancouver for a visit, to see family, or on holiday, and they come to me and they say: ‘We’re staying. We love it. It’s absolutely one hundred per cent the mega-best place on earth!’ And what do I tell them? I say: ‘I already know that! I was here way before you, but welcome anyway!’ ” Peele spreads his arms, as if embracing the entire population of Metro Vancouver. “I say: ‘What’s your price range? What neighbourhood are you interested in? They’re all incredible, just different. Let’s get you set up!’ ”
I exhale, mentally shovel the horseshit away from my neck.
Peele’s beaming. Ten years, maybe less, he’ll be in public office, and he knows it.
I give him three slow claps. “Fuck yeah, Peele. All that sounds good. You’re way more chill than I thought. Mind if I smoke?”
Peele shudders, checks his watch, mumbles the time with a hint of irritation and right when he finishes there’s a knock on the door. I crack my knuckles, shift in my seat, impatient to get the fuck out of this airless office. Another guy rushes in, breathless, sweaty, looks like the kind who’s always pissed off. Wearing Eddie Bauer khakis with a coffee-stained crotch. Tucked-in dress shirt, probably the same brand. Clean-shaven. About five ten, midforties, thick-shouldered, balding, head and neck sunburned even though it’s the end of winter. Just holidayed in Vallarta, Cancun, maybe Maui since he’s doing well for himself and doesn’t have to worry about the exchange rate. Just flew home. Start of the construction season. About to roll up the sleeves.
“Perfect, great, wonderful,” Peele says while me and Clint shake hands with the new guy. Peele introduces Russ Fuller, project manager for the Solstice Homes development. Clint and I share a loo
k. Finally getting to business.
“So. Coffee? Tea? Guava juice? Call Harvey? My assistant?”
Fuller settles into an armchair facing Peele’s desk. I slide a look in his direction, tell Peele: “Whiskey. Booze. Whatever.”
Fuller almost smiles. “What he said. I’m in.”
“Whi—? Whiskey? Ha! It’s ten o’clock on Sunday morning…but different strokes.” Peele presses a button on his phone. I lift three fingers to indicate me, Clint, and Fuller are all in for whiskey. Peele looks at Clint, double-checking. Clint nods. Peele tells whoever’s unfortunate enough to work directly under him to bring Scotch, three glasses, and a kale-goji-mango juice with bone marrow extract. Fuller and me share another look. All right. Solidarity. The horseshit smell’s clearing a bit.
Peele natters about the impressive big-time projects Fuller’s managed until the drinks arrive. Best thing to happen all day. Fuller grunts, takes a solid late-morning swig, and we get to it. Fuller says Clint did damn fine work on those projects down in Steveston, and—was it—Coquitlam?
“PoCo,” Clint corrects.
“Bur-quitlam?” Peele, giggling around his straw. “Sur-lang? Slangley?”
Fuller takes a swig, rattles his ice, studies Clint’s cheap suit and tats. “Vincent filled me in. On why you’re here so early.”
Peele’s pretending to pick his fingernails, watching Fuller and Clint real close. Says let’s do a rundown of the Solstice development, Russ.
“Not sure what you boys know about big goddamn development projects,” Fuller says in a voice like he’s unhitching a belt buckle, “but what they are is giant assembly lines. Only instead of the product getting made by rolling through the assembly line, it’s made by rolling work crews through the site. One after the other. No tolerance for error. One subtrade’s late or fucks up, throws the entire project out of whack, snowballs, eating shit.”
“Dominos,” Peele quips. “One goes down…”
Fuller avoids looking at the lawyer directly. “Say you got your concrete formers all set to go, skilled carpentry trade, expensive, and they do their job fine, but there’s a fuck-up with the cocksucking rebar, supply’s gone, bought from under your nose, have to wait, only you can’t wait, because the concrete’s being poured in two fucking days. Follow? Concrete trucks, pump trucks, all that shit’s booked ten, twelve months in advance in this town. Two-fifty an hour for a pump truck, big job like ours we might have five of ’em running at once. Schedule’s real tight. So now there’s no shit-eating rebar. And if there’s no asshole rebar there’s no concrete being poured, cuz this isn’t Meh-hico and we have codes, all Robertson’s hippy-trippy bullshit to tiptoe around. Hey—fill that up, son! Grassy-ass. Little more…ahh, fuck me dead. Now that’s a drink! Long hair can’t hide that red neck, boy! Shit, was just in Varadero, shithole all-inclusive, do yourself a favour, never go there, locals got no sense of jump to it. Anyway…open bar, old lady got sunburned like she does every year, blistered t’ holy hell, had to hear about it all day, rub fucking aloe vera, my hands still stink, sonsabitch pinkos didn’t factor Fuller’s mojito pitchers into their bottom line! Drank ’em outta house ’n home, told ’em bring me the goddamn bottle, can’t you see I’m married to a lobster! Christ in commie hell. Nice cars, though. This is all right whiskey, Peele, not bad—”
“Actually, it’s Scotch.”
Fuller raises his glass. “That right?”
“Scotch whisky.”
“Huh. You say potato I say—”
“No,” Peele says, “they’re entirely different alcohols. Scotch whisky is made exclusively in Scotland from malted barley. You’re thinking bourbon whiskey, American, made from—”
“Gives a shit? Better than the rotgut rum the Cubans—”
“All tastes like Crown to me,” I say, clinking glasses with Fuller.
“Um, sorry, that’s blended rye,” Peele says, which makes Fuller take a swig to hide his grin. I pour myself another drink from Peele’s fancy-ass crystal decanter. Clint finishes his booze, shows me another titty pic. So I’m feeling like I’m here? Fuller takes a look at the titty pic, laughs good and loud and now I’m laughing too, feeling A-okay, asking Vincent Peele if he wants to tell us what’s in fuckin’ Irish whiskey?
Fuller cackles, snorts booze up his nose, sneezes across Peele’s desk. Peele gasps, retreats to the window, calls his assistant to bring disinfectant while Fuller says man he needed bastards like us in Varadero. I say to rub aloe vera on your wife? Fuller smacks my shoulder, says he’d pay me to, wingman, take one for the team, look out for those pinchers! I say no thanks but ask Vincent, he knows all about beauty products. Fuller says yeah look at that goddamn beard, for Chrissakes, Peele, what the hell is that thing? I say forty-dollar bottle of beard oil? Fuller says what in heavenly fuck’s beard oil?
Clint’s laughing too, me and Clint laughing together while Fuller laugh-chokes his way to a chesty wheeze, belches, catches his breath, rattles his ice, lifts his glass to his face, squints an eye half closed and stares inside like he’s trying to discover a hidden wellspring of liquor down there. Peele says nothing, does an admirable job of being cool, not getting baited; this is one dangerous prick. Peele sucks on his mud smoothie, wipes his beard with a backhand, looks out the window, waits until his dogs quiet. “Just like that. You guys? Ten minutes in a room and you’re all…well, gentlemen? Russ? Solstice Homes? North Shore single track is calling.”
“Peele, goddamn. ’K boys, so…where were we?”
“Up a creek?” Clint says.
“No concrete,” I add, crunching an ice cube. “Cuz of no bastard rebar?”
“Ah, yep. Up a crick, bet yer ass. So we got no concrete? So what? But after concrete you got iron workers, tough sonsabitches as you know, they’re pissed off, also tight schedule for them, expensive sitting around jerking it, not to mention the goddamn crane operators, whiners, thousand bucks a day, then the rest of the trades stacked up and costing money every second that slips by. One missed deadline throws the whole shitshow out of whack—”
“Tell them more about the money,” Peele interrupts, then corrects himself. “The capital.”
Fuller glares at the wall behind the lawyer. “Time we break ground, Mr. Peele and his team o’ beans have pushed enough paper to secure financing from the motherfucker bank. We’re running the whole shebang on borrowed cash. Debt! Lots and lots of debt, boys! Bank sets specific completion benchmarks. Follow? We don’t get, say, all the wiring done by a certain date, thief banker starts making noise. Maybe ups the interest rate, maybe refuses to bankroll the next stage of the project, hamstrings the job ’til we renegotiate the loan, basically legal extortion…”
Fuller settles into his chair, eyes his empty glass, runs a hand across his sunburned forehead.
Peele grabs Fuller’s glass, deposits it on a side table. Fuller scowls at the lawyer’s back.
“You worked with Peele long?” I ask Fuller.
“Couple years,” Fuller says, wiping his hands on his thighs. “Tight ship.”
“Thank you, Russ. Tell the Ward brothers about our timeline,” Peele says. “If you would be so kind?”
Fuller shrugs. “It’s shit.”
“Ha, yes, shit,” Peele says, settling against his desk. “Solstice Homes has an accelerated timeline for completion. Usually a project like this would run…how long, Mr. Fuller?”
Fuller waves a hand like he could give a fuck. “Couple years?”
“Right. At Marigold, we’re more ambitious. We want our customers to be enjoying appreciation on their investments six months after we receive operating capital from the bank.”
“Never gonna happen…,” Fuller mutters, looking at Clint. “You know how it is, son. Even in residential. Shit happens. Material’s late, weather’s lousy, crews are useless, half of ’em hungover and the other half stoned, someone gets killed. Happens.”
Peele raises his hand. “Which is why we’re taking steps to ensure any potential…friction…in the lo
ng chain of events that must occur for this project to be completed on time are removed. Which is, in part, your job, Mr. Ward, referring to the older brother, Clint.”
“We’re de-frictioning?” I say, unable to help myself.
“Lubricating?” Fuller says, shaking his head like he can’t believe the shit he has to put up with.
“Lubricating,” Peele repeats, testing the word. “Ensuring a smooooth ride.”
“Well, someone’s getting fucked,” Fuller says, face grim like he’s remembering something he’d rather forget. “Long as it ain’t me this time.”
Fuller stands abruptly, says good luck to me and Clint, storms out without a word to Peele. An assistant scurries through the open door, wipes Peele’s desk clean. When the assistant’s gone Peele wags a file at us, says there’s some paperwork that must be completed before we continue.
“I’m not signing a thing,” I tell the yup lawyer, mostly to piss my brother off. Clint tells me to shut it, looks a bit like the old man, makes me snicker, squirm in my chair, desperate to get out of Peele’s office and oxy up.
Peele slides some papers to Clint. My brother signs without reading. They stare at me. Normal-life people in the reception room are chatting, laughing, bullshitting about sports scores, the weather, sounding happy to be at work even though it’s Sunday. What would Daree and Sarah and me be doing in Vancouver on a Sunday? Peele hands me a fancy silver pen. I resist ramming it in his eye.
“Your brother is my client now, Mark. I’m delighted to represent him. We share protected privilege. It’s a prerequisite for further discussion.”
I finish my drink, tell Clint to quit looking at me like that, sign.
Peele stuffs the papers in his desk. “I like you two. The Ward Brothers. Nice ring. Bit of an odd couple, though? I would’ve thought you, Mark, would be wearing the suit—and by the way, Clint, you need a new suit. I’ll hook you up with my tailor. Mark, considering you went to university? That might sound terribly classist. I apologize. What did you study?”