by A J Maybe
His energy remained the same on both sides of the screen though: the man was a fully stretched elastic.
He was supposed to be an addiction counsellor, but I’d seen his show. Far from ‘redemption’ stories, each episode felt more like a mini snuff film. Jarvis’ ‘treatments’ featured a lot of him screaming at some poor record collector or quilting enthusiast with too many unfinished projects. He’d subject them to increasingly creative humiliations, usually culminating with a physical slap at the episode’s climax, and in the end the subjects would be shown burning their heaps of fabric or taking a hammer to their vinyl records, tearfully grateful for Jarvis’ brand of sadism.
Classic Stockholm syndrome.
Of course, I was sitting on a bench drooling over sandwiches I couldn’t afford, so what did I know?
The Youtuber reached into his canvas man-purse and retrieved a stainless steel shaker. Jarvis tapped the shaker, forcing the last of the fragrant powder within into his brew and the unmistakable smell of cinnamon ignited my nostrils.
Not just any cinnamon, but smoked cinnamon, which I happened to know cost over $30 for a two ounce jar. I knew that all too well.
Jarvis fixed the lid back on the mug and stalked off. A pair of elderly women sharing a slice of lemon meringue, which also teased my nose, caught my eye and gave me a curious look.
I shrugged, trying to stay casual despite the memories surfacing in my brain. “What kind of guy brings his own cinnamon?” I said.
One of the women twirled the fork they were passing back and forth, and offered me a friendly smile. “Oh, it’s those Big City taste buds of his. They’re good for a little milk and sugar in Toronto, I guess.”
Her companion swallowed her mouthful and spat the word “Fancy!” like it was a cuss.
I forced a tight smile and nodded. She had no idea just how fancy Jarvis’ cinnamon was, but I did. The stuff had played a major role in the ruination of Piper Mars. I’d been in a phase where I thought that the right combination of spices could be just as magical as any amulet or charm, and I was just going to sample one jar of this hyped-up cinnamon. It was the height of my auction craze though, and I’d accidentally purchased a whole skid of it, at full retail rate.
When you’re juggling a couple hundred auctions, mistakes like that can happen.
I tried to get out of the deal, but the spice showed up anyway, delivered to my apartment building while I was at Seshman’s.
Of the sixty boxes piled in the hallway, three had been damaged in shipping. The powerful aroma resulted in complaints from six neighbours, triggering a string of texts from my landlord in all capital letters. I was actually trying to calm him down when I annihilated thirty thousand bottles of beer with my forklift.
That got me off work early, to say the least, but my landlord arrived for a surprise visit and he saw how I really lived.
“Hoarder!” he cursed, recoiling from the cardboard box architecture dominating my tiny bachelor pad.
He threatened to evict me, but then he got the idea of getting his own 15 minutes of fame on Jarvis’ show. I was nauseous at the thought, but I agreed to let him nominate me for an appearance on Hoarder Redemption. In exchange, he wouldn't kick me out of the building. I was never, ever going to let my face get plastered all over the internet in that awful show, but I figured it’d take months to get scheduled. I’d find a new place by then and bail on the deal.
I filled in the forms, provided my background, even wrote a little essay about my auction problem. The essay came out surprisingly honest, but I sent it in anyway. The show producer was a stranger and she saw thousands of stories more shocking than mine: I knew my dirty laundry would just blend in with all the rest.
Then the show was put on indefinite hiatus. (Probably when Jarvis came to the Cove for the VIP client Kasper mentioned, I realized.) My landlord had seen no reason to keep me around if I couldn’t pay rent or bring him a dose of internet fame, so Brennan had suggested I try a fresh start in an old place, which had meant moving back home.
A sharp gasp from the taller of the pie-sharing women brought me back to the present. “Heavens no, Dottie!” she exclaimed, her long, pious face in the air like she was sniffing a nasty smell. “It couldn’t have been a Covey. No way. More likely that Rex was killed by someone he had stiffed in a business deal. You know he was always flying here and there in that death-trap plane of his —it’s a wonder he didn’t die in that crash a few years back, remember?— and no doubt he burned one bridge too many!”
“And trouble followed him here, you think? Some murderous piece of Bridge Trash?” said Dottie, who was shaped more like a period than her companion, the exclamation point. “Sounds about right, but my opinion? I don’t even care who did it. We’re better off without him!”
The taller one nodded as she swallowed. “No doubt! A son who will put his father out of business to make a few dollars? The Cove doesn’t need that. I hope it was bridge trash, and already returned to the mainland!”
“Long gone and out of our hair,” Dottie agreed, taking their shared fork and stabbing the air for emphasis.
“Rex put Barry out of business?!” I blurted out. The question was an admission of guilt to the crime of eavesdropping, but I couldn’t help it. “Sorry, but I’m getting into the food truck business myself,” I said, even though that might’ve been a stretch at this point.
“Oh yes,” said Dottie, bracing her hand on her chest, “Barry would drive that truck into St. Mauvais all the time. Most of his profits came from the crowds at Barn Owl games, you know. Can you believe five thousand people cram into that hockey arena to watch high school kids play hockey? Anyway, you can’t make a living with a food truck parked in the Cove: the trips to St. Moe kept Barry’s business alive.”
“Yes, but you’re not explaining it right,” the taller one said. “You see, Rex was on St. Mauvais city council. He has properties there, so even though he lives on Familiar he can be a politician in St. Moe. And he wanted to be mayor, but to pull that off you have to grease a few palms.”
“That’s where Frankie Mancini comes in,” Dottie cut in.
“Right. The Mancinis own half that town. Nine restaurants, I think, and all the grocery stores.”
“So there was this guy —Troyer I think— he’d drive his refrigerated truck up from Toronto and sell meat in empty parking lots.”
“Big boxes!” the tall one exclaimed. “And dirt cheap. So Mancini didn’t like that, of course. And before you know it, Rex Bales stands up in council and starts pushing through this food truck law.”
“Actually an amendment to a by-law, Edie. He made it illegal to sell food from ‘any vehicular conveyance within two kilometers of a restaurant’.”
“And you know you can’t swing a dead cat in St. Moe without hitting some Italian place!” Edie harrumphed.
“So that’s all the sausage carts: out of business. The cotton candy man! Out of business. Even the kids selling popsicles from coolers towed behind their bikes.”
“By order of Rex Bales, that utter cad,” Edie said.
“And Barry needed that business, you know; the wrestling money didn’t hold up long once he got into those pills,” Dottie said in a stage-whisper.
I groaned out loud as I digested this information. I had no money, no truck, and now, even when I did get the truck back, I had no prospects for where to make money with it.
I also started to understand that the dead man in the park had no shortage of enemies.
8
Witch Thing
Thanking the ladies for the information and wishing them a good day, I slumped back against the bench. They turned their attention back to the pie.
I closed my eyes, suddenly tired despite the fourteen hours of sleep I got. Or maybe because of it. People came and went, their footsteps padding over the paving stones. The tones varied and I speculated on whether they were in boat shoes or Crocs or Chucks, like mine. Regardless of footwear choice, most curved their paths to give a
wide berth to the woman in the faded Seshman’s hoodie, seemingly asleep on a bench, but I still caught whiffs of cologne, or perfume, or sometimes mouthwash.
“Hey, got a dart?” asked a young man in search of a cigarette. I shook my head without opening my eyes. More moments of self-pity passed, though I’m not sure how many.
“Ah, the famous Ms. Mars!” a voice rang out. I jolted to attention, eyes wide and hands up like a boxer, before regaining my composure.
“Oh, yeah. Hey,” I said. It was the auctioneer, Jimmy Kiss, bouncing across the courtyard, but I hardly recognized him now. A carefree grin creased his cheeks. The fuzzy horseshoe moustache had vanished from his face and the poofy mullet had disappeared, replaced by a sandy shag cut. The transformation also dropped about forty years off his apparent age. This version of Jimmy Kiss wasn’t much older than I, and actually pretty cute.
Sherry trailed behind him, refusing to rush her pace. I looked at her differently now, after feeling the effects of her magical brew. She wasn’t slow, she was just... confident in her own pace. She wasn’t ‘thick-set’, she was powerful.
“I don’t know about ‘famous’,” I said, to Jimmy’s quip.
“Oh sure you’re famous!” Jimmy gushed. “The highest bidder at my very first auction? It’s a note of distinction, no doubt no doubt.”
I squinted at him. “There’s no way that was your first time.”
“Sure it was. I’ve always been good with my mouth though, and a fast talker, and I’ve been performing since I was twelve,” Jimmy returned, “So I’m a natural, if I do say so myself. Plus I’m fanatical about preparing for a role. Stayed up all night working on the auctioneer’s chant.”
“Mmm. So you’re an actor?” I said. “That ridiculous moustache you had, that was just committing to the role?” I said.
“Actor?” he balked. “No, much better than that: I’m in the pro wrasslin’ game.”
“Another wrestler? This place is infested.” Did all these wrestlers come for Barry’s funeral and stick around? Or was the Cove some sort of off-season retreat for them? Did professional wrestling even have an off-season?
“Infested? More like ‘blessed!’ ” Jimmy said. “And yesterday’s glorious ‘stache was a tribute to Barry. The Gov’nah moustache was his signature look. If you see pics of Barry from the 70s, I was a dead-ringer, minus the maroon tights. Didn’t want to intimidate the other guys, so I covered up this killer bod.”
I eyed Jimmy from head to toe. In the photos I’d seen of Barry, he was a towering, burly lumberjack type of guy who undoubtedly had to shop at “big and tall” stores. Jimmy, meanwhile, had a short, slight frame that could probably still fit into his jeans from high school. “Dead ringer, huh? Maybe more like a scale model.”
Jimmy hooted. “Not a bad rib, Ms. Mars. Not bad at all. So, anyway: are you enjoying all the Cove has to offer on this fine spring day?”
I snorted. “You know there was a murder last night, right?”
“Afternoon, wasn’t it?”
“You’d know. You’re the one who called Kasper. Either way, it means that my winning bid was useless. Worse than useless, actually. The credit card companies have my soul, but the OPP seized my truck. Seems I was the highest bidder on a prime piece of evidence in a murder investigation.”
Sherry finally pulled up to Jimmy’s side, preening her pixie hair as she arrived. “Well, they can’t take Barry’s cupcake machine,” she said, as if it were plain as day.
“And yet, they did.”
Jimmy’s face darkened and he squinted at me, suddenly determined instead of flirty. “That’s not good.”
“You don’t say.”
“The OPP, eh? They’ll have it at the detachment in Thessalon. That’s the closest spot they have for dealing with evidence of that size. But it won’t be there long, if they need to do any tests beyond the basics. They’ll have to send it somewhere. St. Moe doesn’t have anything special for facilities, and there’s nothing bigger than that until Sudbury… I bet the Cupcake Machine will be headed to Toronto soon. Maybe Barrie.”
“Didn’t realize you were an auctioneer and a sleuth, too, Detective Jimmy.”
He rubbed his thumb and finger thoughtfully over his face, tracing the horseshoe where the moustache used to be. “Okay,” he said decisively. “Let’s go.”
“Go?”
“To the detachment. We’re getting that truck back before it gets shipped off somewhere.” Jimmy looked over one shoulder, then the other, and leaned in confidentially. “Don’t worry, I know a guy.”
Sherry clucked in amusement. “Jimmy thinks he knows everyone. Like the pawn shop man from that TV show. He’s always gotta ‘talk to his guy’, and then everything will be fine.”
I shrugged. Maybe Jimmy did know a guy. And what else did I have to do? Sit around and be tempted by the sammies from Cheese’us?
“Let’s get out of here,” I said. We hit the road, all three of us crammed across the bench seat of Jimmy’s little red pick-up.
“So, Jimmy, you’re a wrestler? Like that Lion Tamer guy?” I said, gazing down at Lake Huron over the elegantly curved metal rail of the Familiar Island Bridge.
“Well, not exactly like LT. That guy’s got 120 pounds on me. And, he’s a wrestler: I’m a manager. I talk, I get heat with the crowd with my underhanded shenanigans, occasionally club an unsuspecting lug with my megaphone. Every once in a while a Face gets his hands on me and I get thrown through a table.”
“A Face is a Good Guy,” Sherry explained. “Bad Guys are called Heels. Jimmy always manages a heel. Until he takes a table spot, and then he usually switches guys.”
“The big pay-off ends one storyIine and starts a new one,” Jimmy explained.
I nodded. “I get it. Heck of a gig you’ve got there, Jimmy Kiss.”
He drove in silence for a while. “It really is. And I have Barry to thank for it. He got me into the business. They called him the father of the spinning hammerlock, but he really was like a father to me.”
“Aw, that’s sweet, Jimmy. It sounds like Barry was in need of a good son, too,” I said, thinking of Rex and his wretched law.
“Ha! Naw, he had one of those. Rex’s little brother, Ty. He’s legit. You saw him at the auction, I’m sure. He was the blonde one,” Jimmy said.
I didn’t even have time to respond before Jimmy called out: “Potty break!” He careened into a gas station parking lot and dashed inside without looking back.
Sherry and I sat in silence for a beat. “You think talking about Barry made Jimmy all misty-eyed, and he didn’t want us to see him getting soft and mushy?” I asked Sherry.
She shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe it’s all the tacos and draught beer he had at Soggy’s yesterday.”
That was close enough to an opening for me. “Hey, on the topic of food… that chowder you made: was it actually magic-for-real? I mean, on the way home last night, maybe it was a hallucination, but… Sherry, did you turn me into a witch?”
Sherry’s cheeks creased as she laughed, but she didn’t answer.
“Or maybe a werewolf? I mean, my sense of smell seems even better than usual today. Plus I could hear different shoes.”
“I don’t know that much about werewolves, but nobody can be turned into a witch,” Sherry said.
“Aw, c’mon.” Everyone in the world, aside from the Magic Seeker forums, would say the same thing, but it was disappointing to hear it from Sherry.
“You can only become more of a witch than you’ve been all along.”
I squanched my eyebrows. “Are you calling me a witch?”
“Hey, if the broom fits, fly it,” Sherry giggled. “I mean... I bet you’ve always been a little witchy, right?”
“I don’t even own a cauldron,” I protested.
“No, but you ride a bike when you have a perfectly good car sitting in the driveway. That’s an earthy choice. And earthy is witchy.”
“My car is…” I said. I didn’t want to explain that I cycled
to the auction so that I wouldn’t get caught up and buy too much. “My car is too crammed with stuff. It’s a bad look. Plus, the island’s not that big.”
“Oh okay,” she said lightly. “So you’ve never even felt a tiny bit witchy. Not even a twinge of interest in harnessing the divine power all around us. My mistake. Guess I was wrong.”
I scanned the parking lot. Still no sign of Jimmy.
“Well, I was called the Donut Witch in college. But that’s just because I invented the Donut-wich.”
Sherry smirked and raised an eyebrow at me. “Mm hmm.” She stayed quiet for a long moment.
“The Donut-wich is nothing magical. It was just… a financial necessity. I was working my way through college, making lattés at this bakery, when the owner decided he was losing money on Sundays, so suddenly I was short a shift each week. Saturday’s day-olds would be no good by Monday, and I was broke, so I started taking them home. I survived on donuts three or four days a week.
“There are worse fates than a donut diet,” Sherry said.
“True, but after a while even donuts get old. So I started making sandwiches out of them. Half my classmates made fun of me for it, calling me the Donut Witch, but the other half started buying their lunches from me. Made up for the lack of Sunday shifts, for a while.
“Then one of my regular customers went into the bakery, looking for a Donut-wich, and ended up spilling the whole story to my boss. He said I was stealing. He fired me and I couldn’t make tuition for the following semester. So that was the end of my college career. I’m sorry; I’m oversharing,” I said. “What was the question again?”
I hadn’t told anyone about the Donut Witch saga before, but Sherry’s silence had compelled me to fill it.
I’d never admitted to anyone that I’d ever been fired from a job, or that I hadn’t finished college either. I took the gig at Seshman’s Brewery and told my mom it was temporary, just to build up my savings, and then we never talked about college again.