He’d taken one look at Keisha the first time William brought her home from Vancouver and right away he could tell she was into dope. Nothing too hard, but she was obviously a pothead, her face all full of piercings and that ugly splash of grey and black tattoo ink oozing out of her shirt sleeves. Immediately, he guessed at her home life. Not the details, of course. He couldn’t have imagined her mother would be a budding restaurant maven or her father had a doctorate in African history. He couldn’t have known anything so specific without sneaking directly inside the Willis-Mayburry family home in Whistler, rifling the drawers and cupboards, investigating the bedside tables. But specificity is just an ideal. He doesn’t need it to judge. Never has. There was the girl leaning against his kitchen counter, screaming her life story with her mouth shut, and the facts were clear: Keisha had been brought up in an atmosphere of modern, slacker family values — and at least one of her parents was probably a criminal.
Two years later, after the darkest, most sleepless night of his life, after he and Nancy had driven all the way from 100 Mile House to Vancouver in shocked and leaden silence, Roger saw Del squatting in the hallway outside the door to the morgue. He was wearing sandals and a cardigan over a black T-shirt and brown dress shorts. Tears and snot streamed down his face as he sobbed openly in the harsh fluorescent lights. Roger knew right away who he was looking at. If there was blame to be laid — and of course there was, and still is — then it would best be laid at the feet of the Willis-Mayburrys, and in particular the soft, mushy, and ultimately toxic personage of the father.
“Yeah,” Roger says, flipping the steaks and savouring the gust of spice-laden smoke billowing round his head. “Yeah, I suppose that sounds about right, Del. I suppose it does. But so are you saying that you don’t follow the news coming out of there anymore? Islam? Al-Qaeda? Sharia law? I mean, I thought that part of the world was your specialty. I thought you were writing a book about the place, right? Like you’re always saying?”
Del drains his wine and stares at the grape sediment clinging to the bottom of the glass. “Oh, I do. I mean, yeah, of course I do. And I still am. Writing a book. I still am. But it’s a big continent, you know? There are a lot of different things happening and when you really look at it, well, like, you kind of see that life there isn’t all that different from here. I mean, basically, it’s exactly the same.” Del sips from his empty wineglass and laughs. “I mean, Rog, it’s not all bullet belts and kidnappings, you know?”
“Except,” Roger says quietly, staring at the punching bag drifting in small, tight circles above the tattered lawn, “it is for some people, right? We know that much, don’t we? The four of us?”
Roger’s beer is empty. It’s his fourth of the evening, because he already drank three to calm his nerves when the Willis-Mayburrys were twenty-five minutes late. There’s a fifth in his near future. And then a sixth. Because Roger is going to have to drink a lot of beer tonight. It’s inevitable. He’ll have to drink enough to drown his raw nerves, to hose them in gallons of 4.5 percent alcohol, lest he find himself shouting and sweating and poised to do violence, something like the last time the Willis-Mayburrys came to 100 Mile House. But there’s a danger zone to remember. He knows that much from experience. Roger will have to be careful, because if he drinks too much, if he spends the whole evening leaving bottles around the trailer and throughout the yard, then those self-same nerves will come blasting to the surface, and they’ll be that much rawer for the insult of having been submerged.
It’s not clear if Del has heard, because he’s leaning forward now, raking his fingers through his long, wavy hair and saying: “And, you know, actually that’s part of the reason for the trip, Rog. Not just the anniversary. I mean, of course the anniversary. Nobody ever said you have to forget before you can move on, right? The anniversary’s obviously very important for all four of us. But there’s another reason we came, and I think you’re going to find it interesting. I really do.”
“Hold that thought, Del,” Roger says. “And watch the steaks for a second, alright?”
“Oh, sure.” Del jumps out of his chair and strides to the barbeque. “Nice, juicy steaks. Sure thing. I’ll keep an eye on them.”
Roger steps off the patio stones and walks onto his tiny lawn. There’s a breeze, and he’s proud that the smell of his steaks will be carried right across the trailer park. People in the neighbourhood know him for just that kind of smell. For succulence. Every once in a while, he’ll lean over one of the three fences encasing his lot and spread his eyes across the park. It isn’t one of those shambles you see on TV, trailers without siding and crack smoke pluming into outer space while fat men slumber drunkenly on trampolines in their front yards. This place is classy, with smooth streets and generally well-kept lots. His neighbours are the best kind, working-class folks with practical worldviews and a respect for silence on weeknights.
Sometimes, Roger likes to invite a couple of them over for a bite. They discuss sensational player trades, provincial politics, and jobs leaking out of the hills like rainwater down a storm sewer. No one ever asks about William, but Roger knows they all think about him. And that’s just the way he likes it. He’s glad they aren’t here right now to see him hanging around with Del. He can’t imagine what they’d think of him after seeing a guest like this, lounging on his patio furniture like an insolent teenager. He takes a deep breath.
“These smell really delicious, Rog,” Del calls out, but Roger ignores him and squares off with the punching bag. He gives it a few soft jabs. The branch creaks as the bag swings and little shreds of bark corkscrew to the ground. Del says something about do you want another beer and I’m just going to grab a glass of wine and the steaks will be fine they smell so good.
Roger unloads a right cross, snapping his hip into the blow. It’s a bazooka blast, and it sends the bag lurching into a pendulum swing. He does this three times, the fake leather thumping like Kabul. He’s aware that Del is frozen at the back entrance to the trailer, watching. He puts his hip into another cross, and his knuckles leave craters in the skin of the bag.
Del
For five long minutes before dinner is served, Del and Cassie are alone at the table. The Maceys have set out plastic cutlery and paper plates with floral borders. Mounds of Caesar salad rise from a giant silver bowl in the middle of the table. Del finds the reek of too much garlic more than a little nauseating. Still, this is an improvement over the dinner they had last time they were here, after Del insisted he and Cassie escort the Maceys all the way back to the interior. It’s not safe to drive after a thing like this, he’d said with a gentle but unrequited smile. Survivors travel in packs, he added with a sob, reaching out to give Roger’s arm a friendly squeeze. But Roger barely even made eye contact, just dragged his feet across the parking lot with Nancy trailing a few paces behind. The Maceys climbed into their ancient pickup and backed slowly out of their space, the truck belching a noxious and blue-tinged cloud of fumes. That right there was nearly the closing act on the whole shebang. And it would’ve been, except Nancy offered a quick, mournful wave as they drove past.
“We should follow them,” Del said, his enthusiasm renewed as he waved energetically back. “Just to be sure.”
And so here they are again, one year later. Del can feel Cassie’s gaze pinging off his face, imploring his attention, but he doesn’t want to risk exchanging a look with her in case the Maceys emerge from the kitchen and catch them in the act. He knows what she wants to communicate: the food is repellent. Industrial cow and a pile of shredded romaine slathered in dressing and masquerading as a salad. He agrees, but he’s afraid to conjugate their revulsion, because once they put that energy out there, even someone as repressed as Roger might pick up on it. And clearly, that man is already on edge. Probably he’s been that way his whole life.
There are no sounds coming from the kitchen as the long seconds pass by. The whole trailer is preternaturally quiet. Del
visualizes Roger leaning against the fridge, filthy with grief freshly tilled by their arrival. Nancy has her back turned, her knuckles whitening as she grips the edge of the sink and waits for Roger’s anger to pass.
No wonder Willy was so riddled with awkward mojo. The first time Keisha brought him to Whistler, Del actually felt uncomfortable in his own home. It was like a bad-trip contact-buzz from Willy, who at first was stiff as a corpse. He was dressed just like his father is now, with a collared shirt tucked into pleated trousers and ridiculous, round spectacles making him look not so much intellectual as psychotic.
Admittedly, there were a lot of red flags during that first meeting. Not least was the fact that Willy was thirty years old. And he wasn’t just Keisha’s manager at the printer ink booth, but also a junior partner in the franchise. Of course, it was a good sign that Willy had chosen a career path with high environmental auspices (because printer cartridges, Del knows well, will be among the chief plastic legacies of the computer era), but Keisha was only twenty. That’s a ten-year gulf. Yawning was the way Cassie put it. But it wasn’t that they were prudes, that they held stiff ideas about love and age. It was just that, as parents, Del and Cassie felt that Keisha should experiment sexually only with people in her cohort. There was a better balance of experience and power that way, and Keisha’s budding sexuality wouldn’t be smothered by Willy’s overgrown jungle. It made developmental sense. That’s all.
But Willy proved himself quickly. It was the middle of winter and Cassie was experimenting with a new menu, using pickled, jarred, and dehydrated ingredients. She set a plate in front of Willy and he didn’t even wait for Keisha before diving in. Del and Cassie exchanged approving looks. Their daughter saw them and smiled. Cassie went to the cellar and uncorked a tasty wine.
Lying in bed that night, confident that Willy and Keisha were having fair sex in the basement, Del examined the source of his initial judgment. Keisha had already told them that Willy was brought up in the interior, in 100 Mile House, and maybe that little fact had lodged itself in his brain and filtered his perception through the classic British Columbian divide: minds were spread on the coast; the interior, barring of course the Kootenays and certain tax brackets in the Okanagan, was a redneck silo. But Del was no putz. He recognized that worldview for what it was — clichéd baggage — and he still does. Fact is, there are rednecks all over the coast. Just look at the loggers and construction workers up and down the Sea to Sky Corridor. And meanwhile, hippies long ago migrated inward to establish their utopic farmsteads. Willy was no more a product of his environment than anyone else. Clearly, it was a question of nurture. Having made the connection, the first time Del ever set eyes on Roger was in his imagination. And he nailed it. He predicted the tension in the shoulders, the conservative attire, the angry morality and boiling mood swings. Immediately, his heart leapt for Willy. The poor boy — man, really — would always be welcome in their home, as long as he treated their daughter with the respect and dignity she so clearly deserved. Del resolved right there to expose Willy to every aspect of their family, starting the next morning with an oral presentation on his writing project exploring indigenous and colonial language fusions in West Africa.
But it didn’t stop there. His heart continued leaping. It leapt right through the roof of the house, flew pumping over the peaks of the Coast Mountains and began an earnest search of the interior for Willy’s father, who must also be welcomed into the Willis-Mayburry lifestyle.
And so here they are. One year later.
“Here comes grubbin’,” says Roger, striding into the dining room and setting a plate of steak in front of Del. His breath reeks of whiskey and smoke and he lowers another plate in front of Cassie. “You like it rare, right?”
Angry black grill marks are slashed across the blood-seeping meat. Two shriveled lengths of asparagus occupy the corners of their plates like driftwood flung ashore some cancerous lake of violence and gore. The Maceys take their seats at either end of the table, and between them is the thick and ugly energy of a couple that’s just been fighting. Del grips his plastic cutlery and gamely attacks his meal, the knife handle bending between his fingers as blood splashes across the pretty blue flowers festooned around his plate.
From the corner of his eye, Del spies Cassie pondering her food like a homicide detective examining a corpse. He knows she’s about to say something inappropriate. It’s evident in the rapid rise and fall of her chest, the way her fingers fiddle along the chain-links of her locket, in the batting speed of her mascara-laden eyelashes. A faint sweat has sprung out of her temples and she palms it into the short, curly locks of her blonde hair. Under the table, Del reaches for her with his foot, taps her on the shin, and causes her to jolt. But he’s too late.
“This looks delicious, Roger,” she says, mashing her fork into the asparagus. “Is it an animal you hunted yourself?”
Del’s mouth freezes mid-mastication. He braves a look at Nancy, who is diligently cutting her steak, tiny wrists disappearing into the sleeves of the same dark blue dress she wore during dinner last year. Her eyes flash from her plate to his, then back again. The only sign of her anxiety is a quick and grasping swipe at her bangs, which she tucks behind her fuzzy, unpierced ear.
“I don’t hunt,” says Roger, cheeks full of steak. “Is that going to be a problem?”
Cassie’s mouth is open, but it’s Del who speaks next, a pulverized piece of meat blasting from his lips to the centre of the table as he says, “Of course not, Rog. It’s not a problem at all, and we’re both really thankful to be eating with you and Nancy right now on this special day in your wonderfully renovated mobile home. And I mean, it’s obviously a special day for all four of us, even though maybe it’s hitting us all a bit differently. Me, for example, I still burst into tears for no reason at all. Just walking from one room to the other, you know? Just burst into tears! Because let’s all face it. This is heavy. This is loss. And I think what’s important is that we all come together because of what we lost, don’t you all agree, too? Because of who we lost. Don’t you think so, Roger? And thank you! Thank you for dinner!”
There’s no suitable place to rest his eyes, so Del turns back to the bloodbath on his plate. He reaches out for his wine and drains the glass, realizing as it surges down his throat that he’s probably already consumed a bottle’s worth since they got here. There’s intense kinetic energy roiling across the table in all directions, and it’s impossible to know who’s conducting what. Del anticipates a long and crushing silence, a suffocating discomfort that will pressure them out the door and into their hybrid and all the way back to the calm and security of their modest mountain retreat.
But then Roger clears an ounce of tobacco-thickened phlegm from his throat. He smiles, but not unkindly. “Dinner’s our pleasure, Del.” He stretches the smile, really strains it, and looks straight across the table at Cassie. He makes a beckoning gesture with his sodden knife that Del chooses to interpret as welcoming. “It’s okay if you don’t want it, Cassie. I sometimes forget that not everyone likes to eat barbeque. We’ve probably got some frozen peas that Nancy could toss in the microwave.”
It’s still possible that Cassie will refuse this overture, but instead she relaxes her shoulders and shakes a curl off her forehead. “I’m sorry, Roger. I guess that sometimes I just get too sucked into my own little world. I’m sure the steak is delicious.” She doesn’t go for it right away, of course. She spears the second piece of asparagus and nibbles on that instead. Still, an atmosphere of peace settles over the table.
“So, Del,” Roger says. “You were saying something outside, eh? Something about a special reason for the trip?”
“I sure was.” Del answers too quickly. He pours himself another glass of wine, pretending not to notice Cassie’s disapproving glance. “So hear me out. Hear me out. I think I’ve got the perfect way to memorialize our children. And I just know it would mean so much to both of them.
”
He swings his head in Nancy’s direction. She’s been quiet throughout the meal — was quiet, too, in Vancouver and all during their last dinner in 100 Mile House — and Del wants to make sure she feels included in the supremely positive goings-on of the moment.
“Rog,” he continues, “you remember how I told you I’ve being giving serious consideration to returning to the classroom, right? Well I’ve also been giving serious consideration to approaching the director of my department regarding a bursary in Keisha and William’s name. A bursary in their names to the — get this — the African studies program at the university. Isn’t it perfect? I mean, isn’t it? African studies?”
Del can feel the excitement wrenched all over his face. He knows he’s being a bit theatrical — a bit drunk — but he doesn’t care. He thought of the bursary four months ago while in the nadir of his grief and depression. And that was the thing, wasn’t it? It got progressively worse, the grief — not better. He’d thought his bottom was at the hospital, outside the morgue after they confirmed her identity, when the floor vanished beneath him and he was nothing but pools of tears and shortages of breath and an inky blackness dense in the chambers of his heart. But it wasn’t there. The thing changed shape and colour and extended its reach and grip. For the longest time, it seemed like there was no nadir. There was only steady, awful progression, every minute the angry thing protracting by exponents, with no conclusion foreseeable in his lifetime.
Until he thought of the bursary. It was as if his subconscious had finally rigged up a rescue kit and hurled a pull-rope into his despair. He grabbed on tight. And now he knows it’ll turn out perfect. They loved Africa, didn’t they? Of course they did. And now their names will be forever associated with higher learning on the topic of the continent. Cassie even agreed to fund it with profits from the restaurants for the first ten years of its implementation.
A Plea for Constant Motion Page 4