The meeting ends early, leaving James with two choices. He can mimic his coworkers, following suit as they climb into their Buicks and Oldsmobiles and drive home to suburbia, where manicured lawns and doting wives await. Or he can stay in the city, wander its grimy streets, try to gain an understanding of its strange allure, live a little. He opts for the latter.
The city is alien to him, foreign and bizarre. Though he lives just an hour’s drive away, he’s only ever been here on business. Him and Wendy have spoken about spending a weekend here in the summer, but statelier American cities like Detroit or Chicago have dingy Toronto beat. There are hardly even any skyscrapers here.
He reaches Yonge Street soon enough, which bustles with an ambling crowd — teenagers stuffing their faces with hotdogs, housewives with armfuls of shopping bags, hippies trying to hitch rides. The buildings are of an equally confusing mixture — Chinese restaurants, sleazy hotels, a shop that only sells blue jeans, a theatre that only plays dirty movies. The smell of exhaust fumes mingles with the foul odours from overflowing garbage bins and festering alleyways. Despite the sheer amount of people on the street, no one seems to acknowledge anyone else. Being part of the crowd has afforded him a sort of invisibility, rendered him anonymous. No one here knows his business. More importantly, no one cares.
Passing a storefront with state-of-the-art turntables and luxury hi-fi cabinets, James is reminded of the janky record player back at home. No doubt in a few hours Wendy’ll be on her second or third glass of red, chain-smoking and listening to Joan Baez or Joni Mitchell or some other sad, folksy soprano that James can’t stand. They’ve come to an agreement that these albums are to be reserved for when she has the house to herself, which as of late is more and more often. He feels a pang of guilt, looks around for a payphone.
He finds a vacant phone booth and slips inside. The faint smell of urine hangs in the air as he pushes a couple of dimes into the slot and readies a few more. As he waits to be connected to Wendy, a sense of claustrophobia washes over him. She picks up with a chipper “Hello!” and James begins to feel as if the four glass walls are closing in on him.
“Hi honey,” he says into the receiver, which seems to be coated in a thin layer of sticky grime. He holds it an inch away from his face.
“It’s Jim,” she says to someone else, then, “Hi sweetheart, how was the meeting? Liz says hi.”
“Hi, Liz. Listen, honey, I’m going to be late tonight. Negotiations are taking forever. We might not be done until nine or ten. Called to tell you not to wait up.”
“Jeez, again? You think they’d have the sense to start the meetings earlier. Guess there’s nothing you can do, though. We were just about to head out to a movie, they’re showing Roman Holiday tonight.”
“I know, one of these days I’ll have to say something. Well listen, I’ve gotta get back now. You girls enjoy the show.”
“All right, drive safe. I love you.”
“I know.”
James hangs up the grotty phone and steps back out into the street. Across the road is a brightly lit record store, blaring the sounds of electric guitars out onto the street. James steps in and begins to idly flip through the new releases, hardly recognizing the names of any of the bands. To curb this feeling of alienation, he moves to the more familiar territory of the jazz section at the back of the store. He pauses at an album cover that shows a woman with an afro strumming a massive harp, flips it over to read the back.
Across from him, he notices a familiar album cover, one with ornate paintings of flowers and birds — one of the despised records from Wendy’s collection. The young man holding it seems just as engrossed by the artwork as Wendy is by the music — his brown eyes carefully reading the titles of the songs, appreciating the intricacy of the artwork. James finds himself equally intrigued by the man’s tousled hair, his freshly shaven face, his slightly chapped lips. It isn’t until the man looks up at him that James realizes he’s been staring. He shoots his gaze back down to the record with the harpist, then glances back up to check if he’s been caught. The other man is looking back at him with a playful half-smirk, his eyes shining. James’ face flushes, embarrassment washing over his entire body. He averts his eyes, gives a polite nod and turns to walk away.
“’Scuse me? You have the time?”
James turns around to look at him, sees the knowing look still on the young man’s face. The man taps his own wrist, looks at James expectantly.
James checks his watch. “’Bout 7:30,” he says, trying to retain any dignity he might have left.
“I better get goin’ then. I’m late,” his smirk briefly turns into a genuine smile. “See ya ’round.” He turns and heads toward the door, his alabaster leather jacket and sandy hair disappearing through the glass doors. James stands there for a moment, dumbfounded, and before he can comprehend what is happening, he too is heading towards the exit, following the young man out of the store and onto the street.
The sun has gone down and the strip is awash in neon glow and syrupy incandescence. The street is filled with fewer people now, though it maintains its liveliness. The crowd has changed slightly, the teenagers having been replaced with burly men in black leather, the housewives with junkies stumbling toward their next fix. James lights a cigarette, trying to look casual.
“Bum a smoke?” asks a voice from behind as James’ eyes lock onto the cream-coloured leather and sandy hair passing under the light from a theatre marquis. He quickens his pace, ignoring the person behind him. “Asshole.”
James finds himself moving with the cool urgency of a sleuth in pursuit of an elusive suspect, as if the young man from the record store has taken something from him that he desperately needs back. The charms and quirks of the city’s main drag become obstacles, laid out before him like a sleazy, urban gauntlet — a group of people listening to a crooning busker, the outstretched legs of a passed-out drunkard, a taxi cab apparently blind to pedestrians. It occurs to him that he must look like some sort of lunatic, moving down the street with an air of crazed stealth. No one around him, however, seems to have even batted an eyelash. Then again, most of them seem to be hookers or johns or hippies high on god knows what.
Eventually, his target turns off the main strip and down a side street. James hurries to the corner, careful not to lose sight of the white jacket. A narrow staircase leads up to a door on the second storey, and the young man slips inside. The opening of the door lets out a flash of magenta light and the dull thrumming of a bass guitar into the otherwise dark and quiet street. James resolves to wait a bit before entering so as not to reveal to the young man that he has been followed. He smokes two cigarettes outside of a grimy hotel before heading up the dark staircase and opening the door.
He’s greeted by a stout, tough-looking woman with short, spiked hair. She sits at a desk underneath a lightbulb that’s been dipped in purple paint. From the ceiling hangs a dark, velvet curtain, behind which music and dull chatter can be heard.
“Entry is $2,” says the woman, her eyes glancing down at James’ left hand as he pulls out his wallet. Her eyes narrow in suspicion as she accepts his $2 bills. “Do you know where you are, honey?”
“’Course.”
She gives him a small, polite smile, as if she knows something he doesn’t, and gestures towards an opening in the velvet curtain. “Enjoy yourself.”
Behind the curtain is a long, narrow room with a bar along one side, a stage at the far end, and a small area cleared for dancing in the middle next to the jukebox. The velvet curtain extends around the room, lining the walls, and reflects the light of several other painted light bulbs in various colours. A thick cloud of cigarette smoke hangs in the air, nearly obscuring the woman performing on the stage, who looks and sounds exactly like Dusty Springfield.
James takes a seat at the bar, which is otherwise unoccupied. The patrons nearest him — all men — are sitting at small tables, most of them alone. Each one has their gaze fixed on James. Down at a table closer to the stage is a group of four or five young men, all of them fixated on Dusty Springfield’s performance. Among them is the man from the record store, eyes lit up, mouthing the words to the song.
“Whatcha drinking?” asks the bartender. Behind him is a modest collection of spirits, a bowl of limes and a massive jar of maraschino cherries.
“Double bourbon on the rocks, please.”
“Where do you think you are, honey? The Royal York? Rye’s all we got,” he says, producing a lowball from under the counter. “No ice.”
“Rye it is,” says James as the bartender pours a generous amount of Canadian Club into the glass. Before James can say no, he plucks a cherry from the jar and it lands in the drink with a plop!
Dusty Springfield’s song ends, and a stadium-sized applause fills the room. It isn’t until the applause is abruptly cut off and the room is left in silence, save for a few sparse claps, that James realizes it isn’t the real Dusty Springfield. She turns on her microphone and thanks the audience with the gruff voice of a football coach, before giving a final bow, during which her blonde beehive topples off her head and onto the stage, revealing her shiny bald scalp. This sends the table of young men into a frenzy of cheers and whistles, and not-Dusty Springfield flips them the bird with both hands before putting the wig back on and sauntering off the stage.
James can’t help but laughing, both at the fumbling performer and at the fact that she had him fooled. He reaches into his jacket and lights a cigarette.
From behind the curtain, an old man in a pinstripe suit and matching fedora appears, the purple lightbulb illuminating him from behind and turning his white hair bright pink. He sits a few stools down from James and waves at the bartender, orders the usual.
“Who’s she?” the old man asks the bartender, who shrugs.
“No idea. Lovely jewelry though.”
They both break out into laughter, and James has the feeling they might be talking about him. He sighs, both out of the shame he feels for having come here and from a sense of not fitting in he hasn’t felt since grade school. He decides to smile back at them, as if he too is in on the joke.
“Your wife know you’re here?” asks the old man, a twinkle in his eye.
James looks down at his left hand, sees his wedding band reflecting blue light from the lightbulb overhead. “Shit.”
The old man chuckles, “Neither does mine. What they don’t know won’t hurt ’em.” He swallows the rest of his drink, signals to the bartender. “Can I get you another?”
“I — uh — I’m afraid I’m not interested.”
“Well, son, it doesn’t take a genius to know that someone like you ain’t interested in someone like me. But just because we’re not interested in one another doesn’t mean we can’t sit here and have a conversation.” He signals to the bartender and points to their empty glasses.
“I suppose that’s true,” says James, lighting another cigarette. He holds the pack out to the old man. “Smoke?”
“’Fraid not. There are few things my wife can detect on my breath, but cigarettes is one of them. Thank you, though.”
The bartender hands them their drinks, scolding the old man. “Christ, give the kid a break. Just because you’re buyin’ him drinks doesn’t mean you’ve gotta subject him to your dirty jokes.”
James sips his drink as he watches the bartender and the old man bicker. Before they can get very far, though, they’re completely drowned out by the sound system, which erupts with the sound of jangly guitars and thumping kick drums. A woman with a powerful, gravelly voice sings a line where she rhymes “lies” with “dies” as the group of young men get up from their table and rush toward the dance floor. James notices the white jacket slung over the back of one of the chairs.
Though the woman’s voice sounds familiar, he doesn’t recognize the song, despite immediately being able to identify its genre as “hippie shit.” Wendy would probably like it, as is evidenced by the fact that the man from the record store who shares her taste in music is enraptured. He seems to know every word, though it’s hard to tell with how much he’s throwing his head around. When he raises his arms above his head, James notices his t-shirt hike up, revealing the small of his back and the fine trail of hair leading down from his belly button to beneath his belt. All the while, the woman’s voice howls with abandon, over and over: Don’t you want somebody to love?
The song changes to a sombre, soulful ballad and the young men retreat to their table. James orders another drink, and the old man insists on paying. James obliges.
“So you’re just in here cruisin’ for some chicken, huh?”
“I beg your pardon?” asks James, bewildered at the fact that everything this man says seems to be in another language.
The man gives out a deep chuckle, turns to the bartender. “Gee, some real fresh meat we got here.”
“Mhmm,” says the bartender, unimpressed, and hands the old man another cocktail and James another whisky, this time with two cherries.
The old man turns back to James. “That table over there really seems to really be grabbing your attention.”
James looks back at the old man, stunned like he’s been caught red-handed. It’s as if the curious feeling that brought him here in the first place has always been visible, to everyone but himself. The blue lightbulb above his head hides how red his face has become.
“Look, why don’t you just go over there and talk to ’em? Worst that can happen is that he says no.”
“I don’t know — I couldn’t,” James replies, swirling his glass around, watching the cherries bob about in the amber liquid.
“Take it from me: rejection is better than regret. Give it ten years and none of those boys’ll give you a second look. And once you get to my age, your only hope at gettin’ laid is the hustlers on St. Joseph.” The old man lets out a dubious, wheezing laugh.
“Leave the poor kid alone,” the bartender says, handing them both a glass of lukewarm water.
“Another drink for him, then. Liquid courage!”
“I’m all right, thanks,” says James, already drunk enough with half of his drink left.
“Just as well. I only overserve customers who tip.”
The old man gets up and goes over to one of the lone men at a nearby table, leaving James at the bar by himself. As he finishes his whiskey, he thinks of what he could talk about if he went over the table: Wendy’s records, which albums she has, which songs are on them. He could pretend to like them, just as he did when she first started playing them. He could say he was familiar, but preferred jazz and rock’n’roll, but would that become a point of contention? Maybe he just shouldn’t bring up music at all. What was his end goal, anyway? To talk, to dance, to fuck?
As he finishes off the rest of his drink and chews on the sickly sweet stems of the cherries, he notices a flurry of motion out of the corner of his eye. The table of young men near the stage is getting up, putting on their jackets, downing what’s left of their drinks. Everything seems to be moving in slow motion as the group heads from their table to the door. He watches the man from the record store as he approaches, his white leather jacket changing from orange to green to red as he moves through the bar. Suddenly he’s within arm’s reach, lit up in blue. He turns his head, looks at James as he passes, recognizing him from earlier. His lips curl up into a smile. He winks. But James is frozen, heavy, immobilized. Stuck to the barstool. His thoughts are simultaneously racing and slowed-down. The most he can muster is a nervous half-smile, a pathetic attempt at a wave. The young man disappears behind the velvet curtain and is gone forever.
Defeated, James waves over the bartender and orders another, specifying this time that he doesn’t want any cherries. He drinks it slowly, relishing the burning sensation as it goes down his throat. Staring at the jar of cherries, he ruminates over everything he could have done differently, every misstep he’s taken throughout the evening. He reaches into his pocket for another cigarette and realizes he’s out. Then he takes a look around the room and notices it’s mostly empty. Even the old man has left. James grabs a few bills from his wallet and leaves them on the bar, stumbles from his stool to the velvet curtain, and out the door.
The crisp night air is immediately sobering, though the narrow staircase proves difficult to descend in the dark. Eventually, he’s back on the main strip, which is nearly empty save for a few vagrants and streetwalkers. At this hour the darkened city has become labyrinthian — around every corner lurks the possibility of the Minotaur. It’s a while before James finally gets his bearings and locates his car, and even longer before he’s able to recall which streets to take to find his way back to the highway. For a while, driving takes his mind off the prior events of the evening, but when he passes the sign for St. Joseph Street, he’s overtaken once again by that strange desire, that curious, pressing urge. He swerves the car around and turns down the street.
The street is dark, lit only by a flickering streetlamp emitting a queasy, sulphur-coloured cone of light. James turns off his headlights, slows the car to a crawl. The only sound heard is the purr of the engine. Every few meters along the sidewalk stands a shadowy figure leaning against the wall, arms crossed, looking at James’ car with a hardened stare. He passes a gruff-looking skinhead with enormous biceps and sailor tattoos, a thin, pale man with delicate features in an unbuttoned linen shirt, a short, plump man with ringlet curls obscuring half his face.
Near the end of the street, James stops the car. Standing at the curb is a young man, about twenty-one he guesses, in a tight white t-shirt, his hair pushed back behind his ears. The man leans down and looks through the passenger window at James, smiles. James notes his square jaw, cleft chin, dark eyes. He smiles back, leans over, unlocks the passenger door, opens it.
Before he can comprehend what is happening, he is completely drenched. The loud echo of the young man’s voice shouting “Faggot!” rings in his ears as the quiet street is filled with raucous, mocking laughter from both the young man and several others who have emerged from the shadows. Hanging on James’ arm is an empty plastic bag, now emptied of some unknown liquid, thrown at him through the car door. He sits there as the group of young men, still hollering and cackling and nudging one another, coolly walk away. There is no need for them to run.
James sits there astonished for several moments. It isn’t until the group of young men is gone that he notices the smell. Pulling his drenched shirt up to his nose he’s reminded of the phone booth from earlier. The bag had been full of piss, piss that is now seeping through to his undershirt, soaking into the car’s upholstery, pooling in the passenger’s seat. The sense of shame that had earlier been fluctuating turns to a torrent of hatred and loathing. Hatred for the young man at the record store, for his wicked smile and his obscene dancing. Hatred for the old man at the bar and his incomprehensible turns of phrase. Hatred for Wendy and her stupid fucking records. How would he even begin to explain this to her? He has no choice but to just drive home, no choice but to allow the stench to become more fetid during the hour-long trek back home. No choice but to feel that somehow he deserves all of this.