“The thing that gets me,” Sam said, “is that no one is talking about it.” Jack reached behind him and grabbed two shot glasses. Into each he poured two fingers of whiskey. He placed one in front of Sam and took the other for himself. The two men tapped glasses and downed the contents. Jack shook his head.
“God, I hate that stuff.”
Sam laughed. “You say that every time I’m in here. Why do you drink?”
“Takes the edge off the day,” Jack said. “Ah, I was never made to be a barkeep. This place gets to me sometimes, Sam. The people get to you. I hear the same conversation each time someone sits down here. And I have to listen. Or pretend to listen. Not you Sam, of course. You’re the only real person I talk to. I could have been a schoolteacher. Never knew that, did you? Went to teacher’s college. Actually taught for half a year up in the Saulte. Kids got to me. And there wasn’t much to do in your free time. Except drink. And I never did like to drink.” Sam shook his head.
“I never knew that, Jack. You, as a schoolteacher. Well, we all have regrets. I always wanted to be a cop. And when I became a detective, I thought I’d really made it.”
“I think we’re both going through that midlife crisis,” Jack said with a smile on his face. He poured Sam a second draft and placed it in front of him. “That’s what the wife tells me. Thinks I’m running around on her.
Who has the time? Or the energy. I’m telling you, Sam, once women reach the menopause, it’s like they become sex-crazed. The wife won’t leave me alone. I ain’t a young man anymore. Takes me time to recuper-ate. And even after that, she thinks I’m running around. I’ll tell you the truth, Sam, I don’t have that much interest in sex anymore.” 34
Sam laughed, moving his glass of beer in a small circle on the bar.
Jack grinned. “Good to hear you laugh, Sam.” Sam smiled. “Too many sad stories,” he said. “I need a vacation. Do you know how many husbands are walking out on their wives these days?”
Jack shook his head.
“I can count at least five since Christmas just in a six block area around the Zig Zag. A couple of them have moved in with other women in the area, women whose husbands fled their homes. It’s like musical beds.
But the other three just disappeared. Left their wives, their kids, mort-gages, debts, even their cars for Christ’s sake. Just disappeared. And I have to sit at their kitchen tables listening to these women. They’re a mess and they have no idea why hubby left. Can you believe that? It was like a shot out of the blue for them. You’d think they would have suspected something.”
“No idea?” Jack said, shaking his head.
“None,” Sam replied. “And then the kids start running off. What is it the kids find so alluring out there? We find most of them downtown, living in cardboard boxes. Squalid. Selling their little asses to feed themselves. How bad could life be at home? And worse, there are some of them we never find. Never. Some days I think I’ll wake up one morning and find that everyone on the planet has disappeared.” Sam took a swallow of beer.
Terry stepped into the bar and looked around.
“Shit!” Jack said. “Kid’s looking for his mother.” Sam turned and looked down the bar at Terry.
Jack moved down the bar and spoke to Terry for a minute. The boy left the bar. Jack returned to Sam.
“Poor kid. He’s locked himself out and he can’t find his mother. Didn’t have the heart to tell him where she is. Left earlier with a tall drink of water. Probably shacked up at the Islington House. Guy must be seven feet. Fella named Hank. Strange hombre. Dressed in black like Johnny Cash. The guy is obsessed with the year 1950. A regular encyclopedia on the subject.”
“Didn’t she lose her husband a few years ago?” Jack nodded. “Ten years ago.”
“Has it been that long? Didn’t people think he ran off with Joe Mackenzie’s wife?”
“I don’t know anything about that. Crazy Joe’s wife could have run off with a dozen different guys. Did I tell you the time I found her out back 35 in a snowbank, drunk out of her mind, getting ploughed under by some guy? She was one crazy broad. Mary’s husband, I can’t remember his name, only came in here a few times. Nice guy. Quiet. Not the sort of fellow to run off on his wife. He was real close to Terry. Used to see them everywhere together. Very sad. Mary took it bad but it was worse for the kid. Started acting out in school. What a handful he became. Getting in fights. Skipping classes. Mary started sleeping around. A woman raising a son by herself gets lonely.”
“He’s not a bad kid,” Sam said. “I’ve had a few run-ins with him.
Teenagers are difficult. It’s a tough time in your life and then to lose your old man…”
The two men were silent for several moments. Sam sipped at his beer.
Jack turned and looked up at the television. Championship Darts was on.
“What do you know about this Hank fellow?” Sam asked.
“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.