THEN
Réjean thought a lot about Martin’s suggestion. He devoted so much time to it, in fact, that it started to distract him from his home life. He would disconnect from Agathe and disappear into his mind, where he tried to come up with a suitable hobby. He had the physical power of three or four men and enjoyed being the guy people called when a tree needed to be moved off a trapped co-worker or someone needed to reach something high up. He was also grateful for his size when he saw the light that brightened Agathe’s sometimes-sad face as he whisked her off her feet and spun her around in the kitchen. He loved being a big man. Perhaps his hobby could incorporate his size.
Because he was generally content and even-tempered, he had never gotten angry enough to want to inflict the harm of which he was capable. Violence was bad and it would disappoint Agathe, but years of being treated with the deference of men had made him curious to see what they so feared.
He closed his eyes one day while he was out in the woods and tried to picture what it would feel like to fully exert his force upon a deserving target, but could not come up with sufficient cause. He tried to think of something that made him so angry that the only imaginable recourse would be the unleashing of violence, but found it impossible to fully immerse himself in a fantasy without absolute verisimilitude. His fantasies had to be feasible within his world, and the most hatefully realistic image he could summon up—the most repulsive and rage-inducing tableau conceivable—was of another man forcing himself on Agathe. Réjean’s body began to pulse with fury the moment it occurred to him. The attacker would be from the city, with long yellow hair and a moustache, Réjean decided—but not a thick, sensuous one like his own. It would be thin and manicured, extending down into a thin, manicured beard, a style of facial hair worn by men Réjean considered untrustworthy. The man would wear a leather jacket and leather pants with heavy, buckled boots. He would be rugged, but arrogantly fashionable. Réjean hated him.
He pictured the man pulling up to the driveway in a dirty Ford F-100 during the morning while Réjean was at work, parking it under the trees near the road. In the fantasy, Agathe was at the counter rolling out dough for one of her meat pies, wearing a velour track suit, the kind she’d taken to wearing since her midsection had begun to expand. The top of the man’s head appeared at the kitchen window, revealing his receding hairline, then the ungroomed brows, then the eyes that locked on Agathe as she kneaded the floured pastry. His head disappeared from the window, and the knob of the front door turned so quietly she could not hear it over her own humming. He entered the kitchen and stood still for a moment, just breathing, drawing excitement from being undetected. He moved slowly, speeding up as he reached her, grabbing her with one hand over her mouth, his other arm holding her middle section just as she turned at the sound of him. She tried to scream, but only made a muffled sound with her nose. Her eyes rolled left and right as she tried to get a look at him. In his mind, Réjean saw the big kitchen knife on the counter, but Agathe was too shocked to think to use it. The man’s hand moved up to her breasts and caressed them in a taunting way as he whispered ugly words to her in English. Then he flung her from standing at the counter to lying spread-eagle, face down on the kitchen table. Agathe squirmed on the table, and the man grabbed her hands, leaving her legs free to kick the air. He became angry at her resistance and turned her on her back and shook her until she lay still and sobbed under his hand. He brought his terrible moustache close to her face and grunted as he fumbled with the top of her pants. Agathe’s face was streaked with tears as she peered toward the kitchen window, seeking help in the thick pines outside.
This was the moment Réjean pulled up in the Silverado, having realized at work that he had forgotten his tool belt on the bedside table after a game they’d played the night before. For the sake of realism, his mind flashed to an image of his tool belt next to the reading lamp. He slowed down as he approached the driveway and knew from the Ford parked on the road that something was wrong.
He made for the front door with a few strides of his massive legs, and through the window his eyes connected with Agathe’s, which filled with relief. He punched the door right off its hinges and it crashed down on the kitchen floor, startling the attacker. He grabbed the man by the back of his leather jacket, pulled him off Agathe, spun him around, and drove his head and shoulders into the wall. The man fell to the floor, and Réjean stood over him, pressing his boot down on the attacker’s chest. He spat on the man before picking him up and swinging him around the kitchen by his boots, smashing his head into the door frame. The man’s face poured blood and he was losing consciousness. Having no desire to torture him, but only to employ every ounce of his strength in pulverizing him, Réjean continued smashing the man’s head against the door frame until it popped right off.
It was at this moment that Réjean opened his eyes, his pulse racing and every nerve in his body tingling. He closed his eyes again to resume the dream as he released his grip on the attacker’s feet. The man’s heavy, leather-clad body thumped to the floor, and Réjean stepped out of the way so as not to get blood on his workboots. Agathe leaped into his arms and he held her close. She cried and laughed, touching his face, and he held hers in his hands as he kissed the tracks of her tears.
He had never felt so alive.
More and more often, Réjean pulled over to the side of the highway on his way home from work to indulge in his hobby. Behind the wheel of the Silverado was the place he most enjoyed daydreaming. He sometimes lost himself so completely that when he opened his eyes, he was late for dinner and had to make up an excuse. He hated lying to Agathe and vowed each time to be more careful. He tried not to practise his hobby while he was at home, but sometimes in bed, while Agathe was lying asleep in his armpit, he would drift off into vivid reveries of her attack and squeeze her so hard she would wake up. He would tell her he dreamed he was falling.
One night, he stopped in at a service station to fill up the Silverado. When he went inside to pay, two men were standing ahead of him at the cash, disputing with the attendant. They looked like they were from the city. One was big and bald with a bushy red beard, and the other had a mane of curly golden hair, on top of which sat a cowboy hat. Both of them wore leather jackets and cowboy boots. The service station didn’t carry their brand of cigarettes and they were loudly attributing the oversight to small-town ignorance. They asked what, of the shit the store did carry, might be similar to their brand. The attendant replied that he was sorry, but he didn’t know because he didn’t smoke. The men laughed uproariously and turned to solicit Réjean’s participation. They had to crane their necks to find his face above them and when they did, Réjean saw the blond man’s thin, manicured beard. They went quiet as he focused his attention on the man’s face. The man turned, politely ordered any old brand of cigarettes, and paid for their gas. As they waited for their change, Réjean stepped forward, reached out a finger, and nudged up the back brim of the blond man’s hat so that the front covered his eyes. When he saw the man’s shoulders stiffen, Réjean paused, and then, with languorous precision, continued tipping the brim of the hat upward until it flipped off the man’s head and landed face up on the counter with a floof.
The bald man made for the door. Réjean heard an engine starting up in the parking lot, and the blond man stood rigidly, looking down at his hat. He reached slowly for his cigarettes and took a tentative step sideways, then another, until he was out of Réjean’s reach, and then broke into a run, leaving the hat and his change.
Réjean paid the grateful attendant, shrugged, said, “Beunh,” and picked up the hat.
In the driveway at home, he put on the hat and cocked it before getting out of the truck. When Agathe opened the door, he plopped it on her head, and while the mashed potatoes browned on top of a shepherd’s pie in the oven, they played a cowgirl game where she tied him to one of the kitchen chairs.
After the gas station, Réjean became bolder. The feeling of his own dominance exhilarated
him, and public places became fertile ground for his new hobby. He had stopped to pick up a can of coffee on his way home from work when a dirty brown Ford F-100 squealed into the lot and pulled in right next to him, loudly playing rock and roll music. His heart sped up. The windows of the truck were rolled halfway down, because the exposed glass was too dirty to see out of. The driver turned off the engine but remained in the truck, singing along to the guitar solo.
Weow, weow, weow, meeoh, weeeeeeeeeeeoh.
When the song faded out, Réjean watched cautiously as the man stepped down from the cab. He was an army man, wearing a camouflage jacket and pants. He was big, but not as big as Réjean. He headed into the store, drumming his thighs. Réjean hated the man’s choice of music, but what really got him was the truck. He sat for a moment until it overcame him, and as calmly as he could with all the adrenaline flowing through his veins, he walked around to the driver-side door, licked his finger, and underneath the window wrote, LAVE-MOI.
He felt this to be a badge of the deepest shame. How could anyone let their vehicle get so dirty—even if it was a Ford? He climbed back into the Silverado, rolled down his window and tried to calm his heart as he waited for the man’s return. When the man reappeared carrying a box of cereal, he slowed down, absorbing the offence. He looked up through the two sets of rolled-down windows, and into Réjean’s eyes. He looked hurt, but not the least bit afraid. He had a sympathetic and admittedly handsome face, with a fine, slender nose and elegantly turned nostrils. It was a face that had been so carefree just moments ago when he pulled into the lot. This left Réjean with the difficult decision of what to do with his own face. The man’s lack of fear made him writhe. Perhaps if the man could see the size of him, it would solve things, so Réjean opened the door and unfolded his legs from the cab, dangling them for effect before letting his boots touch the ground. He stretched his long, long arms so the man could take him in, and strolled on into the store, feeling the man’s eyes follow him closely. From inside the store, he glanced out the window to find the Ford gone.
There was a cloud of regret obscuring his enjoyment. He had never felt like a bully before. There had been no reason to provoke the man, and now LAVE-MOI didn’t strike him as clever at all, but a cruel and unwarranted assault on another man’s vehicle—particularly someone who had devoted himself to the protection of their country’s freedom. Agathe would be disappointed. He climbed back into the Silverado and headed home, knowing she would want to play a pretending game when he got there, reminding himself how little he deserved it.
NOW
Tony’s and Wood’s laughter roared from the showroom Monday morning as Agathe tied on her smock, and in its midst, one unmistakable brassy blond cackle.
Agathe held her breath. She slipped into the showroom to see the backs of Tony and Wood and the front of Debbie, who was seated on the corner of a display table in a miniskirt, eating pudding out of a container with her finger. Wood’s hair was wet. Agathe headed straight for the consoles at the back. Tony nodded, spellbound, as Debbie continued.
“So at halftime, I’m just about to go out back with the girls for a drink behind the bleachers and Becky taps me on the shoulder and says this guy is trying to get my attention. So I look and there’s this executive CEO-type guy waving at me from the front row of seats, and I go ‘Me?’ and he’s nodding, so I go over and he says that he’s had his eye on me for a few games now and asks if I want to go and watch the game from up the Executive Box, ‘coz, he says a girl like me deserves nice things. He says they have some thing up there, and I say, I don’t even know what that is, and he says it’s some kind of expensive champagne and that he’s never seen a cheerleader as pretty as me.”
The air hummed.
“So I tell the girls I’m going with this guy, and they’re all like, ‘Oh my god.’ The game is like twelve to zero and people are leaving at halftime anyway. So we go up the Executive Box, which is this swanky room with wood panelling and couches and it looks over the field and so there’s buckets filled with ice and all kinds of beer and wine and that champagne with the name I don’t know and so he opens a bottle of that and I ask for a beer. So I’m sitting on his lap on the couch and he’s telling me about his wife and how they never do it and how they haven’t done it since they had their last kid (who’s nine) and I’m like, ‘You poor baby.’ So the game is still going on and I say, ‘Do you want to see a trick?’”
Agathe stopped her duster in mid-fluff.
“So there’s this trick I can do where I drink a whole beer, bottle or can, without using my hands, and not spill a drop. So I go over to the cooler and get another beer and open it and I straddle him on the couch and I put the beer between my tits and lean back. And I’m drinking and he’s laughing, and so my head is almost between my heels and then I fall right off the couch onto the floor. I got Schooner all over my mink. It was hilarious.”
Debbie laughed, Tony laughed a moment after, Wood opened his mouth, but nothing came out, and Agathe wandered to the next planter, murmuring, “Schooner all over my mink…”
Debbie tossed her pudding container in the garbage as the door sensor went bing bing and a young couple dragged in a set of big wooden speakers and a stereo. Debbie clicked over to greet them.
“Whaddya got there?” she asked, wrapping her arms around the console the man held. A little startled by her nearness, he told her it was a Rebirdo TK3520 and a set of Mandios. He and his wife had gotten them as a wedding gift ten years ago and were looking to upgrade, but the equipment was in perfect working order.
“Let’s have a look,” Debbie said, lugging the console across the floor to a power outlet. The man and woman briskly picked up a speaker each and followed her. She plugged the stereo into the test outlet and from behind the unit said, “I’ll bet the red wire goes into this red notchy thing and the black one goes into the black notchy thing…”
She came around to the front, crouched down, and turned on the power. The sound of a talk-radio announcer embroiled in a heated exchange with a caller came from the right speaker. Wood and Tony looked on in reserved awe, as did the husband. His wife rolled her eyes.
“Your left speaker’s broken, sweetheart,” said Debbie from the floor.
“Yeah, sorry. Right,” he said.
“Okay, I’ll give you twenty bucks for the whole thing,” Debbie said, straightening up and tugging her skirt back down.
“Twenty!”
“Nobody uses these components anymore, hon, and you have a busted left speaker. We’ll be lucky if we can sell these at all. But you can certainly take them somewhere else and see if they’ll buy them.”
“There’s nowhere else in town.”
Debbie shrugged and smiled, laying a twenty-dollar bill from the register on the counter and draping her breasts over her folded arms. The man grabbed the twenty from the counter and nearly ran out of the store. His wife followed him with ominous languor.
Agathe thought her heart would fly out her mouth.
“Do you have a screwdriver?” asked Debbie, back behind the speakers.
“What?” said Wood.
“You have to take these apart to get to the insides,” she said, “and I’m gonna need a screwdriver.”
“We, I—no, I don’t know,” said Wood. “No. We wouldn’t. Why would we?”
Debbie began rifling through a drawer and instantly produced a screwdriver. She crouched down on her hands and knees and started turning the screws on the back of the speaker. She looked for a minute at the insides, then reached in and pulled out two wires covered in yellow plastic. She picked at them with her nails until a split formed in the covering, peeled it back to expose the naked wires, twisted them around each other, and hit the radio switch again. The sound of the quarrel between the announcer and caller belted forth loudly with perfect clarity from both speakers, one carrying the announcer, the other the caller. Debbie reached for the dial and switched it decisively to the right. The moment her fingers released it, the speake
rs declared that now they were messing with a sonofabitch.
“Hell yeah,” said Debbie, bobbing her head with the cowbell.
Tony’s mouth hung shamelessly ajar while Wood crossed—then uncrossed—his arms.
Euphoria surged through Agathe, radiating from her soul to the tips of her hair. It was rock and roll, wholly personified in Debbie.
Debbie mussed her hair back into place and said, “I’m going out for a smoke.” Then to Agathe, “Wanna come?”
“Ben oui!” said Agathe.
“I…” said Wood.
“For every two and a half hours we work,” said Tony, “we get fifteen minutes. Then half an hour at lunch. We shouldn’t really have a break until ten-thirty.”
“I have an addiction.” Debbie beamed and spun on her heels toward the staff room.
Debbie was a sonofabitch.
Debbie stood on the loading dock, smoking in her down-filled parka. The scar on her chin made a little dimple as she smiled at Agathe. “So how long have you worked here?” Debbie asked.
“Six mois,” said Agathe.
“How do you stand it with those guys?” she asked. “Jesus.”
Agathe laughed. “Ben c’est un show, là,” she said. “Ça passe de time.”
They stood in silence for a moment, Debbie exhaling like a queen, nodding.
“Do you like to party?” asked Debbie.
Agathe nodded vigorously. “Ah oui, oui.” Whatever it was, she was sure she’d love it.
I Am a Truck Page 5
