Boyhood, Manhood, Fatherhood, Death (Part 1)

Despite the unfortunate circumstances, I was happy to be back in what I still felt was my hometown. Toronto was too sprawling, too cosmopolitan, too dirty. There’s something about Montreal. It's not entirely an urban center, yet it's got something more than your average minor North-American city. It's like and oversized village. Montreal has this sexy, palpable atmosphere. Maybe it’s the weather, oscillating between sub-zero winds and scorching suns on an almost monthly basis. Or maybe it’s the tension between the people, between the solitudes — that buzzing, quivering love-hate. You never know when it’s going to erupt into bilingual showdowns. It keeps you on your toes. It keeps you alive.

As to the circumstances I mentioned, well, it sounds awful and reductionist to speak of a dying father merely as unfortunate circumstances. It was dreadful, of course. His second stroke in a year. My sister called me and I flew in the next morning, this time around. I had waited, after the first stroke. I had waited a week, and then visited him with my wife and children. He had been waiting for us, the jolly grandfather smiling in the sunshine cascading into his hospital room. I had managed to skip the bad part, the part where you wonder if your father is going to live.

I blamed myself enough after the first stroke, after my sister told me how afraid she had been. I had been afraid too, except I lived far enough to have the option of not facing my fears. So when my sister called me six months later, in the middle of the night, I didn’t have a choice. I left my family behind — they would join me in a week, the time it takes to put your life on hold at the right place, like finishing a chapter in a book before dinner, so you can put your bookmark on the right spot — and I knew from my sister’s face at the airport that things would not be easy this time.

There was no jolly grandfather to meet me in the dim, crowded hospital room. Only a dying father. Just a shell, really. The father I had known had melted away. All that was left was starched, yellow skin sagging over brittle bones. A wheezing sack, plugged in with tubes and wires, smelling of death and medication. Only his hands were unchanged. Those huge, hairy carpenter’s hands. I took them hesitantly and sobbed like a child. He did not open his eyes.

My sister lived on the South Shore with her family. I didn’t want to bother her and be an additional burden, so I took a room in a hotel downtown, expecting to spend most of my time at the hospital. She came to visit in the mornings and evenings.

I spent the first night entirely with my father. I didn’t sleep, not one minute. I looked out the window, into the night. The harshly illuminated city sent a shattered glow across the thin lump on the hospital bed. I contemplated my life, hypnotized by the nervous beeping of the machines my father was wired to. The digitized version of his heartbeat. Memories floated back up from the deep, black bottom of my memory. I remembered things my father had said and done. I recalled his voice, clear, and sure, his gaze. His harsh, masculine, silent love.

Brilliant, blinding morning came and hurt my eyes, but I barely noticed. My sister passed by the hospital before work. She saw me and said I looked like shit — I caught a look at myself in the polished steel of the elevator afterward, I really did look terrible — and told me to get away from the hospital for a couple of hours and grab a shower.

I stopped at the Starbucks on the way to my hotel. I felt a kind of hollow pain in the pit of my stomach from lack of sleep. I needed coffee to stay at least vaguely aware of my surroundings. A Grande Latte^tm and everything would be all right again.

I ordered and paid and I lined up at the counter, waiting for my drink. The man in front of me was elegantly dressed, in a dark business suit with a silk tie. A large, expensive-looking watch poked out from his fitted sleeve. He wore polished, elongated Italian shoes. As I was admiring the way this man was dressed and contemplating my shame at looking so haggard and bleary-eyed beside him, he turned around, looked at me, and paused. We stared at each other for a moment. He had intense blue eyes, and a fresh, clean haircut.

Certain unwritten social laws govern this kind of situation. It’s like when you use the urinals in public bathrooms and someone is already there. You make sure to use the urinal that is furthest from the one already being used. When two men who don’t know each other size themselves up, they have to turn there eyes away after two or three seconds. Maintaing your stare longer is awkward, or can be taken as a sign of aggression.

The elegant businessman held me gaze benignly enough, but he did not look away. He just kept on staring. It was rather intimidating, so I was happy to hear what was certainly his Mezzo Soy Milk Macchiato^tm called by the barista. Except he didn’t turn around and grab his drink. He just kept staring at me for another very long five seconds, before speaking my name in delighted surprise:

— VICTOR!?

My gaze met his again, those piercing blue eyes. I clicked, finally. I couldn’t believe it at first.

— Vincent?

And I was in his arms. I couldn’t help but notice how muscular they were under the fine material of his business suit. Then I finally realized whom they belonged to. It was really him, Vincent. Vincent, my childhood friend. The guy I grew up with. Good old Vince, who used to know everything about me, and vice versa. Vince, who always biked with his hands off the handles, who was allergic to pineapple, who would smash marbles with a hammer instead of playing with them because he wanted to see what they looked like inside, who loved to read comics, and always kept a bag of gummy bears stashed between the cushions of the sofa in his basement.

— Oh my god I can’t believe it’s you!

I slurred something in response, the only thing I could manage in my state of surprise and exhaustion.

We were at arms length apart now, looking at each other again. We were really looking this time, trying to see in each other the traces of what had been so used to seeing as boys. His eyes, of course, were exactly the same. How could I have not recognized them? His smile had not changed either — the same big-teethed generosity.

— It’s so good to see you, man! You look great!

— Listen, I know I look like shit, I just spent...

— Grande Latte^tm!

How many times had she called my drink? Probably about four, very loud. Vincent’s drink was still waiting on the counter. We both looked around, suddenly aware of where we were. The entire Starbucks seemed to be staring at us intently. We were blocking the way to about ten people who were waiting at the counter. We took our cups and moved away.

— Wow. It’s so weird to run into you like this. Do you still live in Toronto?

— Yeah. Yeah I do. My father just had a stroke. That’s why I’m here. I spent the night at the hospital.

— Oh, I’m so sorry.

— But you! What about you?

— Well, I’m a lawyer. I work for a firm downtown.

— OK, wow! My god, I can’t believe it’s really you. How long has it been?

— How long has it been? Ten, fifteen years?

— Something like that.

— And what are you becoming?

His English still had the faint sharpness of a French accent, which bloomed into expressions like this one, calqued from his mother tongue, spoken with the emphasis of habitude.

— I’m a journalist.

— Married?

— Yeah. Yeah, I’ve got a wife and two kids, Samantha and—

My son’s name flashed in my mind and I couldn’t help but pause. I felt my cheeks grow warm. It lasted only a second or two, but all my life seemed to crash around me all of a sudden. My thoughts spun before my eyes and made me dizzy. Connections, correlations suddenly appeared where only bland thoughtlessness had existed before. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have not once thought of the man standing before me in all of those years? My own son. Vincent was looking at me with a quizzical smile. I didn’t have a choice anymore. I needed to finish my sentence.

— Vincent.

— Vincent?

I nodded and a spurt of embarrassed laughter erupted from his smiling mouth. Then he shrugged it off as a mere coincidence, which I now knew it was not. He looked at his watch.

— Listen, Victor, I really have to go. I have an important meeting in twenty minutes. If you’re in town for a while maybe we could go grab a beer or something?

— Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great.

— How does tomorrow night sound? Let’s say around eight o’clock?

— Okay.

— Okay. I know a quite place on Bishop. It’s called Grumpy’s. They have local brews and live music.

— Yeah. Yeah, sounds fine.

— Here’s my card. I have to run. Call me tomorrow, and I’ll see you at Grumpy’s at eight.

I was left standing there stupidly, with a cup of cooling coffee in one hand, and the business card of my childhood best friend in the other.

I am a shower person. I can’t stand baths — I don’t like floating in filth, I hate how you can never have the water at just the right temperature, I grow restless lying there for more than five minutes.

That morning, after my sleepless night and my encounter with Vincent, I returned to my hotel room and drew myself a very hot bath. As I slipped into the steaming water my skin burned red and I did not feel a thing. I was too tired to sleep. I felt broken, scattered. As soon as I entered the simmering water, I started remembering.

If the night had been filled with shadows of the past, translucent flashes that came and left like echoes, that morning I was inhabited with clear memories of my childhood — things I had not dwelt on in years, things I thought I had forgotten. As the water grew tepid, then cold, a film of vivid scenes from my youth played before my eyes.