Beach Reading

by Lorne Elliott

  Robbie put her hand over her eyes and shook her head slowly. “For fuck’s sakes…”

  “What do I got to lose?” said Wallace.

  “The last shreds of your dignity?”

  “Too late.”

  “You got a point there.”

  “Come on Robbie! We can do it.”

  “We?”

  “You can be my chief of staff.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “Remember, power is the greatest aphrodisiac.”

  “So?”

  “It’ll get you laid.”

  Robbie looked at her wrist where she would have worn a watch if she’d owned one. “Fifteen seconds since you’ve announced your political intentions, and you’re already pimping out your own sister.”

  “And that’s exactly the type of up-front dressing-down I need from an astute chief of staff.”

  “In that case, you’re also an idiot.”

  “And the humour! Great for building morale in the troops.”

  “What troops?”

  “Brucie? How about it?”

  “Sounds like f-f-fun.”

  “And don’t forget Whoever-The-Hell-He-Is. He can be director in charge of communications.”

  “What’s that mean?” I said.

  “Don’t ask me. We’re making this up as we go along.”

  “There’s that ‘we’ again,” said Robbie.

  “Come on, Robbie. What do you say?”

  “You’ve actually done this? For real? Signed on?”

  “That’s what I’m telling you.”

  “But…what? I mean, you just say you’re the Independent wally-wook from Barrisway and you magically become one?”

  “No. You have to get fifty signatures.”

  Robbie paused, thought, then her eyes opened wide. “At the bar!”

  “Yep.”

  “You lied!”

  “When?”

  “About that paper you were handing around. You said it was a petition to keep us on the land.”

  “And so it was. In a way. If you look at it from a certain angle.”

  “You were getting people to approve your nomination! In exchange for beer!”

  “A longstanding Island tradition.”

  “Beer which you bought with Christian’s money.”

  “Whoever-The-Hell-He-Is doesn’t mind, do you, Whoever-The-Hell-You-Are?”

  The money was gone anyway, and besides, I was in love. “I am honoured,” I said.

  “See?” said Wallace. “He’s honoured.”

  “And that’s it? Fifty signatures and you get to run in an election?”

  “No. I also had to pay five hundred bucks.”

  Robbie thought a bit, then snapped her fingers. “From the loan!”

  “Voilà.”

  “You lied again.”

  “Can’t expect the truth from me, Robbie. I’m a politician now.”

  Robbie shook her head slowly. “I can’t believe it. Independent Candidate for Barrisway riding.”

  “It’s a free country, isn’t it? Have we not the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?”

  “No,” said Robbie. “That’s the American Constitution.”

  “Bullshit. The American Constitution is “Truth, Justice and the American Way…”

  “That’s Superman, Wallace. You might want to bone up on some of this stuff if you’re running for office.”

  “I’ll be relying on my staff to take care of those sorts of details. I’ll be front man, leading our victorious sweep through Barrisway riding fueled solely by my charisma.”

  “That should get you about as far as the park gate.”

  “And that’s the first thing we’re gonna do when we get into power: Stop the park. Stop! The! Park!… Stop! The! Park!…” He tried to get a chant started around the table but saw it was going nowhere.

  “There’s a little matter of getting enough votes, Wallace.”

  “Well, I imagine I can count on yours…”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “Stop screwing around. I can count on your vote, so that’s one. Then there’s my vote. That’s two. Brucie is underage, but Whoever-The-Hell-You-Are, you’ll vote for me, won’t you?”

  “He has to be a resident,” said Robbie.

  “Fuck. How many’s that, then?”

  “One, yours, unless you can convince me,” said Robbie. She shook her head again. “The Right Honourable Wallace MacAkern.”

  “There’s no need to act so astounded. I come by it honestly.”

  “You’re talking about Smooth Lennie?”

  “Yep.”

  “Hardly honestly, then.”

  “Who’s Smooth L-L-Lennie?” said Brucie.

  “He was your uncle in the Provincial Legislature, Brucie,” said Wallace. “And the less we say about him the better.”

  “Nobody ever t-t-told me about him.”

  “Well, he wasn’t exactly the shining pride of the family,” said Robbie. “And you never knew him personally. You were too young.”

  “You were too young too, Robbie,” said Wallace. “I’m the only one who remembers him in the flesh.”

  “Maybe,” said Robbie, “But I’ve heard all the stories.”

  “What s-stories?”

  “Scandals, mostly…”

  “What ab-b-bout?”

  “The usual. Patronage. Cronyism….”

  “Corruption. Absconded funds…” added Robbie.

  “Then there was that perjury charge.”

  “Before that though there was avoiding arrest, wasn’t there?”

  “And resisting arrest.”

  “And bribery.”

  “Don’t forget blackmail…”

  “What h-h-happened to him?”

  “He was hounded out of the province.”

  “Where’d he g-g-go?”

  “Monte Carlo, I heard,” said Wallace.

  “I heard Tangier,” said Robbie. “And now it’s best to forget about Smooth Lennie. Don’t want his memory brought up during the campaign.”

  Wallace looked at her. “So you will be my chief of staff?”

  “Only if I don’t have to vote for you.”

  “You make no sense.”

  “Neither does this campaign.”

  It seemed to me both possible and natural that what Wallace was attempting would come about, and brilliantly. I was in love, and it seemed that the most realistic way of looking at the world was with wide-eyed optimism. I was just about to tell everybody about my meeting Claire, but just then we heard the sounds of an approaching vehicle.

  “Probably the cops coming to kick us off,” said Robbie as she and Wallace stood up.

  Brucie and I followed them onto the porch, and I thought that with my knowledge of the Canadian Bill of Rights I should probably act as an advocate for this lovely family by explaining to the police their lack of legal footing for expropriation, but it wasn’t the police, or anything like it.

  A battered but elaborately painted van was clattering across the yard, wobbling on its chassis like its suspension was made from elastic bands. It backfired and rolled down to the shore where it came to a halt and backfired again. Its entire outside was covered in an intricate and undisciplined mural of green and orange depicting a jumble of serpents and Ethiopian royalty, all tied together with a peace symbol and a seven-pointed leaf. The license plate was from New Hampshire, and declared, “Live Free Or Die,” a motto, it occurred to me, which must have seemed unbearably ironic for the people who manufactured them, in prisons.

  The door of the van opened, a billow of smoke gushed out, and from the driver’s seat slid a heavy-lidded young man wearing a rainbow tam o’shanter. I heard the door on the oth
er side of the van shut, and from around the back came another young man in a sarong, with blond dreadlocks and camera gear festooned around his neck. He raised one camera to his eye and sighted the surroundings, then focused on the driver and snapped a few pictures. The smell of smoke like burning socks reached me.

  “Aha! “ said Wallace. “They’ve arrived.”

  “Who the hell are they?” said Robbie.

  Wallace indicated the driver. “You remember Bailey. He used to come to Barrisway for a few summers with his family, back about ten years ago.”

  “That’s Bailey Hendershott?”

  “He does look different, doesn’t he?”

  “Christ. What’s he been up to?”

  “Political advisor now.”

  “You…invited him to help out with your campaign?”

  “Correct.”

  “How you gonna pay him?”

  “He doesn’t want any money. Said he’d gladly be our chief of staff free of charge.”

  “You just said I was going to be chief of staff.”

  “That’s before I knew he’d actually show up.”

  “Well, what am I gonna be, then?”

  “What do you want to be?”

  “Leader of the Opposition,” said Robbie.

  The duo at the van had oriented themselves, looked around and saw us on the porch.

  “Hallo Wallace!” yelled Bailey, flashing a beautiful smile and waving.

  “You made it!” yelled back Wallace.

  “Why yes, mon, we did!” He gestured at the man with the camera. “This be Aiden. And Melissa, she still be sleeping in the van. One second while we get our things!” He flashed that smile again and he and Aiden went around to the other side of the van.

  “I thought he was from Boston or somewhere,” said Robbie to Wallace.

  “New Hampshire.”

  “Then why the accent?”

  “No idea,” said Wallace. “He seems to have gotten weirder.”

  Bailey came back carrying a briefcase and Aiden appeared with a small packsack. They walked up to us and Bailey shook hands with Wallace.

  “We heard your cry like da wounded stag , and came a-runnin’. High time to leave Babylon, anyway.”

  “I’m glad you’re here,” said Wallace.

  Robbie was looking at the van. “No difficulty crossing the border?”

  “Bailey’s, like, a genius?” said Aiden. “It was getting late? And we’d already thought about going across at maybe four different border crossings that day? But they didn’t look right? And I was getting tired, I gotta admit, thinking, what’s he doing? And Melissa was being bitchy?” All his statements sounded like questions, with the last word on the up-beat. “But then, Bailey? We come to the fifth border crossing, way the hell back in the woods somewhere? A booth, like, with one guy in it? And it’s, like, two minutes to five when we pull in? And the customs man takes, like, one look at us in the truck, then looks at the clock on the wall, and you can see he thinks there’s two days of paper work here at least? So he says, ‘Go. Just go.’ And he waves us through!” Aiden started to giggle, holding his camera gear to stop it from bouncing against his chest. “Genius!”

  Bailey struck a pose and declaimed:

  “The trick for all

  who want to stay free

  is paint it so big

  they cannot see.”

  “Break it down!” said Aiden.

  “What’s with the accent, Bailey?” said Robbie.

  “From my point of view, you de one wit de accent.” Then he started reciting again:

  “The point of view,

  The point of view

  Who has the right one?

  Me or you?”

  He put the fingers of his right hand to his chest and bowed deeply.

  “He just makes this stuff up? Like that?” said Aiden.

  “Is that how you’re going to win the election?” said Robbie. “With poetry? ‘Cause I don’t know…” She shook her head. “I just don’t know…”

  There were noises from the van, the back door opened, and a girl with beaded hair backed out, stretched, and came toward us. “Are we here?” she said, rubbing her eyes and yawning.

  “We are indeed, “ said Bailey. “Everybody. This be my sister Melissa.”

  We all said “Hi,” but Robbie said, “Hello,” in a way that was so different from her tone just a few seconds before that we all looked at her. She was staring directly into the eyes of the newcomer.

  “Oh. Hi,” said Melissa, gazing back directly into Robbie’s eyes.

  “Roberta,” said Robbie, holding out her hand.

  “I’m Melissa.”

  They didn’t continue holding hands, but they might as well have. And neither did they take their eyes off each other, which, I couldn’t help but think, was the way Claire should have behaved when we had met. It worried me a little when I remembered that she hadn’t and my sunny optimism wobbled slightly.

  “Come on in,” said Robbie.

  “OK,” said Melissa.

  And the rest of us watched them go inside.

  “Might as well come in too,” said Wallace. “Got any food?”

  ***

  An hour later everybody was sitting around the kitchen table with the remains of the meal jumbled in front of us, a chickpea and flat-bread concoction with Caribbean sauce and limes. It was nice to have eaten a meal without potato, but I was still a bit worried about where I stood with Claire. I wanted both to know and to put off knowing.

  “I’m sorry the place is such a mess,” said Robbie to Melissa. “I don’t know how it got this bad.”

  “I’ve been living in a van for two days.This is fine.”

  “Well you can stay here as long as you want. It’s OK with us.”

  “Thanks.”

  That’s the way people in love talked, although maybe with some people it just took longer to get there.

  Bailey pushed back his chair from the table and declaimed:

  “For every hospi-tality,

  Returns in multiples of three.”

  “I don’t know how he does it?” said Aiden.

  “Easy,” said Bailey. “A com-bin-a-tion of de willingness to adopt a character…” he pointed at his tam. “Plus, what’s in here.” He tapped it. I thought he meant his brain, but he extracted from under the brim what looked like a badly rolled cigarette.

  “Time to refuel,” he said. “Anybody?”

  “Right on,” said Aiden.

  “Yes indeed,” said Melissa. “Robbie?”

  “I will if you will,” said Robbie. “But, Brucie..?”

  “Yeah yeah,” said Brucie. “I know. T-too young,” and he left the room.

  “Well, none for me, thanks,” said Wallace. “I’ll just finish whatever scotch has been left by Whoever-The-Hell-He-Is. Watch out for that one. He’s a hound for the booze.”

  “Do you partake?” Bailey asked me, indicating his cigarette.

  “I was thinking I’d take it up.” Claire smoked, and I might need all the sympathetic behaviour with her that I could muster.

  “It can teach you God,” said Bailey, which was a claim I’d never heard before about tobacco. Bailey lit it, drew deep and passed it to Aiden. I supposed that they didn’t have much money and were sharing what few meager resources they had, and I will be the first to admit that for all the books I’d read, in many ways I wasn’t a terrifically bright lad, for only then did it occur to me that what they might be smoking was marijuana, which I had heard about. How interesting, I thought.

  “Is that marijuana?” I asked. Bailey nodded. Then, because I thought they should know, I added, “It’s illegal.”

  “Maybe in the eyes of man,” said Bailey. “But not in the eyes of God.”

  It was the f
irst time I’d heard such an argument, and I was impressed. “That’s a neat way of putting it.”

  Bailey looked at me. “What’s your name?”

  “Christian.”

  “Then I’m Rastaman.” He laughed, and, still sitting in his chair, he performed a little cha-cha with his feet.

  “I met a boy named Chris-chin

  And he nearly blew my mind

  with no hair yet upon his chin

  He gave me wisdom of his kind.”

  “You flyin’ high, now, Bailey!” said Aiden. He drew in a lungful and the ember roared a quarter way down the joint. He held his breath and passed it back.

  Wallace poured the last of the scotch into a glass, looked at the empty bottle and said, “There’s another one the English won’t get.”

  “Music!” said Bailey, and stood up. “We must have music!”

  We followed him outside and down to the van and when we got there Aiden passed the joint to Melissa, opened up the back, climbed in and put a reggae tape in the machine. One-and Two-and Koo-koo-kachoo-and…Music boomed over the lawn and out onto the still water of the bay as we stood around and watched the reflection of the sunset in the eastern sky. It was spectacular, robin’s egg and crimson, with a black line between. Bailey drew another joint from under his tam, lit it and toked. He gestured at all of Nature.

  “These are the Things of God, Christian, but we must take a vacation from them soon, into the Things of Man.” And there was that idea again.

  “I like that,” I said.

  Bailey held out the joint. “Here, but only if you want.”

  If a cigarette would make me look cool to Claire, how much more would a joint?

  “Live Free or Die,” I said, and Bailey flashed his lovely smile. I felt pretty cool already as I put it to my lips and inhaled deeply.

  The smoke caught in my throat and I started to cough, then continued without stopping for a good two minutes. While I was doubled over hacking, Bailey took the joint out of my hand and passed it to Aiden. “Next time it comes around, hold the smoke in your mouth to cool it.”

  When it came back I tried that, puffing out my cheeks like a blowfish.

  “Now,” said Bailey, “inhale slowly,” and I did, and only caught my breath once near the end. I exhaled and waited for whatever would happen. Perhaps there would be swirly colours like television depictions of the marijuana experience, though my mind could not possibly produce more vivid colours than that sunset we were under. It made even the van look drab.