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  “I think this shirt and tie would go nicely with that suit,” Alan said as the customer approached.

  “They do look quite nice,” said the customer, “although I can’t see myself wearing a purple shirt. I usually just wear a white shirt with my suits.”

  “It’s time to move out of the middle-ages,” countered Alan, holding up the suit jacket, shirt and tie so the customer could see. Even Henry could see that this combination worked and instantly made the customer look ten years younger.

  “Sold,” said the customer, and Alan quickly rang up the sale.

  Alan turned his focus to his brother. “I’ve got a great suit for you, but I need a smoke-break. Do you have time?”

  “Sure,” Henry said as he followed Alan out through the back room and through a door that led out to an alley behind the store. Alan grabbed a piece of wood that was lying on the floor and stuck it in the door so it didn’t lock behind them. Henry noticed that the piece of wood had a large “G” carved into it, which struck him as odd since the name of the store began with a “B”.

  “What does the G stand for?” Henry asked.

  “Nothing,” Alan replied. “I just carve initials into stuff while I’m out here on my smoke breaks.” Henry noticed several other G’s carved into the bricks on the back of the building. There were several other graffiti marks scattered on the wall so it was obviously a hobby of other people as well.

  “I just made more money on that shirt and tie than I did on the suit,” Alan said, changing the subject as he lit up a cigarette.

  Alan was about six years younger than Henry. You could easily tell they were brothers, even though Alan weighed at least 40 pounds less. He had always been a little hyper-active which somewhat explained why he was so thin, but the cigarette smoking was also a factor. Henry could see from the mound of cigarette butts that lay on the ground that Alan was still a heavy smoker. Henry also knew that Alan smoked things other than regular cigarettes on a regular basis as well.

  “We’ve been really busy,” Alan said. “We had a big 48-hour sale on the weekend and sold a ton of stuff. They ran an ad in this morning’s paper saying that due to the overwhelming response, they had extended the sale until 5PM today, so we’ve been getting more people in today. Of course, we knew all along the sale would include today to catch the people who don’t want to come downtown on the weekends.”

  “Whatever works,” Henry said. Henry knew that Alan was a great salesman, but he also knew he worked incredibly hard.

  “I only have a few minutes to measure you up for the suit I put aside for you,” Alan said. “I’ve got Edward Bronson coming in for a custom fitting at 1PM.” Edward Bronson was a big player in Toronto. His family owned one of Toronto’s biggest newspapers and several others across the country. They also had part ownership in some TV stations in Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver. Henry knew that Alan was trying to impress him, and it was working.

  “No problem,” Henry said. “I’ve got a one o’clock meeting myself. I’m surprised Edward Bronson buys suits at a discount menswear store.”

  “He doesn’t buy stuff off of our regular rack. We bring in higher quality stuff for some of our special clients. We’ve got a few of them - a few bank presidents, a bunch of lawyers. Do you know Frenchie Bouchard? He wears our stuff on the air all the time. We give him a good deal because we get mentioned in the credits.”

  Of course Henry knew who Frenchie Bouchard was. François Bouchard was a sportscaster on one of the national sports channels and one of their most popular personalities. He was a promising hockey player with the Montreal Canadiens until he blew out his knee. He had originally just appeared on one of the French channels as a colour commentator while he went through numerous knee operations, but when the doctors finally determined that his hockey career was over, he quickly decided that being a sports commentator would be his new career. It was major news when it was announced that he was leaving the local Montreal station and moving to a national sports channel.

  The percentage of female viewers of the sports channel had grown dramatically since his arrival at the network. It was funny that hockey players and male viewers always referred to him as Frenchie, which was how he was known in his playing days. However, the female viewers referred to him as François, and there was normally a bit of a swoon when they said his name. He would certainly be a good promoter for the store. He seemed to be wearing a new suit or sports jacket on the air every couple of weeks. He wore everything from flashy gold sports jackets to classic looking pinstripe suits, and everything in between, and looked good in all of them.

  Alan took one last puff on his cigarette, threw it on the ground with all of the others, and then stepped on it to make sure it was out. He lifted up the stick that was holding the door ajar and they stepped back into the backroom of the store. Alan went to a rack that contained all of the clothes that were waiting for tailoring or pickup and selected the suit that he had set aside for Henry. Henry noticed that it had a price tag of $1,200.

  “I can’t afford to pay $1,200 for a suit,” Henry said, looking a little worried.

  “Don’t worry,” Alan said. “You won’t be paying anywhere close to that.”

  Alan carried the suit out into the main part of the store and slipped the jacket onto Henry. It fit perfectly. Alan pulled the pants from the hanger, handed them to Henry and directed him to the change room to try them on. When Henry emerged from the change room, Alan asked him to stand in front of the mirror so he could mark them up for alterations.

  “It looks like you’ve put on a few pounds,” Alan said as he marked on the pants where the waist would have to be let out. He then dropped to the floor where he marked where they would have to be hemmed. “They should be ready by Thursday.”

  “That reminds me,” Henry said, “David has a soccer game up in Vaughan on Thursday - regional finals. Any chance you can make it?”

  “Maybe,” Alan said. “I’m off on Thursdays, so probably. I’ll let you know.”

  Henry returned to the change room to take off the pants. When he emerged, Alan wasn’t there. He saw him over in another part of the store that had been cordoned off and saw Edward Bronson talking to Alan as he tried on a suit jacket. Mr. Bronson had arrived early, or more precisely, his entourage had arrived early. The owner of the store was there as well, trying to make sure everything ran smoothly. Alan looked over and caught Henry’s eye, and then nodded for him to place the pants he had just tried on onto the counter. Henry nodded back, placed them on the counter and started to head back to his office.

  *** Chapter 4 ***

  On Thursday morning Henry rode the train into Toronto as usual. He had arranged to catch a ride with Alan out to the soccer game later in the afternoon. David would be going to the game on a school bus with the rest of the team. The only problem was Henry’s mom. She was always keen to attend her grandson’s soccer games and since this was the regional finals, she wasn’t going to miss this game for the world. She had her own car, but she didn’t like driving on the 400-series highways and Henry wasn’t keen on her driving on the expressways either. Henry had encouraged Robert to come cheer on his brother, partly because he knew Robert would drive rather than his mom.

  Henry worked through lunch to make sure his schedule was cleared for later in the day. He knew that problems had a habit of showing up at the worst possible time. His phone rang just as he was packing up and getting ready to leave, but he decided to ignore it and let it go to voice-mail.

  Since Alan didn’t work on Thursdays and didn’t want to drive downtown, they had arranged that Henry would take the subway out to the Kennedy station and Alan would pick him up at the station. It was close to Alan’s apartment and would probably save them at least 45 minutes in getting out of the downtown. When Henry emerged from the station, he spotted Alan double-parked in a no stopping zone. He quickly jumped into the passenger seat and threw his stuff onto the back seat.

  “What’s with the bling?” Henry asked,
noticing that Alan was wearing a leather jacket and a rather large gold chain around his neck. “Are you supposed to be Starsky or Hutch?” Henry asked, referring to the 1970’s cop show.

  “I have to bring enough style for the both of us,” smirked Alan.

  Alan sped out of the subway station’s parking lot and started the drive to Vaughan, which is just north of Toronto. Alan always drove fast, but he seemed to be driving even faster than normal today.

  “We’ve got lots of time to make it to the game,” Henry said, glancing at his watch and hoping that his comment would cause Alan to slow down a bit. It didn’t.

  When they got to the soccer field, Henry was pleased to see his mother already sitting in the stands with Robert sitting beside her. Henry climbed up the steps taking two at a time and sat down beside Robert. Alan followed and sat down beside his mom. Since Alan wasn’t married and didn’t have any kids, his mom didn’t spend as much time visiting him as she did with Henry or Jenny.

  “Thanks for driving Grandma to the game,” Alan whispered to Robert. He knew that was the main reason that Robert had come. Robert could always be counted on to come through when needed.

  They turned their focus to the field where David’s team, the Warriors, were going through their warm-ups. This consisted of a series of stretches, runs and jumps which the team did in unison.

  “Doesn’t David look like Alan when he was younger?” Grandma asked. Alan said he couldn’t see it, but Henry knew exactly what she was talking about. He had noticed it for the last few years.

  “How could you not see it?” Henry said. “He’s the spitting image of you when you were seventeen. He not only looks like you, but he walks and runs exactly like you. Hell, he even sounds like you.”

  “I think he’s much more athletic than I ever was,” Alan said.

  Alan had been a very good athlete in high school and naturally good in all sports, although he hadn’t worked at it at all. He could have made any sports team he wanted and had been asked to try out for several high school teams by the coaches, but had never shown much interest and spent most of his high school years skipping class and hanging out in the pool hall.

  David was totally different from Alan in that aspect. David worked hard at everything he did, including sports. That’s probably why David was being watched by the scouts. Having raw talent was essential, but having desire and a strong work ethic were equally important.

  The referee blew his whistle indicating that the warm-up period was over and he summoned the team captains to centre-field for the coin flip. This would be a tough game for David’s team, partly because they were using their backup goalkeeper due to an injury, but also because they were facing the top-ranked team from Vaughan and the stands were now filled with their supporters. The regional finals were always held in Vaughan because they had the best facilities. This year the Vaughan team had won their division so, in effect, they had home field advantage.

  David had said they’d be playing a much more defensive strategy this game due to their injured keeper and the team had been working on defense all week at their practices. David’s position with the Warriors was right defense and he knew he would be under pressure the whole game because their opponent’s best striker played on his side. To their surprise, their opponent also seemed to be playing a very defensive formation. The first half ended with no score, and really no good scoring chances for either team. The people in the stands were getting increasingly bored with the lack of offense and the Vaughan supporters had tried to fire their team up with numerous cheers. The players on the field seemed oblivious to anything going on in the stands, but it certainly fired up Alan. He had tried to organize cheers for David’s team without success and now seemed to be getting into verbal assaults with the Vaughan supporters. Henry switched seats to sit beside Alan so he could try to calm him down.

  “Take it easy,” he said to Alan, encouraging him to sit down. “We don’t want to be starting any fights in the stands. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re severely out-numbered.” Alan said he was going for a smoke and started heading out of the stands. Henry went with him to make sure he didn’t get into any trouble along the way.

  “I don’t think they allow smoking anywhere close to the stands,” Henry said when they reached the bottom of the stands. “We better head over to the far side of the parking lot.” Henry had no idea if that was true or not, but he wanted to get Alan as far away from the Vaughan supporters as he could.

  “Have you been taking your meds?” Henry asked. Alan had been diagnosed as being bipolar a few years ago and had gone through some rough patches, although he had been doing much better over the last year.

  “Yeah, I took them this morning,” Alan said. “I’ve been taking them every second day because I’m almost out and I haven’t had time to get to the drugstore to get my prescription filled. I went today but they told me to come back later today to pick them up.”

  “Make sure you do,” Henry said. “You seem a little wired today.”

  “I’m fine. I’m just excited about the game.” Alan took one last drag on his cigarette and they headed back to the stands just as the second half of the game was getting underway.

  The second half of the game followed the same pattern as the first half. The Vaughan team was using a trap strategy where they would quickly converge on a player whenever the Warriors moved the ball up to midfield. The midfielder had nowhere to go with the ball and the only safe pass was back to the defender. This is what the Warriors had done in the first half of the game, but they were growing impatient with their lack of offence. The few times they had tried to force a pass through the middle had resulted in turnovers and the Vaughan team had quickly mounted a counter-attack that had resulted in three good scoring chances. Once they had hit the cross-bar, once their rookie goalkeeper had made a great save, and once David had cleared the ball just before the ball crossed the line. They were lucky the game was still scoreless. Their coach had reminded them to stay with their defensive strategy at half-time, but it was easier said than done, and the players could sense the uneasiness growing in Marc, their goalkeeper.

  “Come on guys, we need a goal,” Marc said. “Move the ball. You’ve got to move the ball quicker. Somebody’s got to make a play.” Marc was a great goalkeeper, although he was only in grade nine and wasn’t used to the pressure. He had been quite happy being the backup and sitting on the bench all season long, but had suddenly been thrust into the spotlight with the injury to their regular keeper. David and the other defenders had continually been encouraging him throughout the game, but they could see that he was now having trouble making even routine saves from long range shots. During a stoppage in play due to an injury, several of the Warriors gathered together along the sidelines to get a drink of water.

  “We’ve got to get the ball out of our end,” David said. “Marc’s getting more and more nervous and we’ve got to give him a break so he can calm down.”

  “That’s why Michael went down,” James said. “I don’t think he’s really hurt.” James was one of the Warriors best strikers but had hardly touched the ball because he had been marked closely for the whole game. “It seems like they’ve got all of their best players up front or at midfield. Alex, you’ve probably got the strongest leg. Just hit me a long ball and I’ll try to run under it and put some pressure on their defence for a while.”

  Alex played middle defence and knew he could easily do it, but seemed reluctant. “Coach said he wants us to just do short passes and play a defensive strategy.”

  David put his hand on Alex’s shoulder. “I know,” David said. “If it doesn’t work out, I’ll take the heat from the coach but we’ve got to try something different. I don’t like our chances if it goes to a shoot-out.”

  And that’s exactly where it looked like it was heading as regulation time had now elapsed and they were now into injury time, which they expected would only be three or four minutes. The Warriors tried one last push up the left
side of the field, but once again their opponents converged on the ball using their trapping strategy. The midfielder realized all of his passing lanes were cut off and his only option was to pass the ball back to the left defender who did a short pass over to Alex at middle defence. Alex looked down the field for James but could see he was being held by one of the Vaughan defenders and couldn’t get away.

  David had noticed throughout the game that the Vaughan team had gradually shifted farther and farther to the left side of the field as the game went on, which made sense because the Warriors had tried to go up the left side about eighty percent of the time. David was pretty much all by himself on the right side. He was supposed to fall back behind Alex in this situation as part of their defensive strategy, but instead suddenly took off down the field and called for the ball.

  “David, where the hell are you going?” yelled the coach. “Get back!!!”

  David didn’t hear him, or pretended not to hear him, and kept racing down the right side of the field. Alex launched a long arcing pass towards David. The Vaughan midfielder was scrambling to get back into position and looked like he would intercept the pass, but David leapt high in the air, flicked the ball over the charging midfielder, and raced by him to gain control of the ball. The whole right side of the field had opened up like the parting of the Red Sea and David only had one defender to beat. David gave him his best move, but to no avail. The defender was successfully angling David further to the right and away from the goal.

  “David,” shouted James, calling for the ball. James was at the left side of the box, uncovered. David crossed the ball towards him, trying to make sure it was high enough to clear the goalkeeper who stood between them. Both James and the goalkeeper jumped as high as they could trying to reach the ball, but it was too high for both of them.