“That’s right, Agathe, it’s not,” said Wood. “What it is, is a sales technique. A bat? In a cage? In an electronics store? C’mon! You show me another retail outlet that’s tried it. You can’t. Because they haven’t.”
Agathe turned to the bat. “Ce soir,” she said, making a flapping motion in the air with her hand.
Tony asked if they could name the bat Atrius. He had been in a band in high school called Atrium, but Atrius was what he’d always wished they’d called themselves. He loved the sound of it. Atrius. Like a rock god.
Atrius slept for most of the day, except the moments when Agathe looked over to find his frightened eyes on her. She nodded back in assurance and watched as the customers, one after another, approached his cage and turned away, confused. They knew. They knew bats didn’t belong in cages—in broad daylight. But nobody said anything.
At closing time, Wood passed Atrius on his way to the door and chuckled one last time, shaking his head.
“Bat…” he said.
Agathe locked up with Atrius watching her, unblinking. When she approached the cage, he fluttered his wings, clutching the perch upside down. She reached for the latch, then thought of the rafters. She should take him outside, so she wasn’t chasing him around with the broom. A bat couldn’t use the automatic door.
The cage was dangling from a stand that suspended Atrius at eye level. When Agathe lifted the pedestal, the unexpected weight displacement caused the cage to tilt, releasing it from the hook and sending it rolling across the floor. She hurried over, waving her hands, “Je m’excuse,” she whispered. “Je m’excuse.”
He’d been knocked from the perch and was struggling to right himself and untangle his wings. When she crouched down to pick him up and her shadow fell over him, he turned upward to face her, his eyes wide, and began frantically beating his wings against the bars.
“Non, non,” she said, and pointed at the front doors, but he wouldn’t look at the front doors. She leaned in again and went to put her hands on either side of the cage, but he started flapping so hard, she took her hands away and held them up to show him.
“Voyons,” she said. “Ce n’est que moi.” He suddenly flew at the bars, pushing his face against them, biting, his lips curled back in a horrible hiss. Something had changed in him. There was none of the softness in the eyes that had watched her all day. Now he looked angry. He looked like he wanted to bite her.
She sat back on her heels and watched him thrash. If she released him now, he’d swoop right up and bite her face. She sucked in her breath, pinched the loop of the cage from the floor without touching the rest, and dropped it back on the hook.
He was shaking his head like a dog, baring his teeth, hissing. It was then she remembered the raccoon in the back garden when she was a girl, and her father with a brick and a pillowcase. La rage. He’d ordered her back inside, but she remembered the teeth.
The more she watched Atrius pitch and hiss, the clearer it became that she couldn’t let him go.
Surely Garvey had dealt with bats in this state. Surely he could take it back and release it where it would be safe.
The wail of the Shop-Vac drowned out the leathery flapping of his wings, but she felt his eyes on her back.
The next morning, Atrius lay curled up in the bottom of his cage, blinking. His eyes sought Agathe as she, Tony, and Wood gathered around.
“Dammit,” said Wood. “We’re going to need another bat.” And he called Garvey.
Agathe looked into Atrius’s eyes, the same gentle ones that had followed her all day yesterday. He wasn’t snarling or agitated. Just finished. He had flapped himself out.
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” Wood shouted into the telephone. “Sonofabitch,” he announced after he’d hung up. “Turns out you’re not supposed to put ’em in cages. Kills ’em. We’d have to get a new bat every few days. Sonofabitch.”
Tony went to hoist the cage and take it out back, but Agathe put her hand on his arm.
“Non,” she said. “C’est fragile.”
Out on the loading dock, she unhooked the cage from the stand, sat down on the smoking bench, and rested Atrius in her lap. He was rolled over to one side with his toes curled up. She caressed the metal bars and closed her eyes. “Je m’excuse,” she said. She lifted the latch of the door and opened it to the sky. Atrius blinked.
She sat with him a while longer, rocking him in her lap. When she finally had to go inside, she set his cage in the sunny spot by the door.
Tony came in with the empty cage a few hours later and brought it down to the Possibility Pile.
From then on, Atrius was her burden every night in the dark, with the Shop-Vac and his little ghost.
THEN
Martin had been writing up his daily sales report when there was a knock on the door of the portable. Réjean entered without saying a word, sat down in his chair, and heaved a sigh that Martin could only read as a plea for inquiry. He gingerly put down his pen.
Réjean was spinning around in his chair, arms hanging limply at his sides, head back, gazing at the ceiling like a teenager. Martin couldn’t sound out whether he was ready to share or not. Réjean had been distracted lately, and Martin struggled with the desire to ask him about it, but worried about crippling the friendship with inappropriate closeness or upsetting its balance in any way.
“C’est une crise, Martin,” said Réjean at last.
Martin had never had an easy time with men. He grew up painfully observing the rapport between his father, Jack Bureau, his brothers, Derek and Troy, and Jack’s omnipresent companion and next-door neighbour, Roy Doake, when they would assemble in the basement for one of their Meetings.
Meetings were understood to be for the purpose of grown-up men to address pressing issues. Martin knew, of course, that they were for goofing off and drinking rum. Lamb’s Navy. Theirs was a cousinage de plaisanterie, where custom rendered every man free to tease the other past the point of civility, with immunity for none, and no right to feeling hurt. But the fun was not extended to Martin. He felt his exclusion so acutely, it was incredible no one mentioned it.
More than anything, Martin wanted to be invited to one of his father’s Meetings. But it never happened. Jack died at dinner one Sunday while Roy and the entire family looked on. A hunk of steak lodged in his esophagus took him down in a few stifled breaths. Martin would never know the communion of a rum with his dad. Nor would he let Réjean know how much their friendship filled that need.
Martin grasped the arms of his chair and pulled himself upright. He hesitated for a moment, reached for the desk drawer, and grabbed the Lamb’s. He spilled some as he poured two healthy-sized drinks and, steadying himself, held one out to Réjean.
“Okay,” he said. And they drank.
Réjean started with a slow exhale out his nose that whistled through his moustache.
“Ben, Martin, trop c’est easy, ma vie. Tout est là, mais y’a un thing qui manque…J’sais pas.”
“Okay, something’s missing,” confirmed Martin once he felt he had given Réjean sufficient time.
Réjean nodded, then shook his head, then shrugged and said, “Beunh.”
Martin sat back. Réjean was looking for a suggestion. Martin felt he was in over his head, but he had to say something and it had to be good. He imagined offering such helpful advice to Réjean that perhaps Réjean would one day attribute his happiness to Martin’s sage counsel.
“What do you do in your spare time?” he asked. “When you’re not working or eating or sleeping.”
“Ben, je drive mon truck.”
“Okay, yes. Do you go to the movies? Do you read books?”
Réjean thought for a long time and said, “Beunh,” again. “Non.”
“Collect anything?”
“Non.”
Martin thought about his own hobby: the squeal of mud under the tires of the Ranger, the exhilaration of speed and abandon. How it picked him up when he was down, how his enjoyment of off-ro
ading solidified him as a person, made him less inconsistent and lost. But he also thought of how hard he had to work at hiding the brand he drove: parking his truck in a lot four blocks from the dealership, telling the guys he didn’t even own a vehicle, that he took the bus, because of the price of gas. It was heavy enough to carry around, but not being able to talk about his truck with Réjean made it unbearable. If anyone would understand, it would be Réjean.
“What do you find fun?” asked Martin.
Réjean thought seriously about it. He hid a smile as he pictured the game he and Agathe had played the night before, where he pretended to be her little brother, climbing into her bed seeking comfort after a nightmare. She gave him a kind of fun he would never have dreamed possible, and the idea of needing something else made him feel wretched.
“Ben, Agathe,” said Réjean. And after a moment, “Et mon truck.”
Martin was winging it, but considering the grievances he had heard from the other sales guys about money and ex-wives, Réjean’s troubles seemed minor. He wondered if the solution could be so painless. He sat back in his chair and assessed Réjean for a moment. “A man needs a hobby,” he said, with increasing confidence, “to make him feel alive.”
Réjean swivelled in his chair toward the window, taking these in as exactly the words he needed. “Un hobby…” he said, turning slowly back to Martin. “Oui! Je vais adopter un hobby.”
Martin blasted the French folk station as the windshield wipers sloshed against the pelting rain. Édith Butler was singing to him about Paquetville, which sounded like a lovely place.
This weather was perfect, producing the kind of slippery muck he really needed. He was wearing his yellow rain gear—coat, pants with suspenders, and sou’wester—standard apparel for Martin when he went off-roading. He hated getting wet, but more importantly he hated getting dirty.
Martin had learned the joys of off-road trucking from his dad. Jack Bureau had owned a towing and snow-removal business and would be called upon whenever a truck got stuck. Because he thought they’d find it fun, Jack began bringing Troy and Derek along on foul-weather tows, instilling in them an early appreciation of trucks and towing. It was agreed that Martin was too young and didn’t go in for that anyway. But whenever Jack got the call, Martin wanted desperately to be asked along. One day, the Pattersons’ station wagon got stuck in the front ditch, and as Derek and Troy grabbed their jackets, Martin appeared in the kitchen doorway, dressed in his rain gear. Jack hesitated only briefly before leading him out the door.
Parked in front of the Pattersons’ house, Martin watched, squashed between Troy and Derek, as his father hitched up the truck to the distressed wagon. When they were yanked back in their seats at the first victorious jerk, Derek and Troy hooted and hollered, while Martin beamed inwardly at the thrill of being in the fray.
When the job was done, Jack Bureau drove them to a nearby field and they howled with laughter, Martin included, as he drove doughnuts in the mud, the wet cows chewing disinterestedly in their direction. It was the most fun Martin had ever had.
Jack Bureau used only Ford trucks on the job. They were a strong, imposing vehicle, with a reputation for reliability in any climate and superior towing capacity. Just as Martin had learned from his dad that it was a man’s responsibility to provide for his family and stand by his friends, he learned that the Ford embodied all that was right and true.
Losing his father cemented Martin’s allegiance to the Ford brand. He vowed that in his honour, he would never drive anything but a Ford. The circumstances of his hiring by the Chevy dealership were something he couldn’t help. He hoped that if his father were still around, he would forgive his working for a competitor.
Martin’s enjoyment of an afternoon off-roading in the Ranger was a tribute to his father, and it had brought him nothing but joy until the day he met Réjean. As their friendship matured and their bond through the Chevy brand was galvanized, Martin’s secret grew more and more burdensome.
Jack Bureau would never lie to Roy about the brand of truck he drove. Martin tried to rationalize it by convincing himself that it was a different friendship. He and Réjean would never have what Jack and Roy had, by virtue of Réjean’s happy home life. He knew that Réjean wouldn’t pass over Agathe for any man, the way Jack and Roy put each other before their own wives. He decided that if Réjean had a right to live in a world that didn’t include him, so he could not be held to live by Réjean’s vehicular preference. Part of him felt righteous about this and part of him knew that secrets had no place in a friendship. He tried to keep the righteous part closer to the front. But once he reached a good, muddy stretch of ground, he found he was able to clear his mind and indulge completely in the pleasure of the Ranger’s wheels churning through the muck.
NOW
Agathe had coiled the cord around the Shop-Vac and was locking the front door when the bus appeared over the crest of the hill, promising swift delivery home to Friday night, the best and worst night of the week—two days away from Stereoblast, but two days alone in the empty house, watching for Réjean to walk through the door. She never ran for the bus, but tonight she felt so overwhelmed by the need to get home that she launched forward and sprinted for the stop, puffing, waving frantically at the driver. The bus hissed as it slowed down and she slapped her hand against its side, wheezing.
The remoteness of the cottage along the rural route meant that by the time Agathe reached her stop, she was usually the only passenger remaining on the bus. It gave her a lot of time to think, sitting in the very back, watching the road stretch farther and farther away from Stereoblast. Every so often, her heart would jump at the sight of a passing Silverado, though not the way it once did. The Silverado was, of course, home in the garage. Waiting.
She stepped down from the bus and onto the blackened stretch of gravel that led home.
At the front door, she felt the familiar thrill at seeing the thick brown envelope from the market research company on the doorstep. Sondage didn’t arrive with the other mail; it was delivered special, just for her. She picked up the envelope, set it down on the table, and rushed to make a pot of tea.
Not long after Agathe started at Stereoblast, she had been lighting her first cigarette outside the front doors of Hickey’s when a young man approached her, looking for committed smokers. When he asked Agathe her daily intake, she thought seriously before responding.
“Vingt-huit?” She didn’t want to put herself out of the running if there was a prize—particularly if it was free cigarettes. And it was. Participants were asked to smoke three packs of test cigarettes and rate their smoking satisfaction as compared to their usual brand. At first, Sondage asked Agathe questions pertaining directly to smoking: how did she feel about the taste, aftertaste, harshness, aesthetic appeal, smoke production, burn speed, length, duration, lingering effects in the throat and lungs, smell (while burning and on the breath afterwards), packaging, and overall enjoyment of the test cigarettes? She didn’t normally think about the individual components of smoking and found it compelling to fully immerse herself into the analysis of an activity she adored.
The final question of the survey asked, How do you feel about cigarettes? She responded: Je les aime. Elles sont mes amies.
From that time, she and Sondage had been building a friendship that gave her something to look forward to, occupied her mind, and made her feel close to happiness. As they grew closer, Sondage began asking more and more intimate questions. Why don’t you wear more red? Is anyone being cruel to you? Agathe would think seriously about her responses all day at work, then try and phrase them like a story she wanted Sondage to hear, in the survey’s General Comments section.
She poured her tea, sat at the kitchen table, and lit the first of the new test cigarettes. She found it much trop fort and checked box number one. She often found the sample cigarettes trop fort. The cigarette companies seemed to be always working on a stronger cigarette. If she couldn’t smoke them, she wondered who cou
ld.
She flipped to the back page and ran her hand over the empty sky blue of the General Comments box. She hovered the tip of her pen over the top left-hand corner of the box, then moved it down to the centre of the page. She hadn’t drawn a picture since Réjean had gone. Without making contact, she began circling the tip of the pen around and around, the side of her hand shooshing against the paper, until she stopped and cautiously drew a circle, closing it up at the top where it had begun. From there, she drew a series of wild squiggles ventilating out beyond the edges of the box. She pulled herself in closer to the table, rested both elbows, and brought her nose down to the page as she worked. When she sat back, Debbie stood tall as a skyscraper, shrieking with laughter as she breathed fire out both nostrils, setting ablaze a tiny Wood and Tony, who trembled beneath her. As they screamed and crackled, she lifted her blue pump and crushed them out like cigarettes. In the background, Agathe drew herself, a circle and two sticks, sitting at the wheel of a truck, ready to peel out of the Stereoblast parking lot, headed for the city. She had captured Debbie, even if it looked nothing like her: the nimbus of hair, the sporty parka. But what pleased her most was the accuracy of Debbie’s laugh: a set of radiant lines, a tuba, and a housefly.
Agathe had just started running the bathwater to wash away the week when it struck her to pull out her other drawing, the one she hadn’t looked at since Réjean had gone. From between the mattress and box spring, she pulled the bloc-notes and brought it to the kitchen table. But as she opened it up to the page with her anniversary drawing, a wave of darkness washed over her and she had to close it. Too fast. She took a breath and opened it again, trying to look at it simply as a thing. She turned her head sideways and contemplated it, then turned the page sideways and brought her head upright. It was so good, she had a hard time believing it was her own. She propped it up on the table and stood all the way back to the doorway, then through the doorway into the living room. The perspective was perfect, and the white spaces she’d left white actually looked like shiny reflections. She ran down for the empty frame in the basement and pressed her drawing into the mat. She took down the calendar filled with the days of Réjean’s absence, and hung up her drawing. Arms folded, she stood in the living room doorway as down the hall the bathwater crept past the overflow drain.
I Am a Truck Page 4
