by Anne Degrace
“Who says I’m on the road?”
She just smiles, small teeth. “Don’t worry,” she tells him. “It’s going to be okay.”
“What is?”
The girl gives him a look as if taking in his weariness, dishevelled hair, road dust, and the evidence of miles. “There’s a place I think you should go.”
Pink is confused. Is she flirting? What does she want from him? But she’s pulled a brown bag out from beside the mushroom display, and from someplace she’s produced a pencil, the old, soft, carpenter’s kind like Pink remembers Stan using, and he is flooded with nostalgia, regret. He watches her make marks on the paper, but all he can think about is Stan and Nora, and the day Stan took him into the workshop out back and together they drew up plans for a wooden go-cart. With a pencil just like that. There were times of kindness, Pink remembers. He can smell the wood shavings on the floor, see the jars and tins of nails and screws lined up at the back of the bench, see the way Stan looked at Pink when he said, “You’re really going to go places, now.”
Go places. He doesn’t think this was what Stan had in mind.
“Here.” The small brown person hands him a little map. There are no words on it, but he can see the highway and, near the top, a little drawing that looks like that diner where he met the red-haired girl, Jo, and he realizes, with a swept-under, drowning sensation, how much he wants to see her again. The feeling is overwhelming, and he blinks to bring himself back to the co-op where he stands, bananas in his hand.
It’s a bit of a hike through the woods, she explains, but it’s worth it.
“What’s worth it?” Pink asks, but she continues.
“There’s an old cabin not too far from here,” the girl pokes her pencil at the diner. “Looks like the path ends there, but you’ll pick it up again.” Pink recognizes the cabin where he smoked the joint with the cop. “And at this fork here there’s a rock shaped like a toad,” she tells him, tapping the pencil on it, “a big toad,” and by tapping and pointing she tells Pink how to get to a lookout point.
“Best place for a picnic,” she says, “and the best place to watch the sunset.” She holds the map out to him, but he doesn’t take it.
“I can watch the sunset from anywhere.”
“Suit yourself,” she says, tucking the bag into her back pocket. “But I told you, this is the best place.” She turns, and begins restocking the green peppers, but she watches him from the corner of her eye. He leaves with the bananas she has given him, and nobody stops him.
Pink, back on the highway, tucks the bananas into the top of his pack after pulling one off the bunch to eat. Sweet and starchy, it’s just the thing, just as the girl in the co-op had told him. The wind is blowing the opposite way to the route she had drawn on the map. He begins walking against it anyway, feeling the cool of the air blowing across his face.
Her shift over, Pixie walks on the highway shoulder in the direction of the diner she had indicated on the map. The late sun lights up her curly hair; she watches her shadow grow long in front of her. A silver Jaguar passes her, going in the opposite direction, and Pixie turns to watch it crest the rise she’s just descended like a spawning trout and disappear over the other side. In the momentary quiet of the empty highway, she can hear, distantly, the sound of an engine turning over, again and again, but not catching. There is no other traffic for a while as she walks, the flat of the highway giving in to a rolling rise until she is sweating in the residual heat of the day, the sound of cicadas in her ears. An RCMP car passes, and she gives the driver a wave, but the officer doesn’t appear to see her.
4:25 p.m.
Glass of water
“Don’t you want to order something?” says Jo to the small person who comes in on foot, looking for all the world like a leaf that’s just blown in.
“Just had a banana,” the girl says, showing two rows of tiny white teeth. Like a monkey, thinks Jo. “Just a glass of cold water, please.”
“We don’t generally just serve water.”
“Well, you don’t charge for it, do you?”
“Of course not.”
“Oh, I know,” the girl looks at Jo, and for a moment Jo can see in her the old woman she will one day become. “Nothing for nothing. But there’s always something to trade.”
“What do you have to trade?”
“I have a story.”
“Right.” There have been enough of those, thanks.
But Jo sets the water down on the counter anyway. It’s still a half-hour ’til closing. Meanwhile, she might as well start sweeping up. Cass doesn’t like Jo to do this when there are customers in the restaurant, but a small, monkey-like person with a free glass of water is hardly a customer. As she picks up the broom, the wind picks up, blowing the door open and showering the entrance with bits of grass and leaves. It must not have been closed all the way.
“You know the fable about the North Wind and the Sun?” asks the girl.
Jo closes the door. She has to lean into it against the sudden force of wind.
“It’s an Aesop’s fable. Old. Older, maybe.”
Than what? Jo thinks. Aesop. She remembers something about a fox and some grapes. She begins sweeping, while at the door, the wind rattles.
“There’s this contest, see? Between the North Wind and the Sun. About who’s stronger. And the North Wind says that he’s stronger, because he’s so powerful. He sees a man walking along wearing a big old cloak, and he says to the Sun: let’s see who can get the cloak off this guy.”
The girl stops and takes a long drink of water. Jo begins sweeping under the tables, listening. How can so much stuff blow in from the parking lot in one day? She picks up a black feather, thinking: crow.
“Two crows, good luck,” says the girl, pointing to a second feather in the corner under the counter. “I suppose two feathers mean good luck, too.” She leans over and scoops it up. When she hands it to Jo, it is with a flourish, as if this is a grand gesture. Jo holds it with the first and looks at them before handing them back.
“It’s twice as lucky to give luck away,” says the girl approvingly, tucking the two feathers in her back pocket. “Now, where was I? Right. So the North Wind blows and blows but all that happens is that the guy wraps the cloak tighter around himself. The harder he blows, the harder the guy holds on. Finally, the North Wind is all puffed out and needs to take a breather.”
Jo looks outside, expecting to see the wind die, but it’s blowing harder than ever.
“So then the Sun tries her stuff. She pushes away all the clouds so she’s the only thing in the sky, and she climbs high so she’s shining down with everything she’s got, warm, but gentle, too. And you know what happens?”
“He takes his cloak off.”
“You’ve heard the story,” says the girl.
“Well, it makes sense.”
“Of course it does. What doesn’t make sense is why we can’t seem to remember when we really need to.”
“Remember what?”
“About kindness.”
The girl pulls the two feathers out of her back pocket, then, and hands them to Jo. “If I give these back to you, then the luck just doubled again,” she says. “I figure I’m lucky enough. Just got a free glass of water, anyway.”
“For the price of a story.”
“Stories are always free.”
The girl exits the way she came, in the manner of a dry leaf twisting in a breeze. The wind has died down, Jo sees, but the sun has dipped below the mountain and won’t be warming anything more today. On the floor Jo sees a piece of brown paper that wasn’t there a moment ago when she started sweeping. Picking it up, she examines the map drawn there in soft pencil; it must have fallen out of the monkey girl’s pocket when she gave Jo back the crow feathers. The diner is there, and a path that snakes through what Jo knows to be the woods running past Howie’s cabin. The route continues on, eventually ending at a drawing that looks like a cliff, a childlike sun setting over mountains. She’s
about to toss the map into the trash with the sweepings from the floor, but instead tucks it in her own pocket.
Gale force
Suddenly there came a sound from heaven,
As if a rushing mighty wind.
— Acts of the Apostles 2:2
Pink stands by the side of the road at the edge of town eating a banana. There are perhaps two hours ’til sunset: time enough to get somewhere. He could spend the night in town, but he’d rather head out and find a good campsite, maybe even find the lookout the strange woman in the co-op told him about. It was close to the diner where he’d met that girl this morning; he could hike in for coffee in the morning and see her again. Who cares what the wind is doing? He’s still got a couple of dollars tucked under the insole of his shoe.
It baffles Pink that he’s spent the day travelling in what amounts to circles. As he stands, thumb out, he finds he can’t quite remember why he’d decided to hitchhike in the direction of the wind—a romantic notion, that was all.
A dusty red pickup truck pulls over. Pink can’t quite see the driver’s eyes under the ballcap. “Thanks,” he says as he climbs in after throwing his pack into the open truck bed amid bungee cords and cables. He notes a single rifle hanging from the rack in the back of the cab. A hunter, probably. The driver grunts and pulls back onto the highway.
Jo is just finishing mopping the floor, the string mop wrung through the red plastic bucket, when the Fairlane pulls into the lot. We’re closed mouths Jo through the glass door, expecting the indignant rattle of the handle, but the door opens; Jo has forgotten to lock it.
“I just—I just need to come in for a minute.”
“We’re closed. Really.”
“It’s been a long time since I was here.”
Jo looks at the woman who stands in the middle of the floor scanning her surroundings. She’s in her forties, tall, thin, with reddish-brown hair and a wide mouth. She’s well dressed, Jo sees: dress pants, blouse, low platform heels. She tugs at the hem of the print blouse nervously.
“Cass around?”
“Cass?”
“She’s still here, isn’t she? She hasn’t moved or something? This is still her place, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Yeah, she’s still here. She’s in the trailer.” Where she’s been most of the day, thinks Jo. “I just work here.”
The woman looks at Jo for a long moment, making her nervous. “Look, do you think I could have a cup of coffee or something?” she says finally.
“We’re closed. Sorry.”
“Please.”
There’s maybe a cup or so left in the urn. “It’s probably pretty bad by now.”
“I don’t mind.”
The woman sips her coffee, wincing slightly. She’s at the counter on the swivel stool with her legs crossed, cigarette in one hand tipped backwards, smoke rising.
“It’s just by coincidence that I’m here. I’m on my way to a sales meeting. I sell Avon. At least, I’m trying to. I figure it’s in the family genes. My father was a salesman, too.” The woman uncrosses her legs, reverses them, crosses again. With her finger she begins making pictures in the wet circle where her coffee has dripped. “I’m just starting, though.” She looks at Jo again, a few beats too long, and Jo, uncomfortable, looks away. “How old are you?”
None of your business. “Almost nineteen.”
“You have beautiful hair. Do you straighten it?”
“What? No.” Who is this woman?
There is no wind at all; it is as still outside as it is in the diner, and the woman at the counter exhales into the silence. Looking through the front windows, it appears to Jo as if nature is holding her breath. Inside, every sound is amplified: the creak of the stool under the shift of body weight; the nervous tinkle of the spoon stirring an already-stirred cup of coffee.
“And how is Cass?”
“Cass is—fine. Who did you say you were?”
“Just an old friend.”
“Do you want me to get her? I can call her. She’s shouting distance, just out the back door.”
But the woman doesn’t want Jo to call Cass, not just yet. Jo looks at the Fanta clock: it’s fifteen minutes past closing. Something has knocked the plastic Jesus hands. They point at the door now, and Jo thinks please, God. It’s been a long, strange day.
“Nice day,” says Pink above the growl of the truck. Trying not to be obvious, he checks out the driver. Hair curling over the collar of a workshirt. Sleeves rolled up reveal prominent biceps, and several tattoos. “Thanks for picking me up.”
“Uh,” grunts the driver.
Pink waits for him to ask about a destination, but he doesn’t. So: “You going far?” he asks.
“Nope.”
A semi passes, a whoosh. Into the receding sound, Pink tries again. “Well, I’m happy to go as far as you’ll take me.”
“You got an accent.” Not a question.
“My mother and father were from the States,” says Pink, wary. It’s not a lie.
“They live here, now?”
“They died,” he offers, truthfully.
The driver looks at him for the first time. “Recently?”
There’s something in his look, in the tension of his jaw, Pink thinks. He’s dressed casually, not a hippie, but not a redneck, either. Buddy, says his ballcap. The truck feels as if it’s going too fast, and Pink tries to see the speedometer without Buddy noticing. The hands gripping the steering wheel relax, suddenly, as the driver notices the speedometer gauge and exhales, letting off on the gas as he does. The needle drops.
“Sorry,” he says. “Sometimes I just get kind of caught up. I forget. It just comes over me.”
The tone is apologetic, and Pink is relieved. Maybe this ride is going to be okay after all. He settles himself into the worn upholstery of the bench seat, realizing that, up until now, he’d been sitting on the edge. “No problem,” he says, and then continues conversationally into the residual tension. “You get all kinds of rides. People are good, though.” He remembers Stefan and Thérèse. “Most of them.” He’s chatting away nervously: about the rides, about the weather, and then he finds himself babbling on about how friendly Canadians are.
“What?”
“Umm—”
“Where are you from again?”
“Umm, Washington. State, I mean. Just up for a visit.”
Buddy grunts. “Let me tell you something,” he says, and Pink thinks: “Oh, no.”
But Buddy doesn’t say anything for a while, like he’s thinking. Ahead, the road is a silvery ribbon. There is little traffic in either direction, the sky a flat, unbroken cerulean, the trees the deep green of summer. Finally, Buddy says to the windshield: “My dad used to take me fishing in Washington. Curlew Lake. Know where that is?”
Pink doesn’t. Buddy looks at him, eyes narrowed.
“Just where are you going, anyway?”
Pink doesn’t want to say he’s going where the wind takes him. It’s the sort of thing that could set someone like this off, and anyway, it suddenly seems like a long time ago. Before he can answer, Buddy grunts another question.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-one.”
“You look older. Thought you might have been one of them draft dodgers.”
“Yeah. Guess I was lucky.”
There’s a yellow road sign, a vertical line with another line running perpendicular to it. Pink catches it in his field of vision. A road on the right. Just as it registers in Pink’s mind, the truck spins onto it in a flurry of shoulder gravel, and Pink grabs the dash to keep his seat, his finger gripping the gritty surface. “Whoa,” he yells, but they are tearing down the road, careening at the bends. He thinks of opening the door, of rolling, but they are travelling too fast. He hangs on, heart pounding.
“I have a daughter your age,” says the woman, now. “Having a kid is like something pulling at you, all the time. Even if you don’t see your kid for years and years, it’s always there. Pulling at you.
I can’t explain it. When you have a child, you’ll know.”
Jo can feel the pull in her womb. She can feel the pull across the mountain range she has crossed to be here. She imagines an umbilical cord, snaking along highways.
“Give me your hand,” the woman says, now. “No really, just for a minute. I can read palms. I can tell you how many children you’ll have.”
Jo tucks her hands behind her back.
“Come on. What harm can it do?”
When Jo extends her hand, palm down, the woman takes it gently in two hands. With her thumbs, she pushes up the sleeve of Jo’s shirt ever so slightly, then turns Jo’s hand over. “Right,” she says, and exhales, a release of air that is not quite relief, not quite disappointment. Tracing the lines on Jo’s palm, she tells her: “You’ve had disappointments, but things are about to get a great deal better. You’ll live a long life, and—” the woman cups Jo’s hand until it makes a fist, then examines the lines below her littlest finger “—you’ll have two children.”
Jo takes her hand back and tucks it in the pocket of her jeans.
“You have no idea how far down you can go,” the woman is saying now. “I hope you never do. I hit bottom, about as far down as you can go. At that point, you either wind up dead or you find a way back up.”
“You did?” Jo’s not sure if she’s asking about the bottom, or the return trip.
“Yeah, I did. I don’t know what set me off that time, besides the usual. Yes, I do. I do remember. I was sharing a basement apartment with a roommate. I guess she was my friend. I wasn’t too choosy in those days, to tell the truth. We made a little money any way we could. Things I’d rather not say, now. I wasn’t very choosy in that regard, either. Janis and I, we were on this kind of party whirlwind. Woke up sometimes, no idea where I was, who I was with. Didn’t really care. One time I woke up in a bathtub, some old geezer sitting on the toilet taking a crap.”
