Who’s he? The boy points at Henry.
That’s not polite, Wendy says. Introduce yourself.
The boy ignores her and walks out of the kitchen.
That was Joey, she says. He’s kinda moody sometimes.
Your son?
Yeah. And he’s late for school as usual.
What grade?
Twelve.
The boy’s voice calls from somewhere above Henry’s head.
Mom, where are my gym shorts?
Henry cranes his neck to see a loft above with the boy hanging his head over the railing.
Joey’s eyes flicker between focusing on Henry with some interest and a thousand-yard-teenage-gaze that could signal disrespect. It’s difficult to tell.
They’re down here in my bedroom, Wendy says.
What are they doing there? Joey asks.
I was mending them. I’ll bring them up to you.
While Wendy is upstairs, Henry does the math — assuming Joey is seventeen and the widow just twenty when he was born, that means she’s only thirty-seven, seven years older than he is, less than a decade. Not too much of a stretch. Or is it? What if it’s just that she’s a young fifty-year-old? Is that too old? More importantly, is he getting ahead of himself?
When Wendy comes back with papers and pen in hand, he tries to act nonchalant, like nothing is on his mind; his hands in his lap are ready to start the day’s work.
How old are you? she asks.
Why?
I need to know for these workers’ comp forms.
Okay, I’m thirty, almost thirty-one.
Really?
He wonders whether she thinks he looks older or younger, or might it mean she considers him old enough to be in her league? He wants to ask her how old she is and his mouth opens as he begins to form the question, the word How half-way out, when he changes his mind.
Hooowwoo’s . . . that coffee on the stove?
Fresh. Want some?
Sure.
She puts a cup filled with lukewarm brown liquid down in front of him. While he sips, she talks about the farm. Tells him Dennis inherited it from his father, and even though he loved the land, he’d had to sell a part of it to a development company.
We’re one of the smallest commercial outlets in the valley, less than 500 birds, she says. But we’ve started to specialize in free-range eggs and roasters. So it can be chaotic because the chickens are cage free.
Organic is all the rage, Henry says.
Yeah. It’s kind of silly. It’s all just the same crazy bird.
But your ladies are happier than most.
Guess so. Should we go out to the barn?
When they open the barn door, Wendy shoos the chickens into the yard with a wild swinging of her arms and a funny foo foo sound. Chickens rush for the door, but few go outside.
They hate the rain, Wendy says. Push them with your foot, they need to get out and scratch.
Henry looks over the crowd at his feet. After a couple of nudges, the lead chickens get the idea that outside is better than being booted and a blur begins to move through.
Shut the door on them so we can hose out the barn, Wendy says. There’s a pair of rubbers over by the post.
Foo foo, Henry says to the last of the chickens.
When they’re finished, he helps her coil the thick length of black rubber hose back up — Wendy twists while he walks — and he notices she bumps into him every time he moves past her. If he weren’t so unsure about these things he would say she was flirting. To test whatever weak currents there may be, he takes a step away, and within two coils she’s back rhythmically bumping her backside into his upper thigh. He’s so distracted, he misses the last turn and the end of the hose pushes up the inside of her leg.
Watch where you put that, she says, staring straight ahead as if it were an accident.
I’m watching, Henry says.
She’s smiling again and he wonders whether this might be some kind of tic or else encouragement.
An echo drifts down from the rafters, Don’t flatter yourself, and he lowers his head. Mother again, he thinks. But she’s probably right, he is getting ahead of himself. Best to forget it. Focus on the mob of chickens stampeding back through the open barn door.
Well it’s lunchtime, Wendy says. Did you bring anything?
A sandwich, he says, but I was thinking I might go into town to try the Hawaiian Health Food deli. Then, in a moment of insolence toward his mother, he adds, Want to come?
Sure.
On the way into town Wendy grips at the armrest of the Subaru.
Why are you driving a car in such a state? she asks.
Long story, he says. Can’t afford to fix it right now.
Inside the deli they look over the selection. The refrigerated case holds a small display of grain and rice products all with the same no-appeal porridge look — no doubt the health food component — and beside that there’s a larger more colourful display of sweets. Wendy orders a macadamia nut muffin and Kona coffee, which she takes to the back booth. Henry, thinking about his thickening waistline, settles on a coffee and a bowl of the yellowish porridge called poi.
Do you want that with salmon or pineapple? the deli man asks.
Which is better?
Depends on whether you’re eating it for lunch or dessert.
Lunch.
Okay, salmon. But it’s an acquired taste.
Henry carries his tray to the back booth wondering what kind of taste he needs to acquire for his lunch. He starts to spoon poi into his mouth — it’s fermented and musty like it’s been stored in a cave. He screws his face up and the deli man catches him.
Told you, he laughs. Want to try something else?
Henry walks back toward the counter. He looks over the desserts and this time settles on a chocolate macadamia cake.
You’ll like this better, the man says.
Thanks. Uh . . . what’s your name? Henry asks.
Norman from the Big Island, the man says, extending a large brown hand over the counter.
Nice to meet you, Henry says. Never been to Hawaii.
Well you’ve got a little taste of Kona right there in that coffee and cake, Norman says. He holds his thumb and baby finger up and rotates his hand. Shaka, he says.
When Henry sits back down and takes a sip of the coffee, he feels strong. Revived. Like he’s in a coffee commercial. Then, timed as flawlessly as the best commercial in the world, the bell on the handle tinkles, the deli door pushes open, and in walks Elaine. Wendy’s back is to the door so only he can see. Elaine is either oblivious as to whom she is walking toward, or she’s looking for trouble.
Hello Henry, she says.
Likewise. He puts his head down hoping she’ll walk away.
Out here returning Wendy’s chickens? she asks.
The chickens came back last week, Wendy says. Henry works for me now.
Really? Well he knows chickens, I guess.
Elaine walks away and sits at the booth by the deli counter. The door jangles again and a bulky, angry-looking man ambles through. He picks up two mugs of coffee from Norman and carries them to the booth where Elaine sits.
Hey Bob, Wendy calls over to him. Who’ll be coming by to pick up the eggs tomorrow?
Bob looks up, focuses on Wendy, on Henry, shifts his bulk, puts his head down as if he’s not going to answer, then mumbles, Someone’ll be out before noon.
Things slowly settle in Henry’s mind. This is Bob, Elaine’s boyfriend, and he seems to work for some kind of chicken operation that does business with Wendy. But it isn’t until he and Wendy are back in the Subaru shaking and veering their way toward the farm that he asks, How do you know Bob?
He’s the son of the owner of Swift Farms, she answers. They’re my biggest customer. Can’t pull off the organic thing themselves cause their hens are in battery cages, so they market my product as their high-end.
This answer doesn’t feel good. Maybe he should have challenged Elai
ne’s assertion that the Swift Farms’ file had been transferred to her, but it’s too late now, not his problem. He doesn’t work for Agriculture anymore.
Back at the farm the weather has taken a turn for the worse. Sheets of rain move across the yard, and the wind is lifting up the corner of the tin roof on a small shed beside the barn.
What’s in that shed? he asks?
Roosters, Wendy says. Five of them. Four more than I need, but they’re rescue roosters from Swift Farms. They don’t want the hassle of keeping them cause they fight.
Poor cocks all cooped up, he says.
Really? I don’t know about that. Wendy huffs. One day you could build them a run, but in the meantime you better get their roof nailed down before they’re drowning cocks.
The wind is fierce and pushes the too-tall ladder over a couple of times before he figures out the clawed feet need to be shimmed to sit straight. He uses a couple of pieces of kindling from beside the house, and when he finally has the ladder secure and is six steps up, balanced at the edge of the tin roof, he takes a swing and drops the hammer. Six steps down and six steps back up, he takes a dozen or so more swings until two nails are secure in the corner of the roof. He’s trying to crane his neck to survey the handiwork when the wind repositions the ladder and tosses him onto his right leg; his ankle twists and he’s on his ass in the mud. The limp back to Wendy’s door is not too painful, but he knows the ankle is going to get worse.
The roof’s nailed down, he says, but I fell off a forty-foot ladder. Got any ice?
Wendy laughs. This is good. She seems to understand his humour. And in that instant it starts to pour rain harder than he has ever seen before.
It had not been his plan to use his mishap as an excuse to stay the night but it’s just as well. By dark the weather has worked into a gale force storm.
Next morning the worker from Swift Farms comes earlier than expected. He’s pissed off the order isn’t ready, and he has no trouble expressing his dissatisfaction. Seemingly he has learned everything he knows about demeanor from boss man’s son, Bob. He sits in his truck while Henry and Wendy scramble to collect the eggs.
Henry asks, Why do you let Swift Farms push you around?
I need the money, plain and simple, she answers.
He runs his hand along the back of the roosting bar. When he’s almost finished the last row, his hand hits a warm body. Once his eyes adjust to the gloom of the laying trough, he can see it’s a hen that looks like Pepper.
What are you doing down there, Pepper?
Is there a hen brooding? Wendy asks.
Looks like there might be.
Gotta snap her out of it or she won’t lay for weeks. Need to get my egg count up to keep Swift happy. Bring that hen here.
Henry holds Pepper out and asks, Why?
She’s going into the panic room.
Wendy pushes open the door off the side of the barn. The room has been mudded adobe style, but the walls, ceiling, and floor are painted a cerebral blue. Warm air wafts out. Inside there’s an oak table with a wooden box on it. She puts Pepper into the box.
Henry sits on a mud slab the size of a bed that juts out from the wall.
A man could sleep in here, he says. It’s beautiful.
Dennis did sleep in here sometimes, she murmurs.
Oh.
Then wanting to change the subject, he asks, Why is Pepper in a box?
New accommodation, away from the eggs and her brooding. She’ll stay here ’til she’s over her nonsense.
That night Henry sleeps in the mud room with Pepper. It smells of chicken, but not too bad, or maybe he’s just gotten used to it, and he tries not to think why Dennis might have slept here. But his ankle still hurts, and anything would be better than that first night sleeping on the living room floor, with Joey making such a big deal of stepping over him whenever he needed to go to the bathroom — uttering the same Jessuschris sound each time no matter where on the floor Henry moved to — and come to think of it, going to the bathroom way more times than any normal teenager needs to in one night.
The second night in the mud room, he takes Pepper out of the box and sits with her on his lap. A calm comes over him. After a time he realizes having a chicken in his lap keeps his apparatus warm. He might even start to think about taking it out, and touching it, without freaking that it will go numb or dissolve, though bits of doubt make him wonder whether it’s creepy to be thinking this with Pepper so close; it’s not like he wants to do anything with the chicken, it’s just that she’s warm and it’s better than thinking about, say, his shrivelled five-year-old self in the bathtub, his mother kissing his soapy face. After a time he exhausts himself thinking and just settles into the warmth. He is half-asleep when he feels himself lapse below the busybody monitoring of himself for weirdness and into a zone of comfort without admonishments about inadequacies.
By the third night he’s made the room his own sort of nest, bringing in different chickens for a visit, comforted by their warmth and chatter, their feathers beginning to form constellations on the heavenly blue walls. But after the fourth night, Friday night, he thinks he needs to get back to his own place. Who knows what new mess might greet him there, and besides he can’t ask Wendy to wash his only set of clothes again.
On the Saturday morning, the Subaru starts easily and no smoke comes out the rear, so he decides he can risk stopping for some pie and a morning visit with Norman before heading to the ferry. He’s disappointed to see Elaine and Bob sitting in the same booth as before, just down from the deli case.
What brings you to Langley on the weekend? she asks.
Morning, Elaine.
He doesn’t owe her any kind of explanation, and four nights in the mudded constellation room have emboldened him.
I’ll take a slice of banana pie and coffee to go, he says to Norman.
Shaka, Norman says.
Henry extends his own babyfinger and thumb and rotates his hand like Norman before picking up his pie. He can hear Elaine snicker and Bob mutter, What a moron. He ignores them.
Less than a mile down the road the Subaru jerks so badly the pie slides off the dash and the takeout cup tips over. Rivulets of coffee mix with pie and run down the plastic floormat, disappearing under the seat. The car barely makes it back to Kitsilano.
Henry is around back checking that nothing has dug up Chocolate Kiss, when he hears something behind him. A momentary flashback to sneaking kids with snakes in hand, prepares him for almost anything.
Henry, I finally found you, Chas says.
Hey! What brings you here? His new boldness makes him ask, Why’d you take off?
It was Jim’s idea. He was so mad at you that morning.
Do you always do what Jim says?
We broke up actually.
Um-huh.
I like the new beard, Henry. Looks good.
Henry reaches up to touch his face. He hasn’t had a good chance to look at himself lately, with the boy Joey always at the bathroom door nagging to get in. But he knows that a few days without a razor has let the beard come in thicker.
We left the place in sort of a mess, Chas says. I’ve been wanting to help clean up, but you’re never here, never answer the phone.
I’ve been busy.
Henry puts the key into the keyhole and the suite door swings open.
Wow, we didn’t leave the place in this big a mess, Chas says.
No, Henry answers, coughing.
The pile of magazines and chicken scratch sits right where he left it. The smell is worse than in the barn. Together they put the suite back into some semblance of order, with Chas flinching more than actually working the stainless lifter through the chicken poop. And even though they’re dealing with yucky stuff, there is something else in the air that Henry can’t put his finger on. Then it happens.
He is carrying a pile of the magazines toward the door when an issue of Bear Growls falls between the two of them.
You look like him, Chas
says.
Henry stares at the cover and says nothing.
Come on, Chas says.
Then somehow Chas is on his knees, head hanging, arms at his side. Henry can only think his penis will surely dissolve if it goes anywhere near Chas’ face. And yet this man, this other person who is not crazy, this other person who has nothing to gain from befriending him, seems to have a thing for him. This much at least he has to respect.
I don’t know what to say, Chas. I don’t think this is something I am interested in.
I know, Chas says. But you should know that’s why we took off so fast. Jim thought something was up.
It wasn’t, Henry says.
He sits on the coffee table and Chas stays on his knees in the middle of the floor. The two of them wait until the mood in the room feels safe enough for someone to speak again. Finally, Chas gets up. Let’s get these magazines out of here.
As they carry bundles to the curb, Chas says, I’ve been crashing on a buddy’s couch since we broke up. But I have a new chair. I can make rent going forward. And I’ll do what I can to make up what I owe you.
The smell of ammonia is going to be in the suite for a time, Henry says. You could camp out in my mother’s room until it lifts.
The words are out of his mouth before he thinks through the implications. He can’t grab them back.
TWELVE
Tisket a Tasket
ON THE MONDAY MORNING WHEN it’s time to go back to Wendy’s, Henry has trouble starting the Subaru. Chas, who has come out to see if there is anything he can do to help, jumps away from the car when throat-closing blue smoke fires out the tailpipe.
Oh God, what kind of fuel you got this baby on?
It’s not the gas. It’s a long story.
Lucky for you, I’m not working today. I’ll drive you. I wanna catch a look at this chick you’re into anyway.
Because the Mustang is so fast and because they can take Highway 1, Henry and Chas arrive back in chickenland, downtown Langley, a good half-hour before Henry needs to start work.
Pull over here, he says. Good food, except don’t order the poi.
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