Talking at the Woodpile (21 page)

He looked at the dog. This was unusual for a GP, but with no vet in town, I had no one else to turn to. I think we both felt it was beneath him.

“Put bleach on the ringworm,” he said.

I was experiencing sleeplessness and melancholy, so as I held the dog's leash I asked the doctor about it.

He said, “It's a phase you're going through, Tobias. All young men experience it.”

“Did you?” I asked.

He had his back to me, filling out some papers.

“No,” he answered after a while.

I was going to ask him how he knew what it was like if he'd never experienced it but I didn't bother.

I studied John Henry Fuseli's painting
The Nightmare
intently in a book at the library, so much so that it caused me to despair, but then I realized it was only a picture and a bad one at that. I had no idea what the horse's head sticking out of the curtain meant.

Writing seemed to cheer me up, so I wrote.

“You need a good wife to take care of you,” was Mom's solution.

On the weekend I borrowed my mother's car, threw some groceries and a sleeping bag in the back and drove out of town. It was a bright sunny day, and I felt good about being alone and just cruising down the highway.

The road was dusty and in poor shape, and there was little traffic on it. Keno was a short drive of about 160 miles, so I slowed down and took my time. My mom's Rambler rattled along, hurting my tailbone when I crossed sections of gravel washboard.

At Stewart Crossing a young man and woman stood at the green-painted bridge, hitchhiking. I pulled the car over, leaned across the seat, rolled down the window and said, “Hi.”

The girl was pretty and wore her brown hair in a braid.

“Hi there, are you going to Mayo?” she asked. She spoke as if we were already friends.

“I'm actually going to Keno,” I said.

Her boyfriend stood behind her holding a green packsack. I couldn't see his head.

“Great! You can drop us off at Mayo,” she said, without waiting for an invite. She jumped into the front seat and he jumped into the back. He threw his packsack in, spilling my bag of groceries onto the floor.

I leaned back and asked, “Could you pick those up, please?”

He gave me a surly look and threw the fruit, bread and tomatoes back into the bag. The girl broke the tension.

“You'll never guess what we just found,” she said, holding up two bottles of beer still dripping wet from the river.

It was obvious what they'd found, but I didn't feel like playing along. Depression does funny things to your willingness to participate in anything. I said, “I have no idea. What did you find?”

She never lost her smile but moved the bottles closer to my face and shook them so that drops of water splattered my T-shirt. She said, “No, silly, look!”

“Oh, you found those,” I said.

She seemed very pleased that I'd figured it out. I liked that she'd called me silly. I thought she was flirting.

“Yes, we found these sitting in the water just before you drove up. Someone must have been hitching a ride like us and they drove off forgetting them.”

She then settled back in the seat, a little closer than when she got in. I felt uncomfortable, with her boyfriend in the back and all. He sat sullenly, not saying a word, watching me in the mirror from time to time.

He leaned over the seat and asked, “Do you mind if we crack these open while they're still cold?”

I did mind. It was my mom's car, and open booze was illegal. We could be arrested. Not wanting to sound like the police, I said as casually as I could, “Go ahead, knock yourself out.” I hated that expression and wondered why I used it.

We drove on for a few miles before my paranoia got the better of me. I pulled the car over to the side of the road and said, “My leg is stiff. I need to walk for a minute. Let's get out, finish the beer and then move on.”

They never suspected a thing. We walked down the road a bit, then back to the car. They chugged the beer. He burped, she laughed and we all got back in and went on our merry way. I drove in a black cloud, hunched over the wheel, shifting gears as we went up and down hills.

“I see this old Rambler has three on the tree,” he said.

I didn't answer him.

“I like it. Is it your car?” she asked. “It's neat.”

I couldn't tell them it was my mom's, so I said, “My buddy, Iggy Duffy, loaned it to me.”

“Hey, I know Iggy. Great guy. Worked with him at Bear Creek for a summer,” he said.

I didn't answer him again.

“Next time I see Iggy, I'll tell him I drove in his car,” he said.

Oh no
, I thought.

The girl talked all the way; I never listened, but I nodded once in a while and thought about other things that were as unimportant as her ramblings.
Rambling in the Rambler
, I thought.

Mr. Jealous asked, “Do you have music?”

I fumbled with the radio but all I got was static. He looked out of the window for the rest of the trip.

I dropped them off at the road into Mayo, and for some reason, as she got out, she leaned over and planted a kiss on my right cheek. Her boyfriend didn't see it, as he'd already gotten out and was standing with his back to the car. If she were my girl, I wouldn't want her kissing other guys.

As I drove off, I could see him walking away but she jumped up and down waving her arm. She then turned and ran to catch up with her guy. When she did, he put his arm around her.

Cheez
, I thought. Not having a pretty girlfriend like Mr. Jealous got me down. Also, I didn't like to see girls drink beer.

When I arrived in Keno City, I was more depressed than ever. I had money for a room but I found a gravel pit and slept across the car's back seat. It was a hot night, and the gravel in the pit had soaked up the heat from the sun, so I kept the windows open for a breeze to flow through. I woke early the next morning with a kink in my neck; the Rambler was a little narrow for my height. I drove into town. It was still early and quiet, with no one about, and the air was still. My favourite songbird, the hermit thrush, was singing its flute-like early morning song,
chup-wee-er, chup-wee-er
, and darting amongst the willow bushes.

I parked outside the grocery store and went in. There were no other customers, and I may have been the first of the day. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. The place was small and packed to the ceiling with groceries and dry goods. It smelled of damp Cheerios.

The clerk behind the counter had glasses as thick as the bottom of a bottle and wore a butcher's smock tied around his waist with a string. He appeared to be rooted motionlessly in his spot beside the till, ready to serve people.

Everything around him was worn. The original white colour had rubbed off the Arborite counter in a fan shape from the groceries and money that had slid back and forth over the years. The Plexiglas display cases on either side of the till were cloudy and scratched, their original purpose forgotten; now they were full of papers, odd mitts, balls of string and everything else that needed a place. Above the clerk's head hung a faded cardboard poster advertising a brand of paint the store no longer sold. His whole life was framed by that counter. It told who he was: an ancient clerk in a mouldy store, advertising unavailable goods.

“Good morning,” I said.

“Morn,” he replied quickly, as if it was too much trouble to say the full word.

Being tall, I could see that the top of his bald head had those differently coloured skin patches on it.

“I was wondering if you could help me out,” I said.

“With what?” he asked.

“I'm a writer and I want to interview some of the local people and get their stories.” I didn't look at him while I spoke but fiddled with a package of mints impaled on a display with other packages of candy.

He looked at me, probably thinking I was too young to be a writer. “Ed” was embroidered in red thread above the pocket of his smock. I interjected before he could answer, “Look, Ed—”

“My name is not Ed,” he said.

Of course it wasn't. How could I have assumed that the smock was his?

“It's Bob,” he said.

I wanted to pick up a black magic marker from the counter, cross out Ed and write “Bob,” maybe even “Big Bad Bob.”

“Okay Bob—,” I started over.

“But I heard you the first time,” he interrupted.

I felt a little exasperated to have this happen so early in the morning.

When he spoke, he smiled, revealing dentures that were too big and out of proportion with his small round face. I got the sense that Bob could be trouble if he wanted to be.

“You can go talk to whoever you want. People are friendly around here. They'll talk to anyone,” he said.

I'm not just anyone
, I thought,
I'm a writer
.

“Ed's dead,” he said.

That got my attention. I looked at him. “What?”

“Ed's dead,” he repeated. Then he started to cry.

“Oh no!” I said, which made him cry even more.

He stood there, arms at his side, tears rolling down his cheeks and his shoulders shaking with the sobs.

My mind raced to put an end to his waterworks. “I know,” I said.

He stopped crying immediately and said, “You knew Ed?”

“Yes, I did, and he was a fine person,” I said. “We all feel your loss. He was the nicest guy.”

“Ed died in a mining accident before you were born,” Bob said and slammed the till drawer shut so the whole counter shook. Then he stomped past a blanket that served as a door into the back room.

I hung my head. How was I to know that?

There was a flurry of words in the back room, and a woman as wide as she was tall entered and glared at me. Her curly red hair was piled on top of her head, and her bright green eye makeup matched her green smock. “Alice” was embroidered in pink thread over the pocket.

I didn't dare call her Alice.

“I think you had better go,” she said in an eerie, squeaky voice. “You have upset my Bobby.”

For a moment I felt frightened. I'd seen the movie
Psycho,
and it seemed to me that if the Bates Motel had a grocery store attached to it, I was in it.

I wanted to tell her, no, I didn't upset Bobby. Bobby should move on in his life and get a new smock.

“I was just trying to help,” I said.

“You didn't,” she said.

I quickly bought a loaf of bread and a package of cheese, after inspecting the expiry date.

She took my money and gave me change. As I left, I could hear sobs coming from the back room and Bob crying, “Eddy, Eddy, Eddy.”

I ate sandwiches for two days and walked around town, trying to find a story.

At one house I saw an old lady, knee deep in rhubarb and cabbage, tending her garden. She had her back turned, so I called from the fence. She didn't get up, but looked over her shoulder and gave a wave of her hand. Then she went back to work. That's how it was in Keno City. Everyone was busy, and no one had time to talk. Maybe they thought I was another annoying tourist and so they gave me the brush-off.

I'd heard stories from my father about people in Keno and Elsa, so I sat in the gravel pit eating cheese sandwiches and wrote what I knew.

An argument had started thirty years ago between two miners who lived in Keno City and worked north of there on a gold claim. One went into Mayo for supplies, and while he was gone a bear walked near their cabin. His partner shot it, but he was busy with other work so he left the carcass lying where it fell for the rest of the day. When the other partner came home and spotted the animal on the front lawn, he shot what he believed was a live bear. No amount of argument could dissuade him from claiming the bear was his. The discussions became so heated their partnership broke up.

If they were in the Keno City Hotel bar at the same time, one would yell from his table loud enough for the other to hear, “I shot that damn bear.” The other would yell from his table, “Go to hell! That bear is mine. I shot it right between the eyes.” And so it went, year after year. That was all the conversation they ever had.

As I wrote the story, lying on the front seat of the car with my feet stuck out the driver's side window, I started to think there must have been more to their relationship than that bear. They never could have gotten along, because arguing over a dead bear just didn't make sense.

The other part of the story was that one miner bought the other one out and soon had a new partner. Months later that new partner's flesh and blood painted the inside of the mine shaft. The poor soul went swiftly to his earthly end, and the RCMP reported that there'd been a mishap with some dynamite. The miner cleaned up the mess and kept on drilling and digging, though he could never find another partner.

I was determined to find at least one person to meet. I wanted to make friends and record some Keno City stories and history, so I drove back into town, parked behind Bob and Alice's store and walked about.

Sun-bleached and weathered buildings of all different types and sizes were scattered along the streets. Some had been boarded up for decades, and others had bright patches of gardens out front that showed they were occupied. As I walked past one low log structure that had settled elegantly into the permafrost, I heard jazz filtering through the screen door. An elderly man walked out carrying a large galvanized watering can.

I immediately said, “Hello.”

“Hello there, young fellow,” he said cheerfully. “What brings you to these parts?”

I couldn't believe my luck. I had found the opportunity I was looking for.

“I live in Dawson. I'm a writer and reporter for the
Star
and I'm looking for stories.”

“Well, you have come to the right spot. I'm Arnold Nixon. I've lived and worked here most of my life.”