A Killing Spring (5 page)

“What about what you want?”

The harsh institutional light above her shone directly on her face, knifing in the years. “What I want doesn’t matter. Tonight, Tom is all that matters. Jo, I’ve never been a very giving person, but I’m trying, and I’ve finally reached a point where Tom knows he can trust me absolutely. I can’t let him down. There’ve been so many betrayals in his life.”

“And I’ll bet he’s told you about every one.”

“That was cruel.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just that I hate to see you acting like a Stepford wife, especially with Tom Kelsoe.”

She moved towards me. “Tom has suffered so much, Jo. His father was a real horror show – bullying and abusive – but whenever Tom’s mother threatened to leave, his father would force Tom to beg her to stay. You just don’t know him. He is so vulnerable.”

“And so manipulative. Jill, I do know Tom. I’ve worked with him for two years. I’ve seen him in action.”

For one awful moment, I thought she was going to hit me; then, without a word, she turned and walked back down the hall. When she disappeared into the Faculty Club, I followed her. I couldn’t afford to lose any more points with her by being late for Tom’s party.

Inside the club, it looked as if the main event was finally about to begin. People were moving out of the lounge and finding places at tables which had been set up to face a lectern at the end of the room. On a table a discreet distance from the lectern, copies of Tom’s new book were stacked beside a cloisonné vase of white freesia. Everything was ready for the reading, but the man behind the microphone wasn’t Tom Kelsoe. It was Ed Mariani.

There was a certain logic in his being there. It was no secret that Ed had wanted to be head of the School of Journalism. In fact, his appointment had been considered a sure thing until Reed Gallagher applied, and Ed withdrew from the competition. His decision to take his name off the list of candidates had been as abrupt as it had been inexplicable, but whatever his reason for withdrawing, Ed had rapidly become Reed’s staunchest ally. He had moved quickly to make sure that department members who had supported his own candidacy threw their support behind Reed, and he had spoken out against those who feared that Reed’s plans for the school were too ambitious. That night, we had gathered to honour a member of the School of
Journalism; with Reed gone, Ed Mariani was the one to take charge.

But as he adjusted the microphone, it was apparent there was no joy in it for him. Ed had features made for smiling, but his face was crumpled with sorrow. “This is an evening to be with friends,” he said, and his voice broke. He took a handkerchief from his pocket, mopped his eyes, and began again. “As you have no doubt heard, Reed Gallagher died last night. We’re only now beginning to comprehend the depth of our loss. He was our colleague, our friend, and, for those of us in the School of Journalism, he was our example of what a journalist should be. Rudyard Kipling called what we do ‘the black art,’ but as Reed Gallagher practised it, journalism was a shining thing – incisive, compelling, and humane. It’s hard to know where we go from here, but I think those of us who counted Reed as a friend know that he would have wanted …”

Before Ed Mariani had a chance to finish, a door behind and to the left of the lectern flew open. Suddenly, all eyes were focused on the man in the doorway. Tom Kelsoe hesitated long enough to take in the situation, then he strode towards the podium and pushed Ed aside. It was a gesture so gratuitously rude that people gasped.

Tom didn’t seem to notice or care. “Talking about what Reed would have wanted us to do is a waste of time,” he said, and his voice was cutting. “And he despised wasting time as much as he despised anything that was fake or second-rate.” He shot a furious look at Ed Mariani, who was standing by the window with his partner, Barry Levitt. Ed lowered his eyes, but Barry took a step forward. His face was flushed with anger, and Ed grabbed his arm and drew him back.

I moved to Jill. She didn’t acknowledge my presence. Her
attention was wholly focused on her man. I didn’t blame her. As he stood gripping the edges of the podium, Tom Kelsoe was enough to grab anybody’s attention. He wasn’t a big man, no more than five-foot-ten, but that night, in a black stressed-leather jacket, black turtleneck, and jeans, his body had a kind of coiled spring tension that was almost palpable. There was always an admixture of woundedness and anger about Tom; grief seemed to have distilled the mix into an essence as potent as testosterone. As he leaned into the microphone, he looked, as Lady Caroline Lamb is reputed to have said of Byron, “mad, bad, and dangerous to know.”

Without preamble, Tom picked up his book. “This is about the people who will never be in this room or even at this university. It’s about the charter members of the permanent underclass in our country – the ones who’ve never read Hobbes but who don’t need Philosophy 101 to know that life is nasty, brutish, and short.

“The title of this book is
Getting Even
. The words come from some advice a woman who’s dead now gave her sons. The woman’s name was Karen Keewatin, and I met her boys on the corner of Halifax and Fourteenth shortly after midnight on April Fool’s Day last year. The date was appropriate. I
was
a fool to be in that area at night, but I was also more desperate than I can ever remember being.”

At the table nearest Tom, a group of students from our class sat transfixed. Hearing your instructor publicly admit frailty is riveting stuff.

“I’d been given a substantial advance to write a book about life in the streets,” Tom said. “The previous month I’d finished a manuscript and sent it to my publishers. I’d given it my best shot. I’d spent months researching life in the meanest areas of Vancouver, Toronto, and Winnipeg. I’d recorded and transcribed the stories of murderers, thieves,
pimps, prostitutes, junkies, pushers, and street kids, but the book wasn’t alive. I knew it, and my publishers knew it, but nobody knew how to fix it. Luckily for me, Reed Gallagher had just accepted the job here, and I called him and told him I needed help.”

For a beat, Tom seemed overcome with the pain of his memory. Then he smiled ruefully. “Reed went through the manuscript that night, and he was brutal. He told me that what I’d given him was voyeurism not journalism and that I should throw out everything I’d written and start again. ‘This time,’ he said, ‘get it right. Leave your tape-recorder at home. Give these people a chance to be something more than research subjects. Give them some dignity, and give your readers a chance to come to some sort of deeper understanding about what it feels like to be used and abused and choking with rage.’

“So that rainy April night when I was standing on the corner of Halifax and Fourteenth Street, I’d left my tape-recorder at home, which was just as well because, when those two kids jumped out from behind the bushes and started beating me with their baseball bats, I wouldn’t have had time to push
record
. The next thing I remember is a nurse who looked like Demi Moore bending over me and asking me if I knew what day it was. Lovely as that nurse was, I didn’t want to hang around Regina General. I wanted to find those kids with the bats and beat the shit out of them.

“Reed Gallagher had a better plan. He agreed that I should find the kids, but he said that, instead of killing them, I should try to win their trust. He said if I could get to a point where I understood what made two kids attack a person they’d never seen and from whom they took nothing, I might have something to write about.” He shrugged. “So I did. It took a while, but I found them. I don’t think I can read
tonight. I just want to talk. I just want to tell you a story: the story of Karen Keewatin and her sons, Jason, who’s eleven now, and Darrel, who just turned ten.”

It was a brilliant performance. The room was filled with emotion, and Tom Kelsoe seemed to feed off it. It was as if he took the pain we were feeling and channelled it into his account of the pain that had fuelled the lives of Karen and her sons.

As he told their story, despite my distrust of Tom, I felt my throat burn. Karen was a reserve girl from the north who came to Regina in search of the good life. She had no plans beyond the next party, and she ended up on the street. She started working as a prostitute when she was fourteen; by the time she was nineteen, she had a significant police record and two babies. One frigid night, she got into the wrong car. The john took her down an alley, beat her, threw her out and left her for dead. When she regained consciousness, she crawled down the street till she found a girl she knew. Tom said Jason Keewatin told him his mother was afraid that if she went to the hospital, Social Services would take her boys away.

It took her six weeks to recover. Girls she knew from the street took turns caring for her and her children. Six weeks is a long time to stare at the ceiling and, for the first time in her life, Karen Keewatin started thinking about how she’d come into this world and how she was going to leave it. She made up her mind that, if she got better, she was going to change her life. And she did. She applied for social assistance and subsidized housing, and she enrolled in an upgrading program. School was agony. In the north, she had attended class sporadically, and the schooling she did receive was abysmal. In her upgrading placement exam, she tested at a grade-four level.

Karen Keewatin had a lot of catching up to do, but she was
determined. Her boys told Tom Kelsoe that the most vivid memory they had of their mother was of her sitting at the kitchen table, trying furiously and often futilely to understand what was written in the books in front of her. But she never gave up. She told her sons, “You guys aren’t gonna have to go through this, because if it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to make sure you’re even-Steven with everybody else right from the start.”

It took her five years, but Karen finally graduated from high school and enrolled in a dental hygienists’ program. After she got her diploma, she got a job, a “respectable job, with nice people.” When she brought home her first pay-cheque she told her sons, “We’re even now. You guys got nothing you have to prove.” Six months later, she was diagnosed with
AIDS
. She was fired; she tried to find other “respectable” work, but her medical record followed her. Finally, she went back on the streets. Early one morning, she picked up a bad trick, and this time, after the beating, she didn’t crawl back.

On the night Tom Kelsoe met them, Karen’s boys were doing what they had done most nights since their mother’s death. They were getting even with the men who lived in the world that killed their mother.

When he finished, Tom Kelsoe bowed his head. Then he picked up a copy of his book from the table beside him. “I’m proud of every page of this book,” he said softly. “I’m proud because Darrel and Jason Keewatin have read their story and they tell me I’ve got it right. I’m proud because in here you’ll discover what it feels like to live inside the skin of those who live without hope.” His voice cracked. “And I’m proud because in the dedication I’m able to make a first payment on the immeasurable debt I owe to the man who was my teacher and my friend.” He opened the book and read. “For Reed Gallagher, with respect and thanks.”

There was silence; then Tom did a curious thing. He turned towards Ed Mariani, and held out his hand. After a moment that seemed to last forever, Ed walked over to Tom and shook his hand. It was a gesture as generous as it was characteristic. Everyone liked Ed, and the memory of Tom’s rudeness to him was fresh. By his handshake, Ed made it possible for people to respond openly to Tom’s reading, and they did. It was as if a breach had been made in the wall of emotion that had been held in check since we heard about Reed’s death. People stood and applauded. More than a few of them wept; when I looked across the room, I was surprised to see the future Frank Gifford, Jumbo Hryniuk, crying lustily into his handkerchief. Beside him, dry-eyed but transfixed, was Val Massey. Even from where I was standing, I could see the glow of hero worship. At that moment, Tom Kelsoe was everything Val Massey dreamed of becoming.

A bookseller appeared and hustled Tom to the table of books.
Getting Even
was launched, and from the way people were jostling one another to get in line to buy a copy, it appeared that the evening was going to be a commercial triumph.

I walked to the end of the line to take my place, but as I queued up, a wave of tiredness washed over me. I had had enough. I looked around to see if I could find Jill, so I could apologize. I spotted her in the corner talking to Barry Levitt. There were reconciliations all around.

As I walked past the bar to get my coat, old Giv Mewhort spotted me. Giv was a professor emeritus of English and as much a fixture of the Faculty Club as the grand piano in the corner. Rumour had it that he raised his morning glass of Gilbey’s when the Faculty Club staff were still laying out the breakfast buffet, but Giv was always a gentleman.

That night, as he came over to help me on with my coat,
he was courtly. When I thanked him, he smiled puckishly. “My pleasure,” he said. “In fact the whole evening has been a pleasure.” He glanced towards the table where Tom Kelsoe was signing books. “I haven’t enjoyed a performance this much since I saw the young Marlon Brando play Mark Antony in
Julius Caesar.”
He waved his glass in Tom’s direction. “That boy over there is good.”

It was 9:00 when I pulled into my driveway. The wind had stopped, but it was still raining. It seemed to me I had been cold and wet the whole day. The dogs met me hopefully at the breezeway door.

“Not a chance,” I said. “I promise we’ll go for a walk first thing tomorrow. But right now, the best I can do for you is let you out for a pee.”

When I came into the kitchen, Alex Kequahtooway was sitting at the kitchen table smearing mustard onto a corned beef sandwich. He looked up when he saw me. “I had an hour clear, so I took a chance that you’d be home early. Angus told me to help myself.”

“Good for Angus,” I said. “But I thought we were out of mustard.”

“I carry my own.”

“You’re kidding.”