Blood Gold
“I can’t believe that bus driver—accusing you of stepping in front of the bus like you’re trying to commit suicide. I should have punched him out.”
Shauna looked away, closing her eyes in shame. “You were so aggressive, so in his face. I was afraid you were ready to hit him.”
“I should have punched him in the head or face; he was so accusatory.”
“Maybe I wasn’t paying attention, lost in thought.”
“Are you trying to tell me he’s not to blame? He was practically accusing you of trying to end your own life.”
“Why were you so in his face, arguing and fighting? The driver had enough trouble operating the bus.”
“That’s the problem; he should concentrate on driving, not making those kinds of accusations. We paid the fare. What business does a bus driver have trying to blame my babe?”
“Please don’t call me your babe; I’m no longer your babe. I just called you to be my bodyguard today. You need to understand we are no longer boyfriend-girlfriend, whatever the past. And if what the bus driver said is true? He sounded like a psychologist, an expert on human behaviour. He must have read my mind. They say Toronto has more PhDs and medical doctors driving taxicabs and buses because they can’t get recognition for their foreign credentials.”
“You mean you’re trying to kill yourself by throwing yourself in the bus?”
“No, no, no. I just read an article in a newspaper about public transit commuters throwing themselves in front of streetcars and subway trains. It scared me. Now when I’m waiting for a bus or streetcar I get frightened and freeze. Or when the subway train is roaring into the station I panic, I’m paralyzed.”
“Maybe you should get some help.”
“Help from who?”
“You’re asking me? You’re supposed to be the smart one. Think: a psychologist, a psychiatrist, a social worker, a counselor. Come on. Enough of this talk. TTC operators make me angry. Let’s go see your dad.”
Durrell and Shauna strode from the Ossington bus to the café.
“I should warn you: my father has this thing about African Canadians and native Canadians.”
“Native Canadians? I thought he was part native Canadian? And African Canadians? Who are you calling African Canadians?”
“It’s 1996. The newspapers say Jesse Jackson prefers the term.”
“Black will do for me, but I don’t even consider myself black; I’m a mulatto.”
“Now that term is also out of date. I think the word you’re looking for is biracial or colored. Either way, I thought I should warn you my father has some outmoded ideas about people of color.”
“I think you tried to warn me about that before, but I wouldn’t worry about your father’s attitude; I’ve seen worse.”
“He’s also self-taught. He dropped out of high school, moved to Toronto, and then moved back to Red Lake, but he’s always been a big reader and a fan of book learning. He also tries too hard—to speak precisely. If someone uses contractions, or doesn’t speak in complete sentences, he thinks it’s evidence of some kind of inferiority. He’s afraid people will think he’s a hillbilly, or a country music fan, which deep down he is.”
“Caffeinism,” Durrell commented, “that’s an odd name for a café.”
“It’s the condition you get when you drink too much coffee, consume too much caffeine.”
“That’s great. We’re going to meet your father at a café where he may be wired on caffeine and he’s bringing a gun. Did I hear correctly? Did he actually say he’s bringing a gun?”
“Yes. He’s got this handgun or pistol or revolver he got from an American. When I was in elementary school, this tourist came to fill up for gas at Dad’s store in Red Lake. He was a Vietnam war vet, dressed in camouflage. He said the trolling motor for his bass boat broke down and wanted someone willing to sell or trade. Dad swapped a small outboard motor for the handgun.”
Durrell shook his head, keeping ahead, as they walked the short distance through the Jamaican-Canadian neighbourhood to meet Salvatore at his favourite café on Eglinton Avenue West, near the house basement apartment, which he rented from his aged uncle. Meanwhile, Salvatore grudgingly brought the money, the only cash he had available, and the gold bar, in a large duffle bag. He hadn’t yet decided whether he should endow his daughter with an inheritance. The debate raged back and forth in his mind, as the duffle bag weighed heavy in his hand. He recognized his daughter as soon as he sat down in the café, but, even though Shauna requested the meeting, she didn’t acknowledge him and seemed reluctant to meet. Salvatore wondered if she recognized him beneath his long curly greying hair and his thick unruly beard, when he was usually clean-shaven and his head shaved bald. Her friend came in right behind her and took a seat at a nearby table after Salvatore ordered a latte, since he skipped his late-night snack: ice cream and an espresso. Forcing herself to smile when she finally spotted her father, she joined him at his table.
“You’re living in Toronto now?” she asked.
She knew her father loved Toronto, with which he first became enamoured as a teenager. After he dropped out of high school in Red Lake, he argued violently with his father and ran away to the city. Later, after he inherited his father’s business, he constantly talked about moving back to the city and enrolling as a mature student at a college or university.
“I’m living in Toronto for the time being,” Salvatore said. “I haven’t decided whether I’ll move permanently to Toronto.”
“But you can’t just walk away from your business,” Shauna said.
“I already have,” Salvatore said. “The convenience store and gas station can run itself, for the time being.”
“But I thought you were thinking of buying another convenience store and gas bar in Ear Falls.”
“Your mother made any expansion plans unfeasible.”
“My mother? She’s your wife.”
“Do we need to go through this again?”
“So you two have broken up again?”
“If you actually took the time out from your busy day and preoccupied life to talk to your mother, you’d know she and I aren’t a couple. We haven’t been together for exactly the same reason you haven’t talked with your mother for so long.”
“I don’t think the reasons are that simple. Do you have to be so cynical about everything and everybody?”
“Yes, and I even brought a gun, an M1911, a single-action, semi-automatic .45-calibre pistol. I already warned you: once again I’ve found it necessary to carry a concealed weapon.”
“Necessary? Toronto isn’t Texas. This is cosmopolitan Toronto, in multicultural Canada. Do you realize the kind of trouble you can get into carrying around a concealed weapon?”
“Shauna, I’ve been a convenience store operator and owner and I know the kind of trouble I can get into. The last time I defended myself with a loaded sidearm and held an armed robber at bay the police had nothing to say about my handgun. They chose not to even mention the weapon in their reports.”
“I think you’re going insane.”
He gulped his coffee and went to the counter for another espresso. “I think I must be going soft in the brain—agreeing to give you more money.”
“Look at it as an investment—in my education.”
“Whatever the money is for—”
“Did you bring the money?”
“Yes, I brought the money and I brought the handgun.”
“A handgun!”
“Shauna, I’ve met an attractive young woman—behind the counter of this café, working alone. She always works alone, she’s happy to work alone. I come here regularly: she knows how I love my espressos and cappuccinos, and she’s taken a liking to me.”
Salvatore stood up, reached over the counter, and kissed the woman on the lips. The barista warned him about getting physical with her on the job. “This is a fine, remarkable, brave woman. She runs and manages the café all by herself even in the middle of the night. I wish I employed a worker like her in Red Lake to run my store.”
“Why did you bring your handgun?”
“Because I brought the money.”
“So bringing a revolver will protect you?”
“Do you remember the calibre?”
“Nine millimetre, I think.”
“I’m glad you remembered the cartridges. Maybe you’ll inherit the pistol someday. The handgun is from the Vietnam War, even though the design is based on the original First World War model. I got this beauty from an American tourist, a Vietnam war veteran, who couldn’t repair his broken boat motor. I traded him an outboard motor for the pistol so he’d finish enjoying his fishing trip. He never experienced such excellent lake trout and pickerel fishing.”
“Dad, you didn’t bring cash, did you?”
“Unfortunately, after debating and arguing with myself, and you don’t want to hear the things I told myself, I did.”
“I can’t believe you. You brought twenty thousand dollars in cash?”
“Slightly more. That’s about all I have left in cash. You said you needed ten thousand dollars for tuition and ten thousand for room and board for a year. That sounds like more than what the average student would need, but who am I to argue, even though I want to dispute and debate this: it’s not as if you’re entitled to any inheritance now, and the money I’ve invested in your education so far has had zero returns. I wonder why, instead of giving it to you, I don’t use my money for my own education. I suppose my parenting instincts kicked in again. Make no mistake: I do genuinely want you to succeed in life and, if you think you need more education to attain that goal, I’m enough of a risk taker to try to help again. After all, it doesn’t look like anybody else is willing to look after you,” he added, glaring at Durrell. “Anyway, the money is from your grandfather’s safe.”
“Granddad’s safe? As in the safe you refused to open for years, the safe you never wanted to open because it had sentimental value?”
“Yes. What were you expecting?”
“Maybe a bank draft.”
“If that’s the case, I would have transferred the money to your bank account from mine.”
“Well, why didn’t you simply transfer the money?”
“Because my personal and corporate bank accounts are frozen.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t care if you believe me or not. Your mother engaged in certain actions with tax authorities, divorce lawyers, and family courts which resulted in me having difficulty accessing my own funds and business accounts. She took this action for the sole purpose of enriching herself.”
“I thought it was called divorce, as in a divorce settlement and alimony. Anyway, you sound like a lawyer.”
“Funny you should mention lawyers. Your mother said I should apply to university as a mature student and attend Osgoode law school. She says she’s going to York University to become a teacher. When I visited the campus and discovered Osgoode is affiliated with York University, I had to ask myself why she wanted me so near. Regardless, the consequences of her actions are the same, so I needed to open the safe.”
“You are talking about Grandpa’s safe. I thought that massive safe had so much sentimental value you never, ever wanted to open it, not until you reached some special milestone, like retirement or selling the business.”
“I couldn’t remember the combination number. Then, when I was ready to blow the safe sky high, I remembered I wrote the numbers on the back of a snapshot of your grandfather and me fishing. I stored the picture in a reinforced cash box I dumped and buried in the outhouse at camp. So I had to dig through a composting shit pile just to get the number. Happy?”
“That is insane.”
“Your mother left me with no choice. All the cash I could access was stored in that safe and is now in this duffel bag.”
“That is crazy.”
“That’s why I brought the handgun.”
“You mean you flew all the way to Red Lake to get the cash from Grandpa’s safe?”
“I took the train to Red Lake Road and your mother gave me a ride to Red Lake, so she could vent and direct more of her animus and anger at me. I guess purging all these negative emotions was therapeutic for her. The trip gave me the perfect excuse to return to my adopted hometown for the Canada Day long weekend. I checked up on my business and the house and cabin and dug through the shit pile in the outhouse. I drank non-alcoholic beer at the Legion, even if no one wanted to join me.”
“You ransacked the same safe Grandpa had when he was robbed by the two gold miners who were fired—”
“They weren’t fired.”
“Then laid off—”
“They weren’t even laid off—they were on strike and broke. They didn’t even have money to buy their babies food and diapers.”
“These are the same guys who tried to rob Grandpa.”
“Years and years ago.”
“Then it’s blood money.”
“It’s not blood money. It’s the money your grandfather kept in the safe after he was nearly robbed and became paranoid and stopped trusting anyone, including the bank. By the way, before she left, your mother took one of the two four hundred ounce gold bars from the safe. Apparently, she remembered the combination number on the safe. That gold bar she took from me, which I inherited from my father, is sitting in some safety deposit box in Winnipeg, and she refuses to disclose the location. Read the newspaper business pages and check the price for an ounce of gold for an idea of the figures involved.”
Following the conversation closely, with amazement, Durrell asked, “Well, if there are two gold bars, where’s the second?”
“That’s none of your business,” Salvatore snapped.
“This is the money from the safe that Grandpa refused to open when they robbed his store at gunpoint.”
“With a sawed-off shotgun, no less.”
“Instead of opening the safe and handing them the money, he somehow locked them in the office and set the store on fire.”
“Even I have trouble believing he deliberately set the store on fire. Either way, the robbers were roasted alive in the office from the fire. They couldn’t identify the victims of the blaze from their charred remains and what was left of their teeth and dental records. Then so-called Indian agents from the federal government, which had their medical records, refused to cooperate with the provincial police and wanted the RCMP to get involved, but the Mounties had no jurisdiction. This happened during the sixties. The two robbers were actually respectable members of the community, or shall I say the nearby reservation. One was actually a Native American who didn’t recognize the border with Canada and dodged the draft when the U.S. Army recruited him to fight in Vietnam. Later, he tried to return home to visit a dying family member on a reservation in Minnesota but was nabbed at the border in International Falls. So he did a tour of duty in Vietnam with the U.S. Marines, and won a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart at Khasan. After he received an honorable discharge, he decided to return to Canada. The other was from the Pikangikum reservation near Red Lake. He received an award for bravery after he rescued American tourists from drowning when their boat flipped in the rapids. Good country people, I guess they might say in the American South. They were totally broke, though. The gold miners were on strike against the mining company for too long, endless months, and they didn’t have money for bread, milk, food, and diapers for their children. But they picked the wrong storeowner to rob. Your grandfather was disgusted with being ripped off. Besides, when these two striking miners robbed the store they seemed a bit intoxicated and probably weren’t thinking straight because your grandfather easily tricked them and escaped his business office. He had an emergency plan for whenever he was robbed, but instead of calling the police or fleeing he went straight to the gas pumps and filled a jerry can. He didn’t go to the police; they were sick and tired of dealing with him. Anyway, he was sick and tired of their attitude, obstinacy, and incompetence; they never solved any break-ins or burglaries or apprehended any motorist who sped away from his gas station with a full tank without paying. They didn’t believe him and always treated him with mistrust, skepticism, and disdain. And can you blame the police being weary and tired of his calls: some miner or trapper on a bender intoxicated at his store; a single mom or teenager shoplifting; a deadbeat dad passing bad checks.
“He also wasn’t liked by the pillars of the community, the business owners and property owners who elected themselves town councillors to influence community affairs in their favour and benefit financially, lining their own wallets and purses, instead of serving the townspeople. Conflict of interest simply was missing from their vocabulary, he complained at one town council meeting. Anyway, he was so disgusted with the authorities and institutions in town and being disrespected and a constant victim of crime he took matters into his own hand. Taking the initiative was something he believed in firmly, along with self-help and self-reliance.
“He took a jerry can, filled it with gasoline at the gas pumps, returned to his business office, stuck the nozzle in the mail slot in the reinforced steel door, and poured the gasoline. Then he lit the match while the robbers shouted, threatened, and pounded the locked door. There’s one interesting detail to this story my father liked to add. Apparently, the Encyclopaedia Britannica salesman made a sales trip through town and sold a truckload of sets of encyclopaedias to those gold mining families, big on education. Your grandfather was also an autodidact—I guess it runs in the family. He purchased a set of encyclopaedias himself and planned to read from A-Z while he minded the store. So the wall was lined with boxes of encyclopaedias he agreed to store until the buyers picked them up. All that fine paper only accelerated the fire and flames exploded like napalm. The whole building burned to the ground, but it was his store. He was so fed up and disgusted he didn’t care. He had insurance, but he never expected the company would pay. In fact, they sent a vice-president from Winnipeg to Red Lake to hand him a check for a hundred thousand dollars. There was a grip and grin picture of the check presentation, featured prominently on the front page of the weekly community newspaper. The fire and killings, which were ruled self-defence, only enhanced his standing in the community, but some local liberals, city slickers, and members of the reserve accused him of racism. They didn’t know he could have held a status card; he was a native by today’s standards, a half-breed by the standards of the sixties, half Ojibway Indian and half Scots, born on the reserve of Lac Seul and raised in nearby Sioux Lookout, the son of a Hudson’s Bay store manager and a native seamstress.”
“I hate to digress,” Durrell interjected, “but how does somebody with a Scots and Indian background end up with a name like Salvatore?”
“I was born and raised on the Lac Seul reservation, near Sioux Lookout. The doctor who delivered me worked at the Sioux Lookout hospital, but the nurse there said not to bother, by the time the ambulance drove to Lac Seul reservation, my mother would be dead trying to deliver me. My mother was wracked by seizures and extremely high blood pressure. I was a breech birth, my legs coming out first, the umbilical cord tangled. But the doctor came from an Italian family and believed in that outdated concept famiglia. So he cycled from Sioux Lookout to Hudson, a distance of about fifteen miles, with his medicine bag strapped to his bicycle. He was thirsty and stopped at the liquor store, the only store open in Hudson, and bought a bottle of wine, the only beverage readily available, unless he drank straight from the lake at the edge of the road. Then he cycled down a long bush road to the reserve and took a canoe with a fishing guide across the lake, and helped carry it on his shoulders across a portage before they paddled across a bay in Lac Seul to my mother’s cabin in Whitefish Bay. He helped deliver me and practically saved my mother’s life and, by the same token, mine. His name was Salvatore and naturally it became mine. I’ve heard the story many times and I’ve heard similar stories involving others sick and rescued by him I’ve trouble disbelieving them. Maybe they should have a statue of him in town.”
“Anyway, it sounds like more than Grandpa went off the deep end,” Shauna said.
“People in town didn’t understand your grandfather always thought, as a matter of survival, first and foremost, about looking out for number one, and that was him. In fact, if you paddled together and the canoe flipped, and there was only one lifejacket or buoy, he would beat you with his fists or the paddle for it, unless you were a woman or child. That’s almost how the struggle ensued when he drowned.
The money and gold bar in the burnt safe survived, of course; the safe was fireproof. He left the safe in the office of his new store, which he rebuilt on the same site, but he never disturbed the safe or its contents, a reminder of that horrific event, which he came to regret, especially when he learned his assailants were striking gold miners with children. Yes, I mentioned one even did a tour of duty in Vietnam and was awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star, but he learned the hard way a war medal can’t buy you groceries. Still, he rebuilt the store from scratch, bigger and better than the original, with the very first upright freezer cases for frozen food in Red Lake.”
“Then this is blood money.”
“This isn’t blood money. This is legitimate business profit and your Grandpa’s salary and savings.”
“And then Grandpa died in a boating accident.”
“No, I told you already. He got in a wrestling match with the fathers of one of his girlfriends from the nearby reserve. The father wanted your grandfather to support the woman and her child.”
“So philandering and chasing women runs in the family.”
“I will not dignify that comment with a reply. Your grandfather and the woman’s father were drinking beer and wound up fighting over the identity of the child’s father. The boat rocked and a struggle ensued. Dad tripped, fell overboard into the lake, and drowned.”
“Then this is blood money.” She reached into the duffel bag for the worn Canadian currency. “This cash—it’s old twenties and fifties, even vintage twos and ones.”
“Those old bills are probably collectors’ items. If you found an honest and upright coin collector, you might be able to sell those one and two dollar bills and the other vintage denominations for a sizeable profit.”
“How am I supposed to take this to a bank? They’ll be suspicious; this money is worn and faded.”
“Just tell them the truth. You can pull it off; you are taking acting classes at Ryerson, aren’t you? I don’t even know if I should believe you anymore. Maybe you’re acting right now. Before you were studying journalism at Humber College, then it was television and radio broadcasting at Seneca College, then it was psychology at York University—”
Durrell, sitting across from their table, looked wide-eyed at the exchange and the barbs traded between father and daughter, and thought the relationship strained at best, as they continued to quarrel, but he merely listened closely as he eyed the duffle bag.
“I actually studied social work at York University.”
“I can’t say your experience has instilled much faith on my part in the value of postsecondary education.”
“I want to try, and Ryerson has the best acting school in Canada.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Dad!”
“I could use the money myself; I’m debating with myself over whether I should go to college or university as a mature student. I’m worried this money is just for drugs.”
“Dad, how can you talk that way? You’re just trying to piss me off. You know I don’t do drugs and earned a diploma and degree already.”
“Then why aren’t you working?”
“I had to go through a gruelling admissions process to get admitted to Ryerson, which has the best acting school in Canada, bar none.”
“Come on, Shauna, let’s just leave.” Sitting at the table across from the quarrelling duo, Durrell reached for the duffle bag.
“Just wait a second, who the hell are you?”
“Dad, he is my friend.”
“Who the hell is he?”
“He’s just Durrell, like you and me, a small town boy from Cobalt, in Northern Ontario.”
“We’re from Red Lake, in Northwestern Ontario, the gold mining capital of the world, by way of Sioux Lookout and Lac Seul, and none of us are kids,” Salvatore protested.
“Anyway, his grandfather played hockey for the Cobalt Silver Kings and his father played for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Durrell moved to Toronto to play junior hockey for the Oshawa Generals.”
Durrell gazed at Shauna as if she had said something unspeakable, unmentionable. Meanwhile, Salvatore decided he wasn’t looking or speaking with Durrell and wouldn’t address him directly. “So I’m supposed to be awed by the shuttered silver mines of Cobalt and his lineage and blue blood and his playing hockey for the Oshawa Generals.”
“I actually quit the Oshawa Generals after only a season because they wanted a goon and a hitman. I wanted to score goals and assists and make plays and got tired of being bullied, playing the game as an enforcer, using my ice time just to beat up an opposing player the coach didn’t like, like my father for the Leafs.”
“If his father played hockey for the Maple Leafs, why haven’t I heard of him? I’ve lived in Toronto before; I’ve been a Leafs fan and followed the team closely at times.”
“My father was an enforcer—he only played a few NHL games before he got in a bar fight in Montreal and accidentally killed a man.”
“Dad, you just want to argue with us.”
“Yes, I’m upset with you. You’re my daughter, and I want to help you pursue your career as a professional student, but money is tight. Now you want to make me broke and even more self-sacrificing. I’ve seen enough martyr parents in my Red Lake store already; I used to sell them smokes in the store all the time. Cigarettes was their medication—they didn’t have Prozac back then. Sometimes they’d ask me advice or needed to talk. If I was giving advice now I’d say, ‘If she wants to go to school again let her go flip burgers for tuition money. See if you, a high school dropout, can get some formal schooling yourself, before you’re laid off from the gold mine.’”
Durrell seized the duffle bag. He couldn’t understand why the bag felt so heavy, particularly if it only contained cash.
“And he isn’t taking the money, friend or not.”
“I’d feel more comfortable with a bodyguard like him, if I have to handle so much cash.”
Salvatore pulled out the revolver from the inside breast pocket of his leather jacket and vaguely waved the muzzle in the direction of his daughter’s strongly built friend, in denim, a jean jacket and pants, and running shoes. “You told me this was for college.”
“Yes, but, if you gave me a legitimate bank draft, or even transferred the money to my account—like, hello, it’s 1996, there are computers and telephones—I wouldn’t have to haul around cash.”
“Shauna, you understand your mother’s desire to ruin me financially and take every single penny I ever earned. It’s led to frozen and flagged bank accounts, so I’m forced to resort to schemes and money laundering to protect my own assets.” Salvatore waved the revolver, like a wild man, out of control; he figured intimidation might work in his favor. “No, this money isn’t for him or any drug deals.” Salvatore gestured with the gun at the young man he perceived to be an interloper. When the barista saw the pistol, she forgot her friendship with Salvatore, their intimacy, and ducked beneath the counter. Governed by fear, she sensed conflict brewing out of control, strong emotions seething beneath the surface, with no sign of de-escalation. She put her braided hair in a bun with her headband and fled through the bolted barricaded back door to the back alley, with its caged windows, garbage bins, dumpsters, containers of recyclables, and graffiti cement and block walls. The barista decided against calling the police; she had outstanding criminal charges for marijuana possession and missed her court appearance.
Expecting minimal resistance, Durrell lunged at Salvatore. Then Shauna threw herself between the two to try to control the fight and struggle, but Salvatore’s finger pressed the grooved trigger. As he struggled with Durrell, and his daughter tried to pull the young man and middle-aged man apart, a bullet shot cracked the confines of the café and grazed Shauna’s arm before exploding, ricocheting, smashing a display of carafes, coffee percolators, mugs.
“I can’t believe it,” Shauna sobbed, in shock, as she gripped her bloodied arm. “My father shot me, my own father shot me.”
Salvatore snapped, gasping and hissing fiercely through his clenched teeth, “Accidentally, accidently.” The two continued to struggle, with Durrell grabbing his arm and shoulder, grappling with his forearm, and twisting his wrist. He struggled with him for control of the sidearm and turned the muzzle sideways, effectively aiming the revolver, at Salvatore’s torso. A shot exploded from the sidearm clenched in Salvatore’s trembling, weakening hands, around which Durrell’s stronger hands intertwined and locked. The bullet struck Salvatore full force and at point blank range in the chest. Salvatore staggered around the café towards the counter and stumbled until he gripped the doorway, then collapsed against a stunted tree bordering the sidewalk and narrow boulevard of Eglinton Avenue West. Astounded at the madness and rage that exploded into gunfire, Durrell seized the duffel bag, which he found suspiciously heavy. He examined Shauna’s arm, saw the bullet had grazed her exposed arm, and, when he saw the superficial nature of the wound, tried to clean the wound with white paper napkins. He seized her by the hand and forced her along, as she tried to check on the condition of her father. They fled in a panic along the sidewalk of Eglinton Avenue West. Carrying the leather duffle bag, slung by a braided belted strap over his shoulder, they were both in a fright as they ran, Durrell moving ahead of her, dragging her east along Eglinton Avenue West. Some object in the leather bag bounced against Durrell’s side, hurting him. He wondered if the old guy stashed a brick in the bag for protection.
Durrell impatiently urged her to hurry, as they fled past the beauty salons and barbershops, a few of which earlier amazed them by still being open at the late night hour. Durrell said they should catch a cab, then changed his mind. Frenzied, he impulsively said it might even be safer to catch the next bus at the shelter, and blend with the crowds of commuters, even at this late hour. She realized now they were fugitives, escaping the scene of violence, eluding capture by law enforcement. She flung his hand away as he tried to guide her across the white lines on the black asphalt to the bus shelter at Oakwood and Eglinton Avenue West.
He crossed the traffic intersection ahead of her, beckoned to her, and urged her to hurry from where they stood near the bus shelter. Shauna looked down the sidewalk towards the café, where her father collapsed, where, she feared, her father might be dead or gravely injured, struggling to stay alive. When Durrell shouted at her to hurry, she was in the midst of a grim pause, and his loud voice aroused her. She quickly strode through the remaining distance in the crosswalk against a red light. When she saw the taxicab speeding into the intersection, she froze in her footsteps on the painted crosswalk, controlled by traffic and pedestrian lights.
Shauna stared into the eyes of the cabdriver, who, behind schedule, sped ahead to catch up on lost time. Worried about getting fired after he appeared late for his graveyard shift two nights running, the cabbie obliviously bore down on her. In the middle of the intersection, on a red light, before she reached the west side of the intersection, she was struck on the crosswalk by the speeding taxicab. Immobile, she lay on the asphalt. Durrell stood over her immobile body and tried to rouse some sign of life. The cabdriver, sought by immigration officers and scheduled for a court hearing, worried about being questioned by police while he was high on marijuana. He also feared deportation to Jamaica, where he feared a Kingston syndicate might target him for missing hashish he was supposed to help smuggle. He saw someone lending her aid, fled back into his orange and green taxi, and sped away.
Durrell stood over her prostate form on the street. When he recovered his poise and feared Shauna was dead or dying, he figured he could do nothing to help. He didn’t want to leave her, but she looked as if she was dead, and he couldn’t face a murder rap when he was only trying to defend himself. He was tired of being scapegoated and as a colored man he stood no chance against the police and the judicial system. He needed to look after himself for a change, instead of someone like Shauna. He took the duffle bag to the pay telephone outside the takeout pizza and chicken wings restaurant. He called 911 and asked for an ambulance to be sent to the intersection for a serious traffic accident. Then he put the duffle bag over his shoulders and hurried down Oakwood Avenue. When Durrell reached the next intersection, he saw a northbound public transit bus coming. He quickly crossed the street at the pedestrian crosswalk, and caught the bus, which drove north on Oakwood along its route past the accident scene, where a crowd of concerned motorists and pedestrians gathered and tried to help. The city public transit bus inched along its route on Eglinton Avenue West towards the subway station. Further down the avenue, cruisers, sirens screaming, lights flashing, rushed and swarmed the scene of the shooting from the nearby Metro Toronto Police 13th Division. Durrell feared the bus would be stopped, but the driver only paused intermittently for congested traffic and the bottleneck of police cruisers before resuming his cruise along the usual route, along the avenue and into Eglinton West subway terminal. Durrell hurried down the escalators to the southbound platform and anxiously paced on the brick platform beneath the lights and low industrial ceiling for the subway train. The next train brought him downtown, and he briskly strode to his apartment, which he locked with the dead bolt and chain. Short of breath, sweating, his eyes bloodshot, his normally immaculate hair tousled, he dumped the contents of the duffel bag on his mattress and stared intently at the stacks of worn cash, with its musty smell. In amazement, he started counting the vintage Canadian currency, and then abandoned the effort, as his exasperation with the small denominations, the one and two dollar bills, and the sums and numbers grew. Then he gazed at the gold bar, stamped four hundred ounces, Royal Canadian Mint, fine gold 999.9.
“Four hundred ounces, Royal Canadian Mint, fine gold 999.9,” he whispered, almost afraid he’d be overheard. “Four hundred ounces, Royal Canadian Mint, fine gold 999.9.”
He lifted and raised the gold bar like a dumbbell, gauging its weight and heft, flexing his muscular arm. Born and raised in rural Cobalt, in Northern Ontario, he struggled to find his niche in Toronto. Earlier, he quit the Oshawa Generals in a storm and a fury, smashing and breaking a batch of brand new hockey sticks in the dressing room. He dropped out of Saint Michael’s College, after revealing he had an affair with a teacher, who subsequently quit. He worked at a succession of odd jobs, including telemarketing, pizza delivery, and door-to-door encyclopedia salesperson, but now he figured he was home free and believed he made it. Maybe he could start a fitness gym, attend community college to train for a professional trade like welding or electrician or a paramedic, or try to apply as a mature student to university.
By the end of the week, as he literally slept with the gold and cash, his conscience was plagued with doubt and guilt. He struggled to comprehend his rationale for abandoning Shauna. Because she dumped him? He learned through the crime reporting in the Toronto Sun newspaper, which he usually avoided because he thought the coverage was sensational and racist, Shauna was being treated in the trauma ward of the Mount Sinai Hospital. Her father barely survived the gunshot injury to the chest. In critical condition, Salvatore was being treated in the intensive care unit of Mount Sinai Hospital.
“Are they under police guard?”
“Why would they be under police guard?” the Mount Sinai Hospital switchboard operator asked.
He called the nursing station at the intensive care unit and asked the nursing shift supervisor if Salvatore would survive.
“The patient is in critical condition in the intensive care unit. You tell me.”
He called the hospital main switchboard again and asked to speak with Shauna, who later bragged about the premium hospital insurance coverage her father’s insurance company provided. Over the telephone in her private room she insisted he visit. She reassured him he wasn’t under suspicion; the police figured she was the victim of a hit and run driver and suspected her father was attacked by a random mugger, possibly a crack addict. The only crime for which he was guilty in her mind was cowardice, but make no doubt about it, she said, he was a coward. Her words stung, and he decided he needed to confess, come clean with Shauna, and assume responsibility for his actions. He decided to surprise her by returning the gold bar, for which, after he asked her a few vague, but probing questions, he assumed she still hadn’t the slightest knowledge. He placed the gold bar in the Nike backpack, which Shauna had given him for his birthday, along with the larger denominations of worn, aged cash, which he neatly counted and bundled with elastic bands from the office supplies store across the street from his apartment. He brought her chocolate and flowers, which he also bought from the office supplies store. He felt he must be yearning for penance and repentance because he couldn’t remember the last time he bought chocolate and flowers for anyone, including Shauna. He took the subway train downtown and, after he climbed the stairs and escalator out of Dundas subway station, strode along University Avenue towards Mount Sinai hospital. As he walked south, a thin reedy young man with a cigarette stuck between his teeth, sprinted towards him at a furious pace. Instead of noticing he was running straight towards him he was distracted by how graceful and skilled a sprinter he appeared. The reedy man collided with Durrell and seized the backpack. Durrell went crashing into a newspaper vending machine, and scraped his knee on the pavement, but he quickly recovered his senses, tossed the chocolates, kicked aside the flowers, and went after the young man running with the brand new Nike backpack. He chased him along University Avenue, down Dundas Street, through Chinatown, and by the time he reached Queen Street West, he lost sight of his assailant. He searched the alleys and back streets around the broadcast studios, shops, restaurants, fashion stores, and cafes near Queen Street West, near University Avenue and as far as Spadina Avenue and the fashion district and Chinatown, but he could find no sign of his assailant or the Nike backpack. Originally, he hoped for some reconciliation with Shauna and redemption and forgiveness, but now he felt all was lost, including the gold bar and the cash. He returned to walk back to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he would commiserate with Shauna and hoped for the survival of her father.
