The Lost Highway

by David Adams Richards

  But what was more important, at least psychologically, was why Alex Chapman was there. After three days Alex was exhausted from his search and felt he needed help. To quell the urge to ask Minnie for help, he entered to have a drink—time was running out, soon his uncle would be home, and he needed to know what to do! If his uncle came home and found such a thing as this ticket, he would either throw it out or claim it. Either way, this would be very bad. If he told his uncle, it would be worse.

  Alex remembered when he came in that he had told Bourque he would meet him here this very night and give him the $500. Now, conscious of this, he decided to ask for another reprieve.

  Leo Bourque, finished with the machine, was drinking his first beer at the moment when Alex Chapman entered. Alex sat down three tables away, opened his wallet and took out the dirty, crumpled five-dollar bill, and ordered three drafts. Then, remembering some change, he dug deep in his pocket, and what fell out was a loonie, which spun across the floor. As he ran after it, Leo put his foot on it.

  “Tell me what year it was minted, and I’ll give it to you,” he said.

  But he was smiling—and he lifted his muddied and weather-beaten boot. He sniffed, neither here nor there, at his old friend, and said, “Just jokin’.”

  Alex did not react, or even take time to thank Leo for stopping the runaway coin, but simply picked it up and turned away. He was both frightened and embarrassed. Leo watched him for a minute and then lighted a cigarette. Leo looked at Alex, holding a plastic cigarette box, familiar to anyone who rolls their own or buys native brand, out to his friend.

  Alex took the cigarette, and Bourque moved to his table, and there they sat, speaking little as they drank.

  “So, do you have the money?”

  “What—oh, not yet,” Alex said.

  Bourque shrugged, but kept his eyes on him.

  “You’ve had some harsh times,” Bourque said after a long while. “Many times I thought to myself, Now that Alex Chapman is a nice fellow—but he has an uncle that is miserable. And you were teased a bunch when you were young by some lads who made sport of ya—I remember, on the bus—and it was just because you were a little orphan boy, that was the problem.”

  Alex nodded, feeling gracious that this man would recognize this fact. There was a particular sense of the lie that intimated Bourque was innocent of the “sport” Alex had been victim of, but if Alex registered this in any way, friendship would no longer be possible. And besides, he had seen this done dozens of times by women and men at the university when they, too, sought advantage. Even in ethics class. He had done it himself, when he spoke in tutorials, and at lectures. He had done it with June Tucker.

  All of this was assessed in his mind in a millisecond, now.

  “Well, your uncle Poppy was tough on you too,” Alex said. He did not know if this was true—he did not know either the door he had just opened a crack. In fact, in this little bar, with the smell of beer and hashish in the air, he did not know how to act. He was that same boy who had sat out in the rain on the day of his party. Everything he had done, was done to escape that woebegone child and get back at his overbearing uncle. The fact was, almost everyone recognized this but himself.

  Bourque recognized this most of all. He spoke about his wife and how she had left him, and how he needed to regain his self-respect. How he knew he would get that $500 from Alex any day, as Alex had promised.

  “Yes—yes, yes,” Alex said, commiserating with him. And he drank.

  Alex knew this would not be the way he’d have spoken of this in university. In university, he would say what he had to, about a woman making a break for a happy life and leaving someone as miserable as Bourque. Even if it betrayed and harmed someone like Leo Bourque. But it was to his favor not to say this now.

  When Bourque lighted some hash, Alex, who had never tried it in years, had some. It made his head dizzy. He said Alex need not worry about a thing, that he didn’t blame him anymore if the blessing of the herring fleet “did not help.” Even though he had lived and had spent three days in open water praying, and remembered the holy water splashed on his hands, he did not believe it was those hands that had saved him anymore. He also said he was not going to demand payment—“or anything like that there, anymore.”

  “Is that so?”

  “No, never mind the five hundred—you keep it—I insist.” Bourque smiled.

  The relief was visible on Alex Chapman’s face.

  After a bit, Alex ventured to ask why Bourque had been in jail two months ago.

  “Oh—you know as much about it as I do. I was always kept in the dark as to why—nor did I ever get a fair trial.”

  To Leo this was true. For there were so many unfair things done to him, what would it matter if not all things done were unfair?

  “I suppose you think I am a big criminal,” Leo said.

  Alex shook his head and muttered that this was not true, that he always had liked Leo, and that he knew a much bigger criminal.

  “A bigger criminal than me wouldn’t be hard,” Leo smiled. “But who?”

  “My uncle,” Alex said, in a way he hoped would shock.

  “Yer uncle—?”

  Suddenly Alex became that foster child once more: “He stole everything off me—and the roadway—you know that, Leo. You know how I tried to get you a job. I was always on your side. Everything was supposed to go to my mother—but he got it all—it’s an internecine kind of thing—”

  Why did he say this? Did he really believe it? Or could he assume to himself that he believed it for the moment? In fact, he was thinking of his uncle’s will. What would happen if he was not in it, and didn’t get the ticket?

  “Well, why don’t you go and take your property back?” Leo asked humbly. “I would if he took it from me!”

  “Can’t—it’s impossible,” Alex said.

  “Ah, impossible—well nothing is impossible,” Leo said. “There is always a way.”

  “I hope that is true—I hope nothing is impossible—I heard that when I was young, when I did my thesis, that nothing in the world was impossible—”

  “Well there you go,” Leo said. “You been to university so you should know them things.”

  Then Alex started to drink his third draft beer. They were silent, and the wind seemed to penetrate the walls of this forlorn little tavern. A minute passed and then ten, and Bourque was silent—staring at his friend, and now and again smoothing his mustache.

  “Do you think we’ll ever have any money?” Bourque said finally.

  “Oh someday, maybe,” Alex said.

  “Remember when you brought me that bid—do you remember?”

  Alex nodded.

  “I thought we were set,” Bourque added, “I thought I was set for the rest of my life.”

  “So did I—I thought it would all turn out for us!”

  “Well, that bid destroyed my life,” Bourque said, moving his hands together and looking out the window. It was true—all of this seemed to happen after that bid. “How do things like this happen?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are there plans in the world we don’t know about, or are we masters of our fate?”

  “We are masters of our fate, Leo—each and every one of us—and as long as we acted with this knowledge the world would be much better off. That is why I left the church, that is why there is no God.”

  Here Bourque nodded. But he said: “Well, if that is true then you knew what would happen to me—that my wife would fall for our boss after I gave the bid. That Cid would lie about the bid, and say it was his ingenuity. And that everything would go against me. That he was trying to seduce her and, with the bid, he managed to.”

  “I never knew any of that. I thought you would be happy—set for life.”

  “Yes—of course—well there you have it—I am set for life! You took matters into your own hands, and you must have hoped for a different end. And now, look what happened to me. Without that bid, I wouldn’t hav
e been put on the loader, I wouldn’t have been let go at work, and lost my wife. But as you say, we are masters of our own fate!”

  “But you decided to,” Alex said.

  “Did you want me to or not?”

  Alex did not know whether to nod yes or no. He was silent.

  Leo watched him for a moment. Then he said, “You know you were my hero once upon a time. When you talked about all the bad things that happened to the Indians and French.”

  Alex flushed.

  There was another immensely long pause, and Bourque shrugged. Alex had thought the conversation was over when Bourque spoke again: “But if you could set me up for life—if you could—though I am not hoping for it—but if you could—would you? I mean because of the bid. I never told your uncle. Quite the contrary, I kept it to myself, just as the deal said I should do. Now let me think. What if I told him it was you? You would never be able to sit in this tavern again—because so many men were put out of work. You lied and got Sam fired, so even Minnie would never forgive you—nor would you be able to go into your uncle’s house.”

  “I don’t go into my uncle’s house!” Alex snapped.

  “Of course you do—you were there last night, and the day before—I watched you come up from the lighthouse.”

  “Oh, that—I’m just watching it because he’s away.”

  “It’s not any of my business,” Bourque said, as if he were giving a reprimand. “But if you could help me get rich—you would?”

  Alex shrugged uneasily. The truth was now emerging into something else. Into a trap hidden somewhere behind the smile. Alex began to stare uneasily at his friend and see a different man underneath—the man he had taken to be dull and stupid, because others had, wasn’t at all so stupid. The man who had written to him because he had seen his name in the paper—mesmerized by some kind of fame—was much more than Alex assumed, and this startled him suddenly. Alex’s own face turned calculating, as it sometimes did behind the desk in his office with an overbearing student. But now he felt a trap set, and maneuvered to get out of it.

  “Sure,” he said. “I would if I could.”

  “Are you positive you would if you could—I mean, I am not hoping for it—but if you could make me rich, you would?”

  “Yes, of course—for you, yes,” Alex said. “I brought you the bid, didn’t I?” he countered hopefully.

  Bourque looked away, and then looked back quickly and sharply, and with sudden pursed lips moved a stub of paper to the center of the table. “Forget the five hundred dollars,” he said, “let’s concentrate on this!”

  Alex looked down, and said nothing. His face, however, said everything, and all at once. He was thinking of Minnie, and what would happen to him if the betrayal over the bid became known. How would Sam Patch react to him after years and years of being belittled by him?

  But all of this was suddenly secondary and nothing seemed to make sense—just the numbers: 11, 17, 22, 26, 37, 41.

  “Do you know where they are?” Bourque whispered.

  “Know what?” Alex managed.

  “Where these numbers are—do you know—what part of the house they are in?”

  “I don’t have a clue what you are talking about—” Alex said. He shook his head and looked away. His whole body began to tremble.

  “But I know what I am talking about,” Bourque whispered. “And if I explained now, yelled out that you were the one to give Fouy the bid, you wouldn’t get out of this tavern. But should I do that—should I?”

  Bourque then acted like he had reconsidered: “Look, all I want is a chance to get my wife back. You need someone to help you—are you going to take it to the lotto yourself—there will be no way they can take it from you? Well, how many people will suspect? How many might suspect already? What about others—what about the fact that you gave Burton a false ticket—who will figure that out and what will happen once they do?”

  Alex immediately thought the gods were against him—though he didn’t believe in gods of any sort. He remembered Saint Paul speaking to the Greeks about a god unknown. He now thought of Icarus flying far too close to the sun. He suddenly looked crushed, as certain smart men will when faced with unexpected circumstances. But he also remembered this. He knew he had used Leo by giving him the bid. So look what he had created?

  “Don’t be so alarmed,” Bourque said in French. “I can help you find it—and I will take only a part—” Then, realizing the blank stare of the Englishman, he spoke in English: “Don’t worry—we will get it together—or I will go now, and wait for a few days until your uncle comes home. If I tell him, I get a finder’s fee—maybe, what, a million? If I am wrong about it, so what? I have been wrong before!”

  His voice was somehow fierce, because he was thinking of money he couldn’t possibly have dreamed of before. Never in his wildest dreams did he ever think of so much to be gained. He shook as he sat there. Just as Alex did. That was comical to anyone who might have noticed them on this warm night. Both of them shaking as they sat drinking a beer.

  “Untold wealth,” Bourque kept saying, shaking, “untold, untold wealth!”

  Then he gave an ultimatum. He told Alex to agree to him having some of the money, or he would go to Old Chapman. “You have a minute to tell me,” he said. He spit the words out, his body trembling. Alex couldn’t speak. Leo looked at his watch, and suddenly he shoved out his chair. Alex sat mute, his eyes lowered.

  Leo got up, finished his beer, and left the tavern, so abruptly that Alex was staggered. He didn’t know what to do. So, feeling weak in the legs, he too got up and left.

  Leo had almost disappeared down beyond the corner when Alex got out to the road under those terrible waving trees, waving like the trees of his youth.

  “I’m telling you the truth—wait up,” he said. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “Then why did you bother to follow me?” Bourque said, turning on him. “You do know, and so do I—I will mention it to your uncle in a second, when he comes back. Then, after the finder’s fee, I will let people know what you did with the company. Either that or we will get the money together—I have no other choice!” Bourque turned and walked away clumsily.

  “Okay—wait—we will be partners,” Alex said too hastily.

  Bourque kept walking to the corner, swinging his arms dramatically, and then stopped and waited.

  As he walked, Alex remembered that for the last few days he had been going over a line of Syrus, the ancient philosopher, that had been attributed to Stalin, or Lenin—he did not know which: “For great good a crime is then virtuous.” This is what he was trying to convince himself of as he broke into the house. It was in fact a plausible ethical stance—say, the murder of a tyrant to free people. So from that, couldn’t other legitimate stances be taken?

  “WE WILL BE PARTNERS, I SAID!”

  Suddenly he realized that in order to save himself he had to not only come to grips with this, but convince Bourque not to go for the finder’s fee. In fact, the finder’s fee was probably easier to go for. So Alex caught up to his friend and tried to talk him out of this.

  “There is no need of that,” he said. He realized, too, that Bourque at one time had tried to sound and look like him, modeled himself after him. So then, couldn’t he control him? He grabbed Bourque by the shirt. “Partners?” Alex said. “Come on—we will find it together?”

  “I am not sure; I could just give the information to your uncle—there would be no questions and no trouble, I would demand a million, and that would be that.” This in fact would be the most legitimate way to proceed, and both knew it.

  But Leo smiled a slightly reconciliatory smile when he said this—thank God.

  Alex waited.

  “Come on—what a man wouldn’t do for thirteen million.” Leo smiled. “I mean, I might even kill for thirteen million.” And he slapped Alex on the back—a slap that almost took his breath away.

  They moved together in the night air, and soft music
was heard far off from Amy Patch’s room. After ten minutes they came to the main road, their shoes covered in dust and the night still sweet smelling of clover and hay. Once on the highway, Bourque went over everything. The first thing was to make sure the uncle had no knowledge about the ticket.

  “Fine—as long as he doesn’t know?”

  “No—he doesn’t know.”

  “But who will cash this ticket for us, if we get it—”

  “I thought I would,” Alex said.

  Bourque thought a moment and then told him that would be impossible. Too many people would suspect. Alex, in fact, couldn’t be seen to have anything to do with it.

  “Why?”

  “Because of Burton—you told him he was mistaken—he will know. By the way, where did you get the other ticket, was it yours?”

  Alex went numb—his lips closed tight and he stared ahead. “No—it was Minnie’s,” he answered quietly.

  “That’s a mistake,” Bourque said, “so you have to stay out of it.”

  Alex realized he was right. Leo said nothing for a moment. They looked at each other.

  “Well, I am not going to give it to you,” Alex said.

  “No one asked you to,” Bourque answered briskly as they walked, the activity of walking seeming to heighten their drama. “But someone who can get the money for us.” He picked a blade of grass and put it in his mouth, chewing upon it as if he was deciding something.

  And then Bourque, turning to Alex and grabbing his arm, said, “Of course! My uncle had his oil changed for his sawdust truck—so who would ever know. He could just claim it—Burton wouldn’t know either. Once Poppy has it, who is going to question it—a kind old man like that!”

  It seemed like an obvious choice. The old uncle. Alex thought for a moment, and he was conscious of some trick coming into play. So he answered, “But that means—I mean, it means you and your uncle will have the damn ticket.”