Some Great Thing (22 page)

Christine wrote the story of Jake Corbett’s public life, highlighting the key moments over the last year. She didn’t do any more than anyone else had ever done, but she summed it all up in one article. It ran as a colour piece on page one of
The New York Times
. Reporters began calling
Corbett from all over the United States and Europe. The American and European interest came at a time when the Manitoba media were ignoring Corbett.
The Herald
noted that
The New York Times
had written about Corbett; it also noted when Corbett was interviewed on U.S. television. But, on the whole, it ignored Corbett. It was too busy following the French language crisis.

The League Against the French Takeover of Manitoba regrouped after the abortive demonstration. It sent delegations to meet six Cabinet ministers. It protested to the federal government. It won the support of ten provincial government backbenchers. It sent a delegation to Mayor Novak, who dismissed them after stating that he believed in minority language rights. Undaunted, the league urged city councillors to hold a civic referendum on the question. It pushed other Manitoba municipalities to do the same. It scraped together 20,000 names for a petition, taking a ten-dollar donation from each petitioner to pay for newspaper ads.

The editors of small radio and TV stations noticed that Edward Slade was raising hell over French. “Why aren’t our reporters doing that too?” they wondered. They noticed that Slade was writing the dickens out of the French issue and that
The Star
readers seemed to love it. So they put their police reporters on the French beat too.

His behaviour in the French language dispute did not endear Edward Slade to his police beat competitors. Three days into their dual roles as police reporters in the morning and language-crisis reporters in the afternoon, Bob Stone of
CFRL
Radio and Susan Starr of CBRT Radio were told by their editors to match a
Star
story carrying the headline
French Activist Has AIDS!!!

The killer AIDS disease has struck a French rights activist who works with St. Boniface school children,
The Star
has learned…

Bob Stone balled the tabloid in his fist. “I don’t have to imitate that runt! He makes his living poking into things that are none of his business.”

“That’s what reporters do,” Bob’s editor said. “You should too.”

Over the next weeks, Edward Slade produced a few mild morsels (one of LAFTOM’s leading activists was charged with wife-battering; police caught a married Franco-Manitoban leader in a brothel). But he felt dissatisfied. Mahatma Grafton was outwriting him. Every day, Grafton was covering complicated political angles. Slade knew Grafton’s work was more serious, but he also knew that almost nobody read it.

Slade opted for the low road. Everywhere he went, he dug for dirt. This approach was based on his belief that behind every news story of any consequence, somebody was running a scam. The harder you looked, the greater your chance of unearthing it. Scams were hard to snag. You
missed them nine times out of ten. But Slade lived for the exception.

Judge Melvyn Hill reached two painful conclusions. He would never make the Supreme Court of Canada, or any federal court at all. And he would not be allowed to work past the age of sixty-five. Perhaps he was a man ahead of his time. While many of his race still toiled on the trains, Melvyn had risen in the ranks, become a contributing member of society. But nobody cared. Nobody appreciated him. Years ago, train porters had ridiculed him for wanting something better. And now, he still got no respect. Not from his peers, not from reporters, not even from bums on the street. Melvyn wanted to be seen in his robes by every railway porter in Canada, by every passenger whose shoes he had shined, by every Air Force officer and law partner who had slighted him. But he knew he would never rise above the Provincial Court, and in that court, he would never get out of the Institute of Public Protection, whose endless coterie of cons, ex-cons, to-be cons and their sniffling families made it the worst of all postings.

Nevertheless, he wanted to work past his sixty-fifth birthday. Retirement terrified him. What would he do? His wives had left him. He had no kids. He had always been certain that children would hate him. He was a good person, didn’t cheat people and had never betrayed his wives. But he sensed that children would turn against him. So he never had them. All he had was his job. In the past year, he had written three times to the chief provincial judge, and twice to
the attorney general’s office, reminding them of his situation and asking for a renewed contract. But Melvyn had received no response.

Melvyn had attended the LAFTOM rally at which Jake Corbett raised a ruckus. That man brought disaster everywhere he went. Corbett’s interruption had irritated Melvyn, who believed the government was carrying this French business too far. Why give French people higher status than the rest? The next thing you knew, they would start requiring Provincial Court judges to be bilingual. Just today, Ben Grafton’s son had written that the province now intended to provide bilingual services in its courts. Sources predicted that francophones would fill the next several openings on the Provincial Court. Melvyn knew that judges rarely got ‘promoted’ from a provincial to a federal bench. But he was sure that some new French-speaking judge would be bounced up a notch or two after serving briefly on Provincial Court. This angered Melvyn. He wanted to enter the debate over bilingualism. But as a judge, he couldn’t take a public stand. If he got embroiled in another controversy, his chances of working past sixty-five would be shot.

The scoop Edward Slade had been hoping for finally landed in his lap. Slade found the story by scanning letters to the editor that
The Star
had judged unworthy of publication. Perusing them for story ideas, Slade noticed several by the same author that attacked the provincial government for promising to make Manitoba’s court system bilingual. The author only left his initials—M.H.—but he often added a postscript: “I am a highly placed legal professional, and I am eminently
qualified to examine this issue. It behooves me, however, to safeguard my anonymity, and therefore I only sign with my initials.”

“Give me a break,” Slade muttered, throwing the letter and others with the same signature in the waste-basket. But suddenly he retrieved them. Slade recognized the initials. He phoned Melvyn Hill.

“Hello, this is
The Winnipeg Star
. We need to clarify a detail concerning the letters about bilingualism that you sent to
The Star
.”

“I’ll clarify any detail you’d like, but I don’t want my name appearing under those letters. I did write them, but…”

Edward Slade had his scoop. His story ran under a photo of the judge.

Provincial Judge Joins Anti-French Movement

Provincial Court Judge Melvyn Hill gives the NDP government and its pro-French policies a licking every day.

For the past week, the controversial judge has been penning livid letters against provincial bilingualism proposals and sending them to the editorial office of
The Winnipeg Star
.…

Golden here, burnt there—perfect! Frank slid the hash-browns onto a plate, crowned them in ketchup and sat down to eat. At the same time, he studied, for the twentieth time, a paragraph in
The New York Times
of March 2. A paragraph having to do with his business:…
a cholesterol factory…

“The fuck’s that?” Frank mumbled, beaming with pride at being written up in the cream of the cream,
The New York Times…equipped to send the hardiest street bum into diabetic shock…
“The hell’s that Christine Bennie talking about?” Now came his favourite line:
Frank’s Accidental Dog and Grill is a world-class greasy spoon, an Orwellian pillar of down-and-outdome…
“Let her have it right in the kisser, I will. Calling my place a greasy spoon!”

“Excuse me, Frank,” Jake Corbett said, for the fourth time. “Somebody’s gonna be calling for me. Can you say I’m at the Flapjack Café?”

“I’m no answering service. That doesn’t come with the room. Speaking of which, keep that brick outa your window. My heating bill…”

“Can’t you tell ’em I’m at Harry’s?”

“No! That simple enough? I’m not helping the competition.”

“Just tell ’em I’m at Harry’s, okay?” Jake Corbett limped toward the door. Reaching for the knob, he moaned.

“What’s the matter?” Frank said.

“My legs.”

“It’s your imagination.”

Leaning on the back of a chair, Jake waited for the pain to subside. Then he went out. It was friendlier at Harry’s. The food was cheaper. Harry treated him nice. Never talked to him like Frank talked. Harry’s nose looked like it had been flattened by a two-by-four. Thick lips loose and swinging, three chins, silver hair screwed tight on a black head, brown eyes as tired as old shoes, eyes that looked straight through you. Harry was a nice man. Jake felt free to eat there every day.

Yoyo met her at the airport again. The big hug embarrassed him. The smack on his lips embarrassed him even more. North American women were like that. Helen had been that way, now Christine Bennie. Women would kiss you right on the lips, in public! Thoroughly uncivilized!

“Darling,” she whispered. She told him she was dying to ball his buns off. Idiomatic speech still caused Yoyo problems. But he still understood, somehow, what she wanted.

“Shall I take your valise?” he said, reaching down.

“Suitcase,” she said. “Valise makes you sound like a butler.”

“Thank you for the correction.”

“You’re so formal.”

She slapped his bum. Also in public. He did his best to ignore it.

“Let’s grab a cab. Is that how you say?”

She screamed with laughter. “Yes, honey, perfect. Grab a cab!”

All that talk in the airport had aroused him. The instant they arrived in her hotel room, he unbuckled his belt. “Not right now, honey. If I get all relaxed and warm and tingly, I won’t be able to get going again today. So let’s save it for tonight, hummm? We have to track down Jake Corbett.”

“Okay.” He started to fasten his pants.

“No, wait! Let me see it. Just let me see that darling thing. Oh, it’s so cute! It’s so, oh oh! Yoyo!…”

Frank practically melted when he saw her. Walking in with that skinny African. “No, he’s not here,” Frank said. “But wait
a minute, lady, don’t you want to do another write-up on us here? You never mentioned me. You never told ’em about—”

She asked, “Don’t you know where he is?”

“Nah,” he said. She sure was a good-looker, that
New York Times
reporter. “Siddown. Have a coffee. It’s on the house.”

“Sorry, Frank, we’ve got to run. Where do you think he’d be, Yoyo?”

“I don’t know.”

She wrote a hotel name on her card, gave it to Frank. “If he comes in…”

“He’s at Harry’s.”

“Where’s that?”

“Up the street. Past the railway trestle. On your right.”

They found him eating flapjacks with maple syrup in an empty café where a large, fat black man stood with a smock over his shirt and pants. The man drummed thick fingers on the counter. Jake Corbett sipped from a glass of Coke. Both men had their heads tilted toward the TV.

Harry saw them first. A mighty leggy white woman in a skirt, a good-looking woman at that, tousled brown hair, pretty face, nice smile. Not the smartassed smile of a rich white lady to a poor black man. Just a little smile, said hi there, how’re things? Harry was looking her up and down with his left eye, dedicating his right to the fellow beside her. Blackest man he’d seen in years. This stranger was no Canadian Negro. Didn’t dress like a Canadian Negro. Not like any Canadian Negro porters, anyway. This man dressed fancy, like a Frenchman. Polished shoes, fancy belt buckle, Ivory ring, eyes too dark to read.

Harry liked this couple. He could tell just from looking at ’em, seeing the way they were standing close, aware of each other without any eyeballing at all, that they’d been humping. Harry would bet his fat ass they’d been humping half an hour ago. Good on ’em! It gave him hope for the human race. The more white women and black men and black women and white men mixed it up, the harder it was gonna be to keep coloured people down. One day,
everybody
was gonna be coloured.

The woman went to talk to Jake Corbett. What was a classy lady like her doing with that broken welfare bum?

The brother joined Harry at the counter.

“Aren’t you gonna sit with the lady?” Harry asked.

“No thank you. She has to talk with him. Talk about business. May I eat here?”

“Sure you can eat here. What you want, brother?”

“I’ll have what Jake has.”

“You know Jake?”

“Sure. I have introduced Jake Corbett to all my countrymen.”

“And where are they from, your countrymen?” Harry asked as he poured batter onto a hot griddle.

“Cameroon.” Seeing Harry look puzzled, Yoyo added, “Africa. Where you from, brother?” Yoyo used the word with pride. He knew that word. He understood its idiomatic meaning.

Harry turned and smiled. “I’m from right here. Raised smack dab in Winnipeg.” He served the Frenchman. Leaning his elbows on the counter, he asked in a low voice, “What’re they talking about, anyhow?”

“Welfare.”

“How come?”

“She’s from
The New York Times
. She’s writing a story about him.”

“No shit?”

“No. No shit, brother.” Yoyo smiled. He felt immensely happy. He knew that expression too!

“An article for
The New York Times!
”

“She has already done one. Now she will do another. No shit!”

The New York Times
broke the story two days later, scooping every reporter in Winnipeg. Even Mahatma Grafton. He had recently met Christine Bennie for a second time, and had again accommodated her request to photocopy more articles that he had written about Corbett. Mahatma hadn’t asked what Christine was working on because he knew she wouldn’t tell him. He also knew that journalists never helped their competitors to the degree that he had helped her, twice providing photocopies and detailing Corbett’s situation. She was pleasant. She was a good journalist. Why not give her a hand?