Fred’s lamb wasn’t hard to spot. She was the one marked with paint made from vegetable resin and harmless dye. Fred had to be reassured that the paint wouldn’t hurt Lucy because he vaguely remembered Jack yelling at him about paint and sheep. Jack had wanted to use an “F” (for Fred) but Fred thought that would look like a bad school grade. So he chose a blue happy face. Right there on her hip.
Fred watched his lamb proudly, telling her how beautiful she was and how big she was growing. When Taillon came within range, Fred introduced him to Mutt. “Buh, buh, Taillon won’t talk to you because he is like those men in the red uniforms with the black fuzzy hats at Buckingham Palace.”
Taillon squatted on the grass. His ears twitched and he kept a steady eye on Mutt, who stayed close to Fred. Mutt knew Taillon’s function and the giant dog, a sight to behold when patrolling the corral, was even more intimidating in the open fields where there was nowhere to run.
Fred pulled a note from his pocket. He bobbed his arm, blasted an excited laugh and handed the note to Mutt. “You are not going to believe how lucky your timing is. Happy days are here again,” he sang.
Mutt read the note: The sheep shearer is coming this afternoon.
The shearer grabbed the ewe and, with his electric shears, went to work on her belly. The warm weather had raised the oil in the fleece and it lifted effortlessly under the blur that became the shearer’s hand.
Using his free hand and legs, the shearer manipulated the ewe into six different positions while his right hand stayed busy with the blades; no small feat considering she wanted nothing more than to get back on her feet and run away. It was a captivating dance of brute strength and dexterity.
It was only after finishing twenty-five sheep that he paused to drink a root beer in one standing flourish, and then started on the rest of the flock.
“This is why I like you to visit,” Fred whispered. “You are not so snobby that you would yawn and fidget and wonder when we were going back inside to watch television.”
“Dad says hi.”
Fred shrugged and Mutt put his arm around him.
The afternoon clouds had threatened rain, but by the time Jack had to make the decision to eat inside or out the skies had cleared and within half an hour there were chicken pieces and sausages sizzling on the barbecue.
It was Jack’s idea to invite the Feniaks. Marilyn had never met Mutt before. Once Fred heard that the Feniaks were coming—all but Ryan, thankfully—he suggested that Jiri and Bridget should come, too, so they could celebrate the birth of Jack’s lambs.
Mutt was given a chair at one end of the picnic table. Jack sat at the other end. Jiri, Bridget and Fred flanked one side. Marilyn, Kenton and Claudia flanked the other. Spread across the table was a simple yellow cloth and then hands, elbows, two big bowls of potato salad, Kokanee beer cans, bottles of Schweppes raspberry ginger ale and a giant plate of sausage and chicken.
“Fred, you look very handsome tonight.”
“How old are you now, Claudia?”
“Don’t say that so loud, your husband will kill me.”
“Nice chicken, Jack, are these yours?”
“He might beat you up, but never kill you.”
“Fifteen.”
“I finally caught a few of the dirty buggers that were squatting in the barn.”
“Almost legal, um, um, I don’t believe it because you would think Papa Joe would kill his own chickens with an axe like real farmers, buh, buh, he takes them to the butcher and lets him do the dirty deed.”
“So when do you and Jack move in together, Marilyn?”
“Jack.”
“Jesus, Mutt.”
“Do chickens run around after you cut their heads off?”
“Pardon me while I open my mouth and change feet.”
“Why would Mr. Pickle move in with us, Mom?”
“Where’d you get a name like Mutt?”
“He’s not moving anywhere.”
“Okay, okay, it embarrasses him to the bone, buh, buh, I will tell you anyway because it is the truth and it happened so long ago that nobody can be hurt by it.”
“Jack, can I talk to you for a second?”
“Everyone already knows, Mom.”
“What’s for dessert?”
“We were playing in a sandbox and a neighbour’s doggie ran over and started having doggy sex with Mutt’s leg and before he could get this horny devil off, the doggie, what is the word that I am searching for?”
“Boston cream pie.”
“Arrived?”
“That works better than the words I was thinking of so the horny devil doggie arrived on Mutt’s leg and he became Mutt just like that.”
“It wouldn’t be so bad if cementhead didn’t remind me about it every time I see him.”
“Aren’t you amazed I can remember such a thing and yet I can’t tell you what I had for breakfast this morning?”
“Can I go now?”
“Amazed or suspicious. Take your pick.”
“After dessert.”
“He thinks I use my brain injury to my advantage by pretending not to remember bad things I have done, buh, buh, it is only a theory and has not been proven.”
“I don’t want dessert.”
“How long was Fred in hospital?”
“Six months.”
“You forgot to say that they told me I would be a rotten vegetable for the rest of my life and would never walk or talk and every day I would move a little bit here and there and learn to speak my words. I never gave up hope.”
“We regretted the talking rehab after he got home.”
“Where was home?”
“Dad’s.”
“Your father must have gone through hell.”
“Um, um, excuse me for living, I was the one who could not walk and was almost dead and he was the snake-in-the-grass in the living room counting the days off the calendar until he could get rid of me again.”
“I’m sure it tore him to pieces to see you like that.”
“I would like for everyone to be handicapped for only one day so they could see what it is really like, um, um, and my dad would be the first one in line to be fitted for his handicapped suit and I would push him out the door and say, have fun, Charlie Brown, don’t come back until five.”
“Dad did his best. Three years with this idiot was enough to put anyone over the edge. But Fred got himself recovered enough that he could move into a halfway house.”
“And Dad drove through four stop signs getting me there.”
“You wanna have your day ruined, spend a few hours at a halfway house for people with brain injuries. Most of them were athletic and young. They had accidents like Fred, doing stuff they loved. Hang gliding, mountain climbing, skiing, one guy dove into a pond and hit his head on a rock. They probably had big plans that night, something in a few months to look forward to, their whole lives ahead of them. Then, wham, bam, they’re stumbling around a kitchen feeling proud ’cause they buttered their own toast. Kinda wakes you up to the fact that life’s about right now, not tonight. But Fred toughed ’er out.”
“It is night right now, um, um, he always does this on purpose and jumps to the end so that I have to step in and say what a great friend he was, how he moved back home to help me get better and wouldn’t let me quit and visited me every day at the halfway house of horrors and did the best thing which was to teach me to skate again and I love him like a brother, oh I forgot, he is my brother, so there.”
—
Jack carried a lantern and led Mutt through the garage. It was a tricky journey because empty space on the floor was hard to find. “Jesus, Jack, sorry for opening my big mouth.” Hidden behind mountains of sheep wool were boxes, pieces of farm equipment, old phones, lawn mowers, tires and a small table in the back.
“Over here,” said Jack as he led Mutt to the small table. Jack set the lantern down. “Everyone knew, except Marilyn didn’t know that everyone knew.”
“Is she g
onna be mad?”
“Yup.”
The light cast short shadows below the crevasses on their faces, making it look as if they had black makeup smeared on for Halloween. Jack pulled something out of his back pocket and placed it on the table. Mutt bent closer.
It was a cover, torn from a dime novel. Mutt barely had time to register the title, The Sunless City, before Jack turned it over. The handwriting scrawled across the back was virtually impossible to read. “Fred?” asked Mutt.
Jack nodded and put his reading glasses on. “I thought you could help decipher it.”
Mutt frowned. “It’s gibberish.”
“Yes, but what are the words? You know Fred’s writing.”
Mutt looked again at the back of the cover, then took two big swallows of beer. “Who cares?”
“They’re not Fred’s words, they’re Badger’s. Fred’s notes are almost always dates and times and things to do. This is something else. And he even wrote on the damn thing not to say anything to me.”
“Where did you get it?”
“Underneath his mattress.”
“Jack, you shouldn’t be snooping through his room.”
“I had to. I’m worried.”
“About what?”
“About Badger. Fred. ‘Andy, Andy, Andy,’ everywhere, I counted ten.” Jack pointed to a phrase on the back of the cover. “And look at that. ‘Crime and punishment.’”
Mutt looked closer. “It looks like ‘cream.’”
“And here, ‘flan.’”
“Could be ‘plan.’”
Jack’s finger ran across more words. “‘Dead farmer, shooting, lies, Mr. Potato Head,’ exclamation mark.” He shook his head, mystified. “What’s that say?”
“Something about ‘cultural perversion,’ maybe ‘subversion.’ ‘Anthology’?”
“Maybe it is ‘perversion.’ Look at this.” Jack pulled out Fred’s sketchbook.
“I gave him that,” said Mutt proudly.
Jack began flipping through Fred’s chaotic renderings of the lamb’s horn. “Page after page of penises.”
“How do you know they’re penises?”
“What else could they be?”
“Maybe Fred’s a fag.” Mutt belched low and long.
“Did you see this?” Jack closed the sketchbook and lifted the novel cover to his nose. “‘If things go wrong we eat them.’” Jack removed his glasses like a trial lawyer finishing his closing statement.
“You’re turning into Dad. Every time things get a little tough for Fred, he’s saying it’s Invermere all over again. And here’s you sneaking stuff from Fred’s room and dragging me out to this smelly garage.” Mutt crushed his beer can on his forehead.
Jack was disappointed that Mutt was so unimpressed. “You get some coffee in your blood before you drive back.”
Mutt followed Jack out of the garage. He stopped and peered across the yard at Fred and Marilyn, the only ones left at the picnic table. “Fred still thinks he’s getting season tickets this year, Jack.”
“I know he does.”
Mutt patted Jack on the back and headed for the picnic table.
Jack lagged behind. He knew he’d have to put the dime novel cover underneath Fred’s mattress before Fred went back inside. He hated giving it up. He thought if he studied Fred’s hieroglyphics long enough he’d figure it out. Just like the Rosetta stone.
Fred and Mutt floated down the creek. The water was so shallow in places that Mutt had to get off his tube and drag Fred until the current, slow as it was, picked him up again. Mutt had forced Fred to wear a bright orange life jacket and Fred had complained about it for half an hour.
A cloudless sky and a strong June sun were giving the brothers the hottest day of the year. Earlier, Mutt had helped Jack bag fifteen sacks of sheep wool, while Fred watched impatiently, telling Jack he felt as useless as an inflatable dartboard. Soon after Fred’s tenth example of uselessness, a pedal-powered wheelchair, Jack sent Fred and Mutt away to enjoy themselves.
Nature may have been providing beautiful inspiration, but Fred appeared listless. “Tell me again what you and Mrs. Feniak talked about after Papa Joe and I went to bed?”
“She gave me shit for telling everyone at the table about her and Jack. I told her to relax and enjoy the ride.”
“Um, um, she didn’t rip your tongue out?”
Mutt chuckled. “She was pretty drunk. She asked a lot of questions about Aunt Vera. I think she’s insecure about Jack, kept asking if he liked her very much. How the hell should I know, I said. And of course she wanted to know what you were like before your accident.”
“And what did you say?”
“Same asshole without a limp.”
Fred raised his arm to blast his laugh but only managed a short burst. And it was more for Mutt’s benefit. It wasn’t from the heart. “I have seen him watch a spider go up a wall in his kitchen while I was eating two waffles and he never squished it so I don’t think he would hurt a fly.”
“Who?”
“Badger.”
Mutt glanced at Fred a little suspiciously. “Jack said you did a hell of a job saving that lamb.”
“You don’t have to make me feel like a hero because I have more important things to do than stuff hair into bags that Papa Joe doesn’t get much money for anyway.”
Mutt tried to enjoy the passing trees that draped branches into the creek and the sweet smell of wildflowers that wafted gently in the breeze. He dipped his hand in the cold water and drained it over his face. He moved his leg and felt the heat from the black rubber of the tire. But his attention returned time and again to his younger brother.
Fred looked so vulnerable drifting alone that Mutt ended up with a lump in his throat. He knew it was stupid but he imagined Fred as a little bird, not able to fly, and stuck in the waves during a storm at sea. Mutt stopped himself. He didn’t like seeing Fred as a pathetic creature because he knew Fred didn’t see himself that way. But Mutt couldn’t help it sometimes.
Mutt knew better than to bring up hockey. Jack had warned him that Fred was forgetting, then remembering, and when he remembered he was delusional, thinking the team was coming back.
“You think Jack’s serious about Marilyn?” asked Mutt.
“It will never work out. She will never get rid of her junk because there might be blood on it one day and Papa Joe will never give up his sheep because he’d rather be a farmer than a junkman, or so he says, buh, buh, it doesn’t matter because whether I am stuck on a sheep farm or stuck in a junkyard I will still be stuck, okay, shhh.”
Mutt flirted with the notion of asking Fred to come stay with him in Vancouver for a while, but Fred and big cities didn’t mix. Fred became too disoriented, too angry, too out of control. He wanted quiet. So that’s what Mutt gave him.
Mutt was leaving soon and Fred wasn’t big on departures. He knew Fred would disappear just before he climbed in his car and he would have to tell Jack to say goodbye for him.
eighteen
Ryan heard the muffled bursts and knew right away that someone was shooting a gun. Bonnie and Clyde sprang to their feet and charged outside.
Fred didn’t even react as the two pit bulls galloped around a stack of old stoves, lips curled, saliva flying. He steadied his left hand and shot Jack’s .38 Special at a row of cans on top of some rusty shelving. One of the cans cartwheeled into the air.
It was only a desperate shout from Ryan that saved Fred from having his left arm and then his throat ripped apart. Ryan pulled the dogs back. Fred steadied his gun and shot again, missing the cans. “Hey!” yelled Ryan.
Fred ignored him and shot again. Ryan picked up a stone and hit Fred in the back. Fred spun around and glared with a loathing that scared Ryan enough that the tone of his voice spiked up and down. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Um, um, to cut a long story short, I am shooting Papa Joe’s gun.”
“Not here you’re not.”
“Buh, buh, that’s no
t what your mom said. She told me I could come over any time I wanted because Papa Joe doesn’t like me shooting near the sheep.”
“You can’t come over without telling someone! These dogs are out here all the time. They would have killed you.”
Fred tucked the gun precariously under his arm and fished in his pocket for bullets. He counted them in his palm. “Okay, okay, I only have six or seven left, would you like to try one or two?”
Fred released the bullet chamber and, with the gun tucked under his arm began loading bullets with his left hand. Ryan grabbed a smoke, lit it. He couldn’t put his finger on what was different about Fred, but it was making him nervous. If he had looked more carefully he might have noticed that Fred’s eyes appeared dead. Like a shark’s eyes.
Fred slid another bullet into a chamber. “Do you know how bad those are for your conditioning?”
“Guy Lafleur smoked two packs a day.”
Fred looked to the sky helplessly, then bowed his head to the ground and began spitting. “Spit those little devils out of your mouth because he only smoked one pack and how dare you think that you can put your tobacco in the same cloud of smoke as Guy Lafleur. Shame and triple shame.”
“You smoked, so shut up.”
“I only smoked when I was drunk, buh, buh, I would never stand outside on a sunny day and do it.” Fred swung the bullet chamber shut. “Three shots each and the winner gets to shoot the last bullet, buh, buh, you have to use your left hand, okay, okay, slow down, get ready.”
Ryan tossed his cigarette under his workboot and sauntered over to where Fred was setting up three cans. “So what’s training camp gonna be like?”
Fred looked incredulously at Ryan. “How should I know?”
“I thought you played for them.”
Fred bowed and waved the gun to imaginary fans. “I thank you so much, buh, buh, not according to you did I ever play for them and your brother asks so many questions about my team and you have never asked, because you think you are the hot turd.”
Fred steadied his sight, pulled the trigger. A can zinged into the air. “Not bad.”
The Horn of a Lamb Page 21
