Paradise Skies

Sky's the Limit

It wasn't an Impala it was a K car but the rest if the story was pretty much the way JT said it would be; this guy Theo and his buddy working at their uncle's restaurant on the Danforth met a guy who knew a guy and when there was a strike at Maple Leafs Gardens and the Shriners Circus was in a jam Theo stepped up. 

"Twenty-four hours straight, we worked," he said, "making trips from the Gardens to the dump, right over there," pointing across Commissioners to the transfer station. 

Gayle nodded and she didn't have to fake being interested, she liked this guy. 

Now he was saying, "When the place was empty, every spec of garbage gone, the operations manager offered us the contract." He was smiling. "I just stared at him and he said, 'what's the matter, you don't want it?' and I decided right at that moment to be straight with him, tell him the truth. The only way to do business." 

Gayle said, "Right," but she didn't believe this guy had made some important decision or had any moral code, she figured he was just beat after hauling all that crap and not thinking straight. 

"So I told him, I said, 'Buddy, I don't have a single truck, it's just me and Spiro and a couple cars, that's it,' and the guy laughed and said, 'You take this contract to a bank, you can lease a fleet of trucks,' and that's what we did." 

"Good for you," Gayle said. She could feel JT getting impatient, fidgeting, but she was relaxed. She was surprising herself how much she was enjoying the business and she was feeling like she was good at it. Which was good because her husband, Danny, had just about lost all interest in it. 

"Of course," Theo said, "we had to buy a luxury box out of the contract, that was a hundred grand kickback, but the Leafs were good then, this was the early nineties, you remember those teams, Wendel Clark, Dougie Gilmour, the Cat in nets? Pat Burns coaching." 

"Yeah," Gayle said, "I remember." She'd just given up stripping then, moving into management at Hanrahan's in Hamilton, Danny and the Rebels had taken the place over and had started talking to the Saints of Hell in Montreal about patching over. She remembered the Russian girls coming in then, eastern Europeans, one of them dancing to that song "Paradise Skies" when Kim Mitchell himself walked in. Wild times. She was almost as nostalgic as this guy talking about hauling garbage out of the old Gardens, thinking, sky's the limit now. 

"Long time ago," Theo said. "We've built quite a business since then." 

"You've built it," Gayle said. 

"Spiro's still around." 

But she could tell Theo would be making all the decisions. She said, "It's different now." 

"Maybe the rest of the city won't get privatized, if the mayor resigns." 

"Why would he resign?" 

"You didn't hear?" 

"I heard a rumour," Gayle said, "about a video, but that's all it is." 

Theo smiled and said, "If you say so." 

"Besides, people still love his agenda." 

"He's fighting for the little guy." 

Theo and Gayle laughed but JT let out a loud sigh and was tapping his chair, ready to be serious. 

Theo said, "Okay, so there are two big players now and one of them is going to buy me out." He didn't add, whether I like it or not, but Gayle could hear it in his voice and she said, "Maybe our offer will be better." 

"You really want to go up against these guys?" 

"Come on," Gayle said, "this isn't Detroit or Chicago, it isn't a movie, it's just business." 

"You think the mayor of Chicago smokes crack?" 

JT, finally losing it, said, "Who gives a shit?" 

"The last mayor wouldn't play with us," Theo said, "on this privatization." 

"This mayor plays for us," JT said. "He just doesn't know it." 

"It doesn't matter," Gayle said, "whether the rest of the city goes private or not, this is still a good deal." 

And forty-two million dollars later the deal closed with a handshake. 

Outside walking back to her BMW Gayle started to feel good about it. Sure, it was the garbage business but now she could sit at the table with the boys in Woodbridge and get a piece.  

JT said, "That's a lot of money." 

"I'll have to talk to Levine, move some around, bring some cash back from the Caymans." 

"That's a lot of cash." 

They were standing beside Gayle's car then and she said, "Those guys, Green Living, whatever they call it, GLM," one of the two big players Theo was talking about, "they showed up in town with a hundred million bucks, all financed, got that contract for the west side." 

JT said, "Yeah." 

Gayle opened the driver's side door and looked over the roof of the car. "You're going to have to move a lot of crack." 

"Well," JT said, "I heard it's all the rage down at city hall." He sat down in the passenger seat and said, "Shit." 

"What?" 

"Some gossip website is using Kickstarter to raise the money to buy the video." He waved his phone a little and said, "The boys are already calling it Crackstarter." 

"I would really like it," Gayle said, "when I meet with Colucci and his friends if that video isn't on the internet." 

JT said, "Don't worry, we're on it." 

Gayle said, good, and pulled out of the lot, heading for downtown and all the shiny new condos, thinking, yeah, fifty bucks a month from each of those units, this is a good deal. She might move up to the M6, get the convertible. 

Sky's the limit. Paradise skies.