Hello, Iâm wondering if I could arrange a tour. I donât know if you have any vacancies, but I have a family member who needs, uh, placementâitâs my wife actuallyâand, well, Iâm afraid weâve hobbled along until things have become urgent. If you have no space available, I understand. Weâve got a short list weâre working through. But if by luck Iâve caught you at the right time, is there any chance we could meet tomorrow morning?
Ken, my advisor at CIBC: Hi, Ken. Iâm into something here thatâs going to need a few extra funds. Not a lot, I donât think. And, yes, I do want you to do the drill. Standard operating procedure.
The office of Dr. Max Wyvern, though I almost give up at the interminable preamble thatâs designed to make me do just that. Hello, youâve reached⦠and then later, We are located⦠and Our business hours are⦠and only then, We are presently closed and will reopen at⦠and then, with sadistically slow enunciation, an advisory that any emergency situation should be dealt with at a hospital⦠until finally, after a minute that feels like a day, the voice conceding to any masochist still on the line, If you would like to leave a brief message and your number, please do so after the beep. Um. I donât know if youâre accepting new patients, but one of my teeth broke apart just now. When I was eating some nuts. Lower tooth, on the left side. Iâm not in pain, it just sort of crumbled away around the fillings. Thereâs a back tooth loose too. Wiggling. Neither is an emergency, but, um, it doesnât seem like something I should wait on. Could you phone me at this number if you have any openings? Thank you very much.
Lure of crowns, extractions, likely canal work. Like dangling a square of red rag on a hook in front of a bullfrog. The huge mouth drops open and the great legs uncoil in a coordinated lunge. One foster dad an outdoorsman. Not with them long.
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âGreen tea or black?â
A new question. Black, I decide.
âWhat kind?â
Also new. Previously it was just Red Rose on offer, stale bags in a jar beside the till.
âDo you have Earl Grey?â
âWe have. With milk?â
âJust black, thanks.â
Other than expanding the tea selection, the new Korean owners havenât messed with the Queenâs Armsâ modestly winning formula. Same TV screens with sports and news so nobody has to feel theyâve left home. Pool table at the back. Just enough stains on the carpet and faint fumes of draft and puke to keep it real. Our dingy, grotty local.
Family run, at least this time on a Sunday. Mother behind the bar. Daughter in hot pants handling the three guys in sports jerseys at a table. Kidding with her as they wait for a game, any game. Fatherâs role at the moment working through a stack of Scratch ân Win at the end of the bar.
âStraight to the hard stuff, eh?â says the guy two stools over when Mother brings my tea.
âStraight to the source,â I say, weirding him back to his pint.
But heâs a talker, wants contact, and a couple of minutes later he taps the Star on the bar between us. Hizzoner spread over it in close-up, pig-eyed, ranting at a scrum. The mics black bulrushes heâs peering over.
âThe Big Manâs quite the distraction, isnât he?â says my neighbour.
âHe is that.â
âDistracting us from the cityâs business.â
âDistracting us from himself.â
âHowâs that work? You canât get away from him. Heâs everywhere.â
âExactly. He is. Not his policies. Listen to these stories enough and you might start to believe heâs a civic-minded gent whose outsize appetites led him astray. But he couldnât be civic-minded if you dried him out and slimmed him down and locked him in a room with Thomas Merton for a year. An alligator doesnât
Rebecca Hamilton, Conner Kressley