The exact circumstances of my Israel dreams are never the same. Sometimes we’re in a narrow alley and a torrent of water comes rushing at us, sucking us down in a vortex. Or a herd of camels thunders around a corner, egged on by small boys with sticks, nasty smelly animals with bony joints and deadly hooves that can split a man’s head in two. In one dream, people in apartments overlooking the alley started throwing appliances at us, everything from fans and toasters to full-size ovens, fridges, washers and dryers. Whatever details might be different, it’s always Roni Galil and me, trapped in a bad place with bad things happening all around.
It was 5:24 a.m. when I woke with the dream still in my mind. I knew I’d never get back to sleep and turned on the radio, looking for something, anything, to sweep away the image of the bloodied child. I caught a few West Coast baseball scores, then a news update. The heat wave was still the top story. Several related deaths had been reported, including a ninety-three-year-old woman whose power had been cut off for non-payment, leaving her without so much as a fan. Ontario Hydro spin doctors would have to take a break from defending their lucrative consulting contracts to deal with that one.
A smog alert had been issued for the area stretching from Windsor, in the southernmost reaches of the province, to North Bay, two hundred miles north of Toronto. Officials in North Bay liked to tout its clean air to tourists, billing the area as the Blue Sky Region and the city itself as “Just North Enough to be Perfect.” Now their marketers would have to come up with a new slogan. Something like “North Bay: Not as Brown as Downtown.”
My apartment didn’t smell much better after all the cigarettes Dante Ryan had smoked last night. I opened both balcony doors and emptied and rinsed the ashtray he had filled. The evening had been so surreal I might have thought it a dream; a better dream than the one I had just had. But the photo of Lucas Silver and his parents still lay on my coffee table. The contract on their lives was all too real, if what Ryan told me had been true.
Was it? Could it be? Did he really care whether a five-year-old lived or died? Or was he using me in some way-to flush Silver out, or maybe set me up for Marco Di Pietra, who would never forget what I had cost him.
For the moment, I had to assume Ryan was telling the truth: that he wanted to save a life and needed my help to do it. I had things in this world to make up for, repairs to make, and I wasn’t getting the opportunity to do it behind my desk at Beacon.
The first thing to do was stop thinking of myself as still being in recovery. So instead of doing a physio routine on my arm, I eased myself down to the floor to begin a salutation to the sun. I worked my body slowly and deliberately through the movements, feeling tightness in my back, shoulders and calves as muscles moved in ways they had missed for months. By the time I completed four salutations my right arm felt like a wolf had clamped its jaws around it. I was damp with sweat, much of it from the heat and humidity but at least some due to my own efforts.
I rolled up to a standing position and marked a place on the floor where two parquet tiles met. I planted my feet there and began working through the sanchin kata. Katas are designed to improve a martial artist’s balance, fluidity and style, but they also provide a good cardio workout, even-perhaps especially- when done slowly and mindfully.
Sanchin is moderate in its degree of difficulty, with forty-seven moves in all, including eight attacks. Before my injury, I had done sanchin so often it felt ingrained. I could do it left to right or right to left, beginning to end or backwards. I had done it blindfolded but didn’t think I’d be trying that any time today.
During my first go at it, I felt awkward, having to think about the moves rather than letting them flow through me. My goal was to begin and end at precisely the same spot, but I didn’t feel rooted in it and even stumbled once in transition between defence and attack. I kept reminding myself to slow down, breathe more deeply, find the focus sanchin can bring.
My first karate teacher told me a kata was a fight against an imaginary opponent. Not that I needed imaginary opponents, with Marco Di Pietra back on the scene. I’ve since learned that katas can be far more than that. Like dance and other art forms, in the right hands they can express sentiments about life, justice and the self. Known in English as the Three Cycles Form, sanchin symbolizes three primary conflicts of life: birth, survival and death. Only when the life cycle has ended can it begin again. When I completed my first run-through, I rested a minute and sipped water, then started again. It went more smoothly as muscle memory began kicking in. But not until the third time did I finish where I’d begun, the marked parquet tile squarely between my feet.
By seven I was heading down Broadview in my revitalized Camry. The east-facing sides of the downtown towers reflected the rising sun as though they were aflame. Not the most comforting image in our post-9/11 world, but arresting nonetheless.
I wanted to get in to work early, whip through my media clips and forward anything pertinent to Clint and his department heads, then boot back out and try to get a look at Jay Silver and family in the flesh. I figured I could do all that and still be back at my cubicle by the time Franny reeled in.
Clint’s black Pathfinder was in its reserved spot when I pulled into the Beacon lot ten minutes later. I had no idea what time he arrived in the morning. In five years I had never yet beaten him in to work. The smell of freshly brewed coffee filled the office when I swiped my way in. I was in the kitchenette pouring myself a mug when Clint appeared. He made a show of looking at his watch and feigning shock at my early arrival. The good humour seemed a little forced but I appreciated the effort.
“You’re in early,” he said.
“I’m helping Franny out on his nursing home thing.”
“Good. I told him to call on you if he was overloaded.”
“Oh, he was overloaded.”
Clint smiled. He had known Franny a lot longer than I had, had no doubt witnessed many a late entrance. “Never mind, smart guy. How you doing otherwise?”
“Fine.”
“You sure?
“Yeah.”
“Bring your coffee to my office,” he said. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about something. Now’s as good a time as any.”
CHAPTER 10
I first met Graham McClintock at the Dojo on Danforth, where I taught the evening adult class in intermediate shotokan karate. Most of the students were in their forties or fifties, from professional women concerned about the city’s rising crime rates to film producers who wanted to look as buff as the younger actors and techies they hired. Clint was close to sixty then: an inch taller than my six feet, with broad shoulders, a narrow waist and thick, powerful legs. Photos of a younger Clint show him with flaming red hair but it was grey by then and cropped close to his skull. His eyes were a piercing blue that made Paul Newman’s look flat.
From the beginning he stood out in both his degree of fitness and his aptitude for combat. He sparred with an intensity that intimidated other students, who tried hard to avoid being matched against him. If he sparred against me, he’d compete as if I were trying to make him my jailhouse bride. After class he’d hang around and ask questions about stances, weight shifts, feints and blocks. We developed a good rapport, Clint and I. My father had been dead more than ten years, and I enjoyed having him to both learn from and teach.
One night after class, he asked me to join him for a beer and a bite, his treat, so we cleaned up and went to Allen’s, a Riverdale institution with more than 300 beers and many a fine whisky on hand. We washed hamburgers and sweet potato fries down with Dragon’s Breath ale, then ordered shots of the Macallan.