Читать книгу The Jade Butterfly - Jeffrey Round - Страница 7

Project Management

Donny sat perched on a high stool, chrome modern, overlooking the panorama from his living room window twenty-two stories up. Far below horns tooted, tail-lights winked, and pedestrians scurried over the pavement as though they were crossing a field covered by sniper fire. It was night-time in the ghetto as the Docent of Jarvis Street silently oversaw his domain, legs crossed, pants creased and crinkled at the knees. His top was light-coloured chiffon, short-sleeved, still early for the season, but massively in fashion with the younger crowd wanting to sport their biceps and tattoos. Ebony skin edged the cream a shade whiter by comparison. He was Vogue Superstar material in black. Tall and thin, a sepulchral shadow wandering the grounds of the necropolis when he moved. Tonight, however, he was busy doing what he usually did — dispensing advice with a cigarette sutured to his lips, while his icy stare evoked a final evening on board the Titanic. All hands on deck, but going down cool, his words calm, not frenzied. This was a serious discussion, after all.

“Your son was right to ask. He worries for you. But he is still a fifteen-year-old boy. He might be bright, but he’s inexperienced. He sees the emptiness in your eyes and wonders. We all wonder, if you want to know. Ever since Trevor left.” A quick glance over his shoulder to make sure he hadn’t caused offence. “I don’t know, though. A couple of head-on collisions in the amour department and you’re ready to call it quits for eternity? Well, maybe you’re right. I content myself these days with the boys at Slam.”

“The strip club?”

“One and only. It’s just that much easier. Both parties know what it’s about before we engage in battle. And then it’s over with. Real relationships are fraught with peril. They’re inherently dangerous.”

Assessment made, he took a long drag on his cigarette.

Dan laughed. “Dangerous? How so?” He’d never learned not to ask.

Donny eyed him dead on, fingers splayed and cigarette held at a distance.

“They take you places you don’t always want to go. You can lose yourself there. Sometimes permanently.”

“I think that’s what Ked thinks. That I’m permanently lost.”

Smoke exhaled into the night sky, a red spark set against eternity.

“I met the last one, didn’t I? One night at Woody’s? What was his name again?”

“Kelvin.”

“Kelvin, that’s right. Razor-sharp cheekbones. Nice eyes. Attractive, but a little stiff in the personality department. Somewhat lacking in humour, as I recall.”

“That’s him.”

“Still, not important enough to get depressed over or give up on life for. So tell me about it.”

Dan nodded, staring out across the same horizon as Donny, yet seeing something far different. More than the cityscape reflecting in his eyes.

“It was going really well …”

“They always do at first. Remind me again. This one did what?”

“Project manager at BMO.”

“Sorry, you know me. I’m all about fashion here. What exactly does that mean?”

“Project manager? Kind of like heading up a task force.”

“Like a platoon sergeant?”

“Sure, I guess. He oversaw the bank’s website content. Customer protocols, et cetera. He described it as constantly looking for problems and pointing them out to the people under him.”

“So, basically, Project Manager Kelvin criticizes the people under him, makes them sweat all day, and they no doubt resent him for it.”

Dan smiled.

“That’s pretty much how he described it. He didn’t have much respect for his employees, by the sounds of it. And yes, of course they resented him.”

“But you thought he would respect you, regardless?”

“I worked hard to earn his respect. And I think I deserved it.”

Donny eyed him balefully. “So you wanted respect from a man who points out problems for a living. Did you think he wouldn’t find any when he looked at you?”

Dan held up a hand. “Stop. I’m just giving you the back story.”

Donny sniffed, took another drag. “Continue.”

“You’re not making this easy, you know.”

Exhale. “Not trying to. Continue.”

“Anyway, things went well for the first month. He seemed fun to be with. We had good conversations, enjoyed good food, both of us liked outdoor activities. The sex was great …”

“Great? Not just good?”

“Great. The attraction was mutual.”

Donny leaned forward, seemed to notice something disturbing in the distance.

“Must come from working in a bank. All that repression needs an outlet.” He eyed Dan over his cigarette. “So we’re not talking about straying, then. Not if you were both feeling fulfilled. Because that is the usual downfall of relationships in this cheerless little ghetto of ours.”

“Not this time. But after a few weeks of dating, I started to get a creeping sense of disapproval from him. About little things, usually. I’d suggest doing something, but he wouldn’t answer right away. After a minute, he’d hold my suggestion up for examination and revise it. The time we would meet or the movie I suggested. As though I couldn’t be trusted to make the right decisions.”

“Of course not. He’s a project manager. He’d taken you on as a project. You had to be corrected and revised. That was his role. Not a bad idea in concept, but in reality you can’t project-manage your boyfriends. They just don’t co-operate.”

“True.”

“How about environment? What was his home like?”

“Big condo in the sky. Pricey. Lots of décor elements.”

“Like mine?”

“No, yours is artistic.”

“Ah!”

“His was fussy. Lots of art reproductions on the walls — nothing original. Oh, yeah — and artificial flowers in tall vases.”

Donny shivered. “The kiss of death.”

“He said they were expensive.”

“No doubt he said it many times, since you probably didn’t look impressed enough when he pointed them out the first time. That sort’s always impressed with price tags.”

Dan laughed. “True. He kept fishing for compliments every time I came over. He’d show me the latest cherry blossom branch or whatever it was. I’d tell him they were nice, but not my thing.”

“Which of course pissed him off.”

“If it did, he didn’t show it. Well, maybe he did. He showed up at my place once with a big pink-and-white branch covered in blossoms. Silk, I think. He spent half an hour filling a vase with shiny balls and arranging the leaves till it dominated my living room from the fireplace mantel. I didn’t know how to say I didn’t like it.”

“And now you don’t have to.”

Dan smiled. “When we broke up, he asked for it back.”

Donny’s face was pure outrage. “You’re kidding! Did you give it to him?”

“I said if he wanted it he’d have to come over and get it. He accused me of acting like I was in high school.”

“He asked you to return a gift and he called you high school? Sheesh! How did you last an entire month with this idiot?”

“I smiled a lot. Mostly during sex.”

“What did he think of your profession? Did he like dating a missing-persons investigator? Because it sounds like there was a lot missing in his life.”

“I told him what I did when we met. He was impressed that I was my own boss. He seemed to think that being a private investigator implied power. Nothing like the reality, of course. Then I mentioned how hard I work for how little I make, and he pulled back. He said it was too bad I wasn’t a success.”

Donny slapped a hand against his thigh.

“He actually said that?”

Dan nodded. “He wasn’t very subtle.”

“I’m shocked.” Donny checked himself. “But of course he would think that way. He works in a bank where success is measured in money. And you still went back for a second date?”

“I thought I could reform him. Besides, I was hot for him. We’d already agreed not to sleep together on the first night.”

Donny rolled his eyes. “How quaint. But it just goes to show, that’s how these relationships take root. If you’d slept with him on the first night, you’d remember how rude he was to you the next morning, then punch him in the nose and leave.”

Dan laughed again. “Probably. Even though I was insulted by his comments, I was dazzled by the sex when we finally got around to it. I got completely hooked.”

Donny frowned.

“Which proves you’re a relationship junkie with sex addiction issues. If you’d just fuck them and toss them aside, you’d waste far less time and get hurt less often.”

“Yeah, well …”

Donny shrugged. “Of course, perhaps I’m being too brutal.”

“I really thought it would last. We had things in common. He had an abusive father, too.”

“Not exactly the kind of thing you want to bond over.”

“No, but it helps to understand the psychology.”

The teacher sighed, impatient with the folly of his student.

“You already understand the psychology. I’ve pointed it out to you many times. You fall for emotionally damaged men who were psychologically wounded by their fathers when they were children. Case closed.”

“But I need to get close to figure that out.”

“And once you get close, do you like them more for it?”

Dan thought this over.

“No.”

“You see? That’s why I say relationships are dangerous. They lure you down into the deep end and leave you stranded.”

“True.”

“But that’s only part of the picture.” Donny looked over his shoulder at a wall clock. The skyline seemed to have lost its allure. “The other part is that you’re positively cloistered. You live like a monk. You’ll never meet anybody staying at home. When was the last time you went out and had a bit of fun?”

“I can’t recall.”

“Does Ked let you do this?”

“I don’t think he notices. He’s too busy dating. Apparently he’s becoming popular with the ladies. Besides, you know kids.”

Donny did, indeed, know kids. Dan could vouch for that. Donny had taken on a temporary, support-a-kid project the previous year when Dan roped him into helping out with a stray he was trying to get off the streets. Lester, a lost boy from Oshawa, was a gay outcast on the run from his abusive parents. The rebellious teenager proved to be just what it took to turn Donny into a respectable parent. Donny and Dan were now on equal footing as fathers, although Donny’s transition had been “without all the messy stuff,” as he liked to put it.

The relationship had transformed Donny from a man at odds with himself to a man with a purpose. And while it curtailed some of his single-gay-man-on-the-prowl behaviour, it hadn’t ended his activities entirely. He still felt Saturday nights were sacred to his routine. Lester was given movie money and sent out to enjoy himself with friends, while Donny checked out the scene.

“My advice? You need a big one to shake you up.”

“You mean a big relationship?”

Donny took another cool drag and crushed the butt in a studied fashion.

“No, I mean a big one. I was referring to a more visceral experience.” He jumped up. “Grab your jacket. We’re going to Slam. You need therapy.”