An offering of flash fiction set amid a contest of egos and wills….
by: Mark Sabourin
The discipline was of no consequence, sport or literature or politics or music, philosophy even. Whenever the conversation turned to the greats of a former era, you could always count on a backhanded compliment from Doctor Tinney. “One of the best, in his day,” he’d offer, as if “his day” had somehow been a more agreeable era, where the bar of achievement had been lowered and lesser men, by implication men lesser than the doctor, had merely to step over it. Beliveau less than McDavid, Plato less than Sartre, Bach less than Beatles.
Today’s subject was music, specifically the sublime Nina Simone, the doctor arguing that she was never tested by the demands of an audience accustomed to performance as visual art. Barry listened, threw back his scotch and signaled for another, and when the waitress brought it to him, he scanned her left hand for a ring.
Across from him sat his father, who had done well for his day and for any other. He’d been half of a team that raised three kids, held a family together, kept it well fed and comfortably housed. He’d built a solid business that had given each of them a shot. As a dad, he was one of the best.
As a doctor, not so Tinney. Barry occasionally shared a table with the doctor and others at the 19th hole of his father’s club, and they exchanged friendly greetings on the street. But then there’d been Tinney’s 45-minute session with Dana two years ago, after which he recommended she be admitted to a 30 day program for $25,000.
To Barry, that made him no more than a modern day snake-oil salesman, his elixir a blend of inner child nurturing and boundary setting psychobabble, peddled to the desperate from his 12-suite Pinewood Centre, formerly the Davis Motel, in whose room #8 Barry had surrendered his virginity to a middle-aged prostitute paid with money pilfered over several months from his mother’s purse.
He stared at his phone. “Lemme find this,” he said, maybe a bit too forcefully. The table quieted as he scrolled. “I’ve got a live recording. Nina Simone. ‘Mississippi Goddamn.’ You tell me that doesn’t measure up.” His tongue never quite managed the middle “i” between the paired “s” sounds in “Mississippi.”
“I know the recording,” Tinney again, “I’m not saying she wasn’t great —” but Barry didn’t hear the rest. He’d first come upon the song while on the cruise they took, a gift from his dad after his marriage wrecked on the shoals of his appetites, and now he was scrolling through pictures of an excursion in Dominica, three generations, grandfather, father and daughter, snorkeling on Champagne Reef, where they watched volcanic gases bubble up from beneath the earth’s crust. He’d spent much of that cruise with Nina and his earbuds at the top deck bar, where the view was of endless horizon and Dana’s disdain for him morphed into disgust.
His phone fell from his hand and tumbled to the ground. As he bent to collect it, he felt his father’s hand on his shoulder. “We should go,” he said. Barry quickly took in the table, but the doctor had everyone’s ear with some new piece of nonsense. His father pleaded a late meeting, said their goodbyes and led him to the lot. “I’ll drive,” he said. “We can come back tomorrow morning for your car.”
His father took the long way back. They drove slowly past the park, and he scanned the dotting of tents and lean-tos, hoping for a glimpse of Dana, and his father could give her some money.
Together, they walked up the flight of stairs to his apartment. “The offer still stands,” he said, “if you want to check in to Pinewood,” but Barry repeated no, that he wouldn’t waste another twenty-five thousand of his father’s dollars.
“Work, then. Tomorrow morning. Nine a.m. sharp, I’m picking you up,” and Barry promised he’d be ready. And then he watched from the doorway as his father descended the stairs, taking each step carefully, pausing once as if he had one more thing to say, then continuing on, his shoulders rounded, a hand on the railing to keep him on course.
Mark Sabourin has set aside his career as award-winning business journalist to focus on fiction. He has hundreds of non-fiction publishing credits to his name. In fiction, he has appeared in The Antigonish Review, Fine Lines and Sudden Flash, and is close to completing his first novel-length manuscript. He is a Martial Artist, a scuba diver and a graduate of the University of Toronto and the London School of Economics. He shares a home on the banks of the Trent River, near the town of Campbellford, Ontario, Canada, with his partner Maria and their annoying cat, Dean.
