A bird on every tree

by Carol Bruneau

  To everyone’s relief Roz and Ma went off to do the dishes. A chance for him to check his messages, while he breathed as if oxygen-deprived. An email from the Indian owner said he’d tracked down the part in Sacramento, thanks but no thanks, and a forward from the Hog Owners of America announced next summer’s rally in Sturgis. For just a moment, the voices from the kitchen stopped—or he stopped hearing them—and he saw himself in a long line of bikes, tanks and engines coated with Dakota dust: a line grazing the horizon, an infantry of ants, and between his thighs the glossy black of the Harley downstairs, except alive and purring. Then the phone rang. When he got up to answer it—Ma and Roz were oblivious—he noticed that the criminal’s truck was gone.

  He didn’t recognize the voice at first, a guy saying he had a crankshaft off a Honda someone had totalled—a bad accident a while ago on the Trans-Canada. “Buddy died,” the voice said, “but she’s perfectly usable.”

  “It’s you,” he managed to say, a sourness in his throat—a feeling like he was breathing exhaust.

  “Must have something goin’ for you.” The piece of shit laughed. “She’s there, isn’t she—the McIlween one? Lemme know if you’re interested. We could do a swap.”

  Ma picked that moment to barge into the front room, dishtowel over her shoulder, ankles thick as tree roots as she collapsed into her chair. At least she was alone. “So, Rannie,” she sighed, and pointed the remote.

  He found Roz where he didn’t expect to, down in his hideout, where no one went unless invited. She seemed startled to see him, glancing up from her perch on the Harley—he had this terrible thought that under her weight the stand might buckle and the thing tip over, pinning her. She’d gotten heavy, was the truth of it. Why had it taken him this long to notice? Not that she resembled her friend at the grocery store. But still. He couldn’t help thinking of the girls at the university, the flexing of their long, smooth legs, and how they texted as they walked—like some species that had developed the ability to make its way without ever looking up.

  “Why on earth do you stay?” she said, in the same tone Ma used, telling him, “You can’t take it with you, Rannie,” after his dad died—“it” meaning things like houses and cars, and simple comforts, he guessed, like liquor. But he’d spun Ma’s words to mean the place itself, Torporville, which amounted to things put off, left undone, till it was too late, and all the false starts—the unfinished attempts and in some cases the attempts never begun—simply piled up and plugged the shaft that made up a person’s life. After a point, why anticipate more?

  Licking his thumb, he gave the bike’s tank a rub, as if with care the shine might come up, to hell with rubbing compound. “I think you’d best get off,” he said as gently as he knew how. He leaned forward so the front of his jeans just brushed her knee. For a second, only a second, he wanted to ask about her ex-husband—whoever he’d been—just to fill the hole between then and now: years as regular as spaces between bikes in a revving, rumbling column, drivers gazing at the dusty vista.

  He was tired, tired of her, tired of her visit. Maybe she sensed it, putting out her hand not to push him away or pull him close but to keep him where he was. Her fingers touching his shoulder felt warm but not friendly, and sure not inviting—not the way, earlier, he might have wished. A limp disappointment took hold of him all the same.

  “You’re a good guy, Rannie Jessome. Good to the bone.” Her voice was tinged with irritation and something else: regret? “Sure, I thought, maybe—well, I hoped. Who knows what could happen, after all this time? Stranger things have…I mean, people hook up—or they don’t.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, that’s it,” he said, as the feeling—a grating, floundering one—moved from him, moved quickly, leaving him safe, washed up but oddly satisfied, content. In his mind a stream of rear-view mirrors flashed slices of helmets, leathers, and tanks with custom-painted flames. He could almost hear throttling, a Triumph’s roar. She looked at him, curious, expecting more? He hadn’t lived this long with Ma not to know that a lot of things were better left unsaid. But she slid her arm around him and pressed in close to graze his cheek with hers—his sideys still prickled from their date with Ma’s scissors.

  “You always were such a nice girl.” It was all he could think of to say, glad of the dimness because his face was burning—as if he’d come down with some kind of bug. That anxious, he was, that keen to be rid of her. Some chirping came from her pocket: a squirrel trapped there? Her phone.

  “Who is this?” Even in the cruddy light her look showed annoyance. “Not a chance,” she was saying. “No, I don’t want to meet you for a beer, or a Tim’s. Look, I don’t care how you got my number. I don’t care if you’re buying.”

  He wanted to grab it from her, and yell into it: She doesn’t mean it, man—that friend of hers, down at the No Frills? She told me Roz is here to see you! No shit, man. He’d have called the criminal himself to be let off the hook. But, hanging up, she smiled as intently as when they were kids.

  “Rannie—I’ve got another favour to ask. My friend, Char’s, she’s by the grocery—better yet, the bus depot? Could I get a lift? Look, it’s been so sweet of you and your ma. But I need to get going. It’s really true, I’m afraid—I’m sorry—but it’s—well, you’d know more than anyone. Once you leave you can never, well, really come back home.”

  Ma hardly batted an eye watching them leave on the bike, though she waved from the window—that smug little wave he knew so well from all the other times she had won. Though he’d never be certain, she might’ve blown Roz a kiss as they buckled their helmets.

  She was still up and waiting when he returned, just as the credits for CSI rolled.

  “Such a good girl, Roz McIlween. I really don’t know what’s holding you here. But who am I to judge?” she said, shaking her head as she took the stairs one by one, under her own steam.

  Saint Delia

  The trees crossing the road say don’t talk, not if you know what’s good for you, girl. Honest to God, Delee, put a sock in it, they say, like Ma and Cal do every night—except the trees whisper, swish swish, not like Ma and Cal yelling up from the couch, eating their Crit’R Burger takeout: Nothing you say will bring him back, Delee. The trees don’t sound nothing like Ma and Cal, even when those two talk nice and give me their fries though I’m supposed to be asleep.

  The trees talk through my window, loud loud some nights. I talk back but not with my mouth—put a sock in it—but with my eyes and nose and the noise in my ears. Keep quiet, Delee, listen, they say. They hold hands over the road like a bridge. Just listen: and that’s the sound when a car goes under, and another, and another. Once Cal yelled, Slow down, you arseholes, which got Ma yelling too: Get out of that bed one more time, Delee, and you’ll catch it, s’help me! Then the TV went loud and Chef Ramsay’s yelling rattled the window.

  Talk all you want—see if that changes things, Ma used to say even before Cal and critter burgers and Kitchen Nightmares, before I understood about For’mickmurry.

  One day one of those cars will be Dad, I always said because the trees did.

  Ha-ha, told you so! I’m yelling at Ma and Cal this night when the swish doesn’t fade but comes into the yard, instead of chasing the cars down the hill past the blueberries and the lake and the other places we go, Ma and me and Cal. Since she came Cal goes everywhere we do.

  But it don’t matter, nothing matters, because here’s Dad in the front room, and Cal doesn’t even turn down the TV, the season finale, the cook-off between a pole dancer and some other lady which made Cal laugh her head off. Except, she stopped with Dad standing there. “How’s my Delee?” is what he said and he hugged me then made me put on Cal’s pink hoodie lying there. You could fit two of her in that, is all Ma said and then, “Well well well—things too cold for you in Deadmonton or For’mickmurry or wherever?” And no one said another thing except “Back to bed, Delee.”

  Dad
went out and slept in his car. I know because the trees said and Cal’s shoes were on the mat next morning—her mucky ones for work. When I went outside Dad was in the back seat with his boots off, smoking a cigarette. He said, “Hop in, honeybunch; you be the driver, okay?” And I said, “Is For’mickmurry a thousand miles away or what?”

  “That’s about it.” And he laughed. “No, it’s a bit further, actually. But you can still drive if you want.” So he stayed in the back and I got in the front and he made road sounds while I turned and turned the wheel till Cal came out and got in her truck and took off.

  “Fuckin’ diesel dyke—who’d of guessed in a million fuckin’ years?” Except he wasn’t really talking to me, maybe to the tree with the rope and tire and the green Big 8 bottle Cal puts birdseeds in. Then he said, “Come on, girly-girl. This is gonna suck. But I didn’t come here to eat toast, did I. First thing I thought of when that one phoned was you.”

  “Cal’s truck eats gas.” I figure he should know.

  “Go get dressed. Guess I should be grateful. But since the flat-arsed bitch isn’t here to help, you’re coming too. ”

  I knew he meant Cal because her butt looks like a desk. This I know from school, which I hate. Ma says I can pick blueberries this year till it snows and never go back, but Cal says we’ll see about that. My house my rules, Ma says.

  “We’re going somewhere special? It’s two-for-one at the Crit’R Burger.” Another thing Dad should know.

  “Sure are. Can you tie your shoes, Delee? There’s a girl. See, I knew you wouldn’t forget. She taught you good, your ma.” Then he laughs.

  Inside, Ma is drinking cold Timmy’s, putting on her flip-flops. Dad sees the cat. “Who let that fleabag in?” Ma is laughing till she looks at my sneakers and her face changes. “Don’t you know, Delee, I frigging hate that purple.” And Dad says, “Take it easy, Frances. Let’s just go for a drive, okay? Delee, I need you to get in the car.”

  I don’t want to at first because maybe he’s taking us to For’mickmurry. Long car rides make me puke. A Sobeys bag with Ma’s toothbrush and product and stuff from her top drawer is on the seat. The tires’ spin sounds like blueberries being squished, the sound in the Quonset where Cal works, that looks like half a juice can. A bee flies in and buzzes, You don’t have to do nothing you don’t want to. When it flies out again, Dad remembers I have work because he pulls in by the field.

  “Give your daughter a kiss, Frances. Let her know you’ll see her soon. We’ll catch you later, honeybunchofoats.”

  “Catch ya later,” I say. But Ma doesn’t turn around. Cal’s hoodie is over her head and she makes the same sound as a Timmy’s ice-cap coming through the straw. That’s the last I see of her for a dog’s age.

  In the blueberry field are birds Cal taught me the names of: nuthatches, robins, juncos, chickadees, sparrows—I know them all, picking and picking. Going for the best berries, my fingers are Sidney Crosby and the bees are the Maple Leafs fighting for the puck. Nice deke, Delee! a blue jay says. It reminds me to ask if they have birds in For’mickmurry and what kinds. Now there are more important things than what you can see, the bush says, and I’m God picking a gazillion blue apples in a heaven that goes forever. One basket, two baskets, three baskets, four baskets. The wind cracks up the sunshine—relief from the heat, Ma would say. I’m thirsty but the only drinks are in the shop, wine the owner gives people in cough medicine cups and water from the machine, which costs one loonie and one quarter. All I have is a loonie. And I need to fill the flat for the tractor. It looks like a blue baby quilt Ma found at Frenchy’s that Cal made her put back.

  “How many baskets?” the tractor boy says. “Count ’em, idjit.” Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me. Dad taught me to say this but I don’t. I could ask for a quarter but would rather eat a cow-pie. The boy throws an empty flat on the grass then drives away. I’m so thirsty. But the hilltop and the woods are green as Kool-Aid so I drink them in with my spit and high up like this get to be a bird or an angel like the pins in the Pharmasave. Be a guardian for mental health, it says on the box. Cal got one for her and one for Ma to stick on their fleeces.

  Ma got me my job. Better than Xbox, she said. Cal got her the job weighing U-pick berries and gluing on labels after Cal puts the wine in the bottles. It’s like nature, Ma says, how it’s all connected. “When are you gonna grow up, Delee?” she also says. “Nah, forget I said that. I like you as you are—you know that, don’t you, curly girl?” Why does she call me that? My hair is straight as grass. She said it once at the lake, with just her and me and no Cal. Cal still had work; “Chicken fingers for supper?” she’d said, waving to us. Remembering makes me hungry. It’s been a long time of dark and then sun sun sun since last night’s fries, and no sandwich like Cal usually makes, Kraft single, ham, and lettuce with no mayo because mayo goes bad, Cal says. I would die for a mustard sandwich but no dice, as Cal also says. I do not want to ask her for a quarter either.

  Berries squish between my giant fingers. The sun has crossed the lane where cars spit dust. The tractor boy says, “Why don’t you knock off early, stupid? Who’s gonna know? I won’t tell nobody.” He throws my second flat onto the back. “Gonna take yourself for a dip? I seen you, you and your crazy ma, down the lake. Gonna take it all off for me, Delee?” He has no shirt. When he drives away, his wing bones stick out. Berries bounce like hailstones. The shadows too are blue, eating the field the way waves eat the the ocean beach not the lake’s. If he stays for a while maybe Dad will take me to the beach-beach?

  “We’ll see,” he says and when I ask the other question, about birds, he says, “What do you think? Sure there are. I mean, there must be. Crows, for sure. I just never really looked, tell you the truth.” You would think that he picked berries for as long as Ma and I have been alive, the way Dad talks sometimes. Cal must have to work all night because she doesn’t come home. “She’s missing Episode Two,” I say but he shakes his head. “I’d feel for her, Delee, but she’s a little hard to reach.” For supper there’s Crit’R Burger wings and fries. “Hit the hay now,” he says, even though it’s only early. “Back to work in the morning.” He doesn’t say where Ma is or how long she will be there, only that she’s a case and that Cal doesn’t help. “Boxy Lady,” he calls her. He finds the cough medicine she and Ma keep under the sink and tries some but spits it out. “You’d have to be desperate to drink that. But who wouldn’t be, eh Delee? Living in this place.”

  When he’s sleep-dead on the couch I sneak outside and listen to the stars. They stutter when they talk, spitballs flying everywhere. That’s what they look like against the black black sky, from where I’m laying. The grass is so tall car lights can’t reach through. I keep staring up but get buzzy, then listen for closer things, spiders and crickets and the wind’s sh-sh-sh and the hum that says back to school. Suffer, I could tell that tractor boy, but won’t, though he deserves it. When fog hides the stars I wipe the damp on my shirt and go in.

  Walking never hurt anybody, Dad says. What’s a little rain? So I walk to work and again the next day and the day after that. By now the sun has come out, hot like the dryers at the Spin ’n’ Go where Cal takes our clothes when the well dries up. Funny that the rain came when Ma left and Cal decided to stay away. Just goes to show how some things clump together, but not a cluster fuck like Dad says. Cal’s truck is parked by the can, so I guess she hasn’t gone far far away like Ma. While I’m picking she comes down the hill with Doritos for my lunch. It’s a family-size bag so I really won’t go hungry, and she gives me a toonie and says she’s not out of the picture—pitcher, she says, so I picture her as a June bug floating in a jug of ice water at the Crit’R Burger when you eat in. For one second there’s a sound like a blueberry being popped when she hugs me to her boobs. How can a square person be so soft? It’s hot, too hot, and Cal smells like wet bark or maybe raccoon pee in the bushes but probably what I’m thinkin
g is just sour, a smell like fall. But her bug eyes smile the same as when her favourite person makes Chef Ramsay say nice job, and I know Cal is not like Dad thinks. “Catch ya later,” she says, not a question.

  After the tractor boy takes my last flat I’m so flipping flipping thirsty I go all the way up to the machine with the toonie and buy water. The owner’s dog, Bluebell, licks Doritos stuff off my hands. Her tongue feels like the lake bottom. “Git!” I say but don’t really mean it. If I had a dog I’d name her Bluebell too. This Bluebell is brown like an Aero bar. She licks my bottle too. The sun spikes off of the juice can building and off of the shop roof, so so hot, and if Ma were here she’d say “How ’bout a dip, curly?”

  “What’s the matter, Delia—forget where you’re at?” It’s the tractor boy saying my name, my real name, like Cal used to at first. He rubs Bluebell’s chin. “Goin’ for a swim? Fuckin’ school, right—only a couple days then the shit starts. Bunch of us headin’ down, should be good. Gonna follow us?”

  I don’t say it—Suffer—because his voice not his talk is like Chef Ramsay’s telling me, Too late. Got something to say, say it sooner. The tractor boy’s talk is like Dad’s talk: Nothing in this shithole changes. But the trees and the sun and even Bluebell say, Delee, just go cool off.

  The lake is down a road that throws rocks under cars, which is why Dad won’t go. Why put something that’s mint through that? Bad enough the frigging salt in the air—jigging, I mean, jigging, he says, like I’m a big copycat. My sneakers scrape and my shirt feels like lettuce Ma would put in the sandwich she’d have made if Dad hadn’t taken her away. But soon there’s the path through the snake lilies and tea berries and poison ivy.