A Rhinestone Button

by Gail Anderson-Dargatz

  Job sat forward, excitement pumping through him. “Really? I’ve had that happen too,” he said. “The feeling of expansion.” He thought of telling her about the colours he had heard, how he had lost himself to the singing of the church choir. How he missed the colours, the sensations in his hands, that feeling of losing himself, the certainty that God was real. But what if she didn’t understand and thought him crazy, a religious nut? As he was sure he’d appeared when he’d been interviewed about the crop circle. “It’s like when you’re driving down the road,” he said. “And you get lost in the sky; you feel like you’re a part of it. And then you come to an intersection and wake up and feel small.”

  “Yes,” said Liv. “Exactly.”

  Job reached out and took Liv’s hand, a rhinestone button in his grip. The thrill, the relief, of finally finding someone who understood this. He could justify himself. Something of his experience was hers too. He wasn’t so different, after all. Not so strange.

  She squeezed his hand and let go. “Listen, you want to go for a walk?” she said. “I don’t want to be home when Darren gets back.”

  “Sure.”

  “Let me put some clothes on.”

  Liv came downstairs dressed in a long black skirt with leggings underneath. A pair of black boots. A thick fishermanknit sweater under a man’s tweed jacket. Looking a little more like herself again. She had put contacts in, but she wasn’t wearing makeup. Her face was still mottled red from crying. As they stepped from the house, she put on a black fedora over her sweep of red hair and pulled on black woollen gloves. “What a glorious day,” she said.

  Everything, from the roofs of the town to the trucks and cars and surrounding trees, was covered in hoarfrost, casting the world in a brightness that made Job squint. Hoarfrost iced the branches of the trees and drifted down in large flakes that caught the sunlight and glittered like the coloured Christmas lights on the tree outside the community hall.

  They passed the hedge of caragana on Dithy Spitzer’s fenceline. The whirligigs on her snowy lawn. A large red bow at her gate, a cheerful nod to the season. Chickadees kept up with their pace, flying from tree to tree just ahead of them. A small flock of blue jays flew up as they approached, not as a group, but individually and in a line, one after the other.

  “Can I ask you something?” said Job.

  “Sure.”

  “Why do you stay with Darren? Why don’t you just leave?”

  “I don’t know. I guess it’s the practicality of it, for one thing. I can’t just walk out the door. I don’t know how I could arrange everything, find a place, move all my stuff out before he gets home from a haul. I’d have to come back for things—it’s inevitable—and then I’d have to face him, and he’d get into one of his rages. I’d have to ask him for money. I’ve got Jason to think about. And he is going to the counsellor with me and Jason. He’s making an effort.”

  “But then he didn’t come home last night.”

  “Yeah, then he doesn’t come home.”

  They reached the Sunstrum farm gate. Job thought he should ask her in, but then where to entertain? The dinginess of the cabin. Instead, they stopped at the gate and turned back, heading for town.

  “You get angry at this other person for doing this to you,” said Liv. “But you get more angry at yourself for letting it happen. I mean, how did I go from that girl who hitchhiked by herself across the country to this woman who’s afraid to drive a car to the grocery store? Why did I let that happen?”

  Job glanced at her to see if she expected an answer, then tucked his chin back into his chest.

  A pickup roared up behind them. “Oh, shit,” said Liv. “Speak of the devil.”

  Darren stopped the truck and jumped out. The crunch of gravel and snow under his boots. “What the hell are you doing with that freak!” he yelled, and turned to Job. “You suddenly got a taste for women?”

  When Liv turned from him and started walking away, he grabbed her arm. “You sleeping with this pansy?” He waved a hand back at the Sunstrum farm. “You stay at his place last night?”

  “What do you care?” said Liv. “Where were you last night, huh? If I’d gone over to Rhonda Cooper’s would I have seen the truck parked there? Would I?”

  Darren kicked gravel. “None of your business where I was.”

  “I’m your wife, for God’s sake. When you don’t come home at night it is my business.”

  Job stepped back. Of course Liv was Darren’s wife. What was he doing with her?

  Darren pulled Liv to the truck. “Come on. I’m not going to discuss this in front of this fairy.”

  Liv yanked her arm out of Darren’s grasp. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “What is it? You got a thing for Princess?” He waved a hand at Job. “You going to take off with him?”

  “Of course not,” said Liv.

  “What is it, Pretty Boy? You got a thing for my wife?” He pushed Job in the chest. Job stumbled back into the snow-filled ditch and nearly lost his footing. Spittle was on the side of Darren’s mouth as he sucked in air in his rage, as Abe had, as he beat unruly cows with a stick.

  “Leave him alone,” said Liv. “We were just taking a walk. We’re just friends.”

  “What do you need with friends?”

  Liv stared at him a moment with her arms crossed, then started walking down the road. Job trotted to catch up to her.

  “Wait!” said Darren. “I brought you a present.” He rummaged in his truck and scrambled to catch up to Liv. He pulled a gift-wrapped box from a brown paper bag and held it out to her.

  “I don’t want it,” she said.

  “Open it.”

  “I said I don’t want it.”

  “Damn it! I went to all the trouble of buying it for you, you’ll damn well open it.” He shoved the box into her arms, but she let it drop to the ground. A tinkle of broken glass.

  “Jesus Christ,” Darren yelled. “What the fuck’s the matter with you?”

  He picked up the box. Job was surprised to see tears in Darren’s eyes, and his face screwed up in anguish. “I got you that what-do-you-call-it, that chalice you wanted. The one in the antique store, with those Celtic designs all over it. The one you saw up in Edmonton. Remember?”

  When Liv turned heel and kept walking, Job following behind, Darren ran back to the truck and threw the gift inside. He smacked the hood of the truck with the flat of his hand, then took a fist to it, pounding its metal. Liv, still walking, sobbed.

  Darren jumped in the truck and drove up to them. “Get in the truck,” he said.

  “You should go home,” Job said to him. “And cool down.”

  Darren breathed in sharply and began to sob as he drove slowly along beside them. Again, it was a surprise to Job. He held back a nervous laugh and coughed into his hand.

  “I’m trying,” said Darren. “I’m doing like the counsellor says.”

  “You didn’t come home last night.”

  Darren slapped the side of the truck. “You don’t know where I was. You don’t know.” He stopped the truck and cried.

  Liv held her hands up. “Let’s just go home,” she said and started around to the passenger side of the truck.

  Job followed her. “Maybe you should go to the café,” he said as she got in the truck. “Or you could come down to the cabin. He seems so angry.”

  “She’s not going anywhere with you,” said Darren.

  “He’s just feeling guilty,” said Liv. “He gets mad when he knows he’s in the wrong. I’ll just go with him. He’ll settle down in a while. I’ll be okay.”

  Job watched them drive off, anger sliding away to loneliness as he let the hopefulness he’d felt earlier that morning drop like a button from an open hand.

  Seventeen

  In the milky light of a late April afternoon, Job drove home from the Ponoka auction, pulling his stock trailer, eyeing the sundogs cupping each side of the sun like shining parentheses, wondering if they meant a change in the weathe
r. For a few days in mid-April he’d breathed in the heady smell of thawing earth, before winter had slammed down again, bringing freezing cold and a skiff of snow. Early that morning he’d bundled up and driven two cows down to the auction and waited around most of the day for them to sell, drinking coffee in the bleachers and eating greasy burgers and mashed turnips at the auction café. Now he was returning home with an empty trailer and a cheque in his pocket, enough to get through another month.

  Just before the driveway to the farm, the Chevy heavy-half ahead of him slowed. Its bumper sticker read Keep honking. I’m reloading. Jerry. Job could see the back of his head as he leaned across the seat. The passenger side opened and the white Samoyed jumped out. Jerry sat up, then, seeing Job in the mirror, sped off. The dog ran after the truck, barking and wagging its tail, as if this were a game.

  Job honked the horn and put his foot to the gas to follow, but he was slowed by the trailer and Jerry was gone, lost in a spit of gravel. He turned the truck around and headed for home. When he stepped from the truck the dog was there, jumping up, leaving muddy paw prints on his jacket and jeans. “Git!” Job yelled. “Git! Get lost!”

  The dog wagged its tail, leapt in the air, barked, chased itself in circles and went nowhere. Then lifted a leg to the truck tire. Job threw a poplar branch at it but hit the side of his truck instead, pockmarking the door. The dog retrieved the stick and dropped it, drool-soaked, at Job’s feet. Its eyes were moist and grateful for the attention. Job kicked the branch and strode to the house, the dog leaping after him.

  Lilith had the phone receiver in hand and was banging it against the table when Job entered the house. She wore a pink dressing gown and slippers and had curlers in her hair. She wasn’t wearing makeup. Freckles covered her nose and forehead and gave her a vulnerable, girlish look. When she saw Job at the door, she dropped the phone and scurried into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. The phone bounced and dangled from its cord. On the table a greasy plate and cutlery left over from breakfast at Jacob’s seat, a steaming cup of black coffee at Lilith’s. From the bathroom the sound of water running.

  Job picked up the phone and listened. When he heard nothing but the dial tone, he dialled Jerry’s number and got him in two rings, the whirr of an air compressor charging up in the background. “Jerry? Come pick up your dog, will you?”

  Jerry shouted over the noise. “Can’t you keep it there for a while? Debbie’s threatening to leave if I keep that mutt.”

  He’d assumed Job would take the dog in without putting up much of a fuss. It was what everyone assumed. A memory came to mind, of Abe on the day he took Job and Jacob to a game park just east of Edmonton. There, in a large fenced compound, two male lions lounged, their heads on their paws, sleeping like house cats might on the living-room rug. Job raised his arms over his head to get some response from the closest lion, but it didn’t stir; it merely opened one eye and watched Job lazily, without much curiosity. “What’s the matter with him?” said Job. “Is he sick? He doesn’t look sick.”

  Abe shrugged.

  Job threw a stone so that it landed just to the left of the lion’s nose. The lion raised its head, but that was all. Job turned his back and was walking away from the cage when he heard the wire behind him shudder with a sudden impact. He jumped and found the lion on its hind legs, its fangs bared and claws extended through the mesh of the fence. His roar wasn’t like that of a movie lion. It was more like a deep bark, and left Job weak in the knees. “See? That’s how you’ve got to act,” said Abe. “You’ve got to roar a little, or people will walk all over you.”

  His father had been right. People would just walk all over him if he didn’t stand up for himself. “Jerry, pick up your goddamned dog tonight or so help me I’ll take a gun to it!” He slammed the phone down and raked a hand through his hair, then laughed a little to himself. He couldn’t bring himself to kill a gopher, or even a chicken, much less take a gun to a dog. What had gotten into him? He should be fretting now, wrapped in regret, but he wasn’t. He should call Jerry and apologize, but he knew he wouldn’t.

  Lilith called, her voice muffled through the bathroom door. “Job?”

  “Yes?”

  “Jacob phoned. He wanted to know if you’d gotten back yet.” When Job didn’t reply, she continued, “He said the cattle were bellowing like they were out of water or something.”

  “He didn’t think to check them himself?”

  “He had to get up to Edmonton. He was late for work.” After Jacob and the few volunteers who’d come down from Bountiful Harvest hadn’t managed to get the halfway-house building to lockup before winter fell, Divine had given Jacob work at the church, as an assistant pastor. But the position was only temporary. Pastor Divine already had an associate pastor, a Pastor Wiley, who Job had seen at Bountiful Harvest but had never been introduced to. Job had helped out on the two weekends when they had hammered up the halfway-house structure, putting up the walls and the roof, and nailing on the shingles. But there were no windows or doors; it would be too cold to do any finishing work until spring thaw. Rod and Penny hadn’t shown up for either of those work bees. Neither had Jocelyn. He heard she’d quit the church completely.

  “Where’s Ben?”

  “He’s in his room; he just got home from school.”

  “I asked him to get the fire going in the tank heater this morning. Likely the cows are bawling because the tank’s iced over and they can’t drink.”

  “You want me to get him?”

  He listened a moment to the scuffle in Ben’s bedroom, knowing Ben could hear every word they said. “No. I’ll get the fire going myself.” Ben hadn’t grown up on a farm, and hadn’t learned how to work. If Job hadn’t moved fast enough, Abe had counted backwards from ten to zero. If he got to zero and Job hadn’t got to work, or hadn’t speeded up the work he was doing, Job got the strap. He had learned to work quickly, and through anything, even illness. If he complained, “I’m not feeling well. I’ve got a stomach ache,” his father would ask him, “Do you want an ass burn too?”

  Job pushed open the door and tripped over Jerry’s dog. He stumbled down the concrete steps and knocked his shin hard against the railing, then limped towards the cows, the dog leaping and pawing at him all the way.

  Sure enough, Ben hadn’t lit the fire in the tank heater that morning and a layer of ice covered the water in the stock tank, forcing the cows to go thirsty. He went to the barn for the coffee can that he filled with diesel. Into this he added a little gas, as the cold left the diesel thick and difficult to light. Too much gas and the mix would explode. He’d done that a few times and singed the hair on his hands. Once he’d singed his eyebrows and burned the edge of his toque.

  He brought the can, an armload of wood and a box of Redbird matches back to the waterer. The heater was set inside the tank. It was watertight and made of cast iron. Job removed the lid, cleaned out the ashes and stacked the wood and kindling inside, then poured a sprinkling of the diesel and gas mix on it. He lit a match and dropped it into the heater. Flames whooshed up and died down to a steady flame. Job took off his mitts and warmed his hands over the flame before putting the lid back on. Then, from behind him, the squeak and crunch of footfalls on dry snow. Job turned. Ben. “I was just getting to it,” he said.

  “I bet.”

  “I was.”

  Job snorted and grabbed a stick from the ground and jammed it into the water surface to break up the ice.

  “Let me do it,” said Ben. He yanked the stick from Job’s hand, then, jamming it into the ice, snapped it in two.

  “Can’t you do anything right?” said Job. A thing Abe had said to him a time or two. He pulled the stick from the ice, tossed away the broken half and used the remainder like a pick. The dog leapt around, trying to get the stick from his hands. It jumped up on Job, nearly knocking him into the water tank. Job whirled around, rage like a gas flame, and smacked the dog across the jowls with the stick. It whimpered off to lick the blood from its
snout as Job went back to breaking up the ice.

  Ben picked up a handful of gravel from the road and sent it pinging against the steel side of the water tank. “You’re just like Dad,” he yelled, and started walking back up the road to the house. “I thought you were different.”

  Job leaned forward, hanging onto the rim of the water tank, listening to Ben’s receding footsteps, spent rage leaving him shaky and ashamed of himself. Jerry’s dog dropped a cow patty at his feet and looked up at him expectantly, as if the frozen shit were a Frisbee, or a peace offering. When Job didn’t pick it up, the dog lay down by the patty to chew and lick it.

  Job woke that night to Jerry’s dog yelping and howling at his door. Outside the cabin window, over the windrow of Cottonwood and willow, there was a glow in the sky. The halfway house.

  Job dressed hurriedly and ran to the house to get Jacob. He had his keys in hand, as Lilith always locked the door, but he found the door unlocked and pushed his way in. He yelled for Jacob until he heard him scramble out of bed and then dialled the fire-hall number. He got Carlson, his sleepy voice. Job explained to Carlson, then after he hung up to Jacob, as his brother staggered into the room, belting his plaid robe over his belly. Then Job was outside, running over icy gravel, stomping through snow. Jerry’s dog barked and leapt around him. The sparks from the fire drifted and snapped over the trees.

  The walls of the halfway house were still standing, but the roof had caved in. The crackle of fire. Billows of black smoke into the night sky. Behind the building, in the glow from the fire, Ben stood in snow, wearing a navy toque and the Mackinaw he wore to do chores. The coffee can he and Job mixed gas and diesel in, to get the fire in the water heater going, sat at his feet. He bent down, picked up a rock from the moist earth and hurled it at the fire. Job remembered this, the compulsion to throw rocks into the fires he’d set as a boy. The frustration he felt; how it was released, along with the stone, into the fire.

  Job took a few steps towards Ben, but when Ben saw him, he stepped back and disappeared into the night.