John Tavares
It was the summer of lockdowns, social distancing, face masks. The coronavirus pandemic had paralyzed the economy and disrupted Robert’s regular, orderly office routine. During the incredible capital markets volatility associated with the pandemic, he used all the cash in his tax-free savings account, his retirement savings accounts, and his other savings accounts to buy undervalued stocks, particularly in the oil and gas sector.
After earning an incredible amount of profits from trading stocks during the pandemic, Robert decided to retire from the financial services industry, having spent twenty-five years as a financial advisor. He liked to think of himself as a stockbroker, but the profession and the industry had evolved since he first entered the business. He was no longer certain how he should consider or regard his work, in wealth management, although he had to admit that fees and commissions were lucrative. Robert tried not to take his position and renumeration for granted.
Char’s son had also died during the pandemic. Char didn’t care to discuss the particulars and details of her son’s death; she casually mentioned in an offhand manner her twentysomething son died suddenly, abruptly, and unexpectedly, and, when he pressed her for details, she became upset.
Robert couldn’t help receiving the impression that he had died from some form of foul play. He also received the impression that it seemed likely he had died in an overdose. Other times, she gave him the impression, though, that he had died in a jet ski accident. In fact, she gave him her son’s jet ski, which she bought for her son’s twenty-second birthday.
Robert received an estimate of the cash value of the jet ski from a dealer and authorized reseller at a cottage country marina. He sent her fifteen thousand dollars through an e-transfer. He supposed she gave him the jet ski as compensation for the car he gave her, but the car was a gift, a genuine gift. Char seemed to have no objection to the cash he wired her. He took over her son’s docking space at the marina for the jet-ski. Then Char ghosted him.
Robert heard from another associate at work that Char was now dating an emergency physician who had been involved in the care of her son around the time he died. He felt neutral about the breakup or ghosting or whatever the correct term was to refer to the schism that occurred. He only knew he felt a sense of relief that he finally had some free time on his hands since it seemed Char was happiest when she received the most attention. Maybe the fact that he couldn’t provide enough attention and love was what caused her to look elsewhere.
He decided that now was the optimal time to retire from his position as a financial advisor, or investment advisor, although he preferred the term stockbroker. But his supervisor at the investment firm emphasized that he was free to come back to work for the firm and his former clients at any time. He appreciated that option, since he really didn’t know if he was prepared to retire in his early fifties. Still, he decided he would try to explore the city of Toronto by jet ski. But in the back of his mind, he considered another objective.
Robert truly wanted to explore the city, its park areas, and its recreation trails—the entire Toronto waterfront, where the city met the shoreline of deep, cold Lake Ontario, the view of which was crowded out from most Toronto residents, by the massive array of high-rise buildings, at the lower fringes of the sprawling city that hugged the shoreline of Lake Ontario.
He was also thinking about his disabled brother from whom he had become estranged. He had heard from his cousin, who had rented his brother a basement room, that his younger brother liked to spend summer on Toronto beaches swimming and reading books. Apparently, though, he went to a different park every warm or hot summer day, rain or shine.
Robert wouldn’t have been surprised if it was due to his mental illness and paranoia, believing he was followed. James was probably the smartest person he knew, but he suffered from paranoia and delusions. He wouldn’t be surprised if he still believed he was being followed and under surveillance by the Toronto police and the RCMP.
Hence, he went to a different park beach on Lake Ontario every day. He figured that now that he was retired it was about time he attempted to initiate contact with his estranged and long-lost brother. He wanted to give him some of his money now that he felt he had so much of it. After all, he profited tremendously from the volatility in the capital markets associated with the pandemic.
Robert decided he wanted to help James find a good apartment as opposed to a room in a crowded rooming house filled with other impoverished persons or people with mental illness. His brother was on a pension, disability support payments. From what he understood, James barely received enough in a month to pay for the rent and groceries.
Robert wanted to reconcile with James. He wanted to act altruistically, like a brother, and help change his life—maybe even buy him a condo. He decided he would explore the city beaches and attempt to find him, since apparently the beaches were his brother’s favorite hideout. For some peculiar reason, James also enjoyed swimming in Lake Ontario.
Robert had even seen several years ago a news clip, widely broadcast, showing James drifting serenely, swimming, dog paddling, far from the shoreline, deep in the chilly water of Lake Ontario, a video clip from a heat wave that was broadcast alongside amused commentary from the news correspondent and weather forecaster.
Robert decided at about that time he needed to reconnect with his brother. He trained himself to drive and operate a jet ski. He had far more fun and thrills than he ever expected. Robert and his brother had moved to the city together after they graduated from high school to attend college. Neither of them really expected much or saw much of the city beyond college and their neighborhood. Then they started to experience their disagreements, their differences, their spats, as their sibling relationship became strained, and they became estranged.
In any event, Lake Ontario and the waterfront had been an unexpected pleasure for Robert. He imagined his brother had had a similar experience as he explored the city, if that was possible or conceivable, considering the number of medications he took.
Robert rode his jet ski to Marie Curtis Park. After he parked his watercraft on the sandy shoreline at the edge of the park, he strolled about the sandy beach, which was crowded with swimmers and sunbathers. He thought he saw his brother reading a book on the history of the CIA. This man had to be his brother; he looked virtually identical to him. A book on the CIA was exactly the type of text he would opt to read.
When Robert noticed him, and made eye contact with him, he became visibly startled. James, in return, packed his beach towel and book into his backpack, donned his khaki pants over his board shorts, and hurried away out of the park.
Robert felt disappointed and out of order—indeed, out of sorts. Robert sat on the beach reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, a pocketbook given to him by his brother on his birthday during the first year they had lived together after they moved to Toronto. He had been intending to read this runaway bestseller, about which he had been warned, for the longest time.
Then he helped a nurse off duty revive a young man who had overdosed on the beach. The head of human resources at their regional office insisted they carry naloxone kits wherever they went, if only for public relations reasons. Their office building was located next to a park where plenty of overdoses occurred.
Robert was probably the only staffer who carried the naloxone kit. What invariably happened was Robert, who enjoyed walks and hikes all around the city, to stay fit and try to maintain his mental health, had the kit when he came across an individual who overdosed. But usually someone else on the scene, with healthcare experience, used the naloxone dose to revive the person who overdosed, although sometimes he intervened himself. Robert kept asking the human resources officers and executives for new naloxone kits.
After the HR department became concerned, Robert explained, and the chief HR officer seemed disturbed that Robert utilized a naloxone kit to save a destitute addict’s life from an opioid overdose. He tried to explain to her that not all addicts were destitute—the worst sin in wealth management was poverty—but she stopped ordering the kits and distributing them. She said the kits had been intended as consciousness raising devices as well as an educational measure; they were not intended to promote or practice any political activism. Robert shrugged and decided he would take the initiative himself, as was his practice during his entire career at the investment firm.
Robert found a healthcare website on the Internet where he could order the naloxone kits for a reasonable price, and he bought several dozen. The more lives he could save the better he would feel. The experience made him feel as if he had fulfilled some personal mandate in life—when he offered, at a critical juncture, a First Aid kit, with naloxone, which he bought with his own personal funds, and this antidote was used to save a life.
This experience felt rewarding even if, as happened once, a nurse said, with disappointment, after she revived the man in denim cutoffs and a muscle shirt, on the beach, he was a junkie, with a despicable character. Then, he realized, after he had conversed with the woman further, she was an off duty nurse, trying to enjoy the sun and heat of a beautiful summer day, by tanning on the beach on Lake Ontario. That was after she and Robert separately happened upon a man whom she had treated previously in the emergency department of the hospital after he overdosed at an after party.
Robert continued to explore the beaches, parking his jet ski along the shoreline, reading a pocketbook while he sipped an energy drink. Then he went strolling about the beach in search of his long lost sibling. He thought he spotted James at Sunnyside Park, but then he disappeared like a mirage.
Then he figured he found him wearing a button-down shirt and nothing else at the clothing optional beach at Hanlan’s Point. Robert had just finished strolling along the shoreline of the beach from the airport to the southernmost point. Everywhere he went on the clothing optional beach people seemed offended at his gaze.
Robert realized he had been missing much when he had essentially no social life until he became friends with Char, a woman he dated after a hiatus from the dating scene that lasted for decades. He could easily acknowledge he was socially awkward and inept. He felt relieved he had somehow succeeded in a business where client relations were paramount.
When the man who was reading a large paperback book on D-Day, a man whom Robert thought looked like him and was probably his brother, spotted him staring at him, he offered a friendly greeting. He packed his gear, donned his underwear and pants, and left the beach through the nearest path.
Robert had not handled the situation properly or appropriately. But what was he supposed to do? Contact a social worker, a psychologist, a psychiatrist, or a doctor? Robert’s brother disliked all these professionals. Any attempt to seek reconciliation through them, he feared, was bound to backfire.
He settled down to lean on a decaying waterlogged tree beached on the shoreline of Hanlan’s Point Beach reading his pocketbook, beside his jet ski. When the heat and sun started to make him sweat, he removed his life jacket and took a quick dip into the cold lake to cool off.
When he emerged from the lake and settled on the huge dried out log to read, he noticed the smell of alcohol. He also noticed the man beside him had a nearly empty bottle of spiced rum beside him. He exuded the smell of redolent rum, but he wasn’t moving or breathing.
Robert jogged along the sandy shoreline and summoned the lifeguards from the lifeguard station and stand a short distance down the beach. They approached him and found no signs of life. The lifeguards, headguards, and supervisors who gathered around the scene summoned the paramedics.
The paramedics assessed the man in shorts and judged him deceased from alcohol poisoning. They loaded his corpse on a gurney and transported him across the beach enroute to hospital. Robert was surprised by the leisurely and casual pace of the paramedics, after the excitement of the lifeguards, but then again, he assumed, the man was dead, beyond revival.
Later, he checked out Cherry Beach, Ward Island Beach, and Centre Island Beach. Robert thought his adventures on the waterfronts and beaches contributed to his physical wellness and mental health.
At Ward Island beach he thought he saw his brother reading a book on The Civil War. But he decided not to try to approach to leave him alone, until he figured he had a better idea of what he should say. He wanted to help him find a decent apartment or an affordable condo, and the costs associated with ownership of such a property he would cover.
Robert wanted to be James’ brother again, to join him and drive him around the city to visit so they, in the spirit of country cousins, could visit their big city relatives, cousins, uncles, and aunts. Robert wanted to take him out for dinner at his favorite Thai restaurant. They could talk in a long, engaging, and protracted conversation about their hometown and school friends.
Robert drove his jet-ski to Woodbine Beach, and he strolled for several hundred meters along the shoreline and beach, reflecting and meditating. He entered an uncertain and uneasy state of mind since he found he was gazing at countless attractive women in revealing bikinis.
Then, as he approached Leuty lifeguard station, he saw his brother on the beach reading a book on the Battle of the Somme, the great and deadly, epic battle of World War One. Death. Destruction. A lost generation. Brotherhood.
Robert decided he would approach his brother. He crouched down beside him and told him that he wanted to help him find an apartment or a condo. James didn’t need to live alone and feel depressed.
Robert saw from the physical appearance and facial features of the man that he was indeed his brother. James still had the broken front tooth from the time he backhanded him on the chin and face after they got into a passionate argument before they were scheduled to head to a meeting at the funeral home to plan and settle details for their father’s funeral. When James angrily and indignantly brought up the subject of his former girlfriends, who somehow ended up living for extended stays in the house they shared, he struck him, breaking and cracking his front tooth.
His brother, who had some grey hair at last, stood up, and Robert tried to hug him, but the dude pushed him away. James also resented being called dude. When Robert called him James, and asked him what was wrong, James punched him, in the arm, near his vaccination scar. He told him to stay the fuck away from him for the rest of his life.
For the rest of his life? Robert felt defeated and walked across the broad expanse of sand on the boardwalk and watched the beach volleyball players in swimsuits play hard fought matches of volleyball, spiking, rallying, diving into the sand.
Distracted, he watched until sunset. Then someone in braids and corn rows and a woven tunic presented his beer cooler and asked him if he wanted to buy some cold hard lemonade. Robert ended up buying several cans from him. Thirsty, hot, dry, defeated, he sipped the spiked lemonade while he read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
It was about 11 pm when, oozy, reading on a beach bench, beneath a streetlamp on the boardwalk, overlooking the beach volleyball courts, he realized he had been at Woodbine Beach since the late afternoon. He went to his jet ski, mounted the seat like a cowboy, and gunned the engine so that he was travelling nearly sixty miles per hour.
As he rounded the point that he realized he forgot his life jacket at the spot on the beach where he tried to hug his brother. But he really didn’t care about his life jacket anymore. He flew across the lake around Centre Island, rounded the point at Gibraltar Beach, in the darkness, and sped across Lake Ontario towards the marina near Ontario Place. In the moonlit darkness he struck a buoy and went flying from his jet ski machine, which, riderless, continued to speed across the lake.
Robert drifted in the cold water far from shore, thousands of meters away from any Toronto beach that bordered Lake Ontario. He drifted and floated and swam and drifted, floating further from shore, submerged in the cold ether, his mind fogged, experiencing the sensory deprivation of immersion in the Great Lake at night. The waves lapped over him as he succumbed to fatigue and hypothermia. He entered an altered state of consciousness as he was enveloped in the darkness.