What They Wanted (21 page)

“I’m not a freaking hippie—ohh, christ, the look on his face—”

“You do acid?”

“Yes, I sees everything green. Now, will you help me get my bag?”

Minutes later we were running and slipping on the wet grass, the rain zinging cold on our faces, and then crawling inside the tent, dragging our bags. Chris sat back on his ankles in the dark.

“It’s flapping like hell—who pitched this?”

“I did. Works good when it’s slack—more give to the wind.”

“And more take, you nit! We’ll be in the river by morning.”

“Ohh, take off your boots, roll out your bag. I can’t find the matches—you got matches?”

He flared a match. My sleeping bag was neatly laid out to one side of the tent, duffle bags lining the walls of the other, a little plastic table with candles and a lantern sitting near my bedding. “We’ll save the oil,” I said, lighting the candle. “Shove all that stuff aside and spread out your bag. What’re you sitting like a dummy for? You slept in tents before.”

“Not how I pictured city living, Sis. Cripes, if Gran knew this—”

“Yeah, well, she don’t.” Pulling off my boots, I dove into my sleeping bag with a loud chattering of teeth and skimmed out of my wet jeans and sweater. Then I zipped up the bag and burrowed deep inside, muffling through my pillow, “Blow out the candle when you’re ready. You tired?”

He grunted, pulling off his boots, his jeans, muttering something about ventilation. Puffing out the candle, he zipped himself inside his bag and lay quietly.

“Well, good night, then,” I said. “It’ll be nice in the morning, you’ll see.”

“Hum mmmm.”

“Sorry you came?”

“And miss this? Gawd, no.”

I grinned. “You’ll be fine. Really, it’s a lovely park.”

The wind thumped louder on the tent and the sound of the river grew nearer. Within a minute I heard him shuffling in his sleeping bag till he was lodged against my back.

“Sis,” he whispered. “I’m skeered of hippies.”

“Oh,
please
don’t go saying hippie—we’re
punk
, now— hardcore
punk
.”

“They’re French, Sis. Suppose they does acid and eats us for french fries?”

I kicked at his feet. “Get away—will you get away?”

He let out a moan and dug his head deeper into my back. I yelled, and the brunt of my elbow found his cheekbone. He yelled back and we both laughed, the tension from the past few days dissolving like salt in hot water.

“You nervous?” I asked.

“Who’s not—freaking river’s getting closer.”

“I mean of being here—away from home. Still having them wild dreams? Well, then?”

“I’m thinking—let’s see, there was the three-legged horse one. And the two-headed snake. And the bush of fire—”

“Burning bush? That’s God, Chrissy—lord, you dreams about God?”

“And the other one, too. He was laid out on an altar, his body was all bunched out. Like, with food. And I was eating one of his ribs.”

“You were eating the ribs of Christ? Jeezes, Chris—so what did he taste like?”

“Like that. Jesus. Tell me one of yours.”

“I don’t dream no more.”

“You always dream.”

“I just stopped—there’s one I had—oh, gawd, it was stun.”

“Tell me.”

“I was in the jungle getting attacked by a tiger and was screaming
‘Tarzan, Tarzan, come get me!’
and he yodels back,
‘Not now, Jane, I’m on the phone.’
Yeah. There he was—Tarzan, with his spotted thingy around his waist, and talking on a tree phone. And then the tiger jumped me.”

We broke into laughter. “So, tell me last night’s,” I coaxed, “what did you dream last night?”

“Gross.”

“Tell it.”

“I’m tired.” He yawned.

“The dream.”

“It was about lice.”

“Head lice?”

“On my hand.”

“And—?”

“There were three of them. And they were white. And big. And bloated with blood.”

“Grandfather lice,” I exclaimed. “Remember Gran talking about them? On the fishing schooners, and places like that, they’d be in your head for so long they grew big, fat, and old. But there was something else—something else she used to say about them—”

“Ugh, can we sleep now?”

“Least you weren’t eating them. Wonder what the psychology books would say to that. Mmmm, the number three. The colour white. Yeah, I know what they’d say—they’d say you were either carting the holy trinity about on your palm—or,” I added to his groan, “that you, me—we’re all parasites, feeding off the face of the earth.”

“Nice.”

“Well then, what do you think it means?”

“Never thinks about it.”

“Right. Forgot. Tell me then, what do you think about? When you’re off in your dazes, are you thinking?” I nudged him as he faked a snore. “Come on, Chris. Is there nothing you ponder?”

“Once I asked the science teacher a question. Learned not to ask no more.”

“What did you ask?”

“Can’t remember.”

“What did you ask?”

He shuffled onto his back. “Jeezes, once you gets onto a thing—”

“The question!”

“The question was,” he said through another yawn, “how come there’s so much order out there in space—you know, how the sun and moon and stars all have their own paths, never interfering with the others—and here on Earth we have the same thing with the trees and water and animals—everything with their own path, and everything sticking to it. And then we—the smart ones—people—we’re the ones running amok?”

“Good question. What did the teacher say?”

“Same thing. Good question. Would I like to write an essay on the answer.”

“Good answer. Did you write the essay?”

“Not yet. Tell me what you’d write. Talk quiet now—take your time,” and he evened his breathing as we used to do as youngsters, trying to fool the other into believing we were sleeping.

“I’ll tell you what I think,” I said. “I think God’s too huge to create small things. Like feelings. So, when we’re all running amok, we’re creating feelings—you know, love, joy, sadness and all else—and those feelings makes us think. Like, why. Or why not. Which makes us, little brother, makers of consciousness, the Earth’s consciousness. As long as we continue to think, we continue to create. How’s that for feeling a mite important. Eh?” I elbowed him.

“Yeah, mmm.”

“Yeah, mmm, that’s what I wonder about too—yeah, mmm. Tomorrow,” I said abruptly, “I’m talking to this foreman about getting you work. There’s this hotel going up—actually, there’s three—but this one’s just down the road from the bar. Be a good place for you to work. Good bunch of men there. You listening? Chris?”I kicked him. “Tell me something, you don’t really go off in trances, do you? I mean, really, tell me. You can’t be climbing scaffolds if you—well, got this thing.”

“Thing?” He stirred awake.

“Well, then, I’m only checking. Mother got me half convinced there’s something wrong with you.”

“Mother,” he groaned.

“What happens, then, when you goes off like that?”

“Happens? Nothing happens. For jeeze sakes, Sis, can’t we just sleep. I wanna get clear of that fuckin’ river out there.”

“Do you lose time—when you’re in your trances?”

“Who knows, hell!” he said in irritation, and carried on in loud, whiny tone, “One minute I’m up on a ladder, putting putty along a windowsill. And then a leaf floats by and I’m seeing its little veins, and the little veins become tiny bones, and the tiny bones turn into webbed duck feet, that then becomes the wings of a bat—and there you have it—next thing I knows I’m upside down in a tree. Whaddya think—am I still part maker of the Earth’s brain? Tell me, Sis, what’s all with you and Ben? Huh?”

“Go to sleep,” I muttered.

“Perfect,” he muttered back.

I fluffed up my pillow and kept trying for sleep, but was thwarted each time by fuzzy images of curly black hair and sooty eyes.

The first time he’d strolled into the bar in Grande Prairie and saw me prowling about slinging beer, he’d gotten quite the start—like he thought I was chasing him. I’d fretted about that very thing as I readied for the big move, but then put it aside. It was a grand opportunity Myrah had happened upon in the local newspaper—a bar in Grande Prairie, Alberta, looking for Newfoundland waitresses, paying triple the wages offered around town and quadruple the tips. With my degree filling one pocket and student loans depleting the other, I was soon flying into the sunset with Myrah.

I knew from Mother that Grande Prairie was where Ben and Trapp were both working, and no doubt I looked to see them each time I strapped on my change apron and faced the loud, crowded barroom. But it had been three years since I last saw Ben, a good stretch of time, and the sour memory of waiting in a cafeteria for a supper that was never dished served more to breach than bridge. The kick in my heart, then, upon first spotting him looming through the barroom door was as much a surprise to me as the sight of my lean figure toting a serving tray and slinging beer was to him.

His curls were cropped close to his head and his beard shorn, revealing a fixed jaw and a graven face. His eyes, I was relieved to note—for his mother’s sake, not mine—weren’t wasted and hidden behind shades, and were the same clear grey as when he’d slouched about the wharf, scrutinizing my knees and criticizing my crooked nose. His stunned look upon seeing me gave way to confusion as I approached. Then a kind of nervousness flushed his face and he backed away as though he might flee.

“Hey, look who’s here,” I said airily, wiping off a table and pulling out a chair. “Want a beer? You looks awfully sober.”

“What’re you doing here?” No smile, no greeting nod.

“Oh, change of scenery. Bit of shopping. How’s your sidekick?” I moved to the next table, stacking empties on my tray, trying not to feel his eyes appraising me with such an odd look of fear, as though he wished me an apparition that might vanish upon touch.

“Was that a no—to the beer?” I asked. “Perhaps an Irish coffee?” Balancing the loaded tray on one hand and plugging two more empties onto my thumb and forefinger, I faced him in my old taunting manner.

He smiled a curious, sad smile and shook his head. “It’s good to see you again,” he said. “But—I gotta go. Looking for someone.”

“Sure, next time.” I walked away from him and laid the tray of empties on the bar, my arms trembling.

The next day he was back, sitting on a barstool with the same graven look.

“Myrah found this great ad in the paper in St. John’s—just what I was looking for—a chance to pay off the loans, save some money for grad school,” I offered, wiping down the bar before him.

“So, where’s the roomie now?” he asked.

“Sinuses. Couldn’t handle the bar—too smoky. She’s working across town in a hotel restaurant—forgets the name— up on the main road coming through town.”

“And you’ve found a place?”

“Basement apartment, one room—I lost the draw and got the sofa. Lucky to have it, I guess—everybody sleeping in trucks, what with the oil boom and housing shortage. Guess you know all that, eh?” I smiled and went off with my tray, picking up empties and taking orders.

I wasn’t the silly, flighty schoolgirl anymore, but it unnerved me whenever Ben was in the bar. Brought back all those tender memories of girlhood love and the terrible hurt when he’d just taken off like that. It was his fourth or fifth time back, sitting on the barstool, that I realized there was something wrong with Ben’s face; that he wasn’t simply being reserved, or worried by my appearance on his turf, for even worry spirited a face. And Ben’s face was without spirit—like Kyle’s the night outside the bar when he’d known Chris was leaving for the oil rigs.

I noted too that he was staying for longer periods of time, yet always near the centre of the bar, which, amongst the constant parade of patrons assailing me for beer or whisky or change for the cigarette machine, reduced our conversations to snatches. And never did he speak of himself, diverting all talk to Chris, or home, or the dump of snow that had just whitened the streets of Grande Prairie.

Sometimes, as I swerved my way around the room and caught sight of him hunched over his beer, I felt a huge sense of loneliness about him—not the loneliness one feels for a friend, a lover, or family, but for himself, the laughing free spirit who drew cats for old women and gulped back spiked coffee and hung out in low-life bars that supposedly inspired Paul McCartney. I burned to plop my tray before him, demanding why—why the hell he was working the rigs with only five credits left for an engineering degree, why the hell he wasn’t visiting his poor, bewildered mother, where was Trapp, why the graven image, and more important than all of that—why did he leave me waiting for a dinner that was never served?

But I couldn’t do it. He felt too much like a bird that had clipped its own wings, and at the slightest questioning he’d be hopping to another perch. I didn’t want that, for I felt it was me, and some sense of who he used to be, that he was needing, not the bar itself. And either injustices grow smaller with the passage of time or mine was a forgiving nature, but I no longer felt angry at Ben. And worse, as I declared to the tutting Myrah one morning over breakfast, I no longer
wanted
to feel angry at Ben.

Once, on a snappish winter’s day, with the late-afternoon sun glitzing the snow-packed sidewalks, he came up to me as I was leaving the bar and invited me to dinner. His eyes, as we sat across from each other at a wooden booth in a steak house, were sheepish with guilt, and I knew he was remembering his last invitation, and the No-Show. Yet he said nothing. And it was this, his continuing silence about anything of the past few years and the sadness in his eyes, that stole across the table like a long shadow, touching me with a hint of foreboding.

So I was surprised when, after we’d washed down the last of our steak with beer, he asked about my graduation, ordered an expensive bottle of wine for a toast, and with his eyes crinkling a little into their old, taunting manner, ribbed me about the airiness of philosophers and how he’d have to put rocks in my pockets to keep me from floating with all them airy thoughts inflating my head.

Folding my arms onto the table, I lazed into this unexpected burst of warmth like a turtle on a sunny rock. “Let’s hear some of your thoughts,” I said boldly. “Loosen the lid on that trunk of yours. Show me something from the past few years.”