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4:10 p.m.
Then I thought of John Pappas. He was a beacon of sanity. I wasn’t totally crazy. Not yet, anyway. I headed for his restaurant, a pathetic middle-aged man all messed up behind the wheel of his ‘92 Ford Tempo.
A heavy depression settled into me. I experienced a realization that my days of writing the column were coming to an end. Only minutes earlier, Bob Chamberlain had tried to reach me on my cellphone, but I’d turned it off instead of answering it, unable to bring myself to tell Bob the news in case he broke down—Bob Chamberlain loved the column even more than I did.
Sweet Johnny Pappas had found me a seat in the corner of the The Olympia Restaurant beside a black gas fireplace. Black cast-iron chandeliers cast dim yellow light that clung to a white-stucco ceiling. One wall was painted with a mural of a gorgeous, white, sandy beach and sparkling blue ocean. The restaurant was half-empty. Quiet conversation filled the air. At each table, inside clear glass, sat a lit candle. Behind a shiny metal grill, a chef prepared sizzling lamb souvlaki.
Against my wishes, John brought me dinner and a glass of red wine. I thanked him, and he told me he’d take some time off at eight, after the dinner rush, because he wanted to show me something he thought I’d find quite interesting.
I picked at the food. I didn’t have much of an appetite. I did drink the glass of wine. It soothed my nerves a little. I tried to force myself to think logically through my issues. I needed to straighten myself out, in order to: 1. get my wife to come back and love me again, 2. become a father worthy of my little baby, and 3. come up with a clever way to deflect any of the rage and/or legal actions that would be target me after Saturday’s fiasco. After some deliberation, I decided that only a visit to a psychiatrist would straighten me out, not that I planned to go.
I watched John attend to the tables. Around seven o’clock, the other waiter left for the night and John worked the last three tables by himself. He seemed so calm, so at peace with his work. An easy smile came and went on his face, a big change from the sarcastic grin he wore when hanging with his friends. He was a man here, a professional man running a humble but worthy business, serving up good food for those who needed a break from cooking at home or a change of atmosphere from their workaday, humdrum lives.
John Pappas did what he’d always done since the day I’d run from Hamilton: worked his old man’s restaurant. It always amazed me that people like John left high school, stayed at the same job—a simple, average-paying job—and stuck with it until retirement, seemingly content and happy, oblivious to anyone else’s ambition. As a young man, I had been appalled that the guy was essentially a fucking servant, yet he was happy. It had seemed to me that everyone should be as restless and hungry as I was. Anyone who wasn’t was clearly a zombie.
Now I wasn’t so stupid. I had seen enough people who were happy that I got it. Not everyone needed the way that I needed. In fact, now I envied John. I wanted a piece of what he had, that incredible sense of calm and contentment. John hadn’t been a slave to a lifetime of ambition and desire like me. He’d lived with a sense that running a humble restaurant was enough. John could have gone to university and done something else with his life, even been a dancer, but he’d chosen not to, and, dammit, he was happy. Just look at him! I tried to think back to any job that had made me happy, but I couldn’t think of one. Allison could think of something. She’d remember better than I do. I couldn’t even think of a job that I’d been comfortable doing. Waitering: no. Writing entertainment pieces: not really. Selling scholarships: no. Delivering pizzas: no. Film business extra: no. Film business coffee-boy: no. Film business writer wanna-be: big no.
The only thing that had turned my crank had been writing the column these past two weeks. For the first time in my life, I’d found a job that I couldn’t get enough of. But it was all bogus lies, and it was short-lived, and, even worse, it was destroying my marriage. And without Allison, I had nothing. I thought of impending lawsuits, potential alimony payments, the birth of a fatherless child, and coming this Saturday: a high school reunion gala concert built on an epic, outrageous scam.
An hour later, I found myself in John’s family room. He lived in a small bungalow on the Hamilton escarpment in a modest neighbourhood. Built in the Fifties, the houses were well maintained, with sharp lines and well-manicured lawns.
John had married at twenty-three, and was divorced a year later. Tony had told me, in confidence, that it was a huge sore spot for John. So, I figured, like Norb’s arson allegations, it was off limits.
We sat there drinking Coke with ice in tall glass mugs. John had returned with the surprise he’d been promising me since the restaurant. I noticed he had changed out of his slippers into a pair of shiny black shoes. They stuck out from beneath the cuffs of his jeans. His waitering shoes? I wondered, vaguely.
“No offence, Pappas, but I hope you’re not going to bore me with a bunch of vacation photos. I’m just not up to that today,” I said.
“No, Mr. Love, these are the photos from the day. A rare treat, for only the rarest of individuals.” He sat down beside me on the plastic-covered sofa.
John opened up that photo album reverentially, a buried treasure, Spanish dubloons. The first page blew me away. On the top of the page, hand-written in faded red magic marker: Irondale Graduation, 1980.
Underneath, immortalized behind plastic, pictures from our high school grad. One of us sitting at the table, Tony with Angela, hoisting a Coke spiked with rum. We looked so young, more like fifteen than eighteen, and yet we’d felt so mature. We wore those hokey, ill-fitting tuxes that looked as though we’d raided our fathers’ closets. I was smiling broadly at the camera—I looked happy. The four of us were there, but Steven’s seat was empty. We looked as though we were having fun. The other photos showed us dancing, although it was more air-guitar and goofing off than anything. The last picture showed Tony and Angela necking on the dance floor.
At the bottom of the page was another photo: a snapshot of Steven’s leg disappearing through the stage curtains as he’d made his final exit from high school life. From life, maybe.
John saw that I’d been fixating on that one. “I know. Weird, eh? He’d just finished singing Yesterday, and I remember the camera had slipped a little in my hands and I’d taken the shot but I wasn’t sure if I’d gotten all of him.” He shook his head, half-smiling. “As you can see, it turns out I didn’t.”
I felt some annoyance building. “What I don’t get is why the hell he never called any of us.”
Pappas grinned. “Come on, what would Steven want with a bunch of leftovers, anyway? Hey, you didn’t call after you left, either.”
He saw the shame register on my face.
“Lighten up, Donny. That was a joke. Besides, who needs Steven when we have Reingruber? Even after all these years, he’s still a joy to bug.”
I snorted at that one. “You do still love to bug him, don’t you?”
“Ohhhh, yeah.” He plunked the photo album on my lap. “Check these ones out. But don’t get insulting, or I’ll have to hurt you.” Then he got a bit more serious. “Really, man. I don’t want any ribbing, OK?”
I wasn’t up for anything that would take that much energy. I began at the page he had turned to. “Oh yeah, your dance competitions.”
I slowly turned the pages, revealing pictures of John at Greek weddings, dance festivals, and dance competitions. Several photos had John showing off first prize ribbons. The last picture showed John and his sister Amara clutching a large golden dance trophy. She had on a very sexy red dress. He was wearing a black vest, and a frilly white shirt. Gleaming dance shoes stuck out from beneath the cuffs of a pair of tight black pants.
“That’s a big trophy, John.”
“Yeah, that’s me and Amara winning the Hamilton Dance Conservatory competition back in 1985. It was a big deal, you know, especially for my parents, and it’s still a big deal to this day.” His voice trailed off a little bit as he gazed back at the photos.
I felt ashamed of our behaviour, my behaviour, all those years ago. Why the hell couldn’t we guys just have been more mature about the dance thing? If I had been John back then, I probably would have dumped the lot of us. “This really is impressive, John. I didn’t know you were that good.” I took a breath. “Uh, I just want to apologize, you know, for being such a dick about your dancing. You know, we were just a bunch of retarded teen boys. We didn’t have a clue.”
John looked embarrassed, but he was smiling. I think that he knew that I meant it.
“It’s OK. It kinda hurt at the time, you know, but, uh, I recovered. Besides, I already knew that you guys were dicks. That’s why I fit in with you.” He grinned sheepishly. “Ah, let’s face it—it was suicide to dance in high school. Everyone would have labelled me a faggot if they knew. I was just so glad that you guys kept my secret. I would have been beaten to a bloody pulp.” He laughed. “I figured that, if I didn’t give you guys reason to remember that I still danced, you wouldn’t squeal.”
Memories of the kids walking down halls at Irondale, a sea of Greb work boots and checkered lumber jackets. The macho world of male teens. He was right, the only dancing that was cool then was dancing on someone’s head with the heel of your work boots. You could survive dancing disco at the high school dances, as long as you didn’t do it alone and were busting out the moves with a hot chick, but even that was pushing it. There were some real bastards who were always looking for a fight at those Irondale dances.
I tried to remember Pappas at those dances. “You went to the school dances, John. Didn’t you dance the fast ones?”
“No way. I did the slow dances only. No way could I have danced the way I’d really wanted to.”
I felt sad, thinking of that kid who loved to dance but couldn’t show it. What a screwed-up world teenagers inhabited!
He folded up the album and dropped it on the coffee table. “C’mon, I want to show you something really cool.”
“Okay.”
“Can you keep a secret?”
“I guess so.” My nerves couldn’t handle too much more today.
I followed John down into his basement, wondering if Reingruber was hiding down here and they’d planned to tie me up and do something weird to me. At the bottom of the stairs, John turned around to face me. “Are you ready for my deep, dark secret, Donny Love?”
I was growing increasingly jittery. I looked behind me, half-expecting Reingruber to come at me with a knife. Pappas reached around behind a doorway and flicked on a light. “Don’t look until I tell you.”
“Okay!” he suddenly shouted, as if announcing a MegaFreak show. “Bring your hands together for Jawwwwww-neeeeee Pappassssss!”
I stepped into the room, blinking. A blast of music nearly blew my head off. There was a blaze of lights.
Through high-end speakers hanging from the corners of the room blasted that Seventies disco gem, Le Freak. John busted out the moves, big time. Mirrors reflected many Johns as he spiralled, gyrated, pulsated, and twirled to the music. John was coming out of the disco dance closet! I stared at the highly polished dance floor and the spinning glitter ball hanging from the low ceiling. He has a glitter ball, I thought, incredulous. John has got his own regulation-size glitter ball in his basement. I whooped in appreciation, and he was smiling as he danced, like a cloud one moment, down and dirty the next, wrapped inside his own time and space continuum, and I could only think that this was how John Pappas would want to die, in the act of ecstatic dancing and feeling truly alive. I’d never seen him so full of joy. I barely recognized him. He was truly a man transformed.
My sudden pang of jealousy stung me—what an unworthy, selfish emotion. No wonder Allison seemed to hate me. What kind of person always made everything be about himself? I felt disgust with myself.
John finished with a dramatic spin. As if propelled by a force out of my control, out of my usual comfort zone, I went over and gave him a big, fat hug. He patted my back, laughing, then pulled away and went about turning off his equipment. Now he was just plain John Pappas, Norbert Reingruber’s tormentor, snide John, humble and elegant waiter of tables, Tim Hortons socialite.
“That was amazing,” I said. “You are some kind of dance god, John Pappas!”
Pappas grinned wildly.
“You should have dance parties, man. Every Saturday night could be dance night at John’s. And you could teach me a few of these moves.”
“Yeah, you could probably handle it, but can you imagine Tony and Norb discoing?” he asked.
He turned off the light, sealing off the dream compartment that he’d built in his basement.
Turns out he had another surprise for me. Upstairs, he handed me a bunch of print-outs. On the Internet, he’d found five-hundred S. McCartneys.
“I’ve called fifty, and none came up as Steven. I’ve held back about two-hundred and I’ll start those tomorrow, but I thought you might want to try a few yourself. I gave Reingruber a hundred. Told him not to sound too weird on the phone.”
“Good luck with that,” I said.
We chuckled.
“John, I gotta go. Thanks, man, I had fun.” I punched him on the shoulder. Then I screwed up my courage to ask him what I had really wanted to know for a very long time. “If you don’t mind me asking, how come you never went for the dance career? Why’d you stay here and settle for the restaurant?”
John was quiet for a moment. “I just felt like, oh, I dunno, like the restaurant thing, working with my family and all, was enough. It’s a good life. Honest living, right? And I feel like I belong, like I’m pretty good at it. Dancing professionally is a beautiful dream, but that doesn’t mean it would be a beautiful reality. Right?”
John’s words echoed in my head for a long time before I fell asleep that night.
