The Monkeyface Chronicles (35 page)

“I guess I'll find out soon,” I say.

“You don't have to go back there, you know.”

“Yes, I do. I need to see my family. I need to see Michael.”

“Well, you don't have to
stay
there. You can go
anywhere
from here,” Adeline says, echoing Dr. Rasfalian-Mapletree's words. “Faireville is the
last
place I'd go to begin my life again.”

“You're never going back?”

“
Never
.”

“Not even to visit?”

“Not for
anything
. Faireville is behind me. The
world
is ahead of me.”

Time is running short, so we hail a cab on Yonge Street and jump out at Mount Pleasant Cemetery to revisit the tomb of Captain Fluke, Adeline's angel with the star in her hair, and the sculpture of The Lovers. There are still no dates of death engraved on the base of the monument.

“Thanks for giving me some of your face,” I whisper to the male figure.

“Huh?” Adeline says. “What did you say?”

“Nothing,” I tell her. “Just talking to myself.”

We emerge from the cemetery to enjoy an early dinner at Riz, the Asian restaurant where we dined together two years ago. The brushed aluminum and baby-blue façade has been replaced with subtle white marble, and the interior is all-white, too. I order the same things as I did before; each mouthful tastes twice as good as the first time. I marvel again at how much a fully functioning sense of smell adds to the experience of dining.

“You won't be eating anything like this in Faireville,” Adeline says. “You won't be
doing
anything, either. Try not to die of malnutrition or boredom.”

“I'll try.”

My train will be leaving soon, so we hail another cab, and as we rush along the Bayview Extension and along the streets of the downtown core, I say goodbye to all of the things that Adeline loves, and a few of the things that I have grown to love on my own:
The Bloor Street Viaduct. The Luminous Veil.
The TTC. Yonge Street. Union Station. The CN Tower. Mount
Pleasant. The Flatiron Building. The Hot House. Riz. The Beer
Bistro. Gumby Goes to Heaven. C'est What. Dr. Chin. Amiya.
Bob the PCA. Dr. Rachel Rasfalian-Mapletree.

We stand in the Great Hall of Union Station for a moment. It's as busy as the first time I came to Toronto, if not more so; it's early evening, and the workaholic Bay Streeters are commuting home.

“Can you believe it?” Adeline says.

“I know. I love the architecture of this place.”

“No, I'm talking about
her
,” Adeline says, pointing to a woman scurrying across the floor with an armful of file folders, tugging a Pullman suitcase with her free hand. “I mean,
brown
shoes with a
black
dress? Please.”

I look back up at the tiled, vaulted ceiling, then at the names of places that run around the middle of the wall: FREDERICTON · QUEBEC · MONTREAL · HAMILTON · WINDSOR · SAULT ST. MARIE · SUDBURY · FORT-WILLIAM · REGINA · MOOSE JAW · CALGARY . . .

“Notice that Faireville isn't up there?” Adeline says.

“I'll come back soon,” I reassure her.

She studies the marble tile floor beneath her fashionable high-heeled shoes. Her legs are lean and muscular, their contours highlighted by the sheen of her nylons and the skirt that hovers several inches above her knees. While I was in the hospital, Adeline put in a lot of time on the treadmill and the Stairmaster.

“I guess there's really no right time to tell you this,” she says.

“What?”

“I tried to bring it up earlier, but I just couldn't do it.”

“What?”

“In a couple of weeks I won't be here. I'm taking a year off from school to travel. My father is sending me on a European tour. He says that travel is the best education. And, frankly, I'm getting a bit bored with Toronto.”

I don't know what to say.

“Hey,” she says, brightening. “Why don't you come with me? What better way to start you new life? Two beautiful people exploring all the beautiful places in the world!”

“I can't,” is all I can say.

“Why not? The world is big! Life is big! Come share it with me!”

“I need to see my family. I need to see Michael.”

“So,” Adeline says, “go see them for a couple of weeks. Then meet me back here, and we'll fly away together. Say you'll at least think about it.”

“I'll think about it.”

She kisses me on both cheeks, like fashionable city girls do, and scampers out of Union Station and into the great big world.

I buy my ticket for the last train heading south. As soon as I've settled into my window seat, the train lurches forward, and my world begins to shrink.

Everyone gets off at Gasberg or before, and I'm the only person on the car for the rest of the trip. The sun set a few stops ago, and I am lulled by the darkness and the clunk-clunk-clunk of the rails beneath the train. Street lamps and the headlights and tail lights of cars cut through the darkness outside the window. The train slows as it passes the little bow-roofed shacks where most of my 8-C classmates used to live.

Welcome to
FAIREVILLE
Population 2061
“The Cradle That Rocked the Natural Gas Industry”

Faireville on a Thursday night may not be the destination of choice for savvy railroad tourists, but it's nice to know that my hometown is still rockin' the natural gas industry.

Population 2061.
A lot more people have left Faireville than have settled here in the past two years. This makes me think of Adeline in the city. I miss her already.

I turn my head to read the back of the sign:

Come on back to
FAIREVILLE
“Where you're only a stranger once!”

Beyond the reflection of the face I still barely recognize as my own, the town sign shrinks into the darkness. I had promised myself that once I escaped Faireville, I would never “come on back.” Yet here I am again.

The train screeches to a stop beside the little wooden shack next to a farmer's field. Faireville Station. I am the only passenger to disembark.

A dilapidated, hubcap-free Chevrolet sedan sits alone in the small parking lot beside the tracks, its headlights on, engine sputtering. The top-light strapped to the roof tells me that the car is serving the last few hundred kilometres of its life as a TAXI. The driver's tattooed arm reaches out through the open window, his finger flicks the butt of a cigarette onto the parking lot gravel, and then he sticks his head out and hollers to me, “Where to, buddy?”

The cab driver is Turner Thrift.

“Thanks,” I tell him, “but I think I'll walk.”

“Not from around here, are ya?” he snorts. “Ain't nowhere you can walk from here. Yer in the middle of nowhere.”

“I'm just walking into Faireville.”

“It's miles from here,” he lies. “I'll give ya a flat rate — twenty bucks.”

“No thanks. I could use the walk.”

“Suit yourself, Pretty Boy,” he says, dropping the cab into gear with a clank, leaving behind a spray of gravel and a cloud of burnt oil.

Pretty Boy. Although he meant it as an insult, I can't help smiling.

At the only stoplights in town, I am about to turn from the deserted Faireville Street toward the old mayor's house, when a familiar voice rings out behind me.

“Hey, stranger! Are you lost?” She steps into the glow of a gas-well streetlight. Her hair has grown longer, and her eyes are no longer outlined with thick mascara, but otherwise she looks the same as she did in high school. It's Carrie Green.

She's wearing a simple jeans-and-T-shirt combo, rather than the up-to-the-minute fashions she used to favour. In direct violation of the Little Colour Girls Code of Conduct, nothing she is wearing is green.

“I'm fine, thanks,” I tell her. “Just exploring.”

“Exploring?” she asks incredulously.

“I just arrived.”

“I knew you were a Newbie.” Carrie Green doesn't recognize me, either, and she's much less dense than Turner Thrift. “You're new in town. I'd know you, otherwise. It's a small place.”

“Yeah, I'm new here.”

“Well, welcome to town,” she says, extending her hand. “My name's Carrie. Carrie Green.”

I almost tell her that I'm Philip Skyler. I almost tell her that it's me, Monkeyface. Instead, I take her hand and say, “Nice to meet you, Carrie. I'm Tobias. Tobias Fluke.”

“That definitely isn't a local name,” she says. “There's not much to see at this hour in Faireville. They roll up the sidewalks at five PM around here.”

“I know. I mean, I noticed.”

“Anyway, I have to get to work,” she says. Then, “Hey! Why don't you stop by The Incredible Blues Bar. That's where I work. Your first drink's on me.”

The Incredible Blues Bar. The latest incarnation of The Incredible Bulk, I suspect.

“Where is it?” I ask, knowing exactly where it is.

“Just up the street, a bit past where the streetlights end. There's a gigantic Incredible Hulk out front holding an electric guitar. You can't miss it.”

“I'll try to stop by later,” I say.

“See you around, then, Tobias,” Carrie Green says.

I'm not sure what to say back to her. Random flirtation is a new thing for me. I watch her hips sway as she walks away.

Homecoming

A
strange sense of trepidation overtakes me when I knock on the front door to the old mayor's house and no one answers.

I knock again. Nothing.

I try the door. It is unlocked.

I open it a crack, and call inside, “Anybody home?

No answer.

I don't like this.

Cautiously, dreading what I might find inside, I push the door open.

Voices shriek,
“SURPRISE!”

My knees are shaking. I can't draw a breath.

“Welcome back to the world, Philip,” Dennis says.

“I think we actually surprised him!” Landon says. “He's speechless!”

It wasn't Landon, Arty, Dennis and my mother springing out from behind the Edwardian-style sofa that knocked the wind out of me, though; it was the old mayor, sitting in a small chair in a shadowy corner of the living room, half-hidden by the fireplace mantle, wearing not his trademark three-piece suit, but only a tattered white undershirt and striped pajama bottoms. The gold-rimmed glasses are slightly crooked on his face. He is hunched over, shoulders drawn in, chest sunken, knees knocked together, his face cast down, his white hair in tangles. His gnarled, bare toes remind me of the roots of ancient trees.

“Hi, gran . . . ” I stop myself. We all know that he isn't my grandfather. I can't quite bring myself to call him
father
, though, let alone
Dad
. So I just say, “Hi” again.

“Hello, Philip,” he says in a whisper. He doesn't make eye contact with me or anyone else. It's as if his skeleton has liquefied inside him, and he can't straighten himself.