by Diana Wieler
Marie was excited to be there, even though I’d left the lights off and it was too dark to really see anything. Lockers and benches, the dusky smell of sweat – it meant nothing to me.
“This is one of my fantasies,” she whispered against my ear, then she bit it.
And my neck, and my lips. She pulled up her own sweater and my jersey, and her bare skin and soft breasts were a hot shock against me. I was bursting out of my clothes. I threw our coats onto the floor.
I wanted to forgive. Wrapped up by her, breathing into her silky hair, strength and pleasure driving me in raw thrusts, I was ready to forgive and forget and love.
“Oh,” she moaned under me. “Oh, Jeff.”
That’s when I started to say it, in my mind at first but over and over, the power of those two terrible words rushing through me, driving me harder, until I couldn’t stop, until I gasped it in her ear.
“French slut.”
Supernova, against a black, black sky.
•
I was a mess. There was a box of tissues on the table beside the couch. I cleaned myself up and pulled the sleeping bag around me again, heavy with relief. But maybe it was the wrong thing. Like water over a dam the feeling flooded through me, a scalding wave that squeezed my throat shut.
I just wanted somebody. Somebody who liked me right now and today. I was trying so hard. I wanted somebody to hold me and say it’d be okay.
My chest was throbbing where Daniel had hit me.
Breathe, Jens.
I opened my mouth and took a careful, thin breath, like that first one on the lawn. Then another, and another, controlling it.
See, it’s okay. You’re okay.
There were no more sounds from the other room. I realized there hadn’t been for awhile. I wondered if Daniel would come back, and if I should pretend to be asleep when he did.
I heard the door open and decided fast, sliding down, my face in the crook of my arm, but high enough so that I could still see through my half-closed eyes.
Chantel sauntered out wearing Daniel’s T-shirt, the edge of it brushing the bottom of her white panties. She glanced at me on her way to the kitchen. Her cigarettes were on the counter and she lit one, a yellow burst in the darkness. Then she walked over to the balcony doors and stood looking out, blowing smoke against the glass.
She was completely unconcerned, almost serene.
“I guess you got what you wanted,” I said.
She was so startled she dropped her cigarette, then crouched, scrambling to find it before it burned the carpet. I pushed up onto my elbow, my lower half safely hidden in the sleeping bag.
“It was a pretty smart move to get in on the ground floor,” I continued, my voice quiet and even.
Chantel found the cigarette and stood up, facing me. She folded her arms self-consciously over her chest but she held her ground, legs long and white. I expected her to defend herself, maybe even say that she loved him or something.
“You have a problem with women, don’t you, Jens?” she said. “I mean, you want us, but you don’t like us.”
It caught me off guard, a slap. My face was on fire.
“Maybe…maybe it’s just you —”
“I’ve been trying to figure it out,” she said, shaking her head. “You were raised the same, by the same parents. But somehow he’s the only one who can communicate, who can have a relationship…”
“He didn’t talk until he was four years old! They thought he was retarded!”
She looked at me, her features cold and clean without makeup. “And he thinks you’re a god.”
She strode out, the long ash from her cigarette blowing off, falling onto the carpet.
SIXTEEN
I woke up and it was Monday. The realization ran through me like a cramp. I sat up on the couch, my heart beating quickly, the apartment silent and still around me. Through the balcony glass I could see the sky, a solid cover of clouds that had swept in through the night. It would rain today.
I shrugged out of my cocoon and went for another shower. I hated to use up the hot water but I really needed it. I felt grimy.
Shaved and dressed, I rolled up both sleeping bags, thinking about money. The Starling show plus what we’d made last night totaled 898 dollars. If we added in the Fender money – less what we’d used – we were at 1,248. Halfway there.
Except Daniel didn’t want to spend the Fender, and I didn’t know if I could convince Kruse to settle for fifty percent. And I still had phone calls to make. For a second I felt it, my life snapping at my heels. Today was Monday.
I yanked the knots on the sleeping bag tight. I had to stay focused, keep my priorities straight. When you’ve got the ball, you just run, you don’t look behind you.
I took the two bedrolls and the duffle full of money, making sure the apartment didn’t lock behind me. When I pushed out through the main door with my shoulder, a gust of icy wind took my breath away. Damn, it was cold. The temperature must have dropped during the night. I felt an uneasy tug. No matter what I’d promised Mom, I hadn’t been following the weather reports. It was lucky we’d slept at Chantel’s. This morning would have been…a shock.
I hurried to unlock the back of the truck, wincing as a new blast stung my face. The empty cereal box was still there and I put all the money into it, carefully reclosing the lid before I tucked it in with the food supplies. I figured any thief with half a brain would take the guitars and leave the Lucky Charms. I grabbed a box of Vegetable Thins on my way out. I wasn’t going to eat any more of Chantel’s food.
I let myself into the apartment quietly, and was glad to hear the shower running. But was it for her or him? Down the hall, the door to her bedroom was ajar. I crept toward it and eased it open.
My brother was stretched out under a pastel pink sheet, one arm under his head, smoking a cigarette. He looked at me in alarm, then seemed to catch himself. He took a defiant drag.
“Hi,” he said, and grinned.
“Get dressed,” I said. “We have to go.”
He sat up. “I want to stay another day.”
My guts pulled tight. I’d known this would happen. “Look, we’re out here to do a job —”
“And we’re way ahead. I’m ahead! Last night was six hundred bucks, Jens. I deserve…a day off.”
“Did she ask you?”
“No. But she’ll say yes,” he said triumphantly.
I looked away, then back at him. “Daniel, just because she lays you doesn’t mean she loves you,” I said softly.
His face contorted, a quick spasm, as if I’d hit him.
“You’re…jealous.” There was an ashtray on the night table and he stabbed out the cigarette, breaking it in half. “You don’t know her, you don’t even like her, but you can’t stand that it’s me! Somebody wants me!” His voice dropped to a hush. “You don’t know what we’ve got. I’d do anything for her.”
I could feel my pulse in my temples, my throat.
“Then you go ahead and ask her if you can stay,” I said, pulling the door shut as I left. I went into the living room, still in my jacket, and ripped the top off the Vegetable Thins. I stared out the balcony window, chewing through the dry, spicy crackers one after another.
The water had stopped running. I’d expected Chantel to go into the bedroom but when I heard her footsteps pass behind me to the kitchen, I held my breath. I really didn’t want this chance, but I had it.
“You could have made coffee,” she said, “since you were up.”
I was suddenly in the doorway of the galley kitchen, blocking it. Chantel’s hair was twisted in a towel and she was wearing a long bathrobe. Wrapped up like that, bare face and neck in all that white, she looked more naked than last night.
“I know you think I’m shit,” I said, my voice low so only she would hear. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’ve got…a problem. Maybe every single guy in the world has got a problem. Okay! But that doesn’t mean we don’t have hearts. That we don’t feel everything j
ust as bad, just as hard as you do…”
She looked shaken, surprised. She tried to speak but I kept going.
“Daniel’s a kid,” I said again. “Yeah, he’s talented, he’s sweet, but he’s a little piece of your life. And he’s going to make you all of his. Then what are you going to do? Think about it. Are you ready for that?”
She bit her lip.
I turned away. “Tell Daniel I’m οut in the truck.”
I seemed to sit there for a long time, shivering even after the heat began to blow. My stomach felt like a solid block of those awful crackers. I didn’t know if I’d done the right thing.
Finally my brother came out carrying the last duffle, shoulders hunched against the wind. His face was dark with stubble. He hadn’t stayed to shave.
I watched him get in, pulling the big bag onto his knees instead of dropping it on the floor.
“Just go,” he said.
“What happened?”
“Just fucking drive!” He turned his face to the window.
I wanted to touch him, maybe put my hand on his shoulder. But I knew he was spinning, like me the day I threw all his stuff out into the hallway. Daniel had his tornadoes on the inside.
I couldn’t leave Easton fast enough, not even filling up on gas. On the highway, I took the first junction north.
The landscape was changing, flat farmland giving way to brush and trees. Lake country. I had made up my mind to go to Thompson, Manitoba. Far up in the northern part of the province, it was actually a small city, and one of the last places you could get to by road. Built entirely on nickel mining, it struck me as a place of bars and money, but too remote to attract live entertainment. I wanted to take Daniel where the audience was hungry, satellite TV or not.
In my heart, I knew it was crazy. We’d been drifting north since we’d set out from Ile-des-Sapins but it was still a five-hour drive. We’d burn a tank of gas each way. Yet I’d decided I would make my phone calls, to Five Star Ford and my landlord, only after we’d reached Thompson and booked a gig. I wasn’t stalling, only…setting up. Like a magic number. If I could get my brother a gig in Thompson, I could phone anybody in the world.
“Where are we going?” Daniel said. It was his first sound in an hour. He was slouched against the door, the bag still on his knees, hiding under it.
“North. I thought we’d see what’s up this way.” I wasn’t going to tell him yet how far.
He shrugged. “When are we going to phone home?”
“We’re not. Not today,” I blurted. If Five Star Ford had called Dad, I didn’t want to know about it yet. I had my plan.
“But Mom said –”
“I told Dad it’d be soon. That doesn’t mean today.” I took a breath and let it out slowly. “I’ve got it under control.”
Then it started to snow. It was so soft at first, tiny flakes that melted as soon as they hit the windshield. Daniel looked at me.
“It’s rain,” I said.
“I’m not sleeping in it.”
“For Christ’s sake, it’s not even noon. We’ll drive right through it. Here,” I snapped on the radio. “Listen for the weather.”
Within minutes we caught it: Heavy snowfall warning for southern Manitoba, winds gusting to seventy kilometers an hour.
“That’s south, “ I said. “We’re driving north. We just have to keep going north and we’ll be okay.”
But I could feel the wind picking up, the pressure as it buffeted the truck. The flakes were larger now, fluttering against the windshield, swirling in eddies across the highway. I was gripping the steering wheel with both hands.
It couldn’t storm. We only had our light jackets and no gloves and I didn’t want to spend the money on a motel. And we had to get to Thompson. Before somebody reported the truck missing, or stolen.
So stop at the next town, I argued with myself. If you’re that worried, just call.
But I needed a…boost. I needed to do something right, get the adrenaline going before I could face anything hard. There was twelve hundred dollars in a cereal box but that was yesterday’s success. Today I needed another hit.
Daniel finally shuffled the bag onto the floor and put his feet on it, making me glance at him. He looked pale and tired, as if he was sick. My mind did a strange sideways leap.
“Did you use a condom?” I asked abruptly.
“Oh, Jesus, Jens…!”
“Just tell me – did you?”
“Yes!” He wouldn’t look at me. Even from the side I could see him burn, face and neck flushing.
“So I’m not…an expert. Like you. But I’m not stupid!” His voice dipped. “She had a whole box.”
His hat was on the dashboard and he reached for it, took it onto his lap. My brother wasn’t deaf, and he wasn’t blind, either. But he’d written a song for this girl.
I was sorry I’d brought Chantel up, brought her into the truck with us. The air seemed suddenly heavy. Daniel was leaning into the door again, clutching his hat. I squeezed the accelerator a little harder, wondering how you ever knew if you’d done the right thing.
“You have a problem, don’t you, Jens?”
We’re halfway there, I thought. I’m halfway to pulling this off and if I sold fifty percent in two days, I can get the other fifty percent in two more. It’s another twelve hundred dollars, maybe only a thousand, if I can work Kruse right.
“You were raised the same, by the same parents. But somehow…’
Five hundred bucks a day! I only had to sell fifty tapes a day!
“…he’s the only one…’
A highway sign – sixteen kilometers to Swan River. Thank God. It was a town I’d heard of, big enough for a gas station and a restaurant. The pangs were digging at my insides again and I wanted something real and hot. A burger and fries.
“We’re going to stop in Swan,” I said. “We’ll get you some lunch.”
I was watching the road, trying not to be hypnotized by the snow that was coming straight at us, driving wildly at the windshield without touching it.
“Why’d you tell me to ask Chantel if we could stay, when you only wanted to go?” Daniel said.
It wasn’t an accusation, but he was waiting for an answer.
“Because I knew what she’d say,” I said final-
He was silent the rest of the way.
It got worse closer to Swan River. Freezing slush was piling up around the bush, layering on the asphalt. I slowed down, even though I didn’t want to.
The pumps were self-serve. Filling the tank, I turned my back to the wind, but it still bit through my light coat, my hands growing numb as I tried to squeeze the fuel in as fast as possible. It was a relief to get inside the little restaurant. Daniel followed me in and strode past to the restroom. I paid for the gas and ordered the burgers.
I leaned against the counter, watching the white rage through the window, chewing my lip.
It’s only weather, I told myself.
“How far you going?” The man at the lunch counter looked so much like Dad, big shoulders in a gunmetal blue jacket, light brown hair running gray. My legs felt suddenly weak. I wanted to sit down beside him.
“We have to get to Thompson,” I said.
He shook his head. “It’s been upgraded to a blizzard warning. You’ll be lucky to get to The Pas.”
“Did they close Highway 10?”
“Not yet, but they probably will. You shouldn’t risk it” he finished quietly.
I was stretched, half of me still running inside, desperate to beat the storm. The other half of me wanted to stop now and stay right here.
“Jens,” Daniel called. He was out of the bathroom and looking at a bulletin board by the doorway, papered with notices. He unpinned a business card. “This is where we should go. Rene’s – it’s a guitar bar. In The Pas.”
I looked at the man who looked like my father.
“I can make it to The Pas,” I said.
In the truck, I gave the boxtop tray with t
he food to Daniel to hold until I got us back on the highway. But the smell was driving me crazy – small town burgers are the best in the world. I’d gotten a double, with the cheese and bacon layered in the middle. As soon as I was up to cruising speed I had it open, bit into it gratefully, ketchup trailing down the side of my hand and I didn’t even care. I had the cardboard cup of super-large fries nestled between my legs. If I steered with my forearm, I could reach those, too.
You’re not failing, I told myself, even if you don’t make it to Thompson. You just have to get him a gig. That’s all that matters.
I wound up eating Daniel’s burger, too. He said he wasn’t hungry.
SEVENTEEN
For three hours we crept along Highway 10. I dropped speed to eighty klicks, then sixty, then fifty. I had both hands on the wheel, my shoulders knotting as I struggled to see through the white blur all around us. I had about fifteen meters of visibility and the windshield was crusted with frozen slush. Dad had taught me to feel the road through the tires, but patches of ice still caught me by surprise, sudden fish-tail slides that made Daniel grip his handrest. But he didn’t say anything. Neither of us felt like talking.
Once I saw a flashing red and blue light ahead of us, and I went cold inside. I didn’t want to be stopped for any reason. To my relief it was an RCMP cruiser standing guard by a car that had gone into the ditch. I gave them a wide berth and kept going.
Five o’clock, I told myself. If I called the dealership before five o’clock it’d be considered the same day. Nobody could call that theft.
But I wondered how soon a vehicle went into the RCMP computer system after it was reported.
The day dragged on. The storm made it seem later than it was, dusk that never became night. At 3:45 I finally saw the overhead fourway stop, swinging and bobbing in the wind, and we limped into The Pas. I felt as if I’d crawled the whole way on my hands and knees.
Okay, Jens. You got here and you’re okay. You can phone now.
“What’s the address of that guitar bar?” I asked.
Daniel looked at me in disbelief. “We’ve got to call home. They’re going to be worried…”
