David Halliday - The Hole

“Nothing more than I’ve told you. Talk to him for five minutes and he’ll bore you to death with information. But he does seem to have mesmerized Mary. Talking about disappearing, did Mary ever tell you what happened to a girlfriend of hers?”

Sam shook his head.

“This is going back quite a few years. Twenty years. Before your time.

A group of them, kids really, went down to Echo Valley, near the Mackenzie farm. Drink a little wine, make out-you know the ritual. I guess they got pretty hammered one night. Mary passed out. When she awoke the next morning, one of the kids was missing. She woke the others.

They didn’t think too much of it at the time. Figured the girl had gotten up and taken off home. Later that day, the girl’s parents started phoning around to all of her friends. She had never come home. There was a big search. Her friends were all taken down to headquarters.”

“And they never found her?”

Jack shook his head. “That’s what I heard. It was like she fell off the edge of the world. Cops put it down as a runaway. Doesn’t make sense for a kid to run away when she’s out partying with her friends.”

“Where do her folks live?”

Jack shrugged his shoulders. “After a year or so, they moved away.

That’s what I heard. Went out west someplace. I think those kids knew more than they were saying. Mary doesn’t like to talk about it.” Sam stared at Jack for some time.

“What did I say?” Jack smiled.

“I don’t know,” Sam replied. He shook his head. “Did you ever get the feeling that something was going on around you, but you have no idea 36 what? Like a blind man standing on the edge of a precipice with an urge to dance.”

Jack looked at Sam and smiled.

“Did you just make that up or did you read it somewhere?” Haircut

Hank’s legs stretched out over the barber chair and across the room.

George snapped his gum and draped a white sheet over Hank’s chest.

“Hell of a big man,” George said, snapping his gum. “It’s like your feet are in a different time zone. My brother-in-law was pretty tall, but he’d look like a dwarf next to you.”

Hank smiled.

“Guess you’ve heard all the tall jokes?” George said with a smile.

Hank nodded. “Ad nauseam,” he responded.

“What’ll it be then?” George asked. Hank described how he wanted his hair cut.

George took his scissors and began to trim.

“Had a guy in here last week who had a bald spot on top. Said he wasn’t bald. Just had outgrown his hair.”

George laughed. Hank grinned.

“Height don’t matter to a man,” George continued. “But you don’t like to see a tall woman. Looks freakish. We had a woman working over at the drugstore who was close to six feet. She used to come into the shop here for a haircut. Wouldn’t let her in a salon. What brings you to the Six Points?”

“Is that what they call it?” Hank replied, his eyes closed.

George nodded. “Crossroads of three main streets-Bloor, Kipling, and Dundas. Been a village for over a hundred years. Not that I’ve been here that long. Married the daughter of a barber and inherited this place.

Not that I’m complaining. Hair’s been good to me. My father-in-law worked in here with me for years.”

“Did your father-in-law ever hear stories about strange disappearances in the area?”

George stopped for a moment and thought.

“That’s an odd question.” He paused for a few moments to think.

“Mentioned something about disappearances in the thirties. During the depression. Lot of folks moved through the area. No one paid much attention. And then there was a time right after the war. There was a slew 37 of disappearances when Shipp started throwing up the houses around here. Lot of rumors. Why do you ask?”

Hank smiled and closed his eyes.

“Just making small talk,” he said.

George snapped his gum and laughed.

Margaret

“What did you do?” Adelle asked Cathy, her eyes wide with anticipation.

Cathy leaned across the restaurant table in the booth the two girls occupied. “I kissed it!”

Adelle clapped her hands, leaned back, and laughed. Cathy smiled.

“You didn’t!” Adelle cried.

The waitress arrived at the table to take the girls’ order. With her hair pinned up, her thin bosom-less body, and the low sarcastic voice that slipped out of the side of her mouth, she was, for the girls, the anti-fe-male. Her name was Margaret. The girls looked up with disgust.

Couldn’t she see that they were talking? The girls ordered.

“You dragged me over here for a Coke and two straws?” Margaret said with a snarl.

Cathy looked up and smiled with as much charm as she could garner.

“We are having a conversation,” Cathy said, enunciating each word as if she were speaking to someone who did not understand the English language.

Adelle turned and raised her eyebrows, giving parenthesis to Cathy’s declaration.

Margaret tapped her pencil on her ordering pad, leaned to one side, and smiled. “We are running a business,” she replied. And then leaning over the table, added, “And if you ladies give me any more of this snotty business, you’ll no longer be welcome in this establishment.” The two girls were silent for a brief moment before Adelle added, “I’ll have toast.”

Margaret returned to the counter.

“Where is she coming from?” Adelle cried.

“What a bitch!” Cathy whispered.

“No wonder there’s never anyone in this place,” Adelle added, her eye on Margaret. “I would never talk to a customer like that. Mr. Leblanc would fire me on the spot. She must be going through the change. My mother’s like that. The other day she went into a rage because I used a 38 bit of her makeup. There was hardly anything left in the tube of face cream and she blames me because it’s all gone. Like it’s my fault that she didn’t buy more. She uses my tampons and I don’t scream at her. Why do women become such witches? If I turn out like that, promise me you’ll have me put down.”

Margaret returned with the girls’ Coke and toast. Both girls smiled at the waitress. Margaret shook her head.

When the waitress left, Adelle turned to Cathy.

“What happened next?”

The Fight

Sam Kelly sipped at his coffee as he sat on the stool by the counter.

“The blueberry pie is fresh,” Margaret said. She’d always had a soft spot for a man in uniform-although technically Sam wasn’t in uniform.

Still, he was a cop. Her ex-husband had been a fireman.

“Well, then I’ll have a piece.” Sam smiled.

Margaret turned away, returning a moment later with a slice of pie and a fork. Sam took a piece and smiled.

“This is good,” he said, wiping his mouth with a napkin.

Margaret leaned against the counter and lit up a cigarette.

“I didn’t make it so you don’t have to pretend that it’s good.”

“It’s not bad,” Sam reiterated.

“You don’t mind?” Margaret gestured to the cigarette.

Sam shook his head.

“The boss is out. It’s the only chance I get to steal a puff. If he shows up the cigarette is yours.”

She put an ashtray on the counter.

“I thought this place was nonsmoking,” Sam said.

“Only when a cop walks in.” Margaret laughed.

Finishing the pie, Sam wiped his mouth with a napkin and pushed the plate away. He took a sip of coffee.

“Tell me about the fight.”

“Isn’t much to tell,” Margaret began. “They were sitting at one of the tables when suddenly their voices were raised. I turned and was about to go over and ask them to keep their voices down when I saw Terry lunge across the table and plant one on the kisser of the other kid. He had a strange name. Piggy or Wiggy-something like that. The other kid lay on the floor. There was blood coming out of the side of his mouth. Terry 39 stood over him and the kid on the floor started laughing. Then they got up and left together like nothing had happened.”