Off to the side of the bar was an empty dance floor, though a semicircle of women danced just next to it. At the back of the bar, in a sort of alcove, was an area that looked to be intended for custodial use—Agathe instinctively identified the mop leaning against the wall by the self-wringing handle. The alcove also contained a pool table and a cigarette machine, and a few scattered tables. In the far corner a man sat alone at one of them. His attire looked vaguely industrial. Agathe had almost scanned past him when her stomach leaped into her throat. His clothes weren’t industrial, they were military. He was drinking from a brown bottle, singing, and nodding his head with the momentum of the song. He really approved of this song. There wasn’t much to do with this one, except agree.
Something about him was so unreal. It was hard to imagine him speaking or eating, doing things normal people do. Stranger still was that no one else seemed to notice him. Even though he was singing—even though he was singing passionately—he didn’t seem to want anyone’s attention. It was just for him.
Agathe shrank back behind Debbie’s hair and spied on him as a tinkling electronic keyboard started up the next song. Agathe sighed. The slow ones took forever, and were all about love, which she tried not to think about. In this one, someone had never needed love like he needed her.
Debbie turned from her networking to Agathe. “This is Sheriff,” she said. “They’re Canadian!”
Agathe shook a cigarette from her pack and lit it as couples started vacating the back tables for the dance floor, leaving the army man starkly conspicuous and easy to watch past Debbie’s hair. When the song came to the chorus, the man opened his eyes, raised a gentle fist and sang, long and heartfelt, “BAY-bay-eeyay-eeyayay, oo I get chills when I’m with you, owhoa whoa, owhoa whoa.”
It was a perfect Baby: loud and explosive and precisely the way it was supposed to sound. Of course the army man understood Baby. Of course he did. Baby was one of Agathe’s favourite parts of rock and roll. It was a word she almost never used, except when Réjean was being one. Baby was what you called the person you fought to love. It had a tragic, sexy overtone: Baby please don’t go. Baby Imma want you. Baby come back. Baby made you do crazy things. You had to earn Baby with a certain amount of abandon that she now wondered if she and Réjean had ever had.
The man was just reaching the end of the last oooooo of the chorus when she saw him squint at her past Debbie’s hair. The man quickly closed his eyes and began to sing the next verse, which he did with even more conviction than the first one. When the next chorus came, he turned his body toward her, drummed the air, pointed, and sang straight to her, “BAY-bay-eeyay-eeyayay oo I get chills when I’m with you, owhoa whoa, owhoa whoa.”
It was too much. Agathe finally laughed and the man grinned and turned slightly away from her and drummed the air for the next Baby.
When he came to the final falsetto—when I’m with youuuuuuuuu, ooo, OO—he turned and delivered it straight to her. She laughed again, but with the end of the song, wasn’t sure what to do next. A harder song started up, devouring the last tender strains.
Dun dudda dun dudda dun dudda dun dudda dun dudda dun dudda dun…
Sonofabitch, thought Agathe, relieved.
This one was about Nazareth taking a flight they shouldn’t have gotten on, and was written by Joni Mitchell, whom Debbie said was a Holy Entity. The man must like this one, too. Agathe peeked past Debbie again, but where the army man had been, there was only an empty bottle.
“Hey! Crazy Yellow Guy! No way!” Debbie shouted.
Agathe turned to watch the crazy guy in the yellow raincoat from the mall head out the door. The army man was nowhere in sight.
THEN
Saturday morning, Réjean had been staring at the ceiling, amending his fishing lie since two a.m., when the rain started. Now it was getting light out and there was no break in the downpour.
He hadn’t heard back from Martin about the gun. It had only been a day, but he didn’t feel he could leave it any longer. He’d realized the foolishness of the request as soon as the words left his mouth. Smart guys like Martin didn’t do things like buy guns. He almost wished he hadn’t asked, but couldn’t help it; whenever he needed advice these days, he found himself taking the turnoff for the Chevy dealership. He wished he had told Martin about his hobby earlier. Perhaps Martin could have offered him some guidance, but it was too late now for advice. For the first time in his life, Réjean felt fear. He could barely function at work, and nearly walked away from a falling tree before the panicked shouts of the team brought him back. He had been sleeping with one eye open since the Lobster Shack parking lot. Gun or no gun, he needed to find the man and let him know that if he came near Agathe again, he would be killed.
Réjean turned to look at Agathe, gently snoring, and tried to remember the time before he had ever told her a lie. She had been unexpectedly happy when he told her the men from work had invited him to go fishing. While it was a terrible lie, he had run through the feasibility of it in his head and come up with enough justification to make it work. The main problems, namely his disinterest in fishing and the onset of autumn, could be explained away as the catalysts for the invitation: Réjean had never gone fishing with them and the season was almost over. This would be their last chance that year, and they had insisted.
From what Réjean understood about fishing, it took a long time. Long enough for him to find the man and do whatever needed to be done. He might need to hurt him, and the idea made him physically sick.
As he watched Agathe sleep, he reminded himself to show only negligible disappointment and tell her that people fished in the rain all the time, that the fish would be more plentiful, because they came out in greater numbers when it rained, figuring all the fishermen would be at home.
When it rained on a workday for Réjean, he and the guys on the crew would pack up and head back to the mill, where they would drink coffee and play Forty-Fives. On those days, Agathe would send Réjean to work with a dozen of her date squares. Often, as they made love on the kitchen floor, he would describe to her just what an animal frenzy her date squares aroused in the guys from work.
“Tes carrés de dates…” he would murmur in her ear.
Réjean brushed the hair from Agathe’s eyes and, still asleep, she blindly swatted his hand and covered her face.
Over breakfast, he found it hard to stick to his intentions and caught himself sighing, then trying to cover by upwardly inflecting it into a happy sigh, the kind you might hear from someone who was looking forward to going fishing.
As she prepared his sandwiches, Agathe eyed him. He eyed her back from beneath his brows as he picked up crumbs, one by one, from the table with his finger.
She stopped and turned. “Aie, ça va, mon amour?”
He rose from the table and wrapped his arms around her where she stood with a butter knife in one hand and the lid of the mustard in the other. “Oui, oui,” he said. “Tu vas me manquer, c’est tout,” and he held her tighter, enveloping her completely, miserable.
As he guided the Silverado cautiously through the pouring rain, Réjean glanced down at his hands on the wheel and tried to picture the impact of his fist against the army man’s face. He winced and tried to envision another scene, one where they calmly discussed the situation and reached a compromise, but when he thought back on the man shouting at Agathe from the window of his truck, that seemed unlikely.
The first part of the plan was clear enough: find the F-100. He peered through the windshield at every vehicle on the road, looking for dirty brown trucks. He would check back at the places he’d previously seen the man, and other places in town, like Convenience Place Mall, but he would also check places that an army man might spend time, like the racetrack or the hospital. If all else failed, there was a military base two townships over, although the idea of surrounding himself with other army men didn’t seem like a smart thing to do. Réjean concentrated and imagined the next step. Once he had found the truck, he wou
ld have to approach the man and say something like “Scusez” or “Monsieur, un moment.” Or perhaps a plain “Hé.” Or maybe he’d just grab him by the collar, pin him against the side of his truck, and get straight to threatening him. If Réjean caught him by surprise, the man may not have time to remember he wasn’t afraid.
The perfect outcome would be to avoid a physical altercation entirely. They would talk. What if Réjean apologized for writing LAVE-MOI on the man’s truck? What if he apologized profusely? “Je me confounds en excuses,” he would say. He already felt legitimate regret at having hurt the man’s feelings, so he wouldn’t even be pretending. He could say something even more contrite, like, “Chus tellement sorry, là. J’aurais pas dû écrire sur votre truck. C’était pas nice, ça.” Everyone loved an apology. He tried to picture a softening in the man’s face with the appreciation that Réjean had sought him out, a stranger, all the way across town, just to apologize. Then the man would leave Agathe alone.
He looked down again at his hands on the wheel, still free from brutality. Kind hands. Loving, useful hands. And as he struggled with images of what he might have to do with them, his wedding ring caught his eye and he nearly drove off the road.
Their anniversary.
White-knuckled, he stared into the oncoming sheets of rain.
It was next week. He had to make something for her. He’d completely forgotten, with his hobby taking up all his time.
Normally, he would take the exit just off the old road and feel the calm wash over him as the big blue sign with the golden Chevrolet crest loomed into view, but Réjean felt too ashamed to go back and ask Martin’s advice again. The only thing to do was drive, and think, and look for the Ford. As he was doing all those things, he spotted a set of headlights stopped at the side of the road. Coming closer, he identified the vehicle as a Ford, but not an F-100; this one was new and blue, its hood open with a plume of smoke rising from within. Réjean hesitated, but could not ignore a distressed vehicle, Ford or not.
When Martin got home from the Colonel’s, tingling with disbelief, he sat down at the kitchen table with the gun. He couldn’t stop looking at it. It was truly beautiful. He turned it this way and that on his autumn-scene placemat. He picked it up, aimed it at the refrigerator, and said, “Attention.”
He put it down. He picked it up again, impressed every time. It didn’t have a six-chamber holder like the cowboy guns he’d seen on TV. Instead, it had a magazine, which was easier to manage than he would have thought. You clicked it out, you clicked it back in. He took a bath with the gun on the side of the tub, and slept with it on his night table, reaching for it from time to time to make sure it was still there. But his fondness for the gun in no way outweighed his excitement at the thought of presenting it to Réjean. He would call him first thing when he got to work on Monday. He had never called him on the telephone, though he had his number on file. He would say something like “I got it,” and listen for the relief in Réjean’s voice as he said, “Merci, Martin.”
Saturday morning, he awoke to the sound of a downpour. The success of his trip to Colonel Weed’s had lifted his spirits and with the rain that now beckoned and with the promise of sloppy ground, he could think of only one way to spend this day: off-roading.
Because he couldn’t bear to leave it at home, he brought the gun along. As he donned his rain gear, the temporary owner of an implement of menace, he saw a knight shielded by an impenetrable suit of yellow armour, a waterproof crusader. Imperméable.
In the Ranger, the windshield wipers splatted back and forth, only momentarily clearing the spot of windshield in front of his eyes before closing up again into a sheet of pure water. He looked down at the gun on the passenger seat and smiled. He wondered if, when he presented it to Réjean, perhaps Réjean would pat him on the shoulder or better yet, slap him on the arm.
He had nearly reached his destination when the Ranger began to lose power. It stopped responding to his foot on the accelerator and through the rain he saw a puff of smoke rise from the hood. With his remaining momentum, he pulled over to the shoulder.
The Ranger had never given him a moment’s trouble, and he was confounded as to what could be wrong. Despite his familiarity with the features, options, and fuel consumption of trucks, he knew nothing about fixing one. He had never even changed a tire. He had, however, opened up the hoods of countless vehicles to display shiny new engines to potential buyers and knew that when your truck broke down, you checked the engine. He pulled the release latch under the dashboard and stepped down into the mud. Without any idea what to look for, he stuck his head under the open hood.
Through the hissing of the obstinate engine, he heard the crunch of tires on the gravel as another vehicle pulled up behind the Ranger. Holding his sou’wester on his head against the onslaught of rain, he ducked out and was mortified to see a shiny black Silverado looming like a mountain.
Réjean sprang from the truck and jogged toward the Ranger. Martin pulled down the rim of his sou’wester, but quickly reminded himself that only a chicken would try to hide beneath a hat. Feeling melodramatic, he squared off with Réjean and raised his chin to face him.
As he took in Martin, at first Réjean’s face lit up. But then he glanced at the Ranger, then back to Martin, then to the truck again. He slowed up, stopping dead a few feet from him, his face clouded with confusion.
At a loss, Martin said, “I don’t know what’s wrong with it.”
Réjean stood anchored to the spot, then shook his head, nodded, walked haltingly past Martin, and stuck his head beneath the hood. As Réjean stooped over the engine, Martin read a hundred things in his back, most notably, he was sure, that their friendship was over. Réjean poked around for a moment and re-emerged promptly.
“Ce n’est que le battery,” he shouted economically over the rain. “Je vais te donner un jump.”
As Réjean turned and headed back to the Silverado, he glanced again at the Ranger, then back at Martin, the rain dripping off the tip of his unprotected nose, and Martin remembered the gun still sitting in plain view on the passenger seat. He wondered if Réjean would even accept his gift now that he knew about Martin’s disloyalty to the Chevy brand.
Réjean climbed back into the Silverado and drove it down the slippery shoulder and around to the front of the Ranger so his jumper cables could reach the battery. Martin came around to where Réjean stood between the two trucks and watched ineffectually. Not only had he been caught in a lie and now felt like a sneaky fool, but he also felt overdressed and incompetent as Réjean got soaked performing a task that every man but Martin was sure instinctively to know how to do.
Réjean attached the cable clamps to his own battery and started the engine.
“Bon,” he shouted over the rain. “Try-le.”
Martin bowed his head and walked around to the driver side. As he climbed in, he reached over and quickly swept the gun off the seat onto the floor, where it sat conspicuously as Réjean walked around to the driver side to supervise.
Martin turned the key in the ignition and the engine made a coughing sound. He tried again and got the same thing.
“Laisse-moi,” Réjean said.
Martin hesitated for too long. He wanted so badly to say something but he couldn’t put the words together. This was not the way it was meant to go.
“Beunh, voyons,” said Réjean, rain cascading down his face.
Martin stepped down from the truck and looked weakly at Réjean as they traded spots. As Réjean set his boot in the door, his eyes went straight to the black object on the passenger-side floor. He lifted the rest of himself into the cab, adjusting the seat so he could fit, still gazing down. He glanced at Martin on the rainy shoulder and cocked his head just barely.
Martin stared down at the ground.
Réjean took hold of the keys and positioned his foot on the gas in preparation for the delicate jig of pedals. The engine started to cough, then turned over, then began to purr regularly. Réjean climbed
down from the truck, and Martin watched him disconnect the jumper cables, returning them to a box in the Silverado’s cab. When Réjean released the hood of the Silverado and dusted off his now greasy hands, Martin said, “Wait.”
He reached into the Ranger, plucked the gun from the floor and said, “It’s for you. The gun. You asked if I could find you one and I went out and found you one. I did that for you.”
Réjean looked from the gun to Martin to the Ford Ranger rumbling next to them. Martin dropped his gaze from Réjean’s unreadable face. Réjean finally lifted his hand and wiped the rain from his moustache. “C’nest pas un crime, Martin,” he laughed, “driver un Ford.”
And as if in a dream, he reached out a soaking hand and slapped Martin’s yellow arm. Everything was fine. He was kidding. Kidding. Of course. It was what guys did. It was all Martin had ever wanted, all his life, so when it happened he didn’t know enough to see it. He was sure that with more practice he could get it right. He desperately wished he had brought along some rum. They could have one right here on the roadside. He wanted to start over with Réjean, without the omissions and untruths.
Réjean shook his head as raindrops flew from the tips of his hair, and Martin sensed the full ridiculousness of such a secret kept this long. It struck him as extra funny when he pictured it through the eyes of a man like Réjean, and he began to chuckle himself. They stood laughing together at the roadside. He could still feel the impression of Réjean’s hand on his arm as Réjean, still chuckling, stepped back from the muddy roadside just as a transport truck flew by, taking him along, pasted to the front grille.
NOW ON
Martin stood in the rain staring down the highway, paralyzed, the gun still cradled in his outstretched hand. He didn’t know if other vehicles passed by during that time, whether it was still raining, what had just happened. But he knew that Réjean was no longer there. Most of Martin’s body twisted west, searching down the road, as though he could see through time and space and the transport truck was still receding into the distance. He pictured Réjean’s face and heard his laugh, the way he had said Martin’s name. Not only had Réjean not made a big deal out of the Ford, he thought it was funny. Martin felt empty, like the transport truck had snatched away all his insides along with Réjean.
I Am a Truck Page 8
