The Garneau Block Part 36

"Listen, I know I haven't always been good to you, Jonas, but I grew up in a different era, when people like yourself were"

"Stop talking. What would I have to do?"

"Come to our meeting tomorrow and get yourself nominated. You'll need twenty-five signatures, which shouldn't be too difficult."

The trouble with being a Liberal in Alberta, thought Jonas, is everyone hates Liberals. Jonas saw himself knocking on a door and smiling artificially, like a figure skater on his way down to the ice, while a woman tossed a cup of hot chocolate into his face. "Thief! Boondoggler! Pedophile!"

Besides, the Liberals didn't exactly throw a parade of unanimity over the same-s.e.x marriage bill. "I don't know, David. Maybe I'm more of a New Democrat kind of guy."

David made a fist. "In federal politics, in Alberta, if you're anywhere left of the Conservative Party you have to be a Liberal. It doesn't matter if you're a Marxist-Leninist, a Green, or a member of the Marijuana Party. On paper, you have to be a Liberal. No matter how much it might hurt."

"What's a federal politician's salary? Ballpark?"

"With the tax advantages, we're talking six-figures. Any Liberal from Alberta who isn't a pinhead will also end up with a cabinet position. There's a lot more money in that, and travel."

"I'm not a pinhead."

"No, you aren't, Jonas. But you do get into the sauce a bit too often." David gestured at the wine gla.s.s. "It's something to think about."

"I still get hangovers so I'm not an alcoholic."

David leaned over the table. "If you decide to run, you'll have to be more discreet."

"Discreet. I can be discreet." Jonas finished his gla.s.s of wine and gestured at David to do the same. He slipped the server two twenty-dollar bills. "Let's get some air."

Jonas led David on his long way home, down Saskatchewan Drive and through campus. At a break in the trees, they spotted a couple in the valley playing golf in the snow with headlamps on.

As they walked, Jonas learned a thing or two about Liberal policy and the strict ethical guidelines that would govern politicians of his generation. With each crunchy step, Jonas felt more comfortable with the idea. It was better money than he would make as a hot tub salesman or a telephone solicitor, and he would still be performing. There might even be billboards!

It sounded lovely. Jonas wondered why he hadn't considered it before. "Why don't you run?"

"For most of my adult life I was a Liberal-hater, so they could nail me as a flip-flopper. Plus, certain political enemies of mine could make a pretty good case that I have racist views toward Aboriginals."

"Do you?"

"Absolutely not. But I did a bad thing to a homeless man."

Jonas put his arm around David. "Do you think I'll get to hang out with any Trudeaus?"

"Almost a.s.suredly."

"Which ones? They're all so adorable."

"I can't say at this time, Jonas."

"I think I'd make a top-shelf Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. Don't you?"

David stopped at 110th Street and held out his hand for Jonas to shake. "Let's just get you elected."

Together they walked through the Garneau Block. There was a new feeling of loss and resignation around the five houses. Chimneys and skylights and address numbers and strips of crown moulding would be smashed and carted off to the landfill. The old trees would be firewood by spring. Jonas and David stopped in front of 12 Garneau for another handshake and Jonas pulled him in for a hug.

"Easy, fella." David extracted himself from the hug. "I'm sober."

Jonas put his hands on his hips. "What'll we do without this place?"

David Weiss sighed and shrugged and walked up his front steps. He pulled out his keys but didn't need them. The door was unlocked.

87.

the national A WELCOME HOME RAYMOND banner hung on the wall behind Shirley Wong's television. Each letter was printed on a separate piece of white paper and the words were held together with packing tape.

"The professor made it himself," said Jonas, in Madison's ear. "I love him so much."

Madison had just arrived with her parents, and she was already settled into the best spot: between Rajinder and Jonas on the chesterfield. She wanted to hear more about the banner, and the details of his homecoming, but Raymond Terletsky appeared in front of them in a red smoking jacket. He kissed Madison's hand. "I don't think I've congratulated you yet, have I?"

"Not yet."

"Congratulations!"

"Thanks, Raymond."

"What can I get you from the bar?"

"A water'd be nice."

Raymond bounded away into the kitchen and the senior Weisses followed him. "Coming right up! Icy clean!"

Rajinder leaned forward. "I am no psychologist but..."

Jonas swirled his temple. "He's unzipped."

They were all distracted by the start of The National 's introductory music. Lines and photographs zipped across the screen. Abby clapped and perched on one of the dining room chairs next to the chesterfield. Shirley and David and Raymond filled the others.

Peter Mansbridge, in that million-dollar voice, introduced tonight's top stories. "And in our magazine..."

The residents of the Garneau Block screamed. There it was, the buffalo head. The neighbourhood. Jonas and Madison walking and talking on the block. The university president, a public relations official, the mayor.

Raymond Terletsky stood on Saskatchewan Drive with the gleaming late-afternoon city skyline behind him. At the end of her voice-over, a quick shot of the Toronto producer. "This is a story of tragedy, architecture, animal husbandry, and an historic neighbourhood in one of the most beguiling cities in Canada."

The residents applauded.

"Did you hear that?" said Jonas. "She called us beguiling. She's from Toronto and she didn't patronize us once, even gently."

"That was just the teaser." David looked around. "She has plenty of time to patronize us during the doc.u.mentary."

The first half of the program concentrated on a federal poll, oil prices, Iran, and Newfoundland, allowing the residents to gather around the dining room table and eat dips and salty snacks. Jonas announced his candidacy for the Liberal Party, which inspired another round of applause. Then Madison dropped her Royal Chinette plate when her father announced he would be the campaign manager.

"What, are you a Liberal now?"

"Really, sweetheart, a Conservative who lives in the city is a Liberal." David Weiss seemed to notice all eyes in the room on him. He lifted a triangle of pita and waved it about. "Can't I just be a man, without a label?"

In the few minutes remaining before the doc.u.mentary began, Raymond cajoled them all downstairs to look at the Garneau Block model. He had acquired several toy people to represent his neighbours. "It's not to scale, of course, because Garith is bigger than the cars."

"He's also a zebra," said David.

"So it isn't perfect. But take a good look at the model. Tonight, on The National, I have a feeling the university is going to make an announcement. A wonderful announcement."

Shirley shook her head. "What did I tell you about plans and projects?"

"But..." Raymond looked down at his hands.

"Did you hear something, Raymond?" Abby picked up the toy Abby, who stood on the lawn of 12 Garneau in a bikini. "Did the university call?"

"I had another vision last night." Raymond started back up the stairs.

The rest of the Garneau Block residents cast a final look at the model before following him. Madison was a Strawberry Shortcake with a baby frog glued on to her stomach and Rajinder was a Ken doll who had been shaded with a brown felt pen.

Abby started up the stairs and stopped and turned. "Isn't that a hate crime, the little Rajinder?"

"It may be," said Shirley. "It worries me more that he was playing with the toy people earlier, making them talk."

"It's on! Get up here!"

Everyone hurried upstairs and settled into their seats. The story began with a montage of Edmonton, and a few words about the debt-free provincial government. The surplus, the university, the new mayor, the sprawl, the centennial year, the Garneau Block.

Next came file footage of August 28th, from the site of the Fringe Festival to Benjamin Perlitz leaning out the upstairs window of 10 Garneau. Screams and demands. Nightfall and, eventually, the single shot echoing through the neighbourhood.

String music played.

"I forgot to invite Jeanne," said Shirley. "d.a.m.n it."

Following the gunshot, the doc.u.mentary veered into the past. In 1906, Premier Alexander Rutherford chose river lot five, Isaac Simpson's farm, on the south sh.o.r.e of the North Saskatchewan, to be the site of Alberta's university. Over the course of the twentieth century, the university grew until it overshadowed the adjacent Garneau neighbourhood, named after the fiery, Riel-supporting Metis who first homesteaded the land.

The producer walked through the block at night, lit eerily by the street lanterns, and said, "Some will tell you the ghost of Laurent Garneau still haunts these streets."

Jonas laughed. "Laurent Garneau. That's a made-up name."

"Who told her the ghost stuff?" said Abby.

Raymond raised his hand. "I might have."

Madison was having trouble concentrating on the doc.u.mentary, which was wholly sympathetic to the Garneau Block. Though she was moved by her father, who became teary-eyed during his interview, when the producer asked what it was like to raise a child around here.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n it, they said they weren't going to use that part," he said, crushing his plastic wine gla.s.s.

Madison was having trouble concentrating on the doc.u.mentary, and on her father's protests, because the baby inside her was executing its first somersault.

88.

an alliance of book clubs Contrary to Raymond's vision, nothing revealed in the CBC doc.u.mentary about the Garneau Block saved the neighbourhood. University officials stated that if the buffalo head were already on the site, they would reconsider. As there was currently nothing on the land that warranted cultural status, either by the city's or the university's criteria, the Garneau Block would become the Ernie Isley Centre for Veterinary Research by fall 2007.

Which was, by the way, quite a wonderful thing for the city, the province of Alberta, and for meat lovers around the world.

Friends called from all over the country to tell David Weiss they had seen him bawl. The newspaper put him on the front page. Both national papers interviewed him and all the local television outfits came to do their own stories.

During his morning walk with Garith down Whyte Avenue, strangers recognized David. An elderly woman stopped him in front of the Granite Curling Club and told him he was a "real cutie."

One of the men who slouched near Second Cup with a girl who looked to be about twelve, next to a KICK A PUNK FOR A BUCK sign, pointed at him. "Hey, are you the weather guy?"

All of this irritated David. Not only had he been forced to become a Liberal and buy a Toyota, now he was a crybaby. So far he hadn't told any of the media that he didn't mind moving nearly as much as his wife and neighbours.

While Abby and Madison scouted properties in North Glenora and Mill Creek with the real-estate agent, David hid out at home to pack. There was so much to do, as they had to get out of the house and prepare the parents-and-kids spa business for a grand opening in mid-April, but he was frozen. Not bored, but something.

In two hours of packing he filled precisely half a box of paperbacks.

In the office upstairs, underneath shelves of books, was a collection of photo alb.u.ms. Instead of stacking Saul Bellow next to Margaret Atwood, he flipped through pictures he hadn't looked at in ten years or longer. The first cla.s.ses he taught at Harry Ainley, with his beard. Family picnics at Emily Murphy Park before his own mother and father died, trips to the mountains, Madison's firstsbirthday, p.o.o.p in the potty, bathing suit, kitten, tooth, playschool, concussion. Hidden in the drawer of an old armoire, David even found a few suggestive photographs of Abby, taken in the late 1970s.

David was pleased to be alone, as the photographs inspired his second crying fit in a week. His father's straw hat, stained by his father's sweat, made him cry. Two-year-old Madison, with her sand bucket and tiny plastic shovel, made him cry harder. He lay on his back on the upstairs carpet and looked up at the moulded ceiling that would soon twist into rubble and he didn't even bother to wipe the tears.

There was a knock at the door. David hopped up and snuck behind the office door.

Another knock.

Due to an overhang that protected the front porch, David couldn't see who was at the door. So he crept down the stairs and crawled across the living room floor. The wood hurt his knees so he travelled, instead, by modified slither.

Twenty women stood in front of the house, marching to keep warm in the snow.

David went into the bathroom to splash water on his face and pat his eyes dry. Then he straightened his shoulders, cleared his throat, and opened the front door to a stirring of the crowd. The moment he appeared before them, the women began to applaud. They shook their heads and smiled. "We love you!" said one.

"Do you have the right house?"

An attractive black-haired woman nearest him on the porch, wearing a long purple jacket and a fluffy purple hat, nodded. "We have the right house, Mr. Weiss."

David noticed each of the women carried an item in her gloved hands. There was a bucking horse carving, an antique camera, a woven blanket, a stuffed Richardson's ground squirrel, a tiny rocking chair, a framed map of Edmonton. "Can I help you?"

"We're an alliance of five book clubs," said the woman in purple.