The Thought, Part 1.

A novel free to read and pass on.
(started 1984 - finished 1993)
copyright Geoffrey R. Hamilton

Chapter I

Toronto, Sunday, October 3, 2053

Zinta said, " ".

I guessed she was getting straight to the point in as few
words as possible. Even so, she felt the need to repeat
herself, " ".

I happened to be lying on the floor when she straddled me
and sat on my bent knees to block my infrequent sit-ups. I
looked up at her as she drew wide her red irritated eyes,
once again opened her purple lips and held that pose - her
hesitations, her pauses, they were drying out every wet kiss
she'd ever given me -- then she lifted her finger as if it
were a magic wand: " ".

At that point I finally understood: she was about to turn me
into a friend. My mind started to ache, but I told myself it
was due to the stale air in our apartment, not to the
certainty that Zinta was leaving me.

I left the matted back of my head in the dusty carpet and
looked down past my flushed cheeks into Zinta's eyes. She
couldn't hold my stare.

I'd never wanted to believe that this was coming. I'd ignored
her signals, claiming to myself that I was too inexperienced
with relationships to know what I was seeing. I wanted to
know what was going to happen next and, for that reason only,
I wished that I'd had at least one other girlfriend in my
life to allow me something to compare this to. I wanted to
know what she was thinking about me right then, but I couldn't
know, so the fear in me was manifested everywhere I looked.
I guessed there was no way to escape my mind.

With my cooling muscles too weary to get me off the floor I
could do nothing but watch for her next move. She stared down at
me -- me, the 'big baby' -- and this time I was the one who
couldn't hold a stare.

My life had just one dimension until this excruciating moment --
contentment. How this was achieved was Zinta's secret.
Perhaps she didn't even know how she did it, but without her
to direct my life she might as well have drowned me on
the spot.

I stopped thinking and waited for her calming voice to
start the end of things. Then, without warning, the meaning of
what she was about to say burst out onto the floor,
unintentionally preceding whatever her voice had wanted to

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2.

say. Then the control she had over me began to relax; I was
slipping out of her warmth and protection, dangling upside
down and shivering between her legs as though she had given
birth in mid-stride. I desperately needed to crawl back in
somehow.

She got up from sitting on my knees and smiled at me. I
faked a smile right back at her. She gave me her hands to
help me curl up and get to my feet; then I stood to wait.
She reached towards me to hug me, but I grabbed her
upper arms to stop her. Eventually she resigned herself to
holding my forearms, she then strained her neck to place
her head on my chest. I noticed her nudge me from side to side,
trying to rock me in her arms, but I resisted. I separated
my legs and braced myself against anything she
might do next.

My mind started to fray, 'Is that it? Is that how she ends
what we've meant to each other? Could I have....' My
breathing was becoming heavier. I looked at her, 'What did
I mean to you?'

'Nothing'.

'...But I couldn't have meant nothing to you. Think of...
...just think of the things we've done -- things you said you'd
never forget -- there are things you said.... We've been
everything to each other! This isn't Zinta. This is not
Zinta!'

Finally she spoke. "...I don't think I can say this without
getting you mad...the wedding is off -- I don't love you
anymore -- it's like you're asleep or something -- I don't
know...you see, I can't be your protector anymore. I can't
be your parents for you. I once wanted...they should
have been there for you Bernard. Listen to me. They're dead. You've
got to open up about it -- to yourself and to other people." She
threw cynical tears at me. "I've protected you for too long,
I've let you hide away somewhere in there." She laughed -
she laughed! Then she tapped her nose against my forehead.
"I'm going away...I'm afraid you'll have to fend for yourself from now
on. You keep the lucky dice, they'll be your souvenir of us. It's
just that it's time...I mean, it's time for me to find somebody or
something that I can be in love with...a-again."

'What the hell does that mean?' I thought as I compressed
her flabby arms -- dug in my nails -- stuck them in! She put
her head back to focus on my expression and it felt like she
was finding a way past my mind's defenses. So I averted my
eyes and let myself feel her flesh squeeze between my fingers.
With her tiny hands, she tried to mimic my actions, but she
was only able to scratch the skin at my elbows while the
only pain affecting me was the pain caused by the tears being
forced into my eyes.

I suddenly lifted her from the ground and spun her around, knocking
down our books and souvenirs.

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3.

My feet seemed to be dancing when I let go, but surprisingly
she still had a fondness for at least a part of me; she was
grasping onto my forearms as though they were the poles in a
merry-go-round run amok. So by the time I had emancipated
myself from her grip my timing was off; she hit the couch
instead of the wall.

I stumbled to the floor from dizziness.

She screamed. At what point I wasn't sure.

'What am I doing?' I smeared the perspiration from my face
with my bare arms. The salty taste seeped into my cracked
lips and became a soothing balm, a pain to fight the pain of
my searing thoughts.

'Who the hell am I?' I pushed myself off the floor and knocked
off a hanging plant from its hook on the ceiling. I shook
the rope away from the pot, scattering soil with the same
skill as her artwork possessed, then sat on her legs and
tied her feet together, tight enough to have dislocated her
ankles.

She spontaneously roused herself, jerking and twisting, crying
my name with such terror and anger I felt a connection -- an
empathy between us that I had never known before. Without
pause she stretched across an end of the couch for something
to hold and whipped back at me striking my neck with the
edge of her heavy dictionary.

I grabbed my neck to soothe it while a tingle surged from
the pain -- or to it -- and agitated my flesh to the point
where even ripping it off was not going to satisfy me. As
she wriggled for something more effective to hit me with, I
lifted her legs with one arm and pulled her off the couch.
She banged her head and twisted in spasms until, with our
empathy extending from mutual terrors to mutual strengths,
she ripped herself from my grip.

Again, I tried to find a hold on the rope but it became akin
to reaching into a fire to save some treasure. Over and
over I lost her with her kicks and jerks. Skin was starting
to come off my palms, but she was tiring by that point. I
violently shook my hands, hoping to cool them, then again
took her legs, grasped a chair and dragged them under the
plant's hook. Zinta became frantic again. I kicked her in
the ribs to knock her wind out and, in one breath, stepped
on the chair and hooked her up. She came around again but
her loose hold around my calves gave way as I stepped down
to the floor.

She was crying my name again in fits. Her face was bloated
as she swung like a raging pendulum. Then something loud
happened; she had dropped headfirst into the thin carpet.
The hook had come out.

'What am I doing?'

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4.

I dragged her and the chair across the apartment towards
another hook above our bed. I noticed I'd left a careless
red line.

Suddenly I smartened up. I stood looking down at her with
the kind of shame that fills politicians. '...I don't need
the chair.'

I stepped on the bed, pulled her onto it and for ten minutes
struggled to finally hook her up.

When I'd finished, I stepped down from the bed and looked up
at her to reflect for the first time on what it was I'd just
done.

"You've got what you want," I panted to her, "I'm upside down."

I had to get away from her so I tried to walk to the living
room but somehow I did a complete circle and ended up next
to Zinta's hanging body again.

My eyes rolled back in my head then I spontaneously screamed
at my parents twenty years too late, "Dad...you COWARD!
You coward.... No. don't! Don't leave!"

I walked in circles countless times occasionally kicking
plant dirt out of the way until I went to my dresser and found my
dice, the Lucky Sixes. I picked them up by the string
and with my sore hands clasped them
around my neck.

On the wall over our bed was Zinta's favourite picture, a
tourism poster of a James Bay resort overlooking the skyline
of the Capital. The slogan read, "NEW OTTAWA, SIMPLY THE
BEST PLACE ON EARTH". It was framed lovingly with gilt-edged
carved wood and had a glass panel to protect it. All this
even though the poster was freely available to anyone and
was, in her artistic opinion, badly done. But there it was.
She had never visited New Ottawa and through this two
dimensional window she thought she had discovered the place
to realize all her life's desires.

As I looked at the poster, it sickened me. 'We had the best.
Why did she want to go there?' Zinta's swinging body was
blocking a full view of the poster so I went closer until I
decided to move it somewhere better. I took it off the wall
into my hands. 'She must have spent a hell of a lot of
money on this frame.' I leaned it against a wall and then
walked over to her easel and sat down in the easel's matching
swivel chair. There were drawings piled on it, 'studies' as
she called them, which she usually kept stuffed in a drawer.
I wondered why she had them out. I surmised that she was
packing them. I pushed it all aside and looked around to
find clues as to her intentions, any dates ahead that would
have told me when she had planned to leave. There was nothing
for the whole of October. Then I noticed it was a vintage
calendar from 2037.

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5.

I sat for a long time ignoring her slight
swinging motion. I didn't think it was possible for her to
swing so long. I put it down to a breeze coming from
somewhere.

Suddenly the glass in the gilt frame shattered and the poster
was ripped by some object. When I remembered how I had just
thrown an ink bottle at it, I calmed down.

"So this is the future," I said aloud. Like a time traveller
I had arrived out of oblivion to remark for the first time
on the unfamiliar terrain. I was lost in this future but
perhaps familiar terrain was no better in hindsight. Zinta
was my oblivion and she betrayed that role. I could not grasp
the idea that she could abandon me. My parents were no less
incomprehensible. And who really knew me if Zinta didn't?
She was a shallow
illusion after all...as I was no more real to the world than
is a caricature.

I looked at the torn picture of the capital and wiped old
tears from my face. 'The last time I bothered to look, the
future was supposed to be flying cars and telepathy. The
future's the same as the past, it just lacks the certainty.'
I thought this loudly and mournfully -- the conscious word seemed
truer. 'What does the future matter? The future wasn't able to
warn me about the desertion! They couldn't tell me about
the betrayal!' Without noticing, I regressed to unconsciously thinking and
rocking in my swivel chair. 'They tell you that you're free,
they tell you about the perfection of our democracy and
about electoral evolution and they tell you...I don't know....
Why do they spend so much money telling us what we already
know? I know it's a wonderful country -- the best -- but why
don't they spend some money on finding out how I can get
Zinta back?'

I imagined I was standing where the photographer stood as
he shot the poster of New Ottawa and I was
about to walk from that seashore into the "Atrium City".
What would I want from that future? What would it demand of
me? In my mind I moved through this arcade filled with all
possible earthly delights and with unlimited credit. What
would I buy first? I'd always been content with what I had
before and what Zinta selected. So why would I want anything
here? Why? Because now the factor of Zinta's betrayal was
new. What would satisfy me now? Zinta was the only thing that
had any value -- she was the one thing that could stop my
thoughts. And oblivious thoughts -- total obliviousness is
what I knew so well. This limbo between oblivion and purpose
in life was only a sickening confusion.

I spread rubber cement on the easel's calendar and rolled
the drying goo into a ball. I rolled pieces from the fourth
of October, from the eighteenth, from the tenth and from all
around and took it in my hand. I bounced it and put up with
the smell. At first it was an insignificant toy, but slowly
it grew.

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6.

It became an impressive thing, a model for protection, warmth,
marriage -- Zinta had always managed to avoid that last step.
I wasn't going to let her stop me this time -- finally my
life was going to be complete. Marriage was what I'd always
been missing and marriage was what I was going to get.

I put down the ball on the easel and picked up the phone to tell
a friend, Julie, the good news. While waiting for her to answer,
I watched the ball roll across the easel, chaotically, on
its way over the edge.

"Julie, you're invited to my wedding. I've decided to get
married. What do you think?"

"What's going on? I haven't heard from you for years."

"Come on. Did you hear what I said?"

"To Zinta? She agreed to a date?"

"No, no. Not to Zinta. My parents are arranging it. They
want to." I tried to clear my groggy voice.

"Bernard? Give me a second here - I don't believe it. You're
going to marry someone you don't know?"

"That's right."

"Why?"

"They told me yesterday if I didn't marry this girl they'd
fond for me, I'm out of their wills. Zinta really wants the
money."

"I don't remember that they objected to you and Zinta living
together. Not that I'm claiming to have been able to meet
your parents - and wait a second -- Zinta? I would have
assumed you broke up with Zinta -- 'Zinta really wants the
money?' You're confusing me. Take a deep breath and tell
me in your usual... sedated...way."

"Okay.... I'm going to get married to a woman I've never
met. My parents never liked Zinta and have told me if I
ever want to escape my financial situation I'll marry this
girl they found. But I'm not going to leave Zinta, she and
I will still see each other, she just wanted a place for herself
anyway."

"She told me that years ago."

I felt sick.

"...Bernard?"

"Yeah...."

"I didn't know they hated her. Besides you once said they
thought she was gorgeous."

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7.

"'When has hate given way for beauty?' Wasn't that one of
your sayings Julie?"

Julie laughed, "'Flattery is the gold of the golds!' In a
way I love being trapped by my own sayings. Proves some people
are listening. But you're not getting off just yet. Your
parents can't be over fifty. When do you expect to collect?"

"How can you say that to me?"

"This is a joke, right? You gotta be kidding? You're the
one -- oh! -- listen Bernard, you're not sounding like yourself.
You're barely enunciating, and I've known you long enough to
know you're never this confused. What's happened to your
foundation? Where's God, country and Zinta? Or was it
ignorance, bliss and Zinta?" Julie spoke cynically and
inaccurately. "Or whatever it is you like to say. What's
wrong Bernard?"

"Nothing." My lips were sticking together.

"Let me speak to Zinta."

"All right. Just a sec." I put the receiver down on the
desk and called out loud enough for Julie to hear, "Zinta!
It's Julie!"

I walked to the front door, stopped and put my hand on the
door knob. I considered leaving right then, but footsteps
were resonating in the hallway on the other side and were
coming closer. I didn't dare.

I heard talk just audible near my door. "...is that
the flat?"

"Hey, do you think he cops will show up this time?" a woman
said.

"Why would they?" another woman replied. "They've refused
to charge her for verbal assault for months -- they're waiting
until that guy changes his mind."

"It sounded like a real fight this time -- so what was I saying
before?"

"The nuke voter-rama."

"Oh, yeah."

They'd passed by me, down one floor and out the front door.

I went back to the telephone and told Julie, "I guess she
went out."

"Did she take her phone with her? Maybe I'll give her a
call. Give me the number."

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8.

"No, I see it here, she didn't take it."

"Bernard. Listen to me. Do you really care? You have
everything you've always wanted, I thought. Is this what
happens when you're tempted by a little money?"

"A lot."

"So now it's a lot. Bernard, are you expecting to collect
soon?"

"My Dad has cancer. Okay?"

"All right I'm sorry. Is it serous?"

"It's a brain tumour."

"That's not serious."

"When it's half the brain it is."

"Oh. That's one thing I don't know about."

"I'm doing this for my father. He wants it this way. I'm
going to do it his way."

"I guess...I should want to be at the wedding, but -"

"Then be at St. James Cathedral at seven pm tomorrow." I
gave her all the details in between her attempts to tell me
I was crazy.

I said good-bye and then wrote down what I had told her before
I forgot.

I picked up the phone again, and called another friend from high
school. I was lucky that he was still living at home because
I hadn't spoken to him for over four years, and had not seen
him since the hockey team broke up at graduation. I told
him about the wedding and invited him. I said it was going
to be a girl we had both liked at school. He believed me.
Immediately after I hung up, I looked up that same girl in
information and found her number on the display. She had
changed her name for some reason. I rang her up to see if
she would marry me. Some man answered the line and eventually
I realized I was talking to the woman's husband.

'First I need the witnesses.'

I hung up the phone on the husband's yapping and trudged to
the window. I looked across the narrow alley over the roof
of the building on the other side. Orange sunlight shot
onto my face -- I needed to close my eyes for a second -- then
the warmth of it seemed to nuzzle me back into the bosom of
oblivion -- my home. I knew this sensation wasn't real but I
knew a way to make it real and to make it forever.

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9.

'I'm gonna get married! - I'm gonna get married!'

I turned around and walked out my door to the stairwell,
leaned my hip on the railing and paced myself down the one
flight to the apartment entrance.

A letter carrier held the door for me as I entered my
building's shadow just outside. It was a blue shadow, with
the orange sunlight defining the limits of the blue air's
domain. I noticed that my rope-burned palms were not
bothering me during those slow seconds, so I lifted my hands
and groped for something to give me a bearing. My movement
failed to disturb even that blue air, or at least I couldn't
sense it with my hands. When I looked at my palms again, I
tried but failed to recall their significance. Then I
shivered in ecstasy: I'd recaptured, in that moment, that
sense of oblivion again, but this time it was real. I felt
like the solid last piece of a great liquid puzzle.

I yawned.

"What was I thinking?"

I started to move away from my building. I crossed the street
towards the park while the clouds shut down the sunlight,
diffusing the blue shadow I was in, making it an ordinary,
imprecise grey.

A car flew past sending me its pressure wave and shifting my
hair.

I headed past the playground, debated turning south under
the Dupont streetcar line but decided to turn north up to
Davenport Road.

I yawned again and felt the pain return to my hands.

'Okay, I've got to...um.'

A water truck rumbled by trying to spray the street clean.
It sent water lapping over the curb which splashed between
my naked toes. The potting soil from the flat washed away.

'Am I ever thirsty.'

I followed the twists of Davenport east and south until I
realized the road had become Church Street. The night was
taking over.

'Oh yeah! The wedding! I'm going to get married - finally!'

The Singh neighbourhood square came up. I found a washroom
and used it. Then I bought something to eat and relaxed on
the rim of the beautifully moulded plastic fountain. A plaque
honoured the Alhambra as the inspiration for the fountain.

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10.

'I know! I'll soak my feet in the water.' Suddenly I heard
Zinta's screams. I covered my ears and then pretended that
I was scratching them in case anyone was watching. I turned
around on the fountain rim and put my feet in the water.
Reaching into the centre of the fountain, I laid my fingers
into the upshot of water and felt them bounce around against
the water pressure.

'I guess this is what happens when you grow up with
somebody.... How could Zinta leave me? Oh, what time is it?
Those damn old fashioned, old town, old stupid public clocks --
what does it say over there anyway?'

Suddenly I noticed that for exactly one second I was very
comfortable.

'October third!? I want to know the time! ...Ah, who cares
anyway. Zinta always wanted to know the time too, she always
wanted to know the time. Normal people check it on
the job and stuff, she had to do it in the middle of sex.'
I covered my eyes again and suddenly forgot what I was
thinking.

When I'd rested, I drank from the fountain's water and quickly
decided to leave. My steps back to the sidewalk grew cautious as
my view of things began to rotate inside my mind. I guessed
that I'd stood up too quickly. I stopped to catch myself
from falling and incidentally placed my closed hand against
a bronze groin of a male nude sculpture next to the sidewalk.
Then the first cool wind I'd felt that night spun over my
head, swirled around my body and woke me up.

A bus was coming south so I ran across the street to a bus
stop. When the it halted, I walked into the bright, cold
coach. Paying the fare cost me my last few dollars and some
slight pain to my hands. The burning had slowly become more
tolerable, enough to get the fare from my shorts, but I was
beginning to worry about my neck. The run across the street
had done something to it, I guessed. The muscles held my
head as a string would. When I staggered to the back of the
lurching bus, my head bobbed as though I was playing Raggedy
Andy. I could feel the people staring at me. Then I tripped
over my feet, stretched out my arms and fell. My sore hands
sank into a soft old lady as my bare knees hit the grooved
floor. I was quickly off the lady, apologizing and in a seat
brushing sand off my bruised knees with the back of my hands.

Some kid with long hair smiled at me when I looked at him. I
smiled back and continued to flick off the sand embedded in
my skin. I looked up again, then around the bus and back at
the kid. He was giving me a variety of smiles with questioning
or coy looks.

'Typical!' I thought. The neighbourhood was too 'out', to allow me
to get away with holding the crotch of a bronze man. I got up and
walked to the very back of the bus, away from the kid. I didn't want
to seem available any longer. Then a woman stepped on the bus

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11.

and sat across from him on the seat I had just vacated. The
routine started with her too. He tilted his head as though
he was trying to gently lift her face with an invisible
projection from his nose. I decided I must have been partly
wrong about his intentions but I couldn't be sure of what he
was after. He moved across the aisle to her and sat a seat
away. Her smile was more than polite, it became deliberately
inviting. But she stopped smiling when he pulled out some pamphlets.
He handed her some and she threw them on the floor. The old
lady I had fallen on picked one up and began licking the
inside of it.

The bus driver was looking through his rear-view mirror. His
eyes were angry. He stopped the bus and shouted out, "My bus
ziz not going anywhere while one of you druggies ziz on
board!"

The smiling kid got up and coolly stepped out the rear exit,
leaving pamphlets scattered on the floor. Equally casual
were three passengers who, one at a time, walked down the
moving bus to pick up a few of the pamphlets and then sat
back down in their seats. One jubilant passenger came to the
back where I was, and handed me a few of them, after brushing
grains of sand off first. He offered himself the seat next
to me, then let his butt fall onto it. With his shoulder
pressed into mine, he opened up a pamphlet, with respect,
and licked it once. When he was finished he folded it up,
leaned forward in his seat and slipped it into his back pocket
before slouching again with his shoulder jabbing into my
arm.

I shifted away from him and took a look at the front of the
pamphlets I had been given. In bold letters it said THE CHURCH
OF GOD, in smaller letters it continued, "Send donations to
Killarney, Ontario K0I 2U9 W3W". For no reason I leaned
forward and stuffed the pamphlets in the back pocket of my
shorts.

I flicked my dice on the necklace and felt them fling back
on my collarbone. It was my stop coming up.
The jubilant man moved his legs for me and thankfully I could
get off the bus.

I had to breathe the extreme heat again which was difficult
compared to the air-conditioned bus. I knew
that by thinking about my breathing difficulties I was
ignoring my terrible situation. My situation was that I had
stepped off the bus four blocks too early. I was at Queen
Street standing beside The Metropolitan Church, instead of
on King Street beside Saint James. I could not fathom how I
could be so stupid. I crossed the street to look at the
advertised deals in the windows of the pawn shops and cut
rate law firms, but I was distracted by my own ghostly
reflection and decided then and there to stop ignoring my
problems. I forced myself to remember the things I'd done.
Most importantly, I remembered never to lie to myself again.
Even though my reflection told me more than I could stand, I
had to be honest - my hair looked awful. I clawed at it,

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12.

trying to straighten the strands. I couldn't do much else
but hope that the next time I had access to a washroom, I
would do something about my appearance.

I crossed Queen Street heading down Church Street towards
Saint James Cathedral. As I moved closer to it I watched the
spire of Saint James grow higher and larger. Each stride
magnified the importance of my upcoming wedding.

I arrived at the Cathedral's rectory, stopped in the front
yard -- I had to think before I went any further -- and sat
down on the grass to give my ideas some time to develop. By
the time I realized that the rector was watching me from the
front step, I'd come up with a few lies to help me get what
I wanted.

The rector spoke. "I've been watching you for quite a while
from the upstairs window and I can't help but think you have
quite a load on your mind.... Is there something I can do
for you?"

"My parents were killed in a car accident today."

"Oh my.... My goodness and you're still in shock," the rector
said while he came over to me. He put his arms around my
shoulders and took me inside.

I went on, "My girlfriend and I were following them on the
expressway - the Don Valley expressway." I pointed east. "We'd been
arguing, it seems like the whole afternoon about...my
girlfriend. We argued about, you know, living together. My
Dad couldn't stand it. But my mother didn't care that much
about the wedding. She tried to stop us arguing. I always
felt I should've married my girlfriend earlier but it just
didn't happen. I guess that's because so few people bother --
after all, the law says moving in together is the same thing."

"You know that shouldn't matter. If you feel you should get
married or feel that you should come to church some Sunday --
you missed it today; first mass is at eight am -- the thing
is, you can't think that way.... Come over here and sit in
my big chair."

"Thanks."

"Now, don't tell me any more if you can't. But I do think
you can't hold yourself back from doing what your conscience
wants you to do."

"It was the most--"

"Not that I can get my wife to do the same, you know," the
rector sighed for the rest of his interruption, "Sorry go
on. She's been such a test of my faith."

"Yeah...anyway, it was the most horrible fight we'd had in
years. We were dinning next to Markham Cathedral and that's
what started it. The Cathedral reminded my father of the

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13.

whole situation. He said his ideas were old fashioned and
everything like that, but that he wasn't going to die before
he'd passed on the family name. 'Legitimately' -- he said
that...."

I was suddenly jolted out of a moment of hesitation when I
saw that the rector's mouth was readying another volley of stand
and deliver self-pity, I cut him short, "HOW...could he die
after saying that. Sue and I were with them the whole day
except for the drive there and back. God. Oh, God, I feel so
guilty. Even my driving was effected by my anger. He must
have gone squirrelly. He couldn't have noticed how close he
was cutting in front of that poor family's car."

"Oh, please! Christ!" He didn't mean to say Christ but he
tried to look pious after saying it so that, at least, it
could look as though he had meant to. "Look, I do sympathize.
It's the worst moment for anyone's life when they lose a
dear family member. Personally I've lost several. One was
just last year...."

I let him run through his list of dearly departed. I was
contented by the realization that self-pity was his way of
sympathizing with me. He was going to help me.

He clasped my shoulders, "Please hear me now. I understand
your pain. But...by the way is your mother...gone as well?"

I nodded yes, half in a real and half in an artificial stupor.
The question took me back to a room where I was both a child
and a man. I heard the rector and I came back as he mumbled,
"Not tactful."

The resurgence of Christianity had done nothing to improve the
stock of clergy. He continued more clearly, "Sorry. It's just that
you didn't mention her.... I'm sorry, just go on."

"I must get married before they're buried. It would have
meant so much to both of them."

"Not that I think that it's a hasty decision -- it's, after
all, in honour of you departed parents - but what does...Sue
think? Was it Sue?"

"It is Sue! She's still alive. You think I'm marrying a
corpse?

"Of course not, it was a simple question. I'm sorry to have
implied more than I meant."

A heat of intense fear surged to the casting of my next words,
"It would have meant everything -- we wanted to be together
forever in any case but now we're going to make it come true;
it will be forever."

"Good. That's what a wedding is all about, for the world to
witness that commitment."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
14.

"That's why it must be here, the largest place I know of. I
want the world to know our commitment. I want the place to
be filled with witnesses to my future life."

"You can have a thousand witnesses, my lad, but don't forget
the most important witness only the church can offer."

I nodded and winked but wasn't sure why God should be confined
to churches. The rector took me into the kitchen and gave me
some tea while we discussed the details of the ceremony.

As I rose to leave he had one thing to add, "I just have a
slight reservation about doing it tomorrow."

"Is the Cathedral booked?"

"Mondays are usually fine. It's the costs I'm considering,
especially those concerned with the fact that there's been
such a short notice."

"Insurance and the inheritance will cover any cost you want
to charge -- any cost."

The rector and I discussed, only briefly, the final plans.
We agreed it was a fitting memorial to my parents while of
course they would have approved the expense. I signed a debit
slip, blank in its amount as it was in its sincerity.

With the business done I left the rectory and strolled back
into the night wondering what to do next.

I looked up and down Church Street, then pulled out of my
pocket one of the pamphlets which I'd been handed on the bus
trip. Inside it read, "Lick me." I had never looked into one
of these things before and that was all there was to it,
"Lick me." So I did. When I looked at the pamphlet again the
awful taste and the sight of the smeared words on the paper
made me realize that I was meant to lick the strip of crystals
on the other page. I spat the cheap printing out of my mouth
and licked the crystals.

I'd never tasted anything like it; a sweet taste, despite
the pasty contamination of the printing. But it gave me the
animal satisfaction of biting into a kill.

"I need witnesses." With that thought to consider I was filled
by the merging of events, the merging of disperse elements
in a play where actors had no parts, where meaning had no
words and where I moved without increment.

I could smell my body baking in the sun. In one passing moment
I had found myself disappearing from the cool night air
outside the rectory and reappearing on my apartment floor. I
lay with my back against the carpet, a pillow under my head
while I faced the hall window. The strangest thing was that
the sun was setting again, as though time had moved back an
hour from the rectory, from the bus ride, to the horrible
dream of Zinta's fall.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
15.

The phone rang -

- but I had lived nearly a day into the future from the moment
of the dream.

I couldn't breathe. The air was rotting while the open window
betrayed its designers and refused to allow in some fresh
air.

The phone kept ringing, the answering service was off for
some reason. I felt too stiff to get up quickly and find it.
But once I had seen it in the middle of the floor, I decided
to crawl to it. Lastly, I rolled on my back and picked it
up.

"Good evening sir. I have been trying to call on behalf of
my employer to kindly thank you for the flattering invitation
to attend your wedding. Personally, I think it sounds quite
interesting but on such short notice it's quite impossible
for them to accept. We wish you well and hope that you have
a wonderful life together. But to be quite honest we have no
idea who you are."

'So what,' I thought. I didn't know who he was either.

I could feel junk in my pockets. It stuck in my thighs. Inside
the pockets were crumpled pieces of paper with partly written
invitations to attend my wedding. Then I saw that Zinta's
screen was up and that it had the same kind of writing on
the screen. I'd probably been scanning the drafts onto Zinta's
computer and individually personalizing them. One was
addressed to all sheep herders. Apparently they were very
rough hand-drafts.

I slid my head along the shag carpet to view the room then I
returned my attention to the phone and saw that the answering
service had the maximum six hundred messages on it. I gathered
no one had ever seen the limit reached before and I wasn't
awake enough to question my eyes. I assumed it turned itself
off when it reached its limit.

"Sorry can't make it, don't know who you are but thanks
anyway" -- blip -- "Going to be there darling, just RSVPing" --
blip --"Hey, you fucking creep, if you come to my wife's window
in the middle of the night again, I'll rip your head off...." --
blip -- "Your wedding sounds marvellous, why don't we have
brunch this morning so I can meet you first...." -- blip.

I turned the service off again and lay with my face on the carpet. I
knew where I was. I knew I was getting married, I even knew
my name. But I didn't know anything worth knowing.
Inexplicably, Zinta lay with her back arched while dead directly on
the floor in the bedroom. I watched how the dust drifted
through the sunshine and fell on her as if it were felting a
grey shroud.

Eventually I stood up, then walked carefully in my bare feet
around the broken glass on the floor to our bed and slowly

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
16.

picked up the brown comforter off the floor -- I was tolerating
a thumping headache in the process -- and walked back to
place it over her to do my part in respecting her passing
out of my world. The comforter wasn't large and it was crusty
on one end, but it was her arched back and bloated skin that
made it difficult for me to cover her completely. So I
collected the books scattered about the floor and placed
them on the edge of the cover to pin it to the carpet. When
I had completed what I thought was a respectable job, I
stepped back to see what it was I had done and thought, 'Just
like a pile of dirt, like a fresh grave. I guess this means
she's buried now'.

Over on the couch, I put on my shoes and realized, with some
pain, that the soles of my feet were blistered. In the
washroom, where I wanted to bathe my feet, I found what looked
like pieces of excrement in the tub where the bed sheets
were rolled up. I didn't know why things were that way, but
I guessed Zinta must have been packing. It was a mystery not
worth pursing for its truth but only offered further pain and angst.
If I was responsible for her new position or the new mess or
the stuff in the tub -- then I gathered I was capable of
anything. If I was not responsible then I deduced I was not
responsible for anything. I said to myself that I didn't
want to know -- somehow I thought I would be answerable for
Zinta's death. I didn't even consider tricking myself into a
pseudo innocence. But something in me would do anything to
find an excuse for having killed Zinta.

I went back to the bedroom area for the money I'd left in the
dresser drawers. The drawers were stacked on the floor next
to the dresser and I found the money scattered all over the
place and picked it up. I changed my shorts and shirt for
clean ones with larger pockets so that the money would fit.
I cleaned out the pockets of the worn shorts, saving the
pamphlets, my wallet and some of the invitations. Deciding I
would probably need Zinta's money too, I looked in her hiding
spot, the inside of the brass bed post, but the money was
gone. With that I had no doubts Zinta had been packing and I didn't
look further for it. I had to leave and all I knew was I
couldn't stay with Zinta; I couldn't breath comfortably for
the rotting smell. I closed the windows and looked back at
my strange apartment one last time before I walked out. Then
I locked the door and snuck down the fire escape.

I ran through the back streets of the
North Annex, until I felt safe. The Dupont Line streetcar
station at Spadina Road was at hand so I jumped on a streetcar
going west and sat down in a seat overlooking Dupont Street.

I let the sun strobe my face through the passing trees while
I swore at myself for taking only paper from my place no
extra clothes and no shoes at all. I took out of my pocket
one of the invitations that I'd printed up.

All of a sudden I laughed and said to myself, 'Hey, I forgot,
I'm getting married.'

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
17.

I read the invitation to myself, Bernard Kimosa and Sue Jonson
wish to invite on behalf of their most gracious parents Debbie
and Garth Jonson and Sandy and Richard Kimosa It was
unfinished so I looked at the other invitation I'd saved and
in neatly scanned and scrolled calligraphy was the place and
the time of the wedding, 6:00 pm, Saint James.

Quickly I looked up to the clock in the streetcar and couldn't
believe that my wedding was only thirty minutes away. Nearly
a whole day had passed from the time I gave the Rector the
rubber debit. Now that I'd rented the Cathedral and invited
the guests there was no turning back. I'd surprised myself
by obtaining everything a wedding needs except a bride.

'If I don't go to the wedding now, I'm going to have a few
dozen people wondering what I'm up to,' I said to myself
even though I doubted so many would come. 'I've got to get
someone to pretend to marry me'.

I jumped off the streetcar when it reached an intersecting
line. I had no time to waste looking on the street for a
woman to marry -- my connecting car was waiting -- I had to
find one en route. Once I had factored in the traffic problems
and knew I was going to make it in time, I stared at the
different women sitting near me.

Anyone would do, I thought, 'But I guess she's too old to
pass off. Everybody's too old - there's one... ah... she's
probably too young. God, everybody else is either too fat or
ugly.' I had an inkling that my complaints weren't pertinent
but as I was faced with nothing else to care for, I naturally
embellished the wedding's importance to my long and short
term self-esteem.

The streetcar went south on Kingsway to Sunnyside Beach and
turned east to hug the lake and its series of pavilions. On
the north side of the line were billboards, half of which
were for charities and causes. One flashed, "Don't
Discriminate - Attractiveness Is Only Skin Deep." I wondered
if they meant to include marriage. Another flashed
mysteriously, "Incompetence + Education, Two Halves Of A
Real Person." I looked for the follow up message to clear it
up but it didn't come. We passed the old Exhibition grounds
into the nineteenth century theme town officially called 'The
Palladium' where the selection of seemingly eligible women was starting to improve. As we slowed up to the next
stop, situated before the turn onto a traffic circus and
across the street from the Prince Albert Theatre, a girl
came running at full speed out of one of the neo-Gothic
apartment buildings, and was gleefully dodging cars through
the traffic circus towards the fountain in the centre, the
halfway point to the delayed streetcar. I sat up in my seat
to see if she was trying for my streetcar.

She started across to my side of the circus, trying to race
through a five second long traffic jam that was holding back
her apparent target -- me. It also could have been the
streetcar that she was after.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
18.

I saw her face for a moment as she bit her purple lips -
Zinta's lips. It was all I needed to want her.

I stood up from my seat when I realized she wasn't going to
make it. She realized this too and gave up the attempt right
in the path of the streetcar -- she gave up her glee as well --
but when the driver started to power into her, she decided
not to get out of the way. The driver continued at a slow
speed and she stood ready to meet him. He hit her and she
tried to stop the streetcar by pushing back as her feet
backtracked from the indomitable force at the driver's
command. The driver slid the car to a stop when she jumped
onto the bumper and held on by the windshield wipers. The
driver was swearing at her while she pleaded to be allowed
on.

He refused.

She refused to move and the people on the streetcar started
yelling at the driver to let her on. I walked up to him and
asked him to let her on and he just told me to sit down,
that he had a schedule to keep. I looked at her small face
against the glass and her naked arms holding the wipers. My
mind wavered on what to do. She watched me closely as I turned
my back and returned to my seat.

The girl jumped off the front, breaking a wiper as a last
gesture. The driver tried to run her over, but she stood
just to the side, smiling into the sky like the most elegant
matador.

III

My last sight of the girl was of a black distorted stick off
in the distance behind the refracting mist of the circus
fountain.

'I could've stepped off for the girl, but I would've been
late for the wedding. And I have to go to the wedding or I
risk some strangers thinking about me, about what I was doing,
where I was. Once off the streetcar I would have been late
and therefore she would be pointless.'

I made up my arguments while losing track of her amongst
other refracted sticks.

The streetcar slid through the canyons of polymorphic office
buildings, which from my vantage point floated by me like
the gathering clouds of an evening storm, pink and grey
falling on the rippling stone work like the light of the
sunset does on the underside of true clouds. And just as
with clouds, I felt it a shame that one part of such a
structure should bask in the light while the rest is left to
whither.

'Forget that. There's more worthy causes than that!'

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
19.

Recognizing that this was probably true, I also realized
that it was unfair that some parts were anointed with the
shade while the rest of the buildings had the addling heat
of a sticky October sunset.

'What the hell are you talking about?'

Then I thought it was injustice that the sun could not bathe
light evenly to all things at all times.

The pressure was getting to me. As simple a thing as turning
my head to lookout the windows at the passing city was causing
me to flip through a series of absurd causes. The windows
were acting like stencils; allowing only peculiar ways of
looking at a scene. 'After all,' I realized in some corner
of my mind, 'Everything out there is all just a bunch of
things - right? All except me.'

We passed the Skydome...then by the kids falling in the blue
canal - no, they were jumping in and swimming, having a good
time.

As I approached my final stop, I realized what I'd done -
the truly stupid things I'd done. I'd hurt Zinta. I couldn't
even see why I'd done it.

Prickly heat erupted all over my skin, I pounded my knee.

People didn't pay any obvious attention to me, but I had the
feeling I may have been talking out loud about Zinta. I may
have said something about...what happened.

I looked out the window, closed my eyes and clenched my knee,
and then rolled my forehead against the cool glass. 'Why did
I kill her?'

Then as though a debate were required I responded, "But I
didn't kill her, she'd been walking around the flat after I
killed her. She was alive. She must have been,' then dejectedly I
finished with, "She could have been."

I collected myself when we arrived at the very bottom of
Church Street, the south approach to Saint James. I exited,
hopping from the last step and getting the same chill up my
back as if it was from the edge of a cliff. Then I left the
exposed street for the Esplanade Arcade to stay out of sight
while I decided what to do next.

I remembered the pamphlets. The pamphlets were a little damp
in my back pocket, but they still beckoned. All I needed was
a touch, enough to get through the wedding. With my finger I
scratched at the crystals until I had some under my nail,
then I touched my tongue to it. I couldn't taste a thing so
I dabbed my tongue to my fingernail until I could taste
something, which this time was too faint to savour. Just
as before I felt no reaction inside me. I knew there must be
some kind of reaction, but I couldn't
remember what had happened the first time.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
20.

I left the security of the Arcade and walked across the
Esplanade north from the foot of Church Street through the
Old Town of York. My heart thumped so violently I grabbed at
it like a dying man in a silent-movie. My mind started to
grind from the lack of options I'd given myself.

I lifted my eyes to see how close I was to Saint James but I
couldn't see it over the close set buildings. I could hear
it though; its steeple clock said that I was late. The bells
ended ringing on the sixth hour. Like a heart magically
transformed to a tumour the heavy bells stood quieted in the
steeple.

I stepped within sight of my church.

The rhythm of my breath had seemed temporarily calmed when
the bells had been playing. They had forced a new order into
me just in time for it to be snatched away. I looked up at
the smudged clock as it was being swallowed and hidden by
the clouds' sorcery.

My breathing was taking over again, it was making me dizzy.
I took one step through the giant doors of
Saint James before I had to sit down on a bench in the main
lobby. '...am I doing here? I should be...my wedding. Should
find out what...I need to think. To clear everything...up.'
I couldn't breathe. I was weak and shivering when I stood up
to receive my award. It was like standing up in a hammock. I
fell backwards and drove my spine into the floor. I screamed
until my skull cracked. The scream brought a crowd of people
to fill the lobby; to fall over me, to lift me up, to brush
me off.

One of the men said, "This can't be the groom, he has shorts
on."

Another man patted me on the back and waited patiently with
me for the crowd to funnel through the doors, down the nave
and back to the pews. I walked with the crowd until I stood
alone, with everyone straining their necks to look back at
the attention grabber at the top of the nave.

From my vantage point I could see that my wedding had really taken
shape. Finally, I was going to be married. The power of the
crystal drug had given me the insight I needed to be able to
trick scores of people into coming. I'd made a spectacle of
myself - thank God. Besides amassing more than a thousand
guests in the cathedral, I could tell from the party hats
sparkling above the other heads that I failed to inform
everybody it was going to be a wedding. I'd done just enough,
it seemed, to obtain the witnesses.

Every face seemed to be betraying its owner's thoughts. Those
thoughts being generally that I couldn't be the groom. That
was the common idea until the rector saw me and dashed over
to the organ to play a boring little tune by J.S. Bach.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
21.

When everyone was sitting I was left dawdling along the
nave, pretending I was doing the white glove test for dust
on the end of every pew. On my way towards the altar, a woman
whispered to me with her fingers pawing her cheeks, "Isn't
the bride supposed to walk the aisle with her father?"

Some people were talking to each other across the pews. I
could hear a distant man ask in the spacious church, "Hey!
In your invitation, did it say who was getting married?" A
woman responded "It wasn't this guy. And did yours come
without your address?" "Yeah! Yeah, it did." They turned and
stared at me over the heads of the other people.

Then a new series of questions were lobbed my way, "This is
the wedding of the social calendar? You've got to be kidding -
" and I could hear someone whisper, "Hey, where's the babes?
Where's the babes?" and, "I expect a damn good reception
after what I just forked out."

Julie came out of the crowd, looking three times smaller
than usual. She walked up to me angry and disbelieving with
her shoulders tense, arms outstretched, palms up, as if it
had started to rain inside the church. "What the hell is
going on here? Where's Zinta? I thought you were bringing
her." She started to brush some dust off me, "I can't believe
you're wearing shorts. What is going on? Who are all these
people?"

The organ stopped as I looked around at the hundreds of
people. Most were talking, while others were silent and at
attention. I had no idea who these people were.

Julie took off her wedding ring and forced it into my palm,
closing my hand tightly around it. "Take the ring, I have a
feeling you forgot one." Then she walked back to the pews
faintly shaking her head.

I had no one; not a friend, not a girlfriend, no one.

I gave a thought to having Julie stand in as a bride but I
didn't think it was right. 'Marry the right person,' I began
to chant to myself.

Finally, I relaxed to what was happening -- to my growing
power. Whether it was from the crystal, or whether it was
from deep inside my true self, it didn't matter. My body
seethed with new strengths. Then the movement of my heavy
eyelids seemed to activate my super-human senses to the
dissensions writhing like eels throughout the great church;
the evil smells of the old regimental flags and new paint,
mixed with the bad people and their echoes of whispers and
coughing. However, nothing could disrupt the preeminent
resonance of even my lightest footsteps.

The rector was approaching me quickly, pointing at me for
the benefit of another cleric who stood at the altar tapping
his hand on a bible. The rector whispered like a jet engine,
"How did you get the Arch-Bishop to perform the service?"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
22.

So the cleric was the Arch-Bishop. So what? I wasn't
impressed. Was he trying to impress me or something? So what
if I caused some trouble, what can they do to me? It seemed
everybody around me was waiting on my every move. And it
turned out, when I went closer to the Arch-Bishop I could
see that his hand was not tapping the bible, his hand was
quivering with fear of my omnipotence.

Only a small number of people had the nerve to ignore my
power. But I knew just what to do to keep them listening,
not to say anything, to glare at the backsliders in the eye
and maintain an insane pleasantness.

I walked slowly and steadily. I inhaled the respect paid to
me from all sides of the great church -- a church that held
more of these people then any other could, anywhere -- and
for that they had to base there design on me, on a structure
I could feel in my body. The perfect design, strong and
flexible. It wasn't gothic masons that thought of these
arches, they stole the pattern from my ribs.

I, God had certainly fashioned this place.

Then I decided it was time to come down to my flock and give
them the good news. Thus I spake unto them, "I am waiting
for thy love."

I reached the altar and shook the hand of the over-awed Arch-
Bishop, nodded to the rector, showing him and all the mass
of people the ring as I held it in my right hand and drew it
not just around my finger but around myself.

"You see that? He married himself."

The ring felt like it had years of embossed slime over it.
Even so, it didn't slip on easily. The isolated coughs grew
more frequent while I tried to fit it on all the way.

I looked up at all those different people filling the place --
then I noticed just how strange those people were to me. In
front of me people were talking to themselves, or
laughing, some were even crying by that point. Everybody, I
noticed, had either green, blue or lavender faces, clothes
and hair. I couldn't distinguish these humanoids from one
another and, in fact, the assemblage appeared less like a group
of people and more like a compilation of organs -- they were
to me the dyed organs of a student's cadaver.

I dropped the wedding ring and it clinked loudly off the
stone floor.

Under the circumstances I knew I had to say something. I
said "Thanks for coming here this evening. That will be all."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
23.

Someone yelled, "Hey what's going on here?" Another pointed
at me as she answered, "Obviously we didn't get a royal
wedding. Although if he starts to use a royal 'we' I won't
be surprised."

A ripped designer bag with packaged clothes was thrown my
way, it slid into my feet. A wave of people were rising from
their seats and leaving while others yelled obscenities. One
woman was fervently clapping her hands when a laughing girl
with a mohawk hairstyle barged her way passed the woman and
came up to me hurriedly. She took my hand and led me passed
Julie, who was blocked from reaching me. I was lead out a
rear exit where I patiently followed a group of my guests, who
were unaware that I was the subject of their snide remarks.

"I loved your scam," the girl with the mohawk said, "I hope
you appreciate ours."

As this girl lead me, she had the swagger of an Elvis imitator,
two police were sitting on the hood of their cruiser looking
at the departing crowd then back at something in one of the
cop's hands.

"Don't worry about the cops," the girl told me, "Cops are
too stupid to catch us. Besides, they have other business it
looks like. See, they have a photo of someone they're looking
for. Don't worry, okay?"

This girl lost my interest, so did the police. All I thought
of was that the marriage was over for me. I was a less
suitable match for myself than I had imagined when I hit on
the idea during the wedding. But I guessed more preparation
for such marriages is not possible.

The whole point of living even a moment, I felt just then,
was to make sure that the next moment was like the time I'd
spent with Zinta, time spent oblivious to everything,
especially myself. A surge of desperation at the failure of
marriage with myself bloomed into my brain like algae in a
pond; choking it. Something outside my mind would need to be
found to satisfy me. A search for such meaning could not be
easy. I needed to fall in love with something and be satisfied
with it longer than I had been with myself or with that
matador girl or with that vague idea of being part of a liquid
puzzle. Those moments of oblivion, moments where I was back
where I belonged, were shorter than a lit match. I had no
idea what to look for so I decided, de facto, considering my
lack of reason, to let chance send it to me for a while at
least. Strangely, I had the presence of mind to believe that
chance would be less bizarre than my own path.

"Stop looking at the cops, will you?

"Anyway, the scam I was talking about? You see me and a bunch
of my friends -- you'll soon meet them -- we were sent one of
your invitations and figured on our scam. When we saw that a
wedding was going to be a Saint James with no reception

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
24.

afterwards, we took a chance. Well, we knew the church was
so big no one would notice a few nice kids collecting the
wedding gifts at one of the side entrances. So that's what
we did. Hope you don't mind.

"Anyway what a bunch of nice kids we are too." She continued
talking while we walked up Church Street, "Well, here are my
friends now."

They greeted each other silently on the street and we all
moved into a parking lot to talk.

I found myself brought to the far corner of the lot between
a patch of cars and the Imperial Car museum. Different members
of the group started thanking me and slapping me on the back
or shaking my hands. One member, introducing himself as
Tannis, told me they would give me a cut of the money if I
wanted, though this seemed to be against his own wishes. I
agreed to accepting some of it and they immediately crouched
on the asphalt, ripping apart a cardboard box and dumping
envelopes out onto the pavement.

Each one of these teenagers, ten in all, dressed distinctly
from one another and, out of the punctuated babble, I heard
various accents. But despite these differences, from
witnessing the speed at which they operated while dividing
up the huge sums of money, it became apparent to me that
they operated inside a seemingly efficient command structure.
Tannis led them officially but a red headed girl seemed to
have the final nod.

The money was out of the envelopes on the ground and divided
up within minutes when someone started calling out from the
street at us. A roll of bills was tossed to me as the meeting
scattered and the same mohawk girl who had led me out of
the Cathedral showed me the way out of the area. She took
me silently up a fire escape to the museum roof overlooking
the parking lot; the rest of the ten had gone ahead of us.

I whispered to her, "I think I'm alright. I'll go on my own
from here."

She agreed that I looked better and told me if I lost them
and wanted to see them again to go to their house in Nedston,
Toronto. She gave me their address with directions to turn
left at the statue of Handsome Ned, then she ran across the
roof to follow her friends.

I stayed to see who was following us and discovered it was
the two police who had been waiting outside Saint James.
They were scurrying in a crouched position after loose money
and stuffing it in their pockets. I checked my pockets for
the roll of money I was just given and for the money I brought
from my flat and it was all accounted for. After seeing how
well these ten kids did things I suspected they left the
money as a delaying tactic. I felt a bit of pride at my
reasoning. My mind was functioning again.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
25.

The cops strolled back to Church St. as though they had just
finished a feast. I went back down and followed them on the
ground. They picked up the pace to a jog but stopped when
they crossed paths with an elderly couple. One cop asked
them, "Did you people happen to see a gang of thugs
pass by?"

"Yeah we did," the elderly woman answered "but they went in
so many different directions."

The same cop continued, "Did you see one in particular, in
white shorts with straight black hair and possibly staggering
or being helped?"

I looked down at the colour of my shorts and they were white.

"No," the elderly man answered while pointing up Church St.,
"but one in shorts crossed this intersection a moment before
you came."

The two cops then jogged away from the couple in the direction
the old man pointed towards. I could not follow them after that, due to the
more exposed area into which the cops were heading. The cops
may have been running away from me at that moment, but I was
sure they were after me.

"Zinta"

I called out to Zinta to stop her from tickling me.

I blinked a few times and remembered where I was. 'How could
I have hit her like I did? But what did I do? I can't even decide
what it was I was doing. What was is it you did, Bernard?' I
shook my head violently. 'I couldn't have killed her. I didn't
leave her on the floor. I didn't put those sheets in the
tub.' I got up off the ground and frantically tried to decide
what to do.

I had to talk to somebody. I wanted to find the house of those
ten in Nedston and explain it to them first. But I couldn't
escape the feeling that Zinta may not have been on the floor
when I went back, that I could have imagined it. After all I
had left her hanging upside down.

I decided to go back home again to find out if she was on
the floor or hanging upside down as I at first had left her.

I jumped on the next bus going up Church St..

I may have killed her, I knew, but I had not left her in the
middle of the floor near the bed, stiff, in a position that
looked something like she was bending over backwards for her
gymnastics class. If I had really seen what I recalled seeing
in our apartment, somebody else had been there after my fight
with Zinta.

I became attentive again to my surroundings when the bus
turned on to Davenport and we approached my apartment.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
26.

Ambulances were passing the bus in both directions so
frequently that the bus driver decided to get some tea while
waiting for the street to calm down. Also police cars were
repeatedly passing without a hint of the direction in which
they were going. Finally, when the traffic was crawling and
the bus driver had us back on the road, we passed my street
and I watched fire engines putting out the last remnants of
a fire that had engulfed my entire apartment block.

I wanted to get off the bus and see what had happened, but I
couldn't leave the protection of the bus while I believed
the police were after me. But then I thought, how could a
fire have burned down the scene of a crime during an
investigation with all the police and other officials there?
The two cops that were pursuing me had enough information to
find me at St. James. Perhaps the time they had used to
find me had left no time to waste
before the wedding would have finished. Maybe they forgot to
inform homicide investigators. Now that there was nothing
left of Zinta to find I felt fortunate that a fire had
destroyed any evidence of what I had done to her. Still, I
couldn't fathom the coincidence of the fire with my need for
one.

I drifted with the bus for two more stops then got off to
consider what to do next. My choices were limited to leaving
for the countryside and putting my cadet training to use or
hiding out with the ten kids who had befriended me. The best
thing, I decided, was to go to Nedston. I hoped the kids
were as friendly as they appeared.

I walked south from Davenport Road through the middle of the
Annex by the large old houses and fraternities, past the
salons and cafes of Bloor St. and eventually through
Kensington Market's ceremonial gates of stacked twentieth
century garbage cans. All of a sudden, I stopped considering
my general situation and started to consider where I was
walking and how beautiful the walk was. The late night breeze
playing shadow puppets with low tree branches and street
lamps added a touch of my past into the atmosphere. Then on
Spadina Ave. a giant provincial tourism billboard extolling
the virtues of New Ottawa added a touch of a future. And
between this past and this future I moved for some seconds,
aware of a reflected present in which I existed -- not a pure
present but with a delay long enough for my mind to see it
and feel it and believe it. I strongly believed that I was
indeed in this reflected present, and for the first time in
my life all the factors of place, memory and timing had come
together and shown me that I was essentially existing in the
past -- speaking to myself about the past, considering the
past, even my thoughts about a future were past. I wondered
how close I could ever get to living in a present.

I moved onto other considerations as I continued south on
Spadina Avenue into Chinatown and eventually Nedston on Queen
Street. I approached the statue of a slouched Handsome
Ned while a woman was drilling a hole in the statue's
strumming arm. I stopped and asked what she was doing. She

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
27.

told me she was giving him some heroin. I turned left after
the statue and found the house I was looking for up a
back street.

"Hey, Bernard, this way" one of 'the ten' said to me from
the roof of their house. I waved at him needlessly and signaled to
him not to yell out my name, that I was coming to him. He
ran inside the house and was the first to greet me at the
front door. "My name's Ray. Sorry for yelling out to you. I
thought you were going to miss the house." Others appeared
at the door, all greeting me with warmth. Ray said, "We all
were so worried when we realized those cops were after you.
They caught one of us but only asked if we knew where you
were going." Ray paused and looked back to his friends. He
waited.

I felt so great due to their welcome that I wanted to
talk over what had happened with Zinta, but I became
embarrassed when I tried to speak. I realized that I shouldn't
tell anyone there that I had just committed a crime no
none could justify -- even criminals. Ray helped me, "Hey don't
worry about anything. Come inside. We all decided to invite you
to join us if you wanted and if you showed up.

"I would like to. Thank you." I entered their house and found
the inside to be very pleasant -- a surprise when I considered
the fortress-like exterior. With plants everywhere I
knew why I felt calmed by the place.

"Bernard, would you like something to eat?" Ray asked.

I must have eaten earlier, at some point, after I
blacked out from that stuff in the pamphlet, I just couldn't
tell how long it had been. I was hungry though. They gave me
a small bowl of boiled rice with a cheese sauce, one of my
favourite dishes. I took a spoon in my fatigued, quivering
hands and scooped up a huge spoonful. It was too big and the
rice was falling on the tablecloth. I brought my mouth to
the spoon before anything else could spill and had the first
taste. I chewed every grain of rice, swallowing it bit by
bit to stretch the moment until it finally stopped the hunger
.

I ate the whole meal as politely as I could until I was as
full as I would let myself be with a shrunken stomach. But
it was too small for my mind. I almost asked for another
bowl but I felt ashamed to press their hospitality any further
than they were willing to offer.

The group began to lose interest and most of them went out
of the kitchen towards the living room while Ray and the
girl with the mohawk, who then introduced herself as Wen,
sat down across from me. The red-haired girl I'd noticed

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
28.

earlier stood in the door frame for a second looking at me
then she rolled off it and strolled away.

Wen asked, "We want to know if you would like to live here."

"I can't say I have any better offers -- yes, I would."

She continued, "We were wondering before we let you stay if
you could tell us what the deal was with those two cops after
your 'wedding'. Why did they follow you?"

"I'm sorry but I don't know" I answered, "I guess it had
something to do with the wedding."

"Well, don't come and go too often until you're sure you
can't put anymore heat on us. When you want to leave just
make sure that you ask for help." Wen continued, "The group
decided that we wanted you to stay, despite the added risks,
because we think you can help us."

"Help you? I don't know if I can."

"We saw you manage an operation the size of that wedding,
alone it seems. Well, we just want you to do something smaller -
hey, that wedding was bizarre. Just what was the angle,
anyway? No -- let me guess -- was it like the 'Crash' except
that instead of destroying a company you crash one of the
rivals by suckering the rube into a lavish wedding? But I
can't figure out the 'Hurrah'. Why did you show up to the
ceremony? And where was the bride?" Wen was picking her nose,
which distracted me, and I had a hard time following her
lingo.

I sat silently for longer than was good for my image as this
con-artist extraordinaire. The lingo was my first hurdle.

"I'm a self-educated scammer and I make up my own rules. The
'Crash' and 'Hurrah' are terms that are just over my head.
Sorry, but to put it simply the wedding was performance art.
My mark was a rich patron who's been sucked into the whole
art game. I just found a friend to play an art critic and
then recommend me. My job was easy. I just performed the
wedding and was payed beforehand." I smiled with genuine
pride at my lie.

"But where's the scam in that? That's what real artists do.
And even after you were payed you went through with it? What
were your expenses?"

"Zero. The best scams are based on the truth, don't you think
so? I couldn't have pulled out of 'the wedding' or the mark --
or 'rube' whatever -- would have stopped payment on the cheque.
But I stalled everyone I owed money to, so my expenses were
Zero."

"Classy! Eh, Ray?"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
29.

"Yeah." Ray said, "Still, we need you. There's a package
sitting in the post office -- in customs -- that arrived two
months ago from France. It's for Tannis. He thinks its from a
friend he has there."

I was trying to pay full attention to Ray but when Wen smiled
I caught glimpses of green, blue and pink individually
coloured teeth.

"When it arrived," Wen carried on, "the post office phoned
to ask why we were receiving a food parcel from France. Tannis
was just as curious. They said they were not going to release
it because food is prohibited postal traffic or something
like that. well, Tannis says he wrote his friend in France
several months ago, but wasn't expecting a reply. His friend
there is in the same occupation we are. You know," she said
with a grin like an upside down rainbow, "swindling? Tannis
thinks his friend could be sending something that could help
us here. Tannis is a little dry with his ideas these days.
Well, we can use a few new ideas right now. Right Ray?"

"Right Wen."

"If they're watching you," I said, "why in the world did you
tell me to come back here?"

"We didn't know you were in trouble when we invited you.
But I don't think we have anything to worry about. We know
that for a fact. We've done everything to prevent them from
listening to us in the house. We even stole a device from a
Cadet base that transmits fake house sounds to all kinds of
eavesdropping devices. Besides that, the cops that watch us
are morons, they have no way of knowing who you are or what
you're in trouble for. The problem will be the police that
are investigating you. We don't think they're morons. The
two cops that followed us were able to catch Tannis," Wen
shook her head, "Not easy."

"Tanis again? He's your leader right? Didn't he go into cadets
with everybody else at seventeen? Didn't he learn how to
avoid capture?"

Ray cleared his throat and interjected, "We all did of
course, we met and formed ourselves in cadets.

"Tannis admits he was being cocky when he decided to walk
into a crowd on Yonge Street and relax. These cops simply
recognized him in the crowd and showed him a photograph of
you. They wanted to know everything about you. Tannis didn't
know much so he told them. He told us later he could see
they were looking at his facial expressions while he spoke
to them. They believed Tannis enough it seemed to let him
go. After that Tannis made sure he wasn't followed home."

I felt an urge to say something critical of Tannis and didn't
stop myself, "It seems to me, and I hate to trample on your
hospitality, but Tannis is a liability."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
30.

I stopped myself too late. I was trampling. I had given up
my guard for a moment of self-gratification. I couldn't think
of what to say to ease the discomfort I could see in their
faces.

"When you get to know him, I think you'll change your mind,"
Ray said.

I was amazing. I had undercut my standing with them with
total success.

"Now let's get back on track," Ray said eagerly. "We thought
you should know the situation. You can stay in a room we
set up in the basement. Take time deciding how you'll help
us. If you have any ideas on how to get the package from
customs or even if you don't think we should be bothering to
try to get it at all tell us. Think about it. In the meantime
let's go into the living room. I'll introduce you to some of
the others."

Ray led Wen and myself into the elegant living room. Tannis was
there, with all of the others. I wanted to ask them questions
but they were more eager to do the same to me.

Tannis was the first, he asked, "What did you do to have the
police at that wedding? Invite them?"

"Come on Tannis," Ray said.

Tannis whined to Ray, "He invited everybody else."

I answered eventually, "I've already told Ray and Wen why."
Then with a sudden pang of guilt I mumbled, "And I just ....
committed a violent act of some kind."

Tannis jumped on that, "What does that mean?" Everyone else
added their voice to the same question. Then he continued in
the same scrappy way, "Did you pull a leg off a fly?"

There were some chuckles.

"I mean, to be perfectly honest, I had a fight with my
girlfriend and I ... have to say I ... I've been charged with verbal
abuse." I wanted to tell them but I needed more time to see
what they would say.

"I knew it was a mistake to take him in," Tannis scoffed.

"I'm being honest. I'm trusting you to understand me. In the
heat of an argument, who hasn't thrown an insult? After all
none of us are pure, are we?" Then I cut myself off,"...No I
can't say any more. I want to wait until I can be trusted by
all of you before I'll finally take your offer to stay." I
hated Tannis.

I cut everybody else short as well. Ray and the rest did not
know what to think . The girl with red hair attracted my

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
31.

attention as she readied her pale face and dark lips to say
something. Then she spoke, "I'll trust you."

It was all that I needed. The issue seemed decided by all,
even Tannis -- reluctantly though. I felt unworthy of her
kindness. How was it that this red-headed woman wanted to
trust me when she didn't even know me? All I could think to
do was to say, "Thanks."

Ray told me that her name was Nicola. He continued to
introduce the others in the room. Then he told me they called
their group the Rubes. He explained that they named themselves
after their victims because they usually pretended to be
victims during stings. With the introductions complete and a
problematic subject put aside, I decided to try to keep the
conversation neutral.

"The weather is nice for October isn't it?" The room cleared
with that line, except for Nicola and Tannis.

"It is getting late, isn't it?" I said with a quick exit in
mind.

"So ... how much did you get from your rube?" Tannis demanded.

When I remembered who my fictional mark, or rube, at the
wedding was I said, "That's my business".

"Yeah, right," Tannis said then turned his broad shoulders
and walked away.

I knew I should say something to Tannis. He was important
around there, "Is there anything I can do, Tannis, to change
your mind about me?"

"You can go back in time and tell Ray and Wen I'm not a
liability. And when that's done, get the package from
customs." Tannis went up the stairs to the second floor and
I heard every heavy footstep.

I was left standing in the living room alone except for
Nicola. She had sat down on the long couch and invited me to
sit also. I chose a chair that looked like a dry cleaner's
press. She told me it was from a hospital, that it was
designed for burn patients to be turned over. I sat down a
cool, water-filled surface. while I tried to figure out how
it worked she took my mind off my immediate problems.

"So what do you think of Canada getting nuclear arms?" Nicola
said so softly I could barely hear.

"Hey," I said, "What? Canada?"

"Yeah, don't you read the papers."

"Sometimes."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
32.

"The government's planning to have another referendum. Another
one. When aren't they having one I wonder. They want to know
if we approve of Canada taking the final step towards becoming
king of the hill -- getting nuclear weapons."

"Sounds good," I said in a distracted way as the top came
down on my chair and turned me over. My mouth and hearing
were muffled until it opened again. I caught the end of
something Nicola said, " -valent."

"What was that?" I said while I turned myself back over to
face her again.

"I'm not sure what to think," she repeated for me,"I'm
ambivalent. Hey, what's that around your neck?" She got off
the couch and came towards me.

I took my lucky sixes in my sore right hand and with the
weight of a maturing guilt I mumbled, "A gift".

"No, but what is it?" She came close to me as I reclined
uncomfortably on the top part of the chair. I wanted her to
stand aside as I got off the chair and stood next to her.
Close to her. NIcola took the dice in her right hand and in
bringing her head close to take a look at them she made me
look down her top at her gorgeous, young, delicious, healthy
and tempting breasts. I felt like a cheat for seeing them,
like I was cheating on Zinta. Then she moved her head even
closer and I smelled the lilac fragrance in her feathered
short red hair.

"They're all sixes, every side is sixes, that's cool."

She stood away and we looked in each others eyes. A vibration
of passion passed through my body like it was from the gavel
of a judge.

"Listen," I said to Nicola, "Take my lucky sixes, I don't
deserve them." I tried to take them off but she placed a
hand on my neck to stop me.

"I don't want them. Anyway I can tell they're important to
you. Were they a gift?'

"Yeah."

She knew not to ask me any more about them. Her irises were
so dark her eyes looked black at times. The freckles on her pale
face and the leanness of her body told me how young she must
have been. I had a hard time turning away from her but I
did.

"It's late," she said. "I'll take you to your bed. I'm sorry
for it being in the basement."

I followed her from a distance as she took me downstairs.
The space there turned out to be full of costumes
and computer equipment. She explained in a mousy way, "We

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
33.

use the costumes to rope in the suckers, the rubes eh? And
the computers are for accessing other data systems and to
produce false I'Ds. It can be crowded down here in the
daytime, but tomorrow you can sleep in -- we already got out
the nun costumes. It's a charity scam we do every so often.
By the way do you have any ideas on the package Tannis
mentioned?"

I stopped looking around at the mess in the place and
answered, "Why don't I just get a job at the post office and
then just pilfer it?"

"It's simple. It might work, but we'll need to give you a
false I'D. If the cops are after you a normal security check
would reveal that. In fact I'll make a preliminary check to
see what they have on you. Then we'll see to what lengths
we'll need to go to hide your identity."

"That sounds good but let's see how simple we can make it. I
like things kept simple."

"Your wedding was far from that," she said in a probing way.
"In fact I don't think it was a scam at all."

I felt a flush, 'How did she know?!' I blinked so much from
fear she asked me if I was alright.

"I'm fine, but ... what do you mean?" I said.

"Your face tells it all, I can read it. I saw you at that
wedding and you weren't acting. You were on some drug or you
were crazy. You came down from your mania after it so I assume
it was a drug."

"Yeah, it was."

"Why did you marry yourself?"

"I guess I didn't love anyone else as much."

She made a sympathetic smile and stated, "It was sad ... Now
that I know for sure you're not a scam artist, are you sure
you can cut it here. I'm not kicking you out, but if the
others catch on to you they'll give you the boot."

"I can cut it."

"Yeah, I think you can too, I'll help you tomorrow to get
started. There's a mattress in the corner and some sheets
over here. The washroom's over in the opposite corner and
you'll find a new toothbrush there, but if you want a shower
you'll find it upstairs. I'll see you later. Have a good
night."

I held her arm, "Why did you say earlier that you trusted
me?"

"I do."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
34.

"Why?"

"Because we're two of a kind."

Nicola walked up the stairs and I listened to the creaking
floorboards above me as she went to bed. I lay down on the
bed beside the copy machine while the blood in my feet flowed
back toward my head. The blood flowing towards my head: it was
suggestive. For hours my mind had been busy with pursuing
more simple problems to solve. Now, all that had happened to
Zinta came back. Everything was washing into my mind. But it
wasn't confusing because the central image that surfaced in
my mind was the picture of someone else killing her.

I was dreaming, and I knew I was, but it didn't stop me from
believing what I was experiencing. There were simple things
that I loved when I was five years old: the stars, my home,
my quilt. I could feel my quilt pressing lightly on me. I
felt for the rip where I would habitually pull out the stuffing.
As I woke, my conscious memory reminded me about the real
world -- that I had thrown out my quilt years before and that
I clutched only a borrowed blanket.

'God damn it. Why is there never enough sleep,' I thought to
myself. No light from the outside could make it through the
boarded up windows of the basement. I didn't know if it was
day or night. I walked up the stairs with the blanket in my
arms. At the top of the stairs I sat down and saw the light
of the early morning bouncing off the amber walls of the
silent rooms. I needed to sleep longer. I'd slept only a few
hours but I didn't want to go back to the basement. I went
into the living room. It was perfectly empty of dreams. I
needed that. It would be therapeutic. I lay down on the thin
cushions on one of the couches, spread the blanket over me
and fell asleep again.

"Bernard. Come on, wake up." Wen was standing over me. Her
hair was different. She shook her head wildly, spraying my
face, the only part of me exposed from the blanket. "Hey,
get up," she said. Wen had washed the soap out of her hair,
the soap she'd used to make her mohawk stand up. Once she'd
shaken it over me sufficiently she flopped it from one shaven
side of her head to the other, then she pulled off the strands
that had plastered her face. When I took my eyes away from
her fruity grin I ran my eyes down her short body. I noticed
a slight excess of body parts being exposed to me through
her gown. It was open down the centre.

"Tell us your plans to get the package," she said.

I was stimulated enough to giver her an intelligible answer.
"Wen," I said, "I'll get a job in the post office."

Wen stood thinking about this skimpy plan for a few seconds
while I sat up on the couch and noticed Nicola come in. They
said good morning to each other. I started to think about
Zinta again and play with the dice but then Wen closed her
gown in the presence of Nicola. I felt guilty for doing

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35.

something behind Nicola's back, not Zinta's. We were two of
a kind now, I thought.

I blurted out, "We were only discussing the plan for the
package."

"Yes, I guessed. Good morning to you too, Bernard."

"Yeah, good morning." I knew I had to stop looking guilty
all the time and I promised to make a determined effort to
stop it. Otherwise I felt I would continue to be a person
capable of the most extreme farce.

"Are you ready to start working on your new I'D?" Nicola
asked.

"Sure, no problem."

As soon as I got up off the couch to get a bite to eat with
Nicola, Wen lay down on it and wrapped herself in my blanket
like she was a cat in catnip.

Nicola grabbed two bagels and oranges for both of us and led
me into the basement. On the way down the stairs I noticed
that the lumps of money in my shorts had chafed and bruised
my skin during the night. I wanted to get rid of it somewhere.
I asked her what I should do with it. In the basement she
told me to clear out my pockets and savee a comfortable amount
to carry. She took the rest of it, labeled it and stashed it
in a little safe placed in the foundation. As she was about
to close the safe she looked again at what she had placed in
there and said, "Why do you have these pamphlets?"

I had forgotten about the drug pamphlets and was embarrassed.
"I don't remember, but I had them in my pocket."

"Yes, that's where they were," Nicola said politely while
examining them.

"Somebody slipped them in my pocket when I was on a bus." I
watched Nicola separate the pamphlets from the money and put
the money back in the safe.

"Is this the drug you took before the wedding?" Nicola asked.

"Yeah."

"Did you enjoy it?"

"I don't know."

"Let me ask you; did you feel as though you were learning?"

I stopped to think about her question, then answered, "No."

"No, I mean learn about yourself."

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36.

Truthfully, I didn't think so and I told her that. I then
asked her, "Have you ever tried it?"

"Yeah, a few times. Someone I once knew is part of this 'Church
of God'. His name is Schubel. He ran the pharma-weapons depot
during my Cadet tour. I met him when we were stationed
together. Then I was transferred to another base in the
Arctic. That's the last time I saw Schubel, but we write to
each other every so often. In the Arctic I could specialize
in what we do here. It was called the Camouflage and Deception
engineers Regiment -- a real regiment not a cadet regiment."
Nicola was setting up the computer while she talked. "Anyway,
we, the Rubes, got together up there. And
when we finished our tour, we privatized.

"The crystal drug Schubel makes, though, is different than
the ones we used on maneuvers -- it's really different. It
makes you see differently, it makes you feel good, not just
invincible."

We didn't get to use any drugs for maneuvers, " I said. "We
had to learn to ignore things on our own."

"Now Schubel has a cult as a front for his drug beliefs. It
says in the pamphlet the name -- right? Here it is -- The Church
of God."

"I guess he uses religious freedoms to protect his drug
activities?"

"Yup, and 'Church of God' because the drug makes you feel like
God," Nicola said while thinking of herself. "Okay, let's
get to work."

Nicola pounded her fingers on the keyboard with her face
close to the screen. Above her head was a sign that said,
"Rubes access code, 606 Brown Sugar Pie."

"Nicola, what is your basic scam here?"

"Oh, boy," she said as she leaned back,"There are too many
kinds to give you a detailed answer...but ...it's sort of
like...you see people always have an anchor in their minds,
everybody lives with one kind or another. An anchor of greed
or ... pride is the most common. Then you come along and
make a frame for their mind, one they don't want to leave. 'Fashion
schools' are the best, we don't do that one -- we do short cons --
you know, stuff we can finish in a day or two. 'The Fashion
School' is this: you find an office, some equipment, and
send out scouts to refer prospective models. You have them
arrive all at the same time to get them in a competitive
mood. You hard sell them in private. In the halls you get a
roper to say he'll hire them as soon as they get an agent.
then you charge the models for the test pictures and
preliminary lessons. Anyway you get the idea. They're proud
of themselves, greedy for fame and money. You've made the
context and they don't want to see out of it. They'd all
just rather be asleep."

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37.

"Then you pack up and leave, I guess."

"Yeah."

"Don't you feel guilty afterwards?"

"Yeah, I do. Sometimes, I'm the one who thinks them up so I
feel bad sometimes. Maybe that's why lately I've had a hard
time thinking up new ones. I guess... I don't know -- let's
get down to business."

Nicola continued, "There's no time wasted with me. I've known
how to do this now for a couple of years. I use access codes
I've stolen to get into Revenue Canada files and find newly
dead people's files to use them for new I'Ds. It's a great
scam."

"That's good," I said.

I took in a deep breath and took a look at Nicola. I was
deciding whether her skin was a soft as it appeared or whether
it was subtle make-up. There was something about her being a
con-artist that made me doubt the most obvious things about
her. I thought about going up to her
to feel her clear, soft-looking cheek and then I let my breath
go. My exhaled breath turned out also to be my backbone, I
could feel how shaky I was. I wanted her to be like Zinta,
to look after me, but she didn't look the same and basically
she wasn't going to drop her life for me. Then again for the
first time in my life I was letting myself be attracted to
someone other than Zinta, and that did take some courage.

"Is there any specific name you would like?" Nicola asked
while smiling and scratching her ear.

She turned away from me again to type on the computer. Her
ear was so delicate my mouth tingled with the idea of kissing
it.

"Hello in there!" she said.