A Small Crowd of Strangers

by Joanna Rose

  Bullfrog trotted alongside her, head down.

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s your fault. Did I want to go meet a priest? No. You did.”

  He said, Hey, I’m sorry, but he smelled like bacon.

  She said, “Dogs can’t talk.”

  Wickaninnish Bay was full of rocky headlands that broke the ocean spray up into a constant mist. Forms took shape along the surf, the forms becoming rocks, or disappearing, and she thought they might see the old woman again. The shoreline curved out and then cut sharply back in, and curved out again, and no one was ever there.

  The night of the day of Emerson Paul’s funeral, it had never gotten dark. The moon rose, almost full, misshapen and yellow, against a pewter-colored sky, and she kept thinking about him out beyond the moon somewhere, beyond the moon being as good as anywhere when it came to the geography of the dead.

  She hadn’t looked at the blue glass vial in a few days. She thought about him watching her, waiting for her to throw his ashes into the ocean. She thought about him being somewhere, waiting for her to do the right thing. Although she couldn’t imagine why he would, why the dead would even care about the living. The dead had the secrets of the universe finally revealed. The dead would know she hadn’t set any fires, that all she’d done was mouth off and not pay attention and be a fool, and that she was not full of sorrow and remorse now that she was here, but just caught by the ocean, this place and this sound and being far away.

  When one of the forms did not turn into a rock or mist, it was still not the old woman. Standing still, looking out to the ocean, hands held together behind his back, it was the Chinese man from the convenience store. He didn’t move as she came close, and she went behind him. But the beach was narrow along here, and Bullfrog headed toward him, wagging like the Chinese man was his old buddy.

  “Bullfrog, come,” she said, like he even knew that word. Bullfrog did not seem to be into commands.

  The Chinese man turned around, and there were tears on his face.

  “Sorry,” she said. “He thinks he knows you.”

  Maybe his face was just wet from the mist, maybe it was raining now.

  He said, “Hello,” and his cheeks wrinkled into a smile and he bent and touched Bullfrog on the head. Bullfrog sat down and sniffed at his hand. The wind picked up in a gust full of heavy drops.

  She said, “I didn’t realize we’d walked all the way to Ucluelet.”

  And he straightened up, the smile there and then gone, quick, and he said, “Yep. All the way to Ucluelet.”

  He turned his back to the ocean and said, “There’s a path, through those trees. We are both about to get drenched.”

  Bullfrog got up, and as they all moved to a straight path that opened right onto the beach, hard heavy drops started to hit, loud with the wind picking up. When they got to the path, the Chinese man stepped aside so she could enter the trees ahead of him. The skin of his face was deeply wrinkled, and she wanted to stare at him, but she just walked past him, into the stubby pines and straggly alders, and the salal that soaked her jeans at the knees. The Chinese man stepped to her side. He was a little taller than she was, and he walked slightly limping, his thin hair wet and stuck to his head. His skull tucked perfectly into his neck, thin curves of bone behind his ears. She was walking through the woods with this guy as if it was nothing, as if it was easy, and it was, the ease of quiet strangers.

  “This dog?” the stranger said. “He cracks me up. I think he’s thinking of something.”

  Yeah, like if there’s going to be any M&M’s in his near future.

  The path ended at a gravel road, a repair shop, a mobile home. Up on the corner, she saw the convenience store through the rain. They left the shelter of the trees and she ducked her head, like that would keep her any drier. The Chinese man didn’t duck his head, as if they weren’t walking in the same rain. A German shepherd on a chain outside the mobile home lunged and snarled at Bullfrog, or maybe at her, or maybe at all of them, and Bullfrog wagged his tail a little higher. She had noticed that he was not gracious to dogs on chains.

  Behind the convenience store was a wire fence, and inside it was a construction project, a square foundation hole, a stack of warped, weathered boards. The Chinese man walked past it and unlocked the front door of the store.

  She said, “Do you sell coffee?”

  “Yes. No decaf.”

  He took down a small, hand-lettered sign that said BACK SOON—SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.

  “Funny,” she said. “Inconvenience. Convenience store.”

  “Yes.” He held open the door. “I found that amusing. People here, however, don’t say convenience store.”

  She said, “Bullfrog, stay.”

  Bullfrog sat down, which surprised her.

  The Chinese man said, “Here they say mini-mart.”

  “I’m from New Jersey.”

  He went behind the counter and shrugged out of his rain jacket, hung it on a hook there, and sat on a tall stool. He said, “I’ve been there. Princeton. The coffee is over there. Please help yourself.”

  The coffee was thick looking and very black. “You’ve been to Princeton?”

  The pot was dark and stained. The cups were Styrofoam.

  He said, “I spoke there once. You are very far from home. Fifty cents.”

  “You spoke at Princeton?”

  “Beautiful town,” he said. “Movie theater like a small castle.”

  “I’m from Cranbury. It’s not too far from there.”

  She dug two coins out of her pocket and handed them to him, and wrapped her fingers around the coffee cup, holding the warmth with both hands.

  He said, “Do you realize that these are nickels?”

  “Oops. Sorry.”

  She gave him two quarters, and he gave her back the nickels, and the eagle feather fell to the floor. Guilty. She picked it up and worked it carefully back into the pocket. She couldn’t tell whether he was looking at her. Bullfrog, however, was definitely looking at her. The rain blew and the wind blew, and inside the convenience store, the coolers along the walls hummed.

  “So. How is it that you spoke at Princeton?”

  “College of Physics. Visiting professor.”

  “You’re a physicist?”

  “I was a teacher of physics.”

  A pickup truck pulled onto the gravel outside, and the young man from the farmers’ market hurried in, his long hair wet, his plaid shirt soaked, his cute, boyish face happy.

  The Chinese man seemed to nod briefly toward the young man, who came across the floor, leaving wet footprints from his big sneakers. He said, “Pack of smokes.” His back pocket had a faded white square from his wallet. He looked over his shoulder toward her. “I see your pal out there,” he said. “He don’t seem too happy left out.”

  Bullfrog watched through the door, playing up the wet hound-dog angle big time.

  “Get caught in the rain?”

  The coffee was bitter and burnt.

  He said, “I’d be happy to give you and the little guy a ride home.”

  She was embarrassed in front of the Chinese man.

  “No thanks, that’s okay. We’ll wait it out.”

  It was only an offer of a ride. It was raining hard.

  He said, “You might have quite a wait,” and he peeled the wrapper off his pack of Kools. “This is that southwest storm been moving up the coast. Crazy El Niño weather.”

  The Chinese man nodded.

  “Come on,” the young man said. “I got to go in for the mail, not even out of the way.”

  The Chinese man said, “A good idea.”

  She dropped the coffee in the trash can by the door, and she hoped the cup didn’t sound as full as it was.

  It was a brand-new pickup truck, and she made Bullfrog stay down on the floor at her feet. They all got in and arranged, doors shut, seat belts hooked, truck engine started up, windshield wipers going. The young man’s cigarette smoke filled the air. She tasted it, liked it.
It would stay in her hair and in her jacket and then she wouldn’t like it, but now she did. She thought of that hard hit of smoke on the back of the throat, the release. The smoke scooted out the window as soon as he rolled it down a crack, leaving new-truck smell, wet-dog smell.

  “I’m Carson,” he said. “You’re Bleakman’s new tenant, eh? How you liking Tofino?”

  “Fine.” She hung on to the armrest as he pulled out onto the road. Bullfrog was looking tragic. He did not like riding on the floor. The convenience store in the side mirror made her sad, leaving the Chinese man alone in the warm, bright store in the rain.

  “I’m from here,” he said. “I been here all my life. Went to Port Alberni School. We got a new school here now. You’re from New Jersey?”

  She wanted to say no, I’m from Kathmandu, that’s in Outer Patagonia, a suburb of Tanganyika.

  Bullfrog tried to weasel his way up onto the seat.

  “No,” she said. “Get down, you weasel.”

  The young man said it was okay, but she said, “He’s sandy. He’s wet.”

  “This truck is only clean cause of being new and all,” he said. “Brand-new. But don’t worry, I like dogs. We got two. Mandy and Red Boy. Hunting dogs. This a hunting dog? He looks like he could flush some birds.” He took the corner fast, and when she grabbed the dashboard, Bullfrog took advantage of the moment and made it up onto the seat.

  “He hunts toast,” she said. “M&M’s. Cat food. Small game like that.”

  “I heard about how chocolate makes a dog sick.”

  “I didn’t say he’s a very good hunter.”

  “What do you call him?”

  “Bullfrog.”

  Bullfrog leaned into her and yawned his yawn squeak, happy with the situation. And wet. And stinky, that sweet, thick wet-dog smell that she loved. How dogs knew when something was right between you, like how he knew she was glad to have him up on the seat between her and the young man, whom she could look at now and pretend to be looking at Bullfrog. The young man was really just a kid, maybe twenty-one, maybe not even that.

  “Bullfrog,” he said. “And what’s your name?”

  She didn’t have one.

  “Pete.”

  “Pete?”

  “It’s a nickname.”

  He downshifted through the highway curve. The Church of the Holy Family went by, black and hunched over itself in the blur of the rain.

  He tooted the horn when they went by the farmers’ market and then slowed going into the curve that led down into town. The rocks and trees closed in on either side of the road, and the storm seemed to grow quiet, although the treetops were tossing and rain bounced on the pavement. The town opened up, all on its hillside, and the ocean was a blur of storm.

  “Thanks. We would’ve got soaked.”

  He stopped in front of the post office and set the brake, turned, and tugged on Bullfrog’s ears just like Bullfrog liked the best, and Bullfrog gazed at him with this particularly adoring gaze he had when you tugged at his ears just right.

  The kid said, “You’re welcome.”

  On the sidewalk, she said thanks again, and Carson went inside the post office. Mr. Bleakman stood there watching out the window.

  On Thursday night, Ruby’s Roadhouse stayed lit up late, and cars lined the road. It wasn’t raining, and once the sky was completely dark, Pattianne and Bullfrog headed down toward the beach, walking by Ruby’s Roadhouse, looking in. Small folding tables were set up here and there in the lobby, and people sat, their heads bowed. Mrs. Taskey was in there. So was Mr. Bleakman, and a man in a red vest stood by the fireplace and pulled cards from a blue glass fishbowl. A woman in a huge yellow sweater jumped up and waved her arms around.

  Bingo.

  Father Lucke came along the road to the steps, appearing too quickly for her to pretend she didn’t see him, which was something she used to be pretty good at, that disingenuous fake-out where you get to slip away by acting spaced out instead of antisocial.

  He said, “Bingo,” a little out of breath, smiling in the porch light, his cheeks shining like he never had to shave. He wore the canvas jacket and blue jeans and a black shirt with the collar, and Bullfrog was up and wagging at him.

  “Church fund,” he said. “Care to come in and contribute?”

  “No.” There it was again. No what? No thanks? No sir? “I was going to the beach.”

  He rounded out his cheeks. “At this time of night?” he said. “Pretty dark, I’d say. Why don’t you come in and have some hot cider?”

  “No dogs,” she said. “No dogs at Ruby’s Roadhouse. Says so right there on the sign.”

  “Ah,” he said. “She does have her rules. There are always rules in life, I guess. Well, why don’t I just join you out here? I’ll bring you a cider.” And he went past her, in the door, and he smelled like a cigarette. The guy in the red vest called out, “G-14,” and then the door shut. Bullfrog went up the steps to the door and sniffed around there. She went up the steps and leaned on the railing, just out of the light of the window, and she was leaning there when Father Lucke came out with two paper cups.

  “Didn’t bring you one,” he said to Bullfrog. “What’s your name anyway?” Still talking to Bullfrog.

  Go ahead, Mr. I’m a Real Guy’s Dog—tell him your name if you’re so friendly.

  “Bullfrog,” she said.

  Wag wag, full circles. Bullfrog loved the sound of his name when he could hear it. Father Lucke settled himself on the long bench next to the door, stretched his legs out, and said, “So.” He smiled out at the town on the hillside, lights here and there, like the light in her house. She left the light on all night, especially if she wasn’t there, and especially if she was. The lightbulb had burned out again already, something wrong with the cord or connection or whatever. She didn’t care. She’d bought a four-pack of bulbs.

  “Low tide,” he said. “It gets pretty wild out there at low tide, can’t tell where it’ll be coming when it turns. You go down there often?”

  “Yeah, every day.”

  “And what brings you all the way here?” His smile was in his voice now, careful and polite and presuming in a priestly way.

  She could tell him. It would be easy. Silver tide, a blue glass vial, a promise to someone who promised someone else.

  “I like it here,” she said. It seemed true once she said it. The wild edge of things, the ocean and the sky and the wet black rocks and the huge crows in the trees along the beach.

  “Vacation?” he said, and he blew on his cider as if it was hot, which hers wasn’t, and she realized that he wasn’t very good at being a priest. He was uncomfortable and awkward, and she liked him a little better.

  “Kind of.”

  “And your family? All back in New Jersey?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Miss ’em?”

  “Of course.”

  She missed Jen. There were two postcards that she hadn’t filled out yet sitting on the windowsill. Her mother would get hers and let it sit on the hall table until she had the right moment to sit at the kitchen table with her coffee and read it. Then she’d set it by her father’s plate at dinner. Jen would read hers standing at the mailbox in the lobby of her apartment building.

  A woman inside yelled, “Bingo,” and someone else said, “Oh, no,” and Father Lucke turned and looked through the window. “Ah,” he said. “A good winner, gives all her winnings.”

  “So, you’re raising money to rebuild the church that burned down? Holy Family?”

  He stepped across the porch and leaned next to her on the railing. He patted his upper jacket pocket, where his cigarettes would be if he had them. Hers were in her upper jacket pocket.

  “Holy Family seems to be a church that wasn’t meant to be,” he said. “Got it rebuilt once before and it burned down again. Before my time.”

  A church burning, flames and shattering stained glass, flames and a falling steeple, flames at night.

  “How’d that happen, that f
ire?”

  “The first time they never knew,” he said. “Old place, old wiring. Port Alberni Volunteer Fire Department never did much besides put it out.”

  His cider cup was empty now, and Bullfrog was snoozing, and letter-number bingo combinations were coming thick and fast, the game heating up inside. It sounded like a foreign language, and when she listened for the pattern in the numbers, she heard the ocean.

  She said, “What about the second time?”

  She wanted to edge away from him, lean somehow so that she could see him without turning her head to look right at him.

  “No one really knew that time either.” He set his cup on the railing, and the wind blew it off. He looked over the edge to the ground where the cup was blowing away, and he just watched it.

  “Seems there was a transient living in there,” he said. “May have started it accidentally.”

  “A transient?”

  Transients in a little village like this.

  “Well, that’s a maybe,” he said, and he went down the steps and picked up the cup.

  She heard his knees crack and thought about his knees cracking when he prayed.

  “There’s lots of time around here to tell stories. You never know.” And he laughed, that giggly kind of nervous laugh, which didn’t seem to suit a priest, although it suited him.

  “You never know. My bylaw—it always ends up being true. You never know.”

  She tore at the rim of the paper cup, a slow, careful ruffle coming away in her fingers, working her way around the circle of it. She didn’t know if he was just being New Age or if this was true and he was a weird kind of priest.

  “You can only believe,” he said, and a weight of anger shut her down.

  “Yeah, well,” she said, “I believe I’ll go for my walk.” She went down the steps, but she didn’t know what to do with the pieces of paper cup. She ought to say thank you for the cider, but she didn’t want to say thank you to this silly priest in his blue jeans and priest collar who probably prayed to an old man in a throne of clouds attended by seraphim who were in turn attended by assorted lower ranks of angels.