Down the Road to Eternity

by M. A. C. Farrant

  So then I get the pigeon a drink, eh? I fill up the baby’s bottle with water figuring to put the nipple into the bird’s mouth the way I do with the sick cats, give them water that way. And I’m feeling so great, eh? That I only get mildly twisted when I see the cop car pull up in front of the house, got its lights flashing red and blue. Then the SPCA van. Then Miss Hopeless in her dinky blue car. All of them crowding in front of my house.

  And I’m thinking, it looks like I’ll just be getting enough time to push the kitchen table against the door before they all come storming up the path. So I go to Christian, quick Christian, help me shove this table against the door, we don’t want anyone bursting in on us and bothering us when we got important work to do. There’s a sick pigeon here needing water and what do all these assholes know about that!

  ROB’S GUNS & AMMO

  There’s this old guy, maybe forty, forty-five got this business in town? I figure he’s my Dad. I mean, he looks like me. Small. Skinny. Got the same pointy nose. Only difference is his hair is brown and mine’s blonde. Well, yellow really. But the roots, they’d be about the same.

  It’d be real easy to prove we was related. Just stand us side by side. Just stand us together in front of a mirror. I mean, any idiot would have to say, “Yeah, Sybilla, he’s gotta be your Dad. No doubt about it.” I mean, shit, we could be twins if he wasn’t such an old fart.

  And the name’s right, too. Rob. Says so right on his sign. ROB’S GUNS & AMMO. Is that proof or what?

  Well, all right, maybe I don’t know for sure he’s my Dad. I mean, my Mom, all she ever told me before she died was his name. But I’ve been putting two and two together. His name and how he looks—plus where I was born, only twenty miles from here—and coming up with one, big happy family. Which is about time. After all those years in Alderwood, that treatment centre I was in for screwed-up kids.

  So don’t laugh, asshole. Is it my fault my Mom was a drunk and I got taken away? Gimme a break.

  Eight years old and thrown in a treatment centre. You’d be disturbed, too, after going through that. I mean, that place was like a prison. All we ever did there was clean the floors. Do the dishes. What they called “functioning.” And talk about our feelings. Talk about our feelings to death.

  Don’t ever ask me how I’m feeling. Don’t ever say those words to me. I’m likely to go strange on you. I must of sat at the kitchen table at Alderwood a thousand times having to talk about my feelings. Having to explain why I figured some worker was a douche-bag. Why some other kid deserved to have her Barbie swiped. Over and over. It never stopped, that talking. Every time I’d turn around some worker would be on my case. How do you feel about this, Sybilla? How do you feel about that, Sybilla? It got so’s the sound of those words made me wanna puke. And when I was thirteen and a half and ran away for the last time? What did my social worker lay on me but, How do you feel about going to a group home, Sybilla?

  Feelings. It’s like some disease all these workers got. Even Miss Hope, the public health nurse always banging on my door? Checking up on germs and corruption? She’s a feeling freak, too. “How does it feel, Sybilla, to be on welfare?

  “Oh terrific,” I go, thinking you dumb broad, how do you think it feels? It feels like shit. Shitty. The pits.

  But is she satisfied with that? No way. She’s got to go for the throat. “No really, Sybilla, how does it really make you feel?”

  Lights all flashing like this was some TV quiz show and I get the big prize if I answer right. Like stars on the fridge at Alderwood. Tokens. Ten tokens gets you a chocolate bar. But first you gotta say the right words about your feelings. First you gotta slobber after their praise.

  A hundred tokens gets you taken to a movie by the favourite worker. That’s a laugh! I mean, who’d ever have a favourite worker? That’s like having a favourite spider. Or poisonous snake.

  So I’m up to here with all these yo-yos. With all their talk. They’re paid to do that. Ask about your feelings. Pretend they care. I figure it’s time I had my own family. I mean, besides Christian and the baby. I figure it’s time I got my Dad to take care of me the way he shoulda done all those years ago.

  Only thing is, I got to convince this guy Rob he’s my Dad.

  So every time we stand out front ROB’S GUNS & AMMO I says to Christian, look Christian, see that man in there? He’s probably your Grandpa.

  And Christian, who’s three, he gets all excited jumps up and down starts waving his arms the way he did last Christmas at Santa Claus in the parade.

  Which isn’t far off. Santa Claus, I mean. I figure Rob’s gotta be rich. Having a store like that. He’s gotta be loaded. The stuff in the two big windows for starters. Megabucks. Stuff for hunting and fishing. Basketball hoops. Expensive running shoes like what the sports stars wear on TV. Hats. All kinds of junk for camping. Stoves. Sleeping bags hanging from the ceiling.

  With all the money Rob’s got he could start me a kennel so’s I don’t have all my animals in the house no more. Causing Miss Hopeless to get all twisted about the smell every time she barges in for a visit. You’d think she was my best friend or something. All the time she spends with us. Getting me to clean up the place just like you-know-where.

  “I’m too busy,” I go. “I got all these animals to look after.”

  But she’s always at me. Yak. Yak. Yak. About the baby’s Pampers, are they changed enough? About keeping stuff off the floor so’s Christian and the baby don’t put dirt in their mouths and get diarrhea.

  “Get me a kennel,” I go, “then there won’t be dirt on the floor. Or get welfare to get me a decent house. Get all these jerks we got for neighbours off my back, then we can talk about dirt on the floor.”

  So I figure having Rob for a Dad would end all the hassle. It’s the perfect solution. That’s why we hang around his store so much. Nearly every day. Getting the nerve to go in and introduce ourselves.

  Only problem is, how do I do it? I mean, we’re total strangers to him, right? Do I march in the store and say, “Hi there, remember way back when? … A girl called Rita? … That was my mother … well, you knocked her up … ”

  Sure I’m gonna say that. Get real. That sounds like I’m some nut case out on a day pass. Like I’m brain-damaged.

  Or how ’bout: “Hey Rob, ever wonder if you had a kid someplace you didn’t know about?”

  Ha! What kind of guy is gonna own up to that?

  So that’s why I’ve been chickenshit about going in, eh? I mean, how do I start a conversation? How do I prove to him he’s my Dad? How do I tell him about us so he won’t say fuck off asshole? He could just say I’m crazy, get outa here, get lost, who’d want you for a daughter?

  This Rob, he could say anything he likes. I mean, it’s really important to me he’s my Dad and I don’t want to scare him off.

  I’d even settle for some money from him. Enough to get off welfare and start me a kennel. And maybe a visit with him now and then. That’d be okay. You know, like at Christmas? Or my birthday?

  So this Rob, he’s my number one project now. Lots of times I seen him in the store. Hanging stuff on the racks. Dusting all the guns he’s got in a glass case behind the counter. Helping customers. One time I saw him walking down Beacon Avenue around lunch time. Me and Christian and the baby in the stroller, we wheeled around and followed him like he was a magnet. Right into the Beacon Café. Even stood behind him in the take-out line. With my high-heeled boots on we was about the same size. He got himself a bowl of chili, two buns, a salad, and a coffee. Christian and me, we split a Coke. Sat in the booth across from him but didn’t have the nerve to say hello.

  A couple of times he’s smiled at me through the window but not like he knew me or anything. The same kind of smile he gives the guys who buy guns and fishing rods.

  And I can’t stop thinking about him. Rob. Like where does he live and how it’ll be when he knows I’m his daughter. And all the stuff he’ll give us outa the store. And all of us going to the Beacon Café
for lunch. And how he’s buying.

  So we was going along like this for a couple of weeks. Hanging out front of the store and smiling at Rob when we could see him. You know, trying to get him used to us and hoping pretty soon he’d want to meet us.

  And then last Monday something really weird happened. Something that’s like made the whole story a whole lot more interesting. For me anyways.

  We was standing out front the store like usual. Killing time. Waiting to go down the welfare office. Our cheque was supposed to be in at ten.

  The baby, she was asleep in her stroller and Christian, he had his Hot Wheels car, going vroom vroom back and forth on the window ledge. Rob, I could see him, he was inside behind the counter working at some papers.

  I was just gonna say to Christian, come on Christian, I guess we stood here long enough for one day, when out the store in a big hurry comes this fat old broad. Purple sweatsuit, frizzy grey hair. Comes right up to me.

  She’s got this mean look on her face and she says, “Can I help you?” Acting like she owns the place.

  You got to see her. One of these sour jobs. All squished-up face like a social worker I had once. Doesn’t take me two seconds to hate her.

  So I says to her, “No thanks, we’re just standing here deciding which parked car we’re gonna steal.” I thought it was funny.

  But she didn’t. She’s sucking lemons. “Well,” she says, “you been hanging out front the store quite a lot lately and if you don’t have business here then you’d better leave.”

  “It’s a free country,” I go, or some such garbage. “I can stand here if I want to.”

  Then she goes off on this big speech, eh? About how the front of the store is her property and how I’m trespassing and if I want to hang out somewheres why don’t I go to the park down the wharf?

  And I’m looking the other way, not at her, like I used to do at Alderwood, to all the workers. Pretending I’m deaf. Acting like it’s all one big gi-normous yawn till finally I gets sick of her yapping and tells her to fuck off which I probably shouldn’t a done ’cause then she gets all twisted and red in the face and starts screaming at us right there on the street. Screaming about my language and what kind of mother would talk like that and how we’re all alike—whatever that means—and on and on till finally I says, “Well, I got a right to be here. I know Rob,” figuring that would shut her up. What an idiot thing to say. Does Sybilla ever keep her trap shut? Like shoot my brains out and I still wouldn’t know I was dead.

  So this old bag goes, “What Rob?”

  “Rob inside,” I go, trying to sound as mean as she looks. “Rob who owns the store.”

  “I own the store,” she says, “and there is no Rob. That’s just the name of the store when I bought it.”

  “Yeah sure,” I go, “well who’s that?” And I’m pointing past her through the window.

  So this old broad turns around and has herself a look, eh? Then she laughs, a snarly kind of laugh. “That’s Earl,” she says. “Earl who works for me. What you want with Earl?”

  “Don’t give me that shit,” I says ’cause I don’t believe her one bit and then Christian starts bawling and grabbing my leg. “Now look what you’ve done,” I’m shouting. “You’ve scared my kid. I could get the cops after you for child abuse, you know, frightening little kids.”

  And I picks up Christian to make it look good and by now people are slowing down and stopping on the sidewalk, having a look at us.

  The old bag turns around then shaking her head and storms back in the store. Slams the door so hard the little bell comes crashing onto the sidewalk. And the people who was watching us? After a few minutes, they just kind of melt away.

  Then I’m just like Christian, I can’t stop bawling. Standing there on the sidewalk out front of Rob’s store I’m bawling like an idiot. Everything’s got so mixed up. Everything’s got so crazy.

  So the only thing I can figure to do, eh? Is stay standing there till I’m good and ready to leave. No old bag is gonna scare me off, I’m thinking. No douche-bag pushes Sybilla around and gets away with it.

  So we stand there for maybe another fifteen minutes just to make our point. Don’t even turn around and look in the store window though I can tell the old bag is gunning me, watching every move I make.

  And when we finally start heading down Beacon Avenue it’s because I want to. Not because we’ve been told to leave. It’s because it’s ten by now and our cheque’s in down at the welfare office.

  So that’s what we do next, eh? Get my cheque then head over to the pet store to get it cashed. So what if I blew it all on fish? Well, nearly all of it. That’s my business.

  Tropical fish. And all the junk that goes with them. The tank. Food. Little castles that go in the tank. And special white rocks that come in a plastic bag. I got six of them. We got so much stuff we had to take a taxi home.

  So it’s four days later and we’re still hanging out front ROB’S GUNS & AMMO. I figure that old bag was lying to me. About Rob being Earl. About it being her store. About everything. She’s got it in for me, that I know for sure. And I still figure Rob’s my Dad. It won’t be long before he figures it out, too. Then everything’ll be okay. Don’t ask me how I know this, I just do.

  So far the old bag has hassled us no more but I seen her peeking at us a couple of times. From behind a rack of ski jackets. And Rob, I still see him every day. Not paying much attention to us. Working away in his store.

  A couple of times a cop car has gone by real slow, having a good look at us standing out front. Hasn’t done nothing yet. And Miss Hopeless the other day? She asks me how come I was hanging around Rob’s so much. But do I talk to workers? Do I spill my guts for free? You already know the answer to that one.

  So it’s giving me a big laugh. I mean all these people hovering around—the cops, Miss Hopeless, the old bag—they’re just like the fish in my new tank. Doing all this quiet cruising. Day after day. Just waiting to see what old Sybilla’s gonna do next. Holding their breaths, all nervous, in case I go strange on them.

  But maybe you think I’m cracked, eh? All this stuff about Rob being my Dad? Well, all I got to say about that is: blow it out your ear. I’m like one of my dogs with a bone when I know a thing for sure. I won’t ever let go of it no matter what. No one’s gonna change my mind about Rob. Not in a million years. Not ever. So don’t even try.

  THE LONELIEST SOUND YOU’LL EVER HEAR

  Jimmy Silvey rides the range. This time he’s in a bar drinking alone, the tall, rumpled-looking man in the corner by the pool table watching the three Indian women. They wear different combinations of black and purple like a bruise and give Jimmy Silvey quick, sharp looks that are not meant to be noticed. He nurses his beer, pretending to ignore them, and listens to their conversation. Mostly they are saying what a bastard some guy called Lewis is and then they begin a game of pool. They take a long time choosing their pool cues, all the while pulling at their sweaters like some kind of signal and blowing cigarette smoke out of their nostrils like mad horses. Jimmy takes the one in the middle, the fat one, not usually chosen, Carol-Ann. And leaves her somewhere in northern Alberta before the child comes.

  Another time. Coming home to his mother’s dump after two years of wandering. Wheeling his ruined blue pick-up off the ferry and out into the cool grey drizzle, his aged dog wheezing on the seat beside him, her old tail wagging as soon as they hit the coast and Jimmy Silvey, bringing his dog home to die and himself home to rest a while.

  He can see himself in his lone truck, rainwater flying up from the wheels as he crests the quiet town below, the lone stranger riding through the deserted October streets, a silent man out of nowhere and with nothing but the contents of his saddle bag, a sensitive man with a dying dog and an old mother, his collar turned up and his baseball cap pulled low against the big thoughts eating up his brain and the small adventures squeezing out his soul, riding into town on this desolate Sunday morning, the only sounds, the rain splatting h
is tires, his wheezing dog, the suck of his cigarette.

  To plead his case. Only that his soul is a boiling black cloud that won’t be stayed, a train that’s moving on. Away but never to a thing. The smooth, vacant road, he says, it calls, he’s got to wander. The loneliest sound you’ll ever hear is the wind high up in the cold firs that line Jimmy Silvey’s road, is the thin, distant cry from Carol-Ann in the bare motel room, her heart slowly tearing.

  Ultimately the heart. The heart of Jimmy Silvey, his reason why. He cannot answer the question precisely, never having had any luck in this world. Cheerless drifter. Blown like dust before the wind, whirlpools of ugly emotions, blown by his own restless soul across arid landscapes, through empty, haunting forests. To land in dry unexpected places. Moving on.

  At times to his mother. Having lost all sense of him, year after year, never knowing when he’ll turn up. Jimmy Silvey parks his truck on the wet grass in front of his mother’s house and quiets the dog who has struggled to sit up, a look of expectation on her face. A large heavy dog, her face covered with white hairs, her tail thumping on the ripped vinyl seat.