by Jim Stark
His pickup wasn't just functional; it was hot. He drove his big rig with professional care, but there were times when he drove his pickup “better'n Michael Andretti coulda done,” was the way he bragged. He told people that he could shift a gear in a fifth of a second and never shifted a second too early or too late ... always right on the money. He enjoyed the sound of an engine performing at the level of an Olympic athlete. He asked for and got absolute obedience from the stampeding herd of horses below the hood, and he reveled in the domination, the risk.
He passed every car between Gatineau and Quyon whose driver didn't share his sense of urgency, which is to say all except one—a foreign job, a Toyota. He lost track of it for a while, but then he saw it again right at Luskville, halfway to Quyon, with a soldier and a policeman at the driver's door, dispensing the pain of punishment.
"They can go fuck themselves,” he said aloud as he screamed past the scene of the crime. Martial law was just another mushy slug of government crap, as far as Tirone was concerned. “Life goes on, never mind how them politicians try to fuck it up,” he would tell anyone who would listen to him when he drank beer.
He skidded to a stop in Ray's gravel parking lot and sat there for a few seconds. Buck had a magic way about him that Tirone knew he could never match, but he had decided that he had to give this solemn assignment his best shot. He shut off the engine, took out his new LieDeck, Buck's LieDeck, and glanced over the instructions. It wasn't such a tricky thing, not like a DVD or anything like that. He turned the thing on and selected the beeper mode.
"I'm better looking than Buck ... smarter too,” he said. Two beeps told him that he had the hang of it. He slammed the pickup door and walked into the restaurant. Most of the gang was there, in the midst of doing whatever it was that made it so impossible for them to go all the way to Ottawa and visit Buck.
"Blue?” asked Ray, referring to Tirone's “usual."
"Make it a couple,” said Tirone. “I just saw Buck,” he announced. “He's not doing so good, and he won't take the fuckin’ morphine they wanted to give him."
"Damned shame about Buck,” said Merrick McFee. “I warned him to quit smoking ... warned him a thousand times."
"Beep, beep,” went the LieDeck.
"Merrick, you're so full of shit it's coming out your fuckin’ ears,” snarled Tirone. “So how come you say bullshit like that anyways?"
"Jeezechrise,” squeaked Jesse McCain from his perch at old Joe Farley's former table, “you got yourself one of them giddim LieDeck gadgets?"
Tirone turned on Jesse, whose self-proclaimed piety had been a standing joke in Quyon since the ‘60s. “When's the last time you went to mass?” he asked accusingly.
"Every Sunday, for seventy years,” said Jesse, which earned him a pair of beeps. “I always go to the French mass, at eight o'clock, when you guys are still snoring.” That statement earned Jesse another two beeps, but the beeping had no affect whatsoever on his routine. “Go to confession every week, too,” he said with a straight face, “whether I need to or not."
Everyone in the restaurant laughed at the way Jesse was refusing to yield to the Big Brother demands of the latest miracle microchip. Tirone backed off just to see what else would happen. He took his seat at the corner table, by the TV, and soon people were all coming over to him, asking to see the LieDeck and asking about Buck, in that order.
"Here you go,” said Ray as he brought out two bottles of Labatt's Blue. “I thought of going to see Buck, but we been busy as hell."
"Beep, beep."
"Jeeze,” said Ray. “There goes my best excuse."
The conversation gradually turned from the LieDeck device to the question of martial law. The consensus was that it didn't make a particle of difference to anybody.
Then Tirone told everybody that Buck had had a couple of short visits from Bishop Sutherland. “Buck just calls him Steve—said he's like a regular guy now, and he might even marry that Annette Blais girl, the one that got herself shot out at the estate.” That caused a few raised eyebrows from the Catholics in the crowd.
Jesse McCain left his coveted table by the potato chip rack and pulled a chair to the periphery of the corner table, where all the action was. “So ... did you hear about what happened to Bobby Thompson and Geoff Farley?” he asked in his high, raspy voice.
"Nope,” said Tirone. “I heard the cops charged Geoff too, for the break-in here at the restaurant, figuring they'd have themselves one of these LieDecks by the time it got to trial, but that's all I heard."
"Well, Bobby and Geoff skipped bail,” continued Jesse, “and didn't realize they were covered under that new amers ... amints ... what's that word?"
"Amnesty,” said Ray.
"Yeah, that new amersty program. They didn't even know about it. Them boys got all the way up to Sudbury, then Geoff called his grandma, and she told him they were idiots because they woulda got off under the amersty. So they drove all the way back, figuring they wouldn't even have to go to court, eh? And then they find out they're gonna get charged again, on account of skipping bail, because it was done after the amersty started, and now they're probably gonna hafta get LieDecked every day for six months and then every week for another couple of years after that, and do all kinds of community work, too. They're a couple of genuine reeeetards, them two."
The crowd at Ray's had a hoot over Jesse's colorful telling of the tale, even though most of them had heard all about it earlier. Tirone's wife, Tammy, had come in the door about in the middle of Jesse's story, and she had shared the laughter that rippled through every table in the place.
"It's about time them little buggers got their ears pinned back,” she said, good and loud. And then she gave her husband a big kiss on the lips, right in front of everybody, and everybody clapped like she'd just performed a triple Lutz or something.
"Knock it off,” she said.
"Coffee?” asked Ray.
"Sure, and a chair,” said Tammy. “Move over, you guys."
Well, when she got herself seated, Tirone showed her his LieDeck, and explained the background to her in whispers, while other people played with the thing and tried to trip each other up. Then things sort of settled down, and they all got back to talking about the LieDeck in general.
Jesse said that he needed a LieDeck about as much as he needed a fur-lined piss-pot ... and didn't get beeped. Claire came out of the kitchen and said she'd heard on the noon news that people were getting divorced by the thousands, all over Canada and the States, since they started that 967-line phone-in arrangement. “One-nine-six-seven-LIEDECK is what you dial up,” she said, “or something like that.” Then she told Tirone about “that Nancy Ferguson girl who was in the restaurant the other day,” about how the LieDeck played a part in her husband taking off with some young bimbo.
"Now there's an interesting idea,” said Tirone, to tease his Tammy.
Tammy was steamed. She stood up and was about to walk out, and Tirone practically had to beg her to forgive him. Of course she did, as always, but they'd have words later—Tirone knew he could count on that. For now, though, Tammy wanted to try the LieDeck for herself.
"I never cheated at cribbage,” she said, and Tirone got an elbow in the ribs when the thing refused to beep. He was always claiming that she had to be cheating to beat him so often, and now that argument was settled once and for all.
"I don't care what the LieDeck says, I know you cheat,” he said.
"Beep, beep,” went the LieDeck, which got Tirone another elbow.
"I never overcharged a customer at the garage,” announced Merrick McFee.
"Beep."
"Well, I never overcharged any local customers,” he said, and this time there was no beep.
"I never cheated on you, Tammy,” said Tirone, and there was silence from those in attendance and, more importantly, from the LieDeck. He was very proud of his fidelity, especially considering his premarital status as a local legend, second only to the Buck.
"
I knew that,” said Tammy.
"Beep,” went the LieDeck, to everyone's amusement ... except Tammy's.
"My apple pie is better than Lucille's,” said Claire, and there was no beep.
"Oooee,” said Jesse. “That should be good for a few sparks. You hear that, Lucille?” he called towards the kitchen.
"Ray's is the best restaurant in Pontiac County,” proclaimed Ray, and that got a beep. “Okay, Ray's is the best restaurant in the Pontiac except for Kojack's up in Shawville,” he said, and this time there was no beep. “But Kojack's is a Chinese restaurant so you can't compare one to the other,” he said.
"Beep,” said the LieDeck, and Ray called it quits because everybody was laughing at him.
"Your daughter Ginette was in to visit Buck,” said Tirone to Claire, “with her—uh—roommate. Buck said that Ginette could have his job as acting sheriff of Quyon at next year's barn dance ... that's if she can get someone else to handle the car-parking."
The tall tale about Buck giving Ginette his acting sheriff's job got Tirone beeped, as he knew it would. He was trying to pull Claire's leg, but she wasn't laughing. She came over to the corner table, picked up the LieDeck and said she wanted everybody's damn attention. Nobody knew what she was up to, but she looked dead serious.
"This gadget is going to change lots of things,” she said coolly, at about sixty percent of her usual machine-gun pace. “We'll have to adjust to it, the same as city people. And we're going to end up knowing things about each other that were considered like private before, and I'm a bit nervous about all that. My daughter and I, we had a talk about that recently, and she's making an announcement to all her friends tonight in Ottawa. She said I could do the same here—in fact she said I should do the same thing here.
"Ginette is gay ... you all got that?” Claire was pointing the LieDeck, like a handgun, towards the corner table, and everyone knew that in spite of her apparent control, she was fully prepared to dump a pitcher of nice, cold beer onto the lap of whoever dared make a wisecrack.
"She's a lesbian,” she said bluntly, “and she knows maybe thirty other people, guys and gals, in the Quyon area, who are gay, and lots more up in Shawville. And she's got a partner, her name is Judy, and it happens that they're really in love. She's not ashamed of it either, and neither am I.
"So if anybody here has a problem with that, you can just keep it to yourself, because if I hear one bad word about Ginette or any other gay people, you won't get served here no more. I'm not too keen to be telling you about Ginette, but that's what she wanted me to do, so I did it. And since I got this here LieDeck in my hand, you know I told the truth, not just about Ginette, but about not getting served no more if you don't stay off her case, and my case, too. And that's all I got to say."
She slapped Tirone's LieDeck back onto the table and started walking towards the kitchen, but Ray broke the ice by applauding. “Way to go, Claire,” he whooped. “You got some guts, lady,” he declared, and the whole restaurant followed his lead and gave her a big ovation.
Claire was shocked by this, and grateful too. She made a deep bow in their direction before escaping into the kitchen.
Of course most everybody already knew that Ginette was gay, but in that instant, it's said locally, something changed, something pretty important. It couldn't have happened a week ago, they figured, and it wouldn't have happened at all except for the LieDeck.
Then Tirone had an idea, such a good idea that he wondered why he hadn't thought of it way before. “What say we close up the restaurant and all head down to Ottawa and visit Buck, give him a big surprise?"
"Maybe in about an hour,” said Ray, checking his watch, “like when the dinner rush tapers off and—"
"NOW,” boomed Tirone, standing. He wasn't as big as Buck, but he was just as scary when he got out of control. “There's no dinner rush except for us, and Buck's dying, for fucksakes."
"Yeah,” said Claire, “let's close her up and give the Buck a fitting send-off."
"Aw, come on, Tirone,” Ray whined. “I'm trying to run a frigging business here. I can't just—"
"Look,” said Tirone to Ray—to everyone in general, actually—"you people think you know Buck, and you do, most ways, but there's some ways you don't know him at all. Like you think he gets by on his NHL pension, eh? What a laugh. He was a big hockey star, a hero to most everybody here in Quyon and all over Canada and the States too, and he gets a lousy twelve hundred a month from the fucking NHL ... after playing for nine years.
"And he's been on the payroll with Patriot Security since nineteen ninety-five or so, keeping tabs on poaching and stuff. You didn't know that, did you? And you didn't know that he's the guy that kept young Jean Proulx and Bobby Thompson outta freakin’ jail back in twenty twelve, when they broke into the estate. And you didn't know that Mr. Whiteside never pressed charges against those boys even though he got shot in the leg with a damn pellet gun, and that was because of Buck too.
"But what you mostly don't know about Buck is he's lonely most of the time. Hard to imagine, eh? Buck, lonely! Sure, he had ladies, but he never had himself a real wife, you know, at least not one that stayed with him for very long—or any kids.
"Everybody knows Buck, and everybody likes Buck—well, almost everybody—but you know who his family is, like all his sons and daughters and brothers and sisters and all that? We are! You and me! We're all he's got—the gang at Ray's. In fact, we're all any of us got if you don't count our real families.
"You know what he said to me an hour ago? He said to never mind telling them people from Whiteside's and from Patriot that he could use a few visitors now and then. And you know why? He said because they're a different class of people—you know, like too good for him or something. But you know what? Never mind about a couple of shortcomings Buck's got, I say there's not anybody anywhere that's too good for him. He's first damn class as far as I'm concerned.
"But I'll tell you what. Bishop Sutherland was in to see him. And Helen Kozinski from Patriot Security was in to see him, and her boss Mr. O'Connor, too. That Annette Blais girl phones him most every day from her room on eight to his room on six, just to say hi and see how he's doin’ and to joke around and all that. But apart from me and Claire's girl Ginette, nobody from Ray's has been in to see him, or even called him up, and it's not even long distance on the phone from here.
"You know what else he said? He gave me his LieDeck and he said for me to come here and give youse all a hard time with it, and then to go back and tell him who got caught lying and what everybody said and all that. He said not to tell you this ‘til after he's gone, but he said it was his dying wish—like the last thing he wanted to do was give you folks a hard time.
"Do you know what that means? Do you? It ... it means he loves you, God damn it! It means he loves you more than anybody else."
Tirone ran clean out of words, and somehow his throat was getting all knotted up. Everybody was pretty well wrapped up in what Tirone was saying, and in what he was feeling, and nobody seemed to know how to respond, exactly. Ray copped a peek at the wall clock, but the decision to close down the restaurant was taken without any further reference to his opinion. There was only one table of real customers anyway, and they were just dawdling over coffee ... and pretending not to notice all this loud carrying on.
By 7:45 p.m., everybody had arranged who would go with whom, and most of them had bought a couple of beers from Ray for the trip down, and a couple more for the trip back. Several men called up their wives, or whatever they had, and a couple of women drove up from Quyon and joined the excursion. Ray took all of the paper money out of the till and stuffed the wad into his jeans pocket, seeing as Bobby Thompson and Geoff Farley were back in town. By 7:55 p.m., the lights and the ovens were turned off, the “closed” sign was hanging in the window, the door was locked, and the impromptu party was rolling down the 148 in a string of two pickups and three cars.
Tirone had Ray with him in the cab of his pickup. They didn't hav
e much to say to each other for the first fifteen minutes or so, not until they got all the way past Luskville. Ray was still pissed at having to close the restaurant early, even though he'd sold over fifty beer to the gang for the trip ... at full retail. Tirone was pissed too, pissed at Ray for squawking about business, and pissed at life in general. It wasn't fair that a guy like Buck should have to die ... ever ... certainly not now, not yet.
"He told me a couple of days ago he spent a shitload of time talking to himself out loud since he was in the hospital,” offered Tirone, “using that LieDeck that he got from Whiteside's people."
Ray didn't say anything, although he was curious. He flung a dead soldier out the open window, over the roof of his truck and into the ditch on the right, lit up a smoke, and opened another bottle. The LieDeck had changed everything, just like Claire said back at the restaurant. Nobody seemed to have much of a fix on how, exactly, except that some people had apparently taken to talking out loud to themselves and not figuring it was nuts. When he thought about it, he figured maybe he'd like to try that some time, if he ever got his hands on a LieDeck when he was alone. Not that he was all that keen to find out he was fucked up, but he supposed he might have realized that he was playing mind games as to why he hadn't gotten around to visiting the Buck before this, or at least given him a dingle.
There was one thing about the LieDeck Ray knew for sure: when a guy had one of them suckers on him, like Tirone did right now, you had to watch your Ps and Qs pretty damn careful. It was like being followed around through life by a bunch of judges, juries and executioners, all loaded for bear. On second thought, Ray wasn't too sure he wanted to get his hands on a LieDeck, but he figured he might as well let Tirone get off his chest whatever the hell it was he was burning to spit out.
