The Placebo Effect by David Rotenberg

that’s what Decker tried to do.
    It had begun to rain—predictably, it would. As he walked west toward what used to be his home the rain pelted the few remaining leaves from the trees. Fall was ending and the ugly season was approaching. He felt it more than saw it.
    There’s something skulking about the Junction in the rain. Something hunched, hidden. The proliferation of Protestant and Catholic churches along the short stretch of Annette Street along with the half-dozen storefront Pentecostal holy-roller outlets a mere hundred yards north on Dundas bespeak a truth that Decker had always believed: that there was something complicated that needed to be kept in check out here.
    It was what gave him the idea for a Ken Burns–style documentary that he’d sold to Trish Spence’s production company. The working title was At the Junction.
    He’d begun to research the idea by attending a meeting of the Masonic Temple on Annette beside the old library—business attire please. Instantly a queasiness came over him as these well-dressed old Torontonians turned back the clock to the good old days when there were no Caribbeans or South Asians or Jews in their city.
    Across Jane Street—known throughout the metropolitan area as a “bad” street, bad meaning Jamaican—is yet another secret of the Junction: Baby Point. A wealthy enclave that if you didn’t know it was there, you would never find it. In the midst of the multimillion-dollar older homes is a private park with four tennis courts and a lawn bowling green. Like so many wealthy people, they had managed a private club on public land—ah, so very old Toronto that.
    Up on Dundas the remains of an American film shoot still have a block of storefronts painted to look like Brooklyn. They even had a three-sided subway entrance put on the small park at the corner of St. John’s Road to complete the look.
    But there were other secrets here. One of the local high schools is the most highly rated secondary school in the region. Another school, just a few blocks away, is absolutely at the bottom of that list. The highly rated school is almost entirely white and Asian—the low ranking, almost entirely black. How do they manage this? Well, the highly ranked school made freshman year so hard and so math intensive that… well, you can fill in the rest.
    Determined to “get on with his life” he found a pay phone on Bloor Street and called Trish Spence’s number. After a half ring he was promptly put on hold. While he waited for Trish to pick up he decided he needed to replace the computer he’d lost in the fire. He organized his life on his two Gmail accounts, and he couldn’t imagine not being able to access the synaesthetes website. Eddie was a computer genius, but Decker only needed a simple machine that Eddie could soup up, password it to safety, then encrypt it to within an inch of the edge of the digital world.
    â€œTrish Spence here, sorry for making you wait.” The voice on the other end of the phone hadn’t changed much over the years.
    â€œHey Trish, it’s me.”
    â€œDecker! What’s shakin’?”
    He loved that. From fuck-you black-business-suit woman to California beach bikini girl in two lines. He could almost hear her smack her lips. She had to be in her early forties now, but when she spoke it was like talking to a young Joni Mitchell—California, I’m comin’ home. He liked it. He liked her, he always had. “I need a meeting,” he said.
    â€œGot new material for At the Junction ? Or you just anxious to see me again?”
    â€œAlways. Can your company lend me a computer?”
    â€œWhat happened to…”
    â€œMy house burnt down.” It startled him how easy it was to say that.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYeah. Can I borrow a notebook for a few weeks until my insurance claim gets settled?”
    â€œSure. Just come