Confidence Read online

  “If you have some reason, I understand if you have some reason of your own for not wanting to call the cops on them, that’s fine, in this neighbourhood it’s none of my—”

  “Listen,” said Tracy, “don’t you worry about anything. I will—”

  “I’m just saying, if you want some help, and no trouble with the cops, you just talk to me, I’ve been in this—”

  “Thanks Leslie,” said Tracy, “I’ve got it under control. I’ve got to go.”

  “Francis,” said the old guy, “Francis Doyle.”

  “Sorry. Francis.”

  “You have yourself a good one,” said Francis, Francis Doyle. “You got to wonder one thing, though.”

  “What’s that, Francis.”

  “You ever wonder, what was the best thing before sliced bread?”

  “Okay. I’ll see you.” Tracy walked towards his house.

  Sitting on the bench outside the parkette was, honestly, a full gorilla suit, with head attached. It was deflated but propped up, perhaps by a stick, as if actually sitting on the bench. Tracy had no camera.

  It was silly to be irritated by the old guy, Francis Doyle, and especially silly to feel humiliated by his advice, especially since the guy was probably a racist and had judged Deiondre and Teelah immediately. Who would say coloured these days unless they were being provocative. Or maybe he really was that old.

  Deiondre was on her basement steps, in her hoodlum cap, smoking.

  “Hey there,” he said.

  She nodded. She rubbed her face.

  “You want to chat?” said Tracy.

  “About what?”

  “About the problems you guys are having.”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “I can’t have you fighting like that anymore.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” She threw her cigarette down on his, Tracy’s, unoccupied concrete parking pad and stepped on it with her giant high-top running shoe. “I’m going to be away for a few days anyway.”

  And at that moment a cab drew up and she ambled towards it. She got in it without saying anything more, and it drove away. She did not appear to be carrying a bag.

  The most irritating thing about this really was that she was taking a cab, perhaps to a train or bus station, which Tracy himself would never have done. It wasn’t the kind of thing one really should do, if one was living on welfare, which Tracy knew both she and Teelah were, because the damn cheques came to his own damn mailbox.

  He opened the door to his cold house with some energy.

  Morgan had a study group that evening. Tracy bought a veggie burger from the Vietnamese place and ate it in the cold kitchen. He wanted to play music loud, since he had the chance, but didn’t want to seem hypocritical to the girls downstairs. But then one was apparently gone anyway. So he sat in silence and ate the veggie burger, which took some time as it was mainly grains and quite firm. It was at least a break from falafel.

  Tracy liked to eat standing in the front window, partly because he sat all day but partly because he could see the street. He wondered if the gorilla suit had been taken away but couldn’t see that far up. He could smell cigarettes: there below him, on his parking pad, was the other girl, Teelah, the one who actually dressed like a girl. She was wearing tight jeans that exposed a puffy brown belly, and a clingy white top under her bomber jacket. Her hair was straightened and tied back. She was pacing and talking on a cellphone.

  He finished his burger as quickly as he could and tied up the garbage to have an excuse to go down there.

  He greeted her cheerily and had to pass her to chuck the garbage in the bin. Then he sat on his front steps as if enjoying the unseasonably mild autumn evening. The girl ignored him until she finished her call. Then she folded her phone and lit another cigarette. She nodded at him.

  He smiled. “Warm night.”

  “Yeah. Nice.” She picked at her fingernails. “You spend a lot of time alone?”

  “Huh?”

  “I never see your wife. You seem to spend a lot of time alone. She away or something?”

  “Oh no. She’s here. All the time. Just not tonight. She works hard, at her courses. They meet for study groups in the evenings.”

  “She goes to school in the night?”

  “Yeah, sometimes, sure.”

  “What she go to school for?”

  “She’s doing a Master’s in Library and Information Science. She’s studying to be a librarian.”

  “You go to school to be a librarian?”

  “Yup.”

  “Tell people to be quiet all day.”

  “I guess so.”

  “I would hate that. I can’t be quiet all day.”

  Tracy laughed. “Yeah, I wonder about that. About how she’ll deal with it. She says she wants to.”

  “And what do you do?”

  Tracy sighed. “I work for an environmental alliance. In Milton.”

  “Milton.”

  “I take the Go train.”

  “You saving the world for us, huh?”

  “Yup.” Then they both laughed.

  Teelah shook her head again. “Well, that’s the thing, she go away all evening, it’s not good. For her to leave you alone a long time. A man gets into trouble.” She had a little smile.

  He laughed. “Oh I wouldn’t worry. I’m not alone long enough to get into trouble.”

  “That’s nice,” she said. “A nice guy. A very nice guy. It’s good to meet a nice guy.”

  “Huh.” He couldn’t make out her tone. She was still playing with her nails and smiling as if shy. “You ever go out with black girls?”

  “Ha,” said Tracy. She looked up at him with the same smile and looked away again. “Sure. I did, when I was single.” This was not exactly true. But the point was he wasn’t opposed to the idea.

  “I’m not asking for me,” said Teelah. “I’m asking for a friend of mine, she’s single. She’s looking for a white guy to go on some dates with. You know, someone who’s generous.”

  “Someone to take care of her,” said Tracy. He glanced at the girl’s thighs now, solid and smooth in the tight jeans, with the enormous round butt popping out and a twist of thong rising above the hip.

  “Yeah. Kind of. She has a kid so she needs a little help. You know a lot of guys, guys like you, that’s what she’s looking for. Maybe you could hook her up. You know anyone?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Tracy. “Or, I mean, I’ll certainly, I’ll let you know.”

  “Or maybe you, you know you have so much time on your hands.”

  “Me.” He smiled at Teelah, who smiled back broadly and then shook her head so her shiny ponytail flew. “This is your friend we’re talking about, right?”

  “My friend,” she winked and giggled. She walked past him to her basement steps and held out her hand so her palm brushed his cheek as she passed by. “You think about it.”

  “Okay.” She ducked into her dark doorway. “Thanks Teelah,” he said without knowing why. He saw the thong from behind as she disappeared, a full triangle of black polyester, maybe silk.

  He did not tell Morgan about this scene. She was back too late to talk anyway.

  And the next day Tracy was off work, because they had rotating down days to prevent layoffs, and it was the middle of the week, which was always a little weird. He was putting on his running tights when the fighting started again; shrill shrieking this time. He could ignore this because he was going to be gone for at least an hour. If it was still going on when he came back he would call the cops.

  He had his laces done up when he heard the screaming from the street. He looked out the bedroom window and there they were, right in the middle of the road. Deiondre had Teelah bent over; she was holding her by her hair and yanking her all over the asphalt. Teelah was flailing her arms, trying to hit, but Deiondre was keeping her just out of reach.

  There was no one else on the street. Tracy was sure he wasn’t the only one watching from a window. His
stomach was cold, as if he might be sick.

  Teelah got a slap in that made Deiondre’s head jerk back; Tracy could hear its snap even on the second floor. Then the girls were silent as they struggled in earnest. Deiondre swung Teelah’s head quite close to the asphalt.

  Tracy knew he should not be hesitating, he should be running down there, running out into the road, yelling, as you would at a dog fight. It would not be difficult to break it up, once he got in between them. They were not big girls. They probably would not hit him. But he stood there. Someone else would surely intervene first. It was his silly running tights that embarrassed him most; he didn’t want to go down there yelling like a tough guy on his spindly, shiny legs. This was terribly silly. If Morgan were there, she would be yelling at him to get down there right now. He felt sicker, amazed at this cowardice. He had not thought he was this sort of person.

  He turned to the phone and dialled 911. He told them two girls, two women, were in the street fighting and someone was going to get hurt. He told them his name and address and they said they would send a car.

  He went back to the window. The girls were apart now, hands on their knees, panting, staring at each other. Every few seconds Deiondre would bark something. Teelah was silent; she was the more exhausted. The street darkened with spots of rain.

  Then Teelah just stood straight and walked back inside. Deiondre turned and walked up the street.

  Tracy did not go running. He changed back into jeans, and put his hiking boots on in case he had to be authoritative with them, the cops.

  The cops showed up in seven minutes. The street was empty and rainy. He watched their car pull up and just sit there. The cops just sat in it for a full five minutes. Perhaps they would just pull away again. That would be best.

  Then they slowly got out the car, a burly guy and a burly woman, and they looked in their notebooks and then they lumbered over to his front door. His bell rang, and he heard the bell from the basement apartment ring too. He waited to see if the girls would come out first.

  He stood behind a curtain and looked straight down where he could see the tops of the policemen’s hats. They were standing in the pit of the staircase. He heard murmuring; Deiondre’s voice. So at least she was talking to them.

  This conversation went on for quite a few minutes but it seemed subdued. Then he heard the basement door slam, not too hard, just firmly. Then his own doorbell rang again.

  He took a deep breath and went down.

  The cops were identically square and ruddy. “Hello,” said the male. “You make the call?”

  “Yes I did.” He didn’t know if he should invite them in. He just stood there in the doorway.

  “You want to tell us what you saw?”

  He described the whole scene again, told them it was a regular problem, that he was concerned for their safety.

  “Yeah,” said the male, “thing is, everything seems quiet right now. We didn’t see anything. They were calmed down.”

  “Did you see both of them? They both speak to you?”

  “They both seemed fine.”

  The woman cop spoke. “There’s nothing we can do if they’re not fighting and they don’t request our help.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I understand.”

  After the cops left, he stood motionless on his staircase. It was utterly silent below. He knew they could hear every creak as he moved. He did not move.

  He didn’t tell Morgan about this incident either. And it was quiet that night; it wasn’t until the next night that the music started, this time with no yelling, just a vibrating bass and thumping drum. They could even hear the rapper yelling over it, or whatever a Jamaican rapper was called. “Toasting, I think,” said Tracy, washing dishes. “I think it’s called toasting, that kind of chant. This is dancehall.”

  “Tell them to turn it off,” said Morgan, from her books at the table.

  “Yup.” he took his time with the dishes. The music was horrible, really, it was angry and violent and it made the glasses on the shelf dance across the paper with humming noises. There was no way you could think with this noise. And imagine the ears of the baby down there, who was just screaming, screaming, screaming helplessly through it.

  When the counters were dry he could put it off no longer. He put on his hiking boots and went down. he knocked on the door, and then he pounded. No one came. He tried this for a few minutes and then came back upstairs and called the cellphone number Deiondre had given him when she signed the lease. It rang and rang.

  “This is it,” said Morgan. “You’re going to have to evict them.”

  “And how do I go about doing that?”

  “Ask a lawyer. It’s got to be simple.”

  “Yeah,” came Deiondre’s voice on the the phone. Now the music was tinny in his ear as well as thick underfoot.

  “Hey Deiondre,” said Tracy. “Could you turn the music down for me please? It’s a little loud up here.”

  She was silent for a second. Then she said, “I’ll try.”

  “You’ll try? Deiondre, I’m asking you. Could you turn the music down. Please.”

  “We can’t listen to any music now?” Her words were a little slurred.

  “Of course you can. Just not that loud.”

  “We have a right to enjoy ourselves just like you. Even right here in Canada.”

  Tracy had no comeback to this. “Deiondre. Please. We can’t hear ourselves talk up here.”

  She hung up the phone. The thumping continued unaltered.

  “She hung up on you?” said Morgan. “She just hung up on you? That’s it. That’s got to be it. They’re going. We’re talking to a lawyer.”

  Tracy sat with her at the table. “Listen, they are obviously going through some horrible shit, I don’t know what it is, but they’ve got no money, one of them is a single mom—”

  “Tracy, they’re violent and they’re, they won’t listen to you. They’re rude. They’re antisocial. I don’t feel safe with them down there.”

  “I know. I know. But the baby thing really worries me. How do you evict an unemployed single mom with a baby? I don’t feel, I don’t feel . . . you know, they can get a lawyer too, you know.”

  “Oh, bullshit. Tracy, just stand up to them. Just do it. Or I will.”

  “Fine. You find the lawyer then. I’ll pay.”

  “Just use the lawyer we used for the house, Fineman, whatever. All he does is real estate. It’s one phone call.”

  “Yes.” Tracy rubbed his eyes. He just wanted the music to stop and he would go on his computer. Actually he could just put on headphones and listen to his own music and it would solve the problem. He didn’t know why Morgan couldn’t do the same. “All right. Tomorrow. I’ll call.”

  The music went off. Then there was some slamming and thumping, but no shouting.

  He didn’t call the lawyer the next day. He thought he would try talking to them one more time first. He went down in the evening, before Morgan got home, and knocked. The door was ajar; it just opened as he knocked. He stepped in and called hello.

  He could tell from the echo of his voice the basement apartment was empty. It smelled bad, like a public washroom.

  The fluorescent light was on in the kitchen area, bringing out all sorts of beige and grey stains on the walls and carpet. One of the kitchen cabinet doors was off its hinges and splintered. There was an ashtray and some empty Coke cans and nothing else.

  He went into the empty bedroom. There was a garbage bag full of what looked like clothes. Hangers everywhere. It was here that it smelled the worst.

  There was a dark stain on the carpet in the corner. He did not bend down over it to decide what it was. He switched off the lights and left.

  That evening, Morgan was triumphant. “And of course they left just before the end of the month, perfect timing, so they got two whole free months off us. They knew what they were doing.”

  “I so don’t care about the money,” said Tracy. “I’m just so relieved we didn
’t have to go to a lawyer. It probably actually saved us money.”

  “And now they know exactly when we’re home and when we’re not. And so do all their friends.”

  “Oh come on,” said Tracy. “They’re not thieves.”

  “How do you know?”

  “How do you know they are?”

  She left the room. But she was only hanging her bicycle helmet up. She came back in with a hair elastic in her mouth. “I don’t know,” she hissed through her teeth. She was twisting her hair up. “I don’t know any more.”

  Tracy began slicing an onion. He wasn’t going to encourage this conversation. If he was silent they might just not have it.

  “I mean,” she said, “it’s just intolerable. Isn’t it?”

  “What’s intolerable? They’ve gone, right?”

  “The whole situation. This whole place. Who do we get who’ll rent that place who isn’t like them?”

  “Listen, we don’t even need to rent it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He turned on the gas. He poured his oil carefully. He took his time before he said, “This is what I’ve been thinking. We just turn it into a photo studio.”

  “A photo studio.”

  “Yeah. For us. It’s great. It’s got nothing in it. It’s perfectly unrecognizable.”

  She stood as if she had to leave again. “Not that again.”

  “Well, it doesn’t have to be just that. I’d love a space to work in. Just make myself a little more, you know, professional. Are you going somewhere?”

  “I’m just getting the laundry.”

  “Well you get the laundry and we’ll talk when you can sit down for two seconds.”

  She sat. She folded her legs under her on the sofa. “I thought we couldn’t afford it.”

  “We’ll figure something out. I was still hoping we could make some money off our photos.”

  “Off me.”

  He tried a smile. “Yes. You. Off you. Off beautiful you.”

  She turned and looked out the window. And then she sighed with what sounded like genuine sadness.

  He slid his onions into the hot oil and the air filled with crackling.