“Go for it?” Mom said uncertainly. “What do you mean?”
“Use your brain, woman! There’s only one way back to the road!”
“Then let’s wait until they leave. They can’t see us where we are.”
“Don’t be stupid. As soon as they find out we’re gone, they’ll search the area. Then we’ll be fucked. It’s now or never. Unless you want to walk your way out of here, that is.”
Mom pursed her lips. Then she stuck her hand into the crack of the seat, fished out the seat belt and snapped it around me.
“What about you?” I asked.
“I’ll be fine.” She reached into her purse and took out her bottle of Rescue Remedy. Three drops for me, five for her. “Okay,” she said to Karl. “Let’s go.”
Karl put the truck in reverse and was about to hit the gas when he stopped. “Oh, fuck it,” he said, hitting his head with the heel of his hand. “Fuck it. I forgot. Reverse is busted.”
“Busted?” Mom asked. “What do you mean?”
“I mean the reverse gear’s broken. I meant to get it fixed last time I was . . . Come on, get behind the wheel.”
“But I can’t—”
“I know you can’t drive, okay? Just get behind the goddamn wheel! I’m going to push us out of here. Hurry up!”
Mom took his seat and Karl started pushing the front of the truck. “Crank the wheel left! Left! Around the tree! Around it!” he yelled at Mom, his face turning red.
Mom steered and Karl pushed until the truck slid into the creek bed. Then he got behind the wheel again, put the gear in drive and jammed his foot down on the gas.
“Hang on,” he said, and we shot out of the trees and into the clearing.
I saw the police car right away, parked at the head of the trail to Karl’s cabin. Red and blue lights pulsed in silent circles on the vehicle’s roof. I felt like throwing up. Karl shot past it, engine roaring, and headed for his track through the woods. I turned in my seat and saw two men running toward the car.
“Mommy!” I squealed. “The cops!”
I faced forward in time to see Karl throw his head back and laugh. His eyes shone with excitement, as if he were riding a toboggan down a hill instead of escaping from the cops. “Ha!” he cackled. “They’ll never catch us!”
Mom pulled me hard against her ribs. The truck rocked crazily from side to side as Karl gunned it down the slope. Mom’s head slammed into the roof, so she braced herself against it with her hands. Finally, after what felt like forever, we burst through the trees onto the dirt road. From far behind us, I could hear the distant wail of a siren.
“You see that?” Karl shouted, pumping his fist in the air. “I’m unstoppable! Un-fuckin’-stoppable!” He hit the gas hard, spraying a cloud of slush and gravel into the freezing December air.
While Mom stayed silent, Karl wound through back roads until we got to a long driveway with a farmhouse at the end of it. “Best get rid of this shit,” he said as he hit the brakes, flung open the door and hopped out. Whistling a little tune, he swung the duffel bag out of the back and jogged up the front steps of the house. A man wearing a plaid shirt answered the door, clapped Karl on the back and took the bag from him. Then he handed Karl a small wooden box and shook his hand. Karl walked back to us, locked the box into the bolted-down storage trunk in the truck bed, and swung himself into the cab.
“We’re all set,” he said. “I’ll switch the license plate at the next rest stop, and we’ll be on our way with the cops none the wiser.” He settled back into his seat and started rolling a joint.
Mom looked at him nervously. “Okay. But where—where are we going to go now? I mean, we can’t go back to the cabin, right?”
“Of course not,” Karl said, inhaling deeply. “But we’ve got plenty of other options.”
Mom brightened. “Right, like my parents. Nobody would find us there.”
My heart leapt hopefully, then sank when Karl made a face. “You’re twenty-one years old,” he said to her. “Don’t you think it’s time to stop running back to Mommy and Daddy?”
Mom opened her mouth, but then closed it again. Karl dropped an arm around her shoulders and softened his voice. “Anyway, babe, it’s time to move on to greener pastures. I’m done with Alberta and these goddamn deep-freeze winters.”
Mom took a drag on the joint and talked through held breath, making her voice sound low and rough. “What did you have in mind?”
“Let’s head for the water. British Columbia. I know—”
“B.C.?” It was Mom’s turn to make a face. “I haven’t been there since Cea was a baby. The place doesn’t exactly hold good memories for me.”
“Aw, come on, it’ll be different this time. You got me now, don’t you?” He grinned sweetly at her, and after a moment Mom smiled back.
“Listen, I know this great little place called Scotch Creek. I passed through it a few years ago, and I just know you’d love it. It’s a summer beach town, lots of open-minded folks just like us. Who knows—maybe we can even find ourselves a cottage to call home.”
“A cottage? What’s that?” I asked.
“It’s like a house, but smaller,” Mom explained. “Kind of like . . . a big doll’s house.”
My heart leapt, and I bounced excitedly in my seat. “Say yes, Mom, please say yes!”
Mom turned to Karl and blinked up at him happily. “You mean it?” she asked.
“Of course.”
“Far out, babe, far out.” Mom giggled and gave me a stoned hug. “You see?” she said to me, squeezing my shoulder. “It all worked out for the best.”
Karl took one last pull on the joint, extinguished it in his mouth and slipped a Steely Dan tape into the dash. “One thing, though,” he added, starting the engine. “First off when we get to Scotch Creek, I need to take care of a little business.”
Mom’s smile faded. “What kind of business?”
“You’ll see. Your man’s got an enterprising spirit, babe, and a plan to go with it. You’ll see.”
Mom pursed her lips again, and I dropped my head against her shoulder. Just before I drifted off, I heard Karl laughingly ask her if the pot smoke had finally gotten to me.
Chapter Eleven
I started awake to the sound of breaking glass and looked around wildly, trying to remember where I was. The clock on the dashboard glowed yellow numbers. I didn’t know how to tell time, but I could tell by the darkness that it was late. Scotch Creek, I thought, glancing around for Karl’s promised lake, but we appeared to be parked in a gravel driveway. At the end of it, I could just make out a small house. I looked for Mom’s face in the blackness beside me.
“Mommy, what was that noise?”
“Nothing,” she said, staring straight ahead. “It’s okay.”
I followed her gaze, and for the first time noticed Karl. He was standing on the front step of the cottage, holding a penlight with one hand and sticking the other through a broken window.
“What’s he doing?” I asked, my hand on the door handle. I opened it and started to slide out, but Mom caught me around the waist and pulled it shut again.
“Shh . . . just stay here with me, okay?”
“But—”
“No, it’s all right. Come here.” She lifted me into her lap.
Other than the sound of her beating heart the night was silent, but I could feel teardrops dripping onto my forehead.
“Mommy, why are you crying?”
She didn’t answer. After a while, I picked up Suzie Doll from my seat and started tipping her slowly back and forth, watching her eyes open and close by the light of the clock. More than half an hour passed. I knew because my mother kept announcing the minutes to me as they ticked by. I laid Suzie Doll down again and covered her with my sweater.
“Mommy,” I whispered. “What’s an enterprising spirit?”
“Shh . . .”
I heard the grinding of shoes against gravel and looked up. Karl was walking toward us with the penlight i
n his mouth and two cardboard boxes stacked in his arms. He lifted the boxes into the back of the truck, slid into the driver’s seat and lit a joint. Then he propped a foot up on the dash and shone his light on it.
“Look at that,” he said to Mom, tapping his matchbook against a scuffed cowboy boot. “Just the right size and everything.” Then he slapped her knee playfully and started the engine, and we were on our way.
WHEN KARL TOLD US we were going to Scotch Creek, I had pictured water flowing around yellow rocks made of butterscotch, so I was disappointed when all I saw were houses spaced miles apart between sweeping power lines. Karl hadn’t lied about there being a lake, but so far I’d only glimpsed it through the trees as I sat in the driveways of some of the cottages. Since our arrival, Karl had gone on to hit one almost every day. At first, Mom tried to reason with him. Why did he have to steal, she asked him, when he had all that money from his pot plants?
“First of all,” Karl said, with a tip of his head toward me as he drove, “we don’t use that word. I’m ‘stocking up.’ And here’s a little piece of reality for you, woman: that money ain’t gonna last forever. I got you and the kid to take care of now, and it doesn’t look to me like you’re planning to get off your ass anytime soon to support us. Huh?”
Mom looked away peevishly.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. You want your piece of paradise on the lake, just show me a little patience. Besides”—Karl’s tone softened as he stroked her thigh—“we’re in this together, right? We’re a family now—you, me, and Small Fry here. For better or worse.”
Mom smiled and leaned into him. “Yeah. A family,” she said, and that was the last time I heard her bring it up.
BEFORE LONG, WE FELL into a routine. Each evening we would park off a remote forest road, eat granola or bread and dried salmon for supper in the cab, brush our teeth in a cup of water, sleep in the back of the truck under piles of down and wool, have breakfast, then spend the day driving around looking for Karl’s targets.
Sometimes, on really cold mornings, we got to go to a restaurant to warm up. Mom called the place a “greasy spoon,” but the utensils looked perfectly clean to me, and it was my favorite place on earth. As soon as we arrived, Mom would shoo me into the bathroom and have me hold my hands under hot running water to stop the chill. Then she’d wipe my face with a cloth, give my hair a quick comb and get me to brush my teeth. I liked to linger, flushing the toilet and turning the taps on and off, but Mom would usually rush me back to the table to order.
Karl was always at his nicest during these visits, smiling widely and chatting with everyone. While Mom and I wolfed down scrambled eggs and toast smeared with jam from little packets, he would casually ask about this neighbor or that cottage, saying he was looking at properties for sale. Then he would give a friendly wave and we would climb back into the truck, while I secretly hoped for another cold night so we could come back the next morning.
One time when we were there, I was eating pancakes when I felt the waitress’s eyes on me. I looked up, and she was holding out a piece of paper from her order pad.
“Can you tell me what this says, sweetie-pie?”
I glanced at Mom, and then I looked back at the piece of paper. “I . . . ice . . . ice cream,” I said.
“Very good. I knew you’d be able to read.”
“Yeah. Papa Dick taught me,” I said proudly.
“Is that right? What a smart girl. What grade are you in, one? Two?”
I had no idea what she was talking about. I flicked my eyes to Mom uncertainly.
“Oh,” Mom said quickly, “she’s a lot younger than she looks. It’s the height. Um, she’s actually in kindergarten, but we’re taking a little break right now. To travel around.” She ducked her head. “I mean, it’s not like kindergarten is mandatory or anything . . .”
“Of course not,” the waitress said kindly, and winked at me before walking away.
After I was finished eating, she brought me a bowl of strawberry ice cream with a bright red cherry on top. Then she told Karl it was on the house, which made about as much sense to me as talk of Grade One and kindergarten and taking a break.
A FEW TIMES, MOM got mad at Karl because it was so hard for her to keep everything clean, including herself. The greasy spoon was fine for brushing our teeth or washing our hands, but our bodies began to smell and sometimes our dirty laundry and dishes would pile up until we were completely out of clean ones. Karl finally came up with an idea, but he warned us we would only be able to do it once: we would visit the local hotel.
I didn’t know what a hotel was, but when Mom explained it was a place where people slept and bathed and that some of them even had swimming pools, I got super excited.
“Hold your horses,” Karl said as he pulled up to a building with a flashing neon sign in front of it. “We ain’t sleeping here, princess.”
My heart fell, but I slid out of the truck and took Mom’s hand. She swung a duffel bag over her shoulder and fell in step behind Karl. It was a Tuesday afternoon, and the parking lot was mostly empty. As we passed the glass entrance doors, I could see a lady in a yellow dress standing behind a long counter.
“Don’t look at her,” Karl muttered as we walked by. “Just keep your eyes straight ahead.” He picked up the pace and turned the corner, leading Mom and me to the back of the building. “Look,” he said, pointing, and my heart jumped.
There was a huge window in front of me, and through it I could see a blue swimming pool. Beside it, a woman in a swimsuit was sitting in a chair, reading a magazine while two children played in the water. I could hear laughter through the glass as they splashed.
“Let’s go. Keep an eye out,” Karl said, pulling out his lock pick and approaching the back door. Mom glanced around nervously while he fiddled and rattled. Finally, he swung the door open. “Your spa awaits, madame,” he said to Mom. “Compliments of Mr. Slim Jim.”
Mom giggled quietly, then led me down the hall and into the changing room. “Good, it’s empty,” she said. “Let’s hurry up, okay?”
I nodded distractedly as I looked around. I had never seen a room like this one before. There were two shower stalls, a toilet, a sink and a line of wall hooks, white towels hanging from two of them. The floor was wet and dotted here and there with clumps of hair.
“Here you go,” Mom said, opening her bag and taking a swimsuit out for me.
I took it and held it in front of me, rubbing the slippery fabric between my fingers. It reminded me of the clothes the summer visitor kids used to wear at the tipis.
“What about you?” I asked.
“I’m going to stay here. I’ll take a shower and wash some clothes in the sink. You go have some fun.”
“But . . .”
“Go on, you’ll love it.” She kissed me on the forehead and turned away, already emptying our laundry into the sink.
“But I can’t swim!”
“Honey, just stay in the shallow end. You’ll be fine. Anyway . . .” She filled the sink with water and grabbed the bar of soap, rubbing it to work up a lather. “There are other people out there. You’ll be fine,” she repeated.
I stood watching her for a moment to be sure she was serious, then pulled the swimsuit on and opened the door to the pool deck. The smell of chlorine filled my nostrils. The lady with the magazine glanced up and gave me a quick smile, and her kids paused in their play for a moment before turning away again. I sat down shyly at the edge of the pool and dipped my feet in.
“Wendy,” said the woman to her daughter, “why don’t you see if that little girl wants to play with you?”
The girl swam up to me and spun in circles. She had red hair and freckles that started at her forehead and ended at her shoulders. “Hi. I’m six and a quarter. Watch this, I can do a handstand!” She plunged into the water and stuck her legs in the air. “Did you see that?” she asked me breathlessly when she came back up.
I nodded, wishing I knew how to swim. I stood and started
making my way to the shallow end with Wendy chattering at my feet. They were from a place called Vancouver, they were on holiday but it wasn’t like a real holiday because they actually had to go to her godmother’s funeral because she had gotten too old and died, her brother was ten and liked to do skateboarding, her favorite Archie character was Betty because she was way nicer than Veronica, and where were my mom and dad?
“Oh,” I said, stopping in my tracks, “my mom will be out in a minute. She just takes a while to change, that’s all.”
“Yeah, mine too. Where do you live?”
It was the worst question she could have asked me. I could feel my face turning red. “Um . . . wha—Pardon me?”
“Live. Are you from Vancouver too?”
“No, I, uh . . . well . . .” I looked down at her. She was holding on to the side of the pool, smiling up at me expectantly. I glanced around and then knelt down beside her. “I, um . . . I sort of live in the wilderness. I mean, not really right now, but . . . usually.”
Her eyes lit up. “Wow. That is sooooo cool! You mean like Laura Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie?”
“Yeah, kind of . . . I mean, who is she, exactly?”
“Laura Ingalls? She lives with her ma and pa way out in the country, and they make all their own food and stuff. She has to walk really far to get to school. Now, let’s play water tag. You’re it!”
She poked me in the leg and ran away, and I chased after her. Her brother joined in, and before long we were laughing and splashing each other like we’d been friends forever. Too soon, Mom poked her head through the door and called for me.
“Mom!” I said breathlessly as she toweled me off. “I made a friend! Her name is Wendy! We played tag and it was so much fun! And—and I even told her about living in the wilderness, and she thought it was super cool!”
“That’s wonderful,” Mom said absently, leading me over to the hand dryer. She pushed my head in front of it and hit the big silver button. Hot air blasted out at my hair.
North of Normal- A memoir of my wilderness childhood, my unusual family, and how I survived both Page 8
