The Killing Circle

Here we are. Off in the corner, no window within stapler-throwing distance. A desk that my colleagues call the Porn Palace, on account of the teetering stacks of black video cassettes on every surface. And it is porn. It’s TV. An addictively shameful pleasure we all seem to want more of.

There’s a box of new arrivals on my chair. I’m pulling out the first offering—a reality show where Killing Circle (A-Format)-p1.qxp 12/19/08 4:53 PM Page 24 I’m promised contestants in bikinis eating live spiders—when Tim Earheart, one of the paper’s investigative reporters, claps me on the back. You’d never know it, but Tim is my best friend here. It occurs to me now with a blunt surprise that he may be my best friend anywhere.

'You got any Girls Gone Wild?” he says, rummaging through the tapes.

'Thought you were more of a documentary guy.'

'Wife’s away this week. Actually, she might not be coming back.'

'Janice left you?'

'She found out that my source on last week’s Hell’s Angels story was one of the bikers’ old ladies,” Tim says with a sad smile. 'Let’s just say I went more undercover with her than Janice was comfortable with.'

If it’s true that his most recent wife has taken off, this will be marriage number three down the tubes for Tim. He turns thirty-six next week.

'Sorry to hear that,” I say, but he’s already waving off my sympathy.

'Drinks tonight?” he says, stepping away to re-join the hectic relevance of the news department. 'Wait. It’s Valentine’s, isn’t it? You got a date?'

'I don’t date, Tim. I don’t anything.'

'It’s been a while.'

'Not so long.'

'Some would say four years is enough to—'

'Three.'

'Three years then. Eventually you’re going to have to face the fact that you’re still here, even if Tamara isn’t.'

'Trust me. I face that every day.'

Tim nods. He’s been to war zones. He knows a casualty when he sees one.

'Can I ask you something?” he says. 'You think it’s too late to ask out that new temp they’ve got down in Human Resources?'

It happened again on the walk home.

More and more these days, I’ll be in the middle of something—dashing to the corner store, pounding out the day’s word count at my desk, lining up for coffee—and the tears will come. So quiet and without warning I hardly notice.

And then today, walking along the sidewalk when I would have said 'Nothing” if asked what was on my mind, it started again. Wet streaks freezing on my cheeks.

A rhyme pops into my head. An unconsoling sing-song that carries me home.

I’m not well

I’m not well

But who in the hell

Am I going to tell?

By the time I get through the door, Sam’s already finished his dinner and Emmie, the nanny, is drying him from his bath. Another irretrievable moment missed. I like bathtime with Sam more than any other part of the day. A little music. Epic sea battles waged with rubber ducks and old toothbrushes. All of it leading to bed. To stories.

'I’ll take him,” I tell Emmie, and she opens the towel she has wrapped around him. He rushes out of his cocoon and into my arms. A soapy angel.

I get him into pajamas. Open the book we’re working through. But before I start reading, he studies me for a moment. Places a palm against my forehead.

'What do you think, doc? Am I going to make it?'

'You’ll live,” he says.

'But it’s serious?'

'I’m not sure. Is it?'

'Nothing I can’t handle.'

'I don’t want you to be sad.'

'I miss your mom sometimes. That’s all. It’s normal.'

'Normal.'

'More or less.'

Sam purses his lips. He’s not sure whether to buy my pinched grin or not. The thing is, he needs me to be okay. And for him, I’ll stay as okay as I can.

He yawns. Squirms in close, his head against my throat so that he can feel the vibrations of the words to come. Jabs his finger at the pages I hold open.

'Where were we?'

Once Sam is asleep it’s down to the basement office. What Tamara used to call the Crypt. Which is a little too accurate to be wholly amusing. A low-ceilinged room that was a winemaking cellar for the previous owner. Even now, I can catch whiffs of fermented grapes. It makes me think of feet.

This is where I watch the tapes. A notebook on my knee, remote control in my hand.

I’m just three minutes into the spider-eating bikini babes when I hit Pause. Dig out of my pocket the ad I clipped from today’s classifieds.

Tell the Story of Your Life

Open your soul. Bring your buried words to the page in this intensive workshop with Conrad White, published poet and novelist. Truly write. Write the truth.

I’ve never heard of Conrad White. Never attended a writers’ workshop, circle, night class or retreat. It’s been years since I’ve tried to write anything other than what I am contractually obliged to. But something about this day—about the taste of the air in this very room—has signalled that something is coming my way. Has already come.

I call the number at the bottom of the ad. When a voice at the other end asks me what he can do for me, I answer without hesitation.

'I want to write a book,” I say.

2

People read less today than they used to. You’ve seen the studies, you’ve got teenagers, you’ve been to the mall—you know this already. But here’s something you may not know:

The less people read, the more they want to write.

Creative writing workshops—within universities, libraries, night schools, mental hospitals, prisons—are the true growth industry in the inkbased sector. Not to mention the ad hoc circles of nervy aspirants, passing round their photocopied bundles. Each member claiming to seek feedback but secretly praying for a collective declaration of brilliance.

And now I’m one of them.

The address the voice on the phone gave me is in Kensington Market. Meetings to be held every Tuesday