Blind Luck Read online

  Dave thought of the week before, when he’d asked for French fries after Saturday morning baseball practice. No way you put that garbage in you this early. Dave seized the moment, ordered a burger, fries and onion rings, and finished off with a strawberry sundae.

  Jack wrote on a small notepad as he ate behind the wheel. He put the burger on one thigh and the notepad on the other. Dave couldn’t see what he was writing, and between the burger, rings and ice cream, he really didn’t care either. All he knew was that his dad hadn’t stopped smiling since the day started.

  “Okay,” Jack said, gathering up the wrappers. “Now we can get down to business. Any guesses where we’re going?”

  Dave shook his head.

  “We’re going to buy action figures. Plural. Not a G.I. Joe. G.I. Joes. As many as you can fit in your arms.”

  Dave visualized it. He figured he could hold at least seven, eight if he held one between his teeth; maybe even nine if he hopped with one between his knees. The thoughts set off a wave of excitement that combined with the sugar breakfast to make him bounce-in-his-seat hyper. Dave was watching his dad get out of the car to throw out the garbage when a man approached with his hat held out for change. Even at his young age, Dave could tell that a different man lived somewhere beneath the bushy beard, skin distorted by veins too close to the surface, and eyes glazed with unrest. Jack did better than change, he stuffed a twenty in the man’s cup.

  They’d pulled into the toy store parking lot when Jack’s pager started to buzz. Before he could reach it, the vibrations sent it across the dashboard until it fell into Dave’s lap. He passed it to his dad.

  “The vultures always come to the prey, buddy.”

  Dave was used to his dad uttering bizarre phrases, metaphors or cliches insinuating something at least a step away from his nine-year-old mind.

  Jack had misled Dave when he said he could have as many action figures as he could carry. He ended up buying more. Dave inched his way to the cash with a figure between his legs and one pinched in each armpit while Jack sauntered behind him with five more. The total cashed out at $155. Jack paid the high schooler behind the counter $170 and met her return of the change with hand palm up.

  “No, no, no. That’s for you.”

  They weren’t out of the parking lot before Dave pulled an action figure from the bag.

  “Can I open one now?”

  “Of course you can. In fact, you owe it to the guy. Think how long he’s been waiting to get out of there.”

  Dave thought of toymakers, soldiers and what it would be like to be trapped in plastic. His father looked over at him at the next stop light.

  “You know we can’t tell Mom about this, right?”

  “Why?”

  “Well…she doesn’t believe in spoiling you.”

  “Why’s she so mean?”

  “Don’t say that. She’s not mean, she just wants what’s best for you. She doesn’t want you to take things for granted.”

  “I don’t.”

  “I know. Just keep this one under the radar.”

  “How?”

  Jack looked at the overflowing bag. “I’ll get them up to your room for you.”

  The pager vibrated again. This time Jack picked it up immediately. He looked at the number before turning his head to Dave.

  “We’ve got to make a stop before we go home, buddy. I have to drop by my friend Tom’s house. He’s got a son a year older than you. Johnny. He’s a cool kid.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Dave sat in a living room where everything was orange, thinking that Johnny was anything but cool. Johnny’s black hair hung over his head in every direction except for a four-inch strip across his forehead that was cut straight, so he could see. He didn’t turn from the T.V. after saying hello. On his knees, with a miniature baseball bat in his left hand, he watched a game show with gaudy lights like it was the most interesting thing he had ever seen.

  “We’re just going to go into the kitchen for a drink. You want anything?” Jack asked.

  Dave thought of his unopened G.I. Joes in the car, but he knew his dad just wanted to leave the room, so he shook his head. He was glad that Tom left too. Tom was a huge man, all fat and as big as the wrestlers Dave watched on T.V. Something about his face made Dave uneasy. His eyes were too small for his head, his cheeks were so fleshy they seemed to smother his face, and he had a spotty beard that was thinner but longer than Dave’s dad’s. Dave was wondering whether he should say anything to the back of Johnny’s head when a woman teetered into the room in knee- high boots and hugged him before he could respond.

  “Oh my god, you must be Jack’s boy.”

  The woman smelled of a mixture of sweet perfume and cigarettes. The hug felt good. “You are adorable,” she said, tickling his cheeks with press-on nails.

  That felt good too. “I’m sorry Johnny’s no fun, sweetie, but he loves his T.V. Don’t you, baby?” She bent down to kiss the top of Johnny’s head. For a moment, Dave thought she was going to fall, until she steadied the wobble. He had never seen heels so tall.

  Jack re-entered the room without Tom. He squeezed the woman’s hand before she kissed him on the cheek.

  “Tom and I have to go out for a bit. Can I leave Dave with you?”

  “Of course. We’ll have a good time together.”

  Dave’s heart began to race.

  “I’ve got to go out with Tom for awhile, so you’re going to stay here with Linda.”

  “Can’t you take me home first?”

  “I’m afraid not, buddy. I’ve got to leave right now, but I’ll be back before you notice. Watch some T.V., have a snack, and I’ll be back before you’re done.”

  Three hours later, he was still gone. Linda sauntered into the living room with a tray of drinks in tall glasses. Dave was afraid to move from his position on the couch.

  “Here’s yours, Johnny, and yours, sweetie,” she said, leaning down to kiss Dave on the cheek. “And Mommy’s.” She brought the straw to her lips and pulled until her cheeks sucked inward. Dave took a sip of his. The drink consisted of fruit juice and crushed ice with a wedge of orange cut into the shape of the sun. He was surprised that it tasted so good. He was about to thank Linda when she started to dance.

  “Come on, Johnny, dance with your mother.”

  “I’m watching T.V.”

  “How about you, cutie?” She pointed at Dave with a long nail. He was afraid to say anything, so he just sat there until she took him by the hands and led him to the carpet.

  “Let’s go, move those hips, little one.”

  Dave moved like a robot. One foot in front of the other, he rocked without hip movement. Linda couldn’t stop laughing. She didn’t stop moving either. The Stories’ “Brother Louie” led her in every direction as her hair swirled and her hips swayed. Dave watched in amazement until the sound of a phone ringing interrupted the moment. Linda answered, short of breath. Her voice was raspier now.

  Within seconds she went to the hall, and a beat after that, she yelled into the phone as her heels stomped their way up the stairs. Dave stopped the music, and Johnny turned from the television.

  “Do you want to have a hamster race?”

  “What?” Dave wasn’t sure he heard him correctly.

  “Do you want to have a hamster race?”

  “Sure,” Dave whispered. He was afraid to say no.

  “Cool.”

  Johnny opened the cage, dug into an excessive amount of wood shavings and removed two of the fattest hamsters Dave had ever seen.

  “Which one do you want?” Johnny asked, holding them out for Dave’s inspection.

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s an important choice, because the loser gets this.” He put a foot on the ruler-sized baseball bat.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean if yours wins, you get to kill mine, and if mine wins, I get to kill yours.”

  “But they’re both yours.”

  “Only because you haven�
��t picked one. Now which one do you want?”

  The hamsters suddenly looked much cuter. The fat appeared fluffy, and the teeth seemed to form a smile.

  “Let’s go,” Johnny pushed.

  Dave pointed to the hamster with a white tuft of hair almost like a mohawk.

  “Good choice,” Johnny said, waving the hamster through the air like a toy airplane. “He’s a little younger.” He gripped both hamsters tight as he knelt on the floor, where the oversized daisies patterning the carpet made a ridiculous racetrack. “First one to the wall wins.”

  Dave felt faint. He wanted to run, to tackle Johnny, to scream for Linda and return the hamsters back to the safety of the cage. But he didn’t do anything.

  “Ready…set…go.”

  Johnny released the hamsters, but neither of them moved forward. Dave’s tried to make it back to the cage until Johnny’s leg stopped it. Johnny’s didn’t fare any better. After a series of circles, he just stopped moving, but the absurdity didn’t deter Johnny’s enthusiasm.

  “Go, go,” he screamed as he bounced on his knees.

  As if on cue, or perhaps because they feared Johnny’s high-pitch, both hamsters headed for the wall at once. The speed of their humpy bodies surprised Dave.

  He thought of grabbing the bat from the floor to seize control, but the thought didn’t last long. Johnny was a year older, which to a nine-year-old as well have been decade. He was in Grade Four, he was taller than Dave, and he wore a silver chain.

  Johnny’s hamster bumped into the wall first.

  “Yes,” he cried.

  Dave didn’t blink twice before Johnny picked up the bat in one hand and the hamster with the white tuft of hair in the other.

  “Where’s your bathroom?” Dave asked.

  “Upstairs, end of the hall. Why?”

  “I need to go.”

  Johnny raised the bat. “You don’t want to see this, do you?”

  Dave shook his head.

  “Fag.”

  Dave exited the room with thoughts of the hamster being clubbed, but they disappeared as soon as he saw how dark the rest of the house looked. An uncovered red bulb gave the stairwell a little light, and it seemed like there were a thousand steps. He was tempted to sprint up them in order to avoid the eerie creak of each stair, but the darkness waiting for him kept him to one at a time. The higher up he got, the more he thought he saw a shadow waiting at the top, so he locked his eyes on the next step ahead.

  His heart beat so fast that he reached the hallway believing he could see the boogeyman, ghosts, vampires or a serial killer. He took a deep breath, stepped forward into the darkness and stumbled on something. His momentum took him into a wall with a thud, and fear sucked the air from his chest. He felt the wall frantically for a light switch, and a series of gasps escaped his lips until his finger touched a dimmer. He turned the dimmer and saw that he had stumbled over one of Linda’s boots. The other boot sat upright against the wall. He looked down the hall to see a door slightly ajar illuminated by the light on the other side. The door wasn’t more than fifteen steps from where he stood, but he moved almost in slow motion. The thought of Linda stumbling out of one of the rooms and making him feel more uncomfortable than he already was scared him as much as the dark. The house was narrow, so he couldn’t do more than spread his arms before he touched both walls, and that’s how he inched down the hallway, with his fingertips leading every step.

  He stopped moving in front of the door to take a series of deep breaths, when a creak from behind sparked him into pushing the door fully open. The need for light superseded the fear of embarrassing someone. Everything looked normal. Ugly drapes covered the window, a chipped mirror hung over the sink, and low-wattage lighting gave the room a yellow tinge. Just seeing the toilet made his bladder relax enough that he almost started peeing right there. He had shuffled a few steps forward when something he saw out of the corner of his eyes stopped him on the spot. For a moment, he wondered if his mind had deceived him. Most of him wanted to run, but he knew he couldn’t, so he turned to see Linda fully submerged in the bathtub. Dave had no idea what this meant, but he knew enough to pull her head from the water. She was heavier than he expected. Slick with bath soap, her body looked an unusual colour.

  With his arms around her shoulders, hands clasped, he pulled her up until her weight pulled them both down. Linda’s upper body now hung over the lip of the tub, and her fingers dangled towards the floor as water dripped from her hair.

  Dave scrambled to his feet, slipped on the wet tile and fell into the wall before getting back up and running downstairs to find a phone to call 911.

  His dad came back to the house twenty minutes after the ambulance arrived. But that’s not what Dave remembered about the night. What he remembered for decades after is that if his dad had not left him, no one would have found Linda in time to save her.

  Five

  The clock marked his twenty-fourth hour without sleep as it turned to eight thirty, and Dave stared at it with spite. Every cell in his body wanted rest, but his mind wouldn’t stop running through details: the size of the truck, the smell of shit in the toilet stall, the hangover that saved his life. The equation plagued him. If he hadn’t slept in, he would have been behind his desk when the truck hit—a desk that the truck had hit right after the reception desk. Twelve hours slipped by fast in the current of those thoughts.

  The more he thought of the truck, the more anything seemed possible. The ceiling lamp he stared up at could fall and crush his face, a brain aneurysm could kill him in seconds, and he could shut his eyes only to never wake up. An article he’d read a few days before told of a man who’d bled to death from a nosebleed. The journalist used the phrase “bleeding out”. The possibility of dying from something so common had seemed shocking when he’d read the article, but now it felt probable. If you can think it, he thought, then it can happen. And if it can happen, then in a long enough timespan, it will happen to you.

  A stiffness in his lower back begged him to massage it as he lifted himself from the bed and put on a T-shirt. He didn’t want to spend another second alone. He felt trapped in his brain, and a sudden urge to tell somebody about the tragedy surged through him with an undeniable force, as if sharing what happened would make it more real or less real. He wasn’t sure what he wanted more, but what became clear was that he needed someone else’s perspective, and while every instinct warned him that it was a bad idea, he felt compelled to tell his dad.

  “Morning.” A neighbour from a few apartments down nodded, stepping out of the elevator as Dave stepped in. This man had no idea that Dave had almost died just twenty-four hours before, and no idea that Dave had seen the dead bodies of his colleagues. It occurred to Dave that there were at least thirty people living on his floor, yet none of them knew that he had narrowly escaped a tragedy. Somehow, the anonymity felt entirely inappropriate.

  A cab dropped him off in the drive-up of 29 Palson Road. Dave preferred the euphemism “29 Palson Road” instead of Senior Citizen’s Home.

  Two elderly women chatted on a bench just outside the front doors. Since his dad’s first day living there, Dave had developed a habit of imagining what the older people he saw were like when they were his age. He envisioned what they used to do for a living, and whether or not they were attractive. Something about the images he conjured made him uneasy, so he tried not to do it, but it had become a mental reflex. This time he saw two people who would have been friends if they’d met decades earlier. The one on the left had been vain in her time, which was surprising for someone who sat before him with a bit of breakfast’s dried egg on her face. But he could see that she’d been beautiful once. With high cheekbones, mischievous eyes and full, pouting lips, she must have been uniquely beautiful in her prime. The thought of her working at a library or organizing charity events didn’t do her justice. If she had been born twenty-five years later, she would have been an architect or fashion designer.

  The one on the right had
never been attractive. He guessed the hair on her lip hadn’t come with old age, and her sharp tone and thick frown lines suggested a lot of children without a lot of money. Both women wore wedding bands, despite the reality that their residence was a drop-off for widows. He hoped to be that loyal one day.

  A young orderly Dave knew only as Chris walked towards his dad’s room. Chris had worked at the home since Mr. Bolden had moved in. He looked in his early twenties, but a few comments during his brief exchanges with Dave suggested he was closer to thirty. Nothing about his look framed him for a career in gerontology. Thick blond stubble covered his shaved head, a bushy goatee accented his superhero jaw, and everything about his word choice and delivery made Dave think of ski bums. Chris adjusted a pair of headphones dangling from his neck.

  “You picked the right time to come, he’s in a good mood today.” He stopped before Mr. Bolden’s room. “Let me know if you need anything.”

  Dave took a moment before opening the door. The lack of sleep made the hum of overhead lighting, the smell of cleaning products, and the faint sound of talk radio coming from every room more depressing than during his usual visits. He stepped forward to see his dad sitting with his back and head propped up by pillows on his single bed. A soccer game played on a T.V. screen he didn’t take his eyes from.

  He sat on top of his covers with a pair of beige cords riding too high at the ankles and a green cardigan buttoned tight around his chest. Despite thinning white hair and heavy wrinkles, blue eyes and a symmetrical face suggested he’d been handsome in his prime. An oxygen mask dangled from his neck, and an oxygen tank rested on a stand beside the bed. Dave hugged him tighter than he had in months.

  “How are you today?”

  Jack pushed off the hug like a kid embarrassed by his father’s affection. “Enough of that sissy shit. The Leafs won by two goals; that’s three to one you owe me.”

  Dave removed a blanket from a wooden chair before pulling it closer to the bed so he could sit beside his dad. “I need you to listen to me, Pop, this is really important.”