Ghosted (30 page)

“Okay,” says Willy. And her smile comes back, full of life and thirst.

Mason unscrews the cap. He takes a whiff. It is mixed with juice, so they can’t inject it, and the smell surprises him.

“Sports Day,” he says.

“What?”

“It’s that weird juice they used to have at McDonald’s, and on Sports Day, too. Remember?”

“I wasn’t big on Sports Day.”

“But you had the juice, right? Here, try some …” He holds it to her lips, tilting the bottle carefully. She sips, and sips, then drinks it down. He wipes her lips, and kisses her.

“Sports Day!” says Willy.

“I hated it, too,” says Mason, then wishes he hadn’t. There is no way the potato sack race was as tiresome for him as for ten-year-old Willy, watching from her wheelchair—nothing to do but suck weird orange juice from a straw, the science teacher holding a Fudgsicle for her to lick, her chin streaked brown and orange while the other kids yelped and shrieked.

“Fuck it,” says Willy. “We got the juice!”

    
63. My hands can do things without me knowing.

64. There is nothing that can’t be broken.

The next day there is no lunch. Not even a Gatorade.

They wait until after one p.m. Then Mason begins to get dressed.

Willy looks scared. “What if something happened?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. What if you don’t come back?”

“I’m coming back,” he says.

“But what if you don’t? How do I even get out of here?”

“The left one gets you out,” he says, pointing at her hands, trying to make it sound funny.

“That’s fucking great!” says Willy. “My only way out is a hand I can’t move!”

“You can lift it with your right,” says Mason then stops, and kisses her. “I’ll be right back. I promise.”

Mason emerged from the Cave, into the blinding light. He inhaled deeply, holding the air in his lungs, taking a step as he let it out. The man with the invisible kite was on the far median, where the southbound streetcar stopped, keeping tension on the invisible string.

Mason walked to the corner. The world was unbelievable and finally real. The air was cool, the sun shining. The traffic made him feel like he was inside something enormous. He held himself together, breathed, and waited for the light to change.

When he’d crossed Spadina, his body and soul wanted to keep
on walking, down the street, through the neighbourhood, just to take a walk—but he thought of Willy and turned into MHAD, through the sliding doors.

He took the elevator to the sixth floor. The waiting room was empty, the door open.

“He has arisen,” said the doctor, as Mason walked into her office.

He looked at her. “Why did you do that?” he said.

“I figured you needed some air.”

He held her gaze.

“I needed to get your attention,” she said.

“What about Willy?”

“She’ll be good on the methadone.” She motioned for him to sit down. “I think it’s the best thing for her.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“What exactly?” Dr. Francis leaned forward. “Risking my job just to get you straight?”

Mason took a seat.

“I need you better,” she said. “To help me fix the mess you’ve made.”

“Which one?”

There was a file on her desk. She opened it. “Setya Kateva.”

“Excuse me?”

“Seth. That’s his real name. It’s Finnish.”

“So that’s it?” said Mason. “He’s a self-hating Finn.”

“I wouldn’t say he’s a self-hating anything, not without progesterone.” She looked at Mason. “We’ve got to get him back. And soon.”

Mason saw Soon dropping beneath the railing, that bird swooping into frame. He shook it off. “He’s still out there?” he said. “Isn’t it time to call the cops?”

She closed the file. “He wouldn’t be out there if you hadn’t attacked him. Just him being in that bar was a breach of his …”

“Hey!” said Mason “It was
you
he was trying to blackmail. And he threatened Willy’s life!”

The doctor sat back in her chair. “All right,” she said. “But is that really why you attacked him?”

“Would you stop being a fucking shrink?” He stood back up and paced behind his chair. “What difference does it make? If he breached his parole then the cops should be on him already, right?”

Dr. Francis shook her head. “Parole officers are swamped. They use doctors like me as a defacto check-in.”

“What about Sudden Street?”

She flicked her hand through the air. “Told them Seth missed an appointment, so I called it in. And seeing as he hadn’t come home, I’d call the cops again. Save ’em some work: APB and everything.”

“But that’s not what you did …”

The doctor shook her head.

“So he’s running but no one’s chasing him!”

“Pretty much.”

“What the hell are you doing?”

“There’s something I should tell you, Mason.”

“There’s a
lot
that you should tell me.”

She looked at him straight and took a breath. “Seth knows everything about you. He has your file and he has your notebook…. He has your confession, Mason.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“He broke into my office.”

Mason steadied his gaze. He tried to steady his breathing.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I don’t care what he’s got on me. The guy should be locked up.”

“Even if you get locked up, too?”

Mason shrugged.

The doctor shook her head. “Jail’s too good for Seth.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Dr. Francis leaned forward. “We’ll do this ourselves.” She pointed a finger at Mason. “He’s got something of yours. You’ve got something of his.”

“His stupid fucking notebook?”

The doctor nodded. “It’s up to us. We can take him down.”

Mason sat in the chair again. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

“There’s a
lot
that I’m not telling you.” She looked him in the eye. “Do you want redemption or not?”

“I’ll think about it,” said Mason, and put his hand on the desk. “Now give me the goddamn juice.”

It felt like someone else’s apartment, or like he’d lived there in another life. There were wisps of cocaine on the table and the room still smelled of whisky. His bed remained unmade.

He sat down and turned on the computer. There was an email from Seth—and only now did he notice the
To:
line. He’d been too high, or too something to see it.

Truth be told, he’d been expecting something creepier. He clicked Reply.

The phone rang. He hit Send, walked over and picked it up.

“What are you doing?” It was Dr. Francis. “He knows where you live.”

“You’re the one who’s watching me.” He hung up the phone. Then he took the ad off that website, killed his other account, packed up his laptop and left.

“That doctor is crazy,” said Mason, as Willy drank down the methadone.

“We’re all crazy. It means that we’re alive.”

Mason took the cup. “I’ll go out soon and get us some food.”

She lay back down. “Are you going to be out all the time now?”

“Not all the time.”

“Is something wrong?” She turned her head to look at him. “You seem like something’s wrong.”

“I have to tell you something, Willy.”

She nodded. And he told her everything: about Warren and Sissy and Soon—about Warren, Zevon and Sarah—and then about Seth Handyman.

When he finished, she let out a sigh, but her eyes were shining bright. “Are you going to beat him?” she said.

“I’m not sure how to do it.”

“Well
get
sure,” she said. “Get sure, get better and beat him. Live happily ever after.”

“Aren’t you even scared?”

“Not for you,” said Willy. “Just don’t forget I’m down here. I hate it when you’re gone.”

Not being high made him high. He knew one day that would end, and then the normalcy might crush him. But right now he felt pretty damn good. The strength and clarity was intense. He went for walks and then his walks turned into runs—a limping-run, because of his ankle. He knew it was a manic thing to do, but his lungs and heart just felt so strong.

He focused his energy on Willy, massaging her curves and straightaways. And he read to her:
Papillon, The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, The Moon and Sixpence
—bits of each until his throat was raw, and they listened to “Fire Lake.” They fought each other’s cravings—that’s how they tried to do it. As one of them got triggered (and it was hard not to, in this cave within the Cave), the other took on the struggle, howling and swearing until they set in to each other again. His libido had returned with a vengeance.

For most of Mason’s life it had been overwhelming—a driving hunger for love and sex—a thirst that could feel like a curse. He’d been trumped by girlfriends, affairs, romances and ravages, flesh upon flesh. But eventually he’d overwhelmed it—with a new kind of thirst: a stronger, bloodless one—for ash and powder and pure adrenaline. And then he was dry as a bone, nothing but hunger, words and dust. He’d still had sex, but more as a measure of time while waiting for the drugs to come, the curse of lust a distant memory.

But now it was back: love for love, sex for sex. And it felt like a fucking blessing. They gave it their all and overdid it—chewing up the cave, whipping and gasping and screwing themselves blind until, finally, sweating and bug-eyed, their craving was a beautiful farce. They lay there exhausted, and Mason lost feeling in half his
body. But he didn’t tell Willy that—just curled himself into her, singing them both to sleep.

“I can give you something to help stabilize your mood,” said Dr. Francis.

“Do I want that?”

“It might help with the cravings.”

He looked at her. She’d changed her tack. “Why are you being so nice?”

The doctor stood up. “Tell me, Mason—do you think you understood?”

“Understood what?”

“That suicide business of yours.” She walked to the window. “Why they’d do it?
If
they’d do it? Who they actually were? Either you thought you understood—that you could relate and empathize—or else you didn’t care. It’s one or the other.”

“I don’t know.

“That’s a lame answer. Come here.”

Mason got up and stood next to her.

“See that girl there, the Asian girl with green shoes …?” She was pointing down into the street. “She’s one of my patients. I adore her. She always flirts with me…. She’s got this thing where she swallows razor blades.”