Some Great Thing (43 page)

So Jerry’s being delivered, is it, that’s how life works out. Jerry. Two of them of course. They’re not staying. Drink and a smoke, how are yiz, and then go, because I’m not doing any more of that I can tell yiz, the losing of this, here, this Kathleen, looking after the likes who never, feckin. His voice is, how old am I? Look at that skin. I used to be, in the bars, all of them, Espolito and them, hard men, fuckin, fan, fuckin hard, fantastic men all with the shit yiz are beautiful Kathleen, real men, and round the back, and Edgar. Ha ha! What sort of an idiot. Hard men, is it. I’ll give yiz hard. Freedom’s the hard one, is it, the one ya never find. So Jerry. Now he’s found me, delivering smokes, was it, did I order the flippin

“Did I order the Dewar’s?”

“Mrs. Herlihy?”

“Who’s that?”

“It’s Robert.”

“Where’s Jerry?”

“Gone, ma’am. Delivery.”

“Gone, is it? Fuck em.”

“You want your Dewar’s, ma’am?”

“Where is it?”

“I’m bringing it to you. And your Players.”

“Bring both of them. Bring Jerries.”

“Cherries?”

“I’m not feeling well.”

“I’ll be over soon. Twenty minutes. You called early today.”

“I don’t feel so good.”

“Twenty minutes. Nice glass of something. That’s all you need.”

“Eh?”

“That’s right. Two fingers of Dewar’s and you’ll be fine.”

“I’m so tired, Jerry.”

“It’s Robert, ma’am. Give me twenty minutes.”

“Are you really coming?”

“Every day, ma’am.”

“I love you, Jerry.”

B
EFORE YOU LEAVE, THERE
are some facts you should know:

I am fifty-seven round years old.

My son is now a man.

I am stronger than I look.

I no longer build houses, I restore old plaster.

I am probably no better than you, but I am wealthier and stronger.

I have been on one or two dates recently and when the women get a shine in their eyes I know it’s because of a memory and not the man across from them. I know my eyes do the same.

I tell stories to my walls and to whoever will listen.

A
ND I HAVE ONE
little story I want to tell you, for now, which begins with a goofy truth: sitting on that land that I wanted for a golf course—broad, flat, useless land, between the airport and the city—is a wind tunnel. It looks like a bendy big drinking straw, and for years it made me sad.

Thanks to a lack of concentration, a few personal difficulties, a … I don’t know, I should have gone higher, dealt with MPs, the powerful people, concentrated … I lost my dream development, and on it sits this tube … and … yes, there it is.

And a few weeks ago my son visited me. He visits often, I love it, and I talk his ear off. On this one visit it occurred to me to ask him a question, a real
question
, not just one of those conversation starters. I know him well enough, as well as one man can be pleased to know another, but there were some things, some big things. Find me an old man who is interested in the little things, in the empty conversation of others, and I will show you a fool with no opinions and no sense of time. I said to Jerry, I asked:

“Jerry,” I said, “what’s it like to fly!”

He’s a pilot, you see. Wears a cap, sees the world, makes me proud as a blood-full heart, you bet. I believe he flies the big planes. I recently became concerned, however, you see, that he would turn out like other pilots I’ve met who go on about stewardesses, long holidays, the uniqueness of their ability and so on. You know the kind: square jaw and whatnot. Cap. I was concerned that he would no longer be the sensitive, sad, prickly little mystery that I had raised him to be.

Plus, he threw away a lot of talent—he could have made McGuinty Construction more glorious than ever.

He comes over all the time, wears his cap (as a joke, I think, although it’s like he wants to tell me that he doesn’t work in construction), and this time, on this occasion, I wanted to get at the kernel of the thing.

“Jerry, what’s it like to fly?”

“What’s it like?”

“Yeah.”

“What are you doing next Sunday?”

“I’ll be here.”

“I’ll come and get you.”

So Sunday morning comes around, you know, down, you know, the song, the way the Man in Black sings it
there’s nothing short of dying that’s half as lonesome as the sound
 … I’m wondering what she does these days on a Sunday … you know.

Jerry comes by on this Sunday, knocks on the door, lets himself in looking sort of mischievous, and I know perfectly well what he’s up to. He’ll take me up in some small plane and he’ll tell me about stewardesses and show me some tricks. Could be fun, but I’d be no closer to him, and, frankly, I’m not all that comfortable in an airplane flown by my little boy.

I felt one of those days of fatherly patience coming on, especially when we get in his car and he says, “Can I play some music?”

“Johnny Cash?” I say, and he says, “No.”

He says: “Listen to this song, old man. I’ll tell you what it reminds me of.”

He pulls out of my driveway and the song begins, a nice little old-time guitar or banjo thingy going quiet on its own at first, kind of teasing in the corner of the song.

“It reminds me,” he says, “of the tractor, old man, riding high in the shovel when you drove.”

And then it starts.

Shooky-shooky shooky-shooky shooky-shooky shooky-shooky, tambourines, and Bom … Bom … Bom … Bom … Bom … Bom … drums going strong at the pace of travel and life, my friend, guitar strumming steady and forward.

I would have bounced right away in my seat, I tell you, were it not for an old man’s sense of dignity. And this nice little voice—no Man in Black, but a nice young man’s voice—comes in:

And on he goes singing some nice corny truths about life, Jerry, Jerry, and Kathleen. My son is in the shovel, high in the air.

“You really remember that?”

“You bet I do, old man.”

If you don’t know it, I’ve got a tape of it here I’ll lend you before you go.

That wasn’t flying, however, no, there was more to it than that. But I asked him to play it again once or twice while we drove.

Next thing you know, I’m in some familiar territory. We were heading for the airport all right, but Jerry turns off, and there, getting bigger before me, is that ridiculous big wind tunnel.

“Where we going?” I ask him.

“There,” he says.

Well, when we parked the car I let him have it. I told him the whole story. What this land meant to me, how I fought for it, how it symbolized the end of the glory days, all the letters I wrote, humiliation, emptiness, failure. I didn’t tell him how stupid I really was at the time and that in my heart I still hated golfers—that in fact I think I was building my neighborhoods just to get a hold on Kathleen, keep her from driving away. But I talked his ear off. It’s every old man’s right.

Poor, patient Jerry, he says: “Just get out of the car.” He gets a big duffel bag out of the trunk and he leads me toward this wind tunnel.

“Fact is, my bitter old pop: I love this place. The world is in here.”

He gets me back by telling me a long story of the research done
in there. He says they test submarines, dragsters, ships, trucks, models of skyscrapers, airplanes, wings, even models of houses, he says. Everything is tested so it floats, flies, or stands, he says.

Yadda yadda yadda.

I know how the world stands.

“Anyway,” he says, “you want to fly or not?”

Now, my friend: Listen.

I am fifty-seven years old, and I have to say that the moment of my life of which I am currently most proud was that moment there, in front of my son, when I agreed to wear a helmet, goggles, and a wacky orange jumpsuit and I leapt in a column of wind.

I won’t tell you the whole story. You see … No, I won’t. Some time. There’s a skydiving club, they train sometimes in the wind tunnel, Jerry’s a member. Never mind.

I flew.

I stared down at this noisy gale of nothing and it kept me up, kept me alive, supported me, punched me, made me think of everything, nothing, what I am, walls, women with regret in their eyes, chasing, chasing, running and never getting, but here I am,
getting
, my mouth open and the world blowing through me, flying but staying still.

Whooooooooooooooooooooooooooohooooooooooooooo!

Whoo!

The feeling is still in me, my friend. My Jerry gave it to me.

I’m resting, the world is blowing, I’m alone and nowhere, like I’ve always been.

And I figure, if I hang on to that, there’s enough going on, you know, here, in the middle of a room I built. If I just sit here, heavy on this chair, and remember, let some of that impossible sweetness drive across my mind. If I watch that bone-white door, I will hear a knock or a key. Someone come in with the gust.

Thanks to Anne Carson, Robin Robertson, Drenka Willen, Bill Clegg, and everyone at Soho Press.

Colin McAdam has written for
Harper’s
and
The Walrus. Some Great Thing
was nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in the UK. His second novel,
Fall
, was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and awarded the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize. He lives in Toronto.