Last Call (10 page)

“Trish,” she said. “How did you know?”

“I came to see you once. The day you were born. I saw you through the big window.”

“You saw me?”

Startling Jim, Trish put her arms around him and let her tears come. “Oh, Dad,” she said, “I’ve waited so long...”

Shaken, confused, uncomfortable with this display of emotion, Jim pressed his head against the pillows and blinked at the ceiling, half expecting to see it swarming with bugs, his own eyes filling with tears now.

His hand came up and touched Trish’s hair, stroking it awkwardly.

* * *

Trish came out of her father’s room holding a wad of tissue. Her eyes were puffy and red, but she was smiling from ear to ear.

Dr. Kline, seated by the door reading a journal, rose to greet her saying, “So how’d it go?”

“It was great,” Trish said, glad now that she’d hung in. “Really great. Now all I’ve gotta do is figure out how to tell my mother I’ll be moving out early.”

“So you’ve decided?”

“Yes. I’ll be staying with my aunt in Mississauga and working in her flower shop.”

Nodding, Kline said, “Wish me luck, then,” and went back into the room.

Trish reclaimed her spot in the chair by the door, feeling the doctor’s warmth in the seat, praying her father would take the deal.

* * *

Jim said, “Where I come from, Doc, that’s called dirty pool.”

“Whatever works,” Kline said. “So did it?”

Jim looked out the window at the city below. “I’m not going to promise anything,” he said, “but I’ll take a shot at treatment.”

* * *

Julie landed hard on her back, the drop about fifteen feet to the muddy bottom. Gasping for breath, she watched Bobcat lift the corner of a thick metal plate, the cords in his neck bulging with the strain. Grunting like a boar, he dragged the plate over the mouth of the pit and let it go, the plate dropping into place with a dull thud Julie could feel through the earth.

Bobcat knelt on the plate now, squinting down through one of the air holes, saying, “Can’t do nothing right,” sounding distracted, mumbling the words as if pulled by other forces. “Feed you to the damn dogs.” Then he got up and walked away.

Julie heard the campervan start up, and in a sweep of headlights saw a pair of filthy legs protruding from a shallow tunnel in the wall. In a loud whisper she said, “Hey, you can come out now, he’s gone.” When she got no response, she poked one of the legs with her finger, then touched it with her palm.

Cold.
“Oh, Jesus.”

Julie dragged Gail Grafton’s body out of the tunnel in the wall. In the scant light she saw the girl’s eyes, wide open and clotted with earth, and her toothless mouth, gaping in a sunken face. Her rigor-clawed hands were black from digging, the nails shredded all the way back to the cuticles.

Julie screamed and tried to scale the insloping walls.

* * *

Bobcat sat at the workbench, polishing his treasures with a toothbrush, a mirror on an adjustable arm hovering nearby.  He was singing an old jingle he remembered from childhood...

“You’ll wonder where the yellow went, when you brush your teeth with Pep-sodent...Pep-sodent...”

Now he drew the mirror closer and bared his teeth, examining that alarming array of decay interspersed with pearly perfection. With grubby fingers he grasped an incisor that had been giving him grief and tried to wiggle it, but the tooth didn’t budge.

“Huh,” he said to Sammy, the little guy curled at his feet. “Sucker’s in there pretty good.”

He grabbed a bottle of Jameson’s Irish Whiskey off the bench, chugged back a third and slammed it down hard. Then he picked up the extraction forceps and looked in the mirror. Without hesitation he grasped the incisor and pulled, a growl of perverse stoicism issuing from his throat, rising in intensity as the tooth let go and the Rotties outside yowled in response.

“Mother
fucker
.”

He examined the tooth under the work light, fingering its bloody root, then dropped it into an old tobacco tin with a dozen others. Using the mirror, he packed the socket with a pellet of gauze.

While he waited for the socket to dry, Bobcat sorted through the collection of incisors he’d been polishing, five immaculate specimens arranged in a semicircle on the bench in front of him. Nearby on a large square of felt, dozens of other teeth—molars, canines, wisdom teeth—were arrayed like chess pieces, each of them buffed to a gleaming shine.

Bobcat checked his watch—
five minutes
—then plucked out the gauze and selected one of the incisors, fitting it into the socket. He appraised the fit in the mirror, then tugged the tooth free and selected another. This new one pleased him and he said, “Sambo, I believe we have a winner.”

He removed the incisor—the wet sucking sound reminding him of the time as a boy he lost a sneaker in the bayou mud—dried it with a fresh gauze, then smeared the root with Krazy Glue and inserted it into the socket. He held it there for several seconds, then closed his mouth and ran his tongue over the new addition.

Pleased, he flashed a smile in the mirror, the tooth a perfect fit. Then he turned in his chair to show his result to the room, saying, “What do you think?”

The terrified girl in the torn waitress’s uniform wriggled futilely in the barber chair, her bloody mouth already missing half its teeth.

“No opinion?” Bobcat said, standing now. “Well, alright, then. Let’s see what else you got.”

His shadow fell across her.

––––––––

Friday, July 31

JIM GAMBLE SAID, “Pretty sweet ride you got here, Trish.”

Trish glanced over to see if he was pulling her leg, then returned her attention to the road. Following her dad’s discharge from TGH this morning they’d grabbed a bite in the cafeteria, then decided to spend a few hours exploring the city, seeing the sights and chatting until his one o’clock appointment at the Webbwood Addictions Center. A few minutes ago Trish had taken a random exit off the Don Valley Parkway and now they were here, in this seamy part of downtown—biker bars, head shops, strip joints—and Trish was worried about running somebody over. Crazy people were everywhere.

In answer, she said, “This old junker? Are you serious?”

“Damn straight. My first car was a Vauxhall Victor I paid fifty bucks for. It had a standard transmission, and the only way I could get it started was to push it down a hill, then jump in and pop the clutch.”

Trish laughed, saying, “That sounds pretty bad.” The previous Friday a mechanic friend of her mom’s had given the Jetta a tune-up and installed a new starter, and now the engine was running like a charm. She said, “Compared to that, I guess it
is
a sweet ride,” and smiled, pleased to be spending time with her dad. She’d driven down on three other occasions in the past couple of weeks, just to hang out with him, strolling the streets around the hospital—during one visit he’d given her his version of the fiasco with the stolen wine bottle, and they’d shared a good laugh over that—or just sitting in his room, shooting the breeze about their lives and their hopes for the future. They were getting to know each other and Trish couldn’t be happier, her affection for him growing by the day.

He still looked pretty beat up—his complexion waxy in the daylight, his clothes hanging off his bony frame—but his face was shaven, his long hair combed, and his tremor had all but disappeared. He was wearing jeans today, and a clean shirt buttoned all the way up to the neck.

They were stuck at a red light in front of a biker bar now and a couple of rival club members were having a shouting match in the street. Trish could see that the spectacle was making her dad uncomfortable, and when the light turned green she tramped on the gas pedal, the Jetta laying rubber as they peeled away.

Jim said, “Whoa, there, Mister Andretti,” and chuckled.

“Sorry, Dad,” Trish said, slowing down. Then: “I guess I should have asked you this before now...but is it okay if I call you ‘Dad’?”

Without looking at her, Jim said, “I’ve been thinking about that, too. How ’bout you just call me ‘Jim’ until I’ve earned the title.”

Disappointed, Trish said, “Okay, Jim,” but she thought she understood.

They were quiet after that and Trish let the silence spin out. There were so many more things she wanted to ask him—and
tell
him—but he was still very sick and she didn’t want to upset him. She told herself there’d be plenty of time.

The bars and head shops were turning into restaurants and corner stores now and Jim seemed to be relaxing a little.

Smiling, he said, “You going to give that poor kid Dean another shot? He told me about the shit he pulled, and I’m not saying the booze and the drugs excuse all that, but he has come a long way and I know he regrets it. He’s going to sponsor me in the recovery program and—”

“Did he put you up to this?”

“Not at all. Scout’s honor. I’m just asking.”

“Well, I guess you don’t know as much as you think you do, Mister Gamble, because Dean’s taking me out to dinner and a movie tonight. Channing Tatum. Who can resist?”

Jim said, “Who’s Channing Tatum?” and Trish laughed.

She said, “I feel like doing something outrageous.”

“It was that kind of attitude made me the model citizen I am today.”

“That’s not what I meant...” She spotted a tattoo parlor in a strip mall and parked the Jetta out front. “I mean something—
outrageous
. To commemorate our reunion. You know, like a tattoo. I’ve always wanted another tattoo.”

Jim rolled up his sleeves and showed her his arms, saying, “I’m about out of room for tattoos.” He said, “
Another
tattoo? Girls do that now? Regular girls, I mean?”

“What do you mean ‘regular’?”

“You know. Girls. Who aren’t strippers or biker chicks.”

Trish laughed. “Everybody’s doing it now. It’s all the rage.”

“Jesus. So where’s this tattoo?”

Blushing, Trish untucked her blouse and tugged down the waistband of her jeans, showing him his name rendered in an elegant blue script, low on her hip where her mom couldn’t see it.

Squinting, he said, “Is that...?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“How...?”

“Your name’s on the album.”

“When did...?”

The day after I turned eighteen.” She tucked her shirt back in. “Okay, no more tattoos. Mom’d kill me anyway. How about—”

“Have you told her about me yet? Or about quitting your job at the hotel and moving down here early?”

“I told her about moving.”

“How’d she take it?”

“She wasn’t happy, but she respects my decision. I’ll tell her about you when the time is right—
hey
. Don’t change the subject. Out
rage
ous, remember? What about body piercing? Or one of those cool little tooth diamonds?”

Jim said, “I had some trouble in prison with a guy had a nose ring. And I hate dentists.”

Alright, how about this? I’ll get the tooth diamond—” She removed a fine gold chain from around her neck and handed it to Jim, letting it curl into the palm of his hand. There was a high school signet ring attached to the chain and when Jim saw it he laughed with pleasure and surprise. Smiling, Trish said, “—and you wear this.”

“For Christ sake, is this mine? Where’d you find it?”

“It was in with Mom’s stuff.”

Trish watched him examine the ring and could almost see the memories filing past behind his eyes, not all of them pleasant. He unclasped the chain and handed it back to her, then slid the ring onto his finger—perfect fit—and smiled.

He said, “You got a deal. But only if you wear this.” He took a hand-carved talisman on a leather thong from around his neck and slipped it over her head. “I carved this for your mom in the tenth grade. She...gave it back, and I’ve been wearing it ever since.”

“It’s awesome. Thanks, Dad...and you earned that one.” She kissed him on the cheek, then got them moving again, leaving the tattoo parlor behind. She said, “Your appointment’s not for another two hours. Let’s go see what we can find.”

* * *

At the Webbwood Addictions Center at 12:55 that afternoon, Jim Gamble sat next to his daughter outside a closed office door with a name plate on it that said, DR. GRAEME LANGTREE, PROGRAM DIRECTOR.

Waiting there in silence with sweat beading on his forehead, Jim felt cornered, ready to bolt, his innate aversion to authority and institutions trying to break loose in him. A familiar inner voice was telling him he could walk out of here right now and vanish into the streets, and that bitch doctor back at TGH, with her legal documents and her pushy deals, could kiss his bony ass right to the red. In his mind, he was already on his feet.

The only thing keeping him here was the girl seated next to him, this sweet, innocent kid who’d had the colossal misfortune of being his child. And even in spite of that, with the clock on the wall ticking off the minutes until that office door opened, it was all he could do not to flee. He couldn’t get his knees to stop bouncing, and he didn’t believe he’d ever been so thirsty.

Trish took his hand and he almost jumped out of his skin.

But his knees stopped moving.

Alright
, Jim thought.
Alright.

At precisely one o’clock, the office door opened and Dr. Langtree appeared, a bear of a man in his fifties with intense green eyes and a ready smile.

“Mister Gamble,” he said, and Jim got to his feet. “Come ahead in.”

As he stepped through the doorway, Jim glanced back and saw the sparkle of a tiny diamond in Trish’s smile.

She said, “I’ll be right here when you come out.”

Langtree gave her a friendly nod and closed the door.

* * *

The blinds were drawn in here, the light subdued. In a chair off to one side sat a nurse with a clipboard on her knees; she did not look up when Jim came in. On a corner of Langtree’s desk stood a cluster of family photos, and on the wall behind it hung a series of framed A.A. slogans: TAKE IT EASY; ONE DAY AT A TIME; FIRST THINGS FIRST. Jim had seen them all before in the Kingston pen, where the warden had tried to force him into the prison recovery program, a misguided attempt at rehabilitation that ended in solitary confinement.