Drive by Saviours

8/8/2019 Drive by Saviours

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100 Million Love Songs,

All Right Here in the

First Chapter

T c v r r

she s and thei hild en in 1973. is is whe e and when Bumi was bo n, his fa e all small and inkly, b own and wide-eyed

wonde at the implausibility of being plu ked f om his mothe s womb while she lay bleeding on a di t oo silently and stubbo nly efusing to

y out at the pain of bi th. He was the Bugis boy with a Ja anese namehosen by his Ja anese mothe . She had, fo the most pa t, let he own

t aditions slip away as the yea s and the island olluded to make hethei own. Rilaka be ame he new mothe land, its Buginese language he

lingua franca. He stbo ns name was a t ibute to that natal pa t of he ,and be ause it meant ea th in he fa away mothe -tongue, it honou edthe pla e of his bi th in a multi ultu al ho us.

F om the beginning Bumis eyes pie ed ha de than any othe s, glow-e ing while his fathe fo ed him to t y football, glowing b ightly at the

han e to help the man ount ma ket money f om mainland sh sales. By age fou hed humbled his fathe by be oming a faste and mo e a u atebookkeepe . He also spoke bette Indonesian, a skill his fathe exploited


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fo p i e negotiations with mainlande s. By age e he was bo ed witha ounting and took to enginee ing.

Bumis fathe , a wi y man with su p ising st ength and auda iously self-g anted autho ity, went looking fo the boy late one e ening afte hefailed to ome home fo suppe . On thei tiny island of a hund ed people,any lost hild not found in e minutes was assumed d owned. Yusupu was not wo ied. Bumi was no likely d owning i tim, the st e-yea -old potentially sma te than the sea.

Yusupu found Bumi on the fa , sloping side of the island whe e noone had e e bothe ed to build o settle. It was simply too fa away f om the othe s. In e ent yea s it had be ome a pla e whe e the womengathe ed to make lothing when they wanted to get away f om thetou ists.

Bumi was the e u sing a foul bla k st eak the likes of whi h Yusupuhadnt hea d in all his yea s on boats, not f om his fathe o g andfathe ,no any othe man hed known.

Bumi! Whats w ong? he shouted, half in ange and half in on e n.I ant get it tied! Bumi eto ted, pointing in f ust ation at a small

tangle of netting and thi ty empty plasti pop bottles. My nge s a etoo small!

Why do you want to tie them? Yusupu asked. e sha pness in hisoi e was all but gone.

You tie them at one end to make it oat. en you an lea e it and goplay, Bumi explained. en you ome ba k and you ha e sh. So youha e mo e time to play with me, Daddy.

Yusupu was not an ex eptionally ha d-wo king man, but he did spend

six hou s a day at sea six hou s Bumi felt would be bette spent playing with him. While otation nets ha e existed in shing ultu es fo en-tu ies, Rilakas mo e labou -intensi e methods wo ked to keep the menout of the womens hai fo six hou s a day, and i e e sa, and to makephysi ally st ong, ha dy men fo an island left naked in the exposu e of

ain and me iless sun.Like most human inno ations Bumis idea had unfo eseen impa ts.

e lighte wo kload and g eate ash ow that ame thei way (on e


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Yusupu aught on and got to tying what Bumis little nge s ouldnt)esulted not in mo e play time with his fathe , but less. And the time he

did spend with the man be ame mu h less pleasant.ough Yusupu and the othe Rilakan she s had ne e befo e felt

any need fo al ohol, whi h was taboo, it was f ee time, and the um thathelped pass it, that hanged Bumis fathe . On nding themsel es withunp e edented time on thei hands, and not ha ing any pa ti ula desi eto etu n to thei families, Rilakas she s began isiting a little ba with ali e musi ian nea the seapo t afte the at h was sold. e toxins in theliquo put the inexpe ien ed d inke s in a olle ti ely ill mood, and mostof them disliked the numbing e e t of too many d inks. Only Yusupusstubbo nness pushed him fo wa d until he had d unk mo e than his llse e al nights in a ow. His oho ts would keep him ompany and swit hto o ee afte just one glass of st ong um. Yusupu d ank e e y night,long afte the othe s had ti ed of al ohol.

It seemed to Bumi that when Yusupu d ank, all the mans f ust ationsbubbled to the su fa e. e st time Yusupu hit him fo e e hangedhis unde standing of pain. e e was no desi e in it at all, just deepdisappointment.

He had stayed up late, dete mined to see his fathe befo e d eam time.He had efused to ome home, af aid that sleep would o e take him if he got too omfo table. Instead he stayed by the sho e playing long aftethe tou ists had etu ned to the mainland and the othe hild en hadgone to sleep. He d ew pi tu es in the sand with a sti k to pass the hou safte sunset, past midnight e en, blea y-eyed and obsessed with the singlethought of his fathe . When the boats nally etu ned Bumi an to them

and wat hed open-mouthed as the othe men helped his fathe o e thegunwale. Yusupu et hed and spit into the sea hed always told Bumi wassa ed.

Daddy! Bumi ied, thinking Yusupu was hu t. He an to him,pushing th ough the othe men to o e a hand.

Yusupu looked down at Bumi and snee ed. What a e you doing up?Bumi swallowed and looked up at Yusupu, who pulled ba k his mat-

ted salt-and-peppe hai . E en hun hed o e , Yusupu towe ed o e the


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boy like a giant sea eatu e lu hing onto the land. Waiting fo you,Bumi said.

e men laughed and one tussled Bumis hai . He misses you, oneof them told Yusupu, who smiled a bemused smile, took the boy up intohis a ms, and a ied him home.

Yusupu kept smiling until he had ou hed in th ough the doo of thei little house. en he put Bumi down and took him by the a m,looked the boy in the eyes, and said, Dont you e e emba ass me likethat again.

He ga e a half-smile and slapped Bumis fa e. Bumis lips qui e ed anda tea ame to his eye. A e you going to y now, Son? Yusupu asked.A e you going to emba ass me fu the ?

Bumi swallowed ha d, su king a head full of tension down his th oat.His body was shaking, but he didnt y. He shook his head solemnly no.

Good, Yusupu said, je king his head to the side. Go to sleep.


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When the Reception Fades to Zero in

Chapter 2,

Turning Up the Volume Wont Help

Toronto is everything good and everything bad about a ity. It is e e ything intense, f eneti , and ex iting,e e ything dull, d ab and d ea y. E e ything fun and e e ything

f ightening an be expe ien ed he e. It is a pla e you an do anything youould do anywhe e else: eat the food, dan e the dan e, hea the language

of any ultu e in the wo ld. It is seg egated, san tioned and ompa tmen-talized. It is all things to e e yone and it is fully satisfa to y to no one. Itis not exa tly my home but it is whe e I was bo n and it is whe e I li e.

I was awed and fas inated by the human s a s on the st eets of my ity

when I was wide-eyed and small, p e- yni al and inno ent. I wonde edat the lth of homeless people, asked my mothe why it was I had tobathe and they didnt. She told me, Be ause I said so, o , Be ause theimothe s didnt a e enough about them to make them ha e a bath andlook how they tu ned out.

I was ne e gi en f ee eign anywhe e in the ity, but was eined inand kept lose at all times, hand-held walking, lap-sat on publi t ansit. I was taught s epti ism of st ange s, not to talk to them. My e y su i al


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depended on this ule, yet I ouldnt follow it and often engaged in idlehit- hat with andom on entionee s on the sidewalk. My memo y of

what was said is mu ky, b oken by a la ge, lea ly feminine hand g ippingmy shoulde and pulling me ba k to the safety of my mothe s G eat Wo y. And so, unde the i e-g ip of e e p ote tion, I lea ned to fea st ange sand admi e thei fea ful fo ms f om afa . I t in pe fe tly in To onto.

Ha ing ne e lost my fas ination fo humans, I studied so ial wo k. eones who looked at me with a wei d mix of longing and ange we e theones I admi ed most. I g aduated summa um laude and landed a job ata ommunity health ent e. I was qui kly put to task ompiling quantita-ti e epo ts on lients se ed, and w iting fund aising p oposals p omisingg andiosity beyond human onne tion. No one would fall th ough the

a ks thanks to a e-yea st ategi plan d afted by p ofessional onsul-tants. I had a kna k fo it and the mo e I w ote about lients the less Isaw of them. When I did see them it was eeting. ey ga e me the ColesNotes e sion of all thei p oblems and I made suggestions, like a d i e-by sa iou .

I limbed the sala y s ale ight to the eiling in only fou yea s, at whi h point Id need a new a ee o a p omotion to Exe uti e Di e toto imp o e my nan ial status. I ena ted eati ity with language andnumbe s, and thanks to me we hi ed health p omote s, nut itionistsand so ial wo ke s to help keep t a k of the st eam of needy people who

owed apidly and powe fully in and out of ou doo s ea h day. I wasontent when I was twenty- e yea s old.

It helped that I met Sa ah that yea . She was a da k-eyed intelligentfashion modelif you an belie e my lu kwho looked like shed

stepped st aight o the o e of a Rolling Stones album. A tually she didmostly depa tment sto e atalogues, but she was att a ti e enough thatall my f iends se iously wonde ed if I we e bla kmailing he .

I met he in an antique sto e whe e ou pe eption, attention and gazeslowly shifted f om the same set of plates to ea h othe . What do youknow about these? she asked me.

ey e A ton, I told he . Mid-nineteenth entu y, hand painted with oil. G eat olou , medium ondition; I wouldnt pay this p i e fo


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them. e e is a meti ulous and igo ous pa t of me that a qui es andho des these fa ts like p e ious stones, and keeps them at the eady to besha ed in o de to imp ess a de astatingly att a ti e woman.

Really? she said non halantly, holding the question in the spa ebetween us with he soft, studious b own eyes, wide as the plates in ques-tion. ey ompelled me to say mo e.

Yes, eally, I said.Inte esting, she answe ed. She was un on in ed. eyd be f om Co nwall o iginally, I o e ed, unable to stop the

mundane things exiting my mouth.B ought ba k on a t ip, she told me with mo e autho ity than my

fa ts. It was the kind of autho ity that an be g anted only by the imagi-nation. Fo a womans olle tion of things that we e kept in medium

ondition, just fo spite.Spite?Spite. E e y day she leaned the house fo him and made all his

fa ou ites fo dinne f om a efully sele ted and pu hased ing edients.Little did he a e. She launde ed and p essed his lothing, took his mes-sages, and typed his lette s. Little did he noti e he ha d wo k. All henoti ed was he de line.

So what was he e enge? She didnt a uum all the way to the edgeof the a pet. She didnt wash the dishes ight away. She didnt maintainthe p ize possessions.

Like plates.Exa tly. She negle ted all the little things she knew he wouldnt noti e

anyway, but ne e the things he would. Ne e would she unde -salt the

sau e o o e ook the pasta.Not mu h of a e enge.Vengean e wasnt he spe ialty. She left that to God and outli ed he no-

good husband by thi ty yea s. ey we e the best of he life. Well, mostly.ose last few yea s when she was alone and too si k to lean at all, and

he family plate olle tion sat gathe ing dust, they we e di ult yea s. Poo woman died just last month du ing the i e sto m. He e it wasnt as bad as inMont eal but it was bad enough fo a ninety-fou -yea -old shut-in.


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So, the g and hild en swa med the tiny apa tment. ey we eamazed at the a es of junk sto ed in one tiny spa e whe e a small elde ly woman had spent the last eight yea s of he li ing existen e.

ey pi ked and nabbed and laimed bits and pie es he e and the e,some fo sentimental alue, some fo kits h and some fo hopelessly opti-misti nan ial alue. As if.

But most of an enti e lifetime of a qui ed little mate ials ended up jammed into a Goodwill slot.

So, how did this plate get he e? I asked, apti ated by he minds wande ings.

A keen-eyed olle to saw it at the Goodwill, she ontinued. Boughtit fo a bu k, and b ought it he e so it ould ente anothe olle tion of

andom a quisitions in someone elses st uggle with a mundane mo tal-ity, whe e mate ial things a e a tempo a y omfo t.

She smiled and gazed at me. ats the saddest plate I e e e seen, I told he .No, she said. Its no sadde than any othe plate.She was the saddest gi l Id e e met.By the time of the powe outage the i e sto ms sto ies of he oism, t ag-

edy, t iumph and on eption had been epla ed with the my iad sto ies of Septembe , the etaliato y oil wa s, se e e a ute espi ato y synd ome( r ) and West Nile i us. ese we e the plagues of a engeful God. Fu -the mo e, Sa ah and I had fallen in lo e, mo ed in togethe in an East End

at, and settled into a outine st uggle with a mundane mo tality withoute en the nan ial esou es to maintain the medio e omfo t of mate ialthings.

I wasnt mise able mind you. Had I been t uly mise able I wouldntha e needed the powe outage to f ee me. I was monotonous to othepeople, and a little bo ed myself, thats all.

cr 7:30 ; oom only, glazed eyes on fo lo n fa es, shipped to ou pens on the othe

side of the ity. e ush got tighte at 7:45, all olou s and lasses of owded multi ultu al sounds and odou s, all abso bed in a sho t se ies


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I wished I ould spend the whole day with Abdul, show him thef amed a t in ou galle ies and the g a ti a t in ou st eets, take him toho key games, show him the u ban expanse below the c Towe , gi ehim the the apy of doing something, anything, whi h he ouldnt doalone on his mate ial-needs-only welfa e allowan e.

But with epo ts due to the go e nment funde s that hold ou exis-ten e in thei godly palms, it was my lot and my time allotment toappease them with sa i ial epo ts and p oposals, o asionally takingthe ommunion of wo kshops on budget de elopment, and doing the

e emonial dan e of egulato y lingo. I had but thi ty minutes a ailablefo Abdul, du ing whi h I efe ed him to se e al oluntee agen ies,none of whi h we e likely to ha e anything fo a geneti ist.

If I we e a Ch istian, a t ue Ch istian, Id ha e taken Abdul out andabout in my f ee time, o gi en him some money at least. But my pe -sonal budget was a efully and st i tly allo ated to loan payments, ent,RRSPs, and s upulously p e-sele ted egiste ed ha ities bene ting f ommy bene olen e. e e was little left fo handouts.

My time was equally egimented: fo ty hou s fo wo k, softball onMondays, oluntee boa d meetings on Tuesdays, a t lass on Wednesdays,

u sdays we e fo w iting a weekly pie e I do fo the so ial wo ke s news-lette , and F idays we e fo Sa ah. It was he insisten e on quality timedu ing whi h we played a ds o wat hed mo ies, though when we sta ted we used to sing ea h othe lo e songs until it got so hot we we e naked onthe oo , exhausted, with all the heat ising abo e us as sleep ensued.

My weekends we e dedi ated to the ne e -ending task of xing up ouxe -uppe house, the only one we ould a o d in To onto despite ent-

ing the upstai s to students. It was an ongoing p o ess of d ywall, p ime ,paint, ewi ing, e-shingling, spa kle, ta , glue, hamme , sixteen di e entkinds of w en hes, 112 kinds of s ews and d i e s, a d ill fo tough jobs,

e-spa kle the mistakes, sanding th ough dust and fumes. What time did I ha e fo lients? Besides, you take one to a ballgame

you gotta take em all, whi h is well beyond my allotted ha ity budget. Abdul left my ubi le with his head hanging as always, and as always

I wonde ed if the e was mo e I ould ha e done. I put it out of my mind


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and etu ned to my budget analysis. Someone was spending too mu h onlong distan e phone alls.

At 4:30, as I was d afting a memo outlining a new poli y on longdistan e alls, the powe went out. e e was a olle ti e g oan f om the

ellblo k at the inte uption. Te hni al di ulties again? As if the om-pute s we ent slow enough.

A st ange silen e set in, as if time had f ozen. e steady hum of theompute s and o es ent lights had eased. Now what?

One by one we stagge ed into the hallways, o e whelmed by thef ightening possibilities of ou newfound f eedom. It was the f eedom of nothing to do, o the elati e f eedom of plenty to do but no tools with whi h to do it.

Powe s out?Looks like it.Well, lets see.My manage , She y, and I st olled a ound the maze asking inte mit-

tently, You powe out too?Yep, should someone he k with maintenan e?Bill, ou maintenan e guy, fumbled a ound with the fuse box fo a

while as we stood a ound wonde ing aloud what ould ha e aused aomplete powe outage.

Anyone got a batte y-ope ated adio?Mabel, ou e eptionist, had a batte y-ope ated adio in he d awe ,

whi h was lled with gadgets and elasti bands, pape lips and andles, just-in- ases. e adio explained that a ent al gene ato Somewhe e-in- Ame i a had gone down. e easons we e as yet un lea .

Okay Bill, you an stop p etending to p oblem-sol e, Mabel shoutedto the b oom loset.What now? I asked Mabel, She y, and two othe so ial wo ke s,

Connie and Ma ia.She y told me, If you didnt think you ould go home at 4:30, now

you an.

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