Talking at the Woodpile (18 page)

The heated conversation drew the attention of the other workers in the office, and when Maude put her head on the desk and cried, they came over to comfort her and ask what had happened.

“I have to go home. I'm not feeling well,” she said.

“I never thought I would find such racism in Canada,” she said to Brian, “I'm going back home. I need my family.”

“Honey baby,” Brian said, “Howard Bungle is nothing but trouble. Everyone knows that. Pay no attention to him.”

Howard voiced his opinions around town and was doing so in Cooper's store where he was told, “Shut the hell up. Get out and don't come back.” Mr. Cooper would have thrown an orange from the crate on the counter, but they were just out of his reach.

As Howard left, he stood at the door and angrily shook a finger back at the people standing by the till. “I remember when it all started,” he said. “It was when that damned gypsy Victor married Mimosa. That Mimosa was a beautiful woman. She had no business going with a gypsy.”

Lulu heard from Maude about Howard's hurtful words and would have gone after him herself, but Winch and his brothers said, “We'll handle this.”

Brian had also put in a phone call to Rock Creek and asked the brothers for their help. The three of them drove into town crammed into the front of the pickup so tightly that Winch couldn't reach the stick shift, and their beards looked like one big hairy blanket. OP, who sat in the middle, shifted the gears on Winch's instruction.

“First gear, OP. Second gear, OP. Third gear, OP.”

OP missed them all, though, and the metal ground all the way into town.

The brothers picked up Brian at the garage, put him in the back and went looking for Howard. They found him on his back step, sipping coffee, and all four men walked across the lawn toward him. Winch put one leg up on the step and rested his forearm on it. Brian, OP and Clutch stood behind him, staring Howard down.

Howard looked nervous. He knew this couldn't be good.

“How are you doing, Howard?” Winch asked.

“Fine until you showed up,” Howard said.

“You're very perceptive, Mr. Bungle, because no one wants a Halloo visit like this one. We hear you're bad-mouthing Brian and Maude.”

“Maybe I am and maybe I'm not,” Howard said.

“Yeah, you are,” Winch said. “It's all over town.”

“Are you going to stop?” Brian asked.

“Maybe I will and maybe I won't,” Howard said, trying to save face.

“Wrong answer,” Winch growled, moving his face closer to Howard's.

Howard averted his eyes and went pale. His hands shook when he raised his coffee mug.

Winch knew at that moment that their visit had the effect he wanted. He backed off and stood up straight, all the time glaring at Howard. All four men then turned without another word, got in the truck and left. Howard stood up as soon as their backs were turned, stepped into the house and locked the door.

When the brothers dropped off Brian, he shook their hands and thanked them.

“That was a right honourable thing you just did for us. I will never forget it. Imagine sticking up for a man because he wants to marry an alien.”

Winch started to explain, but he muttered in frustration and said nothing.

“You're welcome, Brian,” Clutch said dryly, and they drove off.

“I'm staying now,” Maude said cheerfully. “When I have friends like this, the world is a great place to live.”

Brian and Maude decided the date of their marriage and sent out invitations. I took a photo and sent it into the
Whitehorse Star
along with details. Winch had his arm twisted into being the best man. He must have enjoyed the role, because he bought new bib overalls for the occasion, and I heard him telling everyone, “What the hell, I'm just happy for the crazy guy.”

Winch also invited more than forty of his family members to attend with him.

“Hmm, I didn't expect that,” Maude said. “I'll just have to whip up an extra batch of chicken.”

The morning of the wedding, Brian dressed in his finest suit, shoes and hat. I drove him to Maude's doorstep with a bouquet of garden flowers supplied by the Halloos. Maude came to the door, and Lulu and Stella trailed behind her, frantically pinning and making final fittings on her dress. But Maude's face was tear-streaked.

“Oh Brian, Miami is gone. I put her out for a few minutes early this morning, and she disappeared.”

Maude hugged Brian, buried her head on his shoulder and sobbed. She said exactly what Brian was thinking. “I hope a fox or coyote didn't grab her.”

Maude could barely be consoled, but the Halloo sisters encouraged her and pushed her out the door.

“I can't go through with this, not without my Miami,” she cried as Lulu drove the truck up the Dome.

“Yes, you can,” Stella said, giving her a hug and sewing a last stitch as the truck bounced over the washboard road. “You have to be brave now.”

The sky had turned cloudy, and a stiff cool wind blew from the north.

Everyone was soon aware of the lost dog, and it put a damper on the proceedings.

Brian and Maude and the wedding guests were milling around, trying to get organized, when I heard the rumble of a pickup truck coming up the road. The vehicle came into view, and I saw Howard with Howard Jr. by his side. The truck came to a screeching halt, showering the wedding party with dust and gravel. The passenger door opened, and Miami jumped out, made a beeline for Maude and leapt into her arms. But she wasn't the Miami of a few hours ago. Her head had been dyed black.

As soon as Winch realized what was going on, he called out, “Let's get them, boys,” and half a ton of vengeful flesh sprinted toward the truck.

Howard took one look, and before they could reach the truck, sped off down the hill. Maude held Miami in her arms, and the little dog whined happily and licked her face. At that moment the sun broke through the clouds, and the wind died down. The atmosphere completely changed, although feelings smarted from the racial slur the Bungles had crafted.

“It's okay,” Maude said, smiling and wiping away the last of her tears. “I have my Miami. Everything is fine now.”

The wedding now proceeded as planned. Maude was radiant in her full-length lime green dress, which she'd designed by following a picture of one of Coco Chanel's creations cut out of a fashion magazine. The ceremony included a reference to the bride's relatives, who were unable to attend because of the distance, which Brian perfectly understood to mean light years. He gazed wistfully toward the heavens all during the proceedings, nearly missing his agreement to their vows.

Maude and the Halloo sisters had baked, roasted and fried all week long, making a special Southern meal from recipes that Maude's mother—the granddaughter of an African slave—had taught her.

“Do you eat many of these grits back home?” Brian had asked.

“Why yes, honey flower,” Maude said warmly, “we eat them all the time.”

Upon hearing that, Brian took an extra helping. “These are M92 finger-licking good.”

It took two pickup trucks to carry all the presents back down to Brian's house when the day was over.

The newlyweds settled into domestic bliss. Brian thanked God every day for his wife, whom he cherished. He knew that in time she would reveal her extraterrestrial powers. He had only mentioned it once, reaching across the dinner table to hold her hand. “In your own time, dear, in your own time.”

Maude mostly ignored his alien remarks.

“Having your husband think you're an alien is a small price to pay for all the love and affection that man gives me. Brian treats me like the Queen of the Klondike.”

“You should do what I do,” Lulu said. “Winch loves trucks and cars, so I read up on mechanics, and whenever I mention a carburetor or piston rings he gets all teary-eyed and appreciative. Men are so simple. Just give them a little interest, and they go over the moon.”

That week Maude took Lulu's advice and asked Brian at the supper table, “Is it true what I read, that there might be life on Mars?”

Brian got so excited he choked on a mouthful of food and had to run to the sink to spit it out.

“I'll be careful when I talk about space things,” she told me later with a laugh.

Brian was so appreciative of her interest that he became twice as doting as a husband.

A month after the wedding, Winch was spending more time with Brian. He also started to look carefully at people's ears and eyes. His stuttering stopped.

I was visiting the Halloos one evening in late August to complete a story on their Uncle Zak's World War II experience. When I looked outside, I was startled to see Brian and Winch down by the barn in the shadows just beyond the light from the house. They were standing shoulder to shoulder silhouetted against the moonlit sky. I could barely make out their voices as they gestured wildly at the vast, starry night.

The women and children sat on the porch, talking noisily as they ate plates of thick chewy chocolate-chip cookies and sipped hot creamy tea laced with sugar. Hours later, having exhausted their conversation with each other and developed kinks in their necks, Brian and Winch walked back toward the house and into the bright light streaming from the kitchen windows. Both wore denim bib overalls. Brian had bright red hair and a blue face. Winch's beard and hair were blue, and his face was red. They looked hideous. A child screamed, and the women shrieked.

Maude's oversized white enamel cup with the red rim bounced with a hollow
bonk
off the supraorbital bone above Brian's eye. Clutching his face with both hands, he dropped to his knees moaning in pain.

“Damn!” he yelled. “That hurt!”

Winch didn't fare much better. Despite his girth, he deftly dodged two strategically thrown cups, one of them filled with hot tea. But a third cup that Lulu threw with full force caught him sharply on the knuckles of his right hand.

“Crazy fools! Idiots! Hare-brained weirdos!” the women yelled angrily. “And don't swear in front of the children!”

Leaping from their chairs, they grabbed their kids by the arms, scooped up their babies and herded into the kitchen, slamming the door behind them with a hinge-busting bang.

Winch heard the latch lock. Turning to Brian, he moaned, “It's the barn tonight.”

Brian groaned in response. Winch helped him to his feet and wrapped one arm around his waist to support him. With his other arm he waved defiantly at the faces pressed up against the kitchen window. The men struggled unsteadily to the barn and the yard went dark as the house lights turned off.

Resigned to a night in the barn, Winch pulled the horse blankets down from the loft, and both men made their beds on the hay. Just then the barn door yawned open with a slow horror-movie creak. Like pale space monsters, the moonlit dogs slunk in and bedded down with their masters. Warm and comfortable in the hay, neither man felt inclined to get up and close the door.

“A bear could get in,” Brian said.

“Who cares?” Winch said. “The dogs will take care of that.”

Brian asked, “Winch, have you ever seen Orson Welles's movie
War of the Worlds
?”

Winch didn't answer, and the question hung in the air between them.

Minutes later, unable to control his need for conversation, Brian asked, “Winch, how long do you think God thought about DNA before he made it? A moment, a month or a million years?”

Winch's tired voice barked out of the darkness, “Shut up, Brian! Go to sleep. You've caused enough trouble for one day.”

The dogs growled in agreement.

I slept comfortably in the spare bedroom, and in the morning Stella told me to go down to the barn to call Brian and Winch for breakfast. They staggered out of the barn, stiff and sore from sleeping on the uneven bales. Their faces were now mottled, a grotesque smear of red and blue tempera paint, and in Brian's case also blood, that had mixed into purple. Without night's mask they looked ridiculous. Their own good sense urged them to feel embarrassed as they walked meekly to the house.

Lulu met them on the porch and made no attempt to hide her anger. Without a word she handed each of them a towel, and with a jerk of her head and thumb, motioned toward two porcelain wash basins on the porch table. The basins were full of steaming hot water. As Brian filed by, Lulu took hold of his upper arm and focussed her gaze on the cut above his eye. Scrutinizing it carefully, she half laughed her opinion, “You'll live.” Then she released her grip and pushed him to join Winch at the wash bench.

Brian and Winch pulled their chairs up to the breakfast table. I could see they were nervous, though the warmth of the kitchen must have been a welcome relief from the cold barn.

The women and children filed into the kitchen, yawning and wiping sleep from their eyes as they reached for coffee and orange juice. The men appeared shortly after, and soon the room was filled to capacity with people jostling for breakfast and an opportunity to stand next to the large cookstove to soak up its warmth.

Brian's head still hurt and he had a terrible blinding headache. Maude made things worse when she gave him a hug and a kiss right on top of the lump. His eyes watered from the pain. Maude, thinking that soft-hearted Brian was grateful they had made up, gave him another kiss on the same spot. He almost passed out, and it clearly took every ounce of his strength not to groan.

Later that day I caught a ride with Winch when he drove Maude and Brian into town. We dropped Maude off at the house to get ready for work the next day, and the three of us drove down to the river, where we sat on the bank and watched the water flow past. It was a good place to sit and think. After half an hour Brian asked Winch, “Have you ever read Hermann Hesse's book
Siddhartha
? Tobias has. Joshua told me.”

I was surprised Brian knew about
Siddhartha,
but Winch knew nothing of Hermann Hesse. He didn't want to know anything about Hermann Hesse. He didn't care about Hermann Hesse. He didn't even answer the question.