Seven Good Reasons Not to Be Good (21 page)

When Zane goes it’ll be because he, too, has refused to ingest something that could save him. Refused it because it’s there …

Matt screams. Matt stops himself from screaming. He does both at once—the result is a strangled groan, the kind of complaint a client of Mercedes might register without slipping his gag.

“Sir?” says Albert.

“Yeah, sorry. Change of plan.” Chest pain, who knows what that might be? Pneumonia? TB?

Albert tilts his head in interrogation.

“Yonge Street,” says Matt. “Around the cemetery, Mount Pleasant?”

“You’re the boss.” Smartass.

“Okay, so where
is
everything?”

When Matt finally stirred this morning his message light was already blinking. Sardonically, if he wasn’t mistaken.

“Less than one percent of the stuff in the universe is actually visible, so where’s everything else? Huh?” How can Kate possibly sound so chipper first thing? She kicked him off the elevator at his own floor latish last night, pleading an early morning—she had to get up and prep for her presentation, her big performance at the conference today.
“What’s
everything else? ‘Dark matter’ they call it, but I mean what’s that? It’s supposed to be mostly WIMPs—weakly interacting massive particles, you knew that, right?—but what’s it doing? What invisible ways is it bending us? I’ll be done five-ish, wish me luck.”

It’s all so cutely metaphorical. Is that how the geniuses decide, how they settle on one theory over another? They just take the one that’s most conducive to lightweight psychologizing? All the stuff that’s dictating your true direction in life is hidden from you, deep, deep. Or maybe it’s God, maybe God himself rigged the universe this way so it’d feed folks a cute little image or aphorism now and then, a twinkly mnemonic.

Wimp?

“Okay, smarty-pants. You want deep? What were the names of the two countries in
Duck Soup,
Groucho’s and the other one?” And he clunked it down hard.

“Rolex Cheap!!!” Then “Nigerian foreign minister needs your assistance,” that old chestnut. “Freaky Asian Sluts!!!” And finally Mariko. Matt lashed his robe more tightly about himself, treating himself to a gust of bleachy clean.

The bizarre thing is that selling the house was Matt’s idea. It wasn’t an idea he ever actually entertained—he spoke it impromptu that night because it’s what a person
would
say in such a situation, because the scene itself seemed to call for it. Mariko had just delivered her news. They were in the bedroom on their usual sides of the bed, both freshly pajama-ed and flipping down the duvet. Cary Grant and somebody, Irene Dunne?
My Favorite Wife.
Neither of them had said anything definitive yet. Was this a bump on the road they’d been travelling together or was it a fork, you go your way and I’ll go mine? Infidelity could be spun either way. Which way would they choose?

This question hadn’t been asked let alone answered, yet Matt distinctly heard himself say, “So, we’ll sell the Lair.” The idea, presumably, was that Mariko would protest, plead for a little time to sort out her feelings, earn back his trust. Matt would grimly relent and they’d hit the sack for a session of restorative sex made extra rambunctious by Sophie’s phantom presence between them. But no. Mariko numbly nodded, said nothing. Maybe she felt she hadn’t the right? Matt gathered up his bedside movie magazine and his pillow (his
pillow?)
and made his way with as much aplomb as possible down the hall to his study, where he and Toto have been crashing ever since.

Spooky, how a way with words can be dolled up to look like wisdom.

Matt signed off, clicked Send. He was just about ready to quit when another message from Mariko bleeped in.

Fame?

Matt’s often fantasized about bringing out a collection of his kritikal pieces. The way the big shots do it, the
New Yorker
types, Kael, Rafferty, Lane. When it appears in
Omega
his stuff’s still mired in time. It’s occasional in the worst possible sense—people run an eye over it, then shred it for the hamster cage. In a book, though? He’d suddenly transcend the temporal realm, join the eternal hubbub of the greats.

And maybe now’s the time. Maybe he really could parly parley parlay this into something. Maybe, with a little management from the wizardly Mariko, he could drum up enough notoriety to get such a thing read. People would finally
get
it, and the world would be redeemed.

Then he hit the loo—making do with the gigantic shower and its myriad misting nozzles—and just generally girded himself for the coming encounter.

Without Matt telling him to, Albert takes the route past the Dadinator’s place. Matt considers getting him to stop, but no. He’ll give the old guy one more day.

How’s the job, son?

Just got sacked, I’m the talk of the town.

How’s the homestead?

It’s on the auction block.

How’s the little woman?

She’s having girl-sex with some funky young barista.

Any sign of my grandkids?

Dream on.

Matt hates breaking bad news. It’s generally a woman who’s had to break bad news to him. “You’re such a great guy, Matt. You’re smart, you’re funny, you’re kind. If you just … Well anyway, you’ll find somebody.” And that’s the way he likes it. He hates to think of Zane, all the news
he’s
had to break.
Mum? Dad? I’m an artist. Mum? Dad? I’m gay. Mum? Dad? I’m getting married—and she’s queer too. Mum? Dad? I’m positive. No, I mean I’m
positive …

Zane tries each revelation out on Matt first, kind of a dry run. There was the HIV thing, that day on Max Sweet’s grave. There was the marrying Mercedes thing, done over a swanky candlelit dinner, Zane’s treat. Matt felt as though
he
were being proposed to that night—he kept expecting some sombrero-ed guy with a guitar to pop out and serenade him, Zane down on one knee with a velvety ring-box,
Make me the happiest man in the world.
And way back when, the poofter thing. Zane sprang that one in Morocco, at the end of their Europe tour together. “What if one of us were gay?” And in no time he was gone, pressing on alone far deeper into Africa.

Albert swings past Charlotte’s mum’s place (all quiet, no car in the drive) and drops Matt across from the old chez Levin, Zane’s old …

Oops. It’s gone. Zane’s family’s place was a lean semidetached, not so different from his new one. The two halves of the semi have been replaced now by a single monstrosity, Greek in inspiration. Doric columns, the works. Hideous, hilarious.

Matt’s house? He turns and sets out. It’s five minutes, south and through the park. En route he roots out his cellphone. Just as good as being there, it’s words that’ll change the man’s mind anyhow. Unless of course he needs roughing up, but that can wait.

“Yyyello?”

Thank Christ. “Is it just suicide?” says Matt. “I mean is it that simple, are you just killing yourself? Nothing to do with holiness or have-nots or any of that hooey?” He shuffles to a standstill mid-park, hard by the old swing set. These are the very swings to which he and Erin used to repair to agonize about their folks. About their dad mostly, his heavy love, what they might do to lighten that load for one another. They’d make themselves puke, or try to anyway, pump up heavenwards and hang their heads down behind. Erin kept her red hair bum-length in those days—before the swimming got serious, before she trimmed it butch—and it’d drag in the grey dirt of the divot under her swing. “Oh my gaaaaawd, I’m gonna speeewww …”

“Hooey?” says Zane. “Who says hooey?”

“Hooey,” says Matt.

“Hooey. Hey, two days in a row, if I didn’t already know I was dying this’d freak me right out.”

The park’s pretty quiet today. There’s the leisurely pock of tennis balls, an occasional “damn” from a duffer who’s dumped it into the net yet again. Nothing Zane’s likely to pick up from his end.

“And yeah, I guess it’s suicide,” says Zane. “Getting sick in the first place, I suppose that was suicide too. Russian roulette?”

“I’m not saying that, Zane. You goofball.” Matt lowers his fanny onto one of the swings, no rush. Chains and weathered leather, the kind of rig from which Mercedes might suspend a particularly naughty client. “You couldn’t know, the guy who
gave
it to you probably didn’t know.”

Matt’s already worked this out. It happened, Zane picked up his bug—Matt’s pretty much certain about this—during his stay with Matt in his basement suite out west that time. It was seven years ago, just about right, a typical dormancy for the virus. Plus it’s the only time Zane’s ever strayed, so far as Matt can discover, and he’s done a fair bit of prying. Zane was breaking up with Phil at that point, just pre-Nico. He’d been up in Whistler crewing for a movie of the week. Odd little project, a murder mystery set in a tree planting camp. The cook did it, no the foreman did it, no the environmentalist did it, no the elk hunter did it, no the Native activist did it … On his way back through town he spent a night with Matt at his batch, or rather he spent an evening with Matt, who then bailed on him in favour of his new woman. Infidelity, that’s what it feels like to Matt now. Unfaithfulness, a failure of faith.

When the boys reconvened the next morning, it was clear that Zane had been out on the town too. He was fidgety, flustered. “That?” he said, referring to whatever tryst he’d just staggered back from. “That’s what I never do.”

All Matt had to do was stay home. One night, he couldn’t keep it in his pants for
one night?
His buddy was clearly in some weird kind of space, angsty, agitated. What if Matt had just cracked a couple of beers, kicked back?

“Yeck,” says Zane. He’s sipping on something over there, some herbal potion perhaps, some stinky immune booster. Extract of skunk cabbage, powdered tiger penis. Is this fair, did Shanumi get to drink this stuff? “True or false. If somebody’s going to kill himself there’s nothing you can do.”

“What, you’ve been
researching
this?” Matt’s getting pretty high here. As he swings he throws in a few
sheetalis,
Cooling Breaths. You stick out your tongue, roll it into a tube—even the sublime Anirvachaniya looks silly doing this.

“Nico used to do a shift on a hotline.”

“Oh, dandy. You’re about to kick, you get Nico on the fugging—”

“Hey, easy there. Jealousy’s ugly on you.”

“Fuggoff.”

“You fuggoff. Oh, and I meant to say thanks for the postcards. I have them up on the fridge, great conversation starters. Not that it’s actually about being good, of course.”

“How would you know?”

“Most people kill themselves in the dark months.”

“Oh, come on. False, or why would you ask?” The time Matt came close (the bag would suffocate him if the pills failed to finish the job) it was late May, early June.

Three young Filipina women—nannies most likely, in this neighbourhood—have parked their strollers and released their little white tots. There’s a thirty-something white woman too, a young mum in person, go figure. She’s just hoisting her tyke onto the teeter-totter, giving Matt the evil eye. Could he have turned, already, into one of those cellphone shouters? He’ll have to kill himself for sure.

“Where are you, anyway?” says Zane. “Do I hear kids?”

“Yeah, it’s—no, it’s just the TV.”
Shanumi opening her palm to take coins from her daughter, still young enough to sell herself as a virgin
…

“What? Speak up.”

“It’s just the TV.”

“It’s the middle of the day, Matt. We need to get you a fugging life.”

“Still early out here in Eden, buddy. Quiz me some more.”

Sip. “People who talk about it don’t do it.”

“True. False.” Matt never said a word. What was there to say? It’s dumb to die, just as dumb as it is to live. “True?” The swing’s slowing now, settling to its centre point, an unwound grandfather clock. Matt eases himself out of the sling, resumes his route home. “False?”