Month: September 2016

Jesse had never seen George eat, or show interest in a woman, or take a personal phone call, or drive a car (he claimed not to know how), or do any banking, unless you considered his apparently endless supply of cash to be some form of banking, or go to the washroom except as a ruse (although Jesse admitted to himself that if George really did have some kind of digestive problem that only allowed him to take a shit during a household move it was probably okay to feel sorry for him) or drink a beer, or, indeed, anything, or take a bong hit, or admit to watching current television, or talk about any celebrities, or show much interest in politics that wasn’t local, or show any interest in sports (besides a not always compellingly sincere appreciation of sports as a demonstration of fitness.) It was telling that he didn’t care if athletes used performance enhancing drugs.

Jesse solemnly asked for his opinion, and his bloviation was unleashed. “What a ludicrous question. Since the bar is set at detection, virtually everyone is doing it, and trying to follow whatever protocols will allow them to pass whatever inane, inconsistent and media-infested tests which are applied to them during their careers. Some have good doctors and canny coaches and some don’t, but with a few honest exceptions, most athletes are doping, and they’d be fools not to.”

Jesse started laughing. “You don’t even watch sports!” Jesse said.  He followed Junior A hockey, it being the only game he could imagine himself playing, but not much else. Soccer was oka-a-ay as long as it wasn’t one of those fucking snore-fests, all about the defence, and long boring stretches of nothing happening but some sonorous wanker with a deferential English accent going on about nothing to do with the game. “And yet somehow you always have an opinion,” Jesse added.

“In that, how do I differ from anyone else?” George said, apparently offended.  “I have an opinion about excellence, and I’m not as fussy as you about where the excellence comes from.”

“Spoken like a man being supported by his girlfriend,” Jesse ventured.

“Oh no,” George said, smiling a weird little smile. “That teat has been decently tucked away.” Then, poking Jesse, who resentfully said, “Ow!” he added, “And that was a sexist remark.  There’s no reason for me to feel guilty about that if it doesn’t bother her.”

“Wait a minute. You’re kidding. She cut you off?”

“Um. I’m trying — trying to think of a compassionate way of putting this,” George said, as if he didn’t give much for his chances.

“Tell me straight, doc, am I dyin’?” Jesse said. He was concerned about the business, and would have a hard time without George, and didn’t feel like hiding that he knew this.  George took it the wrong way, but not in a bad way.

“Screw you,” George said amiably. “She has projects which require all the cash both of us can raise.  Since I, too, will profit immensely from the positive outcome of these projects, I am helping her with the sales and turning the proceeds over, less the bank charges of course, because I can’t run it all cash, as much as I’d like to. And, of course, there’s the difficulty associated with keeping the transaction sizes small enough that they don’t raise the attention of the feds, also a concern. But — I have to raise enough money to be taken seriously, or this whole project won’t work.”

Jesse got that whiff of fantasy again, and poked. “How much money.”

“I can’t see doing it for less than twenty million dollars,” George said. He didn’t sound worried.  He sounded like a man considering what he said, as he said it. 

Jesse was entranced. “What is it? An indie film project?” He could see having some fun with this sunny-tempered grandiosity. “World’s first 3D Zero-G porn film?”

George, laughing, sputtered something in a language Jesse didn’t recognize. “I should keep that in the queue as a potential money maker,” he said, sobering. “Good suggestion! Good talk!” and Jesse knew that the moment of honesty, during which George revealed himself as an anxious man, and possibly as a full-stop lunatic, had floated away.

He had spent intense bursts of time these last three months with George, and still had no idea what the hell he was up to. He didn’t lie about anything Jesse thought was important, but he’d evaded basic questions about his past.

In retrospect it had been the right thing to do, but Jesse remembered the disbelief — which started as a blast of heat between his eyes and rapidly spread to his whole face — when George had handed over their whole take to the nanny. The fairytale ending was the stack of bills he’d made a slick for in the bedroom door of his co-op house in Strathcona, but there had been no way to expect that outcome when a well-connected Communist Party scion married to a multi-millionaire’s daughter shoved a gun in his face.

George lived a charmed life, and a lot of it happened where and when Jesse couldn’t see him. It was part of the fascination, and the lion’s share of the aggro.

He couldn’t sneak up on him.  The fucker was uncanny, always knew where he was. He’d considered it, but there seemed to be no point in paying to have someone else follow him when he was that careful of his surroundings. During his most aggrieved and somnambulant plotting, Jesse thought of bugging George’s apartment but that didn’t seem wise. George had a knack for noticing security cameras and more than once had stopped Jesse from doing something stupid in plain view.

“We’ll see,” George said. “I wish I knew for sure where the child is.”

“If the client’s as terrified of the husband as she acts, then the nanny and the kid are probably gone already.”

“Perhaps,” George said.  “I’m going to wait until Madam isn’t looking, though, and check.”

“I think we should mind our own business,” Jesse said.

“I think we should establish who it is we’re helping.  There’s something not right here.  Kid first, client next, staff next, husband last.”

“I hate to sound like a tired old leftie but I’d prefer it if the staff came before the client.”

“I hate to sound like a capitalist, especially when I’m not by nature, but I’m trying hard to remember who’s paying us,” George said. “I’m going to use the washroom,” George said, leaving Jesse to wrap and stack the chairs.  He walked around the house, which was very large and set on a steeply sloping lot, and came in through one of the doors that had been propped open.

He avoided being seen. The closer he got to the end of the hall of the west wing of the house the more overpowering the smell of blood became.

He found the nanny in a guest room closet. She had been stabbed in the arm and chest, incompetently bandaged, tied up tight and gagged. She made a strangled and fearful sound. George put his finger to his lips and said, “Do you want the cops to come?” Vehement head shake. “Do you want us to get you out of here?” Equally vehement nod. “I’m sorry, but until I can move you safely I’m not untying you.” Her eyes pleaded with him. Sadly, he shook his head.

The child was in a bassinet pushed up against the wall. From her breathing, George suspected she had been drugged. He scanned the colour of her lips and nails, checking his disgust for the people who would do such a thing, and saw with relief that she was probably fine.

To the terrified nanny, George said, “The child is okay. I’m going to go back and keep working, but we’re not leaving without you,” George said. He was careful not to say ‘both’. 

He heard Jesse yelling, put his finger to his lips again and slipped out of the room, putting his finger over his lips one last time and closing the closet door. He found an exit – the house seemed to have a million doors – and sprinted back to the truck, to find a Chinese man in his late thirties holding a gun on Jesse.

I see Daddy’s home, George thought. The suit the gunman was wearing would have made his cousin Michel exclaim with pleasure.

“Get down,” the man said.

Jesse swiftly complied.  George walked up, hands in the air, and said, ludicrously, “How can I help you, sir?”

“Unload the truck and get lost,” the man said. His eyes flickered to the front door.

“The nanny is tied up and bleeding in a closet, and the child she looks after has been drugged,” George said.

“Jesus,” said Jesse, taking his eyes from the gunman long enough to give George a wide-eyed stare.

“Shut up, both of you,” the man said furiously. “Don’t come back in the house,” he added over his shoulder, “Put everything on the ground and leave.”

“She owes us a thousand dollars,” Jesse called after him, not wanting to sound intimidated, and realizing too late what a bad idea it was. The front door slammed.

“A bit over the top,” George chided softly. “Okay, you unload the truck and I’ll go stand between him and the servants.”

“We’ve got to call the cops,” Jesse said.

“No, I don’t think so. If somebody who’s been stabbed and tied up in a closet doesn’t want the cops called, I’m inclined to go slow until I know more.  I suspect if we call the cops some of the staff are gonna end up in the CIC pokey,” George said, referring to the Immigration lockup.

“Fuck,” Jesse said.  He’d never had a gun drawn on him before and was now feeling rather hollow. “Fuck all rich people.”

“Not all rich people,” George said. “The man with the gun said, ‘Unload the truck!’,” George added. “Back in a minute.”

I’m not moving another fucking thing tonight, thought Jesse. Jam a gun in my face, you asshole, and see how fast I work once the gun is gone.

Thirty seconds later, the lights went out, including the yard lights. Jesse remembered his absent Maglite® and felt frightened and ill-prepared and uneasily relieved that it was George poking the bear, not him. There was more yelling, abruptly cut off, and Jesse developed a powerful urge to close the tailgate and start the truck, so he did.

The lights came back on.

After a moment the front door opened. George came out with the nanny and closed the door, and Jesse saw his brief thumbs-up. The nanny seemed dazed and the front and left arm of her white uniform was covered in blood.

“What about the kid?” Jesse called.

“Unharmed and not mine, so I’m leaving it with the parents. You can tell me I’m an idiot later, but the kid wasn’t bleeding… so. Anyway, there’s some good news. We can keep the contents of the truck for our troubles.”

“How the hell did you manage that?” Jesse said, almost squeaking. “I was expecting gunfire.”

“Gun jammed, as it does, when you spend all that time at the range and never clean the damned thing,” George said.

“Did it really,” Jesse said flatly. 

He and Jesse got the woman settled between them.

The nanny spoke for the first time. “My passport,” she said.

Jesse groaned. “Where is it?” George asked.

“It’s in the safe,” she said.  Her eyes were closed. She was sweating hard and panting.

“This should be fun,” George said.

Jesse never learned what George did to get into the safe, but after about five minutes he came back out to the truck with the passport – and the nanny’s BC Services Card, since the next stop was the hospital.

George gave the woman all the money he had on him, while Jesse scowled. They left her at the Lions Gate Hospital emergency department. The nanny said she intended to stay with a friend while she recovered, and that she would fly home the first chance she got. George and Jesse never saw the nanny, their unusual client, her unconscious child and her angry husband again.

Months later Jesse was still saying, “What the hell happened?” Sometimes he phrased it as, “So that Chinese guy took a shot at you and the gun jammed?” “How did you talk them into giving you the antiques?” “I wonder if we did the right thing, leaving the kid there. Who stabbed the nanny?”

George’s responses wandered around usefulness without ever arriving there, but the one that stuck with Jesse was, “Marriage is a highly variable human pastime.”

They unloaded their haul into George’s apartment. Jesse was late getting the truck back, and the rental guy angrily told him to find another supplier.

George didn’t get as good a price as he wanted for the antiques, mostly due to problems with provenance, but in the end, Jesse’s payday for getting a gun pushed in his face was thirty grand. He never told Raven, but she didn’t complain when he spent a little of it on her at Le Crocodile. He hadn’t even known it existed until he Googled “10 Best Vancouver Restaurants”.

When the food started to arrive, she once again wanted to know the occasion, and Jesse said, with an expression of brotherly indulgence, “Just because you’re you.”

“Bullshit,” Raven said, with quiet suspicion.

“Eat your carpaccio and shut the hell up,” Jesse said, and balance was restored to the universe.

At five minutes to two it rang, making both of them jump.  The silence had long since worn off; George was demonstrating his skill at making theremin-like music by squeezing his hands together. Jesse suspected trickery and could not determine exactly what the fraud was or how it might be executed, so after his initial start, he sighed in relief that they finally had a client.

“Where are you? He’s on his way from the airport!” George held the phone away from his ear. Jesse had no trouble hearing her.

With composed courtesy, George said, “Fearing some temporary communication trouble, Madam, we came across the bridge and are minutes from your house. Madam, we need your address.”

Silence. Only George heard her when she said, “I asked the governess to provide it. I’m so sorry for the misunderstanding.” She provided an address, which was, as promised, mere minutes away, and they rolled out.

Jesse whistled as he got out of the truck.  They’d never had such good access to a move site before; he estimated the turnaround was large enough for three tractor trailers and maybe thirty cars. Jesse did not get to bask for long. He and George were wordlessly greeted as the door was opened by a perfectly coiffed, groomed and uniformed maid whose fixed smile woke Jesse’s PTSD with a vicious blow.

This was no one who could help him or protect him. This was the face of someone terrified of someone else, and willing to watch you drown to stand on shore.

She led them into a smallish, comfortable room off the entranceway.

Jesse remained standing to make a show of respect and also to stay alert, as he had no intention of moving his gaze from the door. He managed breathing exercises while he did it. You’re a superstar. On the inhale! Silent affirmations please. On the exhale!

“What’s with you,” George muttered.  He was running a finger over a wooden sideboard, which looked like a splendid antique. “You sound like a bellows — puff, blow, puff, blow.  Having tummy troubles?”

“No,” Jesse said, and continued his breathing exercises. George acted like a social justice fellow traveller, but he had a marked distaste for a show of weakness from anyone, and beaked off if he saw it (and whenever else he chose.) It was a failing, and an instructive one.

George abandoned his antiquarian pose and stood next to Jesse.

The client entered and said, “Please follow me.” George made a small noise which could have been assent.  Jesse couldn’t have spoken, and walked, in a strange foggy state, after George. Even George seemed cowed by this woman; he’d never been this consistently servile with anyone before. It spun Jesse around, and it scared him.

He realized she would only speak with George, so he could zone out.

She was very polished; her hair was a shoulder-length brown cascade but Jesse thought, looking at her unmemorable beauty, if I look away I will not be able to remember her face, and does that make me face blind or racist?

George stopped dead and said, “Madam, I smell blood.”

The woman turned, eyes wide, and then said, “I’m sure you’re mistaken.”

“As you say, Madam,” George said. “You said it was a selection of pieces which you want moved.”

They had started late, and then they ran into the second snag.  It was a doozy.

It was a fifteen room house, and she wanted them to move something from every room. In each case it was an item no sane two person crew could manage. something antique and delicate. Or something really awkward and heavy. Jesse’s thinking, already slowed by unease, now slid into panic. They had maybe half a dozen furniture blankets. Not an issue, she responded.  She seemed amused for the first time, but the pleasant expression passed and a fixed glare replaced it.

She would supervise them as they were wrapped. She sent the maid to get tablecloths, immense swathes of patterned white linen, to make up the deficit.

Unlike every other woman they had helped so far, she would not touch a single item or pack a single box. She stood at the foot of the entryway stairs and directed traffic in a steady flow of Mandarin and some other language George couldn’t make out, and then the clear soft English.

“Does Madam expect your husband to arrive in the middle of the move?” George asked.

“Do as I ask,” she said, which was not an answer.  She quietly directed her maid to block two doors open, both facing onto the yard and away from the front entrance.

“Who is this person?” Jesse said under his breath as they moved the first piece onto the truck.

“I don’t know past her name and her pedigree, but I can still smell blood, and I could swear that whoever was bleeding is still bleeding,” George said. He said, “I wish I knew more about the husband.”

“I wish you could teach a course in how to smell things,” Jesse said. He didn’t want to think about the blood, and couldn’t understand why George would say such a thing to a customer, even if it was true, as was Jesse’s dark prediction.

As they spoke, they moved a brace of lacquered chairs. To Jesse’s mind they were hideous and impossible to keep clean but another thousand bucks awaited them if they helped this person, as requested, so Jesse was fine not expressing his opinion.

“It’s a gift, and a shitty one. Teach it? — that would be impossible! It would be no gift if I could, in the sense that you could merely take it from the box and use it when you were bored and wanted to do party tricks,” and George nodded to himself. “It’s no fun living in a metropolitan area and having a usefully precise sense of smell. The smell in the back of the van, for example, is not something you want in the Smell-O-Vision equivalent of Dolby Digital 5.1, with commentary track.”

“Let’s be thankful our host won’t get into the van,” Jesse said.

Jesse shook his head, and watched the kid as he wheeled out of sight, doing 70 at a bare minimum. 

He’d never seriously taken up the hobby, growing up 50 kilometres from the nearest skate park and 8 kilometres from the nearest paved road. He’d cadged an old beater of a board from a school friend, during that magical period when his mother was too fucked up to home-school and Rhonda refused to do all that and do all the exterior work, plus chickens, plus goats, plus riding, feeding, doctoring, mucking out and training horses. 

Working furiously on his chores so he could steal a few minutes away, he’d tried to set up a few minis. He worked his way up to a half-pipe, with Raven hammering nails alongside him with glee.

His mother, on one of her rare, and thus infuriating, forays out of the house and past the yard, had found boards missing and torched his two tiny ramps. He remembered Raven had shown more anger. Jesse knew it was safer for her to let it out, and he didn’t mind. 

All the parts that cared were going to die, anyway, or so he thought at the time; it’s easy when you’re twelve and your mother hates you (and every other man living), and your sister and co-mom are too intimidated by her cruelty, rage and spite to protect you. Nor had he grown ten centimetres and put on fifty pounds and lost all his wiry boyishness, and Ma sure as shit had not enjoyed him morphing into his father in front of her. Thinking of that made him smile, but it was not a happy one.

From his adult perspective, on a street a thousand metres above sea level, death was neither convenient nor romantic. He was lucky to be alive. He was lucky to be looking across Vancouver, ‘that breath-taking panorama of never-ending beauty and charm’, at least according to the most recent listing for the client’s house, which George had looked up on his phone.  “Oooh,” he had said, like a kid finding a double sawbuck in the upholstery. “A Zen garden. And there’s a hot tub.”

“I really don’t think I’ll get to soak in it after we load the truck,” Jesse had replied. “Isn’t calling it a Zen garden bigoted, unless it’s located where people are practicing Zen? Otherwise it’s a Japanese-style garden, but I guess the word Zen is worth money or it wouldn’t have been in the ad.”

The client sounded difficult, suspicious, fragile and frightened; Jesse had wanted to bail within seconds of hearing George’s description. Then he recognized his error.  If they were helping people leave abusive landlords, lovers and family, the only means test was, “Can you raise a thousand dollars cash?”

She was rich, and had not been in Canada long enough to get used to it. Her toddler had been born here, but citizenship didn’t mean much to the global super-rich. She’d lived a previous life as a magnate’s daughter in China  — another fact gleaned by George from the internet — but those were not reasons to turn down the job.  Rich women get knocked around by their husbands, and sometimes by their wives. She could be rich, and yet so isolated that hiring two gwai lo rounders had been her only option, when she needed to bug out.

George, with the prescience that Jesse was starting to find far too coincidental, had doubled their fee over the phone. She was to give him another thousand on completion.

The customer still had not called or texted. 

There was time to think. It was easy to frame the lesson he had taken from those crushing years before Raven rescued him.

In this culture you could not be a man until every soft feeling in you was dead and every hard feeling was yoked to the success of capitalism. 

Raven said, “Harsh!” but he didn’t hear an argument.

After they applied to become emancipated minors and fled to Vancouver, Raven said it wasn’t right to confuse his mother with capitalism; Jesse told her it made perfect sense. “Why not use second wave feminists to reinforce strict gender roles? Isn’t that what capitalism wants them to do, if it can’t shut them up or kill them? When they get older they are just as angry but way more tired, and they have all the prejudices of the generation, and hate it when you point it out.”

Around the last time his mother had gotten really sick, he’d told Raven he wanted to die.  Not to commit suicide, which still seemed foreign and messy, somehow. Just to disappear, never to awaken.

The kid on the skateboard was long since out of sight.

“If he comes off, he’s gonna have a really bad time,” Jesse said.

They waited in silence for George’s phone to ring.