The Jade Butterfly. Jeffrey Round
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creased and crinkled at the knees. His top was light-coloured chiffon, short-sleeved, still early for the season, but massively in fashion with the younger crowd wanting to sport their biceps and tattoos. Ebony skin edged the cream a shade whiter by comparison. He was Vogue Superstar material in black. Tall and thin, a sepulchral shadow wandering the grounds of the necropolis when he moved. Tonight, however, he was busy doing what he usually did — dispensing advice with a cigarette sutured to his lips, while his icy stare evoked a final evening on board the Titanic. All hands on deck, but going down cool, his words calm, not frenzied. This was a serious discussion, after all.
“Your son was right to ask. He worries for you. But he is still a fifteen-year-old boy. He might be bright, but he’s inexperienced. He sees the emptiness in your eyes and wonders. We all wonder, if you want to know. Ever since Trevor left.” A quick glance over his shoulder to make sure he hadn’t caused offence. “I don’t know, though. A couple of head-on collisions in the amour department and you’re ready to call it quits for eternity? Well, maybe you’re right. I content myself these days with the boys at Slam.”
“The strip club?”
“One and only. It’s just that much easier. Both parties know what it’s about before we engage in battle. And then it’s over with. Real relationships are fraught with peril. They’re inherently dangerous.”
Assessment made, he took a long drag on his cigarette.
Dan laughed. “Dangerous? How so?” He’d never learned not to ask.
Donny eyed him dead on, fingers splayed and cigarette held at a distance.
“They take you places you don’t always want to go. You can lose yourself there. Sometimes permanently.”
“I think that’s what Ked thinks. That I’m permanently lost.”
Smoke exhaled into the night sky, a red spark set against eternity.
“I met the last one, didn’t I? One night at Woody’s? What was his name again?”
“Kelvin.”
“Kelvin, that’s right. Razor-sharp cheekbones. Nice eyes. Attractive, but a little stiff in the personality department. Somewhat lacking in humour, as I recall.”
“That’s him.”
“Still, not important enough to get depressed over or give up on life for. So tell me about it.”
Dan nodded, staring out across the same horizon as Donny, yet seeing something far different. More than the cityscape reflecting in his eyes.
“It was going really well …”
“They always do at first. Remind me again. This one did what?”
“Project manager at BMO.”
“Sorry, you know me. I’m all about fashion here. What exactly does that mean?”
“Project manager? Kind of like heading up a task force.”
“Like a platoon sergeant?”
“Sure, I guess. He oversaw the bank’s website content. Customer protocols, et cetera. He described it as constantly looking for problems and pointing them out to the people under him.”
“So, basically, Project Manager Kelvin criticizes the people under him, makes them sweat all day, and they no doubt resent him for it.”
Dan smiled.
“That’s pretty much how he described it. He didn’t have much respect for his employees, by the sounds of it. And yes, of course they resented him.”
“But you thought he would respect you, regardless?”
“I worked hard to earn his respect. And I think I deserved it.”
Donny eyed him balefully. “So you wanted respect from a man who points out problems for a living. Did you think he wouldn’t find any when he looked at you?”
Dan held up a hand. “Stop. I’m just giving you the back story.”
Donny sniffed, took another drag. “Continue.”
“You’re not making this easy, you know.”
Exhale. “Not trying to. Continue.”
“Anyway, things went well for the first month. He seemed fun to be with. We had good conversations, enjoyed good food, both of us liked outdoor activities. The sex was great …”
“Great? Not just good?”
“Great. The attraction was mutual.”
Donny leaned forward, seemed to notice something disturbing in the distance.
“Must come from working in a bank. All that repression needs an outlet.” He eyed Dan over his cigarette. “So we’re not talking about straying, then. Not if you were both feeling fulfilled. Because that is the usual downfall of relationships in this cheerless little ghetto of ours.”
“Not this time. But after a few weeks of dating, I started to get a creeping sense of disapproval from him. About little things, usually. I’d suggest doing something, but he wouldn’t answer right away. After a minute, he’d hold my suggestion up for examination and revise it. The time we would meet or the movie I suggested. As though I couldn’t be trusted to make the right decisions.”
“Of course not. He’s a project manager. He’d taken you on as a project. You had to be corrected and revised. That was his role. Not a bad idea in concept, but in reality you can’t project-manage your boyfriends. They just don’t co-operate.”
“True.”
“How about environment? What was his home like?”
“Big condo in the sky. Pricey. Lots of décor elements.”
“Like mine?”
“No, yours is artistic.”
“Ah!”
“His was fussy. Lots of art reproductions on the walls — nothing original. Oh, yeah — and artificial flowers in tall vases.”
Donny shivered. “The kiss of death.”
“He said they were expensive.”
“No doubt he said it many times, since you probably didn’t look impressed enough when he pointed them out the first time. That sort’s always impressed with price tags.”
Dan laughed. “True. He kept fishing for compliments every time I came over. He’d show me the latest cherry blossom branch or whatever it was. I’d tell him they were nice, but not my thing.”
“Which of course pissed him off.”
“If it did, he didn’t show it. Well, maybe he did. He showed up at my place once with a big pink-and-white branch covered in blossoms. Silk, I think. He spent half an hour filling a vase with shiny balls and arranging the leaves till it dominated my living room from the fireplace mantel. I didn’t know how to say I didn’t like it.”
“And now you don’t have to.”
Dan smiled. “When we broke up, he asked for it back.”
Donny’s face was pure outrage. “You’re kidding! Did you give it to him?”
“I said if he wanted it he’d have to come over and get it. He accused me of acting like I was in high school.”
“He asked you to return a gift and he called you high school? Sheesh! How did you last an entire month with this idiot?”
“I smiled a lot. Mostly during sex.”
“What did he think of your profession? Did he like dating a missing-persons investigator? Because it sounds like there was a lot missing in his life.”
“I told him what I did when we met. He was impressed that I was my own boss. He