Safe at Home (9 page)

The space in the backyard not taken up by the old brick garage wasn’t really big enough to be called a garden, but I did my best. That’s the trade-off for living close to downtown, but I often think longingly of the big backyard in the house where I grew up.

My dad is the gardener in the family. He was a minister in a small town in Saskatchewan before he retired, and he always planted a large vegetable garden to augment what his salary put on the table. Some of his poorer parishioners also shared in the harvest.

But his flowers were grown for love and with wonder for the workings of God.

“They have no use,” he told me once, when I was about seven. “How wonderful of Him to create something just for our pleasure.”

Then he stuck his finger in the air, almost comically, and raised up on his knees.

“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say this unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”

Then he looked at my surprised face, chuckled, and sank back to his knees in the dirt.

“Matthew;” he explained. Matthew who? I wondered.

Gardening was also a form of meditation for him, time taken out of his duties for contemplation. I wonder how many sermons were composed while he was on his knees in the dirt. I know he had a harder time writing them in the winter, when the garden was buried in snow.

From the time I could toddle I was his helper. Family albums are full of pictures of me in the garden: staggering around with a watering can when I was three; standing proudly on a stepladder next to a sunflower I grew myself from seed; smelling roses in my smocked party dress.

Gardening was the special time that I had my father all to myself, away from my older brother and sister, away from my mother, away from his parishioners. He was a reserved man, but the hours we shared in the garden made me feel loved and special. It was a great gift he gave me. The gift of peace.

The first thing I did when I bought this house with Mickey, my former lover, was to take a sledgehammer to the old concrete patio and reclaim the space for growing things. After five years, it is starting to come together. Last summer the perennials I planted that first season had filled the small yard with blooms until the fall. Vegetables are out of the question, of course, but I’d had plenty of herbs to dry and use through the winter. I wish my job didn’t take me away from home so often in the summer.

I love Toronto. Even though I grew up in a small town on the prairies, I can’t do without the energy of a big city. But I also can’t do without a garden. And sometimes, late at night, when I hear the whistle from a freight train on the tracks going up the Don Valley, I have a longing for my other home. If I could just hop that freight I could ride it to the grain elevator six blocks from the house I grew up in.

I got the rake out of the garage. It was really rushing the season to do much, but the glorious weather made me want to get my hands in the dirt. Besides, I had a few things to think about and, like my father, I found gardening good for rumination.

I raked the soft, decomposing leaves off the flower beds and put them on the compost heap beside the house. The pale green shoots of tulips were poking through the earth, and there were buds on the forsythia bush.

“We’ve survived another winter, chum,” I said to Elwy, who was rolling in the dirt.

The work lifted my gloom a bit. With the sun on my shoulders and the rich, dark smell of earth in my nostrils, it was hard to feel sorry for myself.

I thought about my dad, imagining him doing the same things in his garden. He wouldn’t be, though. He is a lot more sensible than I am. Premature bursts of spring are seductive, but he would be mindful of the real possibilities of a good old prairie blizzard lurking beyond the big horizon.

Then I thought about Andy. He’s like my father in some ways, strange as that may seem. I think they would like each other if they met. They are both methodical, careful men, with deep passions. They are both driven by a sense of what is right, and by a strong commitment to justice. Andy, like my father, is a gentle man, even though he works in a world of violence.

And both put their career before anything else. It used to drive my mother wild that Daddy was always on call. It was a rare supper that wasn’t interrupted by the telephone, at least.

“They are troubled souls,” he would say. “How can I deny them?”

“They’ll still be troubled after you finished eating,” she would answer.

“I won’t be a minute,” he would say, always. And usually he would reappear half an hour later, get his plate out of the warming oven, and finish his meal.

My mother always sat with him then, while we kids did the dishes. I think she liked those times, the way I did the times in the garden.

But I’m not my mother, unfortunately, and I can’t tailor my life to my man’s.

I guess I could be more understanding, though. That’s assuming I want this relationship to last. It’s such hard work.

And he’s a cop. I don’t like cops. Look at the guys he hangs around with. They’re all right-wingers. Andy voted for Brian Mulroney last time around, for God’s sake. I’ve never dared ask him how he feels about capital punishment. How can I be in love with a guy who is probably in favour of capital punishment?

I can’t, obviously, but I am.

I was pruning the rose bushes following this futile train of thought when T.C. came home from school. He brought a couple of his baseball gloves and a ball into the garden.

“Want to play catch? I’ve got to get my arm in shape.”

“Why not?”

“Do you want to go to the park?”

“No, I’m not ready to take this show public quite yet. We can play in the driveway. I get the end with the garage. I’m not going to chase the ones I miss.”

T.C. has been trying to teach me how not to throw like a girl since he and Sally moved in. It hasn’t worked, but at least I don’t make a complete fool of myself when I have to throw a stray ball to a player.

Besides, there’s no one else to play with him. Sally is allergic to sports and his father’s only around the odd weekend.

“You’re getting stronger,” I yelled down the driveway. “That last one really stung. Are you on steroids or something?”

He flexed his skinny biceps and grinned.

“I’m almost ready for the big leagues,” he shouted.

After half an hour I begged off.

“I’m getting too old for this nonsense,” I said.

“Do you want to hit me some ground balls?” he asked.

“Are you kidding? Don’t push your luck.”

He accepted my refusal gracefully enough. By the time I was back in the kitchen, he was bouncing a tennis ball off the garage door.

At 6:00, I took advantage of the cheap rates and phoned my parents. We spent half an hour catching up on all the family news, with one of them on each extension. My father kept worrying about the money I was spending.

Then I made myself some grilled cheese sandwiches with my mum’s bread-and-butter pickles on the side and had supper listening to the sports phone-in show on the Titan radio network.

At game time, Elwy and I climbed the stairs to my study and hit the couch in front of the television. Half my attention was on a book, the other half on the ballgame. Elwy was more interested in washing himself and trying to make me pat him. I obliged, and he curled up on my lap and stayed, a great black and white dead weight, until I moved him an hour later when both legs had gone to sleep. The Titans beat the Tigers, 8–3. Joe went three for four.

Things got more lively at midnight, when the phone began to ring. The early edition of the
Planet
had just hit the street. The first call came from Keith Jarvis, my competitor at the
Mirror
.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked. He sounded a bit drunk. ‘The desk just tracked me down and told me to match your story about Joe Kelsey. He’s a fag?”

“Good luck,” I said.

Matching is a reporter’s nightmare. When a paper has been clearly scooped by the opposition, it has to cover its ass by having some version of the story or risk looking stupid.

“Kelsey’s line has been busy for the past half hour,” Jarvis complained, “They want me to go to his apartment and talk to him.”

“Well, I guess this is my payback for the trade you scooped me on last November.”

“Is this for real?”

“It’s all there in the story.”

“I haven’t seen it yet.”

“Well, I’m sure you will find it interesting. But I’m going to have to let you go now. Busy day tomorrow.”

The next call was from Joe. I told him he would probably get a better night’s sleep if he took his phone off the hook and told the concierge that he wasn’t to be disturbed, and said I’d see him at the ballpark in the morning.

There were a few more: from Bill Sanderson of the
World
, from the wire services, from
Sports Illustrated
,
Maclean’s
magazine. At 1:30 I followed my own advice and turned off the ringers on my phones and let the answering machine take over, with a new message: “This is Kate Henry. I have nothing to add to what I have already written. It’s late and I want some sleep. I’ll be at the ballpark tomorrow. Please leave a message.”

Then I slept, fitfully. I was nervous about the next day. Besides, I hadn’t got the call I was hoping for. I had probably blown it totally with Andy.

The next morning it was Ernie Banks weather—a great day, let’s play two—a glorious balmy spring morning, which made up a little bit for my weariness.

The
Planet
was waiting on the doorstep. My story shared front-page billing with Margaret Papadakis’s: DO YOU KNOW THE DAYLIGHT STALKER? In the story, Staff Sergeant Munro, head of the investigation, asked any citizen who had seen anyone, even a loved one, behaving strangely, to contact the police. He talked about the history and profiles common to many serial killers, about possible behaviour to watch for.

“This man could have a wife,” he said. “He may live with a family. Please, if you suspect someone, even someone close to you, call our hotline. If he isn’t stopped, he will kill again. This man needs help.”

The story got smaller play than mine, which says something about our priorities.

I drove past Joe’s building on the way to the ballpark. There were television crews staking out the front door. I hoped Joe had the sense to leave by another exit.

There were more crews at the ballpark. Timing is everything, of course, and it happened that the Titans and Tigers were going to play the NBC Game of the Week. Bert Nelson, their colour commentator, looking a little hung over around the eyeballs, pulled me aside as soon as he saw me.

“Kate, great to see you again,” he began. We had exchanged not more than ten words in our entire relationship, but suddenly I was his big buddy.

“It was a remarkable feat to get this story. Indubitably the scoop of the season,” he said. He’d obviously been watching old Howard Cosell tapes in his spare time. “I’d like you to come on air and tell our viewers how you did it.”

“Why don’t you talk to Joe? It’s his story”

“Well, to be absolutely frank with you, he isn’t a particularly articulate player.”

“Really? I don’t find that.”

Nelson, of course, had never spoken with Joe. He only talked to the big-name guys. His assumption, although I might be unfair, was that because Joe was black he couldn’t mumble his way out of a gym bag.

“Besides, he’s having a heck of a season. That alone would be worth talking to him about. Give it a try, Bert. If he won’t talk, come back to me, but I’d rather not.”

I’d had my share of being the story rather than the reporter when I first got into this business. First time in every city in the league someone was sent out to the stadium to do the woman-in-the-locker-room story. It really got in the way of my doing my job, which was hard enough without having cameras following me into the clubhouse. Besides, the players began to complain that I was getting all the ink.

But, in the absence of any Titan players on the field, I was in the thick of things again. After ten minutes of being interviewed by other reporters, I decided to escape. I tried to go into the clubhouse, but the attendant at the door told me that there was a team meeting going on. No press allowed. No kidding.

And no comment when the meeting broke up. Most of the players, some looking shocked, others angry; brushed past us and went immediately to work, shagging fly balls and waiting their turns in the batting cage. Red O’Brien came into the dugout long enough to pin up the lineup, then went back inside. I took a peek. Joe was pencilled in at his normal spot. Good.

I went in to the clubhouse complex. A few players were standing around their lockers. I poked my head in the door, looking for Joe. He wasn’t there. Stinger Swain spotted me.

“Get that bitch out of here,” he shouted.

“It’s a joy to see you, too, Stinger,” I said.

Kelsey wasn’t in the lounge or weight room. That left the trainer’s room and O’Brien’s office. Both doors were shut, so I leaned against a wall in the corner of the corridor where I could keep an eye on both the doors.

Five minutes later, Joe came out of Red’s office and smiled nervously at me.

“So far, not bad,” he said. “I’m playing, anyway; and Red says he doesn’t care what happens off the field as long as I can produce between the white lines.”

“That’s all you can ask for. What about the other guys? How did they react?”

“I told Tiny and Eddie and Gloves after the game last night. They were pretty good. They couldn’t believe it at first.”

“You had a team meeting. Was it about this?”

“Yeah. Some of them were pretty hot. Stinger was the worst.”

“Surprise, surprise.”

“Yeah,” he laughed, shakily. “He said there’s no way he’s going to play on the same team with a faggot. He wants a trade. You’ll be glad to know that he also said he wouldn’t go in the shower when I was here.”

“I can understand that. Stinger is so attractive that you’d have a hard time keeping your hands off him. Shucks, I know I have that problem all the time.”

Joe was relaxing the more I made jokes, but he tensed when four or five other reporters came into the clubhouse.

“Good luck,” I muttered.

“I’m going to need it,” he replied.

Once the scrum got there, there was an awkward pause while the reporters tried to overcome their embarrassment and phrase the first question.

“Joe, is todays story in the
Planet
true?”

“Is that something like ‘Say it ain’t so, Joe?’ Yes. It is so.”

“Why did you wait so long before going public?” said one of the press gang.

“Why did you go public now?” asked another.

“How do you think this will affect your game?”

“What did your teammates have to say?”

“Do you think the fans will accept you?”

“Whoa,” said Joe. “I can’t answer all your questions at once. Besides, I’ve got a game to prepare for. I’ll answer your questions later. Now, please excuse me.”

He headed down the corridor towards the door to the dugout, all of us in hot pursuit, cameramen jostling for an angle. At the door, he paused, took a deep breath.

“Here goes,” he said to me, quietly.

A silence fell on the field when he jogged to the outfield with his glove. It was broken by a derisive wolf whistle from the Tiger dugout. I couldn’t see who did it.

I sat in the dugout and watched the usual heavy-handed kidding around while the Titans took batting practice and the Tigers played pepper in front of their dugout. This time, although nobody talked about Joe, there was an edge to the tomfoolery. When he came in for his turn at the cage, everybody stopped talking.

I watched one of Bert Nelson’s gophers approach Joe, who shook his head. Soon Bert looked my way, then waved. I shrugged and walked over to where he had his camera set up.

“Do I get the fifty-dollar bill afterwards, just like the players? On my salary, I can use it more than they can.”

“We’ll see how you do, first,” he said.

I ran my fingers through my hair, hoping I was putting it in some sort of order.

“Katherine Henry, you wrote the story that has shocked all of baseball. When did Joe Kelsey make his astonishing revelation to you?”

“Earlier this week. He decided that he no longer wanted to hide the fact of his homosexuality.”

“Had you suspected anything about his secret?”

“Since the end of last season, I had been aware of an incident in his past that had led to blackmail.”

“You hadn’t been tempted to reveal this information sooner?”

“I didn’t see why it was anybody else’s business, frankly. It had nothing to do with Joe as a player.”

“So you protected him?”

“I didn’t see it that way.”

“Did you try to talk him out of going public when he came to you this week?”

“I asked him if he was ready to handle a lot of criticism, but the decision was his to make, not mine.”

“Were you as amazed as the rest of us?”

“Not particularly. I’m sure Joe’s not the only gay player in the game, just the only one who has had the courage to talk about it.”

“You really think there might be more?”

“Anybody who doesn’t has to be awfully naive.”

Bert did his best to look worldly.

“What do you think the reaction will be to Joe’s confession?”

“I would hope it would be one of indifference, frankly, but I doubt it will be. It will certainly be interesting.”

“Katherine Henry, thank you very much.”

“You’re most welcome.”

We shook hands. His had a fifty folded in it.