Read Online The Garneau Block by Todd Babiak - Free Book Online Page A

Perlitz was her gardening friend. Once, when she had locked herself out of the house, Jeanne had come into Madison’s basement suite and they’d watched a cooking show together. Madison had babysat Katie several times, while Jeanne and Benjamin went to the theatre, the opera, the ski hill in Whitemud Creek.
    This was Madison’s special horror. It bestowed certain rights upon her. The right to feel victimized, to sulk dramatically, to surf the Internet for something more substantial than crib prices. How could these people in stiff blue cotton uniforms bleach, rake, mop, and shovel it away?

 
    15
    the block party
    S oon, the sidewalk in front of 10 Garneau was congested with the curious. Shirley Wong and Abby Weiss insisted on filling a cooler with German beer and Costco pop. David Weiss suggested pizza and Raymond Terletsky agreed it was a brilliant idea, as long as pepperoni and mushrooms were involved.
    It took several minutes for Jonas Pond to appear, his short brown hair twirled by the pillow. He stood next to Madison and yanked her ponytail. “Toot toot. So is there an exorcism going down or what?”
    â€œIt’s four in the afternoon. Did you just wake up?”
    â€œDon’t judge me, woman.”
    â€œDid you just wake up?”
    â€œI had a rehearsal last night, absolutely gruelling, for a two-hander about–you guessed it–coming out of the closet. What we really have to do is ban stupid people from getting theatre degrees. In fact, let’s set up checkpoints at all roads leading into Old Strathcona and downtown. That way…”
    â€œThey’re in the house.”
    â€œWho are?”
    â€œCleaners.”
    â€œWhat house? This house?”
    â€œYou know what, Jonas, maybe you should grab another fourteen or fifteen hours of shut-eye.”
    â€œAre those men Bolivian? The ones picking up the garbage?”
    â€œI have no idea, but they only speak Spanish. Abby tried to get some info from them, but all they can do in English is apologize.”
    â€œWell, at least they’re adapting to Canadian culture.” Jonas shook his arms, rolled his shoulders, and initiated a mouth-stretching exercise: “Pah-Teek-Hah. Pah-Teek-Hah. Joowish. Joowish. Kansas City Rollers. Boooomtown.” Then he started up the grass to speak to the workers.
    â€œWhat’s he doing?” said David Weiss, who sat in a lawn-chair with Garith on his lap. He had just returned from playingeighteen holes at the Mayfair with a party donor. “Does he know those guys?”
    â€œHe’s practising his Spanish.”
    â€œThat seems inappropriate.”
    Madison shrugged.
    â€œSit down, have a beer. It really strips some of the macabre out of this.”
    â€œI don’t want a beer, Dad.”
    â€œHey, you love beer. Come on. Tell your old man a story.”
    Madison watched the women moving rhythmically behind the upstairs window. It took two of them to mop the wood floors. On the night it happened, she hadn’t been able to see Benjamin up there with the gun. It was too dark, and the tactical unit kept everyone back. Residents of the Garneau Block weren’t allowed to be in their houses, so they huddled behind roadblocks with the media and local bystanders, drinking Sugarbowl coffee and trying to hear what Benjamin was screaming out the window.
    The last Fringe play of the festival had been earlier that evening, and afterward she and Jonas had sat in the Casa Radio Active tent drinking with a table full of actors. Since she had been nursing a cranberry juice, the competition for speaking time and attention between the drunken performers had been almost too much to take, so she daydreamed about her baby. Names she might give him or her, and whether or not she could afford one of those running strollers with the big mountain-bike tires.
    When Jonas lost the ability to deliver a coherent sentence that Sunday night, she helped him up and they started