by Bill Turpin
“Actually,” says the Night News Editor, “The Owner thinks your stunt was mildly funny — turns out he doesn’t like the guy who started the committee, some idiot in Marketing. Pickup now agrees with him, of course.”
“We have a marketing department?”
“Yeah. You should know stuff like that, Max.”
Max asks if his recently-cited assholish behaviour is a factor behind his firing.
“You’ve been a borderline asshole, but you worked hard as a correspondent and filed real stories. And you still work hard. Everyone gives you points for that.”
Max looks out at the newsroom, the biggest he’s ever worked in. Now, contemplating unemployment, he’s already missing the Cage, the piles of newspapers and clippings spilling from every desk, the ceiling tiles yellowed from cigarette smoke and, even, “Redundancy Row”, the offices of the senior editors. Hell, he misses the legendary kneepads, and wonders if it would help if he strapped them on.
“So why?” he asks.
The Night News Editor looks around nervously. “The union. The union fired you.”
“Fuck those Marxist dicks,” Max says.
“Yeah, I know,” the Night News Editor says by way of agreement. “They’re pissed about the shipping reporter thing.”
“Come on, everyone knows that cocksucker richly deserved it. A guy gets shot right in front of him and he does fuck-all because it’s not about ships.”
Max remembers the incident well because he was the union’s shop steward at the time, a position to which he was elected in absentia. When Pickup presented him with formal notice that the shipping reporter was being dismissed, Max congratulated him on the decision and neglected to pass the paperwork on to the union. The dismissal sailed through the personnel department unopposed.
And when the shipping reporter got his walking papers, he was too indifferent to bother telling the union and just walked out, waving his middle finger high above his head.
Max thought the whole thing had gone rather well, but now he’s hearing differently.
“The union went berserk,” the Night News Editor says. “They felt you made them look bad.”
“But I swear I heard applause when that moron walked out.”
“Yeah, but you violated the union code: ‘Leave no lazy asshole without a job.’”
“But now I don’t have a job,” Max points out. “And I’m in the union.
“They feel you have to go for the benefit of the collective interest.”
“Of course, the greater good. Never to be confused with revenge.”
Max is about to argue that unions can’t fire people when the penny drops for him.
“You got it,” the Night News Editor says, seeing the look on his face. “They told the Owner that if you didn’t go, the new contract would be hell to negotiate.”
“How do you know this?”
The Night News Editor shakes his head sadly. “Max, stay on top of things. I’m on the union bargaining committee. I’m learning how these guys think for when I’m in management, which won’t be long because I’m getting to know the Owner pretty well from the committee-work.”
“Jesus H mahogany comical creeping Christ on a bicycle,” Max says slowly.
“I know,” says the Night News Editor. “Don’t rely on performance to get ahead, if that’s what you want. Those kneepads are there for a reason. Alternatively, you could get onside with the union. They know they could use you.”
But Max does not like people in groups larger than three.
Max hustles over to the mail slots. As he scans the memo, he recalls a mentor telling him about the “Southern Preacher” method of obtaining converts. First you take the heathen to the edge of the abyss and let him have a good long look. Then, and only then, do you show him the path to salvation.
Thus the Owner uses the first five graphs to explain why Max must go, ending with “there is simply no role for you in Montreal.” The abyss.
But — oh thank you Jesus — the last graph says: “Through misadventure, I own a somewhat unusual paper in Halifax. They need an editor-in-chief and they’ll accept you on my recommendation. My advice is to take the opportunity.”
• • •
The Wife is still awake at 2:30 a.m. when Max returns home. He slides into bed and tells her the news while staring at the ceiling. It turns out the Wife’s family used to vacation in Nova Scotia.
“Halifax is not bad,” she says. “To tell the truth, I’d rather raise a child there than Montreal. Everything on Montreal island is either asphalt or lawn fertilizer.” She turns on her side and nuzzles him, sliding a bare thigh upwards over his own. “You know, I could show the Screamer how real women make noise . . .”
But Max, to his own disbelief, is not ready to engage. He’s begun making a mental list of where else he could find a job in Montreal, especially with the Quebec sovereignty referendum coming up. No good Quebecois would miss that, regardless of how they intend to vote. With a little work on his written French, he might even get a job at one of the French-language dailies. Le Devoir might like an anglais like him as a columnist.
“You know, there may be other options.”
The Wife rolls over on her back again and sighs. Max feels his skin cooling where her face and leg have been.
“I don’t even want to hear about them,” she says.
“Thank you for your support.”
“Look, if it had been up to me, I would have fired you. Your behaviour shows zero promise. Instead, these guys are giving you a chance to keep your credibility. Don’t reward them by turning your back.”
“You think I failed?” he asks.
“Ever had a pet goat?”
“Lemme think,” he says. “No.”
“Well I did, briefly. He liked to push up against people with his head, so I would push back. He just loved that. There’s a picture of me leaning into his head at a 45-degree angle. The goat was never happier. Some people, usually potential boyfriends, pushed back too hard, trying to beat the goat. The goat would fake a retreat and then butt the guy a couple of feet in the air. My dad loved it; he said it eliminated stupid genes from his daughter’s dating pool.”
So, I’m a goat, Max thinks. Not bull, or stallion or even a gazelle. A goat.
“How come I never got the goat test?”
“I was worried for my goat.”
“So, I failed here, you’re saying.”
“No, I’m saying you’re not happy unless you’re butting up against something,” she replies. “So now, you’ll be running the number-two paper in Halifax and you can push against the number one and anything else that catches your attention. We both know you haven’t done much since you got back to Montreal. And here’s something else: you’ve been making all the big decisions since we got married. Well, it’s my turn to make a call, and I’m saying Halifax.”
Max knows the argument is over and he doesn’t mind losing it because she’s right. Their choices have been mostly about Max, at least until the Son arrived.
The Wife seals the deal by slipping off her nightshirt and focusing what he sometimes calls her “Gypsy” eyes on his. She smiles seductively and rolls back onto him: “Come on, Maxie, be my goat-man and take us to Halifax.”
Perhaps it is the sight of unbridled breasts, but Max feels better.
He responds with his Groucho Marx impression: “You know, my dear, you’re smarter than I look.”
The Wife gently bites the magic earlobe. “Whoa-OH-ho,” she whispers.
1975
Trout for Breakfast
THE WIFE IS not here, Max realizes, just before the time-jump takes full control of his consciousness.
He looks up to get his bearings and is surprised to see the Photog snoozing beside him. The two have been asleep on a wooden bench thanks to a train ticket funded by the Bureau Chief. He and the Phot
og are on the road to journalistic glory, via the Mountain Express.
Although the symptoms of being clubbed and gassed persist, Max believes the experience has made him a seasoned journalist, a truth-seeker to be reckoned with, one who doesn’t make amateur mistakes. His inner editor, however, begs to differ, noting acidly that he still hasn’t bothered to learn the “political background” the Bureau Chief mentioned. Of course, that would have included asking why the demonstrators went to the plaza in the first place, something Max didn’t really care about at the time.
Now, in the third-class coach on the Mountain Express, which features slatted wood benches, caged chickens and short women wearing bowler hats and layers of clothes that make them egg-shaped, he sees some possible “background” rolling by outside.
It’s an outlaw settlement known as Pueblo Jovén, inhabited mostly by the same mountain folk sharing the train car with Max and the Photog. It appears to be built entirely of refuse and sits on smooth ochre-coloured terrain that Max and his high-school golf buddies called “hardpan”.
Hardpan shows up toward the end of dry summers in spots the groundskeepers can’t be bothered to water. Woe to any golf ball that lands on hardpan. There’s a thin layer of dust — just enough to stop the ball from rolling onto the grass — and beneath it earth packed hard by rain-bursts and broiling sun. You have to pick the ball clean in that situation, of course, but that means no backspin, making it hard to hold the green.
But you don’t have to be a sociologist, Max thinks, to know that the minds of the squatters of Pueblo Jovén are untroubled by rogue chip shots. Top of mind, after finding something to eat, would be keeping their fragile little houses from falling apart in the next rain or big wind.
Max can see open sewers that have carved their way deep into the hardpan. Packs of mongrels root for something to eat between bouts of humping. Max has met these beasts close up in other parts of his Latin American tour. They are absolutely unconcerned by humans and, unlike normal dogs, will look you straight in the eye if you get too close. They’re like the scrawny little men who drink in urine-scented bars. They are no problem as long as you don’t violate their secret code of conduct; if you do, they’ll come flying at you like a tornado.
Max studies the houses. The sturdiest were built first, near the train tracks, and doggedly upgraded over the years. Some feature roofs of corrugated steel or fibreglass, and sometimes even glazed windows. Some, outrageously, have electricity running from the poles that run alongside the tracks. Do squatter electricians wait for an outage before connecting, Max wonders, or have they learned to handle live wires without being killed?
But the more he sees, the more he thinks the answer is ingenuity. These are — supposedly — 200,000 people somehow getting by without running water or sewage.
Yet, Max sees signs of order in Pueblo Jovén. Some streets and blocks have self-organized. Every now and then Max spots a group of school-kids wearing spotless white shirts and carrying ragged book-bags; or a man wearing the trademark black vest of a waiter. There are bodegas, and water tanks pulled by mules.
It is here in his stream of consciousness that Max understands what a jerk he is, riding through the worst slum he has ever seen, thinking about making chip-shots off hardpan.
The Photog is sleeping, hat over his eyes. Max grabs him by the knee: “Hey, you’ve got to see this.”
“I have seen Pueblo Jovén many times, my friend,” he says, without looking up. “They have no business here. They do not pay taxes. They live on land they do not own.”
“They should go back to the mountains?”
“You think they are better off here?” he says sourly.
“I’m not sure, but obviously they think so.”
The exchange ends right there. No debate, no banter.
The Photog should be in a better mood after their triumph on the plaza. He even sold two pictures to the Bureau Chief.
The train lurches and rolls on for another 30 minutes before it leaves Pueblo Jovén behind. The last of it that Max sees is a tall man wearing a chef’s hat. He gives Max the one-finger salute. Not to the train in general, but to him. Max is sure of that.
Thereafter, Max is conscious only of dust. Red dust rises from the floor of the car. Dust sparkles in the sunlight, sticks to his skin and invades his sinuses. Even when the train arrives in the mountains, 12,000 feet above the desert, Max is still in pain from the dust.
“Oh, it’s not dust,” the Photog says. “It is la sorroche —altitude sickness. It is like divers getting the bends — the drop in pressure causes gasses dissolved in your blood to vaporize. Not everyone gets it, but it can be very painful.” A more detailed, mildly patronizing lecture on the topic followed.
Heavy clanking and banging jars Max from his uncomfortable snooze. The train is grinding its way up a hillside using switchbacks. The racket comes from the process of changing direction at the end of each cut. Max could taste “dust” all the way from his nose and tongue to his intestines. He feels grit in his teeth and between his toes.
He can see that a few of the locals are faring just as badly. Some are bent over, massaging their foreheads. A city-type suddenly stands and lunges up the sloping aisle, but vomits before he can make it to the washroom, which has a long line of people outside waiting their turn to use the reeking toilet. The odour of fresh vomit starts a slow chain reaction running through the miserable queue.
Max hangs on to his stomach contents with everything he has.
“That is most unusual. Maybe once I have seen this before,” the Photog says, surveying the commotion as if he has just discovered a rare butterfly. “Far more common, as you may also have noticed, is the effect of the low air pressure on the intestines of our fellow passengers.”
No, actually. Until that moment, Max has not noticed, perhaps because he is so busy dealing with nausea and a dusty headache. But now he can feel a distinct bloat building up under his belt.
The Photog is animated, like an enthusiastic science teacher. “If we had a balloon with us, we would notice it getting bigger and bigger as the air pressure outside becomes lower and lower. Because the air inside has no place to go, the balloon will eventually explode.
“Fortunately, for humans and their animals, there is release,” he said. “Perhaps you can detect it.”
He offers a smile, but Max isn’t sure what lies behind it.
Max tries for the tenth time to open the window beside him.
The door at the front of the carriage opens and a copper-coloured man enters carrying some kind of large animal bladder under his arm, like a bagpipe.
“Uno centavo. Uno centavo,” he murmurs. Those who pay get a blast of air from inside the bag and inhale deeply.
“It is OXYGEN!” the Photog says, the same way he would say, “It is Mick Jagger!”
“Bullshit,” Max gasps loudly. “It’s a . . .”
Max fights the rising tide in his esophagus.
“. . . placebo.”
The Photog’s amiable tone dissipates. “Maybe. But if I were you, my friend, I would not refuse even a placebo.”
Max pulls a five-centavo coin from his pocket and holds it out to the vendor, who bends close to him with the bladder and locks eyes with him. But he stops there and waits until the very moment Max anticipates a blast of air. Then he hisses into his customer’s ear in clear English: “Five centavos is a lot of money for bullshit. So fuck you, gringo. Enjoy your visit.” He moves on without taking the coin or dispensing “oxygen”.
The Photog sighs. “Well, anyway, we are almost halfway there.”
During the walk from the train station to their hotel Max tries to control his pain by minimizing the movement of his head, like balancing a tray of brimming drinks atop a pole of rickety vertebrae. When they arrive at the hotel, despite his inexperience and his miserable condition, Max recognizes it as an economic dev
elopment project that has never made a centavo in its history. It is meant to evoke a mountain resort, complete with log walls, even though Max hasn’t seen a full-grown tree for hours. The wooden staffs that serve as door handles might qualify as rustic if their varnish hadn’t been rubbed away from use.
The Photog leads the way in and almost collides with the Doorman, a moustachioed man in his mid-thirties wearing a train conductor’s uniform adorned with brocade and the mandatory gold epaulets.
“Bienvenido,” he says and launches into a torrent of Spanish that Max cannot even begin to follow.
“He is the desk clerk as well as the doorman,” the Photog says. “He apologizes for the uniform, but his only alternative was lederhosen.”
The Doorman turns to Max and says expansively: “Welcome to El Palacio de las Montanas — The Palace of the Mountains!”
He leads the weary travellers through a leather-chaired lobby to a short flight of steps flanked by two stuffed bears.
“You have bears here?” Max asks. But the Doorman apparently doesn’t hear him.
Max looks around. The design has evidently been intended to reflect both the rich dignity of a backwater provincial capital and the adventure of a mountain lodge 10,000 feet above sea level. Time has been harsh, though, and now it looks mostly like a huge logging camp latrine. The Doorman checks them in, being especially careful as he records Max’s passport number next to his name and room number. That done, he looks at Max and hands him a yellow soda from beneath the counter.
“Para la sorroche,” he says. “Muy bueno.”
“Cuanto cuesta?” Max asks.
“Nada, senor,” the Doorman says, smiling and spreading his arms. “Courtesy of El Palacio! May I ask what brings you to our mountain paradise?”
Max takes a drink of creamy yellow soda and studies the man’s broad smile, trying to see if he’s joking. “We’re journalists,” he says. “Periodistas.”
“Aha! Just 10 kilometres from here, there is a two-headed sheep. I can take you there. Just a small charge.”