THE THIN WHITE LINE: the history of a future avian influenza pandemic

Chapter 2: State of Emergency

Interview with Ken Callahan, owner and operator of Dollhaus

TORONTO, ONTARIO

[Ken Callahan is the owner and operator of Dollhaus, a gentlemen’s club. By the end of the second week of the epidemic, while Ontario had ordered schools, theaters and stadiums closed, Toronto went further and shut down bars, restaurants and gyms and sports clubs. I had heard that Callahan defied the public ban, for which he paid a settlement to the City, and wanted to hear him tell his story.]

    The City ordered us to close up shop along with all the other clubs. I didn’t see many other cities shutting down their bars, so I thought the Mayor was overreacting. The Dollhaus would stay open. If the cops fined me, that was okay by me. But I wasn’t going to close my doors just because some bad flu was going around, right, and I wasn’t the only one to tell the government where to shove it. It turned out the cops were too overworked to even notice what I was doing. Many of the regulars showed up as usual. The next night, we had twice as many customers, the usual guys but also lots of ladies, too, looking for something to do.
    That’s how the party got started——the party people called the “end of the world party.” Over the next week or so, outside our doors, Toronto started falling apart, but not in my club. Down the street a building burned to the ground, and nobody in my club even noticed.
    I think that’s what kept them coming. They lived in fear of a sneeze all day and watched the news when they got home and it was all bad. They came here to let go, push back. Why not? My only problem at the time was locating new supplies of alcohol. After a week of scrounging and later buying on the black market, I had only enough left for another night, maybe two.
    In the end, it didn’t matter, right?
    It was almost midnight. I had three dancers onstage in nursing uniforms. The music was blasting and the alcohol flowed freely. We ran the beer taps constantly until the kegs gave out, and then we brought up the last of the bottles. People were smoking all over the place——why not, since everything else we were doing was illegal? Everywhere, people were laughing and talking or cheering the girls on. They were having the time of their lives.
    Then they all stopped and gasped: One of the girls had come out on the stage in a Death costume, black robe and skull mask and scythe and all, while the DJ started Metallica’s “Creeping Death.” Everybody stared nervously, transfixed, watching this apparition of Death’s slow march.
    When the song reached the chorus, Tonya——a gorgeous blonde and one of the Dollhaus’ biggest attractions——stepped out of the costume buck naked, shook her tits and strutted around the stage. The crowd went wild, roaring with approval. Sex conquers death.
    We were fiddling while Rome burned.
    Suddenly, a collective shiver rippled through the crowd. The mood changed; I could feel it. People gradually stopped laughing or talking or cheering, started looking at each other with these puzzled looks on their faces, wondering what had changed. Gradually, people quieted down, the silence spreading outward until the entire room stopped what they were doing and listened. And then you could just barely hear it over the music:
    Somebody was coughing.
    The DJ cut the music, the sudden silence jarring.
    I climbed up onto the bar to get a better look. A man was sitting next to the stage, shuddering as he coughed into his fist. Around him, people started backing off. The dancers gathered up their costumes and huddled together in a corner of the stage.
    Was he sick with the bird flu? If he had bird flu, then every breath he exhaled was laced with virus and we were packed in here like sardines. People stared at him in horror like he wasn’t some guy having a coughing fit but instead a terrorist wearing a belt of TNT with his thumb on the button. Somebody asked if he was okay, but he didn’t answer, which made it worse.
    Then somebody else shouted at him to leave. Other people took up the shout and soon everybody was shouting at this poor schmuck to get the hell out. Some of them were screaming at him like crazy people and throwing their plastic cups and half-smoked cigarettes; I guess this guy symbolized the whole goddamn freak-show going on outside. They didn’t want the party to end but suddenly this guy coughs and it’s like the Masque of the Red Death.
    The guy got out of his chair, unsteadily, still hacking away into his fist. I thought that maybe everything would turn out okay, that he would leave and we could go back to having fun and forget he ever existed. Then blood started streaming from his nose——not red like in the movies, but dark, almost black. It ran down his face and turned into a widening stain on his shirt collar. Well, that did it. A few people started shoving their way through the crowd towards the exits. A murmur kind of swept over the crowd, lots of people talking at once. Then everybody was running. It was like a stampede. And I was still on the bar, screaming at everybody to slow down, take their time, or somebody could get hurt.
    Of course they didn’t listen. Nobody ever listens when they’re panicked.
    One of the patrons came up behind the guy and whacked him on the head with a beer bottle and then ran off. It was the kind of violence that only happens in real life, like one of those YouTube videos of a real street fight. It’s not dramatic like the movies, but it’s 10 times scarier. I can’t explain it any better than that. The bottle didn’t even break like in a movie. But the guy went down just the same. The look of surprise and genuine pain on his face before he fell was horrible, I’ll never forget it. The instant before he fell, he looked right into my eyes, and I suddenly felt like he owned a part of me and I couldn’t get it back unless I helped him live. I hated him right then, but I knew I had to help him.
    The place was almost empty now. I yelled at the girls to help me, but they looked at me like I was crazy. I bent down to check the guy’s pulse, holding a handful of bar napkins over my mouth and nose, and when I looked up the girls had gone. His head was bleeding; I pressed down on the tear in his scalp with some of the napkins. I dragged him to my car and took him to the hospital. Because he had a trauma injury that could have been life threatening, they took him faster than if he just had bird flu. Getting whacked on the head may have saved his life.
    We kept the party going as long as we could, ignoring the flu, but the flu found us. The “end of the world” party was over, while outside the world went right on ending.