IT HAD BEEN a long time since Harry had had such a long, detailed conversation with anybody. Normally he could get by in the day using just four, maybe five pistons in the aged engine that was his mind. Today he had had to use seven, with the possibility of eight creeping up on him. This would have required the grease-soaked dust of several years to be cleaned off as he ushered the long-unused pistons into unexpected use. No amount of sugar or caffeine could sustain such effort for long. The first signs of a headache were beginning to knock on the old man’s forehead. For the moment, he chose to ignore them.
To Harry, Ralph’s discomfort with this simple question manifested itself visually with little explosions from the pustules protruding out of his skin. That was one thing Harry had noticed about people: when he asked them direct questions about themselves or their motivations, they tended to get very uncomfortable. Exploding pustules were not a good thing. Even if very small and even if on a man such as the one sitting across the table from him. Harry knew they weren’t really there — at least, that’s what other people seemed to believe. Who was he to contradict them? Those manifestations of spirit were indeed there, and it wasn’t his fault if other people who had bank cards and subway passes couldn’t see them.
“Well?”
Ralph was beginning to feel hot. The Tim Hortons seemed stifling. In his time with Harry he had neglected to take off his coat, thinking theirs would be a short conversation. As a result, there was sweat in all the usual places on his body, and he felt clammy and damp inside his clothes, an unusual sensation for this time of year. The cause wasn’t only his standard-issue police jacket; some was from the overheated interior of the franchise, as its furnace fought to find a balance with the creeping coldness that snuck its way through the constantly moving doors and the large plate glass windows. The heating system was overcompensating to keep the winter at bay. Admittedly, a good portion of the sweat was the result of the grilling this weird old man was giving him. Why had he become a cop? It had been a long time since he’d been asked such an obvious question.
“Why does anybody become a cop?”
Harry shook his head, particles of donut falling from his beard. “Not an answer.”
“Why is this so important to you?”
“Again, not an answer.” Harry blinked his eyes repeatedly. The pain in his head was growing worse. He needed to stop thinking soon. If he were to look in a mirror right now, he was sure he’d see holes peeking through the very essence of who he was. That happened a lot when he overtaxed his mind. There was only so much of him to share on any given day, and he was rapidly tapping himself out. “You want to know about the Horse and the person who drew it? It’s just not that simple. The Horse is complicated. It’s not just a Horse. You may be you, and I may be me, but that Horse is not just a horse. Understand?”
Ralph did not. This guy was making things far more complicated than they needed to be. He still had not heard from Shelley or William, and his time before work was running out. He needed this discussion to progress at a more efficient pace, and he needed to get some real answers. He’d been trained for situations like this. “I became a cop because my father had been a cop, and my grandfather …”
“You’re lying.” Harry saw the police boy’s pustules start to pulsate. Usually a good indicator of lying. Why was this guy lying to him? Most people lied for three reasons, Harry had learned over the years. One was because they were trying to get something they couldn’t get any other way. Two, because they were afraid of something and lying was the best way for them to protect themselves. And third, lying was in their nature. While Harry could read Ralph in his own way, he wasn’t psychic, meaning all three of these possibilities remained a factor until one of them was proved.
Ralph was lying. The truth was, he wasn’t sure. It had been a spur-of-the-moment decision years ago, and he’d lost the purpose in that time. Less than a decade ago he’d graduated and been posted to the Dead Rat River First Nation in northern Ontario; there, he’d thought he’d bring peace and order to a rather rowdy community, famous for its beaded moccasins and baseball team. His idea of peace and order proved a rather difficult state to achieve. Being single, good-looking, and holder of a regular income, a fair number of local women found him of interest. As a result, a fair number of local men found him problematic. Many difficulties above and beyond his position as a peace officer surfaced as a result of those two strongly held opinions, making his three years in Dead Rat River less than the envious position his fellow graduates believed him to have received.
Knowing the same might happen in any other Indigenous community, Ralph had thought it better to sidestep the noble idea of serving his people specifically and decided to serve them in a larger context. Less Native content and more people of a mixed and varied population. The law, is after all, supposed to be colour-blind. That was how he’d found himself in Toronto, originally with its Aboriginal Peacekeeping Unit; however, finding the unit again too incestuous, Ralph embarked on his career as an ordinary Toronto Police Service officer. In all that time, post–police college, he’d never been asked why he had become a cop.
Harry’s eyes were closed again, as if the sunlight beaming in through the windows was hurting them, but Ralph could tell the man was still waiting for his answer.
“Because of Danielle.”
Harry smiled. Opening his eyes, he glanced out the window to the Horse. “He’ll be glad you remembered her name. That’s a good sign.”
Ralph’s heart was practically in his mouth. “Do you know where I can find her?”
For a moment, a look of puzzlement came over the old man’s face. “Now, why would you want that?”
“I knew Danielle, and the Horse, a long time ago, before there was a Horse. I’d like to say hello.”
There was no more smile on Harry’s face. “The Danielle you knew doesn’t exist. One could even ask if she ever did. There’s only the Horse.”
“What are you talking about?” Ralph was beginning to be frustrated again. He was telling this old man more than he told most people and was getting very little in return. And what the old man was sharing was bizarrely enigmatic and cryptic. Most cops, Ralph included, were not fans of the enigmatic or cryptic. “You keep talking like that thing is alive. It’s just a painting, not even that. It’s graffiti on a wall. It’s Danielle who created it. And why do you keep referring to it in masculine terms?”
Shaking his head, Harry looked defeated. “You don’t see anymore, do you?”
“See what?”
“Oh, He’s not going to be pleased.”
For the third or fourth time that morning, the conversation was going in a completely and annoyingly different direction from the one that Ralph intended. “He’s not going to be pleased? Who’s ‘he’? The Horse?”
Harry rubbed his forehead. The headache was now throbbing. “Yes, the Horse. Of course the Horse. Who else are we talking about?”
Before Ralph could answer, Harry with no last name, of the weird disposition and unusual way of expressing himself, fell over, out of the booth and on to the floor. He was unconscious.
Luckily, there was a man sitting across from him who knew something about saving lives. This was the third time Ralph had been in a situation like this. Basic first aid is deep-seated in all officers of the law. The first time he’d battled death so closely had been during his stationing in Dead Rat River. At a wedding dance, an older, substantially overweight man had tried to participate in an ancient form of dance known as the Twist when his heart decided it had other plans. Due to the reserve’s location — on land the Canadian Government didn’t want back in the 1870s — an ambulance would take a good forty-five minutes to arrive from the nearest non-Indigenous community. So young Officer Ralph, who was working the dance, leapt into action and applied CPR and mouth-to-mouth for the first time in his life. Unfortunately, the man’s heart was quite stubborn in its choice of action, and the father of the bride didn’t live to see his daughter leave for her honeymoon.
The second time, Ralph was enjoying his first week at his posting in Toronto when his patrol car came upon a man slumped on a set of stairs set along a suburban street. This time Ralph managed to keep the man alive until the paramedics arrived.
Without thinking, Ralph kicked his chair away, kneeling beside Harry. Loosening the man’s clothes, trying not to react to the sudden and strong aroma, Ralph tried to find the pulse on his bearded neck. The layer of fat and facial hair made it difficult. Next came the chest compressions followed by what was euphemistically called the Kiss of Life. If asked, it would have been difficult for Harry to remember the last time he’d brushed his teeth or used mouthwash (other than for its alcohol content). So Ralph’s artificial ventilation was worthy of a medal of honour in itself.
“Somebody call 911. Tell them what’s going on!”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw three or four other patrons look up from their Candy Crush and crullers and quickly switch their cells over to phone mode. The call for help had gone out.
“Come on, Harry. We’re not done talking yet.”