The Best Laid Plans (17 page)

I looked up into the heaving sea of students as they gathered their belongings and headed towards the table by the door where I’d laid out their marked book reports. I found him where he usually was, at the centre of attention.

“Mr. Hawkins, a word, please.”

Jeremy Hawkins, my creative Internet specialist and John Irving aficionado, descended the steps towards me. He couldn’t quite mask the look of disquiet on his face. I couldn’t quite mask the look of disdain on mine.

“Yes, Professor?”

I handed over his unmarked book report, which was likely drafted at some U.S. university by an impoverished English graduate student out to make a few bucks through the wonders of e-commerce. I kept it short.

“I know the Internet has made our lives much easier. But it is not just a boundless fount of information. It is also an unprecedented
temptation to those looking for the easy way out. At this university, documented academic dishonesty usually means expulsion. You’ve got three days to hand in your own book report,” I said, with an extra dollop of gravity. I took his plagiarized work back from him. “I’ll hold onto this in the meantime. Have a nice weekend.” I smiled as he backed away, shell-shocked. I confess I derived modest satisfaction from bringing him down a few pegs. He deserved it.

The two Petes were waiting for me in my office after class, looking as disconnected from mainstream society as two people could possibly be. I won’t dwell on their apparel yet again beyond saying that the most conventional clothing on either of them was Pete2’s neon green tartan kilt. It matched the colour of his triple-rowed Mohawk perfectly, which I’m certain was just a coincidence. It also hurt my eyes. As for the rest of their ensemble that day, I wondered how long it took them to get dressed and whether power tools were required.

“Hi, Professor,” greeted Pete1. Pete2 nodded salutations, content as usual to let his friend handle the vocal work.

“Gentlemen.”

“Thanks for the good marks on our reports. You didn’t have to do that, you know. It’s not why we’re working on the campaign,” Pete1 said a little awkwardly.

“And just to be absolutely clear, it’s not why I gave you both good marks, either. Don’t go around thinking you can score better marks by canvassing for Angus. That is just not on,” I replied, feeling defensive. “Both of you did very well on your assignments. Pete1, your look at Robertson Davies’ characters in … in … which Deptford novel did you read?”

“World of Wonders,”
he offered.

“Right. Your analysis was very strong. And Pete2, for someone who so often lets others speak for you, you certainly had a lot to say in your report. Plus, you happened to choose one of my favourite authors.”

Pete2 handed me what looked like a first edition of Donald Jack’s hilarious
Three Cheers for Me
, the subject of his book report. I also had a first edition that looked very much like this one.

“Thanks for the book,” said Pete2 in his characteristic low, nearly monotone drawl.

“He borrowed it when we stopped by your place last week to pick up more pamphlets,” Pete1 explained as if he were Pete2’s personal translator.

“You’re welcome,” I replied. “My library is your library.”

I had been serious. Both of their assignments were well above the class average and may even have approached the standards of a fair-to-middling grade-twelve student. That’s one of the problems with engineering. Senior-high-school students intent on engineering careers had little room on their timetables for anything other than science and math courses if they hoped to be accepted by a good university. They simply had no time for history, English, art, and other important courses. It really showed in the E for E reports I’d just marked.

“Let’s go, guys. I’ll drop you over in poll 19. You can change on the way,” I suggested.

Both Petes had resigned themselves to toning down their appearance when door-to-dooring. To this end, I always carried Liberal T-shirts and ball caps in the Taurus. I pulled over and parked as the boys scrambled out with buttons and leaflets. They looked pumped for another evening of hostile rejection, perhaps highlighted by one neutral encounter with a still-undecided-but-possibly-Liberal-leaning voter.

“Okay, guys, you know the drill. Angus is actually in a different hemisphere right now, but as far as the voters you’ll see tonight are concerned, he’s just in a different part of the riding. Clear?” I asked.

“Clear, boss man,” replied Pete1 with the standard nod from Pete2.

“Now, I really think we’re starting to get our message across, and we have you two to thank for that. We’re just three days out
now, and we want to keep the pressure on until the polling stations open. Politics is a very unpredictable game, and anything can happen.” It wasn’t exactly a Vince Lombardi, pregame barn-burner speech, but we were all pretty much tapped out by that stage.

“We know the score, professor. We can make it home from here on our own, so we’ll see you tomorrow.” Pete1 waved me off as they made their way up the front walk of the first house. I jumped back into the car and made a hasty retreat, unwilling to witness the reaction of what statistically speaking was almost certainly a Tory voter.

Three more days, and I would be free. Humiliated, embarrassed, disgraced, but free. I knew that no one in the Leader’s office or at national campaign headquarters who was taking their medication as prescribed expected anything other than another Eric Cameron landslide. But I also knew the power at the centre was looking for progress, forward movement, some indication that we’d kept the Liberal flame aflicker to be kindled into a winning inferno in some future election. As far as I could tell, we’d snuffed out the lonely little fire, and had flooded the whole riding for good measure. Smokey The Bear would be proud. The party brass would not.

It was seven-thirty on the Friday night before the Monday election. I wasn’t quite home yet and was listening to “As It Happens” on CBC Radio when my cell phone rang. “Hello.”

“Addison, is that you?” It was André Fontaine, out of breath as usual.

“Yep, what’s up, André? Looking for an invitation to our victory party?”

“You know where Petra Borschart lives, don’t you?” he hollered. I could hear crowd noises in the background.

“I think so. She’s on Welland Avenue, isn’t she?”

“Yeah, 65 Welland. Get over here right now. Right now!” He hung up.

I closed my cell and drove right past the McLintock boathouse towards the quiet residential community where Petra lived on the
west side of Cumberland. I realized my stomach muscles were clenched. André was an excitable guy, but he seemed utterly possessed on the phone. It made me nervous.

What happened next made me throw up. And, oh yes, what happened next also changed Canada.

In the middle of the news bulletin, I managed to bring my car safely to a stop though in hindsight, I should have chosen my parking spot with more care. Mrs. Kravchuk, the owner of the large, blooming, and as I discovered later, award-winning rose bush on which the Taurus came to a rest, was not happy. The situation didn’t improve when, in the midst of her titanic tantrum, I barfed out the driver’s side window onto the crushed yellow flowers that were sticking out below.

When Mrs. Kravchuk was finally placated or, more accurately, sedated, I carefully backed off her beloved bush and tore over to the scene of the fire. Bedlam greeted me along with André Fontaine. He was completely beside himself. A boisterous crowd filled the front lawn of the Borschart residence and seemed to feed off the bright lights and TV cameras. Thick, dark smoke still hung over the property, adding a surreal and supernatural aspect to the scene.

“Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, Addison, it was simply unbefucking-lievable! I’ll never forget it for the rest of my life. Mark my words – this will change the face of Canadian politics. I heard the call on my police scanner and got here before anyone else. I saw the whole thing with my own eyes,” he blathered, frothing at the mouth.

“Whoa, André. Calm down,” I said. “Take it easy, man. You’re halfway to a seizure.”

“Well, then, I’d die happy because I was here the moment Eric Cameron’s guise of perfection fell away, revealing dog collars, nipple clips, and a sordid taste for S and M. I was actually here when a woman in a crotchless, rubber bodysuit pulled a revered Canadian icon off his lofty pedestal by a short, leather leash,” reported André, with a faraway look in his eyes.

“I hope you’re going to write that down, André. You’ve got some good lines there,” I noted, trying not to think about what was really happening here.

André babbled on about this being his Watergate, but I tuned him out and tried to take in what I saw around me. As I surveyed the scene, I wondered how so many neighbours had shown up so quickly. I saw people crowding the sidewalks and spilling out onto the streets. With 150 or so Cumberland citizens squished onto Petra’s front yard, the place looked like a little slice of Woodstock before the rains came. I asked a teenage boy what had brought out so many people so fast. He told me it had been years since the last good house fire in Cumberland, what with the popularity of smoke detectors and all. Apparently, everyone in the neighbourhood tended to follow the fire trucks in hopes of seeing the kind of blaze they used to have every couple of months in the halcyon days of yore.

“So they’re all here to see a fire?” I asked, incredulous.

“Well, that’s how it started,” the boy said, “but we all ended up seeing something even hotter – that sexpot dominatrix, dragging some poor sap around on a leash. That rubber suit of hers had cut-outs in all the right places.” He giggled. “The fire was out ten minutes after the smoke eaters got here, but the crowd was just getting warmed up. When the news broke that Eric Cameron was walking around in his birthday suit with a few clamps and clips and some leather, all hell broke loose.”

To my utter horror, the crowd was now chanting “resign, resign, resign.” By this time, I saw four satellite-television trucks with reporters doing on-the-spot, live segments. André Fontaine was in his glory. He was being interviewed by the national networks as the guy who’d broken the story with his brief but hard-hitting piece that had been posted on
The Cumberland Crier’s
Web site within 20 minutes of his arrival at Petra’s house. He’d written the piece and had transmitted it on his BlackBerry. Betacams were crawling all over the property. Despite the ubiquitous yellow police tape, several camera operators and reporters
had crossed the cordon and were now in the infamous S and M cellar. The only police in the area at the time of the fire had already left with the ruined and underdressed guests of honour.

I felt someone’s hand squeeze mine and turned to find Lindsay at my side with her other hand in the crook of Muriel’s arm, lending her stability. I must have looked shocked.

“What? Why should we watch it on Newsworld when we’re only three blocks away and can see it live?” Lindsay said through a broad smile.

Muriel just shook her head in astonishment. “I’ve known for the last 15 years he’s had a bolt loose somewhere. But I never expected he’d Hindenburg like this,” she commented. “I’ve always said he was a slave to public opinion, but I never guessed he was Petra Borschart’s slave at the same time,” she said, unable to hold in a rather inelegant guffaw.

I noticed Muriel was holding a nondescript, unlabeled DVD in her left hand. “Muriel, please tell me that you’re on your way to the video store to take back a couple of Bob Hope-Bing Crosby road movies,” I said with trepidation.

“Oh, this may not be a road movie,” she quipped, “but I think it’s going to be a classic nevertheless. The common room at the lodge is going to be filled to capacity tonight. Fortunately, all of us are over 18.”

“No no no! Please tell me that you’re not holding an Eric Cameron amateur sex flick. You weren’t rummaging around in their basement brig, were you?” I asked, still incredulous. In fact, I suspected that incredulity would be my constant companion for some time to come.

“André Fontaine slipped it to me. He told me that after five elections, I’d earned a sneak peek at the real Eric Cameron. Very decent of him, I thought,” she replied, holding the DVD close to her frail chest.

Fontaine must have pilfered the DVDs from the sex cellar before the police arrived. Now, I had crossed the threshold of high
anxiety into the zone of abject terror. If André and Muriel had sex movies that starred a groveling and submissive Eric Cameron, others surely did, too. Though I studiously avoided thinking about the night’s consequences, my body seemed to understand the implications. I started shaking uncontrollably.