Pasha Malla - The Withdrawal Method

"He's going to be okay," I tried again. "You heard the doctor."

Kaede shook her head, ashing onto the ground.

"They'll find his family. These people all live around here, they all know one another."

Nothing. Not even a glance in my direction. I wondered if she could sense in my voice the doubt that, even if they could track the parents down, they'd care enough to come in to pick up their son. I'd heard about the way the pickers lived — like animals, apparently. And these were people with decent jobs only three years ago. It's amazing how quickly human beings can degenerate. I looked back at Kaede, standing there shaking her head. I'd had enough.

"Oh, come on, would you? He ran right into the road. What was I supposed to do? You think I wanted to hit him? You think this is how I wanted to spend my night, at the fucking hospital, talking to cops and doctors and nurses and whoever? Jesus Christ."

"Right," she said.

"Listen, there's no sense hanging around here. Do you want a ride home?"

"No," she said. "I'm going to stay for a while. I need my camera from your car."

I left Kaede standing at the door of the boy's room. He'd been shifted from the ►cu to a regular bed. Luckily, all the accident had resulted in was a broken leg, a dislocated shoulder, and bruised ribs. Other than a nasty black eye he hadn't done any damage to his head, which was their main concern.

Even so, the doctors wanted to keep him in for observation for the night. "Still trying to track his parents down," I heard a nurse telling Kaede as I moved away down the hall. "With these cases it can be tricky, though. Could be a runaway or abandoned, just living off garbage and staying in empty buildings. You never know."

THE NEXT MORNING I called the hospital, explaining who I was. By some miracle they had found the boy's parents, part of some sort of squatting commune in an old winery off the 420. With my car in the shop to fix the windshield and buff the scratches out of the hood, I hobbled up to Kaede's place that afternoon to let her know, but there was no answer. As I turned to go home, I nearly ran into a woman coming up the walkway. She wore the CanAm security uniform, seemed to be in her mid-thirties, sort of pudgy; her nametag read, Carol. I guessed that she was American: Dave claims all the women wear white tennis shoes, and Carol sported a pair of gleaming Reeboks.

"You looking for someone?" Carol asked, pulling out her keys. "I'm the super."

"Kaede?"

"The Japanese girl? Pretty sure she didn't come home last night. You her boyfriend?"

"Didn't come home?"

"Listen, pal, she might be gone for good. It happens all the time — you get these foreigners over here looking for work, then they don't like it and bail." Carol looked me over. "You in the market for a job?"

I shook my head. Carol excused herself, moved past me, and began unlocking the door. Watching her fumbling with the keys, my body felt heavy, as though I'd gone swimming in my clothes and was now trudging back onto land. I turned and dragged myself down the steps.

I HEADED DOWN to the store about an hour before everyone was scheduled to show up — it was just gone seven, right around dusk. I hadn't slept the night before and other than my one trip out, I'd spent the entire day at home waiting for the phone to ring. It hadn't.

With my ankle still badly swollen, the walk down there took about three times longer than it normally would. In the parking lot I had a good long look at the shop: the chipped paint, the sagging foundation, the stain of where the G had once been above the door.

As I went to let myself in I noticed a letter tucked into the mailbox. As I pulled it out, a lump collected in my throat, hard as a stone. Inside the store I ran a souvenir letter opener up the side of the envelope and shook it open. All that came out was a photo — no note, no indication of who it was from. Although that much was obvious.

The photograph was of the boy I'd hit, lying in his hospital bed. It was a close-up. Kaede must have gone into his room to take it. He was in rough shape: torso wrapped in bandages, right arm in a sling, left leg up in traction. He was asleep, one of his eyes ringed with a deep purple bruise.

I was furious. My foot bearing down on the accelerator had been an accident, the wrong reaction to the situation for sure, but certainly not purposeful. Forget what he'd scratched onto my car. I didn't get angry. I wasn't that kind of guy. What kind of monster would try to kill a kid?

I went to throw the picture out, but then reconsidered, instead stashing it in the cash register underneath the one of my parents. At some point I'd look Kaede up in Calgary and send the thing right back to her: fuck you.

A few minutes later the first of my pals arrived with their respective smashing tools — two baseball bats and a shovel. As more people began to show up, I got busy administrating the ensuing chaos and forgot what had happened the night before. But then, once things were set up, my friends stationed in their various assigned positions around the store, it all came back. I wondered if the kid had gone home yet — or to whatever approximation of a home his parents kept. And I wondered where Kaede had gone to: maybe she'd moved into the pickers' commune out of solidarity, or maybe she was already sitting on a plane over the Prairies, looking out the window thinking what a monster I was and what a mistake she'd made with me.

Dave was the last to arrive. He seemed fidgety, eyes darting back and forth, obviously anxious to get going. "This is where you'll be," I told him. "From those figurines down to the ashtrays — see how it's taped off? Try to stick to your area."

"Gotcha." The guy had found a cricket bat somewhere, and he was weighing it in one hand against one of the CanAm security nightsticks. Finally he tossed me the bat. "Going with old faithful. But you can use that, if you want."

With everyone there, my friends had gone quiet. Gone was the bemusement that had greeted my invitation; even Lisa and Colin seemed resolute and focused. As per the instructions Kaede had helped draft, each person had on long pants and a shirt, eye protection (interpreted as everything from swimming goggles to an Itech hockey helmet), and gloves. People had exactly one minute to destroy anything they wanted in their allotted space. That was it. After sixty seconds they had to stop.

I rested Dave's cricket bat against the wall.

"Let's start this thing!" yelled Lisa. People laughed, which was good.

"What's the deal, Pauly?" said Dave. "Are we gonna bust your store up, or what?"

Everyone laughed again, but there was impatience in it. My thoughts kept zipping between Kaede, the boy, my parents, and back to Kaede. And my car, what had been written there — why had a little kid wanted to do something like that?

Dave caught my eye, and I could tell he knew that something was up. "We don't have to do this, Pauly," he said. There was a murmur of agreement from around the room.

"No," I said, nodding. "I'm good," I said.

PRETTY MUCH THE entire store was destroyed. The minute rule went right out the window as soon as the first display of figurines smashed against the floor. Even from where I gazed on from the periphery, it was impossible not to get caught up in things — the explosions of crystal and glass, the cracking of wood, the shelves crashing down in an avalanche of kitsch. But beyond the vague, vicarious thrill of voyeurism, I didn't feel anything. I'd expected to be flooded with sadness, or relief, or nostalgia, or catharsis. Instead, all I did was watch.

At one point I guess everyone must have caught themselves: there was a sudden pause, clouds of dust rising all around, and eight people were left looking at one another in an almost bashful way, catching their breath. I'd like to think some sort of mercy instinct kicked in, although I guess there just wasn't anything left to smash.