<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t believe that bus driver\u2014accusing you of stepping in front of the bus like you\u2019re trying to commit suicide. I should have punched him out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shauna looked away, closing her eyes in shame. \u201cYou were so aggressive, so in his face. I was afraid you were ready to hit him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI should have punched him in the head or face; he was so accusatory.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe I wasn\u2019t paying attention, lost in thought.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you trying to tell me he\u2019s not to blame? He was practically accusing you of trying to end your own life.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy were you so in his face, arguing and fighting? The driver had enough trouble operating the bus.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s 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?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease don\u2019t call me your babe; I\u2019m 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\u2019t get recognition for their foreign credentials.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou mean you\u2019re trying to kill yourself by throwing yourself in the bus?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, 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\u2019m waiting for a bus or streetcar I get frightened and freeze. Or when the subway train is roaring into the station I panic, I\u2019m paralyzed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe you should get some help.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHelp from who?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re asking me? You\u2019re 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\u2019s go see your dad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Durrell and Shauna strode from the Ossington bus to the caf\u00e9.<\/p>\n
\u201cI should warn you: my father has this thing about African Canadians and native Canadians.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNative Canadians? I thought he was part native Canadian? And African Canadians? Who are you calling African Canadians?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s 1996. The newspapers say Jesse Jackson prefers the term.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBlack will do for me, but I don\u2019t even consider myself black; I\u2019m a mulatto.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNow that term is also out of date. I think the word you\u2019re looking for is biracial or colored. Either way, I thought I should warn you my father has some outmoded ideas about people of color.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you tried to warn me about that before, but I wouldn\u2019t worry about your father\u2019s attitude; I\u2019ve seen worse.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s also self-taught. He dropped out of high school, moved to Toronto, and then moved back to Red Lake, but he\u2019s always been a big reader and a fan of book learning. He also tries too hard\u2014to speak precisely. If someone uses contractions, or doesn\u2019t speak in complete sentences, he thinks it\u2019s evidence of some kind of inferiority. He\u2019s afraid people will think he\u2019s a hillbilly, or a country music fan, which deep down he is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCaffeinism,\u201d Durrell commented, \u201cthat\u2019s an odd name for a caf\u00e9.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the condition you get when you drink too much coffee, consume too much caffeine.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s great. We\u2019re going to meet your father at a caf\u00e9 where he may be wired on caffeine and he\u2019s bringing a gun. Did I hear correctly? Did he actually say he\u2019s bringing a gun?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes. He\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Durrell shook his head, keeping ahead, as they walked the short distance through the Jamaican-Canadian neighbourhood to meet Salvatore at his favourite caf\u00e9 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\u2019t 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 caf\u00e9, but, even though Shauna requested the meeting, she didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re living in Toronto now?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s business, he constantly talked about moving back to the city and enrolling as a mature student at a college or university.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m living in Toronto for the time being,\u201d Salvatore said. \u201cI haven\u2019t decided whether I\u2019ll move permanently to Toronto.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut you can\u2019t just walk away from your business,\u201d Shauna said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI already have,\u201d Salvatore said. \u201cThe convenience store and gas station can run itself, for the time being.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I thought you were thinking of buying another convenience store and gas bar in Ear Falls.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYour mother made any expansion plans unfeasible.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mother? She\u2019s your wife.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo we need to go through this again?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo you two have broken up again?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you actually took the time out from your busy day and preoccupied life to talk to your mother, you\u2019d know she and I aren\u2019t a couple. We haven\u2019t been together for exactly the same reason you haven\u2019t talked with your mother for so long.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think the reasons are that simple. Do you have to be so cynical about everything and everybody?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, and I even brought a gun, an M1911, a single-action, semi-automatic .45-calibre pistol. I already warned you: once again I\u2019ve found it necessary to carry a concealed weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNecessary? Toronto isn\u2019t Texas. This is cosmopolitan Toronto, in multicultural Canada. Do you realize the kind of trouble you can get into carrying around a concealed weapon?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShauna, I\u2019ve 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you\u2019re going insane.\u201d<\/p>\n
He gulped his coffee and went to the counter for another espresso. \u201cI think I must be going soft in the brain\u2014agreeing to give you more money.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLook at it as an investment\u2014in my education.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhatever the money is for\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you bring the money?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, I brought the money and I brought the handgun.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA handgun!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShauna, I\u2019ve met an attractive young woman\u2014behind the counter of this caf\u00e9, working alone. She always works alone, she\u2019s happy to work alone. I come here regularly: she knows how I love my espressos and cappuccinos, and she\u2019s taken a liking to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
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. \u201cThis is a fine, remarkable, brave woman. She runs and manages the caf\u00e9 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy did you bring your handgun?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause I brought the money.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo bringing a revolver will protect you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you remember the calibre?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNine millimetre, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m glad you remembered the cartridges. Maybe you\u2019ll 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\u2019t repair his broken boat motor. I traded him an outboard motor for the pistol so he\u2019d finish enjoying his fishing trip. He never experienced such excellent lake trout and pickerel fishing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDad, you didn\u2019t bring cash, did you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, after debating and arguing with myself, and you don\u2019t want to hear the things I told myself, I did.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t believe you. You brought twenty thousand dollars in cash?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSlightly more. That\u2019s 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\u2019s not as if you\u2019re entitled to any inheritance now, and the money I\u2019ve invested in your education so far has had zero returns. I wonder why, instead of giving it to you, I don\u2019t 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\u2019m enough of a risk taker to try to help again. After all, it doesn\u2019t look like anybody else is willing to look after you,\u201d he added, glaring at Durrell. \u201cAnyway, the money is from your grandfather\u2019s safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGranddad\u2019s safe? As in the safe you refused to open for years, the safe you never wanted to open because it had sentimental value?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes. What were you expecting?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe a bank draft.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf that\u2019s the case, I would have transferred the money to your bank account from mine.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, why didn\u2019t you simply transfer the money?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause my personal and corporate bank accounts are frozen.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t believe you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it was called divorce, as in a divorce settlement and alimony. Anyway, you sound like a lawyer.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFunny you should mention lawyers. Your mother said I should apply to university as a mature student and attend Osgoode law school. She says she\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are talking about Grandpa\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t 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?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is insane.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYour mother left me with no choice. All the cash I could access was stored in that safe and is now in this duffel bag.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why I brought the handgun.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou mean you flew all the way to Red Lake to get the cash from Grandpa\u2019s safe?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou ransacked the same safe Grandpa had when he was robbed by the two gold miners who were fired\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey weren\u2019t fired.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen laid off\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey weren\u2019t even laid off\u2014they were on strike and broke. They didn\u2019t even have money to buy their babies food and diapers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are the same guys who tried to rob Grandpa.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYears and years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen it\u2019s blood money.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not blood money. It\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following the conversation closely, with amazement, Durrell asked, \u201cWell, if there are two gold bars, where\u2019s the second?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s none of your business,\u201d Salvatore snapped.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the money from the safe that Grandpa refused to open when they robbed his store at gunpoint.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWith a sawed-off shotgun, no less.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead of opening the safe and handing them the money, he somehow locked them in the office and set the store on fire.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEven 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\u2019t 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\u2019t 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\u2019t 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\u2019t 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\u2019t 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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe also wasn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe 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\u2019s 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\u2014I 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\u2019t 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\u2019t know he could have held a status card; he was a native by today\u2019s 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\u2019s Bay store manager and a native seamstress.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI hate to digress,\u201d Durrell interjected, \u201cbut how does somebody with a Scots and Indian background end up with a name like Salvatore?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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<\/em>. 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\u2019s cabin in Whitefish Bay. He helped deliver me and practically saved my mother\u2019s life and, by the same token, mine. His name was Salvatore and naturally it became mine. I\u2019ve heard the story many times and I\u2019ve heard similar stories involving others sick and rescued by him I\u2019ve trouble disbelieving them. Maybe they should have a statue of him in town.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnyway, it sounds like more than Grandpa went off the deep end,\u201d Shauna said.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople in town didn\u2019t 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\u2019s almost how the struggle ensued when he drowned.<\/p>\n 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\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThen this is blood money.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis isn\u2019t blood money. This is legitimate business profit and your Grandpa\u2019s salary and savings.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then Grandpa died in a boating accident.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, 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.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo philandering and chasing women runs in the family.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI will not dignify that comment with a reply. Your grandfather and the woman\u2019s father were drinking beer and wound up fighting over the identity of the child\u2019s father. The boat rocked and a struggle ensued. Dad tripped, fell overboard into the lake, and drowned.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThen this is blood money.\u201d She reached into the duffel bag for the worn Canadian currency. \u201cThis cash\u2014it\u2019s old twenties and fifties, even vintage twos and ones.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThose old bills are probably collectors\u2019 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.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow am I supposed to take this to a bank? They\u2019ll be suspicious; this money is worn and faded.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJust tell them the truth. You can pull it off; you are taking acting classes at Ryerson, aren\u2019t you? I don\u2019t even know if I should believe you anymore. Maybe you\u2019re 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\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n \u201cI actually studied social work at York University.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t say your experience has instilled much faith on my part in the value of postsecondary education.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI want to try, and Ryerson has the best acting school in Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t believe you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDad!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI could use the money myself; I\u2019m debating with myself over whether I should go to college or university as a mature student. I\u2019m worried this money is just for drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDad, how can you talk that way? You\u2019re just trying to piss me off. You know I don\u2019t do drugs and earned a diploma and degree already.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThen why aren\u2019t you working?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI had to go through a gruelling admissions process to get admitted to Ryerson, which has the best acting school in Canada, bar none.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCome on, Shauna, let\u2019s just leave.\u201d Sitting at the table across from the quarrelling duo, Durrell reached for the duffle bag. <\/p>\n \u201cJust wait a second, who the hell are you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDad, he is my friend.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWho the hell is he?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s just Durrell, like you and me, a small town boy from Cobalt, in Northern Ontario.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re 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,\u201d Salvatore protested.<\/p>\n \u201cAnyway, 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Durrell gazed at Shauna as if she had said something unspeakable, unmentionable. Meanwhile, Salvatore decided he wasn\u2019t looking or speaking with Durrell and wouldn\u2019t address him directly. \u201cSo I\u2019m 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.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI 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\u2019t like, like my father for the Leafs.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf his father played hockey for the Maple Leafs, why haven\u2019t I heard of him? I\u2019ve lived in Toronto before; I\u2019ve been a Leafs fan and followed the team closely at times.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy father was an enforcer\u2014he only played a few NHL games before he got in a bar fight in Montreal and accidentally killed a man.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDad, you just want to argue with us.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes, I\u2019m upset with you. You\u2019re 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\u2019ve 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\u2014they didn\u2019t have Prozac back then. Sometimes they\u2019d ask me advice or needed to talk. If I was giving advice now I\u2019d say, \u2018If 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\u2019re laid off from the gold mine.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Durrell seized the duffle bag. He couldn\u2019t understand why the bag felt so heavy, particularly if it only contained cash.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd he isn\u2019t taking the money, friend or not.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d feel more comfortable with a bodyguard like him, if I have to handle so much cash.\u201d<\/p>\n 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\u2019s strongly built friend, in denim, a jean jacket and pants, and running shoes. \u201cYou told me this was for college.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes, but, if you gave me a legitimate bank draft, or even transferred the money to my account\u2014like, hello, it\u2019s 1996, there are computers and telephones\u2014I wouldn\u2019t have to haul around cash.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShauna, you understand your mother\u2019s desire to ruin me financially and take every single penny I ever earned. It\u2019s led to frozen and flagged bank accounts, so I\u2019m forced to resort to schemes and money laundering to protect my own assets.\u201d Salvatore waved the revolver, like a wild man, out of control; he figured intimidation might work in his favor. \u201cNo, this money isn\u2019t for him or any drug deals.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n Expecting minimal resistance, Durrell lunged at Salvatore. Then Shauna threw herself between the two to try to control the fight and struggle, but Salvatore\u2019s 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 caf\u00e9 and grazed Shauna\u2019s arm before exploding, ricocheting, smashing a display of carafes, coffee percolators, mugs.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t believe it,\u201d Shauna sobbed, in shock, as she gripped her bloodied arm. \u201cMy father shot me, my own father shot me.\u201d<\/p>\n Salvatore snapped, gasping and hissing fiercely through his clenched teeth, \u201cAccidentally, accidently.\u201d 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\u2019s torso. A shot exploded from the sidearm clenched in Salvatore\u2019s trembling, weakening hands, around which Durrell\u2019s stronger hands intertwined and locked. The bullet struck Salvatore full force and at point blank range in the chest. Salvatore staggered around the caf\u00e9 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\u2019s 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\u2019s side, hurting him. He wondered if the old guy stashed a brick in the bag for protection. <\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n 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 caf\u00e9, 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019t want to leave her, but she looked as if she was dead, and he couldn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n \u201cFour hundred ounces, Royal Canadian Mint, fine gold 999.9,\u201d he whispered, almost afraid he\u2019d be overheard. \u201cFour hundred ounces, Royal Canadian Mint, fine gold 999.9.\u201d<\/p>\n 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n 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<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n \u201cAre they under police guard?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy would they be under police guard?\u201d the Mount Sinai Hospital switchboard operator asked.<\/p>\n He called the nursing station at the intensive care unit and asked the nursing shift supervisor if Salvatore would survive.<\/p>\n \u201cThe patient is in critical condition in the intensive care unit. You tell me.\u201d<\/p>\n He called the hospital main switchboard again and asked to speak with Shauna, who later bragged about the premium hospital insurance coverage her father\u2019s insurance company provided. Over the telephone in her private room she insisted he visit. She reassured him he wasn\u2019t 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\u2019t 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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Forest Hills<\/strong>
\nAfter Ollie served nearly a full sentence, officials decided to release him from the juvenile detention facility early. They shortened his detention term because he helped administer First Aid to a fellow inmate who suffered an epileptic seizure. Then, when someone nearly beat his epileptic friend to death, he intervened and made a ruckus until guards could no longer look the other way and transported his injured body to the infirmary. Either way, Ollie became sidetracked by his own desire to set life and past wrongs right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3647,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3644,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions\/3644"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}