Going Fast (35 page)

Palm trees lined the hazy, hibiscus-filled parking lot. The air was so dense and fragrant that it felt as if there were a shampooed poodle sitting on his chest, making it difficult to breathe. Ownie tied his raincoat in a knot as a couple with a stroller, a car seat, and two squirming kids tumbled over themselves. The porter was one step behind.

A topless sports car swerved into the curb, driven by a young man in sunglasses, with Turmoil unmistakably, at his side.

“You hab a good trip?” Turmoil asked, one arm outside the car.

“It was all right.” Ownie picked up his bag.

“They treat you rite?” Turmoil asked, and Ownie shrugged. “They bedda or they have to deal widt me.”

In a plain white T-shirt, Turmoil's chest looked as expansive as a home-movie screen, a memory bank of birthday parties, freak storms, and Christmas mornings. Is he bigger, Ownie wondered, or just sun-darkened and more in tune with his surroundings?

Ownie was not surprised to see that Turmoil, who ate a near-perfect diet of vegetables and low-fat protein, looked fight-ready. Unlike Johnny, who bloated up between fights, Turmoil had no flab to drop. Ownie looked at Turmoil's arm. The bicep was solid, approaching, without weights, without juice, the twenty-inch gold standard that a Mr. America had set decades ago, and that bodybuilders pursued with a regimen of barbell curls, prone curls, and incline curls. And yet, Turmoil's arm, despite its size, looked loose and mobile, with the range of motion of a baseball shortstop and the reflexes to snare a line drive most humans couldn't see. Ownie felt encouraged.

The driver hopped out, running one hand through wavy hair that was brushed back to his shoulders. He was wearing a Hot Tuna T-shirt and a leather anklet beneath baggy shorts.

“This is Greg,” said Turmoil, nodding at the driver and ignoring the incensed waves of the airport cop, who seemed intent on moving everyone along. “He goin to drive us to mah place.”

Ownie settled in the back seat and folded his hands. Beating down on his pale skin, the sun felt like a poultice that could soak up winter's poisons. He looked around him and saw flowers everywhere: geraniums and tiger lilies that made
him feel recharged. “Nice to meet you, Greg,” Ownie said. “Are you from here?”

Greg flashed a bright smile amplified by his tan and then lifted his glasses off a pair of kryptonite eyes. On his teeth, Ownie noticed with surprise, were multi-coloured braces, orange, purple, and green. “Yeah, I met Turmoil at the beach, and we've been hangin'.”

“Greg, he thinkin of bein a sports trainah someday.” Turmoil flipped the information over his shoulder.

“Is that right?” Greg, Ownie noticed in the rear-view mirror, looked surprised.

They cruised down a four-lane highway past budget car rentals, gas stations, and convenience stores that stayed open all night. A preppy in cut-offs was sitting roadside with a sign that said, S
TRANDED
, W
ILL
W
ORK
, while a clock shaped like an orange gave the temperature at ninety-one degrees Fahrenheit.

“Is it cold up there in Nova Scotia?” Greg grinned.

“Not bad.” Ownie shrugged his reply. “About ten below when I left.”

“I guess that's why everyone plays so much hockey.” Greg reminded Ownie of a character in a surfer movie, either that or a pickpocket. Ownie wondered if he had a job or a family.

“Yeah, it probably has some bearing on it.”

Ownie squinted; he'd expected his eyes to adapt to the sunlight, to filter out the unfamiliar rays. Instead, everything looked overexposed, as though he was watching a cheap Canadian movie shot on video, one of those films they showed on Friday nights, set in Legion halls or Alberta hockey rinks, like you hadn't had enough of jerkwater joints. The actors had bad hairdos and uncapped teeth; they wore plaid shirts or Mountie uniforms and spoke dialogue you could never believe.

“Ah was profesh'nul hockee player in Can'da,” Turmoil
announced. “Ver-ver good player, one of the bess. A poleesemon, they call me.”

“Yeah?” Greg grinned, intrigued.

“Ah spen a lot of time on the ice, breakin up fights, takin away the bad guys. Ah never had no gun or nuthin; iss differen up there. Ah got paid so much money, ah was losin it all to the taxmon.” Turmoil shrugged as though the decision had been made for him.

“Wicked.” Greg caught Ownie's eye in the mirror and asked, “Did you ever see him play?”

Ownie tried to get a look at Turmoil's eyes in the mirror, but they were now veiled by dark shades and a straight-ahead stare. “Oh, yeah, he was a dandy.” Ownie's voice was dry as he wondered what lay ahead. “I've never seen a skater quite like him.”

“Yeah?” Greg grinned. “This man slays me.”

Ownie never knew when Turmoil was playing with people, forcing them into uncomfortable corners with no escape. Ownie was not a doctor, but Turmoil had seen one in Halifax at Champion's request, a sombre man who had listened to Turmoil's boasts and claims of future greatness, and told him in a grave voice: “Mr. Davies, I see delusions of grandeur.” Turmoil had thrown back his head and laughed, “Ahm the smartest man in the world.”

The highway ended at an intersection, and Greg turned onto a two-lane road that followed the coast, which felt like it had slipped into beachwear, sporty and bright. It had the mood of a permanent vacation. “Mah place two mile from here,” Turmoil said. “Wait till you see it.”

M
ISTEE'S
C
USTOM
-M
ADE
B
IKINIS
. They drove by a string of condos, beach cottages, and stucco bungalows the colour of pastel candies. In between were motels filled with sand, pull-out beds, and bargain travellers who had been assured: C
ANADIAN
, A
MERICAN, AND
B
RITISH
S
POKEN
H
ERE
.

“Do you play golf?” Ownie asked Greg as they drove by a miniature course built around Blackbeard's ship.

“Yeah, a bit.”

“Did you ever get a hole-in-one?”

“No, dude, I'm not that good.”

“Probably just as well.”

The cheap motels were disappearing now, squeezed out by larger houses with wrought-iron fences, tennis courts, and oceanfront lots sliced, with the precision of a diamond cutter, from an old pineapple plantation. It was an area where you never saw trash or chipped paint, never smelled need, sealed off from the slums of America by a Plexiglas wall of money. Was this where Turmoil lived? Ownie wondered. Was he really this rich?

Greg slowed in front of a two-storey stucco house painted the colour of French vanilla ice cream, an expansive concoction with a three-car garage and a Mediterranean feel. He buzzed security and they turned up a driveway lined with flowers and trees that looked like inverted pineapples.

“So, what kind of shape are you in?” asked Ownie, who had already decided that the fighter's body looked ready.

“Good, but not the bes. Ah got to be the bes.”

A stained-glass bird soared across the front door of the house.

“How much do you weigh?”

“Two fifty.”

“What kind of shape is your head in?” That was the key question.

“Good but not the bes.”

Behind the house, Turmoil pointed to a blue pool in the shape of a boxing glove, the kind of indulgence that made buyers believe that America really was the land of opportunity, a land of billionaires and gangsters with electrified walls. In
the pool was an inflatable recliner holding an architectural magazine that had managed to stay dry.

“Very nice,” shrugged Ownie.

Striped lawn chairs surrounded the pool while blue-and-white recliners shared drinks with the glass-topped tables. The sun was beating through the sweaty glass and the impotent umbrellas that had been set up for shade. Ownie saw two books and a pair of women's sandals, beige and made of leather, stuffed under one chair.

“How you like mah view?” Turmoil pointed past a screen of baked fronds. Ownie saw a bare-chested jogger teasing the tide, running just beyond its reach on compact sand that, when you got close enough, smelled like pickles. The rest of the beach was empty.

“Good.” Ownie sounded indifferent.

“Goood?” Turmoil's voice shot up, offended.

A gull squawked like an unoiled swing.

“You know how much a view like this cost?”

“I don't care, man. I'm not here for the view.”

“You can still 'preciate it.”

“Why?” Ownie demanded as a powerboat churned along the horizon.
Thummm. Thumm. Thummm
. The ocean swished in and out gently; the waves sounded like someone turning the pages of a newspaper. With an ease that Ownie found disturbing, you could walk, with the same number of steps it took most people to collect their mail, to the water's edge, and you could walk back without seeing another person.

“You juss should.”

“Man, you sound like I never seen an ocean before.”

“This mah kitchen.” The room was so big and bare that it felt indecent, with pale wood, rich ceramic tiles, and discreet appliances that blended into the decor.

Ownie nodded, and wondered if, when he spoke, he would hear an echo. “Very nice.”

“This room biggah than mah whole place in Halifax.”

Ownie glanced around the room, at the glass doors, the pot lights, and the runway counters that looked as though they had never seen food. He counted three spots for eating: a table, a built-in booth, and an island with an overhang of copper cookware.

Turmoil waved his hand through the air, slicing the sun that streamed in floor-to-ceiling windows and pooled on the floor. “Ah buy it foh cash afta mah lass fight. It come with a golf membership and ebbyting. Mah lawyer take care of it all.”

In a room that smelled like New World and leisure, Ownie could feel no connection between his surroundings and his soul. To him, it was a hedonistic room that had never felt hunger, cold, or the pain of original sin, unsettling in its shameless celebration of today. It spoke a different language, it worshipped a different God than he did, and it all felt confusing.

“Sit down.” Turmoil pointed to a stool.

“Sure.” Ownie climbed up, feeling exposed. “Don't you have any real chairs?”

In the hallway, on the way to his room, Ownie stopped before a vivid four-foot painting that controlled the space. Studying the canvas, he saw a man who was, he believed, the biblical Noah. I wonder how he feels in all this emptiness, Ownie wondered, in a space without memory, a space devoid
of bogs and ghosts with donkey carts. It was all light, it seemed, with too much air and freedom. Up close, Ownie saw zebras, hippos, and lions being led onboard a boat by Noah, who was, in this tableau, black. The water was ice blue, the trees lush. Ownie leaned over a carved sideboard for a better look, noting the monkeys and giraffes.

“I like that one too.”

Ownie knew that Lorraine had joined Turmoil in Florida, but he was startled when he turned to see her face, which looked worn, as though the sun had bleached the good from her. Despite her weariness, she had the same poise he'd noticed when they'd first met in her vibrant house with the white piano.

“We've collected a lot of West Indies art and furniture.” Her voice had the rotelike tones of a tour guide. “I've learned a lot about them. Each island has a unique style that developed over the centuries, styles influenced by the ruling country of the day: England, France, Holland.” She smiled a wan smile. “In some cases, it changed a lot.”

Ownie noticed that the house was neutral, an airy backdrop for the bright art and the dark wood furniture that seemed weighty. It had white marble, eighteen-foot ceilings, and towering windows that opened to the sky.

Everything that Turmoil had predicted: the money, the grand house, the investments, everything that had seemed improbable in the doctor's office in Halifax, had materialized. Did that mean that the doctor was wrong, Ownie asked himself, or could Turmoil still be crazy?

“I like this.” Compelled to say something, Ownie pointed down the hall at a panelled screen that seemed to depict several stories unfolding at once, all in the Caribbean. In one corner of the screen, three chiefs were talking to explorers; in another, two men were riding elephants. People were fighting, a man was pulling a tiger by the tail. An awful lot was
happening, Ownie decided, as though the artist was trying to express everything he felt, everything he believed in.

“Most of it is from the nineteenth century,” Lorraine explained. “It's become quite valuable as people discover it.”

“You mean it's dear?”

“Uh-huh. Some beds can cost twenty thousand dollars, some chairs three thousand.” She stopped, self-conscious. “I'm not saying we paid that much.”

Lorraine led Ownie up the stairs and into a guest bedroom with a balcony facing the swishing ocean. Standing in the doorway, she pointed at the heavy poster bed where Ownie would sleep that night. “Jamaican cabinetmakers often carved pineapple fronds on their headboards.” She barely smiled. “This is very typical of their work.”