Read Online The Book of Stanley by Todd Babiak - Free Book Online Page B

apart now. Kal had spent fifty dollars on dumber things. There was a sheen on the woman’s stomach, from oil, perhaps, or sweat. Or moisturizer–this was Saskatchewan, after all. She smiled and nodded, and turned to collect her clothes.
    To Kal’s disappointment, she did not take her time getting dressed. She pulled on her yoga pants and her shirt, and dished him a queenly wave.
    Kal sighed. “I want to thank you for everything you did for me here.”
    The entertainer cleared the phlegm from her throat. “Say hi to God for me, when you find him.”

 
    TWELVE
    â€œP repare yourself,” as uttered by Abdelahi the cab driver, gurgled and echoed in the bedroom as Kal tried to sleep. Since his return from Kelowna, he had been waiting for an agent of change to appear. It would be a woman, he thought. One of those new tough-lady NHL scouts in a grey skirt and blazer, chewing gum and making fierce eye contact. Or someone from the broadcasting industry looking for an honest and handsome, but not fancy, colour man. But the agent had not come.
    Now Kal suspected she would never come, that he had prepared himself defectively for the coming change in his life. The bedroom window was open and the night was cool. Kal was too lazy, or stunned by anxiety, to get up and close it. As dawn broke, Kal reflected on Abdelahi’s words and realized there was a fair chance he was going crazy. One of his team-mate’s older brothers, a completely normal young man apart from a compulsion to masturbate in public, had apparently turned into a schizophrenic overnight. Now he was on drugs, a drooler, living in some halfway house in New Brunswick.
    Or, or , maybe Kal had a brain tumour. Maybe he was turning homosexual. That certainly would have explained his new and shocking lack of interest in pornography and video games.
    Kal did not wait for his alarm to sound. Shortly after six he showered and prepared himself : he filled a large backpack with clothing and zipped up his jacket. It was cold andbright outside, a typical spring morning in the prairies. The city felt as though it had hardened overnight. A sort of shellac had been brushed over the stout buildings and thirsty old trees. Dogs barked. An airplane ascended for the trip west to Alberta. Kal walked toward the river, past the playground and park benches to Gabriel Dumont Park with its fake Métis village. Long before Kal had arrived in Saskatoon, this had been the site of a dump. Now it was a collection of short trees and shrubs along the twinkling South Saskatchewan, with a canoe launch and play village. Once, before Kal had met Candace, he’d pretended to be Métis in order to impress and have sex with a Blackfoot girl he’d met at a hockey camp in Lethbridge. Unfortunately, his ruse failed. The Blackfoot girl had been saving herself for men of greater means and potential.
    Birds were out in great numbers. Kal was one of the few people on the paths that morning. He passed a homeless man and a couple of veiny joggers and ventured over the shrubbery to the muddy bank of the river. Standing by the gurgling water, he closed his eyes, shut out all his thoughts, and listened. Sparrows. Water. Wind in tall grass. The distant freeway.
    Kal walked back to Broadway, found a cab, and rode to Credit Union Centre with the back windows open. He had hoped Abdelahi might still be working, so together they could explore the true meaning of “Prepare yourself.” But this morning, the cab driver was an obese white fellow who smelled of feta cheese that had been left on the counter too long.
    At the vibrating bus parked in front of the arena, coach Dale Loont stood with his arms crossed. “Where you been?”
    â€œI took a walk along the river.”
    â€œYou took a walk along the river.”
    â€œI took a walk along the river.”
    Dale Loont looked up at the blue blue sky. There were plenty of strong chins out there but Dale Loont had a