Blind Luck (11 page)

“I need your expertise.”

“I like your word choice.”

“Can you get me front row tickets to a concert?”

“I can make it snow in summer.”

“It’s tomorrow night.”

“That’s fine. Which one?”

“MC5.”

“Who?”

“The MC5. You know, ‘Kick out the jams, motherfuckers’”

“Whatever. I’ll make a call and have the tickets dropped off at your place tonight.”

“Thank you.”

“For you? It’s my pleasure. I’ve got to go. I’ve got another call.”

Dave closed his phone and motioned to stop an empty cab, but the first one coasted past him, so he stepped off the curb and pointed at one a few cars behind. The driver was so tall, he had to hunch to keep his head from touching the ceiling. His neck was skinny, and a scar in the shape of a bow-tie peeked out from the collar of a black T-shirt.

“That guy drove past like I wasn’t there,” Dave said, pointing at the cab disappearing in the distance.

“Sometimes these drivers, their minds wander.” The man spoke with a rich East African accent.

“Coxwell and Gerrard, please.”

“No problem.” The traffic light turned red, and the man seized the opportunity to turn and face Dave. The whites of his eyes were glazed yellow, but they burned with intensity. “You were born here, yeah?”

“I was.”

The light turned green, and he accelerated into the next lane.

“You have no idea how fortunate you are. I’m from Rwanda, and I can tell you that people here, they wouldn’t believe how some of the world lives.”

“Tough living, I imagine.” Dave wanted to be polite, but his mind was still on the concert.

“I tell everyone that will listen, your nightmares can’t compare to my reality there. I had to leave my family at fourteen to avoid being forced into the rebel army, and I walked across the desert to reach free soil. I started the journey with my best friend, but on the ninth morning, he never woke up, so I had to leave him. Can you picture such a moment? Tongue swollen with dehydration, mind hazy from a lack of food, your heart heavy because you know you will never see your family again, and your best friend lying dead before you.”

Dave stared at the rear-view mirror to meet the man’s eyes and did his best with the look to show that he’d taken the story in.

“Embrace your life,” the driver said. “You live a life my people only dream of.”

Dave nodded. The cab’s radio crackled and the dispatcher’s tired voice filled the vehicle. “Car number three-twenty-two just had a code purple. Driver fine, passenger injured, police on site.”

The driver turned to Dave. “Good thing that driver ignored you. He just got carjacked.”

“What?”

“They say the driver is fine, but the passenger is injured, and that would have been you.”

Dave nodded. A carjacked cab in daylight. One could live a long time and not hear a story like that, let alone be present for the madness. He considered the probability. The cab wouldn’t have taken the same route if he was in it, so therefore the driver’s belief that he had narrowly escaped tragedy was a false connection.

He tipped the driver ten dollars and approached Amy’s place determined to forget that he’d heard the cab was robbed. Sadness had shadowed him since his own accident, and he craved fantasy, not more reality.

He pressed Amy’s buzzer, but after a few minutes, she still hadn’t answered, so he considered leaving for a moment before pressing the buzzer once more.

Hurried steps approached the door from the other side before it opened, and Amy took a step back with surprise.

“Hey.”

Her brow furrowed into a look of confusion.

“I thought I’d do better than call,” he said. “I hope that’s okay.”

“Of course.”

“Can I come in?”

She nodded and stepped to the side so he could enter. “Did my brother pay you to come back?”

“No. I know I should have called, but I’ve got a surprise that demands face-to-face contact.”

She held up a phone that she gripped so tight, her knuckles were white. “Sorry, I’m dazed. My phone number is cursed, and I just got another weird call.”

“And how would you define a phone number as being cursed?”

“It’s been mistaken for a non-residential number.”

“That happens.”

“Three times a day for the last two months.”

“Are you sure they’re not prank calls?”

“I thought they were at first, but the people on the other end were as disappointed with me answering as I was with them calling. Do you still think I’m not unlucky?”

“Having your phone number mixed up doesn’t make you unlucky.”

“The first set of calls were from people trying to order double-headed dildos.”

“That’s weird, but not unlucky,” he said with a laugh he couldn’t contain.

“Then for a week I got calls from a lab trying to give me a patient’s biopsy results.”

“Look, that’s definitely strange, but…”

“Think about the odds of having your phone number posted on a website that specializes in dildos and mistakenly entered into a lab by an overworked receptionist in the same month. Things like this don’t happen to normal people.”

“True, it’s rare and darkly funny, if you ask me, but those calls don’t affect you, so you can’t say they make you unlucky.”

“I just got a call before you buzzed that mistook me for a teen suicide hotline.”

Dave took a moment to take in her expression. Both the strain in her eyes and worry on her face suggested she expected to get such bizarre calls.

“What did you do?” he asked.

“I told her she had the wrong number and that I’d look up the right number for her, but she hung up.”

“That’s disturbing, and I’m sorry you had to take that call, but I have a surprise for you that might help take your mind off it.”

She set the phone down. “I didn’t think you’d call, let alone come over again.”

“Well, I did. Do you know the MC5 is coming to town?”

“Of course.”

“Are you going?”

“I can’t go to concerts. I’d get trampled.”

“This is your favourite band, right?”

“It’s too dangerous.”

Dave stepped closer to her and smiled. “I have VIP tickets, and I want to watch it with you.”

“I can’t.”

“You have to. Who else can give me the details you can?”

“I would love to go with you, and I can’t believe you’re asking me, but…”

The phone’s electronic buzz cut her off before she finished. Instinct told her to step back from the phone. “You have to get it,” she said, gesturing to Dave.

“Let it go to voicemail.”

“Your energy can save her.”

“Save who?”

“Please answer the phone.”

The buzz seemed louder to both of them now.

“You should answer your phone.”

“I’ll go to the concert if you get it.”

He looked at the panic in her eyes and felt compelled to do anything he could to change the expression. With a quick pivot, he answered the phone just after the fifth buzz. “Hello?”

“Aren’t you supposed to answer faster?”

The voice on the other end was smooth and the accent clearly Newfoundland. Dave placed the tone as late teens. “What number are you looking for?”

“The teen suicide hotline.”

“I’m sorry, but this isn’t.

“What’s your name?” the voice asked.

Dave looked at Amy, who appeared reassured just by having him on the phone. “Dave.”

“Will you talk to me, Dave?”

“I’m not a counsellor. This is a private number.”

“You’re going to be the last person I talk to.”

Dave took a breath, put the phone in his other hand and wiped the sweat from the hand that just held the phone on his pants. He looked again at Amy and she mouthed, “Please.”

“Who am I talking with?” he asked the voice on the other end.

“Cole.”

“Okay, Cole. How old are you?”

“How old are
you?
”

“I’m thirty-five.”

“Seventeen.”

“And why did you call this number, Cole?”

“Because I’m tired of hating myself.”

“Can you guess what I’m going to ask next?”

“I’m gay.”

“And?”

“What do you mean ‘and’? I’m living a curse.”

For the first time, Cole was aggressive, so Dave matched the tone. “I mean it’s not a big deal to be gay, and it’s certainly not a curse.”

“Tell that to my parents.”

Reflex told him to tell the teen to tell his parents to go fuck themselves, but reason warned that the situation demanded a more measured response. “Your parents are hard on you?”

“My dad wants to take me to a strip club in Montreal for my birthday next week.”

“Tell him you’re not interested.”

“He wants to pay one of the strippers to have sex with me.”

“I’m sorry he told you that. But you’ll be eighteen then, right? Tell him that you’re an adult, it’s your choice now, and you’re not interested.”

“They love me, and they tell me it’s not my fault I’ve been cursed, but that I’m destined to go to hell, so I should do everything I can to make amends for who I am.”

“How can you possibly believe that your sexuality is a curse? Is it a curse that I have brown eyes?”

“They say ten per cent of the population is homosexual. The odds were overwhelmingly in favour of me being straight, yet here I am. My destiny is to disgrace my parents.”

“Your destiny? Is it the blind’s destiny not to see?”

“Of course.”

“You need to shift the lens. You get to choose what you believe in, and right now you believe in things that punish you for who you are. You can just as easily choose to believe in things that love you for who you are.”

Dave hoped for a positive response or a change in tone, but instead there was a silence that reinforced the conversation’s stakes. “Are you with me?”

“Yeah, but you don’t understand what it feels like.”

“Of course I don’t. But I know what it feels like to wonder if I believe.” He looked at Amy a moment before continuing. “Last week a truck crashed into the place where I work and killed everyone except me. I ask myself all the time why I lived, and what it boils down to is what I want to believe. Did I live for a reason, or did they die because it’s possible?”

“And?” Cole asked, now fully engaged.

“And I believe it happened because it’s theoretically possible for a truck to drive off the road and through a business’s front windows.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you.”

“I’m sorry you hate yourself. You seem like a cool guy.”

A beat of silence felt like minutes, until Cole said, “I’m going to hang up, Dave.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“I’ve got a lot of thinking to do, but thank you for sharing that story.”

“Take care, Cole.”

The teen hung up, and Dave put the phone on the table. Amy looked at him like he glowed.

“Do you believe you’re special now?”

“I almost threw up.”

“If I’d answered the phone, he would have hung himself.” “You need to change your number.”

They shared a tension-releasing laugh. It felt good to exhale and even better to drop his shoulders.

“You owe me a concert.”

“I’ll be there.”

She smiled at the thought of spending more time with him, but just the word “concert” made her stomach swirl.

Fourteen

When Dave picked Amy up in a cab, her eyes had the liquid, thousand-yard stare of fear, so he squeezed her closest hand and put the concert tickets in her lap.

“Front row,” he said with pride.

“Amazing.” Her lips were so tight that the word fell more than flowed from her mouth. “Will you hold my wallet for me? I don’t want to lose it.”

Dave nodded, slipped the wallet into a pocket and pulled a flask from his breast pocket. He sipped until his gums burned and extended it to Amy, who to his surprise, filled her mouth.

“Easy,” he said. “We’ve got a long night.”

She let out a cough, nodded and returned the flask. “I get panic attacks.”

“Okay.” He rolled down the window. “Just breathe.”

“Ask me a question about music, it’ll relax me.”

“Alright. When did the MC5 last play in Toronto?”

“March 25,1970. Varsity Arena.”

“How can you possibly know that?”

“More questions,” she said with a heavy swallow. Precedent told her the tightness in her throat meant she was losing control. She fought back a gag and motioned him to continue with a finger. “Harder questions.”

“Okay. Who opened for them that night?”

“Small Faces and Canned Heat.”

Another gag. “Harder.”

“Who was in Canned Heat?”

“Alan Wilson and Bob Hite.” She took a deep breath and inhaled as if smoking. “Harder.”

“Why were they called Canned Heat?”

“After the 1928 Tommy Johnson song ‘Canned Heat Blues’ about an alcoholic addicted to Steno, more commonly known as canned heat.”

Dave smiled. “You’re too cool to be panicked.”

“What?”

“With as much as you know about music, you could sit down with the Stones, and they’d pour you a drink.”

She smiled and looked out the window, surprised to see they had reached the venue. They stepped out of the cab and were walking toward the building when a homeless man shook a tin cup that jingled with coins.

“When you’re happy and you know it…spare some change.” He shook the cup twice to punctuate the rhythm, and Dave handed him five dollars.

The club smelled of draft beer, and the floors were already sticky with spillage. The place was packed, but the space was tight, so it was difficult to guess how many people were there.

Dave led the way through the crowd with the swagger of a man with front-row tickets. He took a swig from the flask and passed it to Amy.

“Thank you for coming. I know this isn’t easy for you.”

She took a sip and winced. “This is a great flask.”

“My dad used it for years.”

“Did he give it to you?”

“Not exactly.”

He thought of the week after his mother’s funeral. To be supportive, he had picked up some Chinese food after work and brought it to his dad’s place. As soon as he’d opened the front door, he’d heard his dad’s drunken moan. The moan was not panicked, but slow and deliberate like a child with a toothache.