The Ghost in the Machine

by Mary Woodbury

  “The doctor wants her to come in for a blood transfusion,” said Haley.

  “Is that good, Ms. Nixon?” Ty asked. He had a lump in his throat.

  “It might help,” Robin sighed. “We’ll see.”

  Over at the Auto Club, Ty read the booklet to see if any of the rules had changed since he’d studied it last winter. He showed them his family’s membership card and paid the money. He took the written test and passed with flying colours. “You can pick up your learner’s permit on your birthday, young man,” the examiner said.

  What a great day. The sky was blue as his grandma’s fancy china plates. There wasn’t any smoke on the mountains. There weren’t too many tourists yet. He had passed the learner’s test and had a car. Haley was helping him, and he had the money to buy the parts. He knew how to read the manuals that would show him how to fix Princess. What more could a guy ask for?

  Back at Ralph’s shop Robin gossiped with Ralph while Haley, Ty, and Ralph’s assistant Cyril, went exploring. Cyril was a really short fellow with a plastic leg that peeked out of his holey jeans. He lurched ahead of them, leading the way. They found a Volkswagen close to the fence with a pretty good body but no engine. “Here she is, just awaiting for you to rescue her from oblivion.” Cyril’s voice grated like there was gravel in his throat. He coughed and hacked. “Poor thing, she’s not agoing anywhere.”

  He grabbed his tools, and he and Ty gently took the driver’s door, complete with window, off the hinges. They carried it to the small loading vehicle parked nearby that Cyril used to run around the maze of lanes that led to all the deserted cars and trucks. Ty smelled old metal, rubber, and spilled oil. Two feral cats hissed and ran away as they worked.

  Haley meanwhile had found another Volkswagen with its front fender untouched. The yellow paint was scratched and fading but otherwise it looked in good shape. Cyril and Ty took the fender bolts off. The rubber beading was still good.

  “Too bad people weren’t like cars. Some of us could use new parts. This leg works fine, but it’s not like the old one.” Cyril chuckled in a funny tone.

  “How long have you had it?” Tyler asked.

  “Six months.”

  “What happened?” Haley asked.

  “A chain saw got away from me.”

  “I’m sorry.” Then Haley patted the old yellow Beetle. “Thanks for the fender. We’ll put it to good use.”

  “So you’re Ms. Nixon’s niece? I hear she’s been sick. What’s she got?”

  “Nobody is sure.” Haley looked back at the office where her aunt rested, waiting for them. “Some things we can’t fix.”

  “Isn’t that the truth,” whispered Ty to himself, thinking about his mom. She’d been fine the last week or so, happy about the car, pleased he was trying to fix it. But who knew how long that would last?

  The two teenagers followed Cyril in his little run-about. He manoeuvred it around the old wrecks like a pro.

  Ty paid Ralph for the parts.

  Robin seemed in good spirits. “Good chatting with you, Ralph.”

  Ralph nodded. “It’s like you’ve been saying, Robin, the people in this valley know each other too well, and at the same time we don’t know each other at all.”

  Robin sighed, “It’s an enchanted valley, with mountains, the lake, the trees, and folk who have lived along the length of Kootenay Lake forever in houses strung out like a string of Christmas lights, each family pretending to be independent until a crisis hits.”

  “With the dry, hot weather acoming on, we’ll be lucky to escape without a fire.” Cyril dropped the fender in the back of Robin’s van with a thud. “That’s all we need.”

  “Don’t be such a pessimist, Cyril,” said Ralph. “And take it easy on the customer’s van.”

  Cyril ducked his head up and down like a bird pecking at a pile of seed.

  “Did you get a decent battery, Tyler?” Ralph asked. He passed along some other advice about fixing an old car. Then he grinned. “What about radiator fluid?”

  Ty shook his head. “I didn’t buy anything for the radiator. What do I need?”

  “Well, I might have something that would tide you over,” Ralph laughed.

  “What you going on about, Ralphie? There’s no cotton picking radiator in a Volkswagen,” said Cyril. “Don’t you be ateasing poor young Tyler.”

  Ty blushed. He should have known that, after studying all the plans and internal workings of his Princess. He tried to look like he was sharing in the joke but he felt like an idiot.

  “Let’s go.” Haley climbed in the driver’s side. Ty climbed in the back and Robin slid in the passenger side. Fast Gas was just down the street. Filling the gas can only took a couple of minutes. They buckled up and Haley eased out into traffic heading north. Ty and Haley would stop and rescue their bikes at Nixon’s. The van would carry on to Tyler’s place to deliver the car parts and gasoline. Robin took out her cell phone and checked with Ty’s mother whether it was all right if she came for afternoon tea.

  “That’s too bad. … I’ll tell him. … Are you all right?” The one-sided conversation went on for another minute.

  Haley glanced across at Ty. They both shrugged their shoulders.

  Robin closed her phone.

  “What’s up?” asked Haley.

  Ty’s heart was in his throat.

  “It seems someone has been in your farm yard while you’ve been away. Your mom thinks they’ve been at the car. She was sleeping and heard strange noises. Leo was howling. Someone had shut him in the garage. Your grandparents and Veronica had gone berry picking. We better step on it. Grace is not in good shape.”

  “Oh, Holy Dinah!” Haley said.

  “That’s all I need.” Ty’s head felt as if it was going to burst. The cords of his neck tightened like a choke chain. His fists clenched, his eyes burned. It had to have been the Beaton boys. But why? And how was he going to stop them?

  Chapter 11

  Princess sat where Haley and Ty had left it. Now her tires were flat and windows soaped. Someone had spray painted the passenger side. “Wimp,” the black paint said.

  “Don’t they have anything better to do with their time?” Ty held his elbows with opposite hands and rocked back and forth to stop himself from punching something. Anger mounted inside him, threatening to spew like lava from an awakening volcano.

  “There’s a teddy bear sitting in the driver’s seat,” said Haley. She was shaking her head. “I don’t believe it.”

  “You said you wanted to go for a bike ride. Let’s pay them a visit.” Ty grabbed his bike, his hands gripping the handlebars so tight his knuckles were white. His head hurt and his body felt like a cougar ready to pounce.

  “Violence doesn’t solve anything,” said Haley.

  “I know that.”

  Robin had gone in to have tea with Ty’s mom and try to calm her down.

  “I’ll tell my aunt to go home without me.” Haley headed into Ty’s house. When she came out she tossed a bottle of mineral water at Ty. “Tuck that in your knapsack so you don’t get dehydrated as well as angry. It won’t help.”

  Racing along the winding road north and riding the gravel edge around slow-moving RVs loosened Ty’s shoulders. “What jerks! What idiots!”

  “Trouble with being a tall poppy, Ty,” Haley said as she sped by. She was still in better shape than he was. Though he seemed to be getting stronger every day. It felt good.

  Ty pushed himself to cycle faster. “What do you mean tall poppy?”

  “Our Social teacher said one of the difficulties of being different is that people get mad at you. The rest of the clan, or age cohort he called it, try to stop you, lop off your head as if you were a tall poppy, taller than them. Teens especially need to conform.”

  Ty shook his head and kept cycling. “I think it’s some old problem between the Beatons and the Grahams. Doug and Ben are bullies like their dad and grandpa before them. Marvin and Desmond don’t seem to bother about things. They’re olde
r and are busy with other things.” Ty didn’t say anything more about the Beaton family business.

  “My aunt says your grandpa’s a bit of bully himself.”

  “Grandpa talks a bigger show than he ever acts. He knows more ways of stomping a fellow down than a posthole digger. I try to block him out most the time. But sometimes the old guy gets to me.” Sweat trickled down Ty’s back making it itch. “We’re turning at the side road before the golf course.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “I haven’t thought of that yet. I just have to go, okay.”

  Haley nodded. They cycled up the gravel side road without talking.

  Ty hadn’t been up this forest road for ages. He and his buddy Nat Ferris hunted rabbits up behind the Beaton and the old Armstrong places. Herman the hermit lived there, but he didn’t seem to mind. Herman had festooned the lower branches of the trees with holy medals and pictures of saints. As long as you didn’t disturb them, it was okay to be there.

  The houses on the old Cranbrook forest road all sat back from the roadside as if they were shy. A lot were covered with clapboard or particleboard. Some were made of cedar logs. A few had only tarpaper on the outside.

  Everyone seemed in the midst of building additions or putting in windows. Each had their share of old cars and trucks parked outside in various stages of disrepair. Herman the hermit’s was the tidiest. Herman was seven feet tall with a black beard that came to middle of his broad chest. He wore a red-and-black checked shirt summer and winter, with patched and faded jeans. He didn’t bathe so the aura around him was ripe. He didn’t talk to anyone except himself. He lived in a tall thin house with logs turned the wrong way — up and down rather than sideways. They were set into each other in the Swedish style, but bass ackward as Grandpa Graham said. Just like half the people on the Forest Road.

  Herman was standing in the middle of the road as Ty and Haley pulled up by the driveway to Beaton’s house. Their mailbox had a drunken tilt to it.

  “Hi, Herman, how’s it going?” Ty asked.

  The big man exuded an aroma of wood smoke and sweat.

  “Well, Herman, you haven’t seen Grace’s boy for a long time, have you?” Herman muttered, his head cocked to one side. “The other one of them looks like a Nixon mixed with a black. Didn’t Robin’s brother marry someone from Barbados? You should get out of their way. They look angry, they do.” Without another word Herman turned and started walking up the hill to his skinny house. “I’ll leave them to it. It’s always best not to get involved, you know that Herman.”

  “Nice meeting you, Herman,” Haley sang after him. “You’re right about that. I am half Nixon and half Barbados black.”

  Ty reached over and patted Haley on the arm. Her skin was smooth as silk. He wanted to say thank you for taking the old guy seriously. Most folk teased Herman or ignored him.

  Ty’s heart beat really fast. He wasn’t sure he knew what he wanted to do. “Let’s leave our bikes here and walk up the lane.”

  Haley leaned her bike beside Ty’s against a pine with no branches until ten feet up. Two bedraggled kittens bounded away.

  “I don’t want to fight. I just want to tell them to back off. If I don’t…”

  “They’ll think you’re a wimp.”

  “I’m not a wimp.”

  There were no trucks in the yard, only a beat-up Toyota station wagon. Three scrawny chickens squawked and danced out of their way. A dog barked from behind the screen door. Marks of its paws and its slobber covered the surface. A new sink without fittings sat on the slanted porch.

  “I don’t think anyone’s here,” said Haley.

  Ty strode up the porch steps and knocked on the screen door. The dog’s barking deepened and the thrusting of the giant black form against the doorframe doubled.

  “Shut up Rocket!” a voice hollered. “Who is it?”

  “Tyler Graham.”

  “And Haley Nixon.”

  An older woman with thin hair and pudgy hands pushed the door open. She was holding a lit cigarette tightly in her right hand. The dog rocketed down the steps and across the yard to chase the chickens back to their pen. The woman didn’t say anything. She had small grey eyes sunk in a puffy pink face and pencil-stroke thin eyebrows. Her left cheek was bruised and a smell of liquor and cigarette smoke followed her onto the porch. The worn boards of the porch groaned beneath her slippered feet as she made her way towards Ty and Haley.

  Ty backed off the porch onto the beaten dirt path. “Mrs. Beaton?”

  “What of it?”

  “Are Doug and Ben around?”

  “Fat chance. Never come home unless they’re hungry, the…”

  They were treated to a list of the youngest Beaton boys failings, in language that neither Haley or Ty were used to hearing at home or school.

  “Who is it, Ma?” A younger version of Mrs. Beaton appeared behind the dilapidated screen door. This one was dressed in a waitress uniform and wore lipstick. Her bleached blond hair was in fluorescent pink curlers. “If it isn’t Tyler Graham. How’s your ma?”

  “Don’t you go making nice with those Grahams, Lynette. How often has your dad got to tell you they’re hooked up with the Armstrongs? They’re nothing but trouble.”

  Lynette Beaton blushed. “I wouldn’t say that,” she whispered under her breath. “I’ll escort them to the road. You go back inside. You need your rest, Ma.”

  Ty and Haley exchanged glances. He shrugged and headed down the rutted drive to their bikes. He wasn’t sure what to do.

  “The boys picking on you, Tyler?” Lynette asked. “That’s Pa’s fault. He and your grandpa had a falling out years ago, and Beaton men never let a fight go. Sorry about that. They aren’t keen on the Armstrong side of the family either. Speaking of Armstrongs, how’s your ma?”

  Ty nodded. “As well as ever.”

  “She loved her brother. She lost too much.” She hunched her shoulders and looked sad. “I should know.”

  “She’d love a visit,” said Haley.

  “It’s too late for that. She and I used to be grand pals, you know. We had a lot in common in high school, before I dropped out, that is. If I ever get away from my old man, I’ll come and see her.” Lynette turned to go back up to the house. “Got to get ready to go to work.”

  “If you see your little brothers,” Ty pulled himself up as tall as he could, “tell them to leave my Uncle Scott’s car alone.”

  Lynette turned pale. “What about Scott’s car?”

  “I’m fixing it up. I want to use it. I’m nearly old enough.”

  The young woman stood silent in the laneway. She looked upset and wiped her chin with the sleeve of the blue sweater she had over her uniform.

  “Don’t you worry, Tyler, I’ll tell them to lay off. There’s not much I can do about Doug, but Ben… Ben should know better than that. Ben should know…” She turned and hurried up the lane disappearing behind the elderberry hedge.

  “What was all that about?” Haley asked as she climbed on her bike.

  Tyler shook his head. “I have no idea. It’s not like it’s her problem. I don’t get it.”

  “Let’s put that car into the garage before anything else happens to it and then go for a swim at your beach.” Haley buckled her helmet and sped away.

  Chapter 12

  Haley swept out the garage again while Tyler restacked some of the dusty cardboard boxes along the side wall so he could get at the old trestle table. He carried the parts from the van and laid them on the table. He rummaged in the house for light bulbs, climbed the ladder, and replaced the ones that had burned out. Dust motes floated in the light. He sneezed. The air smelled of old dirt and chicken droppings. He brought his dad’s work light from the basement and plugged it in. He’d need an extension, but he figured he could borrow one from his grandpa.

  He and Haley stretched the blue plastic tarp that had been over the car on the dirt floor. Then Ty took two truck wheel hubs he found stacked in the back corner of t
he garage and put them where he wanted the front wheels of the car. Ralph had given him a great hint. “If you jack your wheels up and support the car on old hubs, the front won’t fall and hurt you and your supports won’t collapse like a crate or box would.”

  “Let’s drain the gas tank while it’s outside,” he said. They drained the old gas into a small oil drum and drained the oil into an old sealer with a lid. A bolt dropped into the oil. He fished it out with a spoon.

  Haley put the toxic waste in the wheelbarrow and marched over to the garbage area with it. “Next time we go to the Recycle Centre, let’s not forget this gooey stuff.”

  Between the two of them they fixed the tires and remounted them. Then they washed the soap off the windows. Varsol took off the spray paint. With Haley’s help, Ty took out the battery and hooked up the new one.

  They put the new gas in the tank. Then they stood side by side and stared at the car.

  “Get in and try it,” said Haley.

  Ty hesitated. He chewed his bottom lip and glanced around to make sure no one was near except Leo. The dog lay with his paws under his muzzle watching what they were doing. The boy saluted the dog and slid behind the steering wheel. The leather was hot from the sun. Ty was hot and sweaty too. He took the key out of his pocket and put it in the ignition. He made sure the car was in neutral. Then he cracked his knuckles and heaved a sigh.

  Gingerly he turned the key, felt it engage in the lock. The starter motor whirred and sang clunka-clunka and stopped. Smoke billowed. He turned the key again and held his breath. Haley stood with her arms folded across her chest. She looked as if she was leaning into the car’s aura, willing it to go.

  The motor stuttered, stumbled, coughed and died. “It’s not the gas and it’s not the battery, so it’s got to be the wiring or the spark plugs. If it’s the carburetor, I’m stuck.”