Monday Night Man (7 page)

Skinny feels like he's on stage as he gives her his last quarters.

She wipes sweat from her forehead. “Another vodka, Dad.”

“I think you've had enough.”

Her eyes hit Skinny like hammers. Skinny turns. The entire bar is watching. “Another vodka and lime.”

“A double,” Marie corrects him.

“A double.”

Mrs Livver comes over. She leans on her canes, daughters Flo and Maggie at each elbow, and Kate behind, in case she tips over backward. “Haven't innerduced us here, Skinny.”

Skinny introduces them.

Marie, still in Shack's lap, extends her hand as if to be kissed.

Mrs Livver looks her over. “Take after your mother, do you.”

Marie looks down at herself, making a show of peeking inside the collar of her blouse at her breasts. “I guess I do, yeah.”

“Never seen you here before.”

“Never seen you here either.”

“I'm here every day,” says Mrs Livver.

“Well, I guess I got better things to do than sit in a rubby bar.”

“Better'n seein' your father?”

Joy brings the double vodka.

Marie drinks back half, then crunches up a piece of ice.

“I see you and your old man got one thing in common.”

Marie stops chewing, gulps back the rest of her double, then stands. Behind her, Shack makes cross-eyes at her bum. “Oh, we got a lot more in common than that.” She speaks in a mock high voice. “Don't we, Daddy?” She wraps her arm around Skinny's shoulders, and, with her free hand, gives his crotch a good firm squeeze right there in front of everyone.

Skinny stands on the sidewalk in front of the Empress looking up. The nine o'clock gun has just gone off. Straight overhead the sky is black as a bruise. A plane passes, lights blinking.

Horst joins Skinny. “Well, you won your bet.”

“I showed her.”

“You did.”

Skinny says, “You ever been in an airplane?”

“Yeah.”

“My daughter's a stewardess. Did I tell you that?”

“No.”

“Well she is.”

IF HORST HAD
a choice, he'd have a daughter rather than a son. He wondered what a female version of himself would look like. It was a scary thought. Even more frightening though is that he'd love her so much he couldn't bear it. What if she looked at him with those child eyes, what if she fell asleep on his chest, what if she cried, or called “Dad” in her sleep? It brought tears to his eyes even to think about it. He'd follow her around with a gun to protect her. And if something did happen, he'd have to kill himself. It would be the only way he could survive.

Kids. Horst envied the absolute confidence of their inexperience. Knowledge isn't power, just like talking things over never helps. Experience means fear. No. Give Horst the bliss of ignorance any day.

THE YOUNG
AND THE
OLD

H
orst broods like an old cod in the weed-choked fish-bowl of Wally's front window. The massive philoden-dron has overgrown the window and ceiling, the whole huge plant trailing back down to one withered stem root-bound in a gallon paint can. Horst stares at it.

“Why don't you repot this bugger?”

Wally Wong swats a fly above Horst's head with a rolled
Racing Form.
The fly joins the other black scabs on the wall. Wally spreads his form on Horst's table and leans on his fists. “Go to the track?”

“Went swimming.”

“Swimming?” Wally snorts and shakes his head.

“They swim in Hong Kong, Wally?”

Wally sucks his teeth. “Only people swim in Hong Kong are fish.”

Horst is too broke to go to the track. He went swimming at Britannia, because Saturday afternoon it's free. Him and five thousand screaming kids. Horst is out of work again, and hasn't slept a full night in weeks; some guy from Toronto moved in upstairs and he snores.

Stewart Gull steps into the cafe and holds the door open for Ray Bunce, who announces that it's time for rice.

“Rice?” Wally stares. “Got no rice. Got veal cutlet. You win?”

Bunce shakes his head. “Took a pounding.”

“You bullshit. Just don't wanna leave tip.”

Gull grins at Bunce's cleverness.

Wally says, “Who win triactor?”

“It was three-two-five,” says Gull.

“Three? Who three?”

Gull shrugs.

Horst slaps the table. “Look at this guy. What the hell good is that? You don't even know the names of the horses!”

Gull stares in stung silence. He's twenty-two, skinny as a bike, and wears a fedora and suit coat, playing like he's some old-time gambler. Gull doesn't even know how to read the
Racing Form,
but he's always hanging around, talking closers and front speed.

Gull bugs Horst. For one thing, Gull's always telling Horst things he already knows. Worse, Gull seems to like Horst.

Boyle Rupp has come in too, but is keeping strangely quiet. He's trying to look dignified, wearing a brown corduroy coat with black patches on the elbows and a white shirt buttoned up to his beard.

Wally fills their cups with coffee as flat-black and bitter as only he can make it. They all order veal cutlets except Rupp.

“Ate at the track.”

Horst knows he's lying. Rupp's blown his last buck, but is embarrassed to admit it. Here's where Horst and Rupp differ. Horst would rather eat than bet; Rupp would rather bet than eat.

Rupp changes the subject. “That guy upstairs still snoring?”

Horst rolls his eyes.

“I'll give you a tip,” says Rupp. “Rob him. Then wipe shit on the walls. He'll leave.”

Horst stares. “Shit?”

“Sure! Would you stay you come home and find shit on your walls?”

“Rupp, where the hell you come up with this stuff?”

“I read a lot.”

“What about sleeping pills?” says Gull.

Horst turns on him. “Christ kid! I get addicted to sleeping pills? I got a right to a decent night's sleep.”

“Okay, okay.”

Rupp pours himself a handful of sugar, slaps it into his mouth, then chases it down with coffee. “So go read him your rights.”

Wally grabs up the sugar dispenser. “This was full!”

Horst says, “Hey Wally. You sleep all right?”

“Sleep fuckin' good. Whisky and three aspirin every night.” Wally heads for the kitchen.

“I hate that fucker,” says Horst.

“Wally?”

“The guy upstairs.”

“You said you never even talked to him.”

“I don't need to talk to him to hate him.”

“You hate everything,” says Rupp, sneaking another mouthful of sugar.

Horst frowns. Does he?

When they finish eating, Wally asks if they want pie.

“Got apple?”

“Raisin.”

They have raisin pie. The crust is pale, cold, and the filling sags out the sides. Rupp steals another mouthful of sugar.

They head to the Alhambra, on Commercial Drive, the SoHo of Vancouver. It's packed. As they wait for a table, Rupp locks his eyes onto a blonde in a black Spanish dress and gold hoop earrings. Rupp looks like a bird dog, staring with the hunger of the starved. If he had a tail, it'd be sticking straight out. The woman's hand goes to her neck, as if something's crawling there. She glances back, spots Rupp, then says something to the guy with her, who looks like he thinks he's James Dean, wearing a singlet, black hair stroked straight back, and short sideburns. Horst nudges Rupp to stop staring, then gazes innocently at the walls. They're done up with all sorts of Spanish artifacts, daggers, brass plates, pictures of sunbaked villages, plus a couple of yellowed restaurant reviews showing the owner, a big-bellied guy with oily hair and a handlebar moustache.

A table finally comes free — except there's only three chairs.

See! thinks Horst. Fuckin' Gull. If Gull wasn't here I'd have a seat! He looks around. Spotting a chair he points, questioningly — but the woman next to it shakes her head and pulls the chair closer. Horst walks across the bar and spots another chair.

“This seat free?”

The kid next to it doesn't answer. He's involved in a very serious draw on his cigarette and is not to be interrupted. He's wearing a Panama hat, as if Vancouver is the tropics.

Horst repeats: “This seat free?”

The kid, all of Gull's age, finally finishes exhaling smoke. He butts his cigarette, sniffs, then, not bothering to turn his head, says: “Nope.”

Horst stares, jaw hard. The kid ignores him. Horst returns to where Bunce and Rupp and Gull are sitting, and stands. First Horst puts his hands in his pockets, then he pulls them out and folds his arms across his chest; he stands on one foot, then the other, and finally ends up shoving his hands back into his pockets again. He tries being at ease, as if — Hey! I'd rather stand, I always stand … And it does give a different perspective. At one table, everyone's wearing black leather and sunglasses — sunglasses in a dark bar. Pale white guys trying to be blind black jazz men. At another table a big black guy is going on in some loud Caribbean accent, like he thinks he's Bob Marley. He's got one of those tea cosies on his head and all his gestures are exaggerated, like he knows he's being watched. And he is. Half the bar is glancing over and listening in. Wow! A real live rasta man right here in Vancouver. The white girl with him eats it all up. She's got her hair done in corn-rows and beads, the whole shot.

Twenty minutes Horst stands, and no one sits in that chair. The kid was lying. So Horst heads over and just takes it.

“Hey man!” The kid grabs at it.

But Horst holds on. The entire bar watches. Even Bob-Marley-the-bullshitter's shut his yap to watch. Horst yanks — the kid comes lunging toward him. Then Horst plants his feet and gives a good shove, letting the chair go, saying — “Take it!”

The kid stumbles backward into a table, chair and all, toppling a pitcher of sangria and half a dozen glasses.

Somebody grabs Horst from behind — the owner — and drives him toward the door, which one of the people waiting obligingly opens.

Horst stands on the sidewalk. It's raining and his coat's inside. Groups of kids in Doc Martens, pig-shaves, and nose rings pass by ignoring him. Gull comes out with Horst's coat.

“I'll give you a ride,” says Gull.

“I'll walk.”

“C'mon!”

“I'm walking,” says Horst, thinking please, don't be nice to me.

“I got something for you.” Gull opens the door of his ‘66 Falcon.

Horst shakes his head. A ‘66 Falcon with a white stripe. Who'd of thought that some day a boat like this'd be cool to drive? Horst knows what Gull's up to here with the car, the clothes, the track. Gull's playing. He's having a good time, too. Horst is exhausted. He wants to sleep. Then he thinks of that Toronto guy upstairs, snoring.

“Here.” Gull thrusts something out the passenger-side window.

Earplugs. Horst stares at them an entire minute before taking them. “I tried earplugs.”

“Not like these.”

Horst takes them and says thanks.

“I'll drive you.”

Suddenly feeling bad for giving Gull shit all night, Horst says, “No. I need a walk.”

When Horst gets home, he moves through his apartment watering his plants, listening to the soft crackling of the soil soaking up the moisture, and smelling the wet dirt. Every shelf, ledge, and corner has plants. Plants. All you have to do is water them. They'll even flower! Horst can't believe it. Sometimes the blind optimism of flowers tortures him.

Upstairs, the guy is snoring. Horst fits the sponge plugs into his ears. They work. He thinks of Gull; he thinks of himself; then he recalls old man Fraser. Old man Fraser was a crabby neighbour who kept rocks on his window ledge and threw them if you yelled too loud, touched his fence, or simply got too close. Horst stands in the middle. of his room with his watering can. “That's me.”

BUNCE WAS OBLIVIOUS
to Gull and ‘66 Falcons. Bunce did not envy or fear the young. Bunce had one wish — that the races ran seven nights a week, fifty-two weeks a year. Bunce had two daughters. He also had an ex-wife and an MA in Philosophy. Spinoza. But Bunce never talked about Spinoza, or his daughters, or his ex-wife. He talked about horses. He talked about track conditions: slop versus mud, the percentage of sand in the surface, mile tracks versus bullrings. He compared speed handicapping with trip handicapping, the effect of Lasix, front wraps, blinkers. He discussed trainers, alcoholic jockeys, grey horses versus black horses, sprints versus routes.

Bunce liked his life.

If anyone mentioned Bunce's ex-wife, he said, simply, “She dumped me.”

“That's ‘cause you're an asshole,” Boyle would add.

And it was true that a lot of people disliked Bunce. For one thing, he took pleasure in causing discomfort. He asked awkward questions, told waitresses the food was a four out of ten, and stared at people with a smug, heavy-eyed gaze that implied he thought they were fools. This had embarrassed and aggravated Star, his ex.

STAR

S
tar stares from the Volvo hating what she sees. Her daughters, Karla and Jill, swinging Bunce's briefcase between them and walking in step across the racetrack parking lot. Star grips the steering wheel until her rings pinch. Star gave Bunce that briefcase. Now he fills it with
Racing Forms.
An hour she's been waiting, hungry, needing to pee, sweat sliding drop-by-drop down her ribs, her skin stuck to the seat, a fly battering itself against the rear window. What'd Bunce do, she thinks, take Karla and Jill out to the stables and introduce them to those low-life alcoholic midgets? Star might miss her Arete meeting because of this. Whatever Bunce did, she's convinced he did on purpose, and this is going down against him in the custody hearing. Responsible men take their daughters to the Museum of Anthropology, Science World, Stanley Park, not the fucking race track.