HEAD GAMES: The trailer
You thought you had escaped HEAD GAMES because I haven’t
mentioned it for a few days. Well, I’m baaack, but this time with the actual
story.
The time: 1979. Jim Brooks, an architect on assignment in
Argentina, has arrived in Toronto to report to head office.
The setting: a bar frequented by Latinos, where Jim meets
up with Don Baker, an ex-colleague. Don is a great story-teller -- a bit of a
bullshitter maybe, but always entertaining. They shook hands.
“So, how’s the project going?” Don asked.
“Alright,” Jim said. “Except for the usual problems. The corruption, the demands of the military junta, the red tape.”
Don sipped his drink, listening to Jim with an air of distraction. He kept scanning the people at the bar and looking at the door as if he was expecting someone.
I’m boring him, Jim thought. He changed tack and asked Don about his new career [real estate]. The question kindled a half-light in Don’s eyes. He broke out the real estate anecdotes, a few warm-up jokes, then something with a little more jangle, but sadly below the old standard. Not even close. No fireworks, no exploding laughter.
“Last year I listed a property a couple of blocks from here,” Don said, “a three-story Victorian with a shop on the main floor and two flats upstairs. They laughed at the office when I brought in the listing. Nobody is going to buy that dump, they said. The owner lived on the second floor, with a dozen cats. Her bedroom was a feeding station. Litter boxes and cat food everywhere. The tenant on the third floor was a wino. The place smelled of piss. Next thing you know: the cat lady has a heart attack and ends up in hospital. The Humane Society carts away her pets. I visit the old woman in hospital and make her a bedside offer: I buy the house myself. Let me tell you, Jim, she was glad to get rid of it. It was nothing but a headache for her.”
“And so you bought the place? That was charitable of you.”
Don drained his Scotch. “Wait till you hear the rest,” he said, signaling the waiter for a refill -- his second refill. He was on a roll now. “So I get a new tenant for the shop and start renovating the old lady’s apartment. I slap paint on the walls and have the floors sanded and refinished. The wino comes padding down from the third floor to see what’s going on. ‘How’s life at the top?’ I say. He breathes alcoholic fumes on me. ‘Crappy,’ he says. ‘The whole city is crappy. A shit place to live in. You pass out on the sidewalk, and people step right over you, like you’re a dog. Where I come from, they don’t treat you like that.’ He was from Sudbury, he told me. ‘So why did you leave?’ I said. ‘Got fired from Inco,’ he said. ‘It’s a company town. You work for Inco, or you don’t work. I should’ve stayed up north and gone tree planting.’ So I make him an offer. ‘You want to go back to Sudbury, Frank?’ I say. ‘Sure,’ he says, and starts reminiscing about family, classmates, neighbours. He goes all weepy on me. ‘Jees,’ he says, ‘we had a ball of a time. Jees, I wish I could go back there now.’ So I say: ‘Tell you what, Frank, I’ll buy you a ticket to Sudbury.’ I drive him to the bus terminal. I give him some pocket money and bundle him on the bus."
Don leaned back with a mission-accomplished grin. “So everybody’s happy. I go back and tell the crew to paint the upstairs as well. A month later I sell the house at a profit.”
“Good for you,” Jim said obligingly. He noticed that he was humouring Don. Something had happened to the familiar landscape, a tectonic shift. The gap in their ages had widened. It was no longer the difference between thirty and fifty. It was something larger and unbridgeable. Don had turned into an old man, to be humoured…
