Some Great Thing (32 page)

I know this guy bores you but I thought he was as exciting as New York. He was a regular freak, this guy, his feet solidly on the ground but his head in a place I never knew.

I threw my soul into that development right then.

And on he jabbered like a Jesus to me. I was so taken that I didn’t notice for a while that there were two strangers about fifty feet away from us, dressed in suits and looking out at the land.

“Who are they?” I says to my Jesus and he says, “Beats me.”

And we talk in a guarded way and then decide to leave.

I tried to get close to them to overhear what they were saying but when I got near, one of them said:

“Isn’t it a glorious day?”

And I felt like it was a warning to stay away.

W
HAT A GODDAMN
I
DIOT
, with an I as tall as me.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

A reverse birth, my friend, counting up to disappearance.

No Espolito feeling this time, just a vat of plastic wood that I forgot in my garage. That’s all that brought me home.

Kathleen’s getting feisty these days, maybe a little frisky, I thought, so maybe when I’m getting the plastic wood I might pop my head inside the house and see if we can’t be a man and a woman for a minute.

I go in through the garage, through the laundry-room door, planning on hanging a right to go up to her room.

But there she is, face down on the family-room floor, a normally spinning chair tipped over on its side lying stiller than it was born for.

No Edgar this time, just Kathleen on her own looking small and bent, blood in her mouth again.

Panic? Tears? Ambulance?! Call an ambulance?! Check her pulse?

Nope.

I did what your standard lunatic does. I got a bit shaky and went to the kitchen for a tall glass of milk. Nice and cold, coating that taste in my mouth.

“H
ELLO, SIMON, IT
’
S
P
AUL
Overington calling.”

“Paul! Good of you to call. You got my letters then.”

“Yes. What is it you wanted to propose to me?”

“I think you will like it. Quite a boon for your research, I should think. Are you well?”

“I am well.”

“Shall I take you to lunch?”

“If that’s necessary.”

“You engineers, eh? Keen sense of what is necessary. Do you call yourself an engineer or a scientist?”

“Either.”

“Do you know what a chicken finger is?”

“I think so.”

“Meet me for lunch at this place I know and we will have chicken fingers with the house plum sauce and a side of fries. What could be nicer? Strictly business. And then we can go on a little field trip. I would like to show you some land.”

“S
IMON STRUTHERS
.”

“Simon?”

“Speaking.”

“It’s Kwyet.”

“Kwyet!”

“Hi.”

“Hi! How … everything … really? A voice from the past. How are you?”

“Good.”

“Great. Is everything all right? I don’t suppose I have done something wrong.”

“…”

“Kwyet?”

“Guilty conscience?”

“Naturally.”

“No, I was just calling to say hi.”

“Are you in town?”

“No, I’m in Montreal.”

“How is the studying?”

“Good. I could still use some help. Final year coming up.”

“I would be happy to … if, if that’s what you mean … absolutely.”

“…”

“Kwyet?”

“I’m here.”

“Yes, well, everything here is going well, certainly. Something important in the works. Quite important.”

“Good.”

“Yes. And how is your mother?”

“Do you remember that I invited you to Montreal a long time ago?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Would you still like to come?”

“Of course!”

“How about four weekends from now? The twentieth. Are you free?”

“Yes!”

“Good.”

“Good! Will you … Can I get your address?”

“…”

“Kwyet?”

P
AUL OVERINGTON, AN
E
NGLISHMAN
with English teeth, was overwhelmed by Simon’s idea.

“A wind tunnel.”

An awestruck, grateful tone—not one of bland incredulity. Simon’s investigations had told him that the National Research Council had been yearning for a wind tunnel, a huge testing site for aeronautical, military, civic purposes.

“Not just a run-of-the-mill wind tunnel, Paul.”

“Really?”

“It is up to you.”

They had always pursued the wrong channels. Meanwhile Simon found “wind tunnel” in the Dreambook, buried, with one small “!” penciled next to it.

“Are you interested?”

Overwhelmed. It took him a moment to trust Simon, but he was eventually overwhelmed.

A scientist’s enthusiasm, once underway, can be messy. “We have wanted a wind tunnel for years! Years!”

They had the funding, he said. They had sophisticated plans, but everything had stalled. An adequate site.

“Something huge, frankly, is what we need, Simon.”

“Perfect.”

“I don’t think you understand. Huge.”

“Fine.”

“Do you know much about wind tunnels, Simon?”

“A little.”

“Let me tell you more.”

I
T WAS ALMOST LIKE
a familiar chore, picking her up and taking her to the hospital.

“She is a very sick lady, Mr. McGuinty.”

She bit a piece of her tongue off this time, broke one of the same ribs.

“She is out of her concussion. Was she drinking?”

“I didn’t see that.”

“She is a very sick lady, Mr. McGuinty.”

“I didn’t see that.”

One interesting thing about a diseased liver, I learned, is that you bleed a lot. Your blood doesn’t clot so well. I thought about the golf-course architect. Maybe he knew some sort of aquatic plant.

Doctors may not be decent people, but they do interesting things, sure, sometimes. The body. There’s a game. There’s a project. I couldn’t do it, though. Too close to home.

“She will have to be admitted for a long time, Mr. McGuinty. She won’t be any better tonight. You should go home.”

H
OME, YES
. I
T HAD
been hours. I hadn’t done any work either. And there was Jerry to consider. I had found Kathleen at around ten in the morning. There had seemed to be no point then in getting Jerry from school. He would probably go to work after school, come home late. I could tell him then, at night, what had happened.

What would I say? I don’t even know what happened. Did she just fall out of the chair? Who made her liver sick?

On my way home I thought of looking for Jerry, picking him up from the office or one of the sites, but then I figured he would
just get worried—I’d make it seem more serious than it was. He wouldn’t want to hear about that happening to his mummy. What did happen to her?

I got home and sat in one of the other spinning chairs. The tipped-over chair was near the bookshelf—not where it normally was. I went over and picked it up, straightened it out.

Mummy’s sick again, big guy. That’s all I needed to say. He was growing up, voice changing, but he didn’t need to know everything.

What was she doing with that chair?

I saw an ashtray on the floor that I hadn’t noticed. It usually lived on the bookshelf. I picked it up and put it back on the shelf, high up. That’s when I realized she must have been standing on the chair to get something—maybe the ashtray. But she didn’t smoke that much, only on bonfire nights and special occasions.

I pulled the chair over to the shelf out of curiosity and stood up on it. It nearly had me on my face but I hung on to the shelf. Up there behind our books
—Irish Castles, Castles of Ireland
—I saw a bottle of vodka. I guess she was after that and she slipped.

Pretty fuckin goofy, isn’t it? A stash of vodka up there like she was a drunk. Your mummy’s a drunk, big guy.

“S
HE COULD DIE
, M
R
. McGuinty. I have to mention possibilities.”

“Yeah, well, she hit her head and she’s out of her concussion. I don’t think it’s that serious.”

“Sit down, Mr. McGuinty.”

“That’s all right, Mr. Doctor.”

“Cirrhosis of the liver is life-threatening, sir. If she lives she will have a very different life, a very different quality of life.”

“Speak for yourself there, buddy.”

I
DRINK ALCOHOL THESE
days with pleasure, but there’s usually a sorrow that bites my later sips. I don’t know what else to say. Sometimes there’s nothing sweeter.

I drank a good dose of whisky that night, I tell you with little significance. Had a spin on the chairs. I woke up at dawn, still in a chair. I called Jerry’s name.

He must have slipped in while I was asleep. I went up to his room, calling. His door was open, bed was made. He had probably gone out already, the nut.

I went to the hospital.

“It’s quite serious, Mr. McGuinty.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Her esophagus is bleeding and the blood is coagulating abnormally. We have to watch her carefully. There are toxins in her brain.”

“Can I see her?”

“Not yet. Now, you have to listen to me. She is not going to be as you know her. Not for quite some time. Do you know what encephalopathy is?”

Encephalopathy, cirrhosis, coliform bacteria, chthonic, petty economic, berms, woodlots, fescue. All the spiky words and bumps of blood and shifting mud.

“I haven’t got a clue what it means.”

“D
ID LITTLE JERRY TURN
up for work this morning?”

“I didn’t see him. Ask Cooper.”

“Hey, Cooper, you seen Jerry this morning?”

“He wasn’t working with me.”

“Was he in the office?”

“H
I, LADIES
. W
AS
J
ERRY
in the office this morning?”

“I didn’t see him.”

“No, I was here first. I turned the lights on. He never comes in before me. But he’s adorable.”

“Yeah.”

“And he spells OK.”

“H
I, I
’
M LOOKING FOR
my son, Jerry McGuinty. Can you call him from class?”

“Our intercom’s not working these days, but I can get him. Why don’t you come with me? Let’s see what class he’s in here. 9G. Come on with me. Oh, actually. No. All the grade nines are on a field trip today. Science Museum. Do you know where that is?”

“Yeah, that’s all right. Will he come back here later?”

“No. They go home after all-day trips. They like that.”

“C
AN YOU DO ME
a favor, ladies? If Jerry shows up here after school, can you tell him I’m looking for him?”

“H
EY, MARIO, DO ME
a favor. If you see Jerry this aft can you tell him to come home?”

“Yes.”

“And can you tell Cooper the same?”

“B
ASICALLY HER BRAIN WILL
be poisoned. Her liver isn’t filtering toxins from her blood and some are reaching her brain. I don’t know about permanent damage, but she’s going to be delusional for a while. And the withdrawal is going to get to her. How much was she drinking?”

“Not much.”

“This doesn’t happen from a binge. How many a day? Thirty?”

“No way.”

“It would have been near that.”

“Bullshit.”

“She will be feeling serious withdrawal and that itself will make her delusional.”

“O
H. HELLO.
T
HIS IS
Jerry McGuinty calling. Is that Kwyet?”

“This is her mother.”

“I’m looking for my son, actually. Kwyet used to babysit him.”

“Of course, yes. No, Kwyet is in Montreal now. She lives there.”

“Right. I don’t suppose you have seen him. Jerry? Little guy?”

“No. Sorry.”

B
Y MIDNIGHT ON THE
second night there was still no sign of him. I checked all my sites, called everyone. I still didn’t know what to tell him about Kathleen, but, you know, I wanted to see him.

I didn’t feel like a drink that night.

Next morning I did a round of the sites again. At the hospital I decided to call the police.

“My son has gone missing.”

“Where are you calling from, sir?”

“The hospital.”

“Is he hurt?”

“No. He’s missing.”

“In the hospital?”

“
I
am in the hospital. My son is missing.”

“I’m not understanding, sir. Did your son hurt you?”

I went to the police station myself. I wasn’t seeing Kathleen at the hospital anyway—I always chose the wrong time to see her and got stuck with that doctor.

“I want to find my son,” I said when I got to the police station. “He hasn’t come home for a couple of days.”

I had forgotten that policemen are as stupid as professional movers.

“Can I have your name please, sir?”

“Jerry McGuinty.”

“How long has your son been missing?”

“I just told you.”

“Don’t get scrappy please, sir. What is your son’s name?”

“Jerry McGuinty.”

“Your
son’s
name, sir.”

I
WOULD FIND HIM
. Nothing serious. I half suspected we were just missing each other—you know, ships in the night. He was coming home when I was at the hospital, and he was going to the hospital when I was coming home. I left him notes, see: “I’m at the hospital, buddy”; and I left a map, cab fare, whatnot.

“E
DGAR
.”

“Hey, Jer.”

“You seen Jerry?”

“You all right?”

“Yeah. No.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Kath’s in hospital.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Ah, you know. You seen Jerry?”

“Not since yesterday.”

“You saw him yesterday?”

“What’s wrong with Kathleen?”

“Where did you see him?”

“I don’t know. Yeah, I saw him near your place. Maybe it wasn’t yesterday. No, it was. What’s wrong with Kathleen?”

“She fell. Are you sure it was yesterday? I haven’t seen him for a couple of days.”

“Is everything all right?”