The Higher the Monkey Climbs Page 9

  “Common knowledge only remains common if from time to time we remind ourselves of it.”

  “Some parmesan would have been nice.”

  Sagipa continued. “Of course, common knowledge can shift. For most of the past century, it was commonly believed that pasta originated in Italy.”

  “Well that’s more a correction than a shift,” I said.

  “Not really. Any historian would have had easy access to the truth. But in the public realm, the myth persisted. The myth was the truth.”

  Feeling besieged, my eyes closed against the pain of so many full sentences in a row, I didn’t see any benefit to arguing. “What are you doing for dinner?”

  “Manolo’s taking us out.”

  Well, it figured. “Just the three of you?”

  “You were invited,” Sagipa said. “But I didn’t think you’d be up for it.”

  Obviously. “Nonsense,” I said. “Touch of flu, that’s all.” I threw back my blankets, raised my torso a few inches, and fell back again.

  “Maybe it’s best I stay in, though. I’m probably still contagious.”

  “Yeah. The flu can be killer.” Even with my vision compromised by lids that refused to open all the way, I saw in Sagipa traces of Manolo’s severe avian profile.

  We were silent for a moment, Sagipa with his hands folded in front, me laid out like a corpse on the slab and in that time I felt as though a verdict had been passed and that I had lost on something. We got along terrifically, Sagipa and I, but moments like this were rare. Our relationship, though healthy, was also fragile. In essence, what it lacked was a solid foundation, ­something that would permit us to confidently weather a crisis—a crisis like this one—knowing that whatever happened, we’d be okay in the end.

  As the adult in the duo, I was surely to blame. But until now, I hadn’t given much thought to my step-paternal responsibilities. Sagipa was just seven when Inés moved in and in those days he was slow to receive my attempts at fatherhood. I didn’t persist and, until he was ten or eleven, I think he saw me as a kind of live-in babysitter. He went to bed on my orders and accepted my guardianship at soccer games and in shopping malls. But when I offered to read him stories or help with homework, he almost always refused. I complimented his self-sufficiency to Inés and others but this may have been my excuse to remain relatively uninvolved. Anyway, we mapped out our own space in our common household, respectfully encroaching when necessary. Eventually, we found a common connection: Sagipa had an extraordinary memory and I had a taste for simple trivial facts severed from their more complicated context, like an up-close viewing of the dots in a pointillist painting. Converging at that axis, our relationship grew into something more like friendship.

  It was because of Sagipa, for example, that I learned that Napoleon’s favourite horse was named Marengo. That the Atacama in Chile is the driest desert in the world. That originally, Joseph Heller had titled his famous novel Catch-18. The previous summer, at a rented cottage on Whitestone Lake, I spotted the flash of a hummingbird dining at a dangling feeder.

  “I wonder what kind of hummingbird that was?” I asked, before returning to my jigsaw puzzle.

  “Ruby-throated,” Sagipa said. He was reading a book in his usual way, the covers spread just enough to see the words without cracking the glue in the spine.

  “How were you able to see it for long enough?”

  “I didn’t see it at all,” Sagipa said. “But of the over 500 species of hummingbird in the world only one, the ruby-throated, is commonly found east of the Mississippi.”

  But now, lying among dampened, crumpled sheets and bunched blankets, I felt I was being asked to produce a fatherly moment. An outpouring of paternal counsel; wise, well-considered, all expressed strategically to lead Sagipa towards his own conclusions. Give a man a fish, etc. In the past, my man-to-man talks with him had been brief and pithy (The first rule of masturbation? Don’t get caught!). And, although, with Manolo lurking, my motives may have been unclear (Was Sagipa a responsibility? Or a piece of territory to be fought over?) I was eager to come through for him.

  “Listen,” I began. “I’m sorry about last night. I didn’t behave well.”

  “You weren’t that bad.”

  “I wasn’t that good.”

  “I guess,” Sagipa said.

  “This must be strange for you,” I said. “All of this.”

  “A bit.”

  “Did you want to talk about anything?”

  “Nah.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Sagipa nodded, but then spoke. “What you said last night, about it being impossible to make money writing books in this country, is that true?”

  “I may have been talking out of turn there. The fact is, I don’t really know that much about it.”

  “Yeah. But what do you think?”

  “It’s a competitive market,” I said. “But who can predict public appetite?”

  “It just seems like a bit of a long shot.”

  “You never know, helping him could be a learning experience. Even if the book’s not a success.”

  “Why don’t I help you, instead?”

  “Help me?” I said. “I have lots of colleagues who are paid to help me.”

  “Not with job stuff. What about your cousin’s theory about your dad being murdered? It must be bothering you.”

  I was touched by the offer, especially that it represented some kind of forgiveness for the previous night’s antics. At the same time, the domestic shakings over the last two days may have spooked Sagipa enough that he felt he had to do something to prevent his world from disintegrating. The tenuous nature of our relationship had never been so exposed and I believe Sagipa was now looking to confirm its existence. And while I understood what he was feeling, I did not think investigating my father’s alleged murder or accidental death was the right kind of bonding exercise for either of us.

  “It’s good of you to want to help, but there’s nothing to look for,” I said. And then, recalling the conversation with my mother, I added, “I’ll let you know if that changes.”

  The following night, despite lingering symptoms of hangover, I insisted on making love with Inés. I was aggressively gentle and generous. I lingered longer than usual between her legs and when she was on top, I grasped her hips and flung her to her back, nearly spoiling the mood when her head came dangerously close to the sharp corner of the bedside table. Manoeuvring into the missionary position, I did not hover push-up style, but instead allowed my weight to collapse on her breasts and abdomen and wriggled my hips as though grinding spices. It was going well, I thought, until Inés complained that she was having trouble breathing. Certain of my noises may have exaggerated how good it felt, but what I mostly wanted was for her to know I was there. When I finished, I took hold of her hand and spread it over my scrotum, squeezing her fingers.

  “My God,” I said, pulling her closer. “Feel how huge they are. They must weigh five pounds each right now. You must have come, what, four, five times?”

  “More like three.”

  “Three times! I bet guerrilla boy was never so productive.”

  “Never when it was just the two of us; that I can say.”

  And yet. No.

  Even the possessive horniness brought on by a returned ex-boyfriend, the quality of our sex did not approach the elevated levels of passion achieved in the distant, early days of our courtship. Lying on my side, my back to Inés, I listened to her uneven breathing as she drifted into sleep and thought of that first time in the office closet. I turned back towards the window, hoping to sleep through a variety of interference. Downtown noises, normally part of a textured backdrop, were now prominent and bothersome. Sirens from rushing ambulances and chasing police cars. A pair of raccoons fighting, a dog barking in response to their snarls. A low, pounding bass line, played on our adjoinin
g neighbours’ stereo, the boys just home from the club, jumpy on coke and horny, yet still considerate enough to try to mask the sounds of their humping with the numbing music.

  Below the bedroom window, a bottle collector made his rounds, forcing a metal shopping cart over curbs and cracks in the sidewalk. The sound stopped and I listened to the sound of ­bottles clinking and then being dropped, glass popping and smashing, shards spreading across the sidewalk. Seconds later, the shopping cart rattled away down the street and I thought about the mess left for me to clean up.

  12

  Returning home a few days later, I found a package waiting for me, delivered by courier from Birk’s. It was a silver business card holder, thick and weighty, with my initials etched in great girlish flourishes on the face. The note was brief:

  Congratulations on Newsys.

  Mother.

  I picked up the phone. Put it down again. That she knew about Newsys helped clue me in to her source of information on my life.

  The card holder felt like a prize, a prize meant to reassure me in times of doubt, like the medallion they give you at Alcoholics Anonymous to remind you not to drink. If I ever found myself in doubt about things like Newsys and the real reason I had won the account, I needed only to touch this heavy piece in my inside pocket and be reminded that they chose me because they liked my abilities as an immigration lawyer. And there could be no other reason. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have received this prize.

  Booze seemed a reasonable response to that kind of rationalizing. And so it was off with the tie, off with the jacket, and on to The Barrington to sit on a stool to suss things out. Or at least distract myself with neighbourhood gossip, the latest efforts to have a sidewalk widened or speed bump installed or to get the cops to finally do something about the crack house across the street.

  And besides, if it wasn’t that my mother was suddenly keeping such close tabs, it was this: Since that first dinner, Manolo had been coming over to the townhouse nearly nightly, consulting with Sagipa on Guerrilla Warfare for Small Business. He was due again that night. Together, I imagined, they searched for things like the Guevarista equivalent of a Clearance Sale. I figured that leaving the house was also a favour to Sagipa. What he probably needed was space to get to know his father. What he didn’t need was me hovering.

  There was nobody in The Barrington that night and Lena was occupied with restocking the fridge and so I read the sex advice column in the current Now magazine and once I had learned what one should do in the event that one’s husband can’t get off unless he is wearing a diaper, I gave into my need to think about everything that was happening—that resident nagging my head—both here and in Wanstead. I didn’t come to any conclusions of course, except that I felt like I was being shoved around by some unseen, distant hands, pulled one way, pushed the other, always against my will. No, not against my will. Right about then, my will didn’t seem at all capable of asserting itself. All the motion was bound to make me vomity.

  With all of that in my head, and after entering the house that night to find Manolo still at the table, sketching chapter plans with Sagipa, Inés refilling their tea cups, I was spurred to go back to Wanstead and ask some more questions.

  And so at work the following day, I called Drew Herringer, Tony’s old girlfriend and the mother of his son, who was surprised and happy to hear from me. She said it sincerely and so I did not hesitate to ask if I could see her.

  “What’s wrong? Your wife leave you?” she said.

  “No.”

  “You get fired?”

  “No, the job’s solid. So far,” I said. “I’ve got to be there on business and I was hoping to talk to you about something. About Tony, actually. Why did you think something was wrong?”

  “A lot of people come back here when there’s something wrong in their lives. They get canned from their job or their wife announces that she’s in love with the mailman and they think that coming to Wanstead will help them reconnect to their roots and reground them.”

  “And does it?”

  “Usually being here just depresses them more,” she said. “See you Wednesday.”

  I left work early the next afternoon to pick up the rental car, swung by the townhouse to pack a bag, and five hours later was reclining pantless on a king-sized bed in the Wanstead Marriott.

  On television, Survivorman Les Stroud used a stray corn chip to light a camp fire and then dragged bundles of branches to form a sort of fence around the bed he had constructed out of dry grass somewhere on the vast African plain. “It’s not a barrier,” the Survivorman warned. “It’s a deterrent. If a lion wants to eat you, believe me, he’s going to eat you.”

  I ordered a club sandwich from room service. It came piled high and held together with toothpicks wrapped in strips of coloured cellophane and on the side thick-cut, seasoned French fries, a leaky mound of creamy coleslaw, and a tiny glass bottle of Heinz ketchup. First class, this place. For many years it had been the best hotel in Wanstead. On check-in, I had given my name to the clerk, watched her fingers tapping delicately on the keyboard, and waited for the question. But then, I thought she was likely far too young to know anything about Gord or the UCF’s famous battle with Marty Schuller, the hotel’s former owner. And yet, I gave it a shot anyway.

  “You probably don’t remember when this place was called the Royal Windsor?” I said.

  She looked up and produced a cordial, service industry smile. “It’s always been the Marriott to me, sir. The elevators are just around the corner.”

  From the safety of the bed, my head propped by four pillows, each the size of a small litter, I watched Survivorman Les Stroud use a stick to flush birds from a nest hanging low in a tree. You never reach in with your hand, he warned. “Black mambas like to nap inside and if they bite you, you’re dead.” The show cut to commercial. My mind fell back on Marty Schuller.

  When did all that happen? The mid 1970s, it must have been. A hot, sticky weekday evening in summer. The house on Aberdeen. It was late enough that I was in my pyjamas. In the living room, Allistair Forzante paced between the fireplace and the chesterfield.

  “We’ll kill him,” he said. “We’ll strip him naked, tie him to a chair in his kitchen, slather him with bacon grease, and let the rats in that hotel have at him.”

  I sat in my pyjamas at the top of the stairs, listening. Despite the hour, I was wide awake, skin tingling. My fingers tugged at piles in the broadloom, my knees opened and closed repeatedly. From my position, I couldn’t see my father but I knew that Gord would be seated in the black leather arm chair, one leg crossed over the other, a glass of Special Old resting on his knee.

  Forzante was a big man with a severe face and a small mouth and in those colourful days he wore bushy sideburns that stretched halfway down his cheek. I imagined their blackness against the red of his face and the fearsome animation as he paced through his fury.

  “We don’t need to kill him,” Gord said. “Especially since we start negotiating this week.”

  I knew then that the man Forzante wanted to kill (and Gord didn’t) was Marty Schuller, the owner of the Royal Windsor Hotel, whose housekeepers, cooks, valets, and waitstaff were all represented by the UCF. Earlier that evening, there had been a preliminary round of negotiations. Apparently, they had not gone well.

  “What am I, deaf? Am I hearing you right?”

  “I think we can probably get six—maybe six and a half—per cent if we give up overtime for conventions. The way the economy is going, no one will be booking anything for the next two years. By that time, we can re-negotiate.”

  “I can’t believe you plan to talk to this cockbreath.”

  “He’s the owner. Who else but Schuller?”

  “The things he’s been saying. And in public!”

  “That’s not important right now.”

  “How dare he accuse us. We need to respond.
”

  “It doesn’t matter, Al, I’m telling you. The higher the monkey climbs, right?”

  “Sure. Whatever. But this is more than the Royal Windsor. Do you know what they’re saying down at the WAW?”

  “Schuller is the enemy. Not the WAW.”

  “Why am I discussing it? I’m the head of this union. If I want him dead, he dies.”

  “He doesn’t die. He dies and the hotel gets sold. Who’s going to buy it now? Nobody has any money, nobody’s lending. Or maybe someone buys it and converts the building into an old folks home. Either way, it shuts down and two hundred of our people get pink-slipped. It sends the wrong message. A bad temper is a vulnerability in this business. We need to be careful here.”

  Forzante’s footsteps stopped. There was a pause in the conversation. Sliding down two steps, I cocked my head, straining to hear. But there was no sound. Not even the tinkle of ice in a glass. Finally, Forzante spoke.

  “You’re goddam unbelievable, you know that?”

  “Trust me. I know what I’m doing.”

  “I don’t give a damn if you know what you’re doing,” Forzante said. “And don’t you ever tell me to trust you. I didn’t get where I am by trusting people. You need to keep that in mind.”

  Survivorman Les Stroud lasted his seven days on the lion-infested African plains without being eaten. I raised my beer to toast his success and then wondered why Inés hadn’t called. It was past 10 o’clock. Whenever I traveled, she was supposed to call me, we’d agreed, to save on the cost of hotel long distance charges.

  “She’s not here,” Sagipa said. “She went out.”

  Receiver to my ear, I rose from the bed and walked to the window. They had given me a room at the back. No view of the river, but cheaper.

  “Did she say when she’d be back?”

  I looked down. The streets were wet and empty. I watched a traffic light run through its cycle.

  “She said she might be late.”

  A drunk stumbled into a newspaper box on the sidewalk below, regained his balance, and kicked the box twice before moving on.