Turmoil was being readied for a TV appearance. Parked in a hydraulic chair, the heavyweight’s clothes were covered by an apron decorated with a galaxy of shimmering stars. An elflike man with cropped hair and taut cheeks was working on his face.
“Mek me beaut’ful now,” Turmoil urged him.
“Don’t worry, dear.” The makeup man slashed on highlighter and then tapped him scoldingly. “I’d give my entire collection of Alan Ladd movies for bones like these.”
Moving behind Turmoil, the man tilted the boxer’s head on its axis. MALCOLM GREY, MASTER ESTHETICIAN, THEATRE MAKEUP. His card was tucked in the corner of a mirror, near an Arthur Kent (the Scud Stud) press pass and the inky pawprint of a dog named Shane. Turmoil admired himself while Malcolm rotated his head, examining his canvas from every angle. Malcolm’s iguana tongue shot out, licking his upper lip. The wall behind him was a heavenly blue. A tree strung with miniature lights twinkled in the corner.
“Thass a nice bowtie,” Turmoil said, and Malcolm reflexively touched his Nova Scotia tartan, a garish plaid that flourished in airport gift shops. Underneath was a starched white shirt. “Sum people dohn dress rite for the jawb,” Turmoil complained. “Ah t’ink it’s importan to dress rite. Ah tell mah trainah that all the time.”
Malcolm scrunched his nose for an impetuous I-can’t-help-myself-look, then whispered like an unrepentant sinner seeking absolution: “It’s a bit camp.”
“No, mon, dohn go talkin like that.”
“Well.”
“Ah know all ’bout clothes.” Turmoil checked the windowless makeup room for an audience, accustomed, by now, to the notoriety that had grown with each triumphant fight, the celebrity that had somehow eluded Hansel Sparks.
In his second year in Halifax, Turmoil had racked up three straight wins. Champion had negotiated a rematch against Art Moore, the man who had handed Turmoil his only loss, and Turmoil had won. There had been names at the Montreal bout: actors, big-time fighters, and mobsters who controlled the local action. Turmoil posed for pictures with the fighting Turner triplets, Lloyd, Floyd, and Boyd, who handed out business cards with three identical headshots. Feeling good after the win, Ownie had got a laugh from the burly Texans when he studied their cards closely and quipped: “I thought maybe you were the McGuire sisters.”
“Mah sister, she a fashion d’signer in New York,” Turmoil announced.
“Really? I love New York. I have a friend who worked on Jerome Robbins’s musical Broadway. That show had over one hundred wigs and four hundred costumes. How long has she been there?”
“Three-four year. She wahnt me go live with her but ah say, no, ah go to Canada. Some ver-ver importan men got a contrack for me. They be waitin for me to arrive.”
A TV jock appeared in the doorway, smelling of hairspray. “Everything okay in here, big guy?” he asked Turmoil.
“We’re fine.” Malcolm made a machinating motion with his mouth as though he had gum hidden inside, then he stroked Turmoil’s hair with a star-studded brush that matched the apron. “It’s the Andromeda Galaxy, the object farthest from Earth visible with the naked eye,” he liked to explain. “I like things, honey, that are far out.”
“You shud get this mon to do you,” Turmoil told the jock. “You might end up lookin as good as me.”
“Don’t get my hopes up, big guy,” laughed the jock, who believed he was already handsome.
“You want miracles, go to Lourdes,” Malcolm muttered as the jock disappeared from the doorway. “Aristotle believed we share the traits of whatever animal we most resemble.” He met Turmoil’s eyes in the mirror. “Is it my imagination or does that man look like a sloth?”
Turmoil laughed and the autographed picture of Roch Voisine joined in.
“I love your name!’’ Malcolm announced abruptly, as though he had decided to unburden himself of a wicked secret and now couldn’t stop. “When I heard you were coming here today, I looked something up.” He paused. “If you don’t like it, don’t worry about my feelings. Underneath this meek exterior beats the heart of a Roman gladiator.” Malcolm cleared his throat and closed his eyes.
“‘And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething.’” The words were shooting stars that left a trail of wonder.
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain momently was forced.
Opening his eyes, he pulled off the Andromeda Galaxy apron. “That’s from ‘Kubla Khan.’”
Turmoil nodded, admiring his unlined blazer in the mirror, lifting one hand for a glimpse of a ring that glimmered like something celestial. “Ah like that. It sounds ver-ver pow’ful, like myself.”
“Yes, yes, that’s what I thought.”
Turmoil adjusted his wool jacket. He shopped on Spring Garden Road now instead of Gussy’s, a trendy downtown strip filled with shops, bars, and eateries. On any given day, you could see ordinary folks and poseurs, primped and coiffed to fit the role: aspiring artiste, passé punk, moneyed matron, powerbroker. Panhandlers and slow-moving tourists filled the corners of the open-air stage like potted plants.
“Ahm a very han’some mon, wohn you say?” He had bought his Italian pants from a store that promised to phone when the next extra longs arrived. “You’ll be the first to know,” swore the owner, who carried his schnauzer in a Snugli.
“You know ah get a call from a man in Hollywood.” Turmoil didn’t wait for Malcolm’s reply, which would have been effusive. “He said he wahnt me to be in the movies like Ahnol Schwarzneg. Ah say: ‘G’won, ah dohn have time for that ole movie stuff.’ And he say, ‘No mon, you’re much mo’ han’some than Ahnol.’”
Malcolm chewed the invisible gum.
“What d’you think? You think ahm moh han’some than Ahnol?”
Malcolm leaned down impulsively and whispered in the powdered ear: “Muuuch.”
Turmoil laughed hard enough to rock the miniature lights. He felt generous. “You know, you got nice hair too.”
Malcolm leaned so close that his mouth almost touched Turmoil’s ear: “It’s a weeeeaaave. We aren’t all blessed.”
A middle-aged woman appeared at the door wearing lemon-shaped glasses and a belted girls’ school tunic. She had been sent to pick up Turmoil and deposit a frumpy woman who had been promised anonymity in a piece on welfare fraud and needed to be disguised.
“You done a good job,” Turmoil told Malcolm.
“My pleasure, dear.” Malcolm swiped his lips with strawberry balm and stroked his apron. And then, as if to stall the welfare woman and her vulgar story, he gave Turmoil a parting tap of powder. “I don’t want you getting shiny!”