As Ben walked the streets, his hand ducked back into his pocket, always wanting the reassurance the knife was there. In more private moments he would take it out and look at it. He noticed a store window plastered over with newspapers, the sign announcing it would soon become something else. Almost as though a place can cocoon. But more often the streets seemed like shifting patterns of old. If you are new you are creeping into the world, he thought. It was up to him to be the pin, to hold something down until it happened, he might actually succeed.

There was a thump and people looked. Two cars had bumped each other, a gesture that would almost look loving if it weren't for the expression on the face of the young man stepping out of one of the cars, a brown jeep. The young man took a look and said "More damage to your car than mine!" He gave a giggle and hopped back into his car. Ben's hand went into his jacket pocket and his fingers found the knife once more. He slowed, but picked up his pace again.

Little birds, if I had bread for you, you'd get it, Simon thought. Sparrows and chickadees appeared near the bench, hopped around and shotgunned away, as if moving to invisible currents.

Today at the bookstore Simon had moved slowly, his mind like an anchor. He turned to his co-worker Lisa and asked, "Do you ever have the feeling that something's wrong but you don't know what it is?" They waited through a layer of silence.

"No, I can't say that I have."

Simon walked into the receiving area in the back and dropped the same question in front of Veronica. She was new to the store and he found her to be quiet, mysterious and beautiful. She moved her hands with smoothness and quickness but seemed unaware of their elegance.

She looked at him. "Something wrong but I don't know what it is? I feel that all the time."

Simon asked Veronica out. During the first drink they had together she explained about literally running from her office work, packing up and deciding to try life in another city.

Now, in early evening he kicked his feet, tried to unwind and get unwanted little seeds from the day out of his mind. He watched the birds. He thought of the woman he'd helped today: about forty-five, well-dressed and dipped in perfume. She looked as though nine people had spent the morning working on her hair. The hair was a tidy bun of blonde as if ready to unravel and give birth to something Simon didn't want to know about. It was one of those days that Simon didn't want to be there, and one of those customers who needed to hold hands with an employee.

"It's all alphabetical by author, so the man you want is right here." He started to walk away.

"Now, the difficulty here is that my husband needs the one he doesn't have."

"Oh." And how am I supposed to help you with that? Pretend to be interested. There was one hardcover next to six paperbacks. Titles like Death learns the Tango.

"You could take the hardcover, that's the latest one, so he may not have it, and it could be returned if..."

"Yes but I need to know. I need the one that I need. I have the one I need written down here somewhere." She opened her purse and began to root around while Simon thought about what else he could be doing. She pulled out a tremendous wad of money. "Oh, that's not it."

If this isn't an American tourist, Simon thought, I'm moving to France.

Another stretch of silence hit bottom with the woman saying, "Oh I feel so terrible."

And so you should you incompetent woman! Do you think I have nothing better to do? Simon the angry bastard. Purely by reflex, he tried to think of something to say, so this woman wouldn't feel so bad.

"Ah well, that's OK. The books will be here."

"Could you just write down all the titles so that I can compare them with what my husband has?"

Why, of course. Simon returned from his terminal a minute later with each title on a scrap of paper. More for her cyclone purse.

"And could you put the phone number of the store on it?"

Why, of course. Another minute, another scrap.

"All right, thank you. I'll check with my husband. We don't have much time, we're just over from New York."

Ah.

The first day that Simon had worked in the bookstore they put him on the information desk and everyone else left. He hadn't even had a tour, so he tried to tell people where the washrooms were by looking on a map of the store along with them. For the first few days he kept a copy of The English Patient nearby, reading sentences between customers the way other men might take sips from a flask. That was two years ago. Simon liked bookstore work, to be outnumbered and surrounded by books, like a good army. But For god's sake - something new, anything. Ben had been teaching him some of his skills, at least. Somehow stealing appealed to Simon because it felt like experimentation, stepping outside the rules. The important thing was to steal from those who had too much, to steal in an ethical way.

It was early evening and Ben sat in the No 1 Spadina St. grill, in his usual booth. He imagined a finger in his ribs and watching his friend Poke slide into the booth. Ben never got around to asking him why the finger stab was his usual greeting. Somehow it was simply who he was, never any other name. He remembered Poke looking up, brushing dirty hair out of his eyes, and ordering the all-day breakfast, whatever time it was. Poke and his stupid jokes. The other people in his apartment building called him Catman, he was so quiet. What drove him to suicide? Stupid pressures, growing like cracks in the ice he stood on. Why is the world no different, now?

When he had first heard of his death, Ben turned the fact over in his mind, looking at it from different angles. He had concluded that when somebody harmless is removed from the world, there is no guarantee that an equal amount of harm is removed. Worse than no guarantee, there is no sign at all. On a quiet night in his apartment, Ben stood up from his kitchen table, opened a drawer, found the sharp knife with the solid fake wood handle. He walked a few steps over to his jacket and slipped it in the pocket.

Simon adjusted his napkin and silverware. "Nineteen-seventy-seven," he said, "was the year we lost humour" he raised a finger, "the year that Groucho died."

"And you think," Ben answered, "that you can... tap into that?"

"Of course! The past can inspire the present, ignite it."

"I don't know, Simon. Sometimes I feel like I'm still trying to put the past out, you know what I mean? I mean, it's fine to appreciate what was..."

"It's still there."

"Alright it's still there, any old work of art. But do you have to have such... intensity?" Ben had trouble finding the words, the image of the past spreading like a hot sun over a new day, melting it into a desert.

Simon looked over his shoulder at the old woman, Maggie. She always waited outside until every booth was taken and then came in and asked to share with someone so that she could talk. She also listened, which people said was rare anywhere, and at each comment brought a hand down to slap the top of the table and say "oh!" or sometimes laugh, throwing her head back to reveal her crooked teeth. She would look out the window to find words and then string them together, sentences as delicate as cat bones. Old Maggie had been in Toronto for thirty years but was still "not quite used to it, you know." The waitress would walk away when Maggie was just beginning to say her order, the same thing she always wanted. The first time Ben was nearby he was startled at how rude he thought it was, until Maggie was brought her coffee and glass of icewater. "Oh, you're a dear girl," she croaked. The rumour that interested Simon was that she'd once been involved with Groucho Marx.

"You are not even going to try and sleep with old Maggie, Simon. If you even try to take advantage of that dear old lady I will break your legs." Ben said.

"Alright, alright" Simon laughed. "Besides, that wasn't quite what I had in mind. Hey, do you know what Groucho Marx said when he was asked 'What would you do differently' in an interview shortly before he died?"

"No."

"He said 'I'd try more positions.' It's true!" Simon laughed again while Ben considered calling him an idiot. Simon pictured laughter as something on the air all around them, so that you could just reach for it, or were bumped into it. When Ben thought of laughter it was something that managed to break into the world, a plant making its way through a crack in the sidewalk.

Ben thought of Poke again. He had been told his last words, that Poke had lifted his head from the hospital bed and said "Something's wrong." Ben remembered his father's last words - he was very weak, in a hospital bed and drifting in and out of consciousness. Ben hadn't seen him in years, and arrived just before he passed away. When the phone rang, his father's eyes opened, he looked at Ben and he said, "Who's on the phone?" Then he closed his eyes again, and eventually slipped away. It seemed odd to Ben that his father's last words carried no significant meaning. He inquired about what was probably a wrong number, blissfully unaware he was speaking final words.

Poke was a man who asked for spare change all day to see the nearest movie that he hadn't seen before. People stared at him as he waited in line and calmly and repeatedly practiced, "A large coke and popcorn please" until Poke finally got up to the counter, swallowed and simply stared at the employee. Under that new pressure he paused, then finally got it out. Seeing a film was a bonus, and a good film even better, but Ben knew what Poke really wanted was the relief, the dark folding over him for two hours and the great doorway to somewhere else on the screen.

It was Poke who told management about the "weasel," his nickname for the greasy man of about forty-five who would sail down a row of empty seats, sit next to a woman, and lean in uncomfortably close to her. It didn't matter if there were lots of empty seats around. Whenever the woman got up to move he'd find another spot a few minutes later. Poke couldn't go so far as to confront the weasel, but was satisfied watching anonymously in the darkness while an usher stepped in to lean over the weasel and spoke to him. It only occurred to Poke months later the man was probably deeply lonely. But, it was still wrong.

The door outside the No 1 Spadina St grill had the word "PLEASE" over and over again in small cardboard signs running almost all the way down the glass to just above the doorknob, where another sign said "LIFT LATCH, THEN PULL ON DOOR." Even so, Ben and Simon sat and watched one person after another walk straight up and pull repeatedly on the door. In the background old Maggie could be heard asking the couple she sat with about her husband: "He died of cirrhosis of the liver - what's that?" There was a quiet delay while they mumbled that they don't really know, and then after a pause the man was optimistic enough to offer, "Well, he sounds like he was a nice man, your husband."

"Why would you say that? He drank a lot, you know."

Over near the door the cash register is began to sputter and whine. A man and a woman were standing impatiently while the owner tried to convince it to cooperate and flicked switches.

"Did I ever tell you why I gave away my book of Romantic poetry?" Simon asked.

"Uh, what?" Ben turned back to look at Simon.

"Nice book, you know? Thick hardcover, expensive... The professor I had for Romantic stuff was named Hornby. Starting his class, I'd heard some nasty things about him. The man was a thousand years old. He started the English program at my university. He taught me in his very last year before retirement. There was a sign posted near the offices for the English department that said to sign the page if you wanted to encourage him to stay, to be able to continue to benefit from his wisdom and experience. Under that someone wrote 'JOIN THE PROFFESSOR HORBY CLUB AND GET AN A!' Anyway, I liked the man, despite how abrasive he could be."

"How? I mean, what did he do?" Ben asked.

Simon paused. "This is one thing I saw. After a comment some poor, not so bright guy made, Hornby turns and states to the rest of the class 'Now, whenever you see his eyes light up, that means he's beginning to get it!' But he was also full of these great remarks, like 'Don't treat anything like it's the gospel, not even the gospel.' He also used to drool into his grey beard, but whatever. I liked him. In fact, he was one of the few teachers where I'd stay after class and walk him out, just because I was sincerely interested in talking to him. I wasn't trying to kiss his ass, I just thought he had things to offer."

"Oh no," Ben said. By now four people were waiting over by the cash register and the owner was giving it gentle smacks and making stupid jokes to try and help the situation. Ben was trying to keep his mind off the distraction while Simon talked.

"Those kiss-ass types used to ask questions just to demonstrate their knowledge, and they'd come to class and set up a spot with little date-books spread out in front of them... so much stuff that half the time I thought one of them was going to bring a potted plant. Anyway, I don't think Hornby wanted to be nasty, he just didn't have the patience some days. But If you approached him and spoke to him, he was OK, you know? He used to make more harmless little jokes than nasty ones, often grabbing at our personal characteristics. 'How do you get your hair like that, Simon? It probably takes a lot of effort to make it look like you just got out of bed.' He was so old that I had to walk slowly with him, like I do with my Dad. We discussed faith, life after death, these kinds of topics. And he listened."

A woman in the cash register lineup stepped forward. "You know, you really have to get your act together with this register, this is just ridiculous." Ben was still facing Simon, trying to ignore her, at the same time thinking, What a stupid way to phrase a complaint. A second later a man jumped in with, "Yeah, this is getting a little irritating." Ben leaned in to be able to focus on Simon.

"So one day I go to class, the second last week of school, and I'm tired, lots of work to do. Suddenly Hornby is firing all these questions at me, one after another. And I never had the chance to read the poems I'm supposed to be able to talk about. So he's asking me things like 'How does the mind of the poet change from the beginning of the poem to the end?' and I haven't even read the fucking thing. But he doesn't let me off the hook, keeps going back to me and nailing me to the wall, both of us so disappointed and offended. Only once did I have some kind of response, when the discussion began to cover belief in an afterlife. He turned to me and asked, 'Do you believe in God?' and I said 'You mean after the last twenty minutes?' It got a laugh, at least. After class the worst of the kiss-ass boys approached me to say 'Oooh, you got burned, bad' and all I could say was 'No kidding' and walk away. Hornby had announced that the following week, in our last class, I was to come prepared to lead the discussion and take it somewhere. I was to 'demonstrate my ability.' Can you believe that? After all the free time I spent after class talking with him.

Simon stopped because both he and Ben were distracted by the noise at the door. The man behind the counter was now calculating the bills by hand, writing them out with the help of a calculator. The man was saying, as if for the second or third time "Look - sorry, alright? This doesn't happen often, usually people are a little more patient."

"Oh, well I guess it's just me," one of the men said, "I guess everyone else waiting here is really enjoying themselves." The complaining man turned to look behind him for support and a woman helped him with, "Oh yeah, this is great." The man behind the counter was clearly angry, but went on writing the next bill.

Over in the booth Simon asked Ben, "What do they think, that he planned this?" He paused. "Don't they have this in perspective at all? There are parts of the world where you are shot at, you know? Or where you don't have any fucking food, never mind the luxury of... but not here in Canada where we can't stand waiting thirty seconds."

"Nothing." Ben said.

"Sorry?"

"Nothing has ever happened to them." Ben took out his knife and placed it on the table next to the plain cutlery. He spun it around so that it made a flashing circle, took it and put it back in his pocket. He stood up and looked at Simon. "I'm going." Ben began to walk towards the cash register and the people.

"Wait, Ben. I'm coming. Let's take the back door. I have something I want you to see."

"The back door? But we have to pay the bill, I want to go over to those people there."

"I've paid the bill. I mean, I've left enough. Let's get out of here, Ben. I have something I want you to see."

Ben looked down at the table, saw that Simon had dropped a twenty-dollar bill there. He felt a slight tug in the direction of the back door, saw that Simon had curled his arm around his, snug as a chain link.

Standing by rows of packaging, canned goods like tin soldiers, Ben was looking around, shopping slowly, reaching for things he didn't want, drunk with distraction. It wasn't often his thoughts could push something out of his throat. He decided to put something back, turned to Simon: "You insisted that we leave."

"Yes. I think I had an idea of what you were planning in there. Would you have done it? Which of the people, and where would you have stabbed?"

"I don't know, exactly. I had the idea of racing by and slashing, maybe writing a letter to a paper so that I can explain. Being a kind of decency terrorist. Or maybe really finishing one off for Poke. Someone who gives off a kind of stupid heat, burns with stupidity, with ignorance."

Ben picked out some bread. They waited to get up to the counter. "Pulling yourself into knots isn't a way to live." Ben said.

"Yeah. Ironic. I served a woman at the store once. She'd had to stand there for a minute first and I said, 'Sorry for the wait.' Know what she said?"

"No."

"She said 'I enjoyed it.' I wanted to ask her how she became such a remarkable person but I didn't get the chance with the rest of the lineup waiting."

They got up to the counter and the food was punched up on the register, but instead of his money, Ben accidentally pulled a piece of paper with a phone number out of his pocket, said "Oh" and hesitated a second. It was an old number, useless. The cheap hotel where his friend Poke had the money to stay for a few nights after some old man gave him a fifty-dollar bill. The old man had said, "You go on now, get something to eat. Go on, now," and motioned with his cane as if Poke were a dog.

"Oh, this is my friend's number."

Simon smiled and jumped in with, "What my friend here means to say is that he wants to pay for the food with this phone number."

There was a small curl, the beginning of a smile on the face of the young woman. "Um, I don't think so."

"But you know, this could be a valuable number, a real friend, you know?" Simon's eyebrows went up and he tilted his head a little. "OK, I guess this is one of those places where you just take money. Or maybe a friend isn't worth a loaf of bread, in hard times."

Ben found his money and they paid. He doesn't say the words Simon, you can paint on blank things. At times you are my voice.

Crossing a small footbridge in the park, Simon stopped to admire the view. From the middle of the bridge, he could see how the creek curved away. The air felt fresh and healthy and good. In the dark the trees were moving in the wind, hushing the earth with a quiet voice. Simon leaned on the thick stone railing and Ben came over to join him. Below, a concrete path wound its way across the grass in the park.

"So what happened when you went back?" Ben asked.

"Where?"

"When you went back the week after to lead the class in the discussion and try and impress Hornby, show him your stuff."

"Oh, that. I remember sitting there before the class started, obviously nervous, while Hornby made remarks like 'Well, I hope you're ready.' One woman who I'd spoken to before was kind enough to give me a little wink. I did all right, I thought. I moved fairly comfortably through a comparison of all of the odes by Keats. The discussion puttered along and then finally picked up and got into the air."

"And? What did he say?"

"Well, I didn't catch him after class, so I went to his office and said 'I hope I've redeemed myself in your eyes somewhat.' He turned my own expression back to me and said, 'Somewhat.' Can you believe the bastard? As part of an excuse, I told him that I had worked to break out of a pattern of extreme shyness. I mean, walk for miles rather than have to ask the bus driver how much I owe, that kind of shyness. Even having thrown the shyness off I still wasn't in the habit of talking centre stage. He told me that 'believe it or not' he'd been really shy all through high school and I thought of saying, 'how lucky that you've had this chance to take revenge on whoever you want in your career as a university professor,' but I didn't say it. Somehow it wasn't the way to say goodbye. Anyway, that's why I gave my nice hardcover book of romantic poetry to a friend."

At least a few minutes passed before Ben said, "You know how different people can be inside things? I mean, how different things can represent different people for you?"

"Sure, that's what I'm talking about. That's why I had to lose the book." Simon looked down to see that Ben had the knife in his hand, shining slightly in the moonlight. Ben put it at the edge of the stone railing so that the handle was over the edge and he was holding down the blade with one finger. He lifted his finger and the weight of the handle carried it over the edge and it fell with a gentle thump into tall grass and bushes directly below. Another long pause.

"You're... alright with that?" Simon asked as they started to leave.

"Oh yeah. Or at least, I'll try it out."

"So you could be back again, pulling up long grass by the roots, looking for that goddamned knife?" Simon laughed.

They were leaving the bridge on the far side when Ben asked "Hey, do you think you could get that book back from your friend? I mean, just explain that you need to be able to drop it off a bridge, right?" Simon found his way to his crisp, honest laugh years ago, and the sound came out now, into the night.