Ghosted (21 page)

One morning—after a long night in the Cave—Mason and Willy emerged into the light of day. The air was warm. Mason scanned the street. He was sure that Bethany was out there, somewhere, making plans to take back her
precious
, but it wasn’t going to happen today.

Then, through all those lanes of traffic, he saw Dr. Francis across the street, just standing there in front of the MHAD building. She was staring right at him—or at both of them, it seemed. Mason
raised his hand, as if to say hello. The doctor’s eyes were fixed on his. A streetcar came between them and stopped at the stop. When it pulled away the doctor was gone.

“Why’d you do that?” said Willy.

“What?”

“Why’d you wave at that woman?”

“She’s my addictions doctor,” said Mason. He expected her to ask why his addictions doctor was standing out on the sidewalk, glaring at them across the nine lanes of Spadina, but she didn’t. “She takes her job seriously,” he said and coughed out a laugh.

Willy said nothing. He pushed her the fifty feet down to his building then in through the door. It closed behind them. He sat down on the stairs facing her and took out a baggie of coke. He was getting better at the climb—but still, after such a long night, he could do with the extra energy. At this point it was a matter of safety. He did a line then lifted her out of the wheelchair and onto his back. Where moments before he’d felt hollow, weak, troubled, he was now unstoppable—moving up the stairs strong and focused. The hit lasted as long as it needed to. He got her up both flights—into the apartment, into the bed—and then he collapsed, his back against the three-step ladder.

Willy touched his head—the most generous sort of touch, from a hand that felt nothing. “I know her,” she said.

“What?”

“Dr. Francis. I know her.”

“How?”

“She worked at St. Vincent’s. It’s a women’s shelter I used to go to.”

Mason breathed in. His body felt hollow. He was crashing now. It never got easier—more predictable, mundane, but never easier.
That said, it was better like this: crashing with Willy’s hand on his head, better than doing it alone.

“If I tell you something, will you promise not to tell anyone?”

He breathed out. “Of course,” he said.

“She risked her medical licence for me. Even jail time, probably. You know when Bethany sold my wheelchair?”

Mason grunted.

“Things got out of control. We’d been squatting in a room on the edge of Regent Park and Bethany took off. When Dr. Francis found me I was totally bugging out. She should have just taken me to emergency like that—let me suffer through it—but I was begging her, I was so messed up. So you know what she did?”

Mason held his breath.

“She went to the park and scored some smack.”

He let it out. “Fuck,” he said.

“She shot me up—right there in that room. And then she called the ambulance.”

“How’d she even know where to find you?”

“That’s Dr. Francis,” said Willy. “She can do stuff like that.”

“Then I guess I’m in good hands.” Mason climbed the three stairs and crawled into bed.

Birds stood on the skylight, chirping.

Dr. Francis looked at him like she had through the traffic—clear eyes blazing out of such a young face. He shifted in his chair.

“I didn’t really write this week,” he said, lifting up ‘The Book of Sobriety.’ “Wasn’t really sober that much. And you didn’t—”

“Leave her alone,” said Dr. Francis.

“Excuse me?”

“Willy. I’m warning you to leave her alone.”

“Me? You’re warning me? I’m the one who got her away from that bitch….”

The doctor leaned forward. “So you saved her, did you?”

“No, I just think I can help.”

“What, fix her? Don’t you think you have enough cripples in your life, Mason? Enough broken things? Why don’t you try fixing yourself?”

“She’s my friend,” said Mason.

The doctor stood. “Okay,” she said, forcing him to meet her eyes. “Then you have one chance: explain to me why your friends keep dying. Or else you leave her alone.”

“Excuse me?”

“Stop saying that!” said Dr. Francis. “You sound like such a pussy!” She took a breath, then sat back down and took his file in her hand. “By your own summation you have very few close friends. In the six weeks since you arrived here in your underwear, three of them have killed themselves. How do you explain that?”

“I never said any of that!”

“Actually, you did,” said Dr. Francis. “You probably don’t remember, but on your initial intake—when you came here in your underwear—one of the reasons you gave for your distress
was this.” She opened the file. “You said a close friend of yours had just committed suicide. It’s right here in your file. Then there was Sissy, or Circe, or whatever you’d like to call her,” she flipped some pages. “And then last week …”

“So people die!” said Mason.

Dr. Francis closed the file. “If you don’t have a better answer, I’m going to have to intervene.”

Mason stood up. “What happened to confidentiality?”

“There is none,” said Dr. Francis. “Not if I think you might harm yourself or someone else.”

Mason was at the door now. “Then we may as well let everyone hear!” he said, throwing it open. He turned back, glaring at Dr. Francis. “But before you go threatening me, you should know Willy told me what you did! So don’t accuse me of endangering people
—or
trying to save them. Take a look at yourself, Doc!”

Then he strode out into the waiting room. There was only one person there—a man in a hat, who looked slightly surprised. Mason nodded to him and carried on into the hallway where he punched the arrow pointing down.

    
43. In my dreams I’m often falling.

44. I’d rather build a bridge than write a song.

There were times when it was like he was watching himself from outside of his body, or at least his consciousness—when he couldn’t stop doing lines, making bad calls, digging a hole for himself,
digging and digging. And the part of him watching didn’t do a thing to stop him. Maybe it used to, long ago, but now all it did was watch. It knew he was too drunk, too high and losing too much. It knew Willy was trying to talk to him, that she felt sick and sad and didn’t want to be here, watching him dig. But even if it wanted to, it just couldn’t stop him.

“I want to go home,” said Willy.

“Then go home,” said Mason.

“Please. You’re not going to win.”

He did a line and he played the next hand. She said something else, but he tuned her out. He could see himself doing it.

“Do you want me to go?” he heard her say.

“I don’t want you to do anything because of me. I can’t take care of you. I can’t fix you. I can’t even help you.”

“I don’t want you to help me. I just want you.”

He watched himself drink a beer, all the way down. Call two hundred dollars. Do another line. “Well, you can’t have me,” he said.

And then she was gone.

And he couldn’t even see himself any more.

“What are you doing?”

He opened his eyes. He was on the floor near his bed. Chaz was sitting in a chair, looking down at him. Mason groaned.

“Why’d you treat her like that?”

“Willy?”

“Yeah, Willy.”

“It’s complicated.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“I can’t take care of her, all right?”

“All right,” said Chaz. “And I can’t take care of you.” He stood up. “That floor you’re lying on costs nine hundred dollars a month.” He stepped over Mason and walked out the door.

Eventually Mason got up. He drank three glasses of water,
took a long shower, got dressed again and drank more water. He looked out the window at the MHAD building, then turned on the laptop. He had one email.

Mason didn’t get back to him as soon as possible. He was sick of people who wanted to kill themselves, or thought they did, or just wanted attention, and he didn’t want to think about it any more. His first inclination was to delete the message and to take his ad off that fucking website. But that seemed like a lot of work. So, instead, he made himself some coffee in his new coffee-maker, and sat down on the couch to drink it. Then eventually, despite himself and his hangover, he started to think.

He thought of Warren, Sissy and Soon, of Willy and even Sarah. He felt nauseous, hollow, and his brain was barely working. But he glugged his coffee and kept on thinking—of the things he’d done and the things he’d wanted, and the things he’d wanted to do. He barely felt, but he felt like sobbing. And then, like the stupidest kind of protagonist, he let himself think of redemption.

He got off the streetcar at Prince and Mill, counted six doors down from the corner, and there it was: Tony’s Happy Daze Bar and Beer.

You think that’s funny, wait until you see the place
.

It didn’t look that funny—at least not from the outside. The windows were blacked out with torn reflecting plastic, peeling at the corners. The word
Cunt
(or maybe
Cant)
was scrawled across the bottom of the door, as if some misogynist (or possibly an illiterate philosophy major) had reached out with a spray paint can while passing out on the sidewalk. He opened the door to the smell of fried rice and empty kegs.

At first glance, the inside wasn’t very funny either. The floor was covered with dirty orange carpet and, in some parts, squares of cardboard framed with duct tape. The fluorescence had been mercifully lessened by the demise of several tubes. A pale green
glow shone over a pool table in the back and shimmering lights from a large fish tank illuminated the wall. There were a few shoddy tables. Directly in front of the door stood an elaborate mahogany coat rack.
I guess that’s sort of funny
, thought Mason, stepping awkwardly around it.

A skinny Asian woman was leaning on the bar, facing (yet seeming to ignore) her patrons. They were all men, in various degrees of slump, each separated from the next by a vacant orange stool. One of them had a cane by his side, the one on the end wore a hat.