The Slip. Mark Sampson
and a low table in front of us. Raj seemed impressed by the aura of the place: the tastefully exposed brick; the warm mahogany woodwork; the beige piano in the corner; the separate menu for craft beer. I borrowed his cellphone — I don’t do cellphones — and he helped me send a text to Grace: Hi, it’s Philip. At Stout with friend Raj. Back later. Soon, a young, attractive waitress came by — “Hello, Professor, great to see you again,” she said with authentic enthusiasm — and we ordered a couple of pints from the cask. When they came, Raj and I cheered each other and then I downed nearly half of mine in a single gulp, dribbling a bit onto the top of my Payless when I returned the glass to the table. The waitress was right on it, coming by with a napkin so I could wipe up, then took it away with a sunny “No problem” when I finished.
“You know,” I said after she was out of earshot, “that was the first time today a woman has been kind to me.”
Raj laughed. “Oh really?”
“Yeah.” I squeezed the bridge of my nose once more. “I had a terrible fight with Grace before I left the house today.”
“Dude.”
“That’s why I was such a mess on camera.”
“Dude, look.” And he gave my knee a manly shake. “Try not to worry about it, okay? Maybe it’s not as bad as you think.”
I looked at him. “Are you kidding? Raj, this is a huge blow to me intellectually. I mean, I’m supposed to be a leading expert on Immanuel Kant. I’m supposed to know what it means to talk about the categorical imperative, about universal law — law that applies to everyone in every circumstance. What I said was the worst example of the hypothetical imperative I can imagine. This idea that we would imprison certain people and then think up a reason why, and do it out of spite. Do you know what I mean?” He didn’t seem to, but he let me continue. So I talked about these ideas as we ordered food and more pints. Talked about them as we ate and drank. Was still talking about them long after the waitress had cleared away our plates and we ordered yet more pints.
“I’m sorry,” I finally said to him, “to go on like this.”
“It’s okay.”
“Tell me what’s new in your world. Where are you living these days?”
“I’m back on the Danforth,” he grinned. “Rented myself a sweet little place out near Donlands. Big kitchen; open porch at ground level out front. You should come out and see it sometime.”
“I’d like that. And will you be at the CBC long term, do you think?”
He chortled. “Fuck no. Is anyone? More budget cuts are coming and I’ll be gone. I’ll go freelance for a while until I can figure out what to do next.”
Ah, the peripatetic life of a confirmed free spirit. I marvelled again at how Raj’s unbridled existence seemed to infuse him with a youthfulness that had long abandoned me. Over the next two pints he told me about various “gigs” he’d had prior to taking this latest contract with our alleged public broadcaster: the trip to Asia to film a documentary about Japanese whiskey-making; a sojourn to Alabama for some corporate videos and the after-hours run-in with bona fide members of the KKK; the Guelph start-up that paid him obscene amounts of money to film some CollegeHumor knock-offs, only to fold a month later. Through it all, Raj seemed fearless in the face of not knowing where his next paycheque would come from. And as I vicariously lived through his adventures, I felt the slightest pang of remorse that I was now safely institutionalized — institutionalized, perhaps, in more ways than one.
“And have you seen Henry around much?” I asked him during a lull.
Raj gave a derisive snort. “No. That guy got married. Now I never see him. Kind of like you.”
“Hey now!”
“Just kidding. It pisses me off, is all. Henry used to be such a good journalist, you know. One of the best in the city. I mean, he did that killer interview with you for the Star when your book on Islam came out.”
“This is true.”
“And now what’s he doing? Nothing. Fucking corporate communications. What can I say about that guy? Henry got fat and boring and, now, fucking married. I don’t even recognize him anymore. He’s well on his way to moving to the suburbs and becoming one of these lobotomized Stepford husbands who, like, helps his wife around the house and talks to his kids and shit. I mean, I can’t relate to someone like that.”
“No, obviously,” I said with shifty eyes. I chuckled at his clever term, since I knew the type well. Grace was always inviting her friends over — a cheery cabal of cocksure feminists with their affably dull Stepford husbands in tow — for brunch. I remained engaged in their table banter only because these men found so many interesting ways to be uninteresting. Thankfully, Grace did not insist I comport to their behaviour. She was just grateful if I still blew below the legal limit by the cantaloupe course.
Wait.
That was it.
Brunch. Brunch! Brunch! Brunch! That’s what we were doing on Sunday. We were hosting yet another brunch, and had invited my literary agent over in the hopes that she might look at Grace’s new children’s book. Of course. This fact re-emerged in my mind, as solid as a cinder block.
Raj looked at me queerly. “You’re having a whole conversation over there, aren’t you — all by yourself.”
“Sorry, I have to go,” I said. “Let’s get the bill. I have to go.”
Out on Parliament Street, Raj and I hugged and then parted company — he walking northward to Castle Frank Station, and me hoofing my way home. I didn’t know then that he had pulled out his phone to check Facebook as he went, and, when he did, saw something there that twisted his face into a rictus of panic. He told me later that he had thought of doubling back to find me, or at least calling out my name down the street. I probably wouldn’t have heard him anyway, caught up as I was in the mental airstreams of my triumph, a parallax of pure, sweet recollection.
I got back to 4 Metcalfe Street to find it dark, the little stained-glass window above our door like an extinguished lamp, the eaves above it pregnant with shadows. Grace and the girls had clearly gone to bed. What hour was it, anyway? I wandered into the kitchen, opened the fridge absently. Moved to the dining-room table, took a quick flip through the day’s papers. Then I staggered upstairs to our bedroom, ready to face my fate. But stepping in to the faint light of a street lamp coming through our curtained window, I could see Grace was asleep on her side of the bed, her back turned to me. I was suddenly awash in guilt. As penance, I didn’t even bother to go brush my teeth in the ensuite. Just stripped my clothes off and onto the floor, then crawled in next to her.
Tuesday, November 3
I must confess I don’t really get the Facebook. Sorry — Facebook. Grace corrects me every time, grinning impishly at my occasional inclusion of the definite article as evidence of my fuddyduddiness and outoftouchitude. Yes, I have a Facebook account and yes, I have “friends.” Mind you, I don’t as a policy accept friend requests from strangers, current students, former students who have not yet graduated, any of my colleagues in the Philosophy department, or fellow authors whose books I’ve hated. I don’t quite grasp how all the notifications work, and I only visit the site a couple times a week. This, according to Grace, makes me anti-social. She has 1,382 “friends.” I have 46.
Which made what happened in the morning all the more baffling. I wish I could say I awoke feeling ebullient and ready to put the previous day’s unpleasantness behind me, only to be dragged into the muck by what I discovered when I checked my email. But this was not true. I awoke feeling like a shithead, and had my shitheadedness confirmed when I staggered up to my office desk, turned on my laptop, and discovered I had received eighty-seven notifications from Facebook in the last fourteen hours. This, I figured, was roughly the same number I had received in total since joining the social network in 2009.
I hunkered down and started scrolling. My inbox was flooded with names