Miriam Toews - A Boy of Good Breeding

Hosea sat on top of Tom and Dory’s laundry hamper and stared at Tom. He was sleeping. God, thought Hosea, he looks grey. What’s wrong with him?

He did look grey. He looked like Euphemia did weeks before she died. Oh no, thought Hosea. He put the roses on the bedside table, next to several jars of pills, a glass of water, Tom’s reading glasses, and a Maclean’s magazine.

“Tom?” whispered Hosea. Nothing. “Tom?” he whispered louder. He picked up the whiskey bottle with the roses and held it to Tom’s open mouth. He couldn’t see any condensation on the bottle. Very gently, Hosea put his fingers on Tom’s chest. For a second or two he couldn’t feel anything moving. He panicked. But then he felt a little something. Tom was breathing. It was okay. Hosea glanced over at the magazine. He picked it up and turned it over to look at the front cover. There was the Prime Minister! It was a fuzzy shot of John Baert on top of a mountain, wearing skis, and kissing a woman who was not his wife. “More than a friend? PM says absolutely not,” said the caption. At his age, thought Hosea. Could there be more children of his out there? Are we a little club? A big club? Hosea thought of the PM’s beautiful wife at home in Ottawa. How would she feel about this photograph? Did she care? Was she willing to put up with a bit of hanky-panky just to be the PM’s wife? Was she sad? Angry? Was she heartbroken? Had Euphemia been heartbroken? Perhaps he should send the Prime Minister’s Office a bill for the cost of thousands of bottles of rye whiskey. Her heart simply gave out on her, the doctor had said. Is being kissed and stroked, impregnated and left, by this man John Baert, a recipe for sorrow? Had he that much charisma, power, and sway? Could a man who broke women’s hearts, led the country, inspired thousands, drank martinis with world leaders, and skied at the age of seventy really be my father? thought Hosea. Can the mind work when the heart is broken? Had Euphemia been telling the truth?

“Hosea,” said Tom. “Hi.” Hosea dropped the magazine and cleared his throat.

“Tom,” he said. “Hi. How’s it going?” He smiled at his old friend and Tom smiled back.

“Not so good. Did you bring those flowers?”

“Yup. They’re roses. First batch this spring.”

“They’re beautiful, Hosea. Thank-you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Did you polish off that whiskey to make a vase?” Tom smiled.

“No, no,” said Hosea. He tugged on the front of his wind-breaker. “No.”

Tom smiled. “I’m just kidding, Hosea,” he said.

Hosea grinned. “Dory will be back in half an hour,” he said.

“That’s good.”

“So …” said Hosea.

Tom smiled. His eyes were red and his hair was greasy. He needed to shave.

“It’s quite nice outside these days,” said Hosea. “Spring is here to stay, I’m quite sure.”

Hosea remembered the two of them singing in school and getting sent home early. It was how they avoided the big boys.

Tom lay there, staring at the window.

“Knute’s doing a terrific job. She’s uh … a good worker.”

Tom looked at Hosea and nodded his head.

“Say, Tom,” said Hosea. “Would you mind if I borrowed your Maclean’s for a day or two?”

“Just take it, Hose,” said Tom. “Keep it.”

Then the two men sat and lay in silence. Hosea shifted the roses around once or twice. He smoothed his trousers. He smiled at Tom and Tom smiled back. Then Tom fell asleep again. Hosea sat there for a minute or two, staring first at Tom and then at the picture of the Prime Minister. He wanted to hug Tom or at least talk about the old days. He would have liked to tell Tom about Lorna. He wondered how Tom talked to Dory. How he touched her, how he laughed with Knute and played with Summer Feelin’. He wondered how Tom did all that. He touched Tom’s shoulder and whispered “good-bye” and tiptoed out of the room.

Back at his office Hosea pulled out his orange Hilroy scribbler from his drawer and entered Tom’s name in the Dying and Potentially Dead column. Tom’s voice in his head saying, Somebody die? And Hosea looking around saying, No, why? ’Cause, said Tom, your flag’s flying at half mast. That was more than forty years ago but Hosea still looked down at his zipper every time he thought about it.

He pulled his chair up to the window and stared outside until all the shops on Main Street were closed and the kids hanging around Norm’s had gone home and the sky was the colour of fresh liquid manure.

“Okay,” said Hosea the next morning. “Okay. Places to go, people to see. Lorna can go to hell. No, I don’t mean that, I take it back,” he said.

One time he had said “places to go, people to see” to Lorna and she had said, “Don’t ever say that to me again. I hate things like that.”

“Me too!” he’d said. But hadn’t meant it. He liked them, actually. Maybe later in the day he’d call Lorna and say, Hey, sweetheart, how about reconsidering me? You’re a moron, she’d say. I know, I know, what’s up, Lorna? he’d say. And she’d say, I don’t know, stuff, and slowly they’d get back on track the way they always did.

He had to find out how Mrs. Cherniski was, see if it was true that Dr. François was thinking about leaving town, confirm that Max was back in town, and find out if Knute had done anything about that darn dog, Bill Quinn. Oh, and he had to put Johnny Dranger back in town limits so he could be crowned fire chief of Algren. Fair enough, thought Hosea.

Hosea straightened the framed picture of Lorna he had sitting on his couch, and then kissed it lightly. Soon, he thought, I’ll carry you over the threshold. We’ll ride off into the sunset, you and me. “I want to grow old with you, Lorna Garden,” he said out loud. “Will you marry me?” Or, he thought, would she prefer, Marry me! It was hard to know. Hosea wondered how Tom had asked Dory to marry him. Or had Dory asked Tom? Or had they mutually, silently agreed to marry at precisely the same moment, opened their mouths, out of the blue, and said, “Yes!” in unison, knowing exactly what the other was saying yes to and falling into each other’s arms, laughing, knowing, happy.

Probably, thought Hosea. Very likely.

He went out to his car and had a look at the tires. Years ago he’d attended a convention of mayors and town reeves in Sudbury, Ontario, and one of the conventioneers had warned him that hostile townspeople do things to their mayors like slash their tires and throw eggs at their houses. Since then he checked his tires every time he drove. Each time he found them intact and full of air, Hosea congratulated himself on the fine job he was doing keeping everybody in Algren happy — at least happy enough not to slash his tires. He took off his hat and put it on top of the car so he could bend down and have a real good look, from every angle, without his hat falling off his head and onto the dusty driveway.

Hosea was on his way to the hospital when he saw Max driving down Main Street with his little girl. What was her name? Summer Time? Summer Feelin’, that was it. He and Max were stopped side by side at Algren’s only traffic light. “Hello there,” said Hosea through his open window. Max was wearing dark sunglasses and singing, and banging on the dashboard from time to time. Hosea thought he might also be pretending to play a guitar. An imaginary electric guitar hanging down low, on his hips. His fingers were moving very quickly and his left hand slid wildly up and down the neck of the imaginary guitar. His right hand yanked at imaginary strings like somebody trying to start a lawn mower.

Summer Feelin’ was laughing and waving her hands around like a symphony conductor, but she noticed Hosea and smiled.