Blackout Odyssey

by Victoria Feistner

  He handed the joint out to her.

  She wasn’t sure if she wanted any more. But she took it anyway, considering the glowing ember at its tip. “You’re saying I should have asked him? Asked him to let me in?”

  Daniel Gabriel shrugged. “He’s not a bad guy.”

  “Seems to have some issues.”

  “…well, yes.” He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Not real bright. Not a big fan of downtowners.”

  “I did get that impression.”

  “Shouldn’t have grabbed you.”

  “No, he should not have.”

  Daniel Gabriel gave a nod of agreement. “I hereby apologize on his behalf. But—and this is the important part—if you’d asked for his help, you might have received it.”

  She licked her dry lips, considering, and then took one last small puff before handing it back. He stubbed it out on the memorial, flicking the end away into the black.

  “So now what?” Mallory asked, quietly. “Now that I know what I ‘should have’ done? I can’t go back and do it over.”

  “No,” he agreed, easily. “That’s not how these things work anyway. You have to make amends.”

  “Oh, is that all?” Her answer was a grin, bright against the night. “And how do I do that, exactly?” Mallory prodded a plastic bouquet with her toe before looking up. “How do I make amends?”

  “By apologizing to Head Office, of course.”

  She gave a bark of a laugh and gestured with her fingers to her ears like a telephone. He laughed back, but genuine, and shook his head. “Oh, of course it’s not that easy.” The awake part of her mind handed her the answer. “I’ll have to go to them, in person, won’t I?”

  Daniel Gabriel nodded.

  She sighed, staring about the cemetery, back towards the crossroads. She had no concept of what time it was, the night could have been three weeks long, it could be ten years from when she boarded the bus bound for Scarborough Town Centre with Aggie, both laden down with presentation cases and relieved that the day was at an end. The moon paused overhead, and even the crickets waited for her answer.

  “Okay. Tell me where to go. Let’s get this over with.”

  17.

  Upper Middle Management

  As we pulled up to the curb, a fluttering anxiety set in; I wanted to slam down the lock in the door and refuse to get out. The dark of the side street outside the SUV was impenetrable; moths flocked to dance in the headlights, but even the high beams did little to show my surroundings. Daniel Gabriel engaged the handbrake, before leaning back with a breath of impatience and a gesture to the door. “This is where you get out.”

  I swallowed. The clarity or haze or whatever it was from the dope had cleared on the ride down Yonge Street, leaving me exhausted and confused and sore, although less hungry thanks to Shelly’s peanut butter sandwiches and black coffee. “And I have to do this, because…?”

  He ran a hand over his face, tired himself, but didn’t answer. He gestured at the door again. “You know why. Go on.”

  I hesitated, my hand over the door handle. I took a deep breath. “Okay. I’m going.” I opened the door and stepped out. “Thank you for the ride.”

  “You’re welcome. Remember,” Daniel Gabriel called out after me, “just ask. Use your words. Okay?”

  “Okay. Thanks again.” I closed the door of the SUV and stood on the sidewalk, watching him pull away and turn back into the traffic onto Bloor. Between the lack of signals at intersections and poor visibility and gas shortages—not to mention the sheer time of night—it was surprising to see anyone on the road at all.

  I thought of those Humber students, hoping they’d arrived at their new apartment all right. What a way to start your first year away from home…

  The tiny street off Sherbourne was old ramshackle houses, details lost to the dark. Everything was dark, no candles in windows like at Bloor and Bathurst. The night had grown a chill, the heat of the afternoon a distant memory.

  I crossed the street with careful steps, afraid of broken glass or dog poop in my bare feet. Between two boarding houses stood a small entryway, almost like a shed but with an industrial door. A tiny placard that should have been illegible read:

  SHERBOURNE STATION

  AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

  A deep breath for resolve, and I pulled on the handle, half-expecting it to be locked, to resist me. But instead it swung open on easy hinges to a rectangle even blacker than the middle of the night in a power-out.

  And yet.

  Down in the centre of that gloom was a glimmer. More a feeling or a memory of light than anything vibrant.

  I stepped down onto the stairs, and the door swung shut behind me.

  * * *

  The stairs were unfamiliar and I might as well have had my eyes closed. I kept one hand on the handrail beside me, and the other stretched out, my fingertips brushing old, crumbling plaster. Under my feet was cold and slick, linoleum perhaps, except for the safety strip of raised rubber ridges that marked the edge of the riser, because safety first.

  And so I descended, the glow never growing closer or lighting the space.

  Until it did.

  The hallway and ceiling was covered in narrow subway tiles, white once upon a time but grown dingy with age and infrequent washings. The floor was rough poured concrete, but clean enough. Fluorescent lights ran the length of the ceiling, and one flickered and went out before suddenly snapping back on.

  I felt like I’d walked this hallway before, perhaps many times, perhaps forever: it seemed as unreal as afternoon. Did it lead to the parking garage? But then why would the gardener have sent me back to Bathurst instead of straight here? Why not just tell me what to do? Why not just—I sighed, remembering Daniel Gabriel’s simple advice.

  The hallway ended in an opening to an office. There was a counter, and a push-bell. Holding my breath, I rang it. The sound rippled along the walls. If I looked carefully at the uppermost tiles, they seemed distorted, until I realized it was stains from water damage.

  I glanced back at the counter and jumped.

  The businessman wasn’t wearing his pin-stripe suit, instead he had on a maroon TTC blazer, a sweater vest and tie over his button-up shirt. The tie had a shiny pin, like a weird golden W. The vest had a button that said “Ask Me About Transit City!” The face had an expression carved out of stone.

  My mouth grew dry, my hands clammy, like I stood in front of the principal, caught smoking. I half wanted to explain that I was in fact in my early thirties and there had been some sort of mistake, I wasn’t in high school any more. “Hi.”

  Not a great opening, I admit, but necessary to clear the blockage between my brain and my throat. “I’m here about a…” Embargo? Lost metropass? Why was I here? He stared at me like I was a murderer or queue-jumper or I’d dinged his Mercedes with my poor-person shopping cart filled with cat treats and single-mother meals. I took shaky breaths and peered around, trying to buy time until I loosened up. “I see you still have lights and power, huh.”

  His expression didn’t change. “This is Head Office.” He pronounced it with the capitals. He said it like it was an answer. When I stared back at him blankly for long enough, he clarified: “We always have lights and power.”

  “No one else does.”

  “No one else are us.”

  That was true. And obvious. I drummed my fingers on the countertop nervously and then folded them when his eyes flicked down ever so briefly. Just use my words, huh. That’s all it would take, would it? “I want to apologize.”

  His gaze snapped back to mine like I was a cricket in front of a chameleon.

  It took an immense amount of willpower not to fidget or make excuses. “I didn’t pay an extra fare to come back after I left the fare-paid area. And I… gave a collector the finger.”

  Something akin to softening in his features. Now he was simply annoyed, rather than contemptuous.

  “I went outside to make a phone call. And then re
alized I’d lost my wallet back by the buses. Metropass too.”

  “There are pay phones inside the fare-paid zones,” he answered, testily.

  “There were, but they were out of order, and the other ones had this really long wait…” I studied the ceiling. Definitely water damage. Burst pipe recently, perhaps. Unless they’d flooded? “So I am sorry. It was a mistake. I should have explained the situation to someone. I found my wallet, by the way. It was in the trash. Someone emptied it out.”

  He nodded. That’s a thing that happens to lost wallets.

  “Just out of curiosity, what would you have preferred I do in that situation?” I asked carefully, casually.

  The business man looked thoughtful, then said: “I am sure if you’d explained the situation that the fare-collector would have been able to help you retrieve your wallet and pass.”

  Most fare-collectors that I’d ever encountered were, at best, bored out of their skulls and certainly not paid enough to care. And let’s not forget that Scarborough Town Centre Station was a confusing sea of people asking questions and demanding attention. But sure. Let’s grovel a bit if that’s what it will take. “Of course. I should have asked for assistance in finding my wallet.” From the trash can. “I shall absolutely do that in the future. And again, I am sorry for jumping the turnstile.” It was like pulling nails. But if this was the only way to get home…

  No. You know what? Screw it. “While we’re on the subject of asking for assistance—I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but when I tried to explain the situation to your employee, he was insulting—” I laid both hands flat on the counter, “—and then got physical with me.”

  The reward for speaking up was to watch the businessman’s eyebrows shoot into the stratosphere. Keeping my voice measured and calm, I continued: “He used some… inappropriate language, and threatened me with violence.”

  There were several blinks. Point to Mallory.

  “But this was after you re-entered the fare-paid zone⁠—”

  “It is. Does that excuse it?” I smiled. “I would also like to say, in my defence, that I’d already paid the fare when I got on the bus that took me to the station. So you’re not even out any money. Because I had a metropass. That was already paid for.”

  He scowled. Good. Had him on the ropes.

  “It’s been a long day, for everyone, especially the fine people at the TTC, getting everyone where they need to go with no power and low gas. I just want to get home myself. As I am positive you do too. So what do I need to do to make the embargo end?”

  He glared at me for a moment, then stepped sideways and out of view. I tried to crane around the corner of the cut-out but the counter was too deep. So instead I drummed my ragged fingernails on the countertop.

  Businessman reappeared. He slid a piece of paper over to me and handed me a pen. Across the sheet were block capitals in Times New Roman.

  SPECIAL REQUEST REPLACEMENT METROPASS FORM

  Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.

  * * *

  I filled out the form as best as I could without being able to look up the details and owing to the fact that it was the middle of the night and I was exhausted. The important things I figured were my address and phone number; I fibbed the rest of the details.

  Once I handed the form in, he looked at it and then nodded. He reached below the counter and handed me a temporary metropass, just some official looking card stock, stamped with both the TTC logo and the weird, stylized W from his tie pin.

  So that was it. I stared at the card. All that struggle and hassle just because I took a short-cut. What a fucking nightmare. I looked up from the card to the stern, impatient businessman. “Is that it?”

  “That’s your card, yes. Your official replacement will arrive in about a week.”

  “No, I mean… the other thing. Is it cancelled?”

  He frowned. “I’m sorry?”

  I dropped my voice low. “The… you know. The ‘embargo’.”

  “Oh, that.” He waved a hand dismissively. “That was cancelled as soon as you apologized. Head Office is very forgiving, if you simply take the time to come in. That’s all we ask. Just the courtesy of showing up and apologizing.”

  I have never wanted to strangle anyone so much in my entire life. Instead I forced the murder down and struggled to smile. “Ah, is that all it takes.” Just some simple fucking courtesy, is it? Otherwise we’ll hound you to the ends of the fucking Earth or even Mississauga, whichever comes fucking first.

  He stood there, waiting.

  “Thank you,” I said, rubbing a hand over my face. He turned to disappear back into Head Office; I was done. I could go home. Daniel Gabriel’s parting words drifted like lazy-blown smoke rings. “Wait!”

  He stopped, expectant.

  Feeling every moment of the last few hours like a weight on my shoulders, I asked: “May I use your phone to call a cab, please?”

  * * *

  I rested my head against the cold glass of the window. The occasional headlights of a car going east would drift across my face, but there were few of those, far fewer than even the time of night might lead me to expect.

  The time glowed LCD-blue-green in the darkened interior of the taxi, on the edge of my peripheral vision. 3:58 a.m.

  3:59.

  I stared out the window into the featureless night, clutching my shoe in my lap. Nestled in it was a dead Nokia and a special-request metropass. Dylan would be asleep; I’d have to wake him up since I had no keys. They were in my purse in the presentation case, in some other taxi, in some other world.

  This cab was like an airport limo: a Lincoln town car, spotless on the inside, smelling faintly of cleaning solution and (even more faintly) of lavender. The driver wore gloves; I couldn’t see his face. I didn’t want to.

  I hadn’t booked the ride, Head Office had done that for me without a word of complaint, giving me a chit to fill out at the end. Then up an ordinary staircase, lit with ordinary fluorescent lights. I had stepped out onto Bloor with the leaves rustling above me, the night breeze smelling of crushed greenery and that edge of sewage that Toronto always gains in the summer, the merest reminder that we live in a swamp. But at that moment, as the limo pulled up, it almost smelled sweet. It was real, and I was going home.

  * * *

  We pulled up outside the health-food store, and gloved hands handed me a pen. I scribbled the details and noted the time—4:11 a.m.—and then signed it, handing it back. “Thank you, miss,” a low, gravelly voice said as the door opened to the sidewalk. “Have a good rest of the night.”

  “You too,” I replied as I carefully tucked the receipt into the toe of my shoe, still not sure why Head Office comped me this ride. Remorse, perhaps? I stepped out and carefully closed the door. The car pulled away, red lights disappearing. I didn’t mind the gravelly curb under my bare feet. I was so bone tired that I would have walked over glass to get into my bed.

  Well, maybe not glass. Maybe dog poop.

  Laughter drifted, faintly, its direction unknowable besides “up”. All these stores had apartments above, some two or three storeys of them, all with billowing curtains. Dylan’s window still had a candle burning on the sill. A faint glow. That was reckless of him, to go to sleep with a candle still burning—unless—my heart caught in my throat and tears burned at my eyes. He’d waited up for me! He was worried. He’d be awake, maybe I could take a shower, and then he’d be relieved, I could tell him about the day I’d had, the journey I’d taken, the ridiculous sights I’d seen, the things I’d done. He’d understand. Of course he would, he was a caring and understanding person and I’d been wrong to ever doubt him—

  The laughter came again, and I knew it was his laughter, from his window.

  But it wasn’t just his.

  He wasn’t alone.

  18.

  Dylan

  The party moves into the living room as the mosquitoes get to be too much. There’s a lot of laughter over prying up melted
candles to bring them inside. The beers are gone, the lamb devoured. The apartment windows keep the apartment from being too hot, but it’s still warm, and the couch and chairs are soft and the night long.

  One by one people drift home, thanking you for the food and hospitality, offering to do dishes too late, offering to host the next one, promising to keep checks on each other if the blackout continues. It’s odd that it takes a minor crisis to learn your neighbours’ names.

  And then there are just the two of you.

  A moth bumps against the screen of the window, desperate to get in and reach the candle flame burning only inches away. You wonder how moths survived if they are that stupid as to be suicidal. But then, candles were not a thing evolution worried much about.

  Camila is curled up on the couch across from you. She seems tired, but reluctant to leave. You are tired but you don’t want to be rude and kick her out. You’re hoping she falls asleep so that you can just drape a blanket over her and call it a night without having the conversation that’s lurking in the flickering shadows.

  “What a day,” you say, for lack of anything else, hoping she’ll get the hint.

  But she just nods and stretches, long limbs, very lean and tanned, and you have to look away because otherwise is to invite The Conversation into the foreground. “I’m sorry Mallory didn’t make it back in time for your delicious dinner,” she says, in Spanish, yawning. “I’m sure she would have enjoyed it, if she’d known.” Each word reinforces the fact that you know that Mallory did know and didn’t come home anyway.

  “I’m sure she’s okay,” you reply. It never really occurred to you that Mallory might be anything other than okay, because what Mallory does—and this is what you really admire about her, for all that she’s a smart-ass sometimes—is land on her feet like a cat. With that realization, doubts dispel that she’s anywhere other than somewhere she’s chosen to be for the night. It hurts a little. And with that twinge of heartache, The Conversation scoots a little closer to be said.