Dead Voices Read online

  DEAD

  VOICES

  ESSENTIAL PROSE SERIES 156

  Guernica Editions Inc. acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. The Ontario Arts Council is an agency of the Government of Ontario.

  We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada.

  DEAD

  VOICES

  F.G. Paci

  TORONTO • BUFFALO • LANCASTER (U.K.)

  2019

  Copyright © 2019, F.G. Paci and Guernica Editions Inc.

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise stored in a retrieval system, without the prior consent of the publisher is an infringement of the copyright law.

  Michael Mirolla, editor

  David Moratto, cover and interior design

  Guernica Editions Inc.

  1569 Heritage Way, Oakville, (ON), Canada L6M 2Z7

  2250 Military Road, Tonawanda, N.Y. 14150-6000 U.S.A.

  www.guernicaeditions.com

  Distributors:

  University of Toronto Press Distribution,

  5201 Dufferin Street, Toronto (ON), Canada M3H 5T8

  Gazelle Book Services, White Cross Mills

  High Town, Lancaster LA1 4XS U.K.

  First edition.

  Printed in Canada.

  Legal Deposit – First Quarter

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2018963268

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Paci, F. G. (Frank G.), author

  Dead voices & other stories / F.G. Paci.

  (Essential prose series ; 156)

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-77183-318-9 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-77183-319-6 (EPUB).

  --ISBN 978-1-77183-320-2 (Kindle)

  I. Title. II. Title: Dead voices and other stories.

  PS8581.A24D43 2019 C813’.54 C2018-906388-2 C2018-906389-0

  Contents

  Hot Stove

  Bookman Goes Batty

  Dead Voices

  Prime Time Challenge

  Nick and Francesco Visit Canada

  Johnny Reno Does Manhattan

  Recon Radio

  The Switch

  The Hearing

  Z Goes Shopping

  About the Author

  Hot Stove

  Mark wolfed down his lunch in the staff room and walked down the hallway to Mike Corelli’s office. He was in his teaching fatigues of grey khakis, a blue tie-less shirt, and a black leather vest, with his pepper and salt hair buzzed down to the minimum.

  These days the school was a battle zone. In order to keep a vigilant eye for land mines and enemy fire at all times, one had to be calm and collected. What the boys called solid. At the present moment, however, he wasn’t. He was on edge, somewhere between angry and disgusted. Angry would be too noble for the setting and situation and disgusted would too ignoble for his character and image. On edge would be closer. About halfway between the joke they called a school and his inextricable involvement in the joke.

  He was on edge for having to live a lie every day, for not being appreciated by a son who loathed him for all the compromises he had made, to use his son’s word — though one had to hear him say it with his ever present sneer, mouthing it as if it reeked of fertilizer. On edge for having to play his wise-cracking clown self with the staff. On edge for having to listen to Mike’s pious announcements each morning over the PA and having to attend Mass with his classes every so often and sit through sermons rendered by smug idiots in vestments who thought they were conveying pearls of wisdom. On edge for sitting through ridiculous Department meetings headed by a woman so officious in her duties her smarmy English accent drove him up a wall.

  The one thing he had to look forward to was Hot Stove League where the guys crapped on appearances and compromises, where they were who they were — with no bullshit.

  Every so often one of the five from the staff hockey team would call a Hot Stove meeting and they’d shuffle into Mike’s office during the long common lunch and make as if they were still in the dressing room in their skivvies, putting on the pads and armour of battle, lacing on the skates, getting ready for the big game.

  In Hot Stove they’d forget they were teachers, fathers, husbands, compromisers, bullshit artists, or whatever else they normally functioned as, and became soldiers, predators, hunters, warriors — a bunch of old-timers who had seen their glory years long ago and still laced up the skates for the love of the game. Hot Stove was their way of keeping the embers warm after the season, keeping the dressing room spirit alive, shooting the shit — as real shit instead of pious shit — and swapping hockey lore, and cutting their ties to the world of fakery and compromise.

  The first time Mark had played for the team he had forgotten how the guys were in the dressing room. It had been a long time since his university years when he had last laced on the skates, and even then he was but a shadow of his prowess as a kid. It was as if he had entered another world. Like the years he had played shinny on the outdoor rink in his industrial neighbourhood, freeze his ass off, and then come into the wooden shack with the pot-bellied stove and thaw out and hear the guys being guys.

  Though he had been a quiet kid and never swore, he’d always feel at home in the shack with the guys who respected his talents on the ice. He could still smell the wood and see the glow of the black stove, on which they’d throw snow from their sticks and skates and watch it sizzle.

  Through the years, with the changes in staffing, he had seen players come and go. At one time he was part of the Lit Line, three guys in the English Department who could actually play hockey. It was an anomaly they never tired of bragging about. Since then the other two guys, Tony Chan and John Perlini, had transferred out of the school and he had been left alone to defend the gates of civilization and culture against the barbarian hordes.

  Every so often anyone could be walking by Mike’s office and join them. They could be students or staff members, the custodial staff, the Educational Resource Workers, or the Spec Ed kids — anyone who didn’t take himself or herself too seriously.

  They also called themselves the Original Six, in loyalty to the guys who had stuck it out through thick and thin, even though one of them had left.

  Though he wasn’t as dedicated to hockey as the other guys, he could feel the chains of his slavery melting away when he stepped into Hot Stove. The guys were merciless in their jibes, their criticisms, their honesty. And he liked nothing better than to engage in battle with them and give them the gears. His self-appointed mission was to steer their passion for hockey, wittingly or otherwise, into more noble channels. He was out to lift them from being mere jester-jocks, he told them, to scholar-athletes who could cite Plato and Rocky Balboa while digging their skates into the ice and snapping a hard one top shelf. In this gargantuan endeavour he was aided by Mike, who himself had intellectual pretensions along with his jock pedigree.

  “We may have started as jocks,” Mike had told the guys once, “but the Professor and I have risen out of our lowly hockey upbringing to blaze a trail through the literary world.”

  Mike never missed an opportunity to remind them of his mental virtuosity in order to offset his lack of talent in goal. Along with being the chaplain, he was the acknowledged school jester, a guy who could go from churchmouse-serious to dressing-room-jokester in a heartbeat. Long gone were the days when the chaplain of the school was a priest, a guy with a black suit and a collar and on a different plane of existence. Though Mike was pious enough when the occasion warranted, he was solid as well, just one of the guys in and out of the dressing room.
br />   Mark was unmistakably the least talented on the team. The boys didn’t mind, however. As long as you could lace up the skates and give it a go and laugh at yourself, you were a member of the club. And he gave the team its intangible weapon, they said. While Mike was their Catholic prophylactic, their holey goalie in a mask, he was their literary mascot, their grey-beard, their Billy Shakes on skates. It was all about having some fun on the ice and then having a few beers afterwards, as Jamie said. But Jamie had been good enough, in his early years, to have played in the O and was only in his late thirties and was still damn good on his skates.

  As a team they played against the cops and the firefighters for charity events at Christmas and Easter in the hockey arena a stone throw from the school. They had the most fun, however, at tournaments in Brampton against other school teams.

  After him in age came Marty, who taught biology and chemistry and was chock-full of hockey lore. He had been an usher as a kid in the old Maple Leaf Gardens and had seen plenty of NHL games, not to mention OHL and other pro leagues. He could give them little stories of Harold Ballard and the Leafs teams when it was like soap opera in the old arena. Though his skills on the ice had long deteriorated, Marty could still play a decent game. He was in good shape, lean and bony, with dark hair and a fiveo’clock shadow at noon. He was also no slouch in his academic creds, having acquired a doctorate in biology.

  Mike, who was in his mid-forties, was of average height and a little soft at the waist, with a shock of straight black hair going to grey, and a mischievous grin. He was married and had two kids. A movie nut and a great fan of the Stooges, he often sported a Three Stooges tie as a badge of his calling. When he stood at the lectern addressing the student body in the gym before a Mass he’d crack a few jokes, keeping the kids in good cheer, and then get them serious by reminding them in a solemn voice that they were now in a church. Mike could make even the most dour student smile with his humour and playful disposition. In goal he wore these ancient brown pads that he got from Johnny Bower, he claimed, and flopped around like a fish out of water, every so often making a fantastic save as if by divine providence. He wasn’t just a goalie and jester-chaplain, however. Just recently he had been granted a doctorate, after many years of study, on the noted Canadian Jesuit theologian, Bernard Lonergan. Mark had read his dissertation on pastoral care, and every so often he and Mike would meet to discuss the finer points of theology. To keep in the know, Mark himself had done some study on Lonergan.

  Next in age was Wally Thorburn, who taught Math and was in his early forties and happily married with three young kids. Wally played hockey in the old-timers industrial league, coached the boys’ and then the girls’ team, was a dedicated Leafs fan, and was raising his kids, two of whom were girls, to be hockey fanatics. Like Mike, he was well-liked, had a fun-loving disposition, and was able to let the politics of the school slide off his back. He reminded Mark of a cross between the young John Wayne — with his lean good looks and his short brown hair — and Fred Astaire, with his jaunty walk. Mark told him he was the only guy who could feel at home riding the range and get off his horse and take Ginger over the dance floor in a two-step.

  The walk was everything. Mike walked on the balls of his feet, slanting forward, like the irrepressible French film comic, Jacques Tati. Marty walked upright on solid feet, slow and ponderous, as if nothing could faze him. And, Jamie, the youngest in their group, walked like a cross between a ballet dancer and jungle cat.

  Jamie was the most physically imposing in their group and, indeed, in the whole school. He stood six-four, with a hard-muscled body, a chiselled face and square jaw that was topped with a lick of black hair, and the widest grin imaginable. He had a lot to smile about. Besides having the body that he kept buffed with constant work-outs, he had a glow about him, that great athlete’s sense of confidence that could make any physical challenge look easy, not to mention a mind that wasn’t too shabby either. Hockey hadn’t even been his first sport. After playing a little in Junior A, he had been a star in varsity football, a quarterback who could’ve gone pro if not for a serious knee injury.

  The students called him Superman. He had come dressed as the superhero on Halloween one year, with the whole shebang — the cape, the blue tights, the big logo, and the red shoes — and looked so not-out-of-place in the costume that the name had stuck. Of the five of them, Jamie was the only one not married. Jamie didn’t have to get married, he said. He was getting laid so easily he didn’t have to bother. He taught Phys Ed and a little Religion.

  Mike’s little office was adjacent to the chapel and down the hallway from the Phys Ed Office and gym. If the group got too large, however, they’d adjourn to the chapel next door, which was bright and airy and looked over the back lot of the football field.

  In late September they were all anticipating the start of the NHL season and the upcoming hockey pool, an annual event that was set up by the Commissioner, Wally, and his Co-commissioner of Hockey Operations, Marty. In matters of hockey, Marty sometimes deferred to Wally. In everything else, Marty deferred to no one.

  Mike’s office door was always kept open. He was in dress pants with his Three Stooges tie and a blue sweater and sneakers, sitting at his desk, looking at some paper work.

  “How-do, Professor,” he said. “I’m just getting some forms ready for the retreat.”

  Mark chose one of the two padded seats. The other two were wooden chairs from the chapel. Mike had a small book shelf for his theology and pastoral care books and bibles. An unadorned wooden cross hung over his desk, which was littered with paper and books.

  “Anything to report?” Mark asked him.

  “You mean before the plebs arrive?”

  He thought of taking some of the edge off by lifting his mind out of the petty and into the noble. Just the past week they had discussed something taboo in the school, the nature of the Deity. Mark had tried to convince Mike that when Homer spoke about the Greek gods on the battlefield of Ilium, he didn’t mean actual people who lived on Mount Olympus or in the clouds, as depicted in the movies. In his joker’s tone, he said that when the Bible writers said that the Lord Yahweh or Adonai or HaShem spoke to the Israelites, they didn’t actually mean they heard a voice from out of nowhere. It wasn’t meant literally, Mark said, because the Lord was the poetic embodiment of their identity as a people. If the Israelites needed to be war-like, the Lord spoke to them and told them to slaughter their enemies, including all the children. If they needed to be solid and strong as a people, the Lord told them to be loyal and follow the Torah. If they needed to be loving and peaceful, the Lord spoke to them as a loving and peaceful Father. If they sinned and became disloyal and worshipped other gods, the Lord told them by voice or by prophet, to shape up.

  No way, Mike said. It wasn’t poetry at all. It was dead serious. He used some of the terms from his mentor, by way of Aristotle and Aquinas and Whitehead, to speak of a transcendent reality, whatever that was. Mark tried to convince him that the Catholic theologians, in trying to get away from the Biblical God, had drained the Deity of poetic-blood, and that the power of language could only be lived through its poetry.

  When they went over the issue again, however, before the others arrived, the pressure got the better of them. As soon as Wally sauntered in with his wry grin, they stopped on cue.

  “You guys talking shit again?” Wally said. “Borrring.”

  “If it isn’t the Commish himself,” Mike said. “The self-appointed leader of the Hockey World. The Commissioner of Pools and Recreation. The Pooh-Bah of plebeian reality.”

  “You can’t block my shots with those big words, buddy. You’re like a Shooter Tutor, man, a board with so many holes in it I can put anything by you with a simple wrist shot.”

  “You see how he sees the world through hockey eyes, Professor? I’ll bet he conceived his kids on ice.”

  “How the fuck do you do that?” Jamie said, barging in as he usually did. He was in his track pants and a tight sch
ool maroon polo shirt, showing off his physique and biceps.

  “With frozen sperm,” Mark said. “Delivered low and hard on the stick side.”

  “Oh, OK, I see. He bulged the twine. He put it in between the pubes. And he got a hat trick, eh, Wally?” Jamie said, giving out a boisterous chuckle.

  Marty was always the last to arrive. He was casually attired in loose khakis and a short-sleeve shirt, his dark visage already showing a shadow of a beard. With his aplomb, he sat down on the remaining chair like a duke in his castle.

  “How-do, Marty,” Mike said.

  “Gravitas has arrived,” Marty announced with his wry grin.

  “If you’re gravitas, I’m hilaritas,” Jamie said.

  The first order of business was the upcoming NHL pool draft. Wally negotiated the time and the venue. He wanted a larger turnout this year, however. He was expecting them to recruit more females into the action. The ladies appreciated his humour much more than the guys.

  “Jamie,” he said, “can’t you get some of your women friends on staff to come in?”

  “Take off, eh, Commish. No way. They’re all pissed off at me.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I bang them and leave’m, that’s why.”

  “Oh, fuck, here we go,” Marty said, shaking his head. “Let’s not go there, fellas, OK.”

  “How many has it been, Superman?” Wally asked him.

  “I don’t wanna brag.”

  “You’ve already bragged,” Marty said, his eyes narrowed. “We’re only establishing the numbers now. And this is supposed to be a Catholic school.”

  “Hey, Catholic girls are bunnies like anyone else. And I’ve been ordained as a love-priest to take care of the bunnies for Easter. Are we solid on that?”

  “We’re solid, Superman,” Mike Corelli said with a big grin. “But we other mere mortals have been ordained to remain loyal to our woman of choice and we need to derive vicarious enjoyment from your amazing exploits. Tell us what it’s like to bang’em and leave’em. Help us to re-live our former glory between the sheets.”