Pasha Malla - The Withdrawal Method

Was Timber a coward? He had been a single man for only eight months. Dating so early would be a mistake, said the advice column in the local paper, "Ask a Woman," which The Ex-Wife herself penned and had been the reason they'd met in the first place, ten years prior, after Timber had emailed her asking why no one dates good guys any more and she had — perhaps rather unprofessionally, in hindsight — written back to suggest going for coffee, claiming to be tired of dating bad boys and wanting to settle down. Coffee!

Timber had not been able to drink coffee since the divorce, but he had emailed "Ask a Woman" from a phony address, and "Ask a Woman" had published the letter with the suggestion of waiting a bit longer before jumping back into the throes of courtship. But hadn't The Ex-Wife moved on even more quickly, bonking Mr. Barry Parker while still married? Her moving on had been pre-emptive. If computers could reduce everything to zeros and ones, why wasn't life so easy? Zero, zero, one, zero, one, one: plug something in, get something out, an answer, simple. Timber slowed at a Stop sign, sat there contemplating this while a pickup went by in front of him, the goateed driver inexplicably giving him the finger.

Well, thought Timber as he pushed off, maybe when he came back, victorious, he could track Janet down — like, physically. He'd find her lP address somehow and locate her with a blip on a GPS that meant: Janet. He would go to where the blip was and fling the door to her office open and announce, I'm back! Oh, god, she would say and she would be beautiful, not too thin, healthy, with her T-shirt bulging slightly where her bra strap carved a channel through the skin of her back, and she would tell him, I've been watching you on TV. Timber would shrug: It was nothing for a father who loved his son. Janet would say, Now everyone knows what a hero you are, and Timber would shrug again. They would lock eyes and Timber would take Janet in his arms and hold her close: Hello, Janet, at last. Or, better: Move into my duplex with me, Janet, let's make a life together, I love you.

Or maybe he could just call her sometime. Either way.

Regardless, here Timber felt a longing to be — what? Someone else. Someone who shone beyond the Internet, in the real world. Who was that famous hero-slash-romantic, that Spaniard? Don Quixote? Yes, no, but Don Quixote was someone else entirely, wasn't he, and goddammit wasn't Timber always getting these things wrong, people, history, facts, idioms, things that every other human being in the universe seemed to know innately and which time and time again caused him to hang his head in shame. Timber pedalled faster, harder, pumping his legs and whizzing through the rush-hour streets at a speed that seemed breakneck.

He should have called her before, sometime — Janet. There had been a chance once, when she had hinted at wanting to hear his voice and messenged him her cell number. But Timber said maybe that wasn't such a good idea. Something about professionalism or something. Oh, but wasn't that just his way, Timber thought as he signalled and made the turnoff toward Frog Hill, tiptoeing through life. When Neil had been sick The Ex-Wife had remained a pillar of strength, rational, while Timber trembled and wept nightly in the kitchen, collected Neil's hair in Ziplocs as it fell out in clumps around the house.

Ahead loomed Frog Hill, steep. By now Timber's legs were pumping, the wheels turned, the bike creaked and rattled, the sky was blue, the sun shone down. He wasn't pedalling: he was stomping his feet. Starting tomorrow, he was going to ride his bike across the country. TV stations would get word of his plan and follow him along and at the end of every day they'd ask, Wow, how do you keep going? and Timber would look right into the camera, imagine all those people at home waiting for him to give their lives meaning or direction or something, anything — and Neil, held captive in the condominium of Mr. Barry Parker, his curly little head silhouetted against the glow of Parker's hi-def Tv, knowing that his dad was looking at him, that this was all for him — and Timber would shake his head slowly. Keep going? he would scoff and tell the world about Neil, about what a trooper his son had been, how he was the real hero. Not Timber. Timber was just doing what any good, loving dad would do.

As he crested the hill Timber wanted Neil to know that everything was for him: the magpie helmet, the cycling, the purging of sickos, maybe bringing lovely, sweet, smart, generous and voluptuous Janet into the family but not as a replacement mother, regardless of how vastly superior she was to the original in every way. Even so, Janet would be good about it. She would be like a nice aunt whom Neil would grow to love and she and Timber would only bonk when Neil was at his mom's — kids don't need to hear that — and their bonking would be tender and soft and Janet would be kind even if Timber sploodged early on her tummy. And he'd never look at Barely Legals again.

There had been nothing Timber could do while Neil shuttled bravely in and out of the hospital; he could only watch as every week the doctors pumped his son full of chemicals to burn away the black dregs of cancer in his body. But that was then! Here he was sailing down Frog Hill with the breeze blasting his face, hair rippling, on his way to what he knew would be one last, final question typed and sent to Ted Givens, a question that suddenly struck him as delightfully ironic after the number of times he had answered it himself: What are you wearing today? And then he would forward this information to the office of Operation Stoplight, who would inform their squad to look out for a middle-aged man in a black turtleneck and Dockers, or whatever, and when the fellow came sauntering into the Mr. Submarine they would nab him, pin him down at gunpoint, and just like that the world would be a better place.

And tomorrow! Tomorrow would be the beginning of something special — a man and his bicycle, nothing flashy, just pure love and honour and dedication. Timber would even wear a Lance Armstrong bracelet. The Neil Kentridge XCanada Tour for the Cure, Operation Stoplight, Janet, they all became a harmonized hum in his brain, and thinking of these three very good things Timber spun his pedals backwards so something down there made that whizzing noise he enjoyed so much, and the pavement of Frog Hill zoomed by smooth and grey-black below, and gravity pulled him down, down, now at the bottom and the road starting to even out, flattening, and the sky above was a blue sheet slung arcing across the heavens.

TIMBER WAS AWARE of a woman upon him, blubbering, with a run in her support hose. Another pair of legs stuffed into high-tops came shuffling into view, and from above them came a voice Timber recognized, a boy's British accent thick with phlegm: Cor, that's Neil's dad. The woman knelt down, reaching out but not quite touching Timber, hesitant, as though he might scald or infect her on contact.

Are you, she managed, all right?

The boy was mumbling something else now, something about Frog Hill, something about Timber being just like the frog and the coupe just like the truck, and now he was fumbling with a cellphone, flipping it open, the burble of it coming to life.

The woman stood, smoothed her skirt, looked anxiously up and down the empty street. Timber closed his eyes. What was he supposed to be doing? There was a task, today, right now, that he was neglecting. He tried to think of what it was, what he could ask or tell these people, but only the most banal question seemed to come to mind. He thought he'd try it anyway, and whispered, What are you wearing?

The woman looked down sharply at him.

Was this right? He couldn't think of anything else, so he willed his eyelids open and repeated, slowly, What. Are. You. Wear. Ing.