The Pass
It was another long, meaningless, and frustrating day for young Joseph Wilbanks, a wolf of 17 years at Etobicoke High School in Etobicoke, Ontario, a place which he had learned to hate for its harsh teachers and mean bullies. Seeing as how he was only a high school junior stuck in the middle of an unrewarding, and in his opinion, unnecessary school year, he was in for an incredibly difficult series of months in front of him. And the worst part was this was only junior year- he still had one more pointless year to stay, waiting for college. (He wanted desperately to get into York University) His father had divorced and abandoned his wife and son at a time when they both needed him immensely, and she had given into alcoholism.
Mr. Wilbanks was determined to end it all- but not before enjoying an unscheduled break from school to enjoy with whatever money he had gathered for several years, a week with the best the world could offer. He would board a bus from Etobicoke into the "Golden Horseshoe", check into a ritzy high-rise hotel in Toronto, absorb the museums, eat at the finest restaurants, watch a play at the Tarragon, and shop at Yonge-Dundas. After five days, he would climb to the roof of the hotel and plunge thrity-or-so stories to end the bullying, the drunkenness, the insanity forever.
So the next Monday, the wolf set off from his home to the bus stop but rather than take the cross-town fare to get to his school, he would simply wait for the bus to deliver him into the neighboring county of Toronto proper. Paying the bus driver was easy- Wilbanks' mother, Samantha had collected enough bus tokens to last him for a few days and Joseph had been saving up his allowance for years for this escapade. This was illegal but if he was going to die, no one would punish him. He could see himself now becoming a star for an afternoon on the 6:00 o'clock news, a martyr in the war against oppressive and boring high schools, as the bus ran towards Toronto. He was a rebel without a conscience, a martyr without a cause, even as his brain was clouded by the anger he felt towards the world in general for dealing him a very cruel hand. After a half-hour of waiting, he was finally off and free in the city he had fallen in love with as a kid before his father walked out on the family.
The very first thing he did was check into the Crowne Plaza on Jarvis St., near where the bus stopped. A beard which he had grown for months as well as some makeup and wigs stolen from the theatre deaprtment of his school would allow the wolf to "age" 30 years in a matter of minutes. He was no longer Joseph Wilbanks but Barry Guyton, the pseudonym he came up with and with the makeup applied at a bathroom at a nearby restaurant, he could in theory stay as long as he wanted in the big city. He took note of the otter scrubbing the floors.
"Oh, don't mind Mr. Farmington, he's always making sure no one gets hurt and our service is top-notch," the concierge told the wolf
After paying $400 dollars Canadian to stay for five nights at the hotel, he checked into his plush room on the top floor. (He had brought with him several changes of clothes and several thousand dollars for a week of extravagnce. Can't die with dirty underwear, he'd always been told.) Though it lacked a balcony, he could always make it to the roof as he was an expert lock-picker but that was not the wolf's mind his last week among the living would be amazing.
The first night was exciting, lower-bowl seats at the Air Canada Center to see the Leafs come from behind and beat the hated Canadiens 5-4, followed by sushi at a nearby restaurant. The second day saw him spend half the day at the Natural Science Museum and the other half shopping at the Eaton Centre, watching the street musicians and the buskers perform, before getting a dinner at one of the many Greek restaurants on Danforth St., the Greektown of Toronto. The third day was a trip to the top of the CN Tower, where he could see for miles around all the way into upstate New York from the top of the rotating restaurant. He was in no danger of running out of money, and was simply enjoying life- he knew it wouldn't last, the money couldn't keep up for that long.
He had heard the CBC report on a child gone missing and all he could do was laugh- it was him they were after but with his makeup, he had become an entirely different wolf. The fourth and fifth days, his final days, were dedicated to theatre at the sprawling Tarragon, to watch "Lady WIndermere's Fan" by Oscar Wilde. The character of Lady Windermere spoke deeply to his heart- "I can learn to resist anything but temptation".
Coming back to the hotel that evening, Wilbanks nee Guyton gathered himself for his last night- he ate the most expensive plate and drank cognac imported from France before taking the elevator up to the 15th floor, the top floor. There, he adroitly picked the lock and walked out into the cold of the Canadian winter. This was to be the act of a noble warrior who simply could not fight this awful world any longer. He visualized the funeral- no salutes to his surrender, no glory in this defeat- Christ, what was he about to do? He lifted a silent prayer and walked slowly towards the edge...
"I would not do that if I were you..." he heard coming from behind him. It was an otter who was the custodian of the hotel. "I saw you on the video cameras walking out onto the roof. And I think you would be unwise to just end it all right here."
"But how would you understand what I'm going through?", Wilbanks asked "I'm not the wolf who you think I am" he said removing the wig to reveal the visage of a young wolf. And he revealed who he truly was, a young, scared cub from the suburbs of Toronto trying to escape a difficult situation.
"There's somebody who is truly and intimately concerned about you."
"My father walked out on me. My mother's a drunk and I'm an only child. I get beaten up every day in school. And I have no friends at all and..."
"But you have me and I don't want to see you die."
"If I turn myself in, they will punish me even more. If I leave forever, I'm a high school dropout with no future."
The otter stroked his whiskers, laughed and said "I'm a high school dropout myself and this was the only job I could get afterwards. School was boring for me with all the lectures and the irrelevant information and the beatings. I wanted to help people and being a custodian allows me to do just that. If I have to stay up all night, I will to keep you from committing suicide. If you want, I can even show you low-cost housing and a job centre so you can stay employed and housed."It was at this moment that something changed- this unloved wolf from a broken home stuck in a hopeless sitaution found something- a ladder out of his own personal hell and something new.
Many years passed, Wilbanks became a construction worker and moonlighted as a writer and amateur actor in Toronto, where he gained a steady income, living in a one-bedroom apartment. After sufficient time had passed and he had gone past the age of 21, he documented his escape from high school and it became a best-seller, and his acting career blossomed, allowing the wolf to live in a beautiful house on the moneyed side of Toronto. This was followed by interviews in MacLean's, fame and fortune, a reunion with his mother Samantha and no punishment at all from the school as he was too old to graduate and too wealthy to need a high-school degree. And to think it all wouldn't have happened if not for the work of a lowly janitor named Farmington...