by William Bell
He’s guilting me into it, Bryan thought. He helped me paint the fence and said that I didn’t need to clean their rooms. So now he’s calling in the favour. Bryan didn’t ask how Kevin figured the laundromat would be packed at nine o’clock in the morning. And he didn’t tell the men that their efforts at the protest site didn’t gain any sympathy from him.
“Okay,” he said over his shoulder. “But just this once. And you have to do it now, before Mom comes home.”
After the two men cleared out of the kitchen Bryan dried the dishes and swept the kitchen floor. He lifted the chairs onto the table. As he descended the basement stairs to fetch the bucket and mop, he saw Otto in the laundry room, loading clothes into the washer. He was almost at the door of the tiny room, intending to ask Otto if he knew how to operate the machine, when the man looked up, saw him and pushed the door shut. Okay by me, Bryan thought.
He found the mop and bucket and returned to the kitchen. With a total absence of enthusiasm he washed the kitchen floor and then rapidly pushed the vacuum around the furniture in the living room. He took the dust rag and made a quick circuit of the room. The kitchen floor was still damp when he finished, so he tried the TV again.
One cartoon program and half a game show later, Bryan heard the door slam, then Kevin’s van start up. He turned off the set and replaced the kitchen chairs around the table. He took the bucket and mop to the basement. The laundry room door was ajar and the light was still on.
“Otto, you still here?” he called out. “You finished in the laundry room?” No answer. “Kevin?” Silence.
Bryan tried the doors to the two bedrooms. Both were locked. He went into the laundry room to turn off the light. Mom will go ape if she finds this on, he thought. Then he noticed a curious odour in the warm, damp air. Mixed with the smell of soap and bleach was something he couldn’t identify. He shrugged and reached for the pull string that hung from the light bulb — and caught sight of something grey sticking out from under the washer. He bent down and pulled it out. Otto must have dropped it, he thought. It was a thick woollen work sock. And it smelled of kerosene.
Bryan quickly stuffed the sock back, his mind racing. He turned out the light, closed the door and sprinted upstairs. Then he cursed his stupidity. Otto would know he had been in the laundry room. He went back to the basement, turned the light back on and left the door open.
He went to the fridge, got a can of cola and took it into the living room. Instead of flicking on the TV, he sat in the bay window that looked out over Osprey Cove. High cumulus clouds floated like puffy islands in a sea of sky, and waves pushed lazily toward the rocks of the cove.
Bryan didn’t know where Kevin had bought his van, or how he got the Ontario licence plates, but when he put together the fact that Otto’s driver’s permit was for British Columbia, that the two men had shown a reluctance to take their clothing to a public laundromat and that at least one article of that clothing smelled of kerosene, he could come to only one conclusion. Kevin and Otto were the saboteurs who had set fire to the MFI truck and burned down the trailer. And they were also responsible for the cops hassling his mother. He slammed the empty can onto the table.
The question was, what should he do about it?
Should he tell his mother? If he did, would they hurt her? If he told Zeke, would the cops assume that Iris, known to be a leader in the anti-logging demonstrations, owner of the house where Kevin and Otto were living, was a co-conspirator? Maybe, he thought, I should confront them myself and just tell them to clear out.
The phone rang. “Hello,” he said.
“Hello yourself!”
“Ellen! Where are you? Are you back home? Can —”
“Slow down, Bry. I’m still at my aunt’s.”
“Oh.”
“Still the snappy conversationalist, I see,” she joked.
“Well, yeah. Haven’t had much time to take lessons since you left. Although it seems like months.”
“You’re sweet,” Ellen said. “But. I bet you’ve already found another girlfriend.”
“Yeah, right. They’re lined up at the door. Nobody like you, though.”
“I miss you, Bry.”
“Me too.”
“So,” Ellen said, false cheer in her voice, “what’s new?”
Bryan told her about Jimmy moving out and about his new job.
“Hmm.”
“What?”
“Seems a little fishy, doesn’t it? Makes you kind of wonder who’s behind this SAVE outfit.”
“Well, I thought it sounded a little too good to be true. And there’s something else.” Bryan told her about the sock.
“I think you’re right. It sounds like those guys are trouble.”
“What should I do?”
“Why not tell your mother? Maybe she can come up with some excuse to get them to leave. Like she booked the rooms before. Something like that.”
“Good idea.” Bryan pictured his mother’s face when she found out that her two fellow activists and only source of income were a little too committed to the cause.
“But we should try to think of a way to make them stop,” Ellen said.
Bryan told her his fear that if the men were caught it would reflect back on his mother.
“Good point,” Ellen admitted.
“Hey!” Bryan cut in. “I just remembered. This is long-distance. Maybe you should get off the phone.”
“Relax. My aunt told me to talk as long as I want. And guess what? She’s a tree-hugger! She sent fifty bucks to the SOS defence fund.”
“Oh, no,” Bryan said, “another one.”
When the sky was beginning to brighten the next morning, Bryan and Walter walked down to the docks, boarded Walter’s boat and put out into Gray’s Passage to check the crab traps. They sky was overcast, the wind cool but light. They spent the morning making the rounds, winching up the big wire-mesh traps, removing crab if there was any, rebaiting the traps and lowering them into the water again. In between sessions, they sipped coffee and watched the seabirds swing on the breeze, crying to one another.
Bryan tried to lose himself in his work, but he couldn’t get his mind off the problem posed by Kevin and Otto. Something had to be done, he knew. And he knew just as well that whatever the “something” was, it probably had to be initiated by him. Without knowing why, he decided not to share his problem with Walter.
When they had tied the boat to the dock, they loaded three boxes of crabs onto a dolly and Bryan hauled them up the road to McGregor’s Crab House, the little restaurant that always bought Walter’s catch. Bryan took the money back to his neighbour, who by this time had made the boat tight and secure.
When they got back home, Bryan was surprised to find Jimmy there.
“Your mom’s been arrested again,” he said without so much as a hello. “And this time it don’t look so good.”
Bryan glanced at Walter. “What happened this time?” he asked his uncle.
“For some reason she decided to park her carcass on the bridge and block the trucks again. So she’s broken the terms of her release. They already took her to Nanaimo. She could get six months this time. This is real serious.”
Six months? Bryan took off his sweater and hurled it against the wall. Six months for sitting on a bridge? He didn’t know who made him more furious, more tied in knots, his mother or the law.
TEN
Bryan didn’t bother with lunch, even though he was ravenous from the morning’s slugging on the boat. It was raining lightly — what some residents of Nootka Harbour would call a heavy fog — when he set out for Elias’s place on his bike.
The Wilsons’ house was a big two-storey with a verandah stretched across the front. When Bryan arrived, breathless, he found Elias and Zeke rebuilding the steps. He knew Elias’s dad liked to keep the place looking slick because of the art gallery he had made by knocking out a wall on the first floor and converting what had been a parlour and dining room. He displayed some of his paintings
there.
Bryan was pleased to see Zeke at home — he still lived with Elias and his parents — because he wanted to talk to both of them. Working away despite the rain — in Nootka Harbour, if you postponed work — or anything else — because of rain, nothing would ever get done — they greeted him as he propped his bike against the verandah railing. The stair risers were in place and the brothers were measuring planks to cut the steps.
Zeke looked a little sheepish as he handled the tape measure, still embarrassed, Bryan thought, at having to arrest his mother.
“Hey, Zeke,” he said, getting to the point right away, “do you mind if I ask you something about police work?”
“Feel free,” the big man said. He was dark, like Elias, heavy across the shoulders, with a boyish face.
Elias picked up a handsaw. “Thinking of joining the boys in blue, Bry? I don’t think you’d make the height restrictions.”
Bryan gave Elias the finger and said to Zeke, “Well, suppose a person thought a couple of other persons were committing crimes and he was afraid to go to the cops because a different person might get into trouble if the two persons were breaking the law.”
Zeke stood and brushed sawdust from his jeans. “Ah …”
Elias laughed. “You’re starting to sound like Walter, Bry.” He began to saw the plank, balancing it across the risers.
“Yeah, Bryan, that wasn’t what you’d call clear and to the point,” Zeke said.
“Okay.” Bryan tried again, wondering if he should have even started. “Let’s suppose —”
“Hang on a second,” Elias said, interrupting his sawing, his tone serious. “I think what Bryan wants to do,” he said, talking to his brother but looking at his friend, “is describe a totally imaginary situation to you. Just sort of for the fun of it. Right, Bry?”
“Right. Totally imaginary. Just for the fun of it. Because I’m interested in how a cop might see it.”
“A cop who was on duty,” Elias added. “Which you aren’t, Zeke.”
A wide grin formed on Zeke’s face as he removed his baseball cap and scratched his head. “Nope, I’m off duty today. That’s right. Off cop duty and on step-building duty.” His grin faded. “But — and this is a big ‘but’ — if somebody was to know for certain that a serious crime had been committed, and if that somebody was to tell a real live cop, on duty or off, that cop would have to do something about it, because he’s sworn to do so. Do you get my drift, Bryan?”
Not at all certain that he wanted to keep going on this, Bryan kept his mouth shut. Elias took up his sawing again, and Zeke sat down on the plank to keep it steady. Bryan kicked at the damp spruce needles beside the walk. Then the picture of his mom sitting in jail for half a year formed in his mind, and his confusion slowly turned into anger, anger at jerks like Kevin and Otto, sneaking into his town and into his life, causing havoc and taking off again, probably for some condo in Vancouver.
“Here’s the imaginary situation,” Bryan began once more. “There’s this person who owns a B&B. This person is an activist who’s been arrested for the second time —”
“Did you say second?” Elias interrupted.
“Not first?” Zeke asked.
“Second.”
Abandoning his saw, Elias stood and listened.
“Now this person, let’s say, has rented rooms to a couple of guys who claim they’re from Toronto. They’ve got a van with Ontario plates. But one of them has a B.C. driver’s licence and —”
“How do you know that?”
“He doesn’t know anything, Zeke,” Elias said. “This is just a theory, remember?”
“Okay, okay. Keep going, Bryan.”
“So anyway, someone who knows this B&B person thinks that these two guys are responsible for some pretty serious vandalism that’s been going on around a certain logging site. But he’s afraid to go to the cops because they might come down on his mother — who he knows,” Bryan said, no longer caring that he had stepped out of the imaginary situation and into real life, “had nothing to do with the vandalism. And he’s afraid not to go to the cops, because things might get a lot worse and who can guess what would happen then?”
The three of them stood there in the drizzle.
“Let’s go in the house and get something to drink,” Zeke suggested.
In the family room, each of them holding a can of pop, Zeke continued.
“Okay, Bryan,” he said quietly, “let’s do it this way. I’m hearing some stuff, but I don’t know where I heard it. Right?”
Bryan nodded, relieved. Until Zeke went on.
“But, like I said outside, if I find that someone has done something against the law, no matter who that person is and no matter how much I like and admire that person, I can’t let it go. Now if you can handle that, keep talking, and drop this charade. If you can’t, you can help Elias and me with them damn steps, and anything else — besides how to get the steps built — that we have talked about gets forgotten. And no harm done.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Bryan said.
“Talk, Bryan,” Elias told him. “Your mother just isn’t the kind of person to get mixed up in sabotage, and everybody knows it. Right, big brother?”
Zeke waited. Bryan read the words on his pop can a few times, took a deep breath and told Zeke everything — the licence, the sock with kerosene, Kevin and Otto taking pictures at the Big Bear River the day Walter and Bryan were looking for Iris.
“You understand,” Zeke said, “that you’re not to pass on anything I say? Elias already knows this. I can’t feel free to talk about my job if people go blabbing and gossiping around town, saying, ‘Zeke Wilson said this and that.’ Or I’d lose my job.”
“I understand, Zeke.”
“First, nobody on the job — at least, the locals — really thinks your mother is a saboteur. We had to investigate her and her group because it’s routine — and because certain powerful interests around here put pressure on the force to do that. I happen to admire Iris, like I said outside. I agree with her goals, too. Elias and me are half-native, remember. But us cops gotta do our jobs without taking sides. Anyway, it sounds to me like the cops ought to take a hard look at those two guys staying at your house. I want you, when you get home, to call me when they’re in so I can drive by and get their plate number. I’ll put it through the computer. I’ll put their names through, too. If I meet them on the road I’ll pull them over and check their paperwork. I’ll tell them we’re looking for a stolen van. I don’t want them to know I’m looking at them, see? Meantime, here’s what I want you to do.”
“What?” Bryan blurted, pleased at the prospect of finally being able to do something.
Zeke took a long pull from his can of cola. “Nothing.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing. Leave it to me. You give those guys a wide berth. And in a day or so, if I find out something — or find out nothing, since these guys may be, probably are innocent — I’ll tell you and Jimmy, and Jimmy can give them their walking papers.”
“He’d love to do that anyway,” Bryan said. “He doesn’t like tree-huggers.”
Elias spoke up. “But your Mom needs the money they bring in.”
“Yeah, that’s true.”
“Well, if they’re clean, you may want to let them stay,” Zeke said. “That’s up to you. So.” He stood and held out his hand. “We got a deal?”
Bryan rose and shook with him. “Deal,” he said, relieved. “Thanks, Zeke.”
“No problem. Now, I gotta get back to work. Don’t we, little bro?”
“Yeah, yeah. What a slave-driver.”
As Zeke walked down the hall to the front door, Elias held Bryan back.
“Are those two guys at home nights?”
“Usually. Why?”
“Days?”
“They’re always out at the peace camp. They head out right after breakfast.”
“Okay, call me tomorrow soon as they’re gone.”
“Eliaa
aas!” came Zeke’s wail from outside.
“Why? What’s up?”
“Maybe we can do some investigating on our own.”
ELEVEN
Early the next morning, Bryan’s mother phoned from jail in Nanaimo. She told him that the day started early there; as soon as the sun came up the women were herded down to breakfast, decked out in “these lovely blue dresses they make us wear.”
“Are you okay, Mom?”
“Oh, sure,” Iris answered with obviously false cheerfulness.
“So, what happened this time?”
“It’s, well, hard to explain —”
“I mean,” Bryan cut in, hoping he did not sound as angry as he felt, “you told the court you wouldn’t demonstrate against the injunction, right?”
“Yes, but I felt I had to. I guess that’s the simplest way to put it.”
Bryan was on the verge of telling his mother that he had seen her carted away on her first arrest and that because she was a tree-hugger, she now had two crooks living in the house. But she wasn’t there to deal with them. And because she was a tree-hugger, Jimmy had had to leave home, so he couldn’t help either. And if it hadn’t been for her, Ellen would still be in Nootka Harbour.
He wanted to tell her all these things. But he said nothing.
“I just couldn’t stand there on the sidelines and watch the cops taking kids and seniors and university students and people from my own community without standing with them,” Iris said.
“I understand what you want, Mom. At least I think I do. I just don’t see why you have to go to jail for it.” And screw up my life from top to bottom, he thought.
“Well, I may be home in a day or two. I can probably get out on bail. But the word is that they’re going to put us to trial fast. Anyway, son, there’s a line-up behind me for the payphone. I’ll try and call you each morning around this time.”
Bryan stared out across the cove, his mind a prickly batch of emotions. His anger at his mother honed a sharp edge of guilt when he thought of her alone in a jail, living with hard women who probably belonged there, cut off from her son and brother, her community and friends. He wanted to feel sympathy, to show her he was with her. But how, when he wasn’t with her?
