Sunny Dreams (12 page)

They had set up their tents in the large field near St. Mary’s Road and Cromwell Street. The nearest homes were perhaps two baseball diamonds away. The Willises lived in one of those homes. One of their claims to fame was being one of the poorest families in the Norwood Flats, if not the poorest.

The Willis twins, who had been just fourteen when Sunny disappeared, still lived there with their mum and sister when they weren’t in jail. I guess they were having a run of good behaviour if, indeed, it was them that Isabelle and I saw on the dock that night. They would be around twenty-seven now, old bad boys who satisfied their sense of fun by shredding the clothes of young girls out for a night-time swim. But killing clothes wasn’t enough to send them back to jail.

Our men had set themselves up on city property and they weren’t the only ones there. They had found a spot under the shade of two large oaks. It was a precarious situation. Single men on the move were constantly told to shift, get out of town, even to spend a night behind bars. They were treated like criminals when often their biggest crime was riding a freight car or not informing the relief people that they were leaving home so their mothers could claim their share for her other children.

More often than not there was no crime at all, just the fact of their being on the move instead of staying in one place. The cops could easily charge them with any one of a number of so-called crimes: vagrancy, loitering, trespassing, or being a public nuisance. These men, our men, were transients, not tramps, and I thought I knew them well enough by now, even Tag — he talked so goldarn much — to know that they were good men looking for honest work that for the most part didn’t exist for them.

Except for Jackson, of course. I was entirely unsure how good a man he was, and what he was doing living so rough when he didn’t have to. But I didn’t care.

Dad came into the kitchen for a few minutes after supper when Helen and I were cleaning up.

“I wonder if we could put together some sort of breakfast package for the men,” he said.

Helen and I exchanged a glance.

“Sure, Will, we could do that,” Helen said. “Go and ask them if they can build a fire over there where they’ve set up camp.”

“Why doesn’t he just let them stay in the yard?” I asked after he had gone back outside.

“He just can’t, Violet,” said Helen. “He just simply can’t.”

I looked out the window and saw Jackson and Benny out by the lane talking together. They seemed to be arguing. At least Jackson was. Benny was on the receiving end.

My dad sat with Tag at the picnic table. I guessed they were talking about grasshoppers.

Fraser phoned me that evening and we went for a walk by the river.

“Benoit Bateau is back in town,” I said.

“Yes,” Fraser said, “I heard there were tents set up in your yard.”

“Word travels fast,” I said.

“Is it true there’s a Negro staying at your place?” Fraser asked.

“They’re not at our place anymore, and yes, there is a Negro.”

“What’s he like?” asked Fraser.

“Nice. Kind of funny. He’s looking for his younger brother who ran off from home. He’s from Detroit and he talks about grasshoppers a lot.”

“Yeah. Dirk was saying he was from Detroit.”

“Sheesh!” I stopped walking and stared at Fraser. “What’s with that dadratted Dirk! What the Sam Hill? Does he spy on people? Does he spy on my family?”

“I think Gwen’s mum puts him up to it,” Fraser said.

“That’s too weird. What does any of this have to do with Gert Walker?”

“She’s just a nosy old bat is all. Isn’t Gwen supposed to be your best friend? You could ask her about it.”

“All her time lately is spent with evil Dirk, master spy and gossip. And clothes killer,” I added quietly.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Did you say clothes killer?” asked Fraser.

“Yes.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that Dirk and the Willis boys sliced my clothes and Isabelle’s clothes to bits when we went swimming in the river.”

“Jeez.”

“Yeah.”

“What were you doing swimming in the river?”

“Doesn’t what I was doing swimming in the river seem kind of unimportant next to Dirk cutting our clothes to shreds?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“I should say so!”

“Maybe I could ask him about it when I see him again,” Fraser said. “See what he has to say.”

“Yeah, that’d be good,” I said. “Would you do that?”

“Yes,” Fraser said. “I will.”

A little swirl of grey dust eddied up in the dry field between us and the motor boat garage. Then I saw a flame and I realized that what I was seeing was smoke; the ground was on fire. Fraser saw it too and we ran to stomp it out. And then we saw another and another. We stomped them out, too.

“Jesus loving Christ,” I said. “Our whole world could burn down around us. What if we hadn’t been here to put out these fires?”

“Someone else would have,” said Fraser.

“Not necessarily,” I said. “I think I want to go home now.”

I didn’t want to see any more fires and be responsible for the safety of the whole neighbourhood.

“My dad’s still interested in a new shed,” said Fraser as we trudged off over the parched scrub toward my house. “Your aunt phoned him about it.”

“Darn it all anyway,” I said. “I think I’m going to run away from home.”

“Why?”

“Never mind.”

“Why?”

“It’s…please, never mind.” I wasn’t ready to share my icky notions about Aunt Helen with Fraser, that was for sure.

“Where are your men staying?” Fraser asked.

“Over in the field behind the Willises’ house,” I said. “And they’re not my men.”

Fraser said he would go with me in the morning to seek out Benny. His dad just wanted one man, he said. He didn’t want a man with casts on his arms and he didn’t have to say which of the other two he didn’t want. I wondered if Mr. Foote would dislike Benny because of his French-Canadian accent.

The next morning Fraser and I walked over to the field to find Benny and talk about the shed. The worst that could happen, I imagined, was that we would find the slain bodies of the three men, killed by marauding railroad bulls. The railway police had a bad reputation for violence.

We found them all right. So far no one had murdered them or driven them off. Jackson was playing solitaire with a grubby old deck of cards. Benny and Tag were sitting in the scrub a little ways off from their camp. Benny looked to be in a trance; Tag seemed a little twitchy, like the trance thing wasn’t coming easily for him.

“Benny sometimes goes into trances,” I explained to Fraser.

“Great,” he said. “My dad’ll be pleased.”

I tossed an almost full pack of Sweet Caporals onto the ground next to Jackson’s cards.

“Tailor-mades!” he shouted.

Tag was there in an instant and even Benny wasn’t so far gone that he didn’t interrupt his efforts.

All of us lit up except for Fraser.

When I introduced him, the three men said hello through clouds of smoke.

“Fraser’s dad needs a man to build him a shed,” I said.

I wondered if they would think Fraser was feeble because he couldn’t build a simple shed for his dad. These hard times were complicated. So often people wouldn’t know if their work was of value, like in my dad’s case with the garage, or if they were being offered charity in disguise. This case had even more sinister reasons in my eyes, connected to Aunt Helen’s middle-aged desperation and her search for one more sunny day.

“They live on Monck Avenue not far from here,” I said. “His name is Ennis Foote and he’s a pretty grumpy guy, but his wife’s nice and his son’s okay.” I gave Fraser a little shove and he grinned. I wanted Jackson to think that Fraser and I were a couple, that we had sexual intercourse regularly in all kinds of interesting positions and places.

“My dad’s not grumpy,” Fraser said.

“Yes, he is,” said I.

“No, he isn’t,” said Fraser. “He’s just quiet and a little opinionated.”

“Just the one man?” asked Benoit.

“I’m afraid so,” I said. “It won’t be a fun job for you, Benoit, but it will get you a few dollars, a few meals and a place to pitch your tent.”

“What about these two?” he asked Fraser. “Can they camp with me in your father’s yard?”

“Hmm, I don’t know,” said Fraser.

I did know, or at least, I was almost positive, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it and Fraser didn’t say anything more.

Tag knew.

“I’m going to sign up with a relief camp,” he announced. “I hear they feed a man pretty well and I should check them out for signs of my brother.”

“Those are horrible places, Tag,” I said.

“Better than starving,” he said as he lit another cigarette. “Or going to jail.”

“Maybe.” I wasn’t so sure.

Single men out of work in those days were considered dangerous. The politicians wanted them gone, out of sight. They feared a revolution from these men with time on their hands. They didn’t want them hanging about listening to agitators spouting off about rising up against the system. The agitators were referred to as commies or Bolshies. In reality, most of the men were too tired and hungry to read pamphlets containing words like proletariat and bourgeoisie. But the government couldn’t see that.

My information came from listening to my dad and Mr. Larkin talk. Sometimes Aunt Helen, too.

Relief camps had been set up all across the west, where the men were paid as little as twenty cents a day to do back-breaking work, often work that could better be done by a machine — a bulldozer or a steam roller — or work that didn’t need doing at all. Tag, who already looked too skinny to survive one more missed meal, would die in a relief camp; I was sure of it.

Jackson’s casts would come off in another week or so. Till then, he said, he would bide his time. They would ask the Footes if he could stay in the yard with Benoit.

“If I can’t, I can’t,” he said. “I’ll make do.”

Fraser nudged me and pointed with his chin to the Willises’ backyard past the scrubby elders and wild honeysuckle in the field. The Willis twins stood there staring at us, or at least in our general direction; they were too far away for me to know for sure. Dirk Botham stood with them.

A shiver slid through me like so many tiny snakes. I waved automatically. No one waved back.

I was sure if the Willises realized I was the same small girl who lost her sister all those years ago they would have waved back. But they weren’t thinking about babies or their pretty mothers or the way they had helped in the search, lent a hand in 1925. They probably didn’t even remember. At least one of them was dim-witted, according to local legend; word was Lump Willis had been deprived of oxygen at birth. That was one of the usual reasons for dim-wittedness.

Anyway, now they were walking swiftly toward us. Dirk was walking backwards in front of them, waving his arms and talking loudly, although I couldn’t make out what he was saying. Then all three of them stopped and the Willises concentrated on Dirk’s words.

“You wave, Fraser,” I said.

He did so the next time they looked our way, but they didn’t respond to him either. Not even Dirk. They didn’t retrace their steps but neither did they come any closer. I imagined that it was Fraser’s presence that stopped them in their tracks. Dirk would have pointed out to them that there was no point in messing with the local cop’s son.

The Willises were notorious in our neighbourhood for growing up to be actual criminals. Both of them had graduated from juvenile detention homes to jail as they grew older, for property crimes and worse. One of them beat a fellow inmate so badly that the man lost an eye, or so the rumour went.

What was Dirk doing with these guys? And how could they stand him?

When Fraser and I were plodding back over the field, I said, “Could you tell your dad to keep an eye on those Willis guys?”

“They weren’t doing anything, Violet.”

“Staring is something.Walking quickly toward us is something.”

“Yeah, but they were practically staring from their own backyard. My dad would be more interested in doing something about the guys they were staring at.”

“Okay, never mind.”

“What the hell was Dirk doing with them?” Fraser said.

“I don’t know. It scares me a bit. Maybe you could get your dad to keep an eye on him.”

“Dirk Botham’s dad is one of the mayor’s inner circle,” Fraser said. “Practically his right-hand man. My dad doesn’t like Dirk, but I can’t see him keeping an eye on him, as you say.”

“Well, maybe you could just mention to him the sinister activity we just witnessed.”

Fraser sighed. “Maybe.”

We went back to our house and reported what had gone on to Aunt Helen. Not about the Willis twins and slimy Dirk but about Benoit building the shed.

“I’ll stop over this morning, Fraser, and see your mother,” Helen said.

If she had anything to do with it, Jackson would be safely ensconced with Benny in the Footes’ backyard before the sun set. She didn’t say this, but I knew she was thinking it. I sure as heck didn’t know what else she was thinking. How far did her imaginings go with Jackson? Did she want to marry him, have his children?

“Did you mention to your dad about the fires we saw by the river last night?” I asked Fraser as he was leaving.

“No.”

“Don’t you think maybe you should?” I asked.

I could tell I was getting on Fraser’s nerves by now, but the whole of life seemed to be getting away on me. I needed outside assistance, maybe from a grouchy policeman who had once made an impossible promise to my dad. Maybe he could help to keep the bewildering world from flattening the good people in it. It was his job, wasn’t it?

“My dad can’t stop the fires, Violet,” Fraser said.

“But maybe he could tell the fire department guys and they could set up patrols or something.”

“I think they already do that,” said Fraser.

Tears filled my eyes and I turned away but Fraser caught them and put his arms around me right there in the front yard. He led me to the front step and we sat for a while just being quiet. Then he headed off home.

When I went back in the house Helen was on the telephone with Mrs. Foote. Fraser’s mother was a religious sort. It wouldn’t be hard for Helen to convince her that harbouring Jackson was God’s work in one way or another. Maude Foote was almost famous for the breakfasts she offered out her back door, much to Ennis Foote’s chagrin. Unlike Helen, though, she was quick to send the travellers on their way. Fraser’s dad thought that hunger was a character flaw, like greed or pride. But he didn’t stand a chance against the fire that Jesus worked up in Maude Foote’s blood. That fire could burn down any objections to getting some food into a hungry man’s stomach. Hell, that fire could burn the whole day down.