The Placebo Effect Page 7

  “How do you know he’ll come back to Cincinnati?”

  “’Cause I know our Ratio-Man, Mr. MacMillan—I know him.”

  Twenty-five minutes later Decker pushed open the manhole cover and hauled himself out of the steam tunnel system near the corner of Keele and Dundas. Shortly after that he was on the sidewalk across the road from his house.

  Flames leapt from the third-story dormer window. Decker pushed past the crowd that had already gathered to watch the show. Everything was a damned entertainment! Then a support beam cracked, sending the second floor tilting then crashing to the ground, pulling the west wall inward at a sickening angle.

  Firemen rushed to the south side of the house, trying to prevent the fire from spreading down the street. The house to the north of his home had been abandoned for years and was already ablaze.

  Decker stood there—just stood there—wondering, What the fuck do I do? Finally he turned to a police officer and said, “That’s my house!”

  The officer led him down the street to a patrol car. A senior officer was entering something into the police computer. He turned off the monitor and eyed Decker the way a diner looks at an unopened clam on his plate then said, “Get in.”

  After the preliminaries—name, etc.—the police officer closed his flip pad and asked, “So where were you when your house caught fire?”

  “Where was I?”

  “Yeah, where were you?”

  “Asleep, where do you think I was?”

  “And before that?” He added an odd hand movement to accent something or other. Decker took a deep breath—another person who learned how he should behave by watching bad acting on TV. Decker let out his breath slowly then said, “You mean earlier in the day?”

  “Yeah. Where were you then?”

  “Why does that matter?”

  “Where… were… you?”

  “I was in the States.” For a moment Decker thought of the $36,290 he had in his shoulder bag.

  “Just got back?”

  “Yeah, around one.”

  “Ah, I see, around one,” the officer repeated as if that were important somehow. “Where were you?”

  “In the States. I told you. Now what’s going on with my house?”

  The officer coughed or laughed—Decker couldn’t tell which. “Going on? Not much. It’s on fire—you may have noticed. How did you manage to get out?”

  “Through the steam tunnel in the basement.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, really.” Decker took a deep breath and asked, “So, what am I supposed to do now?”

  The officer looked at Decker as if he wanted to poke him with a stick. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well, shit, I’ve never had my house burn down—what do I do?”

  “You got a friend? Call. Get a place to sleep. Then tomorrow you contact your insurance company,” he said dismissively and switched on the computer monitor on his dashboard. Then he added, in case Decker didn’t get the message, “Do you mind?”

  Fuck, he even delivered that line like a cheap actor. Art was supposed to imitate life, not vice versa.

  Decker got out of the car and looked up just as the roof of his house erupted in flame. He turned and walked down the street, toward the only real friend he had in the world—Crazy Eddie.

  16

  CRAZY EDDIE

  CRAZY EDDIE OPENED THE DOOR BEFORE DECKER RANG THE bell. Decker was suddenly exhausted. He sagged against the doorframe.

  “What the…”

  “My house burned down.”

  Eddie grabbed Decker by the arm and guided him into his house, past a spare bedroom door that was usually open but was now shut, to the kitchen at the back of the house.

  “Sit. I’ll make you some tea.” Eddie did his strange hop/hobble to the stove.

  Crazy Eddie had begun his voyage to profound craziness on a sunny Sunday afternoon on the playing field of Ledbury Park Junior High School twenty-five years ago. For reasons that few, if any, of the participants could articulate, Decker and a batch of his high school buddies would meet most Sundays in the fall before the Bills game. And before Joe Ferguson and Fred Smerlas took the field to demolish the Freeman McNeil–led New York Jets, Decker and his friends would play middle-class, tackle football—without pads or helmets or protection of any sort.

  On that particular Sunday Eddie led a successful blitz that sacked Marty “the Chunker” Steinberg—but despite the crunching of the Chunker, no one had been hurt. Three downs later, he felt something pop and then retract up into his left calf like an overextended elastic band that suddenly snaps. Nothing happened in the play that tore Eddie’s Achilles tendon; just Eddie falling to the ground, screaming in pain, after which he was never able to run again except in his pot-induced dreams, wherein he always ran, then cried.

  Decker had known Eddie for years, and although there was a passing respect—as only bright high school boys can have for each other—there was no real connection between the two until both young men found themselves streamed to be doctors. Fourteen hundred students at Bathurst Heights Secondary School, and only thirteen of them—all male—were deemed likely to enter premed programs and hence forced to take four years of physics, four years of chemistry, four years of biology, four years of Latin for some reason, two of trig, two of calculus and a year of German.

  Of the thirteen, only Decker and Eddie had absolutely no desire to ever see the interior of a hospital, but both found themselves ten days from graduation and about to fail a course because they had not finished the requirement to complete an original piece of research in physics.

  So the fates—in the guise of the board of education—shoved the two young men together. And, necessity, fueled by some very good blond hash, allowed them to complete, in a mere three hours, the world’s only definitive research into the effects of both speed and acceleration—on taste.

  Decker drove his mother’s convertible Mustang while Eddie licked a chocolate ice cream cone. At ten miles an hour Decker turned to Eddie and demanded, “Flavour?” Eddie responded, “Still chocolate,” and noted on a graph that chocolate—at ten miles an hour—maintained its intrinsic chocolateness. The same occurred at fifteen miles per hour, twenty miles per hour, twenty-five miles an hour and thirty miles an hour. But at thirty-five miles an hour Eddie noted the slightest movement in the taste towards vanilla—away from strawberry. However, this deviation was not evident at any of the upper speeds. Their speed versus taste chart looked this way:

  They named the anomaly at thirty-five miles per hour the Aviday/Eddylay variation and postulated that this deviation from chocolateness was part of the same series of godly incongruities that gave the world the missing link and the Bermuda Triangle—and possibly Communism.

  The physics teacher, Mr. Gallanders, grudgingly accepted their project, probably because he was anxious to get Eddie’s anarchic spirit out of his classroom.

  So they both graduated.

  In late August, Eddie’s grandfather died and left him an annuity that amounted to about fifty dollars a month. Two weeks later, Decker went to university on a scholarship. Eddie went to Afghanistan.

  For two years Decker heard nothing from Eddie—then a postcard arrived. It had only ten words on it. YOU’VE NEVER BEEN STONED TILL YOU’VE BEEN STONED IN KABUL. No signature. No need for one.

  While Decker was breaking into the theatre and trying to find as many soul mates as possible, Eddie was in active pursuit of his god—or gods.

  Years later, the pursuit led him to San Francisco and a daughter who was taken from him in a vicious custody dispute in which his common-law wife claimed he had sexually molested the child—an untrue accusation that Eddie did not have the funds to fight.

  All of which tilted both men toward a cold January afternoon on Yonge Street just north of Sam the Record Man, where Decker heard from the sidewalk, “Hey, cheapskate, slow down before the chocolate tastes like vanilla.”

  It was the winter of 2003 and Decker
had just returned from twelve years in New York City, two failed Broadway shows, a son and a desperately ill wife—and an interesting sideline in a business he called “truth telling.”

  “You have a place to stay, Eddie?”

  Decker repeated his question.

  Eddie brushed some snow off the brace on his left leg, pointed at the sidewalk, and said, “Nothing wrong with this place.”

  “A bit chilly.”

  “You get used to it.”

  “We have an extra room; you’re welcome to it.”

  “Maybe you should check with your significant other before you make that kind of offer.”

  “She won’t object.” Before Eddie could question that statement, Decker added, “She hasn’t objected to anything or moved from her bed for over a year.”

  Eddie’s left eyebrow lifted slightly.

  “ALS,” Decker said, “Lou Gehrig’s disease. I’ve been told we’re almost at the end.”

  “Long road?”

  Decker nodded.

  “Just another path,” Eddie said.

  Decker checked for a note of sarcasm. There was none. Eddie reached into his cavernous coat pocket and tossed a baby football at Decker. Decker caught it. “Consider it my rent,” Eddie said.

  Eddie moved in that night and proved himself to be as conscientious and kind a caregiver as there was on this earthly plane.

  Decker’s wife died in Eddie’s arms, more in love with Crazy Eddie than she had ever been with Decker—and all three of them knew it.

  Three months after the funeral, Crazy Eddie waited up for Decker after one of his increasingly popular acting classes and said, “Lend me five thousand dollars.”

  Decker was genuinely shocked by the request. “Why?”

  “I want to go back to school. I never really went to school.”

  “And you want to go now?”

  “Yeah, I’m thirty-seven, mechanically inclined and digitally ignorant.”

  “You want to study your digits?”

  “Ha, ha, ha—Luddite! Lend me the money and I’ll devise a system that will keep you safe. You think you’re so clever with this “pay me only in cash and no drives to the airport.” Any fool who hired you could find you, Decker. I’m not sure what it is that you do when you disappear for a day or two every other month, but I know you come back with a stack of cash, and people who can afford to pay that kind of money—well, they can certainly afford to track you down if they want to, and they could be dangerous.”

  “Wealthy people are dangerous?”

  “Think about it, Decker.”

  Decker did—and understood that Eddie was right. More important, he understood how much he needed this crazy man in his life. “I’ll transfer five thousand dollars to your bank account.”

  “No you won’t. I don’t have a bank account. I don’t trust white people with my money.”

  Decker stared at him—Eddie was definitely a Caucasian.

  Again Decker nodded, then headed toward the basement. Eddie followed and watched as Decker opened the small floor safe and counted out five thousand dollars.

  Eddie took the proffered cash and said, “And we’re moving. Too many people already know how to find you here.”

  “We’re moving?”

  “Yes, you’ve—well I have, in your name, put a bid in on a house out in the Junction.”

  “Is that in the city?”

  “Town extends west of Christie, Decker. Not your usual stompin’ grounds, but still in this city. Time to expand your horizons, Kemo Sabe.”

  Decker was, as usual, impressed by Eddie’s effortless mixing of metaphors and almost complete bypassing of the rules of spoken English. “Fine. But where is the Junction?”

  “Where Dundas Avenue is north of Bloor Street.”

  “Dundas Avenue is south of Bloor Street.”

  “Not out in the Junction, it ain’t. You’ll love it out there. Slaughterhouses up the road; hotdog Tuesday is really somethin’; used appliance shops and no liquor. It’s a dry part of town—very good pizza, though, and great used bookshops. And oh yeah, a twenty-four-hour taxidermy shop.”

  “Just in case I need something stuffed in the middle of the night?”

  “Precisely. You never know when you’ll need their services.”

  “Are there schools out there for Seth?”

  Eddie looked away. Seth was Decker’s almost constantly silent son. Decker had done his best to get Seth as much care as he could, but the boy took his mother’s death so hard that what little chatter had come from him before ceased almost entirely after her passing. “Yeah, there are schools, and one or two of them even teach in English.”

  “They’re mostly French immersion schools?”

  “French? Are you kidding? Ukrainians and Poles don’t spend much time speaking French. Shit, few of them really speak English. Not like the Estonians.”

  “What’s an Estonian?”

  “Remember the Hanseatic League?”

  “Didn’t they win last year’s all-star game?”

  “More ha-ha-ha. The ignoramus is so funny.”

  “So what about Estonians?”

  “They’re tall and very blond. Your type, as I recall. And they speak a very refined English.”

  Decker took a step away. “Sarah hasn’t been…”

  Eddie interrupted, his voice hard. “For you she died the minute she was diagnosed with ALS—at least be honest about that.”

  Decker nodded. It was a difficult thing for him to admit, even to himself. A truth as solid as a horizon line. And her death hadn’t changed that. She had been sick for so long that he assumed that when she finally died he would feel some kind of relief, a burden set down, but he found himself constantly migrating to his son’s bedroom and watching the boy sleep.

  He remembered nights when Seth, as a child, had sat bolt upright and pointed at his feet, screaming, “Buggy bite my foot!” Decker would calm him, then watch as he lay back—eyes wide open—fast asleep. After Sarah’s death he knew no way to comfort Seth—and the boy still slept with his eyes wide open.

  Once the perfunctory funeral was over he took Seth as far away as he could manage; Kruger Park in South Africa is pretty damned far away. But not far enough. Seth’s silence intensified, and moments of real violence erupted out of that silence, so that much of the trip was conducted in a steely, resolute fury, which the boy expressed in a series of unfortunate ways and places.

  At the amazingly expensive Djuma private game reserve, Seth slipped out of their cabin one night, crept into the open-air bar and smashed every bottle and glass he could find. Decker had awoken in the night and not finding Seth immediately had called the main lodge. Two trackers arrived at his door with rifles at the ready. It was dangerous to be out at night, as the camp was in the midst of an area rife with lions and Cape buffalo. They finally found Seth asleep in one of the bar’s wicker chairs, his hands blooded with shards of broken glass. When Decker later asked the boy about it, Seth denied breaking anything, despite the fact that it was obvious that he had. Because Decker cared about him, he couldn’t definitively tell if the boy was telling the truth—it was one of the absolute limitations of his gift.

  When they got back home Eddie stepped in and was as good with Seth as he had been with Sarah, and Decker tentatively reentered the single world.

  It surprised him how many of his ex-students suddenly found their way back to his class. Susan and Samantha from Vancouver; Kristin from Victoria; Catherine and Maureen from the city. All in their late thirties, unattached and seemingly anxious to take class—then hang out afterward.

  But he sidestepped their advances and committed himself to expanding his acting studio and his lucrative sideline in truth telling. But he kept his worlds separate—no one from one world knew the people in the other. Decker liked it that way. No—it was the way it had to be.

  Decker looked up as Eddie placed a mug of steaming tea in front of him. An old doll was lying on the counter across from him. “
You collecting?”

  Eddie looked back and said, “They’re the next big thing. Baseball cards, Beanie Babies, bobbleheads and now old dolls.” He picked up the “well loved” thing. Decker was too tired to notice how carefully Eddie handled the doll as he put it on the counter. “How was Cleveland?”

  “What? Oh, yeah.” Decker reached in his shoulder bag and tossed twenty thousand dollars in loose bills on the table. “That’s the money for Seth—you’ll make sure…”

  “It gets to him—yeah. Of that you can be sure. So how was Cleveland?”

  There was something odd about the way Eddie posed the question, as if it was an evasion: “look there—don’t look here.” But Decker couldn’t be sure. “Fine. Orlando was taking candy from a baby. Cleveland was revolting.”

  “And Pittsburgh?”

  Dangerous, Decker thought and made a mental note to hide the USB key he still had in his pocket.

  “Pittsburgh, Decker?”

  Decker just shrugged. “Okay.”

  “Good,” Eddie said, then without a segue asked, “So what happened to your house?”

  “It burned down.”

  “To the ground?”

  “Isn’t that where things usually burn down to?”

  “Good point.”

  Decker pushed the tea aside. He never liked tea. “Eddie, I want to get hold of Seth.” Eddie looked away and took a small stoppered test tube from a cookie jar beside the stovetop. Decker assumed it was a fine Vancouver Island grass bud. “Eddie, I know you know how to get in touch with Seth. You’re the only one here he gives a damn about.”

  Eddie smoothed out a rolling paper as he said, “He doesn’t want to talk to you, Decker.”

  “I know that. But I need to talk to him now.”

  “Why? The fire?”

  “With the house gone, how will he get in touch with me?”

  “When’s the last time he tried to get in touch with you?”

  “It’s been some time now.”

  “Could you be any more vague, Decker? He’s your son and you don’t even remember when you heard from him last. That’s sick, man, sick.” Eddie expertly adhered two rolling papers together, shook the bud out of the test tube, then crumpled the top of it onto the rolling papers.