Architects Are Here (29 page)

He was my son. I let myself be his father and a flurry of heat fizzed in the top of my neck. Owen opened his mouth to make a face. He was alive and I did not know what he would do. The tiresomeness of promises and commitment. The constant renewal of faith. Instead of just knowing. But then fathers leave all the time. Jesus, David Twombly.

Let’s walk a few blocks, I said. Let’s just follow our noses.

And I cheered at the thought that I was moved.

We walked around and I bought the Oven a comic book and I got an American newspaper and a couple of postcards. Three people were sitting in the grass at McGill, in a bowl of shade under a tree. This was David’s alma mater. I hadnt thought to go to a school off the island. No one really told me I could.

We went to the café where I’d been with David when the mirror had fallen on him, and I ordered a coffee and Owen had a lemon soda. I told him to watch for people ordering sweet things and then meat. Let’s write out these postcards, I said.

Who for.

Write one, I said, to your dad. We’ll mail it to him in Newfoundland and when he gets back there he’ll see the sneaky thing his son has done.

I handed him a pen, a good one, and he ruined the nib on it with his concentrated printing. I wrote to my parents. Coming home, I said. And then signed it with both my first and last names. Why had I done that? What other Gabriel would write them and say, Coming home?

We passed the McGill students in the grass. The shadow had moved on and the sun was glancing off their bent elbows now. It felt like the sun was their system of power, they controlled the sun and let it pour energy into their joints. They were refusing to let the sun shine into David.

We found a post office and stood behind a man who was short and balding. On his skull, at the boundary between scalp and hair, was the tattoo 666. Did he ever think those numbers would show up. What would his father think, or his son? Well, I guess Owen still can’t see them. Maybe that’s it. Maybe evil is not concealed from everyone, only the victims.

I bought two stamps and got Owen to lick his own. Then I found Helen Crofter’s postal code in the book and wrote that in and gave the postcards to the clerk. He said to take it outside and use the box.

But I want to give it to you.

If you give it to us, I’ll put it in this tray here where it’ll sit all afternoon until one of us brings it outside to empty in that box.

W
E ROUNDED A CURATORIAL BUILDING
and heard the rumble of bees. Cars over a distant bridge. We walked up Mount Royal and came upon a lookout point with a ramp to the sky. A man was receiving instructions at a hang glider. I thought that was something to watch with the Oven. The man and the guide were wearing puffy bags with tails. The man was barefoot and his wife carried his shoes. I pointed the shoes out to Owen. The men clipped into the kite on a running board over the cliff, two handlers holding the guy wires. Then off, and out and up, he waved back at us. He became a very small thing in the air. And his wife was still holding his shoes, the only thing left of him.

What about a museum, I said. Can you handle a museum.

Owen seemed easygoing and he knew where one was though he didnt know the name, the Musée des Beaux-Arts. I like free museums. Let’s find one thing, I said, and concentrate on that. Part of the enjoyment is ignoring the rest, is saying to the piece, youre the reason I’m here. It’s faithful.

Owen:What does that say.

It says archaeological.

What does that mean.

You dont touch anything.

I’m just going to sit on this bench, the Oven said, and look at everything.

I let my eye wander. And there, a crucifix. I pointed it out to Owen, but he was looking at his comic book. I walked up until my nose was an inch from it. I marry you, I said. I’d seen Nell once waiting for an elevator at IKW and she was so keen she was as close as I was now. In a hurry, I said, and she laughed. Thanks for laughing. Well, I feel like you now, I feel like I’m trying to make this crucifix open.

In a way, Christ is an elevator.

Dark weathered wood and traces of paint. His eyes looked closed but when I bent my knees the eyes were open. Theyre cast down. If they were closed he’d be suffering for my sins. But theyre open, so he is triumphant. Sneaky Christ!

Sometimes youre in a place because youve been kicked out of all the other places, I said to the Oven. Some days youre in the middle of the air without your shoes on.

And I realized I was sharing my Wyoming with a kid. I wasnt alone here, I was telling him everything.

We walked around the old city for the rest of the morning, and half the time I carried Owen. I put him on my shoulders with his legs around my ears. I caught us in a mirror and we looked like a pagan totem. The boy giving birth to the man. It made me feel vulnerable, but at least I had fifty-four dollars in my pocket. I bought another coffee and the Oven wanted fries but I said we had to wait until noon, you can’t go eating fries before noon. It felt like I’d been up for days, and then I realized I had been. I thought about David and Nell. I saw them talking together and putting a hand where a hand should not go. I created whole films of them that were probably close to the films that exist someplace in space and will, soon, with the correct technology, be spooled back in and used to lay guilt on us all. Judgment day will come, I thought, and I wondered if there was any snap in that. All my life is devoted to thinking if there’s snap to something, or if an event is empty.

I didnt see David that day. It was nice to have a break from him and it was good to hang out with a kid. Kids shake you up. I’d had it out with Dave and now this reprieve. But what kind of reprieve was it. This was David’s son. Really I was hanging out with the ideas and acts of David, rather than the man himself. Here were his repercussions. For I had none. But then perhaps we are blind to our own repercussions. We are too short to see them on top of a man’s balding head.

I went back to Sok Hoon’s driveway and had Owen stare into the windows. I was shy, I said. And had never looked at my own home the way I was making him look at his. There was his mother, doing something, she was bent over to a task. It could have been rolling pastry or it may have been keeping herself balanced. I remember my father, building a new kitchen. He took my mother by the arm and had her stand by the window where the kitchen counters would be. He made a pencil mark on the wall next to her wrist. So the counters would be hers.

Okay Owen go in to your mother.

I let Owen enter on his own to her. They didnt need me barging in. And I turned and saluted the school across the street where Owen was beginning his education. Then I ended up on the Main and ate fish in a diner. The toilets were amazingly dirty.

But at around nine I called Sok Hoon. I was worried about you, she said. She was just running an iron over some clothes and could use the company. I thought, the Prince one night and ironing the next. Perhaps everyone irons.

There’s a mattress for you in the guest room, she said. But when we looked David had returned, quietly sneaking in, and crashed on it. It was partly deflated. He was still in his clothes and his shoes were tightly on. He had probably seen Allegra.

Come on, Sok Hoon said. That’s your cue.

She was emanating the thought that we could be closer.

Look, I said. Let’s just have something small.

Right here by the bathroom.

And I kissed her. It was delicious, like eating apricots. It was a lip balm she was wearing. It made my shoulders relax. I pushed the skyline of her body against me. All I needed was to pull something towards me, something warm. And Sok Hoon, it was a conciliatory kiss. She was feeling sorry for me, that I was going through an anguish with Nell that she had already come out the other side of with Dave. It was a kiss that said it’ll be okay, youre a good person, I like you.

I
WOKE
with David’s arm around me, breathing his dead breath on my mouth. The mattress was flattened, he’d kicked off his shoes and one of them was under my chest.

Wake up, the Oven said. He was eating peanut butter and toast. The boy lived off things on bread.

Ahoy matey.

There is a shell of David, his eyes opening up, his lips a crease, barely alive.

Owen: Hi Dad. I saw you this morning with your boots still on.

David:You want to go see your aunt in New Hampshire?

Sok Hoon: I’m taking Owen across the street.

Dad you take care of yourself.

W
E WATCHED SOK HOON
and Owen cross the street and go to Sunday school, but as they crossed two police cruisers arrived and Sok Hoon was called over to one. A woman. They spoke and pointed at the school. There was a sign that said Early Intervention. I remember going to school and I know the type of boy the Oven is. He reminded me of Gerard Hurley. I knew Gerard Hurley when we were the age of Owen. We were the same age, with birthdays in March. When you share an astrological sign you can’t help but like the person.

I recalled his red star in Grade Two, that moment of change for Gerard Hurley. He was what, seven. He was that boy there, the age of Oven. And now the policewoman was assisting them back across the street and then returning to the cruiser while two men from the other car walked down the school steps doing paperwork.

What’s going on.

Sok Hoon:Theyre conducting an investigation.

Owen: I got the day off.

Me: Congratulations.

We went off to the kitchen and I heard Sok Hoon say, There’s been a report of abuse.

D
AVID WANTED TO SPEND THE AFTERNOON
in Sok Hoon’s bed, but I wouldnt let him. We have to pick up the car and dog, I said. It’s Sunday.

He got the keys for the Land Rover. We drove to Lars Pony’s and he hollered for the dog. She did this graceful leap in through the back window of the Land Rover. We were both proud of her. Dave drove away and Lars waved as if he always took care of out-of-town dogs.

That’s a good dog, Lars said to me, that Bucephalus.

Me:What did you say?

The dog’s name.

Me:What are you doing with that hose?

He was standing there with about eleven feet of green articulated hose and a roll of duct tape like a bracelet on his forearm.

Your car reminded me I got to check some things on my car, he said.

What kind of car.

A beauty, he said. The only thing I got in this life that’s been faithful.

And when he said that he became the man in the fox coat. These men, thinking cars are faithful. Did I love our car. I opened the driver’s door and started it up. Smooth. I put my hands on the wheel. Then I lifted them and looked at where my hands had been.

He was standing there delighted at himself. Lars had solved a puzzle.

You take care, he said. And waved. I saw him, as I went over the rise. He walked out into his street and kept waving. He waved like I was the last person on earth.

I
ORDERED SOME PLAIN CROISSANTS
and a bag of coffee and tested the car a bit before going back to Sok Hoon’s. Then I drove up behind the Land Rover and got out and I looked under the chassis. Dry as a bone.

David and Sok Hoon were sitting at the kitchen table, just staring at each other. They looked like they needed to be programmed.

Some of the kids, Sok Hoon said, have been taped to chairs.

What about Owen.

He saw it. He said it never happened to him.

They looked like they had exhausted the subject but didnt know how to change it. David had dodged a bullet. The bullet had been marching him across the street and strangling a teacher. They were looking for me to change things so they didnt have to imagine any more the strangling and the charges and David incarcerated.

Duct tape, I said. And suddenly I knew what Lars Pony had in mind.

I drove back across town with David Twombly. I pointed there and turn right and no it’s better this way. Finally we were lost because I was panicking and David looked up the universal number on his pebble and guided us there under the satellite for global positioning. We pulled up to the little house and I hoped the house would not be soon for sale.

The front door was locked. Try the gate. The house was joined to the next house by a wooden gate. It was pointy on top and I could not get over it. David did. Heavy but dexterous. I called to him. I said, Do you hear a car running.

Then I pressed my head up to the gate and I could hear it chugging in the garage in back. I couldnt see David because of the tall gate, just the edge of the garage door. But I heard him. I heard a window break and then a swear word. Now the car running louder and shutting off. But the garage door wasnt opening. So now he’d gone in the house.

The front door opened. A man’s hand, bandaged. At first I thought it was Lars. I knew it was Lars. Then it’s David with a cup towel around his fist. He had his pebble. He was calling for help.

NINE

W
E NEED NEW SHIRTS
, David said. If we’re to go into the States we need new shirts. All the old adventurers wore good shirts.

Can’t you, for a few minutes, think about what’s just happened.

He was looking at the scale in kilometres. About the time. Refolding the Michelin map.

We take the 87 south and cross over to Sasha, he said.

Youre a cunt, you know that? All Lars wanted was a bit of company.

David took a moment to translate something in his head. Dont be responsible, he said, for any man’s choices. That will lead you to ruin.

He counted off the days and where we’d be on the map. We had to stick around for Lennox Pony to show up. But then we’d hit the road south. If anything happens, he said, I take the next flight. If they dont let me on board I’ll get Massimo to make me false papers. That anything, he added, could be here with Owen, or with my father.

There were big airports in Newark and New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. He would keep his pebble on alert.

David poisoned me. But he had a point. Or, he had a way of pushing through life which made him not feel bogged down by the badness. He had badness and badness affected him, but it seemed, every morning, he’d wake up to a new start.