by Diana Wieler
I had always known how to want things. As a kid, I started getting ready for Christmas before Halloween, leafing through catalogs, poring over the brilliant photographs. I never had a big list; sometimes it was just one special thing. But I could get lost in time on that page, looking and wishing, my fingers leaving damp marks on the paper.
I had wanted my driver’s license, and I wanted Mona Perenthaler. Late at night, the room dark and quiet except for Daniel’s deep-sleep breathing and my own, faster and more feverish, wanting her in color and 3-D and stereo, wanting her so badly I could make it happen.
And it was all dust. On that cold, windy Manitoba highway in April, I realized that what I needed – all I’d ever wanted – was to be the son of the best man I knew.
I was shaking by the time I reached the car. A deep chill, I guess. The wind had pulled water from my eyes, streaked it over my face that was too cold to feel it.
I got inside.
“I don’t want anyone to know,” I said. “Don’t tell Dad about today.”
She hesitated, biting her lip.
“I’m not sure…”
“Yes, you can! I think you owe me.”
She should have slapped me. I could hear the snotty tone in my voice but I couldn’t stop it, any more than I could stop another resentment, like poison, brewing under my skin.
We drove home in silence. I heard the guitar as soon as I opened the back door. Daniel was playing it on his bed but he looked up when I walked in.
“What took you so long? I thought we were going to Gooey’s. We’re still going, right?”
“Get out,” I said.
“What?”
“Get the fuck out of my room!”
He stood up, almost white with shock, still clutching the neck of the guitar. I never talked like this – not to him, not to anybody.
“Jens…”
“Right now!” I grabbed the guitar case and swung it roughly out into the hallway. I seized the pillow off his bed and threw it out after him. Then the quilt, then the sheets, balled up and pitched out.
“Mommm!” He went running to the kitchen and I heard their voices, fast and furious, in French. As always, I didn’t know what they were saying but for the first time I didn’t care. They couldn’t stop me. Books and models and his stack of Guitar Now magazines, everything that was my brother’s littered the hallway in a hurricane sprawl. I had just carried out one of his dresser drawers when I saw him.
He was backed down the hallway, as close as he dared come, hands clenched into fists. But he was twelve years old and no match for me; neither of them were. Behind him in the light of the kitchen I could see my mother, arms wrapped around her waist as if she was holding herself up. Daniel was so mad I don’t think he knew he was crying.
“You can’t do this, Jens. That’s my room, too!”
I flipped the drawer, socks and shirts tumbling onto the pile. Then I turned inside and shut him out.
“I never did anything to you.” Yelling at me through the door, hoarse with hurt disbelief. “I never did anything!”
There was a cassette in my tape player and I turned it on and up, loud. I fell onto my bed and squeezed the pillow around my face. It caught the sound that tore out of me, the sound of me ripping apart. I wasn’t the man I’d wanted so badly to be. But Daniel was, or he would be. No matter what he grew up into, he’d always be sure of who he was. And I didn’t hate him. I just couldn’t bear the sight of him.
And he wasn’t the only one. I’m sure Mona Perenthaler never understood what happened, how I could go from hot to cold in one afternoon. There would be other girls, eventually, but it would never be the same. I’d left that part of me on the highway. It wasn’t Mona’s fault but I couldn’t tell her.
Somewhere in the dark I made myself a promise. I decided I couldn’t prove I was my father’s child but I could deserve it. I could earn it. If I tried hard and kept trying, I could be something.
I just needed it to happen fast.
ELEVEN
I woke up hurting, my muscles raw from a night on the ground. It had been a long time since I’d slept in a tent. Every part of me that wasn’t burrowed inside the sleeping bag was chilled right through, even though I was still in my clothes. But I didn’t try to go back to sleep. I rolled up onto my elbow to look at my brother.
We were so close that our sleeping bags almost lapped over each other. Daniel’s dark hair was a mess and he was still in his clothes, too. I had a few inches and fifty pounds on him, but last night it had been all I could do to get him from the truck to the tent, a flashlight in one hand and holding him up with my other arm. Now, in the dim light, he seemed old, the morning’s beard like a shadow on his skin.
I was scared. Last night wasn’t a good time that had slipped over the edge. He’d been drinking at a dead run, as much as he could get, as fast as he could get it. The edge was the goal.
A tight band around my chest was squeezing the breath out of me. I knew I should take him home right away, tell Mom she was right, and admit I didn’t know what to do. Except I was afraid Dad had been right, too. Daniel’s problems were my fault. I struggled with the panic, like drowning.
You can’t fix it, Jens. You can’t take back four years.
But I could make it up to him. I could sell seven hundred tapes; I’d already sold thirty-five. I’d beaten my last night’s goal by seventy-five percent, and if I was just smarter and tried harder I could do it. I had to do it.
I remembered the money, the 375 dollars from the Fender. There was no way Daniel should be hanging onto it now. I should have slipped it away from him last night, just to prove to him how easy it was to lose, especially in that condition. It occurred to me that the lesson might still work.
My brother was lying on his back. I shrugged off my sleeping bag and crept over, shivering a little. It seemed so sneaky.
You’re not stealing anything, I told myself. You’re just proving a point.
Crouched on my knees, I nudged his left shoulder, gently at first, then firmer. Success! Daniel rolled up onto his side, the sleeping bag riding with him. I leaned over him and reached down into the warm cocoon, carefully groping for his wallet.
His head twisted back suddenly, eyes squinting into mine.
“What the hell are you doing?”
I had to think fast. I pressed on his stomach, in the vicinity of his bladder.
“Time to get up!”
“Jens!” He jack-knifed to protect himself, his legs hitting the side of the tent so hard he yanked out one of the bearing poles and collapsed the whole thing down on us. The next few seconds were pandemonium – Daniel swearing, thrashing to get out. Me laughing and then desperate to get out, too, because now I had to go. It was like trying to beat our way out of a plastic bag, blindfolded. We made it just in time.
The morning was overcast, gray-white sky stretching forever in all directions over endless brown fields. I could see my breath. Back at our deflated tent, I realized Daniel was shaking and so was I.
“J-J-Jesus, it’s cold!”
We bolted for the truck. Luckily I had the keys in my pants pocket. I cranked the engine and we each folded in on ourselves, trying to stay warm until the heat kicked in. Daniel was rocking a little, rubbing his arms.
“We’re going to die,” he said, curled in so tight his chin was on his chest. “It’s not worth it. We’re going to freeze to death.”
“We made 280 dollars last night,” I said.
He looked at me, pure astonishment.
“Get out! Really?”
“Thirty-five tapes at eight bucks each.” I couldn’t keep the pride from my voice.
“So now he thinks he’s good,” Daniel said, smiling faintly. The heat had begun to work and he thrust his hands in front of it. “But it should have been 350. I thought you were going to ask for ten.”
The jab stung. I wanted to shoot back that he hadn’t been worth it. Drunk, he was only an eight-dollar man. But this morning I’d bee
n thinking about all the days I couldn’t take back.
“Introductory offer,” I said.
“You make me sound like a product,” Daniel sniffed.
“Well, you are. We all are. Those people didn’t know us. They only knew what we showed them, the package.”
Daniel was rubbing his hands. “I guess I wasn’t much of a package. I guess I got kind of… tanked.”
I hesitated. He was just across the seat but he seemed so far away from me.
“I’m worried about you,” I said quietly.
“Don’t try to be Dad, Jens” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “And don’t tell me you never…”
“Yeah, I want to have a good time, too. But I know a lot of people. And the ones who drink like that, who are going at it to get pissed, they’re not doing it because it’s fun.”
“So I need a boost. You don’t know what it’s like to go out there, just you in front of everybody…”
“I do so,” I said. “I go out in front of customers – strangers – all the time.”
“But it’s not you on the line. You’re selling something else. It’s not personal.”
The heat came to my face. I could feel my heart.
“When I’m up there, they’re judging me,” he said.
“So why do it?” I said. “Who says you have to perform? A lot of songwriters never get up on stage. Why do something that’s…painful?”
For a minute there was only the sound of the heater, warm air blowing in the truck cab.
“It’s like rain, you know. The way it sounds. It starts off soft, just a few people clapping, and then it pours down like a thunderstorm. And it fills you up.”
I didn’t know what to say. He was telling me something I understood. He was telling me about Yes, and that he needed it, like I did.
But I couldn’t admit it. I was older; I was supposed to be…stronger.
At last Daniel’s mouth curled into a grin. “Maybe I just need to be vacuum-packed.”
“What?”
“For freshness. I’m the product, right? We’ll get those little stickers.” He gestured, as if pinning them onto his body. “On sale! Buy now! In-store special!”
I laughed with relief. “No, think cars. Put a flag on your aerial.”
“Put a flag on your own aerial!”
“Nah, a bestseller you don’t have to advertise.”
“Oh, make me puke!” He shoved me but he was laughing. “‘I’m Marcy. Do you want a refill? Come back soon!’”
We just got stupid for awhile. By the time we tumbled out to pack up the camp, we were thoroughly awake, limbs warm and loose.
It didn’t take long. Inside the truck again, I looked him over.
“Okay, you need a shower,” I said. “And to shave.”
“You, too!”
“And you can’t wear that shirt again unless we find a laundromat. And we need to phone Mom and Dad, tell them we’re going to…” I gestured at the glove box. “Pull out the map.”
“Easton,” Daniel said, without moving.
The engine was already running, but I twisted in my seat to look at him.
“Who’s in Easton? Tell me.”
“Somebody.”
“Come on, tell me!”
“It’s a girl, okay? I just want to go there.”
Daniel and a girl. I was amazed. As far as I knew, he’d never dated anyone. He was shy even with the kids in Ile-des-Sapins, the ones we’d known all our lives. But maybe that was it; in a small town people seem to know you before you’re born. And the labels they stick on you, like autistic or deaf or strange, enter a room before you ever do.
“I don’t know anything about Easton,” I started. “How big it is, or what’s there.”
I shifted into reverse, backed a half-circle as I aimed for the highway. “So I guess we’d better go see it.”
Daniel didn’t answer. He was watching me cautiously, as if he expected me to change my mind. The truck bounced over the rough little trail and then up onto the pavement.
“But first, moneybags, you’re going to buy me a cup of coffee,” I said lightly. Daniel hesitated, still watching me. From the corner of my eye I saw him arch off the seat to get his wallet out of his back pocket.
“You don’t have to give it to me right now,” I said.
“Here,” he said. In a glance I saw that he was holding out all of it, fifties and twenties, the whole stack that Billy had paid him for the Fender. I was stunned. I kept looking from the road to the money.
“Daniel…”
“You look after it,” he said with a good-natured shrug.
I was ashamed. I’d tried to threaten it out of him, sneak it away from him. Now he was offering it to me all on his own.
“Okay,” I said and cleared my throat, because there was a catch in it.
Before I took the money, Daniel peeled off one twenty-dollar bill.
“For Easton,” he said, grinning.
TWELVE
It was barely nine o’clock and the Times Change Cafe wasn’t open yet, so I drove back to the Petro-Canada. The coffee was fresh and I took a deep gulp, not caring if I scalded my mouth. Daniel was just about to put money into the Coke machine but looking at me, he changed his mind and got a coffee, too. I watched him ladle sugar into it and shook my head. I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t hung over.
I asked the guy behind the counter if there was some place we could get a shower.
“Sure,” he said. “The Holiday Inn in Winnipeg.”
We wound up washing in the men’s room, shoulder to shoulder. It was pretty clean, but small; there was only one sink. We discovered we both shaved exactly the same way – stroke for stroke. Dad’s way. It made us laugh. I filled up more of the mirror, but aside from that we could have been shaving twins. It had been a long time since we’d shared a bathroom.
“This girl from Easton,” I said, dunking my razor. “How’d you ever meet her?”
“At SunJam,” Daniel said. “She’s a singer, mostly alt – alternative, Shady Roy and like that – but she could do blues. She’s got that smoky voice. I think she can hit notes lower than me. She took third place in the vocalist category but she should have gotten first. She’s fantastic. I tell her that all the time,” he finished softly.
I was intrigued. “How? I mean, do you phone each other?”
“We write. Sometimes she sends me lyrics. If I can work up music for them, I’ll put it on cassette for her. She says she loves my music. I sent her the tape of Blue Prairie before anyone else.”
I thought of my own first girlfriends, the awkward weeks of not knowing what to say, grateful to get to the necking part because that at least you knew how to do. Daniel writing songs for this girl with the smoky voice seemed…serious.
“Does Mom know?” I said suddenly.
“No! Well, maybe. She sees I get letters. But I don’t tell her anything.”
I knew what he meant. He loved Mom and Dad, but they were still parents.
As soon as we were finished, we pulled on clean shirts and gathered up our stuff. But with my hand on the doorknob, I turned back to him.
“What’s her name?”
He hesitated. The color showed up bright on his smooth face.
“Never mind,” I said, pushing out.
“Chantel.” The word seemed to slip over my shoulder, so soft it was almost lost in the whisper of the door. The revelation spread through me. I wasn’t the only one he’d been singing for last night. I couldn’t remember anything about the song, except that it was nice. It made me wish I’d listened better.
Outside at the truck, Daniel announced he was hungry. Momentous news. I rummaged through our food supplies until I found a box of cereal. It was one of my all-time favorites, the kind that claims to be low sugar but tastes like candy anyway. I could eat this stuff all day, bowl not required.
Daniel looked at me blankly. “Well, I can’t have it without milk.”
I sighed. I went
back into the station and came out with a carton of milk. I drank half of it in two long swallows. Then I pulled apart the spout until it was an open square, and poured the cereal inside.
“Look for a long spoon,” I said.
Daniel grinned.
We were supposed to call home every day. This seemed like the right time. I had all the money in my pocket and Daniel was eating something, before noon.
“You’re spoiled, you know,” I said lightly as I punched in the phone number. “Mom never bought that kind when I was at home.”
“That’s because you’d go through it in an hour,” Daniel said.
“Oh, get real.”
“You would! Right after school. I’ve seen you.”
Mom picked up the phone before the second ring. She must have been sitting on it. The questions came out rapid-fire from the Health and Safety Department: How were we? Where were we? Did we wake up freezing?
“Yeah, Mom, we woke up dead,” I teased. She didn’t think it was funny.
“I mean it, Jens. You listen to the weather reports. If it even threatens to go below zero, you guys get into a motel. It doesn’t have to be a nice place. And whatever you do, don’t get drunk.”
I felt a guilty tug. “Okay. Sure. How come?”
“Alcohol lowers sensation. You can’t feel how cold you are. Hypothermia sets in and you don’t even know it.” There was a pause. “How’s Daniel?”
“Fine. He’s eating breakfast. Want to say hi?” I was uncomfortable with a conversation that had both alcohol and Daniel in it.
“Sure. But after that, your father wants to talk to you.”
There was something in the way she said it, an odd tone that pulled my insides tight. I handed the phone to Daniel, my mind running.
Everything’s still okay, I told myself. Sy told you to keep the truck until Monday and it’s only Sunday. You’re calling in tomorrow. You’re still okay.
”Pas mal. Mais, il est assez moody, comme toujours…”
I gave Daniel a little shove on the back. “Stop it. I hate that.”
He turned, startled.
