by André Alexis
never burned anything.
– Shut up, said Massey Ferguson, nobody’s asking you. We
know what you did.
– I think you’ve got the wrong person, I said. This is Professor
Bruno from the University of Toronto.
– Oh, said Massey Ferguson, that changes everything. He’s
from Toronto!
Mr. Ferguson, tall and muscular, lunged at Professor Bruno
and tried to pull him up by the lapels. I got up at once, reached
behind me for my chair, and tried to bring it down on Mr.
76
Ferguson’s back. I’d never been in a bar fight. My reaction,
desperate and almost instinctive, was inspired by movies I’d seen,
movies in which chairs shatter on people’s backs. In the movies,
it’s fluidly and easily done. So, one can imagine how astonished
I was when I realized I hadn’t grabbed a chair, as I’d meant to,
but, rather, a large and very unhappy owl.
It’s understating it to say I found this moment astonishing.
A number of things had to happen for me to grasp the bird.
To begin with: when we came into the Moose, I mistook the owl
at the bar for a clock. It was, in fact, a real owl perched beside a
clock. My misapprehension had been a trick of the mind. But
then, it’s so unusual to find birds indoors, my first thought would
naturally have been that the thing was a statue or a stuffed spec-
imen. As a result, I was not on the lookout for an owl.
Then, while reaching for the back of my chair, I somehow
managed to grasp the bird without looking at it.
Moreover, I caught the bird’s legs at the exact moment it had
extended them in order to land on the back of my chair!
77
The bird was almost certainly at ease with human beings, being
the pub’s mascot. But I think it must have been as stunned as I
was by the turn of events. It began to screech as soon as I caught
it and flapped its wings about wildly. Incongruously, in the midst
of its screeching and struggle, the expression on the owl’s face
was not of panic but quizzical dismay: eyes wide open, furiously
blinking. as if it were trying to understand what I was doing.
I froze for a moment, holding the owl away from me as if it
were a child having a temper tantrum. Then I let go and the owl
flew up, its green siftings falling as it flew back to its place at the
bar: near the picture of Charles and Camilla, beside the clock.
There it preened, ruffling and unruffling its feathers, as if trying
to recover its dignity.
You’d have thought the Moose’s patrons would be offended
and angry, having seen their mascot manhandled by a stranger.
And, for a moment, they did seem to collectively consider how
to react. The place was so quiet that the only words I heard were
those sung by Gordon Lightfoot, the Canadian Railroad Trilogy
playing for an nth time on an old jukebox.
Massey Ferguson still had a grip on the professor’s lapel with
one hand. His other hand had been raised to fend off the owl. But
then Mr. Henderson returned from the washroom and the atmos-
phere changed again. Mr. Henderson struck the young man’s
head, as if slapping salmon from a stream. And, hands now up to
protect his hat, Massey Ferguson meekly apologized: to Mr.
Henderson, to Professor Bruno, to me, to everyone in the Moose.
Mr. Henderson glared at the man but let him walk away.
– Knob Grenville died last year! someone shouted.
And all around us there was mumbling, the sound like a
pack of feral mothers soothing a child. Without any of us asking
for them, several pints of cider came to our table, and the
Moose’s mood was once again light, the main topic of conver-
sation being, once again, the moral superiority of Coulson’s
Hill over Nobleton.
78
Feeling obliged to drink the cider that had been bought for
us, I was soon light-headed. One of the last things I remember
clearly was a friend of Mr. Henderson’s telling us about the
origins of Coulson’s Hill. The man told us the same story I’d
heard. But he added a detail. Though the town’s founder, George
Coulson, had refused to excavate the last bit of ground on his
property, George’s son, Edward, had dug up the hill as soon as
his father died. So, it was Edward Coulson who discovered a
seam of gold that brought him great wealth. In fact, the seam ran
deep, through all the property of present-day Coulson’s Hill.
Though they wore baseball caps and dressed like unsuccessful
farmers, everyone with property in Coulson’s Hill was, according
to Mr. Henderson’s friend, immensely wealthy.
– I thought, said Professor Bruno, that the hill had been dug
up and there was nothing there.
– You’re from Nobleton, aren’t you? asked Mr. Henderson’s
friend.
– Near there, said Professor Bruno.
– Well, there you go, said Mr. Henderson’s friend.
After a bit more banter, Mr. Henderson and Professor Bruno
finally began to talk about the subject they’d met to speak of:
John Skennen. I heard fragments of their conversation, but by
then I’d drunk too much and the last thing I remember before
passing out was Professor Bruno admitting that, in the end, the
place he’d come from, this dull patch of Ontario, was more myste-
rious and threatening than he’d remembered.
79
3
THREE HAMLETS:
SCHOMBERG, NEW
TECUMSETH, MARSVILLE
Though I brushed my teeth a number of times, I couldn’t lose
the taste of brass. I’m almost certain this was down to the
cider I’d drunk the night before. All morning, I was reminded of
“amber mole.’
My mother and Anne were on my mind, too. I couldn’t think
why, until I remembered that I’d heard Gordon Lightfoot’s voice:
the voice of my mother’s favourite singer. (“Black Day in July” is
the first song I remember hearing.) It had been a surprise to
discover, when we first moved in together, that Anne, too, loved
Lightfoot’s songs.
– Why not listen to something modern? I’d say. I hear Glenn
Miller just dropped some hot wax!
Which had been my way of teasing her and which, on reflec-
tion, I regret. How uncivil I was, in those days when I took her
for granted.
I seemed to be the only one suffering from our time at the
Moose. Professor Bruno hadn’t drunk alcohol, of course. But Mr.
Henderson, who’d drunk more than I did, was in a good mood at
breakfast. He boiled eggs for the three of us – the sulphuric
aroma unfortunately reminding me of his flatulence – along with
thick slices of a dark rye as dense as polished felt.
An unhappy coincidence: as he made breakfast, Mr. Hender-
son suddenly started singing “Summer Side of Life.” He hoarsely
whispered the words, which I recognized immediately. The song
– more Lightfoot – was Anne’s favourite and, as if a curtain had
been drawn aside, my feelings for her flooded in, so it was all I<
br />
could do to eat breakfast and listen to the professor and Mr.
Henderson talk.
The two men had grown close. They now spoke as if they’d
been intimates for years, as opposed to the acquaintances they’d
seemed the day before. Mr. Henderson was in his bathrobe, on
which white clouds were depicted against a light grey background.
His hair was neatly combed but he’d parted it down the middle
and it made him look like a muskox. Professor Bruno was in a
clean pair of pyjamas: white cotton with a single breast pocket
over which there was a crest from the University of Toronto. As
they ate, they talked about small towns. They went on about
Stephen Leacock. They rhapsodized about Algonquin Park “in
the seventies.’ They recalled the devastation of Hurricane Hazel.
They spoke of so many old things, I began to wonder if we’d
make Feversham, an hour or so away, before nightfall.
The professor must have caught my impatience, but he picked
up on my sadness as well.
– Do you know, he said, I think Alfie’s unhappy. What is it, son?
I thought about hiding my feelings, not wanting to trouble
their good spirits with my heartbreak. But Mr. Henderson said
– The young man’s in love, Morgan.
Struck by his sensitivity, I thought it would have been dishon-
ourable to lie. So, I said yes and told them how difficult it had
been for me to be left by a woman I loved. I told them my story as
plainly as I could, so we wouldn’t have to dwell on it.
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– Ah, said Professor Bruno, we’ve all been there, son. I
couldn’t eat for a year when my wife left me. These things are
painful, but they help us live, if we survive them. I’m only sorry
you’ve had to go through this now. We’ve had such wonderful
weather, if you know what I mean.
I knew what the professor meant and I understood his reac-
tion. Mr. Henderson, though …
As I spoke about my heartbreak, Mr. Henderson held his
teacup immobile before him, the porcelain vessel like a dollhouse
cup between his thick thumb and index finger. When I finished
speaking, he was overcome by emotion. He began to cry. It made
for an odd sight: a muskox in pyjamas, sitting quietly as his tears
fell, riveted by his own emotions.
Thinking himself responsible for his friend’s distress, Profes-
sor Bruno apologized.
– I shouldn’t have brought my heartbreak up, he said. I’m
sorry to have upset you!
– No, no, said Mr. Henderson, it’s got nothing to do with
you, Morgan. I can usually talk about heartbreak without a fuss.
But you two made me think about John, and then Alfred made
me think about John and Carson. It’s the damnedest thing crying
about other people’s affairs, but I can’t help myself.
There was a moment of silence before Professor Bruno’s
curiosity got the better of him.
– You don’t have to talk about this if you’d rather not, Henny.
But did you say “Carson”? Is that a friend of John’s?
– You could say that, answered Mr. Henderson. She was the
love of his life. But, you know, it’s not their story that gets me.
It’s the witch’s.
– Which witches? asked Professor Bruno.
Mr. Henderson sighed.
– It’s a long story, he said, but John’s in it, so you might be
interested.
John Skennen had had a hand in the burning of Coulson’s
83
Hill’s post office. He, like his friend Bob Grenville, had been
involved with women from Coulson’s Hill. In fact, he’d fallen in
love with a woman named Carson Michaels, herself a poet and,
reputedly, the most beautiful woman in Southern Ontario. Not
that Coulson’s Hill could entirely claim her. Michaels had been
born in Schomberg, that most mysterious of towns. But she’d
come to Coulson’s Hill, an already lovely twenty-one-year-old,
dark-skinned, of Antiguan descent.
Also by reputation: Carson was modest and kind, but she
was not a pushover. She suffered fools politely, but not for
long. And she was extremely private. Though Carson had never
been married, people thought of her as a Penelope waiting to
meet Odysseus. In any case, she had a number of suitors, young
men who congregated around the till at Lee’s Garage, where
she worked.
So, for practical reasons (the crowding around the till was
bad for business) and for personal ones (she was exhausted by
the consideration she felt obliged to show the people interested
in her), Carson Michaels devised a question to ask of every
suitor: what is the only object that makes me cry? She would
ask the question three times. If a man or woman could not
answer it by the third ask, they would find themself banished
from Lee’s Garage.
This was an efficient way to deal with the obviously smitten.
The herd was quickly thinned out, with space at the cash register
left for customers or for those who, not interested in Carson
themselves, were amused by the fate of those who were. There
may have been men and women discreetly attracted to Carson. If
so, these were people who, by their discretion, saved themselves
from the attentions of Lee. Because Lee – who owned the gas
station, garage, and general store – had been Carson’s father’s
closest friend and he took this banishing business seriously.
Once banished, a suitor was fair game for Lee’s pit bulls – Frick
and Frack – who were vicious at the best of times. Not to mention
84
that Lee himself, a giant man with a temper as bad as that of his
dogs, took a sadistic pleasure in throwing people out of his estab-
lishment. He didn’t care if they resisted or complied. What
mattered was that the suitor – male or female – be thrown out
and that they never return.
As far as anyone could remember, there had only been one
fatality. A man from Napanee had died of a heart attack while
running away from Frick and Frack. He’d been older than the
usual run of suitors and, though no one knew it, he’d had a
deathly fear of dogs. That is, unforeseen circumstances combined
to overburden his heart. His death, marked by a crucifix near
one of the gas pumps, was spoken of in hushed tones by suitors,
and it served as a warning.
Whether the banished suitors were good people or not, worthy
or not, Carson Michaels never allowed herself to learn. It wasn’t
that she had no interest in them. She was a compassionate woman,
but she couldn’t really understand their interest in her. None of
them knew anything about her. They had no idea who she was.
She was nothing more than an object of attention. That being so,
Carson was satisfied that any suitor who could answer her ques-
tion, any who could tell her what it was that made her weep, was
worthy of her time, having devoted time to thinking about her –
about who she was, about the things that had made her herself.
News of a beautiful woman and her smi
tten (or dog-bitten)
suitors quickly spread throughout Southern Ontario. John Sken-
nen first heard about Carson Michaels while sitting in a bar in
Sutton. A man at the table beside his began to cry, though he
didn’t seem drunk: no slurred words, no spittle, no red face.
What the man had were fresh stitches on his right hand and a
crown of stitches above his left ankle. The stitches were the result
of an encounter with Frick and Frack. It wasn’t the physical
injuries that had moved him to tears – though, of course, he
hoped feeling would eventually return to his right hand. No, it
was his regret at not finding out what it was that made Carson
85
Michaels cry. His guesses had been: a lost teddy bear, a cup
once used by her now-dead father, her first tube of lipstick.
– You’d be surprised, he said, wiping his tears, how many
people guessed those same things.
How did he know this?
Because Carson Michaels’s suitors, men and women, shared
their stories and their guesses. This was in the days before subred-
dit categories or easy internet access. There was, instead, a typed
and handwritten list that, by the time it was copied for John
Skennen, was fifty-five pages long. It was dauntingly (or obses-
sively) well-organized. Guesses at what made Carson Michaels
weep were alphabetically ordered from Adder (skin shed by) to
Zest (of yuzu fruit).
It seemed to the weeper in Sutton that this list – which he’d
got only after he’d been chased from Lee’s – was both devastating
and tantalizing. Tantalizing because the list was long and poten-
tially helpful in what it eliminated. Devastating because there
were so many things in the world, and each thing had, at very
least, the potential to sadden Carson Michaels. The suitors could
fill an encyclopedia with guesses and not scratch the surface.
How could one not despair at the thought?
On hearing of this “Venus from Coulson’s Hill,’ John Skennen
was fascinated, but his fascination took the form of outrage. His
sense of justice was offended. He resented the assumption that
men could not resist a desirable woman. And, allowing his outrage
to overtake his common sense, Skennen resolved to “deal with”
the woman from Coulson’s Hill. He did not allow for the possi-
bility that he would himself fall in love with Carson Michaels.
