I got a crummy little basement in what the
landlord called Cabbagetown but what was really Regent Park, and I
switched out to a huge, anonymous high school to finish school. Worked
in a restaurant at nights and on weekends to pay the bills."
The night highway rushed past them, quiet. She lit a cigarette and
rolled down her window, letting in the white-noise crash of the wind and
the smell of the smoke mixed with the pine-and-summer reek of the
roadside.
"Give me one of those," Alan said.
She lit another and put it between his lips, damp with her saliva. His
skin came up in goosepimples.
"Who knows about your wings?" he said.
"Krishna knows," she said. "And you." She looked out into the
night. "The family in Oakville. If I could remember where they lived,
I'd look them up and ask them about it. Can't. Can't remember their
names or their faces. I remember the pool, though, and the barbecue."
"No one else knows?"
"There was no one else before Krishna. No one that I remember, anyway."
"I have a brother," he said, then swallowed hard. "I have a brother
named Brad. He can see the future."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." He pawed around for an ashtray and discovered that it had been
removed, along with the lighter, from the rental car's
dashboard. Cursing, he pinched off the coal of the cigarette and flicked
it to the roadside, hoping that it would burn out quickly, then he
tossed the butt over his shoulder at the back seat.
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