Taking Stock (2 page)

Gord takes a long drag. “Delicious.” He inhales twice more and holds it out to me.

“I don’t smoke.”

“Suit yourself. Hey, Sam, you still having that dinner tomorrow?”

“Yep. At 6:00.”

“Great. You’re a good cook, Sammy.” Gord gives him the joint and stands up. “I better get going. I want an ounce.”

“Come inside. I’ll be back in a few, Sheldon.”

My beer is gone, and honestly, I’m feeling it. Buzzed as I am, though, I still can’t relax. There’s a tension in my chest that never really goes away—like a spot oxygen can’t reach, no matter how deeply I breathe. Mom used to say I got that from her.

“Sorry about that,” Sam says when he comes out.

“So you’re a drug dealer?”

“Yeah.”

“How’d that happen?”

Sam shrugs. “I have a cousin who’s been growing it since junior high. I turned 26, and I lost my taste for working hard to meet other people’s goals. Quit my job, borrowed some money, and bought a pound of pot from my cousin.”

“I see.”

“Would you like to join us for dinner tomorrow night?”

I try to think of an excuse. “Um.”

“The rest of the guests won’t be like him. Promise.”

I hear a car start, and the crunch of gravel as it pulls out of the driveway.

“Is that him?”

“I guess, yeah.”

“He’s driving stoned? You’re okay with that?”

“It’s not my place to enforce anything.”

“Well, I can’t come to your dinner.”

“Sorry to hear that. Can I ask why?”

“I’ve had my fill of social interaction. I get tired of people pretty fast. Try to avoid them, normally.”

“That hasn’t been going too well for you.”

“People disappoint.”

“Maybe it’s not them.”

“Goodbye.”

“See ya.”

*

I wrote my first story in grade three. It was about a superhero with the power to turn anything into food, just by touching it. Like King Midas, but not really. Mom was ecstatic I’d found my passion. She bought me lots of writing books. She registered me in programs for young writers. She made me practise writing every day. For years, every story I wrote was homework for some course.

She enrolled me in other stuff, too. Piano lessons. Soccer. Figure skating. Rock climbing. Gymnastics. Hockey. I don’t think she had any concept of gender roles. She registered me for little league, but I never played a game. Before the first one started, the coach hit some pop flys for us to catch. Except, one wasn’t a pop fly. One was a line drive that smashed into my face and raised a bump between my eyes the size of an egg. When it hit me, I spun around like a ballerina and landed on all fours. Blood dripped onto the sand. On the way to the hospital, I considered that I would probably die.

Eventually, I quit everything—even writing, though that happened later. Kung Fu, I stayed in for a while. Earned a couple belts. Pushed up, sat up, jumped jacks, ran laps. Once, the instructor called me a mental giant. I wasn’t sure whether he was praising my cerebral fortitude, or calling me tall and retarded.

I wonder what my instructor would have said if he’d seen me sitting around a psych ward, wearing a pair of Velcro Reeboks.

They took away my sneakers around the same time they took my freedom. They didn’t explain it, but I knew why. Laces are problematic.

I had no money, so Sam bought me these Velcro shoes. He also bought me
Crow
, a book of poems by Ted Hughes, after I mentioned it’s something I’ve been meaning to read.

To be honest, I was a little surprised when Sam brought me the sneakers. I hadn’t expected to see him anymore.

*

When I was a kid, I discovered I could play catch with myself by throwing a tennis ball at the sloped roof of our shed. I’d play for hours, never able to anticipate where the ball would go once it bounced off the shingles. The empty lot across the street was always filled with kids throwing balls, but the pressure to catch one thrown by another person was too much. In the backyard there was just me, and my determination to get better. We only stayed in that apartment one summer, and in later years I missed the shed.

That sounds like a sad story, but telling it to Sam, I can only laugh.

Sam scratches his chin. “Within this anecdote may lie the true reason you’re not attending my dinner party tonight. Tell me. Did you throw with your right hand, or your left?”

“My right. I’m right-handed.”

“Oh. Never mind, then.”

“Why? What does that have to do with anything?”

“I’m thinking of a study I was reading about the other day. They found that left-handed people are more likely to experience feelings of apprehension and self-doubt when faced with new situations. For lefties, the right hemisphere of the brain is dominant, and apparently that’s the half responsible for most negative emotions.”

“Well, I was born left-handed, but Mom kept switching stuff to my right hand when I was a baby. She didn’t want me to be a leftie in a world built for right-handed people.”

Sam whistles. “Goodness.”

“I have a right-handed body and a left-handed brain.”

“You’re screwed up.”

“I don’t even know which side of my brain I’m supposed to be using!”

“I guess that’s your answer, then. That’s what’s wrong with you. I understand now why you declined my dinner invitation. You have things you need to sort out.”

“No. I defy my biology. I’ll come.”

Sam grins.

“But don’t tell anyone I was in a psych ward, okay?”

His grin fades a little. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“It shouldn’t be. But it is.”

In attendance at the dinner are Sam, a bunch of other middle-aged people, and me. A few of them glance at me askance, but nobody reacts like Gord did. As for Gord, he’s sitting near the wine, alone.

I don’t have much experience making small talk with men and women twice my age. For that matter, I don’t have much experience making small talk. I’m not sure where to start, or whether I want to. My chest feels particularly tight. I hang out near a basket of flatbread.

Sam walks over, sipping from a glass of wine. “Hey, Sheldon. Glad you came.” He turns to a guy standing nearby. “Ted, have you met Sheldon?”

Ted shakes his head, and comes over. “Hey.”

“Hi.”

“This is the first day of Sheldon’s new social life,” Sam says.

Ted’s eyebrows raise. “Oh? Congratulations.”

I force a chuckle.

Sam says, “Are you enjoying the appetizer, Sheldon? I made it especially for you.”

“It’s good bread.”

“Not just any bread. It’s unleavened bread. And see that bottle over there? That’s wine.”

“Yep.”

“Do you know what they ate at the Last Supper?”

“Wine and bread?”

“Bingo.”

I glance around. “Where’s Jesus?”

He pokes me in the chest. “Right here. And your crucifixion is tomorrow morning. The actual hour is flexible—you can show up at your convenience. But you’ll be nailed to the cross of customer service.” He sips some wine. “I got you a job.”

“Really? Where?”

“The grocery store down the road.”

“Spend Easy?”

“Yep. I know someone there who’s putting in a good word for you. Do you have much you can put on a résumé?”

“Not really.”

“Well, write one, and include whatever you can think of. Bring it in and ask for the manager. Don’t tell them I sent you.”

“Why not?”

“Just don’t.”

Something starts beeping in the kitchen. “That’s supper,” Sam says, and goes to get it.

Ted and I look at each other.

“So, how do you know Sam?” I say.

“I met him through Al, the guy out on the deck. Sam sells me pot.”

“Oh. You too, huh?”

“He sells to everyone here.”

“Really? You’re all his, uh, clients?”

“Yeah. There’s a couple of us missing. He has us all for dinner every month.”

“Is that industry standard?”

“Um, not exactly. Not much about what Sam does is standard. He charges more, but we get security, and a superior product. He buys from his cousin, who’s an organic farmer, and he only sells to married people with families—people with a lot invested in not getting caught. Plus he hosts these dinners, so we can get to know each other, and feel less like a bunch of sketch bags.”

“So is everyone getting high after supper, then?”

“I’m not. Neither will most of the others. I smoke at home, personally. I have esophageal cancer, but with the limit my doctor’s set, I’m not able to get enough of the medical stuff to completely kill the pain.”

Sam doesn’t eat meat, so I wasn’t expecting supper to be very exciting. But it’s not bad. He made vegetarian lasagna, and it disappears quickly. Compliments and approving grunts come from all around the room.

As Last Suppers go, it’s actually pretty good.

*

I get up shortly after 10 and ride my bike to the grocery store.

Standing before the Customer Service counter, I raise my 1-page résumé into the air. “To whom should I give this?” I say.

The woman behind the counter looks at me with one eyebrow cocked. She’s wearing a bright yellow t-shirt with “Spend Easy” scrawled across the front. Her nametag says “Betty.” She’s chewing gum, and the piston-like motion of her jaw is hypnotic. “Give what?”

“This.” I hold my résumé higher, and it bends over until the tip of the page tickles my forearm.

“Here,” Betty says, holding out her hand.

I pass it to her, and she drops it into the garbage bucket behind her. “Thanks.”

I blink. “That was my résumé.”

“Yep.”

“You just threw it in the garbage.”

“That’s the résumé bucket.”

“There’s a Pepsi can in there.”

“It’s also the recycling bin.”

I frown.

“Listen,” she says. “You don’t want to work here.”

The phone sitting near her splayed hand begins to ring, and she snatches it up. “Customer Service, Betty speaking. Oh. Yes. He’s an applicant.” I follow her gaze across the store and up, to a tinted window that overlooks the cash registers. Behind the glass is the silhouette of a head talking on a phone. I get the feeling it’s staring right at me.

While Betty’s on the phone, a lady walks up to the Customer Service counter with her son, five bottles of detergent piled in her arms. “I’m in a rush,” she says.

Betty glares at her. Into the phone she says, “I’ll send him up.” She replaces the receiver and instructs me to take the stairs behind the last cash lane.

“Can I have my résumé back?”

She fishes it out of the trash.

“Thanks.”

For a moment, I consider heading for the exit instead.

But I walk past the cash registers. Behind the last one a staircase awaits, just as Betty said. It’s narrow and black. At its top I find a short hall with three doors. The one on my right stands open, and a voice calls for me to enter. Inside, a man is sitting in a swivel chair, facing the tinted window. He swivels.

“Hi,” I say, “I’m Sheldon Mason, I’m here to—”

He isn’t looking at me. He’s looking at the single page dangling from my hand. “I need that.”

I hold it out, but he swivels again, and pushes himself backward with his feet until he’s sitting behind his desk. He looks across the room, at a filing cabinet in the corner. “Place it on my desk.”

His eyes don’t leave the filing cabinet until the résumé is in his hands. He glares at it. I learn from a placard on his desk that his name is Frank Crawford.

His eyes flick to the empty air two feet to my right. He has yet to make eye contact. He reminds me of a horse just escaped from a burning barn, eyes rolling madly. “The uniform consists of black pants, black shoes, a yellow Spend Easy t-shirt, and a nametag. We strive to maintain a professional appearance. Shirts tucked in. Nametags worn at all times. Facial hair neatly trimmed.”

“Are you offering me a position?”

He doesn’t answer. He picks up the phone on his desk, presses a button, and says, “Eric Andrews to the store office please.” His voice comes out through a speaker above my head.

I stand awkwardly, and Frank returns to his study of the filing cabinet. We wait. Soon, I hear footsteps ascending the stairs. I feel them, too. A large mammal approaches.

Indeed, the person who appears in the doorway is among the biggest, hairiest men I have ever encountered. His eyes are small, but I can feel them measuring me—weighing me. Contemplating how I would look, drawn and quartered and marked down for purchase. He extends his hand, and I have the fleeting impression he is going for my jugular. Then I recall the ritual, and we shake. He doesn’t try to impress me with his grip. He doesn’t need to.