From Call It in the Air
200,001
By: Gregory Light - Aug 29, 2026
(Toronto 1972)
Saturday was "pure hell". After his unhappy telephone conversation with Joanna, Joey spent the whole day chasing up anyone who might know her number or address. No luck. If anyone knew, and he was sure a few women in her residence did, they were not telling. That evening he went, fingers crossed, to the pub where he had first met Joanna a week earlier. Maybe lightning would strike twice? For three hours, his eyes combed the dimly lit room, picking over the clientele, certain and uncertain of what she looked like. But nothing. By midnight, he had given up. He stared blankly at the ashtray; his hand wrapped tightly around a half-filled glass of beer.
'Where's the head?' he mumbled. He was searching for the sign, the harbinger of this catastrophe. 'No Joanna. And no phone number.’ Okay, maybe catastrophe is a bit extreme, he thought, but definitely a calamity. For which there must have been a heralding head. His mind rumbled through an array of possible flips. 'They're all tails.' Every potential flip he had dredged from his memory—from the day he first saw Joanna to her recent call—was a tail. Even after she'd hung up on him, he'd thrown a tail. And then another. 'So, where was the head?'
Half an hour later, shuffling home, the dark pavement scuffing beneath his feet, Joey found it. ‘Yes!' He threw up his hands, almost falling over. '200,001! In 1967.’ He leaned against a tree to regain his balance, his thoughts certain of his discovery. 200,001 had always been an anomaly. A head followed by a series of marvellous events. 'You idiot!' he shouted, 'Not what happened then, but now. The card!' The link was farfetched, five years apart, but it added up. After all, he had just confessed it to Gary last week. In the cemetery.
It was predictable that it had taken Joey five years to share 200,001 with Gary. I mean, how do you tell your best friend that the first girl you ever did it with, was his sister? You don't. You just don’t. And Joey had not intended to do so. Truly, he had not.
Sitting on Gary's grave, he assumed they would commemorate their time together, honour their mission against Gary’s neighbour and leave it at that. As they did every year. And did again this year; recalled it, relived it, re-experienced it. The sombre rage over the darker details still persisted. Like why they did it. Why? Why?
’That was crazy. We could have been caught,’ Gary said.
‘Had to be done,’ Joey whispered. But he was not quite as sure this year. He paused for a long while, breathing in and out slowly, trying not to remember.
It worked, replaced by a full account of the previous evening: meeting Joanna in the pub, their argument, returning to his room, making love. It was wonderful. But then, carried away by his enthusiasm, he carelessly added, 'It was entirely different than when I did it with Susan.' Then another long pause.
'What?' Gary finally asked, his voice emerging with curiosity more than surprise. 'You made it with Susan?' His intonation was easy and unlaboured, unlike Joey's own hasty, careless speech. He had crafted these dual rhythms of his voice through many hours of conversation with his friend.
'You're not upset?'
'No. I understand. She was beautiful.'
Joey remembered how Susan had once enchanted them with her fifteen-year-old body twisting and dancing to Teach me How to Twist by Connie Francis.
'You're not making this up, are you?’ Gary asked.
‘No.’ Joey jumped up and paced beside Gary's grave. The gravel surrounding the stone crunched under his step. He was trying to remember. Five or six graves further up the path he heard a man sneeze. "Bless you," his wife said. They were reading tombstone inscriptions, the woman scribbling notes. Joey lowered his voice.
He was not making it up. Susan had come to visit her brother's grave late in the afternoon of the fifth anniversary of his death in 1967. Joey was already there, and she had called to him from the path.
'It is Joey, isn't it?' she said, approaching him. He looked up. 'You remember me, don't you? Susan? Gary's sister?'
'Oh yes,' he said after a moment, 'Yes.' He had not seen Susan in years. Only once, briefly, after Gary's funeral. After that, she left to attend university in Montreal. McGill. He was surprised at how much she had changed. Her hair was very long now, hanging in straight, smooth, polished lines over her shoulder; much darker than he remembered—her mother’s stunning indigenous legacy, he imagined. And her eyes, they were Gary's eyes. Elliptical. Wide. Dark brown. Accentuated with soft brown eye shadow.
'You've changed a lot. You've almost grown up, Joey.'
'Five foot ten.'
'Yes,' she said, her eyes darting past him towards the single yellow dandelion Joey had put on Gary’s stone. Joey suddenly felt awkward, as if someone was looking about his room. 'You come here a lot,' she said, turning her eyes back towards him, her hair swinging back across her face like a fine spray of water. It was not a question. She pushed her hair behind her ears and held it for a moment. 'I mean,' she continued, 'My mother says you come here on the same day every year and talk ?'
'We pass the time,' he answered. He tilted his head, looking into her face, his eyes squinting in the sun. 'Gary and I are best friends.'
She blinked at the word "are". 'Maybe we could talk about him sometime,' she said. She paused and Joey nodded.
Susan's memory of Gary was more of a distant relative than of a brother. His death had been devastating, its pain searing. It had left her mother and her alone, aching and fearful of losing one another. Her father, a baker from Siena, had vanished seven years earlier when Gary was four and she just eight. He was a borderline alcoholic from the outset of the marriage, eventually surrendering fully, fleeing to a bottle and a kind voice he met at the first and only meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous he had attended. The de-husbanding and de-fathering had been thorough. All photographs, mementos and history had been uprooted and summarily executed.
'After the funeral, I wiped it all from my mind,' she said to Joey. She meant her family as well as Gary. 'This is the first time I've ever come here.' Joey was grateful for her honesty. It was the first time anyone had admitted to the ‘obliteration’ of his friend.
'Listen, are you free this evening?' she asked, taking his hand. 'There are lots of things I'd like to ask you.'
'Sure,' Joey replied, trying to suppress the excitement in his voice.
'I could treat you to a film if you'd like?'
'Yeah, great.' He was trembling. The touch of her hand had ignited something like jubilation in his stomach. Susan was twenty, a fully grown-up, beautiful woman. Marlene at school withered in comparison.
Susan checked the newspaper and settled on The Graduate. Across the city, as Joey left his bedroom, he flipped his penny for the 200,001st time. Susan reckoned the film would appeal to them both. The reviews were good. A restricted film but Joey could pass scrutiny. Joey frowned when the last flip landed on his bed heads-up. Susan folded the newspaper and poured herself a beer. She was staying in a friend's apartment while her friend was away. Joey told his parents he was going over to David's place for the evening. David was a fiction Joey created for times like these. Susan lit up a joint and took two long drags from it. Joey gulped down a peanut butter sandwich and hurried out the front door.
They met at the Yonge-Bloor subway station. Susan was wearing a sleeveless, yellow cotton mini dress which would not have been allowed at Joey's school.
'I hope you like the film,' she said.
‘I will,” he said. How could he not? He was walking into a dark cinema with Susan. Holding her hand. It was already great. Although, he was worried that she could hear his breathing, even his heartbeat. But she just stared straight ahead at the movie. Absorbed. A couple of times, he turned and looked at her sideways, trying to catch a glimpse of her breasts through the open space at the armpit of her dress when she leaned forward. He should have flipped his penny again, he thought. And again, and again, until he tossed a tail. After the film, however, things began to look up.
‘Did you like it?’ she asked him.
He did. It was incredible. He loved it. But it scared him. Dustin Hoffman’s character in the final scene, desperately and madly shouting out the girl’s name from the church balcony. He easily saw himself doing something like that. Too easily. Susan suggested they go back to her place. They could talk there. Joey agreed.
'Tell me about Gary,' Susan said, pouring two beers into plastic red cups with yellow flowers on them. 'You do want a beer, don't you? I have coke in the fridge if you'd rather?'
'Beer's fine,' he answered. He had had a beer before. His dad had let him have some when they watched the last Grey Cup game on TV.
'Did he ever talk about me?' Susan sank into a pillowed armchair across from him, her dress sliding further up her thigh. Joey's answer was addressed to her thigh.
'Yeah, sometimes.'
'What did he say?'
'That you were beautiful.' Strictly speaking, Gary never would have said that back then, but he knew he would now.
'Really? What else?' She was rolling something in cigarette papers.
'Well,' Joey breathed deeply. The only thing he could remember Gary talking about was the day he saw her breasts: he liked them, but Joey didn't think he could repeat that. 'He liked your figure,' he finally said. Susan looked up from the joint she had rolled. Joey wondered if he had gone too far. Her eyes rested on his, which then made him have doubts about what he'd said. Had he, perhaps, said, "I like your figure." He wasn't sure. He had been thinking "I" but he'd meant to say "he". Susan wasn't making it any easier by staring at him. 'He liked your figure,' Joey repeated just to be sure.
The repetition surprised Susan. She knew Gary would never have said that. She also knew Joey was expressing his thoughts through Gary. She lit the end of the joint and inhaled. She supposed it was harmless, even endearing. She drew another lung full of the warm, mellow smoke. She felt oddly thrilled by the situation; awkwardly seduced in a fashion; traces of her brother floating about. 'What do you mean, he liked my figure?' she asked, handing the joint to Joey.
'I mean,' he hesitated, fumbling with the odd-looking cigarette, 'I mean, well, that I think you have nice breasts.' Ahh!! Joey could have died. 'I mean him. Gary. He thought that.' Susan giggled. Joey's head screamed "fool!" at him. He sucked hard on the joint, instantly exploding into a painful bout of uncontrollable coughing, his eyes gaping wide like a flip-flopping sunfish. Still laughing, Susan jumped up from her seat and thumped him twice on the back.
'You're not supposed to suck so fast. Here, take some beer.' Joey took the glass and gulped at it, spluttering until the coughing finally stopped. 'You okay now?' He nodded, unable to speak, still trying to get his breath and wondering why he felt so dizzy. Susan took the joint back and drew on it slowly. 'See? Like that.' Then she closed her eyes and sank back into the sofa beside Joey, her dress skating higher on her thighs. Joey swallowed, struggling to comprehend. His eyes darted back and forth between her bare legs and her face. This had to be it, he thought. What was he supposed to do? 'Do you suppose,' Susan said, 'Gary ever wanted to kiss me?'
'Yes,' Joey said, answering the question "Do you want to kiss me?" Susan didn't say anything. Go on, he told himself. Slowly he lowered his lips onto hers, fearing that she would open her eyes at any second and halt him. He kissed her awkwardly, but she responded.
An hour later, Susan kissed Joey on the cheek, got out of bed, crossed to the bathroom, turned on the shower so that she wouldn't be heard and collapsed into sobs. Gary! She had found him; traces and distinguishable prints of her brother in everything Joey had said or done; recognizable elements in the mannerisms, in the voice, even in the laughter. 'Gary, Gary,' she cried now, trying to hold his name in the flush of tears soaking into the rolled-up pad of toilet paper in her fingers. But she couldn't, and for the first time since he had died, she lost him.
Far away, Joey heard what he thought was rain. He was lying in Susan's bed, swimming in the euphoria of his first time. He had done it. Had sex! His eyes busily tracked the circular movement of the walls and ceiling as they swirled about the bed like a kid's merry-go-round. Round and round he went, hoping he would remember it all.
He still remembered it five years later. In the cemetery. 200,001. After confessing to Gary, he stood up and waited. His shadow, long in the evening sun, blended with those cast by the nearby tombstones. He was waiting for Gary to say something.
'Excuse me.' It wasn't Gary's voice. Joey opened his eyes. 'Excuse me,' the man repeated, stepping closer. 'My name is Graham. Graham Maitland.' He brought his hand forward tentatively. As Joey took it, he noticed a woman approach from the left, slicing sideways through his shadow. It was the woman he had seen earlier scribbling notes. Now they stood in front of him, smiling cautiously, not wanting to scare him. 'My wife, Brenda,' the man said, gesturing to his wife.
'Hi,' Joey said.
'Hello.' She spoke quickly, shook his hand, and stepped back. Joey followed her eyes as they darted nervously toward her husband. For a moment nothing was said, then the man coughed.
'Excuse us, but we overheard you talking and -'
'It was wonderful. Beautiful,' his wife said excitedly.
Joey nodded, having no idea what they were talking about. He thought they might have met him before, on campus perhaps. Not that he was interested. He was surprised when they suddenly launched into a lengthy account of who they were and what they did.
The Maitlands—they spoke in tandem, picking up the tail end of each other’s sentences and thoughts like an over-rehearsed vaudeville act—were sociologists in the process of writing a book, an enormous study of Canadians which they provisionally entitled CANADA: The Seeds of Respectability. Joey resisted the bait, refusing to be drawn by their title. He smiled and they continued. The book would be based on thousands of “somewhat random” case studies; people they bumped into on the street, in bars and restaurants, on buses and trains, at the movies, in offices; urban, rural, transient, the list was endless. Which, of course, they explained to Joey, is where he could help them. Would he volunteer an hour of his time for a personal interview? It would all be carried out in the strictest confidence, all references to him in the future book being made with a pseudonym. Which, they said, was why they were in the cemetery; to find names from the tombstones for subjects who didn't furnish their own. They needed thousands.
Joey laughed. 'Okay,' he said. Why not? It seemed the quickest way to end their interruption. 'I'll do it. Put me down as Dan Spear.' The name simply popped up and he reached for it. 'It's a childhood nickname,' he said, responding to an enquiring look from Brenda.
'Between you and Gary?' she asked.
Gary? It was the first time his name had been mentioned. Joey's brow furrowed. It suddenly dawned on him what the Maitlands meant when they said they had heard him speaking. They were referring to his conversation with Gary. And they had probably heard it all. Susan, everything. Damn, he thought, feeling anger tightening in his stomach, that was private.
'Dan Spear,' Graham said, jotting the name down in a used notebook, its pages overflowing with hundreds of aliases. 'Now what we'd like to do is arrange a time for the interview. Do you have a telephone number where we could reach you?'
Joey balked. Screw the telephone number, he thought. Screw the whole fucking thing! But he stopped himself. He didn't want to reveal any more than he already had. Dan Spear was all they would get. 'My number?' he fumbled. He pulled Joanna's blue card out of his pocket. 'It's there,' he said, not thinking, not thinking at all. He handed it to Graham. He assumed his Mr. Submarine date with Joanna for the following Tuesday was on. He could afford to give away her card. Huge mistake. Huge mistake.
'What were the fucking chances?' he screamed a week later as he found his way home from the pub. A thousand to one? A million? There was no answer. The dark clouds passed over blankly. 'Yeah, well to hell with you,' he said, stumbling numbly on. Suddenly he was incredibly tired. His head drooped against his chest. 'All because of one nasty head. One miserable five-year-old head.'