The Jig of the Union Loller

by Michael Burnham

  On the water a stiff wind created choppy conditions. For a half hour Claude just drove, revving the motor, zigzagging, bouncing the bow of his new toy off the waves. When at last he cut the engine, he didn’t move for his rod, opting instead to bask in the crisp autumn air. He donned sunglasses, lit a cigarette, and cracked open a can of beer. The sun warmed his face. He moved from the steering column to the middle seat, crossed his feet on the side rail, and shifted from left elbow to right as he puffed and sipped, puffed and sipped.

  After drifting for an hour Claude opened his tackle box and baited his line. He didn’t expect to catch much, a perfect mindset as it turned out, since in the first forty-five minutes of trying he caught nothing. Now nearly two hours since his initial beer, and in the middle of his seventh, Claude really needed to use a bathroom, but didn’t feel comfortable standing and delivering out in the open. On the other hand, three-quarters of a lake lay between him and Armand’s cottage, and the shores nearby offered few if any unoccupied spaces where relief could be secured. He settled on a small cove with a row of apparently empty cottages and a cluster of birch trees hanging over the water. He stepped to the bow, grabbed a birch, and took his chances. When finished, he smiled, downed the remainder of beer number seven, and started beer number eight.

  Claude spent the entire day on the lake, caught five small fish and tossed them all back, smoked two packs of cigarettes, and drank 20 of his 24 beers. Dusk at the lake faded quicker than he expected, forcing him to make his return to Armand’s cabin slowly, along the shoreline, in the dark. He had some difficulty securing the boat in the moonlight, but concentrated through the alcohol and climbed toward the cabin confident he’d tied the craft tight.

  Though it was only six o’clock, Claude changed into sweatpants and a sweatshirt, laid down on the sleeping bag, and fell asleep. When Claude’s bladder awoke him, 9:34 shone from his glow-in-the-dark digital watch. He fumbled through his duffel bag for a pair of sneakers, slipped them on his bare feet without tying them, and turned on the big flashlight. It went on, but blinked out. Claude whacked it with his palm until it came on again. He stepped through the door, snapped the padlock shut, and wandered over near the wall to relieve himself. Though the wind had died down, it was cold. The weathermen said temperatures would likely dip into the high twenties once the sun set, and the half-asleep, half-drunk Claude decided it was at least low thirties already. As he finished his business, the flashlight blinked out again. He smacked it some more, but it didn’t come on, so he said the hell with it and headed back by the light of the moon. Without thinking he pulled the door, and noticing it was locked, tried to collect himself enough to remember where he’d put the keys. Neither his sweatpants nor his sweatshirt had pockets. He realized he’d locked himself out.

  At first he simply closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the door. Sleep and warmth, he thought, just give me enough heat to sleep.

  Once he absorbed the consequences of his error, however, he punched the door hard with a closed fist before taking the knob and rattling it pointlessly with all his might. As quickly as anger came upon him it subsided. His eyebrows raised. He dropped to his knees and felt the grass near the house, finding it a little damp, but nonetheless laid down on his side, thighs pulled up against his chest. It was no good, though, he couldn’t sleep unprotected in the cold. Resigned that a resolution couldn’t wait the night, he stood up and pondered his options. He was happy he’d put on shoes.

  Breaking into the cabin seemed the best alternative, so Claude checked for unlocked windows. Although the cabin had no heat, Armand fitted it with storm windows, meaning Claude would have to break multiple panes to enter, which didn’t appeal to him, especially after peering in and seeing the beds stripped of blankets. He figured Armand had turned off the gas, so even if he got in he had no blankets and no stove to use for heat. For a moment he reflected about the curtains, surmising that together they might keep him warm enough to sleep the night, but on some level, beneath the booze and weariness, perhaps even beneath the realm of Claude’s normal cerebral capacity, lingered the notion that breaking into Armand’s cabin just wasn’t right, that he could approach Armand with a new lock key the next day and explain how he’d borrowed a night on the concrete floor of the storage area and Armand would understand, but that attempting to explain why he’d smashed two windows to get into the cabin might provoke an altogether different, and justifiably more unpleasant, reaction. Instead of breaking in, Claude scoured the grounds for shelter. Finding none, with the cold air stinging him through the alcohol, Claude started walking to the store to call Joan.

  On the way he checked for lights in other cabins. Since it wasn’t even ten o’clock, he wouldn’t hesitate to knock on a door and request a hacksaw or a pair of bolt cutters if he found an occupied cottage. It didn’t strike him as useless, though in soberer moments it might have, this idea of one of Armand’s neighbors handing a hacksaw this late to an underdressed man who smelled like the keg room of a college fraternity. In the end it was moot. On this particular midweek night in October, nobody was around.

  At the pay phone near the store, Claude dialed the collect number he remembered from television, followed by his own phone number, and spoke his name when instructed to by the mechanical operator. Before long Joan came on the line.

  “Hello?” she said. “Claude?”

  “Hi, it’s me,” he said.

  “How’s the fishing?”

  “Good. Listen, I’ve got a little problem here. I locked myself out of the cabin.”

  “Hold on,” Joan said. “I’ll get Armand’s number.”

  “No no,” Claude said loudly, to bring her back. “I already tried him. His answering machine says he’s out of town and won’t be back until next week.”

  “Who leaves a message broadcasting they’re out of town? Doesn’t sound like something Armand would do.”

  “Well he did.”

  “And how did you lock yourself out? You need the key to lock both the front door and the back. The door to the porch, too. You did tell Armand you were coming, didn’t you? Claude? Are you there?”

  Claude brought the phone into his sight line and gazed at the receiver. As he returned it to his ear, he pulled his free arm into his chest and rubbed one leg up and down the other.

  “Yes, yes,” Claude said, “I told him I was coming.”

  “You’re slurring. Are you drunk?”

  As if on cue, Claude lost his balance and dropped the phone, which rattled off the post before he reeled it back in.

  “I am not drunk,” he shouted into the receiver. “Alcohol’s got nothing to do with anything.”

  “I wish I could believe that.”

  “Look, I’ve got other things to deal with right now,” Claude yelled. “Can you stop yapping about alcohol for five seconds? Five seconds, that’s all I ask.”

  Joan hung up. Claude dialed the number again, but after a pause a live operator came on and told him the other party would not accept the charges. He hung up and tried again, with the same result. After hopping up and down a few moments to try to keep warm, he realized his position and called again. When asked to speak his name, instead he said “honey, I’m sorry,” and Joan picked up.

  In the ensuing conversation, Claude lied, telling Joan he’d spoken with Armand’s granddaughter Brenda the day before. Armand was in Las Vegas, Claude told Joan, and Brenda wasn’t sure which day he planned to return. She was in nursing school (which was true), and wasn’t often home at night. Because the last tenants of the summer did not return the cottage keys, Armand changed the locks on both doors, but Brenda didn’t think he’d put them on the big key ring hanging over their kitchen counter, since none of the new keys looked shiny. She suggested, Claude told Joan, that Claude snip the lock to the storage area, sleep on the concrete floor, and drop the key to the new lock in their mailbox on his way back to Rhode Island. For a $10 lock, he could have his room for the night.

  After the story, Cla
ude told Joan he’d exhausted all other options and was nearly freezing to death. Joan agreed to drive up. She and Claude would find a motel room, and in the morning buy another pair of bolt cutters and a new lock. She told him to stay at the store and said good-bye.

  As he hung up, Claude’s attention turned to the disagreeable prospect of three more hours in the cold. Although the town had no police station, Claude considered calling the head cop anyway, but decided against it. For one thing, Claude disliked the story he’d have to tell the officer after rousting him from bed. For another, what would the cop do, take Claude back to his own house until Joan arrived? Help him break into the cabin? Call Armand? Screw it, Claude thought, I’d rather freeze.

  The town had no full-time fire station either, just a small building for the volunteer firefighters’ equipment, locked and dark, a few hundred yards from the general store. The nearest open-all-night public building, of any sort, had to be twenty miles away.

  From the phone booth Claude wandered behind the store, where to his delight he found a long strip of bubble wrap and two dozen or so empty cardboard boxes, some big that held disposable diapers, some small that held bottles of beer. He broke up the boxes and brought them to the truck. The bubble wrap served as the blanket against his body, with the stacked-up boxes providing insulation for his legs and chest. It worked. He stopped thinking about the cold, and soon fell asleep.

  Around one o’clock Joan pulled into the store parking lot and tooted the horn. Claude removed himself from the pile of boxes and ambled over the side of the truck. As he crawled into the Buick, Joan handed him a coat.

  Neither spoke as Joan wheeled the car down Route 5 toward a white motel she passed seven miles back. Claude snuggled into the coat, leaned against the window, and resumed sleeping.

  “You’re welcome,” Joan whispered.

  The next thing Claude knew, Joan stood outside the car tapping his window. He followed her through a red door to a small room.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” Joan said.

  Joan wasn’t long, but she wasn’t quick either, and when she emerged from the bathroom she saw her husband in bed, wound tightly in blankets and already snoring softly.

  #

  At eight the next morning Claude rose and woke Joan.

  “Are you hungry?” she said as she stretched and batted her eyes.

  “Not really,” he said.

  “Well I am. Let’s hit Rodney’s Roost, if he’s even open this time of year. I’ve never been there except on Memorial Day weekend.”

  Claude looked at his wife. “I kind of want to get this lock thing sorted out.”

  “All right,” she said. “Let’s do that, and then we’ll eat.”

  They found a hardware store and bought the necessary items, then drove to the cottage. As Claude cut the lock with the new snips, Joan wandered to the water’s edge.

  “Jesus,” she called, “look at all those empty cans. Did you drink all that yesterday? You really shouldn’t drive a boat with all that beer in you.”

  “Please,” he said. “I’m not in the mood for lectures.”

  “It’s no lecture. You just oughta be careful. How about taking me for a ride?”

  “Can’t. Only have one lifejacket.”

  “There are twenty under the house.”

  Claude scowled. Joan smiled and walked toward her husband.

  “Notice anything different about me?”

  Claude looked her over. “No. I don’t think so. What’s different?”

  “I’m not mad about anything. Didn’t you notice? I’m not mad about driving three hours in the middle of the night because my drunken husband locked himself out of a cabin. I’m not mad about you lying to me on the phone—I called Brenda last night and she said she hadn’t talked with you. I’m not mad about burning a vacation day I was saving for Christmas week, and I’m not even mad that after all I did for you you won’t take me for a ride in your new boat.”

  “Bully for you,” Claude said. “Let’s hope it’s not just a passing fad.”

  Joan put her hands behind her back and raised herself to her toes before letting herself fall gently to her heels. “Do you want to know why I’m not mad?”

  Claude looked at her. “Okay, Joan. Why are you not mad?”

  “Because I’m happy.”

  Again Claude stared at her. She smiled at him, and raised to her toes again. She spun around and walked toward the open door to the storage area beneath the house. For a moment she disappeared into the darkness. When she returned, she held a plastic convenience store bag. After she kicked her shoes off and rolled her pants up over her knees, she walked to the boat, climbed in, and began emptying the stale remnants of beer from the bottom of the cans into the lake. She put the empty cans into the bag, tied the handles tight, and stepped back into the lake and onto the shore, not bothering to dry her feet before slipping back into her shoes.

  “Ready for breakfast?” Joan said.

  Claude slammed the bolt cutters to the ground. “Look, I don’t know what the hell you’re up to with this charmy-smarmy routine, but I’m really not in the mood to play around. All I want to do is celebrate the fact I don’t have to work any more, relax on the water in my new boat, drink a few beers, maybe catch a fish or two. That’s all. I’m not interested in silly mind games—oh Claude, see how happy I am when I should be mad? I’m so happy, just so happy. Isn’t it grand? Please, enough already. Just leave me be.”

  Joan lost the smile. “That’s why I’m happy, dear husband, because I am leaving you be. All to yourself. Last night I called Connie and asked can I spend some time at her place, but on the ride I decided to give you one more chance, one last freaking chance to be decent, but no, here you are being a total ass. I haven’t yelled at all today. I haven’t started nothing. And this is what I get. This is how much you care. Well screw you. While you’re having a relaxing day on the lake I’ll be using my vacation day to pack my things and bring them to Connie’s. Don’t worry, I won’t take Jamie, though she’s free to come if she wants. And you’ll be happy, because from now on you’ll have everything you’ve ever lived for: yourself.”

  The inner ends of Claude’s eyebrows squeezed the skin above his nose. His mouth slid to one side.

  “What are you talking about?” he said. “You’re not going anywhere. A husband and wife stay together, forever. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. That’s the way it is with us. We’re a family.”

  Joan climbed the cement steps toward the Buick. At the top of the stairs she took a left, disappearing behind the house, but a few seconds later re-emerged at the summit of the needle-strewn plateau. She opened the passenger door of the car and tossed in the bag of cans. After closing the door, she paused to look down the hill to her husband, snapped off a derisive salute, and walked to the drivers side door, taking the long way around the back instead of the short way around the front.

  “Don’t you worry about a thing,” Claude called from the lakefront. “Everything’s going to be great, better than ever. You’ll see. When I get home, you, me, and Jamie, we’ll head out to the best restaurant in town, and I’ll buy you the biggest steak you ever saw. With all the trimmings. Can you hear me? I’ll see you tonight.”

  When the car started Claude saw Joan still had the blinker on. Throughout her slow, gradual turn away from the lake, the blinker never clicked off.

  #

  At the spot where the river met the lake the water did not run deep enough to hide the grass rooted at the mucky bottom. Claude moored his boat to the dock of an empty-looking cottage, and with his waders slung over his left shoulder spent a moment taking inventory before beginning the half-mile walk to where the water ran like a river should. In his left pocket he had a pair of wool mittens with fingertips that hung open or velcroed shut; he hoped he wouldn’t need them. Around his neck hung a piece of styrofoam on a string, styrofoam into which he stuck five dry flies. His other pocket held a thermometer, a jackknife, a pair of nail cl
ippers with the lever removed, and a small pair of pliers. A net dangled from a coathook sewn to his belt. He climbed onto the dock, made sure the boat was well-fastened, and with his tackle box in his left hand and his rod in his right, set off.

  Although he knew which bend in the river he wanted, the spot offered two fine places to fish, and he hadn’t yet decided which to harvest. The first came before the bend, where two large rocks poked up from the middle of the main current. The rocks turned the clear surface of the river into a bubbly white froth—nice cover for a trout—and provided a stagnant spot where a fish could linger without expending much energy. At the same time, the rocks did not interrupt the flow of insects floating downstream, and a dry fly like a Blue Dun or a Light Cahill might land a good-sized trout.

  But it didn’t feel right. Sure, flying bugs still roamed the October air and died in the chilly river, but not in the quantities of spring and summer. Nope, Claude decided, a fish that staked out the rocks this time of year and waited for what floated by was likely to be on the skinny side. Instead of the rocks, Claude chose a pool just around the bend, where the current had eroded the bank beneath a tree. The tree jutted straight out toward the river for five feet, then bent up toward the sky. In the bank, under the tree, lived ants, thousands of them. Each day many fell, or were knocked, or carelessly wandered, from the bark to the water, where the current carried them around the corner and into the pool.