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The first of February being mere days away, I took thought for my circumstances, and the shifts to which I had been suddenly consigned. Packing up was not a problem; I could always leave some surplus goods in Boss’s garage—finding another place to live, at that time of year, was the stiffener. I walked over the snowy ground to the nearest and most dependable source of commiseration: the postmistress. I asked her if she knew anyone who could put me up for while. She thought of someone who might be willing, a friend who lived in what I came to call Old Markham, but she would have to see. She thought I should meet with him first. As it happened, we met in the most awkward way: she told me to come to the post office on a particular evening. I did as she asked, entered the tiny room at the appointed time, talked to her in my usual manner, noticed another man there, silent and morose, off to one side, who said nothing, and of whom she said nothing, then I left, without bothering to ask her why she had suggested that I visit just then—I was reluctant to mention the matter in the presence of the stranger. Days later, I asked again if her friend was willing to meet me. She said he would put me up in a spare room. “But we haven’t met yet,” I said. “Yes you did.” “When?” “The other day when you were here.” “You mean that was him, standing there?” “Who did you think he was?” “But you never said a thing about him! How could I possibly know who he was? Why didn’t you introduce us?” Her embarrassed expression confirmed that she had simply assumed that two grown men, total strangers, would introduce themselves to each other, without her having to go through the formalities. So he had seen me and heard me, and was willing to let me bed down on what turned out to be the recently-varnished floor of a newly-renovated, utterly empty room —barer than a padded cell, yet of comfortable size—on the second floor of his very large Victorian house, in a very nice part of a quiet, treelined suburb of Toronto. And it was but a five-minute walk to Boss’s shop. Sound too good to be true? Or too good to be good? Of course it was, but you don’t want to hear all the details. If you’ve lived a full life, you know them. In brief, he was as ungracious a host as I was a house-guest. He was a bright man—unusually so—but chronically depressed and habituated to a lifestyle in which beer, television and newspapers (strewn throughout the house), played large and crucial parts. He explained himself to me in brief by saying that he had been in a “deep funk” for months because his mother had died recently, leaving him the house, and his “girlfriend” wouldn’t return his furniture, which had been stored in her house while he had been renovating his own. He had only recently retrieved it by going to her place with a friend and seizing every stick of it. |
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