Black Rabbit and Other Stories (15 page)

Lion fell asleep. He dreamed of zebras. They ran slowly, their plump flanks flexing in the sunlight. He could feel their heat as he closed the distance, hear their hearts beating, taste their fear. His
powerful muscles moved under his bristly coat and his jaws snapped, catching nothing but dust. They were so close! He started up again, bounding.

Dad hooked a chain to Lion's collar and clipped two ropes to it. Then he double-locked the cage. While Lion slept he heard voices.

“How do you train him?”

“I wish I could tell you.”

“A blank-cartridge revolver? A whip and a stick?”

Laughter ensued. Then Lion heard the clatter of cutlery and glasses. They were feasting? Was it someone's birthday? Lion's fell in August. He didn't know what month it was but it wasn't August. The air had a cool edge. August was never that cool. Perhaps it was March or April. And yet he had no memory of winter. He tried to move but could not. He bit at the chain but it hurt his teeth. He could see figures dancing about his room.

“I've used a chair for training purposes.”

“And I notice you always wear the thickest horsehide jacket.”

“Indeed.”

Lion burned like a flame in the black room. He had a fever. The mother applied a cold compress. She gave him bitter liquids to drink. He vomited into a can. The room smelled rank. He wanted to run but they kept him penned in. He growled in misery and the mother stroked his head. Dad came and went with a worried look on his face. What was he up to?

Lion slept for three days and awoke in the living room. Strange. What happened? How long was he out? He looked at the pink cockatoo on the mantelpiece and roared. Its presence reassured him. A near empty glass sat on the coffee table. The Tiffany lamp flickered. Someone had just been there. He went up and waited on the staircase, peeking through the wooden railings.

“I have a queer sense that old carpetbags is hanging around.”

“I can smell him.”

“The appearance of his room depressed me this afternoon.”

“What can we do about it?”

“Redecorate.”

Lion imagined crimson and gold lacquer cabinets adorned with mother-of-pearl flamingos, or silvery peacocks, and rose petals falling from baskets, and fragrant firelight. Or a marble-topped table beside a looking-glass with Parrot fluttering about, something fixed and fluid at the same time.

Dad came in, took a chair by the window and watched. He was wearing white gloves. He watched him all the time now. He hadn't seen the mother in days. He feared he may have eaten her. He tried to ask Dad about it, but as if stuffed with straw, he didn't move or say anything. He just sat there. His eyes looked patched. Lion gave a startled snarl and sprang to his pedestal.

What just happened? Through rips in Dad's trousers he saw bloody gashes. Lion licked blood from his paws. Beyond the hot lights a multitude of faces watched him.

He sat in a mental arena of chicken wire with battle-scarred alley cats shaved to look strange and marched before him for gladiatorial combat. No room for bashful creatures here. He fought them all, devoured them all, left nothing but bloodstains and gore for the vultures to pick through. What were they thinking, these entrepreneurs, these impresarios?

Lion stood by the window. He stood perfectly still. Sunlight bathed him gold. Small golden animals scampered in. When Dad had them seated he walked to a lacquered black chest and exchanged his bloodied white gloves for a gun and a whip. Lion wasn't game for this. He leapt from the pedestal and landed near the chest. Then he jumped the partition and slipped out the door.

Giuseppe, the barista at Bar Italia in Toronto's Little Italy, introduced me to the Venetian one summer evening. His name was Antonio Gallo, thin, balding, bearded, with a great beak of a nose and horn-rimmed glasses. He looked like an intellectual, if one can look so, or at the very least like a species of professor. Giuseppe informed me that the man had only recently come to Canada and spoke no English. Indulge him, he told me, since he knew I spoke passable Italian. I introduced myself; Antonio shook my hand and said he was pleased to make my acquaintance. He had a raspy voice and spoke with a sharp Venetian cadence. I felt awkward at first but when he detected Sicilian in my accent he put me at ease by telling me he had spent time in Sicily as a young man, and loved the island and its people. He inquired about my family and listened to what I had to say with interest. I told him how my parents had married by proxy. My father had immigrated to Canada in 1955 and after a couple of years here wasn't having the best go of it; alone, homesick, and miserable, he seriously contemplated returning to Sicily. One day while getting a trim, he explained his dilemma to his barber. It's too hard, he admitted. The weather, the language . . . I don't think I can do it. What you need is a wife, the barber told him. You'll get nowhere without a good woman. The barber then presented him with a photograph of his niece, a beautiful blue-eyed girl from Palermo, Sicily. My father was impressed. Carmela will make a good wife, the barber assured him, and my father took him at his word. After an exchange of letters, a
written proposal and acceptance, a dual ceremony followed, one in Canada, one in Sicily, and that girl embarked to North America as my father's new wife. A few years later she became my mother. And they loved each other, Antonio said almost to himself. Yes, they did, I told him, recalling how my mother had mourned my father's death. I think they loved each other very much.

After two intense years together, Melissa and I were on the decline. Things had started going sour around Christmas. I didn't feel it anymore, and I don't think she did either. I had tried to break up with her as early as February—guilt and sexual jealousy had sent me scurrying back. But she had changed since the aborted break-up, had become more secretive, less generous, less humorous. The woman had a right to protect herself, given what had happened—she no longer trusted my intentions, or my commitment to her. But I sensed that something else was going on. I had never been unfaithful to Melissa, and had assumed the same for her. Early on we had agreed to be honest with each other if we strayed, but that's difficult to do when the time comes. You clam up, feel guilty, afraid, protective, angry—in the end you say nothing and let the thing play out as it will.

Bar Italia's proprietor, Michael Conte, had a hard head and a sharp tongue, and I didn't particularly care for his brand of ball-breaking. He had a way of getting under my skin. But Giuseppe didn't start work until noon, and my need for a morning espresso superseded any disquiet Michael caused me. Tell me something, he said confidentially, is my coffee nice? I looked into his deep-set black eyes and wondered if he was joking. Is it? he asked. It's nice, I said. That's all I want to hear, he said, that my coffee's nice. It's music to me. Antonio entered the bar wearing a belted brown wool cardigan. Michael rolled his eyes. Antonio said he had a summer cold, awful business.
Porca
miseria, he complained as he blew his nose into a sodden handkerchief.
Ho bisogno un lenzuolo
. Speak English, Michael said, slapping his hands on the counter. Antonio shrugged and glanced at me. What's the problem? I asked Michael. Tell your friend here to speak English in my joint, he said. But he's Italian, I said, from Venice. I know where he's from, Michael nodded, I know.

I loved Bar Italia in the late afternoon. It was cool and quiet, far less trafficked than at lunch and early evening when it thronged with yuppies and artiste-types. I rested my arms on the cool marble counter, enjoying a delicious iced latte. A few regulars sat around sipping espresso, reading, lost in their thoughts. I ordered another iced latte from Giuseppe. He had shaved his head that morning and had applied a skin lotion that caused it to shine under the bar lights. I paid a fortune for the shit, he confessed, rubbing a paper serviette over his head. By the way, he said, what do you make of Antonio? He seems harmless enough, I said, a little opinionated maybe. He loves Toronto, can't say enough about it. And he did love the city—though he somewhat overstated the case at times, going on about air-conditioned subways, multilingual street signs and such. This was a man who had lived in Venice. How could he be so impressed by Toronto, given that? On the other hand, Toronto was a very livable city. Unlike the museum of Venice, it was a city of the future, still evolving and growing. I had been to Venice twice and for all of its beauty and moody splendour, I couldn't escape the impression it was a relic, a thing of the past, with nothing for it to anticipate except the encroaching sea. Giuseppe served me a glass of ice water and asked where Melissa was; she often accompanied me for a late afternoon drink. She's working, I told him. She had a gig researching a music documentary and was meeting with her producer Gary and then going to a business dinner with some investors. What is she again? Giuseppe asked. A researcher, I said, but he had wandered off to the end of the bar.

That evening he launched into a discourse on Doges after I confessed I knew nothing about them. Doges held no interest for me, but I loved listening to Antonio; the more passionate he felt about a subject, the more lovely and expressive his Italian became. He told me that Venice wouldn't survive the twenty-first century. All the technology and engineering in the world couldn't save it. Venice was doomed to be submerged.
Venezia e quasi finita, caro mio
, he lamented.
Ho venuto qui in tempo
. I asked him why he had come to Toronto and he told me it was a long story—he had a bachelor uncle here, his last living relative, sad really, no one left to continue the line. I assumed that Antonio also was a bachelor, though I gathered from the way he ogled pretty girls in the café that he liked the opposite sex. He inquired about my relationship with Melissa. I told him I had been seeing her for a couple of years but maybe not for much longer. I'm sorry to hear that, he said. You looked happy.

She had finished off one bottle of wine and uncorked a second, her teeth dark, her movements languid, hazy. She took a seat on a chair against the wall. I heard her sigh. I switched on the lamp in the corner and sat on the sofa across from her. I removed my shoes and socks. You're not planning to stay, are you? she asked. I didn't answer. I glanced at my bare feet, then looked at her. She stared straight ahead. Wine often made her sentimental, but not this time.

Giuseppe had been studying aikido for years and liked to talk about his instructor, a fellow called Mo. Just Mo. From the sounds of it he was a strange cat, maybe a bit too serious for his own good. He can kill a man with his bare hands in ten seconds, Giuseppe told me. That long? I said. Seriously, Giuseppe said, Mo is extraordinary. Yes, I
thought, a man I want to hang out with, learn from. Giuseppe was growing a goatee. I asked him about it. I'm bored with my face, he said. Ever get bored with your own face? I didn't know how to answer. Bored wasn't the right word for how I felt about it. We came to a wall in the conversation; Giuseppe moved on to grind coffee beans. I sat there for a long time resting my elbows on the marble counter, my face in my hands.

They were lunching at Soto Voce, this tony little place across the street from Bar Italia. I happened to be walking by and saw them at a table near the window, engaged in an intense tête à tête. Sparsely bearded, pencil-necked, insipid, Gary had nothing going for him except his producer status. On any other plain, physical, intellectual, artistic, he would have been what he was, untalented and weak. Nevertheless, he commanded respect—women in the business probably thought he was hot. His confidence, and his power, gave him sex appeal among other things. It was simple. I understood the situation. I didn't stop and make a scene.

I spent two days in my bedroom. My roommate Pat was visiting his sister in Saskatchewan. I welcomed the solitude. I cried a lot. I felt foolish for that, but more foolish that I'd let a beautiful girl like Melissa get away from me. The thought of her with someone else made my heart ache. On the other hand, she wasn't perfect. She drank a lot, and I detested her drunken personality, though others found it comical, charming. Still, I convinced myself I wanted her back, and during those two days an ember of hope still glowing in my heart gathered light and warmth. I entertained the possibility of reconciling with her—doing what I needed to repair the breach—and then moving on to the next phase of our relationship. I wasn't ready to give up yet, and if it had become some kind of contest between
Gary and me, then I was game: I'd show him. But my bravado felt forced. A deeper part of me knew I was going through the motions, maybe for the sake of pride, or to finish off that chapter of my life with a flourish.

Domenic Buonanote, a Bar Italia regular, pulled up that afternoon in a crimson tank top, his bunchy muscles contracting. I just finished working out, he announced. Despite his impressive musculature, Domenic stood an inch short of five feet. Giuseppe, hook me up with an iced espresso and a bucket of cold water. Giuseppe stared at him for a moment before he got to the espresso. You don't work out enough, Domenic said, looking me up and down. Your body—you used to be an athlete, no? That's right, I said. Played some football in university. Middle linebacker. Domenic nodded. Yeah-yeah, he said. Me, I was always too small, too small. I wrestled. Won the Ontario's my senior year. I could probably kick your ass. I don't think so, I said. No? Domenic said. No, I said. Hey, Giuseppe, do you think I can kick his ass? Giuseppe stopped what he was doing and squinted. You wanna kiss his ass? he said. Not
kiss
, Domenic said. Kick,
kick
. Giuseppe burst out laughing while I debated whether to settle the issue with Domenic right there and then.

We had dinner at Senior's on Yonge Street, an old-school steakhouse I used to frequent in the late eighties. Still going strong, it hadn't changed a bit. Even the black-haired waiters looked original in their loose white shirts and bowties. Melissa wore a green silk dress with black playing card symbols: clubs, diamonds, hearts, and spades. Her green eyes sparkled. She looked happy. She drank two martinis before the steaks arrived. She shaved her words. I probed, trying to uncover the state of her heart but she proved to be elusive. Let's just have fun tonight, she said. Let's pretend this is a first date. Sounded
fine by me. I tried to recall our first date. Actually, it occurred in her bedroom one steamy August evening. Later we agreed it was the closest thing to insanity we had ever experienced. But we never repeated that performance. It was a hard act to follow.