Ghosted (9 page)

It had only been one night but a lot had happened in that empty room. By morning the thought of Warren meant something different. All his thoughts, in fact, had shifted.

After a small breakfast, a nurse named Danny had sat down and talked to him. They would let him leave, he said, as long as he booked an assessment and follow-up. “Usually you have to wait a few weeks, but we can get you in sooner.”

“Great,” said Mason.

They’d written down some information, given him some more pamphlets, then let him use the phone to call Chaz. It all seemed like a lot of trouble just to get back into his own apartment—but now, finally, he was home again.

His new outfit smelled like someone else. He took off the clothes, folded them—along with the Ms. Pac-Man beach towel—and put on some of his own. He walked to the centre of the room and sat down on the floor, trying to cross his legs lotusstyle, closing his eyes. After a few minutes he got up, poured a glass of whisky and drank it down. Then he yelled, for no reason at all. It shocked the hell out of him. In the front window’s reflection he saw the surprise on his own face, and he started to laugh.

Mason was quietly stunned by his inability to run a business even as simple as this one. It had got to the point where he was dragging his fibreglass fedora to the Matt Cohen Parkette barely in time for lunch, then packing it up when he got itchy or hit the sweats—usually between 3 and 4 p.m. He was making barely enough to
cover his costs. Fortunately, Fishy didn’t come around much since the fuzz had been there.

Some days he didn’t work at all. He slept and slept. Waited until the weight of his body ached against the mattress so much that he had to stand up. He drank several glasses of water, pulled back the curtains. Let the light shine in. He looked at the day and felt like he might throw up. He got dressed and went for a walk. There was a small park in the middle of Kensington Market that reminded him of Richard Scarry’s Busytown—every kind of folk doing every kind of thing—mohawked punks playing guitar, old Chinese women doing tai chi, a man on a unicycle being chased by small children, a circle of fishmongers smoking from a hookah, painters with their easels and watercolours, young Wiccans with their sticks and stones, people writing in notebooks, readers reading, singers singing, dealers dealing, drummers drumming, drinkers drinking—all together in the same small frame.

There was a statue of Al Waxman there, and Mason sat beside it on a bench, staring at the birds as they pecked in the grass. He found a newspaper box that suited him, and then a diner or restaurant, ordered a coffee, then another, something to eat. He lingered over the most disturbing newspaper articles, reading some of them twice. He finished his meal, left the newspaper and a ten-dollar tip, and walked back towards his apartment.

He stopped at the liquor store, then the Lucky Save to get some poppers—amyl nitrite disguised as an ancient Chinese remedy. Most of the convenience stores in Chinatown had them—little brown vials beside the cash register:
impulse purchases
. Mason, impulsively, bought a half-dozen. Then he dialled Chaz’s number.

While he waited, Mason tried to think.

He knew how to win. It was all about the Warrior Monk. The Warrior Monk won because he didn’t care. He was careful, carefree and ruthless. His head was always in the zone. Sometimes Mason felt like that before he played—that perfect mix of clarity and confidence and then the cards were like quick love notes passed into your hands. You could fight demons or bullets with hands like those. That was how you won.

But poker is a cruel game, most of it played before the cards are even dealt. The more you care, the more you lose. The more you lose, the more you need to win, the more you care, the more you lose. That is called being
on tilt
and it is a vicious cycle—the opposite of Zen. Mason had been on tilt for a while now.

The only way to break the cycle was to not care. But no matter how he tried he just couldn’t trick himself into it. He owed so much damn money….
A Warrior Monk wouldn’t care about such things
. But a monk didn’t have to worry about the rent. A monk didn’t have to worry about his drug habit and how much all this booze cost, and keeping the condiments fresh.

Mason did a line, then cracked open a popper and inhaled deeply. The coke and nitro mix sent shivers through his brain stem. The rush was intense, and for a moment he felt something more than Zen. He felt kingly. Godlike. Powerful.

And then Chaz arrived.

After a while, Mason was losing. He’d bought back in twice for a thousand dollars. Chaz had humped his chair as he counted it out and now he was composing an opera. Its main theme involved Mason’s lack of prowess—mostly in the ways of courtship,
lovemaking, rational thought and Texas hold’ em. Right now his aria went something like: “Why
is he so bad? Tell me tell me tell me, why so bad, at ev-ry-thiiiiiing?”
Chaz had a mountain of chips.

There was two hundred dollars in the pot and the flop was yet to be dealt. Mason had an eight and an ace. They both checked.

Mason dealt it: eight, eight, two.

He checked. Chaz bet eight hundred.

Mason sat there. His measly hand had become a great one. Three eights would kill just about anything. So he pretended to think, as Chaz worked on his opus—alternate tenors building:
“The sad man thinks (watch him think watch him think watch him think) nothing to do (to do to to do) but go all in or fold! Already lost three thousand toniiiiight (he should fold he should fold he should fold) … But no! His stupid heart—his hotdog cart! He’ll lose it all—never get laid again (he should go all-in, go all-in, go all—iiiiiiiiiiiiin) …!”

“All-in,” said Mason.

The sudden quiet had nothing to do with the calculating of odds, but with Chaz trying to figure out a suitable operatic bridge. Mason was feeling good. He was about to win—big time, as long as Chaz went in. Sure he’d still be down, but his losing streak was over, and he could work from that blessed, fragile point.

“Another tragic mistake! The hotdog hack has done it again, done it again, done it again …”

Chaz was trying to get a read on Mason who stared steadily back at him until finally Chaz ended on a lame, ill-thought note—“
He’s blown his load
!”—and pushed his chips all-in.

Mason turned his cards, for three eights. Chaz flipped a jack and ace, for nothing. “Flippin’ deal ’em out,” he said.

There wasn’t a straight or a flush to be had. “What happened to all the singing?” said Mason, then turned up a jack.

Chaz pointed his finger at Mason.
“One more jack and you’re my bitch (my bitch my bitch my biiiiitch). How lucky, it iiiis, that I alreeeeady-like-you.”

Mason laughed, because the final crescendo was better than he’d expected—and also there was no way they’d hit another jack. The odds were astronomical: like finding God in a bowl of Shanghai noodles.

“Eat it up,” said Mason, and flipped a jack.

Neither of them moved or breathed a word.

Chaz had left with all the money. The Warrior Monk was dead.

Mason couldn’t trick himself into not caring. Just two weeks and he’d lost every dollar of Warren’s five grand. All that blood money. He could have paid off Chaz, worked less on hotdogs, more on his novel. It made him furious. The only way to ever win was having enough to lose.

That’s how Chaz did it. It bugged him how much money Chaz made. And the fact that Chaz didn’t snort the stuff himself made it even lousier. Mason had vowed he’d never become a dealer but he’d broken a lot of other vows—that’s what happened if you went around vowing haphazardly like a carefree, careless monk. So what had he become instead?

A vagrant. A cokehead. A drunk
.

A guy who sells hotdogs
.

A lousy gambler. A hack
.

Yeah, that’s
way
better
.

As he had another drink, as he did another line, as he shuffled the cards, Mason’s anger grew. It had been expanding slowly since his night in that empty room. But now it grew in spades, and as it did its focus shifted from Mason, to his predicament, to the late
Warren Shanter. It rose up and set upon the dead man like a dog who’d been kicked in the head.

He screwed you over
.

He lied to you
.
He took advantage of your kindness—your desire to help people. And he turned you into a chump
.

A love letter, for Christ’s sake! You
are
a chump
.

And Warren knew it
.

He used you. He bought and sold you. The money’s all gone and so is he, and now you’re going to hell
.

What else is new?

So what are you going to do about it?

The anger snarled around him. The wind was blowing outside, banging against the windows. Across the street the MHAD billboard turned. A drink, a line, a shuffle. The wind, the snarling, the pieces turning …

Then—
click
—the image snapped into place.

And suddenly he could see it: his very own billboard.

He put down the cards and walked to the desk. The sun was rising. A car alarm went off. Mason looked out the window. The man with the invisible kite was there, his arm tugging at nothing. Mason sat down and began to type.

INTRODUCING:

Sissy, the Doc again,

the Cave and the QT Room

“You can call me Sissy.”

“Is that your name?”

She glanced around as if checking for spies in the fluorescence. There was a Harvey’s burger joint in the building next to where Mason lived and he loathed going in, though sometimes he had to—for morning grease salvation. But this one was possibly the worst Harvey’s in existence. Those in the know called it Ho-vee’s. Those in the know were hookers, johns, junkies, dealers, cops and a few purgatorial employees.

“My dad named me Circe. Like from
The Odyssey
…”

Mason hoped she hadn’t noticed him wince. He couldn’t picture a less Circe-like woman. There wasn’t a tempting thing about her.

“I guess he thought it was funny or something.” She took a small sip from her little peel-back cup of apple juice. “He’s a poet.”

“I don’t much like poetry.”

“Then you’d hate my father. He’s actually kind of famous…. You know what the kids in school used to call me?”

Mason waited, hoping he wouldn’t have to say
What?
He took a sip of his milkshake and swallowed. “What?”

“Circle,” she said, eyes levelled, as if daring him to laugh. She was the roundest person he’d ever met. “Just call me Sissy, okay?”

“You got it.”

It had been over a week since he’d discovered the website—TheWayOut.Com. The home page read:
A forum for those with final thoughts
.