The Fighter (5 page)

Jack
was in the fields every day that first spring, pounding posts and stringing
vines. He was out in the cool dawn hours with scattered farmyard lights
burning in the hills and valleys. He was out in the afternoon as the sun
crested high over the escarpment, its heat burning through the salt on his skin
to draw it tight. He was out in the evening with the wind wicking moisture off
the soil until it was like tilling shale. Jack's boots became so worn he padded
them with newspapers; his feet turned black from the ink. For weeks they ate
nothing but peaches: at night, Jack snuck into his neighbor's groves to fill
his jacket pockets. At night, they collapsed into bed, newlyweds too exhausted
to do what might have come naturally.

That
first winter Jack made the rounds of local bars and restaurants. Though many
owners expressed skepticism at the idea of southern Ontario wine—
What's your next plan,
one said,
growing taters
on the moon?
—Jack's
salesmanship resulted in a flurry of orders. Springtime found them back in the
fields. When Barb saw that first yellow bud flowering on the vine she broke
into a giddy jig that collapsed her husband into reckless laughter.

It
was a success from the outset. The wine was clean and crisp, made distinctive
by the soil of a virgin growing region. The first vintage sold out by
mid-winter; retail orders tripled. Word of their success spread, and the
farmers who'd scoffed at Jack's plan were soon selling their own farms to those
hoping to copy Jack's business model. Ripple Creek became the first, and was
still the most successful, winery in Ontario.

Paul
was four years old when the family moved from their tiny home in the field—which
was really no longer a field but rather an estate—into their massive gated
manor.

The
winery offices were built on the foundation of Paul's childhood home: his
father, no teary-eyed nostalgic, had had it bulldozed. The foyer was paneled
with oak slats bellying outward: visitors often remarked that they felt as
though they were inside a wine cask— indeed, the intended effect.

Their
receptionist, Callie, was pale with long blond hair, skinny but in a good way
and cute. Her perfume held the bracing aroma of a car air freshener. Paul often
fantasized about her: passing each other in the narrow hallway, their bodies
brush accidentally-on-purpose and next thing they're on each other, kissing and
clutching, ducking into the supply room where he gives it to her bent over the
photocopier.

"Mr.
Harris," she said. "Are you all right?"

"Not
to worry. A mild misunderstanding."

"You
were in a fight?"

Paul
didn't care for her tone of voice: incredulous, as if he'd told her his night
had been spent spinning gold out of hay.

"There
was
a ...
an altercation."

He
couldn't quite bring himself to say
fight.
The word implied an exchange of
blows, mutual bloodshed.
Beating
better expressed the reality.
Mauling. Shellacking.

"Are
you hurt?"

"It's
nothing much. You should see the other guy."

"Is
that so?"

Paul
was filled with a sudden dreadful certainty that Callie had been there last
night. She'd witnessed the whole sad affair and now could only smile as he
stood there lying through his teeth.

His
office was located off the lobby. On the desk: Macintosh computer and blotter,
German beer stein, three high school rowing trophies bought at a thrift store.
These were his father's idea, whose own trophies—for wrestling, and
legitimately won—sat on his own desk in a much bigger office down the hall. His
father thought athletic trophies accorded a desk, and by proxy its owner, that
Go- Get-'Em attitude.

The
nameplate on his desk read
paul Harris
,
and under his name, in small engraved letters, his title:
organizational adviser.
When he'd questioned his father
regarding the precise duties of an OA, he was told it was crucial that he
"keep his fingers in a lot of pies, organizationally speaking." But
since his father had his own fingers in every important pie at Ripple Creek,
Paul's were relegated to inconsequential ones: the "Refill the Toner
Cartridge" pie; the "Reorder Staff Room Coffee but Not the Cheap
Guadeloupian Stuff Because It Gives His Dad the Trots" pie.

His
nameplate may as well have read
tour guide
.
Every so often a buyer happened by and Paul was ordered to show him around.
He'd lead a tour through the distillery with its high cathedral ceilings and
halogen lights, pointing out the presses and pumps and hissing PVC tubes,
rapping the stainless steel kettles and commenting on their sturdy
craftsmanship. He'd lift the lid on a boiler and stir its dark contents with a
stained wooden paddle, remarking how the process had come a long way from some
Sicilian bambino stomping grapes with her dirty feet. This usually elicited a
laugh and soon the tour would wind back to the foyer, where his father was
waiting to usher the buyer into his office.

How
was he expected to learn anything—osmosis?

When
bored—this was every day, vaguely all day—Paul would shut his eyes, lay his
head on the blotter, and craft elaborate fantasies. Most frequent was the one
where his mother and father were slaughtered by vicious street thugs, spurring
Paul to embark upon a
Death Wish-
style killing spree. Except
instead of affluent winery owners his folks were hardworking firefighters, and
Paul became Rex Appleby, a tough-as-nails cop hardened by the mean streets of
his youth. In the final and most satisfying scene, Paul/Rex staggers from the
gang's hideout with a switchblade sticking out from his shoulder and his shirt
torn open to display his totally buff abs. He's carrying a gas can, trailing a
line of gasoline across the lawn. A thug crawls to the front door, his face
bashed to smithereens, and, snarling like a dog, he aims a pistol at Rex's
back. Rex flicks the flywheel on a burnished-chrome Zippo and drops it in the
shimmer of gasoline. A line of fire races toward the house and the thug screams
Nooooo!
as a fireball mushrooms into the twilight. A cinematic pan shot captures Appleby
striding from the wreckage in super-slow motion, unblinking and
ultra-
cool.

"Son,
oh son of mine."

Jack
Harris stepped into the office. He paused in the doorway, a framed
daguerreotype: tall and thickly built, dressed in a suit that hung in flattering
lines, jaw and cheeks ingrained with a blue patina of stubble.

He
tapped the Rolex Submariner strapped to his wrist. "Make sure the damn
thing's still ticking," he said. "Or perchance you're operating on
Pacific Standard time, in which case you're hours early and I applaud your
dedication. But if, like me, your watch reads eleven- thirty, you, child of my
loins, are late."

It
was laughable, the very suggestion that it mattered whether Paul arrived early,
late, or at all. What was the point of his being there— were break-room coffee
supplies running at dangerously low levels?

Paul
removed the Ray Bans. "Extenuating circumstances."

"Yee-ouch.
That's a beaut."

Jack
tilted his son's head up and poked the blackened flesh with the tip of a blunt,
squared-off finger.

Paul
pushed it away. "Lay off, will you? I'm not a grape—don't need to squeeze
the juice out of me."

"That's
a blue ribbon winner." Jack set a haunch on the desk's edge. "How'd
it happen?"

"Fell
down a flight of stairs."

"Those
stairs knock your teeth out, too? That's one mean-spirited staircase; tell me
where it is so I can avoid it."

Jack,
veteran of many a low-county barfight, was evidently unmoved by his son's
state. Sometimes a man needed to get out there and chuck a few knuckles—it was
cathartic. Afterward the winner bought the loser a pint.

"You
planning to see a doctor?"

Paul
waved the question off. "I possess inner resilience. I am Zen."

Jack
nodded. "Well, it's like they say in poker, son: can't win them all,
otherwise it'd be no fun when you did."

"Who
says I lost?"

Jack
laughed. Over the years he'd developed what Paul thought of as his
Businessman's Laugh: boisterous and patently phony, it began as a Kris
Kringle-ish chortle before segueing into an ongoing staccato hack that sounded
like a Nazi Sten gun.
Oooohohohoho-aka-aka-ak-ak-ak!
His father turned it on and off at will, like a faucet. On those rare occasions
when Paul found himself among businessmen with everybody's fake laughs
ricocheting off the walls, he got the feeling he was deep in the forest
primeval surrounded by screeching monkeys.

Jack's
mirth subsided. "Well, if the other guy lost I guess the police'll be
showing up any minute now—you must've murdered him."

"You're
a laugh riot."

"Speaking
of laugh riots, that client you showed around yesterday, did you say that
bambino line—the dirty feet thing?"

"I
guess."

"Well
then that was awful dumb. The guy's Italian."

"He
say something?"

"Yeah,
he said something—why'd I bring it up, he didn't say something?"

Paul
shrugged. "Some people like the joke."

"Who,
some people?" When Paul didn't reply: "Idiots, that's who. It's a
lead balloon."

Paul was getting
pointers from a man who trafficked heavily in knock-knock jokes and dried-up
puns:
Hey,
did you hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off? He's all right
now. Oooohohohoho-aka- aka-ak-ak-ak!

"Ah,
what does it matter?" Paul wanted to know. "Some pissant buyer who
owns a pissant boozer in Welland." He snorted. "Who drinks wine in
Welland?
Grape juice cut with antifreeze is more like it. I fail to view it as a big
loss."

His
father kept his gaze on the floor for several seconds before tilting his chin
toward him. His eyes were a pair of hard wet stones.

"We
exist but for the grace and patronage of our buyers. Whether it's a hotel chain
or a family-run restaurant, we treat them all with the same respect—you get
me?"

Paul
nudged his Ray Bans down over his eyes. "I get you."

"Take
those off while I'm speaking to you."

Paul
leaned back in his chair and knitted his hands behind his head.

"Take
those
...off'

Paul
took the sunglasses off. "There. Satisfied?"

Jack's
expression attested he wasn't at all satisfied. "Now tell me: who do we
work for?"

"Oh,
come off it."

"Who
do we work for?"

"The
buyer."

"You
got it, Pontiac."

They
stared at each other across the desk. Paul saw a man who had never grown into
his wealth; a man who'd never forget how his feet looked stained with newspaper
ink. What did Jack see? Perhaps something he couldn't quite reconcile: his own
flesh and blood, yet at the same time a deeply mystifying creature who stood
outside his understanding. A son who'd been given everything—higher education,
a life of the mind—and yet frequently struck him as frail and useless. And
while he loved Paul deeply, Jack couldn't help but think this was not at all
the son he'd envisioned.

"How
was your date last night?"

"How
do you figure?"

"That
Faith is pretty sweet, isn't she? Her dad's done well for himself. She'll
inherit quite a fortune." Jack lowered his voice on the last word, as though
he were detailing some seductive quality of her physique. "Nice ass,
too."

Paul
groaned. "Don't talk to me about her ass."