When I entered Earl was drinking pink Pepto-Bismol from the bottle. He was a man much advanced in years, with fluffy white hair like the seed sphere of a dandelion. His cheeks were absolutely purple. He wore a wool-knit sweater, perhaps white when first knitted but now caramel, with a ’50s hockey player skating on his back.
I walked up and down the congested aisles before pulling out a Montreal Gazette and two packs of Pounce cat treats, which I found misplaced on a shelf of dusty art supplies. On the counter, by the cash register, was a basket of bananas one step away from compost and a bag of rolls with a sticker that said REDUCED BECAUSE THEY’RE STALE.
“You need anything else with that?” Earl asked in English. “Matches?” He held up a box of Redbird Strike Anywhere Matches.
For the newspaper or the cat treats? “Okay,” I said. Business looked bad so I tossed in a bag of old-fashioned Australian licorice for Céleste and a bottle of Quebec wine called Harfang des Neiges (“Snowy Owl”). It was mixed in with a row of blue Gatorade, which reminded me of barbershop comb disinfectant. “How’s business these days? How are the separatists treating you?”
He flexed his fingers and made the joints pop. “Break-in last week. First I thought nothin’ was took. But a day or so later I see the Maalox are all out. You know, for the brown nasties? Imagine that. I think I know who done it too. A friend of mine, Bobby Adams, who’s older than I am. Here’s some advice for you—never trust anybody over ninety. And there was a flood too. Foot deep in the store.”
“Last week, you mean, during the storm?”
“No, back in the eighties. Anything else? How about this?” He held up a New Year’s Eve noisemaker, a ratchet device that he swung round feebly. “Or these?” He picked up a twin pack of playing cards, a scantily clad blonde on one deck, a scantily clad brunette on the other.
Cards wouldn’t be a bad idea. “Um, well, okay, but are these the only ones you have? I need some for a teenage girl.” I closed my eyes, wished I hadn’t spoken that last phrase.
Earl took the cards from my hand and put them in the bag. “Teenage girls like these cards. They like smokes too.” He winked at me before pulling back a burlap curtain, revealing shelves of cigarettes in cartons and bags with names like Native, Montcalm, Broncos, DKs. Fifteen bucks for a bag of two hundred.
“I’ll take these,” I said, grabbing some Popeye candy cigarettes from the counter and setting the pack atop the playing cards.
I paid in American bills and he handed me back, with fingers as brown and tough as dog paws, big Canadian coins. The dollar coins, I would learn later, are called “loonies” (having a loon on one side) and the two-dollar coins “toonies” (instead of, say, loons and doubloons). It’s stuff like this you want to point to when Canadians say they don’t understand why Americans make fun of them.
“Did you know that a man living in the States can’t be buried in Canada?” he said, holding up one of the bills to the light.
This gave me a bit of a start. “I … why is that?”
“Because he’s still alive.”
I let out a sigh. “Good one.”
“My friend Bobby Adams told me that joke. Only one he knows, tells it over and over till you just want to clobber him. You heard it before?”
“No, that’s … the first time. I’ll have to remember it. Listen, this Bobby Adams, he wouldn’t know the bishop, would he?”
“The bishop? Who’s the bishop? Joey Bishop? Bishop Tutu?”
I tried another tack. “He doesn’t drive a black 4WD with a broken headlight, does he?”
“What’s a 4WD?”
“It’s all right, never mind.”
“No, tell me.”
“A four-wheel-drive truck. This particular one had a big grille and a rack of lights. And oversize tires.”
The man seemed to be thinking it over. “Bobby Adams. He used to go around the neighbourhood sharpening scissors. He always did good work.”
Beside the door, in a spotless white plastic stand, was an incongruous array of … I wasn’t sure what. “Microgreens” it said on top, in professional lettering. Everything was labelled. Exotic stuff I’d never heard of, like red brassica and cilantro and perilla and tatsoi and mizuna and mache. Some of it was familiar: pea shoots, chives, watercress, arugula, red cabbage, fennel, French sorrel, Chinese edible chrysanthemum … There were also some hairy and mucilaginous pods of okra, which I tossed into the bag.
“That’s not a microgreen,” Earl informed me.
“I’ll still take it.”
“My grandson’s doing,” said Earl, nodding at the stand. “He grows all this shit in his hothouse. Out Hawkshead way. He’s queer as a French horn but he’s a good boy. A crime against nature, the wife used to say. But she’s dead now. And the stuff sells, eh? City people buy this crap. Cross-country skiers and snowshoers with their fancy getup.”
I smiled because he was smiling. “This is for the okra.” I rolled a double sawbuck into the shape of a cylinder and pushed it into Earl’s sweater pocket. It seemed like a gesture the old man would appreciate.
Inside the van I coaxed the cat out from under the seat with a handful of Pounce, which I hand-fed her as she wobbled on my lap. She sniffed at the okra in my other hand, but let it be. Then returned to the passenger seat, sitting upright, staring calmly straight ahead. Home, James.
While struggling with the ignition, I glimpsed a snowplow at the top of the lane, blade up, coming at me at a fair clip. As it rumbled closer and closer I realized it wasn’t going to stop. Surely it would stop … The cat jumped down, but I grabbed her before she could wriggle under the seat. I put her inside my coat, hurled the door open and leapt out.
The snowplow stopped, its blade an inch or two from my windshield. The driver leaned out the window, cackling. It was the same black-bearded man. « We meet again, mon ami! »
Yeah, long time no smell. I got back to my feet and set down the terrified cat onto the driver’s seat. I closed the door as the driver turned off his engine.
« Had you goin’, eh? Thought I was going to ram you? » His voice was even more nasal than before, to the extent that a clothes peg seemed to have been clipped onto his nose.
After wiping snow from my mouth, I conceded that ramming had crossed my mind.
« Now that was funny. Shoulda seen your face, eh? Wait’ll I tell the guys back at the garage. I’m famous for that kind of stuff round here. You’ll see. »
I told him it was one of the cleverest practical jokes ever played on me, and that I looked forward to seeing further examples of his work.
The snowplower blew out another high-pitched witch’s cackle but stopped on a dime. He glared, breathing through enlarged nostrils, like an annoyed bull. «You messin’ with me? You mess with me I’ll take your teeth out with a wrench. »
I retorted in an unworded way.
He scratched at his beard with gloved fingers. « Time to scrap that shitheap, eh? Looks like it’s been painted by a five-year-old. Then rolled down a mountainside. »
« It runs. »
« It wouldn’t outrun a fatman. »
« It’d outrun your plow. »
The driver spat in the direction of a snowbank, without quite reaching it. By my foot was a viscous ball of speckled matter resembling toad spawn.
« You don’t know who I am, do you? »
I waited to find out.
« Champion two years running of the Truck Rodeo, that’s who. Over in Notre-Dame-du-Nord? Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of that. » He looked me hard in the face, defying me to tell him that.
I closed my eyes and pressed a finger upon my forehead. « I did hear about that, yeah. You were on Oprah, right? You and your truck? »
The driver considered the question briefly, his head at a quizzical-dog angle. « You messin’ with me again? Like some wiseacre city fuck? You mess with me I’ll make you cry. I coulda squashed you like a ladybug in your little Kraut van. Still can. »
I glanced over at the
snowplow. While nodding in agreement I noticed something about its municipality markings. The letters had not been painted by a professional with a straight edge and steady hand. Or by someone who knew how to spell.
« I can do a 12.7, 12.8 quarter-mile in a semi, eh? »
I think you have me confused with somebody who gives a shit. « Very impressive. »
« You bet your ass it’s impressive. » He belched. The cabbagey rot of his molars, mixed with whatever homebrew he’d been drinking—juniper berry and brake fluid—drifted toward me. « When you gonna get that coil fixed? »
« Coil? »
« Ignition. »
We’d had trouble with it the day he gave me a boost. I shrugged.
« And your exhaust. Sounds bad, eh? Cam and headers and God knows what else. »
I tend to procrastinate when it comes to repairs, when it comes to doctors or dentists or lawyers or mechanics. I treat my car the way I treat my life.
« Why don’t you just hot-wire the sonofabitch? » he said.
Hot-wire the sonofabitch? I couldn’t hot-wire a toaster.
« I’ll do it, » he offered with the confidence of one who’d helped make Quebec the car-theft epicentre of Canada. « Simple as pissing in an ashtray. »
A literal translation. « No, it’ll kick in. »
« Done it just about everywhere. All over this country, stateside too. I’ve been in just about every goddamn place and done just about every goddamn thing. Except one. Wanna take a guess at what that is? The one thing I never done? Go on, take a guess. »
“Uh, let me see … used a toothbrush?” is not what I said. I was still picturing the van being squashed like a ladybug. I simply shrugged.
« I never went down on a dwarf. » His head went back and a series of loud guffaws exploded from his mouth.
At this flash of wit we both laughed, until his gasps and chokes subsided. « The bank manager turn you down? » I asked.
His wide grin vanished, quick as a wink, again turning into that confused-dog look. « What’s that supposed to mean? You messin’ with me again, city boy? You mess with me I’ll lay you out flat and stomp on your head. Goodbye nose, goodbye teeth. »
This was his second threat involving teeth. Perhaps instead of snowplowing he should’ve gone into dentistry. From his higher vantage he began to stare at something on the passenger seat of the van. The cat? « I seen your van back there, eh? » He nodded south, in the direction of the real estate office. « Plannin’ on buyin’ somethin’ in this lovely neck of the woods? »
« Maybe. »
« The Anglo church? »
How did he know that? I shrugged.
He climbed down from his rig. « I got you pegged for the new warden, workin’ undercover like. Am I right?” He gave me an assessing squint while sticking a cigarette into the wiry scrub of his beard. « And that there’s your showcar. »
« My what? »
« Showcar. For buys. Stings. »
I nodded. Did he mean for drugs? « Drugs? »
« No, nimrod, not drugs. Bear galls, paws, eagle feathers, that kind of thing. But I guess you wouldn’t tell me if you was now, would you. »
This was the second time in one day that I had been called a nimrod. It means hunter. The “mighty hunter before the Lord” in Genesis. « No, I suppose not. »
« Got yourself a good disguise in any case. The hair, clothes, hat. You were smart, you fooled me. »
That wouldn’t make me smart.
« Get yourself a mask and you can go trick-or-treatin’ as Zorro. » He snorted porcinely before taking a long haul on his cigarette, halving it. « And that’s why you’ve been splashin’ them U.S. dollars around. Like you’re a dealer, am I right? »
Was I being tailed? Where did he get this information?
He picked a fleck of tobacco from his lower lip. « So I guess you heard what happened a few months back to one of your … comrades. Ranger or warden or animal-lover or whatever you want to call him. »
I shrugged.
« Now that surprises me, that surprises me a lot. It was a big story up in these parts. Where are you from, anyway? France? »
Despite the cold, the driver’s coat was unzippered and shirt unbuttoned, displaying the hairiest chest I’d seen outside a zoo. « Yes. »
He shook out an unfiltered cigarette and offered the pack to me. « ‘The French they are a funny race, they fight with their feet and fuck with their face.’ My uncle used to say that. ’Cause you guys invented sixty-nine, eh? »
I was no longer much of a smoker but took what was offered—a brand called Hawks—and the driver tossed me a book of matches. On its cover was a platinum blonde with a seemingly inflatable bust, the same image as on Earl’s playing cards. The French invented sixty-nine? « So what happened to the game warden? »
« Shot. Hunting accident. Funny thing was, he was wearing a bulletproof vest. Hit with a .500 Nitro. »
I had no idea what that was but mimed surprise. « The bullet went through the vest? »
« With one of those babies you can blast a hole in a wall big enough for a dog to jump through. But no, it didn’t go through the vest. »
I waited as the driver drew another chestful of smoke from his reservation cigarette.
« The bullet hit him below the belt, if you get my drift. Bled out in three minutes flat, said one of the paramedics. Thing’s like a fire hydrant the way it spurts out. »
He glared at me, his eyes shifting from my face to my groin, suggesting perhaps that if I was the new ranger the same would happen to me. He turned his head aside, seized his nose between thumb and forefinger and blew twin strings of mucus onto the snow. « You like girls? » He wiped his fingers on the inside of his army jacket’s breast pocket, originally designed to carry grenades.
I pulled a match from the cartoon blonde, fired up the Hawk. « Yeah, sure. Or are you asking— »
« I ain’t askin’ if you’re queer, no, I’m askin’ if you like girls. Me, I seen too much muff. You heard of the Cave out on 117? That’s my uncle’s place. »
I blew out heavy blue smoke, dizzily. Glanced down at the address on the matchbook. « I’ve passed by. »
« Now guns—I like guns. Maybe you and me we go up in the mountains some time, kill some birds. »
Right. When cows learn to synchronize swim. « I’m not a hunter. »
« That’s right, I almost forgot. You’re one on them enviros, am I right? One of them antis. »
I had nothing against hunters—my Uncle Vince was one and he was a good man. Plus I had stopped weighing things on my scale of ethics, not because I didn’t have one, but because it had been skewed for years. « Not really, no. »
« I know you ain’t, I seen your rifle. »
Oh shit. « I … I don’t own a rifle. »
« I seen her too, eh? »
« Seen who? »
“Céleste Jonquères. I’d stay away from her if I was you. »
I answered with unhinged mouth and words that neither of us could make out. My brain was disconnected from my vocal cords.
« Half-breed hellcat. Just like her mother’s tribe, all fighters and hotheads and generally all-around bad ones, ask anyone. Plus after what happened, she’s just damaged goods, eh? Never be the same after what happened. Nope, never the same … »
« But … what happened? »
« She killed her grandmother, a ‘mercy killing’ she called it. She put the bag over her head ’cause she pleaded, ’cause she couldn’t stand to see her suffer. A half-breed swamp slut, just like her mother. Shot out of a cannon. I’d steer clear of her if I was you. She’s killed before and won’t think twice about killin’ you. »
I coughed out more words, questions, but the driver had already switched on his flasher and back-up beeper and was reversing out of the parking lot.
VIII
I’m now going to tell you what I know about my host, which is not a lot. His first name is Nile (his parents honeymooned in Egypt)
& last name Nightingale (no relation to Florence). I’ve never felt comfortable with men, to tell you the truth — men & school, those are my kryptonite — but Nile might be an exception. He seems OK. He’s distant & quiet, at least when he’s not muttering to himself. I can spend time with him without him breaking into my thoughts. And he’s smart enough too, for an American, for someone who believes in angels & the afterlife. “There was a herebefore and there will be a hereafter,” he said to me. “Nothing in the universe, including the universe itself, can terminate entirely.”
He talks malarkey like this, the gloomy little saint, but at least he doesn’t use an adult tone or weird voice as if I’m a baby or puppy. He has a quiet voice & a grace & gentleness too, like a swan or some grallatorial bird. But one that’s not from this area — an “accidental,” one that’s tired from flying so far off-course.
As far as looks go, he’s what my grandmother called a Monet. Handsome as hell from a distance but not as much up close. His hair grows wild in thick clusters like it hasn’t seen a brush in his lifetime & it seems to prefer standing up to lying down. He has dark-tinted reading glasses & dresses all in black with a purplish-red scarf like a retired pirate or rockstar roué.
He looks dead-tired, like a soldier coming back from a war or something, and his eyes are dog-sad, a bit like Jesus’s in the east window of the Church. For some people, according to Grand-maman, there are things that happen in their lives that they just can’t live with. Things that “take the shine off the universe.” For Nile, it might have been his mom’s death. Or maybe his dad beat him or something. Or maybe he suffered from “possession overload,” what my grandmother called “affluenza,” which is a kind of virus that makes people want more & more things but makes them less & less happy. “For everything you get, you lose an equal amount,” she used to say.
Nile’s mom was from a rich family & so was his dad, who was a doctor, even though he didn’t have to work for a living. Nile was a “chip off the old block” because he got into med school when he was a teenager. To celebrate this, his parents gave him a car he always wanted: a Delage, an extinct French sports car from the 30s that he drove all over Paris & then had shipped over to the States. He showed me a picture. It’s a wreck, just like the van he drives.