Dominique

Excerpt from a work in progress

John Calabro

LYING IN BED IN HIS underwear Pierre is smoking nervously, even though he promised me he wouldn’t smoke in our hotel room. I know Pierre from work, although I wouldn’t call what he does work.

But then I am to blame since two years earlier I had enthusiastically hired him to do French translations for the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, where I report to the Deputy. Pierre is in his midthirties, originally from Montreal. He had a good resumé and interviewed well. I later found out that Pierre didn’t like deadlines, drank heavily, snorted recreationally, smoked weed, and popped enough pills for me to find him interesting and to consider him somewhat of a friend, and a sometimes imbecile.

I should have fired him a long time ago, but as an act of rebellion against my own bosses, I hadn’t. I had other issues. One of which is allowing people to convince me to do things I don’t care for, like dragging me to San Francisco. But then I had an idea that I could use this trip to fulfil a promise I had made to myself a while ago.

“So you like my sister.”

He gets up and fixes us a drink. There must be at least eight ounces of vodka in the glass. He is pouring alcohol as if it is mineral water. His tone is one of sarcasm. He is angry, and since I haven’t done anything wrong, I assume that the result of the football game he had gone to see, while his sister and I went for a walk, was not to his liking.

“She’s nice, very pretty. Smart too. She wants to be a writer; I’d love to see her work.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m sure you’d like to see something else.” He was being a jerk and it could only mean one thing.

“Why are you being an asshole, Pierre? How much did you lose?” When pressed, he explains that the fucking 49ers missed a fucking field goal in the dying minutes of the game and it cost him a fucking bundle. It had been a sure thing. The fucking kicker, Martinez, who had been a perfect ten for ten until that day, and who’d successfully kicked hundreds from further away, missed a fucking, easy as pie, 28-yarder.

“Fuck him.”

He makes a fist and smashes it down on the Colonial dresser, whose hard wood thankfully sustains Pierre’s anger without splintering under the force.

“Fuck!” He screams in pain.

I ask him if the loss was more than what he had won on the previous day’s Jays’ game, but he doesn’t answer. He gets another drink, having spilled the last one. I guess I’ll know soon enough. If the loss is too high, his bookie would be phoning. Pierre shrugs it off, pretends that it’s not a big deal and goes back to drinking and to talking about his sister.

“I’ll work it out, you know I always do. Did Dominique ask you about me, did she pump you for information?”

He gets up, comes over, and two inches from my face with alcohol fuelled spit and finger tapping on my chest he makes his point.

“Don’t say anything. Nothing, not a word, nada, nothing about me, you understand. I’ll fucking kill you if you do.”

“Okay, okay, take it easy. Why didn’t you ever tell me about her?” We had been in San Francisco barely a day when this mysterious sister of his shows up. He introduced me as his Sicilian, Mafia boss; which he thought was funny, and she didn’t. After that, I had a hard time convincing her that I truly was Sicilian, not in the Mafia and not even a good boss.

“Nothing to tell. We used to be close, and then we were not. Now she’s always on the move, travels all around the country; works for some big shot in Vancouver. Recently she’s gotten to calling me. She thinks I’m sick. She thinks I need mothering. She wants to be a good sister. I don’t need a mother or a sister; I made the mistake of telling her I was coming to Frisco.”

He drains his glass and lights up again. To my protests and stern reminder that he promised not to smoke in the room, he answers that it doesn’t count because it’s a joint. I won’t bother asking where he got it. I watch him as he puffs and fills his glass again. He loves his Grey Goose.

Pierre was right; Dominique had asked several times about him.

“Does he drink a lot?” she said.

“No, not really,” I said.

I had lied even before he told me to lie. What he did or didn’t do was his business. I didn’t care to get involved, which is why he liked me. I didn’t judge. How could I have said to his sister that I’ve seen him at clubs do ecstasy, smoke a joint, and chase it down with a bottle of beer, and then ask for a double Grey Goose, neat? And besides, drinking will be the least of his problems if he really lost big on that 49ers game and can’t find the cash for his bookie. Pierre seemed to be gambling more and more, and that I didn’t understand.

Earlier, while Dominique kept questioning me, all I could think of was how stunning she was. She had that understated, chic European look, with long dark hair cut in a Cleopatra style that framed her bright brown eyes and lips she had shaded with a subtle pink. She reminded me of the actress Juliette Binoche in her earlier films. I didn’t want to talk about her brother and so I asked what she liked to do for fun, what excited her. She got very animated and for a moment forgot about him.

“I write.”

“Poetry?”

“No, fiction.”

She went on to talk about the novel she was working on; it was almost finished. She told me about how she wanted to get it published; and how she was frightened to death of sending it out. For a moment, as she spoke, she seemed so vulnerable and it made her even more beautiful. I could easily fall in love.

“It’s nice to see so much passion. Most people I know go through life with limited interest.”

I was speaking mostly about myself. Dominique smiled, and like an idiot I thought that I was making a connection.

“Does he have friends? Do you think he’s happy?”

“I guess so.”

She was persistent. She didn’t really want to know about me and maybe Pierre was right. I had found it difficult to be vague, and I think she knew that I wasn’t forthcoming with any real answers. I hadn’t paid too much attention to her inquiries until Pierre brought it up. I didn’t like that he implied that his sister was using me. It did sound suspicious. I mean she asked me to go for a walk, and I am not the kind of guy women ask out. On the other hand she was very beautiful, and so what if I let her use me. In effect I probably would betray Pierre if she pushed a little harder. It wouldn’t take much, maybe just a kiss...

“Are you asleep?” Pierre calls out.

I was drifting, thinking of his sister, wondering about what she really wanted, but also wondering what kissing her would be like. I had never kissed such a gorgeous woman before...here I was being an idiot again. We had been silent for a while, the room was dark, the smell of grass was no longer unpleasant, and for a moment I thought of pretending I was asleep and not answer him.

“No.”

“I don’t just have a sister, I also have a brother, Michel...had a brother I should say; he died.”

Now he has my attention. I sit up and wonder why he is saying that. “I’m sorry. When?”

“Long time ago, almost fifteen years ...”

I try not to show any surprise. Dominique had also talked about her brother.

“He was young,” I say.

“Yeah, Dominique was fourteen when he passed away.” “How did he die?”

He paused. It could have been for effect; Pierre was never at a loss for words.

“Killed himself.”

“Holy shit, you’re kidding, how did it happen? You’ve never said anything.”

“It’s not something I like to talk about. My father found him. My dad had his own problems; always distant, he had withdrawn even more. He sold life insurance and had a love-hate relationship with it. He blamed his unhappiness on work, on my mother, on his friends, on his co-workers, on us, on society, on everybody, you know what I mean. He hated people, drank himself to sleep most nights, but he loved Michel. Michel was the smart one, the funny one, the sensitive one: he was going places, unlike me who was too happy to just fuck up.” He pauses, then asks brusquely: “Are you there?”

“Listening ...”

“That morning, I woke up to my father screaming for help, yelling from the garage. I was the first one there since my room was above it. The door in the hall that led to the garage was wide open, and there I saw my father holding up Michel. Michel had a rope around his neck.

My father was screaming for help, for anyone to help. I was eighteen years old, two years older than Michel. My brother had tied a noose to the garage ceiling beam and had jumped off the hood of dad’s car. ‘Grab his legs and push up,’ my father screamed while he climbed on the car and tried to loosen the cord. He couldn’t do it, but kept trying. ‘Don’t let go, Pierre.’ He was yelling. I hugged Michel’s legs and pushed up. After a while my arms got sore, he was so heavy. ‘Don’t let him die. Hold him up Pierre...’ My father climbed down and went looking for something to cut the rope. My arms were cramping up, I was in so much pain, I had to let go. And when I couldn’t hold any longer, I did let go, just for a second. Michel’s body dropped like a stone, the rope tightened around his throat and made a snapping sound. I shook my arms and quickly grabbed him again. I remember my father screaming, ‘You weak son of a bitch. Push up. You’re useless. Hold him up ...’ Dad tried to loosen the rope, but nothing worked. He climbed down, found the stepladder and propped it under Michel’s feet while I held him in place. He jumped back on the hood and finally cut the rope with a hack-saw. We laid Michel on the garage floor and my father tried a fumbling, ineffective CPR. He pressed on his chest, did mouth to mouth, while I watched on the side, not knowing what to do. I called 911, but it was all too late. Michel was dead. I can still see his body laying there and my father on his knees beside him, as if it was yesterday.”

“I’m sorry. You can’t blame yourself ...”

“No, no, I do, it was my fault. I hated Michel for being the favourite son, and I always made sure he knew that.”

“There must have been other reasons. You couldn’t have known.” Pierre asks me to get him another drink and continues talking but with greater difficulty. He is slurring badly, I can barely understand him.

After a moment of silence, I ask him about Dominique and her reaction.

“My mother, like my father, also blamed me, but Dominique, she never said anything.”

“I am sorry” is the only thing I can think of saying, and I keep repeating it since I find the whole story very confusing.

“I’m not saying this so that you feel sorry for me, I’m telling you because you are my friend and I trust you. I’m also warning you; don’t get involved with my sister. Don’t trust her. Dominique can be quite manipulative. She always gets her way; it’s because of her good looks.” “Okay. Understood, don’t worry.”

Of his own volition, he tells me that he bet $50,000 on the game and that he doesn’t have the money to cover it. That he’ll have to find it somewhere.

“$50,000? Holy shit!”

“It’s a bit of a mess, but don’t tell Dominique about it. I told you about Michel because I trust you: Sicilians keep their words, right? Remember don’t tell my sister anything, not even about Michel. Nothing about what I told you. Swear.”

“I swear.”

He promptly falls asleep.

What bothered me the most about his confession was not so much the gambling loss or the suicide of his brother, but the fact that Dominique not two hours earlier had told me that her brother Michel was teaching English as a second language to university students in Thailand ...