When Is a Man

by Aaron Shepard

  Paul stopped, thinking for a moment he sounded genuine.

  “Tell him his dad can’t always be there because he has a real job. You know, unlike his mother and her deadbeat boyfriend.”

  “He’s a smart kid,” Paul said. “I think he gets it.”

  “Go fuck yourself.” Billy grinned sourly and sauntered on. When he pushed Caleb into the river, Paul wanted to ask, did he do it for his father or himself? He could ask Hardy the same question about Kai. And he could have both stories dead wrong.

  He stared at Lazeroff across the table. How could a person come this far, gain nothing, and then just carry on?

  “You thought about Basket Creek?” the constable asked. “Tagging those trout?”

  “Not for me this summer,” Paul said. “Too busy.”

  His friend looked disappointed. “It’s such a great set-up.”

  “It is,” Paul said. “And I did get you a retirement gift, of sorts.” He took out Tanner’s business card and handed it to Lazeroff. “I told him you’re the perfect man for the job. Apparently, you’re allowed to bring your wife. Improved working conditions, he calls it.”

  9

  After the Canada Day weekend, the Yellow Pine Creek campground was still three-quarters full. The celebrations in Shellycoat had fetched enough income for Gina to take time off before driving the catering truck to a music festival outside Nakusp, so they’d reserved a site in the shady inner loop of the campground, a short walk to the beach and playground. Paul and Gina had a tent to themselves and made beds for Shane and Elsie inside Gina’s camper. Elsie set the propane grill on the picnic table and unpacked the ice coolers. The sound of children echoed through the woods, while RVs slowly circled the loop looking for empty sites.

  On their way down to the beach, Shane pointed at the saskatoons that towered over the path. “See? Toiletberries.” But he’d already outgrown his own joke. Paul reached up and plucked a few ripe ones, gave some to the boy, and ate the rest. A grainy texture, the sun’s warmth trapped in the juice. They went past the playground, where the grassy meadow—a minefield of groundhog holes—sloped down to the water. The beach was a narrow strip of gravel and sandy patches. The water was brutally cold—Paul tested it with his toe and retreated back to his lawn chair—but Shane waded up to his hips while he worked a pair of goggles over his face. He dipped his head under, looking for minnows, shyly edging their way toward the other children.

  Motorboats crisscrossed the reservoir, towing teenagers on inner tubes and wakeboards. Closer to shore, a few people in canoes and sea kayaks slipped past, looking for solitary beaches. “What time is Sonya coming tomorrow?” Elsie asked.

  “Around nine.” A line of sweat trickled down Paul’s belly.

  “Will you be all right with Shane, Mom?” Gina asked.

  “Of course.”

  Shane emerged from the water, shivering and looking wistfully at the swings and spiral slides. Gina wrapped a towel around him and walked him to the playground, leaving Paul and Elsie to sunbathe in their chairs. Paul twisted around to look at the field. There were clues to what this place had once been: by the playground where Shane now dangled upside down on the monkey bars, a lone hawthorn stood near a very old apple tree, spaced evenly between two others that had died long ago. They were inconspicuous, their grey bark fading into the field, overshadowed by the pines and tangled hedges of wild rose and thimbleberry.

  A difficult task, to imagine the soil that would have covered this loose, lacustrine stone, to mentally restack the layers of dark, chernozemic dirt, replant the bunchgrasses and the plowed earth. To superimpose fences, fallow pastures, horse paddocks over the glassy water, or replace the flat field with rows of Robinia pseudocacia that the tree farmers grew to burn in the steamships. Or the bulrushes and willows and muskrat dens, the smell of an evening on a verdant shore. Most difficult of all, to resurrect a farmer, or a war widow, or a family. Difficult to do so without presumption, without romanticizing sorrow and loss, without burying the present under a dredged-up past. There was no denying the solidness of what was before him now, the families on the beach, the children in the playground. No denying the goodness in these ill-gotten things.

  Elise would remember this place, a farm not too far from her childhood home. Instead he asked, “Was it true—that you didn’t know Caleb had died until I told you?”

  She was sipping a beer, seemingly fixated on the hills across the reservoir. Hardy’s descent into squalor and madness had devastated her, he knew, and the discovery of his relation to the Soules must have been equally disorienting. When she spoke, it was with an almost cheerful finality. “When I heard that he’d washed up at Hardy’s, I just assumed—well, I thought it best to say nothing.”

  Paul’s back peeled wetly from the chair as he stood. How naive he’d been. Everyone he’d interviewed had known. It was like a signal had gone out the moment Caleb’s waterlogged corpse was hauled onto shore. He stepped into the water, shuddering, forced himself deeper until his shorts were wet to the hips, then dove. It was clear enough underwater that he could open his eyes and see tufts of sedges stretching away into a green, impressionist haze. The bull trout would be preparing now to travel up the Immitoin, gathering at the head of the lake, where Jory’s body had come to rest.

  The thought sent him kicking to the surface. He spat, stood rubbing the water from his eyes, lifted his face to the sun. When he was warm enough, he hesitated a moment, then dove again. He gave up his game of re-envisioning the vanished farm, the drowned valley, and, for the afternoon at least, surrendered to his own ignorance, his outsiderness. Today, the reservoir was just a lake, and this was just a beach, just water.

  Night in their tent. The sound of sparks popping from neighbouring campfires, the muffled slam of an RV door. The air had cooled, still warm enough to throw open their sleeping bags and spread them across the width of the foam mats. Gina’s hips were propped up with pillows—a more accommodating angle, the doctor’s suggestion—and he moved slowly and quietly inside her while their feet scrabbled for grip against the nylon bags.

  Sex would never feel the way it once had. It would not overwhelm or promise transcendence, only a brief, awkward flight, a blunted orgasm. Maybe that was true for all men as they aged—every pleasure yielded a slight aftertaste of mortality. He had to stop being angry about it, that was all. He had to give way to humility, to accept that he was stripped down to nothing and had no high-wire act, only a flawed performance to offer. His body was a living ledger of successes and failures that would never balance but keep him staggering along with a knocked-about sense of what was normal.

  He woke at the first faint light to a strange sound outside, a single voom, then another one. It took a few moments to puzzle it out: a nighthawk diving to declare its territory. An owl called, then the dawn chorus began, a swelling of robin song, sparrow chatter. Gina breathed softly beside him, radiating warmth.

  He’d dreamt that he was wading down the middle of the Immitoin with his rubber chest waders, scanning beneath the surface with Jory’s homemade fish scope. Immense schools of bull trout fought their way upstream, brushing past his legs, ramming their toothy maws against the scope. Through the gaps between shimmering, haloed flesh, he glimpsed the body of a faceless young man tumbling downstream, ragdolling off boulders—he realized he’d been chasing after this body. But he would lift his gaze from the scope, and the dream would change, the riverbanks replaced by Granville Street shops or a narrow brick alley in Skinnskatteberg or, completely different, his living room, a bed, a small café full of noise and people and wooden chairs. And as he wandered through each new scene—talking with a friend, studying, or lovemaking—he could still feel the loneliness of the pursuit continuing. Eventually he would remember to look through the scope and he’d be beneath the surface again, to see a flash of jeans and sneakers slip into the river’s darkness.

  Sonya would soon wake in Shellycoat, in her lonely apartment. She would bring Jory’s ashes to the park
, and then Gina, Paul, and Sonya would drive upriver, past Bishop, past Hardy’s cabin and the camp at Basket Creek, until they were beyond all the landmarks he knew. They would go, ascending, until the Immitoin fractured into smaller, steeper tributaries and impassable waterfalls, unbraided itself into creeks and rivulets that coursed through the alpine meadows, spilled from small glacial lakes or seeped out of the earth and between stones. To where the river both disappeared and began.

  Acknowledgments

  First, thanks to Ruth Linka and the rest of the Brindle & Glass family for taking a chance on the book, and for their collaborative spirit. And to John Gould, who took on the task of editing my manuscript with his unflagging cheer, kind advice, and keen eye.

  Funding support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada allowed me to undertake the necessary research, and gave me the time to draft the first half of the novel.

  Small portions of Part One have been modified from the original version of “Valerian Tea,” published in the Malahat Review (Issue #152, 2005). On that note, a warm thanks to everyone at the Malahat Review—particularly John Barton, Rhonda Batchelor, Susan Sanford Blades, and the editorial board—for the chance to be immersed in fine Canadian writing.

  Though many of the events involving hydro dams and displacement mentioned in the novel are real, I’ve often taken liberties with the facts, as well as the geography of certain places. Any errors or inaccuracies are mine alone. The Arrow Lakes Historical Society provided literature—such as J.W. Wilson’s remarkable People in the Way—air photos and archival interviews that lent perspective on the voice and landscape of displacement. The Columbia Basin Trust and the librarians at Selkirk College pointed me toward some useful literature and films on the subject of relocation.

  Among the dozens of articles and papers I read while researching prostate cancer, I was especially struck by Denise Ryan’s 2010 article on prostate removal surgery and sex, which included remarkably brave and candid conversations with cancer survivors and their wives. The previous winter, Stephen Hume wrote an intimate and honest account of his own experience with prostate surgery.

  Walter Volovsek shared advice and his extensive historical knowledge. He also hired my friends and me to help build hiking trails along the Kootenay River many years ago, an experience that profoundly influenced my writing. Jack Hodgins provided advice and wisdom during the early stages of the book. John Gould, Brian Hendricks, Tim Lilburn, David Leach, Lynne van Luven, Lorna Jackson, and Bill Gaston offered mentorship, inspiration, and acts of friendship during the last several years.

  Finally, undying love and gratitude to my wife, Alana, who has given me a rich life outside of writing and whose patience, faith, and sense of humour keep me going even in the leanest of times. And to our friends and families for their support and love.

  AARON SHEPARD has written award-winning short fiction and has been published in a number of Canadian literary journals, including the Fiddlehead and PRISM International. His personal essay “Edge of the Herd” appears in the anthology Nobody’s Father: Life Without Kids. He is a graduate of the University of Victoria’s MFA in Creative Writing program, and has served on the Malahat Review’s fiction board. He is an avid outdoorsman, enjoying hiking, camping, birdwatching, and cross-country skiing in his spare time. When is a Man is his debut novel. Visit aaronshepard.ca.

  Copyright © 2014 Aaron Shepard

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (ACCESS Copyright). For a copyright licence, visit accesscopyright.ca.

  Brindle & Glass Publishing Ltd.

  brindleandglass.com

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Shepard, Aaron, 1973–, author

  When is a man / Aaron Shepard.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-927366-27-1 (html).--ISBN 978-1-927366-28-8 (pdf)

  I. Title.

  PS8637.H4875W44 2014 C813'.6 C2013-906016-2

  Editor: John Gould

  Proofreader: Heather Sangster, Strong Finish

  Cover illustration and design: Pete Kohut

  Author photo: Alana McArthur

  Brindle & Glass is pleased to acknowledge the financial support for its publishing program from the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund, Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.